history

LACMA’s David Geffen Galleries, the pinnacle of a two-decade campus transformation, will officially open April 19.

That Sunday, a ribbon-cutting ceremony will kick off two weeks of priority member access to the galleries, with general admission beginning May 4, the museum said Thursday. Online ticket reservations open Thursday to members.

The announcement comes nearly a decade after news broke of business magnate David Geffen’s record-high $150-million donation toward the construction of a new museum building to be designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor. Since the beginning, the Brutalist design has been polarizing — Angelenos have cheered or jeered the concrete vision.

The $720-million Geffen Galleries, which museum members got a first look at over the summer, will serve as the new home for LACMA’s permanent collection. It will display 2,500 to 3,000 objects at a time from its collection of approximately 170,000 objects. Stretching across Wilshire Boulevard, the structure houses 110,000 square feet in 90 exhibition galleries that will be organized thematically rather than by medium or chronology.

“The idea is for you to make your own path — not to speak at you, but to let you wander like you would through a park or a place,” LACMA Director and Chief Executive Michael Govan said in an interview with The Times. “That change in attitude, and how the building is built, is really exciting.”

Of the $720 million, Govan said, the majority came from private donors, with $125 million funded by L.A. County. Aside from paying off interest and principal, additional funds from a $875-million fundraising campaign will go toward public art, collection moving costs, office renovations and general landscaping.

The inaugural installation will use global bodies of water as an “organizing framework, emphasizing the cultural exchange, migration and commerce prevalent throughout the history of art,” LACMA said in a statement. Standout entries include Georges de La Tour’s “The Magdalen with the Smoking Flame” (c.1640), Vincent van Gogh’s “Tarascon Stagecoach” (1888) and Henri Matisse’s “La Gerbe” (1953). Art installation is currently in progress.

Guests tour the Geffen Galleries for an early preview on June 26, 2025.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The four buildings that the Geffen Galleries replaced were “all broken up into little, tiny pieces, and they were not well traveled,” Govan said. The new structure is meant to make LACMA’s eclectic permanent collection more accessible on one extra-long floor.

“It’s kind of a worldview,” the executive said. “It’s big enough that it can hold the world.”

While the new building does not boast more gallery space than its predecessors — a point of public contention — Govan said that was never the plan due to county size regulations. Instead, the complementary additions of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum in 2008 and the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion in 2010 added 100,000 square feet of gallery space. In all, the campus transformation brought LACMA’s total exhibition space from 130,000 square feet in 2007 to 220,000 square feet at present. (The Pavilion for Japanese Art, which has been undergoing a retrofit and renovation, is 10,000 square feet. It remains closed and will reopen at some point after the David Geffen Galleries.)

A guest tours one of the 90 galleries within the new space during a preview opening on June 26, 2025.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Along with complaints about the building’s size, the Geffen Galleries’ heavy use of concrete had been criticized as an impractical choice for hanging art. According to LACMA’s preparators, that’s not a problem given the right tools.

Among the building project’s donors were Tony Ressler, co-chair of the museum board of trustees, after whom the Geffen Galleries’ south wing will be named, the museum also announced Thursday. Willow Bay, a longtime board member, will join Ressler as board co-chair.

“LACMA is a global cultural force that brings millions of people together through the power of art, connecting communities across Los Angeles and around the world,” Bay said in a statement. “I am deeply grateful for Tony’s leadership and generosity, and honored to join him as co-chair at this transformative moment in LACMA’s history as we advance our mission of enhancing access to art and education.”

Bay and her husband, outgoing Disney CEO Bob Iger, in 2018 made a “historic capital contribution” to support the preservation of Chris Burden’s “Urban Light,” which has become an iconic L.A. landmark. (Disney earlier this week named parks chief Josh D’Amaro as Iger’s successor.)

LACMA previously announced that the north wing of the Geffen Galleries would be named in honor of the late former board co-chair Elaine Wynn, who contributed $50 million toward the construction project.

As LACMA looks to the future, Govan said the museum isn’t ruling out future expansion. But any additions would be off the Wilshire campus, in areas such as South L.A and the Valley.

The idea is, Govan continued, “Let’s change the model. Let’s just put the wings, you know, the rest of the museum, in other places and strategically located.”

The new David Geffen Galleries building is part of LACMA’s ambitious expansion plans.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Expansion, he said, is important for an encyclopedic museum, responsible for chronicling art history across many genres, geographies and media.

“If you’re the Frick and you only collect things of a certain period, you don’t have to expand,” Govan said. “But if your job is to keep up with the practice of artists and the world being bigger and bigger in terms of what people recognize as art, then you have to keep expanding.”

For now, though, he’s content to create a “big, beautiful gathering place” for Los Angeles.

“I always refer to our plaza as the living room for Los Angeles,” Govan said. “So this idea of the public space was so important from the beginning, and you see how the campus integrates with this.”

Zumthor’s building design, which includes overhanging canopies, intentionally creates shade with outdoor events in mind, the executive explained. It’s all about diversity of experience.

“You can take your selfie at ‘Urban Light.’ You can go to the jazz concerts, go see dozens of masterpieces outdoors… you can go inside somewhere and really focus quietly on a single work of art,” Govan said. “I wanted the range of all those experiences in a package where you wanted to hang out for the day.”

The picturesque village boasts 1,000 years of rich history, stunning churches and marvellous buildings, as well as a legendary haunted pub.

A picturesque Lancashire village renowned for its medieval heritage, stunning landscapes, and a celebrated pub with a spooky history is being praised as essential viewing by visitors.

Nestled between Ribble Valley and the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), this charming hamlet offers the perfect peaceful retreat, particularly for those passionate about history.

With origins stretching back at least 1,000 years, the serene village of Chipping features in the Domesday Book as Chippenden; the name stems from ‘Chepyn’ meaning ‘market place’.

The settlement experienced significant wealth in bygone eras, flourishing throughout the Industrial Revolution, when seven mills operated along Chipping Brook’s banks.

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Chipping possesses a fascinating and layered past, with its period buildings ranking among the village’s premier attractions.

Wandering through this delightful village feels remarkably like travelling back in time, with the scenic hamlet radiating an unmistakably medieval yet captivating atmosphere, reports Lancs Live.

Indeed, numerous stone cottages throughout the village date back to the 1600s and 1700s, enhancing its historical appeal.

St Bartholomew’s Church

The village of Chipping houses the 13th-century St Bartholomew’s Church, an active Anglican church with Grade II Listed status, positioned at the village centre and partially restored in 1505, 1706, and throughout the 19th Century.

St Bartholomew’s Church boasts an ancient yew tree within its grounds – a magnificent landmark renowned throughout the county – thought to be more than a century old.

A sundial from 1708 can also be discovered in the churchyard on the southern side of the main structure.

Open for private prayer daily between 10am and 3.30pm, this beautiful church has occupied its present site for more than 500 years and forms an integral part of Chipping’s medieval heritage.

St Mary’s Church

After the 16th-century Protestant Reformation, publicly practising Catholicism became unlawful, yet several local landowners who stayed Catholic proceeded to create a handful of worship centres on their properties.

One was in Chipping, founded by the Welds of Leagram Hall.

In 1827, George Weld donated funds and land to build the openly Catholic St Mary’s Church in Chipping village, just before Catholic Emancipation in 1829.

He also constructed an adjoining priest’s house and a school (now serving as a parish hall) around the same period, which remain standing as the buildings we observe in the village today.

Other medieval attractions

Another medieval site in Lancashire’s Chipping is Hesketh End on Judd Holmes Lane – a Grade I Listed Building originating from 1591 and the early 17th century, which underwent restoration in 1907.

The Grade II Listed Woolfen Hall, potentially dating back to the 16th century and nestled at the base of nearby Parlick Hill, is a must-see when visiting Chipping.

The village boasts two incredibly popular pubs: The Sun Inn, a welcoming yet infamously legendary 17th-century pub, sits unassumingly on the corner of Chipping’s main street, proudly displaying its rich history of spectral tales.

Chipping’s other well-loved watering hole is The Tillotson’s Arms on Talbot Street. Constructed around 1836 and historically known as the Buck Inn, it has since been renamed to The Tilly’s.

Dust off your cowboy hats, prepare your tequila shooters and saddle up: Carín León has just announced his 2026 North American tour.

The Grammy-winning Mexican singer-songwriter will kick off the tour May 20 with a performance in Hidalgo, Texas. Over the course of this summer and fall, the Sonoran crooner will visit major U.S. cities including Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and Chicago before wrapping up Oct. 9 in Portland, Ore.

In Los Angeles, the singer is expected to perform Sept. 20 at BMO Stadium, which accommodates over 20,000 fans for concerts.

The tour also includes his highly anticipated Las Vegas residency at the Sphere, which is already sold out on some dates. In September, León will make history as the first Latino artist to headline the one-of-a-kind venue, which will take place across seven nights in Sin City.

León is also doubling his stadium capacity for his singular Canada performance by moving to the TD Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario, which holds an audience of about 18,000; the “Primera Cita” singer first performed in 2024 at the Coca-Cola Coliseum in Toronto, which holds roughly 9,000 people.

“Returning to the United States and Canada to reunite with my people fills me with excitement. I’m returning with new songs and all the history we’ve built together,” said León in a statement. “We’re preparing a very special production so we can feel closer than ever. De Sonora para el mundo… see you soon, mi gente.”

The “Que Vuelvas” singer last toured the states in 2024 following the release of his critically-acclaimed “Boca Chueca, Vol. 1,” which earned him his first Grammy for música mexicana album in 2025.

News of the upcoming North American tour follows another Grammy win for the balladeer, who on Sunday took home the golden gramophone once more in the same category as last year, this time for his 2025 album “Palabra de To’s.”

Throughout his career, León has bent the rules of música mexicana by collaborating with artists across a variety of genres, from Latin pop stars like Maluma and Camilo to U.S. country singers like Kane Brown and Kacey Musgraves.

The 36-year-old has always stood firmly on the idea that música mexicana extends beyond the regional confines of Mexico, sharing with The Times in 2023 that “Mexican music is no longer regional — it’s only become more global.”

Ticket sales for his North American tour begin Feb. 11, but resellers beware! León will be using Openstage Ticket Unlocks, which will reward real fans with personalized presale codes to limit bots.

Bad Bunny is constantly making history. Last Sunday he broke a new record by winning album of the year at the Grammys for his 2025 album, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” which was the first fully Spanish-language album to claim the title; and come Feb. 8, a.k.a. Super Bowl Sunday, he’ll be the headlining act at the Super Bowl halftime show.

Yet he is also teaching history. Bad Bunny’s latest record is not only a celebration of Puerto Rico and its people, but it offers a window into some of the challenges the embattled territory is currently facing — including massive migration, displacement and an infrastructure on the brink of collapse. In a moment when education is under attack, both in the United States and Puerto Rico, Bad Bunny is using pop culture’s biggest stage to offer the world a history lesson. And in this political context, that matters greatly.

In December 2024, I was contacted by Bad Bunny’s team to produce 17 pages outlining Puerto Rican history, to pair with each song’s YouTube visualizer for “DTMF.” Altogether, they have been viewed more than 775 million times.

I later produced 40 slides jam-packed with historical and cultural facts about Puerto Rico, which were screened at Bad Bunny’s 31-show residency in San Juan. These ranged from facts about the history of women’s suffrage to the founding of Puerto Rico’s oldest punk band, La Experiencia de Toñito Cabanillas.

When Bad Bunny was announced as the NFL’s choice to headline the halftime show, I was hardly surprised by the backlash from conservatives — including multiple Fox News hosts, podcasters and even President Trump, who said, “I don’t know who he is. I don’t know why they’re doing it … [It’s] crazy.”

As communities of color celebrated on social media, critics raised two questions: Why would a Spanish-speaking artist — even if he is the most-streamed artist on Earth — be chosen for that stage? And why wouldn’t they choose a more patriotic, Anglo-American artist?

While undoubtedly xenophobic in nature, these questions highlight their acute ignorance about the place that birthed Bad Bunny, and its ongoing entanglement with the United States.

Puerto Rico was first colonized by the Spanish from 1493 until 1898, the year that the United States occupied the country as part of the Spanish-American War. Later, in 1917, Puerto Ricans became U.S. citizens through the Jones Law. Eventually, we drafted a constitution and became a Commonwealth of the United States in 1952. But there is never one single historical narrative.

What these facts occlude, however, is that Puerto Ricans are second-class citizens who cannot vote for the president — and those in the archipelago are not fully protected by the U.S. Bill of Rights. According to the U.S. Supreme Court’s early-20th century Insular Cases, we belong to the United States, but we are not part of it.

Put simply: We are a colony of the United States in the 21st century.

When drafting the historical narratives for “DTMF,” Bad Bunny understood that Puerto Rican history is often unknown, even to our own people. He was interested in making history available for those who don’t have access to higher education. He wanted me to write these narratives in a candid manner to be read by people in the barriadas y caserios (working-class neighborhoods and the projects). These were the places where I came of age in Puerto Rico.

With the success of “DTMF,” Puerto Rican history was amplified to the world. I’ve had countless conversations with journalists from around the globe, who marveled at how little they knew about Puerto Rico’s history or its relationship to the United States. This is precisely what I think drives those debates about language and who gets the right to claim Americanness — a lack of information.

And even though Bad Bunny is a U.S. citizen, conservatives have organized an alternative “All-American Halftime Show,” which reveals how “Americanness” is policed through language and race. This is the product of willful ignorance.

Puerto Rico’s history is also that of Latin American, Caribbean, United States and Latinx communities. I believe Bad Bunny’s performance will invite people to understand the beauty and complexity of our people’s history, even if it makes outsiders uncomfortable. That he will also be doing so entirely in Spanish in a moment when Latinx people in the United States are being arrested or interrogated by federal agents for speaking in Spanish — or simply for having an accent? That matters.

Of course, artists alone will not save us from the perils of racism and xenophobia — I learned that from my time in the punk community. We cannot just wait on anyone, especially not celebrities, to change institutions without some people power to back them up.

Yet given his enormous reach — just this week his latest album hit No. 1 on Apple Music in China — Bad Bunny has the power to move the cultural needle. And if there’s one thing to take from the Grammys ceremony last Sunday, it’s that he’s not alone — other artists have taken a stand on anti-immigrant violence. They are living up to the moment. That matters too.

So while conservatives organize their bland counter to the Super Bowl halftime show — with none other than Kid Rock as headliner — Bad Bunny will be offering the world a much more valuable history lesson, full of sazón, batería y reggaetón.

Jorell Meléndez-Badillo is the author of “Puerto Rico: A National History” and associate professor of Latin American and Caribbean History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

A TINY, curious European island changes nationality every six months – despite being completely uninhabited.

Governed by two different countries, Pheasant Island is the site of a very special historical event.

At only 200 metres long and 40 metres wide, it sits within the Bidasoa river.

Just 10 metres from Irun, Spain and 20 metres from Hendaye, France, Pheasant Island is jointly governed by both countries.

Despite it’s name, you won’t be able to find any pheasants on the island – just green crested mallards and migratory birds.

But at its centre lies an important piece of history.

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On Pheasant Island sits a monolith commemorating where the negotiations of the Treaty of the Pyrenees took place in November 7, 1659.

The monolith’s inscription is in Spanish on one side and French on the other.

This was a monumental moment as it marked the end of the Franco-Spanish War which had been raging on for over 24 years.

The occasion was also marked a year later by the marriage of French King Louis XIV and the daughter of King Philip IV, Maria Theresa of Spain.

This helped establish an agreed upon border between the two nations.

As a symbolic gesture of peace, the island is governed by Spain from February 1 to July 31, and by France from August 1 to January 31.

During the formal handover, both sides perform military dress parades around the monolith before peacefully switching governance.

Visitors are not allowed on the island, apart from during a few days, but this is limited to military personnel.

It does open occasionally on heritage open days although these are rare.

The island can sometimes be reached on foot from the Spanish side at Bidasoa’s low tide.

Recently, a growing number of migrants have been using the Bidasoa river to illegally cross from Spain to France.

Migrants have been spotted swimming across the river with some reportedly drowning due to the unpredictable currents in the tidal channel.

According to figures from Irungo Harrera Sarea, Irun’s NGO, an estimated 30 migrants arrive every day seeking passage north into France.

Talking to the BBC, Pía Alkain Sorondo, a local archaeologist, said: “This is still a place of new hope for so many, but it is also a death trap.”

MILAN — History didn’t begin in Italy, but it made a number of significant advances there. The foundations for representative government, the 365-day Julian calendar, modern sanitation, newspapers, roads and the postal system were established in Rome.

Centuries later, the rest of the world is still doing as the Romans do.

But if Rome is Italy’s past, Milan is its present and future.

It is the country’s financial center, home to the Italian stock exchange. It’s the world’s fashion center, home to luxury brands including Prada, Versace, Armani and Dolce & Gabbana. And it has one of the largest concentrations of millionaires in the world, one for every 12 of the city 1.37 million residents.

“It’s a city that’s becoming more global and global,” said Giorgio Ricci, the chief revenue officer for Inter Milan, the city’s top soccer club. “Milano is now a real ambassador of that Italian culture, from lifestyle to design to food and whatever.”

And now, like Rome in the summer of 1960, it also has the Olympic Games.

The Milan-Cortina Games are the first Olympics officially shared between two host cities and the most logistically complex Winter Games ever, taking place over 8,500 square miles of northern Italy. And though most of the medals will be awarded in the surrounding mountains at Cortina d’Ampezzo, Valtellina and Val di Fiemme, Milan will be the beating heart of the Games, much as it is the beating heart of the country.

The main opening ceremony will take place at San Siro, the 75,000-seat stadium that is home to the city’s two first-division soccer teams, Inter Milan and AC Milan. Figure skating, speedskating and men’s and women’s hockey will also be held at four other venues across the city.

San Siro in Milan will host the opening ceremonies for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics.

And that will happen, organizers say, whether the venues are ready or not — and one of them is not. The 11,800-seat Unipol Dome, which will be known as Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena during the Olympics, is one of just two competition venues that had to be constructed for the Games. It played host to the first games of the women’s hockey tournament Thursday despite the fact that construction crews were still administering the final touch-ups outside the building as Sweden was beating Germany in the opener.

“Do we have every area of that venue finished? No,” said Christophe Dubi, the International Olympic Committee‘s executive director for the Olympic Games said earlier this week. “Is it absolutely necessary for the Games? No. Everything that is public-facing, whether for media or athletes, will be first-class.”

Organizers certainly hope so because there’s a lot riding on these Games. If Milan can pull off an efficient, modern, sustainable and technologically “smart” event, it will reinforce the city’s status as one of the world’s top-tier global capitals, one with financial roots and a trendy multicultural image.

Fail in any one of those categories and Milan could suffer significant financial and reputational damage.

A singer busks late at night in Piazza del Doumo in Milan ahead of the Winter Olympic Games.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

The competition is expected to draw 2.5 million people to Milan — many of them first-time visitors — while generating more than $7 billion in economic activity. Much of that spending went to upgrade the city’s and regional rail lines, which are expected to be overwhelmed given the spread-out nature of the Games.

Days before the Olympic torch was lit at San Siro, Milan’s Piazza del Duomo, which fronts the city’s elaborate Gothic cathedral, was packed with Olympic visitors, many wearing sweatshirts and jackets bearing the flags of their homelands. NBC will anchor its 700 hours of linear TV coverage from a temporary studio tower built in the square, with the iconic church as its backdrop.

Around the corner along the Via Orefici, which dates to the Middle Ages, many of the neighborhood’s trendy boutiques have hung neon signs with the Games logo, proclaiming themselves proud sponsors of the Olympics. At night, a singer who calls herself Anna Soprano performs a solo street opera.

However many locals have failed to catch Olympic fever with high ticket prices and fears about traffic, security measures and crowded Metro trains dampening enthusiasm.

An opera singer performs in Milan ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics.

Buried beneath Milan’s rush to the modern from the Middle Ages — just beyond the Duomo Cathedral, which was begun in 1386, is the massive 15th Century Sforza Castle — lies a more recent history the city would just as soon forget. Milan was Italy’s Munich, the birthplace of Benito Mussolini’s fascist movement.

Yet it later became the center of anti-fascist resistance, with partisans seizing control of the city in the final days of World War II and executing Mussolini, hanging his corpse from the roof of an Esso station in the Piazzale Loreto. Milan marked that day by naming a prominent square in the city’s center April 25 Plaza for the day the uprising that liberated Milan began.

If Milan is modern Europe, some of the competition clusters outside the city, spread from Valtellina on the Swiss border in the north to Cortina d’Ampezzo, 27 miles south of the Austrian border, represent both the rustic and gentrifying Italy.

The scenic Fiemme Valley, site of cross-country skiing, ski jumping, and Nordic combined , is made up primarily of three small villages — Carano, Daiano and Varena — in the Dolomites mountain range. Despite a history of human activity that dates back more than 6,000 years, the area wasn’t officially established as the municipality of Val di Fiemme until the three townships merged in January 2020.

Today it is a major outdoor-sports destination, having played host to the FIS Nordic World Ski championship numerous times; in the summer it is a favored destination of hikers.

Valtellina, a 75-mile-long valley that runs along the Swiss border, will be the site of Alpine skiing, snowboarding, freestyle skiing and the debut sport of ski mountaineering. The region is known as the heart of the Alps and is a premier Alpine wine area, famous for the elegant reds that come from grapes grown on steep, terraced vineyards.

Cortina d’Ampezzo in northern Italy will host multiple events during the 2026 Olympics.

Cortina d’Ampezzo, meanwhile, is a breathtakingly beautiful ski resort and outdoor sports paradise about 35 miles from the Austrian border. Unlike Valtellina and Val di Fiemme, which are rustic and traditional, Cortina is one of Europe’s most expensive ski towns, its streets lined with high-end stores, luxury hotels and Michelin-starred restaurants. For year-round residents, property prices are the highest in the Italian Alps.

It was scheduled to host the 1944 Winter Olympics before World War II intervened, delaying the its arrival until 1956, when 32 nations — the largest to attend a Winter Games at the time — competed in four sports and 24 events. This month it will be the site of the biathlon, Alpine skiing, curling and sliding sports (bobsled, luge and skeleton).

The new $140-million Cortina Sliding Centre, the second Olympic venue whose construction fell well behind schedule, was completed days before the opening ceremony but a cable car intended to carry spectators to the women’s ski events was not expected to be finished in time. That could lead to traffic jams since visitors will have to take their cars more than a mile up the mountain.

PM calls for civil debate as government faces backlash over efforts to roll back policies to support Maori community.

New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour has rejected criticism of his claims that colonisation was positive for the country’s Indigenous Maori population.

Dozens of people started booing and shouting when Seymour stood on Friday to offer a prayer during a dawn service at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, where New Zealand’s founding document was signed in 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and more than 500 Maori Indigenous chiefs, setting out how the two sides would govern the country.

Seymour made his controversial comments that colonisation had been an overall positive experience for Indigenous people on Thursday during a speech to mark national Waitangi Day, an annual political gathering that gives Indigenous tribes a chance to air grievances.

“I’m always amazed by the myopic drone that colonisation and everything that’s happened in our country was all bad,” said Seymour, who is leader of the right-wing ACT Party and a member of the Maori community.

“The truth is that very few things are completely bad,” Seymour had said, according to local online news site Stuff.

Describing his hecklers on Friday as “a couple of muppets shouting in the dark”, Seymour said the “silent majority up and down this country are getting a little tired of some of these antics”.

Following Seymour’s prayer on Friday, left-wing Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins was also loudly jeered by those in attendance.

On Thursday, Indigenous leader Eru Kapa-Kingi told parliamentarians “this government has stabbed us in the front,” and the previous Labour government had “stabbed us in the back”.

Seymour’s government has been accused of seeking to wind back special rights given to the country’s 900,000-strong Maori population, who were dispossessed of their land during British colonisation and remain far more likely to die early, live in poverty or be imprisoned compared with the country’s non- Indigenous population.

Controversial legislation that was tabled last year seeking to reinterpret the treaty’s principles and roll back policies designed to address inequalities experienced by Indigenous people led to protests and failed after two of the three governing parties did not vote for it.

Speaking on Friday, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon called for national unity and for steps to address challenges faced by the Maori community.

Luxon also said the national debate over the legacy of British colonisation should remain civil.

“We don’t settle our differences through violence. We do not turn on each other; we turn towards the conversation. We work through our differences,” Luxon said in a social media post.

Denial about the destructive legacy of colonialism and its connection to contemporary challenges faced by Indigenous communities remains a frequent subject of contentious debate in former colonies around the world, including Australia and New Zealand.

Photograph by unknown author. “Trabajadores petroleros,” Fernando Irazábal Collection. Compiled by Archivo Fotografía Urbana.

On January 29, Venezuela experienced a legislative tectonic shift regarding the future of its hydrocarbon sector. The National Assembly approved a new petroleum law that effectively breaks with the post-1976 tradition of rigid state control, opening participation across the full value chain to private oil companies. 

This is not the first experiment with private participation since nationalization, but it is the clearest attempt since the 1990s Apertura to normalize it as the governing framework of the sector. The legislation, approved with striking speed and opacity, has elicited mixed reactions, ranging from denunciations of lost sovereignty and surrender to foreign interests to support for a first step that still requires major fixes. Despite these divergences, one thing is clear: the return of private companies to Venezuela’s oil sector inevitably revives parallels with the concessionary system under which the industry was born and flourished between 1914 and 1976, a mirror of what Venezuela’s energy sector could become in the twenty-first century.

The 1943 and 2026 hydrocarbons laws

The iconic 1943 bill enacted by President Isaías Medina Angarita (1941–1945) regulated Venezuela’s privately run oil industry until the 1976 nationalization. It became the institutional template of the concessionary era: a rules-and-taxes state overseeing a privately operated industry. Together with related legislation, it established the famous 50/50 profit-sharing arrangement with the state, later tightened by reforms. Yet within the 1943 framework, the rentier state largely confined itself to setting the rules and collecting taxes and rents, while private companies assumed the capital risks. There was no government monopoly over day-to-day operations.

In spirit, the 2026 law reintroduces comparable conditions for private capital. Petroleum companies can now either hold operational control in joint ventures with the state or carry out activities independently through government contracts. The 1943 and 2026 frameworks also embrace flexible royalty schemes that prioritize business viability over rigid tax burdens. Differences, of course, abound. To mention a few, the 2026 version concentrates discretionary power in the executive branch regarding royalties, opens the possibility of international arbitration outside the country, simplifies the tax burden into a 15% integrated hydrocarbons tax, and diminishes the National Assembly’s authority over oil business.

The Venezolanization pioneered by firms like the Creole Petroleum Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell, Mene Grande Oil Company, and many others also became an exercise in social integration.

Divergences aside, both pieces of legislation share the same underlying imperative: attracting capital and technology. The 1976 and 2001 hydrocarbons laws, by contrast, were designed precisely to limit private initiative. But investment alone will not do all the work. Human capital is also desperately needed to lead a reborn hydrocarbon sector, and here the concessions model offers valuable lessons.

The Venezolanization of the industry

An underappreciated dimension of that era was human capital development. Over decades, foreign firms trained Venezuelans across the corporate hierarchy—in technical, managerial, and executive roles—so that by the mid-1970s expatriates were a small fraction of the workforce and Venezuelans increasingly ran the day-to-day business. This created a pipeline of local talent able to inherit operational responsibility and manage the 1976 transition to state control with unusual continuity.

This history is not nostalgia for a bygone era, but a lesson worth highlighting. Venezuela’s oil collapse in this century is inseparable from the degradation of corporate culture and human capital, deepened by the politicization of the industry. It triggered a professional brain drain and the hollowing out of operational efficiency. Multinationals like Chevron, and others that may follow, should explicitly lean on a “Venezolanization 2.0” that engages local talent still in the country and encourages the return of a diaspora of Venezuelan managers and engineers now abroad. Insulating the sector from partisan hiring and purging is essential if these cadres are to operate with full competence.

The Venezolanization pioneered by firms like the Creole Petroleum Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell, Mene Grande Oil Company, and many others also became an exercise in social integration. Many American expatriates, like Creole’s CEO Arthur T. Proudfit, embraced the social milieu of the country that welcomed them, often learning the language and speaking it fluently; his daughter even married a local businessman. In exchange, Venezuelans trained abroad and working for these firms absorbed US professional values and traditions. This cultural exchange helped forge durable bonds between both countries and contributed to the successful presence of foreign capital in Venezuela. And these corporations did not stop at their payrolls. They understood that long-term success in the hydrocarbon sector extended beyond employees to the surrounding communities of the oil fields, and beyond.

Social license

Creole, Shell, and Mene Grande undertook significant investments in the country. In the oilfields, they negotiated lucrative labor contracts with unions. They also financed hospitals, university campuses, and other infrastructure projects. These firms even joined the state in ventures like the Venezuelan Basic Economy Corporation to fund agro-industrial projects aimed at diversifying the economy, while supporting rural communities through initiatives such as the American International Association. They left an indelible imprint on everyday life, from how Venezuelans shopped through market chains like CADA, to culture through documentaries, corporate magazines, and even TV news programs like Observador Creole.

More importantly, they built alliances with domestic capitalists like Eugenio Mendoza to address social problems. Creole and Venezuelan business leaders, for instance, institutionalized private-sector social action through organizations like the Dividendo Voluntario para la Comunidad (DVC), founded in 1964 to mobilize corporate contributions toward community projects. This nonprofit continues to exist today, fulfilling the original goal of social action bequeathed by American and Venezuelan businessmen more than sixty years ago. Creole also created the Creole Development Corporation, a financial arm designed to provide seed capital for local entrepreneurial activity. This was hardly a frictionless era, but it shows how legitimacy was treated as a condition of stability.

Contributions to health, schools, and infrastructure would also ease the state’s burden and allow it to focus on critical nation-building emergencies.

This largesse reached widely, but it was not mere corporate charity. To avoid jeopardizing their operations and invite nationalist backlash, companies engaged with surrounding communities and invested in their future. That is a lesson new capital arriving in Venezuela should pursue. There is even generational memory favorable to the presence of these firms in oil communities. 

Leveraging that legacy could open renewed opportunities for local professional growth while strengthening bonds between communities and multinationals. Contributions to health, schools, and infrastructure would also ease the state’s burden and allow it to focus on critical nation-building emergencies: democratizing institutions, reconstructing the economy, and addressing the public services and humanitarian needs the population faces.

A spiritual return to the concessions system?

The new hydrocarbons law pushes Venezuela’s oil industry in a new direction, and it functions as a first step in the right path. However, there is room for significant improvement. 

Moreover, key questions remain unanswered. For instance, what will be the fate of PDVSA? Any plan that fails to address the resurrection of its operational capabilities undermines the development of an efficient sector. Only the re-democratization of the country can properly confront the deeper failings reflected in the current legislation. Many industry experts have already proposed an alternative framework that would solve several of the bill’s core problems by establishing clear rules, transparency mechanisms, and a dedicated government agency entrusted with regulating the hydrocarbon sector.

The spirit of the concessionary model walks once more around Venezuela’s refineries, port terminals, and petroleum wells. It is too soon to tell whether foreign capital will return with the same excitement it brought more than a century ago, or whether the scale of investments and engagement with surrounding communities will match that of its predecessors. The sector can either become a platform for institutional rebuilding and professionalization, or another discretionary channel for rents and corruption. 

Democracy, check and balances, and clear rules can turn the 2026 hydrocarbons law (and its potential future modifications) into enduring principles for the remainder of the century. If so, the oil industry might unlock a new period of prosperity. Much remains to be done to materialize that future, but what is undeniable is that a new era begins.

Hello and happy Thursday. I’m Times columnist Anita Chabria, filling in for Washington bureau chief Michael Wilner. Today we are talking about circling the drain, and whether its possible to escape the flush after the swirl has started.

Yes, I’m talking about President Trump’s latest latest grab at the levers of power, and whether it will pull us all down. Trump floated the existentially disturbing idea recently that the federal government should “take over” elections.

“The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting,” Trump said Monday on a podcast, making no attempt to keep election integrity nonpartisan.

This came shortly after the federal government raided a Georgia election office, still doggedly pursuing the very fake conspiracy that the 2020 vote was rigged against Trump. Lurking in the background of photos of that abuse of power was Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, a longtime peddler of conspiracy theories including that Ukraine housed secret U.S. biolabs.

It’s not just possible but likely that Gabbard will find “evidence” of fraud in Georgia because she has been claiming election interference since at least 2016 and reality has seemingly never been an impediment to her beliefs.

So some sort of report or “proof” probably will appear in coming months that Trump was right all along and that Democrats have tricked us all by stealing votes across the country.

That will be the basis for Trump to demand Congress “secure” the midterm election, and we all know how good they are at standing up to him.

But before we go there, let’s do a quick refresher on how Democrats supposedly steal elections, because that’s at the heart of what comes next.

It’s the immigrants, stupid

Trump (drawing from preexisting conspiracy theories promoted by many folks he has now placed in powerful positions) blames undocumented immigrants for his loss in 2020.

Under a long-running conservative election fraud hoax, Democrats allegedly made some sort of secret deal to allow Black and brown immigrants to illegally enter the country, if they would then promise to illegally vote en masse for Democrats.

“If we don’t get them out, Republicans will never win another election,” Trump said on that same podcast. “These people were brought to our country to vote and they vote illegally, and it is amazing that the Republicans are not tougher on it.”

This narrative has been proven false literally dozens if not hundreds of times in courts across the country, and by the rational minds of those who understand how impossible it would be for a conspiracy of this magnitude and complexity to go undetected — much less actually work.

Long before Harmeet Dhillon, the San Francisco Bay Area lawyer now demanding voter data as head of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, used her official power to pursue this false conspiracy, she spent years upon years filing lawsuits and doing media appearances making the same claims.

And time and again, she and others were swatted down by courts (and common sense and evidence) because illegal immigrants working in collusion with Democrats to steal the vote is not a real thing.

But now election deniers are in power, and the gravitational pull away from truth is accelerating. Conspiracy is reality as we get closer to the ballot box.

ICE them out

And if immigrants indeed are stealing elections in between raping our women and eating cats and dogs, there is an answer: ICE.

Who better to secure ballot boxes than a masked, terrifyingly unaccountable armed federal force of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that maybe answers only to Corey Lewandowski (the shadowy political operative always at Kristi Noem’s side) and Stephen Miller?

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that Kavanaugh stops — basically stopping folks for living while brown or Black — are legal, these agents have probable cause galore. Add to that a new, legally unfounded directive that they can detain folks at will, without a warrant, and you have the perfect force to suppress an election.

Imagine if on election day, ICE roams the street in Democratic-leaning, nonwhite neighborhoods, stopping and even detaining folks as they go to polls. Demanding papers, dragging away dissenters.

“Your damn right,” Trump hanger-oner Steve Bannon said recently, “We’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November. We’re not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again. And you can whine and cry and throw your toys out of the pram all you want, but we will never again allow an election to be stolen.”

Would you go to the polls in that scenario? Would you allow your 18-year-old to go or your elderly parent? I’d think twice, even as crucial as this vote is.

And here’s a bit of outrage you can aim at Democrats: Congressional leadership considered including a ban on ICE at polling places as part of their proposed deal to keep government funded — but didn’t. Once again, for those in the back, Democrats could have tried to stop this, but chose not to.

But wait! That’s not all!

Why can’t we just mail in our ballots, you ask. Well, that would be because changes by Trump to the U.S. Postal Service, and how ballots may be counted, are going to make it harder to ensure that mail-in ballots are received and counted as they traditionally have been handled. So mailing your ballot may work out fine, or may not.

And there you have it, that’s how a free and fair democracy spins into the vortex of authoritarianism, where elections are held, ballots are counted, but reality is lost.

You are antigravity

But folks, we are not there yet. Today is not that day!

There are things you can do, aside from peacefully protesting. People can start to make sure that their identification is in order (as Orwellian as that sounds) and help others to do so as well.

It’s likely that in some places at least, voter identification laws will make it harder to cast a ballot, and people will need to start getting birth certificates, Social Security cards or other paperwork now in order to comply with those rules. Ask who in your community needs that kind of help and how you can provide it.

People are going to need ways to vote in person and support doing it. If you are an employer, would you consider giving folks time off to vote, since poll lines may be long? Would you sign up to help those without transportation get to polls? Would you help with voter registration drives to get people signed up to vote?

And you can be certain that election conspiracy believers will be observing the vote, as they always do. Can you train now to be a responsible and fair poll watcher, to ensure there is balance and fairness in these observations?

The one thing we can’t do is believe Trump is unstoppable, that the point of no return has already passed, and democracy is flowing out the sewer pipes into the sea. In fact, we have 271 days to reverse this.

It will take mass participation on multiple levels — but it can be done.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Supreme Court, with no dissents, rejects GOP challenge to California’s new election map
The deep dive: Fulton County in Georgia Challenges the F.B.I.’s Seizure of 2020 Ballots
The L.A. Times Special: California doctor sent abortion pills to Texas woman. Under a new law, her boyfriend is suing

Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

P.S. Jeff Bezos Wednesday gutted his newspaper, the Washington Post. Its motto is “Democracy dies in darkness,” but also, democracy dies in layoffs by billionaires who can afford to send their wives into space for fun, but don’t want to pay for journalism that criticizes a dear leader.

—
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This charming Lancashire village in the Forest of Bowland with no mobile reception is the ideal weekend getaway

Nestled within the moorland wilderness of the Forest of Bowland – designated an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB) in 1964 – lies a captivating, lesser-known village that seems virtually frozen in time.

Boasting magnificent stone buildings, this charming Lancashire village is considered the perfect retreat for anyone seeking to escape the frenetic pace of urban living and disconnect for a while.

Situated at the heart of the Trough of Bowland, this picturesque hamlet offers practically no mobile phone signal, adding to its timeless character, but makes up for its lack of connectivity with plentiful charm, offering visitors countless activities as they discover the locale.

The peaceful village of Slaidburn has plenty to offer and makes an ideal starting point for walkers and cyclists, owing to its closeness to the varied landscape and breathtaking rural views that encircle it, reports Lancs Live.

Must-see 15th-century church

Among the key attractions in Slaidburn is the village’s Grade I Listed church located at its centre.

A functioning Anglican church, St Andrew’s Church is built from sandstone and originates from the 15th century, making it a superb afternoon stop for visitors, particularly history enthusiasts.

Constructed in the Gothic architectural tradition, the church was established in 1450, though it experienced several modifications during the 18th Century. The eastern wall of the church was completely reconstructed in 1866.

This historic building, steeped in a rich past and heritage, boasts unique pews, an uncommon three-tier pulpit, and a striking chancel screen. It’s also noted for its ‘quantity of good early woodwork’.

Venturing outside, the churchyard houses a sandstone cross shaft with Grade II Listed status, likely dating back to the 16th century, adorned with carved detailing on its upper part.

The churchyard is also the final resting place of a Duke of Wellington’s Regiment soldier who lost his life during World War I.

Why this delightful village is worth a visit

Slaidburn is a perfect spot for outdoor enthusiasts and history aficionados.

A poignant war memorial takes centre stage in the village – a solitary soldier with a bowed head atop a hexagonal plinth – and visitors often remark on the touching tribute to the fallen.

Visitors to Slaidburn can unwind with a brew and a piece of freshly baked cake at the quaint Riverbank tearoom, an ideal pit-stop for cyclists and walkers needing a break.

Indeed, it’s fair to say that Slaidburn is one of those villages where the charm lies in the small details of life.

Nestled among the Forest of Bowland fells, Slaidburn is reached via a narrow, winding mountain pass.

A stroll through this charming village reveals a historic water fountain and a display of Victorian footwear, featuring clogs and ice-skating boots. Another significant structure in Slaidburn is the Ellerbeck Hall.

The Hark to Bounty Inn, a 16th-century pub and Grade II Listed building, stands at the village’s centre, featuring oak-beamed ceilings, a spacious bar area and an adjoining snug room ideal for gatherings.

The pub, a cherished cornerstone of the community, is presently shut, according to the final update from its former landlords of more than 25 years in October 2024.

Slaidburn’s charm stems from its capacity to offer both tranquil unwinding and adventure – all within its picturesque confines, establishing it as a perfect countryside retreat.

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MEXICO CITY — Historians and observers accused the Trump administration of trying to rewrite American history to justify its own foreign policy decisions toward Latin America by posting a “historically inaccurate” version of the Mexican-American war.

The Monday statement from the White House commemorating the anniversary of the war described the conflict as a “legendary victory that secured the American Southwest, reasserted American sovereignty, and expanded the promise of American independence across our majestic continent.” The statement drew parallels between the period in U.S. history and its own increasingly aggressive policies toward Latin America, which it said would “ensure the Hemisphere remains safe.”

“Guided by our victory on the fields of Mexico 178 years ago, I have spared no effort in defending our southern border against invasion, upholding the rule of law, and protecting our homeland from forces of evil, violence, and destruction,” the statement said, though it was unsigned.

In the post, the White House makes no mention of the key role slavery played in the war and glorifies the wider “Manifest Destiny” period, which resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Native Americans from their land.

Sparking criticism

Alexander Aviña, Latin American history professor at Arizona State University, said the White House statement “underplays the massive amounts of violence that it took to expand” the U.S. to the Pacific shore at a time when the Trump administration has stuck its hand in Latin American affairs in a way not seen in decades, deposing Venezuela’s president, meddling in elections and threatening military action in Mexico and other countries.

“U.S. political leaders since then have seen this as an ugly aspect of U.S. history, this is a pretty clear instance of U.S. imperialism against its southern neighbor,” Aviña said. “The Trump administration is actually embracing this as a positive in U.S. history and framing it – inaccurately historically – as some sort of defensive measure to prevent the Mexico from invading them.”

On Tuesday, criticisms of the White House statement quickly rippled across social media.

Asked about the statement in her morning news briefing, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum guffawed, quipping and noting “we have to defend sovereignty.” Sheinbaum, who has walked a tight rope with the Trump administration, has responded to Trump with a balanced tone and occasionally with sarcasm, like when Trump changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

Historical sticking point

The Mexican-American war (1846–1848) was triggered by long-running border disputes between the U.S. and Mexico and the United States’ annexation of Texas in 1845. For years leading up to the war, Americans had gradually moved into the then-Mexican territory. Mexico had banned slavery and U.S. abolitionists feared the U.S. land grab was in part an attempt to add slave states.

After fighting broke out and successive U.S. victories, Mexico ceded more than 525,000 square miles of territory — including what now comprises Arizona, California, western Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and Utah — to the U.S.

The moment turned Texas into a key chess piece during the U.S. Civil War and led former President Ulysses S. Grant to write later that the conflict with Mexico was “one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.”

The Associated Press was formed when five New York City newspapers funded a pony express route through Alabama to bring news of the Mexican War — as it is sometimes known in the U.S. — north faster than the U.S. Post Office could deliver it.

The war continues to be a historical sticking point between the two countries, particularly as Sheinbaum repeatedly reminds Trump that her country is a sovereign nation whenever Trump openly weighs taking military action against Mexican cartels and pressures Mexico to bend to its will.

Rewriting history

The White House statement falls in line with wider actions taken by the Trump administration to mold the federal government’s language around its own creed, said Albert Camarillo, history professor at Stanford University, who described the statement as a “distorted, ahistorical, imperialist version” of the war.

Aviña said the statement serves “to assert rhetorically that the U.S. is justified in establishing its so-called ‘America First’ policy throughout the Americas,” regardless of the historical accuracy.

The Trump administration has ordered the rewriting of history on display at the Smithsonian Institution, saying it was “restoring truth and sanity to American history.”

The administration has scrubbed government websites of history, legal records and data it finds disagreeable. Trump also ordered the government to remove any signs that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living,” including those making reference to slavery, destruction of Native American cultures and climate change.

“This statement is consistent with so many others that attempt to whitewash and reframe U.S. history and erase generations of historical scholarship,” Camarillo said.

Janetsky writes for the Associated Press.

You may have read recently how minions of the Trump administration removed an exhibit about slavery from the President’s House in Philadelphia (where George Washington lived, with slaves) as part of its ongoing sop to MAGA sensitivities and campaign to erase history in favor of a fairy tale in which the worst thing Washington ever did was chop down a cherry tree.

The study of history is by nature messy, replete with conflicting interpretations and incomplete puzzles, but it’s what you need to know in order not to repeat it. PBS, lately defunded by conservatives but not disassembled, is among the institutions working to bring it to the people — indeed, the only television outlet seriously devoted to it. (History Channel is just a name.) Premiering Tuesday and continuing weekly is the four-part series “Black and Jewish America: An Interwoven History,” presented by Henry Louis Gates Jr., at the start of what happens to be Black History Month.

Gates, who also hosts the PBS genealogy series “Finding Your Roots,” has presented such documentaries as “Africa’s Great Civilizations” and “Great Migrations: A People on the Move,” has made cameo appearances in HBO’s “Watchmen” series and “The Simpsons.” He teaches at Harvard and is a well-known public figure — a history communicator, scholar and storyteller and a minor TV star the world also knows as “Skip.” Even-tempered and even-handed, he’s a good guide through the minefields of racial history — he keeps you from blowing up. You might find yourself angry at the material, but not with Gates.

“Under the floorboards of Western culture run two streams, continuously,” he says. “One is antisemitism, one is anti-Black racism,” whose purpose here is to explore “the areas of overlap.” They aren’t the only victims of bigotry in American history and modern America; Italians and Irish immigrants had their turn, too. White supremacy, which is very much alive in the land — turn on the news — disdains every people of color. But as people who shared the experience of being “mocked and feared, blamed and banished, envied and imitated,” often allied, sometimes antagonists, theirs is a special case.

Gates has assembled a stimulating, illuminating, maddening, saddening, but often inspiring, story of their relations with the world and one another. (Here and there he reaches a little outside his theme.) At 75, he’s lived through a good slice of the history illuminated here, including “our brief golden age” of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, and though he structures his series as a pendulum swinging between worse and better news, he scrupulously bookends it in a hopeful mood, with a Seder to start and a discussion with students to end. His insistence that no one is safe until everyone is safe, can seem to portend a future in which no one will ever be safe, though as a teacher I assume he’s more sanguine. His manner, at least, is encouraging.

The Seder, which begins with a singing of “Go Down Moses (Let My People Go),” gathers a tableful of Black, white and biracial Jews — each distinguished enough to have their own Wikipedia pages — in a roundtable discussion. Participants include New Yorker editor David Remnick, author Jamaica Kincaid, journalist Esther Fein, rabbi Shais Rishon, Angela Buchdahl (the first East Asian American to be ordained as a rabbi); and culinary historian Michael Twitty, who provides the doubly meal — kosher salt collard greens, West African brisket and potato kugel with sweet and white potatoes and Creole spice.

Though both Jews and Black people faced (and face) discrimination, their American journeys were launched, says Gates, “on different trajectories,” one group chased from nominally Christian countries, the subject of durable medieval superstitions, the other dragged from their homes. Though the mass of Jewish migration, escaping Russian pogroms and Nazi Germany in succeeding waves, occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, some arrived before the revolution; but the Constitution, which enshrined religious freedom, granted them legal rights. (This presumably did not help the Jews of African descent Gates says were present here early on.) Black people, kidnapped and enslaved, had none, and as freedom was gained, new laws were written to hold them in place.

Gates posits a sympathy between immigrant and first- and second-generation Jewish Americans in the 20th century and disadvantaged Black people, based on a common experience of oppression; Jewish newspapers used the word “pogrom” to describe violence against Black people in the South. And Jews, many raised with a sense of social justice, were disproportionately represented among white activists in the Civil Rights Movement. This would change: Where Martin Luther King declared “I’m more convinced than ever before that our destiny is tied up with the destiny of our Jewish brothers and vice versa, and we must work together,” later Black activists, like Stokely Carmichael preferred to go it alone, promoting self-determination and even separation.

Still, many of the stories here are based on Black and Jewish friendships. We learn of W. E. B. Du Bois and Joel Spingarn, who sat together on the board of the NAACP and to whom Du Bois dedicated his 1940 autobiography “Dusk of Dawn.” Of Tuskegee Institute founder Booker T. Washington and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, a president of Sears, Roebuck and Co., who built schools — more than 5,000 nationally, eventually — for systemically disadvantaged Black students. (Graduates included Maya Angelou and John Lewis.) Of Chicago rabbi Abraham Heschel, bringing 15 other white rabbis down to Selma, Ala., in 1964 at the request of King, where their arrest made headlines — which translated to political pressure.

In music, we meet Louis Armstrong, who as a boy worked and stayed with a Jewish family, and wore a Star of David, and his manager Joe Glaser. We’re told the story of Billie Holiday‘s lynching ballad “Strange Fruit,” written by Abel Meeropol (under his pseudonym Lewis Allan), recorded by Milt Gabler for his Commodore label and performed regularly by Holiday at Barney Josephson’s Cafe Society, New York’s first truly integrated nightclub. And we hear Paul Robeson, daring to sing in Yiddish in a concert in Moscow, in support of Itzik Feffer, a Jewish poet imprisoned (and later murdered) by the Soviets.

As a social and political history covering two intersecting storylines for more than the length of the nation, it’s packed with incident and facts — the Klan resurgent after World War I (six million members, it says here); the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where Jesse Owens triumphed and the U.S. committee pulled two Jewish sprinters from competition; racist Nazi policies, borrowed from American Jim Crow, and the Holocaust. Also the domestic destabilizing effects of wars in the Middle East. Jews and Black people will find themselves on the opposite sides of some questions.

Even at four hours, it’s a survey course, streamlined but not simplistic, and as such it will fly through some points and elide others; there are whole volumes dedicated elsewhere to what constitutes a single sentence here, and libraries dedicated to some of these figures. (Why not read some?) The view is not singular, and as such, there’ll be something for everyone to question, especially as Jews and Black people are often described as a community, when neither is heterogeneous. (Jews don’t even agree on what makes a Jew.)

But whatever goes back and forth between then, the world has its own ideas. “People who hate Jews,” says Gates, “uncannily hate Black people too. Because when the stuff hits the fan, they’re coming after both of us.”

This charming village in the South Pennines near the Peak District is ideal for walkers and cyclists to explore stunning landscapes and historic tunnel

Nestled beside the River Colne in the South Pennines, right on the edge of the Peak District, sits this delightful town – an ideal getaway for ramblers and cycling enthusiasts.

Visitors heading to the Yorkshire Moors or Peak District frequently bypass the village of Marsden, yet it serves as an excellent base for exploration. Boasting scenic countryside walks and numerous spots to take a breather or enjoy a refreshing pint, it occupies a prime position, with fascinating landmarks practically on the doorstep.

Among the attractions drawing travellers is the stunning Marsden Moor, which stretches across more than 5,000 acres of National Trust-protected countryside. A local shared their thoughts about regular visits to the moor on TripAdvisor.

They said: “I’m lucky enough to live in Marsden, so I’m on the moors pretty much every week with the dogs or the local running club I run for.

“There are stunning walks, trails, waterfalls and plenty of reservoirs, and plenty of tracks to walk and run on. It’s never really busy, as it’s such a big area.”

Another walker shared: “Walk on the wild side. This is a beautiful and very lonely part of the countryside not far from our home. We regularly walk the dog and enjoy some quiet time up here.

“Winderness, well not quite, but you might not meet many people up here. Beautiful.”

Numerous walkers opt for the stunning Stanza Stones Trail, a 47-mile long-distance path connecting Marsden to Ilkley whilst weaving local landmarks throughout the journey.

The trek features six poems carved into stone, all penned by the locally acclaimed Poet Laureate Simon Armitage.

Yet what truly remains a precious jewel of this village is the Standedge Tunnel, which dates from 1794.

It stands magnificently as Britain’s longest, deepest and highest canal tunnel – a remarkable example of Georgian engineering prowess. The complete construction of this exceptional structure required 17 years in total and reached completion in 1811.

Its importance also lies in the fact it was created entirely through hand-blasting methods, cutting through solid rock without any towpath. It sits 683 feet below ground level, positioned 196 metres above sea level, and continues to hold British records in 2026.

Following your stroll, you can return to the village heart, where numerous pubs await your arrival. TripAdvisor visitors have rated Riverhead Brewery Tap as the locality’s premier dining and drinking establishment, with one patron describing their experience as “simply superb”.

Another commented: “Outstanding pub the service and beer were exceptional. Anyone coming to Marsden needs to go to the Riverhead; their choice of beer is amazing, and it’s brewed on site as well.”

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There are plenty of ways to celebrate Black History Month here in Los Angeles, whether you’re looking to honor jazz innovators like Miles Davis or recognize those who are making history now, including a Black woman-founded grocery store that provides organic vegan produce to South L.A. neighborhoods.

This year marks the centennial celebration of Black history across the United States — though that time frame spans only a fragment of how long African Americans have been contributing to this country.

In 1926, historian Carter G. Woodson and the Assn. for the Study of Negro Life and History spearheaded the first celebration of Negro History Week during the second week of February, overlapping with Frederick Douglass’ birthday on Feb. 14 — to encourage the study of African American history. President Gerald Ford officially designated February as Black History Month in 1976, during the U.S. Bicentennial.

The culinary achievements of Black Americans are countless, from the early cooks who codified the foundations of Southern cuisine to activists who launched affordable food hubs in underserved neighborhoods and restaurateurs helming some of the best restaurants in the country.

Here are 15 ways to celebrate Black History Month 2026 deliciously in Los Angeles.

Jordan Stolz will be trying to win multiple gold medals in speedskating the Milan Cortina Olympic Games.

(Morry Gash / Associated Press)

Since making his Olympic debut at 17, Stolz has become a star in international speedskating. He was the first man to win three world championships in one year in 2023 and repeated in the 500, 1,000 and 1,500 meters in 2024. He also competes in the team pursuit. U.S. speedskating has several medal contenders, including two-time Olympic bronze medalist Brittany Bowe and gold medalist Erin Jackson, who became the first Black woman to win an individual gold medal at the Winter Olympics in 2022.

History was made in more than one way at Sunday night’s 68th Grammy Awards.

Bad Bunny’s “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” won album of the year — the first Spanish-language LP to take the Recording Academy’s highest honor. Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s “Luther” was named record of the year, making Lamar the winningest rapper in Grammy history (and just the fourth artist to go back-to-back for the record prize). Then there were Billie Eilish and her brother, Finneas O’Connell, who took song of the year with “Wildflower”; they’re now the only songwriters with three wins in that prestigious category.

To go by demographics, the ceremony clearly embodied the diversity gains the academy has been saying proudly are happening among its 15,000 voting members. But if new kinds of faces are becoming Grammy darlings, the music they’re being recognized for still upholds many of the academy’s old values. A night for making history was also a night for reveling in it.

Take “Luther,” a soulful hip-hop slow jam built on a prominent sample of Luther Vandross and Cheryl Lynn’s 1982 rendition of a love song Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell recorded in the late 1960s — an intricate piece of lineage-making meant to bridge multiple generations.

Olivia Dean performs.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

“First and foremost, let’s give a shout-out to the late, great Luther Vandross,” the producer Sounwave said as he, Lamar, SZA and the song’s other creators accepted their award at Crypto.com Arena. (Before they made it onstage, Cher misread the card identifying “Luther” as record of the year and said that Vandross himself had won.) Lamar added, “This is what music is about,” and expressed his gratitude for being allowed “the privilege” to use Vandross’ music as long as he and SZA promised the singer’s estate not to curse on their record.

You can hear a similar reverence for those who came before in Olivia Dean, the 26-year-old British singer named best new artist on the strength of her hit “The Art of Loving” LP, which looks back to the gleaming pop-soul of Diana Ross and Whitney Houston.

Even Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican rapper and singer who became a superstar at the bleeding edge of reggaeton and Latin trap, achieved his Grammy breakthrough with something of a throwback move: “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” is an exactingly arranged tribute to his native island, with elements of Puerto Rican folk styles such as bomba and plena and more hand-played instrumentation than he utilized for 2022’s sleek “Un Verano Sin Ti,” which scored a Grammy nomination for album of the year but lost to “Harry’s House” by Harry Styles (who, as it happens, presented the album prize Sunday).

Part of Bad Bunny’s success this year can be attributed to the fact that he’s a far bigger celebrity than he was three years ago; indeed, his Grammy triumph impressively sets up the halftime performance he’ll give this coming weekend at Super Bowl LX. But not unlike Beyoncé’s rootsy “Cowboy Carter,” which finally brought her a win for album of the year in 2025 after a number of outrage-inducing defeats, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” is also primo Grammy bait: a work steeped in tradition from a natural innovator.

SZA backstage.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

For years, the Grammys’ rearview gaze used to bum me out — and, to be honest, as lovely as Eilish’s “Wildflower” is, her song of the year win with the tender acoustic ballad felt like a failure of imagination among voters I wish had recognized the hurtling exuberance of “Golden,” from Netflix’s “KPop Demon Hunters.” (“Golden” did take the prize for song written for visual media, which made it the first K-pop tune to win a Grammy.)

Yet something about Sunday’s ceremony made it hard to get too worked up about all the historicizing. Perhaps it was how plainly yet passionately many artists used their time onstage to speak about the issues pressing on us right now. “Before I say thanks to God, I’m gonna say: ICE out,” Bad Bunny told the crowd as he accepted an award for música urbana album. “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans.”

Lady Gaga on the red carpet.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

Eilish said, “No one is illegal on stolen land.” Dean pointed out that she’s the granddaughter of an immigrant and that “those people deserve to be celebrated.”

I was also moved by how personal so much of the music felt — a cry of imperfection like Lola Young’s “Messy,” for instance, which she performed by herself on piano and which won pop solo performance in an upset over the likes of Lady Gaga and Sabrina Carpenter. “I don’t know what I’m gonna say because I don’t have any speech prepared,” she yelled into the microphone as she received her trophy. “Obviously, I don’t — it’s messy, do you know what I mean?”

Weirdly for a show with yesterday so heavily on its mind, a tribute to the late R&B trailblazers Roberta Flack and D’Angelo was a disappointment, with Lauryn Hill as bandleader moving way too quickly (in way too short an allotted time) through songs that require real space to unfurl.

That’s what Justin Bieber had for the evening’s most striking performance: a slow and radically stripped-down rendition of his song “Yukon” that he sang wearing only boxer shorts and socks, accompanying himself with a scratchy electric guitar riff he fed through a looping station.

“Yukon” is from Bieber’s impressive “Swag” album, which he released last year after a lengthy stretch in the pop-star wilderness; it’s an LP, kind of like “Messy,” about learning to forgive yourself for your flaws, and here he sang “Yukon” like a guy who’d figured out — maybe a guy figuring out — how to build a life outside the punishing expectations of celebrity. The music had the past in it, of course, but didn’t feel constrained by it.

Justin Bieber performs.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

SACRAMENTO — We relearned something from the killings of two law-abiding citizens by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis: There’s a limit to how many government lies the public will tolerate.

When government officials arrogantly persist in blatantly lying, the public just might turn angrily against the prevaricators.

Or maybe they’re not lying technically. They simply might not care whether they’re telling the truth, or what it is. Their only intent is to spew a tale that fits a political agenda. Regardless, the citizenry can stomach only so much.

Another thing we relearned is that when a government keeps acting against the public’s wishes, the public tends to rise up and smack its leader, altering the leader’s direction.

That’s the sign of a functional democracy when enough people get riled up and elbow their way into leading the government themselves.

In the process, they’re very likely to prod various other governments — state and local — into acting on their behalf.

We’ve been seeing this play out in the aftermath of the Minneapolis killings.

But, in fact, the public rebellion has been building during a yearlong nightmare of unjustified, inhumane, un-American violence by federal immigration agents. Their targets have been people with brown skin suspected of living in the country illegally. Never mind that many not only are documented, they’re U.S. citizens.

Such has been the slipshod and authoritarian way President Trump’s promised mass deportation program has been carried out.

Polls have consistently shown that voters strongly support the president’s goals of protecting the border and also deporting the “worst of the worst” undocumented criminals. But people have increasingly objected to his roughhouse methods, including masked federal agents slapping around and pepper-spraying legal protesters.

It’s not clear whether the two Minnesota citizens victimized by quick-draw federal agents were protesting. You can’t believe the Trump administration.

And that’s the danger in habitually lying: People can become so cynical that most disregard whatever they’re told by their so-called leaders. And that cripples what’s necessary for an ongoing healthy democracy: a cooperative relationship based on trust between citizens and those they’ve chosen to govern.

Some things we do know about the slain Minnesota citizens.

Alex Pretti, 37, was an intensive care nurse in a VA hospital. He was shooting video with his cellphone of agents and protesters when he was pepper-sprayed and wrestled to the ground by several agents as his legally carried handgun was removed. Then he was shot in the back several times.

He was not a “domestic terrorist” and “assassin” who wanted to “massacre law enforcement,” as Trump sycophants immediately lied on TV before backing off, after most of America saw videos of the killing and the president got nervous.

Renee Good, 37, was a mother and poet who appeared merely to be trying to drive through protest chaos when an agent shot her three times through the windshield. She did not try to run down the agent, as the administration claimed.

Good was not “obviously a professional agitator” who “violently, willfully and viciously ran over the ICE officer,” as Trump wrote on social media.

Public outrage at the lying and the brutish immigration enforcement has pressured elected officials into action all around the country.

Sure, you can call it political grandstanding and, of course, much of it is. But good politics and sound democracy involve listening to the public and acting on its desires.

In Sacramento, the state Senate held an emotional two-hour debate over a bill aimed at permitting people to sue federal law enforcement when their constitutional rights are violated. Rights such as the ability to peacefully protest and to be protected against excessive force. Lawsuits already are allowed against state and local officers. But federal agents are practically untouchable.

Senate Bill 747 by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) passed on a 30-10 party-line vote — Democrats for and Republicans against. The measure moved to the Assembly.

The vote was yet another sorry sign of today’s unhealthy political polarization. Not one Republican could break out of the Trump web and vote to hold illegally operating federal agents accountable in civil courts. But neither could one Democrat detect enough fault in the bill to vote against it.

Some law enforcement groups oppose the legislation because they fear it would spur additional suing against local cops. Look for an amendment in the Assembly.

The heated Senate debate reflected Democratic lawmakers’ frustration with Trump — and many of their constituents’ fears.

“The level of anxiety and anger is higher than I’ve ever seen in my 13 years in the Legislature,” Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana) told me.

“People are coming into our offices fearful for relatives or friends who are hiding out, afraid to go to doctors’ appointments and their kids are staying away from schools.”

During the debate, several senators mentioned two young protesters who were each permanently blinded in one eye by rubber bullets shot by Homeland Security officers in Santa Ana. Lawmakers also railed against “kidnappings” off the street of people simply because of their skin colors, accents and dress.

“California is not going to let these thugs get away with it,” Wiener vowed.

“There’s a lot of hyperbole on this floor,” Sen. Tony Strickland (R-Huntington Beach) asserted. He called for repeal of California’s “sanctuary” laws that greatly restrict cooperation by state and local officers with federal immigration agents.

Easing those laws is probably a good idea. But more important, we’ve got to restrain undisciplined federal agents from shooting unarmed people in the back.

Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield), who revealed that she has been packing a firearm for 30 years, said that Pretti should never have brought his gun to a protest even if it was legal — which it isn’t in California.

And she’s right. But he never brandished the weapon and shouldn’t have paid with his life.

Neither should Pretti have been immediately attacked as a bad guy by lying federal officials. They’re now paying a political price.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Planned Parenthood, reproductive healthcare could receive $90 million in new state funding
The TK: Healthcare experts warn “people will die” unless state steps up amid federal cuts
The L.A. Times Special: Meet the un-Gavin. Kentucky’s governor sees a different way to the White House

Until next week,
George Skelton

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This time 36 years ago, Fabrice Morvan was preparing for his first Grammy Awards. It had been a wild few years for the 23-year-old Parisian and his best friend Robert Pilatus from Germany. The duo known as Milli Vanilli had rocketed to fame, going from obscure dancers in Munich to dominate the pop music scene. Not only were they nominated for best new artist, but they were expected to perform live. Underneath it all, the pair were quickly reaching their breaking point.

Don Henley’s “The End of the Innocence” was nominated for both song and record of the year. Indeed, for the tens of millions of Milli Vanilli fans who bought their records, the 1990 Grammy ceremony marked an end of innocence of sorts. To this day, Milli Vanilli are the only artists in the history of the Grammys to have their award revoked.

L-R: The pop duo Milli Vanilli comprised of Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus, the subject of the Paramount+ documentary Milli Vanilli, streaming on Paramount+ beginning October 24, 2023.

(Ingrid Segeith/Ingrid Segeith/Paramount+)

“Rob and Fab,” as they were known, never sang — live or in studio — on any of the smash hit singles from their 6x platinum debut North American album, “Girl You Know It’s True.” Their Grammy performance was them lip-synching to a playback.

The real singing was done by paid session vocalists John Davis, Brad Howell and Charles Shaw while Rob and Fab captivated with their charisma, athletic dance moves and eye for style. In the wake of the fallout, Milli Vanilli remained steadfast that what they did was wrong. There was, in fact, plenty of blame to go around even if Rob and Fab suffered the brunt of it.

“They removed the platinum records from the wall at Arista,” says Morvan, now 59. He is perched on the edge of a poolside lounge chair from a boutique hotel in the heart of Hollywood. It’s a sunny December day, but he’s dressed all in black with glasses to match, slim fingers adorned with a custom silver skull ring. He loves the sunshine, but offers for my sake to move somewhere in the shade. Able to pass for decades younger, he now basks in life on the other side of infamy.

“They say the truth will set you free. The truth takes the stairs while the lies take the elevators. And that is true,” Morvan said. “So finally, after 35 years, my truth comes to the surface.”

(Stephen Shadrach)

Now, in a redemption as astounding as his rise, Morvan is back in the running for the 2026 Grammys as the only person in Recording Academy history nominated after a prior revocation.

This time, the voice is unmistakably his. Nominated in the audio book, narration, and storytelling recording category for his memoir “You Know It’s True: The Real Story of Milli Vanilli,” Morvan’s lilting French dialect and soft tone are hypnotizing and he has a natural knack for storytelling. The recording was performed alone in his home studio.

“They say the truth will set you free. The truth takes the stairs while the lies take the elevators. And that is true. So finally, after 35 years, my truth comes to the surface,” he contends. “And people, they get it, they understand that.”

Sadly, Rob Pilatus isn’t here to see it. Unable to handle the fallout and struggling in addiction, he died in 1998. In one of the more moving parts of his memoir, Morvan speaks to his former partner, laying bare for the first time some of the more unhealthy aspects of their relationship but in a way that makes clear his love for Pilatus runs deep.

After Pilatus’ death, Morvan tried his best to move on. He taught French at a Berlitz school for a while when not performing at small venues. “I’m not even looking at becoming big,” he told Times journalist Carla Rivera in a 1997 profile. He even had a stint on radio hosting “Fabrice’s Fabulous Flashbacks” for KIIS-FM. But he always returned to making music.

“Music was always there with me,” he says, his excitement building. So when it came to moving forward in life, and, I said, ‘OK, what am I going to do?’ Music kind of popped up and said, ‘Hey, show me how much you love me.’ And then I worked on that, and I learned how to play guitar, and I learned how to produce, and I learned how to write … it allowed me to take the pain away, to remove it.”

But after 20 years in Los Angeles, Morvan felt it was time to leave “Hotel California,” as he calls it, for opportunities in Europe. In a follow-up Zoom call from his home in Amsterdam, he confides that he almost felt like giving up, but figured maybe a change of scenery was what he needed.

“I was very disillusioned,” he says, headphones crowning his dreadlocked updo. “I found a producer that I could work with and build something with, but due to certain circumstances, it didn’t come together. So I met some Dutch people that wanted to launch a fashion line. And I heard that Holland was a place where dance music was evolving.”

Becoming a DJ, he played festivals and kept Milli Vanilli’s legacy alive, performing with a live band.

Morvan with his wife Tessa van der steen and their four children

While preparing for a project about 15 years ago, Morvan met his current partner, Tessa van der Steen, who is Dutch and works as a health and fitness coach and alternative medicine practitioner. Together, they have four children: a 12-year-old boy, 9-year-old girl, and a set of 4-year-old twin boys.

During Milli Vanilli’s heyday, powerful male (mostly white) figures held the cards, but in this phase of his life it’s women who play big roles. Not mentioned in his book is Kim Marlowe, who Morvan says, in the 1997 Times article was his manager and best friend. They at one point married; Marlowe quietly filed for divorce in L.A. in 2024.

Van der Steen, however, is the love of his life. She had no idea who he was when they first met, he was simply “Fabrice.” And according to Morvan, she is fiercely protective. “Fab is the most loving partner and father I could ever imagine,” Van der Steen writes over email. “We are soulmates. We have been together for more than 15 years. We understand each other, and it happens often that we are thinking of the same things, without saying a word.” She champions his efforts to release original music and continue performing.

In recent years, changes in culture, technology and the music industry have opened up conversations casting Rob and Fab in a more sympathetic light. Morvan himself took part in the well-received 2023 Paramount+ documentary “Milli Vanilli.” That same year, “Girl You Know It’s True,” a well-made biopic directed by Simon Verhoeven, came out.

And Morvan was caught off guard when Ryan Murphy featured Milli Vanilli prominently in his 2024 series on the Menendez brothers, a move introducing the group to new generations unfamiliar with the story. Motivated by the renewed interest, he recorded a stripped down, acoustic version of the Diane Warren-penned hit “Blame It on the Rain.”

As recently as November, Milli Vanilli came up in the zeitgeist, sparked by a comment on X by veteran producer Jermaine Dupri commenting on AI “artists” charting on Billboard.

Of course there are still detractors, but in an era in which public cancellations abound and apologies are scrutinized for any whiff of inauthenticity, Milli Vanilli’s wrongdoings can now seem quaint.

Benjamin Matheson, assistant professor at the University of Bern’s Institute on Philosophy, studies collective shame and writes on celebrity apology. He offers the startling thought that certain fans might be more willing to forgive a moral wrong, even an egregious one like unlawful intercourse with a minor in the example of director Roman Polanski, as opposed to artistic deception because it can be seen as more authentic.

“I think that perhaps,” Matheson writes over email, “Milli Vanilli suffered because they were an early ‘created’ pop band, and the public hadn’t been acclimatized to this kind of music. Whereas now I think people are much more comfortable with autotuning, AI music, and so on — though I’d love it if there was a bit more push back on this kind of thing.”

Morvan has plenty of thoughts on the state of the music industry past and present. He welcomes the change in perspective, and while he doesn’t live in regret, looking back, he would give his younger self a little advice.

“Keep working on your craft now. No matter what, and don’t ever start drugs. And don’t let your buddy Rob start with that. With those two, things would have been different.”

The pop duo Milli Vanilli comprised of Rob Pilatus(left) and Fab Morvan are the subject of the Paramount+ documentary Milli Vanilli, streaming on Paramount+ beginning October 24, 2023.

(Paul Cox/Paramount+/Paul Cox/Paramount+)

When the Los Angeles Tribune editorial staff selected “Girl You Know It’s True” as its movie of the year, Morvan met Parisa Rose, his co-writer and executive producer for the recording of the memoir. Rose, a first-time author and mother of two, first met Morvan when she interviewed him for the quirky paper — now in its fourth revival. She is now chief operating officer of the Tribune, which has expanded to include a publishing house.

Rose, who grew up in Pasadena, helped Morvan reckon with parts of his background he had long buried. One of the most compelling parts of the memoir is when he breaks the fourth wall, narrating letters to individuals from his past.

“You need to say everything you have never said before to them that you’ve always wanted to say,” she says of the exercise they conducted for the interludes. “You need to know that this is the last conversation you will ever have with them. And you need to imagine they are sitting across from you now.” Reached over the phone, Rose said she also helped with research, uncovering details on the seaside sanatorium in France where Morvan spent much of his early childhood.

A great part of Morvan’s motivation for the memoir was to leave a legacy for his kids. His oldest son is getting into music and recently found an old Milli Vanilli vinyl and plays it along with Daft Punk and Michael Jackson. Remaining “zen” about the idea of winning, he’s enjoying the moment. And the big dreams never die. He plans to tour in the next year and come back to perform in America. And who knows? Maybe one day he can play Coachella.

He’s particularly thrilled over his Grammy outfit, a collaboration with Spanish designer Helen López, whom he previously worked with on a Milli Vanilli-inspired line. “When you’ll see what I’m wearing … you’ll see that I don’t play,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. “No matter what the outcome in life, you have to just be, be in the moment. Enjoy the moment. Whatever happens will lead you to something else. I have no expectations.”

Novak Djokovic stuns reigning two-time champion Jannik Sinner to set up Australian Open final against Carlos Alcaraz.

Novak ‍Djokovic ‍channelled his halcyon days in a five-set classic to dethrone Jannik Sinner and become ⁠the oldest man to reach ​the Australian Open final ‍in the professional era at a rocking Rod Laver Arena.

Four months before his ‍39th ⁠birthday, Djokovic showed he remains unbeatable on his day as he sent the double defending champion packing with a 3-6 6-3 4-6 6-4 ​6-4 win in a 1:32am finish early on Saturday in Melbourne (14:32 GMT on Friday).

“It feels surreal to be honest, playing over four hours,” Djokovic said on ​court.

“I was reminiscing in 2012 when I played Rafa [Nadal] in the final, that was six ‍hours almost.

“The level of intensity and quality was high [against Sinner], and that was the only way to have a chance to win.

“He won the last five matches against me, he had my mobile number, so I had to change my ‍number tonight.

“Jokes aside I ⁠said at the net: ‘Thanks for allowing me at least one’. Tremendous respect, an incredible player. He pushed me to the limit, so he deserves applause for his performance.”

Djokovic will meet world number one Carlos Alcaraz in Sunday’s decider, the Spaniard having fought off Alexander Zverev in the longest Australian Open semifinal.

Eighteen years after his first Melbourne crown, Djokovic will strive for a record-extending 11th against Alcaraz and the unprecedented 25th Grand Slam title that has eluded him.

Djokovic needed incredible ​fortune to reach the semifinals, with his quarterfinal opponent, Lorenzo Musetti, retiring injured ‌after taking the first two sets.

The Serb enjoyed a walkover in the fourth round as well, when Jakub Mensik pulled out.

But it was hard work and mental toughness that got Djokovic over the line against Sinner, a player who had beaten him in ‌their previous five matches.

Victory came grudgingly.

He had to save a slew of break points in the decisive set before finally getting a look at Sinner’s ‌serve at 3-3.

Flooring the Italian in three punishing rallies, the Serb ⁠broke him to lead 4-3, raised one fist and threw an icy stare at his player’s box.

Djokovic had to save another three break points in the next service game, but sent Serbian fans into delirium when he survived them all and held with an ‌ace.

Serving for the match at 5-4, Djokovic summoned the grit and champion spirit of 20 years at the top, setting up two match points with a forehand winner down the line.

Sinner saved both, but finally fired ‍a backhand wide to concede, leaving Djokovic to throw away his racket, get down on his knees and cross his chest.

WASHINGTON — It took Democrats nearly a year to respond with a unified message to President Trump’s signature policy initiative, harnessing national outrage over the administration’s immigration enforcement tactics in Minnesota this week to leverage government funding and demand change.

Yet divisions persist as the party barrels toward midterm elections and, a year from now, the start of primary season. And Gavin Newsom stands right in the middle of them.

Staking the middle ground

A calibrated position by the California governor has placed him to the right of the party’s progressive base that has opposed the very existence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for years — well before Republican lawmakers passed legislation doubling the agency’s budget, increasing its presence and visibility in American life.

Newsom has rejected calls for ICE to be abolished since the 2024 campaign, when Democrats saw clear alarms in public polling that showed President Biden and his vice president, Kamala Harris, on the back foot against Trump on immigration. To the contrary, Newsom has highlighted California’s cooperation with the agency, and his efforts to protect that relationship from progressive local lawmakers.

While Trump’s federalization of the California National Guard last summer was prompted, in part, by protests in Los Angeles against ICE raids across the city, the governor’s reaction focused more on the president’s alleged abuses of power than on the ICE raids themselves. To the extent he did comment on them, Newsom characterized their deployment as unnecessary and gratuitous, a political tool used to intimidate the population.

After the killing of U.S. citizen Renee Good, 37, by ICE officers earlier this month, and days before the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, also 37 and a U.S. citizen, by Border Patrol agents last weekend, Newsom told conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro that his position against abolishing the agency had not changed. And he disassociated himself from a social media post by his office that characterized ICE’s conduct in Minneapolis as “state-sponsored terrorism.”

“California has cooperated with more ICE transfers probably than any other state in the country, and I have vetoed multiple pieces of legislation that have come from my Legislature to stop the ability for the state of California to do that,” Newsom told Shapiro.

The immigration enforcement agency received a massive influx of cash for detention facilities and recruitment last year with the passage of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Republicans now hope to build on that law with even greater appropriations this year, providing ICE with more funding than most foreign militaries, including the armies of Iran, Turkey, Canada and Mexico.

“I disagreed when I think a candidate for president by the name of Harris said that in the last campaign,” Newsom added, of calls to abolish the agency. “I remember being on [MS NOW’s Chris Hayes’ show] hours later saying, ‘I think that’s a mistake.’ So, absolutely.”

A progressive rallying cry

It’s a position in stark contrast with potential 2028 Democratic hopefuls that could pose a challenge to Newsom’s presidential ambitions.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic lawmaker from New York said to be considering a bid, has referred to ICE as “a rogue agency that should not exist.” The agency “doesn’t deserve a dime” of federal dollars, she has said, “until they can prove they are honoring human rights.”

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), also rumored to be considering a run for the nomination, has advocated explicitly for ICE to be replaced with a new entity, built from scratch, without the baggage of the Sept. 11–era agency.

“Frankly, we need to tear down the ICE agency and have a new federal agency to enforce immigration law under the Justice Department,” Khanna said this week.

After Pretti’s death, Newsom also called for a pause to any “new funding” for ICE. He did not call for a review of its existing, historic levels of funding.

“Suspend the LAWLESS mass deportation raids nationwide NOW — ICE is no longer just deporting dangerous criminals,” the governor wrote on X. “Send the border patrol back to the border. End the militarization of ICE.”

Showdown on Capitol Hill

Pretti’s death is already complicating efforts to avert another government shutdown in Washington, as Democrats — joined by some Republicans — view the episode as a tipping point in the debate over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies.

Senate Democrats pledged this week to block funding for the Department of Homeland Security unless changes are made to ICE operations in Minnesota. And Democrats in the House are calling for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s departure as a condition in shutdown negotiations with the White House. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) threatened to pursue her impeachment if Trump doesn’t fire her first.

Both demands track with Newsom’s latest position. The California governor was harshly critical of Senate Democrats when, during the shutdown late last year, a core bloc voted with Republicans to reopen the government without achieving any meaningful concessions in their weeks-long fight over healthcare tax breaks.

The latest Democratic uproar over ICE tactics threatens a similarly broad spending package that also includes funding for the rest of the government, including the departments of Defense, Education, Health, Labor and Transportation.

“Senate Democrats have made clear we are ready to quickly advance the five appropriations bills separately from the DHS funding bill before the Jan. 30 deadline,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said this week.

“The responsibility to prevent a partial government shutdown,” he added, “is on [Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.)] and Senate Republicans.”

Times staff writer Ana Ceballos, in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Spencer Pratt knows you love to hate him. Now he wants to lead Los Angeles
The deep dive: Housing costs are crippling many Americans. Here’s how the two parties propose to fix that
The L.A. Times Special: How once-exiled filmmaker Brett Ratner staged a Hollywood comeback with ‘Melania’

A note to readers: I will be out on parental leave until April, but fear not, California Politics will be in capable hands. You’ll keep getting the latest each week from my distinguished colleagues.

I’ll see you all soon,
Michael Wilner

—
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Last year, Spotify paid out more than $11 billion to the music industry, bringing the company’s total payouts since launch to nearly $70 billion.

The milestone year reflected the “largest annual payment to music from any retailer in history,” the company announced on Wednesday in a post. In 2025, Spotify’s payout amount grew by over 10%, making the Sweden-based streamer one of the industry’s main revenue drivers.

“Big, industry-wide numbers can feel abstract, but that growth is showing up in tangible ways,” wrote Charlie Hellman, the company’s new head of music. “Despite rampant misinformation about how streaming is working today, the reality is that this is an era full of more success stories and promise than at any point in history.”

When music streaming was first introduced, there was some controversy about how much artists earn from streams. According to Spotify, independent artists and labels accounted for half of all royalties. Additionally, the company said there are currently more artists earning over $100,000 a year from Spotify alone than were getting stocked on shelves at the height of the compact disc era.

Founded in 2006, the company, with a large presence in L.A.’s Arts District, has become the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service. The platform offers access to over 100 million tracks, podcasts and audiobooks in over 180 markets.

At the top of the year, founder Daniel Ek moved from his CEO position to become executive chairman. Spotify named two co-CEOs, Gustav Söderström and Alex Norström, in his place.

This month, Spotify raised prices for its premium subscribers in the U.S., bringing the costto $12.99 per month. Hellman disclosed that as Spotify’s audience continues to grow, the higher prices are designed to help with the company’s ongoing expansion. According to the post, Spotify makes up roughly 30% of recorded music revenue and pays out two-thirds of all music revenue to the industry. The other third gets invested back into the company to maintain an “unrivaled listening experience.”

Recently, the streamer has been focused on growing its podcasting division by opening a new recording studio in Hollywood, premiering several shows in partnership with Netflix and expanding its creator monetization program.

Separately, Spotify said it is hoping to counter new developments in AI by reinforcing a human connection between artists and fans. This includes an emphasis on more artist-powered videos, continuing to promote artists’ live shows on the platform and expanding the role of the company’s music curators. The streamer also has plans to crack down on AI-driven artists on the platform.

“AI is being exploited by bad actors to flood streaming services with low-quality slop to game the system and attempt to divert royalties away from authentic artists,” said Hellman. “We’re going to introduce changes to the systems for artist verification, song credits, and protecting artist identity. It’s critical to ensuring listeners and rightsholders can trust who made the music they’re hearing.”

This charming village has been dubbed a ‘hidden gem’ by travellers and it’s packed with historic sites and highly-rated cosy food spots serving some of the best treats.

Positioned along the St Oswald’s Way walking route, between Rothbury and Warkworth, lies a delightful hidden gem village that ranks among Northumberland’s best-kept secrets.

Tucked away beside the River Coquet, this small village gained fame for accommodating Oliver Cromwell during his journey to the Battle of Dunbar. It sits 8.9 miles from Alnwick and 12 miles from Morpeth, just 37 miles south of the Scottish border.

Felton village offers an ideal blend of historic and modern elements, particularly around its centre. Two distinct bridges, positioned close together, link Felton with the opposite bank of the River Coquet.

The historic stone crossing originates from the 15th century and remains closed to vehicles, whilst the more recent concrete structure was constructed in 1926 – both hold Grade II Listed status and draw considerable interest from residents and visitors.

The older crossing – recognised for its historical and architectural significance – regularly hosts key village gatherings, including the beloved wassailing tradition at Christmas, reports Chronicle Live.

Additional historical treasures in this picturesque settlement include the Grade I listed St Michael and All Angels church, constructed around 1200, which appears almost enclosed within another structure due to numerous extensions and modifications over the centuries.

Rambling and angling represent two favourite pastimes for both locals and tourists in Felton, with the River Coquet readily reachable via the village centre. Beyond that, Felton boasts two highly-regarded food and drink destinations.

First up is The Northumberland Arms – a beautifully restored 1820s coaching inn originally built by the 3rd Duke of Northumberland.

This delightful historic treasure sits opposite the river near Felton and boasts a River Room Conservatory alongside a bar, restaurant and six ensuite luxury bedrooms.

One delighted guest wrote on Tripadvisor: “The hotel is a lovely historic building in a great setting, easy access to river walks.

“The rooms were attractive , clean and spacious, I thought fabulous, not what I expected when I walked through the door of an old village pub.”

For visitors seeking a brief refreshment stop in Felton, there’s an ideal option available. An artisan bakery named The Running Fox, cherished by locals, has been delighting guests for years.

Since welcoming its first customers in 2011, The Running Fox has become renowned for its afternoon teas and baked goods.

Set in stunning rural surroundings, The Running Fox nestles beside the River Coquet and is encircled by numerous scenic country walks.

One satisfied customer left a glowing review on Tripadvisor for the bakery, writing: “One of the best afternoon teas. Afternoon tea, freshly made sandwiches which were delicious various fillings to choose from with home made bread, such a change from the usual pre made cardboard efforts you get in other places, choice of a wedge of pie or quiche, scones fabulously light, and a slice of cake also homemade from huge selection. Breakfast and lunch menu also looked very appealing. Service excellent, staff very friendly and helpful.”

Another visitor shared their praise, commenting: “I think that the Afternoon Tea offered at the Running Fox is outstanding – great value for money and the food; the variety and the quality are always excellent! We will be back (again!)”

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