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WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday night signed into law legislation demanding that the Justice Department release all documents related to its investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

With little fanfare, the president announced the action in a lengthy social media post that attacked Democrats who have been linked to the late financier, a line of attack that he has often deployed while ignoring his and other Republicans’ ties to the scandal.

“Perhaps the truth about these Democrats and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed, but I HAVE JUST SIGNED THE BILL TO RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!” Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

Now the focus turns to Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, whom the legislation compels to make available “all unclassified records, documents, communications and investigative materials” in the Department of Justice’s possession no later than 30 days after the legislation becoming law.

The action on the bill marks a dramatic shift for Trump, who worked for months to thwart release of the Epstein files — until Sunday, when he reversed course under pressure from his party and called on Republican lawmakers to back the measure. Within days, the Senate and House overwhelmingly voted for the bill and sent it to Trump’s desk.

Although Trump has now signed the bill into law, his resistance to releasing the files has led to skepticism among some lawmakers on Capitol Hill who question whether the Justice Department may try to conceal information.

“The real test will be, will the Department of Justice release the files or will it all remain tied up in investigations?” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said at a news conference Tuesday before the House and Senate passed the bill. Greene was among a small group of GOP defectors who joined Democrats in forcing the legislation to the floor over Trump’s objections.

The legislation prohibits the attorney general from withholding, delaying or redacting the publication of “any record, document, communication, or investigative material on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”

Carve-outs in the bill could allow Trump and Bondi to withhold documents that include identifying information of victims or depictions of child sexual abuse materials.

The law also would allow them to conceal information that would “jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution, provided that such withholding is narrowly tailored and temporary.”

Trump directed the Justice Department last week to investigate Epstein’s links with major banks and several prominent Democrats, including former President Clinton.

Bondi abided, and appointed a top federal prosecutor to pursue the investigation with “urgency and integrity.” In July, the Justice Department determined after an extensive review that there was not enough evidence that “could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties” in the Epstein case.

At a news conference Wednesday, Bondi said the department had opened another case into Epstein after “new information” emerged.

Bondi did not say how the new investigation could affect the release of the files.

Asked if the Epstein documents would be released within 30 days, as the law states, Bondi said her department would “follow the law.”

“We will continue to follow the law with maximum transparency while protecting victims,” Bondi said.

When you’re a sportswriter covering high school sports in Southern California since the 1970s, you meet lots of sports families who come and go.

It’s going to be the end of an era for one of my favorite families, the Kymans. Bernie was the patriarch. He coached and was athletic director at so many high schools he could have worn a different mascot shirt every day for weeks. He was at Daniel Murphy, Los Angeles, St. Bonaventure, Moorpark, Chaminade (twice), Bishop Alemany, Littlerock, Cal Lutheran and Pierce College (twice).

His son, Coley, became a star in football and volleyball at Reseda in the 1980s, then the starting quarterback at Cal State Northridge and a Hall of Fame volleyball player for the Matadors. Coley’s wife, Michelle, won a national championship playing for UCLA’s women’s volleyball team. They had two sons, Jake and Brayden.

Jake helped Santa Margarita win a Southern Section Division 1 basketball championship in 2019, then spent three years at UCLA before transferring to Eastern Washington.

The last of the Kymans is Brayden, a 6-foot-7 senior at Santa Margarita and a Washington State commit who will get to play on Saturday for the first time where his father, mother and brother once played — UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion. Santa Margarita faces Sherman Oaks Notre Dame in a 7 p.m. basketball game as part of a daylong showcase.

“Once I saw it on the schedule, I was really grateful and super excited,” Brayden said. “My brother played there, my parents played there. It’s kind of a full circle moment.”

His grandfather died in 2019 at the age of 78. Brayden said he learned plenty from a man who always believed in character and commitment.

“He taught me a lot and my dad, which was passed down to me — working hard and staying focused on what you want to do in life,” he said.

His parents both played professionally in volleyball, so they’ve been good role models and sounding boards for what to expect in the college journey.

“They always give me the best advice, whether it’s about recovery or a game,” he said. “They support me.”

Santa Margarita returns four starters this season and began the season as the No. 2-ranked team in the Southland by The Times. Kyman has already accomplished something few other top players are doing these days — staying from freshman season through senior season.

“It’s gone by super fast,” he said. “I remember yesterday I was a freshman. I’m grateful for the experience to be here all four years. I know that’s not as common now.”

After Brayden graduates, his parents are moving to Montana. It allows them to drive some five hours to his games in Pullman, Wash., while enjoy being away from big-city life. Just don’t expect Brayden to hang out in Montana. He makes it clear he’s a California boy for life.

“I think it’s crazy,” he said. “I’ve lived in the same house [in Aliso Vijeo] my whole life. I’m going to visit for a few days but not a whole week.”

He can also visit his brother, Jake, who’s living in Austin, Texas, and is a filmmaker. Brayden wants to keep playing basketball for as long as he can, then become a coach or trainer.

It’s been wonderful to see the Kymans make their mark in Southern California sports history.

Day session Saturday at Pauley Pavilion

Servite vs. Loyola, 9:30 a.m.

Orange Lutheran vs. St. Francis, 11 a.m.

Crean Lutheran vs. Campbell Hall, 12:30 p.m.

Mater Dei vs. Crespi, 2 p.m.

Night Session

JSerra vs. Sierra Canyon, 5:30 p.m.

Santa Margarita vs. Sherman Oaks Notre Dame, 7 p.m.

St. John Bosco vs. Harvard-Westlake, 8:30 p.m.

Here are the key events from day 1,364 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Wednesday, November 19:

Fighting

• Russian drones struck two central districts – Slobidskyi and Osnovyansk – in Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv, injuring five people in an apartment building and triggering a fire, authorities said.
• Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said 22 residents had been evacuated from one section of the damaged apartment building while another drone struck an area outside a medical facility, injuring a doctor and damaging the building and nearby cars.
• The Kharkiv region’s governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said 11 drones were deployed in the attack and seven people were injured in total.
• Russia’s civil aviation authority said it was temporarily halting flights at Krasnodar International Airport in southern Russia on Wednesday morning, saying only that it was for flight safety.
• Russian air defences shot down four Ukrainian drones en route to Moscow on Tuesday, the city’s mayor said. Moscow’s two largest airports, Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo, stopped all air traffic for a time before later reopening, Russia’s aviation watchdog said.
• Ukrainian drone attacks have caused extensive damage to the power grid in the Russian-occupied part of the Donetsk region. Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-appointed head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said about 65 percent of consumers were without power in the region.
• Ukraine attacked two thermal power stations in Russian-occupied Donetsk, according to a Telegram post by the commander of Ukraine’s drone forces. Major Robert Brovdi said the Starobeshivska and Zuivska power plants had been hit by his forces.
• Ukraine said it attacked military targets in Russia with United States-supplied ATACMS missiles, calling it a “significant development”. The military said in a statement that the “use of long-range strike capabilities, including systems such as ATACMS, will continue”.
• Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov conducted a regular inspection of troops fighting in eastern Ukraine, his ministry’s outlet, Zvezda, reported. Video posted by Zvezda showed Belousov presenting awards to military servicemen.

Military aid

• The Trump administration has approved a $105m arms sale to Ukraine to help it maintain existing Patriot missile air defence systems. The sale includes upgrading from M901 to M903 launchers, which can fire more missiles at once.
• Spain will provide Ukraine with a new military aid package worth 615 million euros ($710m), Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced on Tuesday.
• “Your fight is ours,” Sanchez said alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “neoimperialism” seeks to “weaken the European project and everything it stands for”.

Regional security

• The United Kingdom lacks a plan to defend itself from military attack, members of parliament warned while at least 13 sites across the UK have been identified for new factories to make munitions and military explosives, according to a report.
• Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said authorities have identified two Ukrainian nationals who had collaborated with Russia for “a long time” and were responsible for an explosion on a Polish railway route to Ukraine.
• “The most important information is that … we have identified the people responsible for the acts of sabotage,” Tusk told lawmakers. “In both cases, we are sure that the attempt to blow up the rails and the railway infrastructure violation were intentional and their aim was to cause a railway traffic catastrophe,” he said.

• The Kremlin accused Poland of succumbing to Russophobia after Warsaw blamed the explosion on a railway route to Ukraine on two Ukrainian citizens who it said were recruited by Russian intelligence.
• Soldiers from across the NATO alliance practised counterdrone skills in Poland on Tuesday with troops from the US, UK and Romania joining their Polish counterparts at the exercises in Nowa Deba in Poland’s southeast corner.
• The European Commission will propose a new initiative to help speed up the development and purchase of innovative defence technologies, according to a draft document seen by the Reuters news agency.

Ceasefire

• Zelenskyy said Ukraine will try to “reactivate” the diplomatic process to end the war with Russia. Zelenskyy later announced he planned to go to Turkiye on Wednesday to try to revive talks with Russia on how to end the war in Ukraine.
• No face-to-face talks have taken place between Kyiv and Moscow since they met in Istanbul in July.
• Steve Witkoff, a US special envoy, is expected to join the talks with Zelenskyy in Turkiye, another Ukrainian official involved in the meeting’s preparations told the AFP news agency.
• Ukraine plans to claim $43bn in climate compensation from Russia to help fund a planet-friendly rebuild after the war, Ukrainian Deputy Minister for Economy, Environment and Agriculture Pavlo Kartashov announced at the UN climate conference in Brazil.
• “We in Ukraine face brutality directly, but the climate shockwaves of this aggression will be felt well beyond our borders and into the future,” Kartashov said.

Politics and diplomacy

• One of Ukraine’s main opposition parties physically blocked lawmakers from holding a vote in parliament on Tuesday to dismiss two ministers over a corruption investigation, demanding the removal of the entire cabinet instead.
• Zelenskyy made a one-day visit on Tuesday to Spain and took the opportunity to view Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, a painting that depicts the horrors of war and specifically the bombardment of civilian targets in Spain by fascist German and Italian forces.

Economy

• Russian state conglomerate Rostec said its defence exports have fallen by half since 2022 as domestic orders became a priority during the war in Ukraine. Until 2022, Russia held second place in the world after the US in defence exports, but the volumes dropped “due to the fact that we have had to supply most of our production to our army”, Rostec chief Sergey Chemezov told reporters.
• Russian lawmakers endorsed new tax hikes on Tuesday as Moscow looks for new revenue sources to boost its economy during its nearly four-year war with Ukraine. Legislators in the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, approved the key second reading of a bill to raise the value-added tax from 20 percent to 22 percent.

Sanctions

• US oil firm Exxon Mobil has joined rival Chevron Corp in considering options to buy parts of sanctioned Russian oil firm Lukoil’s international assets, sources familiar with the matter told the Reuters news agency.
• Exxon is considering options for Lukoil assets in Kazakhstan, where both the US and the Russian firm have stakes in the Karachaganak and Tengiz fields, the sources said. Chevron, another partner in these assets, is also studying options to buy.

This year’s Christmas Day kids story is The Scarecrow’s Wedding but the story had to be changed for TV

Author Julia Donaldson has told how she had to rewrite one of her best selling books in order to get the green light for it to be turned into a BBC animation for Christmas Day.

This year millions will settle down to watch The Scarecrows’ Wedding, the latest adaptation of Julia Donaldson and illustrator Axel Scheffler’s stories which have become a festival staple.

The half-hour animated special features an all-star voice cast, with Gavin and Stacey star Rob Brydon voicing Reginald Rake, Hamnet actress Jessie Buckley as Betty O’Barley, and The Paper star Domhnall Gleeson as Harry O’Hay.

The story, about two devoted scarecrows Betty and Harry planning a wedding to remember, will be narrated by Slow Horses actress Sophie Okonedo.

But Julia revealed for the first time in 13 adaptations that she needed to make big changes to the storyline because it originally featured sinister scarecrow Reginald Rake smoking a cigar and accidentally starting a fire in the field.

Julia said: “There had to be a fire in the story and the water was going to put out the fire, so I had to think of reasons for the fire.

“In the book, the fire is started by Reginald Rake through smoking. I thought that was really good because it shows him in a really bad light. He is a baddie and he is smoking and in the original book Betty says ‘smoking is bad for you’ and he gets a terrible cough and starts a fire so it shows how bad smoking is.

“But apparently in the world of children’s films you are not allowed to show anyone smoking. I personally think it would be better for children to come across smoking in a film or a book and then their parents can talk about it and say it is not a great thing, rather than see someone in a doorway.”

Julia was then asked by Magic Light Pictures who animate her stories if she “would consider” changing this one over lunch.

She added: “I said ‘absolutely not’ and then went home and went straight to the computer because by that stage we had the pictures and I knew Betty had a pink dress and Reginald had the white suit, so I thought he could start the fire by cooking something and then I thought of pink and white marshmallows. I wrote it and I think it works really well that way. I am sorry in a way to lose the smoking but I think marshmallows do work well.”

The Scarecrows’ Wedding was first published in 2014 and book versions still contain Reginald choking on a cigar.

Asked about the creation of the characters, Julia added: “I was looking for a female character because previously it was Zog and Highway Rat and lots of male characters. So Betty was the first character that came to mind.

“It took me ages to write because I had to send Harry off on a journey and it took a long time to work out that part of the storyline.

“In a way it is a Hollywood love story and it is very much like a light Italian opera where there is a humble peasant boy and girl and then a peddler comes along and almost seduces the heroine. I was thinking along those lines.”

The animation means Rob Brydon will be back on BBC1 on Christmas Day, having been one of the star’s of Gavin & Stacey last year. He has also been voicing Julia’s characters since they first started being made into animations.

On playing the cad in the story, Rob: “There is a hint of Leslie Phillips and that sort of thing, just natural and instinctive. As ever it is just a delight to be part of such a quality venture.

“This is one of my favourites because I have not played this sort of role in Julia’s world. I am normally nice.”

Last year’s animation, Tiddler, saw an audience of 7.3 million and the highest audience share on Christmas Day for a Magic Light Pictures film since The Gruffalo in 2009.

The Gruffalo will return in book form in 2026 but Julia was keeping tight-lipped about the details.

She said: “I am not allowed to say very much. I can say I finished writing it early last year and it is coming out in the Autumn next year, that is really all I can say.”

* The Scarecrow’s Wedding will air on BBC iPlayer and BBC One this Christmas Day.

Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads.

Here are the key events from day 1,363 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Tuesday, November 18:

Fighting

• A Russian missile strike on the eastern Ukrainian city of Balakliia killed three people and wounded 10, including three children, a regional military official in the Kharkiv region said on Telegram on Monday.
• At least two people were killed and three were injured in Russian shelling of the Nikopol district in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, Vladyslav Haivanenko, the acting head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration, wrote on Facebook.
• Russian troops captured three villages across three Ukrainian regions, the RIA news agency cited the Russian Ministry of Defence as saying on Monday. The villages are Hai in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Platonivka in the Donetsk region and Dvorichanske in the Kharkiv region.
• Russia’s air defence forces destroyed 36 Ukrainian drones overnight, RIA reported on Monday, citing the Defence Ministry’s daily data.
• A Russian attack on Ukraine’s southern region of Odesa sparked fires at energy and port infrastructure facilities, Ukraine’s emergency services said on Monday.
• The attack damaged port equipment and several civilian vessels, including one carrying liquefied natural gas, and forced Romania to evacuate a border village, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X.
• A 68-year-old man has died after he was injured in a Russian drone attack in Ukraine’s Kherson region, the head of the regional administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, wrote on Telegram.
• Two Ukrainian nuclear power plants have been running at reduced capacity for 10 days after a military attack damaged an electrical substation needed for nuclear safety, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said in a statement.
• The Kremlin said on Monday that Russia’s port of Novorossiysk resumed export activities after a Ukrainian attack caused a two-day suspension of its oil loadings.

Military aid

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a deal with French President Emmanuel Macron at France’s Velizy-Villacoublay Air Base for Ukraine to obtain up to 100 French-made Rafale warplanes over the next 10 years.
• Macron said France’s rail transport manufacturer Alstom and Ukrainian Railways have signed a 475-million-euro ($551m) contract on delivering 55 electric locomotives to Ukraine, according to the Interfax news agency.

Regional security

• Polish Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski said on Monday that one confirmed and one likely act of sabotage occurred on Polish railways after an explosion damaged a Polish railway track on a route to Ukraine over the weekend.
• Polish Special Services Minister Tomasz Siemoniak added during the same news conference that chances are very high that the people who conducted the sabotage were acting on orders of foreign intelligence services. He appeared to be pointing fingers at Russia although he did not name the country.

Politics and diplomacy

• During a joint news conference in Paris, Macron said he was confident Zelenskyy could improve Ukraine’s anticorruption track record and institute reforms to clear its path to European Union membership.
• German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil told Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng during a state visit to Beijing on Monday that the two countries “should work together to finish the war in Ukraine” and “China can play a key role”.
• He responded by saying, “China will continue to play a constructive role in the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis.”
• The Kremlin said on Monday that there was an ongoing conversation about a possible prisoner-of-war exchange with Ukraine but declined to provide details.
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Russia hoped for another summit between President Vladimir Putin and United States President Donald Trump soon.
• Peskov added that Moscow took a very negative view of a bill that Trump said Republicans in the US were working on that would impose sanctions on any country doing business with Russia.
• Russia’s financial watchdog added former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and leading economist Sergei Guriev – both critics of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – to its list of “extremists and terrorists”, its website showed on Monday.

Economy

• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a letter to EU members on Monday that the bloc had three options or a combination of them to help Ukraine meet its financing needs: “Support … financed by member states via grants, a limited recourse loan funded by the union borrowing on the financial markets or a limited recourse loan linked to the cash balances of immobilised assets”.
• The Chevron oil company is studying options to buy international assets of sanctioned Russian oil firm Lukoil after the US Department of the Treasury gave clearance to potential buyers to talk to Lukoil about foreign assets, five sources familiar with the process told the Reuters news agency.

LeBron James said his lungs felt like those of a “newborn baby” and his voice was “already gone” after his first Lakers practice Monday as he moved a step closer toward making his season debut after being sidelined by sciatica.

The Lakers listed James as questionable for Tuesday night against the Utah Jazz at Crypto.com Arena, and he sounded as if he was close to playing in his NBA-record 23rd season.

“We got a long time,” said James as he wiped sweat from his face while speaking to reporters. “I mean, we’ve been taking literally one minute, one hour, one step at a time throughout this whole process. So, see how I feel this afternoon, see how I feel tonight. When I wake up in the morning. … We’ll probably have [a] shootaround [Tuesday]. So, just gotta see how the body responds over the next 24 hours-plus.”

James, who will turn 41 next month, was asked how long it took him to become pain-free.

“I wouldn’t take it that far,” James said. “Like I said, if you ever had it, you go about it and you wake up one day and you hope that when you step down from the bed that you don’t feel it. You go to bed at night, and you hope that when you’re in the bed that you don’t feel it. So I’ve been doing pretty good with it as of late. There’s a lot of exercises and a lot of mobility things and a lot of things you can do to help it. So I’m just keeping a positive mindset.”

Lakers coach JJ Redick said it was like having a new player in practice with James on the court.

James agreed, saying, “Definitely feels new, for sure.”

The Lakers have four days off after Tuesday’s game against Utah — including three practice days — before playing the Jazz in Salt Lake City on Sunday.

“One day back, barking out calls and assignments and stuff, getting my voice working again,” said James about his first day at practice. “Be a lot of tea and rest tonight.”

James, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer (42,184 points), admitted he had to mentally adjust to missing the start of a season for the first time in his career.

“It sucks. It definitely sucks,” James said. “Never in my life since I started playing the game of basketball have I ever not started the season — in my life. It’s been a mind test, but I’m built for it and it’s been putting in the work, both mentally and physically trying to get myself ready to rejoin the team.

“It’s just been kind of the same revolving door. Just repetition, repetition, repetition; rehabbing, rehabbing, rehabbing. Just trying to get back where I can feel like myself again. It’s great to be out here today.”

James said this wasn’t the first time in his career that he had sciatica.

“I had it two years ago,” he said. “You had it, then you know what the hell it’s about. If you ain’t never had it and people are making jokes about it, I pray you never get it. It’s not fun.”

James practiced with the Lakers’ G League team, the South Bay Lakers, twice last week, getting in some five-on-five work.

“It was great,” James said. “I got cleared to play some five-on-five for the first time since … hurting my MCL versus Minnesota. And that was the blessing.”

The Lakers have gone 10-4 without James. Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves have led the way as one of the most potent two-way tandems in the early part of the NBA season.

Doncic leads the NBA in scoring (34.4 points per game) and Reaves is ninth (28.3). Doncic is fifth in assists (8.9) and Reaves is seventh (8.2).

James, who is 50 games away from breaking Robert Parish’s all-time record of most games played in NBA history (1,611), knows he’ll have to adjust things when he returns.

“I have to work my way back into it,” James said. “The guys have been going on road trips, shootarounds, flights. So it’s kind of like a kid going to a new school again. Got to learn the guys and everything. So they got some great chemistry. Feeling my way back in and do it organically. It shouldn’t be hard. But it’s definitely a feel-out process.”

Etc.

Redick said all 14 players practiced for the first time this season and that Rui Hachimura (left call soreness) and Marcus Smart (viral illness) will be available to play against the Jazz after sitting out against Milwaukee on Saturday.

As a guitarist, Brian Baker has punk rock and hardcore credentials that are unparalleled. From effectively launching “hardcore” as a genre with Minor Threat when he was a teenager to bringing in the more melodic side of the scene with Dag Nasty and then joining Bad Religion in the mid ’90s, it’s hard to argue that any guitarist has been more influential to their scene than Baker.

“I think I just have a knack for being at the right place at the right time,” Baker says when asked about his contributions to the aforementioned legendary bands. “The key is to respect that legacy and not f— it up. I understand it’s a big deal to a lot of people — much more than it is to me. I’m just the guy who’s playing guitar, but I’ve been fortunate enough to be in bands that have been foundational for a lot of people. I think about that when I get on stage every day. I want to do a great job every time. As long as I’m able to still deliver a performance that I have respect for, hopefully other people will too.”

Standing at a high-top table under a white awning backstage at Riot Fest (Chicago’s massive punk rock festival where most of the acts are either friends of Baker or inspired by one or more of his bands) after nearly a half-century of allegedly just happening upon one iconic band after another, Baker recently released a new project — one that he’s worked on for almost 20 years during his ongoing run with Bad Religion.

A shot of Baker’s guitars on a wood pallet.

(Brian Baker)

Every time the legendary Los Angeles punk band goes on the road, Baker (like most touring musicians) finds himself with entirely too much time to kill before and after their nightly performances. To fill those long hours in strange cities, the 60-year-old D.C. native often turns to the piece of technology that so many use to occupy their free time, his smartphone. But rather than mindlessly scrolling social media or watching YouTube videos, Baker discovered a new passion for photography, constantly using each and every camera lens on the iPhones that have been in his pocket since the original released in the late 2000s.

Until recently, the fruits of Baker’s photography hobby had effectively only existed on his personal Instagram. That was until things started falling into place (“Like many things in my career,” Baker says, consistent in his refusal to take credit for the majority of his successes) for him to release some of his favorite photos as a book, appropriately titled “The Road” (released Nov. 4 via Akashic Books).

A mug shot of Baker’s first band, D.C. hardcore pioneers Minor Threat.

(Brian Baker)

“My wife suggested for a long time that people might want to look at my photographs, and I was like ‘OK, that’s great,’ but never really thought about it,” Baker says, his bandmates and other longtime friends circulating through Chicago’s Douglass Park. “Eventually, a good friend of ours named Jennifer Sakai — who’s a great photographer and has made books in the past — made a mock-up from my Instagram of what a book could look like. I wasn’t looking to make a book, but she basically presented a finished product to me, so I contacted a guy I went to elementary school with, Johnny Temple — who plays [bass] in Girls Against Boys and Soulside and has a publishing company. Much like my more successful rock bands, I walked in after everyone did all the work, and now I’m just going to coattail it.”

With or without the new book, Baker says his time-killing love of photography was born out of the veteran guitarist feeling as though he was forgetting too much and missing some of his key memories from his time on tour. Once he gave up drinking, Baker realized that he needed a way to embrace the 20+ hours each day he wasn’t spending on the stage or getting ready. He started filling his days with long walks and visits to his favorite locales — old churches, interesting buildings, graveyards (“That’s not the goth in me saying this,” Baker jokes) and anywhere else where he entertain himself away from people. And rather than trying to tell the story of the last 18 years through his iPhone camera, he’s happy just documenting those certain moments and “a lot of different ways to spend your time” in “The Road.”

“I used to take a film camera on tour, and I’d shoot a couple rolls and then forget about the camera and leave it at the hotel or something,” Baker says. “I didn’t really do a good job of being a photographer, because I’m not a photographer. I’m just a guy with a cellphone, but having the phone always on me, I just kept taking pictures of stuff for no real reason. It was like ‘Hey, look at this weird thing’ or “Look what we ate tonight” or “That church is f— up” with no intention of it being a collection or anyone really seeing it beyond my friends and family. Eventually, I got an Instagram account and some of the stuff would go there, but I’m not really a social media maven either.”

Bad Religion bassist Jay Bentley playing a bass.

(Brian Baker)

Aside from his photography skills, the release of “The Road” has also allowed Baker to flex his storytelling muscles at the various bookstores, record shops and more that he’s hitting this fall (including early October dates at West Hollywood’s Book Soup and Fullerton’s Programme Skate & Sound). Although it’s a more intimate setting than he’s used to and he’s lacking his signature guitar, Baker jokes that it’s not so different from performing music, because he’s still “on a stage with a microphone and wearing black pants.”

The book tour has also been an opportunity for Baker to connect with fans and reflect on Bad Religion and his prior bands (along with various side projects like supergroup Fake Names and Beach Rats). While he maintains that his involvement in punk history mostly comes down to happenstance, he believes that Bad Religion’s multi-generational staying power stems from always being “uniquely unfashionable” and having intelligent lyrics about topics that are still relevant. Add in the fact that they’re always improving as musicians and just enjoy getting together without looking at the bigger picture, and “not having a plan has proven to be effective” for the stalwarts.

Photo of Baker’s first amp and guitar

(Brian Baker)

But more than anything, Baker’s lack of planning or direction around his photography brings him back to the DIY nature of his early days creating albums that are now viewed as the very foundation of a four-decade-old global hardcore movement.

“Anybody can do this, so it does remind me of making records when I was very young,” Baker says. “We were just making our own records ourselves and selling them in high school, and that was Minor Threat. You think about how significant that is now, 45 years later, it’s the same thing with taking pictures. I just took a bunch of pictures, and now someone’s made a book out of them. It’s something you can do yourself, and I love that about it.”

Here are the key events from day 1,362 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Monday, November 17:

Fighting

• Russia said its forces had moved forward sharply in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhia region, taking the settlements of Rivnopillya and Mala Tokmachka as part of a major push aimed at taking control of the entire region. Currently, Russia says it controls 75 percent of the area.
• Ukrainian forces have struck the Novokuibyshevsk oil refinery in Russia’s Samara region, Kyiv’s General Staff said. It said it had recorded explosions and a fire at the site of the strike, but was still assessing the extent of damage.
• Ukrainian officials said on Sunday morning that Russian attacks on the country had killed at least four civilians and wounded 17 others over the last 24 hours.
• The Russian TASS news agency reported that Ukrainian attacks on Russia wounded two civilians in the Belgorod region.
• TASS added that Russia’s air defences destroyed more than 50 Ukrainian drones on Sunday evening. Earlier on Sunday, it said Russian air defences intercepted two Neptune guided missiles, four HIMARS rockets and 197 drones.

Energy

• Russia’s Novorossiysk port resumed oil loadings after a two-day suspension triggered by a Ukrainian missile and drone attack, the Reuters news agency reported, citing two industry sources. The Ukrainian attack has been described as the most damaging to date on Russia’s main Black Sea crude export infrastructure.

• Ukraine has secured imports of US liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Greece to cover its winter needs from December through to March next year, officials said during a visit to Athens by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin had a conversation with Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin last week during a visit by Kazakhstan’s president to Moscow, state media reported, as United States-led sanctions continue to take a financial toll on the company.

Environment

• The Greenpeace environmental campaigning group has revealed that France was sending reprocessed uranium to Russia for treatment so it can be reused, despite the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine. Greenpeace said that while it was legal, the trade was “immoral” as many nations seek to step up sanctions on the Russian government over its invasion of Ukraine, launched in 2022.

Here are the key events from day 1,361 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Sunday, November 16:

Fighting

• The Ukrainian military said it struck Russia’s Ryazan oil refinery, located about 200km (125 miles) southeast of Moscow, as “part of efforts to reduce the enemy’s ability to launch missile and bomb strikes”.
• The Ukrainian military said the strike caused multiple explosions and a large fire at the site.
• The Russian Ministry of Defence said its forces have taken control of the village of Yablukove in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region.
• The Ukrainian military confirmed withdrawing from the village of Novovasylivske in Zaporizhia, saying the retreat was necessary in order to relocate to “more favourable defensive positions”.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the widow of the first victim of the 1986 disaster at the Chornobyl power plant was among several people killed in a barrage of Russian strikes on the capital of Kyiv in recent days. He said Nataliia Khodemchuk’s death was the result of “a new tragedy caused once again by the Kremlin”.
• Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency reported that conditions are stable at the Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine after an external power line was switched off as a precautionary measure on Friday.
• The Russian state-run TASS news agency reported that Ukrainian forces have launched a drone attack on residential buildings in the Russian city of Volgograd, damaging “the facades and glazing of apartment buildings and the surrounding area”.
• The Russian Defence Ministry said it shot down eight Ukrainian drones in the course of four hours over the regions of Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk, as well as Russian-occupied Crimea, according to TASS.

Politics and diplomacy

• Russia and Ukraine have agreed to move forward with a prisoner exchange that will see the release of about 1,200 Ukrainians, according to a Ukrainian official. The announcement came after several days of talks overseen by Turkiye and the United Arab Emirates, rejuvenating an exchange process laid out during previous negotiations in Istanbul.
• President Zelenskyy promised a “reboot” of state-owned energy companies, including reforms to root out corruption, as his government continues to grapple with a major scandal in which investigators said $100m was embezzled from power firms.
• Polish President Karol Nawrocki signed a bill providing social assistance for Ukrainian refugees, but stated it was the “last time” he would do so until new solutions to the issue were found. The Polish leader has argued that the provision of assistance to Ukrainian refugees, about one million of whom are living in Poland, is “unfair to Poles”. The legal status of Ukrainian refugees in Poland is set to expire in March.
• Serbian officials said that the United States will not ease sanctions on the Serbian oil firm NIS unless it changes the company’s majority-Russian ownership share, despite pleas for leniency from Belgrade. Energy Minister Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic said that the US “clearly and unequivocally” demanded changes to Russian ownership, giving Serbia until February 13 to find a solution.

Military aid

• Zelenskyy called for additional air defence resources, following a wave of Russian strikes on Kyiv that killed at least seven people and injured dozens more. The Ukrainian leader said that the attacks underscore the need for more assistance and “greater resolve” from allies following the strikes, which struck apartment buildings across the capital city on Friday.

President Trump has publicly split with one of his most stalwart MAGA supporters, calling Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene “wacky” and saying he would endorse a challenger against her in next year’s midterms “if the right person runs.”

His attack on the Georgia Republican — who has been a leading champion of his “Make America Great Again” movement, sporting the signature red cap at President Biden’s 2024 State of the Union address and acting as a go-between for Trump and other Capitol Hill Republicans — appeared to be a resolute break in a dispute simmering for months as Greene has criticized some of the president’s policies and actions.

The three-term U.S. House member has increasingly dissented from Republican leaders, attacking them during the just-ended federal government shutdown and saying they need a plan to help people who are losing subsidies to afford health insurance policies.

Accusing Greene — one of the most right-leaning members of Congress — of going “Far Left,” Trump wrote that all he had witnessed from Greene in recent months is “COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!” adding, of Greene’s purported irritation that he doesn’t return her phone calls, “I can’t take a ranting Lunatic’s call every day.”

In a response on X, Greene wrote Friday that Trump had “attacked me and lied about me.” She added a screenshot of a text she said she had sent the president earlier in the day about releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files, which she said “is what sent him over the edge.”

Greene called it “astonishing really how hard he’s fighting to stop the Epstein files from coming out that he actually goes to this level,” referencing next week’s U.S. House vote over releasing the complete files related to the late convicted sex offender.

The Epstein saga has placed increasing pressure on the president. Epstein emails released this week named Trump several times and indicated that he knew about Epstein’s abuse of underage girls, a claim the president denies.

Greene wrote that she had supported Trump “with too much of my precious time, too much of my own money, and fought harder for him even when almost all other Republicans turned their back and denounced him,” adding, “I don’t worship or serve Donald Trump.”

Trump’s post suggested a firm break with Greene after fissures that widened following this month’s off-cycle elections, in which voters in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races and elsewhere flocked to Democrats in large part over concerns about the cost of living.

Greene told NBC News this month that “watching the foreign leaders come to the White House through a revolving door is not helping Americans,” saying that Trump needs to focus on high prices at home rather than his recent emphasis on foreign affairs. Trump responded by saying that Greene had “lost her way.”

Asked about Greene’s comments earlier Friday as he flew from Washington to Florida, the president reiterated that he felt “something happened to her over the last month or two,” saying that, if he hadn’t gone to China to meet leader Xi Jinping, there would have been negative ramifications for jobs in Georgia and elsewhere because China would have kept its curbs on magnet exports.

Claiming that people have been calling him wanting to challenge Greene in the primary next year, Trump added, “She’s lost a wonderful conservative reputation.”

Greene’s discontent dates back to at least May, when she announced she wouldn’t run for the Senate against Democratic incumbent Jon Ossoff, while attacking GOP donors and consultants who said they feared she couldn’t win. In June, she publicly sided with Tucker Carlson after Trump called the commentator “kooky” in a schism that emerged between MAGA and national security hardliners over possible U.S. efforts at regime change in Iran.

That only intensified in July, when Greene said she wouldn’t run for governor. Then, she attacked a political “good ole boy” system, alleging it was endangering Republican control of the state.

In recent weeks, Greene has embarked on a wide-ranging media campaign, doing interviews and appearances on mainstream programs aimed at people who aren’t hardcore Trump supporters. Asked on comedian Tim Dillon’s podcast if she wanted to run for president in 2028, Greene said in October, “I hate politics so much” and just wanted “to fix problems” — but didn’t give a definitive answer.

That continued with an appearance on Bill Maher’s HBO show, “Real Time,” followed days later by a Nov. 4 appearance on ABC’s “The View.” Some observers began pronouncing Greene as reasonable as she trashed GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana for not calling Republicans back to Washington to end the shutdown and coming up with a healthcare plan.

“I feel like I’m sitting next to a completely different Marjorie Taylor Greene,” said “The View” co-host Sunny Hostin.

“Maybe you should become a Democrat, Marjorie,” said co-host Joy Behar.

“I’m not a Democrat,” Greene replied. “I think both parties have failed.”

Kinnard writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Jeff Amy in Atlanta contributed to this report.

BBC Breakfast hosts Naga Munchetty and Charlie Stayt comforted a grieving guest on Saturday

BBC Breakfast shared tragic death news on Saturday (November 15) as a grieving mum “relives it every day”.

On today’s episode of the popular morning show, hosts Naga Munchetty and Charlie Stayt kept viewers up-to-date with the latest news from across the UK and globally.

Joining them in the studio was Mike Bushell, who took charge of the sports segment, while Sarah Keith-Lucas provided regular weather updates throughout the programme.

Later on, Naga and Charlie shared the heart-wrenching story of 14-year-old Jacob Calland, who tragically lost his life earlier this year when his e-scooter collided with a car.

Jacob’s mum, Carly, has since initiated a campaign to alert other families about the potential dangers of e-scooters, reports the Express.

In a pre-recorded segment, Carly spoke about her campaign, stating: “The reason we’ve gone with empty chairs is because this Christmas, I am going to be sat at my Christmas table with an empty chair.

“The thought of that is hard, and I don’t want anyone else to have to sit with an empty chair at Christmas. My 14-year-old boy is not going to be with me this Christmas… I just want people to keep their families [close], because I’ve not got mine this year.”

While it’s legal to use an e-scooter through a rental scheme, riding private e-scooters on our roads is illegal, yet it happens frequently. Jacob’s mother isn’t campaigning for a ban, but she wants them to be regulated and made safer.

Carly made an appearance on BBC Breakfast, where she honoured her son by introducing his journey teddy bear.

“Jacob’s dream was to travel the world, so his ashes are inside the bear and he’s now travelling with us,” she shared.

“It’s comfort knowing that he’s by my side and I’m by his side, and we’re doing this journey together.”

Charlie then observed: “Whilst you’re obviously passionate and want to make change, that, in itself, can’t be easy because you’re having to relive something that is deeply, deeply painful.”

Carly continued: “I’m reliving it every day. The thing is for me, I like to turn my pain into Jacob’s power. I’m saving people’s lives. Every day I show up, every day I get through my days. It’s not easy. I do have bad days, but at the end of the day, Jacob’s legacy is going to save people’s lives.”

Naga consoled the mother by concluding: “You’re entitled to as many bad days as you like, may I say.”

BBC Breakfast airs daily on BBC One at 6am

If you were affected by the issues raised in this story, organisations which can offer help include Child Bereavement UK and Sue Ryder

Stories will long be told about what Gazans have endured these last couple of years, and movies will be part of that unburdening. This spring, Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi believed she would be unveiling a uniquely dignified portrait of one Palestinian woman’s experience when the Cannes Film Festival accepted her documentary “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk,” which comprised her year of spirited video chats with positive-minded 25-year-old photojournalist and poet Fatma Hassona. The day after the Cannes news, Hassona and her family were killed by an Israeli missile.

It’s not unheard of for a completed movie to become something entirely different overnight. But what’s quietly miraculous about “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk,” considering its added tragic weight, is what the force of Hassona’s personality and Farsi’s filmmaking choices still manage to do: speak to what’s ineffably beautiful about our human capacity for hope and connection.

In her opening narration, Farsi explains how she’d been looking for a way into Gaza to understand it beyond the media reports. Physically, that proved impossible, but through a refugee friend, she was connected to Hassona in April 2024. In their first video call, which Farsi, then in Cairo, recorded with a separate smartphone, Hassona’s beaming face immediately dispels any notion that all Palestinians must exist in a defeated state amid relentless bombing. Asked how she feels, Hassona — who had just witnessed a huge explosion the day prior — says, “I feel proud.” With unforced lightness, she assures Farsi that they will continue to live their lives and laugh, that they are “special people.” She knows every day is about actively not letting themselves get used to it. The documentary’s title is Hassona’s description of what she does when she leaves her house.

You believe her. That high-wattage smile registers as whatever the opposite of a bomb is. But it’s also easy to notice Farsi’s ingrained cynicism about the state of things, having once been imprisoned as a teenage dissident during the years following her country’s Islamic Revolution, now in exile. In her voice-over, Farsi describes meeting Hassona as if encountering a mirror, realizing “how much both our lives are conditioned by walls and wars.”

Farsi threads in many of Hassona’s photographs. The images of daily life amid destruction and rubble — children, bicyclists, workers, laundry drying from high floors in a half-destroyed building — hint at an inextinguishable flame carrying on through a campaign of death.

Though Farsi knows how to ask for details about her life in Gaza, the vibe isn’t one of interviews conducted to make a film, but a genuine curiosity and warmth, the ebb and flow of real interaction captured whenever possible. Meanwhile, war, politics and failed leadership can be glimpsed in brief interludes of news reports on Farsi’s television. But they’re always cut short, as if to say: I’d rather hear from my friend who’s living it.

Hassona’s face becomes so familiar to us, we can tell when her cheery disposition is hard to maintain. But her energy and hope never feel like depletable resources. “I want to be in a normal place!” she blurts out in one of their last conversations, almost as if she were a musical protagonist about to break into song. But Hassona never got more than a first act.

Farsi doesn’t draw the ending out: just sparsely worded text after witnessing their final chat, followed by a video Hassona had taken rolling through her devastated city, somehow grounded in a palpable, undying everydayness. You’ll feel loss, but the afterimage of this singular woman’s belief in finding light is what will burn.

As Jaime Moore prepares to take the helm of the Los Angeles Fire Department, he said he plans to commission an outside investigation into missteps by fire officials during the mop-up of a small brush fire that reignited days later into the destructive Palisades fire.

Mayor Karen Bass had requested a probe late last month in response to reporting by The Times that firefighters were ordered to roll up their hoses and leave the burn area, even though they had complained that the ground was still smoldering.

Moore — a 30-year department veteran whose appointment was confirmed Friday by the Los Angeles City Council — said the reports have generated “understandable mistrust” in the agency.

The Times found that at least one chief assigned to LAFD’s risk management section knew about the complaints for months, but that the department kept that information hidden despite Palisades fire victims pleading for answers about whether more could have been done to protect their community.

On Wednesday, Moore told the council’s public safety committee that bringing in an outside organization to investigate the LAFD’s handling of the Jan. 1 Lachman fire would be one of his first moves as chief.

“Transparency and accountability are vital to ensure that we learn from every incident and is essential if we are to restore confidence in our Fire Department,” Moore said. “As fire chief, I will focus on rebuilding trust, not just with the public, but within the LAFD itself.”

Federal investigators say the Lachman fire was deliberately set on New Years’ Day and burned underground in a canyon root system until it was rekindled by high winds on Jan. 7. LAFD officials have said they believed the earlier fire was fully extinguished.

Moore said one of his top priorities is raising morale in a department that has come under heavy criticism for its handling of the worst wildfire in city history, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

In the days after the Jan. 7 Palisades fire, The Times reported that LAFD decided not to pre-deploy any engines or firefighters to the Palisades — as they had done in the past — despite being warned that some of the most dangerous winds in recent years were headed for the region.

An LAFD after-action report released last month described fire officials’ chaotic response, which included major staffing and communication issues.

Moore — who has the backing of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, the union that represents firefighters — said his other priorities include better preparation for major disasters, with a focus on pre-deployment and staffing, as well as for the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics.

“I’ve got skin in the game,” he said, adding that his son is an LAFD firefighter. “We need to address the amount of calls they’re going on, and make sure that they’re going on the right calls with the right resources, and if that means us having to change our department model, so be it. I have the courage to do that.”

He also said he wants to expand the LAFD’s technological capabilities and better deploy the equipment it already has, like the thermal imaging cameras and heat-detecting drones that officials did not deploy during the Lachman fire mop-up.

“We are now requiring them to be used, and we’re not picking up any type of hose until we know that we’ve been able to identify through the use of the drone, thermal imaging cameras to ensure that those surface hot spots are all taken care of,” he said.

“I wish it didn’t take this for us to have to learn the lesson about using the tools we already have,” Councilmember Traci Park replied.

Park grilled Moore on reporting by The Times that firefighters warned a battalion chief about the Lachman fire not being fully extinguished.

“We know now that our own firefighters on the ground were offering warnings that it was still too hot, that it was still too smoldering,” Park said. “For Palisades residents and Angelenos across the city who have questions and concerns, what would you say to them at this point?”

Moore referred back to independent investigation he plans to launch.

“I want to know why it happened, how it happened, and take the necessary steps to ensure that never happens again,” he said.

The Times reviewed text messages among firefighters and a third party that indicated crews had expressed concerns that the Lachman fire would reignite if left unprotected. The exchanges occurred in the weeks and months after the Palisades fire.

In one text message, a firefighter who was at the Lachman scene Jan. 2 wrote that the battalion chief in charge had been told it was a “bad idea” to leave because of visible signs of smoldering terrain, which crews feared could start a new fire.

A second firefighter was told that tree stumps were still hot at the location when the crew packed up and left, according to the texts. And another said in texts last month that crew members were upset when directed to leave the scene, but that they could not ignore orders.

The firefighters’ accounts line up with a video recorded by a hiker above Skull Rock Trailhead late in the morning on Jan. 2 — almost 36 hours after the Lachman fire started — that shows smoke rising from the dirt. “It’s still smoldering,” the hiker says from behind the camera.

A federal grand jury subpoena was served on the LAFD for firefighters’ communications, including text messages, about smoke or hot spots in the area of the Lachman fire, according to an LAFD memo. It is unclear if the subpoena is directly related to the arson case against Jonathan Rinderknecht, who is accused of setting the Jan. 1 fire and has pleaded not guilty.

Complaints that the city and state failed to properly prepare for and respond to the Palisades fire are the subject of numerous lawsuits and a Republican-led inquiry by a U.S. Senate committee.

In addition to the pre-deployment issue, the LAFD’s after-action report found other problems during the Jan. 7 fire fight. The initial dispatch called for only seven engine companies, when the weather conditions required 27. Confusion over which radio channel to use hampered communication. At one point in the first hour, three L.A. County engines showed up requesting an assignment, and received no reply. Another four LAFD engines assembled, but waited 20 minutes without an assignment. In the early afternoon that day, the staging area — where engines were checking in — was overrun by fire.

Moore said he is closely evaluating the 42 recommendations in the report to make sure they are properly implemented.

Bass announced Moore’s selection last month after conducting a nationwide search that included interviews with fire chiefs of other cities. She had ousted Kristen Crowley, who was chief during the Palisades fire, citing deployment decisions ahead of the extreme weather, and appointed interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva in February.

Moore — who said he grew up in the Mar Vista and Venice area — joined the LAFD as a firefighter in 1995, working his way up the ranks in various assignments throughout the city, including supervising arson investigations and serving as a spokesperson for the agency, according to his resume. He most recently was deputy chief of Operations Valley Bureau, directing the response to emergencies across 39 fire stations.

Tom Hofman is set for his 41st season coaching basketball at La Cañada High, including 39 as varsity coach. He’s a future Hall of Famer who keeps coaching at age 73.

The key is his wife, Cindy, still enjoying basketball, which means Tom gets to keep coaching. They’ve been married for 53 years.

“I like the kids,” he said. “My wife still loves it.”

This will be the final season of the Rio Hondo League. La Cañada has won 31 league titles under Hofman. The Rio Hondo will combine with the Pacific League next season.

“I don’t like it,” Hofman said. “It’s a shame.”

La Cañada has been running the same offense since Day 1, copied from the days of Bobby Knight at Indiana. “We tweaked it a little,” Hofman said.

That offense is the reason opposing coaches like to play zone defense against La Cañada. Players get beat for too many layups playing man-to-man against La Cañada.

Hofman is most proud of coaching neighborhood kids and making sure everyone knows he never has recruited players.

“We did it the right way,” he said. “I’ve never really made an initial contact.”

The Rio Hondo League held a media day Thursday at South Pasadena, with coaches paying respect to Hofman’s longevity at the same school.

“His passing game is amazing,” Blair coach Derrick Taylor said. “Going 41 years is a long time. He’s really amazing. He’s a first-class guy.”

He’s one of a kind as another basketball season begins next week. And he says this won’t be his final season as long as his wife keeps enjoying the game.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].

VISITING London can be great, but one couple decided to ditch the Big Smoke for a trip abroad and they managed to do it for less than a day out in the capital.

Nick Choudhury, 45, and his girlfriend, Laura Allcock, 45, decided they wanted a trip abroad but had a tight budget and schedule.

So, the duo decided to fly to Milan in Italy and back, in just a day, for £27.

The couple set off from London Stansted at 7:25am on November 8, arriving in the fashion capital of the world just a couple of hours later.

During the day, the couple spent a total of £115 each, which included their return flights.

Nick, a programme manager from Ealing, London, said: “Planning trips is a military operation for us – we have to work around budgets, childcare and school holidays.

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“We both always wanted to travel but being grown-ups just got in the way of life.

“We wanted to go away for the day and get as much value for money as possible, while still enjoying ourselves.

“On the way home, we were asking ourselves ‘is this all we spent?’.”

The couple had seen other people doing similar ‘extreme day trips’ online for a while, but Milan was their first time trying one for themselves.

“It was such a nice day,” Nick added.

When in Milan the duo started by enjoying a coffee and a pastry each, they then purchased an all-day metro ticket (£6.70pp) so they could hop on and off transport as they liked throughout the day.

According to Nick, the metro was comparable to the tube in London.

As for activities, the couple headed to Piazzale Cadorna and explored the square before heading to the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie to see Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’ – they spent €15 (£13.26) on tickets.

Nick said: “The reverence hits you straight away.

“You can feel the history, it’s calming. It takes you to another place.”

After this they decided to hop on a tram to the cathedral and wandered around Piazza del Duomo.

They also visited the famous shopping arcade, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.

The couple had prebooked one activity online, which was to go into the terraces of the cathedral – Duomo di Milano.

This cost £22.91 per person and included a pass to use the lift.

Nick said: “It’s stunning, the level of detail is crazy. I would recommend pre-booking that.”

Starbucks then provided a cheap spot for another coffee and pastry.

The final activity the couple chose to do was to visit the Navigli canal district, with picturesque canals and a vibrant social scene.

While the couple didn’t book a sit-down meal, they snacked on street foods such as panzerotti – deep-fried cheese-filled dough pockets – to ensure they didn’t go hungry.

They were even invited into a cafe by a host who said they had no customers, so he gave them a discount on their order as a result.

Following this, the duo got back on a bus – which cost £17.63 per person, for a return – to the airport and landed back down in London Stansted at 11:45pm, where they had parked their car for £17 for the day.

Nick said: “We wanted to get the main bits done – any more and we would have been rushed.

“We wanted to experience Milan in a relaxed way.

“We used public transport and walked as much as possible. Milan is a very connected place.”

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He added: “We’ll definitely go back – and I’ve already booked another ‘extreme day trip’ to go to Pisa in December with my children.

“It was great – and it cost no more than if we’d been out in London for the day.”

Before FKA Twigs could discuss her upcoming album, “Afterglow,” she needed a matcha.

The British singer-songwriter had first answered a Zoom call from the backseat of a dimly lit car in New York, where she confessed to running on “2% personality.” She explained that she had flown in that morning from London and had spent the day promoting her upcoming movie, “The Carpenter’s Son,” a biblical horror co-starring Nicolas Cage.

Luckily, only a few minutes into the interview, the singer born Tahliah Debrett Barnett spotted a familiar matcha spot coming up on her route. In a split-second decision, she runs into the cafe, eager for a caffeine boost, and orders everything matcha she could get her hands on — a hot lavender matcha latte, a matcha soft serve and matcha-flavored pudding.

“Oh, we’re gonna be buzzing,” said Twigs, who laughs a bit about how she hasn’t eaten much that day and decided to exclusively consume matcha desserts. After making it back to the car and indulging in a few sips, she declares, “It feels like I have my personality back. That was quite an authentic experience.”

With a revived glint in her eyes, she was ready to debrief “Afterglow,” the unexpected continuation of her third studio album, “Eusexua.” The 37-year-old singer released “Eusexua” in January as both the namesake of her record and a term she coined to describe a transcendent state of being.

Now, less than a year later and set to be released the same day as “The Carpenter’s Son,” her latest album is meant to “beautifully unravel” the questions of humanity she presents on “Eusexua.”

From the start, she says, she knew that “Eusexua” was something bigger than a singular album — equating it to an era. Inspired by Prague’s underground rave culture, the record itself is centered around life’s purest experiences. Over tattered drum and bass patterns, retro-futuristic crescendos and ephemeral melodies, Twigs attempts to bottle the way dance music makes her feel. Lyrically, she embraces a childlike wonder, shares her vulnerabilities and indulges in sweet nothings — all with the intention of capturing what it means to be a person.

Where “Eusexua” is “the bird’s eye view of the human experience,” Twigs says, “Afterglow” is meant to capture humanity through a more direct lens, where feelings are unfiltered and instantaneous. Changing this viewpoint was something that came to her with ease.

“Sometimes when you’re creating something, it feels like you’re rubbing against something or you’re pushing something uphill. But with this project, it didn’t feel like that. It was flowing naturally,” said Twigs.

Most of “Afterglow” was made post-“Eusexua” from the comfort of her home studio in Hackney, London. Despite “Eusexua’s” successful release, she couldn’t shake the feeling of still having more to give.

“I can’t explain it. Sometimes you put out an album, and then it feels like you need to stop for a while,” said Twigs. “But with ‘Eusexua,’ it felt like it was still growing. The message was still spreading, and people still wanted a deeper understanding of what it was.”

For over a decade, Twigs has been known to cushion her albums with a few years between each release. Her debut, “LP1,” released in 2014, was followed by “Magdalene” in 2019 and “Eusexua” in 2025. She also released a mixtape, called “Caprisongs,” in 2022. On each project, she bears a new side to herself, often diving headfirst into the depths of her identity, love life and womanhood. Uncovering raw emotions, like loss, lust and jealousy, she’s able to capture their complexities through erratic rhythms, unorthodox mechanics and a trance-like ambiance.

FKA Twigs performs at Camp Flog Gnaw in November 2019.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Before becoming a musician, she found success at an early age as a professional dancer. In her late teens and early 20s, she appeared as a dancer in music videos for artists like Ed Sheeran, Jessie J and Kylie Minogue. To this day, she relies on dancing and bodily movement as an essential part of how she understands music.

“When you dance, it’s really good to know the rules and the fundamentals, like with ballet. But once you know ballet, then you can mess it up and let go. You can dance with more freedom,” said Twigs, in between bites of her matcha pudding. “That’s kind of what ‘Afterglow’ is. It’s ‘Eusexua,’ but it’s wild, sensual and irresistible. It’s meant to quench a thirst.”

Since she’d laid out the groundwork with her previous release, she approached its follow-up with a carefree sense of freedom. The 11-track album is meant to be a concept album of sorts, detailing the aftermath of a night out. From the feeling of fresh air after leaving a sweaty dance floor to the drunken temptations of texting an ex-lover and the inevitable rush of not wanting the night to end, Twigs proves she has the “afters” down to a formula.

Leaning into a slightly less alien soundscape than the one heard on “Eusexua,” the singer indulges in a masterful form of electronic edging — never going the predictable route. On songs like “Slushy” and “Predictable Girl,” she intertwines a menagerie of robotic, spacey sirens with tinges of Jersey club beats and ’90s-influenced R&B chords. While on equally hypnotic tracks like “Cheap Hotel” and “Sushi,” she commands the heavily-layered soundscape with an intoxicating sense of recklessness.

“Sometimes I go out to reset my brain a little bit. Obviously, I love what I do so much. I love being an artist. But sometimes, it just gets unnecessarily stressful,” explains Twigs, who touches on the complications of fame with the track “Wild and Alone,” alongside fellow British pop music innovator PinkPantheress.

“So when I go out, it makes me put everything into perspective and realize what’s really important in my life, who I want to be and who I want to be around.”

Powered by these realizations, she’ll continue to lose herself in foggy nightclub dance floors, masses of sweaty bodies and blinding strobe lights. But she says, when it comes to making art, there’s one thing she’ll never lose sight of.

The only thing that can affect her creative output, she says, is “whether you’re telling the truth or not, and how honest you’re being.”

Here are the key events from day 1,359 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Friday, November 14:

Fighting

• Russian forces launched a “massive” attack on Kyiv early on Friday, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, with air defences in action and a series of explosions reported in the capital.
• Klitschko said falling debris had struck a five-storey apartment building in Dniprovskyi district on the east side of the Dnipro River, and a high-rise dwelling was on fire in Podil district on the opposite bank.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited troops near Ukraine’s southeastern front line, where he warned of the need to shore up defences after his troops lost ground in increasingly high-intensity battles far from Russia’s main offensive in the east of the country.
• President Zelenskyy said the situation near the city of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhia region was “one of the most difficult” along a sprawling front line and that thwarting Russian forces there was key to shielding Zaporizhzhia city.
• Ukraine’s military said its troops hit a Russian oil terminal in occupied Crimea and also an oil depot in the occupied Zaporizhia region.
• The Ukrainian General Staff said Russian oil facilities and other military targets were hit by domestically produced weapons, including the “Flamingo” ground-launched cruise missile, drone missiles, and drones.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces have captured two more Ukrainian settlements: Synelnykove in the Kharkiv region and Danylivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
• Russian air defence units destroyed and intercepted 130 Ukrainian drones overnight over Russia, the state-run TASS news agency reports, citing daily data from the Defence Ministry in Moscow.

Peace talks

• The Kremlin said Ukraine would have to negotiate an end to the war “sooner or later” and predicted that Kyiv’s negotiating position would worsen by the day.
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said he hoped Washington would take no actions liable to escalate the Ukraine conflict.
• Lavrov said United States President Donald Trump had long advocated dialogue with Russia, had sought to fully understand the Russian position on Ukraine and “demonstrated a commitment to finding a sustainable peaceful solution”.
• “We are counting on common sense and that the maintaining of that position will prevail in Washington and that they will refrain from actions that could escalate the conflict to a new level,” Lavrov said.

Ukraine energy scandal

• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Zelenskyy have discussed the $100m energy corruption scandal that has engulfed Kyiv, the German government said in a statement.
• Zelenskyy pledged complete transparency, long-term support for independent anticorruption authorities and further swift measures to regain the trust of the Ukrainian people, European partners and international donors, the statement said.
• Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko also announced an audit of all state-owned companies, including in the energy sector, following the scandal that has led to the suspension of two cabinet ministers.
• The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said it is lending 22.3m euros ($26m) to a Ukrainian energy firm as part of a pipeline of deals, signalling its ongoing support for the sector despite the corruption scandal.
• The EBRD cash will go to private Ukrainian energy company Power One to finance new gas-piston power plants and battery energy storage systems, the lender said in a statement.

Aid to Ukraine

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will soon begin a staff mission to Ukraine to discuss its financing needs and a potential new lending programme, IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack said.
• Ukraine is in talks with the IMF about a new four-year lending programme for the country that would replace its current four-year $15.5bn programme. Ukraine has already received $10.6bn of that amount.
• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament that the European Union could either borrow the money needed to cover Kyiv’s financial needs in 2026 and 2027 against the collateral of its long-term budget, or each EU country could borrow on its own and extend a grant to Ukraine.
• A third option was a proposal from the Commission to organise a loan that would effectively become a grant, on the basis of the Russian central bank assets frozen in the EU. European finance ministers agreed that funding Ukraine with a reparations loan based on immobilised Russian assets would be the most “effective” of the three options being considered.
• Europe’s top development banks and Ukrainian energy firm Naftogaz signed a deal to provide an EU grant of 127 million euros ($127m) in additional funding to the firm, on top of a 300 billion euro loan ($349bn) it outlined last month to secure Ukraine’s natural gas supply, amid the ongoing attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure by Russia.
• Nordic and Baltic countries will together contribute $500m to the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List arms initiative, their defence ministers said in a joint statement.

Russian sanctions

• About 1.4 million barrels per day of Russian oil, or almost a third of the country’s seaborne exporting potential, remain in tankers as unloading slows due to US sanctions against energy firms Rosneft and Lukoil, according to US financial services firm JPMorgan.
• Bulgaria’s parliament has overruled a presidential veto on legislation allowing the government to take control of Lukoil’s oil refinery and sell it to shield the asset from looming US sanctions.
• Bulgarian President Rumen Radev had attempted to veto a move by lawmakers giving a government-appointed commercial manager powers to oversee the continued operation of Lukoil’s refinery in Bulgaria beyond November 21, when the US sanctions are due to take effect, and to sell the company if needed.
• Russia’s Port Alliance group, which operates a network of sea cargo terminals, said foreign hackers had targeted its systems over three days in a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack and an attempted hack.
• The group said critical elements of its digital infrastructure had been targeted with the aim of disrupting export shipments of coal and mineral fertilisers at its sea terminals in the Baltic, Black Sea, Far East and Arctic regions. The attack was successfully repelled, and operations remained unaffected, Port Alliance said.

It’s more than two hours before Sherman Oaks Notre Dame’s football team plays in a Southern Section playoff game, and there’s one big teenager lying on his back at the 50-yard line with headphones on. Samson Fatu, 6 feet 5 and 305 pounds, is using the all-weather turf as his “Sleep Number bed.”

“Here I Am,” a song by J Boog, is playing on his headphones. This is the way Fatu focuses before a game.

He’s a starting offensive tackle for Notre Dame, which hosts Chino Hills in a Division 3 playoff game on Friday. His father, Rikishi, is in the WWE Hall of Fame. Three brothers are pro wrestlers and don’t be surprised if Samson one day becomes the latest Samoan family member to start throwing people down. He’s that big and strong and anyone named Samson has star power.

He’s finally healthy after getting injured last season. Get your photos of the big kid with lots of hair. One day you might be watching him on TV in football or wrestling.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].

WASHINGTON — The House is scheduled to be back in session Wednesday with a vote expected in the evening on a spending package that, if approved and signed by President Trump, will end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

The legislation, which the Senate passed Monday night, is expected to narrowly pass the House, where Republicans hold a slim majority. House Democrats are largely anticipated to oppose the deal, which does not include a core demand: an extension to Affordable Care Act healthcare tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he believes the deal is poised to pass by the end of the day.

“We believe the long national nightmare will be over tonight,” Johnson told reporters in Washington. “It was completely and utterly foolish and pointless.”

House Democrats were scheduled to meet ahead of the floor vote to discuss their vote. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Tuesday night that there is a “strong expectation” that Democrats will be “strongly opposed” to the shutdown deal when it comes to final vote.

If the tax credits lapse, premiums will more than double on average for more than 20 million Americans who use the healthcare marketplace, according to independent analysts at the research firm KFF.

The spending bill, if approved, will fund the government through Jan. 30 and reinstate federal workers who were laid off during the shutdown. It will also guarantee back pay for federal employees who were furloughed or who were working without pay during the budget impasse.

Passage of the bill would mark a crucial moment on the 43rd day of the shutdown, which left thousands of federal workers without pay, millions of Americans uncertain on whether they would receive food assistance and travelers facing delays at airports across the country.

A vote is expected to begin after 4 p.m. EST — after Johnson swears in Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who was elected seven weeks ago. Once sworn in, Grijalva is set to become the final vote needed to force a floor vote on a petition demanding the Trump administration release files connected to Jeffrey Epstein.

The swearing-in ceremony will soon lay the groundwork for a House vote that Trump has long tried to avoid. It would come as the Epstein saga was reignited on Wednesday morning when Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released new emails in which the late sex trafficker said Trump “knew about the girls” that he was victimizing.

The emails are part of a trove of documents from Epstein’s estate released to the committee.