Barbara

At her players’ request, Cori Close showed up inside Pauley Pavilion five hours before tipoff. The UCLA women’s basketball coach was joined by her assistants and managers for pregame shooting at 6:30 a.m., so many players filling the court that the sessions had to be staggered.

Three days after a lackluster showing in their season opener, the Bruins felt they had something to prove in their first game at home. The additional work before facing UC Santa Barbara on Thursday reflected their commitment.

“I mean, I never have to coach this team’s work ethic,” Close said. “That is never in question. And so that’s a really fun place to be in.”

The day’s biggest gratification would come later, the third-ranked Bruins resembling an All-Star team at times during an 87-50 rout of the Gauchos that showed glimpses of the firepower they hope to fully unleash by season’s end.

Forward Gabriela Jaquez revealed one of the best long-range shooting displays of her career, making four of seven three-pointers on the way to 21 points. Point guard Kiki Rice was a constant playmaker in her return to the starting lineup while scoring 20 points, grabbing eight rebounds and distributing three assists. Shooting guard Gianna Kneepkens added another dimension to the offense with four more three-pointers and 20 points.

It was the first time the Bruins had three players score 20 or more points since four of them did it against Bellarmine in November 2023.

“There’s so many weapons that I feel like it’s hard for the defense to choose what to take away,” Kneepkens said, “so I think really what makes this team special is that on any night it could be someone’s night, so that’s a really hard thing to scout.”

The challenge for the Bruins (2-0) could be to maximize all that talent.

Close said Rice had sent her an Oklahoma City Thunder news conference in which the team talked about building rhythm with its offense by best utilizing the players who were hot on any given night.

“We’re not quite there yet,” Close said. “We’re not playing with great rhythm. … I think we just haven’t totally found that flow yet.”

UCLA guard Kiki Rice drives to the basket past UC Santa Barbara guard Zoe Shaw during the second half Thursday.

(Kyusung Gong / Associated Press)

Part of that could be pinned on Rice still rounding into form from a shoulder injury and fellow point guard Charlisse Leger-Walker (eight points, seven assists, three steals) playing in only her second game since returning from a lengthy injury layoff.

The Bruins were also without Sienna Betts (lower leg) and Timea Gardiner (knee) for a second consecutive game. Close said there remained no timetable for Betts’ return even as she continued to progress.

But Close said she liked the way her players responded after describing them as “flat all the way around” in their opener, a 24-point victory over San Diego State.

“The film session after that was not fun. Practice was not fun,” Close said. “And their willingness to say, ‘This is what we need. We need to be challenged. We didn’t meet the standard’ — I’m really impressed with their willingness to do that.”

After some lackadaisical UCLA defense in the first quarter, there was a stretch in the second quarter in which the Bruins made it difficult just to get the ball past halfcourt.

Jaquez stuck out a hand, tipping an outlet pass to herself before going in for a driving layup in which she was fouled. On the Gauchos’ next possession, Leger-Walker came up with another steal, leading to a Rice layup.

It wasn’t long before Jaquez and teammate Lauren Betts (12 points, seven rebounds, six assists) used a double team along the sideline to force another turnover.

Closing the half on a 19-2 run, the Bruins surged into a 51-26 lead. UCLA also benefited from an oddity midway through the second quarter when the Gauchos (1-1) were assessed a technical foul for having a player wearing a jersey number that didn’t correspond with the scorebook.

For UCLA, the biggest challenge might have been scheduling the game.

Close said she’s struggled to get teams to agree to play the Bruins after their Final Four run, calling every school in the state from San Luis Obispo to San Diego. Most of UCLA’s marquee nonconference games, starting with a showdown against Oklahoma on Monday in Sacramento, will be at neutral sites.

“They kept saying it’s the Lauren Betts factor and I was like, ‘No, it’s the you’re scared factor. Come on,’ ” Close said. “I actually really lose respect for people who aren’t willing to step up and play hard people.”

The Gauchos eagerly complied in part because they were Close’s alma mater and the spot where she coached for nine years.

“Thank you to them for stepping up and coming into Pauley,” Close said, “and wanting to get better at their craft and growing the game.”

For the Gauchos, given the way things went, they might be owed a Christmas card as well.

Early to rise, the Bruins also put an early end to any upset hopes.

In the world of child prodigies, novelists are the rarest breed. Barbara Newhall Follett, born in Hanover, N.H., in 1914, fit the bill. By the time she was 9 years-old she had completed her first novel, a subsequent draft of which was published by Knopf when she was 12. Two years after that, she released her second novel. Both were met with critical acclaim, and Newhall became a celebrity in the publishing world.

Nearly a decade later, after a fight with her adulterous husband, the 25-year-old Follett left her apartment in Brookline, Mass., with $30 in her pocket and a notebook. She was never seen or heard from again. The mystery of the vanished former child genius has pulled at the public imagination ever since, resulting in a number of books and articles about her life and disappearance, including a 2019 essay in the Los Angeles Review of Books speculating that Newhall had committed suicide by ingesting barbiturates.

Barbara Follett, a child literary prodigy, is the subject of a new musical titled “Perfect World.”

(Courtesy of Stefan Cooke / Farksolia.org)

A world-premiere musical can now be added to the growing list of Newhall-themed explorations. “Perfect World,” written by Alan Edmunds and composed by Richard Winzeler, with lyrics by both men, opens Saturday at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood, running through Nov. 9.

The project marks Edmunds’ debut as a librettist. The retired psychologist — who specialized in gifted children — hit upon the idea of creating a musical about Follett’s life after a deep dive into her archives at Columbia University almost 15 years ago.

“As I’m reading through this, I start to feel the tragedy of what really happened to her,” Edmunds said during an interview at the theater over the pounding of hammers and the buzzing of drills as the detailed set was put together. “I thought this is the hero’s journey. Unfortunately, it’s not a happy ending.”

Edmunds was so inspired by the 15 boxes of archival material, including hundreds of hand-typed letters that Follett wrote to dozens of relatives and acquaintances, and endless lyrical descriptions of the imaginary world of Farksolia at the heart of her debut novel, “The House Without Windows,” that he drafted his initial outline for the musical on his knee while taking the subway from Columbia to Broadway to see “La Cage aux Folles.”

The show’s team took creative license in the retelling of Follett’s story, but for the most part Edmunds adhered to the broad strokes of her short, vibrant life. The musical hops back and forth between two story lines: Follett’s experiences up until her disappearance, and the nationwide investigation that unfolded afterward, led by the dogged Capt. Stahl and forever pushed forward by her grieving mother, Helen Thomas Follett.

Follett’s childhood was marked by unhappiness, Edmunds said, noting that Helen, who wrote for a commercial shipping company, and Follett’s father, a Knopf literary editor named Wilson Follett, fought often.

“They were at each other hammer and tongs,” Edmunds said. “And even when they wrote about Barbara, subsequently, you could feel the animosity between them.”

This made sense because about a year after the publication of Barbara Follett’s first book, Wilson left Helen for a much younger woman, moving in with her in Greenwhich Village. Her father’s desertion dealt a crushing blow to Barbara, who adored him. She subsequently embarked on a sailing journey with Helen from New York to Barbados and then on through the Panama Canal. Barbara became seriously ill during the journey — the result of nerves and depression, Helen thought.

Barbara Follett, a child literary prodigy, is the subject of a new musical titled “Perfect World.”

(Courtesy of Stefan Cooke / Farksolia.org)

Around that time, Follett met and fell in love with a 25-year-old sailor named Edward Anderson. Helen did not approve, and Edmunds said she conspired to get Anderson fired from his position as second mate. The loss of Anderson was the second major blow in Follett’s life, Edmunds said, and it’s a thread that runs through the musical, leading to Follett’s meeting with a recent Dartmouth graduate named Nickerson Rogers — the man who would become her husband, and who would eventually leave her after having an affair with her best childhood friend.

The couple shared a love of nature, and before they were married, spent months hiking and camping together along the Appalachian Trail. Photos from the early 1930s show a slender, bare-legged Follett with short-cropped hair, sitting beside an open fire with a cooking pan and an old tin coffee pot.

Follett’s life was filled with crushing disappointment and near-constant stress, but nature provided a release. This is likely why she conjured up the perfect world of Farksolia at such a young age. It was an escape, and Follett packed it with as much detail as possible, including its own system of mathematics, its own language — Farksoo — and its own alphabet.

The heroine of “The House Without Windows” is a young girl named Eepersip who runs away from home to live contentedly with her animal friends in the woods. If it sounds simple, it was. But that was also its genius.

Critics loved it and it sold more than 20,000 copies upon its initial printing.

“I can safely promise joy to any reader of ‘The House Without Windows.’ Perfection,” wrote the English author of children’s books, Eleanor Farjeon, in a review.

Barbara Follett, a child literary prodigy, is the subject of a new musical titled “Perfect World.”

(Courtesy of Stefan Cooke / Farksolia.org)

There are many theories about what happened to the adventurous and headstrong young woman after she vanished, including that she was killed by her husband, who had demanded she stop writing and failed to report her missing until two weeks after she left. Others think she simply moved far away, changed her name and continued to write under a pseudonym. Then there is the recently surfaced idea that she went to a family-owned cottage in the woods and swallowed enough barbiturates to end her life. That theory holds that a body discovered in the late 1940s was misidentified as another woman, when it was actually Follett.

Edmunds has given the matter extensive thought and believes that Follett loved life too much to kill herself. The idea that appeals to him the most comes from a crumb of a clue in Follett’s archives — a letter from the sailor Anderson that Follett received a short time before her disappearance. It could be surmised from her letters that she never stopped loving Anderson. Could it be that she went to find him when her husband’s affair became known to her?

Edmunds ultimately decided not to go down the rabbit hole of speculation about Follett’s demise, opting instead to focus the musical on Follett’s life, “What she did, how she rescued herself, how she was so engaged and connected to nature, and how she wanted people to take care of each other and be good to each other,” Edmunds said. “How we could have a better world.”

SELENA Gomez has officially married Benny Blanco in a romantic ceremony with A-list guests.

The pair tied the knot in Santa Barbara, California, which The U.S. Sun exclusively learned would be the destination earlier this month.

5

5

5

The couple confirmed their engagement in December 2024, with Selena flashing her gorgeous diamond ring on social media.

Benny, 37, popped the question after weeks of speculation that they were engaged, following Selena’s showcase of her new bling on the Emmys red carpet.

It happened over a year after the pair’s romance began in June 2023.

Fans knew the wedding was near when Selena, 33, posted photos on Instagram from her bachelorette bash in late August.

The Lose You to Love Me singer looked happy while donning a white bikini and a short veil during the beach getaway.

She’d already appeared to settle into her new life with the music producer, as the U.S. exclusively reported in March that the pair took out an over $20million mortgage on their $35million Beverly Hills mansion.

The lavish purchase came shortly before the duo released their first joint album, I Said I Love You First, which dropped on March 21.

It was initially thought that Selena and Benny’s wedding would be a ways away, after the songwriter, born Benjamin Joseph Levin, told Rolling Stone that they were taking their relationship “one day at a time.”

At the time, the Virginia native said they were enjoying their engagement and not rushing to the altar.

Benny also gushed about being “so sure” that he was going to marry Selena and how his feelings for her were “very different” from anything he’d ever experienced.

The multi-Grammy Award nominee previously dated model Elsie Hewitt before becoming romantically involved with Selena.

Meanwhile, Selena has had numerous high-profile relationships over the years, including Nick Jonas, Charlie Puth, Zedd, The Weeknd, and Justin Bieber.

The former Disney Channel star had the longest relationship with Justin, whom she dated on and off for eight years before splitting for good in March 2018.

Justin and Selena’s Relationship Timeline

Here is what you need to know about Justin and Selena’s on and off again relationship throughout the 2010s.

December 8, 2010: Justin and Selena were spotted on an IHOP date in Philadelphia together, although Selena tried to shut down romance rumors saying they are just friends.

December 31, 2010: The pair spend New Year’s together in St. Lucia and were spotted kissing on a yacht.

February 28, 2011: Justin and Selena make their red-carpet debut at the Vanity Fair Oscars party. 

May 2, 2011: Selena confirms their relationship to Seventeen.

November 2012: Justin and Selena break up for the first time due to “being apart so much” and “trust issues,” a source told PEOPLE at the time. 

April 2013: The pair were spotted together again, engaging in PDA. 

November 6, 2014: Selena confirms she and Justin split for the second time while On Air with Ryan Seacrest.

December 2014: Justin sparks romance rumors with Hailey Baldwin and is seen kissing her a year later on December 31, 2015, while in St. Barts. 

August 2016: Justin begins dating Sofia Richie.

January 2017: Selena starts dating The Weeknd.

November 30, 2017: Selena splits from The Weeknd and reunites with Justin.

March 7, 2018: The pair take a break and Justin rekindles his relationship with Hailey soon after.

May 2018: Selena decided to walk away from the relationship.

At the time, a source told Us Weekly: “Selena started seeing the bigger picture when it came to their relationship, like what was more important: her general happiness and her family and friends’ approval, or her being together with Justin, where no one really supported their relationship.”

A year earlier, the Sonny with a Chance alum told Miami’s Power 96.5 FM, “I’m the kind of girl that loves tremendously big. I just have always been that girl.”

“I will give my heart and my soul to the person that I love. It’s just how I operate.”

Benny has spoken about how he supports Selena and gained her trust following her past heartbreaks.

“I’m aware of her strengths and I’m aware of her weakness, and so what I’ve tried to do is surround her with things that help,” Benny said during the couple’s joint appearance on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast earlier this year.

He also admitted to nearly self-sabotaging their relationship in the beginning, saying, “I feel like it all happens for a reason. I feel like maybe me doing that is what disarmed her enough.”

5

5

SANTA BARBARA — “In this next song,” said Paul McCartney, “we’d like you to sing along.”

Oh, this was the one?

By an hour or so into his concert Friday night at the Santa Barbara Bowl — basically somebody’s backyard by the standards of the former Beatle — McCartney had already gotten the capacity crowd to join in on a bunch of all-timers including “I’ve Just Seen a Face,” “Love Me Do,” “Jet,” “Getting Better,” “Lady Madonna,” “Let Me Roll It” and “Got to Get You Into My Life.”

But for Sir Paul, even (or especially) at age 83, there’s always a way to take an audience higher.

So as his keyboard player plunked out the song’s lovably lopsided lick, McCartney and his band cranked through a fast and jumpy rendition of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” that left nobody any choice but to hop up and holler about the sweet certainty of life’s going on.

Paul McCartney and his band.

(Michael Owen Baker / For The Times)

A sellout pretty much as soon as it was announced, Friday’s show was a kind of warm-up gig ahead of the launch next week of the latest leg of McCartney’s Got Back world tour, which began criss-crossing the globe in 2022 and will resume Monday night in Palm Desert after a nine-month break.

On the road he’s playing arenas and stadiums, but this hillside amphitheater seats only 4,500 or so; to make the evening even more intimate, fans had to lock their phones in little pouches on the way into the venue. (The presence of several cameras swooping around on cranes suggested that McCartney was filming the concert for some unstated purpose.)

“That’s our wardrobe change of the evening,” he said at one point after taking off his jacket, and indeed this was a slightly trimmed-down version of the flashy multimedia production that he brought to SoFi Stadium three years ago. That night in 2022, he played three dozen tunes over two and a half hours; on Friday he did a dozen fewer — no “Maybe I’m Amazed,” no “Band on the Run” — in about an hour and 45 minutes.

The advantage of the smallness, of course, was that you could really hear what McCartney and his longtime backup band were doing up there: the folky campfire vocal harmonies in “I’ve Just Seen a Face,” the propulsive groove driving “Get Back,” the barely organized chaos of a downright raunchy “Helter Skelter.”

Then again, that assumes that tracking those details is why anybody turned up in Santa Barbara.

Though he dropped an album of new solo songs in 2020, McCartney has been pretty deep in nostalgia mode since the 2021 release of Peter Jackson’s widely adored “Get Back” docuseries. He’ll tend the machine this fall with a new book about his years with Wings and an expanded edition of the Beatles’ mid-’90s “Anthology” series; next year, a documentary about the Wings era is due from director Morgan Neville; in 2028, director Sam Mendes will unveil the four separate biopics he’s making about each Beatle, with Paul Mescal in the role of McCartney.

Paul McCartney takes the stage.

(Michael Owen Baker / For The Times)

All that looking back can make it hard for even a devoted fan to take in the legend standing before them in the flesh; instead of overwriting memories with fresh information, the mind steeped in myth can train itself to do the opposite (especially when the owner of that mind has shelled out hundreds of bucks for a concert ticket).

Yet you have to hand it to McCartney, whose face bore a dusting of silvery stubble on Friday: As predetermined as this audience was to have a good time, he was tapped into the energy of a musician making minute-to-minute decisions.

He opened the show with a zesty take on the Beatles’ “Help!,” which experts on the internet say he hadn’t played in concert since 1990, then followed it up with one of his quirkiest solo tunes in the disco-punk “Coming Up,” which he juiced with a bit of Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn” theme.

After a flirty “Love Me Do,” he asked the women in the crowd to “gimme a Beatles scream,” then nodded approvingly at the sound. “Imagine trying to play through that,” he added.

“Jet” had a nasty swagger and “I’ve Got a Feeling” a sexy strut; “Live and Let Die,” meanwhile, was just as trashy as you’d hope.

McCartney told moving if familiar stories about meeting Jimi Hendrix and about his mother coming to him in the dream that inspired “Let It Be”; he also told one I’d never heard about screwing up a performance of “Blackbird” — “Lot of changes,” he said of the song’s complicated guitar part — in front of Meryl Streep. Because his wife Nancy was in the house, he said, he played “My Valentine,” a weepy piano ballad anyone but Nancy probably would’ve gladly exchanged for “Junior’s Farm” or “Drive My Car.”

But then what was that choice if not a commitment to the circumstances of the moment?

Paul McCartney arrives at the Santa Barbara Bowl.

(Michael Owen Baker / For The Times)

SANTA BARBARA — It’s likely a first: A politician wins a statewide election, but is rejected by the people who presumably know him best–the voters of his own community.

Amazed, I came to Santa Barbara to ask why Rep. Michael Huffington couldn’t carry his own county while capturing the Republican U.S. Senate nomination by a landslide margin of 26 percentage points.

The super-rich rookie congressman– dubbed “Perot by the Sea”–lost by two points in Santa Barbara County to a hard-line conservative from Orange County, former Rep. William Dannemeyer.

I quickly learned that the result had much less to do with Dannemeyer than with former Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino, the veteran Republican officeholder and local native whom Huffington had beaten in 1992 soon after moving here with his many millions from Texas.

The Republican party locally is still deeply split over Huffington’s fratricidal ousting of Lagomarsino. And the schism only widened when the newly elected representative announced just eight months after taking office that he would leave the seat to run for the Senate.

“That didn’t set well,” noted Mabel Shults, a Santa Barbara party activist and hotel designer. “He’s been working politically for himself instead of this area.”

Asserted Barney Klinger, a manufacturer and major GOP fund-raiser: “He’s not only done nothing as a congressman, he lied. He said he’d stay in the office for three (two-year) terms.”

Klinger now is organizing a $500,000 fund-raiser for Huffington’s Democratic opponent, Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

*

To get Huffington’s side, I went to his local congressional office–in one of those typical light stucco buildings with a red-tile roof–and began asking questions. You’d have thought I had a contagious disease.

“You’ll have to call the campaign office,” I was told.

I’d already called and was told by the candidate’s state campaign manager, Bob Schuman, that “it’s not a big deal” because Santa Barbarans also had rejected Huffington in the 1992 primary; he’d made up for it by carrying adjacent San Luis Obispo County. “There’s still some residual Lagomarsino loyalty. That’s all.”

But Huffington has been representing Santa Barbara in Congress since the last election and should have been able to build up his support. I wanted to know what he’d done for the county. “We don’t have that,” said his district representative, Angeles Perez.

How about the name of a supporter I could talk to? Another aide pointed to a woman in a chair and said she was a local GOP official. I asked the woman if I could talk to her. She ducked out the door and sped off in her car.

Perez wrote down the phone number of another woman but wouldn’t let me call her from the office. That would be mixing politics with congressional business, she said. “There’s probably a pay phone somewhere on State Street.”

I found one and called Marian Koonce, who owns rental properties and once backed Lagomarsino but switched to Huffington in 1992. “I see Michael as a shining star, a comer,” she said.

Asked what Huffington had done for the county, Koonce told me of a case where he had helped obtain a green card for the daughter of one of her tenants, an immigrant farmer.

*

Koonce herself brought up probably the most controversial case involving Huffington–his refusal to help Raytheon Corp., one of Santa Barbara’s biggest employers, obtain State Department permission to sell $100 million worth of shipboard missile defense systems to Taiwan. “He has an aversion to helping companies with armaments,” she said.

Astonished, Raytheon turned to Feinstein, who quickly went to bat for the company.

Huffington later explained to a Times reporter, “I’m not going to be a paid or unpaid lobbyist for any company. That’s not my job. I represent everyone equally.”

That clearly is a new concept in representing your constituents in Washington.

Huffington likes to say he is not “beholden” to any special interest because he refuses PAC contributions. With an oil fortune estimated at $70 million, he can afford to finance his own campaigns and does–spending $5.2 million to win the House seat and expecting to write checks for at least $15 million in this Senate race.

I drove down the coast, past Montecito where Huffington has his $4.3-million mansion, all the way to Solimar near Ventura. There, I found Lagomarsino at his beach house.

He’s now 67, tanned and relaxed–but still bitter. Recently, he handed over to the Feinstein campaign two boxes of Huffington research material.

Huffington’s race could be a classic: Can a rich newcomer with almost no political base or record buy himself a U.S. Senate seat?

When you live in a town where the ocean is just around the corner, it feels almost wrong to spend a sunny day anywhere but the beach. As a lifelong Santa Barbara resident, my favorite way to savor those golden afternoons is by doing exactly that: toes in the sand, waves crashing at my feet, a turkey sandwich in one hand and an Agatha Christie novel in the other. Honestly, does it get much better?

I’m here to tell you it does. Santa Barbara is a place of dual delights. And while the coastline tends to steal the spotlight, I’d be remiss if I didn’t also shine some light on the other side of town that visitors often overlook. Because here, we’re not just flanked by sea; we’re also cradled by mountains, which means that in under 20 minutes, you can go from your beach towel to hitting the trail.

That unique geography is what makes our mountains stand out. Unlike most of California’s coastline, where mountain ranges tend to stretch north to south, the Santa Ynez Mountains run east to west. This rare alignment creates dramatic, side-by-side views of both the Pacific Ocean and the mountains — especially breathtaking from higher elevations during sunrise or sunset.

And if that doesn’t convince you to trade your beach nap for an uphill trek — and you happen to be a nature enthusiast — know that Santa Barbara is one of the most biodiverse regions in the state, boasting a variety of breathtaking flora and fauna. Take the Matilija poppy, for example: visually striking and curiously reminiscent of a cracked egg. Or consider the California scrub jay, whose vibrant cobalt feathers never fail to turn heads.

While it’s hardly a novel take, I’ve always believed that the best way to explore a place is by immersing yourself in its terrain. Sure, the beach is tempting, and I don’t blame anyone for choosing the comfort of the sand over a sweaty excursion. But as someone who’s hiked every trail on this list, I urge you to give the mountains a chance — if not for the stunning views, then for the adventure.

There is no single figure in television history whose longevity and influence match Barbara Walters’.

She became a star on NBC’s “Today” in the early 1960s, raising the stature of the morning franchise. She opened doors for women as a network anchor and turned newsmaker interviews into major television events — 74 million tuned into her 1999 sit-down with Monica Lewinsky. She created one of daytime TV’s longest-running hits with “The View,” which evolved into a major forum for the country’s political discourse.

“The audience size that Barbara was able to capture and harness is unmatched in today’s world,” said Jackie Jesko, director of the new documentary “Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything,” debuting Monday on Hulu after its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this month. “Everything she did sort of made a difference.”

Jesko’s feature — produced by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s Imagine Documentaries and ABC News Studios — is the first in-depth look into Walters’ storied career. The film also serves as a sweeping historical review of the decades-long dominance of network news that made figures such as Walters a gatekeeper of the culture, as Jesko describes her.

Before the advent of social media and podcasts that allowed celebrities to control their messages, going through the X-ray machine of a Barbara Walters interview delivered exposure on a massive scale. David Sloan, a longtime ABC News producer who worked with Walters, recalls how the screen images of her specials flickered through the windows of Manhattan apartment towers.

“Tell Me Everything” came together not long after Walters died at the age of 93 in 2022. Sara Bernstein, president of Imagine Documentaries, approached Betsy West, executive producer and co-director of the Julia Child documentary “Julia,” about taking on a Walters project. Sloan, who oversaw an Emmy-winning tribute after Walters’ death, also wanted a deeper exploration into the impact of her career. West, also a former Walters colleague, and Sloan became executive producers on the film. “Tell Me Everything” taps deeply into the ABC News archives, which contain thousands of hours of interviews Walters conducted over her 40 years at the network.

Former President Richard M. Nixon during an interview with Barbara Walters in 1980 for ABC.

(Ray Stubblebine / AP)

Imagine not only gained access to program content but also outtakes that give parts of the film a cinema vérité-like look at Walters on the job. The newly unearthed footage provides some surreal moments, such as Walters — in a pink Chanel suit — exploring the damaged palace of Libya’s deposed leader Moammar Kadafi.

“The archive gave us a the perfect canvas to relive her scenes and her moments,” Bernstein said.

Walters’ story also gives a guided tour of the obstacle-ridden path women faced in the early days of TV news when it was dominated by patriarchy and self-importance. Female reporters were relegated to writing soft features and kept at a distance from hard news. But Walters shattered those barriers through her grit and wits. She toiled as a writer in local TV and a failed CBS morning program before landing at NBC’s “Today” in 1961. (“They needed someone they could hire cheap,” she said.)

Walters went from churning out copy for the program’s “Today Girl” to doing her own on-air segments, including a famously beguiling report on a Paris fashion show and a day-in-the-life look at being a Playboy bunny. More serious assignments came her way.

The morning viewing audience loved Walters even though she didn’t believe she was attractive enough to be on camera. Her career trajectory was slowed down only by male executives unwilling to embrace the idea that a woman could be the face of a network news operation.

Harry Reasoner with Barbara Walters during her first broadcast as co-anchor of ABC Evening News on Oct. 4, 1976.

(Associated Press)

By 1971, Walters was the main attraction on “Today” when she sat alongside host Frank McGee every morning. But she was denied equal status.

A respected journalist with the demeanor of an undertaker, McGee insisted to management that he ask the first three questions of any hard news subject who appeared on “Today” before Walters could have a chance.

The restriction led to Walters going outside the NBC studios to conduct interviews where her subjects lived or worked. The approach not only gave her control of the conversations but added a level of intimacy that audiences were not getting elsewhere on television.

Walters also had written into her contract that if McGee ever left “Today,” she would be promoted to the title of co-host. NBC brass agreed to the provision, believing McGee was not going anywhere.

But McGee was suffering from bone cancer, which he had kept secret. He died in 1974 and Walters was elevated to co-host, making her the first woman to lead a daily network news program. (Or as Katie Couric candidly puts it in the film, “She got it literally over Frank McGee’s dead body.”)

Walters made history again when she was poached by ABC News in 1976. She was given a record-high $1-million annual salary to be the first woman co-anchor of a network evening newscast, paired with Harry Reasoner, a crusty and unwelcoming veteran. Walters was mistreated by her colleague and roasted by critics and competitors such as CBS News commentator Eric Sevareid, who, with disgust in his voice, described her as “a lady reading the news.”

The evening news experiment with Reasoner was a short-lived disaster, but Walters found a supporter in Roone Arledge, the ABC Sports impresario who took over the news division and had an appreciation for showmanship. He recognized Walters’ strengths and made her a roving correspondent.

Barbara Walters arranged a joint interview with Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1977.

(ABC Photo Archives / Disney General Entertainment Con)

Walters scored a major coup in 1977 when she was the first TV journalist to speak jointly with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin during Sadat’s historic visit to Jerusalem.

“She was a household name in the Mideast,” Sloan said.

Over time, Walters would become known for her prime-time specials, where lengthy interviews with world leaders aired adjacent to conversations with movie stars. She could be a blunt questioner in both realms, asking Barbra Streisand why she chose not to get her nose fixed and former President Richard M. Nixon if he wished he had burned the White House tapes that undid his presidency (“I probably should have”).

News purists clutched their pearls, but the audience welcomed it. “She had a vision back then that celebrities are news,” said Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger in the film. “She was practicing the art of journalism when she was interviewing them.”

The film explains how Walters developed an understanding of celebrities after growing up around her father’s nightclub, the Latin Quarter, a hot spot in Boston. Sitting in the rafters above the floor show, she observed how audiences responded as well.

Barbara Walters with Barbra Streisand, whom the journalist interviewed for a special in 1976.

(ABC Photo Archives / Disney General Entertainment Con)

Even though Walters’ programs earned significant revenue for ABC News, she still had detractors, including the network’s star anchor Peter Jennings. A clip from the network’s political convention coverage in 1992 shows Jennings surreptitiously flipping his middle finger at her following an on-air exchange.

But Walters was unstoppable, and as the 1980s and 1990s progressed, she became a mother confessor for perpetrators and victims of scandal. During a memorable jailhouse meeting with the Menendez brothers in which Eric describes himself and Lyle as “normal kids,” a stunned Walters replies, “Eric, you’re a normal kid who murdered his parents!”

As always, she was speaking for the person watching at home.

“She always wanted to ask the question that was percolating in the brain of someone who didn’t have the opportunity or was too afraid to ask,” said Meredith Kaulfers, an executive vice president at Imagine Documentaries.

Walters became a pioneer for women broadcasters out of necessity. While in her 20s, her father’s nightclub business collapsed and she became the sole source of financial support for her family, which included her mentally disabled older sister. The terror of the insecurity she felt during that period never left.

President Barack Obama speaks to Barbara Walters during his guest appearance on ABC’s “The View” in 2010.

(Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press)

“There was a survival instinct in her that drove her,” said Marcella Steingart, a producer on the film. “Not necessarily on purpose, but in her wake, she opened doors for people.”

“Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything” is not a hagiography. The film explores her fraught relationship with her adopted daughter Jacqueline, who did not sit for an interview. Walters’ unhealthy obsession with colleague and rival Diane Sawyer is covered, too, as is her willingness to use the social connections she developed through her career, and not just to land big interviews.

Walters had a friendship with unsavory lawyer Roy Cohn, who pulled strings to make her father’s tax problems go away. She carried on a secret romance in the 1970s with a married U.S. senator — Edward Brooke — while she was a fixture in national political coverage.

While the film draws on interviews where Walters laments not being able to have both a successful career and a family life, Jesko sensed no regrets. “I think if she could live her life over again, she wouldn’t change anything,” Jesko said.

As protesters swarmed downtown Los Angeles to denounce ICE raids in their communities and the deployment of the National Guard, a potent image kept flashing across television screens and social media: officers in riot gear facing off against flag- and sign-waving demonstrators in front of a strikingly resonant, red mural posing a series of queries interrogating the very nature of power and control.

Barbara Kruger’s 30-by-191-foot “Questions” takes up the entire side wall of the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Geffen Contemporary warehouse building, facing Temple Street and — notably — the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building. Like many of Kruger’s most iconic images, including her famous 1989 abortion rights poster, “Your Body Is a Battleground,” the mural features words in starkly clear graphic design — in this case, white letters on a red background asking nine now-prophetic questions:

“Who is beyond the law? Who is bought and sold? Who is free to choose? Who does the time? Who follows orders? Who salutes longest? Who prays loudest? Who dies first? Who laughs last?”

The mural was commissioned in 1990 by former MOCA curator Ann Goldstein, who is now at the the Art Institute of Chicago.

Former MOCA Chief Curator Paul Schimmel posted a TV screenshot of protesters in front of the mural on Sunday with the caption, “#Barbara Krugers #moca mural doing its art job as the riots against #ice consume LA.”

Reached for comment Monday, Schimmel added that Kruger “understood the importance and power of a mural facing the then-new Federal Building. Multiple generations of MOCA staff have brought it back to life because of its profundity.”

Kruger, a longtime L.A. resident, responded Monday to The Times’ request for comment about the mural’s immersion in this fraught moment of city history, writing via email: “This provocation is giving Trump what he wants: the moment he can declare martial law. As if that’s not already in play.”

In a YouTube video posted to MOCA’s website when the museum reinstalled the mural in 2018, Kruger says: “There was a very visible wall on the side of this building, and it was an opportunity to make a statement about pride and prominence and power and control and fear. The questions were always the important part of the work.”

At another point in the video, she adds: “One would hope that in the 30 years since, things would have changed a bit. And things have changed. For the good and for the bad, and for everything in between.”

Images of “Questions” abound on social media, including on X, where a few users recognized the significance of the art behind the protesters. Misinformation has been rampant on social media, and one post showed a photo of a masked individual creeping below the mural with the claim that the person “broke into the MOCA Museum and destroyed everything.”

A MOCA representative debunked that claim Monday, saying that the museum closed early, at about 1:30 p.m. Sunday, “out of an abundance of caution and for the safety and well-being of our staff and visitors,” and that it expected to open again, per its normal operating hours, on Thursday. The museum is always closed Monday through Wednesday.

The only damage to the Geffen Contemporary was some graffiti that the museum said could be removed.

Cleanup continues after a night of protests in downtown Los Angeles on June 9, 2025.

(Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)

Adding a hyper-meta art moment, MOCA’s current durational performance, “Police State” by Pussy Riot frontwoman Nadya Tolokonnikova, continued until 6 p.m. inside the building, just without its usual live audience. The performance consists of Tolokonnikova sitting at a bare wooden table inside of a corrugated steel structure resembling a Russian prison cell.

Tolokonnikova, who spent two years in a Russian prison following a performance in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, spent those hours Sunday broadcasting live audio of the protests outside mixed with her own heartbeat to the empty museum.

“Police State Exhibit Is Closed Due To The Police State,” she wrote in a post on X.

“Durational performance is a scary thing to step into: once you said you’re going to show up, you can’t just leave simply because of the National Guard had a whim to occupy the city, so my choice was to stay and continue doing my job as an artist,” she said in a statement.

June 9 (UPI) — Hurricane Barbara emerged as the first hurricane of the Pacific hurricane season on Monday but National Hurricane Center forecasters said she has “peaked.”

In the 2 p.m. MST advisory, Barbara was in the eastern Pacific Ocean approximately 175 miles west-southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico.

The maximum sustained winds were reported to be at 75 mph at the minimum wind speed for a storm to reach Category 1 hurricane status, and was moving at 10 mph northwest.

A westward motion is expected to continue for the next couple of days, and six hours after the last advisory, Barbara has “become a little less organized.”

Forecasters said that “Barbara likely has peaked as a short-lived hurricane. The environmental conditions will become increasingly hostile along the forecast track with the storm crossing into cooler SSTs [Sea surface temperatures] and into a drier, more stable air mass.”

There are no coastal watches or warnings in effect.

Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 10 miles from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 80 miles.

Swells will affect portions of the coast of southwestern Mexico during the next few days, forecasters say. They are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.

No named storms have been formed in the Atlantic.

The hurricane season began on June 1.

A FORMER model and Corrie actress has passed away aged 85.

Barbara Ferris played a barmaid in Coronation Street in 1962.

She played the part of Nona Willis, at the Rovers Return, but left the drama after 10 episodes because she didn’t understand the accents.

Ferris may best be remembered as Dinah, the woman who eloped with Dave Clark in the 1965 film Catch Us If You Can.

More to follow… For the latest news on this story keep checking back at The Sun Online

Thesun.co.uk is your go-to destination for the best celebrity news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures and must-see video.

Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/thesun and follow us from our main Twitter account at @TheSun.

With UCLA’s bats quiet early, Kaitlyn Terry stepped into the batter’s box looking to ignite a two-out rally — and with one swing she brought the Bruins to life.

Terry, a right fielder and left-handed pitcher, hit a three-run home run in the second inning to jump-start UCLA’s 9-1 win over UC Santa Barbara in six innings in the opening round of the Los Angeles Regional on Friday.

The No. 9 Bruins (50–10) advanced to Game 3 of the regional, where they’ll face the winner of Arizona State and San Diego State at 2 p.m. PDT Saturday.

Before the season, coach Kelly Inouye-Perez stressed that a UCLA championship push had to start with securing a regional at Easton Stadium — and taking care of business once there.

UCLA is chasing its ninth Women’s College World Series berth in the past decade, but early on Friday, the path looked shaky. Instead of a confident march into the postseason opener, it felt like déjà vu for a moment — a flashback to the haunting 2023 regional, when the Bruins dropped their first game and ultimately fell short of a trip to Oklahoma City.

The Bruins squandered early opportunities uncharacteristic of the nation’s No. 2 run-scoring lineup.

Trailing in the second inning, Alexis Ramirez reached base on a hit up the middle, then stole second. After advancing on a groundout, she was caught in a rundown between third and home. Still, UCLA had a chance to even the score with runners on first and second, but Terry flied out to end the inning.

UCLA pitcher Taylor Tinsley delivers against UC Santa Barbara in the Los Angeles Regional on Friday.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Terry found herself in a similar situation two innings later, and she delivered.

With two outs in the fourth, Kaniya Bragg reached first on a hit-by-pitch. Batting for the first time this season, Taylor Stephens followed with a slow roller into right field — just soft enough for Bragg to beat the tag at third while Stephens stepped onto second.

On the next pitch, Terry crushed a home run to center field.

Taylor Tinsley, an All-Big Ten first team selection, gave up three hits and one walk while striking out one. Her only blemish came in the second inning, when she gave up a run on an RBI single by UCSB catcher Delaina Ma’ae.

1

2

3

1. UCLA’s Jordan Woolery fields the ball at third base against UC Santa Barbara on Friday. 2. UCLA infielder Kaniya Bragg fields the ball. 3. UCLA’s Megan Grant celebrates after hitting a game-ending home run in the sixth inning. (Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

A pair of home runs in the sixth inning ended the game via the mercy rule. Jessica Clements hit a three-run home run. That was followed by a walk and steal from Savannah Pola, who was driven in by Jordan Woolery’s RBI single. Megan Grant ended the game with a two-run blast to left-center field.

UCLA, which finished its first season in the Big Ten tied for second with Nebraska, has won 26 games by mercy rule this season.

In my Prius, a notification pops up in the form of a coffee cup topped with steam squiggles and accompanied by a message inquiring, “Would you like to take a break?”

This safety feature is designed to alert drivers to potential drowsiness, but it always makes me smile, because when I’m traveling, coffee shops are often my intended destination. Yes, I would like to take a break.

On a recent drive to Santa Barbara wine country, the roads winding north led me through the charming towns of the Santa Ynez Valley, each with a coffee destination, from historic taverns, bakeries and cozy community hubs to modern temples of espresso.

With four locations across Santa Barbara and Goleta, Dune Coffee has been roasting rare single-origin and signature blends of coffee beans since 2009. In March, barista Kay Cheon became the 2025 U.S. Barista Champion. During the competition, he explored how the theme of building blocks in coffee — from bean variety and roast to brewing techniques and ingredients — can combine to create something exceptional, even adding colorful Lego props for visuals. This fall, Cheon will compete at the World Barista Championship in Milan, Italy.

“A big part of our community has come along for the barista championship journey, and that’s really special to see,” says Cheon.

Heading deeper into the Santa Ynez Valley, specialty coffee bars have opened in converted Airstream trailers and Old West saloons. Stop into the airy and bright Little King in Buellton and you are likely to sip a cortado next to a lauded local chef like Brad Mathews of Bar Le Côte in Los Olivos.

“The love for coffee is real in the Santa Ynez Valley,” says Ryan Pelton, a barista at Queen Cup, a shop with locations in Santa Ynez and Los Alamos. “It’s like Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Espresso’ on repeat.”

On your next road trip to Santa Barbara wine country or elsewhere along the Central Coast, follow this trail to some of the best scenic views, tasty baked goods and delicious cups of coffee.