Charlie Woods has taken a big first step out of his father’s immense shadow in the golfing world.
The 16-year-old son of golf legend Tiger Woods made a huge statement this week by winning the American Junior Golf Association’s Team TaylorMade Invitational at Streamsong Resort in Bowling Green, Fla. He shot a 15-under-par 201 (70-65-66) to finish three shots ahead of a trio of players tied for second place.
“Being able to say to myself that I’ve won in an absolutely amazing event and to say I preformed under some high, high pressure situations is just huge going forward,” Charlie Woods said afterward, “because I haven’t been able to say that I have done that. And now that I can, it is just a big thing for my mental game going forward.”
Currently ranked as the No. 609 boys junior player in the U.S., Woods is expected to move into the top 20 next week, after topping a 71-player field that featured four golfers who currently rank in the AJGA’s top five. That includes top-ranked Miles Russell of Jacksonville Beach, Fla., who finished six shots behind Woods and in seventh place with a nine-under 207.
Playing in his first AJGA invitational, Woods finished the event with 26 birdies — the most ever at an AJGA Invitational, based on information available to the organization — to go with one eagle. He was tied for 14th place after Monday’s opening round but had pulled into a tie for second going into Wednesday’s final round.
“I didn’t look at the leaderboard once today,” said Woods, who gained fully exempt AJGA status with his victory.
A sophomore at Benjamin School in Palm Beach, Fla., Woods finished tied for 25th at the prestigious Junior Invitational at Sage Valley (a tournament that counts toward the AJGA rankings but is not an AJGA-sanctioned event) in March.
He and his father have competed in the parent-child PNC Championship every December since 2020. They finished as runners-up in 2021 and 2024, with Charlie Woods notching his first hole-in-one at the most recent event.
Renowned documentary filmmaker Marcel Ophuls, who, along with his family, fled Nazi Germany as a child and spent his formative years in Los Angeles before having a cinematic career which earned him both an Oscar as well as condemnation from some quarters, died Saturday in France, his adopted country. He was 97.
Ophuls’ death, first reported by news agencies, was confirmed by family members. He is survived by his wife, Regine, their three daughters and three grandchildren.
The director’s 1969 masterpiece, “The Sorrow and the Pity,” an intense, four-hour work that made Ophuls’ reputation, began as a project for a government-owned French broadcast network. Ultimately, though, it was banned and did not air on television until many years later, due to its searing indictment (or “explosion,” as Ophuls preferred to called it) of the myth of France’s heroic participation in the war — a false if popular version of events that ignored Vichy collaboration with the German occupiers.
Born in Frankfurt in 1927, Ophuls was the son of film director Max Ophüls (his father later dropped the umlaut) and Hildegard Wall, a theater actor. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the Ophuls clan left Germany for Paris. Then, when France fell, they settled in Los Angeles in November 1941, where Max Ophuls would come to enjoy a significant moviemaking career (“Letter from an Unknown Woman”).
Citizens celebrate the liberation of France in Ophuls’ 1969 documentary “The Sorrow and the Pity.”
(Laemmle)
For young Marcel — German Jewish, a citizen of both France and the United States and fluent in three languages —the ethos and landscape of Southern California posed a very different and sometimes alienating experience.
After graduating from Hollywood High, he was drafted by the U.S. Army and later enrolled at Occidental College in Eagle Rock, but still found assimilation difficult, revealing to writer Studs Terkel in a 1981 interview that, even as a refugee, he was shocked by the prejudice he observed toward people of color in the divided communities of Los Angeles following Pearl Harbor.
“When I made movies,” he said, “one of the things that kept me from being too self-righteous is my memory of the Japanese kids who were in my class one day, then gone the next.”
While his father Max struggled at first to find work in Hollywood, Marcel felt destined, as he often said, for a career in the film industry. As he revealed in his 2013 documentary memoir “Ain’t Misbehavin,” he began his career as an actor, playing, ironically, a member of the Hitler Youth in Frank Capra’s 1942 War Department film “Prelude to War.”
Ultimately following his father to France in 1950, Ophuls turned to making nonfiction films for French television, after trying his hand in narrative cinema.
“My second film flopped, but it was a very bad film that deserved to flop,” he said frankly, speaking about his career in London in 2004.
His self-deprecating brand of humor, tinged with a touch of irony, was often apparent in the interviews he conducted for many of his films, confronting former Nazis and collaborators. Alternately, his tone was infused with contempt, sarcasm or genuine sympathy for his subjects who had been victims of brutality unleashed by the Gestapo or secret police of the Vichy regime.
Ophuls won the Academy Award for documentary feature in 1989 for “Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie,” which depicted the crimes of the head of the Gestapo in Lyon who, after the war, escaped French prosecutors with the help of U.S. Army intelligence, evading justice and living in South America until he was extradited to France from Bolivia in 1983. Barbie died in prison in 1991.
Ophuls was also known for other documentaries, including 1976’s “The Memory of Justice,” about the legacy of the Nuremberg trials, and 1972’s “A Sense of Loss,” which dealt with the troubles of Northern Ireland.
About his famous confidence when seated face-to-face with intimidating subjects — one interview was with Albert Speer, Hitler’s chief architect and minister of armaments — Ophuls was characteristically candid and self-effacing.
“He was so fantastically cooperative,” he said of Speer. “He even offered to show me his home movies. It just seemed to me to be part of my job.”
In something of a grand gesture, Caleb Williams stood at a lectern Wednesday to explain that excerpts from an upcoming book were old news. A year after scheming to avoid playing for the Bears, he is committed to turning around the franchise.
Leaping from the USC campus to the top rung of the NFL draft a year ago, Williams aspired to be like John Elway and Eli Manning.
Just not in the way one might expect.
Sure, he wanted to lead a team to multiple Super Bowl titles like those two quarterbacks, whose career statistics were remarkably similar. Both played 16 years in the NFL for only one team — Elway with the Denver Broncos and Manning with the New York Giants — and both passed for 50,000 yards and 300 touchdowns.
But Williams, egged on by his father, is described in American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback by ESPN journalist Seth Wickersham as entertaining creative ways to spurn the team that held the No. 1 pick in the 2024 draft.
Just like Elway and Manning had done.
Elway proclaimed his refusal to play for the Baltimore Colts after they drafted him first overall in 1983, leading to a trade to the Broncos. Manning refused to play for the San Diego Chargers after being drafted first overall in 2004, forcing a trade to the Giants.
However, Williams was unsuccessful in his effort. The Bears drafted him and he pledged his allegiance to them while enduring a rocky rookie season in which he was sacked more than any other NFL quarterback and the team struggled to a 5-12 record.
Yet he felt compelled to hold a news conference at the Bears training camp in Lake Forest, Ill., to explain why he entertained thoughts of spurning Chicago and instead landing in, say, Minnesota. Williams admitted he and his parents discussed ways to dodge the Bears.
Williams couldn’t speak for his father. Carl Williams told Wickersham that “Chicago is the place quarterbacks go to die,” and consulted with Manning’s father, Archie, a former NFL quarterback who had helped strategize his son’s trade from the Chargers to the Giants.
But Williams made it clear he is all in with new Bears head coach Ben Johnson and the franchise’s commitment to turning around its fortunes. He said he changed his tune about Chicago after meeting with Bears brass ahead of last year’s draft.
“After I came on my visit here, it was a … deliberate and determined answer that I wanted to come here,” Williams said. “I wanted to be here. I love being here.”
“I wanted to come here and be the guy and be a part and be a reason why the Chicago Bears turn this thing around.”
“This thing” is a franchise that hasn’t posted a winning record since 2018 and whose all-time leading passer is the middling Jay Cutler. The Bears’ most renowned quarterback is Sid Luckman, who helped them win four NFL championships in the 1940s while passing for a paltry 14,686 yards in 11 seasons. They won one more pre-Super Bowl title, in 1963, and have won only one of the LIX (59) Super Bowls, in 1985.
No wonder Carl Williams was against his son — a Heisman Trophy winner at USC in 2022 — getting locked into what amounts to a five-year rookie contract with Chicago. That son, now a 23-year-old man, said he no longer responds unquestioningly to his father’s marching orders.
“I shut him down quite a bit,” Williams said. “He has ideas and he’s a smart man and so I listen. I always listen.
“I’m very fortunate to be in this position in the sense of playing quarterback, but also very fortunate to have a very strong-minded father. We talk very often, my mom and my dad are my best friends, so being able to have conversations with them to understand that everything they say is also portrayed on me.”
Wickersham’s book will be published in September. Another excerpt describes Williams as becoming enamored with the idea of playing for Minnesota Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell after they had a predraft meeting.
But the overriding theme of his four-minute opening statement at the news conference was that he is focused on becoming the best quarterback possible for the Chicago Bears. He’d prefer that everyone just forget that he had misgivings a year ago.
“We are here focused on the future,” he said, “we are here focused on the present and really trying to get this train going, picking up steam and choo-chooing along.”
To help you parse through the offerings, here’s a list of 10 films not to miss at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, which kicks off Wednesday.
The man just had his immigration case dismissed and his wife and 8-year-old son were trailing behind him when agents surrounded, then handcuffed him outside the downtown Los Angeles courtroom.
Erick Eduardo Fonseca Solorzano stood speechless. His wife trembled in panic. The federal agents explained in Spanish that he would be put into expedited removal proceedings.
Just moments earlier on Friday, Judge Peter A. Kim had issued a dismissal of his deportation case. Now his son watched in wide-eyed disbelief as agents quickly shuffled him to a service elevator — and he was gone. The boy was silent, sticking close by his mother, tears welling.
“This kid will be traumatized for life,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, chief executive and co-founder of Immigrant Defenders Law Center, who reached out to the family to help them with their case.
A child who’s father was detained by ICE after a court hearing stands inside the North Los Angeles Street Immigration Court on Friday.
(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)
Similar scenes are taking place across the country as the Department of Homeland Security asks to dismiss its own deportation cases, after which agents promptly arrest the immigrants to pursue expedited removals, which require no hearings before a judge.
The courthouse arrests escalate the Trump administration’s efforts to speed up deportations. Migrants who can’t prove they have been in the U.S. for more than two years are eligible to be deported without a judicial hearing. Historically, these expedited removals were done only at the border, but the administration has sought to expand their use.
The policies are being challenged in court.
“Secretary [Kristi] Noem is reversing Biden’s catch-and-release policy that allowed millions of unvetted illegal aliens to be let loose on American streets,” said a senior official from the Department of Homeland Security.
The official said most immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally within the last two years “are subject to expedited removals.” But he noted that if they have a valid credible fear claim, as required by law, they will continue in immigration proceedings.
Toczylowski said it was Fonseca Solorzano’s first appearance in court. Like many of those apprehended this week, Fonseca Solorzano arrived in the United States from Honduras via CPB One, an application set up during the Biden administration that providedasylum seekers a way to enter the country legally after going through a background check.
Erendira De La Riva, left, Sarai De La Riva and Maria Elena De La Riva speak to the media Friday about the status of Alvaro De La Riva, who was detained the previous night by ICE and taken to the North Los Angeles Street Immigration Court.
(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)
More than900,000 people were allowed in the country on immigration parole under the app, starting in January 2023. The Trump administration has turned the tool into a self-deportation app.
“We are punishing the people who are following the rules, who are doing what the government asks them to do,” Toczylowski said.
“I think that this practice certainly seemed to have shaken up some of the court staff, because it’s so unusual and because it’s such bad policy to be doing this, considering who it targets and the ripple effects that it will have, it’ll cause people to be afraid to come to court.”
A Times reporter witnessed three arrests on Friday in the windowless court hallways on the eighth floor of the Federal Building downtown. An agent in plain clothes in the courtroom came out to signal to agents in the hallway, one wearing a red flannel shirt, when an immigrant subject to detainment was about to exit.
“No, please,” cried Gabby Gaitan, as half a dozen agents swarmed her boyfriend and handcuffed him. His manila folder of documents spilled onto the floor. She crumpled to the ground in tears. “Where are they taking him?”
Richard Pulido, a 25-year-old Venezuelan, had arrived at the border last fall and was appearing for the first time, she said. He had been scared about attending the court hearing, but she told him missing it would make his situation worse.
Gaitan said Pulido came to the U.S. last September after fleeing violence in his home country.
An immigrant from Kazakhstan, who asked the judge not to dismiss his case without success, walked out of the courtroom. On a bench across from the doors, two immigration agents nodded at each other and one mouthed, “Let’s go.”
They stood quickly and called out to the man. They directed him off to the side and behind doors that led to a service elevator. He looked defeated, head bowed, as they searched him, handcuffed him and shuffled him into the service elevator.
Lawyers, who were at courthouses in Santa Ana and Los Angeles this week, say it appears that the effort was highly coordinated between Homeland Security lawyers and federal agents. Families and lawyers have described similar accounts in Miami, Seattle, New York, San Diego,Chicago and elsewhere.
During the hearing for Pulido, Homeland Security lawyer Carolyn Marie Thompkins explicitly stated why she was asking to dismiss the removal proceedings.
“The government intends to pursue expedited removal in this case,” she said. Pulido appeared confused as to what a dismissal would mean and asked the judge for clarity. Pulido opposed having his case dropped.
“I feel that I can contribute a lot to this country,” he said.
Kim said it was not enough and dismissed the case.
People line up outside the North Los Angeles Street Immigration Court before hearings on Friday.
(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)
The courthouse arrests have frustrated immigrant rights advocates who say the rules of the game are changing daily for migrants trying to work within the system.
“Immigration court should be a place where people go to present their claims for relief, have them assessed, get an up or down on whether they can stay and have that done in a way that affords them due process,” said Talia Inlender, deputy director at the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law School. “That is being ripped away sort of at every turn.
“It’s another attempt by the Trump administration to stoke fear in the community. And it specifically appears to be targeting people who are doing the right thing, following exactly what the government has asked them to do,” she said.
Emmerdale viewers are convinced another character will turn out to be the biological father of Ross Barton’s brother Lewis Barton, after actor Bradley Riches teased the truth
Viewers of Emmerdale think they have worked out the real father of newcomer Lewis Barton(Image: ITV)
Viewers of Emmerdale think they have worked out the real father of newcomer Lewis Barton, after a hint by actor Bradley Riches.
The character debuted recently as the secret son of late villain Emma Barton, making him the brother of Ross Barton. Ross had no idea he existed, and faced difficult questions when they met for the first time.
With Bradley Riches’ character wanting to know all about Emma and what she was like, Ross was torn over whether to spill the truth about her killer actions and her fate. During their chats it was confirmed that Lewis and Ross did not share the same father.
It wasn’t known who Lewis’ biological fas was with him given up for adoption after he was born. With Lewis seemingly in the dark about his father, fans immediately suspected the identity of the mystery man.
Viewers predicted he would at some point show up in the village, or at least be identified. Bradley did nothing to cool the speculation either, with him posting the eyes emoji in response to a fan asking about Lewis’ dad on Instagram.
It was clear he was either hiding something or that he was hinting more was to come. With that fans began speculating the father was a character already on the show, past or present.
Emmerdale viewers are convinced another character will turn out to be the biological father of Ross Barton’s brother Lewis Barton(Image: ITV)
Some fans questioned whether it was a Dingle who fathered Lewis, despite him being born before Emma even went to the village. It didn’t stop fans speculating though, suggesting “it’s always a Dingle”.
One fan questioned: “Is it Sam Dingle?” as another said: “Eli Dingle.” A third fan posted: “Bound to be a Dingle,” as a further suggestion said: “A Dingle not Cain though.”
Other fans were more convinced a different character no longer on the show, with a link to Emma, could be revealed as the father of Lewis. It would be a blow to Moira Dingle, Ross’ aunt and Emma’s killer, amid her fearing her secret will be exposed.
Viewers think her late husband John Barton, the brother of Emma’s murdered husband James Barton, could be Lewis’ dad. Given James and Moira had an affair, fans wondered if Emma and John had their own fling out of revenge.
Viewers think Moira’s late husband John Barton, the brother of Emma’s murdered husband James Barton, could be Lewis’ dad(Image: ITV)
Some fans wondered if Emma fell pregnant with John’s child, and the betrayal is what led to Lewis being adopted. Taking to social media, one viewer guessed: “John Barton,” as another said: “Maybe Emma had an affair with John Barton like Moira did with James.”
A third fan commented: “Moira’s husband,” as another agreed: “John, Moira’s first husband.” The theory was shared by others too, as another comment read: “Moira’s first husband,” as another said: “I wondered that, Moira cheered with James so why not Emma with John as a revenge thing. This could by why she had Lewis adopted.”
Jelena Dokic says her grief is “difficult and complicated” after announcing the death of her estranged father and former coach, Damir.
Former world number four Dokic, who retired in 2014, revealed in 2017 she had suffered years of mental and physical abuse from her father.
Damir was banned from all WTA Tour events for six months in 2000 after he became abusive in the players’ lounge during the US Open.
He was also jailed in 2009 for threatening the Australian ambassador in Serbia with a hand grenade
Dokic, who reached the Wimbledon semi-finals as a 17-year-old in 2000, had been estranged from her father for 10 years.
Underneath an Instagram post of her father and herself as a small child, Australia’s Dokic wrote: “As you know my relationship with my father has been difficult and painful with a lot of history.
“Despite everything and no matter how hard, difficult and in the last 10 years even non-existent our relationship and communication was, it is never easy losing a parent and a father, even one you are estranged from.
“The loss of an estranged parent comes with a difficult and complicated grief.”
Skai Jackson says Deondre Burgin, the father of her 3-month-old son, has been abusing her since last spring, including suggesting that she drink bleach while she was expecting in order to terminate her pregnancy.
Jackson was granted a temporary restraining order against him Monday, according to court documents. The actor, her son and her dog Otis are covered by the order.
The former Disney Channel star, 23, detailed a litany of alleged abuses by Burgin, 21, in her request filed Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Most of them are from 2024, but the inciting event behind the filing appears to have been an alleged attack on Mother’s Day of this year. Jackson said in her filing that Burgin attacked her on May 11 while she was carrying son Kasai.
“He grabbed me by the hair, slammed my head on the back seat window of my car and hit me in the face while holding my son,” the “Jessie” and “Bunk’d” actor wrote in her filing. “Deondre caused me to have a bloody nose. I don’t feel safe with my son being around him due to his violent history. He also said ‘F’ my child.”
Last June, Burgin took Jackson’s phone so he could check her messages because a man had texted her, the filing says. Jackson said he then broke her iPhone and choked her against a kitchen counter.
“He demanded that I drink bleach to kill our unborn child,” Jackson wrote about the June incident. “He then walked me to the car with a knife in his hand telling me to get in the driver seat and if I called out for help he would stab me in the stomach. He then called his friend … telling him he was about to kill me. He then told me to drive to the doctor to get an abortion. When I tried to he asked me was I crazy and why would I want to kill our child.”
Jackson said she had video documentation from July when he allegedly punched through the door of an upstairs bathroom she had locked herself in for safety and choked her until she couldn’t breathe. Jackson said that in 2024, there was a six-month period where he choked her or slammed her head into a wall about once a week, destroyed a television and punched holes in her walls.
Jackson said Burgin threatened her with a handgun and also has a rifle and a switchblade, the filing says. The “Dragons: Rescue Riders” voice actor said he threatened in September 2024 to have a member of his family come kill her and her mother.
In October, Burgin allegedly threatened to kill her after she asked him to go to therapy, the documents said.
He stands 6-foot-4 to Jackson’s reported 5-foot-2, according to her application. She asked the court to stop him and his family from posting anything about her on social media, saying that he had threatened to post revenge porn.
The two have brushed up against authorities in the past because of alleged violence between them.
“The Man in the White Van” actor was arrested at Universal Studios Hollywood last August after she and Burgin were detained by security on suspicion of domestic assault. She was arrested by sheriff’s deputies after security footage showed she had pushed Burgin twice. However, the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office didn’t pursue the case.
At the time, Jackson allegedly told authorities that she and Burgin were happily engaged and expecting a baby together.
A permanent restraining order will be considered at a June 9 hearing. The Times was unable to contact Burgin for comment. A representative for Skai Jackson did not respond immediately to The Times’ request for comment.
Former Times staff writer Nardine Saad contributed to this report.
Tributes have been pouring in after the deaths of two firefighters and a 57-year-old man in a fire at an Oxfordshire business park.
Firefighters Jennie Logan, 30, and Martyn Sadler, 38, died in the fire at Bicester Motion on Thursday. Father-of-two David Chester, who worked at the site, was also killed. Two firefighters remain seriously injured in hospital.
Sherine Wheeler, of the Fire Fighter’s Charity, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme it was “a powerful reminder of the courage and sacrifices shown by firefighters every day”.
Both Ms Logan and Mr Sadler were involved with the women’s team at Bicester Rugby Union Football Club, which said “their presence at the club will be massively missed”.
“Our hearts and deepest condolences go out to their families, friends and our members at this terrible time,” the club added.
The Fire Brigades Union also offered its condolences. General secretary Steve Wright said: “Jennie and Martyn died in the line of duty protecting their community.
“They were both well-loved and widely respected. We are proud that they were members of our union.
“We also send our condolences to the family and friends of David Chester.
“Two FBU members who attended the incident are still in hospital. Our thoughts are with them and their loved ones.
“The FBU will be conducting a full investigation of the incident which led to these tragic circumstances.
“For now, we are grieving for our fallen colleagues and friends.”
PA
Firefighters at Bicester fire station formed a guard of honour to welcome back two engines
Many floral tributes have also been left at Bicester fire station.
People are now being asked to lay flowers in the town’s Garth Park, with a book of condolence set to open at Garth House in the park from Monday.
Shortly before midday on Saturday, the fire was brought “under control” with “no visible flames”, said Oxfordshire County Council, which runs the fire service in the county.
“However, there are small pockets of smoke and heat so our fire crews remain on site dampening down.”
A guard of honour was formed by 14 firefighters at Bicester Fire Station, to welcome back two of the fire engines sent to the scene.
The firefighters removed their helmets and stood in two lines as the fire engines drove through the entrance.
Among the many tributes left at the scene was a message from Thames Valley Police, which read: “To my Red Light Family, in memory of two heroes.
“With deepest sympathy and heartfelt condolences to family and friends. Always in our thoughts, your Blue Light Family (TVP).”
A navy blue T-shirt with the words “A21 Paddington London Fire Brigade” was also left in tribute.
It lay alongside flowers and a card, which read: “Martyn, Jennie. Dear god protect these brave persons. Grant them your almighty protection and unite them safely with their families after their duty has ended.”
Other cards included a child’s drawing covered in fire engine stickers with the words: “Thank you hero fighters.”
Large plumes of smoke were filmed coming from one of the Bicester Motion buildings
A golden plaque has also been placed underneath the Bicester Motion sign at the entrance to the site.
The tribute reads: “Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service. Bicester Motion. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all of those affected by the sad loss of two firefighters and the member of the public. Love from the Bicester community.”
It is surrounded by flowers and handwritten messages left in tribute by members of the public.
Pam Stiddig, who lives near Bicester Motion and saw the fire from her home, visited Garth Park to lay flowers and pay her respects.
She said: “I’ve come because they are our local heroes. It’s very, very sad.”
Clara Williams, who has lived in the town all her life, said: “I can’t even process what happened.”
A golden plaque, flowers and handwritten cards have been laid at the Bicester Motion site following the three deaths
Oxford City Council has lowered the city’s flag, flying over Oxford Town Hall, to half-mast in tribute.
St Laurence’s Church in Banbury Road, Caversfield, close to the site, said it had opened its doors “for anyone looking for a space for private prayer or for stillness and reflection” following the “tragic news”.
A book of condolence has also been opened at the church.
Both firefighters worked at Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service and Mr Sadler was also part of the London Fire Brigade.
The London Fire Commissioner, Andy Roe, said Mr Sadler “exemplified courage and selflessness” and had been serving on retained duty at Bicester Fire Station.
He was a leading firefighter in Ealing, west London, and an instructor in breathing apparatus and fire behaviour at the Fire Service College.
Flowers are being left around the edge of the pond in front of Garth House at Garth Park, Bicester
Ms Wheeler, speaking on the Today programme on Saturday, said the Fire Fighter’s Charity was “heartbroken by what has happened and I would like to extend my condolences to Jennie and Martyn’s families and also Dave Chester’s family and colleagues”.
“Firefighters go to work every day knowing that there are risks but when something like this happens it brings that reality really crashing home,” she said.
“To lose two firefighters has a far-reaching impact across the whole of the fire service community.”
PA Media
The fire broke out at Bicester Motion on Thursday and was burning into Friday afternoon
Bicester Motion, home to more than 50 specialist businesses, focused on classic car restoration and engineering on the former site of RAF Bicester.
It was formerly RAF Bomber Command in World War Two and became redundant in 2004.
Paying tribute to “the three lives that have been lost”, Bicester Motion chairman Daniel Geoghegan said the firefighters showcased “the epitome of selfless service” and had “gone above and beyond under unprecedented circumstances”.
Mr Geoghegan added that father-of-two Mr Chester, who ran family business Chesters & Sons, had “a long history with the estate”.
He said Mr Chester was “part of the fabric of our estate and a friend to us all”.
“He joined us 12 years ago when we first bought the site and, with his wife and two sons, has been a pillar of our whole business community.
“Whenever you had a question, you would ‘just ask Dave’, not just him but his whole family as they all cared about this place just as much as we do.
“Our whole community used to say that ‘Dave always had our back’. Yesterday, he was doing just that – the epitome of his selfless spirit,” he added.
The Chesters & Sons company website says its work at Bicester Motion “included carefully unearthing four buried wartime air raid shelters so as not to damage the structures to allow them to be renovated by another contractor”.
PA Media
Officers will remain at the scene for a number of days to ensure the public remain safe
The fire was reported at about 18:30 BST on Thursday and rapidly spread through a former aircraft hangar at the site.
At its height, 10 fire crews were tackling the blaze. The cause of the fire is not yet known.
Police have launched an unexplained death investigation, but are not currently treating it as a criminal matter.
Oxfordshire County Council said it recognised that “people may wish to pay their respects to those who have tragically died”.
“We would be grateful if anyone wishes to lay flowers that these are laid in Garth Park, Bicester rather than at fire stations or at Bicester Motion to avoid obstruction to the highways,” it said.
The park, on Launton Road, is set to open from 07:30 to 21:00 BST daily.
From Monday, people can also sign the book of condolence between Monday to Thursday 09:00 to17:00 and Friday 09:00 to 16:00.
Emotional fire chief hails ‘unwavering bravery’ of emergency teams
At the scene on Friday, Oxfordshire’s Chief Fire Officer Rob MacDougall was visibly emotional and spoke with “a heavy heart” when he confirmed the deaths.
He added: “Our thoughts are with the family friends and colleagues affected during this time.
“I’m immensely proud and grateful for the exemplary multiagency response and the unwavering bravery demonstrated by the emergency services personnel.”
Assistant Chief Constable Tim Metcalfe, of Thames Valley Police, described the deaths as “an absolute tragedy” and said the thoughts of everyone at the force were with the families, friends and colleagues of those who had died.
Officers will remain at the scene for a number of days to ensure the public remain safe.
After humans, and arguably before dogs and horses, there is no character more vital to the screen, and more vital onscreen, than the automobile.
Driven or driverless, the car is the most animated of inanimate objects, sometimes literally a cartoon, with a voice, a personality, a name. Even when not speaking, they purr, they roar. They are stars in their own right — the Batmobile, the Munster Koach, James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5, K.I.T.T. (the modified 1982 Pontiac Trans Am from “Knight Rider”), the Ford Grand Torino (nicknamed the Striped Tomato) driven by Starsky and Hutch. They might represent freedom, power, delinquency or even the devil. Whole movies have been built about them and the amazing things they can do, but even when they aren’t jumping and flipping and crashing, they play an essential role in helping flesh-and-blood characters take care of business.
Perhaps in some sort of reaction to our enlightened view of the effects of our gas-guzzling ways, two new series fetishizing the internal combustion engine arrive, Max’s “Duster,” now streaming, and Prime Video’s “Motorheads,” premiering Tuesday.
Created by J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan and named for the supernaturally shiny cherry-red Plymouth the hero drives, “Duster” is stupid fun, a comic melodrama steeped in 1970s exploitation flicks, with a lot of loving homage to period clothes, knickknacks and interior design. The driver is Jim Ellis, played by Josh Holloway, in what reads like a turn on Sawyer, his charming, criminal character from Abrams’ “Lost,” topped with a shot of Matthew McConaughey.
Jim, a man who has never bothered to make a three-point turn, works out of Phoenix for Southwest crime boss Ezra Saxton (Keith David, monumental as always), picking up this, delivering that. The first delivery we see turns out to be a human heart, picked up from a fast-food drive-through window, destined for Saxton’s ailing son, Royce (Benjamin Charles Watson). Along for the ride is little Luna (Adriana Aluna Martinez), who calls Jim “uncle,” though you are free to speculate; her mother, Izzy (Camille Guaty), is a big-rig trucker — trucking being another fun feature of ’70s pop culture — who will find cause to become a labor leader.
Keith David, left, as Ezra Saxton and Benjamin Charles Watson as his son, Royce.
(Ursula Coyote / Max)
The Ellises and the Saxtons, also including daughter Genesis (Sydney Elisabeth), have history — Jim’s father, Wade (Corbin Bernson), served with Ezra in World War II, and his late lamented brother had worked for him as well. Saxton is the sort of bad guy with whom you somehow sympathize in spite of the violence he employs; there’s genuine affection among the families, though one is never sure when or where a line will be drawn, only that one probably will be.
Into Jim’s low-rent but relatively settled, even happy world comes FBI agent Nina Hayes (Rachel Hilson, sparky), fresh out of Quantico and ambitious to make a mark. As a Black woman, she’s told, “No one’s clamoring for an agent like you,” but she’s been assigned to Phoenix “because we have no other options.” She’s partnered there with cheerful Navajo agent Awan (Asivak Koostachin), as if to corral the minorities into a manageable corner, and assigned the Saxton case, regarded as “cursed” and so intractable as to be not worth touching.
Which is to say, agents deemed not worth taking seriously — along with underestimated “girl Friday” Jessica (Sofia Vassilieva) — have been thrown a case deemed not worth taking seriously. This is a classic premise for a procedural and strikes some notes about racism and sexism in the bargain, not out of tune with the times in which it’s set, or the times in which we’re watching.
Nina, who has managed to gather evidence of Jim crossing state lines to deliver the heart, which was stolen, and that Saxton may have been responsible for his brother’s death, bullies and tempts him into becoming a confidential informant. Thus begins an uneasy partnership, though their storylines run largely on separate tracks in separate scenes.
“Lost” was not a show that bothered much with sense in order to achieve its effects, and “Duster,” though it involves a far-reaching conspiracy whose payoff plays like the end of a shaggy-dog story, is a show of effects, of set pieces and sequences, of car chases and fistfights, of left-field notions and characters. These include Patrick Warburton as an Elvis-obsessed mobster named Sunglasses; Donal Logue as a corrupt, perverse, evangelical policeman; Gail O’Grady as Jim’s stepmother, a former showgirl who doesn’t much like him; LSD experiments; absurd puzzles (also see: “Lost”); an airheaded version of Adrienne Barbeau (Mikaela Hoover), with the actual Barbeau, a queen of genre films, making an appearance; Richard Nixon (in a few creepy seconds of AI); an oddly jolly Howard Hughes (Tom Nelis) in his Kleenex-box slippers; and a “Roadrunner” pastiche. Though not devoid of genuine feeling, it’s best experienced as a collection of attitudes and energies, noises and colors. Don’t take it any more seriously than it takes itself.
The opening titles are super cool.
Zac (Michael Cimino), left, Caitlyn (Melissa Collazo) and Marcel (Nicolas Cantu) in Prime Video’s “Motoheads.”
(Keri Anderson / Prime Video)
“Motorheads” is a familiar sort of modern teenage soap opera but with cars. For reasons known only to series creator John A. Norris, the whole town is obsessed with them, and along with its human storylines, the series is a tour of automotive entertainments — drag racing, street racing, ATV racing, go-kart racing, classic car collecting. I have no idea whether this will resonate with the target demographic, but there is much I cannot tell you about kids these days.
As is common to the form, our young protagonists — Michael Cimino as Zac and Melissa Collazo as Caitlyn — are new to town, having been brought back from New York City by their mother, Samantha (Nathalie Kelly), to the oxymoronically named Rust Belt hamlet of Ironwood, where she was raised, and which is the last place anyone saw their father, Christian (Deacon Phillippe in flashbacks), 17 years earlier. He’s an infamous local legend, admired for his skill behind the wheel; aerial footage of Christian threading his way through a cordon of police cars as the getaway driver in a robbery keeps making its way into the show, though if you live in Los Angeles, you see this sort of thing on the news all the time. Marquee name Ryan Phillippe plays the kids’ Uncle Logan, who runs a garage that apparently does no business, but he has love and wisdom to spare.
Though at the center of the series, Zac’s storyline is a little shopworn, not just his wish to become, almost out of nowhere, Ironwood’s top speed racer, but his textbook interest in rich girl Alicia (Mia Healey), the girlfriend of rich boy Harris (Josh Macqueen), a Porsche-driving bully who is also hurting inside — so feel free to get a crush on him, if that’s your type. More interesting is sister Caitlyn, who prefers building cars to racing them and is perhaps the series’ most emotionally balanced character.
She becomes friends with shop classmate Curtis (Uriah Shelton), tall and good-looking, whose criminally inclined older brother, Ray (Drake Rodger), will become a sort of dark mentor to Zac. With the addition of Marcel (Nicolas Cantu), the archetypal “geek who becomes the hero’s best friend,” who works at the diner his father (grieving, drunk) used to own and dreams of designing cars, the four constitute the show’s outsider band of good guys.
They’ll have their not-always-happy business with each other — being teenagers, you know, things happen — and with their elders, as their elders will with one another. The past is not past in Ironwood; old feelings will resurface and old plots unravel. (And no one knows what happened to Christian.) Except for the cars sprinkled on top, it’s old stuff, not very deep, but produced with an engaging naturalism that rounds off the narrative extremes, enhances what’s commonplace and makes “Motorheads” easy to watch. (Colin Hoult is the sensitive director of photography, it’s worth mentioning.)
