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COLEEN ROONEY will mark her 40th birthday today with a series of celebrations at her £20million Cheshire mansion.

But the hundreds of bottles of champers on ice this weekend are far from the only corks she will be popping this year.

Mum-of-four Coleen — wife of former Manchester United superstar Wayne — has big plans in the pipeline — with one pal telling The Sun: “She’s entering her powerful era.”

With a seven-figure Primark deal and a fly-on-the wall Disney documentary already in the bag, insiders say the 2024 I’m A Celebrity runner-up is dreaming big.

One friend explained: “Coleen’s sons are growing up fast and she is excited about the opportunities ­coming her way.

For a long time her primary focus was being a mum to her four boys. She is the backbone of their household, a constant for her sons and for Wayne.

“But now they’re growing up — the boys somewhat more than Wayne at times — Coleen is ready to reclaim some of herself.

“Going into I’m A Celebrity was a great way for her to dip her toe into the water. She loved it and it was obvious the nation still has a ­massive soft spot for her.

“Coleen said she would take a break after that to work out her next move.

“Turning 40 and with loads of exciting things coming her way, she’s entering this powerful new era.”

Coleen will celebrate today with Wayne and their sons, budding Man Utd footballer Kai, 16, Klay, 12, Kit, ten, and eight-year-old Cass.

She will then throw a huge bash for her closest friends and family.

An enormous white marquee has been erected in the 50-acre grounds of their home, previously dubbed “Morrisons mansion” because of its vast size and appearance.

‘A good knees-up’

Wayne’s footballer pals, including Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and ­Darren Fletcher, are all on the guest list, along with Coleen’s Wag chums such as Annie Kilner and Abbey Clancy.

“I’m looking forward to it, I love a birthday and a celebration,” Coleen said ahead of her bash.

“I have decided to enjoy a couple of different celebrations with family and friends over the year, and with my birthday falling over Easter weekend, some friends are away — so any opportunity to extend the ­celebrations…”

Caterers and staff will keep the party running smoothly, with insiders saying no expense has been spared.

“Coleen loves a good knees-up,” another pal explained.

“She can afford a lovely lifestyle and everything at the party will be classy and beautifully done. But for her, plenty of booze, good music and her family is all she will want.

There’s going to be live music and you can guarantee Wayne will be getting up on the microphone

Pal

“There’s going to be live music and you can guarantee Wayne will be getting up on the microphone.

“He loves to sing and will be keen to give everyone a tune or two.”

Those close to Coleen say eyes will be kept on Wayne following a rather embarrassing boozy night out before the Brit Awards in February.

Photographs and videos from a posh bar in Manchester obtained by The Sun showed Wayne struggling to do up his trousers after he spent time chatting with a mystery woman.

He was later seen leaving the venue at 3.45am and getting into a car alone to head home.

At the time, pals close to Coleen said they were furious at his behaviour, which came in the same week Coleen was launching her Primark clothing collection.

Branding Wayne an “idiot”, one seethed: “It’s upsetting to see Wayne acting this way because it takes the spotlight away from her.”

After dating Wayne since she was 16 years old, Coleen is well-versed in facing down his antics. She has stuck by him through every crisis in their marriage — including visits to sex workers in 2004 and 2009 and being charged with drink-driving in 2017.

In recent years Wayne has curbed his wayward ways, but has still had his share of controversial moments.

Turning 40 and with loads of exciting things coming her way, she’s entering this powerful new era

In 2020 he allegedly poked fun about his lack of a sex life, while the following year he was ­photographed fast asleep in a hotel room chair while three women struck comic poses around him.

“If Coleen is the angel then Wayne has definitely always been the devil on her shoulder,” one friend joked.

“Her friends think she’s the ­strongest woman out there for ­putting up with everything that Wayne has done. It takes a certain kind of woman to tolerate that behaviour and live with it. But Coleen has always just asked for honesty. 

“The only time I think she’d draw the line is with anything that could affect her children.

“Her four boys are Coleen’s world. And when it comes to her kids, she is like a lioness with her cubs.

“Wayne absolutely knows that. She is just as fiercely protective over him too, to be honest. Coleen comes across as soft on the surface but she’s got balls of steel. No one would mess with her.”

Coleen herself confessed she was used to Wayne’s poor decision making and said she stuck with him for love.

She told British Vogue: “We’ve had our ups and downs. Obviously everybody knows. It’s been hard to go through it in the public eye but there has always been true love there.

“If the love is gone then, it’s pointless. But if not, you’ve got something to work for.”

Coleen added: “We’ve never backed away from it. We own it.

‘Cheering her on’

“I remember having a conversation about this with someone and I said, ‘Well, do you know what your wife gets up to every day and night? At least I know what my husband is doing!’

“It might not be good, but I know. People lie to themselves.”

Coleen first came into the public eye when Wayne burst on to the scene as a teenager at Everton — and she was famously photographed in her school uniform aged 16 in 2003. 

Her fashion choices saw her becoming a regular at high-end Liverpool boutique Cricket, once dubbed the “unofficial footballers’ wives headquarters” for how often she and other local Wags, including ­Steven Gerrard’s wife Alex, shopped there.

But it was at the 2006 World Cup at Baden-Baden in Germany that Coleen cemented her status as one of our favourite Wags alongside Cheryl Cole and Victoria Beckham.

Coleen comes across as soft on the surface but she’s got balls of steel. No one would mess with her

Friend

In that same year she teamed up with Asda as the face of its George clothing brand, before kicking off a lucrative deal with Littlewoods four years later for her own range.

It is expected that Disney TV ­cameras will capture parts of Coleen’s birthday celebrations, with the family opening the doors of their home for a fly-on-the-wall series. 

Simply called The Rooneys, the three-parter has filmed both Wayne and Coleen, while also shadowing Coleen as she worked with Primark on her clothing line.

Insiders say the big plan for Coleen is to help make her star shine brighter.

Undeniably, she now has the opportunity to bring in the bigger pay packets.

Her deal with Primark was worth millions, while further lucrative deals have been coming in thick and fast.

Meanwhile, Wayne has struggled as a manager. He left Plymouth Argyle after seven months in charge, and was sacked by Birmingham City after just 83 days.

He now has regular gigs as a pundit on Match Of The Day but, as one pal puts it, that is not going to sustain their lifestyle.

“Coleen is the golden ticket for the family now,” a friend explained.

“Wayne was the breadwinner for so long and now the roles have started to slowly reverse.

“To put it bluntly, Coleen is very marketable. She is popular, unproblematic and relatable. Her ­decision to create an affordable brand with Primark shows that.

“Watching her next steps is going to be really interesting. Everyone who knows and loves Coleen is cheering her on and wants her to succeed.

“This is just the beginning for Coleen. Now you just have to sit back and watch her rise.

“We just hope Wayne catches on and keeps himself in line.”

CHICAGO — Matthew Boyd struck out 10 while pitching into the sixth inning, and the Chicago Cubs beat the Angels 6-2 on Wednesday.

Nico Hoerner had three hits for Chicago on a chilly and windy afternoon at Wrigley Field. Matt Shaw had two hits and two RBIs, and Alex Bregman reached three times in the rubber game of the three-game series.

Boyd (1-1) yielded two runs, one earned, and two hits over 5 2/3 innings in his second start of the season. The left-hander was tagged for six runs in 3 2/3 innings in a 10-4 loss to Washington on opening day.

Zach Neto had two of the Angels’ four hits. Yusei Kikuchi (0-1) was charged with five runs and six hits in 5 1/3 innings.

Chicago grabbed control with five runs in the third inning. Miguel Amaya walked and scored from first on Hoerner’s double into the gap in left-center. Bregman singled in Hoerner, and Dansby Swanson drove in Ian Happ with a sacrifice fly. Shaw and Pete Crow-Armstrong contributed two-out RBI singles.

It looked as if first-year Angels manager Kurt Suzuki wanted a replay review of the play at the plate when Amaya scored but was denied because he took too long to decide on the challenge.

The Angels chased Boyd while scoring two runs in the sixth. Jo Adell singled in Neto, and Mike Trout scampered home on an error on Bregman at third.

The Cubs tacked on an unearned run in the seventh. Trout dropped Carson Kelly’s leadoff fly ball to center for an error, and Kelly scored on Shaw’s one-out single.

Up next

Angels: Following an off day, LHP Reid Detmers (0-0, 5.79 ERA) starts for the Angels in their home opener on Friday night. RHP Bryan Woo (0-0, 3.00 ERA) takes the mound for Seattle.

Cubs: RHP Cade Horton (1-0, 2.84 ERA) starts the opener of a weekend series at Cleveland on Friday. LHP Joey Cantillo (0-0, 4.91 ERA) gets the ball for the Guardians.

The Dodgers are working ahead on adding bullpen depth for later in the season.

Right-hander Jake Cousins, who is rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, was signed to a one-year deal, as revealed on the team’s transactions page on Tuesday.

The one-year contract is worth $950,000, with incentives that could bring the total to $1 million if he makes at least five appearances and finishes the season on the active roster, a source familiar with the deal but not authorized to speak publicly confirmed. The Athletic first reported the terms of the deal on Wednesday.

Cousins, 31, underwent Tommy John surgery last June. At that point, he’d already spent the whole season on the 60-day IL. In 2024, however, Cousins posted a 2.37 ERA in 37 relief appearances for the Yankees. He pitched in all three rounds of the postseason that year, including three appearances in the World Series against the Dodgers. Cousins was the pitcher of record in Game 1, which culminated with Freddie Freeman’s dramatic walk-off grand slam off Nestor Cortes.

Though Cousins has a substantial injury history, he’s performed when healthy. He spent the first three seasons of his major-league career with the Brewers, amassing a 3.08 ERA in 51 games.

Cousins is expected to return sometime during the season.

The Dodgers also made a flurry of injured list moves, all retroactive to Sunday.

They put right-hander Bobby Miller (shoulder soreness) on the 60-day IL; left-hander Blake Snell (left shoulder fatigue) and right-handers Brusdar Graterol (right shoulder surgery recovery), Brock Stewart (right shoulder surgery recovery), Gavin Stone (right shoulder inflammation) and Landon Knack (right intercostal strain) on the 15-day IL; and utility player Tommy Edman (right ankle surgery recovery) on the 10-day IL.

The Angels released utilityman Chris Taylor and right-handed pitcher Hunter Strickland from their minor league contracts on Saturday.

Taylor, 35, hit .186 with a .256 on-base percentage, two homers, 12 RBIs and two steals in a combined 58 games with the Dodgers and Angels last season.

He batted .248 with a .327 on-base percentage, 110 homers and 443 RBIs during a 12-year career. Taylor made the NL All-Star team while playing for the Dodgers in 2021.

Strickland, 37, went 1-2 with a 3.27 ERA and one save in 19 relief appearances for the Angels last season. He has a 26-25 record with a 3.39 ERA and 30 saves in 499 career major league appearances, all in relief.

Walt Disney Co. installed Josh D’Amaro as chief executive Wednesday, beginning a new chapter for the storied Burbank entertainment giant.

Bob Iger passed the reins during Disney’s virtual annual meeting of shareholders, completing the company’s high-stakes and tightly choreographed changing of the guard. After spending two decades molding Disney into a media colossus, Iger segued into a senior advisory role, which will run through December when he officially retires.

The leadership shift comes amid an upheaval in Hollywood as traditional companies wage a desperate battle for survival.

D’Amaro, in his first address to shareholders, pointed to Disney’s signature storytelling as its competitive edge.

“While others in our industry are consolidating just to compete, or struggling to be relevant in a fragmented and disrupted world, Disney is in a category of one,” D’Amaro said during a video segment at the meeting. “This next chapter will be driven by staying focused on world-class creativity, enhanced by technology, bringing unforgettable stories to audiences wherever they are.”

D’Amaro, 55, becomes the ninth leader in Disney’s 102-year history. He was selected last month by Disney board members after a two-year internal bake-off among high-ranking division leaders. Board members were impressed with his business acumen, charisma and his deep love for Disney and its fabled history.

D’Amaro inherits a company that is beloved by millions. It generates $94 billion a year in revenue and employs 230,000 people.

He faces enormous challenges as he steers the ship through a turbulent media environment and tense geopolitics. The war in Iran prompted a sharp increase in fuel costs, which could become a drag on Disney’s critically important tourism business. Executives already have signaled “headwinds” in international visitation at its U.S. theme parks this year.

Lingering Middle East tensions also could weigh on Disney’s plans for a new Persian Gulf waterfront theme park and resort near Abu Dhabi.

D’Amaro, who served as parks and experiences chief until Wednesday, got his corporate start at Disneyland 28 years ago.

“Like so many of you, my connection to Disney goes back to my childhood, long before I began my career here,” D’Amaro told shareholders. “I grew up in a Disney family. We watched ‘The Wonderful World of Disney’ on Sunday nights. I was 10 years old when my family visited Disneyland for the first time. … Disney has always been a place of imagination, innovation and infinite potential.”

Disney previously announced a $60-billion, 10-year expansion program, which D’Amaro has led. But executives must strike a balance by keeping attractions true to their nostalgic core. In Anaheim, the expansion could result in at least $1.9 billion of development.

Disney also must continue to grow its animation business and manage revenue declines from its traditional linear television channels, including ESPN and ABC. It needs to turbocharge its streaming services with compelling movies and TV shows to remain competitive with Netflix and other leaders in the field.

Disney teased upcoming fan favorites, including the May release of Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu,” a “Bluey” feature film (the kids show featuring an animated puppy, a blue heeler) and a sequel to a “Lilo & Stitch” film for 2028.

Streaming is key to Disney’s future, D’Amaro said.

“Disney+ will continue to evolve beyond a traditional streaming service to become the digital centerpiece of our company,” D’Amaro said, calling the service “a portal that connects our stories, experiences, games, films, and more in entirely new ways.”

The company plans to unify Disney+ and Hulu later this year.

Disney also must continue to incorporate technology while safeguarding its characters and franchises.

“We will continue to develop and embrace new technologies to empower our storytellers — but never at the expense of our characters and worlds, our creative partners, or the trust people place in us,” D’Amaro said. “Because Disney at its core is a company that celebrates human creativity.”

Wednesday also marked a reorganization of the company, configured by Iger, D’Amaro and Disney’s board.

Board members recognized that D’Amaro, who has spent most of his career in the parks division, lacks deep connections among Hollywood’s writers and producers. They elevated longtime television executive Dana Walden, who had been vying for the top job, to the newly formed role of chief creative officer and the company’s first woman president.

ESPN will continue to be managed by Jimmy Pitaro and Disney Entertainment, Studios chairman Alan Bergman will remain in his influential role overseeing film studios including production, marketing and distribution, and sharing oversight for streaming programming with Walden.

D’Amaro’s total compensation package is valued at about $40 million a year, including a $2-million annual base salary, $26.2 million in annual long-term stock incentives, a cash bonus and a one-time promotion award of $9.7 million.

“Josh is a wonderful choice to lead the Walt Disney Co.,” Iger said in a pre-recorded video. “He has passion for our businesses and brands, respect for our people, and he appreciates what makes this company so unique.”

Iger is wrapping up an unprecedented 52-year career at ABC and Disney.

He first stepped into the CEO role in 2005; his first 15 years were almost magical.

Iger led acquisitions of Pixar Animation, Marvel Entertainment and Lucasfilm, the studio behind “Star Wars,” that turned Disney into a blockbuster machine. Sports king ESPN spawned staggering profits, and Disney’s theme parks set industry standards.

Disney’s former Chief Executive Bob Iger will stay on through the end of the year as a senior advisor.

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

His decision to buy much of Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, a $71-billion deal that closed in 2019, boosted Disney’s television production, refreshed its TV executive bench, and provided a controlling stake in general entertainment streaming service Hulu. The acquisition also gave Disney access to fan-favorite franchises, including “Deadpool,” “The Simpsons,” and James Cameron’s “Avatar.”

But the purchase left Disney saddled with debt just as the COVID-19 pandemic prompted production shutdowns and closures at theme parks and sports venues. It would take several years for Disney to recover.

Iger initially passed the CEO baton to Bob Chapek in February 2020. Iger, then chairman, retired the following year but came back in November 2022 to a mess. At the time, the company was losing billions of dollars on its shift to streaming but that unit is now profitable.

Iger spent the next three years focusing on four business pillars, including improving the quality and profitability of its film studios.

During the last two years, Disney has produced five franchise films that racked up more than $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales, including “Inside Out 2,” “Zootopia 2,” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”

Disney and Pixar’s latest animated film “Hoppers” has hauled in $46 million at the domestic box office in its opening weekend, marking the highest theatrical debut for an original animated film since Disney’s 2017 success “Coco.”

The company is banking this year on several other films with blockbuster potential, including Disney and Pixar’s “Toy Story 5,” “Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu” and Marvel Studios’ “Avengers: Doomsday.”

“I would want to be known as someone who was given the keys to this kingdom and brought it to a place that even Walt would be proud of — more storytelling, more innovation, more risk‑taking, and more creation of happiness,” Iger said during a “The Rest is History” podcast last year.

During the meeting, Iger appeared in a prerecorded video that celebrated his numerous career highlights. Shown were clips from his cub years when Iger was a newscaster with bushy black hair. His journey was depicted, including his orchestration of multi-billion-dollar acquisitions that strengthened Disney with more characters and franchises.

Iger, 75 and now gray, ended by thanking shareholders “for the trust you placed in me, for the memories we created together, and for allowing me the honor of serving,” he said. “It has meant more to me than I can say.”

Animated pixie dust twinkled on the screen, courtesy of the fairy, Tinker Bell.

“Bob, on behalf of our employees, cast members, shareholders, and fans around the world, thank you so much for your tremendous leadership, your steadfast support, and your countless contributions to The Walt Disney Co.,” D’Amaro said, as the hand-off was complete.

“You’ve set an incredible example for all of us. … You will be missed,” D’Amaro said.

There was little fanfare during the business portion of the investor meeting.

The company’s slate of board directors were elected with 93% of the vote. Shareholders also approved executive compensation packages with about 85% of votes.

Shareholder-led proposals to compel reports on charities eligible for Disney’s gift-matching program, a review of the company’s accessibility practices in its theme parks for disabled guests, and a push for cumulative voting at future meetings all failed to muster support.

Disney shares closed at $99.41, down roughly 1% on the day.

In another timeline, in that parallel universe where Venezuela is a normal Latin American country and not a case study of self destruction and democratic retreat, Vladimir Padrino López might have been a good military officer. A native from Caracas, he graduated with honors in the Military Academy in 1984, and as was normal for promising Venezuelan Army officers like him, he was sent to study in the infamous School of the Americas where the United States managed to train the armies of their allied countries. Padrino Lopez was sent later to command an Army post in the border with Colombia, and then came Hugo Chávez.

He was back in Caracas when the crisis of April 2002 allowed Chávez to purge the armed forces and control them as a whole, after promoting the politicization—to his favor, of course—of the military caste. Padrino read the room and focused on rising as a hardcore chavista. By the end of the Chávez years, he was leading the chief of staff of the Army, in the pole position to jump into the highest job an active military officer can get in Venezuela: minister of defense. Nicolás Maduro appointed him as such in October 2014, as well as chief of the FANB’s Strategic Operations Command. 

By then, he was a general-in-chief with four stars on his uniform, but the most important thing is what he did, and what he didn’t. 

Padrino López didn’t stop Colombian guerrillas from controlling villages, rivers, mines and illegal businesses in Venezuela. On the contrary, he helped him to use our territory as a sanctuary that protected them from Colombian soldiers and as a hunting ground for kidnapping and drug trafficking. He didn’t purge military intelligence from Cuban advisors and spies, but let them impose terror in the ranks and prevent the rise of conspirators against Maduro with extreme prejudice. What Padrino López focused on was on lucrative arms trade and cooperation with the Russian and Iranian industrial-military complexes. His most important function for Maduro was to help him to keep FANB in line, to lead the different military tribes around the chavista regime, and to ensure support from the women and men in uniform to an autocratic consolidation—through the illegal Constituent Assembly, and the two illegitimate inaugurations of Maduro in 2019 and 2025.

He was the minister of defense when FANB was tasked with overseeing the Mining Arc, when the protest wave of 2017 was drowned in blood, when FANB deployed with the police the killing squads of the Operación de Liberacion del Pueblo, and when DGCIM became the spearhead of the worst place Venezuela has been in terms of human rights since the military dictatorship of General Marcos Perez Jimenez. This is why you can find the name of Padrino López in several reports on repression and crimes against humanity in Venezuela: he was at the top of the military chain of command responsible for kidnapping, torturing and killing people.

Now he has completed his comeback, with the mission of helping Delcy and Jorge Rodríguez keep stability, to deter potential spoilers from trying to change the post-Maduro order.

The demise of Padrino López has been a rumor for years, as his ascendancy among troops decayed. Thousands of members of the armed forces have been victims of witchhunts or abandoned FANB, by quitting or even deserting, fed up with abuse, low wages, corruption and miserable operational arrest. In January 3, years of preaching about asymmetric war and millions spent on Russian toys did nothing to avoid the capture of Maduro and the bombing of Fuerte Tiuna. Delcy Rodriguez found a pretext to send Padrino to retirement, which was way past due. Naturally, she didn’t do it to punish him for being useless as an army leader, incapable of defending the country and his commander in chief, but because she needed someone she trusts more.

The successor might not be as visible or as well known as Padrino Lopez, but he is not very different. General Gustavo González López is also an alumni of the School of the Americas, a loyal chavista and a longtime member of the Maduro regime’s military elite. Twenty years ago he was already serving in civilian positions, like director of the Caracas Metro, that had nothing to do with his training, and everything to do with his loyalty to Chávez and the chavista (but not only chavista) myth that military officers are good managers because they know how to boss people around and impose order. González López’s organizational abilities, though, were more in the realm of building an efficient repressive apparatus than in running a decades-old public transport system.

He was appointed head of SEBIN, the civilian political police in charge of the dungeons in El Helicoide, during the 2014 repression wave. That meant González López was one of the men who dragged the country down the ladder of poor human rights indicators. Just like Padrino López, he quickly entered the list of Venezuelan high-level officials targeted by international sanctions and investigations. One year later, he became interior minister. Just when an assassination attempt with drones surprised Maduro and his security ring during a military parade in Caracas, and a scandal followed the murder of opposition councilman Fernando Albán in the SEBIN headquarters, González López was dismissed and put aside. 

Now he has completed his comeback, with the mission of helping Delcy and Jorge Rodríguez keep stability, to deter potential spoilers from trying to change the post-Maduro order. González López was appointed chief of the DGCIM and commander of the Presidential Guard just after January 3, and now is at the top of the pyramid. 

This is about loyalty, not about any political transition. We can’t expect justice, reconciliation or any movement towards the restoration of the rule of law with a man like González López heading the Venezuelan military. No one in the barracks or the streets is safer because one symbol of the Maduro regime, Vladimir Padrino Lopez, has been replaced by another.

As the U.S. wades even deeper into the conflict with Iran, some Democratic and progressive political figures are trying to figure out how to connect the public’s wariness about war with concerns about affordability and the widespread reaction against President Trump’s xenophobic immigration policies.

If you’re looking for a template to do it well, one can be found in the words and actions of a political figure who recently passed away: the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

For while attention after his death has rightfully focused on Jackson’s long involvement with the civil rights movement, the more telling lesson for this moment is how his presidential campaigns connected a concern for addressing domestic disenfranchisement with a resolute stance against U.S. military adventures — a message that built on and echoed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s landmark 1967 speech against the Vietnam War, economic exploitation and racial injustice.

Jackson’s candidacies in 1984 and 1988 emerged at a moment when the social compacts forged by the labor, civil rights and women’s movements of the 20th century were being systematically undone. Deindustrialization was hollowing out working-class communities. Reaganism was consolidating power around tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation and attacks on unions. A new corporate consensus was hardening — one that increasingly shaped both major parties — prioritizing financial elites while disciplining labor and shrinking the public sphere.

Sound familiar?

Jackson refused to accept that such a right-wing and corporate realignment was inevitable. His Rainbow Coalition was far more ambitious than a candidate-centered campaign. It was an attempt to build an organized, multiracial, cross-class political front capable of contesting the direction of the country itself.

The Rainbow brought together constituencies that conventional political wisdom said could not unite — Black voters in the South, industrial workers in the Midwest, family farmers in crisis, Latino and Native organizers, Arab American activists, peace advocates, labor insurgents and progressive whites.

Jackson’s platform did not treat these groups as symbolic additions to a coalition; it linked their material interests. Farmers facing foreclosure were not an afterthought — the farm crisis was up front. Deindustrialized workers were not rhetorical props — trade, jobs and industrial policy were central. Civil rights were braided together with economic justice.

And crucially, Jackson insisted, as King had, that economic populism could not be separated from anti-militarism.

At the height of the Cold War, amid Reagan’s military buildup and interventionist doctrine, Jackson argued that bloated Pentagon budgets were not abstract line items. They were resources diverted from schools, healthcare, housing and jobs. He connected the violence of abandonment at home to the violence of intervention abroad — and his campaign called for redirecting military spending toward human needs and for diplomacy over escalation.

When Jackson thundered that we should “choose the human race over the nuclear race,” this was not a simple turn of phrase. It was integral to the Rainbow’s moral and economic logic. A government that prioritizes war over welfare, weapons over workers, cannot sustain democratic life.

That clarity feels especially salient today, as the United States continues to pursue military interventions and proxy conflicts whose legality and human cost are deeply contested. Once again, defense budgets swell while public goods strain. Once again, dissent against war is treated as disloyalty. Jackson rejected that false choice decades ago. He understood that militarism abroad reinforces inequality and immorality at home.

Jackson’s 1988 campaign captured millions of votes, won primaries and caucuses across the country and forced issues into the Democratic Party that party elites preferred to sideline. He demonstrated that a progressive program grounded in the lived experiences of ordinary people — rural collapse, urban disinvestment, plant closures, racial injustice and war — could assemble a national constituency.

Unfortunately, after Jackson’s last campaign, the Rainbow’s experiment in independent organizational life was folded too tightly into the mainstream Democratic Party. While that seemed a strategy to achieve a broader front, it meant that the progressive anchor was unmoored — and the effort dissolved before it could truly mature.

But the lessons of that era may be more relevant than ever.

Today, we again confront an ever-ascendant rightward turn buttressed by concentrated corporate power and normalized militarism. As in Jackson’s day, some leaders seek to deflect our attention, blaming economic challenges on the proximate “other” — in his era, Black women taking welfare, in our era, immigrants taking jobs — rather than those with power.

Jackson understood that defeating reactionary politics required isolating it — not only morally, but structurally — by assembling a coalition larger than the right’s base and rooted in shared material demands. He understood that hope had to be organized and that peace had to be part of prosperity. His campaigns showed that racial justice, labor rights, rural survival, gender equality and anti-war politics were not competing claims but interlocking ones.

Protest has surged in the United States, particularly after the excesses in Minnesota. But protest alone does not prevent consolidation. Nor do narrow electoral bargains that leave the underlying corporate and military consensus intact.

At a time when both parties remain deeply entangled with corporate and defense interests, remembering the promise of the Rainbow is not nostalgia. It is instruction.

Rishi Awatramani is a postdoctoral scholar in sociology at USC, where Manuel Pastor is a professor of sociology and the director of the Equity Research Institute.

PHOENIX — Wait, what? That’s me whenever I see a list of the best pitchers in Major League Baseball that doesn’t include the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the top three — or not until No. 7, like MLB Network’s did.

It’s hard to believe there are professional ball-watchers who want us to believe there are a handful of pitchers better than the Dodgers’ righty who’s steadily filling the fingers on his hand with championship rings.

Respectfully, the Philadelphia Phillies’ Zack Wheeler and Atlanta Braves’ Chris Sale are great. So are the Philadelphia Phillies’ Christopher Sánchez and Boston Red Sox’s Garrett Crochet.

But they’re not greater than Yamamoto.

I’m not saying criminally underrating someone like Yamamoto should be prosecutable, I’m just wondering why anyone would?

“It could have something to do with him not throwing 100 like some other guys,” Dodgers pitcher Ben Casparius said. “But just in terms of pure pitching and what he’s able to do and where he’s able to locate certain pitches and how he’s able to read the hitters?”

Elite.

“In our eyes, I would for sure say Yamamoto is very underrated,” catcher Dalton Rushing said. “I think what goes into your role as a player is your willingness to win, whatever you’ll do to win. I don’t have to go back to the World Series and bring anything up, everyone watched those games, everyone saw what he did.”

Maybe it was a power outage at some folks’ homes during the World Series? Or a subtle form of protest against the Dodgers, champions of capitalism? Maybe Yamamoto’s unassuming everyman act is just that good?

We’ve all marveled at Shohei Ohtani’s Superman quick change, how he’ll go from dynamite pitcher to fearsome hitter in a few bats of an eye. But the truly superheroic character on the Dodgers’ roster is their 5-foot-10, 176-pound ace, Yamamoto.

His Clark Kent-esque transformation, from unimposing nice guy — “the nicest guy in the entire world,” Casparius said — to smirking menace whenever the day needs saving is the stuff of comic book legends.

In last season’s World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays that went the distance and beyond, Yamamoto earned MVP and three of the Dodgers’ four wins.

He had a 1.02 ERA. Got the Dodgers squared away with nine innings of one-run baseball in Game 2. Staved off elimination in Game 6, giving up just one run in six innings. And closed the deal in Game 7 when he pitched 2 ⅔ innings of scoreless relief in the Dodgers’ 5-4, 11-inning victory.

Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto is all smiles as he’s hugged by a teammate following the Game 7 win over the Blue Jays in the World Series.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Oh, and of course Yamamoto was warming in the bullpen when Freddie Freeman hit his walk-off home run to end the 18-inning Game 3 epic at Dodger Stadium.

Yamamoto also showed up for Japan in the World Baseball Classic. He tossed 2 ⅔ scoreless innings in one pool-play start and started again in a knockout game Saturday in Miami, striking out five in four innings and leaving with the lead before Venezuela roared back to win 8-5.

“Part of being a gamer and being a great competitor in big moments is the preparation,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “And when you prepare the right way, that eliminates a lot of doubt and fear. And that, for me, that’s the core of who Yoshinobu is.”

Hyper-competitive and exceptionally nimble, Yamamoto is also super strong — in body and mind.

Bruce Wayne had Alfred Pennyworth; Yamamoto has Yada Sensei, personal trainer Osamu Yada, a 60-something Japanese judo therapist whose unique training regimen has helped turn his star pupil into a world-beater.

So while the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Paul Skenes and Detroit Tigers’ Tarik Skubal are baseball’s kings of the hill, if you had to pick one arm to decide the fate of the universe, whose would it be?

Cue the Yoshinobu Yamamoto anthem.

“He’s probably the best pitcher I’ve ever seen live,” Casparius said. “He’s definitely the guy I’m taking in a must-win game.”

Said pitcher River Ryan: “Yoshi, he is just a natural freak athlete” with a “routine that’s incredible to watch.”

And it isn’t merely the pitcher’s willingness to go to bat for his team and country, all the metrics make his case, too.

Last season, Yamamoto had the fourth-best ERA in the big leagues (2.49) and gave up two or fewer runs in 20 of his 30 starts. He was also tied for first in barrel rate (5.7%), fifth in strikeout rate (29.4%) and seventh in FIP (2.94).

Pick a category, and it paints the picture almost as well as Yamamoto does corners.

I’m not asking people to put some respect on Yamamoto’s name, I’m asking them to put mad respect on it.

“I would say yes, I don’t think he’s fully appreciated for what he’s done,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “Not just yet. He will.”

Eventually even people around Clark Kent have to catch on: This guy might not walk around like he’s a superhero, but he is one.