According to the company’s travel logs, shared with the Press Association, the age of the missing British citizens ranges from 13 to 65.
Alpine Eco Trek said the youngest member of the group is believed to be a 13-year-old girl, according to PA.
It also reported four of the firm’s Nepali tour guides are also missing.
The company’s manager Kumar Adhikari said he was in contact with the guides until 08:40 when they were expected to be at Tibet’s immigration office, but their phones were disconnected.
“We were hoping that inside it was safe,” he told PA, “but later the video came from China’s government which [showed] even Tibet’s side was hit by the flood.”
Adhikari said he was “slowly responding to” the families of the Britons but has been unable to give them any updates, adding he has been in contact with the British consulate and forwarded them copies of the clients’ passports.
“I feel so sad. We are just thinking about what to do next…We are in pain at the moment, deep pain.”
Another tour company impacted by the flash floods, Himalayan Glacier US, told the BBC they have lost contact with a group of 47 guests and staff who where making a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, which included twoBritish citizens.
Kailash Journeys also reported a group of 27 guests and staff missing, with a spokesperson saying they were last in contact with them early Wednesday morning local time.
A list of names provided to the BBC included two men who are British citizens.
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said he is “deeply concerned” by news of the flash flooding, and wrote on social media: “All my thoughts are with those affected and with British nationals in the area and their relatives here at home”.
In a joint statement with Australia, the EU, Finland, France, Norway and Switzerland, the UK embassy in Nepal urged British nationals in Nepal to “exercise caution in affected areas”.
A decade-long fight to outlaw child marriage in California is nearly at an end.
A bi-partisan bill that makes it illegal to issue marriage licenses to anyone under 18 cleared the state Assembly on Wednesday, drawing cheers from supporters who said the measure was a long overdue fix to an “archaic” piece of California law.
“The issue has evolved now because we have better stories, we have better data. We have a growing national movement … marriage is really something that can be reserved for consenting adults,” said Assemblymember Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz).
The bill — whose chief authors include Republican Assemblywoman Diane Dixon and Democrats Caroline Menjivar and Cottie Petrie-Norris — glided through the state Senate and Assembly without major opposition. It now heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.
Until the bill is signed into law, California remains one of three states in the U.S. without a minimum age to get married or enter into a domestic partnership. While the state has guardrails on the marriage process for minors, requiring them to gain judicial approval and the consent of at least one parent before receiving a license, advocates say children can still be easily pressured to wed by their parents or religious groups.
“All we’re doing with any judicial review process … is putting the onus on a terrified child,” said Fraidy Reiss, the founder and executive director of Unchained At Last, an advocacy group working on legislation to end child marriage across the U.S.
There were 88 marriage licenses issued in California where at least one party was a minor between 2019 and 2025, according to data collected by the state Department of Public Health. Some of those marriages involved weddings between girls as young as 15 and men in their 30s, according to a Senate analysis of the bill. In L.A. County, 51 licenses were issued to minors between 2014 and 2025, according to the county Registrar’s office.
“Even if the numbers are relatively small every child deserves protection,” Pellerin said. “And we don’t want to wait for a problem to become so widespread before we start protecting children.”
A 2020 study by the International Center for Research on Women shows underage marriages can have devastating long-term impacts on young girls.
“Marrying early has universally detrimental effects over a range of outcomes, including educational attainment; earnings; physical, reproductive, and mental health; experiences of violence; and likelihood of divorce, particularly for girls,” the study found.
Although consensual sex between a person over 18 and someone under that age is still considered statutory rape under California law, sex between those same two people becomes legal if they are married. Reiss said the state’s law allowing underage unions was essentially a shield for sexual abusers.
“It destroys almost any aspect of a girl’s life and it doesn’t deliver any benefit,” she said. “The only benefit it brings is to creepy guys who want to prey on teenage girls.”
The American Civil Liberties Union filed an opposition letter against the measure in June, warning the bill could have an unintended consequence of removing a minor’s autonomy over their own body.
“Just as minors have the right to decide to have an abortion or to carry a pregnancy to term (or to seek a restraining order) on their own, they should maintain the right to marry, with robust protections in place to prevent coercion and abuse,” the ACLU wrote.
But Pellerin, who previously served as Santa Cruz County Clerk, said it was the memory of a pregnant teen that helped push her to fight for the bill. She recalled issuing a marriage license to a 16-year-old girl and man in his late teens or early 20s, and felt that the girl’s parents were forcing them to wed.
Under California law at the time, Pellerin said, she had no evidence of coercion or force so she had no choice but to process the license. She hopes once Newsom signs the bill, no young girl will have to go through that again.
“I’m often haunted by that look on her face,” Pellerin said. “My kid is out at soccer practice and this girl is in here, pregnant, scared to death, signing up for a lifetime commitment.”
If signed into law by Newsom, the new minimum marriage age would take effect January 1, 2027.
Southern Section Agoura 28, Oak Park 6 Anaheim 32, El Dorado 6 Arlington 28, Nuview Bridge 0 Ayala 12, Shadow Hills 0 Burbank Burroughs 6, Hart 0 California Military Institute 45, Lakeside 13 Canyon Springs 14, Vista del Lago 0 Cerritos Valley Christian 20, Bellflower 0 Chino Hills 6, Capistrano Valley 0 Colony 13, Garey 7 Colton 24, Carter 0 Dos Pueblos 21, Westlake 19 El Segundo 7, Peninsula 6 Elsinore 26, San Jacinto 0 Golden Valley 8, Lancaster 6 Heritage 19, Orange Vista 6 Mater Dei 38, Esperanza 0 Mission Viejo 12, Crean Lutheran 6 Monrovia 44, Arroyo 0 Lakewood St. Joseph 26, Redondo Union 12 Oaks Christian 13, Oxnard Pacifica 7 Ontario Christian 12, Newport Beach Pacifica Christian 7 Orange Lutheran 24, Downey 19 Oxnard 47, Highland 20 Ramona 34, San Jacinto Valley Academy 0 Rancho Verde 32, Perris 0 Redlands East Valley 34, Eastvale Roosevelt 0 Rialto 31, Jurupa Hills 0 Rim of the World 35, Bloomington 18 Sage Hill 26, Corona 2 San Bernardino 64, Rubidoux 0 San Clemente 27, Northwood 6 Santa Barbara 33, Rio Mesa 7 Santa Fe 15, San Gabriel 0 Santa Margarita 13, Aliso Niguel 7 Santa Paula 52, Del Sol 0 Sierra Canyon 53, Alemany 0 South Torrance 47, West Torrance 0 St. Lucy’s 21, Chaffey 6 Sunny Hills 40, Moreno Valley 20 Temecula Prep 26, Xavier Prep 0 Temescal Canyon 40, Tahquitz 6 Troy 14, Los Osos 13 Upland 13, Cajon 12 Western Christian 25, La Serna 18 Whittier 19, Alhambra 0
Intersectional Mira Costa 38, San Pedro 6
MONDAY’S RESULTS
City Section Foshay 39, Bernstein 6 Foshay 45, Hawkins 6 Fremont 38, Diego Rivera 0 Hawkins 46, Bernstein 6 Sotomayor 18, Huntington Park 6 South East 13, Elizabeth 6
Southern Section Adelanto 31, Kaiser 6 Anaheim 32, El Dorado 6 Aquinas 59, Banning 0 Arroyo Valley 20, Victor Valley 0 Ayala 12, Yorba Linda 0 Baldwin Park 24, Ontario 6 Bonita 27, Garey 0 California 31, El Rancho 14 California Military Institute 19, Temecula Prep 7 Cantwell-Sacred Heart of Mary 18, Rio Hondo Prep 14 Cathedral City 21, West Valley 0 Cerritos Valley Christian 24, Artesia 6 Chaminade 35, Royal 24 Chaparral 30, Hemet 13 Chino 26, Brea Olinda 7 Colony 35, Chaffey 0 Corona del Mar 26, Fountain Valley 7 Corona Santiago 18, Eastvale Roosevelt 0 Crean Lutheran 20, South Hills 6 Downey 24, Tesoro 0 Edison 53, Marina 0 Eisenhower 18, Bloomington 6 Elsinore 6, Miller 6 Foothill 19, Millikan 18 Gahr 34, Buena Park 0 Glenn 8, Bell Gardens 6 Grand Terrace 12, Colton 0 Hacienda Heights Wilson 25, Workman 0 Hillcrest 21, Vista del Lago 0 Huntington Beach 24, Los Alamitos 6 Jurupa Hills 7, San Gorgonio 6 Laguna Beach 19, Arlington 6 La Habra 13, Villa Park 2 Lancaster 26, Rosamond 0 La Quinta 13, Indio 12 La Serna 20, Bishop Amat 7 Long Beach Wilson 20, Mayfair 0 Mountain View 19, La Puente 7 Moreno Valley 25, Norte Vista 6 Newport Harbor 20, Woodbridge 7 Norco 19, Corona Centennial 6 Ontario Christian 13, Serrano 0 Orange 26, Western 0 Palm Desert 12, Woodcrest Christian 6 Paloma Valley 35, Heritage 20 Paramount 13, Los Osos 12 Placentia Valencia 21, Tustin 0 Pomona 6, Calvary Baptist 0 Portola 31, Laguna Hills 0 Rancho Mirage 19, Jurupa Valley 12 Rancho Verde 13, Rancho Christian 6 Rialto 18, Summit 7 Rim of the World 12, Carter 0 Riverside King 28, Corona 13 Riverside North 24, Valley View 14 Riverside Poly 13, Rancho Cucamonga 12 San Gabriel 7, Rowland 6 San Marino 8, Claremont 6 Sierra Vista 13, Ramona Convent 12 South El Monte 26, El Monte 0 St. Paul 26, Lakewood 12 Sunny Hills 38, Katella 0 Troy 20, Cerritos 19 Valencia 33, Hueneme 8 Western Christian 21, Upland 6 Woodcrest Christian 20, Redlands Adventist Academy 14 Yucaipa 7, Ramona 0
Intersectional Bell 33, Bell Gardens 0 Brawley 37, Xavier Prep 0 Inglewood 12, King/Drew 6 Mary Star of the Sea 21, Port of Los Angeles 12 Warren 26, Wilmington Banning 7
People leave flowers and candles at a makeshift memorial outside a school, one day after an attack carried out by a teen with a sword in Fagersta, Sweden, Saturday. A 17-year-old girl was killed and three others were injured at the school after the attack Friday. Photo by Magnus Lejhall/EPA
Aug. 22 (UPI) — A 17-year-old girl is dead after a sword attack at a Swedish high school on Friday.
The alleged attacker is an 18-year-old, male student of the school who carried out the attack while classes were in session Friday. He was arrested and the police are investigating the case as murder and attempted murder. They said they have no reason to believe there were more attackers involved.
The Brinelskolan School principal told local news Saturday that the attacker was a student there.
Vastmanland County said the two injured boys are ages 12 and 17, ABC News reported. The third person is also younger than 18 and was slightly injured. That person has been discharged from the hospital, Swedish News agency TT reported.
The teen girl’s body was found when police entered the school to secure the premises, authorities said.
Police said they fired shots at the attacker, but didn’t hit him. Sweden’s national police said they have carried out two searches of homes connected to the suspect and that they expect to interview many witnesses.
“That’s why we can’t give out too much information, because we don’t want to influence witnesses,” Police Chief Tommy Alriksson said.
No official information on the attacker’s motive has been released.
On Saturday morning, people gathered at a memorial site that the town created, carrying flowers and lighting candles, CBS News reported.
Fagersta city government said it created a crisis center in a sports hall near the school. Fagersta is a town of about 12,000 about 105 miles northwest of Stockholm.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and opposition party leader Magdalena Andersson visited the memorial site to lay flowers.
“What must never happen has happened again,” Kristersson said.
Sweden’s parliamentary elections are scheduled for September, so the Swedish political parties suspended their campaigning Saturday.
School attacks have happened in Sweden several times in recent history.
In February 2025, 11 people, including the gunman, were killed in an attack on an adult education center in Orebro. It was Sweden’s worst-ever mass shooting. After the attack, the government tightened gun laws because the suspect had legally owned four rifles. He had brought three of them to the attack.
Two teachers were killed with a knife at a high school in Malmo in 2022, and an 18-year-old later confessed to the killings.
The Israel separation wall stands near the E1 area, between the Arab neighborhood of Al-Eizariya and the Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, in the eastern edge of the Judean Desert, West Bank, on August 20, 2026. The Israeli government plans to build Jewish housing units in the E1 area. Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI | License Photo
THE 15-year-old son of former Real Housewives star Kim Zolciak and NFL player Kroy Biermann has been arrested for alleged sex crimes against a girl in a gym.
Kroy Biermann Jr. was taken into custody on August 17 in Alpharetta, Georgia, and was hit with felony charges of aggravated sodomy and aggravated sexual battery.
Kroy Biermann Jr., 15, the son of ex-NFL player Kroy Biermann and former Real Housewives of Atlanta star Kim Zolciak has been arrested for alleged sodomy and sexual assaultCredit: Alpharetta Police DepartmentThe teenager remains in custody and has been charged as an adultCredit: Getty
The teen is accused of leading a 15-year-old female acquaintance into a family changing room at a Life Time Fitness location before physically restraining her and forcing her to engage in sexual acts on April 23.
After the alleged attack, the girl went to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta where she was examined by a nurse and a sexual assault kit was taken.
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The Alpharetta Police Department confirmed he has been charged as an adult.
His father Kroy Biermann played for the Atlanta Falcons while his mom Kim starred in the Real Housewives of Atlanta.
On Friday his mom, who starred in the show between 2008 and 2012 issued a statement to US Weekly regarding the accusations.
“The allegations being made against my son are nothing short of reckless and deeply troubling,” she said.
“He categorically denies ever being involved with this woman or engaging in the conduct she has alleged.”
“My son voluntarily took a polygraph examination regarding these allegations and passed.”
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She claimed that no DNA belonging to her son was found on the alleged victim and highlighted that “false accusations can have devastating consequences” for both the accused and survivors of such crimes.
The teenager is next due to appear at Fulton County Superior Court on September 8 and remains in custody at the Metro Regional Youth Detention Center with no bond set.
Biermann Jr. is the eldest of four children Zolciak shares with former Atlanta Falcon Biermann.
The pair filed for divorce in August 2023 after 12 years of marriage.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.
Tom Rutland, East Worthing and Shoreham MP, said: “The whole community here is heartbroken by the death of Saja.
“We had been hoping and praying for her recovery after she was taken to hospital on Tuesday.
“My thoughts are with her family and friends at this incredibly sad time.”
A community vigil is taking place on Saturday morning at Kingston Beach as well as a one-minute silence in Shoreham town centre.
The family lived in London and were British citizens of Palestinian origin, with roots in the Rashidieh refugee camp in Lebanon. Their extended family had lived in the UK for many years, the Palestinian Forum says.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham called the incident a “terrible family tragedy”.
People in Shoreham left floral tributes at the scene and said the community was devastated.
The Beach Residents’ Association said the incident had “sent shockwaves across the local community”.
Local councillor Joss Loader, who represents the Shoreham Beach Residents’ Association and has lived in the area most of her life, described the deaths as a “shocking, heart-rending tragedy”.
Southern Section Agoura 46, Rio Mesa 0 Antelope Valley 12, Adelanto 0 Aquinas 32, Jurupa Hills 6 Arlington 20, Riverside North 0 Arrowhead Christian 40, Nuview Bridge 0 Arroyo Valley 31, Citrus Hill 0 Baldwin Park 40, Calvary Baptist 6 Beaumont 62, Rancho Cucamonga 12 Cajon 65, Indian Springs 0 California Military Institute 44, Rancho Mirage 0 Camarillo 34, Buena 0 Canyon Country Canyon 18, Lancaster 6 Cerritos Valley Christian 27, Glenn 12 Channel Islands 21, Newbury Park 7 Colony 8, Los Osos 6 Compton 14, Mayfair 6 Corona del Mar 20, Santa Margarita 14 Esperanza 15, Anaheim 0 Fountain Valley 36, Sunny Hills 12 Gahr 34, Claremont 0 Great Oak 21, Temecula Prep 0 Harvard-Westlake 20, Village Christian 0 Highland 22, Eastvale Roosevelt 14 Hillcrest 6, Norte Vista 0 Hueneme 26, Saugus 7 Fountain Valley 36, Sunny Hills 12 JSerra 40, Woodbridge 21 La Mirada 12, Pioneer 0 Los Alamitos 31, Costa Mesa 6 Knight 50, Rosamond 0 Miller 19, Colton 0 Millikan 32, Palos Verdes 12 Monrovia 20, San Gabriel 12 Northview 41, La Puente 8 Oxnard Pacifica 34, Valencia 12 Ramona 8, Moreno Valley 6 Redondo Union 12, Downey 6 Rim of the World 39, Entrepreneur 0 Rowland 21, Nogales 0 San Gorgonio 45, Bloomington 7 Santa Barbara 27, Simi Valley 12 Santa Monica 26, Windward 0 Schurr 12, San Marino 8 St. Lucy’s 40, Mark Keppel 0 Temescal Canyon 14, Elsinore 7 Torrance 12, El Segundo 0 Trabuco Hills 30, Portola 0 Troy 25, Orange 12 Upland 39, Rialto 26 Ventura 25, Castaic 7 Victor Valley 14, Eastside 0 Vista del Lago 14, Heritage 12 Warren 14, Sonora 6 Westlake 53, Oak Park 20 West Valley 44, San Jacinto 6 Yucaipa 47, La Sierra 18
Intersectional North County San Marcos 44, Dana Hills
Monday’s results
City Section AMIT 18, Diego Rivera 0 Eagle Rock 33, Sotomayor 0 Franklin 31, Contreras 0 Franklin 31, King/Drew 14 Granada Hills Kennedy 18, Bishop Alemany 6 King/Drew 40, Contreras 0 Monroe 19, Reseda 0 New Designs University Park 27, West Adams 0 Panorama 6, Sotomayor 0 Panorama 23, Eagle Rock 22 (OT) San Fernando 32, Reseda 0 San Fernando 24, Monroe 0
Southern Section Artesia 40, Oxford Academy 6 Ayala 12, Sunny Hills 6 Azusa 33, Alhambra 7 Baldwin Park 32, Workman 6 Bell Gardens 15, Norwalk 7 Bishop Amat d. Sacred Heart of Jesus, forfeit Cajon 68, San Bernardino 0 California 20, La Habra 0 California Military Institute 31, Nuview Bridge 0 Castaic 6, Santa Paula 0 Cerritos 21, Montebello 6 Chaparral 20, Linfield Christian 18 Chino Hills 12, Northview 0 Colony 20, Montclair 0 Corona Centennial 28, Riverside Poly 26 Covina 29, Sierra Vista 13 Culver City 33, Immaculate Heart 18 Downey 26, Aliso Niguel 7 Eastvale Roosevelt 18, Patriot 13 El Dorado 32, La Palma Kennedy 19 Etiwanda 20, Corona Santiago 12 Foothill 34, Placentia Valencia 7 Fountain Valley 18, Sage Hill 0 Gabrielino 32, Arroyo 7 Godinez 36, Garden Grove Santiago 6 Glendora 39, Alta Loma 18 Hemet 25, Desert Hot Springs 24 Hillcrest 39, Jurupa Valley 0 Jurupa Hills 26, San Jacinto 0 La Canada 20, West Covina 0 Laguna Hills 41, Katella 6 Lakewood 6, Paramount 0 Lakewood St. Joseph 34, Cypress 6 La Serna 28, La Mirada 14 Liberty 24, Vista del Lago 0 Long Beach Wilson 19, Bellflower 6 Los Alamitos 52, Loara 6 Los Altos 24, Rosemead 0 Los Osos 7, Don Lugo 0 Magnolia 14, Cantwell-Sacred Heart of Mary 6 Millikan 49, Santa Fe 6 Murrieta Mesa 45, Lakeside 0 Murrieta Valley 34, Elsinore 6 Nogales 12, Charter Oak 0 Oaks Christian 30, Oak Park 20 Ontario 21, Hacienda Heights Wilson 6 Ontario Christian 32, Chaffey 0 Orange 6, Irvine 0 PACS 13, Rosamond 12 Palm Desert 18, La Quinta 6 Ramona Convent 21, Rio Hondo Prep 6 Rancho Alamitos 13, Bolsa Grande 6 Rancho Cucamonga 24, Norco 13 Redlands East Valley 13, Riverside King 7 Riverside North 24, Heritage 13 Saddleback 18, Tustin 6 San Dimas 38, Duarte 0 San Gorgonio 18, Ramona 13 San Juan Hills 6, Northwood 0 Santa Ana Valley 26, Bell Gardens 18 Sherman Oaks Notre Dame 20, Mayfair 13 St. Margaret’s 34, Crean Lutheran 26 Temecula Prep 47, Rancho Christian 6 Temescal Canyon 20, Paloma Valley 19 Tesoro 19, Portola 14 Valencia 12, Vasquez 0 Villa Park 20, Segerstrom 0 Western Christian 72, United Christian Academy 0 Whittier 20, Western 7 Yorba Linda 40, Garden Grove Pacifica 6
Intersectional Carson 25, Mater Dei 19 Granada Hills Kennedy 18, Alemany 16 Indio 12, Central 6 Mountain View 25, South East 14 Shadow Hills 13, Brawley 12
Addyson Waters, six, upset at Rhodes Airport after Jet2 refused to let her family board their flight home
A family was left stranded on a Greek island after Jet2 refused to let them fly home because their six-year-old daughter was sick in the departure lounge. Hayley Waters, 37, was waiting at Rhodes Airport with husband Jason, 40, and kids Addyson, six, and Xander, three, when the youngster vomited at the gate.
She said staff immediately barred the family from boarding their delayed flight to Leeds Bradford Airport shortly after midnight. They were told they could not travel with Jet2 for at least 24 hours and would have to arrange their own accommodation, transport and alternative flights – which cost them around £1,000.
Hayley, a performance analyst from Leeds, West Yorks., said: “While waiting at the gate, my six-year-old daughter was sick once. I cleaned it up immediately. She’d had no illness all holiday – she was simply exhausted after the delay, it was around midnight, and over 30C in the airport.”
The family had been due to catch the 11.15pm flight on July 31, which eventually departed at around 12.05am. They were travelling as part of a larger group of nine when a member of Jet2 staff spotted Addyson being sick.
But Hayley said nobody assessed her daughter or asked whether she had been ill during the holiday before the family was stopped from boarding. She said: “The only explanation given was ‘policy’ because my daughter had been sick.
“Nobody asked whether she had any underlying medical conditions, whether she’d been unwell during the holiday, or how she was feeling. No medical assessment was carried out – the decision was based solely on a member of staff seeing her vomit once.”
The family were forced to book an easyJet flight to Newcastle for the following day to get home. Hayley said: “We have no written explanation for why we were denied boarding, no paperwork, no medical assessment, no duty of care, and we were left stranded abroad with two young children.”
Jet2 said its team in Rhodes had followed procedures and helped the family find somewhere to stay. The airline said staff also advised them to retain their receipts so they could make a claim through their travel insurance.
A Jet2 spokesperson said: “The safety and wellbeing of our customers is our absolute priority, and our teams have processes in place to help prevent the spread of illness onboard our aircraft. We are sorry to hear that Mrs Waters was unhappy with her experience and we are in contact with her to discuss the matter further.”
However, Hayley has disputed the airline’s claim that it had been in contact with her. The airline said it had promised a response within 14 days, by August 20, and remained on track to provide one.
Hayley said the family have not had acknowledgement that their written complaint has been received – and that they have not been told about the timescales Jet2 are working to.
Gillian Anderson discussed her early relationship with ‘an older girl from high school’Credit: GettyGillian – who rose to fame as Dana Scully on The X-Files – has previously talked about her past relationships with womenCredit: Getty
In a new interview, Gillian discussed her youthful romance and the sensitivity around it.
She told The Sunday Times: “One of my first relationships was with an older girl in high school.
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“It felt secretive and illicit and wrong and we had to hide.
“Later on I had a boyfriend who found out and broke up with me.”
Among Gillian’s most recent high profile roles was as Jean Milburn in Netflix hit Sex EducationCredit: AlamyGillian has reportedly had an on and off relationship with screenwriter Peter Morgan since 2016Credit: Getty
Continuing, Gillian said she’d had “a couple of boyfriends”, so didn’t think of herself as gay.
She added: “But I definitely felt I didn’t have the language for it.
“Even later on when I had other relationships with women I’m not sure I ever thought of them as being potentially for ever.”
She concluded: “The person I consider my life partner happens to be male.”
PORTLAND, Ore. — Sophie Cunningham said she’s unconcerned that the rallies against transgender participation in women’s sports that have accompanied the Indiana’s Fever’s recent games are a distraction for the WNBA team.
Cunningham made the comments before the Fever’s game Friday night against the Portland Fire. Outside, a group rallied for the second consecutive game in support of Cunningham and her recent comments about transgender athletes.
“I think at the end of the day, I come in and I do my job,” Cunningham said. “I think everyone who knows me personally, they know that I’m full of love. I’m bubbly. I love the people around me. I love basketball. I love inspiring the next generation and doing that in a positive light. And so that doesn’t even cross my mind. Doesn’t cross my teammates’ minds.
“And again, I’m here to play basketball, but I’m also here to be me, and I’m not gonna like shadow that or hide or, you know, dim my light just because maybe people don’t agree with that.”
Portland’s rally came after a similar rally for Cunningham earlier in the week before the Fever’s game at the Seattle Storm. Both rallies only attracted about two dozen participants and a bevy of onlookers.
“I have honestly had nothing to do with them,” Cunningham said. “I think it’s people just practicing their rights of freedom of speech and doing what other fans have been doing since the WNBA has started. And so props to them, props to everyone who is able to be competent and be bold and courageous enough to to speak their truths.”
People rally in Portland to support WNBA star Sophie Cunningham after her comments on transgender athletes in women’s sports.
(Craig Mitchelldyer / Associated Press)
Another rally was planned for Sunday in Minneapolis when the Fever play the Minnesota Lynx.
In Seattle on Tuesday, two Cunningham supporters sat courtside at Climate Change Arena holding signs. A co-owner of the Storm, Celeste Keaton was later fined an undisclosed amount and suspended for five games by the WNBA for an exchange with the two supporters.
The Storm also apologized for the incident, but did not provide details about the exchange, releasing a statement that said: “We remain committed to creating a welcoming and respectful environment for anyone who attends a Storm game.”
The Seattle rally promoted statewide ballot initiative, IL26-638, that would bar transgender students from participating in girls’ athletics at Washington schools. It also praised Cunningham, who voiced support for barring transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports in recent interviews.
“I am here to be a cheerleader for Sophie Cunningham, who has so bravely put her head above the parapet to protect women and girls in our sports and in our locker rooms,” said Amy Souza, who was among those at the Portland rally. “I was an organizer of this event, I was a co-organizer of the Seattle event. I’m also here, standing in solidarity with those teen girls who, unfortunately, were harassed when they were just trying to be fans of the sport, fans of Sophie Cunningham.”
Cunningham was booed by the Moda Center crowd in Portland when she entered the game midway though the first quarter. Many waved small pink, blue and white transgender flags.
The Fever defeated the Fire 112-98 for their fifth straight win. Cunningham finished with 13 points and Caitlin Clark had her fourth career triple-double with 26 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists.
Coach Stephanie White said she was concerned that the controversy was distracting from the team’s play.
“You know there is a frustration, of course, because we want to we want to talk about basketball and we want to continue to work on our game and we want to continue to grow as a team.,” White said. “But I also understand this is part of our growth edge as a league, right?
“It’s part of our growth as a league, and we have to to be able to manage, we have to be able to insulate as much as we can, and then we have to be able to lead with conversation.”
Nylah Moore has been a standout flag football and girls’ basketball player at Eagle Rock High. Now comes the arrival of her freshman sister, Cinzia, which means fans in the bleachers might want to start designing and creating signs to wave each time one or the other scores a touchdown or makes a basket. It will be great exercise for the arms considering how many times the two figure to come through this season.
Nylah, who is 5-foot-11, is Eagle Rock’s versatile quarterback and scoring guard. She helped Eagle Rock to a 20-2 record last season, passing for 51 touchdowns as a junior. The basketball team went 10-0 in the Northern League. She averaged 15 points.
With the Moore sisters, Eagle Rock deserves the favorite’s role to win the City Section Open Division flag football title and compete with Birmingham and Westchester for an Open Division girls’ basketball title. Cinzia, who is 5-9, also excels in both sports.
Their mother, Christine Moore, was principal of the year at Luther Burbank Middle School in 2023 for Region 16. Coaches remember her bringing a young Nylah to sporting events years ago. Her biggest challenge will be finding time to watch her two daughters perform in two sports in her new job serving as region director for the Eagle Rock/Highland Park Network.
Official Nelson Bae explains the new rule this season in flag football that allows the losing team to get the ball after a score on the 20-yard line with one play to get a first down at the 40 to keep the ball. pic.twitter.com/EZ8K8p8JL4
Eagle Rock’s rise in flag football is no surprise. The school has been able to attract multisport athletes with speed and versatility. Basketball is where this season a surprise could happen. Coach Julie Wilkins has her biggest team ever after the arrival of 5-10 Marlborough transfer Amelie Cash. She also has a 6-1 player. Since Wilkins coaches both flag football and girls’ basketball, she’s always looking for “volunteers” to play both sports (wink, wink).
That’s how the successful teams in flag football have emerged — getting players from softball, soccer, track and field, and volleyball to join the sport. And it’s working.
Monroe had 20 players come out last season. This year, at least 36 have been practicing. Coach Jose Ruiz always asks Leo Hernandez, the track and field and cross country coach, for recommendations on his athletes as potential flag football players. Now that middle schools feeding Monroe have flag football programs, the numbers are expected to continue to rise.
JOHANNESBURG — Oprah Winfrey says she will close the school for underprivileged girls she set up in South Africa two decades ago at the end of next year.
Winfrey opened the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in 2007 after being inspired by conversations with former South African President Nelson Mandela about the transformative power of educating girls. He was among the guests at the school’s opening ceremony.
Winfrey’s charitable foundation ran and funded the school, but it was always part of the agreement that the academy campus near Johannesburg be ultimately handed over to the provincial education department, the academy said.
“The dream was never simply to build a school,” Winfrey said in a statement issued by the academy on Wednesday. “It was to invest in the limitless potential of young women. That mission doesn’t end with one campus. It continues in every girl whose future can be transformed through education.”
The academy said Winfrey’s commitment to educating South African girls would continue through an expanded national scholarship program supporting academically talented girls at leading schools across the country.
More than 500 girls have graduated from the academy and some have attended top universities in South Africa, the United States and Europe, according to the Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation.
The Gauteng provincial government will take over the 52-acre academy campus, which has 21 classrooms, six science and computer laboratories, a 10,000-volume library and a 600-seat theater. It did not immediately say what the plans for the property were.
Gauteng Provincial Minister for Education Lebogang Maile said those currently enrolled in the school will be able to complete their education with uninterrupted financial support.
The academy drew international attention shortly after opening in 2007 when several students accused a dormitory matron of physically and sexually abusing them.
Winfrey traveled to South Africa to meet with students and parents, publicly apologized, and commissioned an independent investigation.
The matron was acquitted of criminal charges in 2010.
Last things first: Eve Babitz is a major minor L.A. writer who died five years ago at age 78. She spent nearly a quarter-century as a recluse, having suffered in 1997 a shocking and disfiguring accident while striking a match to light her Tiparillo. Her thin Indian skirt caught fire searing her panty hose into her flesh, leaving her with third-degree burns over more than half her body. She never published again, though many championed her gifts, including me. At the time of her misfortune, I was book editor of the Los Angeles Times. I had long admired her, especially the rollicking and indispensable “Slow Days, Fast Company,” first published in 1977, a charming and insightful series of stories bursting with pluck and sass. I recommended to John Carroll, the then-editor of the paper, that he make her a columnist and urged Babitz to write him directly. She did, and that letter from October 2000 is the last included in “Too L.A.: Letters Never Sent (But Some Were),” a book of letters expertly edited and chosen by Lili Anolik. Babitz tells Carroll that “what the paper needs is some writers that cause such an uproar, people will have to read it in order to stay abreast of the edge.” Babitz knew what she was talking about. She’d been living on that edge since she was a teenager at Hollywood High in the late 1950s.
Book Review
Too L.A.: Letters Never Sent But Some Were
By Eve Babitz; edited by Lili Anolik New York Review of Books: 448 pages, $19
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The posthumous resurrection of Babitz’s writings is most welcome. Yet there is a risk of overpraising her merits. She was an unabashed booster of the glossy L.A. that became synonymous with a rising creative elite whose élan and narcissism she found irresistible.
Lili Anolik makes the case in her perfervid introduction: “The letters are everything you could want” and often “profound” and “frequently brilliant, invariably amusing.” She says they deserve to be put on the short shelf next to Virginia Woolf’s imperishable “A Room of One’s Own” for they are “every bit as candid, every bit as lucid, every bit as brutal, every bit as delicate as Virginia Woolf’s celebrated manifesto.”
If only.
“Too L.A.: Letters Never Sent (But Some Were)” by Eve Babitz
(New York Review Books)
Regrettably, Anolik, who is almost singlehandedly responsible for Babitz’s literary exhumation, has so fallen in love with her subject as to almost blind her to Babitz’s defects, both with respect to her writing and to the life. With two previous books — “Hollywood’s Eve” (2019) and “Didion and Babitz” (2024) — prompted by Anolik’s riveting March 2014 Vanity Fair profile, Anolik has become Babitz’s greatest champion. Now with “Too L.A.,” a title taken from Babitz’s own over-oxygenated writing, she has gathered and edited a trove of letters. They brilliantly reveal Babitz’s eye for the deep shallow as well as explore the porous boundary between the largely self-inflicted injuries of her private life and the glittering sheen of her public persona. Babitz herself, on the strength of these 197 letters, only 30 of which she ever mailed, understood in a way Anolik doesn’t the limitations of her talents, even as she strives to slip the shackles of a mansplaining culture which at almost every turn tried to blunt her ambitions, both artistic and writerly, even as her editors and admirers sought (often with her ardent encouragement) to slip between her sheets.
Eve Babitz was born in 1943 to Hollywood neo-royalty. Her Brooklyn-born father, Sol, was first violinist for both the Los Angeles Philharmonic Symphony and then the 20th Century Fox Studio Orchestra. Sol would ultimately marry Lily Mae Laviolette, a beautiful Cajun Catholic shiksa willing to convert to Judaism. Eve’s godfather was Sol’s good friend Igor Stravinsky. When puberty burst upon her at age 14, Babitz’s blossoming made her a prime candidate for induction by the fast-track girls at Hollywood High who called themselves the Thunderbird Girls and cruised the Sunset Strip in their cool cars, looking for the main chance.
From left, Sol Babitz, Mae Babitz, Mirandi Babitz and author Eve Babitz gather at a launch party for her book “Slow Days, Fast Company” in 1977.
(Photograph by Paul Ruscha; courtesy of Mirandi Babitz / The Huntington Library)
At 20, Babitz posed nude playing chess with the fully clothed Marcel Duchamp to promote Duchamp’s retrospective exhibition at the Pasadena Art Museum. At the time, Babitz was having an affair with the museum’s 32-year-old married director, Walter Hopps, which perhaps explains Babitz’s reluctance to have her face photographed so as not to give the game away to Mrs. Hopps, who attended the opening. A month later, Babitz confides in an (unsent) letter: “Everything’s so fabulous for me now I can’t believe it. There’s nothing like two boyfriends to do it for you every time. There are such fabulous boys around and they take you out on dates and to movies and I feel just like a teenager. (I’m recapturing my lost youth.) I get to get dressed up and I flirt outrageously and put people on and I do things like look soulfully out the window and man it’s just too hoozie for words. … If only all of this could last forever — not that it will, but I can.”
She spent the rest of her life torn between the excitements of everyday life — cruising the hangouts du jour (Barney’s Beanery in the early 1960s where she met many of L.A.’s up-and-coming artists — Ed Kienholz, Billy Al Bengston, Laddie Dill, Peter Alexander, and the Ruscha brothers, Ed and Paul, both of whom she’d bed, Paul becoming an on-again, off-again boyfriend whose bisexuality made for a sometimes tenuous connection; and after seducing Jim Morrison before he became famous and later the Troubadour in the late 1960s which was a happy hunting ground — Steve Martin, Glenn Frey, Don Henley, J.D. Souther, Country Joe Mcdonald, Jackson Browne, to name only a few, and then Ports restaurant where she anchored a corner table) — and the seductions of drugs — uppers, acid (which she seemed to ingest with an alarming frequency), pot, of course, and then by the mid-1970s, tragically, an Everest of cocaine. She had entered what she aptly called the era of “squalid overboogie.”
Eve Babitz and her frequent companion Paul Ruscha celebrate the 1977 release of Babitz’s seminal “Slow Days, Fast Company.”
(Photograph courtesy of Mirandi Babitz / The Huntington Library)
The name-dropping is relentless and if, like me, you have an insatiable appetite for hoovering them up, this volume will not disappoint. Still, there are many pages of vapid jottings — “I cleaned the house, did the laundry, and vowed to quit smoking” — that suggest why Babitz was a failure as a novelist (see her dud “Sex and Rage”) and a superb writer of short stories and essays that stylishly plumbed the depths of her own sensibility precisely in the degree to which she was uninterested in other people.
Nearly 30 years after she stripped to please her married lover and startle the unsuspecting Duchamp, the father of Dada, and eight years after she joined AA in 1982 — the year her beloved father died of Huntington’s disease at age 70 which ultimately would also kill her — and gave up drugs and alcohol and (almost entirely) writing as well, which had always been seen by her as enabled by dope of one kind or another, she boasted that, looking back, “Everybody wanted to be me — they looked at me with yearning faces, and said, ‘Boy, you sure had fun.’ ” She was not entirely wrong. She had struck many admirers both then and now, as the quintessential California girl, a daughter of Dionysus, whose devotion to pleasure was free of misgiving or regret. She detested the East Coast avatars of apocalypse, like Nathanael West, who saw only doom and gloom in sunny L.A. Babitz, by contrast, saw things sunny side up. If Joan Didion was unsettled and made anxious by the hot Santa Anas that regularly kicked up, Babitz luxuriated in them, recalling how she and her sister would as young girls rush to embrace them, spinning madly round and round. In a 1977 unsent letter to Joseph Heller, who had championed her work when she had sent him an unsolicited fan letter after having read “Catch-22” when it was first published and she was barely 20, she declares proudly: “I’m a gossip storyteller who likes L.A. rather than hates it.” She refers to her “shallow nature,” writing that “I feel like an upstream salmon, determined to reach the shallow water, no matter how fast the river is running the other way.”
Eve Babitz, the ultimate Hollywood reveler, on Sunset Boulevard in 1980.
(Los Angeles Times)
On the evidence of these letters, she had two great loves: Ahmet Ertegun, a principal founder of Atlantic Records, and Tom Dowd, renown recording engineer and producer who worked for Ertegun. Of the two, Ertegun had the edge, if for no other reason than he came with buckets of dough, making possible assignations at his regular bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel with limo pickup and dropoff services, and the best champagne and other assorted stimulants. Ertegun was effortlessly elegant and erudite, and there was no one he didn’t know and who wouldn’t return his calls. He was married, age 45, 20 years older than Babitz, when they fell for each other in 1969. She began sleeping with him even as she agreed to profile him for Jann Wenner’s newly launched Rolling Stone. The writing didn’t go well. Wenner wanted a tougher piece than she was willing to write. Ultimately, she abandoned the assignment, claiming (not unreasonably) that she didn’t see how she could write objectively about a man she loved.
Babitz courted danger with heedless bravado and exemplary recklessness. She once had the moxie to rid herself of a would-be rapist: When told not to scream, she said with unimaginable sangfroid: “Why not?” The man bolted. It might be said of Babitz, as Oscar Wilde said of his life, that she spent her talent on her writing and reserved her genius for her life. Sculpting her natural gifts of wit and brazenness into a living artwork dazzled all who came within her orbit. Her lust for life was palpable. The letters are proof. She came at people without fear. She left them without apology. She was the boss of herself. She was the girl who seemed to have it all. The only thing she lacked was inexperience.
SACRAMENTO — California has spent millions of dollars to combat sex trafficking, and yet it can still be found in every city and town, hiding in plain sight.
Whether it’s online, on places such as Figueroa Street in L.A. or Stockton Boulevard in Sacramento, or even in the hotel rooms where our World Cup guests stayed, there are thousands of women and girls being sexually exploited in California right now, despite all that money and all the resources it has purchased.
“The reality is that few threats to a woman’s safety are as brutal or as overlooked as sex trafficking,” First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom said Monday, sitting with her husband, the governor, in a tiny second-floor dance studio built for survivors of trafficking.
Siebel Newsom was there to watch Newsom sign an executive order that was driven by her work as an advocate for survivors of trafficking. On its surface, the order may not sound like much and isn’t likely to make the news. It calls for most of the major state agencies to come up with a plan within 60 days to work together to curb trafficking and help survivors.
Hardly an earth-shattering demand. But believe it or not, one of the biggest barriers that our state faces, in this great age of technology and always-on connection, is that there is little collaboration between the folks fighting traffickers.
Yes, we have about 35 task forces statewide working on this issue and sometimes they run joint operations. But more often, those fighting trafficking live in their own silos, doing their own work, and often failing or refusing to share even scant details with other jurisdictions.
The same holds true for the many organizations that work with survivors, most of which have come on the scene only in the last few decades as sex trafficking morphed from a crime in which children were viewed as complicit to one in which we understand that they are victims.
Those organizations often do great work, but they too often do it alone. A survivor — or a girl being trafficked and looking for escape — has no easy way to find someone to help her. It’s largely luck, the right outreach person in the right place at the right time, or a cop who has taken the time and care to know what the resources are.
“We are so fragmented,” Sharmin Bock told the governor. She’s a former prosecutor in Alameda County who tried the first sex trafficking case in the U.S. Now, she’s advising the first partner on how California can do a better job fighting the predators — traffickers and buyers alike — who daily trade cash for the use of a human body, willing or not.
Bock points out that while those fighting against trafficking lack collaboration, the opposite is true of the criminals. Up and down the state, they are organized. A trafficker might pick up his victim in one city, only to transport her to another city to meet buyers. Victims are moved often, and even sold or traded to other traffickers.
Once a victim crosses a jurisdictional line, everything that happened on the other side of it too often gets lost in the nowhere land of bureaucracy and red tape. A move from Los Angeles to Riverside, and the girl might as well be in Taiwan, as Bock puts it.
“We need to stop asking whose case is this, and rather ask how do we solve this case together? How do we solve the problem together?” Bock said. “Collaboration recovers children sooner, links investigation, dismantles trafficking organizations and holds traffickers accountable. A trafficker should never escape accountability because critical information was sitting in another agency’s database.”
So while Newsom’s demand for a 60-day plan might not sound like much, it goes to the heart of what ails the system.
“Traffickers collaborate every day,” Bock said. “Traffickers have built networks to exploit children. We must build stronger networks to protect them.”
Newsom drew a parallel to the plague of retail theft that captivated the state not long ago, and which the state has successfully combated. Though careful to draw the obvious line that stealing a tube of toothpaste is a far cry from sexually exploiting a child, he pointed out similarities — online platforms that turned a blind eye, a lack of coordination between agencies, criminals that knew how to exploit not just victims, but systems.
Now he’s looking for that kind of “momentum,” to solve this most stubborn of abuses.
“For the last few years, I thought I could buy my way out of this,” Newsom said with a shocking bit of honesty, pointing to all that budget money that has been invested. But, he said, he’s clear now that it’s not a money problem. It’s a people problem.
“How is that possible? “ the governor wondered. The executive order, he said, is about saying “enough of just good intentions … we’re not delivering fundamental results.”
A report at the end of 60 days isn’t results. But it’s an acknowledgment that California needs to do better, and a road map to get there.
That’s crucial. Like Siebel Newsom and the governor, I’ve got two teenage daughters and I know just how vulnerable girls are, in the best of circumstances.
With all our resources and good intentions, California can’t continue to let predators win simply because they’re more organized.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld laws in West Virginia and Idaho that forbid transgender athletes from competing on girls’ sports teams.
In a 6-3 decision, the court said the federal Title IX law envisioned separate teams for girls and boys based on their biological sex at birth.
“Separate sports teams for biological males and biological females are reasonable,” wrote Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. “Given the inherent physical differences between the sexes, allowing only biological females to play on women’s and girls’ teams can reduce the risk of physical injury and ensure fair competition.”
Kavanaugh, who has coached girls’ teams for many years, said 27 states have adopted laws prohibiting transgender athletes on girls’ teams.
But his opinion does not say states such as California must change their laws that forbid schools from discriminating based on gender. Instead, he stressed states are free to make their own decision.
“Consistent with Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause, we hold that the states may maintain women’s and girls’ sports for biological females. They may determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports based on biological sex. The Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women’s and girls’ sports throughout America,” Kavanaugh said.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented in part. She said the state should have considered transgender students on a case-by-case basis to decide whether they had an unfair advantage. Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented as well.
The court’s decision is likely to bolster the Trump administration’s drive to pressure states, schools and universities that permit transgender athletes to compete on girls’ and women’s sports teams.
Because the Education Department provides federal funds to these states and schools, it can require them to comply with Title IX.
The sole plaintiff in the court case was Becky Pepper-Jackson. Now 15, she has carried on a lonely legal fight to compete on her school’s track team in Bridgeport, W.Va.
Designated male at birth, she says she is the only transgender girl competing in her state and has been the target of complaints and protests.
Her case drew strong reactions on both sides of the issue.
West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey hailed Tuesday’s decision as “one of the most important victories for women’s athletics” since the passage of Title IX in 1972.
“We defended a simple principle most Americans instinctively understand — that women’s sports exist to provide women and girls a fair opportunity to compete and succeed,” he said.
Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America, said “it is self-evident that males and females are biologically different, and the U.S. Supreme Court has confirmed this truth. It is fundamentally unfair for a male who feels like a female to demand that biological categories be ignored to accommodate his desire to compete among females.”
Joshua Block, the ACLU attorney who argued the case, called it “a heartbreaking ruling for our clients and transgender girls like them who’ve asked for nothing more than the same opportunities afforded to their peers,” he said.
“The reality is that the equality of transgender women and girls takes nothing away from, and in fact promotes, the equality of all women and girls.”
“This ruling is deeply harmful for transgender women and girls who only asked for the ability to participate in sports with their peers,” said Sasha Buchert, senior attorney with Lambda Legal. “Countless studies have demonstrated the myriad benefits that come with participation in team sports.”
The sports career of Becky Pepper-Jackson reflects some of the difficulty of the issue.
In sixth grade, she participated in cross country and described herself as slow. She “routinely placed near the back of the pack,” her attorneys told the court.
Her court appeals focused on a wish to participate in sports, not to win. But upon reaching high school, she has been winning.
In 2024, she “placed in the top three in every track event in which B.P.J. competed, winning most,” the state’s attorneys said. In the spring of 2025, “focusing on strength events, B.P.J. bumped female competitors out of the state tournament, then placed third in the state in discus and eighth in shot put while competing against much older female athletes,” they told the court.
Her ACLU attorney explained she has been winning in the shot put and discus “through hard work and practice,” not because of an advantage based on biology.
He said she “received puberty-delaying medication and gender-affirming estrogen that allowed her to undergo a hormonal puberty typical of a girl.”
“When Calls the Heart” co-stars Erin Krakow and Ben Rosenbaum celebrated one year of marriage by publicly introducing the latest member of their growing family.
Krakow, 41, and Rosenbaum, 39, revealed via People on Tuesday that they welcomed a baby girl — their first child together — in April. In a joint Instagram post with the outlet, the Hallmark co-stars shared tender photos from an intimate shoot of themselves cuddling their baby girl and posing with their dog, Willoughby. The couple did not dish additional details about their child’s birth.
“Our daughter has been the greatest gift, and we are loving getting to know her better with each passing day,” Krakow and Rosenbaum told People via email.
Krakow and Rosenbaum have starred in the hit Hallmark period drama since its premiere in 2014. “When Calls the Heart” is set in the early 20th century and follows Krakow’s schoolteacher Elizabeth Thatcher as she makes a life for herself in Hope Valley, a small town in western Canada. Rosenbaum stars as Hope Valley resident Mike Hickam.
The new parents first generated dating rumors in 2023 when Krakow revealed she and Rosenbaum had become dog parents. Months later, Rosenbaum confirmed their romance in a Valentine’s Day post. The pair tied the knot last June and revealed in November that they were expecting.
A Southern California music festival featuring only women musicians and created by Olivia Rodrigo? That’s not such a bad idea.
Rodrigo, fresh off the release of her junior album, on Monday unveiled her Daisy Chain Fields music festival and the roster of all-women artists set to take over Irvine’s Great Park on Aug. 29. The lineup will include Rodrigo, Chappell Roan, Katseye, Mitski, Doechii and special guests Karen O, Sarah McLachlan and Stevie Nicks.
The 23-year-old Grammy winner and vocal advocate for women’s rights said in her post that her dream festival has finally become a reality and that earnings from the spectacular will go to charities benefiting women and girls.
“The lineup is truly insane and full of my heroes and friends,” Rodrigo said in her announcement. “I firmly believe that joy, community, and music can be the drivers of meaningful change and I’m hopeful this festival will be just that.”
Artists Bikini Kill, Die Spitz, Eli, Garbage, Not for Radio, Quiet Light, Rachel Chinouriri, Santigold and the Breeders are also set to perform. Fans hoping to snag tickets can sign up for pre-sale access on the festival’s website.
Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields comes to Irvine a month before the former Disney Channel star kicks off her massive Unraveled tour, promoting her latest release “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love.” She will take over Inglewood’s Intuit Dome for four nights in 2027: Jan. 12, 13, 16 and 17.
In his album review, Times pop music critic Mikael Wood writes that Rodrigo’s latest release sees the singer-songwriter approach romance and heartbreak with “new wisdom, drawing sophisticated conclusions about why people in love do the things they do (and don’t do the things they don’t).”
The blush of first love inside the glow of new friendship is where “Girls Like Girls” works its easygoing charms, but also an affecting sadness. You’d never mistake multihyphenate pop star Hayley Kiyoko’s directorial debut for a groundbreaking queer romance, but sometimes the best summer vibes require only a breezy intoxicant, something made of all the funny feelings, a few of the deeper ones and a lot of heart.
That also describes Kiyoko’s shepherding of her hit 2015 track “Girls Like Girls,” a hooky LGBTQ+ anthem that went from viral music video (which she co-directed) to bestselling YA novel and finally this feature adaptation, written with Chloe Okuno and Stefanie Scott (the original video’s star). “Girls Like Girls” may be conventionally imagined, but there’s an admirable focus on unadorned warmth in Kiyoko’s storytelling: She likes her girls and cares enough to want us to like them, too.
We’re dropped in picturesque rural Oregon, where we find bike-riding new kid in town Coley (appealing newcomer Maya da Costa), who happens upon an energetic crowd of peers at a local diner, then gets asked to join them for a lake excursion (“We don’t bite”) by confident and friendly Sonya (Myra Molloy). When Coley, a shy, watchful sort, gets thrown in the water by obnoxious Trenton (Levon Hawke), she tries to leave, but not before Sonya softens the blow by insisting on a “proper hang” and the exchange of AOL usernames. (Because, oh, yeah, it’s 2006, giving us a refreshingly nostalgic break from the tyranny of smartphones.)
Anyway, SonyeahXOXO and RollieColey87 take quickly to their obvious spark, initially sublimating that deeper attraction through scenes of laughter, teasing, the rush from shoplifted alcohol, bed-sharing and lots of deep gazing. But they also lean into a connection marked by honesty and vulnerability, particularly Coley’s grief over losing her mom and not feeling connected to her widowed dad (Zach Braff). With Sonja Tyspin’s cinematography imbuing an innocent, sensual curiosity, Kiyoko sweetly conveys the awkward thrill of fledgling emotions. One scene in particular, in which Coley explores Sonya’s room, touching everything, hums with the strange excitement of being a specially invited new confidante.
But the day after the pair’s unspoken attraction becomes physical — a scene deftly stretched to “Kiss already!” limits — a confusing tension enters the chat, triggering a tailspin of self-doubt in Coley. A lesser film might have pivoted toward assuring us of a happy makeup, but “Girls Like Girls,” which stays centered in Coley’s POV, understands that at the crux of her pain is an untended self-acceptance that must be addressed first. Da Costa realizes that journey with unforced naturalism, as if the camera just happened to be there to capture it. (Molloy betrays a more studied star wattage, but she’s nevertheless a solid other half.)
Mostly, “Girls Like Girls” wins us over with a singular type of first-film assuredness: a familiar story presented as the most personal reveal ever. If you can’t remember what it was like to try to tiptoe while swooning, your heart barely able to stay in your chest, you were never a teenager.
‘Girls Like Girls’
Rated: R, for teen alcohol and drug use, and some language
Olivia Rodrigo has officially begun her new era, and this time she invited her fans to experience it alongside her.
To celebrate the release of her latest album, “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love,” Rodrigo collaborated with American Express to re-create the set of her music video for “The Cure.” The pop-up event, which opened last Thursday and ran until Sunday at Mica Studios, featured props from the video, storyboards, exclusive merchandise and several photo ops for fans.
With a beating felt heart and lab beakers to pose with, the pop-up transformed an industrial studio space in the Arts District into a pastel-painted cardboard hospital. Ahead of the public opening, Rodrigo surprised a small group of AMEX cardholders and select fans.
“I have an album that’s coming out today in about one hour, which is crazy,” Rodrigo said, wearing a blue “Nurses Do It Better” baby tee. “I figured since we’re all here, maybe we should just listen to a few of them together? Would that be cool?”
A little over an hour before the album’s release, Rodrigo played four songs from the album as the room brewed with excitement. She began with “Maggots for Brains,” a song about being so infatuated you can’t focus when your partner is away. Although it was their first listen, the song’s catchy chorus already had fans dancing along.
Banner for Rodridgo’s pop-up event hands above Mica Studios
(American Express)
Rodrigo explained that her next song, “Purple,” paid homage to the aesthetics of her previous albums, “Guts” and “Sour.”
“Obviously, this is my first non-purple album, but I just had to shout out purple somehow,” Rodrigo joked. “This song started out as a love song and sort of devolved from there, so I’ll let you guys be the judge.”
Playing off the somber vibes of “Purple,” Rodrigo played “Less” next. The piano ballad follows the dissolution of a relationship as the couple grows apart.
“I’ve been going back and forth on what the saddest song on the record is, but I think this one might be it,” Rodrigo said.
In a room full of fans, the song struck an emotional chord with many of the listeners. To bring the mood back up, Rodrigo finished the night by playing her new single, “Stupid Song.”
“This next one is a happy one, and it actually has a music video that comes out tonight,” Rodrigo said. “I love this song so much. It’s basically about having such an intense crush on someone that it drives you totally f— insane. I feel like we’ve all been there at some point in our lives.”
Rodrigo was all smiles at her event celebrating her latest album steeped in heartbreak and romance.
(American Express)
After Rodrigo previewed her music, “The Cure” music video exhibition was opened up to the fans. The showcase ranged from interactive photo ops to gallery walls featuring behind-the-scenes photos from the video shoot and Rodrigo’s nurse costume on display. The video’s props, which were primarily designed using cardboard and felt, were displayed in glass cases for visitors to admire.
Dressed in fun fashion including light pink and polka-dot outfits, fans posed throughout the set, re-creating scenes from the music video as “The Cure” played overhead. Many had thrown on a piece of the Los Angeles-exclusive merchandise on sale at the pop-up, with shirts and hats reading “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl in Los Angeles.”
So while some fans teared up at her lyrics and others beamed with excitement, everyone was hyped to experience Rodrigo’s new album.
“I really hope you enjoy this little exhibition. It is so gorgeous, and I am so proud of it,” Rodrigo said. “Thank you guys for being here, and I really hope you love ‘You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love’ as much as I do.”
What to do after writing some of this century’s most devastating songs about the torment of breaking up? Write some of this century’s most devastating songs about the ecstasy of getting together.
With her first two albums — 2021’s Grammy-winning “Sour” and 2023’s triple-platinum “Guts” — Olivia Rodrigo proved herself to be perhaps the most gifted of the many chroniclers of Gen Z romance to emerge in Taylor Swift’s wake. She could convey the hot sting of betrayal, as in her smash debut single, “Drivers License”; she could channel the injustice of watching an ex somehow carry on, as in “Good 4 U”; she could deliver a sick burn like somebody handing out Halloween candy, as in “Get Him Back!” (Because it deserves remembering: “He had an ego and a temper and a wandering eye / He said he’s six-foot-two, and I’m like, ‘Dude, nice try.’”)
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Yet on her thrilling third LP, “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love,” Rodrigo, 23, turns to the pleasure that comes before the pain — and, in a feat very few in pop music are ever able to pull off, ends up with a number of first-flush-of-love songs as potent as any breakup tune.
She opens the album with “Drop Dead,” in which she compares a guy in line for the bathroom at a bar to an “angel on the walls of Versailles” — an early sign of how high the emotional ceiling is here. In “Stupid Song” she cycles through a series of metaphors to describe her lovesickness — she’s a car without a brake, she’s a heart made of melting wax — before finding a simpler but infinitely more vivid way of getting her point across: “You should feel how I feel when somebody says your name.” (Chills.)
“Maggots for Brains” is a song about how useless she becomes “when my baby goes away,” and let’s just take a second to savor the fact that Rodrigo is putting that title into the world less than four years after she was still a working Disney kid. The album’s next tune, “U + Me = <3,” is its high point: a euphoric promise of devotion that sounds like Sixpence None the Richer reborn as a Midwestern emo band. It’s got two young lovers carving their names into car seat leather, and it’s got a girl trying to impress her boyfriend’s older sister with her cynical humor and her taste in yacht rock.
More important, it’s got these lines of pure poetry: “They say modern love’s a cruel endeavor / And to that I say, F— it, whatever.” Kurt Cobain would be proud.
Working with her longtime producer, Dan Nigro, Rodrigo has expanded her stylistic palette to accommodate these new emotions; “You Seem Pretty Sad” pulls in chiming folk-rock and synthed-up new wave and even has a gorgeous wine-bar piano ballad, “Less,” that might put the scare in Rodrigo’s pal Laufey.
The cover of Olivia Rodrigo’s new album.
(Geffen Records)
The album is structured to trace the arc of a relationship, which means that the second half dips into the heartbreak we’re used to getting from Rodrigo. But she’s writing about familiar scenarios with new wisdom, drawing sophisticated conclusions about why people in love do the things they do (and don’t do the things they don’t).
In “The Cure,” which rides a strummed acoustic-guitar pattern that strongly recalls Smashing Pumpkins’ “Disarm,” she realizes a boyfriend can’t fix what’s broken inside her; “Begged” examines the limits of one partner’s willingness to look past the failings of the other. After hearing these songs, the happier ones at the beginning of the album reveal bits of shadow that Rodrigo has built into them to presage what’s to come — to presage what always comes.
It’s fitting, then, that Robert Smith of the Cure — perhaps pop’s most jubilant gloommeister — hovers over this LP like a patron saint: nodded to in “The Cure,” of course, but also “Drop Dead,” where Rodrigo name-checks the Cure’s classic “Just Like Heaven.” Smith himself turns up in “What’s Wrong With Me” for a duet with Rodrigo in which the two learn to accept that love, in the end, might be what kills them.
“My head is spinning and my stomach is sick,” they sing, and neither sounds like they’d have it any other way.
DECEASED Friends actor Matthew Perry has sold two original Banksy artworks for nearly £1million – including the iconic Girl with Balloon.
The star tragically died in October 2023 after accidentally drowning in a jacuzzi while high on ketamine, with 127 items from his estate having now been sold at auction.
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The Girl with Balloon which belonged to Matthew Perry was sold for £975,000Credit: AC News / Heritage AuctionsThe Nola artwork went for £88,709, with the proceeds going to the Matthew Perry FoundationCredit: AC News / Heritage Auctions
A pair of iconic Banksy artworks, Girl with Balloon and Nola, that Perry owned have been sold for £975,000.
The Hollywood actor, best known for his role as Chandler Bing on the hit TV sitcom Friends, died at the age of 54.
His estate has since been put up for auction with the money going to the Matthew Perry Foundation which helps substance users to recover.
The Girl with Balloon 2005 includes two spray-painted stencils on separate canvases of a child reaching for a red heart-shaped balloon.
127 items from Perry’s estate that were sold at the auctionCredit: GettyThe actor rose to fame from his iconic role as Chandler Bing on the hit TV sitcom FriendsCredit: Getty
Following an intense bidding war, it sold for a massive £709,674.
After including the 25 per cent buyers premium, it sold for £887,093.
The other iconic artwork, Nola 2008, is a screen print in colours on wove paper of a young girl holding an umbrella while sheltering from the rain.
It was the first Banksy Perry ever bought, according to Heritage Auctions.
The monochrome picture fetched £70,967.
Including the 25 per cent buyers premium, it sold for £88,709.
Both artworks have Banksy’s signature on them.
Other items sold at the auction included signed Friends episode scripts, TV guide displays, and a custom Chandler bobble head.
It also sold Batman memorabilia like a custom ping pong table and The Dark Knight Rises watch.
Perry’s cause of death was determined to be the acute effects of ketamine with drowning as a contributing factor.
A year after the celeb’s tragic passing, the street dealer who supplied the ketamine, Erik Fleming, was jailed for two years.
Perry’s assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, was also jailed for more than three years after injecting the actor with the drug.
Both pleaded guilty to the charges during their court appearances.
