country

Oct. 3, 2026 3:04 AM PT

Like any other building from 1971, or a democracy created in 1776, the Kennedy Center could use some attention and possibly some structural repair. But I was a vice president at that arts center in Washington, and I can tell you that maintenance is almost certainly not why it closed its doors last month.

Officially, it’s closed because a section of the Grand Foyer ceiling gave way in a storm, plaster crashing to the floor, and the building needed to be shut down for safety. The Justice Department itself has argued in court filings that there is no real emergency requiring the closure. The board, meanwhile, has approved a quarter-billion-dollar renovation plan, put together without competitive bidding, while the president muses openly about tearing the building down altogether if his own name isn’t affixed to it. This administration is effectively bulldozing arts infrastructure in an attempt to abolish an infrastructure of the imagination.

I watch all of this from the outside now. When the new “leadership” took over last year, my team and I were among the first let go. My department worked on free public programming, on creative equity, on cross-sector community development and on measuring the social impact of art. That we were among the first out the door probably tells you everything you need to know about who was put in charge of the place.

As an American, as an artist and as a former member of its labor force, I understand that the Kennedy Center is more than a building. It is a living memorial to a president who was taken from us too soon, a man who had the audacity to aim for the moon before the science existed to get us there. To honor that kind of visionary, this country built a center for the creative impossible, and gave it his name.

And true to that name, my job at the Kennedy Center was to investigate the correlation between the arts economy and the economy of civic aspiration. As a team, we believed that inspiration erodes apathy and yields empathy. The building is a container of federal infrastructure, but the arts that imbue the Kennedy Center make the argument that inspiration itself is part of the infrastructure of our democracy. An arts center is built to ask: “What are the conditions necessary to dream together in public?”

Who, if not artists, are the authors of the public imagination? When a baby is born, or your daughter gets married, do you read a piece of legislation to commemorate the occasion or do you quote a poem, or dedicate a song? Who, if not artists, might light the path to a post-fear economy?

So why invade an arts center? What could possibly be gained by shuttering a national citadel for creative excellence? How perverse that a president whose policies have underfunded education and the arts would gut a national sanctuary for curiosity, and then demand that his name be emblazoned on the shell of what was. This president has used executive orders to intimidate artists, banned writers and journalists, sabotaged arts education, created oppressive red lines within the National Endowment for the Arts and threatened philanthropic organizations that fund arts and culture, and then he turns around and wants his name on our national cultural center.

When I worked there, the Kennedy Center wasn’t perfect. No institution is. But the business was viable, the staff was talented and reliable, and the work we made together would, often enough, touch something close to the sublime. Our job, like those of so many arts workers across the country, was to activate creative magic in service of social cohesion and well-being.

This is what gets lost in the noise of storms and lawsuits and renovation budgets: Entertainment is everywhere, but inspiration is rare. Sometimes you are sitting in a dark theater with strangers and the right note gets struck, and you hear it with your ears but you feel it somewhere else entirely. In the gut and heart. And the person next to you, a stranger, feels it too, at the exact same moment. You can practically feel the room change. All that magic can happen in one theater, and the Kennedy Center has nine of them. If a solar panel uses the energy of the sun to power a building, an intentionally run theater can use the energy of its inspired audiences to power a city.

Art holds memory. It also holds the horizon, the sense of what a country could still become. Patriotism as enacted by the creative community takes the American experiment seriously enough to question, examine, remember what we’ve forgotten and catalyze collective American dreaming. That is what the Kennedy Center was named for: a president who dreamed of a country unafraid of beauty, unafraid of grace.

Thankfully, America’s creative labor force tirelessly stewards that sense of creative provocation and patriotic inquiry. It is alive everywhere, including in the work of individual artists such as Carrie Mae Weems or in the work of collectives such as For Freedoms and their “America, the Beautiful” initiative.

We, the chronically underwhelmed citizenry of the United States, can’t afford one less pillar of creativity. We should be fighting to reconstitute any and all artistic institutions with an eye toward an inspired future.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph, a spoken-word artist and actor, was vice president for social impact at the Kennedy Center.

Oct. 3, 2026 3:03 AM PT

Menopause has been having a moment lately, and Washington is taking notice. On Sept. 16, the Senate held its first hearing on the dismal state of federally funded menopause research and vast gaps in treatment and care. Within 24 hours, the Department of Health and Human Services also convened pharmaceutical manufacturers and physicians to troubleshoot the alarming lack of availability of estradiol patches, an essential menopause hormone treatment, and the Food and Drug Administration held a full day of expert panels on female-dosed testosterone, which is currently only FDA-approved for men.

One week later, Health and Human Services joined the American Urological Assn. for a discussion about a silent killer of postmenopausal women: urosepsis from recurrent urinary tract infections. There is a simple solution — localized vaginal estrogen — and yet because of outdated guidelines and lack of clinician training, the medication is too often ignored or denied. Nor is the prescription routinely covered by Medicare, despite its well-established health and longevity benefits for women over age 65.

These are among the attempts to now, finally, address decades of policy failures — a refreshing change, quite frankly, given neither political party has ever prioritized menopause. That 2026 marks the year when menopause has entered the policy arena comes as little surprise to me. I’ve been beating this drum for years. Every aspect of daily life that menopause touches — the soaring cost of medical care, inadequate access to health insurance, extreme underinvestment in scientific research focused on women’s health, even the myriad ways midlife women are stretched to the limit caring for kids and aging parents — is smack in the middle of the political zeitgeist. These are the kitchen table issues on the minds of voters this election.

Menopause moment, meet the midterms.

Another issue rightly revealed by menopause is the chasm of public trust in government. As one of the four expert witnesses who testified at the Senate, I was heartened that it was a true bipartisan endeavor. But that’s a rarity these days in Congress, an institution rife with dysfunction. Our federal health agencies have become so shamelessly politicized they are on a collision course with science — from HHS’ overt moves to undermine childhood vaccines, to the decimation of leadership at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is struggling to respond to the crisis of measles outbreaks across the country.

My goal as a policy advocate is to help turn the tide on this country’s long record of neglect when it comes to menopause. Like many other women’s and reproductive health advocates, after the 2024 election l turned my attention to state legislatures — not just as a consolation prize but as a way to test what range of reforms were feasible and to get as many good laws as possible passed. It was the right move. Over the last two years, more than 60 bills have been introduced in 28 states — to do things like require private insurance and Medicaid to cover menopause care and treatment, improve clinician training and public education, and bolster antidiscrimination protection in the workplace. Ten of those states now have 21 laws on the books.

California is one and can claim real leadership. Among the bills passed by the Legislature, Assembly Bill 2270 from 2023-24 incentivizes continuing medical education on menopause for clinicians, the majority of whom receive little to zero training while in medical school and residency. The California Department of Corrections is now collaborating with medical experts to help bring menopause resources to incarcerated women in state prisons.

Newsom also just vetoed AB 1940, which would have codified menopause as a protected category in the state’s workplace antidiscrimination laws.

The Legislature has been especially deft at easing access to FDA-approved hormonal treatments, including testosterone, often used off-label by menopausal women: AB 82 ends the requirement to report prescriptions to the state’s tracking database; AB 1778 proactively declassifies testosterone as a controlled substance under state law, should there be action in Washington to do the same under federal law.

Although Newsom twice vetoed bills to mandate insurance coverage for menopause treatment — and deserved all the flak he received — the 2026-27 state budget includes a minor course correct: a $3.4-million “trailer bill” to invest in public education and make menopause treatments more affordable; Medi-Cal patients are not fully covered by the addendum, though, making it a toothless reform for those who need support the most.

Why should California’s menopause agenda, or that of the other 27 states that have introduced reforms, matter to the rest of the country? They offer useful models of what to do — or in the case of Medicaid exclusion, what not to do — in crafting meaningful policies. Perhaps more important, they offer a rationale that can help persuade the public; those who might balk at a congressional bill or federal policy, in part because of skepticism of the federal government or the current administration, can listen to and learn from other stakeholders, including governors and state lawmakers and activists.

Take for example the FDA decision in November 2025 to remove the long-critiqued “black box” warning on estrogen products for menopause. This was the culmination of a decade-long campaign by physicians, researchers and scientists — who had been waging the fight for accurate labeling well before the acronym MAHA ever existed and regardless of which party held power. Yet the very image of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. using his moment at the podium to credit the Trump administration’s deep commitment to women’s health posed a serious credibility challenge. Aligned and contemporaneous state reforms offered much-needed reassurance and clarity to many.

Trust in government is understandably at a low point, but this happens to be when menopause finally has caught the attention of policymakers at all levels of power. Some are taking long-overdue steps for women’s health, however implausibly. Let’s take the wins.

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf is the author of “When in Menopause: A User’s Manual & Citizen’s Guide.” She is executive director of NYU Law’s Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center.

Paul McAuley took a trip to a US city known for its altitude, passion for the natural world, and mad passion for sports, finding a lot of difference with the UK and a lot of things to love

Off the plane. Bam. Clouds. Not the miserable grey blanket you roll your eyes at every time you leave home back in the UK, but the kind that looks like they’ve been lifted straight out of Toy Story.

They’re so close you feel like you could reach out and squeeze them – heck, even taste them if you’re that way inclined. It’s a pretty spectacular way to be welcomed to the Mile High City, and the first clue that Denver operates on a slightly different level. Both physically and metaphorically.

Perched 5,280ft above sea level, it’s home to as much altitude as it is attitude, a feeling that only gets stronger the more time you spend in the state capital. I flew from London Heathrow to Denver with British Airways to discover what the city and surrounding region had to offer, experiencing the best of Colorado on an ultimate city break with a Rocky Mountains twist.

Do you have a travel story to share? Email webtravel@reachplc.com

Nature

In many cities, nature is something you have to seek out. In Denver, it’s constantly sitting in the background, waiting for you to notice it. I ticked off a few parks – notably Civic Center and Confluence – on a breezy 12km run that felt fitting to finish at Target, and that sums up Denver in a nutshell.

You can spend the morning surrounded by nature and, an hour later, you’re wandering around one of America’s biggest shops buying something you absolutely don’t need. In my case, Kourtney Kardashian’s Lemme. I quickly noticed how active everyone is. And who can blame them? For most of the trip, the weather was amazing.

Shorts, socks and sandals were the uniform, right up until a lightning storm rolled in on Saturday night and delayed the women’s soccer match between Denver Summit FC and Seattle Reign FC. Even the altitude becomes part of the experience.

I knew Denver is the Mile High City before I arrived, but I found it out properly when I went up Mount Blue Sky for the morning. The higher I climbed, the more ridiculous the landscape became. Wildlife appears, the air feels cleaner and, once again, you’re back within touching distance of those clouds. I didn’t spot Frank the Tank – reportedly the biggest moose on record – but I did see marmots, famous to me for shouting “Allan” in the viral video.

The night before we visited, Lily Allen headlined the amphitheatre, performing West End Girl in its entirety. Yet you’d never have guessed. There wasn’t a whiff of the night before. No evidence of thousands of people drinking and dancing until late.

Instead, just hours after the concert, people were running, doing yoga, lifting weights and generally behaving as though exercising among enormous red rocks was the most normal thing in the world. Here, outdoors is a lifestyle, not an activity.

Nightlife

For all of Denver’s obsession with fresh air, mountain views and early-morning exercise, the city doesn’t shut down too early. Denver just has a different relationship with going out than in the UK. I was told people can start clubbing at 6pm and be home by 1am, meaning the morning is saved.

That sounds horrifying to anyone accustomed to a UK night out. But somehow, Denver makes it work. Even hotel bars are busy, with people actually going there simply for drinks. Imagine asking your mate to meet you in the Premier Inn bar before heading into town.

Culture

Parts of Denver feel like they’re in the middle of a rapid transformation. Old buildings sit alongside polished new restaurants, expensive smash burgers and bars with endless taps, while colourful street murals cover walls that feel like they’re constantly being reinvented.

Take the River North Art District for example. The vibrant neighbourhour prides itself on being “where art is made” and certainly lives up to its nickname – you’re spoilt for choice when it comes to Instagram backdrops. Here you will find Denver Central Market, where I ordered a chicken Caesar salad bagel from Call Your Mother before sitting outside to bask in the heat. Around us, people wandered past in Doc Martens and oversized T-shirts.

Denver has a strong sense of itself – “a blueberry sitting proudly in a bowl of raspberries” as one of our tour guides put it. It was my first time in America, and I’ll hold my hands up and admit my perception wasn’t the greatest. I’d spent far more time associating America with Donald Trump and the endless political noise around the country than thinking about the hundreds of miles of landscapes, cities and completely different ways of life that exist beyond it.

Denver was a reminder that America is a lot bigger, stranger and more varied than the version you can sometimes from a viral TikTok clip.

Sport

Denver doesn’t have the Liverpool and Everton divide. There is one NFL team in the city and you stick with them through the good and the bad and, in the case of the Broncos’ game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, a lot of penalties. The Broncos fanbase is something else, with a waiting list stretching around 20 years for season tickets. So when game day finally came around, the sense of occasion was hard to miss.

A white horse, fireworks, 28 cheerleaders, a remix of Take Me Home, Country Roads and a devilish attempt to get inside the opposition’s head all came into play before the first plays even graced the freshly painted grass.

It was clear the experience was as much about what happened off the field as on it, with 76,472 fans at the centre of everything. The noise was ridiculous. At one point, it was so loud the game had to stop for a jokingly named “fan assistant” timeout.

And this isn’t simply a football ground, either. Much of the stadium is owned by the Walton family behind Walmart, but its identity stretches far beyond the Broncos.

It has hosted everyone from Taylor Swift and The Weeknd to AC/DC, as well as monster trucks and countless other major events. Even if American football isn’t your thing, it’s the sort of place where you can understand why people want to experience it.

Growing up in the UK, drinking is hugely intertwined with sport. In Denver, drinking feels more like an addition to the experience. At Broncos games, designated drivers can enter a lottery, with one lucky fan winning a $150 gift card for agreeing to stay sober.

I couldn’t help wondering what Linda Bolejack bought with her winnings. It’s a tiny detail, but it says a lot about the cultural differences you notice when you stop and look.

So why go?

It’s not one single thing that makes Denver memorable. It’s the collision of all of them: the mountains rising behind skyscrapers, the NFL stadium surrounded by fans, the bars filling up earlier than you’d expect, and the sense that adventure is never particularly far away.

For a few days, it becomes surprisingly easy to slip into that rhythm and forget it isn’t your everyday life.

Book it

More information at visitdenver.com

Touchdown Trips offers a nine-night, four-game American football trip, including Denver Broncos vs Seattle Seahawks at Empower Field at Mile High, from £4,895pp. The package includes flights, transfers, game tickets and three all-inclusive tailgates.

Denver is home to seven major league sports teams: the Colorado Rockies (baseball), Colorado Rapids (men’s soccer), Colorado Mammoth (lacrosse), Colorado Avalanche (hockey), Denver Broncos (football), Denver Nuggets (basketball) and new Denver Summit FC (women’s soccer). British Airways and United Airlines fly direct daily from London Heathrow to Denver. Rooms at Limelight Denver start from £150 per night, excluding taxes and fees, based on two sharing a Deluxe King room.

How you do one thing is how you do everything.

UCLA running backs coach A.J. Steward preaches it and it is the mantra adopted by the Bruins’ prolific running backs.

UCLA’s three-headed backfield, composed of fifth-year players Wayne Knight and Anthony Woods and senior Jaivian Thomas, is hailed for its undeniable impact on the ground, ranking first nationally in rushing touchdowns, third in yards per carry and fifth in yards per game this season.

Steward, who works in tandem with offensive line coach and run game coordinator Chris Smith, said it’s what his tailbacks do without the ball and the group’s commitment to each other that separates the group from the rest of the pack.

UCLA running back Anthony Woods scores against Cal while receiver Mikey Matthews celebrates the touchdown on Sept. 5.

(Godofredo A. Vasquez/For The Times)

“The way we play without the ball in our hands is no different. It should be no different than what we do when we have the ball in our hands in terms of trying to make a play for our offense,” Steward said. “You cut the film on any of these guys, you’ll see they’re downfield making blocks. They’re there at the end of the play in case somebody puts the ball down [on] the ground and that’s because they hear it every day how you do anything’s how you do everything.”

Apart from the group’s buy-in to doing the little things, its commitment to unselfish football keeps one of the most dynamic running games in the country from fracturing.

All three of the Bruins starting running backs could have been the sole starter at another program, with Woods rushing for 1,131 yards and 16 scores at Idaho in 2023, Thomas running for 626 yards and seven touchdowns at California in 2024 and Knight earning AP All-America honors last season at James Madison for his record-breaking 2,039 all-purpose yards.

But, as Steward preaches, the star of the running unit is the running back unit. And that belief is shared by the players, keeping them tightly knit and unbothered by who gets the most touches or scores.

“It goes into their buy-in as a program, as a group, because you’re talking about three dynamic running backs that could have 40 carries, 50 carries, 30 carries, 20, whatever it is,” said offensive coordinator Dean Kennedy. “But the fact that they’re buying into each other, that you could see them on the sideline, genuinely caring about other people’s success, and when you have a group like that, it bleeds to the team.”

The ability to utilize three differently skilled but equally high-impact running backs has dramatically opened Kennedy’s playbook, allowing him to put the tailbacks out on the perimeter and act as receivers, creating headaches for opposing defenses.

But the real value comes in the dying embers of games, when everyone on both sides of the field is exhausted — except the UCLA running backs.

“The ability to when we’re in the fourth quarter, I’m looking at these three guys and none of them are banged up, none of them are gassed and we can just roll,” Steward said. “We have guys that have only played 15 snaps in a game, 20 snaps in a game, that we trust with the game on the line to be able to push the ball forward and get first downs in a four-minute situation. That’s a competitive advantage. That’s part of the method to the madness is to have guys really fresh by the time we get to the fourth quarter.”

The team-first mentality of the running back group stems from the emphasis Steward places on having authentic relationships with his players, a lesson he learned under coach Dave Bailiff, now the special assistant to the head coach at Texas State, when Steward was a graduate assistant at Rice.

After a fellow graduate assistant chewed out one of the scout team players, Bailiff brought all of the young coaches into his office and reprimanded them, highlighting that they should never say or do anything they wouldn’t do to their own son.

UCLA running back Jaivian Thomas weaves through the Purdue defense on Sept. 19 at the Rose Bowl.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

And Steward has carried that experience from more than a decade ago in Houston, inspiring how he leads his group in Westwood.

“I definitely see them as somebody’s sons. I struggled earlier in my career to be blunt in the moments that they needed me to be blunt, because I didn’t want to ruffle their feathers or strain our relationship momentarily,” Steward said. “But now, I’m addressing it with them because I don’t want them to get hurt from a place of love. It’s been good for them to see me with my family, so they see a lot of the consistency with how I raise my boys, with some of the lessons that I’m trying to teach them.”

That spirit allowed Steward to be one of two coaches — alongside nickels coach Gabe Lynn — to be retained after working for former coach DeShaun Foster.

Soon after he arrived, new UCLA head coach Bob Chesney asked Steward whether he wanted to remain in Westwood.

And the answer was easy.

“I told him how much I really believe in this place and how much I love the players that we have here. I knew it was only a matter of time before we could get this thing going in the direction that I’ve always envisioned it,” Steward said. “I’m blessed that he gave me an opportunity to stay, and we’re seeing the fruit of some of the work that was put in before they got here, but also the success that they brought and the culture they added.”

And Steward’s emphasis on cultivating a genuine connection to his players fit naturally with the culture Chesney vowed to instill in Westwood.

Steward’s three top running backs now praise the coach for who he is as a man and a leader.

“His faith and how he carries himself as a father and off-the-football-field stuff — I admire a lot of that,” Knight said. “He’s a very respectable man.”

On the field, Knight said Steward has made him become more of a pro, by harping on the little things and making sure that no one takes anything for granted. Thomas said Steward knew things about his game that Thomas did not know himself.

UCLA running back Wayne Knight smiles after scoring a touchdown against Purdue at the Rose Bowl on Sept. 19.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

Woods echoed his teammates’ message, adding that Steward has pushed the group to its limit and held them to the highest standard because he knows the players’ potential.

“If they believe the why behind the things that you do, it opens the door for them to trust your decision making sometimes when it doesn’t necessarily benefit them,” Steward said. “That’s really what’s unlocked our ability to see these guys get closer to their ceiling. Even when I’m giving them coaching points, they understand this comes from a place of love. Love is saying great job when it’s a great job, or telling you that’s not the standard when it’s not the standard.”

​Winning tip: History, buns and Italianate porticoes in Münster

In an often overlooked corner of Germany, near the Dutch border, Münster is an absolute gem. Covered porticos will convince you you’re in northern Italy, gothic churches will remind you you’re in Mitteleuropa and the buns from Zeit für Brot will insist you’re in heaven. Nature-lovers can take in the Botanical Gardens and relax by the Münstersche Aa river. Those of a historical bent can peek into the room where the Treaty of Westphalia was signed in 1648 and mull the report card of nation states in the nearly 400 years since. But really, it’s a great place just to drop-anchor and lose a few days.
Jeremy

Germany’s highest railway bridge, near Düsseldorf

In the verdant countryside near Düsseldorf, the 129-year-old Müngsten Bridge, the country’s highest railway bridge, rises 107 metres above the River Wupper. The impressive iron and steel structure is billed as Germany’s answer to the Eiffel Tower (yes, really!) and if you’ve got a head for heights, you can don a harness and make the exhilarating climb to the highest point. You’ll be rewarded with incredible views across the valley, especially if you steel yourself (!) for the nerve-racking walk across the narrow beam that spans the top of the bridge. Eat your heart out, Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Bex

A wild North Sea island made for cycling

Sylt is more than a North Sea island to us. My German grandmother met my British army grandfather, and Sylt became my mother’s childhood island. It feels made for cycling, with peaceful paths winding between grassy dunes, sweeping beaches and little villages. Spend the day riding, watching the surfers and eating warm Nutella crepes by the sea, before settling into a traditional hooded Strandkorb (hooded beach chair) to listen to the waves. Bike hire costs €8-€10 per day. It is wild, windswept and magical, somewhere our family history becomes real every time we return.
Fay

Tour the country for a month for €63

Get the Deutschlandticket! An entire month of public transport for €63 – buses, trains, trams, ferries … The only thing that isn’t included is faster long-distance trains, but you can figure out how to get from A to B using the Deutsche Bahn website, which has a special “Deutschlandticket only” filter; the need to change trains means you’ll end up discovering places you wouldn’t otherwise visit. It’s worth it just for a week, or, if you do want to travel long distances quickly, just for inner-city transport. Use the German public transport app Mopla to buy one at any time.
Joseph

Cologne’s world-class cocktails bars

WASHINGTON — A pro-Israel Democratic advocacy group on Thursday released a framework intended to help the party better articulate its vision for the U.S. relationship with Israel, an issue that has deeply fractured Democrats this year and could lead to further divisions heading into the next presidential campaign.

Democratic Majority for Israel is calling on the party to continue providing security and military assistance to the country while supporting a negotiated path to statehood for both Israelis and Palestinians and a future for Gaza that doesn’t include Hamas.

It notably does not insist on unyielding support for Israel, acknowledging that “Israel’s security does not require support for every decision made by an Israeli government.” The document also calls on Israel to “act decisively against settler threats, intimidation, and violence.”

The framework is being released at a sensitive moment for Democrats following a primary season in which voters from New York to Michigan embraced candidates who backed positions including ending military aid to Israel. If Democrats retake control of the U.S. House or Senate in next month’s elections, these candidates could play a significant role in shaping the debate over America’s posture toward Israel.

The issue could also play prominently in the early stages of the next presidential campaign, which could begin shortly after the midterms.

Democratic Majority for Israel’s chief executive, Brian Romick, said his goal is to provide a “helpful guide for our mainstream Democratic candidates on how to engage with a complicated issue.”

“It’s important to remind Democrats and Americans that there’s value in the U.S.-Israel relationship,” he said. “We thought it was important to kind of lay out a forward-looking vision.”

The question is whether such a framework will go very far in shaping the views of Democrats, who are increasingly skeptical of Israel.

About 58% of Democrats said the U.S. is “too supportive” of the Israelis, according to a June survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, up from 45% in January 2024. Roughly half of Democrats believe that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians during the war with Hamas, an accusation Israel rejects.

Former Obama administration chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who has argued Democrats need to return to the political center ahead of launching a potential presidential bid, went to Israel in July and delivered a blistering speech warning the country was at risk of becoming a “territorial pariah.” He specifically called out Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has closely aligned himself with President Trump, a Republican.

Emanuel, who’s also a former congressman, Chicago mayor and U.S. ambassador, blamed Netanyahu for driving Israel to a “dead end,” emboldened by poor decisions from American leaders.

The framework from Democratic Majority for Israel takes a less strident view on Netanyahu, who faces another election this month. “Support for Israel,” the group argued, “transcends any one Israeli government.”

The group took a similarly long view on military and security assistance for Israel, arguing it shouldn’t be stopped now even as it acknowledged the possibility of change in the future.

“Over time, and by mutual agreement, today’s partnership should be capable of evolving beyond the traditional assistance framework toward an increasingly reciprocal relationship centered on joint investment, innovation, and technological advantage,” the framework reads. “The objective should be to build the partnership both countries will need to confront the threats and seize the opportunities of the coming decades.”

Daniel Shapiro, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Barack Obama, acknowledged “strong, passionate views” on the issue.

“Clearly, not everyone will agree with every aspect” of the framework, he said. “But I think there’s a lot there that many Democrats would find speaks to them.”

Sloan writes for the Associated Press.

CHICAGO — The U.S. can deport the leader of Wisconsin’s largest mosque — an outspoken advocate of Palestinian rights — on the grounds that he is a threat to national security, an immigration judge ruled Wednesday.

Salah Sarsour was detained in Milwaukee in March by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. A federal judge ordered Sarsour’s release in June, saying he raised a “substantial” claim that the Trump administration was targeting him for speaking out against Israel and advocating for Palestinian rights.

Sarsour called the ruling “deeply disappointing,” but said he intends to appeal.

“I will continue fighting to defend the right to free speech and to stay in the country I have called home for more than three decades,” Sarsour said in a statement.

Government attorneys say Sarsour’s decades-old convictions in Israel make him a threat to national security and accuse him of lying on his green card application. Judge Jayme Salinardi, with the Chicago Immigration Court, found him removable on foreign-policy grounds but tossed out the government’s claim that Sarsour lied to immigration authorities.

Sarsour says he fears for his life if he is deported to the West Bank

Sarsour, who was born in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was imprisoned in Israel in 1988 after confessing to throwing a Molotov cocktail and stones at Israeli military personnel. In 1995, he was convicted of attempting to possess weapons. Sarsour denies committing those crimes. His attorneys say he was tortured and coerced into confessing in both instances.

Sarsour, the president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, does not have a criminal record in the U.S., where he has lived since 1993. His attorneys say the U.S. government has known about Sarsour’s convictions in Israel since he arrived.

Deportation to the West Bank “means the end of my life,” Sarsour told the Associated Press on Tuesday.

One of his attorneys, Patrick Taurel, told the AP that Sarsour’s earlier treatment by Israeli authorities is “probably a good indicator of what awaits him” if he is deported.

At a status hearing Wednesday, Taurel pressed the judge to specify that Sarsour can only be deported to Israel or the Palestinian territories. Jordan, a country to which Sarsour has no connection, is listed as a possible destination on the order of removal.

Sarsour was instructed by immigration officers to list Jordan as his home country on an immigration form because his preferred entry — “Palestine” — is not a fully independent, unified state. But he “has no right to reside in Jordan,” Taurel said.

Salinardi declined, calling it an issue to be addressed on appeal.

Attorney says Sarsour will fight deportation

Taurel said Wednesday that Sarsour is being unfairly targeted.

“If Salah can be deported for his speech in support of Palestinian rights, anyone can face the same fate,” he said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a memo in June 2025 invoking a rarely used immigration provision saying Sarsour could be deported on the same grounds as Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, both advocates for Palestinian rights whom the Trump administration has tried to expel, according to court documents.

Before the judge’s ruling, Taurel said Sarsour would need to demonstrate on appeal that he could be tortured again if he were deported.

“It’s a very high bar, although I think we can meet it in this case, given what Salah has already experienced, and given the government of Israel’s treatment” of others like him, Taurel said.

A notice of appeal is due within 30 days. Salinardi did not schedule a new hearing and announced he is retiring and that Judge Craig Defoe will oversee the case going forward.

Sarsour says he was tortured and coerced into confessions

Jawad Boulos, who represented Sarsour when he was convicted in Israel, testified in August that Sarsour was coerced into confessing and that he wasn’t convicted of any charge tying him to a terrorist organization. He said Sarsour was tortured by Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency.

The Department of Homeland Security challenged Boulos about the torture allegations, questioning how he could know it was true.

Sarsour’s current defense team has asked why U.S. authorities waited until this year to detain him. Taurel said the government has known about Sarsour’s imprisonment in Israel for decades and that he has not concealed that from immigration authorities.

Experts on forced confessions and the treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons also testified in Sarsour’s defense. Israeli military courts have faced repeated scrutiny over allegations of limited due process and the high conviction rate of Palestinians. Israel rejects the claims.

In June, U.S. District Judge James Patrick Hanlon ordered Sarsour released from ICE custody saying he could have a case arguing the U.S. government detained him in retaliation for protected speech. Further, Hanlon said, government attorneys had not explained why Sarsour was suddenly considered a threat after decades as a lawful permanent resident.

The Trump administration has appealed Hanlon’s ruling.

Sarsour, who has Type 2 diabetes, lost more than 30 pounds while detained by ICE, and his blood sugar levels were checked only once a month, putting him at risk of organ failure or death, his attorneys said.

An investigation by KFF Health News and the Associated Press found that hundreds of detainees in at least 33 states have filed federal lawsuits with similar allegations of medical neglect.

Mayes-Osterman writes for the Associated Press.

Sept. 30, 2026 9:17 AM PT

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is removing Syria from a list of countries that are not allowed to purchase or import U.S. weaponry, a step that is part of a monthslong process of easing sanctions on the new government in Damascus and its leaders.

In a notice published Wednesday in the Federal Register, the State Department said it was amending its International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR, so that Syria no longer was among the nations subject to a policy of denial for licenses and other approvals needed for the sale of U.S. weapons and munitions.

The change effective Thursday means that arms sales requests from Syria will now be considered on a case-by-case basis.

President Donald Trump acted last year to ease economic sanctions on Syria that had been in place for decades during now-ousted President Bashar Assad’s rule. In August, Secretary of State Marco Rubio rescinded Syria’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, helping paving the way for the latest step in drawing closer to the current government.

The State Department has also announced plans to reopen the U.S. Embassy in Damascus. It has been closed for 14 years.

With Syria’s removal from the ITAR blacklist, only seven countries remain subject to the policy of denial for licenses for U.S. arms exports: Belarus, China, Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea and Venezuela.

Syria’s interim president, former rebel leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, overthrew the Assad government nearly two years ago and has embarked on a policy of change that has impressed the Trump administration. His moves have led to hopes of eventual stability in a country that was wracked by civil war and the Islamic State insurgency that engulfed northeast and western Iraq for years.

Wednesday’s withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq may mean that the Syrian government plays a greater role in preventing an IS resurgence.

Lee writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday let President Trump’s administration continue swiftly deporting people to countries other than their own for now, while the justices consider whether the policy is legal.

The apparent 6-3 order halts a lower-court decision. It requires the government to give migrants a chance to object before they are sent to countries to which they have no ties.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments in December.

The Trump administration said the lower-court order forced the cancellation of a deportation flight carrying about 70 people bound for three countries last week.

The justices have sided with the administration once before on the core Trump administration policy, allowing deportation flights to temporarily continue last year.

The court said it will consider several questions: whether the policy is lawful, whether lower courts had the authority to issue a sweeping block and other questions the government deems appropriate.

Under a series of often-secret agreements, the Trump administration has deported some 25,000 people to more than two dozen countries, including Liberia and Guyana. The vast majority have been sent to Mexico.

Trump’s Republican administration has said that it sends people with final deportation orders to third countries when they can’t be returned to their homelands or their native countries won’t accept them, including those who have criminal convictions. Those governments provide assurances that people won’t be persecuted or tortured, federal attorneys said.

But some migrants have nevertheless found themselves imprisoned in countries they’d never heard of before their arrivals. Others also face serious safety risks and are left with little choice except to return to the home countries they were fleeing. Many have no criminal convictions and have been found to be at risk of torture or persecution, attorneys for the immigrants said.

The case comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by the Trump administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally.

Whitehurst writes for the Associated Press.

The White House has spent days fiercely defending three taxpayer-funded advertisements that glorify President Trump — approaching at least $1.5 million in public spending — calling them public service announcements.

“Don’t let the Fake News get away with their lies about our epic Public Service Announcements that have been running on tv,” White House communications director Steven Cheung posted on X on Sunday.

But the Republican administration’s ads attracted mounting criticism on Monday, including from members of Trump’s own party.

“It shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters.

“It would not have been something that I would have done. And I know that the White House is not covered by the same guidance that we are, but it’s not something that I would have done,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, another South Dakota Republican.

Multiple legal experts consulted by the Associated Press said the ads appear to run afoul of federal statutes, including a law against congressionally appropriated funds being used for “publicity or propaganda” and a law that limits the partisan political activities of government employees.

They said the new ads, which are airing on network and cable TV and streaming, differ from other administrations’ PSAs because they aren’t designed to help Americans access any specific program.

“You watch all three ads, they’re sheer propaganda,” said Richard Painter, a former White House ethics czar under Republican President George W. Bush. “This is increasingly looking like what authoritarian governments do to promote their leaders.”

The heightened scrutiny comes as the Trump administration has increased spending on the ads and bought time on popular TV shows, including college football and National Football League programming. It remains unclear which part of the government is supplying the funds.

With both chambers of Congress led by Republicans, any oversight would likely have to come from Trump’s allies, decreasing the likelihood of hearings or other accountability efforts before November’s midterm elections.

Three ads have aired in less than a week, totaling well over $1M

The first ad in the campaign, which began airing last Wednesday, features clips of Trump talking about defeating communism interspersed with onscreen text promoting the “largest tax cuts in history,” “reigniting American manufacturing” and a call to “defend law and order and police.”

Later in the week, a second ad began running, showing scenic videos of Mount Rushmore at night with quotes and clips from Trump’s Fourth of July weekend speech there honoring the country’s 250th anniversary.

The latest of the ads, a spot first aired over the weekend, is virtually identical to an ad for Trump’s Republican reelection campaign in 2024. It shows him walking down a hallway as his voice can be heard warning of a “final battle” against “globalists” and “warmongers.”

All three ads end with a message that says: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.” The White House hasn’t responded to inquiries about which part of the government is paying.

According to AdImpact, which tracks media spending, the spots have so far cost more than $1.4 million and run across a wide range of TV networks around the country. The actual amount spent could be significantly more, depending on whether networks classified the ad as a political ad.

The ads are different from past PSAs, experts say

In defending the campaign, the White House published a list of PSAs from recent Democratic and Republican administrations.

Among the examples it cited were Bush’s Republican administration touting a Medicare law, Barack Obama’s Democratic administration promoting Affordable Care Act subsidies and Joe Biden’s Democratic administration running ads promoting COVID-19 vaccinations.

“The announcements are very clearly not campaign ads; President Trump is not on the ballot and there is no call to action,” the White House wrote. “Instead, the announcements are a reminder for Americans to love their country and know why it’s worth defending — at home, at the border, and abroad.”

Kathleen Clark, a legal ethics professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said in her view the new ads differ from the examples the White House provided because they aren’t aimed at helping members of the public benefit from specific government programs.

“These ads are nothing more than government propaganda, aimed at helping Trump,” she said.

Painter, who joined the Bush administration after the Medicare PSAs went out, said that ad campaign toed the line on appropriateness because it included misleading information about Medicare Part D. But he said Trump’s campaign is a far more egregious violation of the statute that blocks congressionally appropriated money from being spent on publicity or propaganda.

“There’s nothing in here about a particular policy that’s at all focused,” Painter said of Trump’s ads. “One of them is just about the evils of the deep state. Another one of them is about communists and Marxists.”

In its support for the ads, the White House also referenced the administrations of President Woodrow Wilson and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, both of whom used posters, radio and film to rally the country during World Wars I and II.

James Kimble, a communication professor at Seton Hall University who studies domestic propaganda, said it’s true that Wilson’s Democratic administration used propaganda to rally Americans. But he said most Americans no longer view its actions in a positive light.

“By almost any objective measure, looking back, we find what they did pretty repulsive,” he said.

Skepticism of the campaign grows on the Hill

Top Democrats on the Senate and House appropriations committees last week wrote to the White House demanding the ads be taken down and requesting more information on how much money was spent to create and air them.

In the days since, more than a dozen Democrats and a handful of Republicans have spoken up to further criticize the ads. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the latest ad “an absolute violation of what a democracy is supposed to look like.”

“Americans sat down to watch football, not to be force-fed Trump’s propaganda on their own dime,” he said in a Senate floor speech Monday.

Sen. John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that no public official should spend public money on private ads for themselves.

And Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger, had his own harsh words for the administration on Monday.

“Don’t worry, using taxpayer dollars to run ominous campaign ads of the President has been done before and is completely legal… in banana republics,” he wrote in an X post.

The Republican chairs of the Senate and House appropriation committees didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Swenson writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Steven Sloan contributed to this report.

IF you want to be ahead of the curve, there’s a country three hours from the UK with beautiful coastal resorts, high summer temperatures and cheap beer.

Not only that, but there are more flights from the UK and with new hotels opening – so it’s set to be the must-visit destination of summer 2027.

Bulgaria has it all from vibrant cities like Sofia to coastal resorts like Sunny Beach, Golden Sands and Albena.

In the summer, Bulgaria has highs of 30C – and in June, return flights to Sofia as little as £62.

It’s affordable too, according to Wise, as beer in Bulgaria can be as little as 90p with an inexpensive meal at a restaurant costing around £6.

TUI has a number of hotels in Bulgaria already, but is expanding in time for next summer.

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Perfect autumn attractions from £1.95 per kid from pumpkin patches to waterparks

DIG IN

Best UK garden centres with arcades, FREE soft play, fairgrounds… & even a beach

One of those is the TUI BLUE Arabella in Golden Sands near Varna, which is currently undergoing renovation and is set to reopen in summer 2027.

When open, guests will be able to paddle in its four swimming pools, one main pool, a children’s pool, one for relaxation and the indoor one too.

There will be on-site restaurants and bars, wellness area with a sauna, gym and tennis court.

On-site are 290 rooms which will range from suites to double and family rooms with sea views and balconies.

Guests will also have access to the waterpark at nearby GRIFID Bolero hotel.

Another is in the SUNEO collection which is budget-friendly stays with 3- and 4-star beach getaways.

Called the TUI SUNEO Compass 4*, the pretty hotel is set within peaceful gardens and is also set to open next summer.

Already existing hotels include the TUI SUNEO Serenity Bay in Tsarevo and TUI SUNEO Perla in Sunny Beach.

An all-inclusive stay at TUI SUNEO Perla in May starts from £591.33pp – or £84.47pppn.

This includes a stay for seven-nights in a Deluxe Double Room with a balcony or terrace and return flights – it also has an outdoor swimming pool and restaurant.

Another of the existing TUI hotels includes the TUI BLUE Nevis in Sunny Beach which offers all-inclusive family holidays.

It has a huge swimming complex with swimming pools, splash zone and waterslides as well as kids’ clubs and a buffet restaurant.

There are plenty of flights from the UK too – TUI has flights to two destinations in Bulgaria, Sofia and Bourgas from 21 UK and Ireland airports.

TUI Group CEO Sebastian Ebel said: “Bulgaria has enormous potential as a tourism destination. The country combines attractive beach holidays on the Black Sea with culture, nature, hospitality and very good value for money.”

Jet2 also flies regularly to Bulgaria with flights from 11 UK airports to Bourgas.

These include London Stansted, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Leeds Bradford, Bristol, Newcastle, London Gatwick, Birmingham, East Midlands, Glasgow, and Manchester.

From Bourgas, it’s easy to get to Sunny Beach, Nessebar, and St Vlas.

Adding to its popularity for next year, Bulgaria will be the host country for the Eurovision Song Contest after winning this year.

It will take place on May 11, 13, and 15 at the Arena Burgas – and in time for the event, Jet2 will add new flights from the UK to Bourgas.

Otherwise want a mega cheap holiday? Loveholidays has four-night all-inclusives from £219pp.

At the opening of “The Buddhist Bug” at the Vincent Price Art Museum on Saturday, guests will see a 328-foot-long orange insect. Its body will coil around the museum’s gallery, lobby and atrium, and poke through the walls. The bug’s head, covered in a hijab, will be in one room, and its feet, which some might be tempted to tickle, will be in another.

The creature is occupied and controlled by Anida Yoeu Ali, a Cambodian-born artist who lives in Tacoma, Wash. Ali’s numerous performance-based exhibits explore her Cambodian-American identity and Buddhist and Muslim religions. The bug is her “totally humorous take on hybridity.”

As the bug, Ali doesn’t speak. She mostly stands or kneels and makes facial expressions in reaction to her surroundings and passersby. But she likes to engage with visitors, who can either touch her elaborate garment, talk to her, take pictures of her or simply observe her.

Artist Anida Yoeu Ali’s exhibit, “Anida Yoeu Ali: The Buddhist Bug,” features a 328-foot-long performance installation at the Vincent Price Art Museum in Monterey Park.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

“I get a lot of people who ask for a photo or they’ll ask for a hug,” says Ali. “There’s so many stories that get whispered into my ear. A lot happens when you can hold someone’s attention with just your eyes. There’s a vulnerability that happens when you make eye-to-eye contact without any words involved.”

Ali likes to use expansive spaces and incorporate fabrics and textiles, whether it’s a red, sequin-covered chador or a tubular-looking worm made out of polyester, Lycra and spandex. Such things make the petite artist feel “taller and larger than life.”

Ali will appear in the suit for only two hours during the show’s first and last days. But for the rest of the exhibit’s run, the museum will display the bug in its entirety, in addition to sculpture, photographs and video that document how Ali has spent the last 15 years becoming her creature alter ego.

Born in Battambang, Ali, 52, is of mixed Malay, Khmer, Thai and Cham ethnicity, and was raised Muslim in a country that’s 96% Buddhist. She and her family left Cambodia in 1979 to escape the genocide committed by the brutal Khmer Rouge regime and settled in Chicago. Ali studied at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Art Institute of Chicago. She’s currently a senior artist-in-residence at the University of Washington Bothell.

Director of the Vincent Price Art Museum Steven Wong and Executive Director Sonia Mak of Asian Arts Initiative.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

Ali conceived one of her best-known performance-based works, “The Red Chador,” in 2014 after relocating to Cambodia for a few years. She wanted to address the rise of Islamophobia in the wake of major events happening at the time, including France’s ban on facial coverings (the country had already banned the hijab years prior) and the terrorist attacks on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Ali also wanted to confront the politicization of Muslim women’s dress and contradict the “imagery of Muslim women as joyless and depressed.”

“It was an opportunity to put on a chador, but one of my choosing and one of my designs,” Ali says. “It was to also honor the Muslim women in my background. My mother, grandmother, aunties and cousins all covered and did so joyfully. That was never an issue for them.”

Ali wore the red sequin chador in 15 cities, including at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2015, where, during a 12-hour performance, she threatened to chop off 99 baguettes. The installation was meant to challenge Muslim stereotypes while making a subversive nod to the bread as a famous French symbol. “The Red Chador” also made a stop earlier this year at the W. Keith and Janet Kellogg University Art Gallery at Cal Poly Pomona.

“The Buddhist Bug” was created in 2011, a few years before “The Red Chador,” and inspired by the pervasiveness of the saffron-colored robes worn by monks in Cambodia. The piece not only drew on the color orange but was also influenced by a collapsible play tunnel she received as a gift after giving birth to her first child.

A photo titled “Into Dreamland, The Buddhist Bug, 2015,” (photographed by Masahiro Sugano), and featured at the Vincent Price Art Museum as part of the exhibit, “Anida Yoeu Ali: The Buddhist Bug.”

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

Ali wears a hijab while in the suit and uses a second person, usually a model or intern, to provide the bug’s feet — though she insists that those are the “bug’s feet.” It’s a fun, childlike interpretation of the complexities of coming from two cultures and religions.

“I wanted to do something that was tapping into my diasporic identity or what I call the ‘diasporic dilemma,’” says Ali. “This notion of going back and forth and constantly feeling like you’re not enough in one country or one culture. The bug is the result of that. You look at it and it’s a big orange creature. But for me it’s more of a tunnel structure that can double as a bridge, an entity that can connect two points or two locations. That’s the poetic part of the project.”

Sonia Mak, who co-curated the exhibit at VPAM with museum director Steve Wong, invited Ali to show in L.A. after catching one of her performances at the Seattle Asian Art Museum in 2024.

Photographs in the installation — some taken by Ali’s husband, Masahiro Sugano — capture Ali dressed as the bug in cities all over the world. Some are placed on a sculpture resembling the Rub el Hizb, an Islamic star shaped like an octagram. The rest are mounted on the walls and show the bug in places like Battambang and the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, at a restaurant, in a classroom, on a boat and a bridge.

In one image, Ali rides in a bicycle carriage. In others she stands outside a mosque while kids play with the bug’s feet and sits in an abandoned movie theater, her tail wrapped around the seats. (Angelina Jolie, whose adopted son Maddox is from Cambodia, was recently photographed visiting these cinemas and is reportedly renovating the theaters.)

Ali envisions someday performing as the bug in the desert in the Middle East and maybe building a children’s public playground as a “fun manifestation” of the project.

“I come from a country with an awful, violent history,” she says. “I have a unique set of identities and perspectives that aren’t easily explainable, which is why I make art. I want people to think about how weird and strange the bug looks, but I want them to feel happy looking at the orange. I love it when the grotesque and the beautiful sit side by side. It makes for some magical artistic moments.”