generation

On the lamp-lit steps of a sombre gothic church, a young woman stands before a microphone. Beside her, a man plucks a slow melody from his guitar. Arrayed on chairs and cobblestones in front of them, a large crowd sits in an expectant silence. From a nearby balcony, laundry sways in the sultry Calabrian breeze.

The guitar quickens, and the woman issues a string of tremulous notes with all the solemnity of a muezzin. She clutches a hand drum, beating out a rhythm that draws the crowd to its feet. As people surge forward, stamping and whirling around the square, the singing intensifies and the drum’s relentless thud deepens. The festival of Sustarìa has begun.

“Sustarìa is a word in the dialect of Lago,” says Cristina Muto, who co-founded the festival in summer 2020. “It is a creative restlessness, which doesn’t let you sit still.” We’re speaking at a drinks party the evening before the annual event, on a terrace overlooking Lago’s clay-tiled roofs, when her brother Daniele appears with a jug of local wine in hand. “Welcome to Lagos Angeles, Calabrifornia,” he winks, pouring me a cup.

Lago is a hilltop village in the province of Cosenza, overlooking the Mediterranean. It’s surrounded by sprawling olive groves and small plots where families cultivate figs, chestnuts and local grains. Cristina and Daniele were born and raised in this grey-stoned hamlet, a medieval outpost of the Kingdom of the Lombards. Although their pride in Lago is palpable, few of the Laghitani I meet live here all year round. Like many young people from southern Italy, they have left in search of opportunities that are scarce in Calabria.

It’s against this backdrop that Cristina co-founded Sustarìa. “The trend is longstanding and severe,” she tells me, “but people still live here, and there are communities that thrive despite the problems. If more people stay or return, things will get better.” By spotlighting the allure of the region’s heritage, she hopes to play a part in this.

With agriculture historically shaping Calabria’s economy and its inhabitants’ daily lives, many traditions have agrarian roots. The dance that erupted on the festival’s first night was the tarantella. It features distinctive footwork, with dancers kicking their heels rapidly. “It’s a dance of the field workers,” Cristina says. “Some say it began as a way to sweat out venom from spider bites during harvests; others say tired workers in need of a creative outlet danced slowly and just with their feet, and over time the pace and range of movement increased.”

The vocals on display that night told of another aspect of the region’s history: its frequent colonisation. Calabria was variously conquered by Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Normans, Arabs, Lombards and Bourbons. The folk songs we heard were replete with Greek scales and Arabic cadences, a melting pot of Mediterranean timbres.

After the concert, the crowd migrated to a field by a small waterfall on the outskirts of Lago for dinner featuring regional dishes: rosamarina (the pescatarian version of nduja, known as “Calabrian caviar” made from tiny fish); fried courgette flowers; cipolla rossa di Tropea (red onions from the popular beachtown of Tropea); and pecorino crotonese, a sheep’s cheese from the Crotone province.

Over dinner I spoke with two other festival organisers, Claudia and her husband Alberto. Claudia, a Lago native, returned permanently, after a career in aerospace engineering, to run the B&B Agriturismo Cupiglione with Alberto. Nestled in woodland a few kilometres from Lago, Cupiglione was founded 25 years ago by Claudia’s parents as a restaurant with guest rooms. After closing during the pandemic, it was renovated and reopened in 2023 as a B&B with seven rooms for up to 18 guests (doubles from €40). The change in direction paid off, and Cupiglione has since welcomed hundreds of visitors to the area, evenly split between Italian and international travellers.

During my stay, I’m lodging in a house on the edge of Lago, thanks to the Sustarìa team. Hospitality runs deep during the festival; organisers open up their homes and those of their relatives to anyone who enquires through social media. Other options abound during the festival and year-round, including B&Bs such as Cupiglione and A Casa di Ely (doubles from €60), a short walk from where I stayed.

The following afternoon, I return to the field before aperitivi, where I meet up with Cristina, who explains the growth of her initiative: “Initially, it was just locals who came to Sustarìa, but then people from other parts of Italy and even other countries started coming. Every year it grows.” This year, there are nearly 600 people in attendance.

Eric, a Londoner studying in Zurich, is one such international guest. Eric also attended Felici & Conflenti, a festival in late July hosted by friends of the Sustarìa team, which focuses on preserving and reviving the region’s ancient music. It has held 11 editions over as many years, each one featuring a winter and summer instalment, to which more people flock each year. It takes place in Conflenti, a small inland village nestled at the foot of the Reventino mountain, at the confluence of two small rivers (hence its name).

“Thanks to their work and research, instruments that were becoming extinct, like the zampogna [Italian bagpipe], are finding new life,” Cristina says.

The three of us sit chatting over plates of crisp taralli (wheat crackers) as twilight fades, and a reedy piping starts up from across the field. I stroll over, and catch sight of someone playing the zampogna, which looks like a set of bagpipes improvised from foraged materials, and is truly ancient – it counts the Roman emperor Nero among its historical admirers.

The next morning, we head to the hilltop town of Fiumefreddo Bruzio, a short drive from Lago and officially recognised as one of “Italy’s most beautiful villages”. Clinging to the western slopes of the Apennines, this medieval village offers panoramic views of the swelling coastline, which traces the Tyrrhenian Sea. Its narrow, meandering streets are lined with squat houses made of the local grey stone, quarried from the surrounding mountains. We wander around Il castello della Valle, a sprawling 13th-century Norman castle partly destroyed by Napoleonic troops, but retaining a splendid portale Rinascimentale – or Renaissance gate – still in excellent condition.

At Palazzo Rossi, on the edge of town, we take a seat at a cafe and sip local craft beer as we admire the view of the active volcano Mount Stromboli, across the water.

“You should see it in the winter,” Cristina says. “The air is cooler, so it becomes even clearer. Everything here is completely different in the winter, but most people don’t see it as visitors come mainly in the summer,” she adds with a note of regret.

The sun starts to sink into the horizon. In the square, a band starts setting up for an evening gig. A waiter brings over a plate of bread and olives to our table, on the house. “Things are quieter but not empty. There are almost as many events as in summer. And you get to see how the locals live during the rest of the year.” Cristina tears off a piece of bread. “And, of course, the hospitality never changes – people are always welcomed with open arms.”

Sustarìa will return to Lago for its sixth instalment on 1-3 August 2026. There is a winter edition of Felici & Conflenti in Calabria on 27-29 December 2025; its next summer instalment is in July 2026

Diane Keaton, the actress who starred in some of the biggest movies of the last half-century, including the “Godfather” and “Annie Hall,” while serving as a style trend-setter and a champion of Los Angeles’ past, has died. She was 79.

Her death was first reported by People and confirmed by The New York Times.

In an extraordinary run during the 1970s when she was dominant, her career spanned the high points of American cinema: Francis Ford Coppola’s mafia saga and several of Woody Allen’s urbane comedies, climaxing in an Oscar win for her culture-changing turn as the title character in 1977’s “Annie Hall.” Keaton’s catchphrase, “Well, la-di-dah,” became iconic.

Over her career, she received four Oscar nominations for lead actress, winning for “Annie Hall.”

Born in Southern California, Keaton achieved fame in the 1970s through her frequent collaborations with Woody Allen and Francis Ford Coppola. She appeared in three “Godfather” movies as well as eight Allen films. Her star turn as Annie Hall earned her critical raves and made her a fashion icon of the era with Annie’s fedora hats, vests, ties and baggy pants. The Times once called her look “fluttery, vulnerable, almost unbearably adorable.”

“Annie’s style was Diane’s style — very eclectic,” designer Ralph Lauren said in a 1978 story in Vogue, soon after the movie came out. “She had a style that was all her own. Annie Hall was pure Diane Keaton.”

She was often asked if she got tired of the notoriety “Annie Hall” brought her, including the magazine covers, think pieces and fashion homages.

“No, I’m not. Everything is because of ‘Annie Hall’ with Woody. He has a great ear for women’s voices. I’m so grateful to him; he really gave me an opportunity that changed my life,” she told The Times in 2012. “I’m never disappointed about people talking to me about ‘Annie Hall.’ But I will say, a lot of people don’t know ‘Annie Hall’ exists, and that’s just the way it goes — goodbye! It’s bittersweet.”

She managed to capture the cultural zeitgeist in later films. In 1987, she played a successful businesswoman who upends her life to care for a relative’s baby in “Baby Boom.” In 2003, she won acclaim in “Something’s Gotta Give” for playing a successful writer navigating with romance in her 50s.

Keaton also got Oscar nominations for “Reds” (1982), “Marvin’s Room” (1996) and “Something’s Gotta Give.”

Keaton was a patron of the L.A. arts scene and also gained note as a champion of architecture preservation, remaking grand homes across the region. In collaboration with the Los Angeles Public Library, she edited a book of tabloid photos called “Local News” that ran in the Los Angeles Herald-Express.

In a 2018 interview with The Times, she said she felt privileged to still be working.

“I know what I am by now,” she said. “I know how old I am. I know what my limitations are and what I can and can’t do. So if something appeals to me, I’m definitely going to go for it.”

Later in life, Keaton became a major voice in architecture preservation.

She grew up Santa Ana during the post World War II housing boom in the 1950s and told The Times in an interviews she loved going to open houses with her father

“My father took me to see model homes, which I thought were palaces,” Keaton said.

She began buying and fixing up landmark homes around L.A., especially those of the Spanish colonial style.

“You have to get to know a house and try to keep its integrity. I try to honor the architect,” she said. “I love to go into an empty house. You look at the house and start to feel what it might need.”

“There are so many house treasures, unsung gems, all over Los Angeles,” she said.

Explaining how she came to edit the book of L.A. tabloid photos, Keaton told The Times the L.A. city library came up to her at a swap meet.

The librarian said, ‘There’s these files in the basement of the Central Library’ — the most beautiful building. I took a look. There are books and books to be made out of those images. This is a brilliant archive.”

In recent years, Keaton had become a hit on Instagram, posting photos of architecture, fashion and more. In an interview in 2019, she said she was still very active, eager to work and try new things but was also thinking more about her mortality.

“Of course, you think about it. How can you not?” she said. “I mean, I’m 73. How long do you live? It’s really important what those years are like.”

Keaton death brought tribute across Hollywood and beyond.

“She was a very special person and an incredibly gifted actor, who made each of her roles unforgettable. Her light will continue to shine through the art she leaves behind. Godspeed,” said Nancy Sinatra.

The lead of the horror-tinged heart-tugger “Good Boy” is a copper-colored retriever named Indy who pads around an eerie house deep in the New Jersey woods investigating its mysterious creaks, shadows and smells. Like the Method-style actors of “The Blair Witch Project,” he goes by his real name onscreen. An ordinary dog without a whiff of Hollywood hokum, Indy doesn’t do implausible stunts like Lassie or Rin Tin Tin or comprehend anything that his owner, Todd (Shane Jensen), says besides simple phrases: sit, stay and, gratefully, the title itself. But we’re invested in the mindset of this mundane hero. His nose twitches are as dramatic as an ingenue’s gasp.

First-time feature director Ben Leonberg raised Indy as a pet first, movie star second. Along with his wife, Kari Fischer, who produced the film, Leonberg shot “Good Boy” in his weekend house, staging scenarios for Indy to explore until he had enough material for a (barely) full-length spook show. Even at 72 minutes, “Good Boy” is belabored in the middle stretch. It would make a fabulous one-hour TV special.

Using his personal footage, Leonberg (who also edited the film and did its gorgeous, inky-wet cinematography) opens with a montage of Indy growing up from a tiny puppy to a loyal best friend. We love the dog more in five minutes than we do some slasher final girls who’ve survived several sequels. Indy is the most empathetic scream queen of the year so far — and I mean that literally as his breed, a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling retriever, is known for its high-pitched wail. American Kennel Club lists the Toller as the U.S.’s 87th most popular dog. I expect this movie will lead to an uptick. (Steve Martin already has one.)

What’s wrong in Indy’s new home? A pair of tragedies wind together like vines, although from the dog’s point of view, the distinction between them isn’t always obvious. This battered two-story home with ominous scratches on the basement door has been in Todd’s family for six generations, as the cemetery out back proves. Bequeathed to the youngish urban hipster by his grandfather (indie cult icon Larry Fessenden), a misanthrope who willed his taxidermy collection to a vegan, it’s a good place to disappear.

Todd, who’s in bad physical and emotional shape, has isolated himself in this scraggly, foggy forest to get some privacy from his sister, Vera (Arielle Friedman). There’s also a past death that the dog is able to perceive. A sniff of a rotting old chair frightens Indy so much, he wets the rug.

“Scaredy pants,” Todd teases Indy. The dog can’t explain what only he knows.

Several unnerving things are happening at once, including the presence of a silhouetted stalker, old bones that give the dog nightmares and Todd’s unpredictable mood swings. There’s also a ghost in the movie, I think — at least, there’s a heavy hinge that shouldn’t be able to open without a spectral nudge. Indy stands about two feet tall, so the camera often stays at that height too, gliding close to the floor where the view from under the bed looks as big as an airplane hangar.

A realistic dog’s-eye view of a creepy cabin is a good hook, although people hoping to see an otherwise satisfying genre thriller will feel a bit underwhelmed that Leonberg and his co-screenwriter Alex Cannon are conflicted about pushing the scary elements of the film too far into the supernatural. With a complicated backstory off the table (Indy looks restless whenever adults are having a conversation), the movie taps into our burgeoning belief that animals do have a special sixth sense, like how hospice workers know to pay special attention to whoever gets night visits from the resident pet.

Still, “Good Boy” doesn’t stray too far from the film’s core strength: a normal dog doing normal dog things. In a twitch, a head tilt or a whine, Indy communicates his emotions: curious, lonely, contented, confused, fretful, desperate or petrified. There’s no CG in the dog’s performance, no corny reaction shots and no use of animal doubles either. Todd’s own legs, however, are often doubled by Leonberg, an onscreen switcheroo that’s possible because the lens doesn’t tend to look up.

I liked the plot better on a second watch when I knew not to expect Jamie Lee Curtis on all fours. The ending is great and the build up to it, though draggy, gives you space to think about the interdependence between our species. Dogs are wired to be our protectors and yet, through generations of nurturing, they’ve come to trust that we’ll also protect them. The inarticulate betrayal in the film is that Todd isn’t making good decisions for anyone. His bond with Indy is pure and strong, yet one-sided in that Todd is too distracted to ease the dog’s fears. Indy is bereft to be left alone for long stretches of time in a strange house. But he can’t do a thing about that, nor the sputtering electricity, the fox traps in the brush and the neighbor (Stuart Rudin) who skulks around in hunting camouflage.

In Todd’s facelessness, he’s a stand-in for whatever you want: absentee parents, a struggling partner or child or friend. There’s a scene in which he comes home in obvious need of a cuddle, only to push his dog away. Maybe you’ve been both people in that shot: the person overwhelmed by their own pain and the loved one who has no idea how to soothe them. It’s terrifying to love someone this much, to give them the full force of your devotion only to get locked outside.

Consciously or not, Leonberg has made a primal film about helplessness. Watching it, I was knocked sideways by a sense memory of how it felt to be a child. Like Indy, kids get dragged around to places they don’t want to go to for reasons that aren’t explained, and when they whine, they’re commanded to pipe down. Even as we get older — when our own point of view can stand taller than two feet — the things that truly scare us are the ones that make us feel small and confused.

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Sunday that he is ending his campaign for reelection.

In a video released on social media, Adams spoke with pride about his achievements as mayor, including a drop in violent crime. But he said that “constant media speculation” about his future and a decision by the city’s campaign finance board to withhold public funding from his reelection effort made it impossible to stay in the race.

“Despite all we’ve achieved, I cannot continue my reelection campaign,” Adams said.

The one-term Democrat’s decision to quit the race comes days after he repeatedly insisted he would stay in the contest, saying everyday New Yorkers don’t “surrender.”

But speculation that he wouldn’t make it to election day has been rampant for a year. Adams’ campaign was severely wounded by his federal bribery case — since dismissed by the Justice Department after he agreed to cooperate with President Trump’s immigration crackdown — and liberal anger over his warm relationship with Trump. He skipped the Democratic primary and got on the ballot as an independent.

In the video, Adams did not directly mention or endorse any of the remaining candidates in the race. He also warned that “extremism is growing in our politics.”

“Major change is welcome and necessary, but beware of those who claim the answer [is] to destroy the very system we built over generations,” he said. “That is not change, that is chaos. Instead, I urge leaders to choose leaders not by what they promise, but by what they have delivered.”

Adams’ exit could potentially provide a lift to the campaign of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a fellow Democratic centrist running as an independent, who has portrayed himself as the only candidate able to beat the Democratic Party’s nominee, state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani.

It was unclear, though, whether enough Adams supporters would shift their allegiance to Cuomo to make a difference.

Mamdani, who, at age 33, would be the city’s youngest and most liberal mayor in generations if elected, beat Cuomo decisively in the Democratic primary by campaigning on a promise to try to lower the cost of living in one of the world’s most expensive cities.

Republican Curtis Sliwa also remains in the race, though his candidacy has been undercut from within his own party. Trump in a recent interview called him “not exactly prime time.”

Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has endorsed Mamdani, said in a statement after the mayor’s announcement that she has been proud to have worked with Adams for the last four years, and that he leaves the city “better than he inherited it.”

Offenhartz and Izaguirre write for the Associated Press.

Boeing has started production of the first F-47 sixth-generation stealth fighter for the U.S. Air Force. The goal now is for that jet to make its first flight sometime in 2028.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin provided a brief update on the F-47 during his keynote address at the Air & Space Forces Association’s 2025 Air, Space, and Cyber Conference today, at which TWZ is in attendance. In March, President Donald Trump personally announced that Boeing had been selected as the winner of the competition for the crewed fighter component of the Air Force’s broader Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) initiative. The NGAD effort also includes the development of new Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drones, as well as advanced jet engines, weapons, electronic warfare suites, sensors, networking ecosystems, battle management capabilities, and more.

“After years of work, hundreds of test hours, 1,000s of man-years in the lab, the President announced the F-47,” Allvin said. “It’s the platform that, along with all of the rest of the [NGAD] systems, is going to ensure dominance into the future.”

“We [have] got to go fast. I got to tell you, team, it’s almost 2026. The team is committed to get the first one flying in 2028,” he continued. “In the few short months since we made the announcement, they [Boeing] are already beginning to manufacture the first article. We’re ready to go fast. We have to go fast.”

The Air Force has only previously said that the F-47 was expected to make its maiden flight before the end of Trump’s current term, which will conclude on January 20, 2029. Multiple secretive flying demonstrators helped pave the way for the F-47, as well.

Details about the F-47 program and design of the aircraft itself remain highly classified. At the time of writing, there continue to be only two official renderings of the jet, which Air Force officials have said do not necessarily fully reflect what the plane looks like in real life, for operational security purposes.

“Just love looking at this picture,” Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink had said during his own keynote at the conference today, which came just ahead of Allvin’s speech, referring specifically to the F-47 rendering seen below. “I expect some of the Chinese Intel analysts are spending a lot of time looking at this picture. Good luck trying to dig something out of there. Pretty careful about that.”

The inclusion of prominent canard foreplanes in the two renderings has been a particular topic of discussion since March. Canards could give the design a boost in maneuverability, but are conducive to extreme degrees of low observability (stealth) to radar. TWZ has previously explored the matter of the canards, and what else can be seen in the renderings, in detail, while also noting that certain aspects could be deliberate misdirection.

The Air Force has said the F-47 is expected to have a combat radius in excess of 1,000 nautical miles and be able to reach speeds above Mach 2. With that range, the new sixth-generation jets will offer a roughly 25% boost in operational reach, at least, over existing U.S. fighters. How fast the aircraft will be able to cruise without its afterburners engaged (supercruise), and with what level of efficiency, remains unknown.

The F-47 has otherwise long been expected to feature next-generation all-aspect ‘broadband’ low-observability (stealthiness), including a significantly reduced infrared signature on top of a low radar cross-section. “Spectral warfare” and “spectral dominance” have been major focus areas for the entire NGAD initiative, as TWZ has previously detailed. Air Force officials have also talked generally about the fighters having next-generation capabilities that will leverage the rest of the NGAD ecosystem, including the ability to control future CCAs.

It’s also worth noting that Boeing has been in the running for the Navy’s F/A-XX next-generation carrier-based fighter competition. A rendering that the company recently released of its F/A-XX proposal has unsurprising similarities to what has been shown to date of the F-47, as you can read more about here. The firm also previously made major investments to expand its operations in St. Louis, Missouri, to prepare for sixth-generation fighter production.

The Air Force has said it plans to acquire at least 185 F-47s, which would be in line with the original vision of the aircraft as a successor to the F-22 Raptor. However, questions have been raised about whether that figure might change going forward, and there has been talk about the potential for multiple versions to be built in incremental developmental cycles. The F-47’s expected unit cost is also unclear, but past projections have put it in the realm of three times the average price of an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, or upwards of $300 million based on publicly available information.

Speaking today, Allvin did underscore that the F-47 was just one part of broader modernization efforts to ensure the Air Force maintains its edge against any potential opponent.

“The adversary is not taking a knee. They’re not stopping and saying, ‘well, maybe the U.S. slows down, we’ll slow down too.’ Maybe we can take a knee, and that’s not what they’re doing,” he said. “As we look into the future, when we develop all of the next-generation capabilities, we can’t get enamored with the platforms. It’s not just the weapons and the weapon systems. We’ve got to understand systems over platform. It’s the things that links them together that makes it work.”

That being said, the Air Force clearly sees the F-47 as a key part of its future force structure, especially with an eye toward a potential high-end fight against China in the Pacific.

The Air Force is now moving steadily closer to this next generation of tactical airpower with the first F-47 being built ahead of an expected first flight some three years from now.

Contact the author: [email protected]

Cracks seem to be appearing in the pan-European Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program, at the heart of which will be the crewed New Generation Fighter (NGF). Reports now suggest that Germany, one of the two major partners in FCAS, is looking at how it might separate itself from France, amid long-running misgivings over workshare arrangements in this vital program.

According to Politico, the German Ministry of Defense discussed the future of FCAS last week with Airbus, which leads the German side of the program. The article cited two unnamed people familiar with those discussions. Reportedly, German defense officials are unhappy with French demands to have a disproportionate share of the program and are now examining other options.

The same article states that German Luftwaffe officials briefed Bundestag lawmakers on the issue earlier this week, quoting an official in the legislature.

According to reports in the German defense media, France is pushing for an 80 percent share of the work on the crewed NGF combat jet, something French officials have denied.

“At some point [the German] parliament will have to say: ‘Either we need this aircraft, or we don’t,’” Social Democratic lawmaker Andreas Schwarz told Politico.

Among the options the German government is said to be exploring is to continue with FCAS without France, although the feasibility of that is highly questionable.

The implication is that Germany would pursue FCAS alongside Spain, which joined the program later, followed by Belgium, as a junior partner. Both Germany and Spain have production lines for the Eurofighter Typhoon, but Germany has not designed and built a crewed combat jet, outside of a wider consortium, for many decades, while Spain has never embarked on such a program, other than as part of the pan-European Eurofighter program.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was in Madrid yesterday, where he discussed FCAS with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

“We share the assessment that the current situation is unsatisfactory. We are not advancing with this project,” Merz said. “We are both speaking with the French government, and we want a solution as soon as possible.”

On the other hand, whatever path Germany chooses, Spain and/or Belgium might still choose to stay with France, where Dassault Aviation leads that side of the program.

Other possibilities that the German government is said to be weighing up include Germany teaming up with the United Kingdom or Sweden.

Confusingly, the FCAS nomenclature is also used by British-led and Swedish future air combat initiatives, which also feature a crewed fighter at the center, as well as a range of supporting drones and other advanced technologies.

Like the pan-European equivalent, the U.K.-led FCAS is planned to include more than just a new crewed tactical jet, including uncrewed platforms, next-generation weapons, networks and data sharing, and more.

The Tempest fighter at the heart of the U.K. FCAS program also slots into an international collaborative program to field the aircraft, plus associated support and training, to the United Kingdom, Italy, and Japan. This effort is known as the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP).

Were Germany to join the U.K.-led FCAS/GCAP effort, it would therefore join Italy and Japan. The suggestion of the U.K.’s BAE Systems, which heads up the British FCAS program, joining Germany to develop a separate new-generation combat aircraft seems much less likely.

Interestingly, when he was chief of the German Luftwaffe, Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerhartz promoted efforts to bring the British and pan-European FCAS programs together by speaking with his Italian and British counterparts. “It can be that we go on different tracks,” Gerhartz told Defense News in 2021. “Hopefully, we will merge eventually.”

On the face of it, Sweden might seem like a more likely partner for Germany, although the country is at a much earlier stage in its FCAS thinking. So far, Saab has presented concepts for a potential new-generation crewed fighter and a series of drones intended to work alongside it.

At this point, it appears that Saab considers drones to be very much at the heart of its FCAS initiative, something that is perhaps not as immediately obvious with the rival British and pan-European programs, although that could change, especially if Germany plots a new course. Already, Airbus and Kratos are pitching the stealthy XQ-58A Valkyrie drone to the German Luftwaffe, and Airbus has also been working to fill an emerging niche for ‘loyal wingman’-type drones, including a stealthy CCA-like concept of its own, known as Wingman.

Saab was also previously involved with the British FCAS program before stepping aside from that.

For Germany, however, time is running out if it wants to reconfigure its position in FCAS and still achieve the goal of replacing its current Eurofighter combat aircraft with a new ‘system of systems,’ including a crewed fighter, around 2040. The U.K.-led FCAS also hopes to field a new fighter and supporting systems around the same time. With that in mind, it’s reported that German officials want guarantees about their country’s role in the program before the end of the year.

In the medium term, Germany’s need for an advanced crewed combat aircraft will be offset somewhat by the arrival of the F-35A, 35 of which are on order, initially to replace the Tornado swing-wing combat jet in the nuclear strike role. Interestingly, reports from earlier this summer suggested that Berlin might be interested in buying another 15 F-35As, for a total of 50, as a bridging solution before FCAS, although officials subsequently denied that was a plan — for the time being, at least.

Now, more than ever, there appears to be a real possibility of Germany and France going their separate ways in the pan-European FCAS, although whether that will lead to four separate FCAS efforts in Europe (including Sweden’s) seems much less likely. Already, there are serious questions about the ability of the continent to sustain a program as expensive and complex as this, especially without guarantees of significant export sales or foreign investment.

The pan-European FCAS may well be at something of a crossroads now, with the defense ministers from France, Germany, and Spain due to meet next month to hammer out the details of the program’s future.

The results of those talks will likely influence whether the program moves into Phase 2, in which the companies involved will produce a demonstrator aircraft. Such a decision is due before the end of this year.

Even then, however, it might not be too late for things to change.

It’s worth recalling that France was originally part of the European consortium that eventually developed and produced the Eurofighter, before leaving that program’s progenitor, and going it alone with the Dassault-developed Rafale.

As far as France’s position on FCAS is concerned, it appears that officials want to speed up the program, in particular wanting to have more control over decision-making, rather than having to discuss details with German and French partners, increasing the risk of delays. This appears to apply to the NGF combat jet, in particular.

While the pan-European FCAS has long been dogged by disputes over workshare arrangements, the timing of the current tensions could hardly be worse. The timeline to get the aircraft and other systems into service is already very tight, and the countries involved are seeking to build up their armed forces in the face of a growing Russian threat on NATO’s eastern flank. More immediately, the French political situation is also in some disarray.

It’s by no means clear that the current frictions will lead to a major reshaping of the pan-European FCAS, and perhaps even alter the paths of rival efforts in Europe. At the very least, however, such issues are likely to delay what is already a highly ambitious and technologically demanding effort.

Contact the author: [email protected]

U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Daniel Cheever, commonly referred to as the service’s “Air Boss,” is still “eagerly awaiting” a new F/A-XX next-generation carrier-based fighter despite the uncertainty now swirling around that program. Cheever already sees a key boost in capability for the Navy’s carrier air wings on the horizon in the form of the MQ-25 Stingray tanker drone, which could leverage its very long range to perform other missions in the future, as TWZ has previously explored in detail.

Cheever, whose formal title is commander of Naval Air Forces, talked to TWZ‘s Jamie Hunter about F/A-XX and MQ-25 on the sidelines of the Tailhook Association’s annual symposium last Friday.

F/A-XX is “ready for down-select, to which of the vendors you would go with, and we’re just excited,” Cheever said. For “Naval Aviation, fourth, fifth, and sixth-generation on an aircraft carrier is a phenomenal capability and absolutely needed for air superiority, which allows [for] sea control.”

The Navy was reportedly close to announcing the winner of the F/A-XX competition in March, hot on the heels of the U.S. Air Force choosing Boeing’s F-47 as the sixth-generation fighter component of its Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) effort. Boeing and Northrop Grumman are understood to be the remaining contenders for F/A-XX.

However, in June, the Pentagon announced as part of the rollout of its Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal that it was moving to complete initial development work related to F/A-XX, but then freeze the program indefinitely. The stated reason for this decision was to avoid competition for resources that could hurt the USAF’s F-47. There has been pushback on the concerns that America’s aviation industry can support two sixth-generation fighter programs simultaneously, including from Boeing.

“They [the Navy] haven’t made a decision yet. So that’s what the down-select is. We’re waiting for the decision, and I’m not the decision maker. I’m just eagerly awaiting,” Vice Adm. Cheever told TWZ last week.

Cheever’s comments add to the murkiness that currently surrounds F/A-XX. In recent months, other senior Navy officials have voiced support publicly for continuing with the next-generation carrier-based fighter program. Members of Congress have also been making moves to keep F/A-XX moving ahead as planned in the upcoming Fiscal Year 2026 budget.

“Nothing in the Joint Force projects combat power from the sea as a Carrier Strike Group, which at the heart has a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier (CVN). To maintain this striking power, the CVN must have an air wing that is comprised of the most advanced strike fighters,” Adm. Daryl Caudle, Chief of Naval Operations, the Navy’s top officer, wrote in response to a question about F/A-XX ahead of his confirmation hearing in July. “Therefore, the ability to maintain air superiority against peer competitors will be put at risk if the Navy is unable to field a 6th Generation strike fighter on a relevant timeline. Without a replacement for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and E/A-18G Growler, the Navy will be forced to retrofit 4th generation aircraft and increase procurement of 5th generation aircraft to attempt to compete with the new 6th generation aircraft that the threat is already flying.”

“The Navy has a validated requirement for carrier-based 6th generation aircraft, and it is critical that we field that capability as quickly as possible to give our warfighters the capabilities they need to win against a myriad of emerging threats,” he added.

The Navy has now long presented F/A-XX as critical to ensuring its carrier air wings can continue to project power in the face of ever-growing threats, especially in any future high-end fight, such as one against China in the Pacific. The aforementioned MQ-25 Stingray also remains a top priority in this regard.

“To me, it [MQ-25] is the key that unlocks manned-unmanned teaming on the aircraft carrier. So once we get MQ-25 flying, and it’s supposed to fly in 2025, that is the big thing,” Vice Adm. Cheever told TWZ at Tailhook. “Now, I unlock all of the manned-unmanned teaming that can happen on the aircraft carrier in the future.”

“If you think about it, I have all these strike fighters that are configured as tankers, and I can free them all up to be strike fighters again, instead of tankers,” Cheever added. “And that is just that is an exponential increase in our strike and fighting capability and capacity.”

What the Air Boss is referring to here is the current use of F/A-18E/F Super Hornets with buddy refueling stores to provide organic tanker capacity to the Navy’s carrier air wings. The Navy has estimated in the past that 20 to 30 percent of carrier-based Super Hornet sorties are taken up by aerial refueling. In addition to eliminating the need for Super Hornets to perform this function, the MQ-25 also offers additional benefits in terms of its own range and on-station time, which will significantly extend the air wing’s operational reach.

As noted, the goal now is for the MQ-25 to fly for the first time this year, a key milestone for a program that has suffered delays and cost growth. The current hope is to reach initial operational capability (IOC) with the Stingray sometime in Fiscal Year 2027, around three years later than originally expected.

On top of being tankers, the baseline MQ-25s are set to be delivered with a secondary intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capability. The Stingray’s baked-in capabilities, especially its range, open doors to the drones, or future variants or derivatives thereof, taking on a host of other missions, including kinetic strike and airborne early warning, as TWZ has laid out in-depth in this past feature.

“It’s got a lot of potential,” Vice Adm. told TWZ last week. “[It’s got] huge range.”

“Absolutely,” Cheever said when asked specifically about the MQ-25 taking on additional roles in the future, though he did not elaborate.

In terms of MQ-25 as a springboard to adding more uncrewed capabilities in the Navy carrier air wings, “the future of Collaborative Combat Aircraft, and that kind of thing, is TBD [to be decided], still to come. That work’s still to be done, and there’s a lot of folks in that space,” Cheever added.

By the Navy’s own admission, it is following the lead of the Air Force, and the U.S. Marine Corps to a lesser extent, when it comes to plans for future Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) ‘loyal wingman’ type drones, and is looking to leverage the work those services are doing now. The Navy has previously outlined one vision for future CCAs that are low-cost enough to be “consumable,” and expended as one-way attack munitions or targets for use in training or test evaluation activities at the end of relatively short service lives. The service has also expressed a “strong interest” in the MQ-28 Ghost Bat, originally developed by Boeing’s subsidiary in Australia for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). You can read more about the current state of the Navy’s CCA plans in TWZ‘s earlier reporting from this year’s Tailhook symposium.

Overall, Cheever’s comments at Tailhook underscore that the Navy is still pressing to proceed with F/A-XX as a critical part of its larger plans to modernize its carrier air wings.

Contact the author: [email protected]

Masked goons are terrorizing American cities. The U.S. inflation rate is the highest it has been in over four decades. Gaza is starving to death. The Cracker Barrel unveils a new logo.

If you guessed which crisis is not like the others, then you’ve spotted the latest source of outrage fueling the right-wing media universe, where trivial distractions from Trump’s failures and the Epstein files are the name of the game.

In a kerfuffle as layered as the eatery’s hash-brown casserole ($4.79 for a side dish, $15 and upward for an entree-sized portion), the folksy-themed establishment, which first opened its doors in 1969, is once again fodder in a one-sided culture war.

The crime? The chain’s classic gold and brown logo now features the chain’s name in a more minimalistic font. Gone is the eatery’s unofficial mascot, that folksy fellow in coveralls who enjoys leaning on a wooden barrel.

“WTF is wrong with @CrackerBarrel??!” said Cracker Barrel regular-in-spirit-only Donald Trump Jr. when responding to a post on X where the user shockingly blamed DEI for the restaurant’s monstrous decision.

“Cracker Barrel is done,” wrote the Federalist’s Sean Davis. “Woke executives killed it, wrapped the corpse in a rainbow flag, and then made it do a little puppet show in New York City for the entertainment of all their woke little friends.”

Not exactly a puppet show, but the Cracker Barrel did host its “A Taste of Country, Anytime” event Thursday in New York City with country music star Jordan Davis. The chain purported to bring a “country hospitality experience to the big city,” complete with “entertainment on the front porch, rocking chairs, classic Cracker Barrel games and crave-worthy food.”

Clearly a ruse for yet another Pride parade or Latin American gang invasion.

The deception started on Aug. 19, when the Tennessee-based chain in a press release announced changes to its logo and menu as part of a campaign titled “All the More.” The rebrand features new menu items, restaurant remodels and an “enhanced brand look and feel.”

“We believe in the goodness of country hospitality, a spirit that has always defined us. Our story hasn’t changed,”  said Cracker Barrel Chief Marketing Officer Sarah Moore in a statement. “Our values haven’t changed.”

But their signage has changed, and that in itself signaled a threat to a way of life that we need to rediscover, you know, in order to make America great again.

Nostalgia for a time that most of us weren’t even alive to see is part of Cracker Barrel’s appeal. Renowned for its Southern comfort food and down-home appeal, generations of Americans have wandered through the establishment’s general store decor and dined on its Southern comfort food. But like any business, it needs to keep up with the tastes and demands of new generations, and apparently Gen Z, millennials and even Gen Xers aren’t buying black licorice and candy corn like their predecessors once did.

It’s hardly the first time the dubiously-named dining establishment has faced accusations that it’s going gay. As the Bulwark pointed out, there was 2023 e-outrage over Cracker Barrel’s acknowledgment of Pride month, which included a rainbow-themed rocking chair and some corporate-speak about “diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging at Cracker Barrel.”

“We take no pleasure in reporting that Cracker Barrel has fallen,” the organization Texas Family Project wrote at the time. “A once family friendly establishment has caved to the mob.”

When the country is in chaos and entangled in man-made catastrophes abroad, it’s easier to rail, risk-free, against a manufactured crisis. Fox Business News led its Friday news lineup with a Cracker Barrel report, but not about the logo redesign: “Cracker Barrel over the past decade has worked closely with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), changing its company culture to be more inclusive and LGBT-friendly ahead of its controversial store rebrand,” reads the lede.

It’s yet to be seen if a sizable swath of America will forgo the Signature Saucy Chicken Sandwich in protest, constituting another national crisis to chew on.

Every recreational golfer of my generation has at least two things in common: We grew up revering Tiger Woods, and we know “Happy Gilmore,” the 1996 Adam Sandler golf comedy, like the back of our hands. Which millennial, while lining up a putt on the green, hasn’t told himself at some point to just “tap it in — give it a little tappy, a tap tap taparoo”? Who among us, before hitting a challenging tee shot, hasn’t at some point first closed his eyes and attempted to escape to his very own “happy place”? And above all, which of us hasn’t spent hours upon hours at the local driving range trying to master the craft that is protagonist Happy Gilmore’s signature running golf swing?

For all of us picking up the game once described by sports journalist John Feinstein as “a good walk spoiled,” Sandler’s character was a never-ending font of laughs and inspiration. Like so many others of my generation, then, I was very excited to watch “Happy Gilmore 2,” just released on Netflix on July 25. The sequel, 29 years in the making, didn’t have a script as instantly quotable as the original, nor was it as memorable. (Which film sequel, besides “The Godfather Part II” or “The Empire Strikes Back,” ever has been?) But “Happy Gilmore 2” still surpassed expectations: It was at times a bit silly, but it was still rollicking fun, replete with nostalgic flashbacks and a bevy of pro golfer cameos.

But it’s also more than that. It would be a mistake to dismiss the two movies as purely frivolous fare — good just for a few laughs. Rather, Sandler, long known for leading a private, low-key lifestyle that eschews the Hollywood limelight, has a specific message for Happy’s myriad fans: Family always comes first.

In the original film, Happy, a hockey fanatic whose weak skating skills inhibited his pro hockey aspirations, reluctantly takes up golf for one reason: to earn enough money to save his beloved grandmother’s home from a bank foreclosure and return her there from a hostile nursing home. Throughout the film, Happy emphasizes this as his sole motivation for biting his lips and suffering through what he calls “golf sissy crap.” Happy doesn’t particularly care about the game of golf. He’s just doing it for Grandma.

In the sequel, Happy, now considerably older and a father of five, has retired from golf and developed a bad drinking habit. A single father, he is struggling to make ends meet and provide for his daughter Vienna. Early in the film, Vienna’s dance instructor recommends that Happy enroll her in an advanced four-year ballet school in Paris, which would cost $75,000 annually. Happy senses that Vienna’s dream to dance ballet is similar to his old dream of playing hockey. With the encouragement of John Daly (one of many real-life pro golfers cast as themselves), he dusts off his old golf clubs and gives it a go again. Spoiler alert, without giving away too many of the specifics: The film has a happy ending for Happy’s family.

Clearly, this is not just about golf and laughs.

Sandler, a onetime registered and politically active Republican, is conveying to his audience a traditional conservative message: A life well lived is not a solipsistic one that exalts the self, but an altruistic one that places the interests of others above all else. These “others” are usually those closest to us — family members, older and younger generations alike, to whom we have obligations. You might notice that in both films, Happy plays golf only for others — not for himself.

Happy, who once fought to save the house his grandfather built, now finds himself trying to do right by the next generation. It is these relationships — with those who came before us and those who come after us — that give our lives meaning and purpose. And in “Happy Gilmore 2,” Sandler drives home that message in the most personal way possible: He casts his real-life wife and his two daughters — one as the aspiring ballerina.

The foul-mouthed, trash-talking rebel of golf, Happy Gilmore, is onto something important. Perhaps more of Sandler’s Hollywood colleagues ought to listen. They might learn something.

Josh Hammer’s latest book is “Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.” This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. @josh_hammer

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Back in 1994, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) faced a tough choice: vote to end a filibuster on the California Desert Protection Act, which would create the largest national park in the lower 48 states, or go on vacation to the Caribbean. .

Much to the consternation of the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Diane Feinstein, Kerry chose the latter. Feinstein called Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, and asked him to help change Kerry’s mind.

Pope turned to his heavyweights: the 30,000-member Sierra Student Coalition (SCC). This national group of environmentally active college students was experienced in “dorm storming,” in which SCC volunteers encourage their peers to lobby legislators. The first 200 callers were told the senator would not be voting. The second 200 callers were told his staff was looking for the senator and he might be changing his mind. The third 200 callers were told the senator would vote. He did and the bill passed.

While often dismissed as members of a generation of apathetic “twenty-nothings,” college environmental activists continue to demonstrate how young people can influence the political process. Thanks to their willingness to commit free time and labor to causes in which they believe, an “indifferent” generation has proven to be more impassioned about community service than past youth activists. Indeed, studies show young people today volunteer at twice the rate that baby boomers did when they were younger.

Making use of new technology, the SCC has found a way to allow young activists to help set the environmental agenda. By using the Sierra Club’s World Wide Web page, students can lobby their representatives on pending legislation or policy issues. For example, the SCC, using dorm storming, played a key role in campaigns to protect the Arctic Refuge and defend public land from destructive mining practices.

Recognizing the rise of youth influence, the Sierra Club has undergone a dramatic changing of the guard. Last year, 24-year-old Adam Werbach took over as its 46th president. He has begun to tailor the Sierra Club’s message to his MTV-influenced peers, employing catchy print ads, a new clothing line and even a Sierra Club album with prominent recording artists.

“We need to be able to sell messages of substance in the same way Nike sells shoes,” he explains.

Of course, flashy ads are not going to change youth attitudes overnight. A recent Media Studies Center/Roper Center survey found that only 15% of younger voters followed last year’s presidential campaign “very closely.” This lack of enthusiasm was reflected in their voter-participation rate: Fewer 18- to 29-year-olds voted than any other group. And expecting to sell political activism like shoes seems to be an unrealistic goal, especially because of a cynical attitude among young people toward advertising.

Still, if there is one thing college environmental activism can do, it is to alter the public’s perception of the younger generation. Rather than focus on body piercing and cigar smoking, the public might discover some of the accomplishments of this generation. The Adam Werbachs are coming to power. It’s just a question of when America is going to notice.

It’s a summery, late-afternoon Saturday on the backyard lawn of LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, with the kind of warmth and variety of sounds, sights and smells that have defined weekends in many Los Angeles neighborhoods for generations. This one happens to be for a KCRW Summer Nights event headlined by East L.A. soul revivalists the Altons, but the blend of demographics, cultures and backgrounds on display gives it an authentically local feel that could be mistaken for an informal block party in any decade — except perhaps for the screen printer creating band merch and a design of Snoopy humping an ice cube with an expletive about Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

That same blend of history and cultures that has brought Los Angeles together across generations is also what’s given the Altons their signature sound and made them one of the city’s latest breakout stars. When they go on tour and bring their unique blend of soulful “oldies,” modern rock and bilingual R&B around the world, they aren’t just sharing their music but also their culture.

“On any given weekend, you can have some party down the street playing cumbia or music that your parents grew up on, their next door neighbor might have a punk rock show, and another guy down the street that’s just listening to oldies and Art Laboe,” vocalist and guitarist Bryan Ponce explains about the roots of the Altons’ diverse sound stemming from their collective Los Angeles childhoods. “We all grew up on all of this music that we’d hear in our neighborhoods, so all of our influences just came together and came out in our music.”

The Altons members Adriana Flores, Caitlin Moss, Bryan Ponce and Joseph Quinones perform at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes on June 28.

(Brian Feinzimer / For The Times)

For a band that started with modest expectations nearly a decade ago, the Altons now find themselves heading out on international tours and playing to thousands of people at a time — as they will Saturday when they rock the Oldies 2 Souldies show with Los Lonely Boys at the Greek Theatre. And while their rise has been more of a gradual incline than anything particularly stratospheric, they’ve carved their own path without compromise. They’re willing to fuse genres, languages, tempos and sounds as they see fit and based on what they feel will work best for the songs and messages they’re wanting to deliver instead of catering to what may be popular in the moment, a choice that’s made them the face of the “oldies revival” now that millennials and Gen Z are falling back in love with tunes from their grandparents’ day.

“It’s incredible to play a show where a grandmother’s there with her daughter and grandkids, and just have multiple generations of people come together,” vocalist Adriana Flores says. “There’s not a lot of shows that I would even take my dad to, so I think it makes the music even more special and I’d like to be one of the bands shedding the light on what’s been happening in L.A. We’ve been doing it for years and just sharing the types of music we like — which is the retro sound of soul mixed with other elements. We like to show people what’s been happening in L.A. that’s not just Hollywood.”

The Altons’ Adriana Flores and Bryan Ponce perform at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in late June.

(Brian Feinzimer / For The Times)

That desire to show the “real” L.A. that they know and love is a driving force for the Altons, particularly as they go further and further from home. All of them — Flores and Ponce along with Joseph Quinones on guitar/backup vocals, Chris Manjarrez on bass, Christian “Elyzr” Meraz on keyboards and drummer Caitlin Moss — are proud to represent their East L.A. roots for those who only see the California that gets presented on television. The group eagerly reminisces about a fan they met at a show in France who had never set foot in California but loved the culture so much that he dressed the part of a classic cholo. “He looked like he could have been related to me or went to school with me,” Ponce says with a laugh. “He was bald, he had the Locs on, the Pendleton on and he was screaming our neighborhoods.” They recall the times they’ve felt like cultural ambassadors bringing their hometown heritage to cities like Boston.

But the self-placed weight of representing and sharing their lifelong culture isn’t always all fun and games. Just a matter of weeks before they were walking through the halls of LA Plaza’s museum to see their brand-new exhibition on the importance of East L.A. musicians, they were on tour in the U.K. feeling helpless as they watched the ICE raids and protests flood the city.

Bryan Ponce and Adriana Flores onstage at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes.

(Brian Feinzimer / For The Times)

“You couldn’t really grasp what was going on,” Ponce says. “I would watch videos and see stuff online, but I didn’t really see it until we came home for a couple of days before we left again. [Manjarrez] and I live close to each other, and we started seeing videos of all these places and stores and people in our community. It was just devastating to have to leave again and see that they’re getting even closer to your house and seeing it happening on your street. You’re trying to go and play music to entertain people, but you’re also trying to find a balance. It’s like ‘Are we going to speak on what’s going on?’ Because some people thought that L.A. was burning down, and that’s not really the case.”

“Watching the community go through something so heartbreaking while being away was really difficult,” Flores adds. “It was really tough seeing our community being targeted, but I’d like to believe that music and being creative and spreading joy is a form of resistance. I hope that people can come to our shows and escape. Even though this is way bigger than us, we have to use our platform to be vocal about what’s going on. It’s scary times, but another scary time was the ‘60s when the whole civil rights movement was happening, and some of the best music came out of that because people were finding that outlet and creating.”

The success of Zohran Mamdani in New York City’s Democratic primary for mayor is thrilling for Hari Kondabolu, a stand-up comedian who’s been friends with him for 15 years.

Mamdani stunned the political establishment when he declared victory in the primary on Tuesday, a ranked-choice election in which his strongest competition, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, conceded defeat.

When he launched his campaign, the democratic socialist ranked near the bottom of the pack. Now, the 33-year-old state assemblyman has a chance to be New York City’s first Asian American and Muslim mayor.

Mamdani’s family came to the United States when he was 7, and he became a citizen in 2018. He was born to Indian parents in Kampala, Uganda.

For Kondabolu, this moment is not just exciting, but emotional.

“I think so many of us have had those experiences in New York of being brown and in a city that has always been really diverse and feels like ours. But after 9/11, like you start to question it like, is this our city too?” Kondabolu said. “And 25 years later … it’s surreal, like this is the same city but it’s not because we’ve elected this person.”

Mamdani’s campaign has piqued the interest of many Indian, Pakistani and other South Asian Americans, as well as Muslims — even those who may not agree with Mamdani on many issues. Some see his rise as a sign of hope in a city where racism and xenophobia erupted following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Riveted by the primary election

Many of New York City’s more than 300,000 South Asian residents have been inspired by Mamdani’s extraordinary trajectory.

“My mom was texting her friends to vote for him. I’ve never seen my mother do that before,” Kondabolu said. “So the idea that it’s gotten our whole family activated in this way — this is, like, personal.”

Snigdha Sur, founder and chief executive of the Juggernaut, an online publication reporting on South Asians, has been fascinated by the response from some people in India and the diaspora.

“So many global South Asians … they’re like, ‘Oh, this guy is my mayor and I don’t live in New York City,’” Sur said.

At the same time, some are also concerned or angered by Mamdani’s past remarks about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whom he called a “war criminal.”

In 2005, Washington revoked Modi’s visa to the U.S., citing concerns that, as chief minister of the state of Gujarat, he did not act to stop communal violence during 2002 anti-Muslim riots that left more than 1,000 people dead. An investigation approved by the Indian Supreme Court later absolved Modi. Rights groups have accused Modi’s government of widespread attacks and discrimination against India’s Muslims and other minorities.

In Michigan, Thasin Sardar has been following Mamdani’s ascent online. When he first heard him, the candidate struck him as “genuine” and he felt “an instant connection,” he said.

“As a Muslim American, this victory puts my trust back in the people,” said Sardar, who was born and raised in India. “I am happy that there are people who value the candidate and his policies more than his personal religious beliefs and didn’t vote him down because of the color of his skin, or the fact that he was an immigrant with an uncommon name.”

New York voter Zainab Shabbir said family members in California and elsewhere have also excitedly taken note.

“My family in California, they were very much like, ‘Oh, it’s so nice to see a South Asian Muslim candidate be a mayor of a major city,’” she said. A brother told her Mamdani’s rise is a great example for his kids, she said.

But the 34-year-old — who donated, voted and canvassed for Mamdani — said it was his vision for New York City that was the draw for her. She and her husband briefly chatted with Mamdani at a fundraiser and she found him to be “very friendly and genuine.”

She suspects that for some who aren’t very politically active, Mamdani’s political ascent could make a difference.

“There’s a lot of Muslim communities like my parents’ generation who are focused a lot more on the politics back home and less on the politics here in America,” said Shabbir. “Seeing people like Zohran Mamdani be in office, it’ll really change that perspective in a lot of people.”

Embracing Indian and Muslim roots

Supporters and pundits agree that Mamdani’s campaign has demonstrated social media savvy and authenticity. He visited multiple mosques. In videos, he speaks in Hindi or gives a touch of Bollywood. Other South Asian American politicians such as Democratic Bay Area congressman Ro Khanna praised that.

“I love that he didn’t run away from his heritage. I mean, he did video clips with Amitabh Bachchan and Hindi movies,” said Khanna, referencing the Indian actor. “He shows that one can embrace their roots and their heritage and yet succeed in American politics.”

But his triumph also reflects “the urgency of the economic message, the challenge that people are facing in terms of rent, in terms of the cost of living, and how speaking to that is so powerful,” Khanna said.

Tanzeela Rahman, a daughter of Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh, said she grew up “very low income” in New York.

“I felt seen by him in a way politicians have not seen me ever,” the 29-year-old financial systems analyst said. “I think very few people in government understand … how hard it is to survive in New York City.”

She found Mamdani to be “unabashedly Muslim” and also “a voice, who, literally, to me sounds like a New Yorker who’s stepping in and saying, ‘Hey, let’s reclaim our power,’” she said.

While Mamdani has been speaking to the working class, he had a somewhat privileged upbringing. His mother is filmmaker Mira Nair and his father, Mahmood Mamdani, is a professor at Columbia University.

He lived in Queens but attended the Bronx High School of Science. Even as a teen, he cared about social justice, recalled Kondabolu, his comedian friend.

His campaign messaging on issues such as affordable housing and free bus rides might not resonate with South Asian households in New York City who have income levels above the median. But his campaign and “great kind of sound bites” earned support from that demographic too, according to Sur.

“It was, I think, a surprise that he did so well among the wealthiest, including his own community,” Sur said.

Mamdani’s outspoken support for Palestinian causes and criticism of Israel and its military campaign in Gaza resonated with pro-Palestinian residents, including Muslims, but caused tension in the mayor’s race. Some of his positions and remarks on the charged issue have drawn recriminations from opponents and some Jewish groups, though he’s also been endorsed by some Jewish politicians and activists.

Racism and xenophobia

Mamdani’s success immediately elicited strong anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric from some high-profile conservatives on social media, including pro-Trump media personality Charlie Kirk, who posted that “legal immigration can ruin your country.” In response, Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), the youngest member of Congress, wrote on X: “For years they sold people the lie of ‘we have no problem if you come the right way!’”

Mamdani’s supporters aren’t concerned that racism and Islamophobia will distract from his campaign. Those feelings clearly weren’t “enough for him to lose” the primary, Kondabolu said.

“There’s a new generation that wants their voice heard, and that generation came out in full force, not just by voting, but by, like, getting all these other people to be emotionally invested in this candidate,” he said. “That’s extraordinary.”

Tang and Fam write for the Associated Press. AP writer Matt Brown in Washington contributed to this report.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is racing ahead with construction of a makeshift immigration detention facility at an airstrip in the Everglades over the opposition of Native American leaders who consider the area their sacred ancestral homelands.

A string of portable generators and dump trucks loaded with fill dirt streamed into the site Thursday, according to activist Jessica Namath, who witnessed the activity. The state is plowing ahead with building a compound of heavy-duty tents, trailers and other temporary buildings at the county-owned airfield in the Big Cypress National Preserve, about 45 miles west of downtown Miami.

A spokesperson for the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which is helping lead the project, did not respond to requests for comment.

State officials have characterized the site as an ideal place to hold migrants, saying there’s “not much” there other than pythons and alligators.

Indigenous leaders who can trace their roots to the area back thousands of years dispute that — and they’re condemning the state’s plans to build what’s been dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” on their homelands.

For generations, the sweeping wetlands of what is now South Florida have been home to Native peoples who today make up the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida and the Seminole Tribe of Florida, as well as the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma.

“Rather than Miccosukee homelands being an uninhabited wasteland for alligators and pythons, as some have suggested, the Big Cypress is the Tribe’s traditional homelands. The landscape has protected the Miccosukee and Seminole people for generations,” Miccosukee Chairman Talbert Cypress wrote in a statement on social media.

There are 15 remaining traditional Miccosukee and Seminole villages in Big Cypress, as well as ceremonial and burial grounds and other gathering sites, Cypress testified before Congress in 2024.

“We live here. Our ancestors fought and died here. They are buried here,” he said. “The Big Cypress is part of us, and we are a part of it.”

Critics have condemned the facility and what they call the state’s apparent reliance on alligators as a security measure as a cruel spectacle, while DeSantis and other state officials have defended it as part of Florida’s muscular efforts to carry out President Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Tribal leaders and environmentalists are urging the state to change course, noting that billions of dollars in state and federal funds have been poured into Everglades restoration in recent years, an investment they say is jeopardized by plans to house some 1,000 migrants at the site for an undetermined amount of time.

Indigenous leaders and activists are planning to gather at the site again Saturday to stage a demonstration highlighting why the area is “sacred” and should be “protected, not destroyed.”

“This place became our refuge in time of war. It provides us a place to continue our culture and traditions,” Miccosukee leader Betty Osceola wrote in a social media post announcing the demonstration.

“And we need to protect it for our future generations,” she added.

Payne writes for the Associated Press.

NEW YORK — Edmund White, the groundbreaking man of letters who documented and imagined the gay revolution through journalism, essays, plays and such novels as “A Boy’s Own Story” and “The Beautiful Room Is Empty,” has died. He was 85.

White’s death was confirmed Wednesday by his agent, Bill Clegg.

Along with Larry Kramer, Armistead Maupin and others, White was among a generation of gay writers who in the 1970s became bards for a community no longer afraid to declare its existence. He was present at the Stonewall raids of 1969, when arrests at a club in New York’s Greenwich Village led to the birth of the modern gay movement and for decades was a participant and observer through the tragedy of AIDS, the advance of gay rights and culture and the recent backlash.

A resident of New York and Paris for much of his adult life, he was a novelist, journalist, biographer, playwright, activist, teacher and memoirist. “A Boy’s Own Story” was a bestseller and classic coming-of-age novel that demonstrated gay literature’s commercial appeal. He wrote a prizewinning biography of playwright Jean Genet, along with books on Marcel Proust and Arthur Rimbaud. He was a professor of creative writing at Princeton University, where colleagues included Toni Morrison and his close friend, Joyce Carol Oates.

“Among gay writers of his generation, Edmund White has emerged as the most versatile man of letters,” cultural critic Morris Dickstein wrote in the New York Times in 1995. “A cosmopolitan writer with a deep sense of tradition, he has bridged the gap between gay subcultures and a broader literary audience.”

White was born in Cincinnati in 1940, but at age 7 moved with his mother to the Chicago area after his parents divorced. His father was a civil engineer and his mother was a psychologist. Feeling trapped and at times suicidal, White sought escape through the stories of others, including Thomas Mann’s “Death in Venice” and a biography of dancer Vaslav Nijinsky.

“As a young teenager I looked desperately for things to read that might excite me or assure me I wasn’t the only one, that might confirm my identity I was unhappily piecing together,” he wrote in the 1991 essay “Out of the Closet, on to the Bookshelf.”

As he wrote in “A Boy’s Own Story,” he knew as a child that he was attracted to boys but for years was convinced he must change — out of a desire to please his father (whom he otherwise despised) and a wish to be “normal.” Even as he secretly wrote a “coming out” novel while a teenager, he insisted on seeing a therapist and begged to be sent to boarding school. One of the funniest and saddest episodes from “A Boy’s Own Story” told of a brief crush he had on a teenage girl, ended by a polite and devastating note of rejection.

“For the next few months I grieved,” White writes. “I would stay up all night crying and playing records and writing sonnets to Helen. What was I crying for?”

Through much of the 1960s, he was writing novels that were rejected or never finished. Late at night, he would head out to bars. A favorite stop was the Stonewall, where he would down vodka tonics and try to find the nerve to ask a man he had a crush on to dance. He was in the neighborhood on the night of June 28, 1969, when police raided the Stonewall and “all hell broke loose.”

“Up until that moment we had all thought homosexuality was a medical term,” wrote White, who soon joined the protests. “Suddenly we saw that we could be a minority group — with rights, a culture, an agenda.”

White’s debut novel, the surreal and suggestive “Forgetting Elena,” was published in 1973. He collaborated with Charles Silverstein on “The Joy of Gay Sex,” a follow-up to the bestselling “The Joy of Sex” that was updated after the emergence of AIDS. In 1978, his first openly gay novel, “Nocturnes for the King of Naples,” was released and he followed with the nonfiction “States of Desire,” his attempt to show “the varieties of gay experience and also to suggest the enormous range of gay life to straight and gay people — to show that gays aren’t just hairdressers, they’re also petroleum engineers and ranchers and short-order cooks.”

His other works included “Skinned Alive: Stories” and the novel “A Previous Life,” in which he turns himself into a fictional character and imagines himself long forgotten after his death. In 2009, he published “City Boy,” a memoir of New York in the 1960s and ’70s in which he told of his friendships and rivalries and gave the real names of fictional characters from his earlier novels. Other recent books included the novels “Jack Holmes & His Friend” and the memoir “Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris.”

“From an early age I had the idea that writing was truth-telling,” he told the Guardian around the time “Jack Holmes” was released. “It’s on the record. Everybody can see it. Maybe it goes back to the sacred origins of literature — the holy book. There’s nothing holy about it for me, but it should be serious and it should be totally transparent.”

Italie writes for the Associated Press.

“What the f— is going on?” Bernard Sumner says jokingly.

After crashing on both Zoom and WhatsApp, the founding member of New Order decided to give FaceTime a shot. He materializes, sitting on a couch with a white wall behind him. Mild, inviting eyes hide behind his glasses.

It’s been 45 years since he, now “below 70 and above 20,” founded the group alongside bassist Peter Hook, drummer Stephen Morris and keyboardist Gillian Gilbert. But it’s impossible not to mention New Order in the same breath as its previous ensemble in Joy Division. The story is all too familiar, with the band springing up after a Sex Pistols gig in Manchester.

“Famously, loads of people went … Morrissey was there, and the Buzzcocks were there … and everyone went out and formed a band,” Sumner quips.

And to anyone who has ever heard Joy Division, it makes complete sense. The band’s debut album “Unknown Pleasures” is imbued with the Pistols’ signature sense of “anarchistic rebellion, aggression and energy,” from the very first track. Sumner describes the gig as a pivotal moment in the history of music as it, sonically, gave everything the “kick in the balls” it needed.

“It was really ‘f— the establishment’ … we’d all had a pretty s— time at school and the rebelliousness and didn’t like the establishment,” Sumner says. “It was giving those teachers a kick! F— you and f— your lessons and f— all the s— you’re trying to teach us, because we’re not f— interested.”

“Punk gave us the excuse we really needed,” he adds.

But just a few years after Joy Division graced the music scene, the group came to an untimely demise following the death of lead singer Ian Curtis. And a year after that, New Order appeared with Sumner, Hook, Morris and Gilbert at the helm, and an entirely different sound to back them.

The band began to mix in synthesizers with the typical instrumentation, creating an unforgettable, hypnotic sound — every thump and woosh calls listeners to the dance floor and begs them to move. Sumner says it came from nothing, with no conscious effort being put into the familiar noise that would go on to define decades to come.

New Order performs in front of a buzzing crowd in Sydney, Australia.

(Warren Jackson)

“Four people came together and that’s what we did,” Sumner says. “We got rehearsals, but we had no great plan, we didn’t give a s— about earning loads of money, we didn’t give a s— about being famous.”

In fact, their creative process boiled down to going to rehearsals, talking about what they saw on TV the night before and going to grab a baked potato from Spudulike near the studio.

“Then we’d go, ‘Should we try to write something?’” he recalls. “We go, ‘Yeah, okay,’ and then we switch the amps on, and just see what happened.”

He even tells a story of the first time they worked in New York, and met up with famous producer Arthur Baker. The latter was used to working with session musicians, and while doing so, decided to throw New Order into a studio while he finished up.

“He said, ‘Come up with some ideas,’” Sumner says. “We just couldn’t, because we’d been put on the spot and told to do it, and that had never happened before … the trick was not to think about it.”

However, even with its original and revolutionary style, New Order struggled to etch its name in the charts outside of the indie and indie alternative categories. In the ’80s, they were reliant on radio play and didn’t get much outside of college campuses in America.

Instead, groups like Sumner’s, such as the Smiths and Echo & the Bunnymen, ignored what was going on in the mainstream altogether, leaving the numbers game to pop music.

“We just ignored what was going on in the mainstream,” he says. “We didn’t really like what we were hearing on the radio, so we made our own radio.”

Of course, when the internet came around, it bypassed mainstream radio and absolved the band’s issues with getting airtime. This led to its undoubted success in bridging the gap between generations, with parents sharing the group’s records with their kids.

“Good music is good music, isn’t it? It always floats to the top,” he says. “Buy a New Order record, it’s a good investment for the rest of your life.”

Sumner claims the group is now “more successful” than they’ve ever been and says it comes down to a couple of factors, including cohesion.

“In the early days, we used to get f— up quite a lot and that f— up the shows,” Sumner says. “We used to play a really good one, celebrate how great it was, and then the next one would be terrible because we celebrated too much.”

Bernard Sumner of New Order bows out to fans.

(Warren Jackson)

“Our popularity has increased, really, rather than decreasing, and it usually decreases, doesn’t it?” he jokes.

This relationship between generations that grew up listening to the group and those now is all too apparent when it comes to festivals like Cruel World, which celebrates post-punk, new wave, goth and alt-rock. The event, first hosted in 2022, has brought the likes of Iggy Pop, Duran Duran and Morrissey back to the main stage.

Now, New Order is set to headline the festival on May 17 alongside Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. It’s an unexpected ’80s revival that has maintained steady enough attendance to point toward becoming a staple, much like many of Goldenvoice’s other feats.

“There must be an appetite for this [era of] music, otherwise they wouldn’t be putting it on,” Sumner jokes. “It’s got soul, it really has got soul.”

As for what’s next in terms of new releases, the group recently had to shut down rumors of an album on the way. It’s been 10 years since its critically-acclaimed album, “Music Complete,” was delivered to fans, who are understandably craving a new project. Sumner says the delay comes down to general motivation to write again, with some members wanting to do so and others not being “too keen.”

“I’m one of the ones that does,” Sumner assures. “That’s all I can say, really.”