For years, Matthew McConaughey wouldn’t tell his mom, Kay, anything of substance during their weekly phone calls — her love of spreading news had cost her his trust.
“We had about an eight-year period where I had to have short conversations with her on our Sunday phone calls because she was sharing a lot of information,” Matthew told People in a joint interview with his mother. “I’d tell her something on Sunday between son and mom, and Tuesday I’d read about it in the news or see it in the local paper.”
Kay called the period a hiatus, which started after she took the media on a tour of Matthew’s childhood home without his consent. In her defense, she didn’t think he would find out.
“I was so proud that I was just telling the world,” she said.
The hiatus came to an end when Matthew felt stable enough with his fame. When the two hit red carpets together after that, Kay would ask if there were any rules she had to follow, but he let her tell the raunchiest stories at will.
“My mom can say whatever the hell she wants,” Matthew said. “Let’s take the lasso off and just go for it, Mom.”
Matthew and Kay co-star in the upcoming film “The Lost Bus,” where she plays his mother. The movie, which premieres Friday on Apple TV+, also stars Matthew’s oldest son, Levi.
Hear the sound of fingers crossing? That might be Levi hoping his dad learned a thing or two from Grandma.
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
After a long hiatus, the Bayraktar TB-2 twin-tail boom medium altitude, medium endurance (MAME) drone is once again carrying out strike missions against Russian forces. The most recent example came on Wednesday, in an attack on a Russian boat and troops on the Black Sea coast.
Though limited in numbers, these strikes mark a resurgence of sorts for a weapon so effective in the early days of the all-out war against Russian land convoys and vessels that a song was written about it. While still used to surveil less contested areas, the propeller-driven drones had receded from the front lines as a strike weapon due to their vulnerability to Russian air defense and electronic warfare.
“The Navy destroyed another high-speed boat of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which was trying to deliver an airborne troops unit to the Tendrivska Spit. 7 occupiers were destroyed, 4 wounded,” the Ukrainian Navy said on Telegram. While the Navy did not say how the strike took place, a video on the post shows the surveillance and attack from the view through the Bayraktar’s distinctive video feed symbology.
Several weeks earlier, the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Directorate (GUR) released a video of a TB-2 strike on another small Russian boat, this time near Zaliznyi Port in the Kherson region, about 30 miles southeast of the Spit. TB-2s drop small guided weapons, allowing them to strike multiple objects on a single sortie.
In June, the Ukrainian Navy showed a video of a TB-2 attack on a Russian landing craft on Kherson’s west coast.
Before that, however, there was a long pause in the use of the TB-2 to carry out attacks.
Ukraine began using these drones, made by the Turkish Baykar company, even before the onset of the full-on war. The first reported strike came in October 2021 when it was used to destroy a 122mm D-30 howitzer belonging to Russian-backed separatist forces in the country’s eastern Donbas region that Ukrainian authorities said was responsible for killing one of its soldiers and wounding another.
The TB-2 would go on to play a big role for Ukraine in the early part of the full-on war as an unmanned platform able to conduct both strike and reconnaissance missions. Bayraktar attacks were pivotal to stopping the long Russian mechanized columns heading toward Kyiv.
The TB-2s also helped Ukraine recapture Snake Island in the Western Black Sea by attacking targets on the rocky outcropping and ships trying to access it.
This success gave Ukraine a rare glimmer of hope during a time when its future as an independent nation was on the line. In February 2022, Ukrainian artist Taras Borovok released a catchy song about the Bayraktar drones that went viral online.
By March 2022, at least 26 TB-2s had been destroyed, according to the Oryx open-source tracking group. The actual figures could be significantly higher because Oryx only tabulates losses for which there is visual evidence.
“Russia began adapting to the TB2 threat,” the Ukrainian United24 media outlet noted in June. “Improved electronic warfare and layered air defense systems made it increasingly difficult for large, slow drones to operate safely. Ukrainian officials acknowledged that TB2s had become highly vulnerable to Russian systems like Pantsir-S1, Buk, and Tor.”
By 2023, the Ukrainian military had largely withdrawn the Bayraktars from attack roles, instead focusing on “reconnaissance, target designation, and rare strikes in lightly defended areas,” United24 pointed out.
You can see one example of a TB-2 destroyed by Russian air defenses in the following video.
The recent return of the Bayraktars as strike weapons has been made possible by constant Ukrainian attacks on Russian air defenses in Crimea and Kherson, both Ukrainian and Russian sources note.
Yesterday’s Bayraktar attack “is particularly significant given that Ukraine’s Defense Forces appear to have systematically worked to make such missions possible by suppressing Russian air defense systems — interestingly, also through the use of unmanned technologies,” the Ukrainian Defense Express news outlet noted on Thursday.
“Previously, the ‘Bayraktars’ had already operated in the Spit area, but were used exclusively in reconnaissance mode from a distance, not risking getting close to strike, as they would inevitably become victims of air defense,” the Russian Military Informer Telegram channel posited on Wednesday. “Now, apparently due to regular strikes by Ukrainian drones [launched from boats] with Starlink on air defense and radar on the coast of Kherson region and Crimea, Ukrainian Bayraktar TB2s have received a corridor for freer operation.”
The following video shows one example of Ukraine’s attacks on Russian air defenses and radar systems.
Ukraine’s Special Services has released a video from the past few days of dismantling Russia’s anti-aircraft and radar networks in Crimea.
— SPRAVDI — Stratcom Centre (@StratcomCentre) March 19, 2025
Ukraine has also been executing an ongoing suppression/destruction of enemy air defenses (SEAD/DEAD) campaign for years now, including using fighter-launched AGM-88 High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARMs) and guided glide bombs to reach across the front lines and takeout anti-air systems. This is backed by persistent intelligence gathering, especially across the radio-frequency spectrum. TB-2s operating near the far western reaches of Russian-held territory would make sense as this is an area where these anti-air defense tactical jet operations would have occurred regularly.
Ukraine’s long-range campaign against highly-prized Russian air defenses in Crimea is also topic that The War Zone has also frequently addressed. As we noted in a previous story: “Taking out these systems potentially opens holes in Russia’s air defense overlay of the peninsula and the northwestern Black Sea. This could go a long way to ensuring the survivability of standoff strike weapons, like Storm Shadow and SCALP-EG, and other attacks, such as those by long-range kamikaze drones.” The loss of these systems could also help via a reduction in situational awareness over the skies of southern Ukraine.
Openings for use of the TB-2 may have also increased because of fighting for the Tendrivska Spit. This is a narrow stretch of land in Russian-occupied Kherson Oblast on the shore of the northern Black Sea. It is also the furthest west Russian troops have reached so far. The littoral nature of this area and its terrain may also limit the deployment of Russian short-range air defense systems.
Ukraine has been repeatedly attacking the Tendrivska spit because Russians are reportedly using it to place relay stations to extend the range of their drones.
Beyond land-based air defenses, interceptor drones are increasingly used by both sides to attack enemy drones.
“Russian military forces use the Tendra Spit as a stronghold for observation and conducting operations in the northern part of the Black Sea,” the Ukrainian Militarnyi media outlet noted on Wednesday. “In particular, the invaders deploy relay stations there to extend the flight range of reconnaissance and strike drones.”
While the TB-2’s use for strike missions in this area points to a safer block of airspace to operate in, it is surely not without major-risk. The advantage of the TB-2 is that if it is shot down no crew is lost. No combat search and rescue effort is needed. And a precious manned tactical aircraft is not stricken from the Ukrainian Air Force’s roster. In other words, the TB-2s can be risked where manned platforms cannot. This is especially important as the TB-2s, like manned tactical aircraft, can dynamically attack moving targets of opportunity, something most standoff weapons cannot.
Another factor for the use of TB-2s for a wide variety of missions, including risky ones, is that they are now being produced in Ukraine. Of note is that Russia recently attacked the facility near Kyiv where these are being made. This was the fourth strike in six months at a factory where tens of millions of dollars had been invested.
NEW: Last night, Bayraktar factory in Kyiv was hit with two Russian strikes; causing serious damage.
Despite the war and previous attacks, the company had invested tens of millions, trained staff, and nearly completed production facilities.
A few uses of the Bayraktar as a strike weapon don’t mean that these drones are now going to be a regular feature of Ukraine’s aerial strike force. However, these attacks show Ukraine’s ability to quickly adapt to battlefield conditions and take advantage of seams and openings created in Russian air defenses. It also puts into question the exact state of Russia’s vaunted air defense overlay that extends into Ukrainian-help territory. After years of being battered, significant cracks could be showing.
A whole lot has happened in the world in the years since Ariana Grande last toured in 2019. But the “Wicked” star is finally returning to the road next year in support of her latest album, 2024’s “Eternal Sushine.”
Grande’s tour kicks off in June 2026, and comes to Los Angeles later that month for four nights split between the Crypto.com Arena and Kia Forum. Tickets for the U.S. dates go on sale Sept. 10.
While Grande’s last tour wrapped up in December of 2019, after her “Sweetener” and “Thank U, Next” albums, the singer has been a fixture in theaters recently. In November, she’ll star in “Wicked: For Good,” the sequel to her smash hit with Cynthia Erivo, and she is currently shooting the “Meet the Parents” franchise sequel “Focker In-Law.”
The tour announcement will be relief to Ari fans who feared she might not return to live stages for some time (she headlined Coachella in 2019 to mixed reviews). Last year, she told Variety that “I feel so grateful to the acting, and I think my fans know that music and being on stage will always be a part of my life, but I don’t see it coming anytime soon. I think the next few years, hopefully we’ll be exploring different forms of art, and I think acting is feeling like home right now. … I am appreciative for [my fans’] understanding.”
I will say this: I should be watching more cartoons. It has been harder to indulge this passion for some of the best, most pleasurable work television has to offer with so many ordinary series fighting for my professional time and attention, but here and now I make a more or less midyear resolution to get back to them. Please hold me to it.
Two great animated series are posting new seasons after long hiatuses (neither on the original platform, both on Hulu). “King of the Hill,” which ran on Fox from 1997 to 2009, lives anew with 10 fresh episodes streaming Monday; “The Amazing World of Gumball” (2011-2019), one of the greatest products of a great age of Cartoon Network, is back as “The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball,” in a 20-episode season now available. (Earlier seasons of both shows are available on the platform.) Each is under the protection of their original creators; both are their easily recognizable, extremely different old selves.
Visually, there is little to no difference between one multi-camera sitcom and the next, one single-camera mockumentary sitcom and the next, one single-camera non-mockumentary and the next, one CBS police procedural and the next. But every cartoon creates its individual grammar, its dynamic, its world, its synergy between the image and the actors, its level of awkwardness of slickness. (The voice actors, I mean — animators are also actors.) There are trends, of course, in shapes and line and ways to render a mouth or an eyeball, and much drawing is drawn from the history of the medium, because art influences artists. But the spectrum is wide, and novelty counts for a lot.
“The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball”
(Hulu)
Created by Ben Bocquelet, “Gumball” doesn’t settle for a single style — that is to say, not settling is its style. The characters comprise a hodgepodge, nay, an encyclopedia of visual references, dimensions, materials and degrees of resolution, and include traditional 2-D animation, puppet animation, photo collage and live-action, usually set against a photographic background and knit into a world whose infinite variety seems nothing short of inevitable. (Netflix’s late “The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants” is the only other cartoon with such a range of modes.
Like many modern cartoons (excepting anime, which I would argue is a different, if widely influential, art), its main characters are children. Gumball, currently voiced by Alkaio Thiele, is a blue cat, the son of a cat mother and a rabbit father; he has a pink rabbit little sister, Anais (Kinza Syed Khan), and an adoptive brother, Darwin (Hero Hunter in the new season), a pet goldfish who grew legs and gets around quite easily in the air. Their middle-school classmates include a ghost, a cloud, a banana, an ice cream cone, a daisy, a balloon, a cactus, a T. Rex and a flying eyeball. Gumball’s girlfriend, Penny (Teresa Gallagher) is a shape-shifting yellow fairy. Each is rendered in a different style, and that is just the tip of the animated iceberg.
Like the best cartoons ostensibly made for kids, it doesn’t underestimate its audience, what it might understand or can handle. Many “Gumball” episodes devolve into a sort of authentically disturbing horror movie, including the last episode of the original series, which saw the characters frighteningly transformed into realistic animated children and a void opening just before the closing credits. It also demonstrates an adult skepticism about the world that might profitably infect young minds. There are critiques of capitalism, consumerism and online culture: In the first episode of the new season, an evil talking hamburger controls the corporate universe; in another, mother Nicole (Gallagher again) is seduced into virtual reality by a lonely, jealous chatbot.
The decade and a half since “King of the Hill” went off the air — surreptitiously, if obviously, referenced in a remark about “that cooking show that Fox stupidly canceled 15 years ago” — is not exactly represented in the new season, but time has passed. (The characters did not age 13 years over the original series — but they grew a little.) Hank, voiced by co-creator Mike Judge, and Peggy Hill (Kathy Najimy), returning to Arlen, Texas, from Saudi Arabia, where Hank had been exercising his expertise in all things propane, are drawn older by the addition of a few wrinkles but are substantially unchanged. As a character, Hank, of course, distrusts change, though possibly not as much as the friends who gather, as before, in the alley behind his house; indeed, he worries that the love of soccer he acquired while away will reduce his standing in their eyes. Peggy, on the other hand, was enlarged by her time away; she likes to demonstrate a few words of Arabic. Both Hills are dealing uncomfortably with retirement; he looks for odd jobs, takes a stab at making beer (not that fruit-flavored stuff); she exercises.
In the revived “King of the Hill,” Bobby and Hank compete against each other in a home brew competition, to Peggy’s dismay (but eventual delight).
(Mike Judge/Disney)
The show is set in an awkwardly drawn but highly evocative, extremely ordinary environment that perfectly serves its stories; it feels like an accurate outsider-art rendition of its middle-class Texas suburb. There is little in it that couldn’t be handled as live-action situation comedy; indeed, for long stretches you can close your eyes and let it play in your head like an old-time radio show — “Ozzie and Harriet,” or “Vic and Sade” for the deep cut — which testifies to the quality of the writing and the performances. (Judge’s voice has an unschooled quality that perfectly matches the drawing. I was once almost certain that Hank’s voice was that of my friend Will Ray, a country-music guitar slinger — which would have made sense, given Judge’s interest in the music and his occasional moonlighting as a bass player. That is neither here or there, but I am happy to have found a place to mention it.)
Their son, Bobby (Pamela Adlon), is now an adult; little dots on his chin indicate either that he can grow a beard but neglects to shave or that he can’t quite grow a beard; it doesn’t seem exactly like a choice. A formerly established talent for cooking — the final episode of the original run concerned his ability to judge the quality of a cut of meat — has blossomed into his becoming a restaurateur, offering a fusion of Japanese and Texas cuisine; he is evidently good at this, though for whatever reason — more work to draw them? — his restaurant is devoid of customers. The torch he carries for sometime girlfriend Connie Souphanousinphone (Lauren Tom) occupies the other half of his storyline here.
There are light topical references — a sidelong joke about the names billionaires give their children, for example — but the show happily lives in its world of day-to-day annoyances and victories. Hank is excited by a trip to the George W. Bush presidential library, but one can’t imagine him with any affection for the current Oval Office occupant; he’s too common-sense for that. Extreme views and conspiracy theories are loaded into Hank’s pest exterminator friend Dale Gribble. The late Johnny Hardwick, who voiced him for the first six episodes of the new season, was replaced by Toby Huss. (Jonathan Joss, who played the character John Redcorn, died in a shooting this June.) Cartoons have a way of dealing with death — they don’t have to — and time means no more there than the animators want it to. It’s a comfortable state of being.
