She rides three buses from her Panorama City home to her job as a caregiver for an 83-year-old Sherman Oaks woman with dementia, and lately she’s been worrying about getting nabbed by federal agents.
When I asked what she’ll do if she gets deported, B., who’s 60 and asked me to withhold her name, paused to compose herself.
“I don’t want to cry,” she said, but losing her $19 hourly job would be devastating, because she sends money to the Philippines to support her family.
Steve Lopez
Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a Los Angeles Times columnist since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist.
The world is getting grayer each day thanks to an epic demographic wave. In California, 22% of the state’s residents will be 65 and older by 2040, up by 14% from 2020.
“At a time where it seems fewer and fewer of us want to work in long-term care, the need has never been greater,” Harvard healthcare policy analyst David C. Grabowski told The Times’ Emily Alpert Reyes in January.
So how will millions of aging Americans be able to afford care for physical and cognitive decline, especially given President Trump’s big beautiful proposed cuts to Medicaid, which covers about two-thirds of nursing home residents? And who will take care of those who don’t have family members who can step up?
A building where multiple caregivers live in a cramped studio apartment in Panorama City.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
There are no good answers at the moment. Deporting care providers might make sense if there were a plan to make the jobs more attractive to homegrown replacements, but none of us would bet a day-old doughnut on that happening.
Nationally and in California, the vast majority of workers in care facilities and private settings are citizens. But employers were already having trouble recruiting and keeping staff to do jobs that are low-paying and difficult, and now Trump administration policies could further shrink the workforce.
Earlier this year, the administration ordered an end to programs offering temporary protected status and work authorization, and the latest goal in Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration is to make 3,000 arrests daily.
“People are worried about the threat of deportation … but also about losing whatever job they have and being unable to secure other work,” said Aquilina Soriano Versoza, director of the Pilipino Workers Center, who estimated that roughly half of her advocacy group’s members are undocumented.
In the past, she said, employers didn’t necessarily ask for work authorization documents, but that’s changing. And she fears that given the political climate, some employers will “feel like they have impunity to exploit workers,” many of whom are women from Southeast Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Mexico and Latin America.
That may already be happening.
“We’ve seen a lot of fear, and we’ve seen workers who no longer want to pursue their cases” when it comes to fighting wage theft, said Yvonne Medrano, an employment rights lawyer with Bet Tzedek, a legal services nonprofit.
A gathering at the Pilipino Workers Center in Los Angeles in Historic Filipinotown. Aquilina Soriano Versoza, director of the center, says, “People are worried about the threat of deportation … but also about losing whatever job they have and being unable to secure other work.”
(Ringo Chiu / For The Times)
Medrano said the workers are worried that pursuing justice in the courts will expose them to greater risk of getting booted out of the country. In one case, she said, a worker was owed a final paycheck for a discontinued job, but the employer made a veiled threat, warning that showing up to retrieve it could be costly.
Given the hostile environment, some workers are giving up and going home.
“We’ve seen an increase in workers self-deporting,” Medrano said.
Conditions for elder care workers were bleak enough before Trump took office. Two years ago, I met with documented and undocumented caregivers and although they’re in the healthcare business, some of them didn’t have health insurance for themselves.
I met with a cancer survivor and caregiver who was renting a converted garage without a kitchen. And I visited an apartment in Panorama City where Josephine Biclar, in her early 70s, was struggling with knee and shoulder injuries while still working as a caregiver.
Biclar was sharing a cramped studio with two other caregivers. They used room dividers to carve their space into sleeping quarters. When I checked with Biclar this week, she said four women now share the same space. All of them have legal status, but because of low wages and the high cost of housing, along with the burden of supporting families abroad, they can’t afford better living arrangements.
B. and another care provider share a single room, at a cost of $400 apiece, from a homeowner in Panorama City. B. said her commute takes more than an hour each way, and during her nine-hour shift, her duties for her 83-year-old client include cooking, feeding and bathing.
She’s only working three days a week at the moment and said additional jobs are hard to come by given her status and the immigration crackdown. She was upset that for the last two months, she couldn’t afford to send any money home.
“People are worried about the threat of deportation, but also about losing whatever job they have and being unable to secure other work, said Aquilina Soriano Versoza, executive director of the Pilipino Workers Center.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Retired UCLA scholar Fernando Torres-Gil, who served as President Clinton’s assistant secretary on aging, said “fear and chaos” in the elder care industry are not likely to end during this presidential administration. And given budget constraints, California will be hard-pressed to do more for caregivers and those who need care.
But he thinks the growing crisis could eventually lead to an awakening.
“We’re going to see more and more older folks without long-term care,” Torres-Gil said. “Hopefully, Democrats and Republicans will get away from talking about open borders and talk about selective immigration” that serves the country’s economic and social needs.
The U.S. is not aging alone, Torres-Gil pointed out. The same demographic shifts and healthcare needs are hitting the rest of the world, and other countries may open their doors to workers the U.S. sends packing.
“As more baby boomers” join the ranks of those who need help, he said, “we might finally understand we need some kind of leadership.”
It’s hard not to be cynical these days, but I’d like to think he’s onto something.
Meanwhile, I’m following leads and working different angles on this topic. If you’re having trouble finding or paying for care, or if you’re on the front lines as a provider, I’m hoping you will drop me a line.
LOOSE Women star Judi Love has landed a huge new job just days after ITV announced their daytime cull.
The ITV show’s line-up had been left in the dark about cuts to their lunchtime talk show, which will take effect from January amid a cash crisis.
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Lose Women star Judi Love has landed a huge new job amid ITV’s daytime cullCredit: Rex
Sweeping changes announced earlier this month mean the female-led, lunchtime talk show will only air for 30 weeks a year.
So, it’s a good job Judi, 44, has bagged herself a lucrative podcasting gig to keep the cash rolling in.
The comedian announced on Instagram today that the first episode of Our Table will be released tomorrow.
Fellow Loose Woman Charlene White is joining her, along with actor David Gyasi, comedian Michelle Deswarte and actress Deborah Ayorinde.
She wrote: “Our Table will launch on Friday, the 30th, on YouTube and all major podcast platforms!
“We have an exciting series lined up, featuring incredible guests and engaging conversations. Join us at Our Table!! #Ourtable #JudiLove.”
A second post saw the Strictly star posed with her special guests ahead of the series premiere.
The Sun previously revealed how Loose Women is in chaos backstage with some of the stars doing the show “through gritted teeth” as they face a 60 per cent pay cut.
An insider told us: “It’s very tense backstage as the cast are all fuming. It’s like they’re putting on a brave face and doing the show through gritted teeth.
“Some people’s pay could be cut by 60% as some get paid by the episode and they’ll be slashed next year.
ITV Daytime Shake-Up: Major Changes to Lorraine and Loose Women Revealed
“For some it’s their main source of income and it’s worrying to everyone.”
This comes after an ITV source revealed: “We are not planning any radical changes to the panel.
“All of our Loose Women are hugely valued and we celebrate each and every one and the experience and opinions they bring to the show every day.
“Many of our long standing panellists have appeared on the show for the majority of its 25 year run on screens and those stalwart, Loose legends are at the core of the show’s success and hugely popular with the audience.
“The show remains a big priority within our daytime slate, having secured a BAFTA nomination, launched a podcast and celebrated a milestone anniversary in the last year alone.”
MORE ITV CUTS
Loose Women isn’t the only show affected by recently announced changes at ITV, that will come into play in 2026.
Lorraine Kelly’s show has been cut to just 30 minutes a day and will also only air for 30 weeks of the year.
Hannah Gutierrez, the weapons handler in the ill-fated Alec Baldwin western movie “Rust,” has been released from prison after serving 14 months for her conviction last year of involuntary manslaughter.
New Mexico prosecutors faulted the Arizona woman for reckless handling of firearms and ammunition in violation of gun safety rules.
The special prosecutor also argued that Gutierrez had unwittingly brought the live bullets with her to the popular western film location, Bonanza Creek Ranch, and mingled them with inert “dummy” bullets used on film sets.
The New Mexico judge overseeing the “Rust” criminal prosecutions, New Mexico 1st Judicial District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer, dismissed the charge against Baldwin three days into his high-profile trial last July.
Marlowe Sommer found the prosecutor and Santa Fe County sheriff’s deputies had concealed evidence from Baldwin’s legal team, which the judge said prejudiced the case against Baldwin. At the time, the actor-producer’s team was exploring whether prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies botched the investigation into how the bullets made their way onto the set.
Halls pleaded no contest to negligent use of a deadly weapon and received a suspended six-month sentence, which ended in October 2023. Halls, who has since retired from the industry, agreed to pay a $500 fine, participate in a firearms safety class, refrain from taking drugs or alcohol and complete 24 hours of community service.
She was released on parole. She also is being supervised under terms of probation after pleading guilty to a separate charge of unlawfully carrying a gun into a Santa Fe bar that prohibited firearms a few days before the fatal shooting, according to the Associated Press.
Terms of her parole include mental health assessments and a ban on firearms possession.
Gutierrez, through her attorney, declined an interview request Sunday.
“When I took on ‘Rust,’ I was young and I was naive but I took my job as seriously as I knew how to,” Gutierrez told the judge during her April 2024 sentencing hearing.
Marlowe Sommer, who also presided over the armorer’s case, gave Gutierrez the maximum sentence, saying: “You were the armorer, the one that stood between a safe weapon and a weapon that could kill someone. .. You alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon.”
With Gutierrez’s release, the criminal phase of the “Rust” saga has concluded.
Baldwin and other actors and crew members finished filming in Montana, 18 months after the fatal shooting in New Mexico. The movie was finally released in the U.S. this month on just a handful of screens.
“Rust” was racked with problems, including allegations of safety rules and hiring inexperienced crew members such as Gutierrez. “Rust” was just her second job as head armorer. She also was tasked with the job of prop assistant.
Hours before the fatal shooting, “Rust” camera crew members had walked off the job to protest safety concerns and a lack of housing near the film’s set. Crew members complained about earlier accidental gun discharges.
WEST POINT, N.Y. — President Trump used the first military commencement address of his second term Saturday to congratulate West Point cadets on their academic and physical accomplishments while veering sharply into politics, claiming credit for America’s military might while boasting about his election victory last fall.
“In a few moments, you’ll become graduates of the most elite and storied military academy in human history,” Trump said at the ceremony at Michie Stadium. “And you will become officers of the greatest and most powerful army the world has ever known. And I know, because I rebuilt that army, and I rebuilt the military. And we rebuilt it like nobody has ever rebuilt it before in my first term.”
Wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat, the Republican president told the 1,002 graduating cadets that the U.S. is the “hottest country in the world,” boasted of his administration’s record and underscored an “America first” theme for the U.S. military, which he called “the greatest fighting force in the history of the world.”
“We’re getting rid of distractions and we’re focusing our military on its core mission: crushing America’s adversaries, killing America’s enemies and defending our great American flag like it has never been defended before,” Trump said. He later said that “the job of the U.S. armed forces is not to host drag shows or transform foreign cultures,” a reference to drag shows on military bases that the Biden administration halted after Republican criticism.
Trump said the cadets were graduating at a “defining moment” in the Army’s history, as he criticized past political leaders, whom he said led soldiers into “nation-building crusades to nations that wanted nothing to do with us.” He said he was clearing the military of transgender ideas, “critical race theory” and trainings he called divisive and political.
“They subjected the armed forces to all manner of social projects and political causes while leaving our borders undefended and depleting our arsenals to fight other countries’ wars,” he said of past administrations.
Several points during his address at the football stadium on the military academy’s campus were indistinguishable from a political speech. Trump claimed that when he left the White House in 2021, “we had no wars, we had no problems, we had nothing but success, we had the most incredible economy” — although voters had just rejected his bid for reelection.
Turning to last year’s election, he noted that he won all seven swing states, arguing that those results gave him a “great mandate” and “it gives us the right to do what we want to do,” although he did not win a majority of votes nationwide.
The president also took several moments to acknowledge specific graduates’ achievements. He summoned Chris Verdugo onto the stage, noting that the cadet completed an 18.5-mile march on a freezing night in January in two hours and 30 minutes. Trump had the top-ranking lacrosse team stand to be recognized. He also brought West Point’s football quarterback, Bryson Daily, to the lectern, praising him as having a “steel”-like shoulder. He later used Daily as an example to make a case against transgender women participating in women’s athletics.
In a nod to presidential tradition, Trump also pardoned about half a dozen cadets who had faced disciplinary infractions.
“You could have done anything you wanted, you could have gone anywhere,” Trump told the class, later continuing: “Writing your own ticket to top jobs on Wall Street or Silicon Valley wouldn’t be bad, but I think what you’re doing is better.”
The president also ran through several pieces of advice for the graduating cadets, urging them to do what they love, think big, work hard, hold onto their culture, keep faith in America and take risks.
“This is a time of incredible change and we do not need an officer corps of careerists and yes men,” Trump said, going on to note recent advances in military technology. “We need patriots with guts and vision and backbone.”
Trump closed his speech by calling on the graduating cadets to “never ever give up,” then said he was leaving to deal with matters involving Russia and China.
“We’re going to keep winning, this country’s going to keep winning, and with you, the job is easy,” he said.
Just outside campus, about three dozen protesters gathered before the ceremony, waving miniature American flags. One in the crowd carried a sign that said “Support Our Veterans” and “Stop the Cuts,” while others held up plastic buckets with the message: “Go Army Beat Fascism.”
Trump gave the commencement address at West Point in 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. He urged the graduating cadets to “never forget” the soldiers who fought a war over slavery during his remarks that day, which came as the nation was reckoning with its history on race after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The ceremony five years ago drew scrutiny because the U.S. Military Academy forced the graduating cadets, who had been home because of COVID-19, to return to an area near a pandemic hot spot.
Trump traveled to Tuscaloosa, Ala., earlier this month to speak to the University of Alabama’s graduating class. His remarks mixed standard commencement fare and advice with political attacks against his Democratic predecessor, President Biden, musings about transgender athletes and lies about the 2020 election.
On Friday, Vice President JD Vance spoke to the graduating class at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. Vance said in his remarks that Trump is working to ensure U.S. soldiers are deployed with clear goals, rather than “undefined missions” and “open-ended conflicts.”
Kim and Swenson write for the Associated Press and reported from West Point and Bridgewater, N.J., respectively.
Academy Award winner Billy Bob Thornton, who plays chain-smoking crisis manager Tommy Norris in Taylor Sheridan’s latest hit “Landman,”seems like a guy who can’t be intimidated. But get him in a room with Allison Janney and the truth comes out.
“I was afraid of you,” he tells her sheepishly on The Envelope’s Emmy Roundtable for drama actors.
“Really?” says Janney, the Oscar-, Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning performer who appears as cunning Vice President Grace Penn on the Netflix political thriller “The Diplomat.”
“The first time I met Allison, it was at another press function thing,” he says to the room. “And just seeing you, as an actor, and parts you play … But also, you have this very dignified quality about you.”
“It’s my height, I think.”
“No,” he continues. “You just have the face of someone who is powerful and really intelligent. So some idiot like me comes in, and I’m like, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t talk to her.’”
This is what happens when you gather seven Emmy contenders whose performances so convincingly shape our perceptions of who they are in real life. This year’s group also included Sterling K. Brown, who plays Xavier Collins, a Secret Service agent seeking the truth in Hulu’s “Paradise”; Britt Lower, who plays both wealthy heiress Helena Eagan and defiant data refiner Helly R. in Apple TV+’s “Severance”; Jason Isaacs, who plays Timothy Ratliff, an American financier desperately trying to keep a secret from his family in HBO’s “The White Lotus”; Noah Wyle, who plays Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, a senior attending physician at a Pittsburgh trauma center in Max’s “The Pitt”; and Kaitlin Olson, who plays the underestimated but brilliant police consultant Morgan Gillory in ABC’s “High Potential.”
Read on for excerpts from our discussion about how they tap into their layered performances, navigate the business and more — and watch video of the roundtable below.
The 2025 Emmy Drama Roundtable. Back row from left: Britt Lower, Jason Isaacs, Noah Wyle and Kaitlin Olson. From row from left: Billy Bob Thornton, Allison Janney and Sterling K. Brown.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Tell me about an “Oh, my God, did that just happen?” moment — good or bad — from your early years on a Hollywood set. Kaitlin, your first credit was “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” I can’t imagine what it’s like making Larry David laugh.
Olson: Oh, you just have to scream in his face and insult him, and then he thinks that’s really, really funny. But yeah, there were no marks and there were no lines. So I didn’t really have an “Oh, my God” moment. You just talk and shut up when you should shut up.
Isaacs: On my first day [on 1989’s “The Tall Guy”], I remember I arrived first thing in the morning. I was playing Surgeon No. 2 in a dream sequence that Jeff Goldblum was in. The director, who’s hassled and busy, he goes, “OK, we’re going to start with you. We’re coming in on the dolly. But because I’m on a very wide lens, if you could start the eyeline somewhere near the bottom of the jib and then just go to the corner of bottle, then take it to the edge of the matte box when we’re getting close.” And I went, “Right … What the f— did any of those words mean?” Jeff is just out of frame. And he’s in his underpants, and it’s a dream sequence for him. And we’re just about to go and roll the cameras, and Jeff goes, “Hold on a second.” And he stands up and he starts standing on a chair reciting Byron love poems even though he was not in the shot. I’m like, “I don’t understand what the hell is going on here.” Years later, I sat next to him at a wedding and I said, “Do you remember that night?” He went, “Yeah.”
Jason Isaacs of “The White Lotus.”
Have there been moments where you fell out of love with acting or where you felt like, “This isn’t working out”?
Janney: My career didn’t start till I was 38 or something, because I’m so tall, and I was literally uncastable. I went to the Johnson O’Connor [Research Foundation]. And I did three days of testing to see what else I could possibly do.
Issacs: What is that?
Janney: It’s an aptitude testing place. They ask you to do all this stuff, and at the end of it they say, “This is what you should be.” And they told me I should be a systems analyst. I had no idea what that was. And the next day, I got cast understudying Faith Prince and Kate Nelligan in “Bad Habits,” a play at the Manhattan Theatre Club.
Allison Janney of “The Diplomat.”
Brown: I’ve never fallen out of love with it. I was an economics major in college who wound up switching to drama. When I got out of grad school and [was] hopping around through regional theater, I wound up booking a TV show, “Army Wives,” for six years, and a few years into the show, I was like, “I think I’ve done everything that I want to do with the character.” So when they came dangling the carrot for people to reup after Season 6, I was like, “I’m curious to see what else the universe has in store.” I was able to pay off student loans. We had our first child, I had a home and I was like, “Let’s take a gamble on Brown.” I did a pilot for AMC that didn’t get picked up; then had a recurring [role] on “Person of Interest” for six episodes. I was like, “Oh, man, I got a wife and a kid and a house. Did I mess up? Should I have stayed on the show or not?”
Then I auditioned for [“The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”], and I didn’t hear anything for four months. I was down in New Mexico shooting this movie, “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,” and I was having this really sort of morbid moment of going through my IMDb Pro account and looking at everybody who had booked all of the things that I had auditioned for. I was like, “Oh, Bokeem Woodbine booked Season 2 of ‘Fargo.’ Good for him.” And I got a call from my manager saying, “They want you to screen test with Sarah Paulson for this thing.” I was the only person that they brought in to audition for it.
Sterling K. Brown of “Paradise.”
Your series are largely confronting or commenting on real-world anxieties or subjects that are changing in our world in real time. Noah, with Dr. Robbie and what he says about what’s going on in the healthcare system — we’re seeing him cope with the aftermath of COVID-19. We’re seeing stories that are very timely about vaccinations. Talk about what was important to you with this series and what you wanted to show through these characters.
Wyle: “ER” was very much a patient-centric show in a lot of ways. And this was more of an exercise to be practitioner- and physician-centric, to really show the toll that the last five years since COVID has taken on that community. The thesis being that it is as fragile as the mental health of the people that we have in those jobs and the quality’s what we received. Even though we had to peer into a crystal ball and try to figure out a year ago what would be the topical cases of today, we were really more interested in how everybody’s coping mechanisms have allowed them to practice what they’ve been doing for the last five years. How they’ve compartmentalized the toll it’s taken on them personally, and explore that in real time. Aggregate tension on a shift where you’re just embedded with them without release. The outset was more about identifying the mental health of the practitioner than identifying the ills in society … Can I just say how effing cool it is to sit at this table with you all and be the uncool one to say that I feel like my impostor syndrome is off the rails right now?
Olson: No way.
Noah Wyle of “The Pitt.”
Hopefully you’ll all guest star on each other’s shows by the time this is over.
Janney: I would love that.
Britt, what really spoke to me about “Severance” was its exploration of grief, but within that too, there’s the corporate overreach and the work-life balance that I think all of us can appreciate. Did it show you anything about how you navigate your work-life balance or what you could do better?
Lower: The cast talks a lot about how the “Severance” procedure is kind of like what we do for a living. We go to work and put on a different outfit and assume a new identity. There were some moments where you’re walking down the corridors on the way to your job, and there’s kind of this meta quality of being inside of a show about compartmentalizing and switching into a different part of yourself. But I think it’s so relatable. I think we do that as humans. We show up differently in different spaces in our lives, whether it’s work or home or going home for the holidays, versus your baseball team. You just put on a different person really.
Britt Lower of “Severance.”
Isaacs: If I go away to do a job on location somewhere, I can actually — even at my ripe old age; I’m a father and I’m a husband — just park my life and forget that. Now I see that metaphor very clearly and it’s irresponsible. I’m so much more comfortable in the fictitious world than I am in the real world.
Do you feel like there’s a misconception that you guys are just all at the pool?
Isaacs: I’m not really an actor anymore; I just do “White Lotus” publicity for a job. And in the billions of interviews, people expect you to say, “It was a holiday. We were in this resort.” Well, we’re not really in the resort. So I’ve said a few times, “You make friends. You lose friends, romances or whatever; things happen between departments and all the backstage drama that we’re all used to.” Well, the online world went mad trying to deconstruct, trying to work out who knew who and who was [doing what]. Actually, I’m talking about all the crew and all the departments — not that it’s anyone’s business. But it’s trying to deconstruct what we all think of each other. And what happened there is so much less interesting than Mike White’s brilliant stories. You shouldn’t be interested in who went to dinner with who. I kind of wish I hadn’t opened my mouth about it, but I don’t want to pretend it was a holiday. Not just the way that the show blew up but also the level of microscopic interest in anything any of us said, tweeted, posted — there aren’t many new experiences for actors who’ve been around a long time, but this one has been shocking, and I’m quite glad that it’s abating now. I’d like to return to my normal life, but I don’t know how people who are uber-famous deal with it.
The level of microscopic interest in anything any of us said, tweeted, posted, is a new — there aren’t many new experiences for actors who’ve been around a long time, but this one has been shocking.
— Jason Isaacs, on fan attention to ‘The White Lotus’
Billy Bob, how did you come to navigate it? You’ve experienced the extreme effects of that.
Thornton: You mean in the world of Hollywood and all that?
Isaacs: Do you go to the supermarket, take the subway … Do you do the stuff I do?
Thornton: It depends on what year it is. I’ve gone through times where I couldn’t go anywhere. Once my life got bigger, and that really happened with … I mean, I was a working actor doing OK, but “Sling Blade” is the one that, literally overnight, it was a crazy thing. From that point on, it’s been pretty steady. What I’ve done to not get involved in all that is I don’t really go anywhere. I’m either working or I’m at home with the family or in a recording studio or on the road. You don’t see me in the [tabloid] magazines, at the parties and all that kind of stuff.
I’ll put it this way. Right now, with “Landman,” we thought it was going to be successful. We had no idea that it was going to be like this. I mean, we’ve got fans in Iceland and stuff. I can’t go to a Walmart in Texas. It’s literally impossible. I tried it. I would walk three feet at a time. Texans, their personalities are also very big, and they don’t really come up and go, “Excuse me, mister.” It’s not like that. It’s like, “Hey man, what’s going on? Get in a picture with me.”
I’ve had a reputation — weirdo. Angelina and I were vampires. We drank each other’s blood. You look on the internet, and there’s some kind of thing you’re trying to look up and, inevitably, it’ll show something else. So you go, “I hate this. I hate the internet, but I got to see it.”
Billy Bob Thornton of “Landman.”
Isaacs: There’s no good version of you. You either look much better on the screen or much better in real life. I wanted to say [looks at Allison], because I was a huge “West Wing” fan, I did some “West Wing,” I couldn’t break out of thinking that Bradley [Whitford] and Janel [Moloney] were, in fact, Josh and Donna. Did people think you were that political? People assumed you were that character?
Janney: I’ve been such a disappointment for people who think that I am C. J. [Cregg, her character on “The West Wing”], because I couldn’t be less like her. I’m not that person who’s able to verbally cut someone down in the second that she needs to. It was so great to play her, but I remember when they had the Democratic National [Convention] in California and there were more people who came up to me and asked me, “After this is over, will you come work for us? Will you come to…” I’m like, “You don’t understand. I’m so not like that.” And now on “The Diplomat,” playing the president of the United States and the smartest person in the room, it’s so much fun for me to play those kind of women because I’m not [like that]. I mean, I’m not an idiot, but I know nothing about being in the world of politics or being manipulative.
Kaitlin, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” is in its 17th season now. You’re on “Hacks.” When you’re signing on to something like “High Potential,” what factors do you consider when thinking about how long you want to commit to something?
Olson: I don’t ever want to play a character that starts to get old to me. “Sunny” doesn’t feel like that to me because it’s a satire and the world’s always providing us with new content. And we do eight to 10 episodes a season. So it’s 17 seasons, which is insane, but it’s not even 20 episodes. It’s so much fun, which is the reason I’m not sick of that character yet. But I feel the same way as you, [Allison], when I’m playing characters who are super-smart, and then I have to talk about it, I just go into panic mode.
How has it been getting into Morgan’s head?
Olson: I love the other characters that I play, but there’s heart to this, and she’s a good mom and she is very insecure but puts on a big show. I love that she’s scrappy and has to figure it out, and she trusts that she will and doesn’t rely on anybody else to help her figure it out. The most important thing are her kids. I think she’s just fascinating to play.
Kaitlin Olson of “High Potential.”
What’s the most impressive skill you picked up on the job? Noah, you know I’m going to start with you. You went to medical boot camp. You’ve done really well with sutures. You can intubate any one of us, I think.
Wyle: I’ve never performed one.
Isaacs: The night is young.
Wyle: I wish everybody an opportunity to slip into a role that you have such great muscle memory with from another aspect of your life when you play a musician or when you do circusing or whatever. When you do something you’ve done for so long, and then you get to do it again, it is just amazing how much it’s in your body and how you don’t have to worry about that stuff. There was a moment earlier where Sterling choked on the grape in the greenroom. I was so ready to intubate him, even if it wasn’t necessary.
Thornton: I went to air-traffic control school for “Pushing Tin,” so I can still say, “Delta 2376, turn left, 20-0-4-0” and “Clear the Alice approach one-four right, call the tower one-eight-three,” because you just don’t forget it. That’s not air-traffic control, that’s just a line. With Noah, he learns this skill that he has been doing over the years, and that kind of knowledge is invaluable. Anytime you have stuff to do, without just acting, like you’re doing busy work — you’re, like, here’s how you do an appendectomy — and you learn and when you’re picking up the right tools, you’re saying the right stuff, you’re making incisions — that stuff you’ve got to learn.
Isaacs: One of the great privileges of being an actor that maybe doesn’t show up onscreen is you get to walk in people’s shoes. I shadowed heart surgeons and plastic surgeons and politicians and criminals and soldiers, and it’s just an amazing privilege to be in people’s lives and talk about it. And there may be some tiny bit you pick up for the screen.
A gritty, rock-inflected comedy using the nocturnal peculiarities of Mumbai slum life as a fertile (if at times fetid) palette, British-raised Karan Kandhari’s “Sister Midnight,” about a restless young housewife’s urban malaise, easily holds your attention for long stretches when seemingly little happens, but everything feels charged.
Don’t mistake this stylish feature debut for a misery wallow, however, or some poetic character study. It’s tantalizingly oddball and indelicate: a combined daymare and night odyssey that scratches until a feral hidden strength is revealed in the misfit main character, captivatingly played by Indian star Radhika Apte.
Though the movie ultimately can’t square its episodic unpredictability with the bubbling feminist-outlaw energy at its core — not to mention the comic-book twist that shakes it all up halfway through — that’s less a bug than a feature. Like a movie DJ, Kandhari is flexing a pulpy mood of big-city dislocation, building a trippy, jarring and blackly funny experience out of a city’s stray colors, sounds and personalities.
Arriving at their one-room hovel in the dead of night, arranged-marriage newlyweds and rural transplants Uma (Apte) and Gopal (Ashok Pathak) look more like thrown-together prison cellmates adjusting to a warden’s rules than a romantic couple embracing a future together. We glean that this was a match of undesirables: the timid, sexless guy no girl wanted and the girl too outspoken to be paired.
But here they are, having to make do. Gopal at least has a job to go to, from which he often comes home hammered after drinks with colleagues. Uma, left behind in the solitude of a shack that only allows one shaft of window light, is quick to profanely protest the joyless, intimacy-challenged rut they’ve entered. Alternating between angry and exhausted, she bristles at acclimating to the domesticity that her prickly neighbor wives treat like a club handshake.
Before long, Uma’s taste for cigarettes under the moonlight turns into regular solo walks at all hours. An impulsive journey to a coastal part of town hours away leads to her taking a cleaning job in an office building (and a friendship with a glumly simpatico elevator operator). Suddenly, she’s brandishing a mop and pail everywhere like a rootless knight without a quest or a horse. Then there’s a cryptic street encounter with a goat and things get even weirder. But also, somehow, more validating.
Kandhari, with his hypnotic Wes Anderson-by-way-of-David Lynch widescreen framing and deliberate tracking shots, seems more concerned with capturing something liminal in Uma’s alternative existence, as if the city were just weird and oppressive enough to tease out any transformation that was already lying dormant. (By the time the movie introduces stop-motion creatures roaming the streets, you’ve been primed to think, “Sure, why not?”)
A mischievously off-the-wall exercise like “Sister Midnight” (which eventually embraces some gnarlier elements) needs a certain steam to keep up its deadpan wildness. Kandhari is blessed in that regard with an active visual curiosity about his cracked fable’s punk potential, helped by Sverre Sørdal’s humid cinematography and a game lead in Apte, whose middle-finger energy is sometimes hilariously offset by a wonderful silent-film-star haplessness.
One wishes it all held together a little more, instead of laying seeds that tend to sprout vibes and distractions instead of an illuminating cohesiveness. Kandhari will too often keep Uma in cartoon rebel-goddess mode, needle-dropping another classic rock cut as if daring us to accept Motorhead or Buddy Holly as the only viable soundtrack for what’s going on. But those elements are a kick, too.
Of course, the title “Sister Midnight” is an Iggy Pop staple. “What can I do about my dreams?” it growls, an apt lyric for the singularly inventive and unmanageable fever of a movie that shares its name.
Coronation Street star Colson Smith has announced his first job since being axed from the ITV soap just days after his onscreen death was aired
22:42, 23 May 2025Updated 22:58, 23 May 2025
Colson Smith lands first job since Corrie axe (Image: Dave J Hogan/Getty Images)
It was sad week in Coronation Street this week, as Craig Tinker (Colson Smith) was killed off after a brutal assault in a tear jerking episode. It was announced earlier this year that the star would be leaving the soap – and there wasn’t a dry eye in sight when he left the cobbles for good on Wednesday night.
Colson was axed from the show last year, and just days after his tragic onscreen death, he’s taken to Instagram to announce his new job with BBC Radio Leeds.
Taking to his Instagram to thank followers for all the love this week, Colson, 26, wrote: “Thank you so much for all the love this week! I really appreciate it!”
Colson has landed a role at BBC Radio Leeds(Image: colsonjsmith/instagram)
He then had big news to share with his followers. Alongside a picture of him outside a BBC building, he wrote: “There’s a few exciting things going off!! BUT one thing I can tell you for now, is that I’m joining the team at BBC Radio Leeds this summer!!! Catch ya on the wireless in Yorkshire!!”
Colson is no stranger to speaking to a mic, as he fronts the On The Sofa with Colson, Jack and Ben podcast alongside cast mates and besties, Jack P. Shepherd and Ben Price who play David Platt and Nick Tilsley in the long running ITV soap.
Fans were overjoyed at the news, as they took to the comments to congratulate the star. “Go Colson!” exclaimed one fan, while another excited follower penned: “That’s exciting ekkk!”
The star took to Instagram to share the exciting news (Image: colsonjsmith/instagram)
A third devastated Corrie fan penned: “The last few episodes have been amazing. So sad you’re gone!! Wishing you all the best and look forward to watching your next journey.”
Recalling his meeting with producer Kate Brooks, the star said: “Getting told is hard, hearing the words – I tried really hard not to put the words into her mouth. As soon as I knew, I was at peace with what was going on.” Despite asking to be killed off from the soap, Colson has also revealed he had no idea how brutal it would be.”
Although some actors would be gutted to hear their character was going to be killed off, Colson said if there was a way he wanted to go, that would be it.
“For me to go, I would want to leave. I would want to die, I would want the door to be shut, so then I can kind of know in my head that Corrie has been this, Corrie has done that, and it is now done, and Craig’s journey is over,” he told Ben and Cat.
Staff at ITV are said to be growing angrier as the row over cuts on key shows such as Loose Women and Lorraine continues, with insiders fearing a drop in standards
23:28, 22 May 2025Updated 23:50, 22 May 2025
ITV staff fury grows over 220 job cuts and ‘death of daytime’ as CEO pockets £4million salary(Image: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)
ITV staff fury is growing as the row over sweeping cuts to Loose Women and Lorraine continues to rage. Recriminations are becoming increasingly bitter over the channel’s axing of 220 jobs, with insiders insisting viewers will notice a drop in standards.
Many are blaming chief executive Carolyn McCall for the “death of daytime” and have criticised her for pocketing a massive £4million salary, including bonus, last year. There is also widespread anger that the cost-savings, which will radically change ITV ’s daytime schedule from January, were not delivered by Ms McCall to staff gathered in London’s Television Centre, on Tuesday.
A Good Morning Britain source said: “She could have walked the 400 yards to the studio to explain to folk in person.” But a channel spokeswoman said ITV Studios MD Julian Bellamy personally wanted to deliver the news: “It was really important to him that he shared this news directly in the way he felt appropriate. This is also very much in line with best practice HR given the sensitivity of the situation.”
Loose Women will feel the effect of the changes(Image: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)
They said ITV boss Kevin Lygo made the decision to shake-up the schedules. It comes as the channel was rocked by a series of other developments including:
Claims that standards across Lorraine and Loose Women in particular will go into a “death spiral” leaving viewers short-changed.
Outrage over stars on shows such as This Morning keeping their well-paid jobs while hundreds are sacked.
Fears of strikes among heavily unionised GMB studio crew and technicians.
On screen, viewers will see huge changes to the daytime schedule. Lorraine is the worst hit. It will run for 30 weeks, not 50 weeks a year, and will be slashed from an hour to 30 minutes each day.
Loose Women will stay at the same running time but will also be cut to 30 weeks. This Morning will remain the same length and frequency. Meanwhile Good Morning Britain will be extended by 30 minutes, to run from 6am to 9.30am. For the 22 weeks of the year Lorraine is not airing, it will go on until 10am.
A source said: “It’s not a case of viewers seeing less of their shows… it’s impossible to see how the high standards will remain the same. Some staff believe Loose Women and Lorraine in particular will enter a death spiral… it’s just so sad. Just a handful of people will be working on each of those two programmes which has huge ramifications for how they are going forward.”
All the shows are now going to be made under one roof. An insider asked: “If that’s the case, will Loose Women really still have a live audience…will there be the capacity for that? Everyone doubts it, not least because of the manpower needed to oversee it. Also, there is a huge amount of background work which goes into securing guests… in the new climate how does that continue with barely any staff?”
ITV sources insist that they want “minimal change” for viewers. The source said: “It’s early days and we are currently consulting but we don’t want to alienate our viewers and it’s hoped there will be minimal change on screen. Daytime is hugely important to our viewers.”
The Loose Women panel, including Coleen Nolan, GK Barry and Frankie Bridge, are also expected to see shifts dwindle, especially those who live outside London and charge for travel and hotels. Glam squads are also expected to be axed with stars expected to use in-house make-up.
An insider said: “To be honest there is very little sympathy for stars having their glam squads cut among the rank and file staff, in fact there is a lot of anger that on the whole the channel’s biggest stars are all keeping their jobs – and their exorbitant salaries – while others suffer.”
They added: “It’s no secret that stars on This Morning such as Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley are on huge salaries. Many believe they should offer to take cuts, or at least when their contracts are next negotiated.”
On the whole, This Morning is unaffected by the sweeping cuts. It will remain in its 10am-12.30pm slot on weekdays although questions remain over whether standards will be maintained.
The current Good Morning Britain team was particularly hard hit – of the 133 staff who currently make the early-bird magazine show, hosted by Susanna Reid, Richard Madeley and Ed Balls, just 38 will make the move to ITN which will now produce the show.
One source on the show said: “Lots of the studio crew and technicians will be the hardest hit with ITN taking over their roles. A lot of them are unionised and there is a fear among ITV that industrial action could be an option.”
GMB will be re-homed within ITN’s Gray’s Inn Road headquarters in Central London. Staff working on all shows are expected to “carry on as normal” until the plans are formalised.
A source said: “It’s a mutinous atmosphere to say the least and far removed from the happy, cheery image that ITV Daytime usually evokes.” The Mirror revealed this week staff on Lorraine were particularly worried their main host could quit.
Contrary to reports she was happy to see her hours cut “to spend more time with her family”, insiders say she is devastated for the team on the show being decimated. “They are a tight bunch on Lorraine and the agony is palpable,” said one.
Prince William has teamed up with his charity United for Wildlife to launch the new six-part series called ‘Guardians’ which will follow the lives of enivronmental rangers across the world
Prince William has unveiled a brand new BBC wildlife documentary
Prince William has recognised the sacrifices of environmental rangers across the globe ahead of a new documentary series examining “the most dangerous job in the world“.
The Prince of Wales and his United for Wildlife programme today launched the six-part series titled ‘Guardians’, following the lives of rangers and the vital yet unseen work they do to protect our planet.
William, who helped create the programme and introduces each episode, said he hoped to help nature’s wardens be “valued, respected, seen” and promote the “wonderful” regions they protect.
The series features rangers who do “one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet”, said William, from safeguarding snow leopards in the Indian Himalayas, defending marine life in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez, to protecting elephants and gorillas in the Central African Republic.
William has launched the new six part series titled ‘Guardians’
The prince described Sir David Attenborough as the “inspiration” and said he hoped to emulate his success in storytelling, just as the broadcaster and naturalist’s films drew viewers’ attention to remote parts of the globe.
Speaking this week in London ahead of the first episode being aired on BBC Earth’s YouTube, William paid tribute to the 1,400 rangers who have been killed in the line of duty in the last decade – amounting to two a week.
He said: “Many people think, you know, being a soldier, being in the emergency services, that these drops are dangerous, and the lives of the line.
One episode focuses on ‘Guardian’s in South Africa
“I don’t think people realise it’s the same for these guys and girls around the world. And you know, but 1,400 rangers have died in the last 10 years. That’s about two a week. And it’s just they’re unseen and unheard of.”
He added: “Any progress, any future we want for the natural world, has to come from the ranger community being valued, respected, seen.”
New six to 10-minute episodes will be unveiled each week, with first-hand accounts of the lives of rangers and nature protectors as they urgently work to conserve biodiversity and ecosystems.
William has voiced the trailer and individual episode introductions, aiming to showcase these unsung heroes and highlight how their work impacts us all.
Guardians in the Brazilian Amazon feature in another episode
The series follows the remarkable stories from the Central African Republic and the breathtaking Dzangha-Sangha protected area, following a reformed poacher who now dedicates his life to protecting the wildlife he once hunted.
It also coveres The Himalayas, India where high in the Spiti Valley rangers are working to bring co-existence between the snow leopards known as ‘Ghosts of the Himalayas’, and local communities.
Also featured is Mexico’s Sea of Cortez once called ‘the world’s aquarium’ – and the story of a reformed illegal fisherman now working to protect this threatened ecosystem.
Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa has reportedly been axed as the Time Lord as his departure from hosting the Eurovision Song Contest is said to have ‘hammered’ the move
A TV presenter has surprisingly announced he’s leaving Sky News next week.
The former LBC and BBC Newsnight broadcaster announced he’s quit the job after a 12-year career in journalism.
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Sky News journalist Matthew Thompson has quit
Matthew Thompson said he’s leaving London for family reasons and is moving into a different industry entirely.
He wrote on X: “Some personal news. In a couple of weeks, I am leaving Sky News. And indeed, leaving London, and journalism altogether.
“It’s not a decision I’ve taken lightly, but it’s one that’s best for me and my family. I’ll be moving to Edinburgh, and into the world of finance.
“I won’t subject you all to a self-indulgent run through of my career highlights. But suffice to say it has been the privilege of my life to spend these last 12 years or so as a journalist.
“To work with some of the best in the business, and to talk to all of you.
“Thank you to all the people who made it possible, and to all the people who let me tell their stories along the way. I’ve always tried to make it about you, rather than me.
“I hope I managed that, and that I did the privilege justice. As for next steps… I can say more soon.”
Most recently, Matthew worked as Sky News‘ Home & Political Correspondent.
He continued: “I hope this isn’t goodbye. It may be possible to keep some level of engagement on here in my new gig.
“For now, thank you. I’ve learned so much from reading and speaking with you all over the years.
“It’s made me a better journalist, and a better person. I’ll miss it terribly.”
Tottenham’s victory sparked emotional scenes among their fans, with the club set to have an open-top bus parade on Friday before their final Premier League game of the season at home to Brighton.
By winning the Europa League, Spurs will also have a chance to win the Uefa Super Cup when they face the Champions League winners, either Inter Milan or Paris-St Germain, on 13 August in Italy.
However, whether Postecoglou is still in charge of the club then is unknown.
“I would be disappointed if we don’t continue on this path,” he added in the post-match news conference. “It is difficult to buy into one person’s vision. I have been a serial winner. I know people dismiss what I have won because it didn’t happen here, but they were hard earned.
“There is huge relief. You carry the weight of responsibility and 150 times I have been a spokesman for this club.
“There are no planned meetings. I’ll go back to my hotel room with friends and family, open up a nice bottle of scotch, a massive parade on Friday, game on Sunday against Brighton and then holiday. Then que sera, sera.”
Postecoglou joined Tottenham in June 2023, having won five trophies in two seasons at Celtic, including back-to-back Scottish Premiership titles.
In September, he said he “always wins things in his second season,” a statement which was true when he had been in charge of clubs for two full seasons.
He maintained that record in Bilbao and said: “People misinterpreted me. It was not me boasting, just me making a declaration and I believed it. I had this thing inside me more than anything else.
“I know our league form has been unacceptable, but coming third was not going to change this football club, winning a trophy would, that was my ambition and I was prepared to wear it if it did not happen.
“People kept reminding me of it because we were getting closer but I’m happy with that.”
Barry Ferguson says he has “loved this experience” after it was confirmed that Saturday’s draw with Hibernian was his last match as interim manager of Rangers.
Ferguson, who took charge when Philippe Clement was sacked in February, had spoken about his desire to continue in the role, but those hopes have been dashed.
The 47-year-old leaves along with coaches Neil McCann, Billy Dodds and Allan McGregor.
“I’ve already lived the dream as a player and as captain of Rangers, and to do so as head coach in these last three months has been an enormous honour,” Ferguson said.
“There have been some ups and downs, but I have loved this experience and given it my all throughout. The backing I have received has been phenomenal.
“I said, no matter how this period panned out, I would always remain a committed supporter of the club, and I look forward to remaining a Rangers ambassador.
“I wish whomever becomes the new manager every success in the job.”
Cleverley does face competition for the job from fellow Englishman Will Still.
Still has left Ligue 1 outfit RC Lens following the end of the season in order to move back to England.
Football teams that controversially changed their badge
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Will Still is in the running for the St Mary’s roleCredit: Getty
Still’s parting message to RC Lens
Here is what Will Still told RC Lens fans about his decision to leave…
He said: “I won’t be the coach of RC Lens next season.
“It was the last season at Bollaert, for multiple reasons.
“The main reason that pushed me to make this decision is the fact that I need to go home.
“Everyone is well aware of what happened in my life. That’s why.
“I had a lot of fun, I think we achieved great things despite everything. I’ve been in France for four years, four years that I’ve experienced intense moments.
“The logical choice is that I get closer to my wife for her well-being too.”
A NOUGHTIES boyband star has turned to a very racy job after their music comeback failed to take off.
Two decades ago they were hitting the UK Top Ten with hits like Blood, Sweat and Tears, and Hip to Hip.
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The boyband star on the red carpet in the noughtiesCredit: Alamy
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Do you remember this boyband?Credit: Alamy
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He is now a personal trainer and photographerCredit: Instagram/noraabuckingham
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Kevin McDaid is offering naked gym training sessions
They had a string of top ten hits in 2004 before disbanding.
The band reunited as a four piece last year to celebrate their 20th anniversary.
They played at Mighty Hoopla in London and teased new music.
However just months later they have split again, and Kevin McDaid, who once was engaged to Westlife’s Mark Feehily, is now working as a personal trainer – with a very niche offering.
He is offering fans hour-long sessions in the buff at a private London gym for £250.
Taking to X, formerly Twitter, Kevin, who is also a photographer, said alongside a naked photo of him lifting weights: “Who’s booking in for your naked PT session this week?”
The boyband comprised of five members with Kevin, Mark Harle, Leon Pisani, Antony Brant and Aaron Buckingham.
Last year two members reunited and stripped down to speedos to enjoy a sun soaked holiday together.
Kevin and Aaron beamed for holiday pictures shared to Instagram, as they showed their friendship was still going strong.
Aaron shared a series of pictures of the pair including some of the lads topless enjoying the sunshine.
Nepo baby boyband made up of four brothers go viral on Instagram – but can you guess who their famous dad is
In one picture Aaron struck a pensive pose, staring into the distance in just a pair of board shorts.
Former bandmate Leon is also still close with the pair, who despite not being on the holiday commented on the picture adding “My boys”.
Post band, V have gone on to very different careers after leaving the music industry.
Former bandmate Mark moved into the TV and film industry and has worked as an art assistant on TV series including Ghost Loop.
Leon has traded music for mortgages and is now a mortgage company owner and living in West Wales.
Aaron has stayed close to his music roots in becoming a songwriter for Spotify.
Despite the band splitting in 2005, they did reform for fans in 2023 without Harle and instead making up a four piece.
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Kevin dated Westlife star Mark Feehily, pictured here in 2009, and they were once engagedCredit: Getty
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The group have remained friends since their time in the boyband in the early noughtiesCredit: Instagram/noraabuckingham
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Aaron Buckingham is now a songwriter for SpotifyCredit: Instagram/noraabuckingham
WASHINGTON — Democrats and Republicans alike raised concerns on Wednesday about deep staffing cuts, funding freezes and far-reaching policy changes overseen by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers questioned Kennedy’s approach to the job, some saying that he has jeopardized vaccine uptake, cancer research and dental health in just a few short months.
In combative and at times highly personal rejoinders, Kennedy defended the Trump administration’s dramatic effort to reshape the sprawling, $1.7-trillion-a-year agency, saying it would deliver a more efficient department focused on promoting healthier lifestyles among Americans.
“There’s so much chaos and disorganization in this department,” Kennedy said on Wednesday during the Senate hearing. “What we’re saying is let’s organize in a way that we can quickly adopt and deploy all these opportunities we have to really deliver high-quality healthcare to the American people.”
During tense exchanges, lawmakers — in back-to-back House and Senate hearings — sometimes questioned whether Kennedy was aware of his actions and the structure of his own department after he struggled to provide more details about staffing cuts.
“I have noted you’ve been unable, in most instances, to answer any specific questions related to your agency,” said Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a Maryland Democrat.
The secretary, in turn, pushed back — saying he had not had time to answer specific questions — and at points questioning lawmakers’ own grasp of health policy.
Kennedy testified to explain his downsizing of the department — from 82,000 to 62,000 staffers — and argue on behalf of the White House’s requested budget, which includes a $500-million boost for Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” initiative to promote nutrition and healthier lifestyles while making deep cuts to infectious disease prevention, medical research and maternal health programs.
He revealed that he persuaded the White House to back down from one major cut: Head Start, a federally funded preschool program for low-income families across the country.
But lawmakers described how thousands of job losses at the health department and funding freezes have impacted their districts.
One Washington state mother, Natalie, has faced delays in treatment for Stage 4 cancer at the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center, said Democratic Sen. Patty Murray. The clinical center is the research-only hospital commonly known as the “House of Hope,” but when Murray asked Kennedy to explain how many jobs have been lost there, he could not answer. The president’s budget proposes a nearly $20-billion slash from the NIH.
“You are here to defend cutting the NIH by half,” Murray said. “Do you genuinely believe that won’t result in more stories like Natalie’s?” Kennedy disputed Murray’s account.
Democrat Rep. Bonnie Watson-Coleman of New Jersey asked “why, why, why?” Kennedy would lay off nearly all the staff who oversee the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which provides $4.1 billion in heating assistance to needy families. The program is slated to be eliminated from the agency’s budget.
Kennedy said that advocates warned him those cuts “will end up killing people,” but that President Trump believes his energy policy will lower costs. If that doesn’t work, Kennedy said, he would restore funding for the program.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican of Alaska, said those savings would be realized too late for people in her state.
“Right now, folks in Alaska still need those ugly generators to keep warm,” she said.
Murkowski was one of several Republicans who expressed concerns about Kennedy’s approach to the job throughout the hearings.
Like several Republicans, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee praised Kennedy for his work promoting healthy foods. But he raised concerns about whether the secretary has provided adequate evidence that artificial food dyes are bad for diets. Removing those food dyes would hurt the “many snack manufacturers” in his district, including the makers of M&M’s candy, he said.
Rep. Mike Simpson, a dentist from Idaho, said Kennedy’s plan to remove fluoride recommendations for drinking water alarms him. The department’s news release on Tuesday, which announced the Food and Drug Administration plans to remove fluoride supplements for children from the market, wrongly claimed that fluoride “kills bacteria from the teeth,” Simpson noted. He explained to Kennedy that fluoride doesn’t kill bacteria in the mouth but instead makes tooth enamel more resistant to decay.
“I will tell you that if you are successful in banning fluoride … we better put a lot more money into dental education because we’re going to need a lot more dentists,” Simpson added.
Kennedy was pressed repeatedly on the mixed message he’s delivered on vaccines, which public health experts have said are hampering efforts to contain a growing measles outbreak now in at least 11 states.
Responding to Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, Kennedy refused to recommend that parents follow the nation’s childhood vaccination schedule, which includes shots for measles, polio and whooping cough. He, instead, wrongly claimed that the vaccines have not been safety tested against a placebo.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican of Louisiana and chairman of the health committee, had extracted a number of guarantees from Kennedy that he would not alter existing vaccine guidance and work at the nation’s health department. Cassidy, correcting Kennedy, pointed out that rotavirus, measles and HPV vaccines recommended for children have all been tested in a placebo study.
As health secretary, Kennedy has called the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine — a shot given to children to provide immunity from all three diseases — “leaky,” although it offers lifetime protection from the measles for most people. He’s also said they cause deaths, although none has been documented among healthy people.
“You have undermined the vital role vaccines play in preventing disease during the single, largest measles outbreak in 25 years,” independent Sen. Bernie Sanders said.
Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim says he is “far from quitting” his job after saying he may have to give the “space to different people” if their poor form continued following Sunday’s 2-0 defeat by West Ham in the Premier League.
Bayer Leverkusen’s Xabi Alonso poised to replace departing Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti, according to media reports.
Former Real Madrid midfielder Xabi Alonso is set to become the club’s next manager on a three-year deal when he leaves Bayer Leverkusen after this season, Spanish media report.
Alonso, 43, is expected to replace Real boss Carlo Ancelotti, who – despite having a year remaining on his Madrid contract – has just been confirmed as the new manager of Brazil in the run-up to the 2026 World Cup, the Brazilian FA (CBF) said on Monday.
Alonso, who said earlier this month that he was leaving Leverkusen after guiding them to the double last term, will join Real before the inaugural Club World Cup in the United States from June 15 to July 13, multiple media reports said.
Alonso, who also played for Liverpool and Bayern Munich, last season steered Leverkusen to their first Bundesliga title, ending the Bavarians’ 11-year domination, and they also won the German Cup and German Super Cup.
Real Madrid’s star forward Kylian Mbappe reacts after his side’s 4-3 loss to Barcelona in La Liga at the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona, Spain, on May 11, 2025 [Jose Breton/AP Photo]
Ancelotti’s departure from the club come as no surprise after Real’s 4-3 defeat at Barcelona in a thrilling El Clasico on Sunday left his side on the brink of a trophy-less season.
The 65-year-old Italian, who returned for a second stint at Real in June 2021, led the Spanish giants to two Champions League and La Liga doubles, the latest of which came last season.
He exits Real Madrid as the most successful manager in the club’s history with a total of 15 trophies and the first coach to claim titles in Europe’s top five leagues.
However, this season Real were knocked out of the Champions League in the quarterfinals by Arsenal, and allowed Barca to fight back and win 3-2 in the Copa del Rey final.
Second-placed Real are seven points adrift of Barcelona, who could secure the league title on Wednesday without kicking a ball if Real fail to win at home to Mallorca.
Regardless of Real’s result, a Barca victory in the city derby away to Espanyol on Thursday would clinch the title.
An official announcement regarding a managerial change is expected before Real’s last game of the season at home to Real Sociedad on May 25.
Ancelotti is expected to receive a fitting farewell, recognising his four highly successful years with the club.
Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti has just been confirmed as the new manager of Brazil, opening the door for ex-Real player Xabi Alonso to take over at the Spanish club [File: Alberto Estevez/EPA]
Commentary: If people taking care of our elders get deported, will anyone take their place?
She rides three buses from her Panorama City home to her job as a caregiver for an 83-year-old Sherman Oaks woman with dementia, and lately she’s been worrying about getting nabbed by federal agents.
When I asked what she’ll do if she gets deported, B., who’s 60 and asked me to withhold her name, paused to compose herself.
“I don’t want to cry,” she said, but losing her $19 hourly job would be devastating, because she sends money to the Philippines to support her family.
Steve Lopez
Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a Los Angeles Times columnist since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist.
The world is getting grayer each day thanks to an epic demographic wave. In California, 22% of the state’s residents will be 65 and older by 2040, up by 14% from 2020.
“At a time where it seems fewer and fewer of us want to work in long-term care, the need has never been greater,” Harvard healthcare policy analyst David C. Grabowski told The Times’ Emily Alpert Reyes in January.
So how will millions of aging Americans be able to afford care for physical and cognitive decline, especially given President Trump’s big beautiful proposed cuts to Medicaid, which covers about two-thirds of nursing home residents? And who will take care of those who don’t have family members who can step up?
A building where multiple caregivers live in a cramped studio apartment in Panorama City.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
There are no good answers at the moment. Deporting care providers might make sense if there were a plan to make the jobs more attractive to homegrown replacements, but none of us would bet a day-old doughnut on that happening.
Nationally and in California, the vast majority of workers in care facilities and private settings are citizens. But employers were already having trouble recruiting and keeping staff to do jobs that are low-paying and difficult, and now Trump administration policies could further shrink the workforce.
Earlier this year, the administration ordered an end to programs offering temporary protected status and work authorization, and the latest goal in Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration is to make 3,000 arrests daily.
“People are worried about the threat of deportation … but also about losing whatever job they have and being unable to secure other work,” said Aquilina Soriano Versoza, director of the Pilipino Workers Center, who estimated that roughly half of her advocacy group’s members are undocumented.
In the past, she said, employers didn’t necessarily ask for work authorization documents, but that’s changing. And she fears that given the political climate, some employers will “feel like they have impunity to exploit workers,” many of whom are women from Southeast Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Mexico and Latin America.
That may already be happening.
“We’ve seen a lot of fear, and we’ve seen workers who no longer want to pursue their cases” when it comes to fighting wage theft, said Yvonne Medrano, an employment rights lawyer with Bet Tzedek, a legal services nonprofit.
A gathering at the Pilipino Workers Center in Los Angeles in Historic Filipinotown. Aquilina Soriano Versoza, director of the center, says, “People are worried about the threat of deportation … but also about losing whatever job they have and being unable to secure other work.”
(Ringo Chiu / For The Times)
Medrano said the workers are worried that pursuing justice in the courts will expose them to greater risk of getting booted out of the country. In one case, she said, a worker was owed a final paycheck for a discontinued job, but the employer made a veiled threat, warning that showing up to retrieve it could be costly.
Given the hostile environment, some workers are giving up and going home.
“We’ve seen an increase in workers self-deporting,” Medrano said.
Conditions for elder care workers were bleak enough before Trump took office. Two years ago, I met with documented and undocumented caregivers and although they’re in the healthcare business, some of them didn’t have health insurance for themselves.
I met with a cancer survivor and caregiver who was renting a converted garage without a kitchen. And I visited an apartment in Panorama City where Josephine Biclar, in her early 70s, was struggling with knee and shoulder injuries while still working as a caregiver.
Biclar was sharing a cramped studio with two other caregivers. They used room dividers to carve their space into sleeping quarters. When I checked with Biclar this week, she said four women now share the same space. All of them have legal status, but because of low wages and the high cost of housing, along with the burden of supporting families abroad, they can’t afford better living arrangements.
B. and another care provider share a single room, at a cost of $400 apiece, from a homeowner in Panorama City. B. said her commute takes more than an hour each way, and during her nine-hour shift, her duties for her 83-year-old client include cooking, feeding and bathing.
She’s only working three days a week at the moment and said additional jobs are hard to come by given her status and the immigration crackdown. She was upset that for the last two months, she couldn’t afford to send any money home.
“People are worried about the threat of deportation, but also about losing whatever job they have and being unable to secure other work, said Aquilina Soriano Versoza, executive director of the Pilipino Workers Center.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Retired UCLA scholar Fernando Torres-Gil, who served as President Clinton’s assistant secretary on aging, said “fear and chaos” in the elder care industry are not likely to end during this presidential administration. And given budget constraints, California will be hard-pressed to do more for caregivers and those who need care.
But he thinks the growing crisis could eventually lead to an awakening.
“We’re going to see more and more older folks without long-term care,” Torres-Gil said. “Hopefully, Democrats and Republicans will get away from talking about open borders and talk about selective immigration” that serves the country’s economic and social needs.
The U.S. is not aging alone, Torres-Gil pointed out. The same demographic shifts and healthcare needs are hitting the rest of the world, and other countries may open their doors to workers the U.S. sends packing.
“As more baby boomers” join the ranks of those who need help, he said, “we might finally understand we need some kind of leadership.”
It’s hard not to be cynical these days, but I’d like to think he’s onto something.
Meanwhile, I’m following leads and working different angles on this topic. If you’re having trouble finding or paying for care, or if you’re on the front lines as a provider, I’m hoping you will drop me a line.
[email protected]
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Loose Women star lands huge new job just days after ITV daytime cull amid cash crisis
LOOSE Women star Judi Love has landed a huge new job just days after ITV announced their daytime cull.
The ITV show’s line-up had been left in the dark about cuts to their lunchtime talk show, which will take effect from January amid a cash crisis.
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Sweeping changes announced earlier this month mean the female-led, lunchtime talk show will only air for 30 weeks a year.
So, it’s a good job Judi, 44, has bagged herself a lucrative podcasting gig to keep the cash rolling in.
The comedian announced on Instagram today that the first episode of Our Table will be released tomorrow.
Fellow Loose Woman Charlene White is joining her, along with actor David Gyasi, comedian Michelle Deswarte and actress Deborah Ayorinde.
She wrote: “Our Table will launch on Friday, the 30th, on YouTube and all major podcast platforms!
“We have an exciting series lined up, featuring incredible guests and engaging conversations. Join us at Our Table!! #Ourtable #JudiLove.”
A second post saw the Strictly star posed with her special guests ahead of the series premiere.
The Sun previously revealed how Loose Women is in chaos backstage with some of the stars doing the show “through gritted teeth” as they face a 60 per cent pay cut.
An insider told us: “It’s very tense backstage as the cast are all fuming. It’s like they’re putting on a brave face and doing the show through gritted teeth.
“Some people’s pay could be cut by 60% as some get paid by the episode and they’ll be slashed next year.
“For some it’s their main source of income and it’s worrying to everyone.”
This comes after an ITV source revealed: “We are not planning any radical changes to the panel.
“All of our Loose Women are hugely valued and we celebrate each and every one and the experience and opinions they bring to the show every day.
“Many of our long standing panellists have appeared on the show for the majority of its 25 year run on screens and those stalwart, Loose legends are at the core of the show’s success and hugely popular with the audience.
“The show remains a big priority within our daytime slate, having secured a BAFTA nomination, launched a podcast and celebrated a milestone anniversary in the last year alone.”
MORE ITV CUTS
Loose Women isn’t the only show affected by recently announced changes at ITV, that will come into play in 2026.
Lorraine Kelly’s show has been cut to just 30 minutes a day and will also only air for 30 weeks of the year.
Good Morning Britain, with hosts including Susanna Reid, Ed Balls and Kate Garraway, will take half an hour from Lorraine and will run from 6am to 9.30am.
More than 220 jobs will be lost as part of the shake-up — almost half of the 450 employed on the four flagship shows GMB, Lorraine, This Morning and Loose Women.
ITV’s daytime TV schedule changes in full
Good Morning Britain will be extended by 30 minutes to run from 6am to 9.30am daily.
Lorraine will run from 9.30am-10am, on a seasonal basis for 30 weeks of the year.
During the weeks Lorraine is not on air, Good Morning Britain will run from 6am to 10am.
This Morning will remain in its 10am-12.30pm slot on weekdays throughout the year.
Loose Women will be in the 12.30-1.30pm slot, again on a seasonal basis for 30 weeks of the year.
The changes will take effect from January 2026.
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Hannah Gutierrez, ‘Rust’ western movie armorer, released from prison
Hannah Gutierrez, the weapons handler in the ill-fated Alec Baldwin western movie “Rust,” has been released from prison after serving 14 months for her conviction last year of involuntary manslaughter.
Gutierrez was released Friday from a New Mexico women’s prison after completing her sentence in the accidental shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in October 2021.
Gutierrez was one of three people charged in Hutchins’ death on the movie set south of Santa Fe, N.M., but the only one who received a felony conviction. A jury found her guilty of involuntary manslaughter in Hutchins’ death following a dramatic two-week trial last year in Santa Fe.
New Mexico prosecutors faulted the Arizona woman for reckless handling of firearms and ammunition in violation of gun safety rules.
The special prosecutor also argued that Gutierrez had unwittingly brought the live bullets with her to the popular western film location, Bonanza Creek Ranch, and mingled them with inert “dummy” bullets used on film sets.
Gutierrez has denied that allegation. There was no conclusive evidence presented about the origins of the live bullets.
Actor Alec Baldwin during his 2024 trial in Santa Fe for his role in the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
(Ramsay de Give / Associated Press)
Baldwin, who pointed the gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal, also was charged. He pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter for the shooting that killed the 42-year-old cinematographer, a rising star in the industry, and wounded the film’s director, Joel Souza.
The New Mexico judge overseeing the “Rust” criminal prosecutions, New Mexico 1st Judicial District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer, dismissed the charge against Baldwin three days into his high-profile trial last July.
Marlowe Sommer found the prosecutor and Santa Fe County sheriff’s deputies had concealed evidence from Baldwin’s legal team, which the judge said prejudiced the case against Baldwin. At the time, the actor-producer’s team was exploring whether prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies botched the investigation into how the bullets made their way onto the set.
Assistant director David Halls was also charged in the shooting.
Halls pleaded no contest to negligent use of a deadly weapon and received a suspended six-month sentence, which ended in October 2023. Halls, who has since retired from the industry, agreed to pay a $500 fine, participate in a firearms safety class, refrain from taking drugs or alcohol and complete 24 hours of community service.
Gutierrez had received the maximum sentence for her role.
She was released on parole. She also is being supervised under terms of probation after pleading guilty to a separate charge of unlawfully carrying a gun into a Santa Fe bar that prohibited firearms a few days before the fatal shooting, according to the Associated Press.
Terms of her parole include mental health assessments and a ban on firearms possession.
Gutierrez, through her attorney, declined an interview request Sunday.
“When I took on ‘Rust,’ I was young and I was naive but I took my job as seriously as I knew how to,” Gutierrez told the judge during her April 2024 sentencing hearing.
Marlowe Sommer, who also presided over the armorer’s case, gave Gutierrez the maximum sentence, saying: “You were the armorer, the one that stood between a safe weapon and a weapon that could kill someone. .. You alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon.”
With Gutierrez’s release, the criminal phase of the “Rust” saga has concluded.
Several civil lawsuits against Baldwin and the producers, including from Hutchins’ family members, remain unresolved.
Baldwin and other actors and crew members finished filming in Montana, 18 months after the fatal shooting in New Mexico. The movie was finally released in the U.S. this month on just a handful of screens.
The October 2021 shooting shined a harsh light on film set safety, particularly on low-budget productions.
“Rust” was racked with problems, including allegations of safety rules and hiring inexperienced crew members such as Gutierrez. “Rust” was just her second job as head armorer. She also was tasked with the job of prop assistant.
Hours before the fatal shooting, “Rust” camera crew members had walked off the job to protest safety concerns and a lack of housing near the film’s set. Crew members complained about earlier accidental gun discharges.
Gutierrez is the stepdaughter of well-known Hollywood armorer Thell Reed.
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Trump at commencement hails West Point cadets, claims credit for U.S. military might
WEST POINT, N.Y. — President Trump used the first military commencement address of his second term Saturday to congratulate West Point cadets on their academic and physical accomplishments while veering sharply into politics, claiming credit for America’s military might while boasting about his election victory last fall.
“In a few moments, you’ll become graduates of the most elite and storied military academy in human history,” Trump said at the ceremony at Michie Stadium. “And you will become officers of the greatest and most powerful army the world has ever known. And I know, because I rebuilt that army, and I rebuilt the military. And we rebuilt it like nobody has ever rebuilt it before in my first term.”
Wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat, the Republican president told the 1,002 graduating cadets that the U.S. is the “hottest country in the world,” boasted of his administration’s record and underscored an “America first” theme for the U.S. military, which he called “the greatest fighting force in the history of the world.”
“We’re getting rid of distractions and we’re focusing our military on its core mission: crushing America’s adversaries, killing America’s enemies and defending our great American flag like it has never been defended before,” Trump said. He later said that “the job of the U.S. armed forces is not to host drag shows or transform foreign cultures,” a reference to drag shows on military bases that the Biden administration halted after Republican criticism.
Trump said the cadets were graduating at a “defining moment” in the Army’s history, as he criticized past political leaders, whom he said led soldiers into “nation-building crusades to nations that wanted nothing to do with us.” He said he was clearing the military of transgender ideas, “critical race theory” and trainings he called divisive and political.
“They subjected the armed forces to all manner of social projects and political causes while leaving our borders undefended and depleting our arsenals to fight other countries’ wars,” he said of past administrations.
Several points during his address at the football stadium on the military academy’s campus were indistinguishable from a political speech. Trump claimed that when he left the White House in 2021, “we had no wars, we had no problems, we had nothing but success, we had the most incredible economy” — although voters had just rejected his bid for reelection.
Turning to last year’s election, he noted that he won all seven swing states, arguing that those results gave him a “great mandate” and “it gives us the right to do what we want to do,” although he did not win a majority of votes nationwide.
The president also took several moments to acknowledge specific graduates’ achievements. He summoned Chris Verdugo onto the stage, noting that the cadet completed an 18.5-mile march on a freezing night in January in two hours and 30 minutes. Trump had the top-ranking lacrosse team stand to be recognized. He also brought West Point’s football quarterback, Bryson Daily, to the lectern, praising him as having a “steel”-like shoulder. He later used Daily as an example to make a case against transgender women participating in women’s athletics.
In a nod to presidential tradition, Trump also pardoned about half a dozen cadets who had faced disciplinary infractions.
“You could have done anything you wanted, you could have gone anywhere,” Trump told the class, later continuing: “Writing your own ticket to top jobs on Wall Street or Silicon Valley wouldn’t be bad, but I think what you’re doing is better.”
The president also ran through several pieces of advice for the graduating cadets, urging them to do what they love, think big, work hard, hold onto their culture, keep faith in America and take risks.
“This is a time of incredible change and we do not need an officer corps of careerists and yes men,” Trump said, going on to note recent advances in military technology. “We need patriots with guts and vision and backbone.”
Trump closed his speech by calling on the graduating cadets to “never ever give up,” then said he was leaving to deal with matters involving Russia and China.
“We’re going to keep winning, this country’s going to keep winning, and with you, the job is easy,” he said.
Just outside campus, about three dozen protesters gathered before the ceremony, waving miniature American flags. One in the crowd carried a sign that said “Support Our Veterans” and “Stop the Cuts,” while others held up plastic buckets with the message: “Go Army Beat Fascism.”
Trump gave the commencement address at West Point in 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. He urged the graduating cadets to “never forget” the soldiers who fought a war over slavery during his remarks that day, which came as the nation was reckoning with its history on race after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The ceremony five years ago drew scrutiny because the U.S. Military Academy forced the graduating cadets, who had been home because of COVID-19, to return to an area near a pandemic hot spot.
Trump traveled to Tuscaloosa, Ala., earlier this month to speak to the University of Alabama’s graduating class. His remarks mixed standard commencement fare and advice with political attacks against his Democratic predecessor, President Biden, musings about transgender athletes and lies about the 2020 election.
On Friday, Vice President JD Vance spoke to the graduating class at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. Vance said in his remarks that Trump is working to ensure U.S. soldiers are deployed with clear goals, rather than “undefined missions” and “open-ended conflicts.”
Kim and Swenson write for the Associated Press and reported from West Point and Bridgewater, N.J., respectively.
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Emmys: 7 drama contenders on fame, online controversy and more
Academy Award winner Billy Bob Thornton, who plays chain-smoking crisis manager Tommy Norris in Taylor Sheridan’s latest hit “Landman,” seems like a guy who can’t be intimidated. But get him in a room with Allison Janney and the truth comes out.
“I was afraid of you,” he tells her sheepishly on The Envelope’s Emmy Roundtable for drama actors.
“Really?” says Janney, the Oscar-, Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning performer who appears as cunning Vice President Grace Penn on the Netflix political thriller “The Diplomat.”
“The first time I met Allison, it was at another press function thing,” he says to the room. “And just seeing you, as an actor, and parts you play … But also, you have this very dignified quality about you.”
“It’s my height, I think.”
“No,” he continues. “You just have the face of someone who is powerful and really intelligent. So some idiot like me comes in, and I’m like, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t talk to her.’”
This is what happens when you gather seven Emmy contenders whose performances so convincingly shape our perceptions of who they are in real life. This year’s group also included Sterling K. Brown, who plays Xavier Collins, a Secret Service agent seeking the truth in Hulu’s “Paradise”; Britt Lower, who plays both wealthy heiress Helena Eagan and defiant data refiner Helly R. in Apple TV+’s “Severance”; Jason Isaacs, who plays Timothy Ratliff, an American financier desperately trying to keep a secret from his family in HBO’s “The White Lotus”; Noah Wyle, who plays Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, a senior attending physician at a Pittsburgh trauma center in Max’s “The Pitt”; and Kaitlin Olson, who plays the underestimated but brilliant police consultant Morgan Gillory in ABC’s “High Potential.”
Read on for excerpts from our discussion about how they tap into their layered performances, navigate the business and more — and watch video of the roundtable below.
The 2025 Emmy Drama Roundtable. Back row from left: Britt Lower, Jason Isaacs, Noah Wyle and Kaitlin Olson. From row from left: Billy Bob Thornton, Allison Janney and Sterling K. Brown.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Tell me about an “Oh, my God, did that just happen?” moment — good or bad — from your early years on a Hollywood set. Kaitlin, your first credit was “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” I can’t imagine what it’s like making Larry David laugh.
Olson: Oh, you just have to scream in his face and insult him, and then he thinks that’s really, really funny. But yeah, there were no marks and there were no lines. So I didn’t really have an “Oh, my God” moment. You just talk and shut up when you should shut up.
Isaacs: On my first day [on 1989’s “The Tall Guy”], I remember I arrived first thing in the morning. I was playing Surgeon No. 2 in a dream sequence that Jeff Goldblum was in. The director, who’s hassled and busy, he goes, “OK, we’re going to start with you. We’re coming in on the dolly. But because I’m on a very wide lens, if you could start the eyeline somewhere near the bottom of the jib and then just go to the corner of bottle, then take it to the edge of the matte box when we’re getting close.” And I went, “Right … What the f— did any of those words mean?” Jeff is just out of frame. And he’s in his underpants, and it’s a dream sequence for him. And we’re just about to go and roll the cameras, and Jeff goes, “Hold on a second.” And he stands up and he starts standing on a chair reciting Byron love poems even though he was not in the shot. I’m like, “I don’t understand what the hell is going on here.” Years later, I sat next to him at a wedding and I said, “Do you remember that night?” He went, “Yeah.”
Jason Isaacs of “The White Lotus.”
Have there been moments where you fell out of love with acting or where you felt like, “This isn’t working out”?
Janney: My career didn’t start till I was 38 or something, because I’m so tall, and I was literally uncastable. I went to the Johnson O’Connor [Research Foundation]. And I did three days of testing to see what else I could possibly do.
Issacs: What is that?
Janney: It’s an aptitude testing place. They ask you to do all this stuff, and at the end of it they say, “This is what you should be.” And they told me I should be a systems analyst. I had no idea what that was. And the next day, I got cast understudying Faith Prince and Kate Nelligan in “Bad Habits,” a play at the Manhattan Theatre Club.
Allison Janney of “The Diplomat.”
Brown: I’ve never fallen out of love with it. I was an economics major in college who wound up switching to drama. When I got out of grad school and [was] hopping around through regional theater, I wound up booking a TV show, “Army Wives,” for six years, and a few years into the show, I was like, “I think I’ve done everything that I want to do with the character.” So when they came dangling the carrot for people to reup after Season 6, I was like, “I’m curious to see what else the universe has in store.” I was able to pay off student loans. We had our first child, I had a home and I was like, “Let’s take a gamble on Brown.” I did a pilot for AMC that didn’t get picked up; then had a recurring [role] on “Person of Interest” for six episodes. I was like, “Oh, man, I got a wife and a kid and a house. Did I mess up? Should I have stayed on the show or not?”
Then I auditioned for [“The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”], and I didn’t hear anything for four months. I was down in New Mexico shooting this movie, “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,” and I was having this really sort of morbid moment of going through my IMDb Pro account and looking at everybody who had booked all of the things that I had auditioned for. I was like, “Oh, Bokeem Woodbine booked Season 2 of ‘Fargo.’ Good for him.” And I got a call from my manager saying, “They want you to screen test with Sarah Paulson for this thing.” I was the only person that they brought in to audition for it.
Sterling K. Brown of “Paradise.”
Your series are largely confronting or commenting on real-world anxieties or subjects that are changing in our world in real time. Noah, with Dr. Robbie and what he says about what’s going on in the healthcare system — we’re seeing him cope with the aftermath of COVID-19. We’re seeing stories that are very timely about vaccinations. Talk about what was important to you with this series and what you wanted to show through these characters.
Wyle: “ER” was very much a patient-centric show in a lot of ways. And this was more of an exercise to be practitioner- and physician-centric, to really show the toll that the last five years since COVID has taken on that community. The thesis being that it is as fragile as the mental health of the people that we have in those jobs and the quality’s what we received. Even though we had to peer into a crystal ball and try to figure out a year ago what would be the topical cases of today, we were really more interested in how everybody’s coping mechanisms have allowed them to practice what they’ve been doing for the last five years. How they’ve compartmentalized the toll it’s taken on them personally, and explore that in real time. Aggregate tension on a shift where you’re just embedded with them without release. The outset was more about identifying the mental health of the practitioner than identifying the ills in society … Can I just say how effing cool it is to sit at this table with you all and be the uncool one to say that I feel like my impostor syndrome is off the rails right now?
Olson: No way.
Hopefully you’ll all guest star on each other’s shows by the time this is over.
Janney: I would love that.
Britt, what really spoke to me about “Severance” was its exploration of grief, but within that too, there’s the corporate overreach and the work-life balance that I think all of us can appreciate. Did it show you anything about how you navigate your work-life balance or what you could do better?
Lower: The cast talks a lot about how the “Severance” procedure is kind of like what we do for a living. We go to work and put on a different outfit and assume a new identity. There were some moments where you’re walking down the corridors on the way to your job, and there’s kind of this meta quality of being inside of a show about compartmentalizing and switching into a different part of yourself. But I think it’s so relatable. I think we do that as humans. We show up differently in different spaces in our lives, whether it’s work or home or going home for the holidays, versus your baseball team. You just put on a different person really.
Britt Lower of “Severance.”
Isaacs: If I go away to do a job on location somewhere, I can actually — even at my ripe old age; I’m a father and I’m a husband — just park my life and forget that. Now I see that metaphor very clearly and it’s irresponsible. I’m so much more comfortable in the fictitious world than I am in the real world.
Do you feel like there’s a misconception that you guys are just all at the pool?
Isaacs: I’m not really an actor anymore; I just do “White Lotus” publicity for a job. And in the billions of interviews, people expect you to say, “It was a holiday. We were in this resort.” Well, we’re not really in the resort. So I’ve said a few times, “You make friends. You lose friends, romances or whatever; things happen between departments and all the backstage drama that we’re all used to.” Well, the online world went mad trying to deconstruct, trying to work out who knew who and who was [doing what]. Actually, I’m talking about all the crew and all the departments — not that it’s anyone’s business. But it’s trying to deconstruct what we all think of each other. And what happened there is so much less interesting than Mike White’s brilliant stories. You shouldn’t be interested in who went to dinner with who. I kind of wish I hadn’t opened my mouth about it, but I don’t want to pretend it was a holiday. Not just the way that the show blew up but also the level of microscopic interest in anything any of us said, tweeted, posted — there aren’t many new experiences for actors who’ve been around a long time, but this one has been shocking, and I’m quite glad that it’s abating now. I’d like to return to my normal life, but I don’t know how people who are uber-famous deal with it.
— Jason Isaacs, on fan attention to ‘The White Lotus’
Billy Bob, how did you come to navigate it? You’ve experienced the extreme effects of that.
Thornton: You mean in the world of Hollywood and all that?
Isaacs: Do you go to the supermarket, take the subway … Do you do the stuff I do?
Thornton: It depends on what year it is. I’ve gone through times where I couldn’t go anywhere. Once my life got bigger, and that really happened with … I mean, I was a working actor doing OK, but “Sling Blade” is the one that, literally overnight, it was a crazy thing. From that point on, it’s been pretty steady. What I’ve done to not get involved in all that is I don’t really go anywhere. I’m either working or I’m at home with the family or in a recording studio or on the road. You don’t see me in the [tabloid] magazines, at the parties and all that kind of stuff.
I’ll put it this way. Right now, with “Landman,” we thought it was going to be successful. We had no idea that it was going to be like this. I mean, we’ve got fans in Iceland and stuff. I can’t go to a Walmart in Texas. It’s literally impossible. I tried it. I would walk three feet at a time. Texans, their personalities are also very big, and they don’t really come up and go, “Excuse me, mister.” It’s not like that. It’s like, “Hey man, what’s going on? Get in a picture with me.”
I’ve had a reputation — weirdo. Angelina and I were vampires. We drank each other’s blood. You look on the internet, and there’s some kind of thing you’re trying to look up and, inevitably, it’ll show something else. So you go, “I hate this. I hate the internet, but I got to see it.”
Billy Bob Thornton of “Landman.”
Isaacs: There’s no good version of you. You either look much better on the screen or much better in real life. I wanted to say [looks at Allison], because I was a huge “West Wing” fan, I did some “West Wing,” I couldn’t break out of thinking that Bradley [Whitford] and Janel [Moloney] were, in fact, Josh and Donna. Did people think you were that political? People assumed you were that character?
Janney: I’ve been such a disappointment for people who think that I am C. J. [Cregg, her character on “The West Wing”], because I couldn’t be less like her. I’m not that person who’s able to verbally cut someone down in the second that she needs to. It was so great to play her, but I remember when they had the Democratic National [Convention] in California and there were more people who came up to me and asked me, “After this is over, will you come work for us? Will you come to…” I’m like, “You don’t understand. I’m so not like that.” And now on “The Diplomat,” playing the president of the United States and the smartest person in the room, it’s so much fun for me to play those kind of women because I’m not [like that]. I mean, I’m not an idiot, but I know nothing about being in the world of politics or being manipulative.
Kaitlin, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” is in its 17th season now. You’re on “Hacks.” When you’re signing on to something like “High Potential,” what factors do you consider when thinking about how long you want to commit to something?
Olson: I don’t ever want to play a character that starts to get old to me. “Sunny” doesn’t feel like that to me because it’s a satire and the world’s always providing us with new content. And we do eight to 10 episodes a season. So it’s 17 seasons, which is insane, but it’s not even 20 episodes. It’s so much fun, which is the reason I’m not sick of that character yet. But I feel the same way as you, [Allison], when I’m playing characters who are super-smart, and then I have to talk about it, I just go into panic mode.
How has it been getting into Morgan’s head?
Olson: I love the other characters that I play, but there’s heart to this, and she’s a good mom and she is very insecure but puts on a big show. I love that she’s scrappy and has to figure it out, and she trusts that she will and doesn’t rely on anybody else to help her figure it out. The most important thing are her kids. I think she’s just fascinating to play.
Kaitlin Olson of “High Potential.”
What’s the most impressive skill you picked up on the job? Noah, you know I’m going to start with you. You went to medical boot camp. You’ve done really well with sutures. You can intubate any one of us, I think.
Wyle: I’ve never performed one.
Isaacs: The night is young.
Wyle: I wish everybody an opportunity to slip into a role that you have such great muscle memory with from another aspect of your life when you play a musician or when you do circusing or whatever. When you do something you’ve done for so long, and then you get to do it again, it is just amazing how much it’s in your body and how you don’t have to worry about that stuff. There was a moment earlier where Sterling choked on the grape in the greenroom. I was so ready to intubate him, even if it wasn’t necessary.
Thornton: I went to air-traffic control school for “Pushing Tin,” so I can still say, “Delta 2376, turn left, 20-0-4-0” and “Clear the Alice approach one-four right, call the tower one-eight-three,” because you just don’t forget it. That’s not air-traffic control, that’s just a line. With Noah, he learns this skill that he has been doing over the years, and that kind of knowledge is invaluable. Anytime you have stuff to do, without just acting, like you’re doing busy work — you’re, like, here’s how you do an appendectomy — and you learn and when you’re picking up the right tools, you’re saying the right stuff, you’re making incisions — that stuff you’ve got to learn.
Isaacs: One of the great privileges of being an actor that maybe doesn’t show up onscreen is you get to walk in people’s shoes. I shadowed heart surgeons and plastic surgeons and politicians and criminals and soldiers, and it’s just an amazing privilege to be in people’s lives and talk about it. And there may be some tiny bit you pick up for the screen.
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‘Sister Midnight’ review: Unhappy housewife breaks out of routine
A gritty, rock-inflected comedy using the nocturnal peculiarities of Mumbai slum life as a fertile (if at times fetid) palette, British-raised Karan Kandhari’s “Sister Midnight,” about a restless young housewife’s urban malaise, easily holds your attention for long stretches when seemingly little happens, but everything feels charged.
Don’t mistake this stylish feature debut for a misery wallow, however, or some poetic character study. It’s tantalizingly oddball and indelicate: a combined daymare and night odyssey that scratches until a feral hidden strength is revealed in the misfit main character, captivatingly played by Indian star Radhika Apte.
Though the movie ultimately can’t square its episodic unpredictability with the bubbling feminist-outlaw energy at its core — not to mention the comic-book twist that shakes it all up halfway through — that’s less a bug than a feature. Like a movie DJ, Kandhari is flexing a pulpy mood of big-city dislocation, building a trippy, jarring and blackly funny experience out of a city’s stray colors, sounds and personalities.
Arriving at their one-room hovel in the dead of night, arranged-marriage newlyweds and rural transplants Uma (Apte) and Gopal (Ashok Pathak) look more like thrown-together prison cellmates adjusting to a warden’s rules than a romantic couple embracing a future together. We glean that this was a match of undesirables: the timid, sexless guy no girl wanted and the girl too outspoken to be paired.
But here they are, having to make do. Gopal at least has a job to go to, from which he often comes home hammered after drinks with colleagues. Uma, left behind in the solitude of a shack that only allows one shaft of window light, is quick to profanely protest the joyless, intimacy-challenged rut they’ve entered. Alternating between angry and exhausted, she bristles at acclimating to the domesticity that her prickly neighbor wives treat like a club handshake.
Before long, Uma’s taste for cigarettes under the moonlight turns into regular solo walks at all hours. An impulsive journey to a coastal part of town hours away leads to her taking a cleaning job in an office building (and a friendship with a glumly simpatico elevator operator). Suddenly, she’s brandishing a mop and pail everywhere like a rootless knight without a quest or a horse. Then there’s a cryptic street encounter with a goat and things get even weirder. But also, somehow, more validating.
Kandhari, with his hypnotic Wes Anderson-by-way-of-David Lynch widescreen framing and deliberate tracking shots, seems more concerned with capturing something liminal in Uma’s alternative existence, as if the city were just weird and oppressive enough to tease out any transformation that was already lying dormant. (By the time the movie introduces stop-motion creatures roaming the streets, you’ve been primed to think, “Sure, why not?”)
A mischievously off-the-wall exercise like “Sister Midnight” (which eventually embraces some gnarlier elements) needs a certain steam to keep up its deadpan wildness. Kandhari is blessed in that regard with an active visual curiosity about his cracked fable’s punk potential, helped by Sverre Sørdal’s humid cinematography and a game lead in Apte, whose middle-finger energy is sometimes hilariously offset by a wonderful silent-film-star haplessness.
One wishes it all held together a little more, instead of laying seeds that tend to sprout vibes and distractions instead of an illuminating cohesiveness. Kandhari will too often keep Uma in cartoon rebel-goddess mode, needle-dropping another classic rock cut as if daring us to accept Motorhead or Buddy Holly as the only viable soundtrack for what’s going on. But those elements are a kick, too.
Of course, the title “Sister Midnight” is an Iggy Pop staple. “What can I do about my dreams?” it growls, an apt lyric for the singularly inventive and unmanageable fever of a movie that shares its name.
‘Sister Midnight’
In Hindi, with English subtitles
Not rated
Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes
Playing: In limited release Friday, May 23
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Coronation Street star Colson Smith reveals his new BBC job after ITV brutal exit
Coronation Street star Colson Smith has announced his first job since being axed from the ITV soap just days after his onscreen death was aired
22:42, 23 May 2025Updated 22:58, 23 May 2025
It was sad week in Coronation Street this week, as Craig Tinker (Colson Smith) was killed off after a brutal assault in a tear jerking episode. It was announced earlier this year that the star would be leaving the soap – and there wasn’t a dry eye in sight when he left the cobbles for good on Wednesday night.
Colson was axed from the show last year, and just days after his tragic onscreen death, he’s taken to Instagram to announce his new job with BBC Radio Leeds.
Taking to his Instagram to thank followers for all the love this week, Colson, 26, wrote: “Thank you so much for all the love this week! I really appreciate it!”
He then had big news to share with his followers. Alongside a picture of him outside a BBC building, he wrote: “There’s a few exciting things going off!! BUT one thing I can tell you for now, is that I’m joining the team at BBC Radio Leeds this summer!!! Catch ya on the wireless in Yorkshire!!”
Colson is no stranger to speaking to a mic, as he fronts the On The Sofa with Colson, Jack and Ben podcast alongside cast mates and besties, Jack P. Shepherd and Ben Price who play David Platt and Nick Tilsley in the long running ITV soap.
Fans were overjoyed at the news, as they took to the comments to congratulate the star. “Go Colson!” exclaimed one fan, while another excited follower penned: “That’s exciting ekkk!”
A third devastated Corrie fan penned: “The last few episodes have been amazing. So sad you’re gone!! Wishing you all the best and look forward to watching your next journey.”
Earlier this week, Colson joined Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley on the This Morning sofa to chat about his exit, where he spoke about the “hard” moment he learnt he’d been given the axe.
Recalling his meeting with producer Kate Brooks, the star said: “Getting told is hard, hearing the words – I tried really hard not to put the words into her mouth. As soon as I knew, I was at peace with what was going on.” Despite asking to be killed off from the soap, Colson has also revealed he had no idea how brutal it would be.”
Although some actors would be gutted to hear their character was going to be killed off, Colson said if there was a way he wanted to go, that would be it.
“For me to go, I would want to leave. I would want to die, I would want the door to be shut, so then I can kind of know in my head that Corrie has been this, Corrie has done that, and it is now done, and Craig’s journey is over,” he told Ben and Cat.
Coronation Street airs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV1 and ITV X.
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Axed Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa reveals new job after BBC show exit
AXED Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa has revealed a huge new job after his BBC show exit.
We previously revealed that the former Sex Education star was given the boot by bosses after just two series.
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Ncuti, 32, has left the long-running drama after ‘woke’ storylines have seen ratings plummet in recent years.
The actor is off after just two series with no replacement likely for the Time Lord’s regeneration on May 31.
Now, the actor is quickly moving on as he has just announced his next project on social media.
He will stay in the upcoming satirical black comedy film called The Roses.
The star took to his Instagram stories as he displayed the poster of the Hollywood movie, alongside a simple rose and red heart emoji.
It features a completely star-studded cast of Hollywood A-listers and Oscar winners.
Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman, and I, Tonya star Allison Janney all have leading roles in the new flick.
While former Saturday Night Live favourites Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon will also have feature roles.
The news comes after Ncuti backed out of announcing the UK’s jury scores in last weekend’s Eurovision Song Contest.
He pulled out of his commitments just 48 hours before he was due to appear in front of 160million people.
At the time, the corporation confirmed he would no longer be involved, citing “unforeseen circumstances” and he was replaced by Sophie Ellis-Bextor.
This was amid controversy among some at Israel’s inclusion in the global singing competition and Ncuti stepped aside moments after Israel qualified for the grand final.
A TV insider said: “If the final nail wasn’t already in the coffin, it was well and truly hammered in after that.
“Bosses were incredibly disappointed. Ncuti, as the Doctor, is one of the corporation’s most high-profile faces.
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“His withdrawal was incredibly embarrassing. It caps what has been a largely depressing tenure in the Tardis for Ncuti.“
Execs are likely to rest the 62-year-old show to consider who might revive its fortunes.
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ITV staff fury grows over job cuts and ‘death of daytime’ as CEO pockets £4m salary
Staff at ITV are said to be growing angrier as the row over cuts on key shows such as Loose Women and Lorraine continues, with insiders fearing a drop in standards
23:28, 22 May 2025Updated 23:50, 22 May 2025
ITV staff fury is growing as the row over sweeping cuts to Loose Women and Lorraine continues to rage. Recriminations are becoming increasingly bitter over the channel’s axing of 220 jobs, with insiders insisting viewers will notice a drop in standards.
Many are blaming chief executive Carolyn McCall for the “death of daytime” and have criticised her for pocketing a massive £4million salary, including bonus, last year. There is also widespread anger that the cost-savings, which will radically change ITV ’s daytime schedule from January, were not delivered by Ms McCall to staff gathered in London’s Television Centre, on Tuesday.
A Good Morning Britain source said: “She could have walked the 400 yards to the studio to explain to folk in person.” But a channel spokeswoman said ITV Studios MD Julian Bellamy personally wanted to deliver the news: “It was really important to him that he shared this news directly in the way he felt appropriate. This is also very much in line with best practice HR given the sensitivity of the situation.”
They said ITV boss Kevin Lygo made the decision to shake-up the schedules. It comes as the channel was rocked by a series of other developments including:
On screen, viewers will see huge changes to the daytime schedule. Lorraine is the worst hit. It will run for 30 weeks, not 50 weeks a year, and will be slashed from an hour to 30 minutes each day.
Loose Women will stay at the same running time but will also be cut to 30 weeks. This Morning will remain the same length and frequency. Meanwhile Good Morning Britain will be extended by 30 minutes, to run from 6am to 9.30am. For the 22 weeks of the year Lorraine is not airing, it will go on until 10am.
A source said: “It’s not a case of viewers seeing less of their shows… it’s impossible to see how the high standards will remain the same. Some staff believe Loose Women and Lorraine in particular will enter a death spiral… it’s just so sad. Just a handful of people will be working on each of those two programmes which has huge ramifications for how they are going forward.”
All the shows are now going to be made under one roof. An insider asked: “If that’s the case, will Loose Women really still have a live audience…will there be the capacity for that? Everyone doubts it, not least because of the manpower needed to oversee it. Also, there is a huge amount of background work which goes into securing guests… in the new climate how does that continue with barely any staff?”
ITV sources insist that they want “minimal change” for viewers. The source said: “It’s early days and we are currently consulting but we don’t want to alienate our viewers and it’s hoped there will be minimal change on screen. Daytime is hugely important to our viewers.”
The Loose Women panel, including Coleen Nolan, GK Barry and Frankie Bridge, are also expected to see shifts dwindle, especially those who live outside London and charge for travel and hotels. Glam squads are also expected to be axed with stars expected to use in-house make-up.
An insider said: “To be honest there is very little sympathy for stars having their glam squads cut among the rank and file staff, in fact there is a lot of anger that on the whole the channel’s biggest stars are all keeping their jobs – and their exorbitant salaries – while others suffer.”
They added: “It’s no secret that stars on This Morning such as Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley are on huge salaries. Many believe they should offer to take cuts, or at least when their contracts are next negotiated.”
On the whole, This Morning is unaffected by the sweeping cuts. It will remain in its 10am-12.30pm slot on weekdays although questions remain over whether standards will be maintained.
The current Good Morning Britain team was particularly hard hit – of the 133 staff who currently make the early-bird magazine show, hosted by Susanna Reid, Richard Madeley and Ed Balls, just 38 will make the move to ITN which will now produce the show.
One source on the show said: “Lots of the studio crew and technicians will be the hardest hit with ITN taking over their roles. A lot of them are unionised and there is a fear among ITV that industrial action could be an option.”
GMB will be re-homed within ITN’s Gray’s Inn Road headquarters in Central London. Staff working on all shows are expected to “carry on as normal” until the plans are formalised.
A source said: “It’s a mutinous atmosphere to say the least and far removed from the happy, cheery image that ITV Daytime usually evokes.” The Mirror revealed this week staff on Lorraine were particularly worried their main host could quit.
Contrary to reports she was happy to see her hours cut “to spend more time with her family”, insiders say she is devastated for the team on the show being decimated. “They are a tight bunch on Lorraine and the agony is palpable,” said one.
READ MORE: Claudia Winkleman-loved brand launches Bank holiday sale including ‘holy grail’ spray
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Prince William unveils new BBC documentary on ‘most dangerous job in world’
Prince William has teamed up with his charity United for Wildlife to launch the new six-part series called ‘Guardians’ which will follow the lives of enivronmental rangers across the world
Prince William has recognised the sacrifices of environmental rangers across the globe ahead of a new documentary series examining “the most dangerous job in the world“.
The Prince of Wales and his United for Wildlife programme today launched the six-part series titled ‘Guardians’, following the lives of rangers and the vital yet unseen work they do to protect our planet.
William, who helped create the programme and introduces each episode, said he hoped to help nature’s wardens be “valued, respected, seen” and promote the “wonderful” regions they protect.
The series features rangers who do “one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet”, said William, from safeguarding snow leopards in the Indian Himalayas, defending marine life in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez, to protecting elephants and gorillas in the Central African Republic.
READ MORE: King Charles hands important new charity role to ‘delighted’ Princess Eugenie
The prince described Sir David Attenborough as the “inspiration” and said he hoped to emulate his success in storytelling, just as the broadcaster and naturalist’s films drew viewers’ attention to remote parts of the globe.
Speaking this week in London ahead of the first episode being aired on BBC Earth’s YouTube, William paid tribute to the 1,400 rangers who have been killed in the line of duty in the last decade – amounting to two a week.
He said: “Many people think, you know, being a soldier, being in the emergency services, that these drops are dangerous, and the lives of the line.
“I don’t think people realise it’s the same for these guys and girls around the world. And you know, but 1,400 rangers have died in the last 10 years. That’s about two a week. And it’s just they’re unseen and unheard of.”
He added: “Any progress, any future we want for the natural world, has to come from the ranger community being valued, respected, seen.”
New six to 10-minute episodes will be unveiled each week, with first-hand accounts of the lives of rangers and nature protectors as they urgently work to conserve biodiversity and ecosystems.
William has voiced the trailer and individual episode introductions, aiming to showcase these unsung heroes and highlight how their work impacts us all.
The series follows the remarkable stories from the Central African Republic and the breathtaking Dzangha-Sangha protected area, following a reformed poacher who now dedicates his life to protecting the wildlife he once hunted.
It also coveres The Himalayas, India where high in the Spiti Valley rangers are working to bring co-existence between the snow leopards known as ‘Ghosts of the Himalayas’, and local communities.
Also featured is Mexico’s Sea of Cortez once called ‘the world’s aquarium’ – and the story of a reformed illegal fisherman now working to protect this threatened ecosystem.
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Ncuti Gatwa 'axed' from Doctor Who after pulling out of Eurovision presenting job
Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa has reportedly been axed as the Time Lord as his departure from hosting the Eurovision Song Contest is said to have ‘hammered’ the move
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Sky News presenter quits job and reveals he’s leaving London after 12-year career
A TV presenter has surprisingly announced he’s leaving Sky News next week.
The former LBC and BBC Newsnight broadcaster announced he’s quit the job after a 12-year career in journalism.
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Matthew Thompson said he’s leaving London for family reasons and is moving into a different industry entirely.
He wrote on X: “Some personal news. In a couple of weeks, I am leaving Sky News. And indeed, leaving London, and journalism altogether.
“It’s not a decision I’ve taken lightly, but it’s one that’s best for me and my family. I’ll be moving to Edinburgh, and into the world of finance.
“I won’t subject you all to a self-indulgent run through of my career highlights. But suffice to say it has been the privilege of my life to spend these last 12 years or so as a journalist.
“To work with some of the best in the business, and to talk to all of you.
“Thank you to all the people who made it possible, and to all the people who let me tell their stories along the way. I’ve always tried to make it about you, rather than me.
“I hope I managed that, and that I did the privilege justice. As for next steps… I can say more soon.”
Most recently, Matthew worked as Sky News‘ Home & Political Correspondent.
He continued: “I hope this isn’t goodbye. It may be possible to keep some level of engagement on here in my new gig.
“For now, thank you. I’ve learned so much from reading and speaking with you all over the years.
“It’s made me a better journalist, and a better person. I’ll miss it terribly.”
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Ange Postecoglou: Trophy does not complete Tottenham job, says Spurs boss
Tottenham’s victory sparked emotional scenes among their fans, with the club set to have an open-top bus parade on Friday before their final Premier League game of the season at home to Brighton.
By winning the Europa League, Spurs will also have a chance to win the Uefa Super Cup when they face the Champions League winners, either Inter Milan or Paris-St Germain, on 13 August in Italy.
However, whether Postecoglou is still in charge of the club then is unknown.
“I would be disappointed if we don’t continue on this path,” he added in the post-match news conference. “It is difficult to buy into one person’s vision. I have been a serial winner. I know people dismiss what I have won because it didn’t happen here, but they were hard earned.
“There is huge relief. You carry the weight of responsibility and 150 times I have been a spokesman for this club.
“There are no planned meetings. I’ll go back to my hotel room with friends and family, open up a nice bottle of scotch, a massive parade on Friday, game on Sunday against Brighton and then holiday. Then que sera, sera.”
Postecoglou joined Tottenham in June 2023, having won five trophies in two seasons at Celtic, including back-to-back Scottish Premiership titles.
In September, he said he “always wins things in his second season,” a statement which was true when he had been in charge of clubs for two full seasons.
He maintained that record in Bilbao and said: “People misinterpreted me. It was not me boasting, just me making a declaration and I believed it. I had this thing inside me more than anything else.
“I know our league form has been unacceptable, but coming third was not going to change this football club, winning a trophy would, that was my ambition and I was prepared to wear it if it did not happen.
“People kept reminding me of it because we were getting closer but I’m happy with that.”
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Barry Ferguson: Rangers confirm interim boss to leave Ibrox job
Barry Ferguson says he has “loved this experience” after it was confirmed that Saturday’s draw with Hibernian was his last match as interim manager of Rangers.
Ferguson, who took charge when Philippe Clement was sacked in February, had spoken about his desire to continue in the role, but those hopes have been dashed.
The 47-year-old leaves along with coaches Neil McCann, Billy Dodds and Allan McGregor.
“I’ve already lived the dream as a player and as captain of Rangers, and to do so as head coach in these last three months has been an enormous honour,” Ferguson said.
“There have been some ups and downs, but I have loved this experience and given it my all throughout. The backing I have received has been phenomenal.
“I said, no matter how this period panned out, I would always remain a committed supporter of the club, and I look forward to remaining a Rangers ambassador.
“I wish whomever becomes the new manager every success in the job.”
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Ex-Man Utd star Tom Cleverley in talks with Premier League club over manager job just days after Watford sacking
TOM CLEVERLEY is reportedly in talks with a Premier League club just days after being sacked by Watford.
The former Manchester United star was axed by the Hornets earlier this month after missing out on the Championship playoffs.
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Cleverley, 35, took over at Vicarage Road in March 2024 as he replaced Valerien Ismael.
But he could be set for a quick return to the dugout with Southampton interested.
The Guardian have claimed that he is one of the leading candidates to take over at St Mary’s next season.
It is suggested that he has a “strong chance” of being appointed as the new Saints boss.
Cleverley has taken charge of 59 first-team games, winning 20, drawing 14 and losing 25.
The Southampton team is currently playing under caretaker Simon Rusk, who took charge after the sacking of Ivan Juric.
They are a top-flight club for two more games, which come against Everton and Southampton.
Juric was only in charge for 14 Premier League games after replacing Russell Martin.
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Cleverley does face competition for the job from fellow Englishman Will Still.
Still has left Ligue 1 outfit RC Lens following the end of the season in order to move back to England.
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Still’s parting message to RC Lens
Here is what Will Still told RC Lens fans about his decision to leave…
He said: “I won’t be the coach of RC Lens next season.
“It was the last season at Bollaert, for multiple reasons.
“The main reason that pushed me to make this decision is the fact that I need to go home.
“Everyone is well aware of what happened in my life. That’s why.
“I had a lot of fun, I think we achieved great things despite everything. I’ve been in France for four years, four years that I’ve experienced intense moments.
“The logical choice is that I get closer to my wife for her well-being too.”
The manager wants to spend more time with his Sky Sports presenter partner Emma Saunders.
His exit came just one season into a three-year deal.
Reports have claimed that Still is in “advanced talks” with Southampton over the vacant manager role.
In his final game, Lens beat AS Monaco 4-0 at the Stade Bollaert-Delelis.
Neil El Aynaoui netted twice while Adrien Thomasson and Anass Zaroury wrapped up the scoring.
The victory sealed an 8th-placed finish in the Ligue 1 table.
Still has also had interest from Hull City and has previously turned down Rangers.
Sheffield Wednesday‘s Danny Rohl is also believed to be in the running for the job.
Meanwhile, Watford have already replaced Cleverley with former Real Valladolid boss Paulo Pezzolano.
The Uruguayan becomes the 22nd manager to take charge of the Hornets since Gino Pozzo’s takeover in 2012.
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Noughties boybander turns to VERY racy job after pop comeback failed to take off
A NOUGHTIES boyband star has turned to a very racy job after their music comeback failed to take off.
Two decades ago they were hitting the UK Top Ten with hits like Blood, Sweat and Tears, and Hip to Hip.
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They had a string of top ten hits in 2004 before disbanding.
The band reunited as a four piece last year to celebrate their 20th anniversary.
They played at Mighty Hoopla in London and teased new music.
However just months later they have split again, and Kevin McDaid, who once was engaged to Westlife’s Mark Feehily, is now working as a personal trainer – with a very niche offering.
He is offering fans hour-long sessions in the buff at a private London gym for £250.
Taking to X, formerly Twitter, Kevin, who is also a photographer, said alongside a naked photo of him lifting weights: “Who’s booking in for your naked PT session this week?”
The boyband comprised of five members with Kevin, Mark Harle, Leon Pisani, Antony Brant and Aaron Buckingham.
Last year two members reunited and stripped down to speedos to enjoy a sun soaked holiday together.
Kevin and Aaron beamed for holiday pictures shared to Instagram, as they showed their friendship was still going strong.
Aaron shared a series of pictures of the pair including some of the lads topless enjoying the sunshine.
In one picture Aaron struck a pensive pose, staring into the distance in just a pair of board shorts.
Former bandmate Leon is also still close with the pair, who despite not being on the holiday commented on the picture adding “My boys”.
Post band, V have gone on to very different careers after leaving the music industry.
Former bandmate Mark moved into the TV and film industry and has worked as an art assistant on TV series including Ghost Loop.
Leon has traded music for mortgages and is now a mortgage company owner and living in West Wales.
Aaron has stayed close to his music roots in becoming a songwriter for Spotify.
Despite the band splitting in 2005, they did reform for fans in 2023 without Harle and instead making up a four piece.
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Lawmakers question Kennedy on staffing cuts, funding freezes and policy changes at health department
WASHINGTON — Democrats and Republicans alike raised concerns on Wednesday about deep staffing cuts, funding freezes and far-reaching policy changes overseen by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers questioned Kennedy’s approach to the job, some saying that he has jeopardized vaccine uptake, cancer research and dental health in just a few short months.
In combative and at times highly personal rejoinders, Kennedy defended the Trump administration’s dramatic effort to reshape the sprawling, $1.7-trillion-a-year agency, saying it would deliver a more efficient department focused on promoting healthier lifestyles among Americans.
“There’s so much chaos and disorganization in this department,” Kennedy said on Wednesday during the Senate hearing. “What we’re saying is let’s organize in a way that we can quickly adopt and deploy all these opportunities we have to really deliver high-quality healthcare to the American people.”
During tense exchanges, lawmakers — in back-to-back House and Senate hearings — sometimes questioned whether Kennedy was aware of his actions and the structure of his own department after he struggled to provide more details about staffing cuts.
“I have noted you’ve been unable, in most instances, to answer any specific questions related to your agency,” said Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a Maryland Democrat.
The secretary, in turn, pushed back — saying he had not had time to answer specific questions — and at points questioning lawmakers’ own grasp of health policy.
Kennedy testified to explain his downsizing of the department — from 82,000 to 62,000 staffers — and argue on behalf of the White House’s requested budget, which includes a $500-million boost for Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” initiative to promote nutrition and healthier lifestyles while making deep cuts to infectious disease prevention, medical research and maternal health programs.
He revealed that he persuaded the White House to back down from one major cut: Head Start, a federally funded preschool program for low-income families across the country.
But lawmakers described how thousands of job losses at the health department and funding freezes have impacted their districts.
One Washington state mother, Natalie, has faced delays in treatment for Stage 4 cancer at the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center, said Democratic Sen. Patty Murray. The clinical center is the research-only hospital commonly known as the “House of Hope,” but when Murray asked Kennedy to explain how many jobs have been lost there, he could not answer. The president’s budget proposes a nearly $20-billion slash from the NIH.
“You are here to defend cutting the NIH by half,” Murray said. “Do you genuinely believe that won’t result in more stories like Natalie’s?” Kennedy disputed Murray’s account.
Democrat Rep. Bonnie Watson-Coleman of New Jersey asked “why, why, why?” Kennedy would lay off nearly all the staff who oversee the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which provides $4.1 billion in heating assistance to needy families. The program is slated to be eliminated from the agency’s budget.
Kennedy said that advocates warned him those cuts “will end up killing people,” but that President Trump believes his energy policy will lower costs. If that doesn’t work, Kennedy said, he would restore funding for the program.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican of Alaska, said those savings would be realized too late for people in her state.
“Right now, folks in Alaska still need those ugly generators to keep warm,” she said.
Murkowski was one of several Republicans who expressed concerns about Kennedy’s approach to the job throughout the hearings.
Like several Republicans, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee praised Kennedy for his work promoting healthy foods. But he raised concerns about whether the secretary has provided adequate evidence that artificial food dyes are bad for diets. Removing those food dyes would hurt the “many snack manufacturers” in his district, including the makers of M&M’s candy, he said.
Rep. Mike Simpson, a dentist from Idaho, said Kennedy’s plan to remove fluoride recommendations for drinking water alarms him. The department’s news release on Tuesday, which announced the Food and Drug Administration plans to remove fluoride supplements for children from the market, wrongly claimed that fluoride “kills bacteria from the teeth,” Simpson noted. He explained to Kennedy that fluoride doesn’t kill bacteria in the mouth but instead makes tooth enamel more resistant to decay.
“I will tell you that if you are successful in banning fluoride … we better put a lot more money into dental education because we’re going to need a lot more dentists,” Simpson added.
Kennedy was pressed repeatedly on the mixed message he’s delivered on vaccines, which public health experts have said are hampering efforts to contain a growing measles outbreak now in at least 11 states.
Responding to Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, Kennedy refused to recommend that parents follow the nation’s childhood vaccination schedule, which includes shots for measles, polio and whooping cough. He, instead, wrongly claimed that the vaccines have not been safety tested against a placebo.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican of Louisiana and chairman of the health committee, had extracted a number of guarantees from Kennedy that he would not alter existing vaccine guidance and work at the nation’s health department. Cassidy, correcting Kennedy, pointed out that rotavirus, measles and HPV vaccines recommended for children have all been tested in a placebo study.
As health secretary, Kennedy has called the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine — a shot given to children to provide immunity from all three diseases — “leaky,” although it offers lifetime protection from the measles for most people. He’s also said they cause deaths, although none has been documented among healthy people.
“You have undermined the vital role vaccines play in preventing disease during the single, largest measles outbreak in 25 years,” independent Sen. Bernie Sanders said.
Seitz writes for the Associated Press.
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Ruben Amorim: Manchester United boss says he’s far from quitting his job
Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim says he is “far from quitting” his job after saying he may have to give the “space to different people” if their poor form continued following Sunday’s 2-0 defeat by West Ham in the Premier League.
READ MORE: How bad have Amorim’s United been in the Premier League?
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Alonso to join Real Madrid after Ancelotti takes Brazil job: Reports | Football News
Bayer Leverkusen’s Xabi Alonso poised to replace departing Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti, according to media reports.
Former Real Madrid midfielder Xabi Alonso is set to become the club’s next manager on a three-year deal when he leaves Bayer Leverkusen after this season, Spanish media report.
Alonso, 43, is expected to replace Real boss Carlo Ancelotti, who – despite having a year remaining on his Madrid contract – has just been confirmed as the new manager of Brazil in the run-up to the 2026 World Cup, the Brazilian FA (CBF) said on Monday.
Alonso, who said earlier this month that he was leaving Leverkusen after guiding them to the double last term, will join Real before the inaugural Club World Cup in the United States from June 15 to July 13, multiple media reports said.
Alonso, who also played for Liverpool and Bayern Munich, last season steered Leverkusen to their first Bundesliga title, ending the Bavarians’ 11-year domination, and they also won the German Cup and German Super Cup.
Ancelotti’s departure from the club come as no surprise after Real’s 4-3 defeat at Barcelona in a thrilling El Clasico on Sunday left his side on the brink of a trophy-less season.
The 65-year-old Italian, who returned for a second stint at Real in June 2021, led the Spanish giants to two Champions League and La Liga doubles, the latest of which came last season.
He exits Real Madrid as the most successful manager in the club’s history with a total of 15 trophies and the first coach to claim titles in Europe’s top five leagues.
However, this season Real were knocked out of the Champions League in the quarterfinals by Arsenal, and allowed Barca to fight back and win 3-2 in the Copa del Rey final.
Second-placed Real are seven points adrift of Barcelona, who could secure the league title on Wednesday without kicking a ball if Real fail to win at home to Mallorca.
Regardless of Real’s result, a Barca victory in the city derby away to Espanyol on Thursday would clinch the title.
An official announcement regarding a managerial change is expected before Real’s last game of the season at home to Real Sociedad on May 25.
Ancelotti is expected to receive a fitting farewell, recognising his four highly successful years with the club.
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