Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seen here with President Donald Trump during a G7 Summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada, on June 16, 2025. The two leaders are expected to talk trade in the next coming days, according to an Ottawa official. Photo via G7/UPI | License Photo
Aug. 4 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada are expected in the coming days to talk trade, according to Ottawa’s U.S.-Canada trade minister.
“I would expect the prime minister will have a conversation with the president in the coming days,” Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said during an interview with CBS‘ Face The Nationon Sunday, after Trump on Thursday increased tariffs on goods from the Great White North not under the U.S.-Canada-Mexico trade agreement from 25% to 35% amid trade negotiations between the two countries.
Relations between the once strong partners have frayed under the Trump administration, which has repeatedly imposed tariffs on Canada as punishment over alleged fentanyl making its way into the United States over their shared border and in an attempt to right what the U.S. president sees as an unfair trade relationship. Trump has also publicly toyed with the idea of annexing Canada.
Canada has responded with retaliatory tariffs of its own, while also seeking to strengthen relationships elsewhere and lessening its dependency on the United States. It has also rebutted the accusation that it is contributing to the United States’ opioid crisis, as Carney pointed out in a statement Friday that it accounts for only 1% of U.S. fentanyl imports while implementing policies to continue reducing that amount.
“We were obviously disappointed by that decision,” LeBlanc said Sunday, referring to the imposition of additional tariffs on Thursday amid ongoing trade negotiations. “We believe there’s a great deal of common ground between the United States and Canada in terms of building two strong economies that work well together. That’s been the history of the 40-year free trade agreement that goes back to [U.S. President Roland] Reagan.”
Trump imposed tariffs of 10% on dozens of nations that had not worked out trade deals with the U.S. president beforehand. Canada was in the middle of talks with the United States when the new levies were announced.
LeBlanc added that they are “pleased” the United States is “respecting” the terms of the USMCA as the tariffs do not affect goods that fall under that agreement.
“That’s vital, we think, to the cost of living and affordability, certainly in the United States,” he said.
He was speaking to Face The Nation from Moncton, N.B., but had been in Washington working on a deal, and he left Washington “with a better understanding of the American concerns in the trading relationship.”
“So, we’re prepared to stick around and do the work needed,” he said.
As a deep-pocketed producer, David Ellison helped breathe new life into Paramount franchises including “Mission: Impossible,” “Star Trek” and “Top Gun.”
But can the high-flying son of a billionaire make a full-fledged media company airworthy again? Can he use Silicon Valley money and movie business know-how to restore the legacy of one of the entertainment industry’s original studios, following a deal clinched through an act of political appeasement?
Those are the questions Hollywood talent, studio rivals and insiders will be asking as Ellison takes the controls of the new Paramount, after regulators finally approved the long-awaited $8-billion merger with his Santa Monica production company Skydance Media. The deal — two years in the making, and approved by the FCC only after a $16-million settlement with Trump and promises to mindwipe any trace of DEI from the company — is expected to close Aug. 7.
After that, Ellison, backed in large part by his father, Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison, will bring in his own team to face the daunting challenges.
Chris McCarthy, the architect of Paramount’s recent streaming strategy, is out. Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon head Brian Robbins is also expected to exit while CBS chief George Cheeks is staying. The incoming management team includes former NBCUniversal Chief Executive Jeff Shell, who is currently a heavyweight at Ellison’s bidding partner RedBird Capital.
Skydance Chief Creative Officer Dana Goldberg will run the film studio, and former Netflix executive Cindy Holland will play a major role at the new company. Also joining is Sony Pictures movie executive Josh Greenstein.
This may be a different team from the one that labored under outgoing controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, but it’ll be contending with most of the same problems.
Paramount is dogged by issues buffeting all legacy media companies, including the decline of traditional TV ratings, the post-COVID-19 realignment of the theatrical box office and the escalating costs of sports rights, as my colleague Stephen Battaglio and I reported last week. Those difficulties were exacerbated at Paramount by chronic underinvestment and years of shambolic leadership, as corporate governance experts have long pointed out.
Ellison has direct experience with movies, having produced many of them, including some of Paramount’s biggest hits (as well as some notable flops). He’s less steeped in running TV channels and streaming services, which have urgent needs. The scion is also coming in to make good on a promise to investors: to find $2 billion in cost cutting, which will mean layoffs and disruption.
Paramount+ has been growing, thanks in part to the NFL, CBS shows and a run of original hits including “Landman,” “1923” and “Tulsa King.” But the service has lost money for years, and the app is clunky. (It’s expected to reach full-year U.S. profitability in 2025.) McCarthy spent big bucks on talent, including Taylor Sheridan and the creators of “South Park,” enough to make Matt Stone and Trey Parker billionaires, according to Forbes.
Analysts say the service will need substantial investment in content and technology to make it competitive while also partnering with other companies to increase its reach through discounted bundles and other initiatives.
The new owners will have to decide what to do with the cable channel business, which includes such eroding brands as MTV, BET and Comedy Central.
Many observers tend to assume Ellison will eventually spin those off, following the lead of NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery. In a sadly comical reminder of what can happen with a merger gone wrong, David Zaslav’s Warner Bros. Discovery on Monday announced that the two companies resulting from its pending breakup will be called — wait for it — Warner Bros. and Discovery Global.
TD Cowen analyst Doug Cruetz, in a recent note to clients, speculated that Ellison didn’t buy the Paramount assets just to “break it up for parts.”
We’ll see.
Another looming and potentially costly issue is the NFL’s relationship with CBS Sports. The change of control will trigger an early renegotiation of Paramount’s contract with the league once the transaction closes. That’s important because the NFL has significant leverage in dealmaking, considering that its games account for the vast majority of most-watched programming on television.
Ellison has promised to bring technological enhancements to Paramount. That would mean a more functional app for Paramount+ and an improved personalized recommendation system. It might mean using tech to make movies cheaper and faster. A year ago, Ellison noted a partnership between Skydance Animation and Oracle to build a so-called studio in the cloud. What technology can’t do is pick the movies people want to see, and that’s where the new leadership group will have to prove themselves.
But the biggest hurdle will be overcoming the stain covering the deal itself after the concessions required to get it over the finish line.
Paramount paid a substantial sum to make peace with President Trump, who had sued the company over CBS News’ “60 Minutes” interview with his 2024 election rival, then-Vice President Kamala Harris. The case was frivolous, 1st Amendment experts said. But the Redstone family and the Ellisons were desperate to get the deal done. As a result, the new company is starting off on a crooked foundation, as one Hollywood insider put it to me.
Stephen Colbert, speaking on “The Late Show,” called Paramount’s settlement a “big fat bribe.” Days later, he learned that his show would be ending in May. Even assuming the company told the truth in saying that the cancellation was a purely financial decision (i.e., the show was too expensive and it was losing money), the optics were bad.
Comedians responded the way comedians do. The “South Park” team, having secured a $1.5 billion deal to bring the long-running animated series to Paramount+, opened their 27th season with, effectively, a pair of middle fingers raised to Trump and their parent company.
The show depicted a flapping-headed cartoon Trump in bed with Satan, similar to its past portrayal of Saddam Hussein, and ended with an AI-generated PSA showing the president wandering the desert and stripping naked, revealing tiny, talking genitalia.
The Trump settlement cast a pall over whatever plans Ellison has. CBS News lost key figures in part due to Paramount’s push to reach a peace accord with the president (Tanya Simon being named to run “60 Minutes” is seen as a relief). But whatever you say about the corporate behind-the-scenes machinations that took place to make the deal happen, you can’t say the artists have lost their spine.
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In a return to form for Walt Disney Co.’s Marvel Studios, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” opened with a robust $118 million in the U.S. and Canada and $218 million globally, according to studio estimates, slightly outperforming prerelease projections.
This comes after middling results and poor reviews for “Captain America: Brave New World” and tepid sales (but better reviews) for “Thunderbolts*.” Last summer’s “Deadpool & Wolverine” was a $1.34-billion hit.
Like Deadpool and Wolverine, the Fantastic Four — known as Marvel’s first family — came to Disney through the company’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox entertainment assets. Fox made three “Fantastic Four” movies, all bad. “First Steps” earned mostly positive reviews from critics and fans (88% on Rotten Tomatoes; “A-” from CinemaScore).
The $218-million global opening weekend was similar to that of James Gunn’s DC reboot “Superman,” released earlier this month. That film just crossed the $500 million box office milestone, with a strong $289 million domestically and a less-impressive $213 million overseas.
Theaters have been on a winning streak this summer. So far this year, ticket sales are up 12% from 2024, according to Comscore. But the rest of the season looks thin. Next weekend features Paramount’s “The Naked Gun,” Universal’s animated “Bad Guys 2” and Neon’s Sundance horror breakout “Together,” starring real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie.
Finally …
One marker of a great artist is the number and diversity of musicians who take inspiration from their work. And Ozzy Osbourne, the Black Sabbath frontman who died last week, had plenty of admirers who covered his songs.
The Times’ Mikael Wood already rounded up the Prince of Darkness’ 10 essential tracks. Here are some of the best covers, with help from Rolling Stone and Loudwire.
Late in Italian writer-director Giovanni Tortorici’s pop-up book of a coming-of-age movie “Diciannove (Nineteen),” there’s a great scene in which his arrogant, neurotic protagonist, Leonardo (Manfredi Marini), a student of classical Italian literature in Siena, is visiting a cousin (Zackari Delmas) attending university in Milan. As the two commiserate over crazy adventures, the chatter turns to disagreements and griping (culture, language, kids today, drugs aren’t fun anymore) and suddenly they sound like middle-aged men bemoaning why anything ever had to change.
The cusp of 20 is a laughably unformed time to be convinced of anything, but what Tortorici’s higgledy-piggledy debut feature makes breathlessly clear is that when you’re in the middle of it, youth is a candy-colored tornado of temptations and responsibilities. You’re the star of your own solipsistic, hallucinatory epic, even if what you imagine for yourself might be a straightforward affair with a clear-cut message about the meaning of life.
“Diciannove” hums with the dissonance of repression plus expression in Leonardo’s consequential 19th year. If you notice a similarity to the playful moods and textures of Tortorici’s countryman Luca Guadagnino, there’s a reason: The “Call Me by Your Name” filmmaker produced his protégé Tortorici’s autobiographical debut feature and a lineage of tenderness and vivacity in evoking the emotional waves of adolescence is more than evident.
We meet Leonardo as a nosebleed-suffering, dreamy-eyed Palermo teen with a haranguing mom. He’s headed to business school in London, where his older sister Arianna (Vittoria Planeta) also lives. But once there, after a round of hard-partying with her friends and the sense that he’s replaced one hypercritical family member for another, he makes a last-minute decision to change the course of his educational life and enroll as a literature student back in Italy.
Cut to picturesque Siena and cue the baroque score. In this ancient Tuscan city, Leonardo is awakened by his writerly ambitions, a swoony love for medieval Italian authors like Dante and an intellectual disdain for the 20th century. But it also turns him into a lonely, rigidly neoclassicist oddball who scorns his professors, prefers books to his flighty peers and still can’t seem to take care of himself. Sealing himself off in a stuffy, antiquated notion of personal morality only makes the trappings of real life (desire, depression, cleanliness, online enticements) harder to deal with, leading his journey of self-discovery to some internally and externally messy places.
And some messy filmmaking too, even if that’s the point of this elegantly shapeless headspace travelogue. With unapologetic brio, Tortorici, cinematographer Massimiliano Kuveiller and editor Marco Costa empty out their tool kit of angles, splits, tracks, smudges, zooms, smashes, jumps, needle drops, montages and text cards. Though never disorienting or obnoxious (à la “Euphoria”), it can get tiring: a restlessness of spirit and technique that occasionally separates us from this lost antihero when we crave a closer connection to him. Especially since first-time actor Marini is stellar casting. There’s an easygoing inscrutability to his demeanor and his sad, mischievous eyes compel our curiosity — he’ll never let you think you’ve watched a thousand coming-of-age movies.
Tortorici doesn’t give his searcher a tidy ending. There’s a hilarious psychoanalysis by a wealthy aesthete (Sergio Benvenuto) who sees right through his posturing. But the night air beckons. As Leonardo walks away from us at the end after serving up a rascally smile (in a very “400 Blows”-ish freeze frame), Tortorici has him stumble briefly on the cobblestones, and somehow it feels like the wit of “Diciannove” in a split second of screen time: Youth means missteps, so why dwell on them?
‘Diciannove’
In Italian, with subtitles
Not rated
Running time: 1 hour, 48 minutes
Playing: Opens Friday, July 25 at Laemmle Monica, Laemmle Glendale
In an unassuming building in Stratford, east London, British start-up Better Dairy is making cheese that has never seen an udder, which it argues tastes like the real thing.
It is one of a handful of companies around the world hoping to bring lab-grown cheese to our dinner tables in the next few years.
But there has been a trend away from meat-free foods recently, according to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB).
The statutory research organisation says that plant-based cheese sales across the UK declined 25.6% in the first quarter of 2025, while sales of cow’s cheese grew by 3%.
One reason for this, the AHDB tells the BBC, might be because the number of vegans in Britain is small – just 1% of the population (the Vegan Society puts it at 3%), far fewer than the amount of dairy cheese eaters – and has slightly declined lately.
The Vegan Society insists that the meat-free food market remains “competitive” and steady.
Those Vegan Cowboys
Hille van der Kaa touts a “silent revolution”, swapping cheeses people don’t often think about
Other reasons may be concerns about health and price. A recent government survey found that that food being ultra-processed – a key challenge with vegan cheese – was the second-greatest concern for consumers, the first being cost. Plant-based cheese is generally more expensive than cow’s cheese, the AHDB says.
So are these efforts a recipe for success or disaster? Some think the coming years present an opportunity.
In the Netherlands, Those Vegan Cowboys expects to bring its cheeses to the US later this year, and Europe in three to four years due to regulatory hurdles. This is because lab-made cheeses count as a “novel food” and so need EU approval to go on sale.
Its chief executive, Hille van der Kaa, admits the appetite for vegan cheese is low right now, but her company is targeting a “silent revolution” by swapping cheeses people don’t often think about.
“If you buy frozen pizza, you don’t really think of what kind of cheese is on that,” she explains. “So it’s quite easy to swap.”
Meanwhile, French firm Standing Ovation plans on launching in the US next year, and in the UK and Europe in 2027.
And back in Stratford, London-based Better Dairy hasn’t launched its lab-grown cheese yet because it would cost too much right now.
But chief executive Jevan Nagarajah plans to launch in three or four years, when he hopes the price will be closer to those seen in a cheesemonger, before getting it down to the sorts seen in a supermarket.
Jevan Nagarajah sees vegan hard cheeses as having the greatest “quality gap” to the real thing
So does it taste any good?
Better Dairy invited me – a committed carnivore and dairy devotee – to its lab to poke holes in this new cheese.
Currently, the company is only making cheddar because it sees vegan hard cheeses as having the biggest “quality gap” to dairy cheeses. It has made blue cheese, mozzarella and soft cheese, but argues the proteins in dairy don’t make as big a difference in taste.
The process starts with yeast that has been genetically modified to produce casein, the key protein in milk, instead of alcohol. Jevan says this is the same technique used to produce insulin without having to harvest it from pigs.
Other companies also use bacteria or fungi to produce casein.
Once the casein is made through this precision fermentation, it is mixed with plant-based fat and the other components of milk needed for cheese, and then the traditional cheese-making process ensues.
Having tried Better Dairy’s three-month, six-month and 12-month aged cheddars, I can say they tasted closer to the real thing than anything else I’ve tried. The younger cheese was perhaps a bit more rubbery than usual, and the older ones more obviously salty. On a burger, the cheese melted well.
On a burger, Better Dairy’s cheddar was visibly melty
Jevan accepts there’s room to improve. He says the cheese I tried was made in his lab, but in future wants artisanal cheesemakers to use the firm’s non-dairy “milk” in their own labs to improve the taste.
As the company cannot use dairy fats, it has had to “optimise” plant-derived fats to make them taste better.
“If you’ve experienced plant-based cheeses, a lot of them have off flavours, and typically it comes from trying to use nut-based or coconut fats – and they impart flavours that aren’t normally in there,” Better Dairy scientist Kate Royle says.
Meanwhile, Those Vegan Cowboys is still focusing on easy-to-replace cheeses, like those on pizzas and burgers, while Standing Ovation says its casein can make a range of cheeses including camembert.
Will these new cheeses find their match?
It’ll be a tall order. Of those who bought vegan cheese on the market in the past year, 40% did not buy it again, according to an AHDB survey – suggesting taste may be a turn-off.
Damian Watson from the Vegan Society points out that resemblance to the real thing may not even be a good thing.
“Some vegans want the taste and texture of their food to be like meat, fish or dairy, and others want something completely different,” he tells me.
And Judith Bryans, chief executive of industry body Dairy UK, thinks the status quo will remain strong.
“There’s no evidence to suggest that the addition of lab-grown products would take away from the existing market, and it remains to be seen where these products would fit in from a consumer perception and price point of view,” she tells the BBC.
Studio Lazareff/Antoine Repesse
Yvan Chardonnens hopes to launch his cheeses in the UK in 2027
But both Better Dairy and Those Vegan Cowboys tout partnerships with cheese producers to scale up production and keep costs down, while Standing Ovation has already struck a partnership with Bel (makers of BabyBel).
Standing Ovation’s CEO Yvan Chardonnens characterises the recent unpopularity as a first wave in the vegan “analogues” of cheese faltering because of quality, while he hopes that will improve in the next phase.
Besides the current concerns about a shrinking vegan market, taste, quality and price, the issue of ultra-processed foods is one that these companies may have to grapple with.
They argue a lack of lactose, no cholesterol and lower amounts of saturated fats in lab-made cheese can boost its health benefits – and that any cheese is processed.
Precision fermentation may also allow producers to strip out many ultra-processed elements of current vegan cheeses.
Hille suggests it’s a question of perception. People have a “romanticised view” of dairy farming, she says, despite it now being “totally industrialised” – a point backed by AHDB polling, which found 71% of consumers see dairy as natural.
“I wouldn’t say that’s really a traditional, natural type of food,” Hille argues.
“We do have an important task to show people how cheese is made nowadays.”
Renee Roebuck, from Rotherham, loves Benidorm in Alicante, Spain so much that she visits three times a year and saves all her money for her regular, blow-out trips
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Renee Roebuck is a Benidorm megafan (Image: Jam Press/TUI)
A Benidorm-obsessed nan who has been to the British tourist hotspot over 100 times has explained what keeps her coming back for more.
Renee Roebuck just loves Benidorm. She has visited the Spanish holiday location for the past 31 years and says other destinations simply don’t compare. While many travelers come for the sunny weather, beautiful beaches, and historic Old Town, there’s another very special reason why this 81-year-old loves Benidorm: Tribute bands.
Happily, the Alicante settlement is crawling with them. Renee spends her days decked out in merch watching a different cover band or singer every night. Sometimes even joins artists on stage for a boogie. The nan isn’t the only holiday-goer who loves a good show.
Renee and her husband, Alan, love to visit Benidorm(Image: Jam Press/TUI)
New research from TUI shows that nearly nine in 10 Brits enjoy watching tribute acts while on holiday. And 68% of survey participants dub it one of their favourite forms of entertainment during a trip abroad – with tribute acts beating out alternatives like karaoke (43%) and nightclubs (37%).
Renee visits the sunny spot alongside her husband Alan and occasionally her children and grandchildren. The full family often spends two weeks in Benidorm over Christmas. “Benidorm is my happy place,” said Renee, a former fruit market worker, from Rotherham.
“Ever since my first trip, I’ve never looked back. I go with my family four to five times a year, and I can’t get enough of the lifestyle there. I don’t go out much in England, so I can save money to go to Benidorm more often. If I had my way, I’d never come home.
“My favourite thing to do is to watch a tribute act – I see a different one every night when I’m on holiday.”
After a cancer diagnosis at the age of 60, Renee was forced to have two-thirds of her stomach removed. Ever since, the nan has been determined to live life to the max.
For her, this involves lounging in the sun and listening to classic tunes performed by local tribute artists – especially Bob Marley and Take That. But Renee and Alan both love the variety of bands that Benidorm has to offer.
Renee’s granddaughter, Lauren Chant, works as a Travel Advisor at TUI’s Sheffield Superstore and books her nan’s holidays, which often become trips for the whole family.
Renee said: “I like to stay in a nice area just outside of the hustle and bustle, and always book with TUI as they book tribute acts to come and perform at the hotel. When I have stayed at apartments, I’ve ended up walking to the hotels or bars to be able to see the entertainment.
They enjoy shows performed at TUI Atlantica Aegean Park(Image: Jam Press/TUI)
“I go to Benidorm so often that the performers even remember me now – they’ll bring me up on stage and chat after the shows. It’s different to going to see a big band or famous singer as, with tributes, you’re able to get to know them properly – and they’re all ever so good at what they do.
“They engage with the audience more and you get a real feel for their personalities.”
When it comes to booking a holiday, almost a quarter of Brits (24%) admit that the entertainment on offer in a holiday destination or hotel is a deciding factor.
Tribute acts in particular appear to be a priority for holidaymakers – with 85% of survey participants attending at least a couple of acts during a week’s vacation. Despite her many visits, Renee hasn’t tired of the holiday spot.
She added: “Benidorm really does have it all. You can find busy or quiet places, a lovely beach, and you’ll never get bored there – there’s plenty to do, especially if you love the tributes. I’m able to really make the most out of life when I’m there, and I’m always up dancing.
“It’s just brilliant. I’ll keep going every year, as many times as I can, for the rest of my life.”
The reversal has been stark. Last year alone, more than 302,200 people attempted to travel northwards from South America, according to the United Nations.
However, as President Donald Trump makes asylum all but impossible to obtain in the US, migration northwards has slowed to a trickle.
The Darien Gap — a sliver of untamed forest and steep terrain — used to be the main artery connecting South America to the north. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people would struggle to cross the land bridge on their way to the US.
But not any more. The United Nations notes that, between January and March of this year, only 2,831 people made the dangerous trek. That marks a 98-percent drop compared with the same period in 2024.
Yagua Parra made that journey himself, in his efforts to reach the US. The International Organization for Migration has called the path north to the US the world’s deadliest land route for migration.
“The road was tough. Many things happened — kidnappings, everything,” Yagua Parra said, tattoos freckling his young features. “People are hungry there. It’s hard. Ugly things happen.”
When he reached the southern US border, though, he found himself one of the thousands unable to cross.
Upon taking office for a second term in January, President Trump cancelled the CBP One app, the online portal used to schedule asylum appointments.
Anyone who crossed the border without documents was also barred from claiming asylum protections.
Meanwhile, the US increased the military presence on the border, further driving down crossings.
The Trump administration touted those measures as contributing to “historic lows” for border apprehensions. But the migrants unable to cross found themselves stuck in Mexico, stranded in a border region beset by trafficking and exploitation.
High society bible Tatler is among those making the declaration on its new edition, which features the offspring of Nineties music legends Liam Gallagher and Richard Ashcroft.
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Love Island host Maya Jama recreates Liz Hurley’s iconic 1994 dressCredit: Getty
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Liz in the famous Versace safety pin dress that she wore to the Four Weddings And A Funeral premiere in 1994Credit: Getty
Heralding the rebirth of the Britpop-era movement, the magazine pictures Molly Moorish-Gallagher and musician Sonny Ashcroft proudly standing in front of a giant Union Jack.
Anyone over the age of 40 is likely to spot the obvious homage being paid to a similar front cover published by Vanity Fair in 1997.
That iconic picture saw Oasis singer Liam sharing a bed with his then girlfriend, actress Patsy Kensit.
The couple married a few months later when Oasis were arguably the biggest music stars of the decade.
And it is no coincidence the new magazine cover comes just days before the Oasis reunion tour, which will have Richard Ashcroft as the support act.
But Tatler did not go for another “power couple”, like Liam and Patsy were, and instead took the nepo baby route.
But as the new faces of Cool Britannia take centre stage, it’s less champagne supernova, more alcohol-free explosion.
Tatler
However, editors still think the duo are living proof of a second coming.
“They’re the next generation of Britpop: Molly Moorish-Gallagher and Sonny Ashcroft are gracing the cover of Tatler as their fathers, Liam Gallagher and Richard Ashcroft, prepare for an earth-shattering Oasis reunion.
Dua Lipa’s style for her Wembley gig last week seems to have been inspired by model Christy Turlington’s catwalk turn in the NinetiesCredit: Getty
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Christy wearing the original look in the NinetiesCredit: Getty
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Patsy Kensit and then-boyfriend Liam Gallagher on Vanity Fair in 1997Credit: EPA
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Heralding the rebirth of the Britpop-era movement, Tatler pictures Molly Moorish-Gallagher and musician Sonny Ashcroft proudly standing in front of a giant Union JackCredit: Oli Kearon
Noel and Liam Gallagher seen together for first time since announcing Oasis reunion
The piece continues: “She is the daughter of Lisa Moorish and Liam Gallagher; he is the eldest son of Richard Ashcroft and Kate Radley.
“Together, they are the new faces of the (Br)it crowd.
“But what do the pair make of Cool Britannia 2.0?”
It turns out that neither of the nepo babies shares their parents’ hellraising ways, and the revival will not be based around downing pints of lager or being “chained to the mirror and the razor blade”, as Oasis once sang.
Sonny proudly tells the magazine he’s not one for a night out.
He said: “I’m very much a night-in person.
Seeing friends, some good food and drinks and playing games of some kind.
Molly Moorish-Gallagher, Liam’s daugher
“A nice meal with friends and then gathering over some sort of board game or film at home.”
While Molly says her idea of a wild night is: “Seeing friends, some good food and drinks and playing games of some kind.”
But if the Cool Britannia nepo kids aren’t keeping the Nineties hedonistic vibe going, it seems Gen Z-ers are keeping the momentum going through fashion.
Singers Dua Lipa and Lola Young have been inspired by other huge names of the Nineties in their fashion choices.
And Liam’s son Lennon was pretty much an identikit copy of his dad when he attended a Burberry pub takeover last week.
A new study has also revealed that youngsters are now huge fans of some of the decade’s greatest hairstyles, including The Rachel from Friends, the floppy hair of actor Johnny Depp and Victoria Beckham’s Posh bob.
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It’s all about the flag for singer Lola Young – seemingly a nod to Geri Horner’s Ginger SpiceCredit: Instagram/lolayounggg
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Geri rocking the iconic Girl Power outfitCredit: Alamy
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Lennon Gallagher in Burberry jacket last week…Credit: Getty
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… just like dad Liam during Oasis’s 1996 Maine Road gigCredit: PA:Press Association
The study, commissioned by Funkin Cocktails, also found a fondness for Doc Marten boots and baggy jeans, famously sported by the likes of Mark Wahlberg when he was rapper Marky Mark.
Ashley Birch-Ruffell, from Funkin Cocktails, said: “Nineties fashion is very on trend, and it’s fun to see what our official favourite styles are.
“There are clearly many iconic hairstyles and memorable moments from this decade that live on in the public consciousness.
“It seems clear that Nineties trends aren’t going anywhere anytime soon — and why would we want them to?”
“It’s clear that the whole culture of the Nineties is still considered unapologetically iconic.”
Gen Z can’t match our hellraising era
IT was a sensational whirl of bucket hats, Union Jacks, lads’ mags, boozy bands and more than a whiff of the old marching powder, writes Rod McPhee.
The late Nineties were a hellraising golden age not seen since the Swinging Sixties.
But despite being due another period of partying, I’m sorry to say we’ll never quite be able to match the magic of the original Cool Britannia.
Trust me, I was there, I did it. I got the T-shirt – and the dodgy Liam Gallagher shaggy haircut
What’s more, I loved it all. From music to fashion, and movies to models, the run-up to the year 2000 was the perfect blend of sex and, yes, drugs, plus lashings of rock ’n’ roll.
Of course, it’s great to get a taste of the good old days when Oasis stage their comeback tour next week, plus there’s the prospect of the Spice Girls doing a similar celebratory event next year.
But nothing can once again live up to a period in modern pop culture history which I believe was genuinely unique. Maybe I’m looking back at the past through rose-tinted glasses.
But no pop groups, artists, catwalk stars or actors these days come close to the tearaway Primrose Hill crowd that kept us entertained and shocked three decades ago.
That said, no one would love reliving some of the brilliance of the Nineties more than me.
So let’s make the most of summer 2025.
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Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, and Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, resigned from their positions on the Democratic National Committee. This could be great news.
I don’t really know, because the actual reasons remain murky.
“While I am proud to be a Democrat,” Weingarten told DNC Chair Ken Martin in her resignation letter, “I appear to be out of step with the leadership you are forging, and I do not want to be the one who keeps questioning why we are not enlarging our tent and actively trying to engage more and more of our communities.”
Color me skeptical this is the real reason. I doubt Martin’s stated policy is to shrink the Democratic tent or refrain from engaging with “more and more of our communities” — whatever that means. Much of the reporting on the resignations revolves around old-fashioned Democratic disarray and internal power struggles. Weingarten and Saunders had supported Martin’s opponent in the recent election of a new DNC chair. That may be all there is to it, which would be a shame.
That’s because the Democratic Party is a mess. Don’t get me wrong, so is the Republican Party, but for different reasons. The GOP is also in charge, controlling the White House and both branches of Congress. Moreover, for all the problems the Republican Party has, it has the wind at its back and remains more popular than the Democrats. In 2024, it made impressive strides with many core Democratic demographic constituencies, including Black, Latino and young voters.
The GOP has a story to tell voters. You may not like the story. You may think it’s not actually following through on the vision it’s selling, but Republicans know how to articulate what they’re for. Democrats not so much.
Historically, the Democratic Party is the party of government. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt said: “It is the purpose of government to see that not only the legitimate interests of the few are protected but that the welfare and rights of the many are conserved.”
The Democratic Party has gotten itself into a mess because it has evolved — or devolved — into a party fairly perceived as more concerned with the interests of the few and less concerned with the welfare and rights of the many. That was the underlying message of that ad the Trump campaign played more than any other (30,000 times!). It showed a clip of Kamala Harris explaining her support for government-funded sex-change surgeries for illegal immigrants. It closed with: “She’s for they/them. He’s for you.” The anti-transgender message was obvious (and broadly popular), but the subtext was more important: Harris is for niche issues that excite activists while Trump is for the meat-and-potatoes concerns of the common American.
Few groups represent the Democrats’ broader problem better than groups such as Weingarten’s AFT (teachers unions typically make up about 1 in 10 of the delegates at Democratic conventions). During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Weingarten consistently put the needs of union members over the general welfare, while insisting she was putting children first. She opposed reopening schools long after it was remotely necessary to operate remotely and successfully badgered Joe Biden to violate his pledge to reopen them quickly.
AFT and other public-sector unions, such as AFSCME, are an ATM for the Democratic Party. And the Democratic Party is responsive to donors. For instance, one of the first things President Biden did when he took office was issue an executive order repealing a Trump administration policy that restricted government employees from spending more than 25% of their time doing union business while on the job. He put the number back up to 100%.
There’s a reason FDR disliked the idea of unionizing government employees. The government shouldn’t be captured by special interests that use state power to further their ends over the general welfare. Democrats instinctively understand this when it comes to corporate interests but seem blind to it for members of their own coalition. Biden’s effort to lawlessly cancel student debt wasn’t just terrible policy; it also sent the signal that the party put the interests of the few above the many.
As a conservative, I don’t typically root for the Democratic Party. But I’ve come to realize that our system depends on two healthy, sane parties competing over best policies. When one party goes off the rails, it gives permission for the other party to do likewise. If the departure of Weingarten and Saunders is a sign the party is coming to realize that, that’s good news indeed.
The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.
Ideas expressed in the piece
Jonah Goldberg argues that Randi Weingarten and Lee Saunders’ departures from the DNC signal potential Democratic introspection, suggesting the party may be reevaluating its alignment with special interests over broader public welfare[1][4].
He critiques the Democratic Party’s perceived focus on “niche issues” like government-funded transgender surgeries for undocumented immigrants and student debt cancellation, which he claims prioritize activist demands over mainstream voter concerns[4].
Goldberg highlights the GOP’s recent electoral gains with Black, Latino, and young voters as evidence of Democratic disconnect, contrasting Republican policy clarity with Democratic “messaging incoherence”[4].
He accuses public-sector unions like AFT and AFSCME of wielding disproportionate influence over Democratic priorities, citing Biden’s reversal of Trump-era union work limits as an example of donor-driven policymaking[1][4].
Different views on the topic
Internal DNC conflicts, including the resignations, reflect debates over strategy rather than moral failings, with Weingarten advocating for a more inclusive “big tent” approach to engage diverse communities[1][2].
Critics argue Goldberg misrepresents Democratic priorities, noting the party’s continued focus on worker rights through initiatives like “No Kings Day” protests against authoritarianism and for public education funding[3].
Defenders of union influence contend collective bargaining remains vital for protecting public-sector workers, with Saunders framing his resignation as a push for “new strategies” to advance progressive values in changing political landscapes[1][2].
Some analysts view the departures as fallout from leadership disputes rather than ideological shifts, noting Martin’s recent DNC chair election victory over Weingarten and Saunders’ preferred candidate[2][4].
LONDON — The world may be rethinking the American dream.
For centuries, people in other countries saw the United States as place of welcome and opportunity. Now, President Trump’s drive for mass deportations of migrants is riling the streets of Los Angeles, college campuses, even churches — and fueling a global rethinking about the virtues and promise of coming to America.
“The message coming from Washington is that you are not welcome in the United States,” said Edwin van Rest, CEO of Studyportals, which tracks real-time searches by international students considering studying in other countries. Student interest in studying in America has dropped to its lowest level since the COVID-19 pandemic, it found. ”The fact is, there are great opportunities elsewhere.”
There has long been a romanticized notion about immigration and America. The reality has always been different, with race and ethnicity playing undeniable roles in the tension over who can be an American. The U.S. still beckons to the “huddled masses” from the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. The strong economy has helped draw millions more every year, with the inflow driving the U.S. population over 340 million.
Early clues across industries — like tourism, trade, entertainment and education — suggest the American dream is fading for foreigners who have historically flooded to the U.S.
Polling by Pew Research Center from January through April found that opinions of the U.S. have worsened over the past year in 15 of the 24 countries it surveyed.
Trump and many of his supporters maintain that migrants in the country illegally threaten American safety, jobs and culture. But people in the country legally also have been caught in Trump’s dragnet. And that makes prospective visitors to the U.S., even as tourists, leery.
Trump’s global tariff war and his campaign against international students who have expressed pro-Palestinian sympathies stick especially stubbornly in the minds of people across American borders who for decades clamored to participate in the land of free speech and opportunity.
“The chances of something truly horrific happening are almost certainly tiny,” Duncan Greaves, 62, of Queensland, Australia, advised a Reddit user asking whether to risk a vacation to the land of barbeques, big sky country and July 4 fireworks. “Basically it’s like the Dirty Harry quote: ‘Do you feel lucky?’”
Trump has married two immigrants
For much of its history, America had encouraged immigration as the country sought intellectual and economic fuel to spur its growth.
But from the beginning, the United States has wrestled with the question of who is allowed to be an American. The new country was built on land brutally swiped from Native Americans. It was later populated by millions of enslaved Africans.
The American Civil War ignited in part over the same subject. The federal Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers for a decade. During World War II, the U.S. government incarcerated about 120,000 people of Japanese descent in 10 concentration camps. About two-thirds were U.S. citizens.
Still, the United States has always been a nation of immigrants, steered by the “American Creed” developed by Thomas Jefferson, which posits that the tenets of equality, hard work and freedom are inherently American.
Everyone, after all, comes from somewhere — a fact underscored on-camera in the Oval Office this month when German Chancellor Friedrich Merz gave the president the framed birth certificate of Trump’s grandfather, also named Friedrich, who emigrated from Germany in 1885. He was one of millions of Germans who fled war and economic strife to move to the United States in the late 19th Century.
There’s a story there, too, that suggests the Trump family knows both the triumphs of immigration and the struggle and shame of being expelled.
After marrying and making a fortune in America, the elder Trump attained U.S. citizenship and tried return to Germany. He was expelled for failing to complete his military service — and wrote about the experience.
“Why should we be deported? This is very, very hard for a family,” Friedrich Trump wrote to Luitpold, prince regent of Bavaria in 1905, according to a translation in Harper’s magazine. “What will our fellow citizens think if honest subjects are faced with such a decree — not to mention the great material losses it would incur.”
Trump himself has married two immigrant women: the late Ivana Zelníčková Trump, of what’s now the Czech Republic, and his current wife, Melania Knauss Trump of Slovenia.
Coming to America
It’s hard to overstate the degree to which immigration has changed the face and culture of America — and divided it.
Immigration in 2024 drove U.S. population growth to its fastest rate in 23 years as the nation surpassed 340 million residents, the U.S. Census Bureau said in December. Almost 2.8 million more people immigrated to the United States last year than in 2023, partly because of a new method of counting that adds people who were admitted for humanitarian reasons. Net international migration accounted for 84% of the nation’s 3.3 million-person increase in the most recent data reported.
Immigration accounted for all of the growth in 16 states that otherwise would have lost population, according to the Brookings Institution.
But where some Americans see immigration largely as an influx of workers and brain power, Trump sees an “invasion,” a longstanding view.
Since returning to the White House, Trump has initiated an far-reaching campaign of immigration enforcement that has pushed the limits of executive power and clashed with federal judges trying to restrain him over his invocation of special powers to deport people, cancel visas and deposit deportees in third countries.
In his second term, unlike his first, he’s not retreating from some unpopular positions on immigration. Instead, the subject has emerged as Trump’s strongest issue in public polling, reflecting both his grip on the Republican base and a broader shift in public sentiment.
A June survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 46% of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s handling of immigration, which is nearly 10 percentage points higher than his approval rating on the economy and trade. The poll was conducted at the beginning of the Los Angeles protests and did not include questions about Trump’s military deployment to the city.
‘Shaken their confidence’
The U.S. is still viewed as an economic powerhouse, though people in more countries consider China to be the world’s top economy, according to the Pew poll, and it’s unclear whether Trump’s policies could cause a meaningful drain of international students and others who feel under siege in the United States.
Netherlands-based Studyportals, which analyzes the searches for international schools by millions of students worldwide, reported that weekly pageviews for degrees in the U.S, collapsed by half between Jan. 5 and the end of April. It predicted that if the trend continues, the demand for programs in the U.S. could plummet further, with U.S. programs losing ground to countries like the United Kingdom and Australia.
“International students and their families seek predictability and security when choosing which country to trust with their future,” said Fanta Aw, CEO of NAFSA, which represents international educators. “The U.S. government’s recent actions have naturally shaken their confidence in the United States.”
