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Bob Weir, a founding member of countercultural icons the Grateful Dead, known for his singular guitar playing, emotive singing and vibrant songwriting, has died at 78.

“It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of Bobby Weir,” a spokesperson for the musician confirmed to The Times. “He transitioned peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, after courageously beating cancer as only Bobby could. Unfortunately, he succumbed to underlying lung issues.”

Weir was diagnosed with cancer in July.

Weir-penned songs include Grateful Dead fan favorites “Sugar Magnolia,” “Jack Straw,” “Playing in the Band” and “Weather Report Suite.” His vocal performance on the rock-radio staple “Truckin’” counts among the band’s finest recorded moments.

The Dead released 13 studio albums with Weir, among them “Aoxomoxoa” (1969), “Workingman’s Dead” (1970), “American Beauty” (1970), “Wake of the Flood” (1973), “Terrapin Station” (1977) and 1987’s “In the Dark,” which featured the Top 10 single “Touch of Grey” and became the band’s highest-charting album, reaching No. 6 on the Billboard 200.

The Dead also released eight “official” live albums, as well as a long-running series of curated live shows known as Dick’s Picks and, later, Dave’s Picks. The band was the first to sanction fan taping at their concerts, spawning an abundance of homespun recordings that have been collected, traded and debated for decades.

Weir’s official role in the Grateful Dead was rhythm guitarist, alongside lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, but his complex style — marked by unique chord voicings, precise rhythms and a willingness to play through his bandmates instead of over them — elevated him from the standard rhythm player. “Bob’s approach to guitar playing is sort of like Bill Evans’ approach to piano was. He’s a total savant,” John Mayer told Guitar World magazine in 2017. “His take on guitar chords and comping is so original, it’s almost too original to be fully appreciated until you get deep down into what he’s doing. I think he’s invented his own vocabulary. … It’s a joyous thing to play along with.”

Weir’s first solo album, “Ace,” released in 1972, contained many songs that became standards in the Dead’s live show, including “Black-Throated Wind,” “Cassidy” and “Mexicali Blues.” “Blue Mountain,” Weir’s solo album from 2016, written in collaboration with musicians Josh Ritter and Josh Kaufman and inspired by Weir’s affinity for cowboy music and western iconography, became his highest-charting solo album, reaching No. 14 on the Billboard 200.

Weir also played in numerous side projects, post-Dead tribute acts and other rock bands, including Bob Weir & Wolf Bros, RatDog, Kingfish, Bobby and the Midnites, and the Weir, Robinson & Green Acoustic Trio with members of the Black Crowes. Dead & Company, featuring Weir, Dead bandmates Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, bassist Oteil Burbridge, keyboardist Jeff Chimenti and singer-guitarist Mayer, kickstarted a Deadaissance in 2015, reviving the band’s music and tie-dye-wearing, hacky-sack-kicking aesthetic for legions of new and existing fans. The band’s final tour before an indefinite hiatus, in 2023, drew nearly 1 million people.

Weir also was a dedicated collaborator, inviting friends to perform with him or guesting on their records or in concert. Willie Nelson, Joan Baez, the Allman Brothers, Sammy Hagar, Nancy Wilson, Stephen Marley, Billy Strings, Tyler Childers, Sturgill Simpson, the National, Margo Price and nouveau jam act Goose counted among his many musical compatriots. “Music is like transcendental medication and Bob Weir is my spirit guide,” Price said on Instagram in 2022. Weir’s friendship with the itinerant folk singer Ramblin’ Jack Elliott began in the early 1960s, and in the new millennium, Elliott and Weir frequently performed low-key shows together in Marin County, where both resided.

Robert Hall Weir was born Oct. 16, 1947, in San Francisco to John Parber and Phyllis Inskeep, a college student who later gave him up for adoption. He was raised by adoptive parents Frederic Utter Weir and Eleanor (née Cramer) Weir in Atherton, Calif. Weir struggled as a child due to undiagnosed dyslexia and was kicked out of every school he attended, including the private Fountain Valley School in Colorado Springs, Colo., where he met John Perry Barlow, who would later contribute lyrics to the Grateful Dead.

Weir met Garcia on New Year’s Eve, 1963, at a Palo Alto music store, and soon formed the jug band Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions with Garcia and future Dead bandmate Ron “Pigpen” McKernan. Weir was just 16 years old. “There was some tension at home because I was neglecting my studies, and I grew up under the shadow of Hoover Tower,” Weir explained in an interview with Dan Rather. “My folks had Stanford in mind for me, not an itinerant troubadour. But they could also clearly see that I was following my bliss.”

About a year later, at McKernan’s urging, the trio, along with bassist Dana Morgan Jr. and drummer Kreutzmann, formed the Warlocks, an electric rock band, and played a handful of gigs before bassist Phil Lesh replaced Morgan. The group quickly discovered that a band called the Warlocks already existed and renamed themselves the Grateful Dead, a term Garcia found in a dictionary. Dead lyricist Robert Hunter and second drummer Hart joined the group in 1967.

As a member of the Dead, Weir was a kind of shape-shifting clairvoyant, creating ever-evolving sounds and forms that became essential to the fabric of American music culture. With the Dead, Weir was part of Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests in the mid-’60s, centered around experiments with LSD, and the band’s members were known to use nitrous oxide, marijuana, speed and heroin. The late ’70s launched an evident association with cocaine, and a period known as Disco Dead.

The band’s predilection for live improvisation, in which they refashioned and extended their songs via intuitive jams and imaginative transitions, drew legions of adoring fans — called Deadheads — who followed the band from city to city, and were the bedrock of the jam band movement that followed in the 1980s. The Dead’s graphic symbols, including “dancing” bears, the “Stealie” lightning skull and instrument-wielding terrapins, were plastered across innumerable merchandise and became a calling card of hippie-influenced counterculture over the ensuing decades.

Throughout the Dead’s existence, Weir was sometimes viewed as “the Other One” due to Garcia’s outsize presence in the band. Weir was its youngest member, and its most handsome. (Beautiful Bobby and the ugly brothers, the band used to joke.) He wrote and sang fewer songs than Garcia. But for others, Weir’s deference to Garcia — how he constructed a singular form of rhythm guitar playing to suit Garcia’s natural style, and used his deeper voice as a rich vocal counterpoint — was indicative of his generosity and willingness to put ego aside. In the 2014 documentary “The Other One: The Long Strange Trip of Bob Weir,” he said that he takes no pride in what he’s accomplished because he views pride as a “suspect emotion.”

Unlike his bandmates in the Dead, Weir had a long-running interest in personal style, and frequently opted for tucked-in button-down shirts, western wear and polo shirts instead of tie-dye and ponchos. “I just wanted to be kind of elegant,” he told GQ in 2019. “People were paying good money to see us, and at that time I figured that meant we ought to dress up a bit.” His denim cutoffs, which crept up in length over the years, were known as Bobby Shorts. Weir would grow his gray hair and beard into a style resembling actor Sam Elliott in the 1979 western “The Sacketts,” and began a collaboration with fashion designer James Perse that landed somewhere between cowboy and surfer.

Weir was single for most of his time in the Dead, and didn’t marry until 1999. With wife Natascha Münter, he had two daughters, Shala Monet Weir and Chloe Kaelia Weir. He was vegetarian for much of his life, and was passionate about animal rights, environmental causes and funding for the arts.

In interviews, Weir spoke of Eastern religion and philosophy, and his dreams, which dictated many decisions he made in his life. He frequently said in interviews that his relationship with Garcia never died, even after the Grateful Dead leader passed away in 1995. In 2012, Weir told Rolling Stone that Garcia “lives and breathes in me.”

“I see him in my dreams all the time,” he told the Huffington Post in 2014. “I would say I can’t talk to him, but I can. I don’t miss him. He’s here. He’s with me.”

Times staff writer Carlos De Loera contributed to this report.

Tony Dokoupil took his place at the anchor desk of the “CBS Evening News” on Monday as the troubled news division undergoes reinvention under its new editor in chief, Bari Weiss.

Dokoupil was supposed to start his run with a trip to 10 cities across the U.S., to connect with viewers outside of the media centers of New York and Washington. CBS News leased a private 14-seat jet for the tour, but the plan was delayed once the U.S. military action in Venezuela became a major story early Saturday morning.

Instead, Dokoupil took the chair Saturday night and broadcast live from San Francisco before returning to New York for his official premiere on Monday. The tour is still on and will commence Tuesday from Miami.

Dokoupil’s new role will be the first major test for Weiss, who came to the division with no previous experience in television or with running a massive journalism operation. Choosing on-air talent who help drive ratings for the network is considered the most critical task for a TV news executive.

Dokoupil, 45, follows the duo of John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois, who co-anchored “CBS Evening News” for a year. The program tried to bring more in-depth pieces to the typically fast-paced network evening news format. But it lost viewers and put CBS further behind “ABC World News Tonight With David Muir” and “NBC Nightly News With Tom Llamas.”

Dokoupil’s first official broadcast returned to a style that resembled previous iterations of “CBS Evening News,” with a tight shot of the anchor sitting at a desk in a newsroom.

Over the past year, Dickerson and DuBois were seated at a long desk and often interacted with correspondents shown on a large screen. The program no longer includes an in-studio meteorologist to present national weather.

Dokoupil’s arrival marks the fifth anchor change at the “CBS Evening News” since 2017. NBC has made one change since then, while Muir has been in his role at ABC since 2014.

CBS News promoted Dokoupil’s launch with a whimsical social media video that showed the journalist presenting a piece of paper with his name written on it to commuters at Grand Central Terminal in New York. Asked to pronounce “Dokoupil,” few of the commuters came close even though he had been co-host of “CBS Mornings” for several years.

The promo seemed like an odd choice given how the network evening news anchor has traditionally been a position requiring gravitas and comforting familiarity for its habit-driven audience.

Dokoupil also issued a video message last Thursday suggesting organizations such as CBS News are no longer reliable sources of information for much of the public.

“A lot has changed since the first person sat in this chair,” he said. “But for me, the biggest difference is people do not trust us like they used to. And it’s not just us. It’s all of legacy media.”

“The point is, on too many stories the press has missed the story,” he added. “Because we’ve taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites and not enough on you.”

The anchor went further on his Instagram account, where he cited Walter Cronkite, who sat at the desk during the division’s glory years of the 1960s and ‘70s. “I can promise we’ll be more accountable and more transparent than Cronkite or anyone else of his era,” he said.

Dokoupil’s claim prompted a response from Michael Socolow, a journalism professor at the University of Maine and the son of Sandy Socolow, who produced Cronkite’s broadcast.

Socolow noted how Cronkite believed the public should be skeptical of what it saw on TV news and take in other sources and points of view.

In an interview with The Times, Socolow said Cronkite was never comfortable with his designation as “the most trusted man in America.” CBS News touted that point, which was based on a single public opinion poll.

“Cronkite thought it wouldn’t be in the public interest to be too trustful of any specific media source,” Socolow said. “And he made that clear in public speeches and TV interviews for decades.”

Socolow posted a clip of a 1972 interview with Cronkite as an example.

“I don’t think they ought to believe me, or they ought to believe Brinkley, or they ought to believe anybody who’s on the air, or they ought to get all their news from one television station,” Cronkite said.

The latest change at “CBS Evening News” also follows one of the most tumultuous periods in the long history of CBS News. The organization was shaken by the Dec. 20 decision by Weiss to pull a “60 Minutes” piece on the harsh El Salvador mega-prison the U.S. government is using to hold undocumented migrants.

Weiss believed the story needed more reporting, including an on-camera response from Trump White House officials. The White House, Department of Homeland Security and the State Department had all declined comment to “60 Minutes.”

But the decision to yank the announced segment the day before it was scheduled to air led “60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi to claim in an email to colleagues that the decision was political. Alfonsi had worked on the story for months and had it vetted by the division’s standards and practices department.

“Government silence is a statement, not a VETO,” Alfonsi wrote in the email. “If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’’ for any reporting they find inconvenient.”

Alfonsi’s reporting did show up on Canada’s Global TV service, which had been given a feed of the program before the change was made, an embarrassing operational error by CBS News. The segment was shared widely on social media.

Every move by Weiss has received heightened scrutiny since she was given editorial control over CBS News in October. She joined the network after parent company Paramount acquired the Free Press, a digital news and opinion platform she co-founded. The site made its name by calling out perceived liberal bias by legacy media organizations and so-called woke policies.

Media industry critics have used the “60 Minutes” controversy to suggest Weiss was installed to placate President Trump as Paramount pursues the acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, which would require government regulatory approval. A person close to Weiss who was not authorized to comment publicly said Paramount had no say on the Alfonsi piece.

Paramount already paid $16 million to Trump to settle a defamation suit against “60 Minutes.” Trump claimed the program deceptively edited an interview with Kamala Harris, calling it election interference. CBS News did not admit any wrongdoing in the settlement.

GORDON Ramsay has broken his silence on his ‘fiery’ wedding speech in his first interview since daughter Holly’s wedding ceremony to Adam Peaty.

The TV chef appeared alongside his daughter Tilly on ITV‘s This Morning as he discussed the highly-publicised Bath Abbey ceremony for the first time.

Gordon had raised eyebrows as he appeared to make a thinly-veiled dig at Adam’s ongoing family feud when he delivered a wedding speech during the nighttime celebrations.

But the star has insisted his speech was “perfect” despite courting controversy.

When asked by Cat Deeley about preparing his speech, Gordon said: “Being a dad of three daughters, you dream of that moment.

“I was a hot mess but the speech was perfect, it went well.

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“You’ve got to be warm and emotional but it was a tough gig.”

Elsewhere, Tilly had her say on the wedding and also called it “perfect” despite Adam’s family largely not attending.

Only his sister Bethany was present with his heartbroken mum Caroline banned from the Abbey amid a huge fallout with Adam and being left hurt after Holly refused to invite her to her hen-do with her A-list pals, including Victoria Beckham.

Speaking on the daytime show, Tilly added: “It was so emotional but so incredible to see her and Adam so happy. It was a big day for all of us.”

She also admitted she checked Gordon’s speech on Christmas Eve and confessed “no tweaks were needed” before confirming: “It made everybody cry.”

Gordon further revealed his “shock” at Holly’s decision to wear Tana’s wedding dress for a section of the reception saying: “It was a shock as she had it on for the majority of the night but I don’t know why she needed to change three times!”

The chef was alluding to her multiple dress changes for the big day – with the star wearing three gowns in total.

In Gordon’s speech he was understood to be heard saying his wife Tana “will be a good mum to them both,” amid the fallout.

Ramsay, 59, gushed at how beautiful Holly looked and told Adam he was a “lucky man”, adding: “Look at Tana and that’s what you have to look forward to.” 

And in a sly dig at Adam’s absent parents he told Holly, 25: “Shame you don’t have the same.” 

Adam’s feud with mum Caroline, 60, exploded last month after she was not invited to Holly’s hen do.  

Last night a Peaty family source hit back at Gordon’s speech saying: “It just goes to show that this was the Ramsays’ plan all along.”  

Adam hailed the 200 guests’ support in a “difficult time”. Sister Beth, 32, was his only family at the service, maid of honour with Holly’s sisters Megan, 27, and Tilly, 24. 

Adam’s mum, dad Mark, 65, and brothers James and Richard stayed at home in Staffordshire. 

PARIS — Actor George Clooney and his wife Amal Clooney were granted French citizenship because “they contribute, through their distinguished actions, to France’s international influence and cultural outreach,” the French government said Wednesday, defending their naturalization that was questioned by a junior French minister.

The naturalizations of the Kentucky-born star of the “Ocean’s” series of heist movies, his wife and human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, and their twins Ella and Alexander were announced last weekend in the Journal Officiel, where French government decrees are published.

Marie-Pierre Vedrenne, a junior minister at the Interior Ministry, expressed misgivings Wednesday that some of the Clooneys’ new French compatriots may think that the star couple was granted special treatment. The actor speaks only what he himself says is “horrible, horrible” French.

“The message being sent is not good,” Vedrenne said in an interview with broadcaster France Info. “There is an issue of fairness that, in my eyes, is absolutely essential.”

The couple purchased an estate in France in 2021 and Clooney has said that it’s their primary residence. Non-French residents of France have multiple possible routes to becoming naturalized. It wasn’t clear whether the 64-year-old actor retained his American citizenship. His 47-year-old wife was born in Lebanon and raised in the U.K and naturalized by France under her maiden name, Amal Alamuddin. The 8-year-old twins were born in London.

The Foreign Ministry said the Clooneys were eligible for citizenship under a French law that allows for the naturalization of foreign nationals who contribute to France’s international influence and economic well-being.

It argued that France’s cinema industry will benefit from the actor’s clout as a global movie star and said that as a lawyer, Amal Clooney regularly works with academic institutions and international organizations in France.

“They maintain strong personal, professional and family ties with our country,” the ministry said.

“Like many French citizens, we are delighted to welcome Georges and Amal Clooney into the national community,” it concluded, giving the actor’s first name a French twist by adding the “s” at the end.

The decision was also defended by Vedrenne’s superior at the Interior Ministry, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, who said he signed the naturalization decree.

“It’s a big chance for our country,” he said.

In recent media interviews when he was promoting “Jay Kelly,” Clooney said that he is trying to teach himself French using a language-learning app. He said that his wife and children speak the language perfectly.

“They speak French in front of me so that they can say terrible things about me to my face and I don’t know,” he joked, speaking to French broadcaster Canal+.

French media have reported that the Clooneys live part-time in their luxury 18th-century villa outside the town of Brignoles in southern France, where they can keep a lower profile and their children are protected from unauthorized photographs by French privacy laws.

In an interview with Esquire in October, Clooney said: “I was worried about raising our kids in L.A., in the culture of Hollywood.”

“I don’t want them to be walking around worried about paparazzi. I don’t want them being compared to somebody else’s famous kids,” he said. Growing up away from the spotlight in France, “they have dinner with grown-ups and have to take their dishes in. They have a much better life.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump has indicated that the U.S. has “hit” a facility in South America as he wages a pressure campaign on Venezuela, but the U.S. offered no other details.

Trump made the comments in what seemed to be an impromptu radio interview Friday.

The president, who called radio host John Catsimatidis during a program on WABC radio, was discussing U.S. strikes on alleged drug-carrying boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, which have killed at least 105 people in 29 known strikes since early September.

“I don’t know if you read or saw, they have a big plant or a big facility where they send the, you know, where the ships come from,” Trump said. “Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So, we hit them very hard.”

Trump did not offer any additional details in the interview, including what kind of attack may have occurred. The Pentagon on Monday referred questions to the White House, which did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth or one of the U.S. military’s social media accounts has in the past typically announced every boat strike in a post on X, but they have not posted any notice of any strike on a facility.

The press office of Venezuela’s government did not immediately respond Monday to a request for comment on Trump’s statement.

Trump for months has suggested he may conduct land strikes in South America, in Venezuela or possibly another country, and in recent weeks has been saying the U.S. would move beyond striking boats and would strike on land “soon.”

In October, Trump confirmed he had authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela. The agency did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Monday.

Along with the strikes, the U.S. has sent warships, built up military forces in the region, seized two oil tankers and pursued a third.

The Trump administration has said it is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels and seeking to stop the flow of narcotics into the United States.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has insisted the real purpose of the U.S. military operations is to force him from power.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said in an interview with Vanity Fair published this month that Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro ‘cries uncle.’”

Price writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Konstantin Toropin in Washington and Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.

ST. LOUIS — President Clinton on Friday joined the growing cultural and political war between Democrats and their critics on the right, bitterly assailing Christian broadcasters and conservative radio talk-show hosts.

In unusually angry and aggressive remarks during a radio interview, Clinton attacked the Rev. Jerry Falwell and popular radio personality Rush Limbaugh by name, saying that their brand of politics and religion feed a spreading intolerance and cynicism across America.

The tenor and heat of his remarks showed what is increasingly becoming apparent–that for those in the roiling political battle, this is less a contest between strong adversaries with some mutual respect than a holy war fueled by bitterness and personal loathing.

Clinton spoke by telephone from Air Force One as he was flying to St. Louis to inaugurate a youth service program and headline a $1,500-a-plate fund-raiser for House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.).

The President said that televangelist Falwell and other spokesmen for the religious right hide behind their fervent protestations of faith while engaging in baseless personal attacks and political demagoguery.

“I do not believe that people should be criticized for their religious convictions,” Clinton said. “But neither do I believe that people can put on the mantle of religion and then justify anything they say or do.”

The President called Falwell’s Christian values questionable when he uses his church and his access to television to promote a videotape attacking Clinton’s honesty and morality.

Clinton said that the Falwell tape, which includes lurid allegations about Clinton’s sex life, his personal finances and assorted skullduggery in Arkansas, is full of “scurrilous and false charges.”

“Remember,” Clinton said, “Jesus threw the money-changers out of the temple. He didn’t try to take over the job of the money-changers.”

In an interview with Cable News Network later Friday, Falwell dismissed Clinton’s criticism and invited the President to tape a personal rebuttal to the videotape for use on the “Old Time Gospel Hour,” which airs on 200 stations nationwide.

“While the President should really direct his denials and apparent anger at those making the charges, we will be happy to provide him a forum for rebutting those charges, assuming he has watched the video, knows what the charges are and addresses them specifically,” Falwell said.

Clinton’s growing frustration not only with his legislative difficulties but with the unanswered attacks on his character was evident in the 23-minute interview with radio station KMOX.

He was testy from the outset, then unloaded on radio interviewers Charles Brennan and Kevin Horrigan after they asked about the alleged pilfering of towels and bathrobes from the aircraft carrier George Washington by White House staff members on the President’s recent trip to Europe to commemorate the D-day anniversary.

“Look at all the things you could have asked me about and you just asked me about that,” Clinton said, his voice rising in wrath. “Did you know that there were other people on that aircraft carrier? Did you know that there were press people on the aircraft carrier? Did you know that the carrier had been fully reimbursed out of the private pocket of a White House staff member who was so upset about it. . . ? No. No.”

White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers went out of her way to insist that Clinton was not angry. He was shouting only to be heard over the engine noise of Air Force One, she said.

“He wasn’t angry and didn’t want to leave the impression that he was,” Myers said after reading wire service accounts that described the President as inflamed. “It sounded a lot harder than it was.”

She said that Clinton did not intend to point fingers at any individuals. “I think the President just spoke his mind,” she added.

Clinton’s assault on Falwell, Limbaugh and other critics elevated to a new plane a battle that Rep. Vic Fazio (D-West Sacramento) launched earlier this week with an attack on the Republican Party and its supporters from the “intolerant . . . religious right.”

Fazio warned that radical fringe groups are seizing control of the GOP in more than a dozen states and are threatening to become a major force in Congress.

Fazio’s comments were denounced by Republican leaders as “religious bigotry” and a “calculated smear campaign.”

It was clear Friday that Clinton would join Fazio’s line of attack as part of the Democratic Party strategy to demonize the right and stanch Democratic losses in the November mid-term elections.

The President said he respects the religious convictions of evangelicals but that he would not be silent “when people come into the political system and they say that anybody that doesn’t agree with them is Godless, anyone who doesn’t agree with them is not a good Christian, anyone who doesn’t agree with them is fair game for any wild charge, no matter how false, for any kind of personal, demeaning attack.”

The Falwell tape sells for $43, and tens of thousands reportedly have been sold. The people quoted on the tape are several longtime enemies of Clinton who, among other things, suggest that Clinton was involved in several murders in Arkansas.

Falwell aide Mark DeMoss has said that he does not know if the charges are true but believes they should be aired so they can be investigated.

House Republicans also responded to Clinton’s comments. “People who go to work on Monday and church on Sunday are not public enemies,” said Rep. Dick Armey (R-Tex.), who chairs the House GOP Conference. “Clinton should be putting an end to this McCarthyistic tactic now, rather than fanning the flames and setting up some religious right bogeyman.”

The mainstream media also did not escape Friday’s presidential ire. Clinton complained that the reporting on his Administration has emphasized its failures unfairly and ignored its accomplishments.

He said that news reporting today is “much more negative . . , much more editorial . . . and much less direct” than ever before.

And he said that the American people were subjected to a “constant unremitting drumbeat of negativism and cynicism” from talk radio–particularly Limbaugh and his many imitators.

Clinton noted that the three-hour Limbaugh show would follow him on the same radio station and that he would have no opportunity for response or challenge.

“And there’s no truth detector,” Clinton said. “You won’t get on afterwards and say what was true and what wasn’t.”

Limbaugh, in his show Friday, answered the President mockingly, “There is no need for a truth detector. I am the truth detector.”

Clinton said that he had given up hope of receiving better treatment from the press, the religious broadcasters and talk radio.

“So I decided instead of being frustrated, I needed to be aggressive and I’m going to be aggressive from here on in. I’m going to tell what I know the truth to be,” Clinton said.

So no more Mr. Nice Guy?

“I’m going to be very nice about it,” the President said, “but I’m going to be aggressive about it.”

Times staff writer Jeff Leeds in Washington contributed to this story.

Aston Villa manager Unai Emery insists it is still too early to say whether his side is in contention for the Premier League title despite being third in the table after their 2-1 victory against Chelsea.

MATCH REPORT: Chelsea 1-2 Aston Villa

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Arne Slot says Liverpool are doing enough things right to be winning their matches more comfortably following a nervy 2-1 victory against Premier League bottom club Wolves.

MATCH REPORT: Liverpool 2-1 Wolverhampton Wanderers

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The Las Vegas Museum of Art has revealed new key details of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Diébédo Francis Kéré’s design for the city’s first freestanding museum, which is expected to break ground in 2027.

The earthy red structure will feature a facade of locally sourced stone, and was inspired by the canyons and red rock landscape that stretches beyond the brash, man-made playground of Sin City, Kéré said in an interview alongside the museum’s executive director, Heather Harmon.

“How can I use what is surrounding Las Vegas to create something open and welcoming?” he said. “We started to think about the subtle beauty of the nature, and to bring it into the core of the museum.”

Renderings of the structure, which is situated in Symphony Park, show a cubed modernist building with a large awning that stretches over a bustling entry plaza to provide shade. A curved grand entrance staircase spirals through the center of the museum and is visible from the building’s floor-to-ceiling windows. Cloistered second-floor galleries are meant to provide a peaceful sanctuary for taking in the art.

A concept sketch for the Las Vegas Museum of Art by architect Diébédo Francis Kéré.

(Diébédo Francis Kéré / Las Vegas Museum of Art)

Architect Paul R. Williams’ Guardian Angel Cathedral, which opened in the city in 1963, is cited as a design influence, as are the singular stocky trunk baobab trees of the African savanna. Kéré was born in the village of Gando in the West African country of Burkina Faso, and noted that although the natural environment of his home country is quite different from that of Las Vegas, he was able to find many design parallels for inspiration.

Kéré, who is also a professor at Yale in New Haven, Conn., has made many trips to Las Vegas over the last few years, and received personalized tours of the city and its natural surroundings from Harmon and Elaine Wynn, a museum board member and philanthropist who died in April.

They went to the Valley of Fire State Park, which features fantastical sandstone formations the same color as the museum’s renderings. They also saw various quarries as well as the Hoover Dam. In the city, they visited the west side, which is rooted in the city’s rich African American history, as well as Ward 3 on the east side, which is home to a large Latino population.

“We looked at community spaces, we looked at people in community spaces,” said Harmon. “And we really wanted to have that feeling of understanding as we approached the project — just knowing firsthand who we were building the museum for.”

The 60,000-square-foot building is expected to welcome more than 2.4 million year-round Las Vegas residents, as well as millions of global tourists. The museum is expected to cost about $200 million, including its endowment. The target opening date is in 2029.

Last year, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced it would share its collection with the Vegas museum, which does not have plans to become a collecting institution. LACMA director and LVMA founding trustee Michael Govan told The Times that the sharing arrangement is part of a paradigm shift for LACMA, allowing it to expand access to its collection without increasing the physical footprint of its home base. (Critics, including former Times art critic Christopher Knight, disagreed with the move.)

“I think that’s a very 20th century idea — to keep adding wings until you’re a million square feet on Fifth Avenue,” Govan said in an interview at the time.

A “60 Minutes” story on the Trump administration’s imprisonment of hundreds of deported Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador was pulled by CBS News Editor-In-Chief Bari Weiss shortly before it was scheduled to air Sunday night.

The unusual decision drew a sharp rebuke from Sharyn Alfonsi, the correspondent for the piece.

Alfonsi said the decision was motivated by politics, according to an email she circulated to colleagues and viewed by the Times. Alfonsi noted that the story was ready for air after being vetted by the network’s attorneys and the standards and practices department.

“It is factually correct,” Alfonsi wrote. “In my view, pulling it now — after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”

According to the CBS News press department’s description of the segment, Alfonsi spoke to released deportees who described “the brutal and torturous conditions they endured inside CECOT,” one of El Salvador’s harshest prisons.

In a statement, a representative for CBS News said the report called “Inside CECOT” will air in a future “60 Minutes” broadcast. “We determined it needed additional reporting,” the representative said.

Weiss viewed the segment late Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment publicly. She had a number of issues with story and asked for additional reporting, which could not be completed in time for airing on Sunday. A press release promoting the story went out Friday.

Weiss reportedly wanted the story to have an interview with an official in President Trump’s administration.

But Alonsi said in her email the program “requested responses to questions and/or interviews” with the the Department of Homeland Security, the White House and the State Department.

“Government silence is a statement, not a VETO,” Alfonsi wrote. “Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story.”

Alfonsi’s email said she learned the story was pulled on Saturday and that she had not discussed the matter with Weiss.

Even if Weiss’ concerns might be valid, the sudden postponement of a “60 Minutes” piece after it has been promoted on air, on social media and through listings on TV grids is a major snafu for the network.

For Weiss, it’s perilous situation as her every move as a digital media entrepreneur with no experience in television is being closely scrutinized.

As the founder of the conservative-friendly digital news site who was personally recruited by Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison, journalists at CBS News and media industry observers are watching to see if Weiss’ actions are tilting its editorial content to the right.

Before it was acquired by Skydance Media, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle a Trump lawsuit making the dubious claim that a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris was deceptively edited to aid her 2024 presidential election campaign against him.

Trump recently said “60 Minutes” is “worse” under Paramount’s new ownership following an interview with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, in which she was highly critical of the president and his administration.

Paramount acquired the Free Press for $150 million as part of the deal to bring Weiss over. Her first major move was to air a highly sympathetic town hall with Erika Kirk, the widow of slain right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. Erika Kirk has taken over as head of Turning Point USA, the political organization her husband founded.

England coach Brendon McCullum says his side haven’t lived up to “high hopes and expectations” after failing to regain The Ashes, but that fans can expect his side to “show what we’re capable of achieving” in the final two Test matches in the series against Australia.

MATCH REPORT: England beaten to lose another Ashes in Australia

Available to UK users only.

The setting looked almost cozy: Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and a podcast host seated inside her home in two comfy chairs, talking about President Trump, ICE raids, public schools and the Palisades fire.

The recording session inside the library at Getty House, the official mayor’s residence, lasted an hour. Once it ended, the two shook hands and the room broke into applause.

Then, the mayor kept talking — and let it rip.

Bass gave a blunt assessment of the emergency response to the Palisades and Eaton fires. “Both sides botched it,” she said.

She didn’t offer specifics on the Palisades. But on the Eaton fire, she pointed to the lack of evacuation alerts in west Altadena, where all but one of the 19 deaths occurred.

“They didn’t tell people they were on fire,” she said to Matt Welch, host of “The Fifth Column” podcast.

The mayor’s informal remarks, which lasted around four minutes, came at the tail end of a 66-minute video added to “The Fifth Column’s” YouTube channel last month. In recent weeks, it was replaced by a shorter, 62-minute version — one that omits her more freewheeling final thoughts.

The exact date of the interview was not immediately clear. The video premiered on Nov. 25, according to the podcast’s YouTube channel.

Welch declined to say whether Bass asked for the end of the video to be cut. He had no comment on why the final four minutes can’t be found on the YouTube version of the podcast.

“We’re not going to be talking about any of that right now,” he told The Times before hanging up.

Bass’ team confirmed that her office asked for the final minutes of the video to be removed. “The interview had clearly ended and they acknowledged that when they took it down,” the mayor’s team said Tuesday in an email.

In the longer video, Bass also talked about being blamed for the handling of the Eaton fire in Altadena, which is in unincorporated Los Angeles County, outside of L.A. city limits. Altadena is represented by L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, not Bass.

“No one goes after the Board of Supervisors,” Bass said on the original 66-minute video. “I’m responsible for everything.”

Bass, in an interview with The Times, said she made those remarks after the podcast was over, during what she called a “casual conversation” — a situation she called “unfortunate.” Nevertheless, she stood by her take, saying she has made similar pronouncements about the emergency response “numerous times.”

In the case of the city, Bass said, the fire department failed to pre-deploy to the Palisades and require firefighters to stay for an extra shift, as The Times first reported in January. In Altadena, she said, residents did not receive timely notices to evacuate.

“The city and the county did a lot of things that we would look back at and say was very unfortunate,” she told The Times.

Bass was out of the country on a diplomatic mission to Ghana when the Palisades fire first broke out on Jan. 7. When she returned, she was unsteady in her handling of questions surrounding the emergency response.

Both the response and the rebuilding effort since the fire have created an opening for Bass’ rivals. Real estate developer Rick Caruso, who lost to her in 2022, is now weighing another run for mayor — and has been a harsh critic of her performance.

Former L.A. schools superintendent Austin Beutner, who is running against Bass in the June 2 primary election, called the mayor’s use of the word “botched” a “stunning admission of failure on behalf of the mayor” on “the biggest crisis Los Angeles has faced in a generation.”

“She’s admitting that she failed her constituents,” Beutner said.

Bass isn’t the first L.A. elected official to use the word “botched” in connection with the Palisades fire, which destroyed thousands of homes and left 12 people dead. Last month, during a meeting on the effort to rebuild in the Palisades, City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez said that Bass’ office had mishandled the recovery, at least in the first few months.

“Let’s be honest,” she told one of the mayor’s staffers. “You guys have to be the first to acknowledge that your office has botched the first few months of this recovery.”

Bass has defended her handling of that work, pointing to an accelerated debris removal process and her own emergency orders cutting red tape for rebuilding projects. The recovery, she told Welch, is moving faster than many other major wildfires, including the 2023 Lahaina fire in Hawaii.

“It’s important to state the facts, especially because in this environment … there’s a number of people out there who have been very, very deliberate in spreading misinformation,” she said.

Bass, who formally launched her reelection campaign over the weekend, has been giving interviews to a growing list of nontraditional outlets. She recently fielded questions on “Naked Lunch with Phil Rosenthal + David Wild.” She also went on “Big Boy’s Off Air Leadership Series” to discuss the Palisades fire and several other issues.

On “Big Boy’s Off Air,” Bass said she was in conflict with then-Fire Chief Kristin Crowley over her handling of the fire. When she ousted Crowley in February, she cited the LAFD’s failure to properly deploy resources ahead of the fierce winds. She also accused Crowley of refusing to participate in an after-action report on the fire.

Bass told Big Boy, the host of the program, that firefighters “were sent home and they shouldn’t have been.”

She also called the revelation that the Jan. 1 Lachman fire reignited days later, causing the Palisades fire, “shocking.” The Times has reported that an LAFD battalion chief ordered firefighters to leave the burn area, despite signs that the fire wasn’t fully extinguished.

Bass said that had she known of the danger facing the region in early January, she wouldn’t have gone to Long Beach, let alone Ghana.

Asked where blame should be assigned, Bass said: “At the end of the day, I’m the mayor, OK? But I am not a firefighter.”

On “The Fifth Column,” Bass spent much of the hour discussing the effect of federal immigration raids on Los Angeles and the effort to rewrite the City Charter to improve the city’s overall governmental structure. She also described the “overwhelming trauma” experienced by fire victims in the Palisades and elsewhere.

“To lose your home, it’s not just the structure. You lost everything inside there. You lost your memories,” she said. “You lost your sense of community, your sense of belonging. You know, it’s overwhelming grief and it’s collective grief, because then you have thousands of people that are experiencing this too.”

In the final four minutes, Welch told Bass that he viewed the Palisades fire as inevitable, given the ferocious strength of the Santa Ana winds that day. “As someone who grew up here, that fire was going to happen,” he said.

“Right,” Bass responded.

Welch continued: “If it’s 100 mile an hour winds and it’s dry, someone’s going to sneeze and there’s going to be a fire.”

“But if you look at the response in Palisades and the county,” Bass replied, “neither side —”

The mayor paused for a moment. “Both sides botched it.”