WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a life term in prison without parole for a defendant who was 15 when he fatally stabbed his grandfather in Mississippi, ruling that a sentencing judge need not decide that the young person was “permanently incorrigible.”
The 6-3 decision retreats somewhat from a pair of earlier rulings, which said that such life sentences for minors convicted of murder should be extremely rare and limited to cases in which there was no reason to hope the young person could be rehabilitated.
California and 24 other states have abolished life terms with no hope for parole for offenders under 18. But Justice Sonia Sotomayor said such prison terms remain shockingly common in parts of the Deep South, particularly for young people of color.
As of last year, “Louisiana had imposed LWOP [Life Without Parole] on an astonishing 57% of eligible juvenile offenders” since 2012, when the court called for restricting such sentences, she said. In 2016, the court gave these inmates a chance to seek a new sentence with possible parole, but the Mississippi courts have rejected one-fourth of such appeals, she said.
“The harm of from these sentences will not fall equally,” Sotomayor added. “The racial disparities in juvenile LWOP sentencing are stark: 70% of all youth sentenced to LWOP are children of color,” she said, citing a study from the Juvenile Law Center.
Five years ago, the court gave new hope to the more than 2,000 inmates who had been sentenced to life terms for crimes they committed as minors. The justices said they had a right to seek a new sentencing hearing and possible parole in the future. But the court’s opinion did not say precisely what judges must consider in deciding such cases.
At issue Thursday was whether the defendant’s life term with no parole should be set aside unless the judges concluded he was “incorrigible” and could not be rehabilitated.
The justices divided along ideological lines, with the six conservatives in the majority and the three liberals in dissent.
Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, speaking for the court in Jones vs. Mississippi, said judges are required to weigh the defendant’s age as a mitigating factor before imposing a punishment for a homicide. “The court’s decision today carefully follows” the earlier rulings, which did not prohibit such life terms, he said. Kavanaugh added that the sentencing decision remains in the hands of the judge who heard the case, and the judge need not go further and decide the defendant was beyond redemption.
“Today the court guts” its earlier rulings restricting such life terms, Sotomayor said in a sharp dissent for three liberals. She noted that one of the decisions held that “a lifetime in prison is a disproportionate sentence for all but the rarest children, those whose crimes reflect ‘irreparable corruption.’”
The outcome reflects the retirement of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Kennedy had repeatedly spoken out against harsh punishments for juvenile offenders, and he wrote the court’s ruling that ended capital punishment for them, as well as those that limited the circumstances for imposing life prison terms on those under 18.
Sotomayor said Thursday’s ruling means that even if a “juvenile’s crime reflects ‘unfortunate yet transient immaturity’, he can be sentenced to die in prison,” quoting a passage from Kennedy’s earlier opinion. Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan joined the dissent.
The case before the court began in 2004 when Brett Jones, age 15, was living with his grandparents Bertis and Madge in a small town in northern Mississippi. He and his grandfather exchanged angry words when it was learned that Jones’ girlfriend was in a bedroom upstairs. The two later fought in the kitchen, and the teenager stabbed his grandfather and fled.
He was convicted of the murder and at the time, state law mandated a sentence of life in prison without parole.
The Supreme Court overturned such mandatory sentences in 2012 and ruled in 2016 inmates may seek a new and lesser sentence. But a judge decided the life term was the proper sentence for Jones, and that decision was upheld by the state courts.
In upholding the sentence, Kavanaugh said such sentencing decisions should remain in the hands of judges who can weigh all the facts. Moreover, “our holding today does not preclude the states from imposing additional sentencing limits in cases involving defendants under 18 convicted of murder,” he said. “States may categorically prohibit life without parole for all offenders under 18. Or states may require sentencers to make extra factual findings before sentencing an offender under 18 to life without parole.”
FOR Dermot Kennedy’s third album, he wanted to explore both the beauty and burden of a successful music career.
The award-winning Irish singer might headline huge arenas but he has always had his feet firmly on the ground, valuing a normal life, privacy and simple things such as walking in his local woods — the theme of his new record.
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Dermot Kennedy says a lot of songs from his new album, The Weight of the Woods, carry a ‘vulnerability’ he has not previously shownCredit: SuppliedKennedy says it’s better for him to ‘sit back and let the music do the work’Credit: Supplied
He says: “I feel I’m at a sweet spot, because I can play The O2 in London but I can walk around all day and no one really knows who I am.
“Having a career in music is a blessing. It’s the most amazing thing, but at the same time, there are certain challenges that come with it. It tests relationships and tests your own resolve, it’s a pressure. And I wanted to write about that.”
The pull of nature as a place to reset became more powerful to the singer as he found success — both his previous collections, Without Fear (2019) and Sonder (2022), topped the album chart.
“With a career in music, you’re not anonymous, you’re constantly moving from city to city,” he explains.
“Being somewhere where you can only see trees in every direction has become more and more important to me, and more powerful. Where I live is quite remote, and that’s the way I want to be.”
This recurring woodland imagery reflects a sense of calm and nostalgia to Kennedy, and the cover of his new album, The Weight Of The Woods, features the singer in a woodland setting.
As we chat in his central London record label offices, he’s signing a huge pile of his new CDs.
“It’s a great album cover,” he says smiling. “Even signing these all morning, I’m not sick of looking at it yet.”
A standout on Kennedy’s new record is the track Sycamore, a gorgeous introspective ode to home and identity.
“The Irish landscape has always been important to me,” he says. “Where we took the picture for the album still resonates. It’s a big part of how I’m inspired.”
Working with producer Gabe Simon — who produced Noah Kahan’s 2022 breakthrough album, Stick Season — Kennedy made The Weight Of The Woods in Ireland, Nashville and Norway.
He says: “Sycamore is lush and smooth, which felt different for me. It was the first song we made when Gabe came over — there’s a sycamore tree right in front of my house that’s become a kind of talisman in my life. It felt like a lovely way to start.
“A lot of these songs carry a vulnerability I haven’t shown before, and that felt important, because you can’t pretend you’re 100 per cent all the time. It’s just not true.”
This shift shows a new confidence, one that allows him to do things his own way.
“Generally, I’m a quiet person, so on previous albums I wasn’t the loudest in the room whereas with this one, I have the confidence to shout for it and take my time.
“It’s taken this long to get to a point where I know what I want — what I need and what’s authentic.”
The Weight Of The Woods reflects a stage in his life where Kennedy feels more secure, more at home and more fully himself. Now married with a baby daughter, his perspective has shifted in ways he struggles to fully articulate.
“How has fatherhood changed me?” he ponders. “It’s hard to sum up, I can’t explain it in a couple of minutes.
“It just means the world to me and gives you a completely new perspective on life.
“It makes you realise there are more important things than chasing goals in music.
“The best thing I can do now is make music that moves me and try to live in a way that feels like the purest version of who I am. It becomes the centre of everything.
“Fatherhood has given me more confidence, but also a different kind of fragility, making me more emotionally open.
“A lot of these songs carry a vulnerability that I haven’t shown in my music before, and that’s important.”
Musically, Kennedy feels the album has a strong Irishness, though it was not a deliberate concept.
Honest is a track that feels especially personal, as it directly references where he is from in Ireland.
He says: The first lyric is about Kilteel [near Rathcoole, Co Dublin] which is an important part of where I’m from. It’s a more personal record so I needed to tell the story of where I’m from.”
He reflects on the pull of home: “Sometimes when you’re trying to have a career in music, people assume they need to move away and live somewhere else.
“But in Ireland we have one of the richest musical landscapes in the world, you know? So, it’s nice to be a part of that.
“And it’s the most Irish-sounding track. I played the bodhran [a traditional Irish frame drum] on it, the drum you hear at the beginning, and there’s also a tin whistle. It all came together very naturally so these songs feel dynamic to me and they’re really going to work live.”
Wasted is a favourite of Kennedy’s on the record. Inspired by US singer and producer Dijon, he says: “It felt like it had that excited, upbeat energy without being pop. It felt real in the room and exciting.”
Then there’s The Only Time I Prayed, which explores the singer’s relationship with faith.
“I’ve got songs like Glory, and lyrics about the devil, but I’d consider myself definitely agnostic. I believe in otherworldly things but I’m not a practising Catholic.
“Still, when things get difficult, people pray — regardless of faith. It comes from desperation, and I find that fascinating. Sometimes I even feel envious of people with a strong faith.”
The singer says it has taken time for him to discover what he truly wants, needs, and feels is authenticCredit: Supplied
Another highlight on the record is Funeral, a stunning track about letting go of the past to move forward.
“I just wanted that song to be about ditching any difficult stuff I’ve been through,” he says.
“Songwriters spend an awful lot of time wallowing in the past and I wanted it to feel triumphant — moving forward into something more positive.
“It felt good and the vocal carries an energy which is always a fun thing on a song.”
On this third album, Kennedy feels more confident, self-assured and clearer about what is authentic to him.
He says: “It’s less inhibition and less stress — not poring over every decision. So confidence showed up in quite a carefree, exciting way.”
It was important to Kennedy that the album was stripped back and imperfect to add to the studio atmosphere.
“Musically, if you listen closely, there are lots of imperfections, little noises other artists or producers might take out,” he says.
“You can hear someone talking, a chair creaking. It puts me back in that room, and I don’t want to lose that.”
That same approach mirrors a wider creative release: “I feel like I’ve let go massively, which is a good thing.”
That sense of letting go has also reshaped how he defines success.
“Any pressure that came with the second album was internal, applied by myself,” he says. “I don’t think being competitive puts me in the best place to be the best artist I can be. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.
“Tracking streams or records isn’t success to me. With this record, it was just lovely to get back to a place where I really enjoyed making the music, the visual world around it, and playing the songs.
“Don’t get me wrong, I still want lots of people to hear it, but I feel like I’ve already succeeded with this project.
“If it reaches a ton of people, that’s fantastic, but I had a beautiful time making it, and that’s everything.
“When you chase numbers and all that stuff, it’s all quite surface level and not very fulfilling in the end.
“I don’t think trying too hard is the move. It’s important to work hard and promote things, but being overly try-hard isn’t appealing.
“It’s better to sit back and let the music do the work. By letting go — stepping back from social media and putting the music first — it feels more likely to set my career up the way I want it.”
Live performance remains central to Kennedy’s identity. He feels he has built his career the “old-fashioned way” by playing rooms and winning audiences over.
He says: “Nowadays, there’s so many ways that someone can forge a career. You can blow up on the internet or go viral. For me, it’s never really been like that.
“It’s been more about getting people into a room. I think I can play in such a way that they might want to come back and see it again next time.”
“For me, when I dreamed about having a career in music, all I thought about was playing in big, beautiful theatres. So playing live is an important part of what I do.”
Even as he now fills large venues, Kennedy is keen to preserve a sense of intimacy within those spaces.
He explains: “We’re going to do it differently. There are lots of ways you can use tech in a live show. You can run tracks for things like horns and production, but then the whole show ends up on track and can feel like elevated karaoke.
“You can come off stage feeling like you haven’t really achieved much. So, with this tour, we’ve got rid of the click track and any backing tracks. It’s about keeping it real and letting the performance have more freedom.
“We’re getting rid of any kind of bells and whistles, and it’s just fun. I could start a song at any tempo, I could be feeling a certain way that ends up being a faster version with more energy, or we could pull it right back.
“You go to a live show for the energy, and I think it’s far easier to tap into that special place if you don’t have that stuff.”
Kennedy is also more careful about looking after his voice when he tours
“I try not to do more than two nights in a row, because it compromises the rest of the tour. It means I can walk on stage excited, instead of just hoping I get through it.”
It’s part of a wider shift in how he approaches performance. “It’s a process as well, working with vocal coaches and stuff. I run a lot more now, because you need that lung capacity. I’m not sure about other people’s experience touring, but it feels like a sport sometimes.”
That mindset has also made him more aware of the level required to sustain a major live career — something he saw first-hand watching Taylor Swift live.
Kennedy on stage in the US earlier this monthCredit: Getty
“Well, I saw her at the venue I’m playing this summer, and it was inspiring.” he says. “I saw Travis, her fiancé, talking about her fitness regime and just how she’s operating at a kind of scary level.
“I find that really inspiring, because it makes you realise this is a very high level of what we do — you have to take it seriously. When someone is that on top of their game, it’s just incredibly motivating.”
“The show is, what, three hours long? It was wild to see. And honestly, it was just cool to be in Dublin and see people so excited by those songs.
“What really struck me was that it was just her songs. You realise this is someone who started out just writing songs, and now it’s millions of people all over the world.
“But it doesn’t feel like some manufactured pop machine. It just feels like someone who writes songs, and that’s what makes it so powerful.”
The album The Weight Of The Woods is out on April 3.
Dermot Kennedy’s The Weight Of The Woods is out on April 3Credit: supplied
A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked federal health officials from cutting the number of vaccines recommended for every child, and said U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. likely violated federal procedures in revamping a key vaccine advisory committee.
The decision halts an order by Kennedy — announced in January — to end broad recommendations for all children to be vaccinated against flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis and RSV.
A number of leading medical groups raised alarms that the vaccine recommendation changes made under Kennedy would undermine protections against a half-dozen diseases. And the American Academy of Pediatrics and some other groups amended a lawsuit they had filed in July, asking the judge to stop the scaling back of the nation’s childhood vaccination schedule.
The original lawsuit, in federal court in Boston, focused on Kennedy’s decision to stop recommending COVID-19 vaccinations for most children and pregnant women.
The suit was updated as Kennedy took more steps that alarmed medical societies, causing the plaintiffs to ask Judge Brian E. Murphy to take steps to address those policy changes too. For example, the amended complaint asked the court to look at Kennedy’s actions concerning the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises public health officials on what vaccines to recommend to doctors and patients.
Kennedy, a leading anti-vaccine activist before becoming the nation’s top health official, fired the entire 17-member panel last year and replaced it with a group that includes several anti-vaccine voices.
Murphy, who was nominated to the bench by President Biden, said Kennedy’s reconstitution of ACIP likely violated federal law. He ordered the appointments — and all decisions made by the reformed committee — put on hold.
Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon said: “HHS looks forward to this judge’s decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing.”
ACIP was scheduled to meet this week to discuss COVID-19 vaccines, among other issues, but that gathering was being postponed.
“ACIP as currently constituted cannot meet,” said Richard Hughes IV, an attorney representing the AAP. “How can a committee meet without nearly the entirety of its membership?”
March 16 (UPI) — The board of trustees for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., is set to attend a meeting Monday to determine whether to shutter the facility to carry out renovations that some critics worry could result in a structural overhaul akin to the White House’s East Wing.
The agenda for Monday’s meeting, obtained by The New York Times, indicates the board will vote on whether to begin renovations starting July 6. President Donald Trump announced last month that he wants to close the Kennedy Center for two years for construction amid artist cancellations and boycotts over his cultural agenda.
Trump said the decision to close the facility came after a yearlong review in consultation with contractors, musical experts, arts institutions, and advisers and consultants. He had initially considered a partial project that would permit shows to continue, but decided the best option for the venue was a temporary closure.
Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex officio member of the board who sued to have access about the details of renovations, said she believes Trump wants to shutter the Kennedy Center in response to dozens of individuals and cultural organizations who have canceled appearances there in response to Trump trying to rename the center after himself. Beatty said the documents she received about the renovations were “inadequate.”
She said “the documents prove that there is absolutely no basis to shutter this precious living memorial and beloved institution,” she said in a statement. “It certainly looks like President Trump is shutting down the center because he is embarrassed that ticket sales are down and artists are fleeing since his illegal renaming.”
Beatty’s lawyers said she was concerned Trump might use his hand-selected board to push through wholesale changes at the Kennedy Center to design a facility more to his liking. In October, Trump had the East Wing of the White House demolished to make room for a $250 million ballroom.
In a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump shared renderings of what he expected the so-called Trump-Kennedy Center to look like after the renovations. He said he’s not planning to rip out the facade.
“I’ll be using the steels. So we’re using the structure, we’re using some of the marble, and some of the marble comes down,” he said.
A Washington Post analysis of the renderings show very few changes to the exterior of the building, including altered cornices, updated roof and some windows, painted columns, new signage and landscaping changes.
The group Hands Off the Arts has held weekly protests outside the Kennedy Center over the changes. A participant, drag queen Tara Hoot, said “there’s no need for it to close.”
“The carpet’s brand new, right? They already have some things planned in the works to redo the Kennedy Center and parts of it, maintenance, so there’s no reason to close it,” Hoot said, according to WUSA-TV in Washington, D.C.
“There are jobs, lots of jobs, and people are going to lose their jobs. The economy is terrible right now. Why do we want more people to lose their jobs?”
President Donald Trump speaks during an event celebrating Women’s History Month in the East Room of the White House on Thursday. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
There are few greater muses than one’s own childhood. In recent months, this idea has taken visual form across fashion runways, with brands from Chanel to Acne Studios showcasing childlike sketches, often referred to as ‘naive design’. The aesthetic favors deliberate roughness and mistakes over a sterile, polished sheen.
Book covers are the latest medium to embrace the trend. Scribbles, doodles, crayon marks and stickers — evoking Lisa Frank and anime cartoons — have begun appearing on prominent Gen Z contemporary fiction covers. The more childish and unrefined, the better.
The covers, which often accompany literary fiction written by women, signal a particular emotional register of naive, sticky chaos that youth promises. The visual language recalls a simpler time — a reclamation of an innocence lost. For millennials and Gen Z readers who worship collectibles like Labubus, friendship bracelets and butterfly hair clips, it’s natural that art direction would follow suit — sometimes with an ironic twist. Often, the design’s playfulness obscures the protagonist’s malaise.
The book cover trend, imbued with nostalgia for childhood, promises fiction that grapples with the pangs of adulthood in an age of precarity. In her Substack, cultural critic and novelist Natasha Stagg commented on the trend, noting, “Reverse-image searching these images turn up books on early childhood education, dealing with anxiety or migraines, or teaching a kid to color outside the lines as an artistic parent.” The book trend cover suggests collective angst about adulthood, highlighted by a cultural fixation on “girlhood” that sparked a spate of online think pieces in recent years.
It’s fitting, then, that the aesthetic has been adopted by Gen Z fiction writers like Honor Levy, whose paperback edition of “My First Book” includes girlish heart stickers on a hot pink background. The Y2K aesthetic elicits a young girl’s diary. Meanwhile, the 2025 novel “Unfit” by Ariana Harwicz, about a mother losing her children in a custody battle, uses erratic crayon scribbles on its cover. In the fall, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern was contained in a binder with a Lisa Frank-style aquatic wonderland on the cover. This month, Cazzie David released a book of essays about early adulthood titled “Delusions: Of Grandeur, of Romance, of Process” with a cover resembling a child’s birthday cake.
(New Directions Publishing, Penguin Books)
Writer and culture critic Drew Zeiba noted the trend in his June 2025 Substack post. “I wonder if it represents a fed-up-ness with prior or concurrent trends in book design,” writes Zeiba over email. “A move away from the layered, the blobby, the clean — to something with more illusion of or allusion to an id.”
“Not for nothing, I assume adult coloring books sell better than literary fiction,” says Zeiba. “I’m struck by that in a way the crayon or marker drawing is provisional — there’s no final form to it.”
This January, novelist and Forever Magazine co-founder Madeline Cash released her highly anticipated debut novel, “Lost Lambs.” The story follows a family unraveling amid open marriages, conspiracy and emotional turmoil. Designed by Na Song, the cover features drooping blue crayon text and a small illustration of a girl.
The cover was heavily influenced by Henry Darger’s Vivian Girls. “I was attached to this Henry Darger painting when I was writing the book. I felt like that was a really accurate visual representation of little girls running away from utter chaos,” says Cash.
“The childish scribbling handwriting is also a red herring for some of the more serious and sinister themes in the book, “ says Cash.
“Having read Cash’s, I’m struck by the fact that the children in the book — and children are central to the book — are really insightful and transformative, and ‘lost lambs’ actually refers in the text to a specific group of adults,” adds Zeiba.
A similar artistic logic underpins Sophie Kemp’s breakout 2025 novel, “Paradise Logic,” which gained attention for its unsettling cover. The book cover is an existing painting by Brooklyn-based artist Naruki Kukita, selected by veteran art director Martha Kennedy with Kemp’s input. Kennedy had come across “Virtual Temptation in Eden” in a weekly art newsletter called “It’s Nice That.” The image invokes a children’s coloring book with darker undertones, blending various cartoon and drawing styles to depict Adam and Eve in paradise. A cartoon snake lurks behind them.
The design mirrors the memorable prose. “This novel showcased one of the most original voices I’ve ever read. I would describe it as a psychosexual fever dream,” says Kennedy. “I recall the editor calling it ‘the first true Gen Z novel.’”
Kemp recalls sending a lengthy email about the book cover inspiration. “I want something super maximalist. I want it to be a preexisting image. And I wanted to do something that is shocking or crazy,” says Kemp. Kennedy presented Kukita’s painting, and it was love at first sight for Kemp.
(New Directions Publishing, Simon & Schuster)
“Kukita’s combination of finely crafted painterly portraiture and flat graphic anime (often in very intense sexual combination) seemed like a perfect match for the tone of this novel,” says Martha Kennedy, who served as the art director at Simon & Schuster.
Then, enter Comic Sans typeface — a perfect dash of irony. “Let’s use a typeface that feels kind of wrong,” Kemp recalls prescribing. “I used Comic Sans for the first time in my 35-year career for the rest of the type. I felt that was some sort of weird pinnacle in itself,” Kennedy explains over email.
Kemp sees a thematic alignment between her and Cash’s book designs. “Mine and Madeline’s books are about naive female characters,” Kemp says. “It makes a lot of sense with the protagonist of my novel, who’s an extremely naive young woman, for the book cover to match that tone that I created.”
While working in marketing, Cash recalls another book cover trend she calls “book blob.” The blob was earth-toned and splashed bestselling covers for years. “With any kind of viral aesthetic: one of those books did well, so they engineered every cover to emulate that, because people were drawn to them,” says Cash. “It looks like all the content was the same and ubiquitous. It is a disservice to a lot of those books.”
“I really wanted it to stand out,” says Cash about her own cover.
Connors is a writer living in Los Angeles. She hosts the literary reading event Unreliable Narrators at Nico’s Wines in Atwater Village every month.
President Trump announced on social media Friday that Richard Grenell, the former ambassador to Germany who Trump appointed as president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts more than a year ago, is stepping down. Grenell will be replaced by Matt Floca, the vice president of facilities operations at the center.
“Ric Grenell has done an excellent job in helping to coordinate various elements of the Center during the transition period, and I want to thank him for the outstanding work he has done,” Trump posted on Truth Social, adding that after an upcoming two-year closure for renovations, the center “will be, at its completion, the finest facility of its kind anywhere in the World!”
The tumult continues at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as the National Symphony Orchestra’s executive director, Jean Davidson, steps down from her role to become executive director and chief executive of the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. Davidson will assume her new position May 4, the Wallis announced Friday.
“I’ve learned a lot in the last three years, and I think it’s no secret that it’s been a hard year,” Davidson told The Times, adding that the politicization of the Kennedy Center was a factor in her decision-making. “I had intended to stay through the [orchestra’s] 100th anniversary in 2031, but found it more and more difficult to achieve the goals that we had set out to achieve given the external forces that are at work that are just so far beyond my control.”
It seemed like “I had reached a natural ending point,” she said.
With the imminent closure of the Kennedy Center, speculation has swirled around the NSO’s future, especially in light of the Washington National Opera’s decision in January to cut ties with the storied venue, which has been its home since 1971. The Kennedy Center’s Trump-appointed leadership, however, made it clear that it intended to support the NSO in the long term, and the orchestra’s board chair assured musicians that the orchestra and its staff would remain intact.
Davidson said the NSO is in the process of identifying venues for the next two years, and that the orchestra has been told by the Kennedy Center that its financial support is not in question.
“Many venue operators in the D.C. area have been very generously reaching out to us, asking how they can help,” she said. “Of course, we plan our seasons years in advance, and so next season was already planned. We already have conductors and soloists and all of that, and so it’s a bit of a jigsaw puzzle aligning our existing programming and obligations to those artists with venues that are appropriate for those programs.”
It will take several more weeks to come up with a cohesive plan and it will probably include several venues, “but we will have a season,” Davidson said. “And we hope that everybody will come.”
In many ways, Davidson said, the NSO is stronger than it has been in quite some time. During her tenure, Davidson helped reboot the orchestra’s international and domestic touring, which includes upcoming shows at New York’s Carnegie Hall in May and at the Hollywood Bowl in August. The orchestra also extended acclaimed music director Gianandrea Noseda’s contract through 2031.
“The orchestra is just playing at such a high level and they really have never sounded so good,” said Davidson, echoing what notable critics have also been saying. “We’re still welcoming many new players after our audition process, and I think that’s all very positive for the NSO.”
Davidson knows that leaving her role will be difficult for the orchestra, but she believes it will emerge stronger.
“I care deeply about the NSO and I am so proud of everything that we’ve accomplished together. I think the world of Gianandrea, of [principal conductor] Steven Reineke, our musicians, our staff and board — it’s a great community of people,” said Davidson.
Davidson also believes that the upcoming renovations to the Kennedy Center will ultimately result in a better experience for audiences and artists. She just wishes there had been much more advance notice.
“Usually orchestras will plan for being out of their hall years in advance, and we only have months to do that, so it is causing a bit of strain,” she said. “I think the most important thing is that our audiences and donors continue to support the NSO during this transition period.”
Davidson will now embark on her own transition as she moves from D.C. to L.A., rejoining her husband who has stayed in the area as a music professor at UC Irvine.
“This is an opportunity that’s been on my bucket list of things that I want to do in my life and it seems like the right time,” said Davidson of her new role at the Wallis in Beverly Hills.
Compared with the NSO, the Wallis is practically brand new, having opened in 2013.
Davidson is excited that there is lots of room for growth, and that the Wallis has evolved into one of the region’s most exciting multidisciplinary performing arts presenters and home base to a variety of local arts groups.
“I think anytime you’re starting a new role, there’s a lot of learning that needs to occur,” Davidson said. “And I’m not somebody that is prone to walking in with a big vision that’s going to suddenly change course. I think they’ve been doing a lot of great work and so I’m looking forward to collaborating with the team that’s there — to learn and to create a shared vision for the future.”
It’s an exciting time to be in Los Angeles, Davidson said.
“The last decade or so has seen a lot of growth in the art sector, and there are so many talented artists and organizations in L.A. that need a place to perform.”
Daryl Hannah is no fan of FX’s “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette.” She made that abundantly clear in an op-ed for the New York Times that also criticized the series for what she claims is a misogynistic portrayal of her younger self.
“It’s appalling to me that I even have to defend myself against a television show,” Hannah, 65, wrote in the op-ed published Friday. “These are not creative embellishments of personality. They are assertions about conduct — and they are false.”
A representative for FX did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
“Splash” and “Kill Bill” star Hannah, whose romance with Kennedy in the 1990s made for tabloid fodder before his marriage to Bessette, wrote that the Ryan Murphy-produced project depicted her as “irritating, self-absorbed, whiny and inappropriate.” She wrote that the show also depicted her as a cocaine-loving, selfish obstacle in the way of the series’ late lovers. Kennedy and Bessette Kennedy died in a plane crash in 1999.
These creative choices, she claimed, were “no accident.”
Hannah decried her story being used as a “narrative device” to drive tension in the series and as a result, the series fell into “textbook misogyny” by pitting two women — in this case, actor Dree Hemingway’s Daryl Hannah and Sarah Pidgeon’s Carolyn Bessette — against each other.
The actor, also a filmmaker and advocate for environmental and senior health causes, also distanced herself from the series’ “untrue” depictions of her life, behavior, actions and relationship with Kennedy.
“I have never desecrated any family heirloom or intruded upon anyone’s private memorial,” she wrote. “I have never planted any story in the press. I never compared Jacqueline Onassis’ death to a dog’s.”
“Love Story,” created by Connor Hines, premiered in February with Paul Anthony Kelly starring as Kennedy. Hannah wrote that since the show’s debut, she received many “hostile and even threatening” messages from viewers who believe the series’ depictions.
Before Hannah’s op-ed, Murphy received criticism from Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of John F. Kennedy and nephew of John F. Kennedy Jr. In an interview with “CBS News Sunday Morning,” the 33-year-old political commentator said Murphy “knows nothing” about his family and that the prolific TV creator is making a “ton of money on a grotesque display of someone else’s life.”
While she has often chosen not to address “outrageous lies, crappy stories and unflattering characterizations,” Hannah wrote her “silence should not be mistaken for agreement with lies.” She said she felt compelled to speak out against the series’ depiction of her because continuing her “good work,” including her philanthropic efforts, “requires an intact reputation.”
Hannah said she has respected the Kennedy family’s privacy and, like Schlossberg, condemned “self-serving sensationalists trading in gossip, innuendo and speculation.”
“In a digital era, entertainment often becomes collective memory,” she wrote. “Real names are not fictional tools. They belong to real lives.”
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday announced an initiative to increase the number of nutrition-related credit hours that doctors are required to have in medical school, along with 53 schools that have already agreed to participate. Photo by Annabelle Gordon/UPI | License Photo
March 5 (UPI) — Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on Thursday that the department will be pushing for increased nutrition education in medicine.
Kennedy made the announcement after having communicated with dozens of medical schools in the last couple of months to increase what doctors learn about human nutrition.
Fifty-three medical schools have agreed to start requiring that every medical student complete 40 hours of comprehensive nutrition education or an equivalent this fall, the HHS chief said at a presentation of the initiative.
The push for increased nutrition education follows Kennedy’s announcement in January of new dietary guidelines and a new food pyramid aimed improving Americans’ diets.
Kennedy called the initiative a “transformative program that will reshape the way that we train doctors in this country.”
“Chronic disease is bankrupting our health system and poor nutrition sits at the center of that crisis,” Kennedy said in a news release.
Surveys have found that medical students receive as little as 1.2 hours of formal nutrition education per year, three-fourths of U.S. medical schools do not require education courses and about 14% of residency programs require nutrition courses, according to HHS.
The 53 medicals, across 31 states, that have made agreements with the Trump administration will also be eligible for federal funding to
The administration also will now require U.S. Public Health Service officers to take a minimum number of continuing nutrition education hours as part of their overall continuing education requirements, HHS said.
Since the late 1960s, doctors and health experts have noted that nutrition education does not rank high enough in medical education, NBC News reported.
Among the topics that Kennedy and HHS have suggested be considered for school curricula — a list of 71 has been circulated as the department works with medical schools to join the initiative — include nutrient deficiencies, food allergies, dietary supplements, wearable devices, composting and food safety, The New York Times reported.
President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable on the Ratepayer Protection Pledge inside the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building near the White House on Wednesday. Technology firms that sign the pledge will commit to ensuring artificial intelligence infrastructure does not raise utility bills for households and small businesses. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrived at a Senate oversight hearing Tuesday ready to spar with Democrats in her first Capitol Hill appearance since federal agents fatally shot U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis.
But some of the sharpest comments from the Judiciary Committee came from fellow Republicans, who questioned her leadership, criticized her spending practices and called on her to admit that she was wrong to call Pretti and Good “domestic terrorists.”
“What we’ve seen is a disaster under your leadership, Ms. Noem, a disaster,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said. “The fact is you can’t even admit to a mistake. It looks like an investigation is going to prove that Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti probably should not have been shot in the face and in the back.”
Tillis hardly questioned Noem on specifics, choosing instead to deliver a blistering, high-volume “performance evaluation,” of the Homeland Security secretary. He accused Noem and Trump advisor Stephen Miller of prioritizing deportation quotas instead of investigating the “vicious” ICE agents involved in the Minnesota shootings.
“We’re not going after the people who did that damage at the expense of running numbers that Stephen Miller wants out of the White House,” he said. “We just want numbers. We want 1,000 a day, 6,000 a day, 9,000 a day. Because numbers matter, right? No, they don’t matter. Quality matters.”
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) also brought up Pretti and Good: “Did you determine whether there was any basis for the sensational claim, a claim that proved to be utterly false, that these two victims were engaged in domestic terrorism?” he asked.
Noem used the hearing to defend a series of decisions now under bipartisan scrutiny. She said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers face “serious and escalating threats” due to what she called “deliberate mischaracterizations” of their work.
She called the Minneapolis deaths “tragic situations,” and said the phrase “domestic terrorists” was based on early information she received from the agents from the city. “It was a chaotic scene,” Noem said. She did not apologize for using the phrase or say it was inaccurate.
Noem stood behind President Trump’s mass deportation agenda and said ICE is focusing on the “worst of the worst.” Recent reporting by the Cato Institute found that just 5% of ICE detainees have been convicted of violent offenses, and three-fourths have no criminal convictions at all.
The hearing came amid a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, triggered last month when Senate Democrats blocked funding in a standoff over immigration enforcement practices. As tensions mount in Iran, lawmakers are increasingly concerned about the security risks of leaving the department unfunded.
In her opening statement, Noem decried the shutdown as “reckless” and “unnecessary,” and accused Democrats of putting U.S. security posture at risk.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) pointedly asked about a $200-million ad campaign promoting immigration enforcement — a campaign that features Noem and was awarded to a firm led by a friend. Such spending “troubles me,” he said, adding, “I just can’t agree with that, Madam Secretary. My research shows you did not bid this out.”
Noem maintained that Trump directed the messaging strategy and argued it has been “extremely effective” in deterring illegal immigration. She said she “didn’t have anything to do with picking those contractors.”
The back-and-forth became increasingly heated as Kennedy also peppered Noem for characterizing Good and Pretti as domestic terrorists.
“What got my attention was that you blamed those statements on Mr. Stephen Miller,” Kennedy said, referencing an Axios report quoting Noem.
She dodged the line of questioning, saying the sources Axios used in the report were “anonymous,” and, by her logic, not credible.
“This wasn’t anonymous. It was you,” Kennedy said. “They’re quoting you on the record saying it was Stephen.”
On numerous occasions throughout the hearing, the secretary was asked about her purchase of two luxury Gulfstream G700 jets at a combined cost of $200 million in taxpayer funds.
Reportedly designed by New York designer Peter Marino, the planes include private bedroom suites with queen-size beds, bathrooms with stand-up showers and electric bidets, and a lounge with a wet bar and wine chiller, according to images obtained by NBC.
Noem argued the purchases were authorized by Congress for executive travel and deportation operations.
In another testy exchange, Delaware Sen. Chris Coons pressed Noem over recent statements that she planned to station ICE officers at polling locations in November, to “make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders.” She said her department had no such plan in place but fell short of committing to ruling it out.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) endorsed investigations into ICE shootings, though his statements were largely designed to cast Noem in a favorable light.
“I’d like to make sure if there was a bad shooting as documented as such, and people pay a price. But I will not apologize to anybody in this room to try to clean up the mess that Biden started, and you empowered,” he said.
Democrats, meanwhile, accused Noem of presiding over “thuggish” and “illegal” enforcement tactics and demanded independent investigations into several incidents throughout the U.S.
Accusing Noem of routinely making false statements about ICE shooting victims while impeding state, local, and independent investigations, Schiff cited an episode in which immigration agents shot U.S. citizen and Chicago resident Marimar Martinez. In November, a federal judge raised concerns that agents mishandled or destroyed key physical evidence in the case.
“Our internal investigations are following the same policies as they always have,” Noem responded.
“Will you take some responsibility?” Schiff said. “How is the public supposed to believe anything your agency says or finds?”
Over 180 lawmakers have co-sponsored articles of impeachment against Noem. Tillis and Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski last month called for Noem to resign or face impeachment by Congress.
On Tuesday, Tillis said her responses to the committee amounted to stonewalling. “That’s a failure of leadership, and that is why I’ve called for your resignation,” he said.
