country

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — A federal judge on Wednesday refused to order Texas to extradite an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer charged with shooting a man and lying about it during the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.

Christian Castro is charged in Minnesota with assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 shooting of 24-year-old Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. Minnesota authorities have sought his extradition since his arrest, but he remains in custody in Brownsville, Texas, a city bordering Mexico.

Under Texas law and barring extradition, Castro must be released after 90 days of detention, which is Thursday.

Minnesota Atty. Gen. Keith Ellison filed a request for a temporary restraining order last week, asking a federal judge to prevent the sheriff in Cameron County, Texas, from releasing Castro, and to order Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to sign his extradition warrant.

Minnesota officials believe Castro could flee the country, citing calls he made from jail to a woman in Mexico, talking “about marrying her and buying a house in Mexico when he is released,” according to the lawsuit.

Castro is accused of firing a gun through the front door of a Minneapolis home, shooting Sosa-Celis in the leg. Prosecutors say Castro also falsely accused Sosa-Celis and another man of attacking an ICE officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel.

At a federal hearing in Brownsville on Tuesday, attorneys with the Minnesota attorney general’s office argued it would be hard to compel Castro to face charges in their state if he was released, and they fear Castro may flee the country, citing his phone conversations.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said last week he would not respond to the extradition request, citing the ongoing investigation into fraud in government social service programs in Minnesota, which President Trump used to justify his immigration crackdown there.

Gonzalez writes for the Associated Press.

BBC’s Escape to the Country saw couple Matt and Jamie embark on a house hunt in Devon, where they were wowed by a clever country house feature

Escape to the Country host Sonali Shah admitted she was “obsessed” with one property as the BBC show accompanied two new house hunters to Devon.

As the property series supports prospective buyers, it was down to Sonali to help Matt and Jamie find their rural dream home in and around the idyllic county of South West England during Wednesday’s (August 26) episode of the BBC series.

Jamie, an NHS genetic counselor based in the Oxfordshire town of Wantage, and her partner Matt, an aerospace engineer living in Eastleigh, Hampshire, had a budget of £550,000 to purchase their property together, with hopes of the house becoming a family home in the future.

When Sonali visited the third property on her list, she shared her excitement and said: “Our mystery house is all about location, and I can’t wait to see their reaction about being smack bang in the middle of the village. The house itself, oh my word.”

The host later confessed to Jamie and Matt: “I’m going to be straight, I am obsessed with this house,” before Jamie later confirmed it was a “dream home.”

The handsome Georgian house, situated in Ipplepen, offered four bedrooms and two reception rooms, nestled in the very heart of the village, and was priced at £530,000.

As Matt and Jamie explored the charming home, they were particularly struck by one standout feature — a first-floor laundry room.

Matt said, “It’s a clever use of space, actually,” as Jamie replied, “It is a really smart idea. You’re not having to lug washing baskets up and down the stairs every five minutes. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t do that.”

Despite Jamie highlighting the “perfection” of the property’s interior design, she noted the garden offered no room for a workshop — something that could prove a dealbreaker. Matt conceded the home fell short of their “practical needs”, yet remained keen.

Later in the episode, which originally aired in 2024, Jamie and Matt unveiled the outcome of their property search on Escape to the Country.

The couple delightedly announced they had placed an offer on the very first property, with Matt saying: “After seeing the second and third one, the first was the best fit for us.”

Their offer had been accepted, and Matt and Jamie had successfully purchased a property in Mutterton which was on the market for £550,000. The 19th-century cottage boasted three bedrooms, an annexe, and a sizeable kitchen.

Escape to the Country airs on BBC One and is available to stream on iPlayer

Ukranian center Kate Koval will not return to Louisiana State’s basketball team next season, coach Kim Mulkey said in a statement released by the Tigers on Monday.

Koval’s decision to leave the program comes less than two weeks after LSU announced the signing of Russian teenager Anna Minaeva. Koval was born and raised in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city, and her father is a drone operator fighting against Russia in its four-year invasion of Ukraine. According to nola.com, Koval said last season that she worried for her father’s life “every single day.”

“Kate came to see me on Sunday and told me that after much consideration, she will be leaving the program for personal reasons,” Mulkey said in her statement. “We will respect her privacy on her decision, but we had a long talk about it, and it was a hard decision for her. I know it is hard because she loves LSU.

“Kate is a great person. She has to do what she feels is right for her, and we fully support her in that. We all wish her the best.”

No announcement has been made about a future basketball home for Kobal, a 6-foot-5 rising junior who played at Notre Dame as a freshman before averaging 8.3 points, 6.3 rebounds and 1.2 blocks for the Tigers last season.

Minaeva, also a 6-5 center, is 17 but has previously played professionally with MBA Moscow. Mulkey told nola.com that she spoke with Koval earlier in the offseason before starting the recruiting process with Minaeva.

“I want you to understand I’m not here to ask you to change how you feel about Russia,” Mulkey said she told Koval. “I’m just here out of respect for your family and out of respect for you to let you know. Because I know how personal it is for you.

“Know that what I have to do in this business, I cannot make a decision to not recruit somebody that can help our program because of a conflict between two countries.”

Dolly Parton had reportedly been battling cancer before her death.

A spokesperson for Parton’s estate confirmed the cause of death to the New York Times.

In a statement, also shared with People, a representative for the country music icon said: “After bravely facing a brief battle with cancer, Dolly departed her Earthly life today at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center surrounded by loved ones.”

The type of cancer was not specified. TMZ had previously reported that Parton had been hospitalized early Friday for kidney and autoimmune issues.

Parton’s death at age 80 was announced earlier Tuesday by her nephew Bryan Seaver in a news release and in a video shared to the singer’s Instagram page. Tributes from entertainment luminaries, politicians and others immediately followed.

An entertainer and philanthropist, Parton had previously had a series of health issues that led her to postpone several public appearances and performances. She missed the announcement of a Dollywood attraction to recover from a kidney stone in September 2025. Later that month, she delayed her residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for unspecified “health challenges.”

“Our beloved Dolly Parton spent her life and career bringing joy, laughter, hope and integrity into everything she touched,” the statement from her representatives read. “Her unmatched generosity reached the lives of countless people whom she would never meet, yet she was always there to offer a helping hand.

“Whether it be the hundreds of millions of books donated through her invaluable Imagination Library or funding research that helped create a lifesaving vaccine used around the world, Dolly’s unconditional love for all people was the guiding force for her lasting impact.”

DOLLY Parton’s cause of death has been revealed as the country music superstar died following a “brief battle with cancer”, aged 80.

The Queen of Country passed away on Tuesday after suffering from a number of health issues in recent months.

It has now been revealed that Dolly died “surrounded by loved ones” in Nashville after a “brief battle” with cancer, reports People.

Representatives revealed the news in a statement to the outlet which did not reveal the type of cancer Dolly had been battling.

The statement read: “Our beloved Dolly Parton spent her life and career bringing joy, laughter, hope and integrity into everything she touched.

“Her unmatched generosity reached the lives of countless people whom she would never meet, yet she was always there to offer a helping hand.

BITTERSWEET GOODBYE

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It comes as:

“Whether it be the hundreds of millions of books donated through her invaluable Imagination Library or funding research that helped create a lifesaving vaccine used around the world, Dolly’s unconditional love for all people was the guiding force for her lasting impact.

“After bravely facing a brief battle with cancer, Dolly departed her Earthly life today at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center surrounded by loved ones.”

Dolly’s nephew Bryan Seaver announced her death in a heartbreaking statement on her official Instagram page Tuesday afternoon, shocking her fans worldwide.

Dolly had been struggling with her health for some time before her passing and was forced to bow out of numerous gigs.

She told PEOPLE on Friday: “I am dealing with some health issues that I just didn’t pay attention to when I was watching over Carl.”

Her beloved husband of 60 years, Carl Thomas Dean, died last March after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2019. He was 82 years old.

After cancelling a slew of shows in December, the Tennessee native admitted she needed to go through “a few procedures”.

Last October, Dolly’s sister Frieda had pleaded with her fans to pray for her sibling due to fears around her health.

It was only earlier this month that she shared an update with fans on social media saying she had a “few little health issues”.

She added that “sometimes I get a little dizzy and I get dehydrated”, saying her doctors had banned her from traveling to the opening of Dollywood’s latest ride.

But during her last public appearance, Dolly appeared upbeat at the unveiling of her new Nashville truck stop.

And just one week before her death, she shared about her excitement to open a new museum in her very last post.

Dolly has no children but leaves behind her legacy in music.

Across her illustrious career, Dolly became one of the most-honored female country performers of all time.

Dolly Parton’s Career Highlights

Dolly Parton is one of the most well-known country stars in the business, and her career has continued to flourish. Here’s a look at the highlights of the music legend’s decades-long career.

• Dolly wrote and released her first single, Puppy Love, including the B-track Girl Left Alone, on Goldband Records when she was 11 years old.
• Although her single wasn’t a big hit, she ended up performing at Nashville, Tennessee’s Grand Ole Opry for the first time at 13 years old and was introduced by Johnny Cash.
• Dolly made the Billboard country charts in January 1967 with two singles from Monument Records: Dumb Blonde and Something Fishy.
• The singer earned her first number-one hit in 1971 with her single Joshua.
• In 1974, Dolly’s arguably most well-known song, Jolene, reached number one on the country charts.
• Her music continued to succeed, and she was awarded the Female Vocalist of the Year award at the CMAs in 1975.
• Dolly’s track, Here You Come Again, achieved platinum status in 1978, and the album earned her a Grammy award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance.
• In 1980, Dolly starred in her first film, 9 to 5, alongside Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda and released her hit song of the same name.
• The star opened her famed amusement park, Dollywood, in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, in 1986.
• Later that year, she was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
• At 75 years old, Dolly recreated her 1978 Playboy Cover for her husband Carl Dean’s birthday.
• In May 2022, it was announced that Dolly would officially be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, alongside Eminem, Lionel Richie, Carly Simon, Eurythmics, Duran Duran, and Pat Benatar.

A total of 25 of her singles or albums became Gold, Platinum or Multi-Platinum records. 

She had 26 songs reach number one on the Billboard country charts – a record for a female artist – and 42 career top 10 country albums.

As of 2012, she had written more than 3,000 songs and sold more than 100 million records.

She also boasts a whole host of awards including 11 Grammy Awards alongside 55 nominations.

Dolly is also in several halls of fame across the US including the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Country Music Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

In 2023, she was even ranked at number 27 on Rolling Stone‘s 2023 list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.

In a brief online elegy for Dolly Parton, with whom she’d worked on the women-empowering film “9 to 5,” actor and famed liberal activist Jane Fonda made it a point to note that Parton cared about her queer fans.

“To her gay and trans fans, I want you to know that she loved you,” Fonda wrote. “You know that without me telling you.”

Indeed, we do.

Dolly meant something special to the LGBTQ+ community, in part because she represented an America where we are accepted — not just in big blue cities, but in one-room cabins in East Tennessee and in every rural, American-flag-flying corner of this big country.

Dolly was colorful and vivacious and unapologetic, and had more than a bit of drag queen in her. But she was also an unabashed ally with a country twang — a friend from the part of America where many queer people still instinctively put their guard up.

Of course, a country twang and queer acceptance can go hand in hand, and often do.

The Human Rights Campaign just last week cited a new U.S. Census Bureau analysis showing a record-high 12% of U.S. adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or gender diverse.

That’s more than 25 million people, and they live all across the country. Many sound like Dolly. Many are surrounded by loving, supportive family too.

Yet it remained important, particularly as LGBTQ+ rights have come under increasing attack, that Dolly — big, beloved, down-home Dolly — had our back too.

She wrote and sang the Oscar-nominated song “Travelin’ Thru” from the 2005 movie “Transamerica,” about a transgender woman and her son. She collaborated with her goddaughter Miley Cyrus on “Rainbowland,” a tribute to gay pride. And she made no secret of where she stood.

“I have some of everybody in my own immediate family and in my circle of employees. I’ve got transgender people. I’ve got gays. I’ve got lesbians,” she said in 2023. “I know and love them all, and I do not judge.… That’s who they are. They cannot help that any more than I can help being Dolly Parton.”

The LGBTQ+ community has watched in recent years as corporations and other supposed allies have backed away and gone quiet amid shifting politics and the Trump administration’s war on diversity, equity and inclusion and the transgender community.

But not Dolly. We saw her stand her ground, next to us. And that meant something. Dolly showed that you can appeal to the whole of America without throwing LGBTQ+ people under the bus.

She showed that you can stand behind LGBTQ+ people without twisting into socially awkward or politically damaging positions, no matter your audience. Sometimes it just takes plain language about accepting everyone as they are.

She showed that holding onto faith, patriotism and the American way of life doesn’t mean you can’t also hold space for LGBTQ+ people to live their own happy lives.

She showed that we are all more alike than we are different, and that it’s easier to see eye to eye when you aren’t looking past one another.

Dolly showed that a country star and all-American icon, beloved as much in rural dive bars as big city queer clubs, could transcend the bogus narrative that LGBTQ+ lives are a political issue rather than a part of our collective humanity — and that all of us can too.

Dolly represented the America that LGBTQ+ people love and remain loyal to, the open-armed, diverse, compassionate, take-people-as-they-come version of America that is still all of ours to enjoy if we just work for it a little — just like Dolly did.

Dolly loved LGBTQ+ people, and we loved her — in part because she showed us that our country still loves us too.

Dolly Parton, the singer and songwriter from Locust Ridge, Tenn., who willed herself into being the very symbol of country music stardom, has died in Nashville.

Parton died peacefully Tuesday, her nephew Bryan Seaver announced in a press release shared with The Times. Seaver also announced her death in a video shared to the singer’s Instagram page. She was 80.

The fabled entertainer died after a series of health issues that led her to postpone several performing commitments. In September 2025, she missed the announcement of a Dollywood attraction to recover from a kidney stone. Later that month she delayed her residency at Caesars Palace — her first residency on the Las Vegas Strip in more than 30 years — due to unspecified “health challenges.”

Over the course of a flamboyant 50-plus-year career as a songwriter, recording artist, actor and businesswoman, Parton reinvented the American success story through a combination of grit and wit, faith and sex appeal, virtuosity and plainspokenness, empathy for the human condition and plastic surgery.

She seized on the roles that American culture allowed for women in the spotlight — waif, trollop, fallen woman, country girl in over her head — and played them to the hilt, achieving artistic and financial heights few female performers have ever reached. By the time of her death, she was said to be one of the few things that Americans of most every persuasion could agree on.

One of the most honored musicians in modern history, Parton earned 10 Grammy Awards, two Academy Award nominations, a Primetime Emmy, 10 Country Music Assn. awards, and in 1999 she was enshrined in the Country Music Hall of Fame.

In 2005 President George W. Bush presented Parton with the National Medal of the Arts, and a year later she was given a Kennedy Center for the Arts Award for her lifetime contribution to the arts. Parton logged some 25 gold or platinum records and 25 No. 1 songs on the country chart. Parton also won a Liseberg Applause Award, the biggest prize in the theme park industry, for her fabled tourist attraction Dollywood.

Parton’s rags-to-riches tale reads like a classic country music story-song. But before it became mythical, it was only incredibly hard.

Dolly Rebecca Parton was born in Locust Ridge, Tenn., in the Great Smoky Mountains, on Jan. 19, 1946. Her father was a tobacco sharecropper and she was the fourth of 12 children. In her autobiography, “Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business,” Parton related how her parents were so poor they paid the doctor who delivered her with a sack of cornmeal.

Raised in a one-room cabin with no electricity, she listened to the Grand Ole Opry on a battery-powered radio. When she was 7 she started writing songs; a year later she picked up the guitar. At 10 she was singing on a Knoxville radio and TV program, “Cas Walker Farm & Home Hour.”

The Parton family was musical, and there were always banjos, fiddles, mandolins and guitars around the cabin. Her voice, a birdlike soprano with an animated trill, hadn’t changed much from her youth: “I sound like a little girl singing all these Lord-awful songs,” she told “Fresh Air’s” Terry Gross in 2001.

On a Friday night in 1964, Parton became the first in her family to graduate from high school. The next afternoon she was on a bus heading for Nashville, targeting a career in country music.

Bob Hope gets an adjustment to his reindeer costume as he and Dolly Parton prepare to tape a 1988 Christmas special on a cruise ship docked in Miami.

(Kathy Willens / Associated Press)

Women had little real power in Nashville at the time, and though rural women were a growing part of the country music audience, they were marginalized as artists. Parton signed to the Monument label, but felt that they wanted a pop singer more than they wanted her. An early breakthrough came when singer Bill Phillips heard a demo version of her “Put It Off Until Tomorrow”; not only did he want to record the song, but he recorded it with Parton singing harmony on it. The song went to No. 6 on the country chart in 1966.

In 1967 she recorded Curly Putman’s “Dumb Blonde,” her first charting song as a singer and a savvy choice that spoke to her as both an image and as flesh and blood, as she sang:

Just because I’m blond
Don’t think I’m dumb
‘Cause this dumb blond ain’t nobody’s fool

Nashville noticed. That year, country music star Porter Wagoner was looking for a new “girl singer” for his popular TV show, after Norma Jean left. Parton got the gig, and for weeks, legend has it, was greeted by the studio audience shouting “Norma Jean” when Parton opened her mouth. It was the kind of challenge she lived for. Carefully deferential to the star, Parton carved out a foothold for herself.

They were a complicated team. Tall, gaunt and calculating, Wagoner’s angles had angles, but somehow standing next to her, his pompadour dwarfing her considerable bouffant, it worked. At their peak, they had a weekly TV viewership of over 3.5 million, and recorded numerous hit duets, “Holding on to Nothin” (1968), “If Teardrops Were Pennies” (1973) and “Please Don’t Stop Loving Me” (1974) among them.

On her solo recordings at the time, Parton included a raft of songs about poor children in trouble. These gothic, occasionally autobiographical compositions, including “Coat of Many Colors,” “My Blue Ridge Mountain Boy,” “Evening Shade,” “Daddy Come and Get Me” and “Down From Dover,” would have been more than enough to make her, if not a star, at least a country music legend. But the kind of attention even her lesser work with Wagoner enjoyed continued to elude her own material.

Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers laugh together backstage at an April 2010 show honoring her “Islands in the Stream” singing partner.

(Rick Diamond / Getty Images)

By 1973, Parton realized that if she was going to be her own star she would have to be on her own. Wagoner fought and threatened, and finally, Parton wrote a song as a way to help him understand both her gratitude and her need for independence, “I Will Always Love You.” He liked the song, but it didn’t convince him. Wagoner sued her for $20 million over breach of contract and settled for $1 million.

But Parton had won her freedom, and she made the most of it. Her album from that year, “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” was a reintroduction to her audience, an autobiographical cycle of songs telling the story of a singer leaving home to make it on Music Row. And in 1974, “Jolene” became her chart-topping breakthrough.

The title was the name of a red-haired, green-eyed young fan Parton met signing autographs, and the story of a woman begging a rival to leave her man alone. Parton said she made it up after discovering a bank teller had a crush on her husband. With a beveled chord progression and a haunting repetition of the name, it became perhaps her most requested song, and was covered by many, including the White Stripes, Candi Staton, Reba McEntire and Olivia Newton-John.

“I wanted to be seen, I wanted to be recognized, I wanted to be a star,” she explained. The last part was now coming into focus.

In 1976 she hosted a short-lived variety TV series, “Dolly!” Her name was her brand, and so, too, was her profile: the full bosom and tiny waist, platinum wig and baubles like sprinkles on an ice cream cone, 5 feet tall standing in five-inch heels. She was a disarming contradiction: manufactured and utterly sincere.

“A country girl’s idea of what glamour was,” she explained.

“I didn’t have any money to have stuff and I’ve often joked about it, but it’s the real truth that I patterned myself after what they considered the trash in our hometown.” She took shame and made it a flag, one big enough for all sorts of Americans to settle beneath.

Dolly Parton checks out an exhibit honoring her life and career at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in May 2025.

(Jason Kempin / Getty Images)

Building on her fame, in the mid-’70s Parton decided to reinvent herself by reaching beyond the confines of country music. She signed with L.A.-based talent manager Sandy Gallin, who had made Mac Davis a country crossover star and would soon work with Cher and Michael Jackson.

Parton laid off her longtime Traveling Family Band and sought out musicians and songs that were more purely pop. Hits that followed included “Here You Come Again” (No. 20 on the pop chart, 1977), “Heartbreaker” (No. 37, 1978) and duets with Kenny Rogers like “Islands in the Stream” (No. 1, 1983).

The pop move was muttered over and seen by gatekeepers as a rejection of Southern-based authenticity. It was the era of “Urban Cowboy” and purity was being policed. “I love country music. It’s my first love,” she told the SoHo News. “But it was confining. You can only go so far in a circle.”

The movie “9 to 5” from 1980 settled her broadening stardom; acting alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in a comedy about three office workers who get even with an abusive boss, Parton charmed viewers. It was her first acting role, and Roger Ebert called her “a natural born movie star.” She wrote and sang the movie’s theme song, which topped Billboard’s pop and country charts.

Dolly Parton and her “9 to 5” castmates Jane Fonda, left, and Lily Tomlin assemble at a 1980 news conference to promote the movie.

(Wally Fong / Associated Press)

Parton would go on to act in “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” (1982), “Rhinestone” (1984), “Steel Magnolias” (1989), the “Hannah Montana” TV series (she was Miley Cyrus’ godmother in real life too), and in many more films and TV shows. But her biggest cinematic moment came with a song she’d written years before; “I Will Always Love You” was sung by Whitney Houston in the 1992 film “The Bodyguard,” turning her air kiss to Porter Wagoner into a No. 1 hit for 14 weeks.

In the mid-1980s, Parton suffered a number of setbacks. She experienced depression. “I was just broken down,” she said later. In 1982, abdominal pain and bleeding forced her to cancel a tour, and in 1984 she had a partial hysterectomy. There were bouts of binge eating, and when she hit bottom she considered suicide. A series of conversations with God were instrumental in her recovery, Parton said.

Underscoring her connection to her origins while also illustrating how far she had gone, in 1986 she bought an old amusement park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., and reinvented it as Dollywood, a booming theme park, resort and theater. Other businesses included Sandollar Productions, a film and TV company. In the 1990s Parton formed her own label, Blue Eye Records.

Success meant she could settle into being Dolly. A trio of beloved bluegrass albums, “The Grass Is Blue,” “Little Sparrow” and “Halos & Horns,” around the turn of the millennium reestablished her as a performer with extensive roots in rural America. She recorded with everyone from Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris to Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Her 2019 cover of John Hiatt’s “Faith,” made with Swedish duo Galantis, topped the EDM charts.

She embraced her Christian and LGBTQ+ fans, and perhaps no American artist had more of each. Inclusivity mattered to Parton. She was an icon to the LGBTQ+ community. In 2002 at the House of Blues in Los Angeles, Parton replaced the name Jolene with “drag queen” and sang her famous song as a roster of drag performers looked on.

Dolly Parton at the 57th Academy of Country Music Awards in 2022.

(John Locher / Associated Press)

Just two years later, in 2004, the Library of Congress presented Parton with the since-retired “Living Legend Medal,” which sought to recognize those that made significant creative contributions to American life.

Singer and songwriter Brandi Carlile called Parton “an angel on my shoulder and also the devil on my other shoulder.”

“When I was 15 years old I read the back of Dolly Parton’s book when she became the first country artist ever to speak out in support of LGBTQ people. And I can tell you that as a queer kid from a small town, getting love from Dolly is second only to God.”

Parton has been honored in musical tributes by Carrie Underwood, Alison Krauss and Shania Twain. “Jolene” became the subject of the short story “Jolene: A Life,” by E.L. Doctorow. In 2019 WNYC and Jad Abumrad presented “Dolly Parton’s America,” a nine-segment podcast devoted to, and with the cooperation of, Parton; it examined her persona and impact on American life.

That same year Netflix presented “Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings,” an anthology series in which each episode presents a fictional narrative built around a Parton song; the series features appearances by Kathleen Turner, Delta Burke and Melissa Leo.

Dolly Parton and President Carter embrace as First Lady Rosalynn Carter looks on before a White House luncheon in October 1979.

(Georges / Associated Press)

Her influence was so vast she has even been proposed as a field of academic study, and scrutinized in the 2018 academic study from Leigh H. Edwards, “Dolly Parton, Gender, and Country Music.”

She was married to the same man, Carl Thomas Dean, for over 50 years. They met on the day she arrived in Nashville in 1964, as she stood outside a laundromat. Parton and Dean were rarely seen in public together, and renewed vows in 2016. Dean died at age 82 in March 2025.

“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together,” Parton said in a statement at the time. “Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.”

Parton remained a source of interest and fascination, and though few if anyone could really claim to know her, many thought they did. As she once put it: “I look one way and am another. It makes for a good combination.”

The wife of an active-duty U.S. soldier was deported Monday to her native Honduras, according to her family and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Cristy Maryori Villafranca-Trejo is at least the seventh spouse or parent of an active-duty U.S. military service member to be deported under President Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The Associated Press has found more than 50 cases in which immediate family members of U.S. troops were placed in federal immigration detention after the Trump administration rolled back protections for military families. In some instances, DHS has released military spouses following media attention and advocacy by congressional leaders.

Villafranca-Trejo’s husband, Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez, said he has been struggling to manage his military duties since she was detained July 11 outside a Walmart near Fort Bliss, Texas, where he is stationed. Since then, he’s had to care for their 6-year-old daughter without his wife’s help. Instead of training in the mornings, he takes his daughter to first grade, and he said he has already had to postpone a planned assignment at another base.

“I don’t know if I will be able to continue with this,” Turcios Juarez told AP of his Army career. “I have to make a plan to make sure I can still fulfill my military responsibilities — but also take care of my family.”

DHS confirmed Villafranca-Trejo’s deportation, saying she had “received due process.”

Villafranca-Trejo, who has no known criminal record and entered the U.S. in 2016 at age 18, was issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge in 2017 after failing to appear at a hearing, according to DHS. Villafranca-Trejo’s husband said she had not received a notice for the hearing she missed and did not realize she had been ordered deported until they went to apply for her green card after marrying in 2022.

Originally from Honduras, Turcios Juarez became a U.S. citizen in 2024 after enlisting two years earlier.

Villafranca-Trejo’s motion to reopen her case was denied last May and an appeal before the Board of Immigration Appeals remained pending, according to her attorney. She had also been waiting for about a year for a decision on her application for military parole-in-place, a program that allows the immediate family of U.S. troops to remain in the country to apply for a green card.

“We were following the rules — we did everything we could on our side to fix this problem,” Turcios Juarez told the AP.

Prior to Trump’s second administration, U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement would typically allow immediate family members of U.S. troops to adjust their legal status even if they had been issued a final order of removal, according to Dan Gividen, who served as ICE deputy chief counsel from 2016 to 2019 under Trump.

“If you’ve got an active-duty military member that’s married to someone now, and that’s going to give her the opportunity to get a green card, you wouldn’t detain them, much less execute the removal order,” Gividen said.

JP Caballero, a spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat representing El Paso, said Escobar had opened a congressional inquiry into Villafranca-Trejo’s case and visited her at the Camp East Montana detention facility in Texas earlier this month.

“My heart breaks for her, her children and the soldier who must feel so betrayed by the country he is sacrificing for,” Escobar told AP in a statement. “There are far too many families like theirs who are being targeted instead of supported.”

Turcios Juarez said he is unsure how he will care for his daughter without his wife. He still hasn’t figured out how to tell his daughter what has happened. But he says he still wants to keep serving his country.

“I love what I do, I want to keep doing this,” he said of the Army. “I just don’t know how I am going to keep doing this.”

Brook writes for the Associated Press.

The final statistics are in for transfers for the 2025-26 school year compiled by the 10 sections that make up the California Interscholastic Federation, and it was another record year for transfers.

There were 17,618 transfers, according to the CIF. The 2023-24 school year marked the first time the transfers exceeded 17,000 with 17,068.

The Southern Section led the way with 7,248, a record.

CIF transfer numbers for 2025-26.

(Los Angeles Times)

Transfers have been a major topic for discussions in high school sports around the country, with state associations coming up with different ideas, from making athletes ineligible for one year in Texas if they transfer for athletic reasons to offering one-time free transfers.

The CIF held a roundtable for discussions in 2025 about possible policy changes but everything has been on hold while waiting for a court case to play out that was dismissed for a second time recently.

CIF membership has been cautious about intervening or limiting transfer opportunities for fear politicians in Sacramento might get involved.

WASHINGTON — The United States unveiled plans Monday for new sanctions against Iran that Trump administration officials said are designed to sever Tehran from the global financial system as the nearly six-month conflict between the two countries drags on.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who previewed the announcement last week as “economic D-Day,” described the measures as the opening of an all-out financial assault on the Iranian government and its trade partners — a group that includes China, India, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

“To those who enable Tehran, do not discount the cost of testing Washington’s resolve,” Bessent said at a news conference. “No nation should expect to enjoy the rewards of our system while helping those who seek to destroy it.”

Bessent said it was time for world leaders to “make a decision” between “America and Iran,” adding that President Trump has already been calling foreign leaders to make specific requests ahead of the new sanctions.

But when asked whom the president had been talking to, Bessent said he would not “name names.” He also said the secondary measure would not take effect immediately, arguing that the administration is trying to give “everyone the opportunity to remedy bad behavior.”

“Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?” Bessent said when a reporter pressed him on why the sanctions weren’t immediate. “We believe that it is important to level set and give people a cure period, but they should know that that will move very quickly and that we are serious.”

The pressure campaign will build on a naval blockade and other sanctions the Trump administration has already imposed in its effort to force Tehran into a deal that ends the war on U.S. terms.

Trump’s latest economic push against Iran revives a familiar strategy from presidents of both parties, using financial leverage to pressure Tehran toward more serious negotiations over its nuclear program. Sanctions helped bring Iran to the table before a 2015 nuclear deal brokered by President Obama, but the agreement was widely criticized as weak by Republicans. After Trump withdrew from the agreement in his first term, a new “maximum pressure” campaign failed to secure a new deal.

Trump’s decision to return to a strategy of economic coercion has signaled to Iran that the fighting phase of the war is probably over, for now, with the U.S. administration choosing a path “neither of war nor of peace,” Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran’s president, said this week.

Iranian officials, who had been anticipating the move, pushed back on Washington’s strategy even before Bessent began speaking Monday.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Iranian state media over the weekend that the sanctions amounted to a repackaged version of decades-old American pressure tactics that Tehran has already learned to withstand. Esmail Baghaei, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, warned of “grave consequences” for any countries cooperating with what he said was “illegal behavior” by the United States. And Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme Security Council, suggested that the economic pressure could shut down oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz, a threat that would ripple through global energy markets.

That defiance underscores the central gamble of Washington’s strategy. Rather than aiming sanctions at Iran alone, Bessent’s plan to potentially squeeze major economies like China and India over their ties to Tehran could pose a diplomatic risk to the U.S.

The fallout could also reach beyond foreign diplomacy as a hit to global markets also risks compounding Trump’s troubles at home ahead of the midterm elections, as Americans grow unhappy with the economy and their support for the conflict in the Middle East plummets. The Iran sanctions also land as the administration wages a separate trade fight with Canada, adding uncertainty to global and domestic markets.

Whether Washington will be able to apply pressure on Iran’s trade partners remains an open question.

China alone shares nearly $10 billion in bilateral trade with Iran, and paid roughly $31.2 billion for unreported Iranian crude oil imports in 2025, according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. That makes China the largest buyer of Iranian crude oil by a wide margin, accounting for more than 90% of Iran’s oil exports, according to the commission.

It is unclear whether Trump has spoken to China’s leader, Xi Jinping, about the sanctions. But the two leaders are set to meet in Washington next month, adding to the diplomatic dynamics of the moment.

Other trading partners have already made some moves.

The UAE said last week that it was suspending trade with Iran, a decision that followed accusations that Tehran had fired two ballistic missiles at the Emirates.

Afra Al Hameli, a spokesperson for the Emirati Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a post on Aug. 18 on X that all trade, commercial exchanges and financial transactions with Iran have been halted until further notice. She added that the Emirates was “firmly committed to safeguarding the integrity of the international financial system.”

Bessent said Monday that he expects other countries will “take similar actions as we continue our engagement.”

In an opinion article written for the Financial Times last week, Bessent has cast the new measures as the “single greatest financial offensive ever marshalled against an adversary.”

Bessent wrote that countries that “sever Iran’s remaining financial and commercial connectivity” will see their economies reinvigorated, and those who don’t will experience the end of their “lasting prosperity.”

“Any nation that serves as a financial artery of a withering regime should expect to share in its isolation,” he wrote. “To become a sanctuary for terror is to become, in the eyes of the United States, a global pariah.”

Ahead of the announcement Monday, Trump posted on Truth Social that Iran was “completely collapsing.”

Meanwhile, Iran’s central bank governor, Abdolnaser Hemmati, said the U.S. had already done all that it can against Iran and that the central bank had been shoring up its foreign currency reserves for months. Last week, he said Iran’s crude exports had “virtually stopped.”

“[The Americans] have done everything, so what else can they do?” he said in an interview with Tasnim News.

Despite his assurances that the central bank was working on preventing a devaluation of the Iranian rial, the currency has struggled to remain above a black market exchange rate of 2 million per dollar — a record low. The Central Bank rate stands at roughly 1.5 million rial to the dollar.

Though experts question the effectiveness of additional economic pressure on Tehran, Bessent’s threat to target Iran’s trading partners — especially the UAE, China and Turkey, who together comprise almost three-quarters of Iran’s foreign imports — will undoubtedly be painful for Iranians.

For example, Iran uses the UAE as a reexport hub and buffer, and receives vehicle spare parts from China, according to the Observatory for Economic Complexity. Iranian economic experts say both the agricultural and pharmaceutical sectors also rely on imports from countries such as Brazil and Turkey.

Ceballos reported from Washington and Bulos from Beirut.

A federal judge in New York has vacated a Trump administration policy that suspended the processing of visas from 75 countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, Russia and Somalia, whose nationals the Trump administration deemed likely to require public assistance in the United States.

U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas, an appointee of President Biden, described the policy Friday as “contrary to law and in excess of statutory authority.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio exceeded his authority by issuing the policy, which “runs afoul” of the Immigration and Nationality Act by mandating “the refusal of visas to eligible applicants without any basis in law,” the judge ruled.

Power lies with consular officers, judge says

Vargas said the policy also undermines the congressional requirement that puts consular officers at the forefront of any visa decision.

“Congress imbued these officers with exclusive authority and discretion to determine if an immigrant is eligible for a visa based upon review of specific and detailed criteria set forth in the statute,” she wrote. “The Policy, which categorically prohibits the issuance of immigrant visas based upon the nationality of the applicant, represents a direct abrogation of this statutory scheme.”

The policy was challenged by two nonprofit organizations along with 11 individuals, including six whose family members had been refused visas. The remaining five are outside the country and had filed “employment-based petitions” to come to the United States.

‘This case is about keeping families together,’ advocate says

“We welcome this ruling because, at its heart, this case is about keeping families together,” said Anna Gallagher, the executive director of CLINIC, a national nonprofit that provides training, resources and support to a network of immigration legal service providers and was one of the plaintiffs.

“Catholic social teaching calls us to uphold the dignity of every person and recognize the family as the foundation of society,” she said in a statement. “This decision affirms both those values and the rule of law, allowing families to once again move forward toward reunification.”

Another plaintiff is African Communities Together, a Harlem-based nonprofit. One of its leaders called the ruling “a tremendous victory for the rule of law.”

“This unlawful and racist ban caused immeasurable harm, cruelly keeping families and loved ones apart,” Diana Konate, deputy executive director for policy and advocacy, said in a statement. “Today, we are elated to tell our community members: this ban is no more.”

Trump expands anti-immigration agenda

President Trump has imposed a growing list of immigration and travel bans mostly for people from Africa, Asia and Latin America. The State Department said Saturday that the Trump administration is “protecting the American people by upholding the highest standards of screening and vetting of visa applicants,” and that it would not comment on pending litigation.

At the time the policy was issued, the State Department said it had instructed consular officers to halt immigrant visa applications from the 75 countries in accordance with a broader order in November that tightened rules around potential immigrants who might become “public charges.”

Relying on Council of Economic Advisors data, the State Department said that more than 30% of households with immigrants from these countries received some form of public assistance.

A separate notice sent to all U.S. embassies and consulates said that non-immigrant visa applicants also should be “fully vetted and screened” for the possibility that they might seek public benefits in the United States.

The cable, a copy of which was obtained by the Associated Press, noted several times that the applicant must prove they won’t apply for public benefits while in the U.S., and that consular officers who suspect the applicant might apply should require them to fill out a form proving their financial bona fides.

The ruling is the latest example of the courts upending Trump’s immigration agenda.

In June, a federal judge struck down a Trump administration policy that made it harder for immigrants from dozens of countries to enter and stay in the United States — affecting elements including asylum, work permits, green cards and citizenship applications. That judge said the policy threw countless immigrants’ lives “into indeterminate legal limbo,” and accused the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services of ignoring the law.

Casey writes for the Associated Press.

NEW YORK — Nearing the six-month mark of the Iran war and facing diminishing stockpiles of key weapons, the Trump administration is touting a crushing financial campaign against Tehran, promising an “economic D-Day” against a country that has withstood nearly five decades of punishing American sanctions.

With sparse details, President Trump announced this week that the U.S. would be imposing an “unprecedented” level of economic warfare and isolation on Iran, aiming to force its leadership to cave to demands to end its nuclear program and fully reopen the crucial Strait of Hormuz to oil and natural gas tankers.

It reflects the dire reality Trump faces with an increasingly unpopular war he can’t seem to end just months before pivotal midterm elections that will decide whether his Republican Party keeps control of Congress. Whether out of desperation or strategy, the president is refocusing America’s might on bringing Iran to its knees through an accelerated sanctions campaign against one of the most economically penalized countries in the world.

In response to the threat, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted Friday on X the history of U.S. sanctions against Iran, saying, “We have seen this movie before. Same bull. Different bullies.”

The immediate reaction from Iran hawks has been praise and a call for patience as it plays out, while other analysts warn that Trump is refusing to learn the lessons of his predecessors.

In an interview Thursday on CNBC, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered a small glimpse of what may be ahead, threatening secondary sanctions on nations and companies that conduct business with Iran.

He did not reveal who would be targeted as part of this next phase of the administration’s Operation Economic Fury, which earlier had focused on entities and people who buy oil from or bank with Iran. China and India, however, are major buyers of Iranian oil.

“If you insist on doing business with them, then the U.S. Treasury and U.S. government will put its full might and force against you,” Bessent said. “It’s time for our allies and the rest of the world to make a decision.”

Some experts see ‘uncharted waters’ that could force Iran’s hand

Despite decades of U.S. sanctions against Iran, the Trump administration is arguing that it’s only a matter of time and that striking the right economic target would get Tehran to its breaking point.

Richard Goldberg, who coordinated efforts to put diplomatic pressure on Iran in Trump’s first term, said the consequences of U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites last year, the war this year and the American naval blockade on Iranian ports have created the perfect storm for capitulation — one that didn’t previously exist.

“I think we’re watching a strategy, whether it takes a short time or a long time, that is very much about fundamentally changing the future of the world by seeing the end of this regime,” said Goldberg, who is now at the hawkish Washington think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, or FDD.

“I caution everyone — including myself, who has worked on sanctions, who’s worked on financial warfare — to have the humility to admit that we are in uncharted waters,” he said.

He said the decision this week by the United Arab Emirates — once one of Tehran’s most important trading partners — to suspend trade with Iran over an alleged missile attack will only further isolate the government.

Beyond trade in domestically produced goods, the Emiratis had helped the country absorb some of the shocks caused by sanctions through its re-export hub.

Targeting allies and partners comes at a price

With nearly all of Iran’s energy, financial and transportation sectors already covered by U.S. sanctions, Trump’s aim appears to be to apply secondary sanctions on countries, including allies and partners, that have not cut all ties with Iran to starve the country of any remaining income it may still be receiving.

In many ways, it is a redux of Trump’s first-term maximum-pressure campaign, which he has ramped up during his second term to include military action.

But as Trump and his allies discovered during his first administration, it can be difficult to enforce secondary sanctions without harming U.S. interests and provoking reciprocal measures. There were numerous instances of the administration granting sanctions waivers to countries, particularly those that rely on Iranian oil for their energy needs.

“Trump’s strategy now rests on targeting Tehran directly by impeding its touch points and access to the formal financial system and international economy,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the FDD’s Iran program. “This will require making the Iran issue more important in U.S. bilateral relations with countries in Europe and Asia.”

Iran doesn’t see an ‘open door’ at the end of the sanctions campaign

Iranian officials and analysts have accused the Republican president of flip-flopping with his latest pivot to economic pressure against Tehran. Trump has long derided past leaders who used sanctions to limit Iran’s ability to pay for its military and nuclear development.

In a post last week on X, Esmail Baghaei, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, wrote that Washington’s pattern of retreating to sanctions when it doesn’t want to pursue diplomacy has proven to be futile.

“Iran has demonstrated over decades that it will not be strangled by these exhausted refrains,” he said. “The real risk is that American politicians, clinging to this bad habit, will instead strangle their own remaining chances of a less humiliating exit from a crisis of their own making.”

Ali Vaez, Iran director at the International Crisis Group, said the Trump administration’s decision to take its own maximum-pressure policy to new heights with military action seems to ignore years of U.S. foreign-policy lessons that show Iran does not respond well to pressure.

If anything, he says, the latest economic campaign has only “hardened Iran’s position.”

“I think (Trump’s) blind spot is the fact that the only thing that the Iranian regime views as more dangerous than suffering from U.S. sanctions is surrendering to U.S. terms,” Vaez said.

Plus, the past year of start-stop diplomacy has only worsened the already fragile dynamic between the longtime adversaries, Vaez says, adding that Iranian officials’ lack of trust in Trump and his mediators has created an untenable foundation.

“They believe that even if they capitulate to U.S. terms under economic duress, Trump would move the goalposts and ask for more,” he said. “And this is really the fundamental problem: Pressure without an open door is an exercise in futility.”

Amiri writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Matthew Lee and Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.

DAKAR, Senegal — Twenty migrants deported from the United States arrived in Liberia on Thursday, the first group of an eventual 1,200 deportees that the West African country says it will receive from the U.S. under a new deal.

Under a series of often-secret agreements, the Trump administration has deported thousands of people to two dozen countries that aren’t their own, as it pushes ahead with its immigration crackdown, advocates say.

An estimated 11 of those agreements, nearly half the total, are with African countries and the Liberia-U.S. agreement involves one of the largest numbers of such third-country deportations

Immigration lawyers say the practice is being used as a legal loophole to indirectly return some asylum-seekers to countries they fled. Authorities in Liberia have said the deportees being welcomed in their country can seek asylum there or leave if they choose.

Here’s what to know about the deportations:

Why some African countries accept deportees

Other African countries that have received third-country deportees from the U.S. include South Sudan, Eswatini, Rwanda, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Congo, Uganda, Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic.

Some, like Ghana and Sierra Leone, are accepting deportees from their regions — in this case West Africa.

Many of the African countries approving the deals are among the worst hit by the Trump administration’s policies, including on trade, aid and migration. A good number of them also have authoritarian governments, raising questions about the lack of accountability and due process to ensure the protection of the deportees’ rights.

Details of most of the deals are never made public and some of the African nations, like Ghana’s government, have defended their actions as having been taken on humanitarian grounds.

The Trump administration had spent at least $40 million to deport about 300 migrants to countries other than their own, according to a February report by the Democratic staff of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. More countries have entered the deal since then.

Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi has described his country’s agreement as an “act of goodwill between partners,” without financial compensation. The deal came as Washington increased pressure on neighboring Rwanda over its support for M23 rebels, a dynamic analysts say may help explain Congo’s willingness to cooperate.

Many are asylum-seekers

Early flights to Africa included people that the U.S. said had convictions for serious crimes. But later transfers have included asylum-seekers with U.S. court orders protecting them from being returned to their home countries because they could face persecution or torture.

Many say they’ve been sent to countries with which they have no ties and where they were not told about until hours into the deportation journey.

For instance, a gay Moroccan woman deported to Cameroon, where homosexuality is illegal, and an Iranian woman with U.S. court protection from returning to Iran who was sent to the Central African Republic.

Immigration lawyer Alma David called that an effective legal “loophole,” saying deportees can be left with “impossible choices” — remain in an unfamiliar country with little support or return to a country a U.S. judge found unsafe.

U.S. policy says that when a receiving government gives blanket diplomatic assurances that deportees won’t face persecution there, they can be removed without additional procedures, David told The Associated Press.

Conditions vary in different countries

Some of the deportees have recounted being shackled while some were held in full-body restraint straitjackets called the WRAP during flights that can sometimes last more than 16 hours.

Their conditions in the different countries vary. In Sierra Leone, the government hired private contractor Kenvah Solutions to provide housing, food and healthcare.

In Congo, the International Organization for Migration said it has provided “humanitarian assistance” and offered assisted voluntary return to the migrants’ home countries. But deportees told the AP their movements were tightly controlled. They were housed behind locked gates, could not leave alone and were allowed out roughly once a week accompanied by IOM staff.

In Equatorial Guinea, the AP found deportees confined in a hotel owned by the family of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. Migrants said they were barred from leaving, had uneven access to medical care and faced repeated pressure to return home. Twenty-five of at least 32 people held there had been sent to their home countries by May.

Deportations have led to lawsuits and human rights concerns

Rights advocates say the third-country deportation program risks violating non-refoulement, the principle barring governments from sending people to places where they face persecution or torture.

An international coalition sued Ghana in June on behalf of 27 deportees, alleging most were quickly sent to their home countries, despite U.S. protection orders, and that some were held under armed guard in military camps, hotels and airport cells.

Rights lawyers have also brought a case against Equatorial Guinea before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, alleging deportees were returned to countries where they faced persecution despite U.S. court protections.

Banchereau writes for the Associated Press.

FRANCE has long been the world’s most visited country, but Spain is rapidly closing in.

Spain is projected to welcome 110million annual visitors by 2040.

A joint study between Deloitte and Google revealed France‘s predicted figure is slightly lower, at 105million annual visitors by 2040.

With Spain becoming more popular, knowing the lesser-visited spots and hidden gems is a must – so here’s our top recommendations when visiting the country:

Barcelona

Hitting headlines for being overwhelmed with tourists, Barcelona gets a bad rep.

The city is popular, there is no doubt about it, but it is for good reason – but the good news is that you can be clever about when you go.

Read more on travel inspo

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Travel outside of the peak season and the city will seem as busy as any other city.

Head to Las Ramblas first thing in the morning to avoid the crowds, and you’ll also get to see the magic of the street performers setting up.

While others are heading to the Sagrada Familia (which is stunning and a must visit, but do expect it to be busy) head around 30 minutes on the bus from the city centre, where you will find Parc Guell.

Also designed by Antoni Gaudi, the sprawling park features fairytale-like houses covered in mosaics, a grand hall with hundreds of pillars, and breathtaking views of the city.

For somewhere with a cheap drink, head to Nevermind Bar just off Las Ramblas.

This grunge dive bar is insanely cool with a skateboarding half- pipe inside and has €1 (86p) beers from 5pm to around 10pm. Cyann Fielding, Travel Reporter.

Ibiza

While partygoers flock to the southern coastlines of Ibiza where mega- clubs boom until the early hours and lively bars spill onto the sands, the north remains untouched and void of tourists.

That’s what makes it so special.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for cocktails on a cabana at a bohemian beach resort, but I like to blend it with unadulterated relaxation – and that’s what this island does best.

Head north and you’ll find ultra exclusive hotels like the Six Senses and Hacienda Na Xamena.

But don’t stay there; instead, book a more-affordable boutique hotel near the charming cobbled streets of the Old Town and explore the other side of Ibiza by boat.

Trips can be booked from the Old Town harbour, Playa d’En Bossa or San Antonio (with companies like samboat.co.uk and leboat.com).

You’ll get to sail past quiet, rugged coves with the brightest of blue waters – on one visit, my friend and I had an entire patch of sand to ourselves, that is until a couple of locals pottered over to play a mid- afternoon game of chess, perched on the rocks.

The petite village of  Sant Joan de Labritja hosts a hippy market every Sunday, selling gorgeous handmade jewellery, clothing and dream catchers. Sophie Swietochowski, Assistant Travel Editor

Tenerife

Tenerife might be one of the most popular Spanish islands to visit, but there is a hidden beach that you have to know about to find.

Tucked behind the towering pink Moorish resort Ritz-Carlton is Cueva de la Abama.

Private beaches are banned in Spain, but what makes this so hidden is that it is tucked down a winding road that weaves behind the resort.

The golden sands are overlooked by palm trees and a banana plantation, with a beach bar to keep you well hydrated all day.

If you want to arrive in style, stay at the resort – it offers a quaint green land train down to the beach that is exclusive to guests, as well as a funicular.

(It’s also one of the best hotels on the island, making it perfect for a treat-yourself holiday). Kara Godfrey, Deputy Travel Editor

Seville

Seville has been named everything from the happiest Spanish city to one of the best places to visit in the world – but it is also insanely affordable if you know where to look.

There’s Taberna Perejil, where you can find wine for €1.20 (£1) or Spanish cheap chain 100 Montaditos, which is scattered throughout the city with small beers from €1 (86p).

You can even visit some of the top attractions for free, if you’re quick.

The Royal Alcázar of Seville has free tickets on Mondays between 4pm and 7pm (although they go fast) while Seville Cathedral has free Sunday visits between 2:30pm and 6pm. Kara Godfrey, Deputy Travel Editor

Majorca

You can’t go wrong with a holiday to Majorca.

It’s got everything you want from an island, beautiful beaches, a pretty Old Town and plenty of activities to do.

The capital, Palma, is the perfect blend of city and beach with a busy Old Town full of winding streets with classic high street names and plenty of designer shops found on the ‘Golden Mile’.

It’s lined with brands like Louis Vuitton, Bvlgari and Hugo Boss but there are also little trinket shops selling shell-adorned jewellery and souvenirs too.

Majorca is hot in the summer, it’s why so many of us Brits flock there, and when it’s time to cool off with an ice cream, Giovanni L. Gelato Deluxe is the place to go.

It’s Palma’s oldest ice cream parlour with around 80 flavours to choose from.

Although I would recommend pistachio, which has twice been awarded the title for the “World’s Best Pistachio Ice Cream”.

One of my favourite spots that was actually very quiet was Levita Café.

It’s a 30-minute drive from the capital, but a two-minute walk from my hotel.

I stopped by for a refreshing rosé sangria which set me back €6.50 (£5). Alice Penwill, Travel Reporter

Valencia

The sun-soaked city of Valencia is a tourist magnet with its stunning Old Town, gorgeous parks and attractions and vast swathe of golden sands.

But many visitors can miss out on one of the hidden, natural wonders of the region and the place where Valencia’s most famous culinary treat is grown.

The Albufera Natural Park is home to lagoons and rice paddies where the main ingredient for paella is grown and taking a boat trip along the lagoon in a traditional boat – called an albuferenc – offers a very different view of this buzzing coastal city.

Drifting peacefully along rivers fringed with reeds and bursting with varied bird life is a real treat – and at the end of the journey, you get to sample a traditional paella at a local restaurant like Nou Raco with its elevated terrace offering views across the lagoon. Lisa Minot, Head of Travel

Cadiz

If you’re tired of overcrowded tourist traps and want a slice of authentic Andalusian culture, check out Cadiz.

Sunny Cadiz in the south of Spain is where the locals like to holiday – where Vespas hum through sun-bleached alleys which spill out into busy market squares.

Cadiz’s old town is anchored by these bustling plazas, where you can pick up everything from nourishing acai bowls to tasty cones of jamon Iberico.

Plaza de la Catedral is overlooked by the massive 18th-century Catedral de Santa Cruz and its gold-tiled dome – this spot is the centrepiece of the Old Town.

In the evenings, a traditional merry-go-round and street musicians liven up the square, making it the perfect spot to sit with a local sherry and watch the world go by.

The cathedral itself is well worth a visit, with a £7 ticket granting you access inside, as well as the top of the tower, the crypts and exhibitions.

There are plenty of gorgeous beaches here, too.

Playa la Caleta is a small stretch of sand that sits between two castles (and makes an appearance in Bond film Die Another Day) whilst Playa Victoria has white sand and a lengthy promenade. Jenna Stevens, Travel Reporter.

Alcudia

For beaches with powder-soft sands and waters so calm they feel like a giant paddling pool, take a trip to Alcudia in Majorca.

Growing up, we returned here year after year on family holidays – and now I understand why my parents picked this spot.

Alcudia is the ultimate Majorcan destination for families, with plenty of affordable hotels lining its beachfront with attractions like HidroPark Alcudia nearby (the only waterpark in the north of Majorca).

For history buffs, the Old Town is home to Roman ruins including an amphitheatre, plus you can walk along the top of the ring-shaped medieval fortification walls.

There’s some seriously affordable stays here, too.

We loved staying at TUI‘s Hotel BQ Delfin Azul, which offers week-long package holidays for under £500pp. Jenna Stevens, Travel Reporter

Teguise, Lanzarote

While millions flock to Lanzarote’s stunning beaches and coastline every year, there’s delights to discover in the historic inland capital, Teguise.

Every Sunday morning, the cobblestone streets with their Lanzarote signature whitewashed low-rise houses are filled with more than 400 stalls for the island’s largest open-air market.

Running from 9am to 2pm, there’s a host of treasures to admire and buy including artisanal volcanic rock jewellery, handmade ceramics and 100 per cent organic cotton clothing.

Foodies can get their fill with artisan goat cheeses, cactus jams, and local Mojo sauces – get there early for the best pick of the local produce and fewer crowds and don’t just focus on the stalls.

Teguise’s own boutiques, art galleries, and courtyards inside historic 15th- century buildings open up on market day and often hold some hidden gems.

With traditional Canarian folk dancers and musicians often performing in front of the Church of Nuestra Señora de la Guadalupe, savvy travellers grab local wine and tapas as the stalls are being taken down at spots like Palacio Ico or El Patio Creperie. Lisa Minot, Head of Travel

GUATEMALA CITY — The United States has deported nearly 2,300 Mexicans to Guatemala this year and sent at least dozens more to Honduras, according to official data, a shift from the beginning of President Trump’s second term when such transfers were minimal.

Until now, Mexicans deported from the U.S. were sent almost exclusively back to their country by air and land. Only a handful arrived in other countries.

Some civil organizations believe this change reported in recent days is a way to increase pressure on Mexico, whose government has protested the deaths of 17 Mexicans in U.S. immigration custody or during enforcement operations. This also comes as Trump has expanded agreements with allied Latin American countries to conduct joint operations in the region against criminal groups and has increased U.S. security demands on Mexico.

Sent to Central America by plane and Mexico by bus

Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo confirmed Wednesday night that, so far this year, 2,284 Mexicans deported from the U.S. have arrived in the country as part of a “transit stopover” before being taken to Mexico as part of an “arrangement” with the Mexican government, and without these individuals being under any refugee or asylum status.

“They are arriving on planes carrying Guatemalan returnees, and what we have done is bring them in transit so that, in coordination with Mexican immigration authorities, we can return them to Mexican territory within 24 hours of their arrival in the country,” he explained at a news conference.

The costs of these operations are covered by the Mexican government or, in some cases, by U.S. funding, he added.

Mexico’s National Migration Institute confirmed to the Associated Press in a brief message that Mexicans have been deported by the Trump administration to Guatemala and Honduras, primarily since April, and are then transported by bus to southern Mexico.

“The reason is that the United States wants to prevent them from crossing back into its territory,” the institute said. It did not provide figures or further details.

Asked about why the Mexicans were sent to Central America and not their home country, and for more details, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement, said in an emailed statement that the administration “is utilizing all lawful options to carry out the largest deportation operation in history, just as President Trump promised.”

“The Mexican government has expressed its opposition to this practice to U.S. authorities and has reiterated that every Mexican citizen has the right to enter the country,” the Mexican foreign ministry said in a statement Thursday. It added that Mexico is coordinating with the countries involved to ensure the safe return of Mexican citizens.

Third-country deportations raise concerns for Mexican migrants

Historically, Mexico has always been willing to receive its deported citizens.

Since Trump’s first term, it has also accepted deportees from third countries, although the details of immigration agreements with Washington have usually been opaque. In 2025, Mexico received about 12,000 deported foreigners, mostly Cubans and Venezuelans, according to figures provided by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. The government has not updated these figures since December although the practice has continued.

Authorities in Honduras also did not respond to requests for comment, but according to official documents from the country accessed by the Associated Press, 82 Mexicans deported from the U.S. arrived in the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on two flights on Aug. 13 and Saturday. An additional 35 were scheduled to arrive Thursday.

An additional 165 Mexicans were deported to Honduras between May and mid-July, according to the website Third Country Deportation Watch, run by the nongovernmental organizations Human Rights First and Refugees International, which track U.S. deportation flights to third countries.

The website does not clarify the source of its nationality figures, but both organizations have expressed concern because these transfers could endanger migrants who possibly sought asylum in the U.S. or have few resources in an unknown country.

The deportation tactic “seems to be to put pressure on the Mexican government,” said Savitri Arvey of Human Rights First. “They really don’t want any Mexicans crossing the border.” Some of those deported arrived in Honduras on U.S. military flights, she added.

A recent change in the deportation pattern

At the beginning of his second term, with immigration control as one of his priorities, Trump reached agreements with Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama to act as “bridge” or destination countries for migrants from third countries expelled from U.S. territory. These agreements gradually expanded to more countries, including some African ones, most recently Liberia.

Until recently, only a handful of Mexicans had been expelled from the U.S. to countries other than Mexico.

Arévalo said Wednesday that Guatemala received 15 Mexicans in 2025. As of February 2026, Honduras had officially reported the arrival of six. Costa Rica has received 11 Mexicans since Trump’s return to the White House, and according to local immigration authorities, they remain in the country. Presumably, these individuals may have requested to not be returned to Mexico out of fear.

Immigration lawyers believe that the Trump administration is using deportations to third countries as a legal loophole to indirectly force asylum seekers to return to Mexico when the government cannot send them there because it would violate court orders from immigration judges that recognize the dangers. Organizations and politicians both inside and outside the U.S. have also questioned the use of force by U.S. immigration authorities.

Pérez, Verza and González write for the Associated Press. Verza reported from Mexico City and González from Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

LOS ANGELES — U.S. immigration officials worked with Iran to deport Iranians in 2025, newly released emails show, revealing a working relationship between the U.S. and Iranian governments despite tensions mounting between the countries.

Hundreds of emails exchanged between U.S. immigration officials, which were obtained by the National Iranian American Council and made public Tuesday, offer the most transparent play by play yet of how the two countries worked together to arrange for more than 100 Iranians to be flown back to Iran on three separate immigration flights in September and December 2025 and January 2026.

The emails show that Iranian officials had some influence over which Iranian immigrants in the U.S. were sent back to their home country, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials apparently heeded some last-minute changes to deportation lists at the request of Iran.

“Per request from the Iran Embassy I added a few cases,” one unnamed ICE official wrote in late August, a month before the first deportation flight in September. Just over a week later, someone with the same job title moved to make another, unspecified change to the deportation list after they said they met with the “Director at the Iranian Embassy.”

“Iran has requested that I amend the previous manifest and expedite the removal process,” the official wrote.

In a Sept. 26 email, just three days before the deportation flight left U.S. soil, an ICE official said in an email that the Iranian Embassy was still making requests for three additional Iranians on the flight. It’s not clear who ended up on the flight, which ended up being much smaller than initially planned. Iranian officials were still making requests the day the flight departed, although one official wrote that those requests were denied.

Coordination of the flights remained a high priority even as ICE officials acknowledged internally that Iranians were fleeing Iran amid the deadly 12-day war with the U.S. and Israel in June 2025, emails show. The flights departed just months after the U.S. and Israel agreed to a ceasefire with Iran.

The new emails highlight a clear departure from a decades-long practice by the U.S. of welcoming Iranian dissidents, exiles and others since the 1979 Islamic Revolution forced a large number of Iranians to flee.

The deportation of Iranians to a country whose government has a pattern of violent persecution against women, religious minorities and political dissidents has drawn significant criticism from human rights activists.

The Department of Homeland Security did not offer comment in response to an emailed request sent Tuesday afternoon.

Some deportees were handpicked by Iranian officials, emails show

Iranian officials acknowledged in September 2025 that as many as 400 Iranians could be returned under an agreement with the Trump administration. They said most of the Iranians had crossed into the U.S. from Mexico illegally, while some faced other immigration issues.

It is not clear from the emails how frequently U.S. immigration officials had direct contact with the Iranian government. Sometimes messages were conveyed through Qatari officials, who helped charter the deportation flights through Doha, but other times officials reference regular meetings with the “Iranian delegation,” the “Director at the Iranian Embassy” and other unnamed Iranian officials.

It is not clear whether the people Iran put on the list had volunteered to repatriate or if they were forced. Previous reporting from The New York Times revealed that asylum-seekers were among those deported to Iran, while others said they were deported against their will.

At least one person was deported who wasn’t supposed to be, emails showed.

“An Iranian not included on the final manifest we sent to the Qatari MOI was boarded on the flight,” an unnamed U.S. official wrote.

In response, another unnamed U.S. official wrote, “I have no idea how the case/person got through on the plane.”

U.S. prioritized deportation efforts during war

Emails suggest that pressure to carry out the Iranian deportations came from the highest levels of the Trump administration, even when U.S. and Israel were exchanging strikes with Iran in a 12-day conflict between June 13 and June 24, 2025.

Just days after Trump’s June 16 warning on social media that “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” the former acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, called the repatriation of Iranian immigrants a “priority” in an email sent to the agency’s head of removal operations Marcos Charles and a number of unnamed staff.

Shortly after Lyon’s email, Charles forwarded the message to a group of officials whose names are redacted. An unnamed ICE official responded, warning that “removal will prove difficult” amid the ongoing conflict because Iran wasn’t issuing the travel documents for Iranians eligible for deportation. On top of that, the Iranian airspace was closed to all flights during the bombings and Iranians were fleeing the country.

Charles was unfazed, telling staff in a subsequent email to make a plan to deport 58 Iranians with final removal orders in ICE custody at the time.

“We need a plan forward ASAP,” Charles wrote. Another official, who name was redacted, urged colleagues to “identify a solution for this White House priority.”

Jamal Abdi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, said the emails undermine Trump’s assertions that the U.S. is at war with Iran to save ordinary Iranians from a repressive regime.

“It demonstrates that the top priority here was to kick out as many people as possible by whatever means necessary,” Abdi said.

Iranian officials had access to immigration detainees

On several occasions, the emails show ICE officials arranging for Iranian officials to meet for unspecified reasons with people detained in the U.S., echoing testimony from Iranian asylum-seekers in an unrelated lawsuit filed by an unaffiliated Iranian interest group in July.

Eleven Iranians in immigration detention said they were forced to meet with Iranian government officials while in ICE detention. Those Iranian authorities knew intimate details about their asylum claims, according to the sworn declarations filed in a Washington, D.C., court in July.

The lawsuit alleges that U.S. immigration agencies have been illegally sharing confidential information about Iranian asylum-seekers with the Iranian government.

The U.S. government is allowed to work with government officials of foreign countries to coordinate deportation logistics. However, federal regulations passed in the late 1990s prohibit the government from sharing information that could reveal that the person getting deported applied for asylum.

DHS vehemently disputed the lawsuit’s allegations.

“These allegations that ICE shared asylum application records with the Iranian government are FALSE,” DHS said in a statement in July.

Riddle writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — A Massachusetts woman who told police that she brought homemade firebombs to the U.S. Capitol to kill Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was sentenced on Tuesday to just over six years in prison.

Riley English, a 26-year-old transgender woman, said she was in the grips of a mental health crisis and abusing drugs when she drove to Washington in January 2025 and told Capitol police that she was there to kill Bessent on the day of his Senate confirmation.

“I never wanted to hurt anyone,” she told U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras. “I’m not a political person. I’m not a violent person.”

Contreras, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama, sentenced English to six years and one month of imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release. English has remained jailed since her arrest and will get credit for the nearly 20 months that she already has spent in custody. She pleaded guilty in March to two weapons charges.

“You’ve had a very difficult life,” Contreras told English. “Hopefully, the progress you’ve made in jail to this date has set you on the right path.”

Nobody was injured, and Contreras said her plan to harm Bessent had an “exceedingly low or non-existent” chance of success. Bessent wasn’t at the Capitol when English arrived on Jan. 27, 2025. The Molotov cocktails that English brought to the Capitol appeared to be incapable of igniting, the judge noted.

Prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of 10 years and one month for English. Assistant U.S. Attorney Brendan Horan said English had been planning the “attempted political assassination” for at least a month at a time when the threat of politically motivated violence has been mounting in the U.S.

“This was not a chance encounter or an impulsive act,” Horan said.

The case against English fits a pattern of politically motivated violence that has plagued the U.S. over the past decade. In a letter addressed to the judge, Bessent said he worries the country “cannot survive this assault.”

“Political violence is an attack on the rule of law and on representative government itself,” Bessent wrote. “It also deprives our country of service by talented men and women with ability and integrity who may reasonably decide that no job is worth threats to themselves and their families.”

English’s prosecution drew comparisons to the case against California resident Sophie Roske, who was sentenced last October to over eight years in prison for attempting to assassinate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his Maryland home. Prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of no less than 30 years for Roske, a transgender woman. They appealed Roske’s sentence by U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman, calling it unreasonably lenient.

Defense attorney Maria Jacob said English was “terrified and traumatized” by fears of what would happen to transgender people under the second Trump administration.

“Our argument is that she was in a diminished mental state,” Jacob said.

Investigators said they found a folding knife, two homemade firebombs and a lighter in English’s possession at the Capitol.

English, of South Deerfield, Massachusetts, told police that she was influenced by Luigi Mangione, the man who was charged with fatally shooting the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. She said she was “on a mission” and “had been thinking about this for a while because of Luigi Mangione,” prosecutors said. English told officers that she was terminally ill and “wanted to do something before I go,” according to prosecutors.

English also said she traveled from Massachusetts to Washington intending to kill other Republican political figures — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and House Speaker Mike Johnson — and to burn down the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, according to police. English changed her target to Bessent after reading an internet post about his confirmation hearing, police said.

Jacob said English’s actions last year were “a cry for help.”

“There was no indication that she was acting rationally that day,” the judge said.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.