Joe

Former two-time champion loses his fourth straight bout after being stopped by Pyfer in the second round.

Joe Pyfer sent former Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight champion ‌Israel Adesanya back to the drawing board in Saturday’s UFC Fight Night headliner in ⁠Seattle, stopping Adesanya ⁠at 4:18 of the second round to cap the night.

Before the technical knockout (TKO) finish, both fighters exchanged their best punches in a stand-up battle until a Pyfer (16-3 MMA) takedown signalled the beginning ⁠of the end.

“I just have this mentality where I don’t care; I’m going to search and destroy,” Pyfer said, following the stoppage, securing the finish in top control.

Adesanya (24-6 MMA), fighting out of New Zealand, has not won a ⁠bout since regaining middleweight gold in April 2023 at UFC 287, and confirmed he has no plans to retire.

“I’m just going to keep going and going and going,” Adesanya said.

Grasso dominates Barber in rematch

A rematch five years in the making commenced at flyweight as former champion Alexa Grasso made short work of Maycee Barber with a TKO stoppage at 2:42 of the ‌opening round. The Mexican used a left hook to down Barber before jumping on top of her immediately as the referee stepped in.

The two first met in February 2021, with Grasso earning a decision. Grasso (17-5-1 MMA) snapped a two-fight losing skid, whereas Barber (15-3 MMA) had not lost since the first meeting with Grasso, having won her previous seven fights.

In his final MMA fight, welterweight Michael Chiesa (20-7 MMA) had a hometown send-off as he submitted Niko Price (16-11 MMA) with a first-round rear-naked choke. Chiesa needed just 63 seconds ⁠to put a bow on his UFC career, one that spanned a decade-plus ⁠and included winning the 15th season of The Ultimate Fighter in June 2012.

Chiesa ended his UFC career at 15-7, while Price, who has been in the promotion for over a decade himself, now sits at 8-11, with two no contests in the Octagon and has ⁠dropped four straight fights.

The finishes were a theme on the night, as featherweight Lerryan Douglas (14-5 MMA) of Brazil needed 3:33 of the opening round to deliver ⁠a devastating TKO against Julian Erosa (31-13 MMA). Douglas has now won his ⁠last six in a row while Erosa continues to struggle at 9-9 in the UFC.

At middleweight, Yousri Belgaroui of the Netherlands scored a third-round TKO stoppage against Mansur Abdul-Malik by landing a perfectly timed knee to end the fight in a back-and-forth battle. Belgaroui (10-3 MMA) has ‌won five straight and remains undefeated in the UFC. Conversely, it was Abdul-Malik’s (9-1-1 MMA) first professional loss, as he had won seven of his 11 outings by KO/TKO.

The main card got under way in emphatic fashion in the ‌opener, ‌with lightweight Terrance McKinney needing just 24 seconds to dispatch Canadian Kyle Nelson with a series of punches following a head kick. McKinney (18-8 MMA) has won three of his last four, while Nelson (17-7-1 MMA) has lost two of his last three.

Joe Kent says he resigned as director of the US National Counterterrorism Center over opposition to the war in Iran, telling an audience at a Washington prayer event that he couldn’t “send young men and women off to die on foreign battlefields” in “good conscience.”

It was no surprise when Joe Kent showed up on Tucker Carlson’s podcast a day after quitting his counterterrorism job in President Trump’s administration. Here was a top official who resigned to protest the war with Iran turning to right-wing media’s leading critic of the conflict.

“The Israelis drove the decision to take this action,” Kent said in Wednesday’s interview.

But before long, the conversation moved in a different direction as Kent nodded to conspiracy theories that pro-Israel forces were behind the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

“I’m saying there are unanswered questions,” Kent said.

The conversation encapsulated two schisms within the Republican Party and the right-wing media system, both of which have reached high into the national security establishment of the Trump administration.

There’s a foreign policy debate over the wisdom of Trump’s war with Iran and the future of the United States’ longstanding alliance with Israel.

But there also are fears that the focus on Israel is the leading edge of an antisemitic fringe that has gained ground by portraying Jews as shadowy manipulators, echoing some of history’s most hateful tropes.

Tucker Carlson is playing a central role

At the center of both issues is Carlson, a former Fox News host who remains influential among conservatives. He was previously denounced for hosting Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist and antisemite, on his podcast last year. During the interview, Fuentes complained about “organized Jewry in America.”

On Wednesday, Carlson was sharply critical about Israel, saying “its lobbying in the United States pressured the president.”

Matt Brooks, president of the Republican Jewish Coalition, described Kent’s appearance on Carlson’s podcast as “part of an ongoing problem.”

He noted that his group opposed Kent’s nomination as director of the National Counterterrorism Center because of ties to right-wing extremism. Trump ignored those concerns even though, as he said after Kent’s resignation, “I always thought he was weak on security” and “I didn’t know him well.”

Kent’s resignation letter trafficked in antisemitic conspiracy theories while raising concerns about the war with Iran.

He blamed “high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media” for encouraging conflict. Indeed, Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu encouraged Trump to join forces in an attack on Iran.

But Kent also went further, saying it’s “the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war.” He also said his wife, a Navy cryptologist who was killed by a suicide bomber in Syria, died “in a war manufactured by Israel.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, described the letter as “virulent antisemitism.” Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat, said “scapegoating Israel isn’t just a tired antisemitic trope — it’s anti-American.”

Kent has previously rejected all forms of “racism and bigotry.”

Trump has said nothing about Kent’s remarks on Israel. He previously disputed the idea that Israel pushed him toward war, saying, “I might have forced their hand.”

Unified Republican support for Israel has fractured

Questions about Israeli influence are not unique to right-wing circles. Progressives have also faced accusations of antisemitism for their response to the war in Gaza, which began with an attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.

But it’s been a widening fault line within the Republican Party, which has been a bedrock of support for Israel over the years. Conservatives are still reckoning with the fallout from Carlson’s interview with Fuentes.

For example, board members and other staff members resigned from the Heritage Foundation after the think tank’s president defended Carlson.

Trump tried to sidestep the issue, declining to criticize Fuentes and praising Carlson for having “said good things about me over the years.” The president previously dined with Fuentes at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., between his two terms, and Carlson has continued to visit the White House.

Mort Klein, president of the conservative Jewish group the Zionist Organization of America, said Wednesday that he supports Trump but “I’d like him to do more” about antisemitism.

“I want him to be stronger on those issues,” Klein said.

Carlson has said that he is not antisemitic. But he has said that anti-Jewish hate is less pervasive in society than bias against white people and that some Christian politicians who were fervent supporters of Israel were guilty of heresy.

The Iran war is poised to continue fracturing right-wing media.

Ben Shapiro, co-founder of The Daily Wire, called Carlson’s Fuentes interview “an act of moral imbecility” and accused the host of misleading his audience with falsehoods and conspiracy theories.

He’s also feuded with Candace Owens, who has promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories. Dennis Prager, a conservative commentator, wrote in an open letter to Owens that “I cannot think of anyone in public life engendering as much suspicion of Jews, Zionism and Israel as you.”

Megyn Kelly, like Carlson a former Fox News Channel anchor now helming her own independent media empire, said the war was sold to the American people by “Israel firsters, like Mark Levin.” Levin, a radio and Fox personality, has been among Trump’s most fervent supporters of the war.

Levin, for his part, called Kelly an “emotionally unhinged, lewd and petulant wreck.”

It promises to continue.

Levin posted on social media an invitation to Kent to appear on his show in the coming days.

“Sure,” Kent replied. “Let’s go.”

Beaumont and Bauder write for the Associated Press.

March 19 (UPI) — The FBI is investigating Joe Kent, who resigned this week as the counterterrorism director in protest over the war with Iran, over allegations that he leaked classified information, according to reports, while Trump administration officials attack his credibility.

Kent resigned Tuesday as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, a position to which the MAGA supporter and far-right conspiracy theorist with ties to White nationalist groups was nominated in early 2025 by President Donald Trump, stating that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.”

“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” he said.

The FBI investigation into Kent predates his resignation, unidentified sources told Semafor, the first to report on the development. The New York Times, NewsNation and others have since corroborated that story.

Kent is the first senior Trump administration official to resign over the war that has divided Republicans and supporters of the president, who campaigned on ending conflicts while warning Americans that if the Democrats were to return to the White House, the United States would be lured into a war with Iran.

Little information about the allegations against Kent was known. The revelations of the investigation come as the White House was attempting to undermine and dismiss the man Trump had repeatedly called “a Great American Hero” for his service as a soldier, Green Beret and CIA officer.

In his resignation letter, Kent argued that Trump was pulled into the war by Israel, claiming the Middle Eastern country had deployed a disinformation campaign to convince Americans that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States.

Trump told reporters on Tuesday that he thought of Kent as a “nice guy” who was “very weak on security.”

“I didn’t know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy. But when I read his statement I realized that it’s a good thing that he’s out because he said that Iran was not a threat. Iran was a threat.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt refuted the allegation as “insulting and laughable.” Speaking to reporters Wednesday, she attempted to distance Trump from Kent, saying he has not been involved with the president’s intelligence briefings for several months and has not been seen at the White House “for quite some time.”

“The president feels it is deeply disappointing that after the president gave him an opportunity in this administration to serve the American people that he would resign with a letter filled with falsehoods — accusing the president of the United States of being controlled by a foreign country.”

The war began late last month after the United States and Israel attacked Iran. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the U.S. attack on Iran was preemptive. He said they knew Israel was going to attack Iran, which would result in Iran attacking U.S. bases and allies in the region.

The U.S. attack was intended to preempt an Iranian response, he said.

Emmerdale fans think they know what Joe Tate has in store for Lydia Dingle and Kim Tate after he appeared to target Lydia over news about Home Farm on the ITV soap

After news about Kim Tate’s will on Emmerdale this week, fans think Joe Tate is plotting something sickening.

He’s seemingly targeting Kim’s friend Lydia Dingle, after he discovered she would get the Home Farm estate if Kim died. Since he found this out he’s been overly nice to Lydia, who saw right thought the “snake’s” behaviour.

But Wednesday’s episode saw him taking things further, as he was determined to make sure Home Farm was his should anything happen to Kim. Graham Foster had worked out his plan, with Joe deciding to open a bank account in Lydia’s name.

Fans immediately feared Joe was trying to set up Lydia in a shocking scheme. They believe Joe is planning on framing Lydia for fraud or money theft to tear apart her friendship with Kim, and have her removed from Kim’s will.

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One fan said: “Ffs Joe’s targeting Lydia. Trying to get her written out of the will.” Another agreed: “Bet Joe is going to set Lydia up for stealing from Kim!” as another said: “Nasty Joe going to set Lydia up.”

A fourth fan said: “Something is definitely going to happen to Kim and Lydia is going to get framed for it, making room for Joe to prey and get the house in the will. But all of this could have been started with a single discussion but then she’d know they’re snooping into her private affairs.

“I hope whatever happens, they don’t mess with that friendship.” A further post read: “I think the plan is to make it seem like Lydia is stealing from Kim because Joe has opened an account in her name presumably so they’ll fall out and Kim will change the will.”

A final theory read: “Ohh, I was thinking he’d find a way to steal Lydia’s identity and get her inheritance. I’m sure Kim would see right through Lydia ‘stealing’ from her, especially so soon after the recent events.”

It comes amid some fans feared Kim might die in the plot. With Joe acting like Kim was going to die soon with his fury over Home Farm not being left to him, and the focus on Kim’s will, it left fans wondering if it was a hint.

Some fans thought it was a bit random to be focusing on what might happen if Kim died, and therefore it could be foreshadowing her being killed off very soon. But with it being almost 37 years since she debuted, are we about to lose Kim for good?

One fan said on social media: “I hope it’s not but this is starting to feel like the beginning of the end for the character of Kim with the will plot. She has become one of my favourites recently so I will be sad if it is.”

Another viewer said: “I can’t lie all this talk about Kim’s will and Joe’s desperation for Home Farm got me wondering the same. But would they really kill off the Kim Tate?” It comes as new spoilers teased the Tates and the Dingles would feature in much more drama with things escalating at the farm.

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AUSTIN, Texas — “The Sun Never Sets” is filmmaker Joe Swanberg’s 10th indie to premiere at SXSW but his first to play the event since 2017. The astonishing pace with which he made his early work — loose, idiosyncratic stories that were progenitors of the emergent style known as mumblecore — has slowed significantly, but also given way to a newfound maturity as both a person and an artist.

Introducing “The Sun Never Sets” at its world premiere on Friday night to a sold-out crowd at the Zach Theater, Swanberg called his latest “my favorite film I’ve ever made.” Shot on 35mm in Anchorage, the movie follows a 30-ish woman, Wendy (Dakota Fanning in a vibrant turn), torn between pursuing a fresh romance with a reckless old flame (Cory Michael Smith) or continuing on with the settled-in-his-ways divorced father of two (Jake Johnson) she’s been seeing for a few years.

Dakota Fanning in Joe Swanberg’s “The Sun Never Sets,” filmed in Alaska.

(SXSW)

“I guess this is what they tell you about getting older and doing this job longer,” said a thoughtful Swanberg in a video interview from his home in Chicago shortly before the South by Southwest festival. “You get better at it and you sort of mature and all of this.”

The film marks Swanberg’s fourth collaboration with Johnson, a partnership that goes back to 2013’s “Drinking Buddies.” (The actor partly financed the new project along with his brother.) Following completion of the third season of the Netflix anthology series “Easy” in 2019, for which he wrote and directed all the episodes, Swanberg was planning to take a break. A divorce and the pandemic caused that pause to grow even longer.

In the intervening years Swanberg produced a number of projects for other filmmakers, did some acting and opened a small video store in Chicago. Swanberg knew Anchorage-based producer Ashleigh Snead, who encouraged him to consider shooting something there. The scenic location would give Swanberg the opportunity to expand his visual style from his usual couches, bars and apartments of much of his work. (There still are a surprising number of scenes on couches and in bars.)

“Joe’s a real filmmaker,” says Johnson in a separate interview. “And I think sometimes he doesn’t get that credit because he can make movies with nothing. This is a real adult movie. This is a film about how complicated breakups are and how messy they get. And it’s in beautiful Alaska.”

Swanberg, center, on the set of “The Sun Never Sets.”

(SXSW)

Swanberg has now gone from someone making talky, provocative and at times controversial films about the lives of post-collegiate 20-somethings to exploring the nuances and specifics of being a 44-year-old divorced father of two still trying to figure out his place in the world. His original cohort of SXSW-affiliated filmmakers, many of whom also fell under the rubric of mumblecore — nobody much liked the name, but no one ever came up with anything better, so it stuck — included Greta Gerwig, Lena Dunham, Barry Jenkins, Ti West and others who have gone on to more conventional mainstream success.

But Swanberg doesn’t seem to feel left behind. Rather, he only sees doors opening.

“It’s gone so much better than I thought it was going to go for me,” he says. “I mean, when I was making these really tiny, sexually explicit 71-minute movies, I was like, I’m just grateful to be here. I can’t even believe these festivals are showing this work and it’s so cool that there’s a space for me in this ecosystem.

“And so to watch my friends go off to do these giant movies, to see Greta doing ‘Barbie’ and stuff like that, to me it just opens up the possibilities,” he adds. “Each time a friend of mine sets some new record or moves into some new space, I’m kind of like: Oh, that just opened up for all of us now.”

His earlier work often featured raw sex scenes, sometimes featuring Swanberg himself. From practically the start of his career, well predating the #MeToo-era reckoning that began in 2017, Swanberg weathered accusations that he was exploitative and manipulative of his female performers. His stepback from productivity coincided with a moment when his explorations of sexual power dynamics fell out of favor. It would be easy to interpret that Swanberg preemptively soft-canceled himself to avoid a broader scandal. He doesn’t see it that way.

“Certainly in Chicago, where I’ve spent the last five years, I’m not unwelcome places,” he says, drawing a distinction between himself and “people who lose jobs or are capital-C canceled. But also my work has always pushed those boundaries and always attracted some amount of positive and negative attention.”

Though “The Sun Never Sets” has numerous kissing scenes, it doesn’t go too much further than that.

“I won’t do it,” Johnson says of more graphic scenes. “When I worked with Joe early on, I was like, ‘I love you, man — I’m not doing this.’”

For her part, Fanning had no reservations about working with Swanberg. He offered both Fanning and Smith the opportunity to work with an intimacy coordinator, but neither felt it was necessary.

“There was no planet where you’d ever be asked to do anything you were uncomfortable with,” Fanning says. “If there was ever a moment like, ‘I don’t want to do that,’ he’d be like, ‘Oh, then let’s not.’ There was a day where there was a scene and it was pouring rain outside. And we both looked at each other and he was like, ‘We’re not going to do it. The scene’s cut.’ He’s just open. And I just trusted him implicitly.”

Jake Johnson and Dakota Fanning in the movie “The Sun Never Sets.”

(SXSW)

Swanberg has long worked in an unusual style in which the script is essentially a detailed outline and the actors work to come up with their own dialogue during rehearsals. For “The Sun Never Sets,” Swanberg and Johnson developed the longest, most complete outline Swanberg has ever used, including some dialogue exchanges. Then the actors were allowed to make it their own.

Fanning recalled an early Zoom call with Swanberg and Johnson on which they explained the process.

“It’s still made like a real film,” Fanning says. “And Jake and Joe promised it’s not like we’re just flying by the seat of our pants: ‘You will know what to say, I promise.’ And then friends that know me asked, ‘Are you so nervous?’ And I was, but for some reason, I don’t know why, I just knew that it was going to be fine. And that just proved to be true.”

Even though it takes places in Anchorage, Swanberg calls “The Sun Never Sets” “extremely personal.”

“I was definitely writing a movie about a divorced mid-40s guy dating a younger person,” he says. “The questions of marriage and having children were sort of an amalgam of two real relationships that I merged into one onscreen.” He describes the material as “questions that I had and have about what my own relationships are going to look like post-divorce.”

That comes through in Fanning’s rich, layered performance, which might rank among the best of her already lengthy career. Swanberg’s style draws both an ease and an intensity from Fanning, who captures a woman at a pivotal moment of figuring out what she wants amid the emotional whirlwind she is going through. (At the film’s premiere, Fanning said, “I’ve never put so much of myself into a role before.”)

“I think the goal of Joe’s films, and I think at least my goal with this film, is trying to make everything feel real,” she says. “Things are just a mess some of the time.”

Dakota Fanning and Cory Michael Smith in “The Sun Never Sets.”

(SXSW)

Swanberg himself appears in a small role as the new husband of the ex-wife of Johnson’s character. And the characters of the two kids in the movie are named after the director’s own children. With a newfound maturity and emotional depth, Swanberg is continuing to make movies that are part diary, part generational markers.

“It’d be really cool in my 40s to make movies about characters in their 40s,” he says, “and in my 50s, 60s and 70s. It’d be neat to be making sexually explicit movies about 70-year-olds in their dating lives and sex lives and stuff. It’s really exciting to have movies about characters at this phase of their life, whether they’re finally settling down in their 40s or whether they’re getting out of relationships and reexamining their life. It’s where my head is at.”
.

WASHINGTON — Jill Biden is breaking her silence about Joe Biden’s decision to abruptly end his 2024 presidential reelection bid under pressure from Democrats concerned about his age, health and viability against Republican Donald Trump in a rematch of their 2020 campaign.

A political spouse for nearly 50 years, Jill Biden said she has never publicly discussed her feelings about the three-week stretch when her husband ended his political career, instead saving her thoughts for the pages of her soon-to-be-released memoir.

Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, on Wednesday announced that her book, “View from the East Wing: A Memoir,” is scheduled to be published June 2.

Jill Biden told the Associated Press in a brief telephone interview that the book is a “reflection of my four years as first lady” and that writing it was somewhat healing.

“It was kind of cathartic for me to write it, and I wrote about all the, you know, sometimes painful — but other times, most of it really beautiful moments that Joe and I shared during his presidency,” she said.

Jill Biden declined on Tuesday to discuss any of those moments, good or bad — including watching her husband work his way to the decision to end his five-decade-long political career by dropping out of the 2024 presidential race.

In an announcement video shared on Instagram, she said she wants to “set the record straight.”

The last chapter of her husband’s political career

In April 2023, then-President Joe Biden was 80 and the oldest president in U.S. history when he announced he was running for a second term. His age and fitness to serve another four years — which would take him to age 86 — became a source of concern for the public. Some fellow Democrats began to pressure him to step aside after he turned in a disastrous debate performance against Trump in June 2024 in which he struggled, in a raspy voice, to land his debating points and often appeared to lose his train of thought. Aides blamed the poor performance on a cold.

Joe Biden at first insisted that he would stay in the race, but after a few weeks he withdrew from the campaign and endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris, his vice president. Harris became the party’s presidential nominee but lost to Trump in the November 2024 election.

Jill Biden said that, with the book, “I have put things in perspective,” presenting what she describes as a “more balanced view” of her husband’s time as president.

The memoir is also a tribute of the sorts to women who, like herself, juggle multiple roles.

“It’s also a story about my being able to balance life, you know, as a working woman and as a mother, a grandmother, a first lady,” she said.

During her four years in the role, Jill Biden, 74, made history as the first first lady to continue the career she had before entering the White House. She had taught English and writing for decades at the community college level, and she continued teaching twice a week at a Northern Virginia school while serving as first lady.

Joe Biden ‘doing well’ after his cancer diagnosis

The former president’s office announced in May 2025 that he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer and that it had spread to his bones. He’s receiving treatment.

Jill Biden said it was “quite a shock getting the diagnosis” for her husband, who’s now 83.

“The fact that it is in his bones means that he will have cancer, you know, all his lifetime,” Jill Biden said. She said the doctors say he will “live out his natural life.”

“Like most retired couples, he’ll probably drive me crazy till the end of it,” she joked.

She said he visits Washington at least once a week for meetings or to give speeches.

A unique period in American history

The former first lady also writes in the book about serving during a unique period in U.S. history, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the aftermath of the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to the publisher.

Her husband was sworn into office on the steps of the Capitol on Jan. 20, 2021, just two weeks after a mob of Trump supporters, spurred by his false claims that the Republican lost because of election fraud, stormed the building in a violent attempt to keep lawmakers from certifying Joe Biden’s victory.

Joe Biden’s first year in office was dominated by the federal response to the pandemic and, while he mostly stayed at the White House, Jill Biden wore face mask and traveled around the country to encourage people to get their vaccinations. She also continued her advocacy on behalf of military families, education and community colleges, cancer prevention and women’s health initiatives.

Before she became first lady, Jill Biden was second lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017, when her husband was Barack Obama’s vice president. She currently chairs the Milken Institute’s Women’s Health Network.

Jill Biden is also the author of “Where the Light Enters,” published in 2019, in which she writes about meeting Joe Biden, then a U.S. senator from Delaware, and marrying and building a life with him. She also has written three children’s books.

Superville writes for the Associated Press.

Joe McDonald, lead singer and songwriter of Country Joe and the Fish — the band known for its resounding anti-war chant at Woodstock — has died. He was 84.

His wife, Kathy McDonald, announced his death Sunday morning. He died Saturday in his Berkeley home due to complications from Parkinson’s disease.

As a formative member of the American counterculture in the 1960s and ‘70s, McDonald leaves a legacy of bridging contemporary political satire and brazen anti-war sentiments with the early sounds of acid rock.

“We’re just so proud of him. He’s our hero. He instilled in us that we have to speak up when we can, on whatever platform we can, about issues that we feel are important,” said his daughter Seven McDonald, a film producer, music manager and writer.

“While he was a very serious, earnest activist, he also had such an acute sense of cynical humor that is so fantastic and was capable of scathing satire,” her brother Devin added. “He’s most famous for that, but he also did so many heartfelt benefits for different causes.”

The siblings, who spent their childhoods on the road and in recording studios with him, joke that he was always doing a benefit show.

The musician was born on Jan. 1, 1942, in Washington to Worden McDonald and activist Florence (Plotnik) McDonald, who were both members of the Communist Party. The family soon moved to the Southern California city of El Monte, where Joe McDonald was raised.

His musical roots reach back to when his father taught him to play the guitar at 7 years old. But before embarking on his career in music, McDonald enlisted in the Navy at age 17. He served as an air traffic controller at the Atsugi, Japan, air facility for three years. Upon coming back to the states, he tried out college for a short time before dropping out and moving to Berkeley.

Before experimenting with an early variation of Country Joe and the Fish alongside guitarist Barry Melton in the mid-1960s, McDonald started a small magazine called Rag Baby. Once the group was solidified, they decided to turn their folksy roots electric and made the move to San Francisco — just before the city’s legendary Summer of Love.

The group, born out of the Bay Area psychedelic rock scene, was soon signed by Vanguard Records and in 1967 released its debut album “Electric Music for the Mind and Body.” At the time the band’s label and producer were hesitant to let the musicians fully express their politics, and excluded the soon-to-be-hit anti-war anthem “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag” with the catchy chorus that began, “And it’s 1, 2, 3 what are we fighting for?”

Instead, they went with tracks like “Superbird,” a spoof of President Lyndon B. Johnson, which received little to no backlash. When the second album came around, the band was allowed to run with “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag” as the title track. Trouble started to arise with the anti-Vietnam war anthem when the group changed the beginning chant of F-I-S-H to a more profane four letter word that starts with an “F.”

They performed this altered cheer at a gig in Massachusetts, where McDonald received a charge for inciting an audience to lewd behavior and a $500 fine. With this police run-in, Country Joe and the Fish received a slew of press, riling up the public ahead of their Woodstock performance.

The moment the band members began this chant at Woodstock became arguably the biggest moment of their careers, with over 400,000 people joining in. It’s a moment of protest that has gone down in history.

Not long after the festival, the band went their separate ways. McDonald continued to release solo music that stuck with the similar themes of politics and the Vietnam War.

“He took the toll for taking the stand,” said Seven. “He was not the biggest pop star, because he just opted to speak his mind and do his thing.”

In 1986, McDonald released “Vietnam Experience,” an album full of songs analyzing its long-term impacts on his generation. And in 1995 he was “the driving force” according to an Associated Press story, behind a war memorial to honor Berkeley veterans killed in the Vietnam War.

He told The Times in 1986 that he had “an addiction to Vietnam … I’ve been doing work with veterans now for 15 years, and I probably know more about Vietnam veterans than any other person in the entertainment industry.”

“I’ve always believed that the veterans are a basic element to the understanding of war,” he added, “and the understanding of war is the only path to peace.”

McDonald is survived by his wife of 43 years, Kathy; his five children, Seven, Devin, Ryan, Tara Taylor and Emily; a brother, Billy; and four grandchildren.

POP star Taylor Swift’s ex Joe Alwyn has been getting up close and personal with a co-star during a break while filming a new movie.

The Kent-born actor, 35, was spotted with an arm around Austrian Julia Franz Richter, also 35.

The pair were shooting supernatural thriller Seance On A Wet Afternoon — based on the 1961 novel.

They were filming on Hampstead Heath, North West London.

The movie also stars Succession TV actor Matthew Macfadyen.

Joe affectionately put an arm around Julia’s neck and she reached up to touch him.

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An onlooker said: “He and Julia seemed to be more than just colleagues.”

Joe dated Taylor for six years.

The couple split in 2023.

In the film Weisz plays a self-proclaimed psychic who convinces her husband to help kidnap the son of a wealthy family.