friends

A few months ago, my younger daughter, Darby, and I were settling into our seats at the local AMC. As the previews rolled, she gasped. “I know that voice,” she said. “That’s Aidan. Mom, that’s Aidan.”

I looked up just in time to see a familiar shock of brown curls. It was indeed Aidan Delbis, former member of the Falcon Players at Crescenta Valley High School in La Crescenta, a kid I had seen perform alongside my daughter in countless student plays.

Only now he was seated at a kitchen table with Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone as the words “Bugonia” and then “directed by Yorgos Lanthimos” flashed across the screen.

“Did you not know?” I asked my daughter. CV is a fine public school with a good theater program, but it isn’t exactly an incubator for nepo babies and aspiring stars. That one of their own had stepped off last year’s graduation stage and into a major film production should have been very big news long before a trailer hit theaters.

“No,” she said, furiously messaging various friends. “But now they will.”

Now they will indeed. When he joined the cast of “Bugonia,” Delbis didn’t just become a part of Lanthimos’ highly anticipated remake of Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 black comedy “Save the Green Planet!” He also entered the mythology of which Hollywood dreams are made: A 17-year old sends in his first-ever open-call submission and lands a major role in a very big movie.

With a script by Will Tracy and obvious Oscar potential, “Bugonia” had its world premiere in August at this year’s Venice Film Festival before launching onto the festival circuit, including screenings in Toronto and New York, in preparation for its release this Friday. A slightly absurdist, darkly funny thriller with political undertones, it revolves around the kidnapping of a pharmaceutical company’s CEO, Michelle (Stone), by wild-eyed conspiracy theorist Teddy (Plemons) and his loyal cousin Don (Delbis).

From left, Emma Stone, Aidan Delbis and Jesse Plemons in the movie “Bugonia.”

(Atsushi Nishijima / Focus Features)

Teddy believes Michelle is an alien sent to destroy Earth. Don believes in Teddy. Though he falls in with Teddy’s plans, he often questions them, serving as a continual reminder that even within Teddy’s paranoid view of the universe, there is such a thing as going too far. Don is, in many ways, the heart of the film.

He is also, like the actor who plays him, autistic.

Delbis — who chooses to self-describe as autistic rather than neurodivergent — is not someone who has long nursed dreams of stardom. He took drama classes all through high school, but it wasn’t until his junior year, Delbis says, “that I started to get more into the process. I found the general process of acting, of understanding and investing in different personalities, to be fun and sometimes scary.”

Still, he says, “I wasn’t really sure that I wanted it to be my main career. But it so happened that this happened while I was in high school, and here we are.”

Here is the Four Seasons on a very rainy October afternoon where Delbis, now 19, has just finished his first solo photo shoot and is sitting, fortified by Goldfish crackers (his go-to-snack), for his first long one-on-one interview. He went to some of the film festivals and just returned from “Bugonia’s” London premiere, where he signed autographs on the red carpet and enjoyed flying first class. His parents, Katy and David Delbis, are seated nearby, as is his access and creative coach, Elaine Hall.

Delbis is a tall, good-natured young man who speaks with a distinctive cadence and in an unwaveringly calm tone. Aside from a habit of repeating himself as he searches for what he wants to say next, he seems more comfortable discussing his experience with filmmaking than many of the dozens of more experienced actors I have interviewed in this very hotel over the years.

“We should try to be more empathetic to people with different worldviews because you never really know what those people are going through,” Delbis says. “The movie feels very relevant to that theme.”

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

“It all started,” he says, “when my mom was friends with this agent, April, and one day she sent Mom an audition that seemed pretty promising, so I submitted for that. And they really liked it and called me back.”

It actually started a bit further back than that. With Plemons and Stone already cast, Lanthimos had decided that he wanted a nonprofessional actor to play Don.

“We went really wide in trying to find someone really special,” the Greek-born director of “The Favourite” and “Poor Things” says in a phone interview. “With these two experienced actors, I wanted to bring in a different dynamic. As we looked at people, I felt that the character would be more interesting if he was neurodivergent.”

Casting director Jennifer Venditti put out an open call, which April Smallwood of Spotlight Development saw and sent to Delbis’ mother, Katy.

“A happy-go-lucky young man, neurodivergent — it practically described Aidan,” Katy says in a later interview. La Crescenta may not be an industry hub, but, like many in L.A., the Delbis family has a Hollywood connection. Aidan’s older brother, Tristan (who is also neurodivergent), works at a movie theater; father David is about to retire after years at the Writers Guild Health Fund; and Katy, a self-described “creative,” has done some acting herself. But no one saw film-acting as a potential career for Aidan, who was set to take a gap year after high school. And, Katy says, she had no idea what sort of movie it was for. “It said for a ‘big film,’ but they always say that.”

She thought of it a bit like the time Delbis, a member of the high school track team, decided he also wanted to try out for basketball. “As I drove him to the school,” Katy said, “I told him that he might not get on since there were a lot of kids who had been playing basketball for years, which he had not. He said, ‘Mom, I just want to see what it’s like.’”

Now Delbis wanted to see what it would be like to audition for a “big film.”

Aidan Delbis in the movie “Bugonia.”

(Atsushi Nishijima / Focus Features)

He had recently performed the Vincent Price monologue from “Thriller” for the school talent show, which Katy filmed on her phone, so Smallwood submitted that. Venditti called Smallwood the next day and met with Delbis over Zoom. Thus began a monthslong process of meetings, rehearsals and auditions.

“We focused on him right away,” Venditti says. “He seemed to have it all. And he was very committed.”

“I was really unaware of how big a project it was,” Delbis said. “I had never seen a film by Yorgos.”

In March, Lanthimos, Stone and Plemons were in L.A. for the Oscars, so they all met with Delbis and came away impressed.

Lanthimos thought of casting a neurodivergent actor in a part because it would bring a natural clarity and unfiltered unpredictability to the role. He didn’t consider it any more challenging than working with any other actor. And when he met Delbis, Lanthimos says, “I just thought: That’s him.”

“Just from watching that first tape, you could see there was something so magnetic about him,” said Stone during a recent phone interview. (She is also a producer on the film.) “Don is the audience’s window, the one who can see through the charade.”

Still, there were many more steps to take.

“It’s a big leap for any nonprofessional,” Stone says. “It’s a big part in what is essentially a three-hander.”

From left, director Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, Aidan Delbis and Jesse Plemons at the Venice Film Festival, where “Bugonia” had its world premiere in August.

(Alessandra Tarantino / Invision / AP)

For an autistic actor, it’s an even bigger leap. As talented as Delbis might be, he also had to be able to handle the pressures, boredom and chaos of a film set. Venditti reached out to Hall. The founder of the Miracle Project and mother to a now-adult neurodivergent son, Hall is an acting coach who has worked for more than 20 years to increase the presence and understanding of neurodivergent and disabled people. She is often asked to gauge the ability of actors to take on a certain role — their ease with the material, their physical stamina, their level of independence and their emotional accessibility.

Delbis, she says, ticked all the boxes. He loves horror films, he was on the track team and he was, at the time, about to travel without his parents on a school trip to Sweden.

He is, as he says himself, “a low-key guy,” so Hall gave him some exercises to help him portray more extreme emotions and prepare him for when other cast members might do the same. (One subsequent rehearsal involved a scene in which one of the actors screamed repeatedly.)

Often, Hall says, perfecting these exercises can take weeks; Delbis, working with his mother, did it in a weekend. She also helped him prepare for his meeting with and then chemistry read with Plemons.

Delbis says he was “a bit nervous, though I don’t know why.” He did not recognize Plemons’ name or his face. “I had watched ‘Breaking Bad,’ but I didn’t realize Jesse played Todd. Halfway through [the read], I told him he looked like Todd and he said, ‘That’s because I played him.’ I’ve seen him in other things since then,” Delbis adds. “He’s a very solid actor.”

More important, he says, “Jesse seemed to me to be a very cool guy.”

That feeling is mutual. “When we brought Aidan in, I was excited and a little nervous,” Plemons says during a phone call from London. They started with one of the more extreme scenes from the film. “I was finding my feet too. When it became apparent that he was going to be fine with the darker scenes, I said, ‘This is him; this is Don.’”

While all this was happening, Delbis was finishing his senior year, which included a starring role in a production of “Almost Maine.” “It was not overly hard,” he says, but sometimes it was a lot. “I did one read and then I had to go to rehearsal for the play.”

Venditti remembers that day very well. “Here we were being so careful, treating him like he was fragile and not wanting to overload him,” she says laughing, “and he’s just calmly multitasking.”

When Delbis got the role in May, he and his family signed a nondisclosure agreement, which is why none of his friends knew his news after graduation, and Delbis and his family flew to the U.K. to begin filming. It was a tough secret for his parents to keep. But “any time it looked like I might slip,” Katy says, “Aidan shut me down.” He celebrated his 18th birthday near the set outside of Windsor, where production ran for three months before moving for two weeks in Atlanta.

Hall was hired to be Delbis’ on-set access and creative coach, a job she believes she has invented, meant to make the experience for neurodivergent and disabled actors easier. She suggested that Lanthimos and Tracy simplify Delbis’ script pages, stripping down the description of action “so he wouldn’t get stuck thinking he had to do exactly what was on the page,” she says, which they were happy to do.

“We didn’t want to put any limits on him,” Lanthimos says.

Delbis chose most of his costumes (except a beekeeping suit, motivated by the plot, which he says “was very hot”), which mirrored his own wardrobe preferences down to the horror film t-shirts and mismatched socks. Even the food Teddy and Don eat during the film reflects Delbis’ taste: mac ’n’ cheese, taquitos, spaghetti.

Hall ensured Delbis had extra time before filming, during which she could help him prepare with rehearsal and centering exercises. She visited the set before he arrived so she could tell him exactly what to expect and worked with the production team to ensure that he had his own space between takes. “They built us a little house, with horror posters on the wall and stuffed animals that looked like his cats,” she says. As there were no Goldfish available in the U.K., the production had them flown in.

“Having Elaine there was amazing,” Venditti says. “The idea of having someone to act as eyes and ears of what people are actually experiencing on set, I think it’s groundbreaking. I don’t know why we haven’t done it before.”

Delbis spent a fair amount of time with Plemons, who Hall said occasionally stepped in to help if she had to be away from set.

“We did a decent amount of goofing around,” Delbis says. “The bond that developed between us occurred quite naturally. I consider Jesse a friend.”

For his part, Plemons enjoyed being around someone who spoke his mind.

“I so appreciated Aidan’s inability to tell a lie,” Plemons says. “On a set, you spend so much time waiting around, and he would say, ‘What are we doing? What is taking so long?’ Which was exactly what I was thinking. He’s a very smart, sensitive, self-assured guy, and if you’re unclear in what you’re saying, he will let you know.”

“Aidan is just so funny,” says his “Bugonia” co-star Emma Stone. “We spent a lot of time together in a basement and Aidan had so many jokes about that.”

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Stone says that while she and Delbis had a friendly rapport, she hung back a little when they weren’t shooting. “I didn’t want to form the same kind of bond Aidan had with Jesse because [in the film] it’s them against me and I didn’t want to do too much to mess with that.”

But, the two-time Oscar winner says, “Aidan is just so funny. He was on a jag during the kidnapping scene. We spent a lot of time together in a basement and Aidan had so many jokes about that.”

“I went through all of ‘Bugonia’ thinking I had never seen Emma in anything,” Delbis says. “Then I realized my parents had shown me a clip of a woman getting very involved in a birthday card — ‘Pocketful of Sunshine’ — and that was from ‘Easy A.’”

When he was filming, Delbis was all business. Several of the takes which he ad-libbed made it into the film and Delbis is proud of that.

“Despite being in more extreme situations than I’ve been in, there’s something of Don’s emotion and struggles that did feel very familiar to me,” he says. “Feelings of great distress and helplessness and conflictedness and confusion. I have felt that in classes in high school.”

“Aidan has great instincts,” Lanthimos says. “In a scene toward the end [of the film], he was so moving, it was the first time I have ever teared up on set.

There were difficult days — one moment with Plemons, Delbis says, took many takes. “It was hot AF and involved me getting more worked up that I am used to getting,” he remembers. But he appreciated Lanthimos’ willingness to let him try things. “In one scene, Jesse throws a chair and I thought that seemed pretty cool. So at the end of the day, they let me throw a chair. I hope that makes it into the outtakes reel.”

He was also very pleased when the crew threw him a s’mores party at the end of filming. “There was a fire pit on set that looked perfect for s’mores,” he says. “And I told them that, so it was my idea to have a s’mores party.”

Delbis is happy with how the film turned out, including his performance. “I think I looked pretty baller in that suit,” he says of one scene. Though he doesn’t have an opinion on the authenticity debate — whether autistic actors should always be the ones to play autistic characters — he thinks it’s “cool that writers and directors are starting to be more conscientious and give more realistic and respectful depictions of neurodivergent people and characters.”

He is more concerned that audiences understand what he thinks is the most important message of the movie.

“We should try to be more empathetic to people with different worldviews because you never really know what those people are going through,” he says. “The movie feels very relevant to that theme. God knows, people aren’t always willing to be tolerant.”

SHE was famously axed from one of the country’s biggest soaps after joining OnlyFans – and within weeks was among its top creators, earning hundreds of thousands from her racy snaps.

 But Sarah Jayne Dunn‘s X-rated spark has fizzled out, according to pals who say the former Hollyoaks star – who faced accusations she was promoting “pornography” last week – has been left out in the cold. Now, The Sun can reveal things have gone from bad to worse.

An insider told us: “There was a lot of fanfare when Sarah left the soap, and she made a big thing about why it was important to be on OnlyFans.

“It might look plain sailing, but it’s a real slog and actually very isolating. She knows people look at her at the school gates, and you only have to look online to see people’s disgust about what she does.”

Sarah, 44, has raked in some serious cash since she was sacked from Hollyoaks in 2021 after joining OnlyFans.

It’s a bit of a rabbit hole once you get started and pals are worried how far it will go

She made a whopping £121,000 in just 48 hours after her OnlyFans subscribers doubled overnight when she went public about her new career.

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Fans pay just over £11 per month to see Sarah strip off, and her posts have been liked more than 455,000 times since she joined the site four years ago this month. Her subscription numbers are no longer visible to fans.

But as the months have worn on, Sarah has had to deal with lewd, vulgar and creepy comments from her desperate subscribers, who constantly plead with her to flash more flesh.

In the last two weeks alone, her OnlyFans snaps have been littered with explicit remarks, piling on the pressure for even racier content – raising questions about what Sarah’s future on the site will look like.

Our insider continued: “Subscribers have naturally gone down, so Sarah has been working hard to produce more and more racy content. It’s a bit of a rabbit hole once you get started, and those who are still close to her are worried about how far it will go.

“Her son is getting older now, and it can’t be easy for him seeing her pictures and the headlines.”

Sarah has a nine-year-old son, Stanley, with her personal trainer husband, Jonathan Smith.

While she has previously shared a picture of Stan taking over her £20k pole-dancing room, which she had built in her garden, to play his video games, the ex-Oaks star tries to be careful around the youngster when it comes to her day job – because he is becoming “really inquisitive”.

She said last month: “He’s getting to that age where he’s really inquisitive about everything.

“I was sat in the bedroom the other morning doing my make-up, and he comes into the bedroom and goes, ‘Mum, what is p***y?’ I was racking my brain, going, ‘Oh my God, what has he seen?’ I’ve got this book next to my make-up mirror called P***y.”

Sarah – who played Hollyoaks’ Mandy Richardson from 1996 to 2021 – has made no secret of wanting to maintain her wealth and has recently trained as a pole dancing teacher to boost her income.

But she was left embarrassed and fuming after her fitness pole dancing class was banned by a Cheshire venue last week and labelled “borderline pornographic”.

It was the latest blow for the star who has struggled to land TV work and has lost two of her closest friends in her bid to become a top content creator.

Showbiz bust-up

We can reveal she is no longer speaking to Stephanie Waring, who played her onscreen sister, following her fallout with glamour model Rhian Sugden.

Raised eyebrows over her lifestyle choice is not something new for Sarah, who recently admitted she has constantly faced accusations she is baring all on OnlyFans.

She recently said: “Whenever I get stick, it’s because of people going, ‘Well, you’re getting your fl**s out,’ and I’m like, ‘I’m actually not, thank you very much.’

“People just associate the platform with porn. That’s fine, because the platform does have that content, but it doesn’t mean everyone on there is doing that.”

Hollyoaks bosses clearly had a similar view, and we can reveal that since joining OnlyFans, Sarah has had a bust-up with her former co-star Stephanie Waring.

An insider told us: “Sarah and Steph were always very close, but when Sarah started posting online, things between them started to change.

“They have barely spoken since, and Sarah definitely didn’t rush to support her when she was axed from the show last year.

“They don’t even follow each other anymore. It’s very sad it’s come to this.”

Steph has previously said she wouldn’t dream of using her body to make money – unlike Sarah.

Sarah is convinced Steph is one of the people who grassed her up to Hollyoaks bosses

An Insider

She told the Secure The Insecure podcast: “I don’t think I could ever sexualise myself in that way.

“I’m nearly 50 and I just don’t think that’s my angle… never say never, though. People change all the time.”

One of Sarah’s post-Hollyoaks ventures saw her co-host podcast Hot and Bothered alongside Page 3 legend Rhian Sugden, in which the pair discussed everything from sex toys to fetishes.

Sarah and Rhian even took part in a joint lingerie-clad photoshoot to promote their sex podcast – but the pair have since fallen out.

Rhian claimed she had been dropped from the joint podcast, despite reportedly investing thousands in it, and the pair are no longer thought to be on speaking terms.

In 2023, a friend close to the pair said: “Rhian reached out to Sarah after the whole Hollyoaks sacking drama, and she became a real source of support for her.

“They went in on the podcast together and had loads of fun making it – and had loads of listeners.

“It came as a real shock to everyone when Sarah just cut her out. There’s been no contact since, and it’s all very sad.”

Big show dreams

Sarah has also been left hanging by I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! and Strictly Come Dancing bosses.

Last weekend, she made it clear to her OnlyFans followers how much she wants to land a spot on her dream show – Strictly.

She posted a picture wearing a see-through red bra with sequins, with her nipples clearly visible, and asked her followers: “Who’d like to see me on Strictly?!”

Sarah received just one response. The follower wrote: “People would [black love heart emoji] to see you on Strictly!”

The star also has her heart set on appearing in I’m A Celebrity, which is filmed in the Australian jungle.

A source told us: “Sarah has made no secret of the fact she would love to head into the jungle, or on the Strictly ballroom, but neither shows have come calling yet.

“They are dream paydays for most out-of-work actors and content creators, and she is desperate to appear on one.”

Another pal close to Sarah insisted:  “Sarah is under no pressure around her OnlyFans work, she is able to be fully in control of her life, work as and when she wants, and it’s afforded her numerous wonderful opportunities.

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“With regards to any mention of a fall out with friends, there is certainly no falling out from Sarah’s side, so this is news to her. Sarah is a huge fan of Strictly Come Dancing, so naturally would love to be on the show!”

It doesn’t look like BBC bosses will be calling her to swap pole dancing for the ballroom just yet, so for now, Sarah may have to stick to the sexy snaps.

OLIVIA Attwood appears to have sent a stark warning to fellow Loose Women panelist GK Barry after she hit out at “fake friends.”

The Love Island alum, 34, didn’t hold back as she went on a comment ‘liking’ spree on Instagram.

It came just hours after Olivia took a swipe at an “attention seeking” pal and admitted it had been “awful.”

While the TV star didn’t specify who she was talking about in a new clip uploaded to TikTok, but referred to them as a “tick.“

Yet fans suspected she was talking about former buddy Ryan Kay, after she told of their fallout earlier this year.

And she dropped another huge hint when she began to like fan comments warning podcast host and Loose Women panelist Grace about him, after he styled her for the ITV daytime series.

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Olivia liked comments about him moving on to Grace and how he needs to be warned, as well as how Grace should be worried.

One said: “Ryan … Grace should be worried.”

Another wrote: “He’s moved onto Grace now she needs to be warned.”

The Bad Boyfriends anchor also liked a message which read: “Never liked the guy, he did the same with Ester from Cheshire housewives. Used her for personal gain then moved on to the next.”

She then commented: “So small. Literally they lived in my house, I paid for holidays, dinners, nights out, more gifts than I can even count.”

We previously told how reality TV star Olivia had fallen out with her former assistant and stylist Ryan – who both share matching tattoos and were once inseparable.

LIV’S RANT

Over the weekend, Liv’s fans told how she looked “proper hurt” in her video rant.

She captioned her clip: “I feel like so many people will have gone through this experience.” 

Olivia then said: “We all know this person who can’t keep a job, they can’t keep a friend, they have no long-term friends that they can keep for more than a year. 

“But it’s never their fault. They’re always the victim. This is a professional victim. You watch the cycle play out and you can now see the people who were before you and see your part in the cycle. 

“And then you can see who they’ve now moved onto next.” 

The star went on: “I always think that with these kinds of people, they don’t move on to new friends, but instead they move on to new hosts.

“They’re like a tick – a tick has to be attached to you and drink your blood – and it has to have a host body. So, once it leaves your body it’s going to go and host on another body.” 

PAL FALLOUT

Meanwhile, last month, she broke her silence on her unexpected fallout with Ryan.

Former Love Island star Olivia revealed the reason on social media during a Q&A with fans.

One asked: “What happened with your mate?”

She responded: “I am just very hurt if I’m honest. Prior to what you might have read.

“I had to respect myself and enjoy a line. It was something that played out over a few months.

“And I guess I hadn’t seen things that I should of… I think? “

She continued: “I give everything (in every sense of the word) to friendships and don’t let very many people in so it suckkkkks.

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“It’s not something I can really explain on a story but I will at some point?”

She then hit out at Ryan in a cryptic message and confirmed their friendship’s turned toxic.

LIFE is better together – and that goes for your bank balance, too.

Buddying up can mean all sorts of savings, from everyday bills to days out.

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Here’s how to get a cash boost by sharing the love . . . 

REFERRALS: If you’ve had great service from a company, why not let your pals know?

Many firms will reward you if you refer someone as a new customer.

This is true for most utility providers, as well as credit card firms.

Even just referring a mate to cashback site TopCashback will net you £20.

So next time you’re telling someone about a great offer, check if you can get something for the recommendation.

Just make sure you get sign-ups through your own unique links or codes to get the reward.

BULK BUYS: If you’re buying tickets for an event, always try to buy with friends and then split the total between you.

This means that if there are booking fees you’ll only pay one between you.

Plus, many venues offer multi-ticket savings that are worth looking for.

For example, you can pay £24.50 to visit the Minecraft Experience in London, but this reduces to £18.50 each if there are seven or more tickets bought through a group bundle.

FRIEND FOR THE ROAD: Travelling can be expensive but you can ease the pressure with others in tow.

Ride app Uber easily allows you to add extra pick-ups on the way to a destination and divide the bill with contacts who also have an account.

If you have a pal who you frequently travel with, the Two Together railcard is £35 a year but gives you a third off off-peak fares when you travel together.

Or with GroupSave, groups of three or more adults can get a third off off-peak train fares when travelling together.

For regular journeys, such as to the office, why not ask work friends if they fancy lift sharing and you can take it in turns to drive.

You’ll save on petrol and get a little added company too.

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• All prices on page correct at time of going to press. Deals and offers subject to availability. 

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This caramel ball, £1.98 from Asda, is just as tasty.

WHAT’S NEW? 

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You can get them for £2 from Sainsbury’s with a Nectar card (£2.50 without).

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Sept. 22 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 1776, the British hanged American Revolutionary War hero and patriot Nathan Hale. His famous last words were, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing some 3 million slaves.

In 1888, National Geographic began publishing.

In 1927, Jack Dempsey muffed a chance to regain the heavyweight championship when he knocked down Gene Tunney but failed to go to a neutral corner promptly, thereby delaying the referee’s count and giving the champ time to get up.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed a law giving the Peace Corps permanent status. He hailed it as a way for Americans to work for world peace and understanding.

In 1975, U.S. President Gerald Ford escaped a second assassination attempt in 17 days, this one by self-proclaimed revolutionary Sara Jane Moore, who tried to shoot him as he walked from a San Francisco hotel. Her shot, deflected by ex-Marine Oliver Sipple, a bystander who grabbed her arm, slightly wounded a man in the crowd. Moore served 32 years of a life prison sentence. She was released in 2007 at the age of 77. Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, convicted in a Sept. 5, 1975, assassination attempt in Sacramento, was paroled in 2009, at age 60, after 34 years in prison.

File Photo courtesy Gerald R. Ford Library

In 1980, long-standing border disputes and political turmoil in Iran prompted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to launch an invasion of Iran’s oil-producing province of Khuzestan, touching off an eight-year war.

In 1985, more than 50 rock and country stars, headed by Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp, staged the 14-hour Farm Aid concert for 78,000 rain-soaked spectators in Champaign, Ill., raising $10 million for debt-ridden U.S. farmers.

File Photo by Armand Engelbrecht/UPI

In 1994, Friends, starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer, premiered on NBC. The comedy series ran for 10 season, each of which was ranked in the Top 10 of the final TV season ratings.

In 2008, officials at China’s health ministry said nearly 53,000 children, most of them younger than 2 years old, had been sickened by milk powder tainted with an industrial chemical. At least four children died. Ten Asian and African nations, including Japan, temporarily banned Chinese dairy products.

In 2010, a Miami appeals court affirmed the adoption of two foster children by a gay couple, ruling Florida’s ban on same-sex adoption was unconstitutional.

In 2017, the U.S. Marine Corps announced that for the first time in its 250-year history, a woman will be joining its ranks as an infantry officer.

In 2019, Billy Porter became the first openly gay man to win an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama in a Series for Pose.

In 2020, the United States reported a milestone 200,000 deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic.

File Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI

GLENDALE, Ariz. — President Trump and prominent members of his Make America Great Again movement paid tribute Sunday to Charlie Kirk, praising the slain political conservative activist as a singular force whose work they must now advance.

The memorial service for Kirk, whom the president credits with playing a pivotal role in his 2024 election victory, drew tens of thousands of mourners, including Trump and Vice President JD Vance, other senior administration officials and young conservatives shaped by the 31-year-old firebrand.

Speakers highlighted Kirk’s profound faith and his strong belief that young conservatives need to get married, build families and pass on their values to keep building their movement. Those close to Kirk prayed and the floors shook from the bass of Christian rock bands as the home of the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals took on the feel of a megachurch service.

“Charlie looked at politics as an onramp to Jesus,” said the Rev. Rob McCoy, Kirk’s pastor.

Kirk’s killing at a Sept. 10 appearance on a Utah college campus has become a singular moment for the modern-day conservative movement. It also has set off a fierce national debate about violence and free speech in an era of deepening political division.

The shooting has stirred concern among some Americans who say that Trump is harnessing outrage over the killing as justification to suppress the voices of his critics and target political opponents.

High security and a full stadium

People began lining up before dawn to secure a spot inside State Farm Stadium west of Phoenix, where Kirk’s Turning Point organization is based. Security was tight, similar to the Super Bowl and similar high-profile events.

The 63,400-seat stadium quickly filled with people dressed in red, white and blue, as organizers suggested.

“I think that this is going to change things, and I think he made such a difference,” said Crystal Herman, who traveled from Branson, Mo. “He deserves us to be here.”

Photos of Kirk at work or with his wife, Erika, were on easels throughout the concession areas of the main concourse level. Some people posed for photos next to them.

“We’re going to celebrate the life of a great man today,” Trump told reporters before heading to Arizona. He said he was bracing for a “tough day.”

Trump has blamed the “radical left” for Kirk’s death and threatened to go after liberal organizations and donors or others he deems to be maligning Kirk or celebrating his death.

Many people, including journalists, teachers and late-show host Jimmy Kimmel have faced suspensions or lost their jobs as prominent conservative activists and administration officials target comments about Kirk that they deem offensive. The retaliation has in turn ignited a debate over the 1st Amendment as the Republican administration promises retribution against those who air remarks to which it objects.

Kirk was a provocateur who at times made statements seen by many as racist, misogynistic, anti-immigrant and transphobic. That has drawn backlash from some conservatives who cast the criticism as cherry-picking a few select moments to insult the legacy of someone they see as an inspirational leader.

A 22-year-old Utah man, Tyler Robinson, has been charged with killing Kirk and faces the death penalty if convicted of the most serious charges. Authorities have not revealed a clear motive in the shooting, but prosecutors say Robinson wrote in a text to his partner after the shooting that he “had enough” of what he considered to be Kirk’s hatred.

Kirk’s legacy

Turning Point, the group Kirk founded to mobilize young Christian conservatives, became a multimillion-dollar operation under his leadership with enormous reach.

“Charlie’s having some serious heavenly FOMO right now,” Turning Point Chief Executive Tyler Bower said, likening the moment to bringing “the Holy Spirit into a Trump rally.”

The crowd was a testament to the massive influence Kirk accumulated in conservative America with his ability to mobilize young people.

“I think he spoke on more than just politics,” Michael Link, 29, said outside the stadium. “Now that he’s gone, it’s like, who’s gonna speak for us now?”

His impact on modern-day conservatism went beyond U.S. shores.

Kirk “was very effective because he was convinced of his views and knew how to argue them,” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said at a political rally Sunday in Rome. “But he never stopped smiling, never stopped respecting his interlocutor and anyone who challenged him.”

Kirk was a MAGA celebrity with a loyal following that turned out to support or argue with him as he traveled the country for the events like the one at Utah Valley University, where he was shot. Kirk expanded the organization, in large part through the force of his personality and debating chops.

Arizona is the adopted home state of Kirk, who grew up outside Chicago and founded Turning Point there before moving the organization to Phoenix. Vance has said Kirk’s advocacy was a big reason Trump picked him as his vice presidential running mate last year.

Scheduled speakers at the service included Trump, Vance, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Donald Trump Jr., right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson and White House aides Stephen Miller and Sergio Gor also were set to speak.

Also scheduled to speak was Kirk’s widow, who has been named Turning Point’s new leader and has pledged that “the movement my husband built will not die.”

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, whose official residence was set ablaze by a suspected arsonist in April while the governor was celebrating Passover with his family and friends inside, said in a television interview broadcast Sunday that Americans must now come together to find “our better angels.”

“We’ve got to universally condemn political violence no matter where it is,” Shapiro said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Cooper, Garcia and Madhani write for the Associated Press. Cooper and Garcia reported from Glendale, Madhani from Washington. AP writers Tiffany Stanley in Washington, Silvia Stellacci in Rome and Terry Tang contributed to this report.

“Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade apologized Sunday for remarks he made last week that suggested using involuntary lethal injections to get mentally ill homeless people off the streets.

Kilmeade’s comments came during a discussion last Wednesday on “Fox & Friends” about the Aug. 22 stabbing death of a 23-year Ukranian refugee, Iryna Zarutska, on a light rail train in Charlotte, N.C.

Zarutska’s suspected killer, DeCarlos Brown Jr., is a homeless man with a long criminal record and is a paranoid schizophrenic, according to his family.

The attack on Zarutska was captured on security cameras and circulated widely online. The incident has sparked a national debate on public safety policy and criminal sentencing.

The topic led “Fox & Friends” co-host Laurence Jones to say that billions of dollars have been spent on programs to care for the homeless and mentally ill but many of those afflicted resist help.

“A lot of them don’t want to take the programs,” Jones said. “A lot of them don’t want to get the help that is necessary. You can’t give them the choice. Either you take the resources that we’re going to give you, or you decide that you’ve got to be locked up in jail.”

Kilmeade added: “Or involuntary lethal injection or something — just kill ‘em.”

A clip of Kilmeade’s remarks started to circulate widely on X on Saturday.

“I apologize for that extremely callous remark,” Kilmeade said during Sunday’s edition of the morning program. “I am obviously aware that not all mentally ill, homeless people act as the perpetrator did in North Carolina and that so many homeless people deserve our empathy and compassion.”

Many online commentators pointed out that Kilmeade’s comments evoked the extermination of mentally ill and disabled people that was authorized by Adolf Hitler in 1939. The German chancellor’s euthanasia program killed more than 250,000 people ahead of the Holocaust.

For now, Kilmeade has avoided the fate of political analyst Matthew Dowd, who lost his contributor role at MSNBC after commenting on the Wednesday shooting death of right wing political activist Charlie Kirk.

Dowd told MSNBC anchor Katy Tur that “hateful thoughts lead to hateful words which then lead to hateful actions.”

Dowd, once a political strategist for President George W. Bush, described Kirk as a divisive figure “who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups.”

The angry reaction on social media was immediate after Dowd’s comments suggested that Kirk’s history of incendiary remarks led to the shooting.

Rebecca Kutler, president of MSNBC, issued an apology and cut ties with Dowd.

Dowd also apologized in a post on BlueSky. “I in no way intended intended to blame Kirk for this horrendous attack,” he said.

The top executives at MSNBC parent Comcast sent a company-wide memo Friday citing Dowd’s firing and told employees “we need to do better.”

Fox News is launching a new Sunday program with its senior White House correspondents Peter Doocy and Jacqui Heinrich, the network announced Wednesday.

The new Washington-based program called “The Sunday Briefing” will replace “MediaBuzz,” the long-running media criticism show hosted by Howie Kurtz that airs at 11 a.m. Eastern.

Heinrich and Doocy will rotate as solo hosts of the “The Sunday Briefing.” Both have covered the White House for Fox News since 2021.

In a statement, Fox News said the new program, which debuts Sept. 21, “will tackle all facets of the White House beat, including the President of the United States’ national and international moves as well as the key issues impacting the administration.”

The son of “Fox & Friends” host Steve Doocy, Peter Doocy, 38, gained notoriety for his combative questions in the White House briefing room during the Biden administration.

Fox News senior White House Correspondent Peter Doocy.

(Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

Heinrich, 36, is a highly respected Washington correspondent known for straight reporting on the conservative-leaning network. Her fact-driven approach has occasionally annoyed the Trump administration and opinion hosts at the network who ardently support the president.

Kurtz has anchored “MediaBuzz” since 2013. He will remain at the network as a political media analyst and continue to host a podcast. His final TV program is Sunday.

Kurtz came to Fox from CNN, where he was the original host of “Reliable Sources.” The media criticism program was canceled in 2022 when it was hosted by Brian Stelter.

Fox News is also adding a new weekend program with former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. “Saturday in America with Kayleigh McEnany” will air for two hours at 10 a.m. Eastern.

McEnany joined Fox News in March 2021 as a commentator and was later named as a co-host on the daily daytime talk show “Outnumbered.” She will continue in that role.

Fox News also named Griff Jenkins as the new co-host of the weekend edition of “Fox & Friends.” The program has used rotating co-hosts since Pete Hegseth departed to join the Trump administration as Secretary of Defense.

Jenkins, a Fox News correspondent since 2003, will sit alongside current “Fox & Friends Weekend” co-hosts Rachel Campos-Duffy and Charlie Hurt.

Fox News also named conservative commentator Tomi Lahren and Iraq war veteran Johnny Jones as permanent co-hosts for its weekend panel program “The Big Weekend Show.”

More and more Brits are choosing to ditch their annual holidays with their family and instead head out for some fun with their friends – from birthdays to honeymoons and wellness resets

More and more Brits are ditching the traditional family holiday or romantic getaway to go on breaks with friends, according to new research.

Overall, 36% of people said they preferred to travel with pals than partners or relatives – but that number soared to 60% for Londoners. The study, commissioned by mobile provider giffgaff, found that four is the perfect number of travelling buddies with birthday blowouts (57%) topping the list of reasons Brits want a ‘hunnymoon’.

Wanting some fun (51%), escaping the kids (25%), a chance to focus on health and wellness (19%) and celebrating friendship anniversaries (17%) were also on the list. But though we may opt to travel with friends rather than family, Brits are still keen to keep in touch.

Around 39% said contacting loved ones at home was the top reason to use mobile data on holiday. Ash Schofield, CEO at giffgaff, said: “It’s clear that as a nation we love to stay connected while abroad and share news and pictures of our holidays with friends and family back home.

“But our research shows that people are rationing or denying themselves data usage while away, which must be quite limiting and frustrating at times. That’s why giffgaff makes sure that members stay connected with up to 5GB of inclusive roaming in 40+ EU and selected destinations at no extra cost. ”

To celebrate the UK’s love of a group getaway and the launch of its new travel data add-ons available in 40+ EU countries and selected destinations, giffgaff is opening a pop-up travel lounge this weekend (August 23 and 24) by the Gatwick Express platform at London Victoria Station.

The survey found that access to a departure lounge was on the holiday wish list for 43% of us, so the Holidata Lounge has been created to get ‘hun-in-the-sun’ fun started early. Perks feature those identified as setting travellers up for the ultimate holiday, including complimentary drinks (56%), free travel treats such as sun cream (50%) and assistance with roaming or mobile data before take-off (23%).

Holidaymakers can also relax in the lounge’s Ball Pool Bar or limber up for their flight with Air-obics sessions Giffgaff customers have priority access to the lounge via an exclusive queue jump.

Islamabad, Pakistan – With clasped hands and half-smiles, the foreign ministers of Pakistan, China and Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban posed as they gathered in Kabul on Wednesday for a trilateral meeting.

It was the second such meeting between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Pakistan’s Ishaq Dar and their Afghan counterpart Amir Khan Muttaqi in 12 weeks, after they huddled together in Beijing in May.

That May meeting had led to the resumption of diplomatic ties between Pakistan and Afghanistan after a period of high tension between them. It also set the stage for talks on extending the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – a part of China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – into Afghanistan. The BRI is a network of ports, railroads and highways aimed at connecting Asia, Africa and Europe.

But as China plans to expand its footprint in the region, its attempts to forge peace between Pakistan and Afghanistan reflect its unease over the security of its interests even along the existing CPEC, say analysts.

And while Beijing is a vital partner to both Islamabad and Kabul, experts believe its influence over both remains untested, as does China’s willingness to take on the risks that it might confront if it seeks to bring Pakistan and the Taliban, once thick allies but now embittered neighbours, back into a trusted embrace, they say.

The Sixth Trilateral Foreign Ministers Dialogue was held on 20 August 2025 in Kabul between Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister of Pakistan @MIshaqDar50, Foreign Minister of China @MFA_China, and Acting Foreign Minister of Afghanistan @mfa_afghanistan, focusing on political,… pic.twitter.com/i6n8I2oYgr

— Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Pakistan (@ForeignOfficePk) August 20, 2025

Shifting regional dynamics

The Beijing conclave took place under the shadow of a four-day conflict between Pakistan and India, but much has changed since then on the regional chessboard.

In recent months, Pakistan – long seen as China’s closest ally and reliant on its northeastern neighbour for military and economic support – has strengthened ties with the United States, Beijing’s main global rival.

China, for its part, has resumed engagement with India, Pakistan’s arch adversary and its key competitor for regional influence. India has also continued to deepen ties with the Afghan Taliban, who have ruled Afghanistan since August 2021, following the withdrawal of US forces.

Pakistan and Afghanistan, meanwhile, remain at odds. Islamabad was once the Taliban’s chief patron. Now, it accuses the group of providing a safe haven to groups carrying out cross-border violence, while Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of human rights violations by expelling Afghan refugees.

Amid this, China has positioned itself as mediator, a role driven largely by the CPEC, the $62bn infrastructure project running from the Pakistan-China border in the north to Gwadar Port in Balochistan.

A senior Pakistani diplomat with direct knowledge of the recent Pakistani interactions with their Chinese and Afghan counterparts said China, as a common neighbour, places a premium on neighbourhood diplomacy. For China, he added, a peaceful neighbourhood is essential.

“China has attached high importance to stability and security to pursue and expand its larger BRI project, so expansion of westward connectivity and development can only succeed when, among others, these two countries are stabilised,” the official told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.

“Development and connectivity cannot be achieved in the absence of security. Hence its efforts to bring the two neighbours together,” he added.

CPEC under strain

CPEC, launched in 2015 under then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, elder brother of current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, has been hailed by many in Pakistan as a “game-changer” for the country – a giant investment with the potential to create jobs and build the economy.

But the project has slowed down in recent years. Later this month, Prime Minister Sharif is expected to travel to China to formally launch the second phase of the CPEC.

While political upheaval has hampered progress, China’s primary concerns remain the safety of infrastructure and the security of its nationals, who have frequently been targeted.

Separatist groups in Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest but poorest province, have long attacked Chinese personnel and installations, accusing them of exploiting local resources. Attacks on Chinese citizens have also occurred in Pakistan’s north.

Nearly 20,000 Chinese nationals currently live in Pakistan, according to government figures. Since 2021, at least 20 have been killed in attacks across the country.

Stella Hong Zhang, assistant professor at Indiana University Bloomington in the US, said China has long wanted to bring Afghanistan into the CPEC, to expand the project’s scope and to promote regional integration.

But Zhang, whose research focuses on China’s global development engagement, said it is unclear how convinced Beijing is about investing in either Afghanistan or Pakistan.

“China might promise investments, but even though we are seeing actions on China’s diplomacy front,” she told Al Jazeera, it is uncertain whether officials in the two nations “will be able to convince China’s state-owned enterprises and banks to invest in further projects in both countries, given CPEC’s disappointing track record and the substantial risks in both countries”.

For Muhammad Faisal, a South Asia security researcher at the University of Technology Sydney, improvement in Pakistan’s internal security is paramount for China.

“This concern is what guides Beijing’s push for improvement in Pak-Afghan bilateral ties since the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is operating from the Afghan soil, while Baloch militant groups have also found space in Afghanistan,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Through high-level trilateral talks, Beijing is aiming to narrow Islamabad-Kabul differences and also urge both sides to address each other’s security concerns to avert a breakdown of ties,” he added.

Pakistan Taliban, also known as TTP, founded in 2007, is a group which is ideologically aligned with the Taliban in Afghanistan but operates independently both in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Taliban has repeatedly rejected allegations that it allows its soil to be used for attacks against Pakistan and has consistently denied any ties with the TTP.

Security challenges

Since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, Pakistan has faced a sharp rise in violence, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, both bordering Afghanistan.

Islamabad has repeatedly alleged that Afghan soil is being used by armed groups, especially the TTP, to launch attacks across the porous frontier.

Data from the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) shows that in the first six months of 2025, 502 fighter attacks killed 737 people, including 284 security personnel and 267 civilians.

Compared with the first half of 2024, fighter attacks rose 5 percent, deaths surged 121 percent, and injuries increased 84 percent, according to PICSS.

China, too, has also voiced concern over the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), accusing its fighters of using Afghan territory to launch attacks against China.

Abdul Basit, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said that since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, China has emerged as South Asia’s main geopolitical player.

“Without addressing Pakistan’s Afghan-centric security concerns, BRI’s Pakistan component, CPEC, will remain underutilised and underdeveloped. Hence, China has started the trilateral to help Afghanistan and Pakistan resolve their security issues under a holistic policy which tries to isolate economy and diplomacy from security trouble,” he told Al Jazeera.

Faisal, of the University of Technology Sydney, added that China brings political weight, offering both diplomatic backing at multilateral organisations – particularly on counterterrorism – and the promise of economic inducements.

But he was cautious about Beijing’s long-term leverage. “Beyond underlining the importance of stability via enhanced security coordination between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the outcomes of China’s efforts have been limited, partially due to Beijing’s own security anxieties,” he said.

The senior Pakistani diplomat said China’s BRI and related projects have brought it leverage in Southeast Asia and Central Asia, and expressed optimism that Beijing could bring about change between Pakistan and Afghanistan “armed with the political, diplomatic, economic and financial tools”, even if results have so far been limited.

But will China act as mediator and guarantor between Pakistan and Afghanistan? The diplomat was sceptical.

“As for guarantorship, I’m not sure whether China is willing or keen to do so. It certainly can play that role because of a high degree of trust it enjoys, but whether it would do so or not remains to be seen,” he said.

Bobby Whitlock, the keyboardist, singer-songwriter and co-founder of the blues-rock group Derek and the Dominos, has died. He was 77.

In a statement, his manager, Carole Kaye, said, “With profound sadness, the family of Bobby Whitlock announces his passing at 1:20 a.m. on Aug. 10 after a brief illness. He passed in his home in Texas, surrounded by family.”

Although Derek and the Dominos is perhaps best known for launching singer and guitarist Eric Clapton into solo superstardom, Whitlock was a key contributor to the group’s 1970 debut “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs,” and an influential session musician and singer-songwriter in his own right.

Whitlock was born March 18, 1948, into a poverty-stricken early life in Millington, Tenn., a suburb of Memphis. His keyboard and piano skills, formed around Southern church traditions, led him to eavesdropping on sessions at Stax Records’ studios, which took notice of his uncommonly soulful musicianship. Stax Records signed him to its new pop-focused imprint HIP — he was the first white artist to join singers like Otis Redding and Sam & Dave at the label group.

His major breakthrough came when he was asked to join Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, an acclaimed rock-soul combo whose collaborators included generationally important artists like Duane and Gregg Allman, Leon Russell, George Harrison and Clapton.

Delaney & Bonnie and Friends took Whitlock on tour with Clapton’s supergroup, Blind Faith, and Clapton used much of that band’s lineup to record his 1970 solo debut. He later asked Whitlock to join him in a new combo (with bassist Carl Radle and drummer Jim Gordon), assembled to back Harrison on “All Things Must Pass,” which became Derek and the Dominos.

“The empathy amongst all the musicians outcropped most noticeably in Bobby Whitlock, in whom Eric found an accomplished and sympathetic songwriting partner and back-up vocalist,” Clapton biographer Harry Shapiro wrote in “Eric Clapton: Lost in the Blues.”

On “Layla,” the group’s sole studio LP, Whitlock wrote or co-wrote half of the album’s songs, including “Bell Bottom Blues” and “Tell the Truth.” A U.S. tour featured opener Elton John, who wrote in his autobiography that, among the Dominos, “it was their keyboard player Bobby Whitlock that I watched like a hawk. He was from Memphis, learned his craft hanging around Stax Studios and played with that soulful, deep Southern gospel feel.”

While the band’s drug use and personal tensions eventually led to a split, Whitlock released his self-titled solo debut in 1972 and “Raw Velvet,” a follow-up that same year. As a session musician, he played on the Rolling Stones’ “Exile on Main St.” and Dr. John’s “The Sun, Moon & Herbs.”

He continued releasing solo material through the ’70s, returning in the ’90s and often collaborating with his wife and musical partner CoCo Carmel.

“How do you express in but a few words the grandness of one man who came from abject poverty in the south to heights unimagined in such a short time,” Carmel said in a statement to The Times. “My love Bobby looked at life as an adventure taking me by the hand leading me through a world of wonderment from music to poetry and painting. As he would always say: ‘Life is what you make it, so take it and make it beautiful.’ And he did.”

Whitlock is survived by his wife and children Ashley Faye Brown, Beau Elijah Whitlock and Tim Whitlock Kelly.

Once again, as the presidential campaign season gets underway, the leading candidates are going to enormous lengths to demonstrate their devotion to the state of Israel and their steadfast commitment to its “special relationship” with the United States.

Each of the main contenders emphatically favors giving Israel extraordinary material and diplomatic support — continuing the more than $3 billion in foreign aid each year to a country whose per capita income is now 29th in the world. They also believe that this aid should be given unconditionally. None of them criticizes Israel’s conduct, even when its actions threaten U.S. interests, are at odds with American values or even when they are harmful to Israel itself. In short, the candidates believe that the U.S. should support Israel no matter what it does.

Such pandering is hardly surprising, because contenders for high office routinely court special interest groups, and Israel’s staunchest supporters — the Israel lobby, as we have termed it — expect it. Politicians do not want to offend Jewish Americans or “Christian Zionists,” two groups that are deeply engaged in the political process. Candidates fear, with some justification, that even well-intentioned criticism of Israel’s policies may lead these groups to turn against them and back their opponents instead.

If this happened, trouble would arise on many fronts. Israel’s friends in the media would take aim at the candidate, and campaign contributions from pro-Israel individuals and political action committees would go elsewhere. Moreover, most Jewish voters live in states with many electoral votes, which increases their weight in close elections (remember Florida in 2000?), and a candidate seen as insufficiently committed to Israel would lose some of their support. And no Republican would want to alienate the pro-Israel subset of the Christian evangelical movement, which is a significant part of the GOP base.

Indeed, even suggesting that the U.S. adopt a more impartial stance toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can get a candidate into serious trouble. When Howard Dean proposed during the 2004 campaign that the United States take a more “evenhanded” role in the peace process, he was severely criticized by prominent Democrats, and a rival for the nomination, Sen. Joe Lieberman, accused him of “selling Israel down the river” and said Dean’s comments were “irresponsible.”

Word quickly spread in the American Jewish community that Dean was hostile to Israel, even though his campaign co-chair was a former president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Dean had been strongly pro-Israel throughout his career. The candidates in the 2008 election surely want to avoid Dean’s fate, so they are all trying to prove that they are Israel’s best friend.

These candidates, however, are no friends of Israel. They are facilitating its pursuit of self-destructive policies that no true friend would favor.

The key issue here is the future of Gaza and the West Bank, which Israel conquered in 1967 and still controls. Israel faces a stark choice regarding these territories, which are home to roughly 3.8 million Palestinians. It can opt for a two-state solution, turning over almost all of the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians and allowing them to create a viable state on those lands in return for a comprehensive peace agreement designed to allow Israel to live securely within its pre-1967 borders (with some minor modifications). Or it can retain control of the territories it occupies or surrounds, building more settlements and bypass roads and confining the Palestinians to a handful of impoverished enclaves in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel would control the borders around those enclaves and the air above them, thus severely restricting the Palestinians’ freedom of movement.

But if Israel chooses this second option, it will lead to an apartheid state. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said as much when he recently proclaimed that if “the two-state solution collapses,” Israel will “face a South African-style struggle.” He went so far as to argue that “as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished.” Similarly, Israel’s deputy prime minister, Haim Ramon, said earlier this month that “the occupation is a threat to the existence of the state of Israel.” Other Israelis, as well as Jimmy Carter and Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have warned that continuing the occupation will turn Israel into an apartheid state. Nevertheless, Israel continues to expand its settlements on the West Bank while the plight of the Palestinians worsens.

Given this grim situation, one would expect the presidential candidates, who claim to care deeply about Israel, to be sounding the alarm and energetically championing a two-state solution. One would expect them to have encouraged President Bush to put significant pressure on both the Israelis and the Palestinians at the recent Annapolis conference and to keep the pressure on when he visits the region this week. As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently observed, settling this conflict is also in America’s interest, not to mention the Palestinians’.

One would certainly expect Hillary Clinton to be leading the charge here. After all, she wisely and bravely called for establishing a Palestinian state “that is on the same footing as other states” in 1998, when it was still politically incorrect to use the words “Palestinian state” openly. Moreover, her husband not only championed a two-state solution as president but he laid out the famous “Clinton parameters” in December 2000, which outline the only realistic deal for ending the conflict.

But what is Clinton saying now that she is a candidate? She said hardly anything about pushing the peace process forward at Annapolis, and remained silent when Rice criticized Israel’s subsequent announcement that it planned to build more than 300 new housing units in East Jerusalem. More important, both she and GOP aspirant Rudy Giuliani recently proclaimed that Jerusalem must remain undivided, a position that is at odds with the Clinton parameters and virtually guarantees that there will be no Palestinian state.

Sen. Clinton’s behavior is hardly unusual among the candidates for president. Barack Obama, who expressed some sympathy for the Palestinians before he set his sights on the White House, now has little to say about their plight, and he too said little about what should have been done at Annapolis to facilitate peace. The other major contenders are ardent in their declarations of support for Israel, and none of them apparently sees a two-state solution as so urgent that they should press both sides to reach an agreement. As Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S. national security advisor and now a senior advisor to Obama, noted, “The presidential candidates don’t see any payoff in addressing the Israel-Palestinian issue.” But they do see a significant political payoff in backing Israel to the hilt, even when it is pursuing a policy — colonizing the West Bank — that is morally and strategically bankrupt.

In short, the presidential candidates are no friends of Israel. They are like most U.S. politicians, who reflexively mouth pro-Israel platitudes while continuing to endorse and subsidize policies that are in fact harmful to the Jewish state. A genuine friend would tell Israel that it was acting foolishly, and would do whatever he or she could to get Israel to change its misguided behavior. And that will require challenging the special interest groups whose hard-line views have been obstacles to peace for many years.

As former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami argued in 2006, the American presidents who have made the greatest contribution to peace — Carter and George H.W. Bush — succeeded because they were “ready to confront Israel head-on and overlook the sensibilities of her friends in America.” If the Democratic and Republican contenders were true friends of Israel, they would be warning it about the danger of becoming an apartheid state, just as Carter did.

Moreover, they would be calling for an end to the occupation and the creation of a viable Palestinian state. And they would be calling for the United States to act as an honest broker between Israel and the Palestinians so that Washington could pressure both sides to accept a solution based on the Clinton parameters. Implementing a final-status agreement will be difficult and take a number of years, but it is imperative that the two sides formally agree on the solution and then implement it in ways that protect each side.

But Israel’s false friends cannot say any of these things, or even discuss the issue honestly. Why? Because they fear that speaking the truth would incur the wrath of the hard-liners who dominate the main organizations in the Israel lobby. So Israel will end up controlling Gaza and the West Bank for the foreseeable future, turning itself into an apartheid state in the process. And all of this will be done with the backing of its so-called friends, including the current presidential candidates. With friends like them, who needs enemies?

The Avengers will soon be assembling for a much younger demographic.

Disney Jr. plans to expand its collaboration with Marvel, announcing a new series launching in 2027 titled “Marvel’s Avengers: Mightiest Friends.” It’s a partnership that began in 2021 when Disney Jr. premiered “Spidey and His Amazing Friends,” the first full-length Marvel preschool series, and has expanded to include the upcoming “Iron Man and His Awesome Friends.”

“Disney Jr. are the pros at this age group,” says Brad Winderbaum, head of Marvel Studios television and animation. “‘Spidey and His Amazing Friends’ was our first shot at giving little kids a front-row seat to the Marvel Universe.”

Currently in its fourth season with two additional seasons already greenlit, “Spidey” has been wildly successful. It’s the first Disney Jr. series to run for more than five seasons and is the second most popular streaming series (after “Bluey”) for children ages 2 to 5, according to Nielsen.

“The success of ‘Spidey’ really confirmed we were onto something and proved the demand for superhero stories designed specifically for this age group,” says Alyssa Sapire, head of original programming and strategy at Disney Jr. “It fueled this broader strategy with Disney Jr. and Marvel.”

There’s the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and now there will be the Marvel Preschool Universe. “Marvel’s Avengers: Mightiest Friends” will feature kid versions of all the MCU characters including Spidey, Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Black Panther, Thor and, for the first time, Black Widow. “Avengers are the ultimate learning to play nice story,” Winderbaum says. “It’s endless fun to watch Thor, Widow, Hulk and Cap learn about teamwork. That’s always a fundamental lesson for that group whether it’s in the features or the animated shows.”

Young viewers will get a sneak peek of what’s to come with two “Marvel’s Spidey and Iron Man: Avengers Team Up!” specials. The first 22-minute special premieres Oct. 16 and finds Spidey, Iron Man and all the Avengers stopping Ultron and Green Goblin from their nefarious plans. Another special, this one Halloween-themed, will debut in fall 2026.

“These characters are so timeless and have appealed to audiences across generations,” says Harrison Wilcox, who executive produces all the Marvel preschool series. “What is most important to us is to tell fun, relatable, positive stories that families can enjoy together.”

To that end, next up for Disney Jr. and Marvel is “Iron Man and His Awesome Friends” which will premiere Aug. 11 on Disney Jr. and stream on Disney+ on Aug. 12. Tony Stark and his alter ego, Iron Man, were the natural choice for the next MCU character to get the preschool treatment. “‘Iron Man’ was the film that launched our studio,” Winderbaum says. “We love the idea that a young audience who wasn’t around in 2008 can be introduced to Marvel through a character at the core of Marvel history.”

This series finds Tony Stark (Iron Man) and his best friends Riri Williams (Ironheart) and Amadeus Cho (Iron Hulk) working together to solve problems, like a villain intent on stealing everyone’s toys.

“Tony Stark is very relatable and aspirational,” says Wilcox. “He didn’t stop until he found a way to protect the entire universe. We wanted three kids that were distinct from each other but also shared some certain qualities. They’re all very intelligent. They’re all tech savvy. They all want to use their brains to make the world better.”

The trio works out of Iron Quarters (IQ) with Vision as their de facto supervisor. “We thought it would be nice to have someone who could sort of act as the caretaker of our kids,” Wilcox says of including the beloved android in the series. “We wanted our audience to know that these characters were loved and supported. Even though they have superpowers, someone’s looking out for them.”

Each superhero also brings something new for the young audience to connect to. One thing that will separate the upcoming “Iron Man” series from “Spidey” is that Iron Man doesn’t have a secret identity. Everyone knows Tony Stark is Iron Man. “We saw there was this differentiation we could really lean into,” Sapire says. “They’re real kids who use their ingenuity and smarts for the good of the community.”

When bringing these characters to the under 5 set, every detail matters. “Even in this Marvel superhero space, we’re always tapping into that preschool experience,” Sapire says. “We take the responsibility to entertain naturally curious preschoolers very seriously. When we have their attention, we want to honor that time with them with stories that inspire their imaginations and bring that sense of joy and optimism.”

They approach the legendary Marvel villains with care as well. “Iron Man” features Ultron (voiced by Tony Hale), Swarm (Vanessa Bayer) and Absorbing Man (Talon Warburton). “You have to make sure the villain is not sympathetic,” Wilcox says. “But also not frightening. We rely heavily on our partners at Disney Jr. for that and their educational resource group, which provides us a lot of feedback to make sure our preschool audience is engaged in the story and they feel the stakes of the story, but they are still watching in a comfortable space.”

While all the series remain true to the overall MCU, they don’t get too tied up in what is and isn’t canon. “These shows are about what makes each character tick, more than the lore that surrounds them,” Winderbaum explains.

And, like in the movies, the superheroes will make mistakes. “Marvel does not put their characters up on a pedestal,” Wilcox says. “We want our characters to reflect real people in the real world. So that’s always been important to us is that there’s a certain level of relatability. Everyone can see a part of themselves in a Marvel hero and learn and grow just like our characters do.”

A SIX-year-old boy died in his sleep after accidentally bumping his head while racing with friends at school, an inquest heard.

Mohammed Yaseen Uddin, who attended Marlborough Primary School in Small Heath, Birmingham, died on December 11 last year.

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He had been playing with pals during his lunch break the day before and accidentally bumped his head on a wall.

The youngster told a school receptionist: “I was running really fast, racing my friend and bumped into the wall.”

As reported by Birmingham Live, an inquest heard how Yaseen picked himself up and appeared to behave normally after the fall.

A paediatric school first aider applied an ice pack to a visible bump on the pupil’s forehead.

Yaseen’s mother and sister were given a letter with medical advice upon picking him up.

The inquest, held today at Birmingham Coroner’s Court, heard the youngster appeared to be acting normally after going home.

He had attended a local mosque after school and celebrated his sibling’s birthday with cake.

Later in the evening, Yaseen told his father he didn’t feel well, and he was given some Ibuprofen.

At around 11pm, the little boy complained about head pain “out of nowhere” and started to throw up.

His family were on their way to the hospital but took him back home to change after he vomited again.

The inquest heard they tried to leave again but Yaseen told them he just wanted to sleep, so they put him to bed.

Dad Simriel Uddin said he looked in on his son at 3am and again at 5am when he got up for work, both times Yaseen was asleep.

But the youngster was tragically found dead a few hours later.

Heartbroken dad Simriel Uddin previously told the Mail: “He was a bright, joyful spirit and he was a beautiful, kind-hearted little boy.

“He had a head collision in school -the school told my wife ‘Oh, your son has bumped his head.’

“When she asked if it was anything serious they said, ‘No it’s nothing serious, it’s just a bump’.”

The inquest heard how Yaseen’s brother Khalil performed CPR while waiting for an ambulance.

Paramedics rushed Yaseen to hospital at around 11am but the six-year-old was pronounced dead at 12.08pm.

Guirish Solanki, a consultant paediatric neurosurgeon, concluded Yaseen had suffered a “traumatic head injury when he struck his head on the wall.”

Yaseen’s cause of death was given as a traumatic right frontal extra-axial haemorrhage, which means a bleed outside of the brain but within the skull.

Louise Hunt, the Senior Coroner for Birmingham and Solihull said: “Yaseen was a six-year-old little boy who was normally fit and well.

“He was described as happy and engaged when he came to school, a big character, who was always bubbly.”

She confirmed Yaseen had been playing with his friends before falling at around 12.29pm.

The coroner was also satisfied the family had been given a letter outlining medical advice, despite the fact they previously disputed this.

She said: “This was a tragic accident and I record in conclusion this was an accident.

“I’d like to reiterate and offer my condolences to all the family. It must be very hard for all of you and I’m very sorry if today’s inquest has made things more difficult. I’m so very sorry for your loss.”

Speaking after the inquest, Yaseen’s sister Sumaya told BirminghamLive: “Thank you to everyone for their support.”

In a previous statement, Razia Ali, the executive headteacher at Marlborough, said: “Our school community has been left devastated by the tragic passing of one of our wonderful and much-loved pupils.

“Yaseen was an incredibly helpful, kind and caring pupil who brought a smile to the face of everyone who came across him.

“I know I speak for everyone when I say he will be deeply missed. All our thoughts and prayers are with Yaseen’s family and friends.”

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In Shambat al-Aradi, a tight-knit neighbourhood in Khartoum North once known for its vibrant community gatherings and spirited music festivals, two childhood friends have suffered through confinement and injustice at the hands of one of Sudan’s warring sides.

Khalid al-Sadiq, a 43-year-old family doctor, and one of his best friends, a 40-year-old musician who once lit up the stage of the nearby Khedr Bashir Theatre, were inseparable before the war.

But when the civil war broke out in April 2023 and fighting tore through their city, both men, born and raised near that beloved theatre, were swept into a campaign of arbitrary arrests conducted by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The friends were detained separately and tortured in different ways, but their experiences nonetheless mirrored one another – until they emerged, physically altered, emotionally broken and forever bound by survival.

Imprisonment and ransom

Al-Sadiq’s ordeal began in August 2023 when RSF forces raided Shambat and arbitrarily arrested him and countless other men.

He was crowded into a bathroom in a house that the RSF had looted along with seven other people and was kept there for days.

“We were only let out to eat, then forced back in,” he explained.

During his first days of interrogation, al-Sadiq was tortured repeatedly by the RSF to pressure him for a ransom.

They crushed his fingers, one at a time, using pliers. At one point, to scare him, they fired at the ground near him, sending shrapnel flying into his abdomen and causing heavy bleeding.

After three days, the men were lined up by their captors.

“They tried to negotiate with us, demanding 3 million Sudanese pounds [about $1,000] per person,” al-Sadiq recalled.

Three men were released after handing over everything they had, including a rickshaw and all their cash. Al-Sadiq and the other remaining prisoners were moved to a smaller cell – an even more cramped toilet tucked beneath a staircase.

“There was no ventilation. There were insects everywhere,” he said. They had to alternate sleeping – two could just about lie down while two stood.

A few kilometres away, al-Sadiq’s friend, the musician, who asked to remain anonymous, had also been arrested and held at the Paratrooper Military Camp in Khartoum North, which the RSF captured in the first months of the war with Sudan’s military.

That would not be the only time the musician was taken because the RSF had been told that his family were distantly related to former President Omar al-Bashir.

“They said I’m a ‘remnant of the regime’ because of that relation to him even though I was never part of the regime. I was against it,” he said, adding that he had protested against al-Bashir.

Months into the war, his family’s Shambat home was raided by the RSF and his younger brother was shot in the leg. To keep everybody safe, the musician quickly evacuated his family to Umm al-Qura in Gezira state, then went home to collect their belongings. That was when he was arrested.

During his time at the military camp, he told Al Jazeera, the RSF fighters would tie him and other prisoners up and lay them facedown on the ground in the yard. Then they would beat them with a “sout al-anag” whip, a Sudanese leather whip traditionally made of hippo skin.

The flogging lasted a long time, he added, and it was not an isolated incident. It happened to him several times.

In interrogations, RSF personnel fixated on his alleged affiliation with al-Bashir, branding him with slurs like “Koz”, meaning a political Islamist remnant of al-Bashir’s regime, and subjecting him to verbal and physical abuse.

He was held for about a month, then released to return to a home that had been looted.

He would be detained at least five more times.

“Most of the detentions were based on people informing on each other, sometimes for personal benefit, sometimes under torture,” al-Sadiq said.

“RSF commanders even brag about having a list of Bashir regime or SAF [Sudan armed forces] supporters for every area.”

Forced labour

While he was held by the RSF, the musician told Al Jazeera, he and others were forced to perform manual labour that the fighters did not want to do.

“They used to take us out in the morning to dig graves,” he said. “I dug over 30 graves myself.”

The graves were around the detention camp and seemed to be for the prisoners who died from torture, illness or starvation.

While he could not estimate how many people were buried in those pits, he described the site where he was forced to dig, saying it already had many pits that had been used before.

Meanwhile, al-Sadiq was blindfolded, bound and bundled into a van and taken to an RSF detention facility in the al-Riyadh neighbourhood.

The compound had five zones: a mosque repurposed into a prison, a section for women, an area holding army soldiers captured in battle, another for those who surrendered and an underground chamber called “Guantanamo” – the site of systematic torture.

Al-Sadiq tried to help the people he was imprisoned with, treating them with whatever they could scavenge and appealing to the RSF to take the dangerously sick prisoners to a hospital.

But the RSF usually ignored the pleas, and al-Sadiq still remembers one patient, Saber, whom the fighters kept shackled even as his health faded fast.

“I kept asking that he be transferred to a hospital,” al-Sadiq said. “He died.”

Some prisoners did receive treatment, though, and the RSF kept a group of imprisoned doctors in a separate room furnished with beds and medical equipment.

There, they were told to treat injured RSF fighters or prisoners the RSF wanted to keep alive, either to keep torturing them for information or because they thought they could get big ransoms for them.

Al-Sadiq chose not to go with the other doctors and decided to cooperate less with the RSF, keeping to himself and staying with the other prisoners.

Conditions were inhumane in the cell he chose to remain in.

“The total water we received daily – for drinking, ablution, everything – was six small cups,” al-Sadiq said, adding that food was scarce and “insects, rats and lice lived with us. I lost 35kg [77lb].”

Their captors did give him some medical supplies, however, when they needed him to treat someone, and they were a lifeline for everyone around him.

The prisoners were so desperate that he sometimes shared IV glucose drips he got from the RSF so detainees could drink them for some hydration.

The only other sources of food were the small “payments” of sugar, milk or dates that the RSF would give to prisoners who they forced to do manual labour like loading or unloading trucks.

Al-Sadiq did not speak of having been forced to dig graves for fellow prisoners or of having heard of other prisoners doing that.

For the musician, however, graves became a constant reality, even during the periods when he was able to go back home to Shambat.

He helped bury about 20 neighbours who died either from crossfire or starvation and had to be buried anywhere but in the cemeteries.

The RSF blocked access to the cemeteries without explaining why to the people who wanted to lay their loved ones to rest.

In fact at first, the RSF prohibited all burials, then relented and allowed some burials as long as they were not in the cemeteries.

So the musician and others would dig graves for people in Shambat Stadium’s Rabta Field and near the Khedr Bashir Theatre.

He said many people who were afraid to leave their homes at all ended up burying their loved ones in their yards or in any nearby plots they could furtively access.

The friends’ ordeals lasted into the winter when al-Sadiq found himself released and the RSF stopped coming around to arrest the musician.

Neither man knows why.

Both al-Sadiq and the musician told Al Jazeera they remain haunted by what they endured.

The torment, they said, didn’t end with their release; it followed them, embedding itself in their thoughts, a shadow they fear will darken the rest of their lives.

On March 26, the SAF announced it had recaptured Khartoum. Now, the two men have returned to their neighbourhood, where they feel a greater sense of safety.

Having been detained and tortured by the RSF, they believe they’re unlikely to be viewed by the SAF as collaborators – offering them, at least, a fragile sense of safety.

There are some people who are not phased by the security checks and scanners and brazenly try to smuggle illegal substances through the airport – a number of them have now been nabbed

Thousands of families will be jetting off to and from Manchester Airport for their summer getaways. While most holidaymakers are mindful of the 100ml liquid rule and removing large electrical items from their hand luggage, there are always a few who slip up.

Yet, there are some travellers who seem unfazed by security measures and audaciously attempt to smuggle illegal substances in their luggage. A number of these so-called “tourists” were nabbed by vigilant security teams and police at Manchester Airport.

Among those caught was a pair of friends who claimed their suitcases were brimming with shopping, a woman who flaunted her holiday snaps to staff before being apprehended, and a boxer who accepted an “offer he couldn’t refuse”.

Below is a snapshot of some individuals arrested at Manchester Airport, as highlighted by the Manchester Evening News, though it’s not an exhaustive list.

They claimed they went shopping in New York – their luggage told a different tale

Sophie Bannister, 30, hailing from Withington, and her mate Levi-April Whalley, 31, from Lancashire, appeared to have returned from a fabulous shopping spree in New York, touching down on British turf with suitcases that seemed to overflow with new purchases.

Their suitcases, however, told a starkly different tale. Upon their return to the UK, the pair were caught with over 35kg of cannabis in their baggage.

In April, seated together in the dock, the women clasped hands and wept as the court was informed of their attempt to smuggle the drugs into the country, reports Liverpool Echo.

Both women pleaded guilty to the charge of fraudulent evasion of prohibition. Bannister’s 20-month term was suspended for 18 months, while Whalley was given a 16-month sentence which was also suspended for the same duration. The court heard that both women were susceptible to exploitation due to their personal and financial struggles.

The remorseful friends disclosed to the Mirror the series of events that led them to become entangled in a cannabis smuggling scheme, which seemingly began with a single message on social media.

She flaunted her holiday snaps to staff – then they nicked her

A mum who proudly presented her vacation snaps to officers at Manchester Airport found herself under arrest when they spotted a revealing detail.

Larissa Lins, aged 27, insisted she had travelled to the UK to “research nice places” after transiting through France and Portugal from Brazil. Despite her claims of innocence regarding any illicit activities, the photo gallery she shared with the officials inadvertently revealed her time in France.

While browsing through the images, they came across a snapshot of the “white pellets”. Further investigation revealed that Lins had ingested, concealed, and stashed away a kilogram of narcotics both inside and outside her body.

After admitting to her role in the fraudulent evasion of a prohibition on importing a class A substance, she was sentenced on October 17 last year. The court informed her that she will “almost inevitably” face deportation back to Brazil after completing 40% of her term.

Boxer behind bars after irresistible offer

A former pugilist and father of two found himself under arrest at Manchester Airport following what he described as “‘an offer he felt he could not refuse”.

Edward Nesbitt, aged 36, was one of two drug mules imprisoned in May, alongside Yoke Woon, subsequent to the seizure of a suitcase crammed with 23 kilos of cannabis at the airport. Manchester Crown Court listened to accounts of how Uber driver Woon arrived with the contraband on a flight from Singapore in March.

He abandoned the suitcase on the luggage belt in Terminal 2, where it was retrieved by Nesbitt, who had landed on a different plane from Amsterdam. Prosecutor Mark Pritchard detailed how Woon, aged 43, touched down at T2 just past 8:30 am on March 4 on a Singapore Airlines flight from Singapore, using a Malaysian passport.

Friends admir ‘you’re going to see it’ as luggage scrutinised

Two school friends faced the music after a “naïve and stupid” decision following their three-week revelry in Thailand. Lewis Ellis and James Poutch jetted off in April to experience a festival dubbed as “the world’s biggest water fight”.

Upon their return to Manchester Airport via Abu Dhabi, Ellis, 20, and Poutch, 19, were stopped for a luggage inspection.

Ellis didn’t hesitate to confess to customs officers: “I have cannabis in my bag, I may as well tell you because you’re going to see it.”

The search revealed a staggering 37kg of cannabis stashed in their bags. Both Ellis and Poutch were handed suspended sentences at Manchester Crown Court.

The Los Angeles sports world mourned the loss of one of its most beloved voices, Rolando “El Veloz” Gonzalez, the longtime Galaxy broadcaster and a pioneer of Spanish-language sports radio, who died June 25.

His legacy transcends generations on the microphone.

Gonzalez’s career began almost accidentally. Although his dream was to play soccer, life had other plans for him and turned him into a storyteller.

“One day on March 6, 1962, I was playing soccer in the local league and the radio play-by-play broadcaster who was assigned that game of my team Escuintla against Universidad, Dr. Otorrino Ríos Paredes, had a car accident,” Gonzalez recalled in 2017. “The owner of the station ran to tell me, ‘[get dressed, get dressed]’ and I replied, ‘Who are you to tell me to get dressed? Let the trainer tell me.’ He said, ‘I need you because they told me that you narrate soccer.’ I replied that I do that there among the guys.”

He later moved to Los Angeles, where former Dodgers announcer Jaime Jarrín gave him his big break during the 1984 Olympics.

“I met him, I think in 1984, shortly before the Olympics. I needed sportswriters for Spanish-language coverage and I was impressed with his stability, his knowledge, his diction and his voice time for soccer,” Jarrín told L.A. Times en Español. “He worked with me for three weeks, and that opened a lot of doors for him in Los Angeles.”

Jarrín’s call surprised him.

Friends and colleagues join Rolando “El Veloz” González, center, in a broadcast booth during a Galaxy match. He called his last game on May 31.

(Armando Aguayo)

“It was Jaime Jarrín,” González recalled. “He asked me if I narrated soccer and if I had experience in programs. He told me that a narrator for the Olympics was coming from Ecuador and he wanted to have [González ] from 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. on a program. I was leaving the factory at 4:30 p.m. all dirty with paint, and I couldn’t miss that opportunity.”

Jarrín highlights González’s commitment to ESPN Deportes Radio 1330 AM’s coverage of the Galaxy, a team González covered in two long stints in which the team won five of the six MLS Cup titles. The last game González called a game was on May 31, when the Galaxy won their first game of this season against Real Salt Lake at Dignity Health Sports Park.

“He gave his all to the team, as I did to the Dodgers,” Jarrín said. “His legacy is an example for young people. He defined what he wanted to be, and he did it with his heart, with 110% effort.”

Along with Hipolito Gamboa, González marked an era in radio with their “Hablando de Deportes” show on KTNQ-AM (1020) and eventually on KWKW-AM (1330). The show focused mostly on soccer and easily overshadowed other sports programs that tried to copy the format with a more aggressive touch in their conversations.

The González and Gamboa duo presented a more complete analysis without being dependent on fireworks.

“I always had something that made you laugh in the booths of ‘Hablando de Deportes,’” Gamboa said. “It was not all good all the time, because there were moments of tension. That’s a reality, but we always ended well.”

Gamboa described González as someone out of the ordinary.

“He was one of the first to broadcast soccer in the United States. His unique style, his energy, his speed … no one has equaled him,” Gamboa said. “That’s why they called him ‘El Veloz’ [‘The Swift’].”

They worked together broadcasting Gold Cups, Liga MX matches and international matches. Despite his serious voice, Gamboa highlighted González’s cheerful character.

“He narrated with impressive clarity at an amazing speed. People recognized him by his voice,” Gamboa said. “At a party, my little daughter, just 1 year old at the time, heard him speak and said, ‘Goal!’ because we grew up hearing him narrate at the Rose Bowl, at Azteca Stadium, in so many booths.”

Armando Aguayo, who became González’s boss, said he was more than a colleague.

“He was my teacher. What I know about narration, I learned from him,” Aguayo said. “He taught me how to get into the narrator’s rhythm, not to interrupt, to adapt to his speed. He was demanding, but formative.”

Aguayo fondly recalls the two stages he shared with González, first as his producer at “Deportes en Acción 1330” and then as teammates in the second golden era of the Galaxy under Bruce Arena.

Armando Aguayo, who became Rolando González’s boss, said he was more than a colleague: “He taught me how to get into the narrator’s rhythm, not to interrupt, to adapt to his speed. He was demanding, but formative.”

(Armando Aguayo)

“We narrated together the finals, the titles, the big games,” Aguayo said. “And off the air, we talked about family, about the future of radio, about life.”

According to Aguayo, who calls LAFC and Clippers games, González had admirable discipline.

“He would arrive an hour early, prepare, make lists with lineups,” Aguayo said.

During his career González, called World Cups, Olympic Games, Pan American Games, games of his beloved Guatemala national team, as well as the U.S. national team. He covered soccer, baseball, basketball and football.

“The only thing he didn’t narrate was golf, because he said it bored him,” Aguayo said, laughing. “But he even narrated a marbles contest in Guatemala.”

González was known as a great storyteller.

“He would always say, ‘Let me tell you, in such-and-such a year … and he would give you exact dates.’ He was a historian with a storyteller’s voice,” Aguayo said.

Beyond professionalism, Gonzalez left a deep human imprint.

“We called him ‘Don Rolis’ [and] ‘Papa Smurf.’ He was like everybody’s dad. Always with a kind comment, always concerned about others,” Aguayo recalled.

Rolando González, left, joins Armando Aguayo while calling a Galaxy game.

(Armando Aguayo)

González was still active until a few weeks ago. He called the Galaxy’s last game against Real Salt Lake.

“He arrived two hours early, prepared his tecito, sat down to narrate and when he finished, he got up and left, as usual,” Aguayo said. “That was Rolando. Professional, punctual and simple.”

Aguayo spoke with González shortly before hearing the news of his death. Although González recently had a heart attack, he was still answering calls, his voice tired but upbeat.

“He told me, ‘I’m fine. Thank you for your call. It’s very helpful to me. You’re one of the few who called me.’ He told me about the future, about his family,” Aguayo said. “Even in his last days, he was thinking of others.”

For Jarrín, González represented the image of the hard-working immigrant, the passionate communicator, the dedicated professional.

“He never caused problems. He always served the Hispanic community in Southern California with interest. His voice will remain engraved in our memories, and his legacy will live on in every young person who wants to dedicate themselves to sports broadcasting,” Jarrín said.

González’s voice will no longer resonate in the stadiums, but his echo will live on in the memories of his colleagues and in the passion of those who listened to him.

“I was deeply hurt by his passing, because we were great friends,” Jarrín said. “We had a lot of mutual respect, and I liked him very much from the beginning because of his simplicity and his responsibility in everything. So I think that sports fans, and particularly soccer fans, will miss him very much. … He served the Hispanic community in Southern California with a lot of interest, with a lot of enthusiasm. And I will miss him very, very much indeed.”

This article first appeared in Spanish via L.A. Times en Español.

SpongeBob SquarePants would, in theory, have little use for stamps. They would get soggy in that pineapple under the sea.

Neither would Patrick Star (no fingers on the ends of those arms), Mr. Crabs (claws) or Squidward Tentacles (his name says it all). One could argue that even the fans of “SpongeBob SquarePants” wouldn’t have much use for stamps. That crowd doesn’t go in for snail mail — although Gary the Snail might.

Nevertheless, the whole gang from Nickelodeon’s long-running animated show — even Sandy Cheeks, the squirrel in the diving suit — is featured on a new set of commemorative Forever stamps, according to the U.S. Postal Service.

But the point isn’t to use them but to collect them, and perhaps look at the yellow, smiling, gap-toothed face of SpongeBob when you need a quick pick-me-up.

If you happen to be in New York City’s Times Square on Aug. 1 from 8 to 10 a.m. Eastern, you can get your hands on the new stamps. The event is free, but the stamps you’ll have to pay for. (A sheet of 16 will cost you $12.48. They’re 78 cents apiece.)

That’s 40 cents more than each stamp would have cost when “SpongeBob” premiered 26 years ago.

The USPS art director, Greg Breeding, designed the stamps with Nickelodeon artwork to guide him, according to the Postal Service. He’ll be on hand for autographs.

The world of Bikini Bottom was introduced in May 1999, and the show began a full run two months later. Creator Stephen Hillenburg, who died in 2018 at age 57 after battling Lou Gehrig’s disease, was — appropriately — a teacher of marine biology in Southern California before switching to animation. He created colorful teaching tools as well as wrote and illustrated stories with the characters who came to populate the show, as The Times wrote in Hillenburg’s obituary.

To set the record straight, stamps have, in fact, been used in Bikini Bottom.

One example: In the Season 13 episode “Patrick the Mailman,” the starfish delivers a letter to SpongeBob and asks him, “Do you know where this Spon-gee-Boob Squir-pa-Nants lives?” He then makes SpongeBob his postal pal.

The twins who played Ross and Rachel’s baby on Friends have shared where they are now 22 years after the iconic show ended – and they’ve gone down very different career paths

The unforgettable episodes of Friends that took us on an emotional journey with Ross and Rachel, played by David Schwimmer and Jennifer Aniston. The couple who were famously ‘on a break’ and each other’s ‘lobsters’, also brought us the joy of baby Emma Geller-Green.

Twin sisters Athena Conley and Alexandra Conley were just six months old when they took on the role of the beloved baby from the end of season 8 through season 9. So what actually happened to the actresses who played the tiny tot?

Fast forward to today, and the twins are now 23 years old and thriving. And they look part on their sitcom experience very fondly.

Hailing from Long Beach, California, the sisters landed the part after their mother learned of the audition through a friend in a twins club.

In an interview with People, Athena revealed: “So she told my mom about it and she was like, ‘You should just take your daughters to L.A. just for one day.’ And it wasn’t far from us at all, so she did.”

After having their photos taken at the audition, the twins and their mother were on their way out when they received the news that they had been cast.

They went on to appear in 10 episodes, before being replaced as the show required an older actress to portray Emma as she grew.

Alexandra opened up to People, revealing: “It’s actually crazy because growing up, I always just knew I was on Friends, but I didn’t really know what that meant.

“It didn’t hit me, I think until like maybe like middle school or even like early high school, how big that was.”

The twins have since become “obsessed” with the iconic sitcom and are regular viewers.

Despite their early brush with fame, they’ve stepped back from acting to focus on their new careers as recent university graduates.

Alexandra has made Los Angeles her home, where she’s carving out a career in social media and marketing for a cosmetics company. Her Instagram is a vibrant collage of travel snapshots and snippets of social gatherings with mates.

She’s also quite the dancer, often teaming up with her sister for dance videos. Alexandra’s influence extends to a collaboration with Kim Kardashian’s Skims, which she promotes on her TikTok account.

Athena, on the other hand, has settled in Denver and seems to be thriving in her busy life.

Her professional path has led her to a role as an investment control reconciler at a financial firm. Impressively, she’s also a cheerleader for the NFL’s Denver Broncos.

Alexandra doesn’t hold back in expressing her admiration for Athena, proudly supporting her from the stands and declaring herself her sister’s number one fan.

The thing about bullies is they don’t have real friends.

They have lieutenants, followers and victims — sometimes all three rolled into one.

Most of us learn this by about third grade, when parents and hard knocks teach us how to figure out whom you can trust, and who will eat you for lunch.

Elon Musk, at age 54 with $400 billion in the bank, just learned it this week — when his feud with our bully-in-chief devolved into threats that the president will have the South African native deported.

Speaking about Musk losing government support for electric cars, Trump this week warned that Musk “could lose a lot more than that.”

“We might have had to put DOGE on Elon,” Trump said, referencing Musk’s cost-cutting effort called the Department of Government Efficiency. “DOGE is the monster that … might have to go back and eat Elon. Wouldn’t that be terrible?”

Yes, I know. Schadenfreude is real. It’s hard not to sit back with a bit of “told ya” satisfaction as we watch Musk — who has nearly single-handedly demolished everything from hurricane tracking to international aid for starving children — realize that Trump doesn’t love him.

But because Musk is the richest man in the world, who also now understands he has the power to buy votes if not elections, and Trump is grabbing power at every opportunity, there’s too much at stake to ignore the pitiful interpersonal dynamics of these two tantrumming titans.

What does it have to do with you and me, you ask? Well, there’s a potential fallout that is worrisome: The use of denaturalization against political enemies.

In case you’ve been blessedly ignorant of the Trump-Musk meltdown, let me recap.

Once upon a time, nine months ago, Musk and Trump were so tight, it literally had Musk jumping for joy. During a surprise appearance at a Butler, Pa., political rally (the same place where Trump was nearly assassinated), Musk leaped into the air, arms raised, belly exposed, with the pure delight of simply being included as a follower, albeit one who funneled $290 million into election coffers. Back then, Musk had no concern that it wasn’t his own dazzling presence that got him invited places.

By January, Musk had transitioned to lieutenant, making up DOGE, complete with cringey swag, like a lonely preteen dreaming up a secret club in his tree house. Only this club had the power to dismantle the federal government as we know it and create a level of social destruction whose effects won’t be fully understood for generations. Serious villain energy.

But then he got too full of himself, the No. 1 sin for a lieutenant. Somewhere along the line, Trump noticed (or perhaps someone whispered in the president’s ear) that Musk was just as powerful as he is — maybe more.

Cue the fallout, the big “see ya” from the White House (complete with a shoving match with another Trump lieutenant) and Musk’s sad realization that, like everyone else in a bully’s orbit, he was being used like a Kleenex and was never going to wind up anyplace but the trash.

So Musk took to his social media platform to start bashing on Trump and the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which passed in the Senate on Tuesday, clearing the way for our national debt to skyrocket while the poor and middle class suffer.

“If this insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day. Our country needs an alternative to the Democrat-Republican uniparty so that the people actually have a VOICE,” Musk threatened, conjuring up a new political party the same way he ginned up DOGE.

Musk even promised to bankroll more elections to back candidates to oust Trumpians who voted for the bill.

“And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth,” Musk wrote. Presumably before he leaves for Mars.

It was those direct — and plausible — threats to Trump’s power that caused the president to turn his eye of Sauron on Musk, flexing that he might consider deportation for this transgression of defiance. It might seem entertaining if Musk, who the Washington Post reported may have violated immigration rules, were booted from our borders, but it would set a chilling precedent that standing up to this president was punishable by a loss of citizenship.

Because the threat of deporting political enemies didn’t start with Musk, and surely would not end with him.

For days, Trumpians have suggested that New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and became a U.S. citizen in 2018, should be deported as well, for the crime of backing policies that range in description from progressive to socialist to communist (pretty sure the ones labeling them communism don’t actually know what communism is).

On Tuesday, Trump weighed in on Mamdani.

“A lot of people are saying he’s here illegally,” Trump said, which of course, no one is except for Trump’s attack dogs. “We’re going to look at everything.”

Denaturalization for immigration fraud — basically lying or misrepresenting stuff on your official application — is nothing new. Obama did it, as did Trump in his first term, and it has a long history before that.

But combing the documents of political enemies looking for pretexts to call fraud is chilling.

“This culture of weaponizing the law to go after enemies, it’s something that is against our founding principles,” Ben Radd told me. He’s a professor of law and an expert in political science at UCLA.

“It is very much an abuse of executive power, but [Trump] gets away with it until there’s a legal challenge,” Radd said.

While Musk and Mamdani have the power to fight Trump in a court of law, if it comes to it, other naturalized citizens may not.

There are about 25 million such citizens in the United States — people who immigrated in the “right” way, whatever that means, jumped through the hoops, said their pledge of fealty to this country and now are Americans. Or so they thought.

In reality, under Trump, they are mostly Americans, as long as they don’t make him mad. The threat of having citizenship stripped for opposing the administration is powerful enough to silence many, in a moment when many immigrants feel a personal duty and impetus to speak out to protect family and friends.

Aiming that threat at Musk may be the opportunistic anger of a bully, and even seem amusing.

But it’s an intimidation meant to show that no one is too powerful to be punished by this bully, and therefore, no one is safe.