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Some 491 were arrested in Paris during post-match celebrations after Paris Saint-Germain’s Champions League win.

Two people died and hundreds were arrested in France overnight as football fans celebrated Paris Saint-Germain’s (PSG) stunning UEFA Champions League final victory, the Ministry of the Interior said.

The epicentre of the euphoria was in Paris, which was a theatre of car horns, cheers, singing in the streets and fireworks throughout the night following PSG’s 5-0 triumph over Inter Milan in Munich.

The Interior Ministry said on Sunday that 491 people were arrested in the capital after crowds converged on the Champs-Elysees avenue and clashes broke out with officers.

Across France, a total of 559 people were arrested, it added.

The authorities reported two deaths amid celebrations. A man riding a scooter in Paris died after being hit by a car in the city’s southern 15th arrondissement, located about 2km (1.2 miles) from the Champs-Elysees.

In the southwestern town of Dax, a 17-year-old was fatally stabbed at a gathering feting the PSG victory, prosecutors said. His death occurred shortly after the match and “during the celebrations”, but the prosecutor’s office said it did not know whether it was related to the Champions League final. It added that the perpetrator was “on the run”.

The PSG team were to hold a victory parade on the Champs-Elysees on Sunday, with tens of thousands of supporters expected to gather to catch a glimpse of their returning heroes.

Overnight celebrations turn to violence

Overnight, though, AFP journalists saw police on the famed thoroughfare using water cannon to stop a crowd reaching the Arc de Triomphe that sits at the top of the Champs-Elysees.

“Troublemakers on the Champs-Elysees were looking to create incidents and repeatedly came into contact with police by throwing large fireworks and other objects,” police said in a statement.

Elsewhere, police said a car careered into fans celebrating PSG’s win in Grenoble in southeastern France, leaving four people injured, two of them seriously. All of those hurt were from the same family, police said.

The driver handed himself in to the police and was placed under arrest. A source close to the investigation said it was believed the driver had not acted intentionally.

The public prosecutor’s office said the driver had tested negative for alcohol and drugs.

The majority of fans celebrated peacefully, but police in Paris said scuffles broke out near the Champs-Elysees avenue, and around PSG’s Parc des Princes stadium, where 48,000 people had watched the 5-0 win on giant screens.

Most of those arrested in the capital were suspected of illegally possessing fireworks and causing disorder, police said.

The PSG victory meant the club won the biggest prize in European club football for the first time in their history.

PSG supporter Clement, 20, said: “It’s so good and so deserved! We have a song that talks about our struggles, and it hasn’t always been easy.

“But we got our faith back this year with a team without stars. They’re 11 guys who play for each other.”

French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said he would host the victorious players on Sunday to congratulate them.

In a message on X, Macron hailed a “day of glory for PSG”.

A total of 11.5 million people tuned in across France to watch the match, according to figures given by the Mediametrie audience-measurement company and one of the broadcasters, Canal+.

Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

Following its recent premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, “The Phoenician Scheme,” the new film by Wes Anderson, opens in Los Angeles this weekend. Each new Anderson picture still feels like something of an event, simply because it is so fun to see what he is up to this time, what idiosyncratic subset of the world will he explore and make his own.

Personally, I have been taken with how densely packed his last few films have become. “The French Dispatch” and “Asteroid City” had a layered approach to storytelling that took some time to fully unpack. So it is likely “The Phoenician Scheme” has yet to reveal itself, in need of some extended unraveling of its energetic story of an ambitious 1950s international businessman, Anatole “Zsa-zsa” Korda (Benicio del Toro, who we spoke to for our summer preview), and his estranged daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton), on an a series of business deals. The cast, typical for Anderson, is packed, also including Michael Cera, Scarlett Johansson, Jeffrey Wright, Mathieu Amalric, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Richard Aoyade, Riz Ahmed, Charlotte Gainsbourg and many more. (Never fear, Willem Dafoe and Bill Murray are in there somewhere.)

Mia Threapleton and Benicio del Toro in the movie “The Phoenician Scheme.”

(TPS Productions / Focus Features)

In a review of the film, Amy Nicholson wrote, “Lately, Anderson has been on a tear of using his perfectionist aesthetic to defend the act of ambition itself — to honor artisans who create masterpieces in a world of philistines. The only thing he loves more than a carved credenza (and here, they’re decorated with hieroglyphics) is the craftsperson who made it and the aesthete who bought it, instead of settling for something disposable. I was never a fan of Anderson’s until ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ clicked him into focus. It was hard to believe he knew what he was talking about when his earlier movies tried to sell us on love between human beings. But a hotelier’s love of his linens? That I’ll buy.”

Amy added, “It’s not that you have to believe that there is a force out there more powerful than Zsa-zsa, or heck, even money itself. But if that doesn’t move you, at least Anderson deserves reverence for negotiating how to get all these A-list talents to act in his movie for peanuts. He’s managed to build yet another dazzler, a shrine to his own ambition and craft. And while it sometimes feels a bit drafty in the corners, the accomplishment itself is plenty.”

‘Bleak Week’ goes worldwide

Thomas Jane in an image from the black-and-white director’s cut of Frank Darabont’s 2007 horror movie “The Mist,” coming to “Bleak Week.”

(MGM)

The fourth edition of the American Cinematheque’s “Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair” program begins Sunday with screenings at all three of its local venues through Saturday, June 7. Having already expanded to the Paris Theatre in New York last year, “Bleak Week” is now spreading to several more cities and venues: the Hollywood Theatre in Portland, Ore.; the Music Box Theatre in Chicago; the Texas Theatre in Dallas; Trylon Cinema in Minneapolis; Coolidge Corner Theatre in Boston; and the Prince Charles Cinema in London.

“We look to expand our never-ending film festival whenever possible,” said Grant Moninger, artistic director of the American Cinematheque, via email, of the program’s ongoing expansion.

This year’s series will open with a 35mm screening of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 “Ikiru” at the Egyptian Theatre introduced by Bill Hader. French filmmaker Claire Denis will be present for screenings of a handful of her titles, including a 35mm presentation of 2001’s “Trouble Every Day” with a Q&A moderated by Barry Jenkins.

Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold will be present for a tribute, including films they have made together and Corbet’s separate acting work. To be screened: Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games,” Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia,” Fastvold’s “The World to Come” and Corbet’s “The Childhood of a Leader” and “Vox Lux.”

Other “Bleak Week” highlights include John Hillcoat’s 2005 “The Proposition” with a Q&A with the filmmaker and cast, Michael Curtiz’s 1950 “The Breaking Point” in 35mm and Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1943 “Day of Wrath” screened from a nitrate print.

What may once have seemed a slightly cracked idea has grown into one of the Cinematheque’s signature programs. And there is no end in sight.

“After year one, which had 33 films, we had the worry that maybe we would have no titles left for next year — if there even was a second edition,” said Chris LeMaire, senior film programmer, via email. “But each time we start programming the next ‘Bleak Week,’ there seem to be endless possibilities.”

“Our lineup this year in L.A. has 55 films and we probably cut another 50 titles from our initial list,” added LeMaire. “Across all the venues, ‘Bleak Week’ includes over 100 titles this year, from all corners of the world and all eras of cinema history, from as early as 1919 to 2025. We’re never going to run out because many of the greatest films deal with the human condition, which naturally leads to some difficult truths.”

Brad Pitt in the movie “Moneyball.”

(Sony Pictures)

Alan Arkin’s 1971 “Little Murders” will screen in 35mm with a Q&A with star Elliott Gould moderated by screenwriter Larry Karaszewski. A screening of the black-and-white director’s cut of 2007’s “The Mist” will be followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Frank Darabont and actor Thomas Jane. Filmmaker Costa-Gavras and producer Michèle Ray-Gavras will be present for a double-bill of 1982’s “Missing” and 1970’s “The Confession.” Actor Gabriel Byrne will be at a 35th anniversary screening of Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1990 “Miller’s Crossing.”

I will be moderating a Q&A with Gus Van Sant following a screening of “Last Days.” There will also be the U.S. premiere of a 4K restoration of “Christiane F.” and the West Coast premieres of 4K restorations of “Withnail and I,” “Forbidden Games,” “The Sweet Hereafter” and “Happiness.” (A Q&A for “Happiness” will feature performers Lara Flynn Boyle and Camryn Manheim, moderated by Vera Drew.)

Where downbeat entries like Mark Romanek’s “Never Let Me Go,” Ryan Coogler’s “Fruitvale Station,” Narcisco Ibáñez Serrador’s “Who Can Kill A Child?” or Elem Klimov’s “Come and See” more obviously fall within the thematic concept of “Bleak Week,” titles such as Bennett Miller’s “Moneyball” or Boaz Davidson’s “The Last American Virgin” do not make such an apparent fit.

“We work outside of academic and algorithmic models,” said Moninger. “This allows for an emotional reaction to films and a more expansive ‘Bleak Week’ program. The festival is a tapestry of bleak moments and feelings that can be presented in all types of cinema, including the occasional comedy. We are not measuring the hopelessness of each film but creating something by bonding together a wide variety of challenging, unpromising cinema, which I hope builds to something positive.”

Ivan Dixon and ‘The Spook Who Sat by the Door’

An image from 1973’s “The Spook Who Sat by the Door,” directed by Ivan Dixon.

(United Artists / Photofest / UCLA Film & Television Archive)

This weekend the UCLA Film & Television Archive will be hosting “‘Going My Own Way’ Celebrating Ivan Dixon,” a tribute to the actor and filmmaker, including the local premiere tonight of a new 35mm print of the restoration of his 1973 film, “The Spook Who Sat by the Door.”

The film tells the story of the first Black CIA officer (Lawrence Cook), who leaves his token position at the organization to use what he learned there to train a Black guerrilla fighting force in Chicago. “The Spook Who Sat by the Door,” which was added to the National Film Registry in 2012, had a truncated release with it first came out due to its revolutionary politics, with some accounts that the FBI became involved in suppressing it.

“It’s just one of the most powerful meditations on the meaning of freedom that I’ve ever seen,” said UCLA programmer Beandrea July. “It’s so nice to see a movie that really knows what it is and doesn’t apologize for it. It doesn’t equivocate, it’s not trying to explain itself to people who aren’t interested in really understanding. It’s so satisfying to watch because it’s like finally someone actually speaks to the thing with the same oomph that the thing demands.”

On Saturday, along with the second screening of the film, there will be a showing of Christine Acham and Clifford Ward’s 2011 documentary “Infiltrating Hollywood: The Rise and Fall of ‘The Spook Who Sat by the Door,’” which examines the long saga of the film, its reception and release.

Acham will be present at screenings throughout the weekend as will Nomathande Dixon, Ivan Dixon’s daughter, as well as Natiki Hope Pressley, daughter of Sam Greenlee, author of the book on which the film is based.

Dixon, who died in 2008 at age 76, was best known for his role as Sgt. James Kinchloe on TV’s “Hogan’s Heroes,” a part he left before the show had ended to move behind the camera and begin a prolific career directing for television.

Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln in the movie “Nothing but a Man.”

(Criterion Collection)

Also screening will be the 1964 film “Nothing but a Man” starring Dixon and directed by Michael Roemer, who died just last week at age 97. The film tells the story of racial tension in a small town; Dixon considered the film his favorite of his performances. The film will be paired with a 1960 episode of “The Twilight Zone” starring Dixon and Kim Hamilton.

The series will conclude Sunday with two pieces Dixon directed for television, 1983’s “Frederick Douglass: Slave and Statesman,” starring “Blacula’s” William Marshall, and an adaptation of Philip Hayes Dean’s “The Sty of the Blind Pig” starring Mary Alice and Scatman Crothers.

The Dixon family lived for many years in Altadena. What was once their home was destroyed in the January fires, a circumstance that gives the weekend an even greater emotional resonance.

“It’s special for the family because his wishes were never to have a memorial,” said Nomathande Dixon. “And this is something that feels like a tribute to him in our hometown of L.A. So we’re very appreciative of that. And I think he would’ve been thrilled.”

Points of interest

‘Michael Clayton’ in 35mm

George Clooney, left, and Sydney Pollack in the movie “Michael Clayton.”

(Myles Aronowitz / Warner Bros. Pictures)

At Vidiots on Saturday will be a 35mm screening of 2007’s “Michael Clayton” with writer-director Tony Gilroy in person. The film marked the feature directing debut for Gilroy, who previously had a successful career as a screenwriter and has gone on to be showrunner of the recent series “Andor.”

George Clooney stars in the film as a fixer for a powerful New York City law firm. He finds himself drawn into an already complicated situation involving defending an agricultural conglomerate in a class-action lawsuit when one of the firm’s top lawyers (Tom Wilkinson) has a nervous breakdown.

The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, with Tilda Swinton winning for supporting actress for her role as the conglomerate’s chief counsel. In his original review of the film, Kenneth Turan wrote, “Watching this film makes you feel that Gilroy, best known for writing credits on all three ‘Bourne’ films, has poured the energy pent up during a decade and a half in Hollywood into this strong and confident directorial debut about desperate men searching for redemption in a cold and ruthless world. … As a director, Gilroy has an unmistakable instinct for the emotional jugular and a breakneck storytelling style that pulls you through his movie, no stragglers allowed.”

Sofia Coppola and Kirsten Dunst with ‘The Virgin Suicides’

Leslie Hayman, left, Kirsten Dunst, A.J. Cook and Chelse Swain in “The Virgin Suicides.”

(Paramount Classics)

On Sunday afternoon, the Academy Museum will screen Sofia Coppola’s 1999 feature debut, “The Virgin Suicides” with the filmmaker and star Kirsten Dunst in person. (There will also be a signing for Coppola’s new book of Corinne Day’s on-set photos from the film.) The story of five sisters in 1970s Michigan who all die by suicide, the film set the stage for Coppola’s gently incisive explorations of female interiority and a recurring collaboration with Dunst.

In his original review of the film, Kevin Thomas wrote, “Sofia Coppola shows an impressive maturity and an assured skill in adapting Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel ‘The Virgin Suicides’ to the screen for her directorial debut. As the title suggests, it’s a challenging undertaking that requires a smooth passage from pitch-dark humor to a stark finish. The result is a highly affecting film unafraid to exact an emotional toll. … While subtle in the utmost, Coppola leaves us with an understanding of how things could turn out as they did.”

‘Frances Ha’ and ‘Girlfriends’

Greta Gerwig, left, and Mickey Sumner in the movie “Frances Ha.”

(Pine District Pictures)

The New Beverly will host a double feature of Noah Baumbach’s 2012 “Frances Ha” and Claudia Weil’s 1978 “Girlfriends,” two sharply insightful portraits of female friendship, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

“Frances Ha” was the first screenplay co-written by Baumbach and Greta Gerwig, both who would (of course) go on to collaborate on the script for the mega-successful “Barbie,” directed by Gerwig. In “Frances Ha,” Gerwig plays a 20-something woman coming to grips with life as an adult while struggling to accept the end of a friendship by which she has long defined herself.

In his original review of the film, Kenneth Turan declared it “Effortless and effervescent, ‘Frances Ha’ is a small miracle of a movie, honest and funny with an aim that’s true.”

Of Gerwig and Bambach’s collaboration, he noted, “For the actress, a quicksilver presence with a fluid face who couldn’t be more natural on screen, ‘Frances’ is an opportunity to build a character of unexpected complexity. For the director, having a gifted collaborator able to be so completely present adds a lightness his films have not always had and has made possible an irresistible command of the moment.”

I spoke to Baumbach and Gerwig about the film when it was premiering at film festivals in Telluride and Toronto.

“The writing of it and the acting of it were separate for me,” Gerwig said at the time. “The writing of it was such a huge thing, but the acting of it was scary. I really was worried I wouldn’t be right for it…. It didn’t feel like, ‘I wrote this great part, and I’m perfect for it.’”

“I can say I totally had Greta in my head,” Baumbach said. “I always thought, ‘I can’t wait for Greta to play this part.’”

“Girlfriends” stars Melanie Mayron as Susan Weinblatt, a young photographer in New York City, who finds her life starting to unravel when her best friend (Anita Skinner) moves out of the apartment they share together. The supporting cast also includes Christopher Guest, Bob Balaban and Eli Wallach.

Selected for the National Film Registry in 2019, the film was praised by Stanley Kubrick when it was originally released; he declared it “one of the very rare American films that I would compare with the serious, intelligent, sensitive writing and filmmaking that you find in the best directors in Europe.” Lena Dunham likewise sparked to the film, once recalling of her first viewing, “It felt eerie, in the true sense of the word, how familiar this film was to me. … I almost thought, ‘Have I seen this and been gently ripping it off for the last five years?’”

Rescuers have already pulled a dozen injured people from the debris during a gruelling search effort at the site.

At least 10 people have been killed after a stone quarry collapsed in Indonesia’s West Java province, with the country’s disaster agency saying search efforts are ongoing to find missing people buried beneath the rubble.

The collapse took place early on Friday at Gunung Kuda mining site in Cirebon, West Java. Footage from the scene of the accident shows excavators moving large rocks and emergency workers placing victims in body bags in an ambulance.

Footage circulating online showed rescuers struggling to retrieve a body from the devastated area. Another showed people scrambling for safety as thick dust rose from a pile of rocks and soil that had collapsed.

Indonesia’s National Agency for Disaster Countermeasure (BNPB) said at least 10 people had been killed, but gave no estimate on the number of people missing. It said heavy machinery – including three excavators – were buried and rescue operations would continue throughout Saturday.

Rescue teams have already pulled a dozen injured people from the debris during a gruelling search effort, according to Cirebon district police chief, Sumarni, who uses a single name.

Sumarni said authorities are investigating the cause of the collapse, adding that the owner and quarry workers have been summoned for questioning. He said police, emergency personnel, soldiers and volunteers – supported by five excavators – are trying to locate any further trapped workers. Rescue efforts are being hampered by unstable soil, risking further slides, he added.

On his Instagram account, West Java governor Dedi Mulyadi said the site was “very dangerous” and did not “meet safety standards for workers”. The governor added that the mine was opened before he was elected and he “didn’t have any capacity to stop it”.

Mulyadi said he has taken action to close the Gunung Kuda mine and four others in West Java considered to be endangering lives and the environment.

Illegal mining operations are commonplace across Indonesia, providing a tenuous livelihood to low-wage workers while coming with a high risk of injury or death due to landslides, flooding and tunnel collapses. Much of the processing of sand, rock or gold ore also involves workers using highly toxic materials like mercury and cyanide with little or no protection.

In May, torrential rain triggered a landslide and floods near a small mine run by local residents in the Arfak Mountains in Indonesia’s West Papua province, killing at least six people.

Last year, a landslide also triggered by torrential rain struck an unauthorised gold mining operation on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, killing at least 15 people.

Loretta Swit, the Emmy-winning actor best known for her time as Maj. Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan on the TV version of “M*A*S*H,” died Friday in her New York City apartment, her representative confirmed to The Times. She was 87.

Swit was found by her housekeeper around 10 a.m., according to publicist Harlan Boll, who said he had been on the phone with her at 11 p.m. local time Thursday night — 2 a.m. Friday in New York. Her doorman saw her drop something in the mail at 4 a.m. Friday, New York time, Boll said, and six hours later, she was gone.

The actor — born Loretta Jane Szwed on Nov. 4, 1937, in Passaic, N.J. — loved playing Hot Lips so much that she was the only performer other than Alan Alda who stayed on the series from its pilot in 1972 through its much-watched finale in 1983. “M*A*S*H,” set during the Korean War, was a sitcom but also more than that to Swit.

“There is, I think, an intelligence behind the humor,” she told The Times in 1977. “The audience is huge, and they deserve to be entertained on the highest level we can achieve.”

Though her portrayal of the libido-driven blond in fatigues and Army boots catapulted Swit to household-name status, she had been in acting since before her 8th birthday in stage productions and musicals in New York. She left home at 17 to work in the theater, temping at secretarial jobs while studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

A confessed workaholic, Swit moved easily from comedy to drama, acting in “Same Time, Next Year,” “Mame” and “The Odd Couple” before moving to Los Angeles to star in “M*A*S*H.” She appeared in iconic series such as “Hawaii Five-O,” “Mission: Impossible” and “Mannix,” and had a productive television career until very recently.

Her most recent TV appearance was as herself in the 2024 Fox tribute special “M*A*S*H: The Comedy That Changed Television.”

Her theater work was plentiful, and in addition to Broadway, off-Broadway, regional and national work, included shows in Southern California. She joined Harry Hamlin in “One November Yankee” at the NoHo Arts Center in 2012, three years after doing a reading of the play with a different actor at the Pasadena Playhouse.

“M*A*S*H” filmed its outdoor scenes at Malibu Creek State Park, where the set was re-created for fans’ enjoyment in 2008.

“It’s thrilling to be honored in this way,” Swit told The Times that year. “I think if I had to sum it up, what we’re most proud of is that we made everybody come together. And I think this will also bring people together.”

Swit was nominated for 10 Emmys for her Hot Lips role and won for supporting actress in a comedy, variety or music series in 1980 and 1982. She garnered four Golden Globe nominations for her work on “M*A*S*H,” in the lead and supporting actress categories, but did not win.

She was given a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame in 1989, near what is now the home of Amoeba Music.

An animal lover, Swit set up the SwitHeart Animal Alliance to prevent cruelty and end animal suffering. The alliance worked with numerous nonprofit organizations and programs to protect, rescue, train and care for animals and preserve their habitat, while raising public awareness about issues that concern domestic, farm, exotic, wild and native animals.

She created an art book, “SwitHeart: The Watercolour Artistry & Animal Activism of Loretta Swit,” which includes 65 of her full-color paintings and drawings and 22 of her photographs. Proceeds went to animal causes, and the 2016 Betty White Award from the group Actors and Others for Animals was but one of the many honors she received for her philanthropic work.

Former freelance writer T.L. Stanley contributed to this report.

May 29 (UPI) — Hungry Gazans broke into an aid warehouse in central Gaza on Wednesday, which caused two reported deaths, according to officials with the U.N. World Food Program.

“Hordes of hungry people broke into WFP’s Al-Ghafari warehouse in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza, in search of food supplies that were pre-positioned for distribution,” the WFP said Wednesday in a prepared statement.

“Humanitarian needs have spiraled out of control after 80 days of complete blockade of all food assistance and other aid into Gaza,” the WFP said.

The agency said “alarming and deteriorating conditions” in Gaza and a limited availability of humanitarian aid to “hungry people in desperate need of assistance” have increased risks associated with aid distribution.

“Gaza needs an immediate scale-up of food assistance,” the WFP said. “This is the only way to reassure people that they will not starve.”

The WFP said initial reports indicate two died and several more were injured, but those reports were not confirmed as of Wednesday night.

Another 121 trucks owned by the United Nations and international organizations carrying flour, food and other aid entered Gaza on Wednesday, the BBC reported.

Wednesday’s warehouse incident occurred after Gazans overwhelmed two aid distribution sites in southern Gaza on Tuesday.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry reported three Gazans were killed, 46 injured and seven others were missing after Israel Defense Forces fired warning shots into the air as crowds of hungry Gazans swarmed over one of the aid distribution sites, NBC News reported.

The U.N. Human Rights Office said 47 people were injured during Tuesday’s aid-distribution chaos and gunfire from Israel Defense Forces caused most of the injuries.

IDF and Gaza Humanitarian Foundation officials initially denied the reports and said no one was injured or killed during the first three days of food and aid distribution.

IDF soldiers fired into the air and did not shoot towards people, an IDF spokesperson told the BBC. The IDF is investigating the incident.

They said the GHF and IDF are preventing Hamas militants from stealing the aid from four distribution sites in southern and central Gaza, which Hamas has denied, the BBC reported.

The U.S.-supported GHF is in charge of distributing aid within Gaza after Israel ended an 11-week blockade of all aid into the war-torn Gaza Strip after a recent cease-fire deal collapsed.

At least four distribution points in southern Gaza are being used to deliver aid to Gazans, and more distribution sites are to be added, NBC News reported.

Cambodian and Thai officials claim soldiers from other side opening fire first in latest deadly border clash between the neighbours.

Cambodia’s leader has called for calm in the country a day after a soldier was killed in a brief clash with troops from neighbouring Thailand, in a disputed zone along the Thai-Cambodia border.

In a written statement on Thursday, Prime Minister Hun Manet said people should not “panic over unverified material being circulated”, and reassured the country that he did not want a conflict between Cambodian and Thai forces.

“For this reason, I hope that the upcoming meeting between the Cambodian and Thai army commanders will produce positive results to preserve stability and good military communication between the two countries, as we have done in the past,” said Hun Manet, who is currently on a visit to Tokyo.

“Even though I am in Japan … the command system and hierarchy for major military operations such as troop movements remain under my full responsibility as prime minister,” he added.

Cambodia’s Ministry of National Defence said on Wednesday that one of its soldiers was killed in a brief firefight with Thai troops, in a disputed border region between the country’s Preah Vihear province and Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani province.

The ministry accused Thai soldiers of opening fire first on a Cambodian military post that had long existed in the contested border zone.

However, Thailand’s Minister of Defence Phumtham Wechayachai said Cambodian forces in the area had opened fire first, adding they had previously dug a trench in the area in an effort to assert Cambodia’s claim over the disputed territory, local media reported.

“I have been informed that the return fire was necessary to defend ourselves and protect Thailand’s sovereignty. I have instructed caution. Although the ceasefire holds, both sides continue to face each other,” the minister said, according to Thailand’s The Nation newspaper.

The Nation also reported that Thailand’s Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra spoke with her counterpart, Hun Manet, and both were working to lower the temperature on the dispute.

“We don’t want this to escalate,” the Thai prime minister was quoted as saying.

Cambodia and Thailand have a long history of disputes along their mutual border, including armed clashes that broke out in 2008 near Cambodia’s Preah Vihear Temple, which was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site that year. Fighting also broke out along the border in 2011.

The Associated Press news agency reports that in February, Cambodian troops and their family members entered an ancient temple along the border and sang the Cambodian national anthem, leading to a brief argument with Thai troops.

The incident was recorded on video and went viral on social media.

JOHANNESBURG — Presley Chweneyagae, the South African actor who gained international recognition for his leading role in the 2005 film “Tsotsi,” which won South Africa’s first-ever Academy Award for best foreign language film, has died. He was 40 years old.

His talent agency MLA on Tuesday confirmed Chweneyagae’s death and said South Africa had lost one of its “most gifted and beloved actors.”

“His passion for empowering the next generation of artists will remain integral to his legacy,” MLA Chief Executive Nina Morris Lee said in a statement. She gave no details about the cause of death.

Chweneyagae’s three-decade-long career spanned theater, television and film.

His award-winning performance in “Tsotsi,” based on the 1961 novel by South Africa’s preeminent playwright Athol Fugard and directed by Gavin Hood, catapulted him to international stardom.

Chweneyagae was also a gifted writer and director, co-writing the internationally acclaimed stage play “Relativity” with Paul Grootboom.

The South African government paid tribute to Chweneyagae, lauding his outstanding contribution to the film, television and theater fraternity.

“The nation mourns the loss of a gifted storyteller whose talent lit up our screens and hearts,” the government said in a post on X. “Your legacy will live on through the powerful stories you told.”

The South Africa Film and Television Awards organization, known as SAFTA, paid tribute to Chweneyagae, calling him a “true legend of South African Cinema” on X.

“Rest in Power … a powerhouse performer whose talent left an indelible mark on our screens and in our hearts,” SAFTA posted.

The secretary general of the ANC, the party that dominated South African politics for 30 years, offered his condolences.

Fikile Mbalula described Chweneyagae as a “giant of South African film and theatre.”

“His legacy in ‘Tsotsi,’ ‘The River,’ and beyond will live on. Condolences to his family, friends, and all who were touched by his brilliance,” Mbalula said.

Gumede writes for the Associated Press.

Rick Derringer, the guitarist and former McCoys rocker who gained popularity for songs including “Hang On Sloopy” and “Rock And Roll, Hoochie Koo,” and produced albums for a range of artists including Cyndi Lauper and Weird Al Yankovic, has died. He was 77.

The musician, who rose to prominence in the mid-1960s, died Monday in Ormond Beach, Fla., his caretaker Tony Wilson announced on Facebook. Derringer “received his wings and passed on this Memorial Day,” Wilson said, adding that he and Derringer’s wife and collaborator Jenda Derringer were both with the artist at the time of his death. Additional details, including the cause of death, were not revealed.

Before his death, Derringer suffered “several medical issues,” according to his social media pages.

“Derringer’s legacy extends beyond his music, entertaining fans with his signature energy and talent,” Wilson wrote. “His passing leaves a void in the music world, and he will be deeply missed by fans, colleagues, and loved ones.”

Yankovic paid tribute to Derringer on Instagram, writing that Derringer “had an enormous impact on my life, and will be missed greatly.”

The musician, born Aug. 5, 1947, began his music career assembling the McCoys with brother Randy and broke out in his teens with the release of the group’s “Hang On Sloopy.” The song would become a No. 1 hit and give Derringer a taste of stardom at age 16 — let alone during the height of Beatlemania.

“What teenager could ask for more than to have the top record in the world, girls screaming and pulling your clothes off everywhere you go?” he said to The Times in 1993. “It was the perfect time to be a kid and have a hit record. It was like Christmas every day.”

Derringer, who performed with brothers Johnny and Edgar Winter after the “Hang On Sloppy” hype, in 1973 released his debut solo album “All American Boy,” which offered listeners another hit: “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo.”

Through the 1970s and 1980s, Derringer turned his focus to performing as a session musician, collaborating with acts including Steely Dan, Todd Rundgren, Kiss and Barbra Streisand. During the ’80s, he also worked with Lauper and toured with Ringo Starr and the All-Starr band.

Derringer worked closely with “Weird Al” Yankovic, producing several albums including the parody singer’s Grammy-winning songs “Eat It” and “Fat,” which spoofed Michael Jackson hits “Beat It” and “Bad,” respectively. He also produced the World Wrestling Federation’s “The Wrestling Album,” which included Hulk Hogan’s theme song “Real American.”

“But people haven’t looked at that in the most positive light. They look at novelty records and put a negative connotation on it for some reason. But we made great records together — we won two Grammys,” he told The Times of his work with Yankovic, before noting “it really wasn’t helping my career.”

He added: “A couple years ago, I figured I was working so much on other people’s records that I was ignoring my own career, basically. I decided it was time to go out and do my own songs again.”

He continued to release and tour, including with Starr from 2011 to 2014, through the aughts and into the 2010s. In 2023, Derringer and his wife Jenda Derringer released their eight-track album “Rock the Yacht.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Palestinian groups slam the raids targeting exchanges in several cities in a widespread operation in the territory.

Israeli forces have raided money exchanges across the occupied West Bank, using live fire and tear gas as they stormed the city of Nablus, killing at least one Palestinian and wounding more than 30.

Exchange shops in the cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron Arrabeh, el-Bireh, Bethlehem, Jenin and Tubas were attacked on Tuesday, residents said.

In the northern city of Nablus, Israeli soldiers raided a foreign exchange belonging to the Al-Khaleej company and a gold store, according to local media reports. They also fired smoke bombs in the centre of Jenin, and streets were closed in Tubas and Bethlehem in the occupied Palestinian territory.

The Ramallah-based Ministry of Health said one man was killed and eight injured by live ammunition during a raid in Nablus.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said it treated 20 people for tear gas inhalation and three injured by rubber bullets.

The raids on foreign exchanges came as Israel continued its intensified military campaign in Gaza, killing more than 54,000 Palestinians since the war began on October 7, 2023, as tens of thousands of people starve in the besieged enclave.

Israeli Army Radio on Tuesday said Israel conducted the raids on foreign exchanges on suspicions that the shops supported “terrorism”. The radio station also said the operation resulted in the confiscation of large amounts of money designated for “terrorism infrastructure” in the West Bank.

“Israeli forces are taking action against Al-Khaleej Exchange Company due to its connections with terrorist organisations,” a leaflet left by Israeli forces at the company’s Ramallah location read.

Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said Israeli authorities have not released an official statement yet but an official talked to the Israeli media about the raids.

“This official said earlier that Israel ‘believes’ – not that it has any evidence or proof – but ‘believes’ that these cash exchange places are funnelling money to what they call terror organisations,” said Salhut, who was reporting from Amman, Jordan, because Israel has banned Al Jazeera from reporting from Israel and the West Bank.

“The people who own these shops say they were not given any sort of proof by the Israeli military,” she added.

Salhut said it was the fourth time such raids have taken place since the start of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

“The first time was in December of 2023 when five different cash exchange places were raided by the Israeli military and they seized nearly $3m,” she said. “It happened again in August 2024 and again in September of that same year.”

Hamas slams raids

Hamas denounced the Israeli raids, saying they “constitute a new chapter in the occupation’s open war against the Palestinian people, their lives, their economy, and all the foundations of their steadfastness and perseverance on their land”.

“These assaults on economic institutions, accompanied by the looting of large sums of money and the confiscation of property, are an extension of the piracy policies adopted by the [Israeli] occupation government,” the Palestinian group said in a statement, adding that the targeted companies were “operating within the law”.

Hamas urged the Palestinian Authority to take measures against the Israeli attacks.

Separately, the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement said the raids are “part of the open war against our people, targeting their very existence and cause”. The group also urged the Palestinian Authority to “defend” Palestinians from such attacks and “halt its policy of security coordination” with Israel.

WEST MONROE, La. — Phil Robertson, who turned his small duck-calling interest in the sportsman’s paradise of northern Louisiana into a big business and conservative cultural phenomenon, died Sunday, according to his family. He was 79.

Robertson’s family announced in December on their “Unashamed With the Robertson Family” podcast that the patriarch of the clan had Alzheimer’s disease. The statement on social media from Robertson’s daughter-in-law didn’t mention how he died.

“Thank you for the love and prayers of so many whose lives have been impacted by his life saved by grace, his bold faith, and by his desire to tell everyone who would listen the Good News of Jesus. We are grateful for his life on earth and will continue the legacy of love for God and love for others until we see him again,” Korie Robertson wrote.

Phil Robertson skyrocketed to fame in the early 2010s when the A&E network created a reality show, presented like a sitcom. It followed the adventures of Robertson, his three sons — including Willie, who runs the family’s Duck Commander company, their wives and a host of other relatives and friends.

Phil Robertson and his boys were immediately recognizable by their long beards and their conservative, Christian and family-oriented beliefs.

That got Robertson into trouble, too. He told a magazine reporter in 2013 that gay people are sinners and African Americans were happy under Jim Crow laws.

A&E suspended him from Duck Dynasty but reversed course in a few weeks after a backlash that included Sarah Palin.

At the time, Robertson’s family called his comments coarse, but said his beliefs were grounded in the Bible and he “is a Godly man.” They also said that “as a family, we cannot imagine the show going forward without our patriarch at the helm.”

Robertson was born in north Louisiana and spent his life in the woods and lakes that make up the region called Sportsman’s Paradise.

Robertson played football at Louisiana Tech and taught school. He also loved to hunt and created a duck call in the early 1970s that he said replicated the exact sound of a duck.

The calls were the centerpiece of the Duck Commander business Robertson would grow into a multimillion-dollar enterprise before A&E came calling.

The family just didn’t sell outdoor and hunting gear, but a lifestyle.

“The Robertsons face everything from beavers to business deals in their own special way — with a twist of downhome practicality and a sharp sense of humor,” A&E wrote in its promotion for Duck Dynasty.

Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

The Cannes Film Festival is winding down, with the awards ceremony happening on Saturday. Amy Nicholson and Joshua Rothkopf have been there, watching as many films as they can. In a notebook dispatch from the fest’s first week, Amy covered many early titles, including Harris Dickinson’s directing debut, “Urchin,” Ari Aster’s “Eddington,” Dominik Moll’s “Dossier 137,” Sergei Loznitsa’s “Two Prosecuters” and Oliver Laxe’s “Sirât.” A second diary is live now, covering several films including Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest” and the directorial debut of Kristen Stewart, “The Chronology of Water.”

Josh spoke to filmmaker Lynne Ramsay about her long-awaited return with “Die, My Love,” a tale of the struggles of motherhood, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson. So far the film has become the festival’s biggest acquisition, picked up by “The Substance’s” distributor Mubi for a reported $24 million.

Director Lynne Ramsay on the set of the movie “Die, My Love.”

(Kimberly French)

Ramsay spoke about working with Lawrence and Pattinson, who, besides being big stars, are committed performers as well.

“I think they were very willing participants,” said Ramsay. “There was a lot of trust. I try and create an atmosphere of trust and I just threw them into the fire. I did the sex scene on the first day. I thought it’s a risk. It’s either going to work or it’s going to be a disaster. But I could see there was chemistry. And when they arrived, I was getting them dancing. They were dancing together, synchronized. And it was fun. And then I think Robert was a little nervous, but then something just kind of broke the ice.”

Josh also spoke to director Ari Aster about “Eddington” and whether he set out to make his most overtly politically charged film to date with the story of a small town’s sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) and mayor (Pedro Pascal) sparring during the early days of the pandemic.

“I am just following my impulses, so I’m not thinking in that way,” said Aster. “There’s very little strategy going on. It’s just: What am I interested in? And when I started writing, because I was in a real state of fear and anxiety about what was happening in the country and what was happening in the world, and I wanted to make a film about what it was feeling like.”

‘The Sugarland Express’ and our Spielberg Summer

Michael Sacks, left, William Atherton and Goldie Hawn in the 1974 movie “The Sugarland Express.”

(Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images / Universal Pictures)

We seem to be on the verge of a summer of Spielberg. After last week’s screening of 2002’s “Minority Report,” this Thursday brings a showing of Spielberg’s 1974 “The Sugarland Express” at the Academy Museum with a conversation with the film’s star, Goldie Hawn.

There are also multiple opportunities to see “Jaws” this Memorial Day weekend in celebration of the film’s 50th anniversary, including presentations at the Egyptian, the New Beverly, Vidiots and the Frida Cinema. The film will also play at the Hollywood Bowl on July 5, with a live performance of John Williams’ score by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

“The Sugarland Express,” screening in a 4K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative, was Spielberg’s theatrical feature debut. As tempting as it is to view it for the seeds of what was still to come, the movie is a fully formed charmer all on its own.

Lou Jean Poplin (Hawn) convinces her husband (William Atherton) to escape from prison just a few months from being released because their son is about to be placed for adoption. When the pair wind up taking a police officer hostage, their journey across Texas becomes an unlikely pursuit involving the authorities and the media.

In an April 1974 review, Kevin Thomas called the film “dazzling, funny, exciting and finally poignant. … An increasingly disenchanted portrait of contemporary America.”

Thomas added, “Spielberg and his associates are trying for entertainment rather than profundity, and ‘The Sugarland Express’ is anything but heavy. But it is incisive as it is rapid, like the more optimistic vintage Capra films it brings to mind. … When all things are considered, however, one realizes it is Goldie Hawn who gives the film its focus and dimension, making Lou Jean at once very funny and very sad, quite real, and for all her intransigence, most appealing.”

In a March 1973 report from the set, Hawn spoke to reporter Jeff Millar. She said it took a year after the film “Butterflies Are Free” to find another project that excited her as much. “I flipped when I saw this one,” Hawn said. “It’s a different kind of role for me. She’s aggressive. She’s a leader, she’s comical. But she’s still a plain country girl.

“I guess the most exciting thing is the director,” Hawn continued. “I’d never met him, but everybody knew about him, you know? ‘Oh yeah, you’re going to do a picture with Steve Spielberg. The bright young guy who’s coming up…’”

In comments that bring to mind his recent film “The Fabelmans,” Spielberg, 25 at the time, told Millar, “I’ve been making pictures in 8mm, 16mm and 35mm since I was 15. This is the fourth year I’ve had that Directors Guild of America card. I’ve been directing in television since I was 21.”

Of the movie, he added, “I wanted to shoot in Texas because it’s so big. I’m very into Americana — and Texas is a lot more Americana to me than, well, Kansas or Andrew Wyeth.”

Points of interest

Susan Sontag’s ‘Duet for Cannibals’

Adriana Asti, left, and Susan Sontag making their 1969 film “Duet for Cannibals.”

(Susan Wood / Getty Images)

In 1968, Susan Sontag, already a well-known and deeply influential writer and critic, was invited to Stockholm to make her first movie. The result was “Duet for Cannibals,” a darkly comedic satire of bourgeois values focused on two couples. The film plays at Vidiots on Wednesday.

In May 1973, Kevin Thomas wrote about the film when it had a few screenings at an art gallery and restaurant near LACMA, noting that it “demonstrates Susan Sontag is as gifted a filmmaker as she is a critic and philosopher.”

Thomas concluded, “Sontag illuminates human potential, with emphasis on its bent for destruction yet capacity to endure to a breathtaking fullness. In this bravura example of a work of art that achieves maximum of means, Susan Sontag proves she is a critic who can practice what she preaches.”

‘How to Get Ahead in Advertising’

Richard E. Grant in the movie “How to Get Ahead in Advertising.”

(Janus Films)

Writer-director Bruce Robinson followed up his cult hit “Withnail & I” with 1989’s “How To Get Ahead in Advertising,” a bitter satire of commercialization and the media. Richard E. Grant plays rising advertising executive Denis Dimbleby Bagley, who, while suffering an ethical crisis over the impact of his work, develops a boil on his neck that begins talking to him. The film will play in a new restoration at the Los Feliz 3 on Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday.

In a May 1989 review, Sheila Benson called the movie “a strange piece, to be sure. It’s cruel, funny, knowing, never less than biting and occasionally brilliant. Pure fury seems to have driven Robinson to it. … There are problems in creating something as simultaneously funny and unlovely as a talking boil. It’s possible that some audiences will lose interest once they learn that the effects are good but minor; the boil, even when grown to full manhood (boilhood?) isn’t a patch on ‘The Fly.’ But then, this isn’t that sort of movie. This is a blistering broadside, a warning for the safety of our souls.”

In a set visit by Bart Mills published around the film’s release, Robinson, then 43, did an interview from his office at Shepperton Studios outside London.

He said it was his own disillusionment at “the constant stream of disinformation the media and the politicians give us” that inspired the story. “This is the kind of anger I feel all the time. All the time. It’s intolerable. The only thing that saves me, that keeps the electrodes off my head, is that, thank God, I’m allowed to make a movie about it.”

Yet, Robinson added, “I don’t believe the cinema can change anything. It’s not a teacher, it’s an entertainer. I enjoy finding a comedic way to exploit my burning rage.”

The short films of Charles and Ray Eames

The title frame for Charles and Ray Eames’ 1955 short film “House: After Five Years of Living.”

(Eames Office, LLC.)

On Wednesday, the Philosophical Research Society and the Charles and Ray Eames Foundation will host an evening celebrating the famous creative duo. There will be a program of seven of the Eames’ shorts, including 1955’s “House: After Five Years of Living,” 1964’s “Think” and likely their best-known film, 1977’s “Powers of Ten.”

The event will also include a panel discussion moderated by programmer Alex McDonald including the Eames’ grandson Eames Demetrios, art director Jeannine Oppewall and the creative pair of Adi Goodrich and Sean Pecknold, known as Sing-Sing.

Writing about the enduring influence of the Eames in 2012, David L. Ulin said, “In our age of constant contact, it’s almost impossible to step away from the workplace even when we’re off the clock. And yet, if the Eameses have anything to tell us, it’s that we can — must — aspire to a higher integration, in which work should not only feed our stomach but also, and more importantly, our souls.”

In other news

Rolf Saxon accepts another ‘Mission’

Actor Rolf Saxon, photographed at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York.

(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)

Fans of the “Mission: Impossible” franchise are in for a real surprise when they see the new sequel “The Final Reckoning,” which opens this weekend. Actor Rolf Saxon, who had a memorable turn in the first film in 1996, is back with a surprisingly large role in the new film.

Saxon’s character of CIA analyst William Donloe was sent to a radar station in Alaska after his computer station got hacked by Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt in one of the series’ signature set pieces. In the new film, it turns out Donloe has been in Alaska the entire time and now may have vital information for the Impossible Mission Force.

The new film brought Saxon to caves in the English midlands and, most spectacularly, Svalbard, an archipelago off the northern coast of Norway.

“This was in many ways a dream job,” says Saxon. “The people I’m working with, the thing I’m working on and the places I got to go to work — it’s just like, what would you really like to do? Here it is.”

My extended feature with Saxon goes live a little later this afternoon. Stay tuned.

May 26 (UPI) — Five skiers were found dead on a Swiss mountain near Zermatt over the weekend, authorities said.

According to a statement Sunday from southern Switzerland’s Valais cantonal police, the five bodies were discovered Saturday on the Adler Glacier by emergency responders aboard an Air Zermatt helicopter conducting an aerial survey near the mountain resort of Zermatt.

The authorities launched the search after being alerted by two mountaineers to skis abandoned at an altitude of about 13,125 feet on Rimpfischhorn mountain.

Police said the two ski mountaineers on Rimpfischhorn noticed the abandoned skis at the base of the summit at about 4:30 p.m. local time on Saturday.

Air Zermatt added in a separate statement that it was four pairs of skis that the mountaineers had first seen as they ascended the mountain. On their way back down, the mountaineers again noticed the skis, which had remained untouched.

Three bodies were discovered during the aerial search in what Air Zermatt called an avalanche cone on the mountain. Two more bodies were found about 650 feet higher up on the mountain in a small snow patch, the emergency air transport company said.

The fifth pair of skis was also found in the area, it added.

Identification of the bodies is underway, police said. The local prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation to determine the cause of the deaths.

Roger Nichols, the songwriter who penned “We’ve Only Just Begun” and other hits for folk-rock duo the Carpenters, has died. He was 84.

Nichols’ death on May 17 was confirmed in a social media post from Nichols’ longtime songwriting partner, Paul Williams. He did not list a cause of death.

“The first song Roger Nichols and I wrote was called ‘It’s hard to say goodbye …’ Sadly, we hit the nail on the head. Roger Nichols passed away peacefully four days ago, at home with his beautiful family,” Williams wrote. “His wife Terry and the daughters he was so proud of, Claire and Caitlin at his side.

“He was as disciplined as he was talented,” Williams continued. “The words were born of the beauty in his completed melodies. I wrote what I heard, note for note …word for word. The lyrics waiting in the emotion already in his music. He made it easy.”

Nichols, a Montana native, released his first solo LP, “Roger Nichols & the Small Circle of Friends,” on A&M Records in 1968. It’s now regarded as a cult classic in the California pop-rock canon, with guest credits from Randy Newman, Van Dyke Parks and Lenny Waronker. However, he earned his big break as a songwriter after he penned an unexpectedly poignant jingle for a Crocker-Citizens National Bank commercial.

Richard Carpenter, who formed the popular duo with his sister Karen, heard the tune on television and asked if Nichols and Williams had a full version of the song. They quickly extended it into a tune that became the duo’s 1970 smash “We’ve Only Just Begun.” The single was nominated for song of the year at the following Grammys.

With Williams (and other lyricists), Nichols co-wrote many of the Carpenters’ most beloved songs, including “Rainy Days and Mondays,” “I Won’t Last a Day Without You,” “Let Me Be the One” and “I Kept on Loving You.” Beyond his hits for the Carpenters, Nichols co-wrote songs that were recorded by the Monkees, Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, Petula Clark and Art Garfunkel, among many others.

In a comment on Williams’ post, Nichols’ daughter Claire wrote, “My mom, Terri, and my sisters, Caroline and Caitlin, are all so proud of the man he was, and are in awe of the legacy he leaves.”

In a room inside a North Hollywood warehouse, dozens of pets are ready for their owners to take them home.

Boots, a young black-and-white domestic shorthair cat, lies on his back, pawing playfully at the air. A trio of red, yellow and green parrots and cockatiels sit on wooden perches, oblivious to the piercing stare of a blue-eyed feline a few feet away. Princess, a senior Chihuahua, rests with her eyes closed and body curled into a tight cocoon, as a frenetic hamster named Ponby stands upright, his eyes bulging. There’s a naked guinea pig, a giant red macaw and an adorably chunky pit bull named Messy.

Eyes, such as those shown here on Messy the pit bull, are made of glass and closely match the animal’s original colors.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

All of these animals are loose, liberated from the confines of cages and leashes, and yet no havoc has ensued.

These animals are also all dead.

It’s an everyday scene at Bischoff’s the Animal Kingdom, a Los Angeles taxidermy business that has been preserving animals for 103 years. The business is multifold — Bischoff’s creates and rents out prop animals to film studios, museums and nature centers. Posters on the lobby walls boast the company’s work on shows like “American Horror Story” and “Westworld.” But in recent years, a bulk of its taxidermy requests now come from bereaved pet owners, those willing to shell out thousands of dollars for a tangible commemoration of their late “fur babies.”

Birds are commonly preserved at Bischoff’s, but the business has made mementos of more obscure pets, including chameleons, roosters and hairless guinea pigs.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

From full-body taxidermy to partial mementos — skulls, bronzed hearts or freeze-dried paws, for example — such services provide closure in ways that, clients say, traditional burials or urns cannot.

“It was honestly really comforting to have her back, and just be able to touch her and, in a sense, talk to her too,” said Bischoff’s customer Zoe Hays of the preservation of her Chihuahua-Yorkie mix Pixie. “She was a great little dog — also a menace to society, for sure — but she’s still with me, and she always will be.”

Bodily preservation, beyond the ashes or cemented paw prints offered by veterinarians and animal hospitals, has become a growing facet in the world of pet aftercare, with traditional taxidermists fulfilling many of the niche requests.

Redlands business Precious Creature initially only offered full-body taxidermy of pets until customers started suggesting other ideas, such as lockets containing patches of fur and cat-tail necklaces. (Most recently, owner Lauren Kane sewed a zippered pillowcase using the black-and-white fur of a rescue named G-Dog, or, as his owner fondly called him, “Fluffy Butt.”) In her documentary “Furever,” filmmaker Amy Finkel explores the lengths to which pet preservationists will go, asking, “Who decides what kind of grief is acceptable, or appropriate?”

Bischoff’s co-owner Ace Alexander had a songwriting career before transitioning to taxidermy.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Ace Alexander, 40, and Rey Macias, 55, the fourth owners in Bischoff’s long history, have steered the company to meet the new demand. Describing each other as “good friends,” the two men dress similarly in unofficial uniforms of black T-shirts and black pants, and they’re so in sync they sometimes finish each other’s thoughts. Since taking over the business, both have transitioned to primarily vegan diets.

“Bischoff’s used to be taxidermists to the stars in the trophy era, but now we’re taxidermists in the pet preservation era,” Alexander said. “People no longer hunt. Now they just love their pets.”

Hollywood needs supporting actors, even if they’re stuffed

Over the decades, Bischoff’s has preserved hundreds of animals. The Sumatran tiger has made many appearances in films and TV shows, including “Snowfall,” “Palm Royale” and “Welcome to Chippendales.”

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

In 1922, when Al Bischoff first opened the business on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, he’d stuff and plaster any animal brought to him. Most of the time, that meant trophies from hunting and safari trips, but it also included beloved pets owned by Hollywood elite. Roy Rogers used Bischoff’s to preserve his co-stars Trigger the horse and Bullet the dog. Buck — the dog from “Married with Children” — also got the Bischoff’s treatment.

Under Alexander and Macias’ tutelage, that’s still the case. They’ll preserve any animal you bring them — so long as it is not a protected species or an illegal pet. They’ll even make you a unicorn or a sasquatch or a wearable Velociraptor costume that roars and can open and close its jaws. The largest animal Alexander and Macias have preserved was an 11-foot-long buffalo, while the smallest, not including insects, was a hummingbird. Off the top of their heads, the only animal they haven’t preserved — yet — is the genetically rare white tiger.

Bischoff’s owners Ace Alexander, left, and Rey Macias show off a custom order of a pink peacock (sans tail) for a film.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The majority of Bischoff’s clientele still comes from Hollywood. Due to federal and state laws, as well as industry regulators like the American Humane Association, it often makes more sense to use body doubles for animals when filming and is occasionally mandatory (such as scenes that involve roadkill or drowning incidents).

On a recent Wednesday, Alexander fielded calls from studios about the types of snake skins in stock, how to clean dirt off a rented coyote and the particular body poses of their turkeys.

“So what are you thinking?” Alexander said, talking on the phone. “Turkeys in flight? Perched? Or did you need a floppy version?”

As for the pet sector, which accounts for around 40% of their business, dogs and cats, unsurprisingly, make up the majority of the preservations, but the team has also worked on rabbits, rodents, chameleons and roosters. And although they will preserve your pet goldfish, they will strongly encourage you to consider having a synthetic version made of it due to the oils in the scales, which inevitably lead to deterioration.

Bischoff’s works on pets shipped from around the country as well as overseas. Dr. Xanya Sofra, who is based in Hong Kong, has had at least half a dozen of her papillons preserved by Bischoff’s. Another client, who was an avid hiker, had Bischoff’s preserve his golden retriever in an upright position so that he could carry it in his backpack on his treks.

Neither Alexander nor Macias had a background in taxidermy when they started working at Bischoff’s. They were both musicians, which is how they initially met. Macias also owned an auto shop and has been taking apart and fixing appliances from a young age.

Alexander picked up jobs at Bischoff’s when it was owned by the previous owner, Gary Robbins. The pay was good, the work interesting and he realized he had a knack for airbrushing and sculpting. In 2017, when Robbins was ready to retire, Alexander and Macias, who by then had also started working there, decided to buy the business.

Blending artistic skill with scientific knowledge

Each multi-level freeze-dryer can fit around a dozen pets at a time. Smaller pets need three to four months to dry out, while larger animals take nearly a year.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Bischoff’s specializes in a form of hybrid taxidermy, incorporating traditional techniques with the more new-fangled freeze-drying process. The results are not only more lifelike and long-lasting than the standard gut-and-stuff method, but it also allows for the bulk of the original animal to remain, including the skeletal structure, toenails, whiskers, eyelids, nose and teeth. The eyes, however, are made of glass.

The method leaves room for error. Water can be used to dampen and repose the body and paint can be removed or retouched.

“You can definitely backpedal,” Alexander said, making a note to check the texture of the preserved hearts on sticks in the next 24 hours.

Alexander credits this attention to detail to his predecessors, former owner Robbins and then-main taxidermist Larry Greissinger, who taught him the trade. Strict in their teachings, Robbins and Greissinger emphasized getting every bodily facet correct: from recreating the natural anatomy to sewing the perfect hidden stitch to making sure the eyes looked right.

“That’s where the emotion is,” Alexander said. “You can get the perfect body pose, but if the eyes aren’t sitting well or don’t carry any emotion, then the animal will never look alive.”

Bischoff’s has old and new taxidermy, including two polar bears from the 1940s and 1950s, a bull created in 2013 for the “Yellowstone” prequel “1923” and a buffalo that appeared in “The Lone Ranger.”

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

A few of Bischoff’s early taxidermy pieces are still on display, including a dog, which looks more like a cross between a wolf and a baboon, dating to the 1920s. Its plaster interior, an old taxidermy technique, gives it a stiff visage and makes it exceedingly heavy.

Bischoff’s prices reflect its modernized techniques, as well as the amount of time and attention to even the smallest of details required to make a dead pet come back to life. The cost for a fully preserved cat or a small dog like a Chihuahua starts at $2,640, with small birds, like a budgie, starting at $850.

A photo booth is set up in Bischoff’s warehouse, where images of the completed pets are taken.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Although most customers order full-body taxidermy, an “a la carte” menu has expanded over the years with jars of whiskers or fur, bundles of bones tied in a bow and, the most recent addition, freeze-dried hearts, which come mounted inside of a glass cloche. Bischoff’s also offers cloning services through its Texas-based affiliate Viagen Pets, to whom they send the pet’s skin tissues.

Pelts, paws and bronzed skulls are among the smaller items purchased by pet owners.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Bischoff’s in-house artist Laischa Ramirez creates hand-drawn portraits of pets for owners who request it.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Costly though their work is, Alexander and Macias see it as an investment. Pets, they point out, are friends you look at every day. You’re intimately aware of their nuances and quirks, like how their left ear might curl back more than the right one or the way their nose tilts ever-so-subtly upwards. Entrust their preservation to a novice or lower-cost taxidermist, and you risk losing some of the elements that made your pet who they were.

Bischoff’s has seen its share of people who’ve preserved their pets with budget taxidermists only to be disappointed. “It’s unfortunate because at that point, there’s not much we can do,” Alexander said. Such pets are cremated “because they just can’t stand to look at them.”

Bischoff’s key component? Compassion

Pets and pet hearts sit in a freeze-dryer at Bischoff’s.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

In the back of Bischoff’s warehouse is where the equipment resides and the smells of the oils running the machines permeates the space. The company has one aquamation machine that uses alkali solution, heat and pressure to break down the organic material into ashes. With interior chambers lined with perforated metal walls, the contraption somewhat resembles a fast-food restaurant’s deep fryer. Except, one taxidermist notes, when the process is done, instead of having golden fried potato strips in each basket, all that is left are bones.

Oftentimes at the ends of these processes, Bischoff’s workers will find inorganic remnants from the pets, such as microchips, metal plates or orthopedic screws. They give them to their owners as keepsakes.

Macias’ son, 29-year-old Chris Macias, works alongside his dad at Bischoff’s. He started helping out to make extra money while attending nursing school, but when business picked up, he decided to transition fully into the taxidermy business. He does a little bit of everything — recently, it was prepping a seal pelt for the San Pedro Marine Mammal Care Center — but tends to do pet pickups the most. Less technical though it may be, it is more emotionally taxing as he’s interfacing with grieving clients who might still be in shock or confused as to what exactly they want to do with their late pets.

Two calico cats were returned to Bischoff’s by the children of the woman who owned them after her death.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

“Everybody’s different, but I just try to be there for them,” Chris said. “Their pet was part of their family, so I totally understand. Because all of us here, we have our own pets as well. We get it.”

Though Alexander never imagined building a career out of preserving dead pets, he said, “We’ve found joy in this work and we just see preservation as another form of art.”

It’s that art that is helping keep the memories of beloved pets alive — for generations even. Hays, the owner of Chihuahua-Yorkie mix Pixie, already has a contingency plan in place for Pixie’s taxidermy upon her own death. It will be “adopted” by another family member. Her daughter has already called dibs.

And many of Bischoff’s pet preservation customers are repeat clients, which is something that Alexander and Macias take pride in. Two women picking up the taxidermy body of their late cat recently chatted with Alexander about their newest rescue, a diabetic stray cat burnt in the Altadena fires. They couldn’t help but comment on the “beautiful bone structure” of the feline, still very much alive.

“I was like, ‘Hmm, you’re definitely going on the altar some day,’” one of the women said.

Known for sweeping black-and-white photography that captured the natural world and marginalised communities, Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado has passed away at age 81.

His death was confirmed on Friday by the nonprofit he and his wife Lelia Deluiz Wanick Salgado founded, the Instituto Terra.

“It is with deep sorrow that we announce the passing of Sebastiao Salgado, our founder, mentor and eternal source of inspiration,” the institute wrote in a statement.

“Sebastiao was much more than one of the greatest photographers of our time. Alongside his life partner, Lelia Deluiz Wanick Salgado, he sowed hope where there was devastation and brought to life the belief that environmental restoration is also a profound act of love for humanity.

“His lens revealed the world and its contradictions; his life, the power of transformative action.”

Salgado’s upbringing would prove to be the inspiration for some of his work. Born in 1944 in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, he saw one of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems, the Atlantic Forest, recede from the land he grew up on, as the result of development.

He and his wife spent part of the last decades of their life working to restore the forest and protect it from further threats.

But Salgado was best known for his epic photography, which captured the exploitation of both the environment and people. His pictures were marked by their depth and texture, each black-and-white frame a multilayered world of tension and struggle.

In one recent photography collection, entitled Exodus, he portrayed populations across the world taking on migrations big and small. One shot showed a crowded boat packed with migrants and asylum seekers crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Another showed refugees in Zaire balancing buckets and jugs above their heads, as they trekked to retrieve water for their camp.

Salgado himself was no stranger to fleeing hardship. A trained economist, he and his wife left Brazil in 1969, near the start of a nearly two-decade-long military dictatorship.

By 1973, he had begun to dedicate himself to photography full time. After working several years with France-based photography agencies, he joined the cooperative Magnum Photos, where he would become one of its most celebrated artists.

His work would draw him back to Brazil in the late 1980s, where he would embark on one of his most famous projects: photographing the backbreaking conditions at the Serra Pelada gold mine, near the mouth of the Amazon River.

Through his lens, global audiences saw thousands of men climbing rickety wooden ladders out of the crater they were carving. Sweat made their clothes cling to their skin. Heavy bundles were slung over their backs. And the mountainside around them was jagged with the ridges they had chipped away at.

“He had shot the story in his own time, spending his own money,” his agent Neil Burgess wrote in the British Journal of Photography.

Burgess explained that Salgado “spent around four weeks living and working alongside the mass of humanity that had flooded in, hoping to strike it rich” at the gold mine.

“Salgado had used a complex palette of techniques and approaches: landscape, portraiture, still life, decisive moments and general views,” Burgess said in his essay.

“He had captured images in the midst of violence and danger, and others at sensitive moments of quiet and reflection. It was a romantic, narrative work that engaged with its immediacy, but had not a drop of sentimentality. It was astonishing, an epic poem in photographic form.”

When photos from the series were published in The Sunday Times Magazine, Burgess said the reaction was so great that his phone would not stop ringing.

Critics, however, accused Salgado during his career of glamourising poverty, with some calling his style an “aesthetic of misery”.

But Salgado pushed back on that assessment in a 2024 interview with The Guardian. “Why should the poor world be uglier than the rich world? The light here is the same as there. The dignity here is the same as there.”

In 2014, one of his sons, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, partnered with the German filmmaker Wim Wenders to film a documentary about Salgado’s life, called The Salt of the Earth.

One of his last major photography collections was Amazonia, which captured the Amazon rainforest and its people. While some viewers criticised his depiction of Indigenous peoples in the series, Salgado defended his work as a vision of the region’s vitality.

“To show this pristine place, I photograph Amazonia alive, not the dead Amazonia,” he told The Guardian in 2021, after the collection’s release.

As news of Salgado’s death spread on Friday, artists and public figures offered their remembrances of the photographer and his work. Among the mourners was Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, who offered a tribute on social media.

“His discontent with the fact that the world is so unequal and his obstinate talent in portraying the reality of the oppressed always served as a wake-up call for the conscience of all humanity,” Lula wrote.

“Salgado did not only use his eyes and his camera to portray people: He also used the fullness of his soul and his heart. For this very reason, his work will continue to be a cry for solidarity. And a reminder that we are all equal in our diversity.”

Two staff members from the Israeli embassy in the United States were shot and killed on Wednesday night as they left a Jewish museum in Washington, DC, prompting outrage from US and Israeli officials.

A 30-year-old man from Chicago, Illinois, named as Elias Rodriguez, has been arrested in connection with the shooting, the police said. He is the only suspect.

President Donald Trump condemned the shooting as “horrible”, stating there was no place for “hatred” in the US. Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he was “devastated” by what had unfolded in the US capital.

“This is a despicable act of hatred, of anti-Semitism, which has claimed the lives of two young employees of the Israeli embassy,” he said.

Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, said federal authorities were investigating the attack and would bring its “depraved perpetrator” to justice.

Here is what we know so far:

What is known about the shooting?

Officers responded to multiple calls about a shooting near the Capital Jewish Museum at about 9:00pm on Wednesday (01:00 GMT Thursday).

The victims, a man and a woman, were leaving an event at the museum, which is in the area of 3rd and F streets in Northwest, Washington, DC, close to an FBI field office and the US attorney general’s office, when the suspect approached a group of four people and opened fire, Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith said at a news conference.

First responders found the victims unconscious and not breathing. Despite life-saving efforts, both were pronounced dead.

According to police, the suspect entered the museum after the shooting and was detained by security personnel at the event.

“Once in handcuffs, the suspect identified where he discarded the weapon, and that weapon has been recovered, and he implied that he committed the offence,” Smith said.

What do we know about the victims?

The two were named by the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC as Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim.

Both were members of staff. The Israeli ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, told reporters the young staffers were a couple “about to be engaged”.

“The young man purchased a ring this week with the intention of proposing to his girlfriend next week in Jerusalem,” Leiter revealed.

What do we know about the suspect, Elias Rodriguez?

The suspect has been identified as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, Illinois.

Reporting from close to the site of the shooting, Al Jazeera’s Heidi-Zhou Castro said the suspect was not previously on the radar of local authorities.

“He was not a known entity. There was no heightened alert prior to this happening,” she said.

What do we know about the suspect’s motive?

So far, the police have not confirmed any motive.

Speaking on Thursday, Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, blamed a “toxic anti-Semitic incitement against Israel and Jews around the world” since the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October, 2023.

When the suspect, Elias Rodriguez, was taken into custody, he began chanting: “Free, free Palestine,” Police Chief Smith said.

Mohamad Elmasry, professor of media studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, said the attacks were “awful” and were rightfully being condemned regardless of political ideology.

He said: “You have the Trump administration, Israel and some of their supporters coming out and saying that this is an act of anti-Semitism … and that could be the case, that it is just an act of naked anti-Jewish hatred, which obviously should be condemned,” Elmasry told Al Jazeera.

“But it’s also possible that Mr Rodriguez carried this act of vigilante violence out against the State of Israel, or that he’s taking out his frustrations over the genocide [in Gaza] or Israel’s apartheid policies, on these embassy staffers. That’s an important distinction, because if that’s the motive, then it requires a different course of action.”

What has been the reaction to the shooting?

“These horrible DC killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW!” President Trump posted on social media early Thursday.

“Hatred and radicalism have no place in the USA. Condolences to the families of the victims. So sad that such things as this can happen! God bless you all!”

Israeli officials also strongly condemned the incident, describing it as a “despicable act of hatred”. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said after the shooting: “We are witnessing the terrible price of anti-Semitism and the wild incitement against the State of Israel.

“I have instructed to enhance security arrangements at Israeli missions around the world and to increase protection for state representatives,” Netanyahu said.

On Thursday, reactions and condolences poured in from other countries as well.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called the shooting a “heinous act” in a post on X, adding that at the moment “we must assume there was an anti-Semitic motive.”

Kaya Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, said: “Shocked by the shooting of two Israeli embassy staff in Washington DC. There is and should be no place in our societies for hatred, extremism, or antisemitism. I extend my condolences to the families of the victims and the people of Israel.”

France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, said: “The murder of two members of the Israeli embassy near the Jewish Museum in Washington is an abhorrent act of antisemitic barbarity. Nothing can justify such violence. My thoughts go to their loved ones, their colleagues, and the State of Israel.”

In Ireland, the prime minister, Micheal Martin, said: “I strongly condemn the horrific gun attack that killed two Israeli embassy staff in Washington DC last night. My deepest sympathies go to the family and friends of the couple, and the Israeli people. There can be absolutely no place for violence or hate.”

Antonio Tajani, the Italian Foreign Minister, said: “I stand with the State of Israel for the tragic murder of two young employees of the Israeli embassy in Washington. Scenes of terror and violence to be strongly condemned. antisemitism born of hatred against Jews must be stopped, the horrors of the past can never return.”

What will happen next?

Police Chief Smith said law enforcement did not believe there was an ongoing threat to the community at present.

FBI Director Kash Patel said he and his team had been briefed on the shooting.

“While we’re working with [the Metropolitan Police Department] to respond and learn more, in the immediate, please pray for the victims and their families,” he wrote on X.

Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser told reporters her administration would not tolerate “violence or hate in our city”.

“We will not tolerate any acts of terrorism, and we’re going to stand together as a community in the coming days and weeks to send a clear message that we will not tolerate anti-Semitism,” Bowser said.

The shooting comes as Israel has launched a new military campaign in Gaza to control all of the Strip, while continuing to impose an 11-week aid blockade that has been widely condemned.

Many world leaders, including allies, have demanded that Israel end the war and let aid into the war-ravaged territory or face punitive actions.