Culture

Now in its 40th iteration, Grand Performances will celebrate this milestone with dazzling performances all summer long at the California Plaza in downtown L.A.

The free concert series kicks off with a performance by the Latin hip-hop funk band Ozomatli on June 13. Tropicalia group Healing Gems and the Afro-Latin fusion band Jungle Fire will also make special appearances, all while DJ Liza Richardson keeps the groove going.

“For 40 years, Grand Performances has been a gathering place where Los Angeles comes alive through music, culture, and shared experience,” said Rafael González, president and CEO of Grand Performances, in a press release. “This year, we honor that legacy by continuing to open our stage, free and for everyone, so that every Angeleno can find themselves in the experience and feel part of something larger.”

On June 27, the Chicano troupe Culture Clash will return to the Grand Performances stage with comedic sketches colored by political and social satire. The trio — which includes Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Sigüenza — formed in 1984 in the San Francisco Mission District. Through its avant-garde live skits, the group has weighed in on topics like race, immigration and politics, including the 2016 election race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Also joining the comedy show are retro cumbia-quebradita musician É Arenas (bassist of Chicano Batman) and the cumbia-fusion, luchador-masked cumbia group La Nueva Ola de Cumbia, as well as DJ Dali. (Editor’s note: De Los is co-presenting the Grand Performances on June 27.)

This summer will also pay tribute to a host of musical legends.

There will be an intergenerational dance party on July 18 with DJ Spinna on the booth, in honor of 76-year-old R&B-pop artist Stevie Wonder — who performed a memorable summer concert in 2013 alongside Ozomatli and La Santa Cecilia.

On Aug. 1, a 12-piece jazz ensemble will gather in tribute to the late Roy Ayers, the pioneering jazz-funk vibraphonist and godfather of neo soul.

Chicano trailblazer Ritchie Valens, best known for classic rock tracks “La Bamba,” “Donna” — will also get his due on Aug. 22, with a stacked program that features live music, narration and archival visuals honoring the late Pacoima legend. There will be performances by Nick Waterhouse, Shannon Shaw (of Shannon & the Clams), Joey Quiñones (Thee Sinseers), Bryan Ponce (The Altons), Denise Carlos & Hector Flores (Las Cafeteras), Angie Monroy (The McCharmlys), Irene Diaz and Jose Varela (Cutty Flam).

The season will wrap up on Aug. 29 with Mexico City cumbia punks Son Rompe Pera, joined by the all-femme percussion ensemble Bloco Obini and violinist Quetzal Guerrero, also known as QVLN (Q-Violin).

Grand Performances has hosted free outdoor performances annually since 1987. The organization’s focus is on giving a platform to both global and local performers, including previous headliners iLe, Adrian Quesada and Ana Tijoux. The full 2026 lineup can be found here.

Shrek’s abs are more defined than some might expect. Or is it that the shade of his green skin makes them appear more chiseled under bright lights? Maybe it’s just disorienting because no one anticipated gawking at his torso inside the historic downtown Los Angeles venue founded by Hollywood legends Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith.

These are thoughts that swirl in one’s head while attending this year’s Las Culturistas Culture Awards ceremony, held on a recent Saturday night at the United Theater. An offshoot of the popular podcast that actor-comedians Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang have hosted since 2016, the award show aims to celebrate the year’s biggest pop culture moments and plays like a fever dream more dazzling and deliciously random than a late-night scroll session on TikTok.

After launching in 2022 as a live event outdoors at Lincoln Center, the guerrilla awards show reached TV screens for the first time last year. This year’s ceremony, which will air June 17 on Bravo and stream on Peacock, coincides with the podcast’s 10th anniversary and features a kaleidoscopic array of attendees, including screen veterans like Lisa Kudrow and Will Ferrell, reality TV favorites like “Summer House’s” Ciara Miller and “The Real Housewives of Dubai’s” Chanel Ayan, and anthropomorphic icons like Miss Piggy and a certain green ogre. And the prizes? It’s the only place you can find categories like “Real Housewives Award for Best Way to Start a Confrontation,” “Pornhub Category We Would Never Click On” and “Hilary Duff Award for Millennial Excellence.”

Over lunch at the NBCUniversal lot in Universal City, Rogers and Yang discussed the show’s evolution. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Matt Rogers, left foreground, and Bowen Yang perform a musical number inspired by “Heated Rivalry” during this year’s Las Culturistas Culture Awards.

(Monty Brinton / Bravo)

I will probably regret starting our conversation this way, but we all have our blind spots and, to thoroughly prepare for this interview, I watched “Shrek” for the first time last night.

Yang: Oh great! The first one?

Rogers: How’d you feel?

I get it now.

Rogers: Get what, that he is attractive or …?

I’m not quite there yet. You guys reference the film a lot on your podcast and Shrek has also been a figure on the awards show, including this year. I was hoping you’d explain Shrek as a heartthrob to me as if we’re in a pop culture class. When did this idea really take shape?

Yang: Over at least a couple years, to my knowledge, there’s been this online meme culture around Shrek, where it’s like, “Oh my God, Shrek is like a sex king,” but now it’s even spilled over into like dating life. I don’t know if you’ve heard of this, but there’s a verb called Shreking in dating, where it has to do with women dating a guy that’s below their league because he will be nice to them; he will be a Shrek to their Fiona. That’s an interesting thing — you date someone slightly in another zone than you, so that you can be like, “Well, that’s my Shrek,” but meanwhile, there’s the tension between that and Shrek being someone that people are actually attracted to. This just speaks to the enduring power of Shrek as a pop culture icon.

Rogers: I think what it is, is he has an amazing accent. It’s a very powerful thing. He’s independent, he’s self-sufficient, he’s a movie star.

Yang: He said it at the awards. I mean, he’s a rich celebrity.

Rogers: We saw the real Shrek at the awards and he looks pretty f—ing good to me.

Yang: He looked good to me. I don’t know what these Gen Zers are talking about with this Shrek being below your league.

What are the calls with publicists like now to get their clients to participate?

Yang: Last year was a communication puzzle to solve. We were like, “OK, we have to really convey this the right way.” We thought, perhaps naively, now that we’ve done it, now that there’s a proof of concept, it’s going to be much clearer. I think it was clearer, but there was still that degree of, “oh, this is …” — not to like give ourselves too much credit, but this is a concentric circle outside of what is very established in the form of an award show. You’ve got publicists who are like, “Well, we would love for our client to win an award.” And you’re like, “No, that’s not really the point.”

Rogers: Presenting is just as good as winning, just as good as performing. But I think it’s weird that we have been so late to stumble on what the show really is, which is it’s a variety show. And, so, in wrapping your head around it that way, it’s actually pretty easy to get across. It just has the drag of an award show, and that’s our way in.

But I do understand the publicist hesitation because I will say, in a world where it’s your job to protect your client, you’re putting them in a situation that is like, “OK, they’re going to an award show — that’s something this town takes very seriously.” So, it’s an ask to be like, “Hey, can you come take the piss out of this concept that you’re then probably gonna spend eight months of the year trying to actually achieve?” I would be lying if I said that we didn’t want one day to win one of those awards. It’s an acknowledgment of your work, but in that, Bowen and I think the No. 1 thing that’s the funniest thing in the world is people who take themselves that seriously. It’s a healthy mix of appreciation for this thing that was actually a big element of the culture that made us say culture was for us, which was watching award shows when we were kids, and also the reality that we now know as people that are in the industry of what they really are, which is they’re just shows. We’re not condemning them, we’re having fun with it.

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1. Scenes from the 2025 Las Culturistas Culture Awards: Jeff Goldblum, left, accepting the award for Most Amazing Impact in Film for his appearance in “Jurassic Park,” alongside presenter Patti Harrison. (Griffin Nagel / Bravo) 2. Allison Janney was a guest of honor, receiving the Lifetime of Culture award. (Jordan Strauss / Bravo)

Have you been asked to tweak the name of a category or punch it up even more?

Yang: Last week was the window when our producers could be very honest with us and say if something may not be working. Back to the Shrek [bit in this year’s show], actually, that ended up being much dirtier and bluer than it was on stage.

Really? I already knew I wouldn’t be able to include the award category because of Times standards. So the actual bit was raunchier?

Yang: It was even raunchier. It went for it.

Rogers: But it’s also a testament to how much freedom they give us to make our show. If they were concerned at all about us desecrating the image of Shrek, we certainly did not feel that way. I am really shocked and grateful that we get to do something that it feels like we’re getting away with something.

Take me back in time with young Bowen and young Matt. What do you remember about your enthusiasm for award shows growing up?

Yang: It was watching Billy Crystal at the Oscars do song and dance numbers, zing these things in for a laugh that we’re referencing the year, being in these video packages where he was in the movies. That it was live television and just this pageantry of people congratulating themselves, congratulating each other. I would tune in live every single year to all the award shows and I would follow the host changes. I remember Whoopi’s first year [hosting the Oscars]; I remember Ellen’s first year. I was really obsessive. It opened the door for all these things that I currently love, and that I’ve somehow had a fortunate experience in, which is live television, song and dance numbers — everything that Billy Crystal was doing. It keyed me in on how show business works, down to production elements and how filmmaking comes together.

Rogers: I just remember, I looked at the screen and I was like, “Oh, that’s where I belong. I belong with them. I don’t belong out here.” I was one of those Gold Derby kids — I would be on the forums; I still sometimes look at the odds and rankings and stuff. It was like gay sports, particularly with the best actress and best supporting actress races. And then obviously the Grammys, and all of that. One year I was watching, I think it was the People’s Choice Awards or the American Music Awards or something, and Shania Twain lost to LeAnn Rimes, and I cried for a day. I took it so seriously and my mother turned to me and said, “You need to stop.” But you couldn’t tell me it didn’t matter at the time. [Reporter’s note: Twain lost the favorite country new artist award to Rimes at the 1997 American Music Awards.]

As the profile of Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers’ variety-style award show has risen, getting stars on board is an interesting puzzle: “You’ve got publicists who are like, ‘Well, we would love for our client to win an award,’” Yang says. “And you’re like, ‘No, that’s not really the point.’”

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

What do you remember about your first experience at a major awards show?

Rogers: He was nominated as writer for “SNL” and took me as his date. We were sitting there — the “Queer Eye” guys were sitting like three rows behind us.

Yang: We watched Phoebe Waller-Bridge sweep with “Fleabag.”

Rogers: We watched Michelle Williams win for “Fosse/Verdon.” It was funny because we had gone to the bar and were double-fisting drinks back to the seats and I said to Bowen, “Oh my God, I’m like the Busy Philipps to your Michelle Williams.”

Yang: And who shows up behind us?

Rogers: Busy Philipps taps on our shoulders and goes, “You guys are killing it with those drinks.” And I’m like, she doesn’t even know I’m her. Cut to minutes later, Michelle walking up and giving a banger of a speech.

Yang: That was like our first brush with it. Even now we go to these, and we’re like, this is really something; it’s incredible. We were at the Oscars last year, front row, witnessing all of it go down, witnessing the moment where upsets would happen, feeling the vibe in the room shift. The benefit of our show is that the vibe is pretty high throughout; it does not decline as soon as there are losers in the room.

Las Culturistas Culture Awards took place in late May and is being telecast roughly two weeks later. Do you see it ever going the live route?

Yang: We don’t know. That is my not so secret dream, is to do it live one day. There’s just something about doing it live — and it occurs to me now that I’ve been very lucky and fortunate to have have my reps in. There’s just something so wonderful about it being this event where everyone is tuning in, enjoying it the same time you are. That is really something special.

Rogers: If he’s down, I’m down.

I’m sure this changes each year, but who’s your dream person to snag for an appearance?

Rogers: I would say the people that make it very apparent that they have sketch comedy and impression skills, and maybe you wouldn’t necessarily know that they do until they show that.

Yang: Ariana Grande.

Rogers: Our dream was for Ariana to come do an original character. We actually floated to her the idea — there was going to be like a Banksy reveal of MsMojo, and it was going to be revealed that it was Ariana Grande was MsMojo. But she actually was in rehearsals for the Eternal Sunshine World Tour. Little did we know she also was recording “Petal.” She was a bit too busy to play MsMojo, I guess, this time.

Yang: These two are forever paired in my head, but it’s because she’s another sketch performer: Cher. And sometimes the dream guests are not big names, it’s the people that we came up with in comedy. And actually one of the consumer research reports that we got back before we started writing this year’s show was that the thing that people loved about the Culture Awards was this crossover of reality talent, A-listers and Oscar winners, and comedy people — that mix, those three [types of] people mingling together is what the viewers want.

Rogers: I’m just so proud in every single way of the diverse array of talent that we were able to bring together. I looked out in the audience and it was just a party of so many friends and people we’ve met in the business — people that I didn’t even get to meet that night, but I was just gagged they’re there, especially in the edit, which you’ll see. This is Bowen’s first year in the edit, he had to miss it last year, but that’s what’s so cool about going through the footage, is you’re like, “Oh my God, there’s someone I’ve loved my entire life next to my cousin.” We were saying to each other that it ended up being like a weird love letter to our younger selves, having Mandy Moore and singing “Only Hope” with her and doing the “Pokémon” theme song and getting to hang out with Pikachu.

Do you worry about it ever getting too big?

Rogers: If it ever gets to a point where it couldn’t be funny, that wouldn’t work. We want it to always stay true to what it is, which is it’s our comedy special together. As long as it doesn’t feel like it’s selling out — and I can understand people watching it and being like, “Oh, they obviously had to have Nintendo characters because it’s NBCUniversal or obviously they had to include “Summer House” — none of that is true.

Yang: There’s no mandate.

Rogers: This is genuinely what we would want the show to be, and so as long as it’s that, we’re good.

So what’s your “I don’t think so, honey” on awards shows?

Rogers: I don’t think so, honey — 10 nominees for best picture at the Oscars. Why?

Yang: Totally. Tea.

Rogers: I actually think it helps things that are weirder win because it’s too many. And the way that they ranked choices. I’m a popular-vote person anyway.

Yang: I need us to really get on the same page about play-off music. Sometimes people are encouraged to go on, sometimes we turn against that. Let’s stop innovating, let’s stop trying to break the mold on them. Let’s just respect that as much as we can, unless it’s egregious.

And it’s always a bit within the show.

Yang: This is what I was about to get to. The hosts now are always trying to bitify that; it’s more of a practical thing to keep the show moving. Don’t try to put a hat on top of a hat by making it a comedic moment too. We’ve never really played with that trope, even though we could, and maybe should. For now, my attitude towards play-off music is, these people might not ever be on this stage again.

How soon do you start planning the next one?

Rogers: Hopefully, they give us the green light.

Ana Gasteyer, left, Jamie Lee Curtis and Patti Harrison at the 2025 Las Culturistas Culture Awards.

(Jordan Strauss / Bravo)

How did you go about deciding which categories would return this year and which you invent along the way?

Yang: We did an audit this year of all the categories from the last few years of doing this.

Rogers: Less made it back last year.

Yang: I think maybe about 30 max previous categories [returned] — that’s a decent ratio, 70-30 is nice. From there, we just kind of molded the clay on the table a little bit. We have the benefit of making this a recursive reinvented show every year; the categories itself are the premise, it’s the micro-premise within the segment or the element. The jokes are the nominees. Why not create new opportunities at every turn.

“Las Culturistas” expanded into a video podcast last year. How do you feel about this evolution we’re seeing to the format?

Rogers: It’s not that when I’m on camera with Bowen doing the podcast, like, “Oh, I wish I could be more relaxed,” I just wish the whole industry hadn’t gone this way because I feel like when you’re on camera, you can’t help but be a little bit more self-conscious, and that is going to come through in the podcast product. If I had my druthers, none of them would be on film. I can understand that it helps a lot and I can note a marked difference in the amount of times I get recognized now that we are on social media. It absolutely “helped” our podcast get bigger. That being said, I don’t think it was a good thing for podcasting that they all became TV shows.

Yang: It changes the register and the tone by nature. You cannot help but be motivated by different things, by the appearance of it, by the presentation of it, beyond what it was, which is just radio, which is a really important American form.

As two people who grew up being connoisseurs of pop culture, what is it like to be on the other side of it, to feel the intensity of it — I’m talking about what happened with the Jasmine Crockett comments — to become part of the conversation? What lesson came from that?

Yang: We are experiencing something in an acute way that I think everyone is experiencing, which is we are seeing ourselves in the third person. Everyone is kind of modulating their behavior based on how they are appearing out of body. It’s the way we all move through the world now, which can be snapshot and projected very widely out into the world for whatever reason.

Rogers: When you’re talking candidly, you can never know what piece of what you’re saying is going to be the piece that gets scrutinized again and again and again and again by what feels like the entire internet. And if you did, you would, of course, be more specific, and you would be able to really clearly say why you are saying what you are saying. We have had learning experiences with that, and so what we can do going forward is be more clear about the things that we do believe and stand by. That is something that even 10 years in the game we are learning how to do.

Yang: And I think on a very large scale, what is going to happen is that we are all going to adjust for the fact that we have behaviorally changed because of this idea that we’re seeing ourselves in the third person constantly. For me, personally, I’ve had to wrestle with this idea after being on “SNL” for seven years and having to evaluate myself and having an audience evaluate me every week. I’ve changed behaviorally; I need to get over this fear of being seen. I need to get better about listening to my own voice.

Rogers: The internet is a very weird place and the thing is, it deliberately ignores nuance. It willfully tries to make something seem lowest common denominator, so that there can be a community based around that thing. And that is not good for the world. It’s not good for discourse. It’s not good for our politics. It’s really bad for our politics. Until we can all get on the same page about the ways in which we are willfully misunderstanding each other and calling it discourse, it won’t get better.

Yang: The misunderstandings are about people’s tones, and not necessarily about the things that people are pointing toward.

A massive 850-square-meter street mural of football star Neymar da Silva, created by six artists over two days in Brazil’s Novo Hamburgo, is turning heads ahead of the highly anticipated FIFA World Cup.

When Kings’ new head coach Peter Laviolette took a tour around the Los Angeles area, he thought he was only going to get a one-bedroom home with a view of the water. His children, though, piped in: “Make sure you get a four-bedroom,” Laviolette remembered his three children saying.

During Laviolette’s time away from the sport, the 61-year-old traveled to Scotland and watched his son play in the East Coast Hockey League. The time away has given Laviolette time to rethink his coaching, and after 30 years of coaching, including 23 as a head coach in the NHL, he’s bringing a trident approach to reshape culture and win games. Centering a hockey family is one part.

“For me, there’s three real important pieces,” Laviolette said. “First, build a family inside the locker room, inside the organization. Secondly, to really work to try and build the culture to get players and organizations to think about the choices they make and how that can affect the culture. And then the third part is the actual game on the ice, just making sure that every day from the start of training camp we work at the game.”

Los Angeles hired Laviolette to a three-year contract after he spent a year away from the sport. Laviolette’s coaching experience stretches 1,594 games, the ninth-highest career total, with six teams: the Capitals, Flyers, Islanders, Hurricanes and Predators. Most recently, he was fired by the Rangers in 2025 after two years with the team.

His postseason success might be the biggest draw for the Kings, who have seen middling success in the years since their second Stanley Cup title in 2014. Los Angeles made the playoffs each year since the 2021-22 season, but the team did not advance past the first round.

Meanwhile, Laviolette is only the fourth coach in hockey to lead three teams to the Stanley Cup Final. He last won with Carolina in 2006, but he earned two President’s Trophies in 2017-18 and 2023-24 with the Predators and the Rangers.

Kings general manager Ken Holland, left, and Peter Laviolette pose for a photo during the new coach’s introductory news conference Wednesday at the team’s training facility in El Segundo.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Still, Laviolette, despite his track record of first-year turnarounds, is joining a team in flux. The Kings fired coach Jim Hiller after the Olympic break. Interim coach D.J Smith helped guide the team to an 11-6-6 finish, aided in part by a trade for Rangers winger Artemi Panarin, whom Laviolette has also coached.

“I had a really good relationship with Artemi in New York,” Laviolette said. “He’s one of the most talented players I’ve ever coached, and I’m really happy to get to work with him again. He’s an amazing talent.”

Using the winger to go on the prowl is one of the small changes Laviolette plans to bring. The Kings have historically prioritized defense in a league that has shifted to attacking. Los Angeles fell to 30th in goals per game last season (2.68), the first time the Kings averaged fewer than three goals since the 2021-22 season. The team was also 28th in power-play percentage at 17%. Laviolette acknowledged that Los Angeles needed to change, highlighting that an attack-forward mindset has been a keystone of his coaching.

“I don’t think it should be irresponsible to defense,” he said. “But through my experiences, and even just watching the playoffs right now, this is an attack-oriented game, and you have to be willing to move.”

Where does Panarin fit?

“He has the ability to be a game-breaker and a difference-maker,” Laviolette said. “He’s not just a goal scorer. He’s not just a playmaker. He’s elusive. He’s shifty.”

The goal for next season is to score 250 times, according to Kings’ vice president and general manager Ken Holland. The team scored 220 last season.

“We’ve got to get back to scoring more goals,” Holland said. “Part of that’s going to be personnel driven, part of that’s going to be probably style‑of‑play driven, mentality, and certainly the head coach has a lot to do with it.”

As Laviolette meets current staffers and decides whom to bring in, Holland is managing the phones to reach out to assistant coaches and players. Smith has definitively moved on. Phil Housley, whom Laviolette described as an “excellent coach,” could be another potential candidate. Housley worked with Laviolette as one of the Rangers’ assistant coaches between 2023 and 2025.

Still, it’s hard to say the Kings will be a Cup contender with Laviolette. His teams tend to dramatically decline two or three seasons after his hiring. He struggles to develop younger players, instead relying on veterans to carry the weight. Laviolette will have to amplify players like Quinton Byfield and Brandt Clarke, each a talented 23-year-old with high ceilings.

The Kings’ success will rest in how well Los Angeles adapts to Laviolette’s coaching trident. The veteran coach, to his credit, projected confidence.

“When you put those three things together,” he said. “You can really become an unstoppable force.”

Tiki, an offshoot of the Midcentury Modern movement, flourished in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, but began to experience a decline in the ’70s. Thus, by the ’90s, there were concerns at Disney that the Enchanted Tiki Room — the pivotal 1963 attraction that pioneered audio-animatronics — was no longer in vogue, its singing birds, totems and flowers a relic of another era.

The company explored some early concepts to remake the Enchanted Tiki Room. One idea was to transform it into an ecological, save-the-rainforest show. Another was to redesign it with a “Lion King” theme.

“Let me tell you, we hated it,” says artist and designer Kevin Kidney of the latter concept.

Kidney, who worked in Disneyland’s art department in the ’90s, says he and his longtime collaborator Jody Daily were “terrified” the Enchanted Tiki Room would disappear, so much so that they began making fliers to advertise the show and putting them up all over L.A., in restaurants, bars and museums. “We started an underground movement to save the Tiki Room even while we were working on these projects. We tried to frame it in a cool, hip way, like, ‘Everyone needs to go and re-experience this amazing show.’”

Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar took its influence from Disneyland’s Adventureland attractions, namely the Enchanted Tiki Room and the Jungle Cruise.

(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)

Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed, and the Enchanted Tiki Room remains to this day a vital piece of Disneyland history. And now with the modern tiki revival, it’s no longer an archival curiosity. In fact, the connection between Disney and tiki may be as strong as it has ever been, as this spring the Disneyland Hotel’s Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar turned 15. Trader Sam’s took its cues heavily from the Adventureland attraction, its bar flanked by tiki totems with slowly wandering eyes. And watching over guests and bartenders is a re-creation of one of the show’s tiki gods.

“The totem pole on the bar, and Koro up in the rafters above the bar, are all original designs and sculpts for the Tiki Room at Disneyland,” Kidney says. “They made new castings for the bar off of the elements from the attraction.”

Kidney and Daily collaborated with Walt Disney Imagineering, the arm of the company devoted to theme park experiences, on some of the early designs for Trader Sam’s. It’s their mug collection, for instance, that was seen in the bar on opening day. And the pair designed a magnificent glowing ship in a bottle, which thanks to a Pepper’s ghost illusion, occasionally looks as if it’s breaking apart and sinking.

Trader Sam’s, says author and historian Sven Kirsten, writer of “The Book of Tiki,” is one of the more influential bars on the modern tiki landscape. Though it didn’t kickstart today’s movement, says Kirsten, it often serves as “a gateway,” introducing Disney’s millions of guests to the scene.

Kirsten says Trader Sam’s has rightfully earned its place among SoCal’s most respected tiki bars. And most popular. An unofficial Instagram page devoted to the bar, keeping tabs on its mug releases and off-menu bartender creations, has more than 39,000 followers.

The erupting volcano “windows” of Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar.

(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)

“In the early 2010s the craft cocktail revival brought forth these so-called tiki bars that thought if they had a tiki cocktail menu they were a tiki bar,” Kirsten says. “But it was basket lamps and palm leaf wallpaper and that was it. Places like Trader Sam’s and Strong Water and Royal Hawaiian are floor-to-ceiling fully decorated. They’re what a tiki bar should be.”

Before the Disneyland Hotel had Trader Sam’s, the space was home to Hook’s Pointe, which was lightly themed to “Peter Pan.” Yet about a decade after the Walt Disney Co. completed a purchase to assume control of the Disneyland Hotel, Hook’s Pointe was earmaked for renovation.

“We were designing a Caribbean-style bar where Trader Sam’s is now, and that was where I said, ‘Let’s rethink this,’” said Kyle Barnes, an Imagineer who was instrumental in the creation of Trader Sam’s. Barnes was speaking at a recent event hosted by Disney’s fan club D23 on the history of Adventureland and Trader Sam’s.

“I said, ‘That’s more East Coast. This is West Coast.’ Hawaii and Midcentury really fit together with the tiki theme,” Barnes said, noting that the park’s Enchanted Tiki Room was initially pitched as a restaurant and once sat next to the Tahitian Terrace, a Polynesian-themed restaurant complete with hula dancers.

Trader Sam’s is home to many show elements. In addition to the sinking ship, there are bar seats that will begin to drop the longer guests sit in them. Also, there are two theatrical windows looking out toward a volcano, which will erupt when guests order a specific drink. The ship in a bottle and dipping barstools, said Barnes, were inspired by the Adventurers Club at Florida’s Walt Disney World, while the volcano windows were influenced by Florida’s version of the Enchanted Tiki Room.

The Kungaloosh cocktail at Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar.

(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)

The Adventurers Club closed in 2008, but I was fortunate enough to visit it as a child, and it was instrumental in my love of Disney, theater and, well, bars. Full of actors, puppets and walls filled with artifacts that seemed to spring to life, the Adventurers Club was a place of play, and I still remember as a kid being asked by one of the actors to join the imaginary guild. It was a glimpse into a grown-up world full of revelry, silliness and colorful cocktails.

Trader Sam’s fills a similar niche for me today, and as part of its 15th anniversary, it added the Adventurers Club signature drink, the sweetly tropical Kungaloosh, to its menu. As a kid, I longed to enter an adult world. As a grown-up, I love an adult world with a childlike playfulness.

Tiki bars aren’t perfect, and have occasionally come under criticism as escapist fantasy that appropriates Hawaiian or Polynesian iconography. As such, Trader Sam’s has changed over the years. Shrunken heads, for instance, that once hung from the walls, were years ago removed.

Progress, and part of Trader Sam’s enduring appeal. “The jokes that we accepted long ago, they were jokes for only a part of the population,” says Kidney.

And Trader Sam’s remains full of absurdities — spend some time just soaking up the puns and ephemera that dot the walls. Just be prepared to duck when you see the bartenders reach for a spray bottle.

So cheers to another 15 years, and I hope to see you at the bar.

This week in SoCal theme parks

Space Mountain at night.

(Paul Hiffmeyer / Disneyland Resort)

• A refreshed cartoon world. Magic Mountain will on Saturday unveil its new kid-targeted Looney Tunes Land, which is a makeover of its previous Bugs Bunny-focused area. Expect a brand new live show, and spaces designed to represent the personality of characters such as Bugs, Daffy Duck, the Tasmanian Devil, and Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner. Each of the attractions, such as calming train and balloon rides, has received a tune-up. I’ll take a closer look next week!
• ‘The Odyssey’ comes to Universal. While theme park fans await the opening date of Universal Studios Hollywood’s new “Fast & Furious” coaster, the park is zooming ahead with its Mega Movie Summer promotion. As part of the latter, a ship from Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” will be added to the park’s tram tour. Elsewhere, Minions from “Minions & Monsters” will start meeting with guests, and various dining locations will receive light makeovers to represent films such as “Jaws” and the “Fast & Furious” franchise.
• Changes afoot at CityWalk. Universal’s CityWalk is in the midst of a multiyear transformation. New spaces, such as one from Malibu Brewing Co., are on the way, while some legacy retailers are unfortunately disappearing. The latest: Publisher Dark Horse Comics is closing its Things From Another World retail location. The pop-culture shop is slated to close in September. No word yet on what may move into the space.
• Space Mountain is back! After a brief overlay as the “Star Wars”-themed Hyperspace Mountain, Disneyland’s classic Space Mountain has returned just in time for the busy summer season. The coaster, which tops off at about 32 mph in near total darkness, should be back in all its vintage glory as of today.
• A renewal perk. The Disneyland Resort in a move to create more loyalty among its Magic Key passholders is offering a bonus for those who opt to stick around for another year. A dining promotion, in which annual passholders can receive a dining gift card for as much as $100 if they choose to re-up, is underway through May of next year.

Tell us your stories. Ask us your questions.

Have a theme park tale to share? Whether it was a good day or less-than-perfect day, I would love to hear about it. Have a question? A tip? A fun photo from the parks to share? Email me at todd.martens@latimes.com. I may feature your note in an upcoming newsletter.

Ride on,

Todd Martens

P.S.

I’m curious if any longtime Disneyland fans have any memories of the Carousel of Progress. I’d love to hear them. The theater show, built around a rotating auditorium, debuted at the 1964 World’s Fair before making its way to Disneyland in 1967. It was moved to Florida’s Walt Disney World in 1975.

In case anyone missed it, the Walt Disney Co. announced last week that Carousel of Progress would be undergoing a top-to-bottom overhaul to update the show. No longer will it begin in the distant past, as the refreshed attraction will now start in the 1960s and take guests into the ’80s, the late ’90s and beyond. An ode to technological optimism, the original show was overseen by Walt Disney, but had undergone multiple changes throughout the decades, most notably in its final scene.

I’ll miss its glimpses of the 1920s and 1940s, but concede the attraction was notable today more for its Disney history than its cultural relevancy. Thus, I’m cautiously hopeful that this makeover can ensure the Carousel of Progress remains a Disney staple for decades to come.

Sit at a table with a bunch of actors and it inevitably becomes an impromptu acting class, one in which even the Michelle Pfeiffer is leaning over to observe. At least that’s what happened on a recent afternoon when The Envelope gathered six actors from some of this season’s most talked about television series for its 2026 Emmy Drama Roundtable.

It all began when Pfeiffer (“The Madison”) shared that, while studying acting, she couldn’t grasp the technique created by Sanford Meisner, which trains actors to stop overthinking and encourages them to listen and respond actively to their scene partners. The revelation immediately activated Katherine LaNasa (“The Pitt”), who beckoned Tom Pelphrey (“Task”) to join her in a spontaneous application. (Both had studied the method.)

“I like your jacket,” LaNasa said, locking eyes with Pelphrey.

“You like my jacket?” he replied playfully.

“I do like your jacket … You’re smiling at me.”

The exchange, which had a flirtatious energy, continued for a minute, before Pelphrey and LaNasa emphasized that it’s essentially looking at and listening to what the other person is doing.

“Somehow I was doing it wrong and I didn’t understand why I was doing it wrong,” Pfeiffer said.

This openness and encouragement carried the entire conversation, which brought together Pfeiffer, who plays Stacy Clyburn, a wealthy New York City matriarch whose life is upended by the tragic death of her husband, which compels her to move to Montana; LaNasa, who brings depth to the burnout plaguing steadfast, straight-talking charge nurse Dana Evans; Pelphrey, in his turn as Robbie Prendergast, a sanitation worker who robs drug houses at night to provide for his family; Zahn McClarnon, who stars as Det. Joe Leaphorn, a stoic man battling his past and the loss of his son in “Dark Winds”; Billy Magnussen, who portrays Duncan Park, the eccentric and profit-hungry CEO of a tech company in “The Audacity”; and Karolina Wydra, who plays Zosia, the eternally cheerful liaison to a utopian, hive-minded collective in “Pluribus.” Read on for excerpts from our discussion.

I know all your characters are going through some personal things, but if you were to transform into them for 24 hours, what would you do with that day?

Magnussen: I live with Duncan daily because I think your job as an actor is to check the morality of the character you’re playing. And at the same time, you have to question your own morality, see where you stand, to then deal with that character. Duncan’s a really messed-up guy, and doing it for five months … I was on set 16 hours a day every day. I was with him nonstop. And his temperament and pace was just out of this world. It’s exhausting. So what would I do? I would try to go to a spa, personally, because it’s exhausting.

Wydra: Do you find that it gets blurry after a little while?

Magnussen: I still know who Billy is.

McClarnon: But there’s times where you can’t see that line between [fiction and] reality, just moments. I’ve found myself in those moments where I know the difference, obviously, but I’m so emotionally attached to Deanna Allison, who plays my wife on the show, where I can’t separate them anymore. It’s not like 24 hours, but just moments where I’m like, “Wait a second, where am I? Am I in the show? Is this Joe Leaphorn or is this Zahn?” Usually in the middle of the season, it starts to get a little blurry for me.

Magnussen: Do you think it’s the job, though, to keep it separated? Or do you guys believe in Method acting?

Wydra: Rhea Seehorn, who is on “Pluribus,” who’s incredible, who’s my partner in crime, she gave me a book about Method [acting] — the Method and what really Method was. And it’s not what we think it is. We all do Method acting, but it’s not staying in the character and living in the character forever. … And that’s what people think Method is, is that you never break the character, you take the character home, but it’s not. It’s building a world. Building it, personalizing it.

Pfeiffer: Isn’t that what we all do? Some actors will go live on the ranch. They won’t take a bath for six months. They really take it to another level, which I’m not willing to do … From the minute I commit to something, it’s right there [in my head], I’m thinking about it. It can be a year away, and it’s right here torturing me, which is I think why I’m a bit of a commitment-phobe. My agents always call me “Dr. No” because I know no matter what, even if I’m not consciously aware of it, it’s there just badgering me.

LaNasa: I have found that people want Dana, want my character, in real life. And it’s cool because she’s very comforting to people. But I had an experience recently in New York where this table of girls, they were having some party, and someone said, “Oh, you mean a lot to us.” And I said, “Oh, are they nurses?” Well, some of them are. And then they asked at the end of their dinner would I take a picture. And then one girl told the other people to leave and then she told me her illness journey. And I had breast cancer. She was going through breast cancer. And it was really interesting. And it was the most meaningful that I’d ever felt about taking a character home where it’s like … I think I spoke about my wellness journey because I was playing the role. It ended up coming up through the press. … And for some reason, because I was Dana in someone’s mind, it meant something. And I thought, “Well, this was actually useful. This breaking of that wall between character and person was actually useful.”

Tom, you get the call that you’re cast as Robbie in “Task.” What’s the first thing you do to figure him out?

Pelphrey: When I read the first two episodes, I felt like I understood Robbie’s soul perfectly, but I knew that I would have to break my ass to get that accent right. So that was where I focused most of my conscious energy and discipline and time, was just [on the] technical, just on the accent. The fun part was, because he would be my age, thinking about growing up in Philly at that time and who his heroes would be, having ideas for tattoos, stuff like that. We had more time than you get sometimes before we had to start filming because we knew and then the writers’ strike happened. I had a lot of months to sit with him and emotionally and spiritually. And I’d just become a father. Obviously [with] Robbie, everything he does is for his kids.

Pfeiffer: It changes everything. It opens your heart.

Pelphrey: I was a new person. And I understood him in that regard perfectly and I couldn’t have before. I could have imagined it and now I knew for sure.

For “The Audacity,” Billy, you spoke with some tech folks. What did you come to understand about what they’re after as innovators versus what you’re after as a creative?

Magnussen: Listen, no one’s a villain in their own story. I believe that from Day 1, these people probably came to the Valley with genuine ideas. The genesis of their idea was to connect and really bring something powerful and important to society and people. And, “Oh wait, we’re making a lot of f— money.” And through that lens, you start being blinded by this humanity that’s around you or caring for people around you rather than a bottom line. When you’re in an incestuous pool or in a small bubble, culture is created. And like Facebook, their slogan was “Move fast and break things.” Being a bull in a china shop is not a good idea anywhere, but for some reason that was the culture. People just started doing that more and more and breaking things and breaking things and breaking things. I don’t think they started off that way, but the culture just bred them to become this way. I personally relate that to, I don’t want to say Hollywood or the entertainment world, but we’ve seen the toxicity. And we’ve been slowly trying to filter that out, I think, of Hollywood. But when you have a microclimate kind of culture feeding in toxic behavior and rewarding toxic behavior over and over again, it breeds it. So you start to have to scrape away that cancer. But again, the genesis of all these ideas were pure. We were 6 years old just dreaming to be something or being like, “I could do this.”

Pfeiffer: Pretending to be something else, other than what we were.

Magnussen: I empathize with that. I don’t think people are bad. I just think they’re lost sometimes.

Karolina, your character in “Pluribus,” Zosia, is carrying the weight of almost every person in the world. What do you remember about those discussions with [creator] Vince Gilligan and how he helped you unpack this character and the relationship with Carol, Rhea [Seehorn]’s character?

Wydra: I took a break for five years from acting before Zosia came into my life. I walked away at 39 to have kids and my agent and my manager dropped me and it was really terrifying to also be a woman and turning 40, to have children at that time. When Lou [her second son] was maybe a year-and-a-half [old], I got the itch of like, “God, I miss acting so much. How am I ever going to come back? How am I going to get an opportunity?” And I was 43 at the time and out of nowhere I got an email being like, “Hey, there’s this thing …” from a commercial agent that I was on their roster, but I did not work with them. And they said, “There’s this audition.” And I go, “OK.” I read it and I said, “Who wrote it?” And she said, “Vince Gilligan for Apple TV.” I went, “What? OK.” And I didn’t know anything about the project and it was always my dream to work with Vince from when I saw “Breaking Bad.”

Long story short, I’m here and the whole journey has been so wild, so insane. When I first would talk to him about Zosia, I was like, “God, how am I going to tackle the world and someone that has the highest emotional intelligence, someone that does all these different things? And how do you see the Others? How do you want them to move about the world and the complexities of who they are?” Vince is such a beautiful human being. He’s like, “They’re just happy and content.” You go, “OK, yeah, but … what else?” For me, Zosia is extremely spiritual. Meditation was my key, my go-to to get into that zone of connection to humanity, not in the physical but very spiritual way where, [if] you meditate enough, the ego gets lifted and you truly feel connected, and you feel one with everyone. And the wild thing, I think the greatest gift, was becoming a mother; I understood what it means, unconditional love. Because my heart lives outside my body all the time. And so becoming a mother was a gift to play Zosia, because I unconditionally love Carol. And now, no matter what she throws at me, I just love her, and take care of her, and I want to nurture her.

Michelle, you get the call from Taylor Sheridan, who also created “Landman” and “Yellowstone.” He says he wants to meet with you and he wants to do it on his turf in Texas, not yours. There’s no script. What does someone like Taylor Sheridan say to someone like Michelle Pfeiffer that will get her to agree to the show?

Pfeiffer: Well, he gave me a lot of tequila.

LaNasa: Writing this down: Tequila, check.

Pfeiffer: I got a call that he wanted to meet with me, that he had an idea for something, “But you have to come to Texas.” And I said, “Is there anything? Is there an outline? Is there a paragraph?” “No, no. He wants to explain it to you in person.” I had to stay the night in Fort Worth and then met with him and he gave me tequila, and then after a while I had to stop drinking. He gave me a very rough outline of the show, of the character … She’s been with the love of her life for 50 years. It’s the marriage that we all dream of having. And he dies suddenly, tragically, and … all of a sudden the rug is really just emotionally and psychologically pulled out from underneath them. And it’s how do you rebuild a life and it’s the study of grief. He said that I had committed that night, which I did not. I’d had a few cocktails. We went back and forth a little bit about [the fact] that I really would like to read something. And he said, “Well, I would really like to cast this before I write anything.” Then I realized I wasn’t going to win this battle and I reached out to Helen Mirren [who starred in Sheridan’s “1923”], who I don’t know, but I figured she doesn’t suffer fools and she would give me the truth about what it’s like to do this. She couldn’t have spoken [more] highly of everything. She said the scripts are wonderful. The production is wonderful. And loves Montana. And so I took a leap of faith. I never do that.

What stands out to you about his process versus then working with your husband, David E. Kelley, also a prolific writer, who adapted “Margo’s Got Money Troubles”?

Pfeiffer: I couldn’t be luckier working for two of the most talented and prolific writers in the history of television. [They’re] not that much different. I purposefully didn’t want to bug David because it’s not like we had any hard-and-fast rules about not working together, but we weren’t really actively seeking it out because that can get a little dicey, just looking at it from afar. I really cherish my marriage, and our family, and I just didn’t want to mess it up. I really mostly went to the director and every now and then I might throw a little something his way. And [with] Taylor … I would go through Christina [Alexandra Voros], our director, because he’s just not honestly that accessible because he’s got a bit going on. I personally don’t like to spend my time trying to rewrite things. It’s more interesting to me to try to make something work and then I end up finding something I never would’ve decided. It just takes you to a new place and it’s so much more interesting than anything I would have conjured up.

Zahn, you’re not only the lead in “Dark Winds,” but also an executive producer and directing episodes. I know there was a moment where your character was supposed to shoot someone in the face early on. And you felt strongly, “My character’s not someone that would do this.” Talk to me about leaning into speaking your mind.

McClarnon: There’s not a lot of Native characters on television. The foundation of that character obviously comes from Tony Hillerman’s books. So the foundation was set for that character. And when I got to a point in the season where I’m supposed to kill a man, shoot him in the head in the middle of the desert — first off, I didn’t see that in the books. And I know it’s television and we want drama and all that stuff, but also, to be honest with you, I want Native kids — see, I’m going to cry now — to have something to look up to. We grew up with these stereotypes and we grew up with these tropes of Native Americans. The only one I can really remember that I really looked up to was Will Sampson in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” because he was playing a trope, but he becomes the hero at the end of the story. It’s one of my favorite films. So when it came to that point where the writer said, “He’s going to kill this rich white man in the desert and shoot him in the head,” morally, I think Joe Leaphorn is more than that.

And it was simple. I sat down with the showrunner [John Wirth] and we talked about it, and we went back and forth for about a week. And I’m so glad that I have access to somebody like that. I have access where they’re not telling me, “No, this is the way it’s written. This is what you’re going to do.” So yeah, we decided not to shoot the guy in the head, where I’d just leave him out in the desert to fend for himself.

Katherine, you’ve talked to nurses and medical professionals in the making of “The Pitt,” but you were also a patient during your breast cancer journey, interacting with them a lot from the other side. What is something that they’ve told you or even something you observed in that time that really spoke to you about what they’re going through on the day to day in these jobs?

LaNasa: It’s funny, I’d always wanted to work with John Wells. I go through this period of all this unemployment, and then I get this job for John Wells. I had had cancer a year before and then had complications up to like six months before. It wasn’t until I got to the emergency room set that I was like, “Oh, this whole period … ” — the spirituality of that. I really believe that we need to be grateful for our life while we’re living it, no matter what’s going on. Because I still have my children, and I have nature, and I have my husband, and cooking, and my dog, and so many wonderful things. And I was really trying to hold onto that. It’s always this idea that maybe something is for a reason or whatever — now I’m going to cry. The fact that that was so purposeful, that I understood so deeply what it was to be a patient, what it was to be terrified going into the emergency department. I also understood how much it mattered when a nurse took a little extra time and was a little bit kind.

Pfeiffer: You’re going to make me cry.

LaNasa: And there was one particular nurse — I had my cancer, went through my radiation and then [went] back and forth, back and forth [to the ER]. And there was a week, the second trip to the ER [they thought I might have multiple sclerosis]. “Now do I have MS on top of having had cancer?” And I had a breakdown in the ER. And she’s like, “Listen, first six months after cancer are really bumpy, and it’s not going to stay like this. Do you need an Ativan?”

Magnussen: Did not see that turn.

LaNasa: It was that human touch. Or when they would come and give you a warm blanket or something. There’s a nurse, Kathy Garvin at County, who told me she wouldn’t do the job that she does being the [emergency department] charge nurse if it wasn’t in a county hospital. She wants to do that hard work for people that really need her. For the most underprivileged, for the unhoused. And I try to honor that in the story and to just bring that to life — their generosity and their humility.

The Envelope’s 2026 Emmy Drama Roundtable: From left, Zahn McClarnon, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tom Pelphrey, Katherine LaNasa, Billy Magnussen and Karolina Wydra.

There’s a lot of discussion in the industry right now about runaway production and can L.A. rebuild and what’s lost. I’m curious how you feel about this topic.

Magnussen: I live in Georgia and … one of our biggest exports as Americans is our culture. And if we just keep it isolated to Hollywood, I think we lose out at expressing everything we are as Americans.

McClarnon: We shoot on the Tesuque Pueblo. There’s 19 pueblos in New Mexico. We have taken over their old casino and we’ve converted it into a soundstage. We use their back lot. We obviously help out the tribe with renting the place out. And so I like shooting in New Mexico and supporting the local community, especially local Natives.

Pfeiffer: I think there’s room for all of it. We shot [a movie] in London that took place in Los Angeles. And it’s ridiculous that our entire industry has left. Los Angeles is really hurting. And a lot of people are hurting. All those jobs, all of those restaurants where people used to eat, people used to shop. And I think to not give the same sort of tax incentives that other states are doing — look, if it takes place in Georgia, you should go to Georgia. But I think Los Angeles was really built on the movie [industry].

LaNasa: I have a 34-year-old and a 12-year-old. I remember with my 34-year-old, even just being a young, starting-out mother, I would be like, “Well, I’m not going out of town. I have a child.” I would never go do a TV show out of town. I had a kid and the kid was in school and I needed to provide consistency for that child. And then with my second one, that was impossible. We would just not have been able to work. But it’s really hard on families. We are actors and we’ve come here to pursue the industry. We’ve moved here and we’ve risked something … L.A., for all of its problems, is a city of dreamers. It’s a city of people that came to pursue their art. And I am one of those people. And so in a way, I wasn’t really a citizen like the other citizens of Atlanta. I was outside. I didn’t have my community.

Magnussen: I know, but that’s the thing I have an issue with is this idea that, “It’s only there.”

Pelphrey: I’ll say this. Love that we get to film all over our beautiful country. Would love to keep the jobs in this country. That would be the nice part. Because when everybody’s like, “Oh great, we can go to Belarus or London.” Guess what? All of us get to go. Our crew doesn’t get to go — the people that we know that we need, that we work with, that we make these things with. We get to go wherever the f— we want, actors, directors, but the crew doesn’t.

“DOES the hunchback of Notre-Dame still live here?” my eight-year-old daughter Molly asks, as we look up at the gleaming white towers of Paris’ recently restored Notre-Dame cathedral.

Although we don’t find any secret medieval residents inside, we do adore gazing at the gold stars dotted across the sky-blue ceilings of the side chapels, and the stunning stained-glass windows that cast rainbows of light across the floor.

The five-year restoration project – after Notre-Dame burned down in 2019 – cost more than £600million and involved around 2,000 craftspeople, with 1,200 oak trees sourced from French forests – and the results are miraculous.

Entry is free, but save queuing time by booking ahead (Notredamedeparis.fr).

Stairway to heaven

We’re staying at NoPi Chic, a gorgeous Airbnb just off the main drag in Pigalle and down the road from the Moulin Rouge.

The two-bedroom apartment has high ceilings and a treasure trove of objets d’art. The kids’ room comes with the cutest bunks, and we love climbing the classic Parisian spiral staircase to our front door.

CROWN JULES

I tried the European river cruise where your wine glass never goes empty

BEACH PLEASE

Spanish TUI hotel to reopen next summer for adults only and it’s on the beach

Each morning, I sit on the balcony with an espresso watching locals on their baguette runs, while Sundays are market day on nearby Rue des Martyrs, where tables are laden with cheese, wine and paintings.

Just five minutes’ walk away is Bouillon Pigalle, a modern French bistro, where Molly and her older brother Elliot, 11, marvel at the black-and-white uniformed waiters buzzing about.

We order a litre of citronnade, £8.85, which the kids speedily drain, before digging into oeufs mayonnaises, £2.20, as a starter, and demolishing steak frites, £10.90.

Our puddings – crème brulée, £3.30, and chocolate mousse, £3.25 – are also a triumph (Bouillonlesite.com).

Vuitton & Views

The next day, we head to the incredible Fondation Louis Vuitton in north-west Paris, designed by architect Frank Gehry using thousands of custom-carved glass panes, making the building resemble a boat.

Kids can borrow iPads that guide them through the gallery’s modern and contemporary art exhibits.

From the top terraces, we soak up the view over the city and the Eiffel Tower, before heading next door to Le Jardin d’Acclimatation, included in the entry fee, to explore its landscaped gardens and amusement park, complete with fairground rides, mini golf and a house of mirrors.

A family ticket costs £27 (Fondationlouisvuitton.fr).

Another gem we all adore is Passage Jouffroy, one of a series of 19th-century covered arcades.

The kids love roaming around Pain d’Epices, a magical toy shop (Paindepices.fr), while the original, stunning site of the oldest chocolatier in Paris, À La Mère de Famille, which opened in 1761, sits close by on Rue du Faubourg Montmartre.

The chocolates here really are miniature masterpieces (Lameredefamille.com).

That evening, we check out Bouillon Julien, half an hour’s walk away from our apartment.

The jaw-dropping art nouveau paintings and glasswork must make this bistro one of the capital’s most beautiful.

The food is excellent, too.

We order the avocado and prawn cocktail, £4.35, then yet another steak and chips with an amazing house butter, £11.25, washed down with a carafe of merlot, £6.90 (Bouillon-julien.com).

Santé to being well-fed and well-cultured!

When San Juan native Rafael Rodriguez opened Señor Big Ed in Cypress in the mid-90s, there were few Puerto Rican restaurants in Southern California.

“A lot of customers were driving long ways to come to eat at Señor Big Ed,” said restaurant manager Veronica Coronado. “They would get very emotional when they would eat the food, because it reminded them so much of their childhood.”

While cities like New York and Miami have come to be veritable hubs for Puerto Rican cuisine, the food community here in Los Angeles — more than 3,000 miles away from the island — still remains relatively small.

And yet, demand for Boricua cuisine is on the rise locally, due in part to a growing Puerto Rican population — about 47,000 residents, according to the Los Angeles Almanac — and rapper Bad Bunny’s recent Super Bowl halftime show that paid homage to his homeland and made history as the most-watched Super Bowl halftime performance of all time, with more than 4 billion views globally.

“His whole movement and everything that he’s been doing for the island … has really been this big boost for global awareness of the Puerto Rican identity and culture,” said Carmen DeLeon, the actor and chef behind Capicu, a Puerto Rican pop-up in L.A.

While longstanding restaurants like Señor Big Ed have anchored communities for decades, newer spots like Taínos in Woodland Hills and La Casa de Iris in Long Beach are expanding the Boricua food landscape in L.A.

“Everyone comes to look for this food because this is like gold,” said Edwin Torres, chef at Taínos in Woodland Hills.

In addition to traditional guisados, mofongo (mashed green plantains) and banana-leaf-wrapped pasteles, Taínos shares Puerto Rican dishes rarely seen outside of home kitchens. Soon, co-owner Odessa Rodriguez plans to add guanimes con bacalao, boiled flour dumplings with salted cod, a Taíno dish that traces back centuries.

“We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. We are just trying to bring back essential plates that our ancestors ate,” Rodriguez said.

DeLeon, known as the Not Starving Artist on Instagram, started her pop-up in 2023 with her sister Anabel, serving small bites at bars, farmers markets and local events. The siblings grew up in Arizona cooking Puerto Rican food with their island-born parents, and DeLeon said she’s passionate about making the cuisine accessible to others.

“I want to attract people first, and then I can talk about where these dishes derive from and where the inspiration comes from,” she said.

The current menu features pizza empanadillas, vegan arroz con gandules (rice with pigeon peas), vegan tostones and gazpacho, and mini sandwiches with ham, cheese and sweet pimiento peppers.

DeLeon hopes more people will grow excited about Puerto Rican food as they discover the culture and meaning behind the cuisine.

“There’s so much history and structure and love behind this group of people, this environment, this culture, this food, this identity,” she said. “I hope that when people eat this food … I want your belly to feel full, I want you to feel as if you’re sitting at my house with my family.”

Similarly, Rodriguez hopes Taínos will become a cultural hub for Boricuas in L.A.

“It fulfills me to feel that I am providing a sense of comfort, nostalgia, home,” she said. “It’s bigger than food.”

Whether you’re craving nostalgic flavors from home or looking to experience L.A.’s small but growing Puerto Rican food scene, here are four restaurants serving up a taste of the Isla del Encanto. — Angela Osorio

Colombian folk music icon Totó La Momposina, known as the “Queen of Cumbia,” has died. She was 85.

The Colombian Ministry of Culture announced the lauded vocalist’s death Tuesday morning.

“Today we bid farewell to the eternal Totó. (1940-2026) To the eternal teacher who traveled the entire world to the rhythm of cumbias, porros, mapalés, and bullerengues born in the heart of our land,” the ministry wrote in an X post. “To the eternal Momposina who spoke of the traditional music of the Caribbean, empowered it, and enriched it for decades to write an entire chapter in the cultural history of our country.”

In an Instagram post from the artist’s official account, her children provided a cause of death.

“With profound sorrow, we, her children Marco Vinicio, Angelica Maria, and Euridice Salome Oyaga Bazanta, announce the passing of our mother, Sonia Bazanta Vides, better known as Totó la Momposina, surrounded by her family in Celaya, Mexico, on Sunday, May 17. Cause of death: myocardial infarction,” the post read.

The children also touched on the enduring legacy that their mother left behind.

“Totó was a woman who, with her voice and extraordinary dedication, carried the culture and memory of the Colombian people to the far corners of the world. Her joy, light, wisdom, talent, generosity, and many other virtues touched the lives of countless people,” they continued in the post. “She shared with the world the music, culture, dances, and essence of Colombia’s Caribbean coast. Her name will forever remain in the memory of those who admired her, accompanied her and loved her.”

Born Sonia Bazanta Vides in 1940 in the Colombian town of Talaigua Nuevo, Totó la Momposina was born to a family with Afro-Colombian and Indigenous roots. Her music was renowned for incorporating the percussive and melodic instruments unique to her cultural identity. Both of her parents were amateur musicians and she began performing on stage at the age of six.

Her musical taste and sound was informed by the Afro-Indigenous rhythms of the traditional mapalé, chalupa, porro, bullerengue and cumbia genres that originated in Columbia and which she studied by visiting musicians in neighboring villages throughout her youth.

After moving to the Colombian capital of Bogotá in the 1960s, she immersed herself in the city’s music scene and began performing as part of a group. Totó la Momposina moved to Paris in the 1980s to study music at the Sorbonne University.

When Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez received the Nobel Prize in literature in 1982, she accompanied him to Stockholm and was among several Colombian artists to perform at the ceremony.

Hot on the heels of some international recognition, Totó la Momposina released her debut solo album “La Verdolaga” in 1983. She would later catapult to greater worldwide fame after she formed an artistic relationship with English musician Peter Gabriel. Under Gabriel’s Real World Records label, Totó la Momposina released her 1993 album “La Candela Viva,” which received international acclaim and a formative text in the cumbia and bullerengue genres.

In 2011, she was award record of the year at the 12th annual Latin Grammy Awards, alongside Calle 13, Susana Baca and Maria Rita for the track “Latinoamérica.” The singer also received a Latin Grammy lifetime achievement award in 2013.

A lot has changed since Jacori Perry attended Morningside High School.

Perry is now a renowned artist who goes by the names Mr. Ace and AiseBorn.

The school is now known as Inglewood High School United.

And the lecture hall on that campus now features a large, ornate mural of a soccer ball being grasped by the hands of two people — freshly painted by the 2004 Morningside graduate as the city of Inglewood prepares to host eight World Cup games at SoFi Stadium starting next month.

Local artist Mr. Ace works on his mural at Inglewood High School United on May 11. The artist, whose real name is Jacori Perry, attended the school when it was known as Morningside High more than two decades ago.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

“If you told me that I would be back here painting one of the walls on this campus when I was in high school, I don’t think that I necessarily would have foreseen it,” Mr. Ace said as he put the finishing touches on his mural last week. “So I’m a little in amazement about just the way life works in that sense.”

He was one of several Los Angeles-based artists to participate in a Road to World Cup Community Day last month at Inglewood High United. Many of the artists — including Juan Pablo Reyes (“JP murals”), Michelle Ruby Guerrero (“Mr. B Baby”) and Angel Acordagoitia — sketched designs on portable panels (12-feet by 8-feet) and picnic tables for community members to paint.

The picnic tables will remain at the high school in front of Mr. Ace’s mural. The mobile murals will be placed throughout LAX to welcome visitors arriving for the World Cup.

Kathryn Schloessman, chief executive of the Los Angeles World Cup 2026 Host Committee, said in a news release that the event was “just one example of how the energy of the World Cup can be felt in neighborhoods across our region.”

“Students, artists, and volunteers came together to create a work of art that will live on well beyond the end of the tournament,” Schloessman said. “It’s a reflection of the creativity, diversity, and community pride that makes our region so special as we prepare to host the world for FIFA World Cup 2026.”

Community members were encouraged to take part in the painting process, no matter their skill level.

“We made it easy enough for people that have zero experience to a proficient level of experience, for them to all be involved,” said Reyes, who designed and helped paint two mural panels and three tables. “We did the sketch, and then I tried to dab a little bit of color — whatever color is supposed to be there, I dabbed a little bit of color right there, so they would have a guide. …

Students and community members help paint a mural panel during a Road to World Cup Community Day event May 2 at Inglewood High School.

(Dawn M. Burkes / Los Angeles Times)

“I was right there, kind of supervising, making sure that everything went as planned. And if anybody has questions, they’re more than welcome to let me know about them. But, yeah, it’s pretty easy for them to kind of be involved and feel that sense of ownership and have a sense of pride that, ‘Yeah, I was part of that mural-creation process.’ It’s a rich experience for them.”

Acordagoitia sketched several tabletop designs for the public to paint at the event.

“They did great,” he said of the community members. “They helped a lot. They were asking questions. They got all the other colors correct. So, yeah, they were excited. A lot of kids were excited to see the live painting, because now kids are used to being on their phones. So that was a great experience for them.”

Acordagoitia also opted to paint a mural panel on his own because “it was a little more technical,” involving portraits of his 8-year-old son, a nephew and a friend.

“I wanted to focus more on the youth because that’s really our future,” he said. “So that’s, that’s the main thing about the mural, just about the kids, soccer, culture, community. It’s exciting for me, because I grew up playing soccer and to include soccer with art, it’s just a dream come true.”

Guerrero said “the community was a big help in filling in all the background colors that I need in order to build the detail and layers” on the two mural panels she designed.

“My whole style is based on culture. And I think that there’s a connection there with the World Cup and how I feel like it brings together all the culture and just, like, celebration,” Guerrero said. “It kind of goes hand in hand with the type of work I do, because my stuff is really festive, celebrating culture. And just as an L.A.-based artist, I think the collaboration made sense.”

The four artists also took part in another Road to World Cup Community Day in downtown L.A. at Gloria Molina Grand Park on March 14. At that event, the artists sketched designs on large sculptures shaped like soccer balls and on an oversized picnic table, also for community members to paint.

While Mr. Ace opted to paint his permanent mural at Inglewood High School United on his own, he was sure to include the community theme into his work.

“The idea was really centered around just creating something that was community-based — something that represented the World Cup but also represented some sense of community,” he said. “And so what I did was try to create something that was symbolic, very direct in terms of its relationship to soccer and figuring out through that how to create something simple that [brings] into that a sense of community. And that’s how I landed on the two hands holding the soccer ball.”

Local artist Mr. Ace works on his World Cup-themed mural at Inglewood High School United on May 11.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Back when he was a student on that campus, Mr. Ace said he was always involved in art and knew he wanted a career as an artist. He struggled to come up with the right words to describe how it felt being back there creating a work of art to be shared with the students, all of the community and everyone who happens to see it on the way to a World Cup match.

“I guess there’s no words to really describe it,” he said. “I think if any artist gets the opportunity to paint at their own high school — especially if they’ve been doing large-scale works around the city, the country or the world — I think that is a little touching. When it’s attached to something like the World Cup … you know, a large part of my childhood was spent in Inglewood, so coming from my circumstances and life, I think it’s even more intriguing.”

South Korean boy band BTS, U.S. pop culture icon Madonna and Latin music superstar Shakira will be performing at halftime during the World Cup final July 19 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., FIFA announced Thursday morning.

The performance will support the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund, which is looking to raise $100 million to assist children in accessing education and soccer.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino wrote on Instagram that the show “will be a truly special moment, bringing together music, football and a shared commitment to improving the lives of children around the world.”

The show is being curated by Coldplay leader Chris Martin and, if this event announcement video is to be believed, a bunch of Muppets.

“It’s a chance to show how amazing all different kinds of humans are,” Martin explains to Elmo in the video.

The three acts will bring a variety of cultures, musical styles and generations of fans to the Super Bowl-style concert, which will be the first of its kind for a World Cup final.

Madonna headlined the Super Bowl XLVI halftime show in 2012, and Shakira teamed with Jennifer Lopez to co-headline the Super Bowl LIV halftime show in 2020. Also, Coldplay headlined the Super Bowl 50 halftime show in 2016.

No duration time has been announced for the World Cup show, although soccer halftimes are not supposed to last more than 15 minutes. Bad Bunny’s halftime performance at Super Bowl LX in February lasted 13 minutes.

Among the three of them, Madonna, Shakira and BTS have compiled 20 No. 1 songs on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart, 10 Grammys and 37 MTV Video Music Awards. Shakira is scheduled to release “Dai Dai” with Nigerian singer Burna Boy as the official song of the 2026 World Cup this month.

Mexican lawmakers have long struggled to balance the country’s ongoing fight against narco-trafficking with the international popularity of corridos tumbados — which they say promote violence and crime.

On Monday, the famed corrido singer Junior H joined President Claudia Sheinbaum during her daily news conference to promote México Canta: a binational music competition for artists from both Mexico and the United States, organized by México’s Ministry of Culture.

During his speech, the 25-year-old supported the contest, now in its second iteration, which was designed to help amplify the musical potency of México while moving away from its violent reputation.

He also reflected on his own ascent to fame, which came through popular songs like 2023’s “El Azul” (alongside Peso Pluma), a narcocorrido believed to be about a Sinaloan drug lord Juan Jose Esparragoza Moreno; as well as his 2022 banda-fused track, “El Hijo Mayor,” which some speculate to be about the son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

“In my initial [career], some of the stories that I shared in my music didn’t add to the positive message that reflect my current compositions,” said Junior H, whose real name is Antonio Herrera Pérez. “I kept growing and I learned that music, besides being a form of expression, also implies a responsibility when millions of people hear you worldwide.”

Junior H — who grew up in Guanajuato before immigrating to Utah — continued to speak on his evolution as an artist and human, acknowledging the role he plays in shaping how his listeners, which amount to over 30 million on Spotify, visualize their futures.

“A culture of peace does not mean we cease to stop talking about our reality. It means finding new ways to express them,” said Junior H. “I invite all young generations to participate, to believe in your talent and to never stop believing in your dreams.”

Two months ago, the singer struck a different chord when he performed “El Azul” at the South by Southwest music festival on March 14 as part of the Billboard showcase. “It’s the government against us, or us against the government,” said Junior H to the audience, in resistance to censorship.

As of now, 10 out of 32 Mexican states have implemented bans or limitations on corridos in public spaces; lawmakers assert that the lyrics promote organized crime. The penalty for singing such ballads can range between a monetary fine to prison time.

In October, Junior H was reportedly fined 400,000 pesos (more than $23,000) after performing “El Azul” during a festival in Zapopan, Jalisco, per Billboard. The Zapopan municipal president, Juan José Frangie Saade, allegedly banned the artist from performing in the city during his term, which ends in September 2027.

As of now, the singer is slated to perform at the Baja Beach Fest in Rosarito, Baja California, on Aug. 8.

Contrary to her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a staunch critic of corridos tumbados, President Sheinbaum is keeping an open mind to the power of the trap-infused subgenre. As a result, this year’s edition of México Canta will place its focus on regional Mexican music acts.

“We are not censoring [regional music], because I don’t believe in censorship,” said Sheinbaum during the news conference. “I don’t think prohibiting music or its contents will solve anything. More than anything, we need to promote nonviolent music. That’s the objective of this contest.”

Open calls for México Canta are now open through June 10. The semifinals will take place at the Million Dollar Theatre in Los Angeles on Aug. 23 and at the Angela Peralta Theater in Mazatlán on Aug. 30. The grand finale will take place Sept. 13.

Four months have passed since US Starfighters breached the Fuerte Tiuna Death Star, captured Darth Maduro and celebrations broke out all around the galaxy. Venewoks in the diaspora embraced a renewed sense that victory, this time, might be permanent. But back in the country, the Empire has managed to reorganize and adapt to the demands of Viceroy Trump and leading members of the Trade Federation. Darth Delcy, albeit disdained by many, is becoming stronger. The rebellion yearns for the return of Master Machado, who isn’t getting the Viceroy’s authorization to negotiate a proper matchup with Darth Delcy and subsequent terms of surrender.

It’s more evident by the minute that Darth Delcy’s plan is to avert the creation of the New Republic by giving the Empire a technocratic, trade-friendly outlook. The path between defeating Darth Maduro and dismantling the Empire has turned out to be treacherous. Master Machado has tried to reassert her leadership by visiting foreign galaxies, but can’t find a breakthrough with the Viceroy.

Delcykrats are trying to conduct a swift takeover of the layered system Darth Maduro inherited from the Emperor. Madurokis are being neutralized or quietly assigned to minor planets, as is the case of Grand Moff Padrino in Agraria. Grand Admiral González López and Envoy Plasencia, old friends of Darth Delcy, are making strides, one within the Imperial High Command, the other across intergalactic diplomacy. Grand Vizier Jorge, Darth Delcy’s cunning brother, is running the senate and recasting the new imperial order through the language of old Scarlet propaganda.

The new imperial order

In Carascant, to keep the Scarlet Coalition from fragmenting, Darth Delcy tries to keep the echo of Stormtrooper boots and official dismissals contained within Imperial Offices. She still has to contend with Diosdado the Hutt, whose power lies in coercion and galactic hunting squads. More than 450 rebellion prisoners, many captured on the Hutt’s orders, are still in Imperial detention centers.

Viceroy Trump looks unwilling to press the ruling Delcykrats as long as he gets unrestricted access to on-demand resources such as kyber crystals and beskar steel. As Darth Delcy’s power and appeal before the Trade Federation has grown, she has terminated initial gestures of reconciliation that were initially needed for appeasement. A new Death Star is in the works, and to build a superior weapon for durable rule, Darth Delcy knows time is her most valuable asset.

Chief Envoy Rubio has reassured Master Machado that the galaxy first needs to stabilize and revive its economy before any transition can take place. Lately, however, the envoys that visit Carascant have said nothing about Republican reform, and a great deal about kyber crystals and the resumption of intergalactic travel.

The Empire does not need either Darth Maduro or Darth Delcy to prevail. It only needs the New Republic project to fail.

Master Machado has also witnessed how the regime restricts the activity of allies like Han Guanipa and Lando Armas, dropping threats every now and then. In the domestic senate, separatist opponents led by Count Capriles have failed to influence Imperial policy. A series of looming Imperial appointments, and the November referendum on Viceroy Trump, can determine Master Machados’ chances to a great extent.

Aligning the interests of the victors of the November referendum with those of the New Republic will be a challenge for rebel aides Mon Meda and Pedro Organa. They won’t just need to keep a level of coordination with allies of growing importance, but to safeguard Master Machado’s position before Viceroy Trump while keeping the new hope alive.

The struggle for Republican foundations

In the coming weeks, the Scarlet Coalition will be forced to appoint a new InterGalactic Banking Board (IGBB) and, even sooner, fill roughly two-thirds of the Imperial High Court. The figures chosen to lead these bodies could prove decisive in shaping the fate of Darth Delcy’s emerging Death Star project. A competent IGBB will be essential for the stabilization phase, key to aligning both the Trade Federation and the Galactic Senate behind the prospect of Venezuela’s economic rebound.

At the same time, a genuinely independent Imperial High Court could become the first meaningful check on Imperial power. The courts are also expected to oversee the Council of Electoral Battles, still controlled by Madurokis whom Darth Delcy has left untouched to avoid triggering her pending matchup with Master Machado. These two institutions will be critical to the third phase that Chief Envoy Rubio is purportedly pursuing, and might determine the success of Viceroy Trump’s plan after capturing Darth Maduro. Control over courts and the Battles Council will determine whether the final electoral contest—backed by the Trade Federation—can take place on credible terms.

The Rebel struggle will gradually shift toward navigating a far more intricate web of factions within a fragmented Trade Federation.

But Darth Delcy is expected to attempt cosmetic reshuffles rather than a transformative change of Imperial personnel. One unresolved question is whether forces aligned with Master Machado, such as national support and diplomatic pressure, will be enough to force a true transfer of power, or whether the Empire will once again adapt without changing.

The near future provides an opportunity for the new order to strengthen. The Trade Federation’s influence over Darth Delcy depends on Viceroy Trump’s grip on power, which will face its biggest challenge in the November referendum. The unchecked power the Viceroy currently has allows him to circumvent any criticism over Carascant. But change in the Trade Federation’s balance of power could make bipartisan support essential for the future of the New Republic.

The Trade Federation’s reckoning

Competing views in the Trade Federation on how to advance with the Empire’s transition will give more time and less scrutiny to Darth Delcy’s actions. It also provides an opportunity for Imperial Envoy Plasencia to bolster views which are more aligned with the Empire. For the Rebellion, the fallout from Viceroy Trump’s eroding grip on power hinges entirely on the alliances Master Machado has tried to forge.

These alliances will likely be essential to maintain pressure and decisively advance the New Republic’s agenda. Nonetheless, Viceroy Trump’s polarizing grip on the narrative has created deep seated resistance amongst potential allies. The struggle will gradually shift away from merely managing and appeasing Viceroy Trump and his Envoys, and toward navigating a far more intricate web of factions within a fragmented Trade Federation.

When Darth Maduro was defeated but no New Republic was allowed to emerge, the Empire did not dissolve, it adapted. Its new faces and colors are not signs of weakness but mechanisms of survival, designed to delay or prevent the formation of a New Republic. “Permanent victory” is an illusion. The Empire does not need either Darth Maduro or Darth Delcy to prevail. It only needs the New Republic project to fail.

What follows for Master Machado and the Rebellion is therefore not a triumphant return, but a sequence of calculated risks. The next chapter will depend on whether Master Machado returns as the leader of a Rebellion or as the effective architect of a New Republic. The Empire is determined to prevent her return or neutralize her immediately. If she returns solely as a symbol of resistance, Imperial forces will seek to frame her as a destabilizing threat to Viceroy Trump’s plan, increasing the risk of escalation against her.

If, however, her return becomes the centerpiece of a multilateral New Republic project backed by the Trade Federation, it would directly undermine Darth Delcy’s strategy. In that scenario, any move against Master Machado would signal to Viceroy Trump that Delcy cannot control the coalition she leads. At the same time, Master Machado’s movement can position itself as a more credible alternative for institutional reconstruction.

This shift, from diplomatic cover during resistance to an instrument of internal legitimacy, opens a narrow but meaningful window for the New Republic’s success.

The past 12o days show that Venewoks have not yet earned their Endor moment. As in the Star Wars movies, dismantling an Empire and building a New Republic will take a long and arduous journey. Normally the credits would unroll now, but the crisis continues and Darth Delcy’s intentions are crystal clear.

Seoul – Shekinah Yawra had no other option but to spend the night at a South Korean jjimjilbang, a 24-hour bathhouse, after every hotel near central Seoul sold out in late March.

But sleep was secondary for the 32-year-old Filipino who had made her way to Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square at 7am to secure a spot in a crowd that city officials estimated would grow to hundreds of thousands.

All this was for a glimpse at the seven-member K-pop supergroup BTS, who returned to the stage on March 21 after almost four years away from the limelight for their staggered, mandatory military service.

Though she failed to secure one of 22,000 free tickets for BTS’s first return concert in the square, Yawra was still ecstatic to stand on the sidelines and watch the concert live on a big screen set up for the occasion.

“We all came just for this,” she told Al Jazeera, recounting how friends had flown in from the Philippines for a single night to catch the concert.

Worldwide, more than 18.4 million viewers tuned in for the Netflix livestream of the concert.

With an estimated 30 million fans worldwide – who refer to themselves as the BTS ARMY – the K-pop group is the most visible symbol of “Hallyu”, or the “Korean Wave”, and the global surge of interest in South Korean popular culture and the financial revenues being generated as a result.

In late March, BTS’s 10th studio album, Arirang, topped the charts in the United States, Japan and the United Kingdom, the world’s three largest music markets. The group’s upcoming world tour is expected to generate more than $1.4bn in revenue across more than 80 shows in 23 countries.

Domestically, inbound tourist numbers for the first 18 days of March rose 32.7 percent from the previous month, according to Ministry of Justice data, as the return concert approached and hotel prices surged across central Seoul amid the demand for rooms.

In the week leading up to the concert, sales of BTS merchandise – from BTS glow sticks to blankets – surged 430 percent at the Shinsegae Duty Free retail outlet in central Seoul, the company said.

Over the concert weekend, revenues also rose 30 percent at the city’s Lotte Department Store and 48 percent at Shinsegae overall, compared with the same March weekend a year earlier, in 2025.

As far back as 2022, the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute (KCTI) – a government-sponsored think tank and research organisation – estimated that a single BTS concert in Seoul could generate up to 1.2 trillion won ($798m) in overall economic impact.

KCTI researcher Yang Ji-hoon told Al Jazeera that a sample study of the crowd at the BTS comeback event at Gwanghwamun Square highlighted the uniqueness of fandom-driven tourism. More than half of those at the concert were foreign visitors and many required long-haul travel to attend.

“In Europe and the United States, travel tends to be concentrated within its own regions,” Yang said.

“So, for people to overcome such travel barriers and come to South Korea, it usually requires more than just ordinary motivation or typical spending – it’s not something that happens easily,” he said.

K-pop’s transition to the global mainstream

The scale of BTS’s return to the entertainment world reflects a broader state-backed strategy.

When music promoter Hybe requested Seoul city support for the Gwanghwamun square comeback concert, authorities approved it on public-interest grounds, treating the event as a showcase of national cultural influence.

Almost befitting an official event, more than 10,000 state personnel were deployed for security, logistics and crowd control.

According to data retrieved by South Korean publication Sisain, through a public information disclosure request to the Seoul government, close to 130 million won ($87,400) of city funds were spent as part of logistics for the comeback concert.

South Korean government support for BTS has a precedent.

As members of the boyband approached South Korea’s mandatory military service age, policymakers debated special exemptions for members of BTS, which was estimated to have generated $4.65bn annually to the country’s economy.

After BTS’s forthcoming concerts in Mexico City sold out in just 37 minutes, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum urged South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung to “bring the acclaimed K-pop artists more often”, noting nearly one million fans in Mexico had attempted to secure 150,000 tickets.

South Korea’s cultural influence is also extending beyond music.

South Korea’s cosmetics exports surpassed $11bn last year, according to global accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), overtaking France in cosmetics shipments to the US, while South Korean food and agricultural exports reached a record $13.6bn, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

KCTI researcher Yang described the growing interest as a phase of “transition to the global mainstream”, where South Korean products are internationally recognised and content output is measured against worldwide benchmarks such as the Billboard charts and the Academy Awards.

He also warned that structural reform is now essential to keep pace with the wave of interest in South Korea.

“As the industries expand in scale, they must also evolve in its underlying systems, infrastructure, and workforce,” he said.

“Rather than focusing solely on direct financial support, future governmental policies should move toward strengthening foundational conditions – such as improving labour environments, addressing unfair practices, building relevant infrastructure, and establishing more robust statistical and data systems,” he said.

Politicians appear to be paying attention.

During his election campaign last year, President Lee framed the next phase of cultural expansion as “Hallyu (Korean Wave) 4.0”, with promises to grow the sector into a 300 trillion won ($203bn) industry with 50 trillion won ($34bn) in exports.

In line with this vision, the government set the budget to bolster “K-content”, support the “pure” arts sector and strengthen the overall culture-related fields at a record 9.6 trillion won ($6.5bn) — reflecting the president’s view of the cultural sector as a strategic national industry rather than merely a consumer market.

South Korea’s strategy appears to be paying off.

South Korea now ranks 11th globally in “soft power”, according to Brand Finance’s Global Soft Power Index, placing the country as both “influential in arts and entertainment” and “products and brands the world loves”, just behind the US, France, the United Kingdom and Japan.

The darker side of K-pop: Pressure to become a perfect idol

Amid its global success, the darker side of the K-culture industry has received more scrutiny.

Mega-promoter Hybe has been embroiled in a prolonged dispute with K-pop’s New Jeans, a band considered to be a potential heir to BTS and their all-female colleagues Blackpink. The highly public legal dispute that started in 2024 highlights industry tensions over creative control and artist autonomy.

Since the early 2000s, K-pop has also grappled with the legacy of “slave contracts”, or highly restrictive agreements limiting artists’ freedom. Although reforms by the Fair Trade Commission have improved protections for performers, contractual obligations in the K-pop industry are exacting on new performers and their strict work routines have long been documented.

From their trainee years, aspiring idols endure gruelling schedules that involve long workdays and little sleep.

Many top stars often face contractual restrictions on socialising, using their phones or dating. They are also typically limited in what they can say publicly, relying on agency-managed messaging to communicate with fans and the media.

While the rise of social media and other online platforms has opened new avenues for more direct expression and interaction in recent years, concerns over burnout and depression have continued to shadow the industry, with several high-profile stars taking their own lives.

Beauty standards associated with the K-culture genre have also become another flashpoint for controversy.

A 2024 report by South Korean economy news site Uppity found 98 percent of 1,283 respondents born between 1980 and 2000 viewed physical appearance as among the most desirable “social capital” an individual can possess.

Nearly 40 percent of respondents in the survey had undergone cosmetic procedures, while more than 90 percent held neutral or positive attitudes regarding undergoing medical procedures to enhance beauty.

According to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, South Korea has the world’s highest rate of procedures, with 8.9 per 1,000 people compared with 5.91 per 1,000 people in the US and just 2.13 per 1,000 in neighbouring Japan.

Yoo Seung-chul, a professor of media studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said that K-culture has reinforced the normalising of beauty as a significant metric of personal and social value.

“K-culture has reinforced systems and structures around self-expression,” Yoo told Al Jazeera.

“With the rise of webtoons that incorporate themes like plastic surgery, there has been a noticeable reduction in the stigma towards going under the knife among younger audiences in their teens and early twenties,” Yoo said, explaining that popular plastic surgery platforms such as Unni have further normalised the trend by connecting people to clinics and reviews of these clinics and their surgeons.

At the same time, globalisation has reshaped the K-culture industry itself. Many new K-pop acts now include international members to broaden appeal.

Hybe has expanded this strategy through its US subsidiary, Hybe America, producing globally oriented groups like Katseye, which only has one South Korean member in its six-member girl group.

The shift has prompted debate.

Even BTS’s latest album Arirang – a nod to South Korea’s most iconic folk song – has divided fans over its use of English lyrics and foreign producers.

“K-content is being designed with global audiences in mind from the outset. In film, there has been a noticeable rise in genres like horror and science fiction, which are easier to export internationally,” Yoo said.

“This global orientation is also reflected in K-pop agencies recruiting foreign members for idol groups,” he said.

But international audiences do not always prefer highly globalised versions of Korean content, Yoo said, adding, in fact, that many are drawn to K-pop’s “sense of locality”.

As audiences increasingly seek authenticity, Yoo argues the industry faces a defining challenge.

“Industries and companies need to figure out how to preserve a sense of local identity while effectively marketing to global audiences,” Yoo added.

“Striking that balance will be crucial in shaping the next phase of Korea’s cultural exports.”

Banksy has unveiled a new sculpture of a man stepping off a stone base with his face obscured by a flag. The overnight installation in Waterloo Place, London, was revealed in a video shared by the artist, and has drawn fans of his politically charged works.

Chinguetti, Mauritania – Bookkeeper Muhammad Gholam el-Habot gently pulled a pair of white gloves onto his slender hands and set about his routine in his high-ceilinged, cool library lined with steel bookshelves.

He opened a thick manuscript printed in Arabic. After leafing through its brown and frail pages, looking for damage, el-Habot closed the book with a satisfied thud, rubbed his fingers over the wrinkled leather cover, and carefully placed it in a white cardboard box.

“These books are very important to my family and me,” the librarian said, as the midday sunlight spilled in through open wooden doors. He spoke in Hassaniya Arabic, the dialect spoken in Mauritania, his voice low, his sentences halting and poetic. Fat flies buzzed around his long oval face as he worked.

“My relationship with them is like that of a father and his son,” he continued. “We must protect them until God takes the land and all the people who are on the land.”

The el-Habot family library is only one of a handful of its kind still operating in Chinguetti, a medieval fortress town or ksar in Mauritania’s northern Adrar region. Once a centre of commerce and Islamic learning between the 13th and 17th centuries, it is now largely abandoned as, over the decades, locals have sought opportunities in bigger cities.

Chinguetti is also at the mercy of a changing climate.

Mauritania, in northwest Africa, is 90 percent Sahara desert and has faced desertification for centuries. Now, human-induced climate change is an accelerant. Sand and flash storms occur more frequently, while extreme hot or cold seasons last longer than usual.

Those pressures are a “big deal” for precious books, said Andrew Bishop, a researcher at the University of Wyoming studying climate impacts on Saharan cultures.

“Extreme heat and less predictable rainfall patterns means that texts are increasingly damaged by water or heat, making many manuscripts beyond repair. More than that, the mud libraries themselves are not built for sudden rain and longer summer of over 40 degrees (Celsius, or 104 degrees Fahrenheit),” he told Al Jazeera.

Many of Chinguetti’s 4,500 residents now live in cement buildings outside the original confines of the abandoned ksar, built out of dry stone and red mudbrick. There are fears that the entire area, which is about 500 square kilometres (200 square miles) – about the size of Prague – is at risk of being buried by surrounding sand dunes in the long run, although there is not a clear timeline yet.

Islam’s ‘seventh holiest city’

El-Habot did not always want to be a bookkeeper.

But when his father grew sick in 2002, he took over the approximately 1,400 manuscripts out of obligation. It was an honour in his culture to be selected, he said.

It would be out of the question now, the 50-year-old librarian said. He imagines that his two sons would reject the duty, as many of their peers have left to explore economic opportunities in the capital city, Nouakchott, or elsewhere.

“This is something that we have to do; it is a family obligation,” el-Habot said, with a bewildered expression. “This is not even a question to be asked.”

The family manuscripts are sacred because they are rare. The bookkeeper’s ancestor, Sidi Mohamed Ould Habot, was one of about two dozen Chinguetti scholars who travelled around the Muslim world between the 18th and 19th centuries, from Egypt to Andalusia, in search of knowledge.

Between them, the scholars amassed a vast fortune of about 6,000 scripts. They covered almost every topic: Islamic jurisprudence, the hadith or teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, mathematics, medicine, and poetry. Some of the works came from the scholars themselves, including the older el-Habot, who wrote about the science of poems.

The books were stored in about 30 libraries in Chinguetti, open to people from all over the world.

At the time, the town was famous because of its location at the crossroads of trans-Saharan trade routes linking the Sahel and the Maghreb. Camel caravans guided by nomadic Berber traders transporting goods – mostly salt and gold – between northern Africa and the southern empires used the city as a way station, transforming it into a commercial hub.

Muslim pilgrims on their way to Mecca on foot or camel would gather in Chinguetti and prepare themselves spiritually and mentally for their long, difficult journey before heading on to Cairo. Islamic and scientific texts were exchanged, bought and sold in the town.

In West African lore, Chinguetti was referred to as Islam’s seventh holiest city. Others nicknamed it the “Sorbonne of the Sahara”, according to UNESCO.

Generation after generation managed the libraries. Over time, as the caravan trade declined due to new European sea routes, the old town emptied and several libraries closed.

“Chinguetti was the mother of all people,” el-Habot said, referring to the town’s old status as the main capital of the region. Indeed, the area now known as Mauritania was called “Bilad Shinqit” or Land of Chinguetti. In the local Soninke language, it translates to “spring of horses”.

“People had to go because they wanted to feed themselves, get education for their kids, and get better opportunities for themselves too,” el-Habot said, adding that there were no universities close by, and only a handful of primary and middle schools.

Some within his family have moved on, as well, the bookkeeper said. Those, like him, who stayed back, wanted to respect their ancestor’s three wishes.

“His wishes were that the library stay in Chinguetti, that it should be open to all seekers of knowledge, and that a male descendant of his who is religious and morally upright be the bookkeeper,” el-Habot explained. Not following those instructions, he said, could invite God’s anger.

Chinguetti’s decline is largely due to the lack of support for its traditional lifestyle, Bishop said. Annual rainfall in Mauritania has decreased by 35 percent since 1970, making it harder for herders to graze or for date palms to produce fruit.

In 1996, UNESCO granted Chinguetti and three other Mauritanian ksour World Heritage Status, cementing their rich legacy. The few people still living in the old town are allowed to renovate but only minimally, to keep its original stone architecture and the typical Moorish structuring where houses are lined up along narrow alleys that lead to a mosque with a square minaret.

Just outside Chinguetti are the excavated ruins of Abweir, a town of 25,000 believed to have been founded in 777 AD, and believed to be the “original” Chinguetti. Its residents moved from the settlement, locals believe, in 1264 – likely after a conflict. Over time, the area was completely swallowed by sand.

Saving the manuscripts

El-Habot’s job, while enjoyable much of the time, is also taxing, he admitted.

Preserving old books by reprinting or digitising the most worn-out manuscripts before they become unreadable is a costly process. He often needs chemicals to keep away book-eating insects and has to fund more suitable storage.

Then, there is the weather, which is out of his control. Mauritania swelters in the dry season between April and December, and is bitingly cold in the winter months that follow. Old pages are sensitive to both extremes and can become brittle, el-Habot said. Sometimes, when it is really hot, he places buckets of water around the library hall to spur humidity.

Flash floods, meanwhile, threaten water damage.

Visitors to the library usually pay a small fee, but tourist numbers dropped drastically across Mauritania in the mid-2000s, when armed groups attacked foreigners. The COVID-19 pandemic also reduced the flow of travellers.

Mauritania has since clamped down on violence. Tourists are slowly coming back, el-Habot said, and some of the locals who left have also returned.

In 2024, a $100,000 UNESCO restoration project provided air-conditioning units, computers and printers, as well as shelving units and storage boxes to 13 family libraries to stimulate the sector. But most libraries remain closed, their texts scattered among members. The lack of capacity of young people who are not as interested in preserving Chinguetti’s culture will continue to pose a challenge, Bishop said.

Back in the library, el-Habot continued working, his thin frame bent over his manuscripts. He opened one book and pointed excitedly at its pages: They depicted the moon in its luteal phases, and an eclipse. A third page showed the holy cities of Mecca and Madina.

“I have to protect this heritage,” el-Habot said in his low voice. “As mine, and also for all of humanity.”

A former executive at Live Nation, the world’s largest live entertainment company, is suing the company, alleging that he was wrongfully terminated after he raised concerns about alleged financial misconduct and improper accounting practices.

Nicholas Rumanes alleges he was “fraudulently induced” in 2022 to leave a lucrative position as head of strategic development at a real estate investment trust to create a new role as executive vice president of development and business practice at Beverly Hills-based Live Nation.

In his new position, Rumanes said, he raised “serious and legitimate alarm” over the the company’s business practices.

As a result, he says, he was “unlawfully terminated,” according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

“Rumanes was, simply put, promised one job and forced to accept another. And then he was cut loose for insisting on doing that lesser job with integrity and honesty,” according to the lawsuit.

He is seeking $35 million in damages.

Representatives for Live Nation were not immediately available for comment.

The lawsuit comes a week after a federal jury in Manhattan found that Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary had operated a monopoly over major concert venues, controlling 86% of the concert market.

Rumanes’ lawsuit describes a “culture of deception” at Live Nation, saying its “basic business model was to misstate and exaggerate financial figures in efforts to solicit and secure business.”

Such practices “spanned a wide spectrum of projects in what appeared to be a company-wide pattern of financial misrepresentation and misleading disclosures,” the lawsuit states.

Rumanes says he received materials and documents that showed that the company inflated projected revenues across multiple venue development projects.

Additionally, Rumanes contends that the company violated a federal law that requires independent financial auditing and transparency and instead ran Live Nation “through a centralized, opaque structure” that enables it to “bypass oversight and internal checks and balances.”

In 2010, as a condition of the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger, the newly formed company agreed to a consent decree with the government that prohibited the firm from threatening venues to use Ticketmaster. In 2019 the Justice Department found that the company had repeatedly breached the agreement, and it extended the decree.

Rumanes contends that he brought his concerns to the attention of the company’s management, but his warnings were “repeatedly ignored.”

At least nine people have been arrested following the stampede, including police officers and ministry employees.

Haiti has begun three days of national mourning, following a deadly stampede at the Citadelle Laferriere in the northern part of the country.

At least 25 people were killed in the crush that formed at the entrance of the popular tourist site on Saturday, with some visitors pressing to exit while others pushed to enter.

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Culture and Communication announced that two government officials were fired in the aftermath of the stampede.

One, a director with the Institute for the Preservation of National Heritage, was accused of “serious negligence”. The other, who served in the Ministry of Culture and Communication, was criticised for “biased passivity”.

“The Ministry of Culture and Communication, without going into the details of the criminal investigation, believes that the tragedy at La Citadelle is the result of administrative negligence,” it said in a statement.

The government, it added, “will fully assume its responsibilities”, as the event “must outrage the public conscience”.

The tragedy marks one of several crises the Haitian government is facing as it approaches its first round of general elections later this year.

Already, nine suspects have been arrested in connection with the deadly stampede, including five police officers and two employees from the Institute for the Preservation of National Heritage.

The crush of people took place as a local DJ held an event at the citadel, a 19th-century fortress commissioned after the Haitian Revolution, when Haiti’s enslaved population overthrew French colonial rule.

Since its construction, the citadel has become a symbol of Haitian sovereignty.

But the stampede on Saturday was exacerbated by stormy weather conditions, as rain pummelled northern Haiti and participants at the event ran for cover.

Elsewhere in the country, approximately 12 people died due to the heavy downpours, and at least 900 homes and one hospital have been flooded.

The Haitian government has also been grappling with the threat of gang violence, particularly since the assassination of then-President Jovenel Moise in 2021.

His death left a power vacuum in the government that criminal networks have sought to exploit. Federal elections have been repeatedly postponed for much of the last decade.

Earlier this month, a United Nations-backed Gang Suppression Force began to arrive in the country to help address the violence.

From March 2025 through mid-January of this year, the UN has counted at least 5,519 gang-related deaths in Haiti. Roughly 16,000 people have been killed since 2022, and more than 1.5 million have been displaced.

Authorities called for more aid on Tuesday, as the violence continued. In the Marigot commune, seven people were killed and a police station was burned in an overnight gang attack.

Marigot Mayor Rene Danneau described the victims as informants who helped the police. He called on Haiti’s government to step in.

“We are asking the prime minister to take all necessary measures,” he told Radio Television Caraibes.