Group

May 12 (UPI) — A nonpartisan office said Tuesday that President Donald Trump‘s proposed Golden Dome missile defense system could cost $1.2 trillion over two decades – far more than the $175 billion he said it would cost last year.

The Congressional Budget Office said in a report that this analysis isn’t based on final blueprints, as full details of the system’s architecture haven’t been announced, Time reported. It said this estimate shows the price of “one illustrative approach rather than an estimate of a full Administration proposal.”

The CBO said that acquisition costs for the system would alone cost more than $1 trillion, and of that, about 70 percent of the cost would be for the interceptor layer, orbital weapons meant to destroy missiles after they’re launched, The Hill reported. This would include about 7,800 satellites.

Gen. Mike Guetlein, the Pentagon official in charge of the project, said in March that it would cost about $185 billion. The CBO report said that this difference in estimated price may mean that the “objective architecture is more limited” for the project than the system accounted for by the CBO, The Hill reported.

Congressional Republicans have earmarked $25 billion for the project in the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The Pentagon has asked for $17 billion more in a reconciliation bill this year.

The Trump administration’s fiscal 2027 budget request, which includes $750 billion earmarked for the Golden Dome system, says the system “keeps Americans safe, while using innovative program management and acquisition approaches to prudently employ taxpayer dollars,” The Hill reported. Trump has said he wants the system operational by the end of his term.

The CBO said the system it used in its estimate could counter a limited attack but would be overwhelmed by a large-scale one, Time reported. Israel’s similar air-defense system, often called the Iron Dome, has intercepted missiles from Iran and other localized groups but is meant for a smaller area and shorter-range threats, as opposed to the United States’ need to defend a much larger area from long-range attacks, it said.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., requested the CBO report. He said Tuesday that the report shows the Golden Dome project “is nothing more than a massive giveaway to defense contractors paid for entirely by working Americans” that will “do little to advance American national security.”

May 8 (Asia Today) — A new political group supporting Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is set to launch within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, raising questions about the return of faction-style politics less than two years after the party formally moved to dismantle its traditional factions.

The Yomiuri Shimbun reported Thursday that the new group, called the National Power Research Association, will hold its first meeting on May 21 with participation from senior ruling party figures including former Prime Minister Taro Aso and former Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi.

The organization is being positioned as a policy study group, but analysts say it could effectively serve as a new political base for Takaichi inside the party.

The group’s abbreviated name, “JiB,” is derived from Takaichi’s campaign slogan, “Japan is Back,” used during the Liberal Democratic Party leadership race last year.

Founding documents distributed to lawmakers this week state that the government and ruling party “will work as one” to implement policy, with a focus on security, energy and resource issues.

George Glass, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, has reportedly been invited to speak at the inaugural meeting on U.S.-Japan relations and related topics.

Although Takaichi herself is not expected to attend the first gathering, the decision to feature the American ambassador highlights the group’s emphasis on the U.S.-Japan alliance, economic security and defense cooperation.

The organization was reportedly spearheaded by Hiroshi Yamada, a lawmaker close to Takaichi, along with senior party officials including Koichi Hagiuda.

Other participants include prominent ruling party lawmakers and potential future leadership contenders such as Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi and policy chief Takayuki Kobayashi.

The group is encouraging participation across current and former factions, both chambers of parliament and newly elected lawmakers.

Still, questions remain over whether the organization will be accepted as a legitimate policy forum or criticized as a de facto revival of faction politics under a different name.

The Liberal Democratic Party pledged reforms after political funding scandals triggered public backlash and accelerated efforts to dissolve traditional factions.

Critics argue that reorganizing lawmakers through policy groups risks recreating the same power structures the party had promised to dismantle.

The development is also being closely watched in South Korea because of its potential implications for regional security and economic policy.

If Takaichi strengthens her position inside the ruling party, analysts expect Japan to pursue more consistent policies on military expansion, the U.S.-Japan alliance, trilateral cooperation with the United States and South Korea, and energy and supply chain security.

At the same time, observers warn that a stronger conservative political base inside the ruling party could also affect disputes involving history, defense policy and constitutional revision.

Analysts say the launch of the new group signals that the Takaichi administration is beginning to build a longer-term organizational foundation for its security and economic agenda inside the ruling party.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260508010001815

AN EERIE silence hangs over the sleepy Majorcan town where Towie star Jake Hall tragically died this week. 

The picturesque streets of Santa Margalida, a peaceful holiday retreat, appear unusually subdued following the 35-year-old’s death in a rented villa.

Investigators believe Jake died from a chest injury caused by a shard of glass.

Initial reports suggested that the reality TV star suffered devastating head injuries after he reportedly “turned aggressive,” police sources claimed. 

Now, the £200-a-night luxury villa where he was staying sits sealed off behind police tape, casting a chilling presence over the rustic neighbourhood.

The Sun visited the scene to find a noticeably quiet atmosphere – with empty restaurants, hushed streets and locals speaking in low tones.

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Staff at nearby eateries appeared muted, some barely present, as news of the Brit’s death rippled through the community.

A neighbour living right next door to the property appeared visibly shaken.

He glanced nervously towards the cordoned-off home before abruptly refusing to say a word.

One of the few locals out on the streets said: “It definitely feels quieter. I’m not sure if it’s because of his death but it could be.” 

LAS VEGAS — “You know, I was thinking,” Gwen Stefani said, looking out at the crowd before her on Wednesday night at Sphere. The singer was maybe an hour and a half into the first show of No Doubt’s monthlong residency at the dome-shaped venue just off the Las Vegas Strip, and now the moment had come for the hit that changed everything for this once-scrappy ska-punk band from Orange County.

“I was thinking about this next song, and I was thinking about Anaheim,” she continued. “Do you know where Anaheim is?”

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The song, of course, was “Just a Girl,” which Stefani said she wrote “out of pure innocence in a time where I was just becoming aware of myself and my surroundings.” She added that she’d always assumed she’d outgrow the song — that someday it would feel disconnected from the life of a woman who went on to become a pop star with a clothing line and a gig on TV. Here she was, though, about to do “Just a Girl” for 20,000 or so fans eager to sing along.

“You tell me if you think it’s still relevant,” she said.

In a built-to-please town where old hits are welcome on any stage — not least Sphere’s, which these days also hosts the Eagles and the Backstreet Boys — the crowd’s verdict was no surprise. Yet this was a more committed look back than might have been expected, with a loose narrative arc tracing No Doubt’s ascent (rather than its peak) and a set list filled with deep cuts well beyond the catchy singles that once blanketed KROQ and MTV.

Beneath a massive wraparound screen that flickered with vintage camcorder-style footage from the early 1990s, the group played “Excuse Me Mr.” and “New” and “Total Hate ’95”; Stefani and her bandmates — guitarist Tom Dumont, bassist Tony Kanal and drummer Adrian Young — did “Trapped in a Box,” “End It on This” and “The Climb,” which No Doubt heads on the internet say they hadn’t performed live in nearly three decades.

Then again, for one of those decades, No Doubt wasn’t performing at all. The band made its ballyhooed comeback in 2024 at Coachella, where it delivered a punchy, compact set of hits and brought out Olivia Rodrigo for a guest spot that demonstrated Stefani’s influence — musical, attitudinal, sartorial — on the generation of female pop stars that came after her. (At Sphere, Stefani’s taste in plaids and animal prints was clearly still casting a spell among her admirers.)

No Doubt’s Sphere residency is scheduled to run through mid-June.

(John Shearer)

The takeaway from Coachella was that the band had worked itself back into fighting shape; Stefani, in particular, seemed eager to prove that her years doling out niceties on “The Voice” and dabbling in country music with her husband, Blake Shelton, hadn’t dulled her edge. Here, the band went further, using Sphere’s state-of-the-art environs to imagine itself back in a dingy club or student union.

There were big visual moments, including a simulated trip through a crumbling amusement park — the “Tragic Kingdom” of the group’s breakout 1995 LP — and a bit with a stories-tall cartoon Stefani towering over the room in her fishnets and combat boots. And even with all of the obscurities, it’s not as though No Doubt skipped its best-known songs: “Bathwater” and “Spiderwebs” were bouncy yet propulsive, while “Underneath It All” and “Hella Good” showcased the players’ nimble rhythmic interplay. Stefani’s voice was at its pleading best in “Don’t Speak,” one of the great pop ballads of the last 30 years, and “Simple Kind of Life,” which was accompanied by a video starring Stefani and Kanal acting out some episode from their ancient romance.

Before “Ex-Girlfriend,” which Stefani wrote amid her doomed marriage to Gavin Rossdale of Bush, the singer said, “It gives me — what is it? The PTSD. But because I absolutely adore you guys, I’m gonna suffer.”

Yet this was the chapter of No Doubt’s story — basically the apex of its popularity — that the band seemed least interested in exploring on Wednesday. The impression you got was that Stefani and her pals hadn’t come to Vegas to cruise or to gloat or even to soak up the easy adulation that’s always on offer here; weirdly, they’d come to remember the struggle.

Tom Steyer is trying to sell himself to voters as an agent of change.

He has vowed to take on entrenched political and economic forces to create affordable housing, make the wealthy pay more in taxes, lower energy bills and protect the environment.

But perhaps the biggest change he is selling is his own.

The hedge-fund billionaire turned climate activist has faced criticism throughout his campaign for past investments in coal plants and private prisons, to name a few, that helped build his fortune and gave him the means to spend more than $150 million of his own money in his quest for the governor’s mansion.

Steyer’s prolific spending has blanketed the airwaves with television ads and helped propel him near the top of an unsettled gubernatorial field in the polls.

The 68-year-old San Franciscan has helped put many Democratic candidates in office as one of the party’s biggest political donors in the past two decades, but has never held public office himself.

He spent more than $340 million in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, but dropped out after placing third in the primary in South Carolina, where he had invested heavily.

There is a long tradition of wealthy, self-funding candidates, and the results are mixed at best. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg spent more than $260 million to win three terms as New York City mayor. But he spent more than $1 billion on a 2020 presidential bid and lasted only four days longer in the race than Steyer. Two years later, real estate developer Rick Caruso spent more than $100 million in an effort to become Los Angeles mayor but lost handily to Karen Bass.

Hoping for a better result in his current race, Steyer has staked out a position as the most progressive candidate in the field — touting an endorsement from the Bernie Sanders-affiliated Our Revolution. He’s picked up other key endorsements, too, from the California Teachers Assn., California Nurses Assn. and numerous environmental groups.

But he faces the challenge of convincing enough liberal voters to support a billionaire with controversial past investments the same year a tax on billionaires, currently enjoying strong support, is poised to be on the November ballot.

“This election is about who you can trust to fight for you,” former Rep. Katie Porter said during an April 22 gubernatorial debate in San Francisco. “One candidate is a billionaire who got rich off polluters and ICE prisons and is now using that money to fund his election.”

Steyer said he understands the broad concerns about his wealth and is willing to vote for the billionaires’ tax in November.

“I know that people are skeptical of billionaires, and I’m skeptical of billionaires,” Steyer said Tuesday in an interview with The Times. “But if you look at this race, I’m the only progressive in the race. I’m the person who’s taking on the corporate special interests.”

He pointed to the millions spent by a super PAC supported by the real estate industry and Pacific Gas & Electric — which Steyer has pledged to break up to bring down utility costs — as evidence that he is the candidate most feared by moneyed interests in the state.

“The companies that are running up the costs are fighting like hell, because that’s how they make their money,” he said. “But somebody’s got to stand up to them.”

The departure of former Rep. Eric Swalwell from the race last month after sexual assault allegations doesn’t appear to have resulted in a major surge of support for Steyer. Rather, it is Xavier Becerra, the former Health and Human Services secretary, who seems to have gained momentum.

But veteran California pollster Mark Baldassare said that he hasn’t counted out Steyer yet.

Tom Steyer, in 2013, as he was campaigning against the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

(David Paul Morris / Bloomberg)

“It would be easy to say that he’s reached his peak, except for the fact that there are so many undecideds and Steyer has so many resources at his disposal,” said Baldassare, the statewide survey director for the Public Policy Institute of California.

Steyer has poured at least $875 million into federal and state political committees since 2010, according to an analysis conducted for The Times by OpenSecrets, and federal and state campaign finance records. That total includes the nearly half a billion dollars he has spent on his two races.

In 2013, Steyer left his investment firm and launched NextGen Climate, a progressive political action group geared toward addressing climate change. He has given nearly $270 million to a super PAC affiliated with the group, which was later renamed NextGen America.

The committee has spent tens of millions of dollars on campaigns opposing fossil fuel interests and supporting progressive candidates, though Steyer’s financial support for the group has decreased as he has run for office.

The billionaire also established his climate bona fides by opposing the Keystone XL pipeline during the Obama administration, which became a national proxy fight over climate policy, and by backing environmental ballot measures in California.

Among them was a $5-million investment in 2010’s “No on Prop. 23” campaign, which defeated a conservative effort to overturn California’s greenhouse gas emission reduction law.

Two years later, Steyer invested about $29.5 million in Proposition 39, a winning measure to recoup money from corporate tax breaks to help pay for clean energy projects.

Privileged upbringing and a ‘desire to compete’

Steyer’s unconventional path to politics began with a privileged upbringing on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He studied at the elite Buckley School and Philips Exeter Academy before attending college at Yale University, where he captained the men’s soccer team and graduated in 1979.

After a brief stint on Wall Street, he got a master’s degree in business administration at Stanford University, where he met his future wife, Kat Taylor. They wed on the Stanford campus in 1986.

Steyer worked hard — very hard — at making money.

He was one of several “Wall Street Prodigies” featured in a Wall Street Journal profile from the same year he was married.

Steyer’s work began at 5 a.m. in the office and he seldom took days off — he fretted he wouldn’t have time for a honeymoon.

He eschewed the trappings of wealth — driving an eight-year-old Honda — motivated instead by a “desire to compete, excel and keep struggling to do better.”

Steyer began cutting political checks soon after, but his real emergence as a major political donor came during the 2004 presidential campaign, when he pledged to raise more than $100,000 for John Kerry’s campaign and was talked about as a potential political appointee at the U.S. Treasury Department in a Kerry administration.

Steyer hired Kerry to join his sustainable investment company Galvanize in 2024. Steyer stepped down from the company before entering the governor’s race.

The year 2004 was pivotal for another reason.

A group of students at his two alma maters, Yale and Stanford, along with those at a handful of other elite universities, began a campaign to pressure the endowments at their institutions to stop investing with Steyer’s hedge fund, Farallon Capital Management.

They cited concerns about some of the firm’s investments, including a coal burning plant in Indonesia and a joint venture between Farallon and Yale to pump out water from an aquifer in Colorado adjacent to the Great Sand Dunes National Park.

“Stated simply, we do not want our universities to profit from investments that harm other communities,” the students wrote in an open letter to Steyer. “We are concerned about the impact some of Farallon’s recent investments have had.”

Steyer told the students he appreciated “the importance of the issues that you raise,” but defended his firm’s work, saying that it acted “responsibly and ethically.”

Looking back on that time now, Steyer said it was a turning point.

“I think that experience really was a wake-up call to me,” he said. “It’s when I started to very seriously consider leaving Farallon. I really felt like if I was going to be the person with my values, I was going to have to leave and be independent and do what was right.”

Three years later, Steyer and his wife began their initial pivot to public service, opening a bank in Oakland that would cater to low-income customers

Tom Steyer, seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, greets people at an event in Des Moines, Iowa, in 2019.

(Scott Olson / Getty Images)

But this initial venture highlighted the inevitable collision course between Steyer’s burgeoning activism and his firm’s investments.

At an event that year with then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, Steyer and Taylor pledged $1 million in loans to support vulnerable people in Oakland facing foreclosure in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis.

Left unsaid was the fact that Steyer’s firm had extensive financial ties to San Diego’s Accredited Home Lenders, one of the biggest subprime mortgage lenders in the country.

The transformation to climate activist

Steyer and his wife began writing bigger philanthropic checks and in 2010 took the Giving Pledge, promising to donate at least half of their wealth before they died.

In 2009, they gave $40 million to endow the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy at Stanford, the first of several multimillion-dollar gifts to Stanford and Yale to support climate-focused ventures. They pledged $7 million to create the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, also at Stanford, in 2010. It closed last year after its endowment came to an end.

And in 2011, the couple donated $25 million to Yale to help establish an Energy Sciences Institute focused on developing sustainable energy solutions.

But even as Steyer undertook his public transformation from investor to climate activist, his firm continued to make decisions out of step with his newfound commitment.

In 2011, for example, the firm purchased 1.8 million shares of BP, a year after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, in which a BP-operated project dumped nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Steyer resigned from the firm at the end of 2012, though he still has millions of dollars invested in the firm .

Environmentalists have largely been willing to forgive Steyer’s past investments.

“There’s no question he’d be the most knowledgeable and committed climate advocate that’s ever held really high office in America,” climate activist and author Bill McKibben recently told Politico.

While the nonprofit California Environmental Voters has endorsed both Katie Porter and Tom Steyer in the race, Steyer, in particular, has “taken on Big Oil dollar for dollar, toe to toe, and beaten them,” said Mary Creasman, the group’s chief executive.

“He has made this his career and his investment and his passion, so it’s authentic, and voters see that,” she said.

Leah Stokes, an associate professor of environmental politics at UC Santa Barbara, said she’s impressed by Steyer’s climate track record and progressive campaign platform, noting that he’s been an active presence in California’s climate movement for more than 15 years.

That includes not only his work on ballot initiatives and clean energy technology, but also his focus on biodiversity loss and carbon sequestration at his 1,800-acre TomKat Ranch in Pescadero, where researchers are studying regenerative agriculture.

But Steyer has also played a role in elevating climate into a national political issue — including in the early 2010s when it wasn’t a “politically hot topic,” Stokes said.

“He has been willing to spend an enormous amount of his personal money on elections on climate — whether it’s propositions, whether it’s himself running for president on basically a climate platform, whether it’s the Next Gen giant voter turnout campaign,” she said. “I think he has recognized … that politics is where we have to invest our time if we want to make a difference on the climate crisis.”

Despite concerns raised about Steyer’s early investments into fossil fuels through Farallon, Stokes said she’s more apt to criticize candidates who are taking money from oil companies today, such as Becerra, who accepted a $39,200 donation from Chevron for his gubernatorial campaign.

She was also heartened by the fact that Pacific Gas & Electric has funded a $10-million PAC opposing Steyer, because she said it indicates that he aims to hold utility companies accountable for skyrocketing electricity prices amid soaring profits.

“We could actually have a shot here at having somebody who cares about climate change, who wants to hold utilities accountable, who wants to hold big polluters accountable,” Stokes said. “That would just be transformative.”

Energy costs weigh heavily on voters

Steyer’s focus on climate issues and energy affordability could also be a strategic boon in the governor’s race.

Sixty percent of voters in the state see climate change as a major threat to the country and believe that the government is not doing enough to address it, according to polling from the Public Policy Institute of California.

“Californians connect the dots between what’s going on with extreme climate and wildfires and climate,” said Baldassare, the institute’s survey director.

Recent polling has also shown that voters are very concerned about energy affordability and rising utility costs, with 13% of Americans naming it as the most important financial problem facing their family — a 10-point increase from last year, according to an April Gallup poll.

Overall, energy costs tied housing costs as the second-biggest concern following the high cost of living, the poll found.

In November, Democrats who campaigned heavily around energy affordability swept the field in key races in New Jersey, Virginia and Georgia. Residential electric prices increased nearly 11% between January 2025 and this February, according to the latest available data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“Voters are supporting candidates who are leaning into these issues,” Creasman said.

Wieder reported from Washington and Smith from Los Angeles.

WASHINGTON — Debris from the demolition of the White House East Wing that was dumped at a nearby public golf course has tested positive for lead, chromium and other toxic metals, the National Park Service said.

An interim report by a Virginia engineering firm says the toxic metals, along with PCBs, pesticides, petroleum byproducts and other chemicals were detected at levels above laboratory reporting limits in soil at the East Potomac Golf Links, a historic golf course that President Trump plans to renovate.

The park service began dumping debris from the East Wing onto the golf course in October, and more than 810,000 cubic feet of excavated soil had been transported to the site as of last month, the report by Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. said. The report was requested by the park service.

The nonprofit DC Preservation League has sued the Trump administration, arguing that the dumping was unlawful and possibly hazardous. The group also is challenging the Republican administration’s takeover of the golf course, about two miles southeast of the White House, and others in the city.

The suit is one of several legal battles challenging Trump’s extraordinary efforts to put his mark on public spaces in the nation’s capital, including renaming and shuttering the Kennedy Center and building a 250-foot-tall triumphal arch near the Lincoln Memorial.

At the end of last year, a separate group of preservationists filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent the administration from demolishing the East Wing so it could build a ballroom, a project slated to cost $400 million.

A spokesperson for the Interior Department, which oversees the park service, said in an email Tuesday that the soil removed from the White House “was tested multiple times by multiple parties, and this project passed all standards set by law.”

Although the agency does not comment on litigation, “this thorough process was followed to ensure the transfer was safe for the public,’’ the email said.

The Preservation League’s executive director, Rebecca Miller, said Tuesday that experts were still analyzing the engineering report. The group also is concerned about whether the Trump administration is complying with federal laws including the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, she said.

Debris from the East Wing demolition is so prevalent that it causes golfers to detour around piles of it, Miller said. “If you Google you’ll see lots of photos of golfers walking past it,” she said in an interview.

The Trump administration’s plans to renovate the 105-year-old course to make it a professional-level course would permanently alter its historic character and layout, Miller said.

A federal judge told the government on Monday not to cut down more than 10 trees without first providing notice amid the legal dispute.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes said during a remote hearing that she wasn’t going to issue a temporary restraining order just yet, but she indicated she would take a harsh view of any major alterations made without prior notice.

Democracy Forward, a national legal organization that is co-representing the Preservation League, said in a press release that “further scrutiny will be required related to potential toxins that were dumped at East Potomac Park by the administration as part of the destruction of the East Wing of the White House.”

Test results released by the government “suggest the Defendants dumped a cocktail of contaminants — and despite indications of the refuse’s contents, they continued dumping it,” the group said.

Kevin Griess, the superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial Parks for the park service, said during Monday’s court hearing there was no immediate plan to begin tree removal but added that a safety assessment was underway.

Trump, an avid golfer, also plans on renovating a military golf course just outside Washington that has been used by past presidents going back decades.

In its statement, the Interior Department said it is “committed to continuing the relationships we have built with the local golf communities to ensure these courses are safe, beautiful, open, affordable, enjoyable, accessible, and world-class for people living in and visiting the greatest capital city in the world.”

Daly and Fields write for the Associated Press.

A ROCK band member has quit his group after 10 years, six albums and huge sold out arena tours.

Red Rum Club, who formed after sharing a rehearsal space, have confirmed their trumpet player has gone his separate ways.

Joe Corby, who is known for his soaring trumpet solos, has quit the band just weeks before they are set to head off on their big US tour.

Red Rum Club, who now have five members including Fran Doran, Simon Hepworth, Neil Lawson, Michael McDermott and Tom Williams, have confirmed future concerts are going ahead as planned.

The band, who formed in Merseyside, confirmed Joe’s shock exit from the group yesterday, in a sad statement on X.

They said: “It is with great sadness that we are announcing Joe’s departure from Red Rum Club.

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“We want to thank him for the music and the memories we have made over the last 10 years and we wish him all the best for the future.

“All future shows will be going ahead as scheduled.

“Love, Fran, Tom, Mike, Neil and Simon.”

Fans flooded the comments of the post, sharing their thoughts on the sad news.

One fan wrote: “Gutted, for me Joe is Red Rum Club, I have now followed you for the past nine years.”

Another fan penned: “Ahh, so sad to hear this! I hope it’s for a positive reason and no health issues or fall outs. Joe will be such a HUGE miss. As others have said, he’s been such an integral part of your USP.”

Elsewhere under the post, fans were speculating Joe had quit the band to pursue his own solo career.

Red Rum Club burst onto the music scene in January 2019 after releasing their debut album Matador, which reached Top 50 in the UK Album Sales Charts.

The album featured their hit single Would You Rather Be Lonely.

April 27 (UPI) — An industry group that represents budget airlines has reached out to the Department of Transportation about creating a $2.5 billion pool to help keep them in business as the price of jet fuel remains high.

The Association of Value Airlines — which represents Allegiant Air, Avelo Air, Frontier Airlines, Spirit Airlines and Sun Country — said Monday that it has approached the Trump administration about the pool because an 88% increase in the cost of jet fuel is endangering their ability to do business, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported.

Spirit Airlines itself has been negotiating a possible $500 million bailout from the federal government after warning that it is running out of cash that is separate from the AVA request.

Airlines worldwide started raising fees in March after the United States and Israel started the war in Iran, which led the country to blockade the Strait of Hormuz in response and has caused the price of gas and oil to increase significantly.

Fuel expenses account for about 30% of airline operating costs and even a sustained $1 increase in per barrel of oil can increase those costs by millions of dollars.

“Since February, jet fuel prices have increased by nearly 100% and are placing significant financial pressure on value airlines,” the industry group said in a statement.

It also said that the “liquidity pool” would be used “exclusively” to offset fuel costs that are expected to stay above $4 per gallon in North America for the rest of the year.

The AVA also has approached Congress about waiting a 7.5% excise tax and $5.30 per-segment fee that airlines pay the government for each passenger they transport for the same reason it asked the administration for the emergency pool.

President Donald Trump acknowledged last week that Spirit has been in conversation with his administration for a bailout as it has struggled to exit its second bankruptcy filing in a year.

Trump said that the discussions are ongoing, but that he would like to help keep Spirit in business because competition is good for consumers and he is concerned about job losses should it go out of business.

Fifa is poised to change the rules around suspensions for accumulated yellow cards at this summer’s World Cup.

BBC Sport understands world football’s governing body is planning to add a second amnesty stage, wiping all yellow cards at the end of the group stage as well as after the quarter-finals.

Under current rules a team would play five matches to reach the quarter-finals, and any two bookings in those games would lead to a suspension.

The revamped World Cup, with 48 teams instead of 32, includes an extra round and it is felt the jeopardy for a ban is too high.

Without a change to the regulations, Fifa fears that many more players would be walking a suspension tightrope by playing six fixtures through to the last eight – and potentially miss a semi-final.

The topic is on the agenda for discussion when the Fifa Council meets in Vancouver, Canada on Tuesday.

Two bookings will remain the suspension threshold, but the rule change will mean there are only two small pockets of games for players to pick up a ban.

It would require cautions in two of the three group games, or in two of the last 32, last 16 and the quarter-finals, to miss a match.

WASHINGTON — Many of the groups that helped elect Donald Trump as president again are deeply unhappy with his performance, according to a new AP-NORC poll.

Trump’s return to the presidency was fueled by a wide-ranging coalition that built on his loyal base of supporters. Now that Trump has been in the White House for more than a year, the survey of more than 2,500 U.S. adults from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that many key groups — including Hispanic adults, younger adults and men — are increasingly dissatisfied with his presidency.

The poll was conducted from April 16 through Monday, as oil prices fluctuated and Americans spent more at the gas pump.

It’s a particularly bad moment for Trump, a Republican whose economic approval slumped over the past month as the Iran war drives prices higher. But AP-NORC polls show that discontent has been building among critical segments of the population over the past year.

Trump’s overall approval among Hispanic adults has fallen 16 percentage points since March 2025, and his support has declined by 9 percentage points among men.

And while Trump’s base is still largely behind him — most Republicans approve of his performance — there are signs that his second term may not be living up to their expectations.

Here’s what polling shows about Trump’s current status with four important groups:

Hispanic adults

Hispanic Americans have grown increasingly discontented with Trump over the past year.

About one-quarter of Hispanic adults approve of how he’s handling the presidency in the new poll, down from about 4 in 10 in March 2025.

That decline has been visible since late last year — suggesting that it’s not just the war in Iran or recent spikes in gas prices that are leaving this group unhappy.

Trump’s restrictive immigration approach may be playing a role. Only about one-quarter of Hispanics approve of his handling of immigration, down from 36% at the beginning of his term.

His immigration tactics appear to be particularly unpopular among younger Hispanics — a group with which he made gains in 2024. Only 18% of younger Hispanic adults approve of his performance on immigration, compared with 40% of Americans overall.

There is also broad discontent about the state of the U.S. economy among Hispanics. Only about one-quarter of Hispanic adults approve of how Trump is handling that issue, and about 2 in 10 say they approve of his approach to the cost of living. Few Hispanic adults, about 2 in 10, describe the nation’s economy as “good.”

Young adults

Trump’s overall approval with Americans under age 45 has slid over the past year, falling from 39% in March 2025 to 28% in the latest poll.

Younger women have a particularly dim view of Trump’s handling of the economy.

Only about 2 in 10 women under age 45 approve of how Trump is handling the economy, including only 7% of younger Hispanic women who approve of his economic approach. More young men, about 3 in 10, approve of him on this issue.

Trump’s struggles among young adults extend to other groups, too. Only about one-third of white adults under age 45 approve of his overall performance, compared with 45% of white adults age 45 or older.

A downtick among men

Trump made broad appeals to men throughout his 2024 campaign, and most male voters backed Trump in the presidential election over Democrat Kamala Harris. In particular, he made slight but significant gains with Black and Hispanic men, who were drawn by his vows to revitalize the economy.

Since he reentered office, though, American men have become slightly less likely to approve of his performance, declining from 47% at the start of his second term to 38% in the most recent poll.

There are signs that Black men, in particular, aren’t seeing Trump’s economic promises pan out. Black men are more likely than white or Hispanic men to disapprove of Trump’s approach to the presidency, as well as his approach to the economy, the cost of living and Iran. Only about 1 in 10 Black men say they approve of how Trump is handling the cost of living, and roughly 2 in 10 approve of how he’s handling the economy.

Hispanic men, too, have a relatively dim view of Trump’s overall performance. About 3 in 10 approve of how Trump is handling the presidency, regardless of their age. That support is stronger among white men, with about half approving of Trump.

While young Republicans are frustrated, MAGA still backs Trump

Trump has benefited from Republicans’ loyalty for years, but there are recent signs of frustration even within his base.

Roughly two-thirds of Republicans approve of Trump’s job performance. That is down slightly from 82% near the start of his second term and is generally in line with the GOP low point from his first term.

But only about half of Republicans overall approve of Trump’s approach to the cost of living, and a majority of Republicans under age 45 disapprove of him on that issue.

Trump is still buoyed by the support of his MAGA base, even as he faces backlash from conservative media figures on some of his recent actions in Iran.

About 9 in 10 MAGA Republicans — those who consider themselves supporters of the “Make America Great Again” movement — approve of Trump’s job performance, and a similar share approve of his handling of Iran.

It’s a good sign for Trump that his most robust supporters are still in his corner, but not all Republicans identify with MAGA. About half of Republicans, 54%, say they consider themselves MAGA supporters.

Among non-MAGA Republicans, Trump’s approval is much lower, at 44%.

Sanders and Thomson-Deveaux write for the Associated Press. The AP-NORC poll of 2,596 adults was conducted April 16-20 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.

HE has long been known for his enthusiasm for so-called throuples.

Now David Haye‘s ex has spoken of the day he asked her to “bring your girlfriends” to his hotel room, where he was waiting in his boxer shorts.

Model Zoe Gregory says the I’m A Celeb star seemed fascinated by her unconventional romance with Playboy boss Hugh Hefner, with whom she shared a bed along with six other women.

She met heavyweight boxing champion Haye after he fought a bout at Hef’s notorious mansion in LA in 2003.

In an exclusive interview Zoe, 51, revealed: “He asked me what group sex is like and I said, ‘It works.’

“He seemed fascinated and very curious. He probably thought, OK I’ll have to give that a try one day. After I gave him my number, he asked me to visit him and he said: ‘Bring your girlfriends to the hotel too.’

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“He was on a high after the boxing match and he probably thought, they all want to smash me. I was in awe of him so it didn’t put me off. He’s a smooth operator. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but he was charming and persuasive.

“He was very complimentary when I turned up to the hotel but I knew he just wanted to get in my pants.

“When I reached his hotel, I thought we would chill by the pool, but he said, ‘No come to the room, I’m still getting ready.’

“He opened the door in his boxer shorts and I wasn’t expecting that, but I wasn’t mad either. He literally grabbed me out the doorway and threw me on the bed so that was that.”

Zoe opened-up about her time with the boxer after he was slammed for his “sexist” comments while competing on the all-star version of I’m A Celeb in South Africa.

Referring to his long-term girlfriend Sian Osborne as having the personality of “a proper ugly bird,” he went on to claim that most good-looking women are “idiots” and that less attractive girls work harder on their personalities to win attention.

Singers Ashley Roberts and Sinitta were left shaking their heads while Corrie actress Beverley Callard later complained: “I’ve never heard anything so sexist in my life.”

Fashion model Sian, 33, defended him, saying in an exclusive interview: “I consider it a compliment.

“A big one. I’m fluent in David by now and my family find it hilarious.”

Miami-based Zoe, who cheated on Hefner with Haye, also backs him.

She explains: “I totally agree with him because everyone judges a book by its cover. People will look at me, blonde hair and big tits, and assume that I’m a bimbo.

“That’s because most blondes are bimbos, unfortunately. Blondes are very ditzy and that’s why they get that label. I’ve found myself saying the same things as David.

“Being around the girls at the Mansion, the ugly ones were always overcompensating with their personality. They would feel, I’m not that great looking so I’m going to have to do cartwheels to compete with the favourites.

“When I go the gym, I see girls wearing next to nothing and they don’t have a body to be wearing that – or a face. They don’t even look like they work out but sometimes people go that extra mile to overcompensate, to fit in.

“I feel bad saying it, but it’s true. It’s the way society is and social media has made it even worse. You are always going to have girls that get bent out of shape by comments like David’s and they are usually the fat ugly ones.

“David has met enough women to be an authority on this. If this is his opinion based on all the women he’s met, I can’t say he’s wrong.

“But he is in a corner with the public and he’s got to take a beating. Everything he says, people are watching and listening and they will use it against him to make out he’s a bad person. But he’s really not a bad person.

“He’s an opinionated person and he’s got a right to his own opinion. David is known for talking his mind and having a crazy sex life and being open about it.

“I can’t fault him for being like that.”

Mum-of-one Zoe moved from London to Los Angeles in her early 20s to work as a model and erotic B movie actress. She was accompanied by her husband, DJ Chris Paul and their young son, who is now in his 30s.

But once offered the chance to live with Hefner at his £150m LA mansion – having met the magazine boss at one of his notorious parties – she decided the opportunity was too good to turn down.

She lived with Hef, who was then in his 70s and relying heavily on Viagra to perform in bed, from 2001 to 2004.

But still married to her first husband, she always living with Hef as a job rather than a romantic relationship and she walked out following a series of rows with his number one girlfriend Holly Madison.

In 2024, she published a memoir called From Britain to Bunny in which she detailed her “hot 15 minutes” with Haye, which she described as “crazy and electric.”

Looking back on that day, she recalls: “David did seem fascinated by Hef. He asked me lots of intimate questions about him.

“He said, ‘So you’ve got to sleep with him?’ I said, ‘Yes, but it’s more of a job for me.’

“He said, ‘That’s weird.’ Then he asked, ‘Can Hef still get it up?’ I said, ‘Yes, of course.’

“I told him what went on in the bedroom – the orgies and Hef’s harem of women – and he seemed impressed by that. He was very complimentary towards me – he told me I have both beauty and brains.”

Zoe, who now works in promotions, last bumped into Haye at a restaurant in Miami two years ago just before her book was released. He was with girlfriend Sian, who has allowed him to spend time with Saturdays’ singer Una Healy and DJ Mica Jova – relationships that have been described as ‘throuples.’

Zoe continued: “David and Sian were over for a boxing event and it turned out we had a mutual friend, a photographer.

“David was surprised to see me. He was like, ‘Oh!’ It was a bit awkward because I wasn’t sure if Sian knew about our history.

“David said, ‘You look really well.’ I said ‘Yes, you too.’ It was a flirty moment and it was funny. And I swear David looked exactly the same as I remembered him. He’s aged very well.

“I got to meet Sian and she’s lovely, sweet girl. When I first met her, she didn’t say much and wasn’t very outgoing. She just sat there.

“I introduced myself and was doing extra to make her feel comfortable and after a few minutes, she warmed up. I kept the conversation away from him because I didn’t know what she knew and the book hadn’t come out yet.

“I wouldn’t say, ‘Oh by the way I f****d your boyfriend.’ I would never have a conversation like that. I do think David has got used to women throwing themselves at him.

I told him, ‘You need to go for an older woman that doesn’t get intimidated by you and can put you in your place.’

“Because otherwise he is just going to walk all over a girl, because it’s his way or the highway. He’s got his cake and he’s eating it – and I love him for that.”

By early 1963, the Station Hotel in London had become an epicenter of the burgeoning British blues scene. On a blustery, snowy night that February, the Rolling Stones’ classic early lineup took the stage for one of the first times, dazzling the audience with ferocious renditions of blues standards like Muddy Waters’ “I Want to Be Loved” and Jimmy Reed’s “Bright Lights, Big City.”

Multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones, the band’s founder and leader, synchronized guitars with Keith Richards, who favored a distinctive slashing and stinging style. Drummer Charlie Watts, the group’s newest member, a jazz aficionado and an accomplished percussionist, propelled the music forward with a rock-solid beat.

Anchoring the rhythm section with him was bassist Bill Wyman, who was recruited more for his spare VOX AC30 amp that the guitarists could plug into than for his musical skills. The stoic bassist proved a strong and innovative player. Together, he and Watts would go on to form one of rock’s most decorated rhythm sections.

Ian Stewart’s energetic boogie-woogie piano style rounded out the sound. Months later, manager Andrew Loog Oldham kicked him out of the band for being “ugly,” although Stewart continued to record, tour and serve as the band’s road manager until his death in 1985.

This April 8, 1964, file photo shows the Rolling Stones during a rehearsal. The members, from left, are Brian Jones, guitar; Bill Wyman, bass; Charlie Watts, drums; Mick Jagger, vocals; and Keith Richards, guitar.

(Associated Press)

Fronting the group was Mick Jagger. Channeling the music like a crazed shaman, Jagger shimmied and sashayed, owning the stage like few lead singers have before or since. By the end of the night, the Stones had the crowd in a frenzy. Although only 30 people had made it to the gig because of the treacherous weather conditions, the hotel’s booker had seen enough: He offered the Stones a regular gig.

“The Rolling Stones had caught fire. The music they were playing and the way they played it struck a chord with a young crowd starved for something different, something their own… It was soul-stirring, loud and uncompromising,” writes Bob Spitz in “The Rolling Stones: The Biography,” his magisterial work that charts the 60-year journey of “the greatest rock and roll band in the world.”

Spitz, the author of strong biographies on the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, as well as Ronald Reagan and Julia Child, captures the drama, trauma and betrayals that have kept the Stones in the public’s consciousness for more than six decades. It’s all here: The Stones’ evolution from a blues cover band to artistic rival of the Beatles; the musical peaks — “Aftermath,” “Let It Bleed” and “Exile on Main Street” as well as misfires like “Dirty Work”; Keith’s descent into a debilitating heroin addiction that nearly destroyed him and the band; the death of the ‘60s at the ill-fated Altamont free concert; Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg, Bianca Jagger, Jerry Hall and other lovers, partners and muses; the breakups, makeups and crackups; and perhaps most important, the unbreakable bond between Jagger and Richards at the center of it all.

Although Spitz unearths little new information, he excels at presenting the Stones in glorious Technicolor. Spitz homes in on the telling details and anecdotes that give the band’s story a deep richness and poignancy.

Take “Satisfaction,” the Stones’ 1965 classic and first U.S. chart topper. The oft-told story is that Richards woke up in the middle of the night, grabbed the guitar that was next to his bed, and recorded the iconic riff and the phrase “I can’t get no … satisfaction” on a cassette recorder in his Clearwater, Fla., hotel room before falling back asleep. But as Spitz notes, the song initially went nowhere in the studio. That is until Stewart purchased a fuzz box for Richards a few days later, which gave the tune a raunchier sound that perfectly matched Jagger’s lyrics of frustration and alienation. A classic was born.

Piercing the Stones mythology

Spitz’s deep reporting often pierces the mythology surrounding the band. Contrary to the popular belief of many fans, for instance, Jones bears much of the responsibility for the rift with his bandmates and his tragic demise.

The most musically adventurous member of the group — he plays sitar on “Paint It Black” and dulcimer on “Lady Jane” — Jones wasn’t a songwriter. That stoked his jealousies and insecurities, along with frontman Jagger stealing the spotlight from him. A monster of a man, Jones impregnated multiple teenage girls and physically and emotionally abused several women, including Pallenberg. Perhaps that’s why she left him for Richards. Over time, Jones made fewer contributions in the studio and onstage, becoming a catatonic drug casualty. The Stones fired Jones in June 1969 but would have been justified doing so a couple years earlier. He drowned in his pool less than a month later.

Author Bob Spitz

(Elena Seibert)

Similarly, Stones lore has long romanticized the making of “Exile on Main Street” in the stifling, dingy basement of Richards’ rented Villa Nellcôte in the South of France, where the Stones had decamped to avoid British taxes. In this telling, Richards, deep in the throes of heroin addiction, somehow managed to come up with one indelible riff after another built around his signature open G tuning — taught to him by Ry Cooder — leading the band to create one of the best albums in rock history. That’s not entirely accurate, according to Spitz.

Yes, Richards came up with the licks for “Rocks Off,” “Happy” and “Tumbling Dice.” But it’s equally true that a strung-out Richards missed myriad recording sessions, invited dealers, hangers-on and other distractions to Nellcôte, and repeatedly failed to turn up to write with Jagger. Far from completing the album in the druggy haze of a French basement, the band spent six months on overdubs at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, where Jagger contributed many of his vocals.

Beatles vs. Stones

One of the more interesting themes Spitz develops is the symbiotic relationship between the Beatles and Stones, with the Fab Four mostly overshadowing them — until they didn’t.

John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote “I Wanna Be Your Man” and gave it to the Stones, whose 1963 rendition, with Jones on slide guitar, became the group’s first UK Top 20 hit. The Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership inspired Jagger and Richards to begin penning their own songs. In early 1964, the Beatles came to the U.S. for the first time, making television history with their appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and playing Carnegie Hall. A few months later, the Stones kicked off their inaugural American tour at the Swing Auditorium in San Bernardino. In 1967, the Beatles released “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” a psychedelic masterpiece. The Stones responded with “Their Satanic Majesties Request,” a psychedelic mess.

The Rolling Stones: The Biography cover

As the Beatles began to splinter, Spitz writes, the Stones sharpened their focus. The band released “Beggars Banquet” in late 1968 and “Let It Bleed” the following year, albums every bit as innovative and visionary as “The White Album” and “Abbey Road.” For the first time, the two groups stood as equals.

When the Beatles broke up in 1970, the Stones kept rolling. With Jones replaced by virtuoso guitarist Mick Taylor — whose fluid, melodic style served as a tasty foil to Richards — they produced what many consider their finest works, “Sticky Fingers” and “Exile on Main Street.” More impressively, the band, with Taylor’s successor, Ronnie Wood, has continued to dazzle audiences with incendiary live shows, touring as recently as 2024 behind the late-career triumph “Hackney Diamonds.” The Beatles, by contrast, retired from the road in 1966 and devoted their energies to the studio.

Hundreds of books have been written about the Rolling Stones, but few sparkle quite like Spitz’s. For anyone who loves or even likes the Stones, it’s indispensable.

Like most of the band’s biographers, Spitz gives short shrift to the post-“Exile” period after 1972. He curtly dismisses 2005’s strong “A Bigger Bang” and 2016’s “Blue & Lonesome,” a back-to-basics album of blues covers, as “adequate endeavors that signaled a band living on borrowed time.” That critique is both off target and under-developed. Spitz ignores the band’s legendary live album, “Brussels Affair,” recorded in 1973, or why the band waited decades before officially releasing it.

These are small quibbles. Spitz has written a book worthy of its 704-page length; another 50 or so pages covering the later years would have made it even stronger. To quote the Rolling Stones: “I know it’s only rock ‘n roll, but I like it, like it, yes, I do.”

Marc Ballon, a former Times, Forbes and Inc. Magazine reporter, teaches an advanced writing class at USC. He lives in Fullerton.

Published on 18/04/2026 – 22:58 GMT+2•Updated
23:06

A coalition of EU-based chemical producers of titanium dioxide – a strategic chemical used in green energy and aerospace – has lodged a complaint with the Commission alleging unfair foreign subsidies against leading Chinese producer LB Group, which is seeking to acquire a UK plant of British competitor Venator, Euronews has learned.

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The move follows the European Commission’s decision in January 2025 to impose anti-dumping duties on LB Group, a trade defence measure targeting low-priced imports into the EU.

Acquiring a production plant in the UK would allow the Chinese group to export its products to the European market duty-free under the EU-UK trade agreement, circumventing EU anti-dumping tariffs.

The EU chemical sector is under pressure from growing competition from Chinese rivals, which are flooding the market with overcapacity.

The alliance behind the complaint against LB Group includes several companies producing in the EU — US-based Tronox and Kronos, Czech Precheza and Slovenian Cinkarna — collectively accounting for about 90% of EU titanium dioxide production.

Enforcing the Foreign Subsidies Regulation outside the EU

Sources said the complaint was filed in December 2025, urging the European Commission to investigate the Chinese company over alleged unfair foreign subsidies used to finance the acquisition of Venator’s plant.

The EU’s Foreign Subsidies Regulation, adopted in 2022, allows the Commission to investigate non-EU companies to assess whether they benefit from distortive foreign subsidies to make acquisitions in the EU or take part in public procurement.

The tool was initially designed with China in mind, reflecting concerns over excessive state subsidies support for Chinese companies acquiring strategic EU assets or infrastructure. However, the regulation has not yet been applied outside the EU.

The plant targeted by LB Group is located in Greatham in northeast England, which left the EU in 2020 after Brexit. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority is currently reviewing the deal and is expected to issue a decision in May.

If the European Commission opens an investigation under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, it could set a precedent and send a strong signal globally.

The move would come as the EU chemical industry loses market share in Europe.

According to Cefic, which represents the sector in Brussels, the bloc has lost around 9% of its production capacity since 2022, resulting in the loss of 20,000 direct jobs.

The elephant in the room for the Lakers as they enter the playoffs has been, and will continue to be, the status of their starting backcourt, Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves.

Both are out because of injuries — Doncic with a grade 2 left hamstring strain and Reaves with a grade 2 left oblique strain — and neither is expected to play in the best-of-seven, first-round playoff series against the Houston Rockets that begins Saturday at 5:30 p.m. at Crypto.com Arena.

After practice Friday, coach JJ Redick was quick to say “there’s not” when asked about an update on Doncic and Reaves.

After Doncic and Reaves were injured on April 2 at Oklahoma City, the Lakers said both would be out until the end of the regular season. According to people not authorized to speak on the matter, both are expected to be out four to six weeks.

Doncic went to Spain to get treatment, and Reaves has been working diligently in L.A., with the hope that they can return sooner.

The Lakers miss their combined output of 56.8 points, 13.8 assists and 12.4 rebounds per game. Doncic led the NBA in scoring (33.5) and was third in assists (8.3); he was second on the Lakers in rebounding (7.7).

During the week of practice, Reaves was around his teammates and seen shooting after a few practices. He appeared to be in good spirits. Doncic was supposed to be back by Friday.

“We love having Austin here and we’re glad he is in a position to do his return-to-play [work], however long it takes with us,” Redick said. “Excited to get Luka back and be around the group. Austin and I talk just about every day about different things. So he’s … just being a part of this. …

“The mindset for our team and for those two guys, like we’re gonna try to make this season as long as possible so that we can get those guys back at some point. We don’t know what that is, and that’s just our job. And their job is to do everything they can to be in a position to come back at some point. It may not work, but that’s what we’re trying to do.”

The theme of the Lakers’ week at practice was to “elevate” their work.

Yes, they won’t have Doncic and Reaves, but that didn’t mean the Lakers couldn’t work harder.

When they worked on box-out drills in preparation for the way the Rockets attack the offensive boards, the Lakers went hard. When they watched film and had practice sessions, the Lakers worked with a purpose.

“The word we’ve used all week is ‘elevate.’ I think that’s what it is,” Redick said. “We all know the playoffs are different. They’re harder. There’s no easy matchups, and you have to be able to elevate your play. But beyond that, it’s elevating your recovery, your attention to detail, your preparation.

“I talked about that with my coaches as we started this week on Monday morning. It was an off day for the guys, but we were in there for six hours and we’ve all collectively gotta elevate. And particularly when you’re missing two of your top guys, part of elevating is elevating each other and the belief that the group as a whole can be great.”

The Rockets are a tough and rugged team that is good on defense and at rebounding.

They ranked fourth in the NBA in points given up (110.0) and tied for fifth in opponents’ field-goal percentage (46.0). They were tops in rebounding (48.1) and offensive rebounds (15.0).

That has the Lakers’ attention and is why they worked so hard during practice.

“It’s been great. The level of focus and attention to detail, the communication, everything has been elevated,” forward Jarred Vanderbilt said. “We’ve got a lot of guys that’s been to the playoffs and know what it takes.

“Like you said, everything elevates around this time and having a veteran group that’s kind of been there and had a taste of the playoffs, we all know what it takes to win games in the playoffs. It’s everybody going out and doing their job and paying attention to the game plan.”

Reese Witherspoon is hyping A.I. again, and American authors have a few thoughts.

The Oscar-winning actor and producer, known for spotlighting women’s voices through her famed book club, television and screen projects, may have been barking up the wrong tree when she told her social media followers that it was time to learn A.I. on Wednesday.

“Well…I’ve decided it’s TIME,” she wrote in the caption of an Instagram reel on Wednesday. “The AI revolution has begun, and I need to learn as much as I possibly can about AI and share it with all of you. Also, FYI: the jobs women hold are 3x more likely to be automated by AI, yet women are using AI at a rate 25% lower than men on average. We don’t want to be left behind. So…do you want to learn with me?”

In the video, which the star shared across social media platforms, Witherspoon said she was with 10 women at a book club this week. “I said to the 10 of them, ‘How many of you guys use AI?’ And only three of them used AI. And then I said, ‘How many of the three of you feel like you really know what you’re doing or using it the right way?’ And there was only one person,” she said.

“So, if three out of 10 women are the only ones using AI, that means 70% of that group is not keeping up. The thing I’ve learned about technology is if you don’t get a little bit of understanding from the very beginning, it just speeds past you. So you have to have little bits of learning just to keep up.”

The “Big Little Lies” star then seemingly put out a feeler for an A.I. learning course saying, “I think we should learn the basics together and learn some really good tools that are going to make our everyday lives easier and better. Do you want me to share what I’m learning with you?”

While there were plenty of comments from fans and stars hyping up Witherspoon’s sentiment — Former co-stars Ali Larter said “Yes yes yes!” and Kerry Washington said “THIS” — many of the replies called the actor out, citing environmental, economic, social, educational and intellectual concerns, among others.

One group that was especially vocal in their opposition to A.I., was the literary community, and writers and authors across the country didn’t hold back when sharing their two cents.

Bestselling “Bad Feminist” author Roxane Gay chimed in on Threads, writing, “Oh Reese. Absolutely not.”

“This is obviously a scripted ad and it’s genuinely infuriating. Notice how AI’s biggest defenders are the ones cashing checks from it,” wrote screenwriter and director Charlene Bagcal on Threads. “AI isn’t inevitable. Technology follows society. If people stop using it, it dies. We still have agency.”

“Jagged Little Pill” author and literary agent Eric Smith weighed in, “As someone who champions authors and books the way you do, this is so disappointing.”

“AI plagiarized all my books. It seems unlikely that I’ll be ‘left behind’ if I don’t use it, given that it’s trained on work I did years ago,” wrote “Get Well Soon” author Jennifer Wright.

Writer and actor Rati Gupta said, “How am *I* the one being “left behind” by not using AI when *my* cognitive function will remain fully intact and uncompromised?”

And Sophia Benoit posted, “There’s something particularly insidious about seeing that women— the group you have built your brand on— have not adopted something and instead of assuming it’s out of wisdom, infantalizing them with ‘we’re falling behind.’”

In 2021, Witherspoon’s company, Hello Sunshine, partnered with World of Women (WoW), an NFT collective, and the actor similarly caught flak from followers for tweeting “In the (near) future, every person will have a parallel digital identity. Avatars, crypto wallets, digital goods will be the norm. Are you planning for this?”

Representatives for Witherspoon have not responded to the Times request for comment.

WASHINGTON — President Trump railed against a federal judge’s decision on Thursday that continues to block above-ground construction of a $400-million White House ballroom, allowing only below-ground work on a bunker and other “national security facilities” at the site.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon’s latest ruling comes in response to an appeals court’s instruction to clarify an earlier decision on the 90,000-square-foot ballroom planned for the site where the East Wing of the White House once stood.

Trump on social media called Leon, who was nominated to the bench by Republican President George W. Bush, a “Trump Hating” judge who “has gone out of his way to undermine National Security, and to make sure that this Great Gift to America gets delayed, or doesn’t get built.”

The administration filed a notice that it will ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review Leon’s latest decision, too.

Carol Quillen, president and chief executive of National Trust for Historic Preservation, whose group sued to challenge the project, said in a statement that the group is pleased with the court’s ruling.

Leon said that below-ground work on security measures is exempt from his order suspending above-ground construction. Government lawyers have argued that the project includes critical security features to guard against a range of possible threats, such as drones, ballistic missiles and biohazards.

Leon’s latest ruling comes several days after a three-judge panel from the D.C. appeals court instructed him to reconsider the possible national security implications of stopping construction.

In his previous order, Leon barred above-ground work on the ballroom from proceeding without congressional approval. The judge also ruled on March 31 that any construction work that’s necessary to ensure the safety and security of the White House is exempt from the scope of the injunction. Leon said he reviewed material that the government privately submitted to him before concluding that halting construction wouldn’t jeopardize national security.

Leon had suspended his March 31 order for two weeks. He stayed his latest decision for another week, which gives the administration more time to seek Supreme Court review.

Leon said he is ordering a stop only to the above-ground construction of the planned ballroom, apart from any work needed to cover or secure that part of the project. Otherwise, the Trump administration is free to proceed with the construction of any excavations, bunkers, military installations, and medical facilities below the ballroom.

“Defendants argue that the entire ballroom construction project, from tip to tail, falls within the safety-and-security exception and therefore may proceed unabated,” the judge wrote. “That is neither a reasonable nor a correct reading of my Order!”

On Saturday, the appeals court panel said it didn’t have enough information to decide how much of the project can be suspended without jeopardizing the safety of the president, his family or the White House staff.

Leon said he recognizes the safety implications of the case, but stressed that “national security is not a blank check to proceed with otherwise unlawful activity.” He also said he has “no desire or intention to be dragooned into the role of construction manager.”

On April 2, two days after Leon’s previous ruling, Trump’s ballroom won final approval from the 12-member National Capital Planning Commission, which is charged with approving construction on federal property in the Washington region.

The preservation group sued in December, a week after the White House finished demolishing the East Wing to make way for a ballroom that Trump said would fit 999 people. Trump says the project is funded by private donations, although public money is paying for the bunker construction and security upgrades.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.

Many passengers are facing waits of up to three hours at Spanish airports due to the new controls

Travellers in Spain are experiencing significant delays at airports. And experts are warning that one particular group is bearing the brunt of new border controls, according to a Spanish travel organisation.

There have been widespread reports of waiting times of up to three hours. New regulations have been introduced, with some passengers in particular facing very long waits.

Spanish media reports indicate waiting times of up to three hours at Palma airport alone, with similar delays reported in France, Greece, Italy and beyond. Travel group Aviba is now calling for urgent measures to prevent chaos this coming summer.

Pedro Fiol, president of the travel association, is demanding immediate action to avert disruption this summer, and has revealed he has been pushing for such measures for months, according to Ultimata Hora. The new system has only just been introduced, having fully launched on April 10, following a trial period that began late last year.

The EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES) initially began operations on 12 October 2025, with a phased rollout across 29 European countries. Now it is fully in place.

The system replaces passport stamping with digitally recorded entries, exits or refusals of entry of non-EU nationals arriving for short stays. Travellers’ facial images, fingerprints and personal data from the travel document will also be recorded.

Mr Fiol said: “The implementation of the new European Border and Security System (EES) is already beginning to be felt at the Balearic airports, especially at Son Sant Joan, the main gateway to Mallorca, where we are still operating with a hybrid model. At certain times, it is causing some slowdowns in the controls, particularly for non-EU passengers.”

He warned that “we are facing a structural change in how borders are managed across Europe: biometric registration is replacing manual passport stamping, and this means more time for the passenger’s first contact with their destination.” In his view, so far “the experience has been inconsistent: some days the operation runs relatively smoothly, while others, according to agencies and tour operators, can take more than two hours from the moment the plane lands until the traveller collects their luggage, and even nearly three hours in some specific cases.”

Ultima Hora reports that the National Police have acknowledged the delays, though they say they have seen no evidence of prolonged hold-ups. Sources close to the security forces have told Spanish media that additional staff have been deployed during peak hours in a bid to ease any difficulties that may occur during periods of heavy passenger congestion at checkpoints.

Travellers passing through airports in countries including France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Greece are facing waits of several hours at border controls, according to the Airports Council International (ACI). Olivier Jankovec, the director of the ACI European division, told the Financial Times: “This situation, in the coming weeks and certainly over the peak summer months, is going to be simply unmanageable.

“We are seeing those queueing times now, at peak times, when traffic is just starting to build up.” A spokesperson for the European Commission told the Guardian: “What we can see from the first days of full operation is that the system is working very well. In the overwhelming majority of member states there are no issues.”

The commission said that the average registration of a passenger was 70 seconds, although the ACI has claimed that it can take up to five minutes. The spokesperson said there were a “few member states where technical issues have been detected” but that they “are being addressed”.

They said: “It is up to member states to ensure the proper implementation of the EES on the ground.” Luke Fitzpatrick, from independent travel agency Perfect Getaways, told the BBC this week that travellers should plan ahead to make border checks as smooth as possible.

“It’s about being as prepared as you can be,” Fitzpatrick told BBC Radio Merseyside. “There is a lot of uncertainty at the moment as people are getting used to the new system.”

While he said the advice was to arrive at the airport “at least three hours early”, he said it could be more difficult for people booked on a package holiday. “If you’re on a shared transfer back, everyone’s coming together at the same time,” he said.

EES changes and the impact on transfer and pick-ups

Pedro Fiol told Ultima Hora that “this situation is forcing a restructuring of transfer and pick-up operations at destinations to better co-ordinate exact times, avoid additional downtime, and guarantee the smoothest possible service.” Given this situation, he says that “travel agencies are concerned that if resources are not properly allocated at airports with such high tourist pressure as those in the Balearic Islands, significant queues and a negative first experience for visitors are possible.”

What do Brit tourists need to do with EES rules?

The govuk website states that “if you are travelling to a country in the Schengen area for a short stay using a UK passport, you may be required to register your biometric details, such as fingerprints and a photo, when you arrive. You do not need to take any action before you arrive at the border, and there is no cost for EES registration.

“EES registration is replacing the current system of manually stamping passports when visitors arrive in the EU. EES may take each passenger extra time to complete so be prepared to wait longer than usual at the border.”

The countries in the Schengen area are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.