friend

Kara Braxton, who won two WNBA championships during a 10-year career, has died at age 43.

“It is with profound sadness that we mourn the passing of 2x WNBA Champion Kara Braxton,” the WNBA said in a statement Sunday. “Our thoughts are with her family, friends, and former teammates at this time.”

No cause of death has been given.

Born in Jackson, Mich., along with twin sister Kim, Braxton played high school basketball at Jackson High for one season and at Westview High in Portland, Ore., for three seasons.

Braxton, a 6-foot-6 center-forward, played at the University of Georgia from 2001-2004, earning SEC freshman of the year and first-team all-conference honors in 2002. She averaged 15.4 points and 7.3 rebounds a game during her three seasons with the Bulldogs.

“Rest in peace Kara,” Georgia basketball posted on X.

Braxton was selected by the Detroit Shock at No. 7 overall in the 2005 draft. She spent 5 1/2 seasons with the team, winning the WNBA championship in 2006 and 2008 and earning her only All-Star nod in 2007. She also played for the Phoenix Mercury from 2010-11 and the New York Liberty from 2011-14, finishing with career averages of 7.6 points and 4.7 rebounds a game.

New York Liberty’s Kara Braxton grabs the ball between Indiana Fever’s Tammy Sutton-Brown, left, and Tamika Catchings on Sept. 17, 2011.

(Mel Evans / Associated Press)

“We mourn the loss of Kara Braxton, a former Liberty player whose presence and passion left a lasting impact on our organization and the women’s game,” the Liberty wrote Sunday on X. “Our hearts are with her family, friends, teammates, and all who were touched by her spirit. Her impact will not be forgotten.”

Braxton is survived by her husband Jarvis Jackson and two sons, Jelani Thurman and Jream Jackson.

Thurman, a tight end who played three seasons at Ohio State before transferring to North Carolina last month, posted a number of tributes to his mother on his Instagram Story, including a photo of her kissing him as a baby at a Shock media day photo shoot.

“imma miss my queen,” Thurman wrote to accompany another photo, which appears to show him as an older child wearing his mother’s No. 45 jersey to school.

Thurman also posted video of an interview from around the time Ohio State won the 2024 national championship in which he was asked what lessons he learned from his mother that helped get him to that point.

“Man, she taught me always go hard,” Thurman said. “There’s one goal, you know what you need to go to do.”

DAVID Beckham’s close pal Dave Gardner appears to have confirmed which team he’s on when it comes to the Brooklyn Beckham family feud.

The football star’s best friend and former agent shared a photo to mark Cruz Beckham‘s 21st birthday – and seems to have taken aim at the other side.

The sports agent, 49, shared the photo on social media standing with a suited-and-booted Cruz and Marc Anthony.

The long-time family friend wrote: “Have a great day mate. Love ya Cruzie.”

Latino star Marc Anthony was at the heart of the Beckham wedding drama where he is said to have called Victoria Beckham, 51, to the dancefloor, rather than Nicola, 31, for the first dance.

He allegedly referred to the mother-of-the-groom as “the most beautiful woman in the room”, which left the bride ‘in tears’.

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He recently broke his silence on the allegations which played a part in “ruining” Brooklyn and wife Nicola Peltz’s wedding.

Brooklyn, 26, accused his mum of “hijacking” his and Nicola‘s special moment and claimed she danced “inappropriately” leaving him “embarrassed”.

Marc has been a long-time family friend of the Beckhams, meeting David when he played for Real Madrid around 2005.

Four-time Grammy winner Marc, who is one of Jennifer Lopez’s exes, had offered to perform at the wedding as a gift to the couple.

The family, minus Brooklyn, celebrated Cruz’s birthday last week at The Maine Mayfair in London.

He was joined by his parents as well as siblings Romeo, 23 and Harper, 14, as well as his girlfriend Jackie Apostel, 30 and Romeo’s partner, Kim Turnball, 24.

Meanwhile Brooklyn was busy hosting his very own food festival in Miami, Florida.

Proud dad David appeared to take a swipe at Brooklyn as he praised his youngest son Cruz as “fiercely loyal to family” in a birthday tribute.

The 50-year-old took to Instagram to share an adorable video of some of Cruz’s best moments over the years.

Proud dad David shared a heartfelt caption for his boy as he began: “Happy 21st birthday to my little boy – not so little anymore but the proudest thing that I am of you is the person and the man that you have become.

Seemingly taking a dig at Brooklyn, he continued: “You are kind, considerate and fiercely loyal to your family, friends and everyone around you which makes you a very special person.”

Picture-posting Dave‘s exes include actress Liv Tyler and former Hollyoaks star Davinia Taylor – who he both shares children with.

He recently attended David’s swanky 50th birthday celebrations with his partner, Victoria’s Secret model Jessica Clarke.

Dave met his pal David during his stint at Manchester United Youth Club and the pair have been close from the age of 14.

The footie star was also best man at his wedding in 2003 and made godfather to his son.

Marc previously told The Hollywood Reporter: “They’re a wonderful, wonderful family. I’ve known them since before the kids were born. I’m godfather to Cruz.

“I’m really close to the family. But I have nothing to say about what happened there. It’s extremely unfortunate how it’s playing out — but (how it’s playing out) is hardly the truth.”

ATHENS, Greece — Israeli producer Dana Eden, best known for co-creating the International Emmy-winning espionage thriller “Tehran,” has died suddenly in Greece, Israeli public broadcaster KAN said Monday.

Eden, 52, was found dead in a hotel in the Greek capital, Athens, a Greek police official said, adding that initial indications suggested she had taken her own life and there was no suspicion of foul play. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as Greek police do not comment publicly in such cases.

KAN said Eden was in Greece for the filming of the hit series’ fourth season.

“Dana was among the leading figures in Israel’s television industry and played a central role in the creation and leadership of some of the most prominent and influential productions within the corporation,” KAN said in a statement. It did not give a cause of death.

“Her professional work, uncompromising dedication, and love for creation left a deep mark on the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation. KAN shares in the deep sorrow of her family, friends and colleagues,” the broadcaster said.

In a statement posted on its Facebook page, Eden’s production company, Donna and Shula productions, sought to dispel rumors that the producer had been killed.

“The production company wishes to clarify that the rumors of a criminal or nationally motivated death are false and unfounded,” it said.

“This is a moment of great pain for the family, friends and colleagues. We ask that Dana’s dignity and the privacy of her loved ones be respected,” the production company said.

Israel Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar, in a social media post on X, said it was “with great sadness” that he had received the news of Eden’s death, describing her as “one of the most prominent and influential producers in the Israeli television industry.”

“Dana left a deep mark on Israeli creation and brought our story to international stages with pride, talent and courage,” Zohar said.

“Tehran,” which premiered in Israel and on Apple TV in 2020, tells the story of Tamar Rabinyan, a young Mossad operative tasked with hacking into and disabling the Iranian nuclear reactor so the Israeli military can carry out an airstrike. The show was named best drama series at the 49th International Emmy Awards in November 2021.

Eden started working in TV production in Israel in the 1990s, working on shows including comedy “Yom Haem” and crime drama “Magpie,” before finding international success with “Tehran.”

In 2018, her show “Saving the Wildlife” won best TV magazine for children and youth at the Awards of the Israeli Television Academy.

Kantouris and Becatoros write for the Associated Press. Kantouris contributed from Thessaloniki. Matt Kemp in London contributed.

SACRAMENTO — Gavin Newsom writes in his upcoming memoir about San Francisco’s highborn Getty family fitting him in Brioni suits “appropriate to meet a king” when he was 20 years old. Then he flew aboard their private “Jetty” to Spain for a royal princess’s debutante-style party.

Back home, real life wasn’t as grand.

In an annual performance for their single mom, Newsom and his sister would pretend to find problems with the fancy clothes his dad’s friends, the heirs of ruthless oil baron J. Paul Getty, sent for Christmas. Poor fit. Wrong color. Not my style. The ritual gave her an excuse to return the gifts and use the store credit on presents for her children she placed under the tree.

California’s 41st governor, a possible suitor for the White House, opens up about the duality of his upbringing in his new book. Newsom details the everyday struggle living with his mom after his parents divorced and occasional interludes into his father’s life charmed by the Gettys’ affluence, including that day when the Gettys outfitted him in designer clothes at a luxury department store.

“I walked out understanding that this was the split personality of my life,” Newsom writes in “Young Man in a Hurry.”

For years, Newsom asserted that his “one-dimensional” public image as a slick, privileged politician on a path to power paved with Getty oil money fails to tell the whole story.

“I’m not trying to be something I’m not,” Newsom said in a recent interview. “I’m not trying to talk about, you know, ‘I was born in a town called Hope with no running water.’ That’s not what this book is about. But it’s a very different portrayal than the one I think 9 out of 10 people believe.”

As he explores a 2028 presidential run and basks in the limelight as one of President Trump’s most vociferous critics, the book offers the Democratic politician a chance to write his own narrative and address the skeletons in his closet before opponents begin to exploit his past.

A book tour, which is set to begin Feb. 21 in Nashville, also gives Newsom a reason to travel the country, meet voters and promote his life story without officially entering the race. He’s expected to make additional stops in Georgia, South Carolina, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The governor describes the book as a “memoir of discovery” that sent him interviewing family members and friends and digging through troves of old documents about his lineage that his mother never spoke about and his father smoothed over. Learning about his family history, the good and the bad, Newsom said, helped him understand and accept himself. Mark Arax, an author and former Los Angeles Times journalist, was his ghostwriter.

“I’ve changed the opinion of myself,” Newsom said when asked if he believed the book would revise his glossy public image. “It kind of rocked so many parts of my life, and kind of cracked things open. And I started to understand where my anxieties come from and why I’m overcompensating in certain areas.”

Newsom writes that his interest in politics brought him and his father, William, closer. His mother, Tessa, on the other hand, didn’t share his father’s enthusiasm.

She warned him to get out while he still could, worried her only son would eschew his true self.

“My mother did not want that world for me: the shrewd marriage of tall husbands and tall wives that kept each year’s Cotillion Debutante Ball stocked with children of the same; the gritted teeth behind the social smiles; the spectator sport of who was in and who was out based on so-and-so’s dinner party guest list,” Newsom wrote.

At the heart of her concern was her belief that Newsom’s “obsessive drive” into business and politics was in response to his upbringing and an effort to solve “the riddle” of his identity from his learning disorder, dyslexia, and the two different worlds he inhabited.

“As I grew up trying to grasp which of these worlds, if either, suited me best, she had worried about the persona I was constructing to cover up what she considered a crack at my core,” Newsom writes. “If my remaking was skim plaster, she feared, it would crumble. It would not hold me into adulthood.”

Newsom’s mother was 19 years old when she married his father, then 32. He learned through writing the book that his mother hailed from a “family of brilliant and daring misfits who had carved new paths in botany and medicine and left-wing politics,” he writes.

There was also secret pain and struggles with mental health. His maternal grandfather, a World War II POW, turned to the bottle after returning home. One night he told his three young daughters to line up in front of the fireplace so he could shoot them, but stopped when his wife walked in the door and took the gun from his hand. He committed suicide years later.

Newsom’s father’s family was full of more traditional Democrats and Irish Catholic storytellers who worked in banking, homebuilding, law enforcement and law. Newsom describes his paternal grandfather as one of the “thinkers behind the throne” for former California Gov. Edmund “Pat” Brown, but his family never held public office despite his dad’s bids for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the California Legislature.

The failed campaigns left his father in financial and emotional turmoil that crippled his marriage when Newsom was a small boy. A divorce set the stage for an unusual contrasting existence for the would-be governor, offering him brief exposures to the wealth and power of the Gettys through his dad.

Newsom said he moved casually between the rich and poor neighborhoods of San Francisco as a boy.

“It was a wonder how effortlessly I glided because the two realms of my life, the characters of my mother’s world and the characters of my father’s world, did not fit together in the least,” Newsom writes.

Mayor Gavin Newsom and his dad, Judge William Newsom, have lunch at the Balboa Cafe in San Francisco.

(Christina Koci Hernandez / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

Though William Alfred Newsom III went on to become an appellate court justice, Newsom’s father was best known for his role delivering ransom money to the kidnappers of J. Paul Getty’s grandson. He served as an adviser to the family without pay and a paid administrator of the $4 billion family trust.

The governor wrote in the book that the ties between the two families go back three generations. His father was close friends with Getty’s sons John Paul Jr. and Gordon since childhood when they became like his sixth and seventh siblings at Newsom’s grandparents’ house.

Gordon Getty in particular considered Newsom’s father his “best-best friend.” Newsom’s dad helped connect the eccentric music composer “to the outside world,” the governor wrote.

“My father had this way of creating a safe space for Gordon to open up,” Newsom writes. “He became Gordon’s whisperer, his interpreter and translator, a bridge to their friends, a bridge to Gordon’s own children.”

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and his sister, Hilary Newsom, in a promotional portrait for the Search for the Cause campaign, which raises funds for cancer research, on Nov. 21, 2025.

(Caroline Schiff/Getty Images)

His father’s friendship with Gordon Getty exposed Newsom and his younger sister, Hillary, to a world far beyond their family’s own means. Gordon’s wife, Ann, and Newsom’s father organized elaborate adventures for the Gettys’ four sons and the Newsom children.

Newsom describes fishing on the Rogue River and riding in a helicopter while studying polar bears on the shores of the Hudson Bay in Canada. He recalled donning tuxedos and carrying toy guns pretending to be James Bond on a European yacht vacation and soaring over the Serengeti in a hot air balloon during an East African safari.

Throughout his travels, Newsom often blended in with the Gettys’ brown-haired sons. He wrote that the actor Jack Nicholson once mistakenly called him one of the “Getty boys” at a party in a 16th-century palazzo in Venice where guests arrived via gondola. Newsom didn’t correct him.

“Had I shared this encounter with my mother, she likely would have asked me if deception was something I practiced whenever I hobnobbed with the Gettys,” Newsom said in the book. “Fact is, I was always aware of the line that separated us from the Gettys. Not because they went out of their way to make us aware of it but because we, as good Newsoms, paid constant mind to the distinction.”

Newsom wrote that his mother seemed to begrudge the excursions when her children returned home. She raised them in a much more ordinary existence. Newsom describes his father’s presence as “episodic.”

“For a day or two, she’d give us the silent treatment, and then we’d all fall back into the form of a life trying to make ends meet,” he wrote. “After enough vacations came and went, a cone of silence took hold.”

Newsom’s mother worked as an assistant retail buyer, a bookkeeper, a waitress at a Mexican restaurant, a development director for a nonprofit and a real estate agent — holding as many as three jobs at once — to provide for her children. His mother’s sister and brother-in-law helped care for them when they could, but he likened himself to a latchkey kid because of the amount of time he and his sister spent alone.

They moved five times in 10 years in search of a “better house in a better neighborhood” with good schools, taking the family from San Francisco to the Marin County suburbs. Though his mother owned a home, she often rented out rooms to bring in extra money.

Tired of his mother complaining about finances and his father not coming through, Newsom wrote that he took on a paper route.

In the book, Newsom describes his struggles with dyslexia and how the learning disorder undercut his self-esteem when he was an emotionally vulnerable child.

Eager to make himself something more than an awkward kid with sweaty palms and a bowl haircut who couldn’t read, Newsom mimicked Remington Steele, the suave character on the popular 1980s detective show. He chugged down glassfuls of raw eggs like Sylvester Stallone in “Rocky” and ran across town and back like a prizefighter in training.

He found confidence in high school sports, but his struggle to find himself continued into young adulthood. Newsom wrote that he watched tapes of motivational guru Tony Robbins and heeded his advice to remake yourself in the image of someone you admire. For Newsom, that became Robbins himself.

“Find a person who embodies all of the outward traits of personality, bearing, charisma, language, and power lacking in yourself,” Newsom described the philosophy in the book. “Study that person. Copy that person. The borrowed traits may fit awkwardly at first, but don’t fret. You’ll be surprised by how fast the pose becomes you, and you the pose.”

His father scoffed at the self-help gurus and nurtured his interest in business.

More than a half-dozen friends and family members, including Gordon Getty, invested equal shares to help him launch a wine shop in San Francisco. Newsom named the business, which expanded to include restaurants, hotels and wineries, “PlumpJack,” the nickname of Shakespeare’s fictional character Sir John Falstaff and the title of Gordon Getty’s opera.

“Gordon’s really inspired me to be bolder and more audacious. He’s inspired me to be more authentic,” Newsom said. “The risks I take in business … just trying to march to the beat of a different drummer and to be a little bolder. That’s my politics. But I also think he played a huge role in that, in terms of shaping me in that respect as well.”

Newsom described Gordon and Ann Getty as like family. The Gettys also became the biggest investors in his wineries and among his largest political donors.

In an interview, Newsom said there are many days when he feels his mother “absolutely” was right to worry about the facade of politics and the mold her son stuffed himself into.

Gavin Newsom heads for his home neighborhood on Nov. 3, 2003, to cast hisvote for San Francisco mayor.

(Mike Kepka / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

He described the day the recall against him qualified for the ballot amid the COVID-19 pandemic as humbling and humiliating, though it later failed by a wide margin. Still today, he said, there’s a voice in his head constantly questioning why he’s in politics, what he’s exposing his wife and children to and doing with his life.

By choosing a career as an elected official despite his mother’s warnings, Newsom ultimately picked his father’s world and accomplished his father’s dream of taking office. But he said the book taught him that so much of his own more gutsy positions, such as his early support for gay marriage, and his hustle were from his mother.

Newsom said he’s accepted that he can’t control which version of himself people choose to see. Writing the book felt cathartic, he said, and left him more comfortable taking off his mask.

“It allowed me to understand better my motivations, my purpose, my meaning, my mission… who my mom and dad were and who I am as a consequence of them and what truly motivates me,” Newsom said. “There’s a freedom. There’s a real freedom. And it’s nice. It’s just so much nicer than the plaster of the past.”

BROOKLYN Beckham has sent a clear message to Gordon Ramsay after the chef publicly urged him to “remember where he came from” amid his ongoing family row with mum and dad, David and Victoria. 

In an exclusive interview with The Sun this week, Gordon revealed that, despite being close mates with David Beckham, he had maintained contact with Brooklyn after his family fallout alongside wife, Nicola Peltz.

Having taken aspiring chef Brooklyn under his wing for a while, Gordon praised his “incredible heart” but warned that his eagerness to “forge his own path” had him in danger of forgetting “where he came from”. 

Now, within hours of the interview being published, Brooklyn has added his former mentor to the list of people he’s now unfollowed on Instagram. 

At the time of writing, Gordon is still following Brooklyn, meaning that he’s not been blocked by the 26-year-old. 

A source told MailOnline: “Brooklyn and Nicola clearly don’t want any criticism at all, they just don’t want to hear any negativity about themselves. 

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“They must hate being talked about unless it’s gushing. Maybe they don’t like the truth.” 

The Beckhams and the Ramsays have had a long-standing relationship and close bond, with Brooklyn growing up alongside Gordon’s son, Jack, who’s also 26. 

It’s believed that Gordon is even godparent to 14-year-old Harper Seven, the youngest of the Beckham children. At the least, he was one point in the running. 

During our interview with Gordon – who was promoting his upcoming Netflix series Being Gordon Ramsay – he opened up about what was going on inside the Beckham household, and his belief that things at some point will smooth over. 

“It’s a very difficult situation,” he explained. “Victoria is upset, and I know 24/7, seven days a week, just how much David loves Brooklyn.

“Brooklyn and I have messaged a little bit, our relationship is solid. I love him – his heart is incredible – but it’s hard, isn’t it, when you’re infatuated? 

“Love is blind. It’s easy to get up on that rollercoaster, and get carried away. But it will come back.” 

“He’s desperate to forge his own way, and I respect that from him. It’s such a good thing to do,” he added. “But remember where you came from. 

“And honestly, one day you’re not going to have your mum and dad, and you need to understand that. That penny will drop.

“I just want Brooklyn to take a moment to himself. And remember: you’re half mum, half dad. And you’re an amazing young man.

“But, boy, they’ve done more for you than anyone did in your entire life.”

“Time’s going to be the best healer, and David will absolutely get that relationship back on track,” he added.

The Beckham family have continued to make small gestures in a bid to reach out to Brooklyn – despite his public six-page statement cutting all ties from the family.

Today, little sister Harper made a post sending a “Happy Valentines to the best big brothers in the world”, sharing a throwback snap of her as a young child with Brooklyn, as well as brothers Romeo and Cruz.

Victoria later reposted the photograph on her own Instagram Stories, but Brooklyn has not publicly responded.

Earlier this week Cruz also reached out to Brooklyn, with a throwback of the three brothers as children, something he also ignored.

“A generation ago, midlife might have been a bit of a snore, right? You have your job you’re going to be in for your whole career. You have your house in the suburbs … I don’t think established adulthood is that established anymore,” author Emily Nemens told me from her home in Princeton, N.J., before heading out on a cross-country book tour. “It’s much more pressurized and uncertain.”

This is the foundation of the former Paris Review editor’s sweeping and exquisite sophomore novel, “Clutch,” which features an ensemble cast of five women — all 40, give or take, and longtime friends — who reunite in Palm Springs, each at their own trying crossroads.

Nemens is no stranger to writing group dynamics; her critically acclaimed debut novel, “The Cactus League,” is structured in interlinked stories. She wrote it while juggling a distinguished career at literary quarterlies and making a name for herself as an artist. In the 2010s, her watercolor portraits of U.S. congresswomen went viral for their commentary on political portraiture and the “power suit.” At the time, women made up only 17% of Congress. Her new work also draws on politics — “Clutch” is set in an era shaped by the Dobbs decision and the state of women’s health in America.

The Times talked to Nemens about favoring friendship on the page, bodily autonomy and her influences including California artist Wayne Thiebaud — whose painting “Supine Woman” is featured on the cover of her novel.

This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.

When did the idea for “Clutch” first come to you?

I went to Palm Springs with my girlfriends. The dynamics, the friction of getting people together who love each other a lot but haven’t seen each other for quite a long time was eventful and felt like something to write about.

On your inspiration for the novel: You’ve previously mentioned Mary McCarthy’s novel “The Group,” which has also been cited as a precursor to “Sex and the City.” How far have we come since “The Group” was published in 1963? How about “Sex and the City” in the late ‘90s? “

McCarthy was writing in the ‘50s and ‘60s about the ‘30s and “The Group” was meant to highlight all the progress women had (and hadn’t) made in this new society, new economy, new technologies, birth controls coming on. There’s a certain amount of new liberation that came purportedly in the ‘30s, purportedly in the ‘60s, purportedly in the ‘90s. I mean, progress is certainly being made. You and I can get birth control and have our own credit cards, but there’s also a lot of things that don’t feel great. A reigning plotline in “Clutch” is about reproductive freedom in Texas in the 2020s and just how devastating that was for so many people who care about bodily autonomy, and that doesn’t feel very different than it did in the 1930s.

“Clutch” puts a cast of millennial girlfriends front and center.

Yeah, I’ve read a lot of books I admire about singular protagonists. A woman rebelling from a marriage or striking out from the role of motherhood or otherwise trying to find meaning. These novels about a singular quest. And I just kept coming up against that and thought: What happens when you try to build the infrastructure of friendships on the page?

We get intimate access to each of these five women — a writer, litigator, ENT physician, an actor turned politician and a consultant turned caretaker. All of them live in various parts of the country, including California, Texas and New York. It must have been hard to balance so many perspectives, plotlines and an omniscient narrator on top of it all.

I broke a lot of rules with that third ping-ponging perspective. Sometimes perspectives shift within a page, within a scene, moving rapidly and gleefully between points of view, and using that omniscient voice to steer us around — that was fun. I was cognizant of balance and understanding the lazy-Susan of it. Making sure I was spinning all the way around the table and touching each piece in each storyline.

Why midlife?

I love a bildungsroman as a novel conceit and as a framing device. But, sometimes, moving beyond that realization of the adult you want to be and actually being that adult is harder and more complicated and maybe more interesting, at least as I am and perceive it right now.

You’ve worked as an editor in some of the literary world’s most prestigious posts, notably at the Paris Review. Do you miss it since pivoting toward your own writing and teaching?

Making magazines was a thrill and a gift and exhausting. In that order. Not every editor is quite as catholic with a little c, as ecumenical, as excited about such a range of writing as I am. I wanted to see not one style of writing, but a broad range of writing that I felt had both ambition and execution.

One of the things that’s hard about being an editor, particularly an acquiring editor, is how often you have to say no. As a teacher now, I never say no. I say “yes.” Instead, I ask: What else can this be doing? That attitude adjustment is glorious.

Back to “Clutch,” what does female friendship mean to you? Do you see your friends’ qualities in these five women?

Female friendship has been such a gift. I don’t have children, I have a really supportive partner and I have this wonderful, creative professional life, but I can’t imagine it without my friends. There are certainly flints of autobiography and different friends in different characters — they’ve read it and liked it, and if they saw themselves, they were pleasant about it.

Tell me about the painting on the cover of the book. It really speaks to what these women are going through.

Getting the rights to the painting was a real coup! It’s called “Supine Woman” by Wayne Thiebaud. It was painted in 1963 — its own little Easter egg is that it came out the same year as “The Group.”

It depicts a woman dressed all in white who is lying on the floor. You’d assume from the pose that she’s sleeping, except her eyes are wide open, and in this frightened or startled expression. To me, it’s indicative of what the women in “Clutch” are going through. This is that moment right after you get knocked down, right before you get up again and that emotional tenor proceeds for a lot of the novel.

Lancaster is a London-based writer of fiction, fashion editorial and screenplays.

Support for James Van Der Beek’s family continues to pour in. The GoFundMe created to support them following the “Dawson’s Creek” star’s death approached $2.3 million in donations Friday morning.

Steven Spielberg and his wife Kate Capshaw are among the celebrity donors who have contributed to the fundraiser organized by the late actor’s friends. The couple’s donation is listed as $25,000. Those familiar with Van Der Beek’s breakout role on the millennial teen drama know that Spielberg is Dawson Leery’s favorite director.

Originally airing from 1998 to 2003, “Dawson’s Creek” was a seminal teen drama that followed four friends growing up in a small coastal town as they navigated their dreams, relationships and various coming-of-age milestones. Van Der Beek’s Dawson was an aspiring filmmaker whose dreams were bigger than his small hometown. Along with friends Joey (Katie Holmes), Pacey (Joshua Jackson) and Jen (Michelle Williams), Dawson grappled with very relatable teen dilemmas including heartbreak, betrayal and bad decisions.

The fundraiser, which had more than 44,000 donors as of Friday morning, was organized to help support Van Der Beek’s wife and children, who “are facing an uncertain future” due to the financial strain of the late actor’s medical costs. The late actor died following a battle with colorectal cancer. Funds will be used to “help cover essential living expenses, pay bills, and support the children’s education,” the organizers wrote.

Van Der Beek revealed in 2012 that he had been paid “almost nothing” for his work on “Dawson’s Creek” and had not received any residuals from the hit show.

“There was no residual money,” he told “Today.” “I was 20. It was a bad contract. I saw almost nothing from that.”

Before his death, Van Der Beek auctioned off personal memorabilia and sold collectibles to help pay for his cancer treatments. In September, his “Dawson’s Creek” co-stars helped organize and stage a reunion fundraiser to support Van Der Beek and his family — a reunion the actor had to miss because of a virus. “Black Bird” actor Paul Walter Hauser had also been raising funds through Cameo videos and auctions to help the late actor prior to his death.

Besides Spielberg, celebrity donors to Van Der Beek’s GoFundMe also reportedly include Zoe Saldaña, Jon M. Chu, Derek Hough, Busy Philipps, Jenna Dewan and others.

Van Der Beek’s “Dawson’s Creek” colleagues have also been among the many who have shared tributes to the late actor.

“Several times today, from my heart, I’ve tried to form the words to express the beautiful brilliance of James and what his presence has meant to my life,” “Dawson’s” creator Kevin Williamson wrote Thursday in a post shared on Instagram. “But I am truly at a loss for words. I will have to trust that one day those words will come… But today, all I can think about is Kimberly and the entire Van Der Beek family.”

Holmes, meanwhile, shared a handwritten note addressed to Van Der Beek on Instagram Wednesday. She was the first of “Dawson’s Creek’s” surviving core quartet to publicly acknowledge Van Der Beek’s death.

“Thank you,” Holmes wrote in her note, which was addressed to Van Der Beek. “To share a space with your imagination is sacred — breathing the same air in the land of make believe and trusting that each others’ hearts are safe in their expression.”

In her remembrance, Holmes highlighted their shared “laughter, conversations about life, James Taylor songs” and their “adventures of a unique youth.” She also highlighted Van Der Beek’s “Bravery. Compassion. Selflessness [and] Strength.”

“I mourn this loss with a heart holding the reality of his absence and deep gratitude for his imprint on it,” wrote Holmes, who also sent love to Van Der Beek’s wife and children in her message.

Other members of the extended “Dawson’s Creek” family, including actors Chad Michael Murray, Kerr Smith and Sasha Alexander, have also been among those offering condolences and paying tribute to Van Der Beek and his family online.

“James Van Der Beek was one in a billion and he will be forever missed and i don’t know what else to say,” wrote Busy Philipps in her Instagram tribute. “He was my friend and i loved him and i’m so grateful for our friendship all these years.”

Bijou Phillips needs a kidney donor and she’s asking the public for help.

“I need help finding a new kidney,” the actor wrote in an Instagram post Wednesday. “I’m asking as a friend, a sister, an aunt and, most importantly, a single mother to an incredible and brave daughter. I am in need of a kidney.”

According to her Instagram post, Phillips was born with an underdeveloped kidney. She said she previously received a kidney in 2017 “from a dear friend” but that she has faced “many complications since,” including the BK virus. Per the National Kidney Foundation, the BK virus is common and usually inactive, but it can “wake up” when a person’s immune system is compromised — like after an organ transplant — and affect the success of the transplant.

Phillips is hospitalized at UCLA Health and in stable condition for now, TMZ reported.

Phillips, who is back on dialysis while she awaits a transplant, also shared a link to a living donor form on her Instagram for people interested in getting the voluntary donation process started.

“Please help me find a living donor so that I can have more time with my daughter, family, and friends,” Phillips wrote. “Time is of the essence.”

Phillips shares a daughter with ex-husband Danny Masterson. Fianna Francis was born in 2014.

Masterson was convicted in 2023 of raping two former members of the Church of Scientology and was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison. He filed a petition to overturn the conviction last year.

STEFON Diggs was spotted with a stunning model friend on the Super Bowl field as his girlfriend Cardi B was missing from the action after their suspected split.

Instagram model Pree – who is reportedly a longtime close companion of the New England Patriots’ wide receiver – was busy posting from her perch at the Super Bowl before Stefon‘s big loss to the Seattle Seahawks. 

In a video obtained by blogger Tasha K, Pree can be seen on the Levi  Stadium field hours before the game on Sunday. 

Stefon, the father of six kids with six different women, was seen standing just yards away in the brief video. 

Last night, Pree shared pics from her prime seat watching the game.

She also reposted an official Patriots post about Stefon.

BIG DIGG?

Cardi B sparks rumors she’s SPLIT with baby daddy Stefon Diggs as he faces JAIL

In another link to Cardi, Pree also reportedly dated her ex-husband, rapper Offset, in the past.

Meanwhile, Cardi was missing from her man’s side – despite briefly appearing in Bad Bunny’s halftime show dancing in the background.

SPLIT RUMORS

Word that Cardi and Stefon may have split quickly rippled through social media, as fans noticed they had unfollowed each other over the weekend.

Cardi fueled the flames with her strange interview behavior as well.

When asked by an ESPN reporter if she had a message for Stefon ahead of the matchup against the Seattle Seahawks, Cardi simply said, “Good luck,” before turning on her heels and walking away.

Until last night, the WAP rapper had been riding hard for the NFL star on her social media, and cheering along with Pats fans both pre- and post-big games. 

As The U.S. Sun exclusively reported, she even dropped over a million dollars on preparations to give Stefon a big celebration this weekend.

“She’s incredibly excited and fully locked in,” a source familiar with the plans said. “This isn’t just about attending the game — it’s about showing up for her man in the biggest way possible and celebrating with everyone they love.”

Cardi and Stefon welcomed their first child together, a baby boy, in November.

STEFON’S LEGAL TROUBLES

Meanwhile, the New England Patriots wide receiver is currently facing a felony charge of strangulation and a misdemeanor charge of assault following an alleged incident last December.

Stefon has denied the accusations through his attorney, David Meier.

While the arraignment was originally slated for January, it was pushed back to allow Stefon to participate in the postseason.

Stefon is now scheduled to appear at the Dedham District Court in Massachusetts this Friday, February 13, 2026, at 9:00 am, where he is expected to enter a formal plea.

During this hearing, the judge will determine the conditions of his release, which may include bail, travel restrictions, or a no-contact order.

The allegations stem from a December 16 police report filed by a woman employed as Stefon’s personal chef.

According to Dedham police, the woman was initially “emotional and hesitant” to identify him due to his high public profile.

Court documents allege that Stefon entered her unlocked bedroom and confronted her over a financial dispute regarding unpaid wages.

The situation reportedly escalated, with Stefon allegedly striking her across the face and attempting to choke her with the crook of his elbow when she tried to push him away.

The late afternoon sun was setting over Coldwater Canyon when the bus arrived. Students from Boyle Heights’ Bravo High spilled out into TreePeople, a nature reserve and nonprofit in Coldwater Canyon Park, and took off hiking.

As they looked around the sage and monkeyflower-lined path, their chatter quieted, and soon, they were writing poetry.

Alina Sadibekova, a junior at the magnet medical school, sat under native oak trees, breathing in the soil-rich air with a pen in hand.

“Our city is very busy, especially living in L.A. where everything just goes on and on and it feels like there’s never a point where we can take a breath,” Alina said. “Going to the parks helped me ground myself.”

During a field trip to Gabrielino Springs and the L.A. River Gardens, Bravo High School students from Feng Shui Poetry in the Parks work on poems inspired by the landscape.

(Genesis Sierra)

TreePeople, is one of many green spaces she has visited with Feng Shui Poetry in the Parks, a program dreamed up by the West Hollywood poet laureate, Jen Cheng, in partnership with Bravo High English teacher Steve “Mr. V” Valenzuela. Cheng’s aim is for poetry, nature and Chinese principles to inspire a love for nature in students otherwise surrounded by concrete.

“I think as humans, we’re part of nature, so being better connected to nature actually brings you more home to yourself,” Cheng said. She explains that feng shui, the ancient Chinese practice of arranging a space to encourage harmony, is based on five natural elements: water, wood, fire, earth and metal.

“Feng shui, in poetry, is a lens that you can use to process big ideas using your surroundings,” Cheng said. “You can say, ‘Let’s write about water running down a river,’ not literally, but maybe as a metaphor for migration.”

Feng Shui Poetry in the Parks has grant funding through 2026’s spring semester, but next school year is still up in the air. Cheng says she’s looking for other grants, but as the Trump administration cuts humanities funding, including National Endowment for the Arts grants, the options are scarce.

As the oldest of five growing up in Oakland, Cheng felt seen for the first time when she discovered poetry in elementary school. It was inspired by her most cherished memories: field trips. At the time, her immigrant family worked to the point where they were often “too busy for nature.” During field trips, it was exciting, she said, to be out of Oakland’s urban landscape and in parks that felt rare in her working-class experience.

Decades after her elementary school field trips, as a newly appointed poet laureate for West Hollywood, she envisioned a way to mirror this childhood experience.

Poets laureate, whose role is to champion and encourage poetry in their community, are eligible for a $50,000 nationwide grant through the Academy of American Poets to support “meaningful, impactful and innovative projects,” according to the AAP.

As a recipient of this grant, Cheng brought Feng Shui Poetry in the Parks to life with one final addition — a teacher with a passion for poetry, who could connect her to a classroom of students.

Everyone she spoke to, she said, pointed her to the same person — “Mr. V.”

Jen Cheng, left, and Steve Valenzuela, right, close the Feng Shui Poetry in the Parks reading with words of encouragement for the students who shared their poetry at Bravo High School on Dec. 4, 2025. Both instructors have said that they were surprised by the emotion and creativity the students demonstrated in their poems.

(Kayte Deioma)

A sanctuary for ‘lifesaving’ creativity

When you enter Valenzuela’s classroom, the walls are covered with dozens of CD sleeves, from Deftones to Rage Against the Machine. In the gaps, student artwork, notes and photos with current and former students hang.

Valenzuela leads Bravo High’s poetry club, KEEPERS, and for the last few years, he’s guided the students to win awards at international poetry slam Get Lit.

“Poetry is expression, poetry is life-changing, lifesaving, which sounds very dramatic, but it’s not. Some of the things the students have written about are very traumatic,” Valenzuela said. “I’ve seen them work through difficult experiences and come out of it using poetry.”

One such student is 17-year-old Paige Thibodeaux. “I used to think it was better to be closed off, but throughout this, I was able to show my friends and peers who I am,” Paige said. “I didn’t think that’s something I could do and I’m here now.”

Paige, who lives with her family in Compton, recalled having her guard up as she walked through her neighborhood, where she said expression through poetry felt inaccessible.

“I don’t see a lot of kids doing things like this,” she said.

Student poets, friends and family members gather before the start of the Feng Shui Poetry in the Parks poetry reading and zine release at Bravo High School on Dec. 4, 2025.

(Kayte Deioma)

Working on a book, she said, opened up a whole new side of her. She started to confide in friends about stress, or things that bothered her, which otherwise would have stayed inside.

‘I still don’t believe it’

Since August 2025, Paige and her classmates have developed their poems, received feedback from Cheng and submitted their final pieces to be published as a poetry collection.

The cover, designed by Bravo student Adrian Lopez, depicts a tree wrapping around the spine. The poems are rooted in their observations of current affairs and native plants; the publication was completed in December, when Valenzuela and Cheng planned for a reading and celebration of their work at Bravo High.

“Did you guys know your work is going to be read across the country?” Cheng said to students in class one day. “I’m sending it all the way to New York!”

“Feng Shui Poetry in the Parks Vol. 1” is being printed as a zine and will be sent to bookstores and libraries from San Francisco to Chicago as well as the Library of Congress.

Students giggled and gasped in disbelief. “No pressure, I guess,” one student joked.

“It’s really crazy, I still don’t believe it. It’s been a dream of mine,” Alina said. “I never realized I could be a published author as a junior in high school.”

The night of the poetry reading, students, parents and friends gathered in excitement in Bravo High School’s library, settling in rows before a single microphone. Out in the hallway, the raucous chatter of teenagers echoed in the halls, and cars honked on the busy street outside to pick them up. But inside the haven of the library, there was a quiet settling among the crowd for the long-awaited show.

Alina Sadibekova reads her poems “I Want to Fly” and “Messy” for the Feng Shui Poetry in the Parks reading at Bravo High School on Dec. 4, 2025. She says writing poetry over the course of the program “grounded” her and alleviated the stress of school.

(Kayte Deioma)

Aolani “Lani” Alarcon approached the mic to hushed voices. As the lights lowered, she thanked the crowd, the white flower tucked in her hair catching the light as she recited her first poem, “White Sage.”

She says poetry didn’t always come easily to her. “One of the biggest things I struggle with is judgment, so opening up or writing about touchy subjects or things that mean something to me was hard,” Lani said. “Knowing that I wouldn’t be judged, or that people would actually like what I write, means a lot.”

The 16-year-old smiled as she read, describing sage as an ancestor’s prayer. Her next poem, “Hummingbird,” delved into grief.

“You teach me that healing isn’t forgetting,” she read, tears welling. “It’s learning to carry love without breaking under it.”

Manuel Alarcon, her father, was seated in the crowd, clasping his hands in rapt attention. When the readings had finished, he pulled Lani into a long embrace.

“These field trips, it exposed them outside of city life,” Alarcon said. “There’s more than opening a book, listening to a teacher. You need that outside exposure to really understand life. And inner city kids don’t have that. I want [my daughter] to be part of breaking a cycle.”

Valenzuela clapped loudly and cheered as each student stepped off the podium.

“When young voices, and voices from marginalized communities tend to be silenced, sometimes we internalize that and silence ourselves,” Valenzuela said. “I want them to feel like they can speak up.”

As Feng Shui Poetry in the Parks carries on for another semester— maybe its last — students continue to explore writing poetry in the greens of L.A. parks. Some, like 17-year-old Saneli Soto, express themselves along the way.

Saneli’s poem reads:

I’m used to concrete floors
And concrete walls.
I’m used to five story buildings.
I needed a quiet place.
Where I could just lie in the grass.

The body of Lil Jon’s son Nathan Smith, who performed as DJ Young Slade and went missing Tuesday night, was recovered Friday from a pond near his home in Milton, Ga., according to local police. The rapper’s son was 27.

“I am extremely heartbroken for the tragic loss of our son, Nathan Smith. His mother [Nicole Smith] and I are devastated,” Lil Jon and his ex-wife wrote Friday on social media.

“Nathan was the kindest human being you would ever meet. He was immensely caring, thoughtful, polite, passionate, and warmhearted — he loved his family and the friends in his life to the fullest.”

They said their son was “amazingly talented” as a music producer, artist and engineer. Nathan Smith was a graduate of New York University, his parents said.

Nathan Smith, a.k.a. DJ Young Slade, performs with his father, Lil Jon, at the Hollywood Palladium in March 2014.

(Kevin Winter / Getty Images )

“We loved Nathan with all of our hearts and are incredibly proud of him. He was loved and appreciated, and in our last times together we’re comforted in knowing that we expressed that very sentiment to him,” the parents concluded before thanking the many local authorities and rescuers who helped search for their son.

The Milton Police Department said Tuesday on social media that Nathan Smith hadn’t been seen since he “ran out of his house” at 6 a.m. that day.

“Subject left on foot and does not possess a phone. He may be disoriented and in need of assistance,” the statement said. “Family and friends are concerned for his safety.”

On Friday, Milton police said in a statement that teams had expanded the search to include the pond in a nearby park after failing to find Smith elsewhere. Divers with the Cherokee County Fire Department recovered a body from the water shortly before noon local time Friday, the statement said.

“The individual is believed to be Nathan Smith, pending official confirmation by the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office,” police wrote, adding there was no indication of foul play. However, the official cause and manner of death were still to be determined.

“We extend our deepest condolences to the Smith family during this difficult time. The department respectfully asks the community and members of the media to honor the family’s request for privacy as they grieve and navigate this tragedy,” the statement concluded.

Lil Jon and Nicole Smith expressed gratitude in their post confirming their son’s death. The two married in 2004 after welcoming Nathan in 1998 but split up amicably in 2022.

“Thank you for all of the prayers and support in trying to locate him over the last several days,” they wrote Friday.

Frank Clem, a pickleball pal of mine, recently put out the word that he was collecting whistles to deliver to the front lines of anti-ICE demonstrations in downtown Los Angeles, Highland Park, Pasadena and other locations.

I was out of the country at the time, but shortly after I returned, I thought about Clem when Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti was shot dead by ICE agents at a protest in Minnesota. It wasn’t long before the Trump administration’s top officials took turns blaming the victim, lying about the circumstances and calling Pretti an assassin.

Pretti’s distraught parents responded with this:

“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting.”

And yet entirely unsurprising, given the state of disinformation and the blatant corruption of legal and moral codes of conduct under Trump, who just the other day was blowing gas yet again about the 2020 election being stolen.

How do you stand up to a president who hypocritically pardons drug kingpins and other rabble, including the barbarians who beat up cops and ransacked the Capitol, even as he invades cities to terrorize and abduct working people?

Maybe you blow a whistle, for starters.

I know, it’s a small gesture. But Clem and others are choosing sides, standing up for their communities, and refusing to remain silent as it becomes clear that the ICE agenda is less about law and order and more about the politics of scapegoating.

I came upon a story on Fox11 about a broader whistle brigade in Los Angeles. Musician Hector Flores, of Las Cafeteras, said he had been distributing free whistles to coffee shops because “we’ve got to protect one another,” and a whistle can sound the alarm that ICE agents are on the prowl.

If Trump were honest about rounding up violent criminals, we wouldn’t need this kind of resistance. But arrests of immigrants with no criminal records are increasing, and the majority of them are here to work and support their families. And U.S. employers have embraced and relied on them as essential contributors to the economy.

When I couldn’t immediately get hold of Flores, I called the owner of Cafe de Leche, the Highland Park coffee shop he had delivered whistles to. Matt Schodorf told me he was fresh out of whistles, and I thought of Clem, who agreed to meet me at Cafe de Leche with a special delivery.

Clem, an actor, is someone you want on your pickleball team because he comes to play and he covers a lot of ground. You might have seen him in theater productions, on TV shows or in movies, and you couldn’t possibly not have seen him as the emu farmer in a Liberty Mutual commercial.

Clem walked past a window sign that says “I Like My Coffee Without ICE” and took a seat at Cafe de Leche. He was wearing an L.A. ballcap and carrying a shopping bag containing hundreds of whistles.

A sign reading “I like my coffee without ICE” is posted in the window of Cafe de Leche in Highland Park. Cafe owners Matt and Anya Schodorf have been giving away whistles to customers to be used for ICE sightings and at demonstrations.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Black whistles. Red whistles. Whistles with strings and whistles with hooks to clip onto key chains.

Enough for a symphony.

“It’s 18, 20 bucks for, like, a hundred whistles,” Clem said, displaying a sandwich-size baggie of 100 multicolored whistles in the shape of small pencils.

Clem has been buying them in bulk on the internet, accepting donated whistles from friends, and making his with a 3D printer. He said he had already given away more than 1,500 the last few weeks at rallies and demonstrations.

People smile, Clem said, “when they see the possibilities,” when they join the chorus and the cause, and rather than retreat in silence, make themselves heard. Stiff opposition to ICE atrocities in Minneapolis has led to the withdrawal of hundreds of agents, so maybe a corner is being turned.

“We’re blowing $20 on coffee, right?” Clem said. “But here’s $20 you can spend on something and really feel like you’re getting some kind of return on it. … Throw me 100 whistles, and we’ll get them into the hands of people that might make a difference.”

Schodorf joined us with a cleaned-out whistle rack that said “Free Ice Alarms” on it, and said he’d be glad to fill the rack with Clem’s contributions. Before long, it was loaded up with 100 whistles and placed on the front counter.

When I asked Schodorf about joining ranks with the whistle brigade, he mentioned his wife, Cafe de Leche co-owner Anya Schodorf.

“She grew up here, but she was born in Nicaragua,” he said, and it’s hard to not to get involved when “they’re just profiling people right off the streets. I mean, nobody feels safe … and they’re charging the brown people, right? My wife would identify as that, and she’s afraid to go out of the house.”

Schodorf said they’ve been scrambling to keep the business running after they lost their Cafe de Leche restaurant in the fire that tore through Altadena a year ago. A photo of them in the ruins of their other shop hung on the wall, along with other photos of the destruction in Altadena.

“I don’t know what to do,” Schodorf said about the ICE tactics in Highland Park and beyond, “but I feel like we want to raise the voices of people.”

His wife entered the shop and greeted friends and customers before joining us. She has been a U.S. citizen for decades, and yet she feels as though the color of her skin makes her a suspect.

Anya and Matt Schodorf, owners of Cafe de Leche in Highland Park, talk about their fears about ICE in the community.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“You can scream from the top of your lungs that you’re a citizen, and they don’t care,” Anya said. “I honestly can’t think straight … and it’s really hard for me to concentrate.”

Anya said she walks and sometimes runs on Arroyo trails but has begun taking extra precautions, like calling her husband and leaving the line open. She went to a park in Pasadena recently and got worried after entering a restroom.

“I heard … a commotion outside and I got nervous,” Anya said. “And then I came out and saw ICE people kind of harassing the workers, like city workers. They’re city landscapers, and I panicked. I went back into the bathroom, like, what do I do? And why should I be panicky? I’m a citizen.”

Her kids are just as concerned about her as she is.

“It’s my son I really worry about,” Anya said. “He says, ‘Make sure you have your passport.’ Yeah, my kids. They’re really worried. And my son is like, please be careful. … It’s that additional stress that they don’t need — that they have to worry about me.”

The Schodorfs said ICE agents recently grabbed a neighborhood fixture — a guy who sells tamales.

“They’re just picking people off, right and left,” Matt said.

“He’s like 72,” Anya said.

The first whistles delivered by Hector Flores were gone before long.

“It was just a matter of hours,” Matt said. “I think it’s twofold. It’s people who think they might need it just for themselves, but it’s people who feel like they might need it for other people. … It’s been wildly popular.”

“We’re a good country,” Anya said. “But we’re falling into the hands of people that are cruel and they don’t really care about anyone but themselves, and they are enriching themselves.”

Clem said that at rallies, he’s making sure to offer whistles to vendors.

“People selling hot dogs and churros,” he said. “They’re asking how many they can take for their families and friends, right? I want them to take as many as they can. I’ve got 1,500 of these things sitting on my dining room table.”

Clem said he was never really a protester, but “anyone who has eyes can see” the alarming level of corruption coming out of the White House.

“My dad fought in the Battle of the Bulge, right?” Clem said. “My dad fought Nazis and fascists in World War II, and he was always warning me growing up that it could happen here. So now, the least I can do is pass out whistles.”

When Clem’s whistles were on display at the counter, one of the first customers was Hana McElroy. She ordered a coffee and took a whistle.

“I’m a nanny, and I pick up a couple of kids from their preschool and I know and love so many kids with parents in pretty tenuous situations,” said McElroy, who is Irish American. “It’s just been a scary time to be an Angeleno.”

Hana McElroy, right, picks up a free whistle while ordering a cup of coffee from Soleil Hernando at Cafe de Leche.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

McElroy said she knows some of the Latina nannies who take their charges to the little park across the street from Cafe de Leche, and she worries about them too.

McElroy showed me a whistle on her key chain but said it was broken. Soleil Hernando, a barista, told her after she’d taken one of Clem’s whistles that they were free, and she should take as many as she wanted.

McElroy grabbed another.

steve.lopez@latimes.com

THE Brooklyn family drama seems to have spilled over into another famous clan.

Brooklyn Beckham made headlines last month with a bombshell statement saying he would never reconcile with his parents, David and Victoria Beckham.

He blamed a range of issues, but singled out Victoria for allegedly dancing inappropriately with him at his 2022 wedding to American actress, Nicola Peltz.

Now it seems Anaïs Gallagher – the daughter of Oasis rocker Noel Gallagher – has caught some strays in the family saga.

Brooklyn has blocked his entire family on social media, and reportedly blocked his close friend Anaïs as well.

Fans speculated, “Did Brooklyn block you as well?”.

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She shared a cryptic post online that showed screenshot of a message exchange between her and a friend.

The text stated: “Mate have you seen BLANK story.”

To which Anaïs replied: “No I’m blocked. Please show me.”

She had blacked out the name of the person they were talking about, but it did not stop fans asking if it was Brooklyn.

One person commented on her post: “Did Brooklyn Beckham block you as well?”

Anaïs seemed to confirm her fans’ suspicions when she liked one of the comments about being blocked that read, “the ‘no I’m blocked’ is so real.”

The famous nepo babies grew close while studying at the Fine Arts College in London, and were even rumoured to be dating.

They had grown apart in recent years, but Anaïs did attend Brooklyn and Nicola’s 2022 nuptials.

However, earlier that same year she slammed his photography book, What I See, despite attending its launch event in 2017.

She posted, “I genuinely find this book offensive,” under a TikTok mocking Brooklyn’s What I See photography book, but it is not known if she meant the comment in jest.

Even though she was at their wedding in 2022, she was not in attendance when Brooklyn and Nicola renewed their vows last year.

Brooklyn explained why they renewed their vows in his scathing statement against his family.

“We wanted to renew our vows so we could create new memories of our wedding day that bring us joy and happiness, not anxiety and embarrassment,” he wrote.

This week, Brooklyn and Nicola ignored their ongoing family spat pictured kissing in front of the LA skyline.

In new snaps shared to Brooklyn’s Instagram, the couple could be seen sitting on a chair together kissing in front of a floor-to-ceiling glass window with the Los Angeles skyline behind them.

He captioned one black and white snap “My girl x”, while a colour shot saw them sitting with their limbs entwined on the chair as they both wore shades indoors.

A father driving his daughter and two other families from the Santa Clarita Flyers hockey club to a tournament in Colorado was killed last week in a horrific crash in treacherous weather.

Three days later the Flyers won the Western Girls Hockey League 12U title with a 1-0 victory in overtime Sunday, their fifth win of the tournament.

The players met for two hours the night of the accident and decided they would participate rather than pull out and head home.

“We knew that the families in the crash would want us to play and decided not just to do it for ourselves, but do it for them mostly,” Flyers captain Sophia Boyle told Denver 9News. “We are more than a team. It’s like we are a giant family.

“We knew what we wanted, we tried our hardest and we got it.”

The driver of a Colorado Department of Transportation plow truck traveling on snow-covered and wet roads Thursday morning lost control on Interstate 70, drove through the median and hit the Flyers’ Ford Transit van head-on, according to the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office.

The van was knocked down an icy embankment before coming to rest, and the driver, Manuel Lorenzana of Chatsworth, was pronounced dead at the scene. Four children were treated for minor injuries at a local hospital; a fifth was flown to a trauma center with critical injuries. Three adults were admitted to the hospital, one in serious condition.

Lorenzana, 38, a noted tattoo artist and lifelong San Fernando Valley resident, was remembered as “a hero and the epitome of what an amazing man, father, partner and friend should be,” his family wrote on a GoFundMe page.

“He was the most thoughtful, loving and supportive man to his soulmate April, and the most caring, involved, fun, kind and loving parent, and best friend, to his daughter Brody.”

Brody was released from the hospital and joined her teammates Saturday. After opening the double-elimination tournament with two victories Friday and a loss in their first game Saturday, the Flyers advanced with a 14-0 win.

Santa Clarita Valley residents gathered at the Flyers’ home rink, the Cube Ice and Entertainment Center, to watch a stream of the game that unfortunately malfunctioned. Still, the crowd stayed, with several people refreshing the league’s website to keep up with the game and shouting when the Flyers scored.

Two victories Sunday — both shutouts — gave the Flyers the title. Moments before the championship game, the Flyers raised their sticks in a silent nod to Manny Lorenzana. Khaleesi Bewer scored the winning goal in overtime, and afterward the Flyers sang Katy Perry’s “California Gurls. ”

“It’s unbelievable how much people have rallied behind these girls,” said Prescott Littlefield, president of the Flyers organization. “If there is a silver lining to this, the amount of support they’ve gotten is beyond my ability to comprehend. The families are so grateful.”

MINNEAPOLIS — For weeks, administrators at this charter high school have arrived an hour before class, grabbed neon vests and walkie-talkies, and headed out into the cold to watch for ICE agents and escort students in.

Lately, fewer than half of the 800 sudents show up.

“Operation Metro Surge,” the immigration crackdown in Minnesota that led to nationwide protests after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens, has had students, parents and teachers on edge regardless of their immigration status.

Signs of a fearful new normal are all over the school. Green craft paper covers the bottom of many first-floor windows so outsiders can’t peer in. A notice taped outside one door says unauthorized entry is prohibited: “This includes all federal law enforcement personnel and activities unless authorized by lawful written direction from appropriate school officials or a valid court order.”

Students at a Minneapolis high school classroom with many empty seats on Jan. 29, 2026.

Staff coordinate throughout the day with a neighborhood watch group to determine whether ICE agents are nearby. When they are, classroom doors are locked and hallways emptied until staff announce “all clear.”

Similar tactics have been utilized by schools in other cities hit by immigration raids across the country. The Los Angeles Unified School District established a donation fund for affected families and created security perimeters around schools last summer.

But it appears nowhere have students felt the repercussions of local raids more than in Minneapolis.

Many schools have seen attendance plummet by double-digit percentages. At least three other, smaller charter schools in Minneapolis have completely shut down in-person learning.

At this high school, which administrators asked The Times not to identify for fear of retaliation by the Trump administration, 84% of students are Latino and 12% are Black. Staff and students are being identified by first or middle names.

A balloon sits in a hallway at the high school.

Doors and windows are covered at the school so outsiders can’t see in.

Three students have been detained — and later released — in recent weeks. Two others were followed into the school parking lot and questioned about their immigration status. Several have parents who were deported or who self-deported. Latino staff said they have also been stopped and questioned about their legal status.

“Our families feel hunted,” said Noelle, the school district’s executive director.

Students returned from winter break on Jan. 6, the same day 2,000 additional immigration agents were dispatched to Minneapolis to carry out what Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Todd Lyons called the agency’s “largest immigration operation ever.” The next day, an ICE officer fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three.

“I describe that day as if you’re on an airplane and it’s really bad turbulence, and you have to keep your cool because, if you don’t, you lose the entire building,” said Emmanuel, an assistant principal. “It felt like we went through war.”

Attendance dropped by the hundreds as parents grew too afraid to let their children leave home. School leaders decided to offer online learning and scrambled to find enough laptops and mobile hotspots for the many students who didn’t have devices or internet. Some teachers sent packets of schoolwork to students by mail.

A teacher at the Minneapolis high school that administrators asked The Times not to identify for fear of retaliation by the Trump administration. Teachers and students there also asked not to be identified.

Noelle said in-person attendance, which had dropped below 400 students, increased by around 100 in the third week of January. Then federal agents shot and killed 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti, and attendance plummeted again.

Rochelle Van Dijk, vice president of Great MN Schools, a nonprofit supporting schools that serve a majority of students of color, said many schools have redirected tens of thousands of dollars away from other critical needs toward online learning, food distribution and safety planning. For students still attending in person, recess has frequently been canceled, and field trips and after-school activities paused.

Even if students return to school by mid-February, Van Dijk said, they will have missed 20% of their instructional days for the year.

“A senior who can’t meet with their college counselor right now just missed support needed for major January college application deadlines. Or a second-grader with a speech delay who is supposed to be in an active in-person intervention may lose a critical window of brain plasticity,” she said. “It is not dissimilar to what our nation’s children faced during COVID, but entirely avoidable.”

At the high school, administrators said they tried to create “a security bubble,” operating under protocols more typical of active shooter emergencies.

Gym class at the Minneapolis school, where many students are so afraid of ICE that they won’t go to the campus.

If agents were to enter the building without a judicial warrant, the school would go into a full lockdown, turning off lights, staying silent and moving out of sight. That hasn’t happened, though ICE last year rescinded a policy that had barred arrests at so-called sensitive locations, including schools.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, said that blaming ICE for low school attendance is “creating a climate of fear and smearing law enforcement.”

“ICE does not target schools,” McLaughlin said. “If a dangerous or violent illegal criminal alien felon were to flee into a school, or a child sex offender is working as an employee, there may be a situation where an arrest is made to protect the safety of the student. But this has not happened.”

Alondra, a 16-year-old junior who was born in the U.S., was arrested after school Jan. 21 near a clinic where she had gone with a friend, also 16, to pick up medication for her grandmother.

She said that as she was about to turn into the parking lot, another car sped in front of her, forcing her to stop. Alondra saw four men in ski masks with guns get out. Scared, she put her car in reverse. Before she could move, she said, another vehicle pulled up and struck her car from behind.

Alondra shared videos with The Times that she recorded from the scene. She said agents cracked her passenger window in an attempt to get in.

“We’re with you!” a bystander can be heard telling her in the video as others blow emergency whistles.

She said she rolled her window down and an agent asked to see her ID. She gave him her license and U.S. passport.

“Is it necessary to have to talk to you or can I talk to an actual cop?” she asks in the video. “Can I talk to an actual cop from here?”

“We are law enforcement,” the agent replies. “What are they gonna do?”

In another video, an agent questions Alondra’s friend about the whereabouts of his parents. Another agent is heard saying Alondra had put her car in reverse.

“We’re underage,” she tells him. “We’re scared.”

A sign directs students to line up for their school bus route. Bus pickups are staggered, with one group of students escorted outside at a time. This way, the children can be taken back inside the school or onto the bus more easily if ICE arrives.

A Minneapolis Public Radio reporter at the scene said agents appeared to have rear-ended Alondra’s car. But Alondra said an agent claimed she had caused the accident.

“It’s just a simple accident, you know what I mean?” he says in the video. “We’re not gonna get on you for trying to hit us or something.”

“Can you let us go, please?” her friend, visibly shaken, asks the agent at his window.

Alondra and her friend were handcuffed and placed in a U.S. Customs and Border Protection vehicle as observers filmed the incident. At least two observers were arrested as agents deployed tear gas and pepper spray, according to an MPR report.

The agents took the students to the federal Whipple Building. Alondra said the agents separated the friends, looked through and photographed her belongings and had her change into blue canvas shoes before chaining her feet together and placing her in a holding cell alone.

“I asked at least five times if I could let my guardian know what was happening, because I was underage, but they never let me,” she said.

Finally, around 7 p.m., agents released Alondra — with no paperwork about the incident — and she called her aunt to pick her up. Her friend was released later.

Meanwhile, school administrators who saw the MPR video called Alondra’s family and her friend’s.

Alondra said officers didn’t know what had happened to her car and told her they would call her when she could pick it up. But no one has called, and school administrators who helped her make calls to Minneapolis impound lots haven’t been able to locate it either.

Though Alondra could attend classes online, she felt she had to return to campus.

“I feel like if I would have stayed home, it would have gone worse for me,” she said, her lip quivering. “I use school as a distraction.”

The backstage of the auditorium, dubbed the bodega, has been turned into a well-stocked pantry for families who are too afraid to leave their homes.

A volunteer organizes donated items for distribution to families at the Minneapolis high school.

A teacher makes a delivery to a family in Minneapolis.

Teachers and volunteers sort donations by category, including hygiene goods, breakfast cereals, bread and tortillas, fruit and vegetables, diapers and other baby items. Bags are labeled with each student’s name and address and filled with the items their family has requested. After school, teachers deliver the items to the students’ homes.

Noelle said some students, particularly those who are homeless, are now at risk of failing because they’re in “survival mode.” Their learning is stagnating, she said.

“A lot of these kids are — I mean, they want to be — college-bound,” Noelle said. “How do you compete [for admission] with the best applicants if you’re online right now and doing one touch-point a day with one teacher because that’s all the technology that you have?”

On Thursday afternoon, 20 of 44 students had shown up for an AP world history class where the whiteboard prompt asked, “Why might some people resort to violent resistance rather than peaceful protest?”

Upstairs, in an 11th-grade U.S. history class, attendance was even worse — four students, with 17 others following online. The topic was what the teacher called the nation’s “first immigration ban,” the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

Students head to their bus at the high school.

Morgan, the teacher, asked the students to name a similarity between the Chinese exclusion era and current day.

“Immigrants getting thrown out,” one student offered.

“Once they leave, they can’t come back,” said another.

“The fact that this is our first ban on immigration also sets a precedent that this stuff can happen over and over and over again,” Morgan said.

Sophie, who teachers English language learners, led the effort to organize the online school option. She is from Chile and says she has struggled to put her own fear aside to be present for the students who rely on her. Driving to school scares her, too.

“It’s lawless,” she said. “It doesn’t matter that I have my passport in my purse. The minute I open my mouth, they’re going to know that I’m not from here.”

Sophie said she once had to call a student’s mother to say her husband had been taken by immigration agents after another school staffer found his car abandoned on a nearby street.

“Having to have that conversation wasn’t on my bingo card for that day, or any day,” she said. “Having to say that we have proof that your husband was taken and hearing that woman crying and couldn’t talk, and I’m like, what do I say now?”

Close to the 4:15 p.m. dismissal, administrators again donned their neon vests and logged on to the neighborhood Signal call for possible immigration activity.

Students walk to a bus Thursday. Dismissal used to be a free-for-all, with large numbers of students rushing outside as soon as the bell rang.

Dismissal used to be a free-for-all — once the final bell rang, students would rush outside to find their bus or ride or to begin the walk home.

Now pickups are staggered, with students escorted outside one bus at a time. Teachers grab numbered signs and tell students to line up according to their route. If ICE agents pull up, administrators said, they could rush a smaller group of students onto the bus or back inside.

In yet another example of how the immigration raids had crippled attendance, some buses were nearly empty. On one bus, just two students hopped on.

Reporting from New York, NY — Media outlets are reporting that federal prosecutors have granted immunity to the executive in charge of the National Enquirer amid an investigation into hush-money payments made on behalf of President Trump.

Vanity Fair and the Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, were first to report Wednesday’s development involving David Pecker, CEO of the tabloid’s publisher, American Media Inc., and a longtime friend of the president.

Court papers connected to ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s guilty plea Tuesday say Pecker offered to help Trump squash negative stories during the 2016 campaign.

The Journal said Pecker shared details with prosecutors about payments Cohen says Trump directed to buy the silence of two women alleging affairs with him.

Trump’s account has shifted. He said recently he knew about payments “later on.”

The Good Morning Britain presenter was showered in support after posting a touching message to her close friend.

Good Morning Britain star Susanna Reid has paid tribute to her close friend Carol Kirkwood, who announced her exit from BBC Breakfast earlier today (Tuesday 27 January).

After joining the BBC in 1998, Carol confirmed she would be leaving the corporation in April, during an emotional interview with Jon Kay and Sally Nugent.

Holding back tears, she said she had “loved every minute”, adding: “This hasn’t been an easy decision to make, but it feels like the right moment to step away. I’ll carry with me the most wonderful memories.”

Carol went on: “My job is something I’ve never taken for granted and I’ve loved every minute. From early starts and all manner of forecasts, I’ve shared it with incredible colleagues at BBC Breakfast, BBC Weather and programmes across the BBC. I’d like to thank them for their support and friendship which has meant the world.”

She concluded: “To those watching and listening at home – thank you for all the kindness you have shown me over the years, being part of your mornings has been a joy.”

Carol went on to say she plans on spending more time with her husband Steve, writing her books and travelling, and choked up as she told Sally and Jon: “It’s really hard for me to say this because I love my job. I love all of you guys, my weather colleagues, every department I’ve worked with, and of course, all the viewers I’ve been so engaged with for many years. But it’s great! I don’t want to be coming in on my Zimmer frame, going, ‘I can’t reach the Northern Isles anymore!'”

Since announcing the news, Carol has been showered in support from fans and friends alike.

Susanna was among those paying tribute on social media, writing: “CAROL KIRKWOOD! The gorgeous force of nature @carolkirkwood is leaving BBC Breakfast. Let me tell you a few things about Carol, having been lucky enough to have worked with her (and shared a hotel room with her on a hen weekend)

“1. I have NEVER seen her in a bad mood. 2. She sends cards EVERY birthday and Christmas. 3. She ALWAYS has a giggle with every viewer who recognises her off air – and everyone does.

“Good luck Carol – enjoy your well-deserved lie-ins. Love you.”

Susanna was a co-presenter on BBC Breakfast from 2001 until 2014 alongside Bill Turnbull and Charlie Stayt before she joined Good Morning Britain.

Her post was showered in support, with one follower writing: “Absolutely fabulous picture. Good luck with your new venture, beautiful lovely @carolkirkwood.”

Another said: “What a lovely pair,” as a third added: “This has genuinely been made me sad.”

Former BBC Breakfast star Dan Walker also marked the “end of an era”, as he wrote on X, alongside several pictures with Carol: “I still get asked what Carol is like in real life and she is just the same lovely person you see on the telly.

“She was always so kind, generous and funny on and off screen and she will be hugely missed on @BBCBreakfast

“Throw that alarm clock away Carol. Long may she reign.”

Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV1 and ITVX.