Many white evangelical Christians view Donald Trump as chosen by God to lead despite not seeing him as personally devout. A recent study suggests 60 percent of them believe Trump has pushed the US closer to Christian principles, blurring the line between church and state.
For the full segment, watch Al Jazeera’s ‘This is America’.
Tell me, Christopher Nolan, when did it first rosy-fingered dawn on you that your favorite type of protagonist — a tormented sinner-hero — was a specialty of the ancient Greeks? Millennia before Matthew McConaughey’s astronaut sobbed over abandoning his family and Cillian Murphy’s Robert Oppenheimer gasped that he had become the destroyer of worlds, the Greeks spun cautionary legends about Odysseus, the Trojan War tactician who outsmarted his own plan to sail smoothly home.
Nolan refuses to tremble before the canon. Grabbing mighty scissors, he cuts and rejiggers Homer and a bit of Virgil to transform these classical texts into his type of tale: one fixated on memory, self-identity, destructive genius and the slippage of time. As ever, it’s light on sex, heavy on wine-dark angst.
Once you endure its opening stretch — an expositional barrage with the pace of an obnoxious cop show — “The Odyssey” ascends as a monument to movie craft with shuddering ships, rough-hewn landscapes and practical monsters who snatch and grab men at random from above like giant skill cranes. Unlike in most mythological tales, the white Corinthian columns have been swapped out for brutal stone architecture. The Parthenon won’t be built for another 800 years; likewise, Athenian democracy is centuries away.
Nolan has anchored his “Odyssey” at the fall of the Bronze Age, a once-great era toppled by wealth-hoarding, diminished trade and climate catastrophes. Fearful of invading marauders, humankind has turned distrustful and stingy, ignoring Zeus’ command to show generosity toward the poor and foreign-born, a cornerstone of faith that would later be repurposed in the New Testament.
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This Odysseus (Matt Damon) is both witness to and wrecking ball of the collapse. Not only does he steal, slaughter and pillage while expecting to be treated with kindness, but he’s also brainstormed the atomic bomb of his day: the Trojan horse, a deceitful invention planted into the sandy beaches of Troy that marks the decline of civilization like the Statue of Liberty in “Planet of the Apes.” Inside this claustrophobic wooden beast, Odysseus and his wild and bloodthirsty Greeks are crammed cheek-to-sandal so tightly that you can’t imagine how they’ll spring into action without first getting a massage. Outside and looking up at it, the pony seems to sneer.
“The Odyssey” is a saga with half a dozen detours and one destination, Ithaca, Odysseus’ kingdom. While he’s been fighting in Troy, his palace has been overrun by men who want to marry his faithful wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), and murder his helpless son, Telemachus (Tom Holland). Robert Pattinson’s oily suitor woos Penelope like a “Bachelorette” contestant: “It’s time to live again,” he urges her, certain that Penelope’s vengeful husband won’t come back. Forget that rose, dude, and run away.
Anne Hathaway and Tom Holland in the movie “The Odyssey.”
(Melinda Sue Gordon / Universal Pictures)
After 20 years away — 10 at war, 10 adrift — Odysseus is anxious to reclaim his kingdom. Or is he? Nolan floats a convincing psychological reason why this Odysseus subconsciously believes his duplicitous actions during the war deserve permanent exile from civilization. Although, as is the case with too much of Nolan’s storytelling, he wrongly thinks it’s more interesting to withhold Odysseus’ traumatic hang-up until the ending. The Greeks never tried to confuse the audience in the pursuit of suspense. They delivered their plots arrow-straight to make the dread sting.
Saddled with a silly black beard that eventually goes gray, Damon’s Odysseus is stubborn, overconfident and sacrilegious, but doesn’t bear that much resemblance to the conniving, hypocritical egotist of lore who fretted over his wife’s fidelity while seducing not one, but two, enchantresses, Calypso and Circe. Today’s viewers might demonize Odysseus’ erotic exploits; instead, they’ve been Damon-ized into something innately goodhearted.
The chasteness of Nolan’s version bugs me as it’s insulting he doesn’t trust audiences to grapple with this hero’s moral complexity — and I’m gut-sick that he’s probably right. Plus, it leaves Charlize Theron’s Calypso nothing to do but limply listen to (and medicate) Odysseus like a bored therapist reaching for the lithium. I was hoping for more zest from a blond wearing actual fishnets that could catch sardines.
At least Samantha Morton’s body-horror spin on the witch Circe is terrific. To punish his men for barging into her hut, she digs her fingers inside their skin like clay, remolding them into the swine she claims they are. Her outrage is one of the best ideas in the movie. Likewise, Lupita Nyong’o’s Helen is regal and formidable, but it’s a mistake to double-cast her as Helen’s twin sister, Clytemnestra. The whole reason thousands of men fought a war over the most beautiful woman alive is that there’s only one of them — unless undermining that excuse is the point. (In an aside, we’re told that Benny Safdie’s aloof Agamemnon, hiding under a try-hard scary helmet decorated with a golden spine, really waged it to break up Troy’s trade routes.)
Unlike in Homer or even “Clash of the Titans,” which showed the gods as toga-clad twits toying with mortal lives like action figures, they have little, if anything, to do in this plot. In Homer’s original verse, Athena is as fussy as a stage mother, showing up every few pages disguised as someone mortal to bless both Odysseus and Telemachus with live-action Photoshop filters that make them extra handsome. Here, Holland’s Telemachus gambles Athena is hiding inside half the people he meets until his father chides, “Don’t look for gods in men, you’ll just be disappointed.”
Instead, Nolan balances religion on the spear tip of doubt. The angry sea god Poseidon is reduced to rumors; mighty Zeus withheld to a few well-timed thunderclaps. Even Athena, if that genuinely is whom Zendaya is playing, isn’t that helpful, mostly staring at Odysseus in mute dismay. It’s possible to get to the end of “The Odyssey” and conclude that Nolan doesn’t believe in gods at all. To him, men must be proactive in their own demise. (I’m half-convinced, the way I don’t really swear by the zodiac but nevertheless stopped dating Libras.)
Composer Ludwig Göransson scores the breath-holding assault on Troy to drums that pound faster and faster on our nerves, as does our alarm that Odysseus’ troops aren’t the good guys. Occasionally, Göransson adds a lovely monotone layer of woodwinds or a keening chorus that sounds like the oldest song on Earth.
Conversely, during the talky Ithaca sequences, when the movie is rightly paranoid of losing our attention, the more modern heist-thriller music is flat-out obnoxious, especially in a scene where Odysseus lays out his ruse to infiltrate his house to John Leguizamo’s trusty goatherd, the most lovable man ever introduced throwing a puppy off a cliff. (No, really — it’s the movie’s only outright joke.)
Hoyte van Hoytema’s Imax-framed cinematography is assertive and present, rocking with the stormy waves and peering into the torch-lit darkness where the color palate is as starkly orange and black as an ancient Greek urn. Working with the special effects team, Van Hoytema cloaks the non-digital wizardry of the Cyclops and six-headed Scylla behind naturalistic camera movements and shadows so that, rather than drawing too much attention to themselves, the creatures just feel real. As gray and wrinkled as the bottom of a mummy’s foot, the Cyclops’ face is wonderfully askew, like he was stepped on by someone even bigger than him.
Nolan’s “Odyssey” engraves marvelous images onto the ancient oral poem. One of the most haunting shots is Odysseus sprinting out of Hades chased by an army of the dead who regret following him into battle. In turn, Nolan has sacrificed Odysseus himself to serve his own needs, scrapping the character’s prickly personality to Trojan-horse a message about how empires collapse.
Aghast at the ways of men, he’s dug his own Circe-like fingers into Homer to manipulate the tale into a moralistic “Oppenheimer” prequel. Even Odysseus seems to suspect as much. “Our mistakes will again be forgotten,” Odysseus predicts as the land he loves sails into the Dark Ages while he steers the helm. He’s done unforgivable wrongs. But in that moment, he’s right.
WASHINGTON — After the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, Sen. Lindsey Graham said he had finally had enough of the man who was championed by the mob that stormed the pillar of American democracy: President Trump.
“Trump and I, we’ve had a hell of a journey. I hate it to end this way. Oh, my God, I hate it. From my point of view, he’s been a consequential president,” an emotional Graham said once authorities cleared the rioters and allowed senators to reclaim their chamber to certify Joe Biden’s election win. “All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough.”
It wasn’t, of course.
Graham, the South Carolina Republican who died unexpectedly Saturday night at 71, realized that his party’s future was inextricably tied to Trump and quickly reverted back to being a staunch defender. The shift made what had once seemed like a final rupture into just another twist in the topsy-turvy relationship between the powerful senator and the president who came to dominate their party.
“Can we move forward without President Trump? The answer is no,” Graham said in May 2021, just four months after the Jan. 6 insurrection. “I’ve determined we can’t grow without him.”
Trump, who called Graham a “true American Patriot” in a social media post Sunday, appeared shocked by the senator’s sudden death.
“I just can’t believe it,” the president said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “He was like a member of the family.”
Graham often advised Trump on foreign affairs, particularly on matters pertaining to Israel, Ukraine and Iran. He was a frequent visitor at the White House.
“At the end of a particularly thrilling and rollicking meeting in the Oval Office, Lindsey Graham turned to the room and said: ‘I’ve never had this much fun in my life,’” Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller wrote on X. He said such gatherings “were filled with camaraderie, kinship and uproarious laughter.”
Trump recalled that during his last conversation with Graham, he told his friend, “We’ll see you soon, come over anytime you want.”
‘Unfit for office’
The senator and Trump first clashed while competing for the 2016 presidential nomination.
Graham described Trump as “unfit for office,” and was angered when Trump denigrated the military service of Graham’s close friend Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Trump, while talking about McCain’s years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said, “I like people that weren’t captured.”
Trump got mad enough at Graham to release the senator’s personal cellphone number. That prompted a viral video in which the senator dramatically destroyed a series of flip phones. He smashed one with a meat cleaver and another with a golf club, then used lighter fluid, a blender and toaster oven to pulverize others before tossing one off the roof.
Graham eventually likened Trump’s winning the nomination to “being shot in the head” and said he refused to vote for Trump that November. But the pair later bonded over golf and what Graham described as a mutual and irreverent sense of humor.
Trump and Graham began so frequently hitting the links together that the senator started seeing it as something of a career builder, leaning heavily into the kind of over-the-top flattery Trump relishes. In 2017, Graham joked that Trump had beaten him “like a drum” on the course, even worse than in the presidential primary.
“Their true friendship could only be seen behind the curtain,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said on ABC’s “This Week.” Scott said that relationship was forged as political adversaries but was strengthened by spending 100-plus hours golfing together.
During Trump’s first term, Graham helped advance Trump’s nominees to the Supreme Court, lent credibility to the White House’s legislative agenda and even at times became part of the president’s inner circle. He frequently said Trump was maturing in politics and growing on the job.
Graham’s political divergence with McCain, who died in 2018, was never more clear than in 2017, when McCain voted against a Trump-backed plan to overturn the Affordable Care Act, former President Obama’s signature healthcare law. The effort had been co-sponsored by Graham.
A short-lived split, an alliance reignited
In his floor speech after the Capitol attack, Graham said that “he’d never been so humiliated and embarrassed for the country.” But the break with Trump ended quickly.
Weeks later, Trump invited Graham for golf and dinner at the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, reigniting their alliance. During Trump’s 2024 campaign, Graham was a frequent Trump surrogate on television, promoting U.S. military strength that he said would advance “America first” policies.
Graham never shed his more traditional Republican foreign policy views, including outspoken support for Ukraine after the Russian invasion — even as Trump frequently wavered in supporting Kyiv, sometimes castigating Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky and praising Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
The senator was also a leading voice pushing the White House to more fully embrace Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and take a harder line against Iran, and he was a leading advocate of Trump’s ongoing war with Iran. After the U.S. and Israel attacked in February, Graham staunchly defended the action and working to counter many among Trump’s “Make America Great Again” base who supported the president’s longtime assertions that “America first” meant avoiding such military conflicts.
“To those who say Iran is stronger now than before, that is an insult to the American military and it is delusional thinking because the Iranian economy is in shambles,” Graham posted on social media June 19.
Graham’s admiration for Trump went far beyond Iran. When the senator clinched the South Carolina Republican primary last month, he suggested the president was just short of a deity.
“I want to start with a bunch of thank yous. I want to thank the big guy, God. Trump comes later,” Graham laughed. “Mr. President, you’re not far behind God, but we’re gonna start with him.”
It’s the 250th birthday of the United States of America and how better to celebrate than with a big-screen hagiography of America’s first president, George Washington? “Young Washington” arrives in theaters just in time for the Fourth of July with a chiseled, hot young actor in the lead role and the sheen of a prestige HBO drama, though the result isn’t really big-screen spectacle or appointment television. It feels more like something to be watched on the AV rig in a middle school social studies class. At least there won’t be a quiz at the end.
But there could be, because the plot of “Young Washington” plays out with all the thrill of a textbook chapter. It takes place mostly around 1753-55, at the advent of the French and Indian War. We open in medias res when the 23-year-old Col. Washington (William Franklyn-Miller) lurches from a dysentery-riddled nap directly into battle in the Pennsylvania woods, his battalion on the back foot, surrounded by gore and gunpowder. Another officer describes how dire the situation is while George ponders saving his men and asks, “What could be worth the risk?” Washington steels his gaze and we cut to black. You can almost hear the eagles scream, guitars riff and engines rev.
“Young Washington” is produced and distributed by Angel Studios, the faith-based movie studio that churns out films based on true stories that either feature freak accidents, strange illnesses or, more recently, unique stories from the past in which faith in God is a factor. Apparently, our nation’s founding also falls under this umbrella.
The film is directed by Jon Erwin, one of the in-house Angel Studios mainstays, who also helmed “Jesus Revolution,”“I Still Believe” and “I Can Only Imagine.” Erwin gives the whole project a kind of gritty, visceral approach — very “Game of Thrones” in red coats. It’s violent, muddy, the contrast is high and too many drone shots soar over the forest treetops.
Though it opens with a bang, this 1755 battle framing device gives way to the George origin story, starting with his father’s death 12 years earlier, when the 11-year-old George is bereft that he’ll have to sacrifice his education in order to become a tenant farmer and provide for his family including his mother, Mary (Mary-Louise Parker, doing a bizarre accent).
His older half-brother Lawrence (John Foss) takes him under his wing and teaches him, and the young George grows into a smart, bright, ambitious young man, whose dreams of becoming a British officer are dashed because he doesn’t have formal education, a fortuitous marriage or his own land. But he’s bootstrapped himself into intelligence and with savvy networking and know-how, he becomes indispensable to the British, volunteering as a major to survey land and negotiate treaties with the Native tribes and French army. It’s all a bunch of politicking and petty disputes until it escalates into all-out war thanks to an ill-advised ambush.
Sir Ben Kingsley, Kelsey Grammar (who starred in “Jesus Revolution”) and Andy Serkis play the British officers who begrudgingly, at times, believe in George and his capabilities, though a lot of the film is about a young man getting rebuffed by snobbish British officers.
He’s the kind of character who always makes the noble choice, does and says what’s right, and sees everyone as equals (including enslaved African men and Native American allies). He inspires his brother and others that the world can change and takes inspiration from his mother, who encourages him to continue his path and do it as God’s servant.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t make for a character that’s in any way complex or interesting at all. Franklyn-Miller is certainly pretty, serving as a fine face for this story, but the screenplay (by Erwin, Diederik Hoogstraten and Tom Provost) flattens his character into a basic cookie-cutter hero. Audiences, including the middle school social studies students, deserve better and more nuanced stories about this country and the values it was built upon.
“Young Washington” is propaganda in the form of a history lesson wrapped in a summer blockbuster. If only it were even slightly entertaining — maybe they’ll tackle that in the inevitable sequel.
‘Young Washington’
Rated: PG-13, for sequences of strong war violence and some bloody images
The controversy around the Pride Night protest by three San Francisco Giants pitchers continues to grow.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) entered the fray Tuesday, demanding answers from Major League Baseball after it issued warnings to Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker about writing on their uniforms. The players added a Bible verse on their specialty caps for the night.
In a letter addressed to MLB commissioner Robert Manfred, the Republican senator also accused the league of “a pattern of discrimination … against baseball players who profess their Christian faith.”
“I write with grave concern over your reported decision to issue a formal warning to three Major League Baseball (MLB) players for publicly expressing their Christian faith,” Hawley says in his letter. “MLB has said this is a content-neutral policy and that MLB ‘respect[s] players’ right to free expression.’ But this is dubious, given that MLB is openly promoting a political viewpoint and possibly compelling adherence to that viewpoint.”
The Missouri senator referenced the league’s “sweeping, judicially manufactured exemption from the federal antitrust laws” as justification for his inquiries.
“Trump won we don’t have to do this anymore,” Vice President JD Vance wrote on social media.
The San Francisco Giants’ pride logo is displayed on the scoreboard at Oracle Park before its Pride Night game against the Chicago Cubs.
(Scott Marshall / Associated Press)
In Friday’s Pride Night game against the Chicago Cubs, Roupp, the Giants’ starting pitcher, wore a hat with “Gen 9:12-16” written alongside the rainbow “SF” logo. Relief pitchers Brubaker and Walker also added similar references to the Old Testament passage about rainbows being a “covenant between God and every living creature” on their caps. (Fellow Giants pitcher Sam Hentges chose to wear a cap with the team’s standard logo instead of the Pride Night version.)
“That’s just kind of something I believe in, and I stand firm in that,” Roupp told reporters after the game. “I’m thankful we live in a country where, you know, we have the freedom to believe what we want … and express what we want.
“The verse says … the rainbow is a symbol of God’s covenant to us, and us as believers to stand firm in that,” he added after confirming he never had previously inscribed it on his cap before. “There’s no hate at all. It’s just what I stand for and what I stand in. I believe in God, and that’s me.”
Rainbows have been associated with LGBTQ+ pride since the rainbow flag was introduced by activists and artists in San Francisco in the 1970s. The verse Roupp mentions often is cited by Christian conservatives in their effort to “reclaim” the rainbow’s symbolism. (Former Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw added the same Bible verse to his Pride Night cap last season.)
Following the Pride Night actions of Roupp and his fellow Giants pitchers, the team’s fans, members of the LGBTQ+ community and allies expressed their hurt, anger and disappointment in the players and the organization. The Giants have a history of supporting the LGBTQ+ community and causes.
The MLB issued the players who added inscriptions to their caps a warning Monday for violating the league’s uniform policy.
“To be clear, this routine verbal warning not to wear the hat in future games is not disciplinary and had absolutely nothing to do with the content of the message,” MLB clarified in a widely reported follow-up statement issued Tuesday.
“We respect players’ right to free expression. However, writing of any kind, with any message, is prohibited per Major League Baseball’s Uniform Regulations which provides in part that, ‘(a) Player may not write, attach, affix, embroider or otherwise display nicknames or messages on apparel or playing equipment…’. We have given the same warning numerous times in the past to players for messages such as ‘Dad’, ‘Happy Mother’s Day, I Love Mom,’ and names of family members.”
A number of fans expressed anger and disappointment after the actions by pitchers for the Giants, a team with a history of supporting the LGBTQ+ community and causes.
(Scott Marshall / Associated Press)
The Giants have not addressed the fallout beyond their statement following the game Friday.
“The San Francisco Giants are proud to support Pride Night and the LGBTQ+ community. Baseball should be a place where everyone feels welcome, respected, and valued,” the statement provided to numerousoutlets reads. “We also respect that individuals may make personal choices about participating in team activations. We understand that the choices by individual players has caused pain and anger to many in the LGBTQ+ community and we are sorry for that. Those choices do not change our organization’s commitment to inclusion, belonging, and creating a welcoming environment for all. We remain grateful to our fans, partners, employees, players and coaches who help make Pride Night a meaningful celebration.”
The team was among the first in professional sports to host an HIV/AIDS awareness game in the 1990s and the first MLB team to incorporate the Pride rainbow in its on-field uniforms for its Pride game in 2021.
California state Sen. Scott Wiener has continued to call out both the Giants and Republican politicians regarding the Pride Night protest and the aftermath.
“MAGA leaders like JD Vance and Josh Hawley are now glomming on and declaring an anti-LGBTQ culture war, in an attempt to bully MLB from enforcing its rules,” Wiener wrote in an lengthy post on social media, calling them out for their “Bigotry against LGBTQ people.”
“This isn’t an issue of religious freedom. People have a right to whatever religious beliefs they want — even if those beliefs dehumanize other people — but they don’t have a right to hijack their employer to promote those hateful beliefs at a job-related event.”
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass made what sounded like a victory speech Tuesday night.
Councilmember Nithya Raman made what sounded almost like a concession speech.
And former reality TV star Spencer Pratt relayed a message from the heavens.
“Well, obviously God wanted five more months of me exposing all the failures of our mayor, so it’s gonna be a fun ride,” Pratt said. “I hope she’s ready.”
Assuming Pratt holds on to one of the two spots in the Nov. 3 general election as the final votes are tallied in the next few days, the smart money will be on Bass, for reasons I’ll get into in a moment.
But the supreme being and patron of all pontiffs has to be considered a wild card. This is the first time, to my knowledge, that an incumbent mayor in the City of Angels would be running against a challenger whose campaign manager is God Almighty.
So here we go. We could be in for one of the more remarkable electoral adventures in city history, with a complete novice and MAGA conservative going up against a liberal career politician in a deep-blue city and state full of people who are tired of hearing excuses from Democrats. (If Raman ends up ousting Pratt, my apologies for jumping to conclusions. But it’s not my fault. The devil made me do it.)
If you intend to follow closely, as of course you should, maybe you can help me count the number of times Pratt plays the faith card. I went to St. Peter Martyr School and attended the church by the same name, and I don’t recall ever hearing a nun or a priest drop God’s name as often as Pratt does.
In fact, I just watched a clip of Pratt talking to Fox News TV host and Donald Trump disciple Kayleigh McEnany, and over the course of 1 minute and 52 seconds, he mentioned God or Jesus 10 times.
“Thankfully, I married an angel who was very connected with Jesus and has brought me to the light,” Pratt said of his wife and former reality TV co-star Heidi Montag. “It’s been very empowering to just pray and just be on his path and just say, ‘God, if you want me to save these animals, save these humans and protect my city, just keep putting me in the place where I can do that.’”
Is he running for mayor or cardinal?
Look, I totally respect your average true believer. But I’m not entirely comfortable with a mayor who might be sitting around City Hall waiting for signs and smoke signals rather than knowing what to do on his own.
God has a lot on his plate. He might be busy multiplying fishes and loaves so people don’t go hungry thanks to the president’s tariffs and warmongering. Is he going to rush to answer a prayer for guidance about underfunded parks or broken sidewalks in Los Angeles?
How did we get here, you ask?
Well, Pratt is an AI creation, in a way. A composite of sorts. You combine the forces of social media, political rebellion, second-rate celebrity obsession and the Peter Principle, and here’s a little Trump puppet walking around L.A. like he’s the chosen one.
Add to that the very real essence of his appeal to some voters:
Los Angeles has problems. Big problems that don’t get fixed quickly enough or at all, and Pratt represents the angry voter who wants to know why City Hall can’t do better and where all the money went. He’s absolutely right when he says we shouldn’t have people living on the streets, using drugs on the streets and dying on the streets.
But if Pratt is in the general election rather than Raman, we’re in for a national media circus rather than a summit on solutions. Raman is well-versed on matters of relevance and could have pushed back against Bass in substantive, detailed ways. On the other hand, as Pratt has fairly argued, Raman headed City Council’s homelessness committee, so isn’t she partly to blame for the failures she tried to pin on Bass?
As for Pratt’s policy chops, he has not responded to my offers of a get-together. Absent that, and given his careful avoidance of local reporters who know their stuff, I read his platform on his campaign website and I can tell you that while he touches on many of the right issues — public safety, fiscal integrity, homelessness — attention to detail and depth of knowledge are not God-given strengths.
Maybe Pratt can actually deliver on his promise of a “treatment-led recovery model that addresses mental illness and addiction as the primary drivers of chronic homelessness.” But that would require an act of God (which I suppose is possible given their relationship), because those matters are primarily under the direction of the county, not the city.
This is the main problem here. Bass was beatable, and could have been pushed by a serious challenger to do better.
In the last election, Rick Caruso gave her a scare. That was partly because he had some depth on the issues, he was a successful businessman and philanthropist, he had served on the police commission and the water and power board, he had built relationships across the city and, along with his family, he had poured time and millions of dollars into underserved communities.
In this election, it looks as though Bass could get lucky and face off against a guy who lost his house in the Palisades fire, saw a few homeless encampments through his car window, and decided he wanted to be mayor. Some might have questioned his hubris, but only before learning that he was on a mission from God.
If you’re keeping count, that’s nine mentions of God so far in this column.
One more for the tie, with an eye toward five more months of campaign fodder.
I come from a family of priests and devoted Catholics. Catholicism is the blood in my veins. My father was not a disciplinarian, but if you lived under his roof you went to church. Saturday evening or Sunday morning, didn’t matter, you went. My four siblings and I were not miscreants, but we drank beer and sneaked out, and I was once cited for stealing liquor. I can’t recall my father ever yelling at me for anything other than missing Mass.
My great-uncle Dan was a diocesan priest at St. Charles Borromeo in Drexel Hill, Pa. Dan was a fire-and-brimstone hard-liner. Every Thursday we’d gather as a family for a roast beef dinner at my grandmother’s house. Dan would drink Manhattans — plenty — and if someone expressed a view of God contrary to his own, he’d say, “It’s awfully hot down there.” “There” meant hell. My uncle Ed, my mother’s eldest brother, was an Augustinian. Patient, compassionate, inclusive, Ed’s God was very different from Dan’s. While discussing God, Ed would quote Michael Himes, “There is nothing we can do to make God not love us,” and the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, “Mercy, within Mercy, within Mercy.”
Sports was in my family too — basketball, specifically — and I came to view Dan and Ed as head and assistant coach, respectively. The head coach shouting harsh critiques from the sideline, the assistant coach there to put his arm around you when you made it, crestfallen and ashamed, back to the bench. I loved them both, but I aligned with Ed’s view of God. Dan passed away a decade ago. Ed has since left the priesthood and married a kind and patient woman named Kathy. Over the years, Ed’s views on God have changed drastically. We meet for dinner once a month to talk about life and faith, and it was during one of our conversations that “Task” was born.
Mark Ruffalo in “Task.”
(Peter Kramer / HBO)
Tom Brandis, played by the singular Mark Ruffalo, is a former priest-turned-FBI agent who has lost his faith. Everything he held as truth in his life has come crashing down in the wake of a family tragedy. Tom believes he was called by God to adopt two children, Emily and Ethan. Adopting these children has resulted in the death of his wife, Susan. Matricide. What kind of God allows that? I have struggled with my Catholic faith over the years, but nothing has perplexed me more than the idea of suffering. The poet Archibald MacLeish wrote, “If God is God, He is not good / If God is good, He is not God.” The message is clear: If God is God, the author of everything, then He created evil and suffering and therefore cannot be good.
In “Task,” I wanted to explore a crisis of faith with honesty and without easy answers, because that is exactly how I have found my own faith journey — arduous and circuitous. I believe in God, but I find that belief tested daily. Faith and religion are separable. Tom’s journey in “Task” is a journey of faith. In the fifth episode, Tom is kidnapped by the criminal Robbie Prendergast, played by the brilliant Tom Pelphrey. During a long and tense car ride to the Poconos, Robbie tells Tom that he doesn’t believe in God. Never has. God is an idea conjured to make life bearable. “There’s nothing after this life,” Robbie says. Tom doesn’t argue. His own beliefs have veered in that direction. The car pulls into a secluded, wooded area. Facing death, Tom suddenly wants to call his son, Ethan, and forgive him. Robbie doesn’t allow it. Instead, he walks Tom to the edge of the woods, tells him he’s a decent man, and sets him free. Because Robbie has his own plan: to sacrifice his life in the hopes of providing a better one for his family. It’s through Robbie’s act of mercy that Tom regains faith. He believes in goodness again.
Brad Ingelsby.
(Ian Spanier / For The Times)
In the final episode, Tom finds himself taking care of a young and suddenly parentless boy, Sam. Sam reminds him of his own son, Ethan. Sam wants to live with Tom. And Tom desperately wants Sam to stay with him. But Tom also recognizes that Sam would be better served in the care of a young family capable of meeting his needs. Sam shouldn’t be stuck with an old man like him. Tom lets Sam go; he believes the boy will be taken care of. That is Tom’s act of faith.
When Ed and I met for dinner last month, we talked about how his idea of God has changed over the years. He no longer sees God as a bearded white man tallying our sins and waiting to judge us in heaven. He thought God was everywhere, all the time. The love that exists between people. He thought he could feel God right then, among us at the table as we laughed. We talked about Camp Mystic. The young girls swept away. Why, God?They were there to serve You. We didn’t have any answers. We never do. But the food and wine were good, and we talked about great-uncle Dan, about how he was so different from us but how much we loved him anyway, and how, when he drank Manhattans — plenty — he could turn harsh and opinionated, but it didn’t matter because he loved God. He loved Him with his whole heart, and we thought about the unimpeachable dignity of that and what an amazing gift it would be — to believe and never doubt.
I was willing to give the young novice a primer on what a mayor can and can’t do, and let him know City Hall is a reality show like no other he’s been on. But Spencer Pratt didn’t call me in response to my column last week.
I did, however, hear from a slew of his most ardent supporters.
Steven C. had this to say: “You’re a left-wing idiot, and … it’s time for you to retire. You’re a joke!!! You always have been!!! God bless Spencer Pratt and the 45th and 47th President of the United States Donald Trump!!!!!”
You may be onto something, Steven!!! I’ve been thinking about retiring!!!! But then a former reality TV star like Pratt comes along and tells Vanity Fair he had a chat with God, who told him He wants Pratt to be mayor of L.A!!!!! With people like this running for office, how can I retire?!!!!!
R.W. wrote to say: “You say Spencer has never done anything in his life…What credentials do you have? From what I’ve read about you, you are a lousy commie journalist who has never accomplished anything in your life!!”
Just recently, R.W., I replaced a broken toilet tank flush valve and I learned two Willie Nelson songs on the guitar. That’s not nothing.
Peter did not mince words: “Your piece on Pratt is a hit piece filled with bull— . You should go f— yourself before someone takes you out, which is the appropriate response to a s—bag like yourself. So please f— off and drop dead, which is exactly what you deserve.”
Peter, I did drop dead once. Cardiac arrest. While on the other side, I saw God, who told me to snap out of it because He was going to tell Spencer Pratt to run for mayor. Who knew God had a defibrillator?
All of these, by the way, were actual emails, and there were many more just like them. But it’s only fair to note that despite the fulminating knucklehead wing of Pratt’s posse, he’s tapped into a justifiable sense of frustration with City Hall, given homelessness, the Palisades inferno and budget issues that squeeze all manner of basic city services.
That’s why Mayor Karen Bass is paddling furiously, trying to keep her political career afloat. In the latest UC Berkeley-L.A. Times poll, Bass is at 26%, Nithya Raman at 25% and Pratt at 22%. That’s so tight, it appears that no one will get the 50% needed to win outright, and if we get a top-two runoff, it’s not clear who will go to the dance.
So as we close out the primary, with the election on Tuesday, five talking points come to mind.
Which candidate knows the city best?
Los Angeles has 114 distinct neighborhoods spread across 470 square miles (that’s 10 times the size of San Francisco), with an estimated 220 languages spoken. Diversity is a defining characteristic, and roughly half the population is Latino, which makes it a shame there’s no Latino candidate for mayor, especially given the raids and roundups by President Trump.
A mayor doesn’t have to speak six languages and know every corner of the city, but residents want to be seen and heard, and feel like they’re understood and represented.
Raman is well-versed on homelessness policy, and she’s spot-on about the need for greater urgency in problem-solving, but as my colleague Noah Goldberg reported, constituents in her district complain that they haven’t seen enough of her.
As I said, Pratt has wisely targeted municipal failure. But in the realm of outsider candidates with Republican credentials, Rick Caruso, who ran against Bass last time, was comfortable whether he was in the Valley, South L.A. or anywhere in between. And he easily connected with people. Would Pratt be a tourist in his own city?
By virtue of her job the last four years, Bass — who raised a blended Black and Latino family — knows the city best, although her unfavorability rating is a big problem.
What about the other candidates?
In the aforementioned poll, minister and housing activist Rae Huang had 9% and former educational technology businessman Adam Miller had 5%. Virtual unknowns, neither had a legit chance of winning, but they could be spoilers for one of the top three candidates.
If only I had a nickel for every time a reader suggested that.
By 101 measures, Los Angeles is one of the great cities of the world and California has built the world’s fourth-largest economy while leading on climate change, so apocalyptic diagnoses are a bit off the mark.
Also, local elections are nonpartisan. You don’t run for mayor as a D or an R.
And yet it’s true that Democrats and their policies and sensibilities rule the day, and they have a lot to answer for in Los Angeles and in California.
But would the same critics suggest that in conservative cities like Fresno and Bakersfield, which have their own homelessness and other problems, Republicans are to blame?
When it comes to housing, poverty, healthcare and streets occupied by people who are addicted or mentally ill, the failures go back decades, touch all levels of government, and cross party lines.
Have I given up on Los Angeles?
When I pointed out that Pratt seemed unaware of these complexities, and of the structural limits of mayoral power, readers suggested he was rising to the challenge while I was giving up on L.A.
Not at all. I care about L.A. enough to hold its leaders to a higher accountability, and to scrutinize posers and pretenders who think they can do a better job.
My advice for the next mayor.
Fix what’s broken, celebrate what works and take responsibility for what doesn’t.
Now let me try one more time:
Spencer, give me a call.
You can’t tell us you had a conversation with God about running for mayor and not share more details.
Did God scold you for referring to the mayor as Karen “Basura,” which means trash in Spanish?
Did He say we should pull out of the ‘28 Olympics, or have any advice on how to fill potholes and fix sidewalks?
If you’re having regular conversations about City Hall with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, we’re dying to know:
Netflix subscribers will wake up to a video livestream of “The Breakfast Club” starting next month, marking the platform’s first daily live podcast.
The deal is part of the streaming platform’s ongoing focus on live programming, and the latest video podcast offering through its partnership with iHeartRadio, the company said on Thursday. The nearly three-hour show will include a live video feed exclusive to Netflix and will air every weekday morning.
“Taking this show live every day to a global audience on Netflix is a powerful example of how we’re expanding the reach of our biggest brands while giving audiences entirely new ways to experience them,” Bob Pittman, iHeartMedia’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. “Whether it’s morning in NYC or the afternoon in London, the conversation is live and reaching the world in real time.”
“The Breakfast Club” will air simultaneously on Netflix, the iHeartRadio app and it will continue to be syndicated by Premiere Networks on more than 100 broadcast radio stations nationwide. Netflix’s video feed is meant to provide more behind-the-scenes content, as radio formats will still need to include commercial breaks. Instead of pausing the program, Netflix watchers will get an uninterrupted stream, where those traditional breaks will be filled with exclusive segments and extended discussions.
“The media landscape will always evolve, but one thing consistently cuts through: live programming,” Charlamagne tha God said in a statement. “That’s a big reason ‘The Breakfast Club’ has sustained its reign for so long. We’re building something powerful — real‑time conversation, real community, on a global scale. The future belongs to those who can see what’s possible — and trust me, the vision for ‘The Breakfast Club’ and Netflix is crystal clear.”
The radio program first got its start in 2010 on WWPR-FM in New York. Over the years, it has become one of the most popular morning shows, rooted in Hip-Hop and R&B culture and known for its lively interviews and entertaining commentary from hosts Charlamagne Tha God, DJ Envy and Jess Hilarious. The show has welcomed guests like former President Barack Obama, and artists like Kendrick Lamar and Cardi B. In 2020, the talk show was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame.
The administration of United States President Donald Trump has hosted a nine-hour prayer event on the National Mall in Washington, DC, as part of its efforts to commemorate the country’s 250th anniversary.
Sunday’s event was called “Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise and Thanksgiving”, and it took place from 9am to 6pm Eastern US time (13:00 to 22:00 GMT).
On the jubilee’s website, organisers explained that their aim was to mark “rededication of our country as One Nation to God”.
The event featured performers, pastors and civil rights leaders, as well as Trump’s Republican allies, among them Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.
“Our rights don’t come from the government,” Scott told the crowd. “No, our rights come from God, the king of kings.”
Members of the Trump administration, including the president himself, also recorded video messages that were broadcast from the stage.
Trump’s video showed him seated behind the Resolute Desk in the White House, reciting a speech from the Book of Chronicles that God gave to King Solomon, promising protection to his followers and destruction to those who forsake him.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, used his video to describe the US as a country uniquely shaped by the “Christian idea”.
“Before the Christian West, most societies – and civilisations, for that matter – thought in stagnant cycles: the flooding of the Nile, the return of the rains, the cycle of the harvest. History for them was a wheel to nowhere,” Rubio said.
“But our faith calls us outwards into the limitless darkness of the unknown. It tells us to go forth and preach the gospel to the world as a witness unto all nations and to the ends of the earth.”
The event was not without controversy, though. Critics pointed out that only one speaker, a rabbi, was non-Christian.
Some religious leaders even rejected the event as a political stunt, rather than a sincere testament to faith.
Paul Raushenbush, a reverend and president of the Interfaith Alliance, posted on social media that his objections did not stem from an “antipathy towards religion”. Rather, he said his faith compels him to cherish the “rich tapestry of beliefs” that come together in the US.
“Rededicate 250 is a betrayal of America’s founding values guaranteed in the First Amendment – which made clear that there shall be no establishment of religion by the government and that each one of us should be free to live out our beliefs in our own way,” Raushenbush wrote.
Traditionally, the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution has been interpreted as prohibiting the government from establishing or imposing religious beliefs on its citizens.
But critics argue the Trump administration has blurred the separation between church and state, including by having regular prayer services at the Department of Defense.
Trump, however, has accused the federal government of “anti-Christian bias“. He launched a task force last year to root out the purported discrimination.
Evangelical Christians form a pillar in Trump’s right-wing base of support. The demographic is a powerful force during election seasons in the US, and Trump has sought to rally Christian voters ahead of major votes.
Their views could reshape how the US Constitution is interpreted. A survey from the Pew Research Center released last week found a slight uptick in the number of US adults who believe Christianity should be named as the country’s official religion. Seventeen percent now share that view, up from 13 percent in 2024.
That said, Pew researchers noted that a majority of Americans, roughly 54 percent, still believe in the separation of church and state.
About 52 percent also said that “conservative Christians have gone too far in trying to push their religious values in the government and public schools”.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa might have heard two-thirds of delegates in the Time Warner Cable Arena approve changes to the Democratic Party platform early in the proceedings Wednesday night. But some delegates who were on the floor weren’t so sure he got the count right.
“I think it failed,” said Don Kershner, a delegate from Boise who said it sounded to him — sitting in the opposite end of the arena from the speaker’s platform — that at least 50% of delegates opposed the changes. Kershner was one of the only delegates from Idaho in the arena when the changes were made — itself a problem, he said. But he said he thought the party should have left well enough alone.
“They shouldn’t have messed with it,” said Kershner, wearing a white cowboy hat supporting the Boise State Broncos. “It’s clearly a dividing subject. We don’t want to drive a wedge into the party.”
The drama occurred in the first moments of the convention proceedings Wednesday night, when Democratic officials reinserted language back into the official platform invoking God and affirming the role of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.
Both passages had been in the 2008 version of the Democratic platform, but were removed in the drafting of this year’s edition.
President Obama personally had a hand in getting the language reinstated.
A Democratic official says the president was unhappy about the platform changes when he heard about them.
He told his staff to convey his opposition right away, which set the wheels in motion to reinstate.
On the “God” part, the official said, his response to hearing it was, “Why was it changed in the first place?”
But putting the passages back in the platform — a move Democratic officials appeared to think would go smoothly — caused loud objections in the convention hall.
Terri Holland was one of the people who voted against the amendments introduced Wednesday night. The New Mexico delegate from Albuquerque said she thought that Democrats had made the changes “to kow-tow to the religious right,” something the party should never do.
“I don’t think it has a business in anybody’s platform,” she said, about the part of the amendment that referred to giving “everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-given potential.”
Holland agreed that the first two votes Villaraigosa took did not get two-thirds approval. By the third time around, though, she said that her fellow “no” voters had given up the fight.
She and fellow delegate Richard Cooley said the proceedings were haphazard, and that the platform should have taken a paper ballot vote. Neither were even aware the changes would be made until Villaraigosa got up on the podium and started speaking.
“We’re Democrats, we love that stuff,” Holland said, about paper ballots.
Cooley added that Democrats had learned the importance of proper vote-taking in the Bush-Gore election in 2000. They shouldn’t take any vote for granted, he said, especially on such a divisive issue.
“We all have our own God,” he said.
Still, some delegates, including Charu Khopkar, a California delegate from Long Beach, said they thought Villaraigosa got the count right. Khopkar said he admired Villaraigosa for taking the time to ask three times for a vote, even if it’s not an issue that he cares deeply about one way or another.
“Myself, I am not a believer,” he said. “But I think it’s a perfectly appropriate part of the platform.”
Vivica A. Fox dreamed of being a model, but in order to receive her mother’s blessing to move to Southern California, where the jobs were, she had to promise her one thing: She’d go to college.
So that’s what she did. At 18, Fox left her hometown of Indianapolis for Huntington Beach, where she attended Golden West College and got an associate’s degree in social sciences. On weekends, she’d drive up to L.A. for auditions, getting her first taste of show business while dancing on Don Cornelius’ iconic television series “Soul Train” and later nabbing her first acting gig as Dr. Stephanie Simmons on “Young and the Restless,” a role she recently reprised after more than 30 years.
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
“The rest is kind of history,” says Fox, who went on to star in other hit films including “Kill Bill: Vol. 1,” “Two Can Play That Game,” “Soul Food” and “Set It Off,” which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.
Her latest project, “Is God Is,” hits theaters Friday. Directed by Aleshea Harris, who wrote the award-winning play of the same name, the film follows twin sisters as they embark on a vengeful quest to find their abusive father, who left them for dead. Fox plays God, the twins’ mother, a burn victim and domestic abuse survivor who gives her daughters a simple yet chilling instruction: “Make your daddy dead. Real dead.” Harris handpicked Fox for the role.
“I just was so honored,” Fox says. “Then when I got the script and dove into it a little bit more, I was like ‘Ooh, this is a way no one has ever seen me. This is going to be challenging.”
She adds, “I was like, ‘Wow. We don’t get things like this,’ so it was honestly, for me, a no-brainer.”
Sundays are the one day of the week where Fox can “do me,” she says. Here’s how she’d spend it in L.A.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
6:30 a.m.: Quick coffee run
I’m usually up by 6:30 or 7 a.m. I’m an early bird because I’m so used to either having to be on set or when my publicist, B.J., was living on the East Coast and I’d have to respond to answer his emails in a timely manner. Once I’m awake and settled, I’d get some Starbucks. I’d order a venti white chocolate mocha with an extra shot of espresso, no whipped cream. I used to order kale bites, which I’d eat with the meat from the sausage and egg sandwich, but they discontinued them so now I just get the sandwich.
8 a.m.: Float in hot springs
I’d head to the Beverly Hot Springs. I would get a body care treatment. It’s awesome because they rub you from head to toe with body oil, then they wash your hair and give you a cucumber and yogurt mask. After that, I would get a facial and float in the water. It is one of the only spas with natural, alkaline hot springs in L.A., so the water is just heavenly.
2 p.m.: Margarita and caviar fries with a view
After that, I would meet with a friend, more than likely B.J., at the rooftop restaurant at Waldorf Astoria. The reason why I love going there is because of the view. On a beautiful, clear day, you can see all of Los Angeles. It has a 360 view that is absolutely incredible. I would start off with the caviar fries and a spicy margarita with a tajin rim. Then I would do either the salmon with spinach or if it was a super cheat day, I’d have a cheeseburger.
4 p.m.: A Broadway show or a sports game
I’d probably go home and take a short nap. But if my godson, Quentin Blanton Junior, is in town, I’d go see him perform at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre. He’s playing little Michael in “MJ: The Musical” at the Pantages Theatre. [Editor’s note: We interviewed Fox before the show ended earlier this month]. I’m so proud of him. But if he’s not performing, I’d go to a Chargers or Lakers game. I’m a sports junkie. I’m from Indiana. We grow up on football and basketball. I’ve always loved the Lakers. I remember going to the games back in the day in Inglewood because I used to live there. I used to walk to the games. That was the golden era of Magic and all those guys, then Kobe and them moved up to Staples, which is now Crypto.
9 p.m.: Nightcap before bed
I’d end my Sunday with a night cap at the Delta Club at the Lakers game. I’d have a glass of wine before heading home, then I’d drink a Lacroix to hydrate. I try to be in the bed definitely before midnight.
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
The dream of getting an F-14 Tomcat back up in American skies, discussed as a fantasy for the past two decades since the Navy retired the type, may actually become a reality.
Legislation making its way through Congress would allow the Navy to gift three retired F-14Ds to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center museum in Huntsville, Alabama, and open the door to one of the iconic jets potentially being returned to flight status. Companion bills in the Senate and House are both dubbed the “Maverick Act,” a clear reference to the Top Gun film franchise and the fictional Navy Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, played by star Tom Cruise.
Senator Tim Sheehy, a Montana Republican, introduced the Senate’s version of the Maverick Act on March 23. Senator Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat, co-sponsored that bill. Sheehy is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and former Navy SEAL. Kelly is also a retired naval aviator, who flew A-6 Intruders, and astronaut.In the House, Representative Abe Hamadeh, a Republican from Arizona and U.S. Army veteran, introduced the companion legislation with the same title on April 16. There are nine co-sponsors to Hamadeh’s bill, including one Democrat. The legislation cleared the Senate by unanimous consent on April 28, and the matter is now in the hands of the House.
A U.S. Navy F-14D Tomcat is silhouetted against the sun as it flies a mission over the Persian Gulf on December 4, 2005. DoD photo by Lt. j.g. Scott Timmester, U.S. Navy. (Released) Diana Nesukh
The last Navy F-14 was officially retired in September 2006 after 32 years of service to the fleet. Despite its retirement in the United States, the Tomcat has remained under extremely tight export controls due to its continued service in Iran, the only other country to ever operate the type.
The three Tomcats now earmarked for potential transfer are identified by their Navy serial numbers, or Bureau Numbers: 164341, 164602, and 159437. These are the only three F-14Ds currently in storage at the famed boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, per U.S. Air Force records. Three A variants and a pair of B models are also currently stored there. The current condition of any of these aircraft is unclear.
A satellite image showing some of the F-14s, as well as other aircraft, in storage at the boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. Google Earth
Sticking with the text of the Senate version at the time of writing for simplicity, the bill says the transfer of the F-14s to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, an air and space museum established by the government of Alabama in 1970, would be made at no cost to the government. “Any costs associated with such conveyance, costs of determining compliance with terms of the conveyance, and costs of operation and maintenance of the aircraft conveyed shall be borne by the Commission,” per the proposed legislation.
The bill explicitly states that the aircraft will “not have any capability for use as a platform for launching or releasing munitions or any other combat capability that it was designed to have.” It also lays out a series of conditions for the transfer, noting that the Secretary of the Navy would not be obligated to restore, repair, or otherwise modify the Tomcats before handing them over, but would provide accompanying maintenance and operations manuals along with any excess spare parts available.
A U.S. Navy F-14D Tomcat makes a near supersonic fly-by above the flight deck of the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) during the final launch of Tomcats as the ship operates in the Atlantic Ocean on July 28, 2006. DoD photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Nathan Laird, U.S. Navy. (Released) Chief Petty Officer Nathan Laird
The matter of excess spare parts leads us to the most eye-catching section of the bill:
“The Secretary [of the Navy] shall provide excess spare parts to make one of the F-14D aircraft flyable or able to complete a static display, provided that any part transferred is from existing Navy stock, with no items being procured on behalf of the Commission.”
“The Secretary will not be responsible for transferring any additional parts or providing any additional support beyond what is stated in this section, during or after the conveyance of the aircraft,” the proposed legislation adds. As such, the Secretary of the Navy would allow the Commission to enter into agreements with relevant nonprofit organizations to help with restoring and operating the aircraft “for public display, airshows, and commemorative events to preserve naval aviation heritage.”
The transfer would also be made under the “condition that the Commission shall operate and maintain the aircraft in compliance with all applicable limitations and maintenance requirements imposed by the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration,” the bill notes. “The Commission shall not convey any ownership interest in, or transfer possession of, the aircraft to another party without the prior approval of the Secretary.”
The Navy would reserve the right to immediately repossess the aircraft if either of the above terms were breached.
A retired F-14 is moved into position for static display at Naval Air Station Jacksonville (NAS JAX) in 2005. USN
“The Maverick Act of 2026 creates a narrow exception to the post-retirement restrictions that have destroyed nearly all F-14s, ensuring that its legacy is preserved,” according to a press release that Abe Hamadeh’s office put out on May 1. “The Maverick Act allows three of the world’s final Tomcats to be demilitarized and transferred for public display and education under strict national security safeguards. It does not restore combat capability or reopen foreign transfer.”
“I want to thank Senator Sheehy and his colleagues for passing this legislation aimed at preserving for history one of the most iconic aircraft ever flown,” Hamadeh said in an accompanying statement. “As a former U.S. Army officer, I know that many of the men and women I served with felt the same way. That is why I proudly introduced this legislation.”
It is worth noting that retired F-14s are on public display at various military bases and museums in the United States, but none are in flyable condition. Around it’s retirement, there had been unsuccessful pushes in the past to try to get a Tomcat back into the air in private hands, including by the late Dale “Snort” Snodgrass, a legendary naval aviator and F-14 pilot, who performed official Navy Tomcat demos at airshows for many years.
The prospect of getting a ‘warbird’ Tomcat flying has remained a persistent topic of popular discussion, but has long seemed largely impossible due to bureaucratic red tape, as well as the cost and complexity of doing so. TWZ stressed these points when it emerged that a non-flying F-14 would feature in the sequel to 1986’s Top Gun, Top Gun: Maverick, which hit theaters in 2022. The U.S. military was heavily involved in the production of both movies. The original film cemented the place of the F-14 and the Navy’s TOPGUN program in popular culture.
TOP GUN | Official Trailer | Paramount Movies
Top Gun: Maverick – Official Trailer (2022) – Paramount Pictures
A key factor in all of this has been that the story of the Tomcat is inseparably linked to Iran, which received a fleet of F-14As before the fall of the Shah in 1979. The Islamic Republic that emerged afterward continued to operate the jets despite the U.S. government cutting off support. American authorities also moved to impose very tight controls on access to retired F-14 airframes and spare parts, and many of the aircraft were destroyed outright as they left Navy service because of this.
Intriguingly, the prospect of having an F-14 flying again in the United States may have become more likely as a result of the latest conflict with Iran. As TWZ has previously reported, joint U.S. and Israeli strikes between February and April may well have finally put an end to the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force’s (IRIAF) Tomcat operations for good.
Even before the conflict, Iran likely only had a handful of serviceable Tomcats. For example, only one example appeared at the Kish Air Show in 2024, as you can read about here.
An IRIAF F-14A from the 8th Tactical Air Base at Isfahan participates in the 2024 Kish Air Show. @tower_eye, Tango Six
Still, even if the Maverick bill is passed and signed into law, there would be many more hurdles before an F-14 could return to the air. After many years spent in the desert boneyard, the Tomcat would require deep inspections to ensure its structure and critical subsystems were fully functional and compliant with the Federal Aviation Administration’s certification requirements.
Petty Officer 3rd Class Jesse L. Alvarado ensures the tail hook of a F-14D Tomcat of Fighter Attack Squadron 31 is properly seated during his pre-launch checks aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) on March 26, 2005. DoD photo by Petty Officer 1st Class James E. Foehl, U.S. Navy. (Released) War.gov
Just getting the F-14 back to flight status would be massively labor-intensive and very expensive. Keeping the jet in the air would also require considerable funds, with the Tomcat being notoriously maintenance-heavy. Flying the jet regularly would impose high costs, including fuel. The F-14 holds roughly 2,280 gallons of fuel internally. So filling up the jet with a single tank of gas would run around $14,500 at today’s jet fuel prices. This jumps up considerably with external fuel tanks, which add another 534 gallons to the price tag. It can burn this fuel load very fast, especially during high-performance airshow routines.
Complex, supersonic swing-wing jets have periodically appeared at U.S. airshows, specifically the Soviet-era MiG-23 Flogger. In 2023, a privately owned MiG-23UB crashed at the Thunder Over Michigan airshow in Ypsilanti, Michigan, highlighting the challenges of operating these kinds of jets in private hands.
The next aviation project has arrived in the hangar. The Tornado F2. She can fly low and very fast w/ a variable-sweep wing. I imagine it will take a year but she will fly again. pic.twitter.com/sdZvbuL4qO
Whether or not the Maverick Act becomes law, or if the U.S. Space & Rocket Center returns an F-14 to U.S. skies, the legislation is a notable new development in the Tomcat’s story. It could have broader impacts, as well. On several occasions in the past, members of Congress have proposed legislation to curtail private operators from flying former advanced U.S. military aircraft, in general.
When it comes to the possibility of a Tomcat back in the air, while it is certain to be a big challenge, it is fair to say that no other single aircraft has more of a draw in popular culture and more pull in the public consciousness. There are likely to be many people with a lot of money who would be eager to get behind an initiative to get one of the jets back in the air if the opportunity presents itself.
Overall, turning the idea of a ‘warbird’ Tomcat from fantasy into reality would be extremely welcome among Top Gun movie lovers, loyal fans of the F-14, Naval Aviation veterans and aficionados, and the aviation heritage community at large.
Author’s note: Special thanks to @Osinttechnical on X for bringing this to our attention.
TV star Bradley Walsh faces one of his fears in the latest episode of ITV’s Breaking Dad
Bradley Walsh tackles different challenges with son Barney in Breaking Dad(Image: ITV screengrab)
Bradley Walsh pleads “I don’t want to” as he confronts his well-known fear of heights in the latest instalment of Breaking Dad.
The ITV programme follows The Chase presenter and his son Barney as they journey to various destinations, taking on a series of daunting challenges. Now in its seventh series, the pair have ventured Down Under to discover Australia, and in the forthcoming episode Bradley tackles a zipline high above the Blue Mountains while Barney urges him on.
In a preview clip, Bradley appears visibly terrified, gripping his rope tightly and breathing heavily, reports the Express.
“I really, really tell you, guys, I really don’t want to do this,” muttered the star, who has a well documented fear of heights.
“Dad, you can do it!” exclaims Barney, but the TV star insisted: “No, I can’t. I don’t want to do it Barns. Please don’t. Please don’t do none of that for me.”
“Well, you can do it, you can,” urged Barney, who is known for hosting TV hit Gladiators alongside his famous dad.
But Bradley said: “What did I just tell him? Didn’t I just tell him?”
“I really don’t want to, though,” he went on. “I really don’t want to do it.”
Nevertheless, he pressed ahead, beginning to edge his hands along the ropes while murmuring: “Please, God.”
With Barney shouting encouragement, yelling “you got it”, Bradley gradually made his way along the rope before reaching solid ground on the opposite side.
Yet when questioned about how he felt after completing the challenge, he appeared to let slip a swear word, confessing: “Awful.”
“You smashed it, you smashed it,” Barney insisted as an exhausted-looking Bradley caught his breath.
Breaking Dad first launched in 2019 and it is now in its seventh series.
The show’s latest run kicked off earlier in May, with the opening episode following the father and son duo as they touched down in Sydney. The pair took in iconic landmarks including Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, before braving a thrilling aerobatic flight and a nerve-shredding ride on an extreme, high-altitude cable car.
Bradley and Barney Walsh: Breaking Dad airs on Friday May 8 at 7.30pm on ITV1, ITVX, STV and STV Player.
