life

Artist Ako Castuera is best known for her work on the award-winning animated series “Adventure Time.” As a writer and storyboard artist, she helped intrepid heroes Jake the Dog and Finn the Human become iconic toon characters.

Though she brought flying rainbow unicorns and a platoon of plotting penguins to life on screen, there’s more to Castuera’s resume than hyper-imaginative animation.

Ceramist, writer and storyboard artist Ako Castuera in her studio.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

The Echo Park-based creative is also a professional ceramicist whose hand-built vessels and sculptures have been on display at the Japanese American National Museum of Art, Oxy Arts and the Oakland Museum of Art.

In this series, we highlight independent makers and artists, from glassblowers to fiber artists, who are creating original products in and around Los Angeles.

While Castuera’s studio is filled with its fair share of playful “Pee-wee’s Playhouse”-themed ceramic charms and anthropomorphic banana figurines, her craft is just as much devoted to highlighting Southern California’s natural resources and Indigenous people, as well as her own Mexican-Japanese heritage.

“‘Whimsy’ is a word that’s been applied to my work a lot. This is not my word,” she said during a recent tour of the Monrovia workspace she shares with her husband, artist Rob Sato, and fellow ceramicist Rosie Brand.

Ako Castuera’s work is anthropological and at times unusual, like her foot box sculptures. She also feels a special connection to her tools. (Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

“Not that whimsy is negative, but I do feel like it doesn’t really get a handle on the substance of what I feel I’m working with, as far as the depth of the clay, the depth of the experience, of the land.”

She sat perched on a stool at her workbench, using a smooth stone to grind soil clumps into fine dust as she talked. She collects the red earth during nature walks around the San Gabriel Mountains area — whether the riverbed of the Arroyo Seco, or the foothills of Claremont, her hometown.

“This is special dirt,” she explained.

To her, it has a presence, a life of its own and a cherished history. She uses it to make anything from trinket boxes to ornate geometric vases to statuettes of quizzical creatures.

Some of her most recent creations stand on a nearby wooden shelf. They’re ceramic depictions of Pacific tree frogs and great herons, both denizens of the L.A. River. The waterway has long been a source of inspiration for Castuera.

Ako Castuera’s work ranges from massive pieces to the miniature, like these figurines.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

“I love the L.A. River,” she said. “It’s my neighbor. It’s my teacher. It’s a place where I walk and bike.”

She regards the river as a muse and wants to inspire Angelenos of all ages to appreciate it. To that end, she teaches youth workshops at the riverside arts hubs Clockshop and Sooki Studio. What’s more, the river was a “main character” on “City of Ghosts,” the L.A.-celebrating, Emmy-winning Netflix animated series she directed. She’s even been known to use some of its water to transform soil into moldable clay.

“The more people who are brought into a sense of kinship with the river, the better,” she said. “Because then, they really feel like ‘The river takes care of me; I want to take care of the river.’”

Castuera’s work has an anthropological bent, as well as an ecological one. For example, her research into Southern California’s Kumeyaay and Cahuilla Indigenous tribes inspired a series of large jars patterned after ollas, traditional pots used for water and seed storage. She plans to incorporate these jars into an immersive installation that will be on view at the Candlewood Arts Festival in Borrego Springs in March and April. And last fall, she hosted a community event with Los Angeles Nomadic Division in which she discussed how soil played a vital role in the societies of both the Gabrielino-Tongva tribes of L.A. and the Ryukyuan people of her mother’s native Okinawa.

Finding the sweet spot where cultures combine is a constant source of motivation for Castuera. She’s created her own twist on shisa, lion-dog statues that are common sights all around Okinawa. And she’s currently working on a collection of small sculptures honoring her patrilineal ties to Puebla, Mexico. Her “taco babies” were inspired by one of the region’s best-known dishes, tacos árabes, which combine flavors from Mexico and the Middle East.

“I was thinking about the beauty of being in a living mix and what that would look like personified,” she said of the wee figures wrapped in colorful tortilla-like blankets.

Ako Castuera makes ceramics for the love of the process, not the final product.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Some of Castuera’s work makes it into gallery shows and some she sells. But just as often, she smashes it and takes the soil back to where she originally found it. It’s a habit of creating and destroying that she formed as a student at Claremont High School, where she studied the craft for two semesters, yet fired zero pieces.

“I don’t think I could’ve articulated this at 15, but it’s about the process of building, not the process of creating a product. It’s about working with the material — just making the space and the time for that practice,” she said.

“The excitement and the magic is really about the discovery of the unexpected. It’s so engrossing and it really just gets me engaged with life.”

Feb. 16 (UPI) — Ryan Routh, who was convicted of attempting to kill then-former President Donald Trump, has filed an appeal of his life sentence and his conviction.

Routh, 60, was convicted of hiding in the bushes at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach in September 2024. He pointed a military-grade SKS rifle toward Trump, who was then a candidate running for his second term, and a Secret Service agent.

He defended himself in the trial that ended in September. When the verdict was read, he stabbed himself in the neck with a pen.

Routh was given an attorney for the sentencing portion of his trial. That attorney, Martin L. Roth, filed a notice Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals stating that Routh will fight the conviction and his sentence, ordered Feb. 4. Routh was sentenced to life plus seven years.

He was convicted in October of all five charges of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, and possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

Secret Service agent Robert Fercano testified that Routh hid behind a shrub-covered fence near the sixth hole of the course, aiming an AK-style weapon at Trump. Routh was found with a handwritten note that stated his intention to kill Trump.

Routh argued that he had a right to peacefully protest at the golf course.

“This is as far [from] peaceful assembly as you can imagine,” Assistant U.S. Attorney John Shipley responded. “Peaceful protest is one thing. An assassination attempt is another.”

Prosecutors said in a court filing that Routh deserved a life sentence.

“Routh’s crimes undeniably warrant a life sentence — he took steps over the course of months to assassinate a major presidential candidate, demonstrated the will to kill anybody in the way, and has since expressed neither regret nor remorse to his victims.”

Routh’s attorney argued that his conviction was faulty.

“Defendant recognizes that he was found guilty by the jury but asserts that the jury was misled by his inability to effectively confront witnesses, use exhibits, or affirmatively introduce impeachment evidence designed to prove his lack of intent to cause injury to anyone,” Roth wrote.

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — World-class athletes, thrilling events, stirring medal ceremonies, I will remember all of those from the Winter Olympics. But what I experienced Sunday on my 45-minute bus ride from my hotel to Cortina will stay with me longer.

There was a young woman sitting across the aisle. She looked to be in her mid-20s, about the age of my daughter, and was wearing a knit cap with a Switzerland logo. Her dark hair was in long, thin braids and framed her friendly face.

“How’s it going?” I asked, setting down my backpack.

“Nervous,” she said with a faint smile.

That started the conversation, one that would have me repeatedly wiping my eyes with my sleeve.

Her name was Michelle Gloor. She’s 25 and from a small town outside of Zurich. Her boyfriend, Cedric Follador, is pilot of the Swiss bobsled team and has races throughout the week. She was heading to watch him practice.

Michelle knows all about the sport. In fact, she had been the brake woman on the Swiss national team and had hoped to be competing in these Olympics herself. She grew up as a track-and-field athlete, a sprinter, and only took up bobsled in 2022.

Women’s bobsled — or bobsleigh, as Europeans call it — is a two-person operation with a pilot in front and brake woman in back.

“The first responsibility is pushing the sled as fast as I can, together with my pilot,” she said in a German accent and near-flawless English. “I have to sit still and count the curves until we reach the finish line, when I have to pull the brakes. I’m responsible that the sled won’t crash into something.”

Her best friend had made the transition from track to bobsled, was looking for a brake woman, and convinced Michelle to give it a try.

“My first bobsleigh ride was in St. Moritz and I was so nervous,” said Gloor, a third-year law student at the University of Zurich. “I think I was crying in the back of the sled because I’d never felt anything like that, all the G-forces and you don’t have any cushion in the sled. It all hurts.

“But after the second run, I felt the adrenaline and it was great. It caught me from then. It took me two runs.”

She was 22 and the future was bright. They entered the Swiss championships and won. Michelle got serious about her new sport, training every day, eating right, building muscle.

Immersed in that world, she met Cedric but for the first 1½ years they were just casual friends. Their conversations were all bobsled-related.

“Then in spring 2024 he texted me and asked, ‘How are you?’” she said. “More personal stuff.”

They had been dating for about six months when a discovery would dramatically change their lives.

In November 2024, during a routine check-up, a gynecologist found evidence of cancer in Michelle’s ovaries. If there were signs she was ill, Michelle hadn’t noticed them. She had been tired the prior summer, yes, but she attributed that to her training.

“It was pretty advanced,” she said of the cancer. “I went to the women’s doctor every year and they couldn’t explain why they couldn’t see it earlier. I don’t know. I’m not questioning that anymore. It’s just … yeah.”

There was no time to wait. By December, she was in surgery. Doctors opened her abdomen from her breast bone down, looking for more growths. They deemed the operation a success, and six months of chemotherapy began in February.

“I lost my hair,” she said. “I had long, black hair. Losing that wasn’t bad. But I lost the hair on my face — my eyebrows, my eyelashes — that was hard. But I always knew it just had to be.”

Her doctor told her her cancer was Stage 3.

“That means it’s on the other organs too,” she said. “But the difference between Stage 3 and Stage 4 is it’s not in my lungs. It’s in my tummy area but not more upwards.”

Cedric was by her side.

“I asked him after the diagnosis if he wants to join me in this journey or not,” she said. “I can understand if he won’t because we were together not even half a year, and I can understand if he said, ‘Hey, it’s too much for me. I can’t do that.’

“Then he took time for himself, and he came back and said he wants to stay with me. He wants to support me in every imaginable way.

“He drove me to therapy when he was in town because he had a bobsleigh season going on from November until March, in my toughest time. Every time he was home, he was there for me. When he wasn’t there, we were phoning every day. He was there all the time, even when he wasn’t there physically.”

Her parents and younger brother were there for her too, of course, but she wanted to give them some time to themselves. Cedric was her rock.

There are elements in his job as a driver that both help him in his sport, and her in her disease.

“As a driver, you really need to focus on what’s going on straight ahead of you,” she explained. “You can’t really switch away your thoughts. You have one minute of full concentration. I think you can compare it to Formula One because you only see the next curve in front of you.

“He’s very calm and I think that helps him in a sporting way to not overreact emotionally and stuff like that. But also for me as a partner, I’m very emotional. When I’m too excited or too sad or too angry, he can calm me down to a normal level. On a stress-less level, and to be stress-free is very important for someone who has cancer.”

Switzerland’s Cedric Follador, right, and Luca Rolli compete in two-man bobsled at the Milan-Cortina Olympics on Monday.

(Richard Heathcote / Getty Images)

Michelle, petite and pale, has lost about 40 pounds over the past year. Mostly muscle.

“I was avoiding sugar in the beginning of the illness,” she said. “You read so much stuff. But after losing so much weight, doctors told me just eat what you want to eat. Because having energy is more important than eating too much sugar.”

In August, doctors discovered more cancer in her. Another surgery to open her abdomen.

“They said it’s still there,” she said. “Those microcells which they couldn’t remove because they couldn’t see them, they grew. But once all those microcells have grown up and been removed, or have been killed by therapy and medication, there won’t be any new cells because the ovaries have been removed, so they don’t produce any more.”

She tries not to Google her illness anymore. It doesn’t help her frame of mind. She’s changed in other ways, too.

“I was a very direct person before my illness,” she said. “Now I’m even more direct and straight-forward. I say no, and I don’t explain myself. If I don’t want to do something, I don’t have to. I just say no.

“Before that, I had a bad feeling about myself and explained myself just because I say no. I don’t do that anymore.”

In December, she began radiation. She has another scan after the Olympics.

There are times she just can’t believe this is happening.

“Women or even men my age, you live in your world, you are following your dreams,” she said. “And you don’t think about something happening in your life. I only know young people in Switzerland, so I can only speak for them. But they don’t talk about that.

“They are not sensible about what can happen, and that’s why it’s important for me to speak out about it. For example, with a women’s doctor, you have to go. It can happen to anyone.

“I’m a young woman. I do sports since I’m 10 years old. I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t smoke. But it still can happen.”

Her illness has shined a spotlight on her friendships. Lots of her old friends showed concern at first, then went on with their lives. A handful checked in on her frequently. Some are new.

“I got in touch with a woman during chemotherapy, she was there too,” Michelle said. “She has breast cancer. She saw my cross necklace, and we were talking about faith and how it helped in those hard times.

“We are still in contact now. We are writing letters to each other. We’re not texting or phoning, just writing letters and sending postcards. She’s as old as my mom, but it’s very cool to have someone with almost the same story.”

How will that story end? Michelle has her hopes, this fearless young woman who took to bobsledding on her second time down the track.

“My goal is to be in the Olympics in four years,” she said. “I’ll be 29 by then. The age is still good — even better than now for a bobsleigh athlete. And I have a great team. My bobsleigh pilot is very supportive and she said she always has a place for me in the sled.”

This week, Michelle is supporting Cedric — just a sliver, she said, of the way he has supported her. They got engaged in December. It happened at sunset in his little hometown in the Swiss Alps.

“He was talking about himself and us, and then he proposed to me,” she said. “I said yes. Of course.”

Markets reopen in Dilling, South Kordofan’s second largest city. Yet residents face critical medical shortages and persistent aerial attacks.

Life is cautiously returning to the streets of Dilling, the second largest city in South Kordofan state, after the Sudanese army broke a suffocating siege that had isolated the area for more than two years.

For months, the city had been encircled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), cutting off vital supply lines and trapping civilians in a severe humanitarian crisis.

While the lifting of the blockade has allowed goods to flow again, local authorities and residents said the city remains under the threat of drone attacks.

Al Jazeera Arabic’s Hisham Uweit, reporting from Dilling, described a city “recovering slowly” from the economic strangulation.

“For over two years, heavy siege conditions were imposed on the city. Movement disappeared, goods vanished and livelihoods narrowed,” Uweit said.

“Now the eyes of buyers pick through the few available goods … as if the market itself is announcing its recovery at a leisurely pace, drawing determination from the patience of its residents.”

Markets return to life

The immediate impact of the army’s advance is visible in the local markets, which were largely shuttered during the blockade. Fresh produce, absent for months, has begun to reappear in stalls.

“The market and vegetables have all returned,” a local trader told Al Jazeera. “Before, the market didn’t exist. Now we have okra, potatoes, sweet potatoes, chillies and lemons. Everything is with us, and the market has returned to normal.”

However, the resumption of trade masks deep scars left by the isolation. The blockade devastated the local economy, stripping residents of their savings and leaving infrastructure in disrepair.

‘The price of isolation’

While food supplies are improving, Dilling’s health sector remains in critical condition. The city’s main hospital is struggling with a severe lack of equipment and essential medicines, a shortage that has had life-altering consequences for the most vulnerable.

Abdelrahman, a local resident suffering from diabetes, paid a heavy price for the siege. During the months of encirclement, insulin supplies ran dry. His condition deteriorated rapidly, ultimately leading to the amputation of both his legs.

“He had a medical appointment after a month, but the month closed off his check-ups,” a relative of Abdelrahman said. “He is suffering severely. He is missing his insulin. There is a shortage of food, and he is tired. His health has declined sharply.”

‘Chased like locusts’

Despite the Sudanese army asserting control over access routes, the security situation in Dilling remains precarious. Authorities said the city is subjected to almost daily drone strikes launched by the RSF and SPLM-N, targeting infrastructure and residential areas.

For Maryam, a mother displaced multiple times by the conflict, the breaking of the siege has not brought peace. She described the terror of the unmanned aerial vehicles that hover over their homes.

“Now the drones bombard and chase us. They chase us like locusts,” Maryam said. “When they come, we just run to hide. When they hover over us, they burn the thatch [roofs], start fires and force you to leave your home.”

She added that the constant threat of aerial bombardment makes normal life impossible: “If you are having a meal, like porridge, … the moment you see them, you leave it.”

Uweit said that while the lifting of the siege is a “glimmer of hope” and a first step towards recovery, the dual challenge of rebuilding a shattered health system and fending off persistent military attacks means Dilling’s ordeal is far from over.

SACRAMENTO — Gavin Newsom writes in his upcoming memoir about San Francisco’s highborn Getty family fitting him in Brioni suits “appropriate to meet a king” when he was 20 years old. Then he flew aboard their private “Jetty” to Spain for a royal princess’s debutante-style party.

Back home, real life wasn’t as grand.

In an annual performance for their single mom, Newsom and his sister would pretend to find problems with the fancy clothes his dad’s friends, the heirs of ruthless oil baron J. Paul Getty, sent for Christmas. Poor fit. Wrong color. Not my style. The ritual gave her an excuse to return the gifts and use the store credit on presents for her children she placed under the tree.

California’s 41st governor, a possible suitor for the White House, opens up about the duality of his upbringing in his new book. Newsom details the everyday struggle living with his mom after his parents divorced and occasional interludes into his father’s life charmed by the Gettys’ affluence, including that day when the Gettys outfitted him in designer clothes at a luxury department store.

“I walked out understanding that this was the split personality of my life,” Newsom writes in “Young Man in a Hurry.”

For years, Newsom asserted that his “one-dimensional” public image as a slick, privileged politician on a path to power paved with Getty oil money fails to tell the whole story.

“I’m not trying to be something I’m not,” Newsom said in a recent interview. “I’m not trying to talk about, you know, ‘I was born in a town called Hope with no running water.’ That’s not what this book is about. But it’s a very different portrayal than the one I think 9 out of 10 people believe.”

As he explores a 2028 presidential run and basks in the limelight as one of President Trump’s most vociferous critics, the book offers the Democratic politician a chance to write his own narrative and address the skeletons in his closet before opponents begin to exploit his past.

A book tour, which is set to begin Feb. 21 in Nashville, also gives Newsom a reason to travel the country, meet voters and promote his life story without officially entering the race. He’s expected to make additional stops in Georgia, South Carolina, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The governor describes the book as a “memoir of discovery” that sent him interviewing family members and friends and digging through troves of old documents about his lineage that his mother never spoke about and his father smoothed over. Learning about his family history, the good and the bad, Newsom said, helped him understand and accept himself. Mark Arax, an author and former Los Angeles Times journalist, was his ghostwriter.

“I’ve changed the opinion of myself,” Newsom said when asked if he believed the book would revise his glossy public image. “It kind of rocked so many parts of my life, and kind of cracked things open. And I started to understand where my anxieties come from and why I’m overcompensating in certain areas.”

Newsom writes that his interest in politics brought him and his father, William, closer. His mother, Tessa, on the other hand, didn’t share his father’s enthusiasm.

She warned him to get out while he still could, worried her only son would eschew his true self.

“My mother did not want that world for me: the shrewd marriage of tall husbands and tall wives that kept each year’s Cotillion Debutante Ball stocked with children of the same; the gritted teeth behind the social smiles; the spectator sport of who was in and who was out based on so-and-so’s dinner party guest list,” Newsom wrote.

At the heart of her concern was her belief that Newsom’s “obsessive drive” into business and politics was in response to his upbringing and an effort to solve “the riddle” of his identity from his learning disorder, dyslexia, and the two different worlds he inhabited.

“As I grew up trying to grasp which of these worlds, if either, suited me best, she had worried about the persona I was constructing to cover up what she considered a crack at my core,” Newsom writes. “If my remaking was skim plaster, she feared, it would crumble. It would not hold me into adulthood.”

Newsom’s mother was 19 years old when she married his father, then 32. He learned through writing the book that his mother hailed from a “family of brilliant and daring misfits who had carved new paths in botany and medicine and left-wing politics,” he writes.

There was also secret pain and struggles with mental health. His maternal grandfather, a World War II POW, turned to the bottle after returning home. One night he told his three young daughters to line up in front of the fireplace so he could shoot them, but stopped when his wife walked in the door and took the gun from his hand. He committed suicide years later.

Newsom’s father’s family was full of more traditional Democrats and Irish Catholic storytellers who worked in banking, homebuilding, law enforcement and law. Newsom describes his paternal grandfather as one of the “thinkers behind the throne” for former California Gov. Edmund “Pat” Brown, but his family never held public office despite his dad’s bids for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the California Legislature.

The failed campaigns left his father in financial and emotional turmoil that crippled his marriage when Newsom was a small boy. A divorce set the stage for an unusual contrasting existence for the would-be governor, offering him brief exposures to the wealth and power of the Gettys through his dad.

Newsom said he moved casually between the rich and poor neighborhoods of San Francisco as a boy.

“It was a wonder how effortlessly I glided because the two realms of my life, the characters of my mother’s world and the characters of my father’s world, did not fit together in the least,” Newsom writes.

Mayor Gavin Newsom and his dad, Judge William Newsom, have lunch at the Balboa Cafe in San Francisco.

(Christina Koci Hernandez / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

Though William Alfred Newsom III went on to become an appellate court justice, Newsom’s father was best known for his role delivering ransom money to the kidnappers of J. Paul Getty’s grandson. He served as an adviser to the family without pay and a paid administrator of the $4 billion family trust.

The governor wrote in the book that the ties between the two families go back three generations. His father was close friends with Getty’s sons John Paul Jr. and Gordon since childhood when they became like his sixth and seventh siblings at Newsom’s grandparents’ house.

Gordon Getty in particular considered Newsom’s father his “best-best friend.” Newsom’s dad helped connect the eccentric music composer “to the outside world,” the governor wrote.

“My father had this way of creating a safe space for Gordon to open up,” Newsom writes. “He became Gordon’s whisperer, his interpreter and translator, a bridge to their friends, a bridge to Gordon’s own children.”

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and his sister, Hilary Newsom, in a promotional portrait for the Search for the Cause campaign, which raises funds for cancer research, on Nov. 21, 2025.

(Caroline Schiff/Getty Images)

His father’s friendship with Gordon Getty exposed Newsom and his younger sister, Hillary, to a world far beyond their family’s own means. Gordon’s wife, Ann, and Newsom’s father organized elaborate adventures for the Gettys’ four sons and the Newsom children.

Newsom describes fishing on the Rogue River and riding in a helicopter while studying polar bears on the shores of the Hudson Bay in Canada. He recalled donning tuxedos and carrying toy guns pretending to be James Bond on a European yacht vacation and soaring over the Serengeti in a hot air balloon during an East African safari.

Throughout his travels, Newsom often blended in with the Gettys’ brown-haired sons. He wrote that the actor Jack Nicholson once mistakenly called him one of the “Getty boys” at a party in a 16th-century palazzo in Venice where guests arrived via gondola. Newsom didn’t correct him.

“Had I shared this encounter with my mother, she likely would have asked me if deception was something I practiced whenever I hobnobbed with the Gettys,” Newsom said in the book. “Fact is, I was always aware of the line that separated us from the Gettys. Not because they went out of their way to make us aware of it but because we, as good Newsoms, paid constant mind to the distinction.”

Newsom wrote that his mother seemed to begrudge the excursions when her children returned home. She raised them in a much more ordinary existence. Newsom describes his father’s presence as “episodic.”

“For a day or two, she’d give us the silent treatment, and then we’d all fall back into the form of a life trying to make ends meet,” he wrote. “After enough vacations came and went, a cone of silence took hold.”

Newsom’s mother worked as an assistant retail buyer, a bookkeeper, a waitress at a Mexican restaurant, a development director for a nonprofit and a real estate agent — holding as many as three jobs at once — to provide for her children. His mother’s sister and brother-in-law helped care for them when they could, but he likened himself to a latchkey kid because of the amount of time he and his sister spent alone.

They moved five times in 10 years in search of a “better house in a better neighborhood” with good schools, taking the family from San Francisco to the Marin County suburbs. Though his mother owned a home, she often rented out rooms to bring in extra money.

Tired of his mother complaining about finances and his father not coming through, Newsom wrote that he took on a paper route.

In the book, Newsom describes his struggles with dyslexia and how the learning disorder undercut his self-esteem when he was an emotionally vulnerable child.

Eager to make himself something more than an awkward kid with sweaty palms and a bowl haircut who couldn’t read, Newsom mimicked Remington Steele, the suave character on the popular 1980s detective show. He chugged down glassfuls of raw eggs like Sylvester Stallone in “Rocky” and ran across town and back like a prizefighter in training.

He found confidence in high school sports, but his struggle to find himself continued into young adulthood. Newsom wrote that he watched tapes of motivational guru Tony Robbins and heeded his advice to remake yourself in the image of someone you admire. For Newsom, that became Robbins himself.

“Find a person who embodies all of the outward traits of personality, bearing, charisma, language, and power lacking in yourself,” Newsom described the philosophy in the book. “Study that person. Copy that person. The borrowed traits may fit awkwardly at first, but don’t fret. You’ll be surprised by how fast the pose becomes you, and you the pose.”

His father scoffed at the self-help gurus and nurtured his interest in business.

More than a half-dozen friends and family members, including Gordon Getty, invested equal shares to help him launch a wine shop in San Francisco. Newsom named the business, which expanded to include restaurants, hotels and wineries, “PlumpJack,” the nickname of Shakespeare’s fictional character Sir John Falstaff and the title of Gordon Getty’s opera.

“Gordon’s really inspired me to be bolder and more audacious. He’s inspired me to be more authentic,” Newsom said. “The risks I take in business … just trying to march to the beat of a different drummer and to be a little bolder. That’s my politics. But I also think he played a huge role in that, in terms of shaping me in that respect as well.”

Newsom described Gordon and Ann Getty as like family. The Gettys also became the biggest investors in his wineries and among his largest political donors.

In an interview, Newsom said there are many days when he feels his mother “absolutely” was right to worry about the facade of politics and the mold her son stuffed himself into.

Gavin Newsom heads for his home neighborhood on Nov. 3, 2003, to cast hisvote for San Francisco mayor.

(Mike Kepka / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

He described the day the recall against him qualified for the ballot amid the COVID-19 pandemic as humbling and humiliating, though it later failed by a wide margin. Still today, he said, there’s a voice in his head constantly questioning why he’s in politics, what he’s exposing his wife and children to and doing with his life.

By choosing a career as an elected official despite his mother’s warnings, Newsom ultimately picked his father’s world and accomplished his father’s dream of taking office. But he said the book taught him that so much of his own more gutsy positions, such as his early support for gay marriage, and his hustle were from his mother.

Newsom said he’s accepted that he can’t control which version of himself people choose to see. Writing the book felt cathartic, he said, and left him more comfortable taking off his mask.

“It allowed me to understand better my motivations, my purpose, my meaning, my mission… who my mom and dad were and who I am as a consequence of them and what truly motivates me,” Newsom said. “There’s a freedom. There’s a real freedom. And it’s nice. It’s just so much nicer than the plaster of the past.”

To age is to find one’s appreciation for life’s daily joys sharpen, especially as more inconvenient realities assert themselves. Lifelong Tangier resident Maria Angeles (Carmen Maura), part of the bustling Moroccan city’s entrenched Spanish community, is one such grateful senior. We see her at the beginning of “Calle Málaga” in a state of smiling contentment, walking her neighborhood streets and being greeted by vendors.

What she surely isn’t expecting, however, as she buys food and makes croquetas in preparation for an eagerly awaited visit from her daughter from Madrid, is that this trip will threaten all she holds dear. That’s because Clara (Marta Etura), a divorced mom struggling to pay the bills, arrives with the news that she’s selling the grand old apartment her widowed mother has lived in for 40 years. Won’t it be nicer for Maria to live with her in Spain and be closer to her grandchildren? Or at the very least be taken care of locally in Spanish-specialized assisted living?

The look on Maura’s face — this celebrated actor’s most well-honed tool — suggests a range of emotions regarding forced elderhood or grannydom that are far less accommodating.

How Maria handles her imminent uprooting is at the core of Moroccan filmmaker Maryam Touzani’s third feature, her follow-up to the similarly sensitive family drama “The Blue Caftan.” “Calle Málaga,” written with Touzani’s husband Nabil Ayouch, is not a passive narrative, though, merely content with the internalized ache of acceptance. It is to some extent an emotional heist film and protest tale in delicate harmony, in that after initially agreeing to be placed in that Tangier senior center while her possessions are boxed up or sold, Maria schemes to steal her life back from under her absent daughter’s nose.

If you don’t look too closely at the details of Touzani’s charming scenario — which requires that a lot of things to fall into place, if enjoyably so — the movie becomes a sweet and spicy counternarrative to stories about aging that patronize their protagonists. (Another noteworthy example was last year’s rapturous American indie “Familiar Touch.”) Maria essentially becomes a crafty squatter in her own up-for-sale apartment, reclaiming some items from a hard-nosed but increasingly understanding antiques dealer (a well-cast Ahmed Boulane) and engineering a clever way to earn money with the help of friendly neighborhood kids who adore her. Her gambit even opens the door for unexpected romance, giving her frequent chats with Josefa (María Alfonsa Rosso), a childhood friend, an increasingly eye-opening frankness.

It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Maura, her almond-shaped eyes as powerfully suggestive as ever, conveying Maria’s rejuvenated spirit and sensuality with as much magnetism. Touzani, an unfussy, patient director with a fondness for the simplicity of human interaction, implicitly trusts her star to carry the film’s effervescence and complexity, although you may wish the filmmaking was a little less straightforward.

There is, after all, a reckoning for Maria’s situation we can’t help but keep in the back of our mind. Because our first brief glimpse of Clara is a sympathetic one — as opposed to conveniently antagonistic — we know “Calle Málaga” won’t settle for a tidy resolution. And it doesn’t, save leaving us with a view of Maria’s bid for freedom that, like the rose petal that is one of Touzani’s go-to visuals, beautifies the air whether still connected to the roots or separated and strewn like so much that’s fragile in life.

Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. always knew he wanted to be an artist, even as a child.

From crafting figures out of chewed gum stuck underneath the pews at his Catholic school’s church after he was forced to scrape them as punishment from teachers to collecting his mother’s discarded gum wrappers, Barrois felt a creative itch to make something out of nothing.

“I had seen too much art [and thought to myself], ‘Someone had to be doing this, why not me?,’” Barrois said with a chuckle. “I always dreamt of doing this. Other kids played with Play-Doh. I made stuff with anything I could get my hands on like clay, aluminum foil and discarded phone wire.”

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Now the 61-year-old New Orleans native is debuting his latest project at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art: “Fútbol Is Life.” It depicts some of the most iconic plays and political moments in the 95-year history of the FIFA World Cup, coming to L.A. this summer, with “humble” gum wrappers.

Barrois and LACMA curator Britt Salvesen assembled 60 works, including 40 vignettes from past World Cups and four animated short films, among them the movie “Fútballet,” which re-creates 21 famous scenes on a 50-inch soccer pitch.

Suspended artwork of Brazilian Swedish footballer Marta Vieira da Silva, known mononymously as Marta, made by Barrois. He made a conscious effort to feature women’s contributions to soccer.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

A large-scale projection of a miniature of French footballer Kylian Mbappé hangs on the wall. Two life-size replicas of Argentina’s Lionel Messi and Brazil’s Marta Vieira da Silva hang from the ceiling, the first of their kind for the artist, who has done miniatures of NBA legend Kobe Bryant and NFL star Patrick Mahomes.

The exhibition is laid out to resemble a playing field.

“We really wanted to create that environment that you feel like you’re in a separate world, and my colleague Darwin Hu took a personal and creative interest in this,” Salvesen told The Times. “He did a bunch of visual research on soccer fields in schools and prisons, where fields were improvised in whatever spaces were available. We wanted to wrap the lines up the walls and have the turf. Your sense of the space changes when you go from a hard floor to a softer floor.”

With a suspended Lionel Messi at right, Noa Carter, 4, and dad Darius L. Carter of Pasadena get a preview of artist Lyndon J. Barrois Sr.’s LACMA exhibition, “Fútbol Is Life.”

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Barrois’ 1-inch tall “sportraits” are carefully painted to capture even the tiniest detail. The majority of the installations include a mirror, allowing the viewer to see themselves as part of the moments “frozen in time,” he said.

A total of 325 individual mini soccer and football players, including Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, are included in the show.

“I had so much fun making the sculptures that when I was done, it was like hitting a wall after all that adrenaline,” Barrois said. “Now we get to hang it. Install it. You just start to see all the things we envisioned just come to life. I love this s—.”

Before sculpting, Barrois did “tons of research, a lot of reading, [looking at] photography and video.” He and a friend rewatched the most famous plays and examined the history surrounding the World Cup, stretching back to the 1930s, and before the Women’s World Cup started in 1970.

A “Sportraits” work shows the German soccer team highlighting migrant workers’ rights ahead of the 2021 World Cup. “I chose moments that I personally thought would be important, there’s a lot of politics involved,” Barrois said.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

“I just wanted to tell a story with the politics involved, like in 1938, the German team was all Nazis, and they’re doing the salute, and by 2022, the German team has human rights on their T-shirts,” Barrois said. “We also had the Iranian women project. All these things happened on such a huge platform. So it was a tough editing process to bring that down to 40.”

Barrois spent seven months completing his pieces.

Curator Sandra Jackson-Dumont, former director and CEO of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, applauded Barrois’ use of gum wrappers.

“I like that Lyndon is using materials that are a part of our everyday lives that we take for granted and we discard,” Jackson said. “He’s using those materials to make something creative.”

Barrois was surrounded by family and friends for the exhibition’s preview, most of whom grew up with the artist. Dany Wilson, who went to elementary school with Barrois, said he was “proud of him.”

The exhibition also features works from scientist Harold Edgerton and photographer Eadweard Muybridge that explore the history of motion studies and time-lapse photography.

Bijou Phillips needs a kidney donor and she’s asking the public for help.

“I need help finding a new kidney,” the actor wrote in an Instagram post Wednesday. “I’m asking as a friend, a sister, an aunt and, most importantly, a single mother to an incredible and brave daughter. I am in need of a kidney.”

According to her Instagram post, Phillips was born with an underdeveloped kidney. She said she previously received a kidney in 2017 “from a dear friend” but that she has faced “many complications since,” including the BK virus. Per the National Kidney Foundation, the BK virus is common and usually inactive, but it can “wake up” when a person’s immune system is compromised — like after an organ transplant — and affect the success of the transplant.

Phillips is hospitalized at UCLA Health and in stable condition for now, TMZ reported.

Phillips, who is back on dialysis while she awaits a transplant, also shared a link to a living donor form on her Instagram for people interested in getting the voluntary donation process started.

“Please help me find a living donor so that I can have more time with my daughter, family, and friends,” Phillips wrote. “Time is of the essence.”

Phillips shares a daughter with ex-husband Danny Masterson. Fianna Francis was born in 2014.

Masterson was convicted in 2023 of raping two former members of the Church of Scientology and was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison. He filed a petition to overturn the conviction last year.

Coronation Street legend shared how her on-screen storyline prompted her to get checked for cancer

Coronation Street’s Sally Dynevor has candidly discussed her harrowing battle with cancer, confessing it “changed my life completely”.

The soap icon, who recently marked four decades on the famous cobbles, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009. Following a lumpectomy and six months of chemotherapy, she thankfully made a full recovery.

At the time of her diagnosis, Sally’s on-screen persona, Sally Metcalfe, was also grappling with a breast cancer diagnosis, mirroring her real-life ordeal.

During Wednesday’s (February 11) episode of Loose Women, Sally joined panellists Christine Lampard, Janet Street Porter and Coleen Nolan. Conversation inevitably turned to her health struggle after Corrie co-star Beverley Callard recently disclosed her own breast cancer diagnosis.

Sally confessed that her diagnosis “completely changed her life.”, reports the Daily Star.

She reminisced: “My character had breast cancer and I had to tell Carla Connor (played by Alison King) that Sally had breast cancer. That was a very, very difficult scene because I knew I was leaving at that point.”

The actress revealed: “I wanted to carry on working. I didn’t want to stop, but the moment that I was told I needed chemo that’s the moment that I realised that actually this is serious.

“But hopefully for Bev, she’s caught this early so she will be hopefully back at work and carrying on doing what she’s doing.

“It’s very hard for women because if you’re a working mum and the breadwinner, then you want to carry on. You need to be working.”

In an emotional revelation, Sally confessed that her character’s storyline proved instrumental in prompting her to seek medical examination.

She said: “I’ve still not come to terms that it happened and maybe if I hadn’t had the storyline, maybe I wouldn’t have checked because I was only 46.”

She went on: “I thought it was, you know, much older women but it’s not. I mean thank goodness there’s much more information out there now than there was 15 years ago when I got it. But now we’re talking about it, which is very important.”

She recalled: “I remember my first day back on the street after having eight months off or six months off and walking down the cobbles and going.

“I am so grateful for this because once you have something taken away from you. You think that’s it, and then to get it back is just, wow, I mean, you don’t take it for granted.”

Coronation Street airs Monday to Friday at 8:30pm on ITV1 and ITVX and Loose Women airs weekdays from 12:30pm on ITV1 and ITVX

**For the latest showbiz, TV, movie and streaming news, go to the new **Everything Gossip** website**

Snoop Dogg‘s daughter Cori Broadus and her fiancé Wayne “Duece” Polk bid a final farewell to their baby girl, less than a year after welcoming her into the world.

Broadus and Polk celebrated the life of their infant daughter, Codi, over the weekend in a memorial attended by family and friends. On Sunday, Broadus shared various scenes from her baby’s funeral to her Instagram page, including pictures from the church reception, of loved ones wearing matching “Codi’s Crew” outfits and of the infant’s casket in the ground with flowers and a teddy bear laying atop.

“Part of me went with you,” Broadus captioned her Instagram carousel. “My girl for life.”

In a video from the memorial, Broadus mourned her daughter’s short life and all the moments they could have shared in a moving eulogy. Broadus lamented being unable to see her baby girl take her first steps, bring her to her first day of school and support her through the highs and heartbreaks of life together.

Broadus, with Polk by her side, said “I don’t understand why this happened.”

“I’m trusting God, but that doesn’t mean it makes sense to me. Some days I wonder if this world was just too cruel for someone as pure as you,” she continued. “Other days, I wonder how I’m supposed to live in a world without you in my arms.”

Broadus, 26, and Polk became parents to baby Codi last February. The baby girl arrived prematurely, after Broadus’ 25-week pregnancy. The happy mom at the time detailed her emotional pregnancy journey, which she said included “blaming myself because I wasn’t able to give her all that she needed.” Broadus said she praised God for supporting her and making her daughter’s birth possible.

Broadus had detailed her infant’s health issues in December, describing her daughter in a poem as a “miracle wrapped in tubes and tape” with “lungs trying to catch up to the life inside her.” The Choc Factory Co. makeup executive said she felt guilty that her daughter might also suffer from lupus, an autoimmune condition she was diagnosed with in childhood. In her poem, Broadus said she was hopeful her daughter would live a healthy life beyond the hospital walls of the NICU.

In January, Broadus revealed that her baby girl was back home in her arms and shared photo and video to Instagram. Weeks later, she announced she “lost the love of my life.”

Broadus said in her eulogy that amid her mourning she feels relief that her daughter is at rest.

“I find comfort knowing you have your angel wings now, knowing you are home, safe.”

This year’s lineup of Oscar-nominated live-action shorts is as diverse as any in recent memory. From gritty political reality to absurdly cutting political commentary, tongue-in-cheek parody to touching, intimate drama (plus a moody adaptation of a Russian short story), voters have a wide selection from which to choose.

‘Butcher’s Stain’

Following the horrific attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, a Palestinian butcher in an Israeli shop finds himself accused of defiling a tribute to the hostages.

“I worked at the supermarket, and I experienced the collective trauma everyone was going through,” says writer-director Meyer Levinson, but he also felt how much animus “was pointed to the Palestinians that were working at the supermarket … individuals who have nothing to do with anything that happened, especially like my [movie’s] character, who is an everyday, working-class guy, trying to get money for his family, and has nothing to do with politics.”

Levinson calls making the film, his first, “one of the greatest experiences of my life. The set of a student film is a magical place; people come there for free, for passion. You just have to get them a decent sandwich.

“There were Palestinians, Jewish Israelis, Palestinians within Israel on set. It was this sort of paradise where we could come together. I’ve learned so much from my Palestinian actors, who’ve taught me about their community.”

‘A Friend of Dorothy’

(Filthy Gorgeous Productions)

In Lee Knight’s film, a chance meeting between a young Black Englishman in the process of finding himself and an elderly, white Englishwoman blossoms into an unexpected kinship — one based on Knight’s experience.

“I had a unique friendship with an elderly neighbor,” says Knight. “Me and my husband looked after her. She had this huge passion for the arts that she didn’t get to explore; when she realized we were actors, it was a huge thing for her. We became very, very close.

“She told me she would hide gay men in the garden during the war” and help them during the time of England’s infamous Section 28 (“banning the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality,” Knight says). He says it was meaningful for her “to see an interracial, gay couple happy and safe in her lifetime. As a gay man, I loved being around women because they didn’t judge me.”

‘Jane Austen’s Period Drama’

A charming country hillside. A fetching lass in Regency garb and her paramour, confessing his ardor. And the equivalent of a needle scratch as he’s halted by the appearance of blood on her skirt. Yes, that’s what’s meant by “Period Drama.” How will Miss Estrogenia Talbot elucidate this conundrum to Mr. Dickley? And once comprehending, shall he go with the flow?

Co-writer and co-director Julia Aks (who plays Estrogenia) admits it was the titular pun that got her and co-writer and co-director Steve Pinder going, but, “As we followed the thread, it made me reflect on shame I maybe hadn’t thought about. And the more I talked to women about funny period stories, I found they had heartbreaking ones.”

The film addresses stigma surrounding menstruation and includes biologically accurate descriptions; educational groups have screened it. But foremost, this “Period Drama” is a comedy.

Pinder says, “When you hear people laugh and come to life watching it, and then come up to you afterward and look like they’re floating … that is just incredible.”

‘The Singers’

Sam A. Davis didn’t exactly love Ivan Turgenev’s short story “The Singers,” at first — “honestly, I nodded off a couple times,” he says. “But it sneaks up on you. These guys have this fleeting moment of connection.”

The film updates Turgenev’s 1850s Russia to contemporary America, but maintains the “Lower Depths” social stratum. The low-down dive bar is draped in painterly shadows inspired by Renaissance masters, the stale cigarette stench palpable. Then the notion of a singing contest arises, and life stirs.

Davis says, after reading the story, “This sort of kismet moment happened where I opened Instagram and the first video that popped up was Mike Yung singing in the subway station in New York City. I flashed on a modern adaptation, but starring viral singing sensations.”

He recruited them to play themselves without a formal script. “It was almost like casting and writing were one process … I wanted it to be a love letter to the underdog. You never know who you’re sitting next to at the bar.”

‘Two People Exchanging Saliva’

(Misia Films & Preromanbritain)

In bold black and white, we find ourselves in a luxurious French department store. In this world, items are paid for by receiving slaps to the face. And the crime of kissing is punishable by death, raising the stakes as a young sales assistant bonds with a regular customer.

“We were writing in late 2022 and there was the reintroduction of the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law in Florida,” says co-writer and co-director Natalie Musteata. “In a sense, it presaged the moment that we’re living through; we’re all living in the fever dream of Florida. But other things were influencing us — the policing of queer love through history; you open your phone and see these women [in Iran] being shot at for taking off their hijabs.”

Co-writer and co-director Alexandre Singh says Oscar winner Barry Jenkins told them, on selecting the film for a program he curated at the Telluride Film Festival, “ ‘When I first watched this in 2024, it was surrealist, satirical, almost farcical. I couldn’t imagine how much more relevant it could become, in a scary way.’ ”

Mark Danby relocated in January 2025 to embrace the warmer climate of the Costa del Sol, settling in Manilva, a municipality in Malaga, but it’s not been without its challenges

A British man who ditched the UK for a new life in Spain has reflected on the move one year later and how he’s had to turn his life “upside down in the summer”. Originally from Stockport, Greater Manchester, Mark Danby relocated in January 2025 to embrace the warmer climate of the sun-drenched Costa del Sol, settling in Manilva, a municipality in Malaga.

An IT worker and content creator who shares insights about life abroad on his YouTube channel, Tapas Guy, Mark has now settled and is enjoying his new home in the sun. He admitted that he doesn’t particularly miss much about the UK, with the possible exception of the “good old English pub.”

Adapting to a new culture inevitably presents challenges, and Mark – who has previously discussed his biggest Spanish “culture shock” – has certainly faced his own. In an exclusive interview, he reflected on his “new way of life” and highlighted the necessity of embracing change when moving to Spain.

When asked to name some of the most significant challenges he has faced since moving, Mark said: “Adapting to a new routine, a new way of life; you do have to adapt, and you haven’t, I mean you have to, you’ve got no choice. And I think that is one of the biggest challenges of moving.

“And a lot of people don’t realise; I think a lot of people think that… If you are sort of moving, you just bring your life with you, and you’re just going to be living in Spain with different weather. No, it doesn’t work like that. You do have to…you change. And you know, we’re humans, and we do adapt to different changes in the environment, don’t we?

“You do really have to fully embrace it and accept the changes you have to make to your routine, particularly in the summer. I mean, it is hot. You really do have to turn your life upside down in the summer. You can’t sort of go out doing things during the day.

“You have to keep out the heat, take it steady. Life comes to a complete standstill here in Spain in the summer, and then you have to live your life in the evenings. So you do have all these changes in routines that you have to adapt to.” Back in July 2025, Mark discussed how he thought the country was “about 20 years or so behind the UK” in one particular aspect.

Having entered Spain on a digital nomad visa, which allows foreigners to live in Spain while working remotely for companies abroad or as self-employed, Mark said he discovered that some bureaucratic processes can be slow, suggesting this could be the result of a stark “contrast” between Spain and the UK.

In his response to a query about the most significant cultural shock he’d experienced, Mark highlighted in one of his videos that Spain seemed to be “about 20 years or so behind the UK” in a particular area. He said: “And I describe it as being Spain being about 20 years or so behind the UK in kind of technology. Everything takes so long. They don’t go for electronic systems. They like their pieces of paper; that is the biggest shock.

“They are paper pushers; they’re pen pushers. Everything is paper, like when you go for visa applications. I’m now waiting for my TIE card, which is my foreign residency card, everything is paper processed.” He went on to explain that, at the time, he was waiting for his card, but they’d “already kind of accepted it”.

He noted that those applying would present their documents at a police station, where they would have their fingerprints taken, and the individual would produce the card. Mark added: “If they had a little printer machine by them, they could just press a button and print it out, but oh no. You know, it has to go through the paper process.”

In further comments, he explained that you “sort of make another appointment to go back”, pointing out that “everything’s booked up solid”, and everything “takes a long time”. Despite this minor grievance, Mark previously explained that, overall, he was having an “absolutely wonderful” experience in Spain.

NANCY Guthrie’s abductors have allegedly demanded $6 million in exchange for her safe return.

It comes as FBI agents have decoded hidden messages in the latest video released by Savannah and her siblings begging for her release and saying “we will pay”.

Local TV station KGUN 9 in Tucson, Arizona, where the 84-year-old was snatched from her bed last weekend, reported that her alleged kidnappers asked for $6 million in exchange for her life.

The alleged ransom note received by the news station requested payment by 5pm on Monday and threatened Nancy’s life if the deadline goes unmet.

The outlet highlighted that it is one of several ransom notes that have been issued to the family and to local news stations.

KGUN 9 previously said it, along with other outlets, had received a ransom note demanding millions of dollars in Bitcoin.

read more on nancy guthrie

KIDNAP MYSTERY

Police seize car and remove CCTV camera from home of TV star’s missing mum

Their report came hours after the Today Show host released a video on her Instagram on Saturday afternoon.

Nancy’s three children held hands as Savannah made the announcement alongside sister Annie and brother Camron.

She said in the short video: “We received your message, and we understand.

“We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her.

“This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.”

It is unclear which ransom note the Guthries were responding to.

More to follow…

A US oil blockade is causing a severe energy crisis in Cuba, as the government has been forced to ration fuel and cut electricity for many hours a day, paralysing life in the communist-ruled island nation of 11 million.

Bus stops are empty, and families are turning to wood and coal for cooking, living through near-constant power outages amid an economic crisis worsened by the Trump administration’s steps in recent weeks.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel has imposed harsh emergency restrictions – from reduced office hours to fuel sales – in the backdrop of looming threats of regime change from the White House.

The Caribbean region has been on edge since the US forces abducted Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro last month and upped the pressure to isolate Havana and strangle its economy. Venezuela, Cuba’s closest ally in the region, provided the country with the much-needed fuel.

So, how dire is the situation in Cuba? What does United States President Donald Trump want from Havana? And how long can Cuba sustain?

What are Cuba’s emergency measures?

Blaming the US for the crisis, Cuba’s Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Perez‑Oliva Fraga appeared on state television on Friday to inform the millions of the emergency steps “to preserve the country’s essential functions and basic services while managing limited fuel resources”.

Now, the Cuban state companies will shift to a four‑day workweek, with transport between provinces dialled down, main tourism facilities closed, shorter schooldays and reduced in‑person attendance requirements at universities.

“Fuel will be used to protect essential services for the population and indispensable economic activities,” said Perez-Oliva. “This is an opportunity and a challenge that we have no doubt we will overcome. We are not going to collapse.”

The government says it will prioritise available fuel for essential services – public health, food production and defence – and push the installation of solar-based renewable energy sector and incentives therein. It will prioritise shifting energy to selected food production regions and accelerate the use of renewable energy sources, while cutting down on culture and sport activities and diverting resources towards the country’s early warning systems.

Why has the US blocked oil to Cuba?

Decades of strict US economic sanctions against Cuba, the largest island nation in the Caribbean, have destroyed its economy and isolated it from international trade. Cuba relied on foreign allies for oil shipments, such as Mexico, Russia, and Venezuela.

However, after the US forces abducted Venezuelan President Maduro, Washington blocked any Venezuelan oil from going to Cuba. Trump now says the Cuban government is ready to fall.

Under Trump, Washington has pivoted to the Western Hemisphere, which it wants to dominate. The military actions in Venezuela, the pledge to take over Greenland and changing the government in Cuba are part of the new policy.

Last month, Trump signed an executive order – labelling Cuba a threat to national security – imposing tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to the island nation. Further pressure on the Mexican government reportedly led to oil stocks reaching a record low in Cuba.

“It looks like it’s something that’s just not going to be able to survive,” Trump told reporters last month, when questioned about the Cuban economy. “It is a failed nation.”

Havana has rejected accusations that it poses a threat to US security. Last week, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement calling for dialogue.

“The Cuban people and the American people benefit from constructive engagement, lawful cooperation, and peaceful coexistence. Cuba reaffirms its willingness to maintain a respectful and reciprocal dialogue, oriented toward tangible results, with the United States government, based on mutual interest and international law,” a statement from the ministry said on February 2.

Trump’s goals in Cuba remain unclear; however, US officials have noted on multiple occasions that they would like to see the government change.

Responding to a question during a US Senate hearing on Venezuela, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “We would like to see the regime there change. That doesn’t mean that we’re going to make a change, but we would love to see a change.”

Rubio, who is of Cuban descent, is one of the most powerful figures in Trump’s administration.

“The Cuban-American lobby, which Rubio represents, is one of the most powerful foreign policy lobbies in the United States today,” Ed Augustin, an independent journalist in Havana, told Al Jazeera’s The Take.

“In the new Trump administration, [with] an unprecedented number of Cuban Americans, the lobbyists have become the policymakers,” he said, adding that Rubio has built firm control over the lobby.

On January 31, Trump told reporters, “It doesn’t have to be a humanitarian crisis. I think they probably would come to us and want to make a deal. So Cuba would be free again.”

He said Washington would make a deal with Cuba, but offered no clarity on what that means.

History of US-Cuba relations

Since Fidel Castro overthrew the pro-US regime in the Cuban revolution in 1959, the country has been under US embargo. Decades of sanctions have denied Cuba access to global markets, making even supply medicines difficult.

Castro nationalised US-owned properties, mainly the oil sector, and Washington responded with trade restrictions that soon became a full economic embargo that continues to this day, undermining Cuba’s economy.

The US also cut diplomatic ties with Havana, and three years later, a missile crisis almost brought Washington and the erstwhile USSR, an ally of Cuba, to the brink of nuclear war.

In 2014, Washington and Havana restored ties after 50 years. Two years later, US President Barack Obama travelled to Havana to meet Raul Castro.

However, during his first term as president, Trump reversed the historic move in 2017. Since then, the US has reimposed a raft of sanctions against Cuba, especially economic restrictions, leading to one of the worst economic crises in the island nation’s history. Within hours of his inauguration in January 2025, Trump reversed the previous administration’s policy of engagement with Havana.

How long can Cuba sustain?

Until last month, Mexico reportedly remained Cuba’s major oil supplier, sending nearly 44 percent of total oil imports, followed by Venezuela at 33 percent, while nearly 10 percent was sourced from Russia and a smaller amount from Algeria.

According to Kpler, a data company, by January 30, Cuba was left with oil enough to last only 15 to 20 days at current levels of demand.

Cuba currently needs an estimated 100,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

What has the UN said about the Cuban crisis?

United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Wednesday that “the secretary-general is extremely concerned about the humanitarian situation in Cuba, which will worsen, and if not collapse, if its oil needs go unmet”.

Dujarric said, for more than three decades, the UN General Assembly has consistently called for an end to the embargo imposed by the US on Cuba, adding that the UN urges “all parties to pursue dialogue and respect for international law”.

Francisco Pichon, the senior-most UN official in Cuba, described “a combination of emotions” in the country – “a mix of resilience, but also grief, sorrow and indignation, and some concern about the regional developments”.

The UN team in Havana says the vast majority of Cubans are hit by rolling blackouts, with the number of people in vulnerable situations increasing significantly.

“The last two years have been quite tough,” Pichon said, adding that urgent changes are needed to sustain Cuba “in the midst of the severe economic, financial and trade sanctions”.

Feb. 7 (UPI) — A federal grand jury indicted Shannon Mathre, 33, for threatening to kill Vice President JD Vance and receiving and distributing child pornography.

Mathre, 33, is a resident of Toledo, Ohio, and allegedly told others in an online post that he is going to learn where Vance is going to be and use an M14 service rifle to kill the vice president. Vance visited northwestern Ohio in January.

“Our attorneys are vigorously prosecuting this disgusting threat against Vice President Vance,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said. “You can hide behind a screen, but you cannot hide from this Department of Justice.”

Secret Service agents arrested Mathre on Friday after the U.S. District Court of Northern Ohio grand jury indicted him earlier in the week.

While participating in Mathre’s arrest, federal investigators discovered child sex-abuse materials in his possession.

A grand jury indictment says he received and distributed child sex abuse materials from Dec. 31 to Jan. 21 and had several such digital files.

He was arraigned on Friday and has a detention hearing scheduled on Wednesday.

If Mathre is found guilty of the charges against him, a federal judge could sentence him to up to five years in prison and fined up to $250,000 for threatening the vice president’s life.

He also could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison and fined up to $250,000 for possessing child sex-abuse materials.

Mathre’s arrest comes during the same week that a Maryland resident Colin Demarco, 26, was charged with attempted murder for allegedly traveling to the northern Virginia home of Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought on Jan. 22.

Prosecutors say he was wearing a mask and carrying a firearm without a permit to do so when he was stopped outside of Vought’s home.

Demarco allegedly called the Nov. 5, 2024, election night the “worst of his life.”

Currently nominated for multiple Oscars, Chloé Zhao’s “Hamnet” traces how the immeasurable sorrow of losing a child fueled William Shakespeare to write “Hamlet” as a literary effigy to loss. That revered text, which has inspired countless adaptations (“The Lion King” among them), takes on a new form in the hands of Japanese animation master Mamoru Hosoda for his latest fantastical epic, “Scarlet.”

In a career of animated features with thematic heft and deep emotional impact, “Scarlet” may be the director’s most sobering and intense effort to date, not only given the severity of the violence on display, but because it advocates for the sometimes-impossible task of forgiving one’s foes, even when they show no remorse. Here, what’s at stake is one’s very soul. What remains is Hosoda’s investment in parent-child relationships, a recurring subject for him, always explored with compassion for both parties: the child in need of guidance and the parent struggling to be a beacon.

Gender-swapping the play, Hosoda once again centers a heroine (he seems to prefer female protagonists). The 16th century eponymous Danish princess (voiced by Mana Ashida) loses her father, King Amleth (Masachika Ichimura), to a gruesome betrayal. Her unscrupulous, power-hungry uncle Claudius (Kôji Yakusho) murders his own brother to become king. But in his final moments, as Scarlet watches, Amleth pleads a request she cannot hear. Avenging her fallen father — and finding out what he asked for before dying — becomes the young woman’s sole purpose going forward. Rage consumes her.

Hosoda’s body of work consists almost exclusively of movies that take place on two distinct planes, whether those be reality and a digital world (“Summer Wars,” “Belle”) or reality and a magical realm (“Mirai,” “The Boy and the Beast”). “Scarlet” is no different in that regard.

This time, however, he explores an afterlife with its own set of rules. Sensing Scarlet’s resolve to destroy him, Claudius poisons her. Scarlet wakes up in the Otherworld, an endless, arid landscape with an ocean for sky where a dragon roams. The deceased from the past and the present convene here. That’s how Scarlet and Hijiri (Masaki Okada), a paramedic from our present who refuses to believe he’s died, can exist in the same timeline. This purgatory essentially mirrors life: There’s conflict and suffering and if you die again here, you vanish into darkness forever. The goal is to ascend to the Infinite Land, a stand-in for heaven. But Scarlet cares not for eternal peace. She learns that Claudius is here and embarks on a trek to find him and kill him for good.

Hosoda doesn’t dwell on the differences between Scarlet and Hijiri’s realities back in the land of living. Instead, he zeroes in on their clashing worldviews. While Scarlet doesn’t think twice about slaughtering anyone who gets in her way, Hijiri protects life at all costs, so much that one can understand Scarlet’s frustration with him. After a brutal fight, for example, Hijiri bandages her enemies’ wounds with as much care as he does hers.

Multiple battles with Claudius’ henchmen pepper Scarlet and Hijiri’s journey, as does an encounter with the United Nations of this place: a group of wandering nomads from around the world who’ve come together for companionship. Even after death, Hosoda suggests, all people truly hope for is a shoulder to cry on and someone to share their burdens with.

For “Scarlet,” Hosoda ventures into uncharted aesthetic territory. When the narrative is in the Otherworld, fans will immediately notice the look differs from his previous creations. And that’s because Hosoda has opted for photorealistic, computer-generated animation in those sections. The early scenes in Scarlet’s time period are conceived using the more traditional hand-drawn technique.

Still, the characters in the Otherworld, created in CGI, retain qualities of hand-drawn animation, making one hyperaware of the relationship between the figure’s movement and the environment. The mix of visual approaches shocks the eye at first, though it comes to seem fitting.

If probed too closely, Hosoda’s high-concept interpretation of life after death may raise more questions than it can answer (have all of history’s villains been killed in the Otherworld?). But despite any narrative quibbles, the movie deserves praise for its genuine call for compassion. Scarlet’s final encounter with Claudius radiates with the complicated poignancy expected of real, difficult catharsis.

Admittedly, the film’s resolution feels naïve. Scarlet’s good intentions to end wars by way of sheer determination to do what’s right might prove insubstantial in practice. In that regard, “Scarlet” is the prayer of a director who fervently wants to believe in kindness (even for those who don’t deserve it) as the one true road to healing. That’s a tall order these days, especially in this country, but it’s hard to fault Hosoda for the sincere reminder of what could be.

With his six-volume magnum opus “My Struggle,” Karl Ove Knausgaard became one of Europe’s most acclaimed contemporary novelists.

At once epic and intimate in scope, the books used the raw material of Knausgaard’s life to answer questions about male identity, the obligations of fatherhood and marriage, and what it takes to become a serious artist. In his new novel, “The School of Night,” Knausgaard further explores the mysteries of artistic greatness, using as his template Christopher Marlowe’s 16th century play “Doctor Faustus.” Knausgaard sets his story in mid-1980s London, where two aspiring photographers named Kristian and Hans try to find their footing in the art world.

I spoke to the Norwegian writer about the devil, photography and Radiohead.

✍️ Author Chat

Your novel’s plot and characters are based on Christopher Marlowe’s 16th century play “Doctor Faustus,” which is about a scholar who sells his soul to the devil. Was this something you’ve been thinking about for a while?

I read Thomas Mann’s novel “Doctor Faustus” when I was 19 and it made a big impression on me. It’s been with me ever since then. The devil theme has hovered over some novels I’ve written, so it remained, and then I wanted to set this novel in London, where I now live, and where Marlowe was murdered. I wanted all of this in the background, but I didn’t know how to use it. That came during the writing.

The two young artists in “The School of Night” are photographers, an art form that has long been associated with the occult and summoning the unseen world. One thinks of the spirit photography trend of the 19th century in England.

I wrote about the first photograph in the novel, shot by Daguerre in 1848. I have it on my wall in my office. It’s a Paris street, which I find very unsettling and spooky, because even though it’s daytime there are no people on the street because the exposure was too slow to capture them. There’s just this lone figure, in the center of the frame who looks like the devil. I find it intriguing that the devil might have been present when the first photograph was taken.

Karl Ove Knausgaard, one of Europe’s most acclaimed contemporary novelists, sets his newest novel, “The School of Night,” in mid-1980s London.

(Solve Sundsbo for D2)

I think one of the reasons for the enduring appeal of the Faust legend is, if given the chance, most people would sell their souls for success, especially artists.

I think you’re right. And it is also a way of explaining something that is really mysterious, how a kind of normal, maybe even mediocre person could achieve something great overnight. When I was 19, I could have cut off my left arm to just have a book published. And when I wrote “My Struggle,” I was so frustrated in my writing, I was willing to go to extremes, to just make something happen. And then I didn’t think much about that when I wrote “The School of Night.” But it’s all kind of obvious to me afterwards that I use that feeling of doing something I really shouldn’t, and I could have stopped, but I still did it.

To your point: Kristian, your protagonist, has an artistic breakthrough when he photographs a dead cat that he has boiled. I guess my question is: A boiled cat?

Oh, that’s just due to the way I write. I never know what’s going to happen in a book. He’s starting to think about inner structures that keep up life somehow. And then, he thinks, how could he take photos of that? Well, maybe a cat. And then you have to practically get a cat. And then it’s like 25 pages of me describing how to boil a cat. I never planned it, you know.

Do you not outline your novels beforehand?

No, never, I’ve never done that. I do really try to be present and see what happens there. And then there will always be consequences of the choices you make, and that will eventually be the novel. And in this case, the character is different from me, so his choices will be different, and that creates a different trajectory, really.

Your characters are music obsessives in ways that only men in their 20s can be: curating their record collections, and so on.

When I was young, music really meant almost everything to me. When I was 15, I went to a local newspaper and asked to review records for them. And I had my own radio show. I’m not obsessed anymore, but I did see Radiohead at the O2 Arena recently. They are the last band I really wanted to see, and it was absolutely fantastic. I had tears running down my cheeks.

(This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

📰 The Week(s) in Books

George Saunders’ new novel might be the dark humor read you need right now, writes Robert Allen Papinchak.

(Los Angeles Times photo illustration; cover from Riverhead Books)

George Saunders has published a new novel called “Vigil,” and Robert Allen Papinchak is besotted by it, calling it a “virtuoso achievement, an immersive experience for the reader.”

Nathan Smith had a Zoom chat with author Martha Ackmann about her new Dolly Parton biography, “Ain’t Nobody’s Fool,” and got the lowdown on how Parton’s fixation with over-the-top wigs began. “Her promotions man happened to be dating an actress who had a big part in the television series ‘Mr. Ed,’ ” Ackmann tells Smith. “This actress took her around, showed her L.A. and they went to the Max Factor store and tried on wigs.”

In an excerpt from this new book, “Football,” Chuck Klosterman makes a case for America’s favorite sport as best viewed in the privacy of our living rooms. “It’s not just that you can see a game better when you watch it on television,” he writes. “Television is the only way you can see it at all.”

Finally, Bethanne Patrick gives us the lowdown on the must-read books of February.

📖 Bookstore Faves

Fear not, grown-ups: Our kids are not digital zombies just yet. In fact, children’s bookstores are thriving in Los Angeles. Children’s Book World is the largest independent bookstore of its kind in the city, with over 80,000 titles for sale. The store is a wonderland of printed matter for kids, with readings, book clubs and even musical performances. I spoke with the store’s manager Brien Lopez to get the lowdown on what our kids are reading.

What’s selling right now?

T.Z. Layton’s “The Academy” series, which is about a global soccer competition for tweens, is one of our best sellers. This series has lots of boys who were not avid readers becoming strong fiction readers because they are about a subject they love and they are really fun reads.

What kind of YA books are popular right now?

For our particular store we sell lots of sunshine romance particularly targeted to new teens like Lynn Painter’s books, as well as both mysteries and suspense thrillers like Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ “Inheritance Games” series. Dystopian sci fi is also popular, like Soyoung Park’s “Snowglobe” duology.

Who are the popular authors?

We just had a 2,000-person event with Dav Pilkey for his new “Dog Man” book and how he gets kids excited about books and reading just can’t be underestimated. We also had big events with beloved authors Katherine Applegate, Stuart Gibbs and Max Brallier. Middle grade fiction and graphic novels are very popular at our store.

Are kids still interested in books, despite all the distractions in their lives?

Kids definitely are interested in books if they are allowed to read about subjects they enjoy and books they love. The moment you tell a child there is a good book versus a bad book to read you have stopped that kid’s reading journey in its tracks. Let kids read the books they love and they will do it for a lifetime.

Children’s Book World in Los Angeles is located at 10580 1/2 W. Pico Blvd.

(Please note: The Times may earn a commission through links to Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.)

“I am Tom Brady, and I am a Patriot.”

That’s what the man who led New England to six Super Bowl victories and nine appearances in the NFL’s championship game said when he was inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame in June 2024.

“I am a Patriot for life!”

That’s what the retired quarterback told the crowd at Gillette Stadium in September 2023 at the start of the first NFL season since the end of his 23-year career, which included three seasons and one more Super Bowl win with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

“I don’t have a dog in the fight in this one. May the best team win.”

That’s what Brady said on the “Let’s Go!” podcast earlier this week. The comment wouldn’t have been a big deal if he had been talking about this year’s Puppy Bowl, in which his clone dog Junie will not be a participant.

But alas, he was talking about Super Bowl XL, which pits the Seattle Seahawks against the team that has a 17-foot bronze statue of Brady outside its stadium (a.k.a. the Patriots).

Now, Brady is a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, but they fell just a teensy bit short of making the playoffs after finishing the season at 3-14 and aren’t a factor at all in this weekend’s game in Santa Clara.

Also, as a color commentator for NFL games on Fox Sports, he might feel compelled to remain neutral — but the Super Bowl is on NBC this year, so Brady won’t be calling that game.

Former New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady speaks at the August 2025 unveiling of a bronze statue of himself at Patriot Place in Foxborough, Mass.

(Charles Krupa / Associated Press)

Brady actually did provide plenty of context along with his comment, and we’ll get to that shortly. But first, how about some reactions from Brady’s former Patriots teammates?

Retired linebacker Tedy Bruschi said he has no problem showing his support for New England and coach Mike Vrabel, who played for the Patriots teams that won Super Bowls XXXVI, XXXVII and XXXIX.

“That’s the way Tom feels. I got a big-a— dog in the race, I’m telling you that right now,” Bruschi said on Boston’s WEEI 93.7 FM. “That’s my boy right there, you know, Vrabel — eight-year teammate, like a brother of mine. I mean, all of us, really. It’s like, we’ve got a dog in the fight. My dog is big and I’m cheering for him.”

Retired defensive lineman Vince Wilfork called Brady’s neutral stance “political bullcrap.”

“Raiders ain’t in it,” Wilfork said on WEEI. “Say what it is, what you see.”

He added: “At the end of the day, if you’re a Patriot for life … don’t give me that political bullcrap. That’s just what it is. If you don’t think we’re gonna win, just pick Seattle then. Don’t straddle the fence.”

Retired cornerback Asante Samuel wrote on X: “Tom Brady I am highly I mean highly disappointed in you not rooting for your ex teammate, Mike Vrabel who is about to do something special.”

In a separate post, Samuel suggested that Brady wants to be “the only one winning super bowls.”

Retired tight end Rob Gronkowski said on the “Up & Adams” YouTube show that he hadn’t talked to Brady about the matter yet, but he did have a theory on why his good friend might not be rooting for the Patriots.

“He probably wants to be the quarterback. He’s that competitive,” Gronkowski said. “He wants to be the guy in the Super Bowl right now.”

Retired offensive linebacker Damien Woody said on ESPN’s “Unsportsmanlike” that Brady’s comment was “ludicrous,” then continued, “I don’t care if you’re the minority owner of the Raiders. Dammit, you have a statue in Foxborough. Make it known. Nobody wants to hear all this, ‘I don’t have a dog in the fight.’ The hell you do! If Robert Kraft put that damn statue outside of his stadium, oh, you better believe you got a dog in the fight.”

OK, now on to what Brady actually said on the podcast. Host Jim Gray asked what this Super Bowl is like for him as someone so closely associated with the Patriots and their past success. As part of his answer, Brady pointed out that there are “always different chapters in your life.”

“And now, in a different phase of my life, I really root for people and the people I care about, the people who I know the work that goes into what they’re trying to accomplish,” Brady said. “So I really want to sit back as a fan and enjoy the game, enjoy the moment. And I always think, may the best team win. You know, it’s not going to be who I’m cheering for, who I think is going to win. It’s going to be decided by the people out there on the field.”

Brady added: “I just want to see good football. I want to see good plays, good throws, good strategy, good decisions. And that’s the joy in the game for me. … So listen, I don’t have a dog in the fight in this one. May the best team win. And in terms of the Patriots, this is a new chapter in New England, and I’m glad everyone’s embraced the Mike Vrabel regime, all the amazing players that have worked so hard to get their club to this position.”

Gray brought up the “idiotic” perception that Brady and other members of the Patriots dynasty might not want this year’s team to succeed and somehow distract from their accomplishments. Brady agreed that such thoughts are “idiotic” and said that all the memories and relationships he built during that era will always mean something to him.

“No one can take those away from me,” Brady said. “So regardless of what anyone would say or think or want to add to the conversation, I’m just excited that the two best teams who have been consistently the best teams all year are playing for the Super Bowl.”

WALKING back from her daily shop Beth Maitland, 32, isn’t worried about traffic jams, beeping horns or the cost-of-living crisis.

She’s more concerned about a local elephant trying to steal her bag of fruit.

It’s Beth’s ‘new normal’ since fleeing Britain over twelve months ago to begin her new life in Thailand, where rent is a fifth of the price, a dinner out costs just two quid, her front garden is a beach and her backyard rice paddies overlooked by a mountain range.

Thailand is routinely voted one of the top twelve destinations for Brit tourists where the pound goes a long way.

It’s estimated 55,000 Brits, from backpackers to retirees, have chosen to bail out of Britain, trading cold, gloomy weather for the tropical paradise and beaches known as the Land of Smiles.

Relocations have soared by a staggering 255 per cent since 2018, driven by Thailand’s Long-Term Residence or LTR visa which offers 10-year residency with tax exemption.

Beth, a former NHS maternity support staffer moved from Plymouth, Devon to the island oasis of Koh Samui in southern Thailand in March last year.

Talking exclusively to The Sun, Beth revealed: “I rent a two-bedroom cottage in the jungle, there are rice fields on one side, jungle on the other and it’s 15 minutes to the beach. From the roof I can check out the surf or plan a mountain hike in the other direction.

“If I paid the price I was paying in the UK, which was £700 for a studio flat in Plymouth, I could get a four-bedroom house with five bathrooms, a pool and a garden on the island’s outskirts with elephants as neighbours.

“The first month converting pounds to Thai currency – the Baht – was a nightmare and so was finding the perfect place to live. 

“Now it’s like I have lived here all my life. I am always shocked at how cheap food, accommodation and transport is compared to Britain. 

“The cost of living is so cheap I eat out for lunch and dinner every day. I haven’t had a ready meal since I moved here.

“Everything except British food is cheaper. For the first time in a decade, I feel I have a positive future, can buy a home, and achieve my career goals.”

Millennial Beth grew up in Plymouth and loved surfing in the summer months when the weather was good enough. 

She spent the next seven years working twelve-hour shifts as a nursing home assistant in Exeter before spending six months backpacking in Australia and Asia.

“I felt inspired by the Asian culture but thought I’d never be able to work or move there.

“I came back home in December 2019 to miserable winter weather and started work as an NHS maternity support staffer.”

Brighter future

When Covid hit, Beth says she found herself re-examining her life.

“Working during lockdown for the NHS was a privilege but it took its toll. I lost friends and patients.”

When the cost-of-living crisis hit Beth felt overwhelmed by work and a feeling her future wouldn’t be the one she wanted if she stayed in Britain.

“After rent and bills were paid, I was saving no money at all. When I hit 30, I knew if I didn’t act, I’d been in the same place with no savings when I hit 40. I couldn’t let history repeat.

“The government wasn’t offering young people like me hope. My friends could only buy a house if their parents helped.

“Other friends were marrying and having children admitting that they felt the goals they wanted for their twenties were no longer possible.”

It was when two of her close friends left to become digital nomads in Thailand and Bali in January 2024 Beth was inspired to act, realising she had a choice – commit to miserable weather, rising prices and a job in the NHS which wasn’t offering career development, or take a gamble, pursue a new career and move to Asia herself.

“Many of my work colleagues were shocked,” she says. “They couldn’t comprehend moving overseas, let alone to Thailand.

“It was terrifying and exciting for me but having friends living and working there already kept me going.” 

Beth isn’t the only millennial making the life-changing decision to flee to a new country instead of settling down and concentrating on their career here.

I sometimes think I have a career and life whiplash at the speed and dramatic change which occurred

Beth

The Currencies Direct’s British Expat Report 2024 revealed nearly 40 per cent of Brits are considering moving overseas due to the cost of living while a fifth, like Beth, feel a fresh start in another culture would be beneficial for their wellbeing and mental health.

And it’s the young who are leading the great British brain drain, and more than a third of people under 24 are planning to leave Britain in the next five years. 

Dramatic change

After a tip from a friend based in Thailand, Beth applied online as a full-time travel manager running group tours.

Just two Zoom interviews later and she was offered the job and within two months was living and working in Thailand.

Beth says even she was shocked by how quickly her life changed.

“I sometimes think I have a career and life whiplash at the speed and dramatic change which occurred.”

She explains: “I used to work part-time at holiday camps during my teenage years. As a maternity support worker, I was good at helping people before, during and after labour with all ranges of problems. 

Now two weeks of every month Beth travels with 30 holiday makers, overseeing their organised tour of Thailand’s islands and regional areas.

“Imagine running a creche on wheels for people of all ages and from all different countries on their first overseas holiday. I love it,” she says. 

“There is never a dull moment. People want to know if we are there yet, where the meet up point is, what the Wi-Fi code is, if they need sunblock, can they borrow a charger and when we are stopping for food. Or the loo.

“I must be a mother, nurse and organiser. I tell people making kittens and squirrels walk in a straight line is often easier.”

Beth then gets two weeks off and either spends time at her rented cottage or using it as a base to travel to other Asian countries.

She pays £150 a month rent for the two-bedroom countryside cottage which includes her water, electricity and air conditioning, as well as use of communal pool and gym.

“There are ten cottages and it’s full of long-term Brits based here. My phone bill is £20 a month and I share it with a friend.”

Beth says she now rarely cooks because the price of food at local restaurants and roadside food carts is so cheap.

My diet has improved dramatically. I haven’t had a microwave meal since I moved here. It’s fresh fruit and vegetables every day

Beth

“I have fruit or cereal for breakfast. I eat lunch and dinner out. It costs £2 for lunch or £3 for dinner. I usually grab stir fry, curry, Thai soup or rice dishes as well as a dessert, usually a sorbet, fruit platter or ice-cream.

“My diet has improved dramatically. I haven’t had a microwave meal since I moved here. It’s fresh fruit and vegetables every day.”

Cheap living

Grocery shopping isn’t the weekly trek to the supermarket like it is in Britain.

“I go to the local markets and buy bags of fruit and fresh meat if I plan to cook, which isn’t often.

“A pint of milk costs the equivalent of 56p, a large loaf of white bread is around 90p, a dozen eggs are 90p, a half a kilo of red meat is £7, chicken is just £1.85 a kilo. Cheese is the most expensive item costing £7 to £8 for half a kilo.”

Beth admits she does miss her British staples and those that are available come at a price.

“HP sauce costs £6 a bottle, Heinz Baked Beans are an eye watering £4.50 while a Lindt chocolate bar sets you back a fiver,” she says.

“I usually grab bread, milk, some cheese and a huge bag of vegetables and fruit for a fiver. Fortunately, good quality tea bags only cost £1 for a box here.”

Beth says wine is expensive costing £12 to £15 a bottle but local beers cost £1-£1.20 for a half litre bottle and cocktails are between £2 and £3.50, depending on the spirits you choose.

“If you go to a five-star hotel you will pay more. 

“Gym membership is £22 a month and a trip to a foreign cinema is £5.60 if you are missing home.

“I had to hunt down a good cafe for a cappuccino and it costs £1.70 for a catch up with my mates. I was paying £5.60 for a posh coffee at Starbucks in the UK, I can’t believe it.”

Beth says she doesn’t need a car and uses the local car or bike service called ‘Grab’, which is similar to Uber, to book travel online.

“A bike, which means I am a pillion passenger, is 50p and a taxi is around 78p a mile.

The standard of health care is better than Britain

Beth

“When I first moved here, I refused to use the motorbike ‘cab’ – now it’s second nature.

“If you do own or rent a car it costs 96p a litre to fill up the tank. A new Toyota Corolla sedan costs on average £19k new.”

Beth says if you have children private preschool starts at £275 a month per child and the private international primary school begins at £4,500 a year.

“I was stunned by the brilliant quality of healthcare available here in Thailand. When there was no delay to see a dentist or doctor I was gobsmacked. 

“The standard of health care is better than Britain.” 

Beth recently paid £50 to see a dental hygienist and £150 for a tooth extraction and filling. Back home I’d either be forced to wait one or two years to get an NHS dentist or pay more than £500 plus for the dental work.

Dinner splurges

According to financial website livingcost.org, Britain is ranked as the 11th most expensive country in the world while Thailand is the 114th most expensive.

Beth told us: “The cost of living is a lot cheaper – from shopping, to petrol, accommodation to food.

“If my friends and I went out for a splurge dinner, that costs us around a tenner for food and drinks all night plus the cab home.”

Beth usually buys her clothes at the local market but if she wants a retail hit H&M have stores in Thailand.

“If it gets hot, I peel off a layer. It can get cold during the equivalent of the winter months, and I pop on a sweater.

“It’s the wet season that causes problems but you learn to keep umbrellas handy.”

According to Beth, Thailand is now extra popular on the backpacking must-visit list with marijuana being legalised.

I feel calmer, more centred, and less stressed living here than I did in Britain

Beth

“Holiday makers are often shocked that pot cafes exist and pot is legally sold here,” she said.

Many of my thirty-something friends are moving here because Thailand is well known for its amazing spiritual and mental health clinics and holidays.

“It’s a very spiritual country. For people in their thirties moving here often means setting up wellbeing businesses or mediation and other fitness styled retreats.

“I feel calmer, more centred, and less stressed living here than I did in Britain,” she said.

“Everyone is meditating or trying a new yoga or healthy living trend.

“It’s a way many Brits not only embrace a new way of living, but a new career counselling or operating healing centres others move here to set up online businesses.”

Beth loves her new career path and says she is saving to buy a property on Koh Samui. 

“You can spend £70k for a basic three-bedroom apartment with four bathrooms, a communal pool and a countryside view. 

“When you consider that wouldn’t get me a static caravan in Britain it’s a brilliant option.”

Beth admits she misses her family and friends.

“I was homesick for the first six weeks. I try to come back to Britain once or twice a year.

“Once you make a few friends, join the various social media groups for expats and get yourself into a routine it becomes a new normal.

“I have hope again. I thought I would never feel this way. It turns out sun, surf and wrangling tourists is the perfect tonic.”

Whenever I want to escape the city, I have a tendency to go deep into the backcountry of Angeles National Forest.

But I don’t always have time for an all-day adventure. Luckily, Los Angeles has several local parks that make it easy to disappear into an old woodland or thicket of pine trees to briefly forget you’re one of 10 million people living in the county.

The three hikes below are either in L.A. or close by and require only a short drive for many Angelenos. (And for my readers in the South Bay, I promise I will hike down your way soon.)

Regardless of whether you want to take an afternoon off to explore one of these hikes or try one after a weekend brunch, I hope you find a gentle peacefulness that restores you back to feeling more like yourself. Time in nature can do that and more.

A large oak tree provides shade over a trail in Franklin Canyon Park.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

1. Loop trail around Franklin Canyon Park

Distance: 1.2-mile loop with options to extend (see map)
Elevation gained: About 200 feet
Difficulty: Moderate
Dogs allowed? Yes
Accessible alternative: Franklin Canyon Drive loop

Franklin Canyon Park is 605 acres of public land north of Beverly Hills that features chaparral and oak woodlands. The park has three bodies of water: the three-acre Franklin Canyon Lake, Heavenly Pond and Wild Pond.

To reach the park, you’ll take the southern entrance, as the northern entrance is closed while the L.A. Department of Water and Power repairs the roadway. Take good care as you drive into the park, as there are a few tight corners with low visibility.

Upon arrival, I’d recommend taking a 1.2-mile loop, which I’ve mapped out here, that will take you past the lake and ponds and up into the park’s hillsides. I went on a recent afternoon when it was in the mid-80s in L.A. and found the park to be cooler thanks to the abundant shade provided by oaks, sumac and other trees.

A turtle rests on a hunk of wood in the Heavenly Pond in Franklin Canyon Park.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

To begin your hike, you’ll park in the large dirt main parking lot. Signs around the lot warn visitors of frequent break-ins, so either leave your treasure at home or hike in your pearls.

From the parking lot, head south on Franklin Canyon Drive, where you’ll quickly find a trail entrance with wooden steps that lead down near Franklin Canyon Lake. I hope you’re greeted by the sound of quacking waterfowl like I was! (And I bet if you go in the morning or evening, you’ll hear bullfrogs.)

Continue in the southerly direction, appreciating the gnarled coast live oaks and sound of shy red-eared sliders plopping off their logs into the water. This short trail will lead you back up to the road where you’ll walk south for just a bit before turning onto the gentle path that loops around Heavenly Pond. This is an especially good spot to find turtles, ducks and at least one orange-and-white koi.

From Heavenly Pond, continue south on the paved road, following it past the private residence to the wooden steps at the reservoir’s southern end. Take these stairs down onto Chernoff Trail. You’ll quickly spot toyon and pine trees, among other natural delights. Soon, you’ll bear right (or northeast) to take stairs onto the road. Cross the road and continue northeast onto the trail. Take the next set of steps up past thick bunches of black sage and chaparral nightshade.

Plants with flowers blooming in Franklin Canyon include ceanothus, California brittlebush and wishbone bush.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

Continue north on Blinderman Trail, following it as it bears east before it loops back around west. Along the way, you’ll pass well-maintained benches and bridges. Between the rustic bridges and frequent tree canopy, this trail made me feel, at times, like I was entering a fairy tale. I spotted lots of blooming California brittlebush and desert wishbone bushes along Blinderman Trail as well as some deer tracks near a forested area where the trail ends near the parking lot.

A portion of Blinderman Trail is a bit washed out, so I’d recommend carrying hiking poles, especially for the trip down. If you need to refill your water bottle, there are water fountains near the Eugene and Michael Rosenfeld Auditorium, which is just southeast of the main lot.

I left Franklin Canyon Park grateful for my short jaunt in nature, amazed by yet another well-maintained public park in the heart of L.A.

Cave of Munits.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

2. Cave of Munits

Distance: 1.3-mile loop
Elevation gained: About 230 feet
Difficulty: Moderate
Dogs allowed? Yes
Accessible alternative: Orcutt Ranch Horticulture Center trail

This 1.3-mile loop trail follows El Escorpión Trail in the 61-acre El Escorpión Park to the Cave of Munits, a chimney cave named after a sorcerer in a local Indigenous legend.

To begin, you’ll park on the street near the trailhead. To reach the cave, you can either take El Escorpión Trail, a wide exposed dirt path that starts at El Escorpión Park gate, or the path along the riverbed, which provides more shade but is more narrow. Both are visible on maps on outdoors navigation apps. When I hiked to the Cave of Munits, I took El Escorpión Trail to the cave and the shadier trail along the creek on the way back.

The cave isn’t immediately visible when you start. Once you see a large rocky gash in the mountain, you know you’re getting close. Once inside the cave, be mindful not to cause any damage and be careful when climbing.

The steepest part of this hike is as you approach the largest cave. Grippy shoes are a must, and trekking poles could be helpful.

The Cave of Munits is an easy place to reconnect with your childlike wonder, but please explore with respect and reverence for the place. The cave’s name relates to a Fernandeño and Western Tongva story of tragic misunderstanding, which you can read here.

Dunsmore Canyon in Glendale.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

3. Dunsmore Canyon & Le Mesnager Loop Trail

Distance: 2.6 miles
Elevation gained: About 800 feet
Difficulty: Moderate
Dogs allowed? Yes
Accessible alternative: Brand Park history walk

This hike through the 709-acre Deukmejian Wilderness Park in Glendale will offer you not only great views of the surrounding cities but also an opportunity to spend time among blooming trees and native plants, including California peonies and California brittlebush.

You’ll park in a lot near the Stone Barn Nature Center. Several signs warn that the park closes one hour after sunset and to leave before you get locked in. I think they’re serious, so take note.

You’ll start your hike on Dunsmore Canyon Trail, headed northeast up a straight gravel path covered on both sides with several native plants including ceanothus (both white and purple blooms), yerba santa and sagebrush.

Just .2 miles in, there’s a massive old coast live oak where kids could easily create an imaginary forest kingdom under its large branches.

As you continue to climb, you might hear Dunsmore Creek, which runs parallel to the trail. Remember to turn around as you gain elevation, as this trail rewards you with substantial views of Glendale and the Crescenta Valley soon after you start. All the while, you have the San Gabriel Mountains right in front of you, including Mt. Lukens, which you can hike to from the same park.

Half a mile in, you have the option to continue on the Dunsmore Canyon Trail or Le Mesnager Trail to make a shorter loop. Le Mesnager Trail includes a lookout point at about 2,750 feet, a great spot for a sunset as long as you don’t get locked in! As you meander down the trail, you’ll find a nice shady canopy and continued views of the city below.

3 things to do

Volunteers work at the Debs Park Test Plot.

(Test Plot)

1. Protect native habitat in L.A.
The Audubon Center at Debs Park needs volunteers from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Friday for its monthly maintenance on the test plot. Volunteers will meet in the center’s courtyard before heading out. Participants should wear closed-toed shoes and clothing they don’t mind getting dirty. They should also bring a reusable water bottle and gardening gloves. Register at act.audubon.org.

2. Nurture nature in Glendale
The Arroyos & Foothills Conservancy needs volunteers from 9 to 11 a.m. Sunday for a restoration workday in the Sycamore Canyon Preserve. Volunteers will help improve the health of plant life in the preserve to better ensure it is inviting and healthy for wildlife, which use it as a corridor to travel through the area. Participants should bring water, sunscreen and work gloves. Pants, long sleeves and sturdy shoes are recommended. If able, volunteers are encouraged to bring shovels, loppers or trowels. Other tools and equipment will be available.⁠ Learn more at arroyosfoothills.org.

3. Wander the wetlands in Huntington Beach
Amigos de Bolsa Chica will host a free tour from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Saturday through the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve in Huntington Beach. Visitors should meet their guides in the south parking lot off Pacific Coast Highway, halfway between Warner Avenue and Seapoint Street. Volunteer naturalists will present information on the preserve’s history, bird life and more. Register at amigosdebolsachica.charityproud.org.

The must-read

Skiers navigate their way down Lincoln Mountain at Mammoth Mountain ski area, located in the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

(Christian Pondella / For The Times)

Two ski patrollers at Mammoth Mountain have died in separate avalanches over the past year. These workers are responsible for clearing popular ski routes by using handheld explosives to prevent avalanches from harming guests. “Were the resort’s managers pushing too hard to open the mountain after major storms? Had training standards slipped, pushing relatively inexperienced ski patrollers into dangerous situations? Are young ski patrollers afraid to speak up, even when they think they’ve been asked to take unreasonable risks?” wrote Times staff writer Jack Dolan. Read Dolan’s story to find the answer to those questions and more.

Happy adventuring,

P.S.

Let’s end with good news! A volunteer was monitoring Eastern Pacific green sea turtles that live near the mouth of the San Gabriel River when they spotted a shelled reptile in trouble. The turtle had fishing line wound around her right flipper and into her mouth. “She was also attached to a medley of debris — clothes, algae, plastic,” wrote Times staff writer Lila Seidman. “When she came up for air, aquarium staffer Aaron Hovis jumped in and grabbed her. Once freed from the garbage, she was loaded onto a stretcher and brought to the aquarium.” The turtle, now named Porkchop for her voracious appetite, is now happily recovering at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Although the aquarium has been helping injured sea turtles for more than 25 years, the public can now see the little cuties on display in a new exhibit about the turtles. You can visit Porkchop until she’s returned to the wild, where veterinary staff are confident she’ll keep thriving — and eating!

For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.

FORT PIERCE, Fla. — A man convicted of trying to assassinate Donald Trump on a Florida golf course in 2024 was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison after a federal prosecutor said his crime was unacceptable “in this country or anywhere.”

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon pronounced Ryan Routh’s fate in the same Fort Pierce courtroom that erupted into chaos in September when he tried to stab himself shortly after jurors found him guilty on all counts.

“American democracy does not work when individuals take it into their own hands to eliminate candidates. That’s what this individual tried to do” Assistant U.S. Atty. John Shipley told the judge.

Routh’s new defense attorney, Martin L. Roth, argued that “at the moment of truth, he chose not to pull the trigger.”

The judge pushed back, noting Routh’s history of arrests, to which Roth said: “He’s a complex person, I’ll give the court that, but he has a very good core.”

Routh then read from a rambling, 20-page statement. Cannon broke in and said none of what he was saying was relevant, and gave him five more minutes to talk.

“I did everything I could and lived a good life,” Routh said, before the judge cut him off.

“Your plot to kill was deliberate and evil,” she said. “You are not a peaceful man. You are not a good man.”

She then issued his sentence: Life without parole, plus seven years on a gun charge. His sentences for his other three crimes will run concurrently.

Routh’s sentencing had initially been scheduled for December, but Cannon agreed to move the date back after Routh decided to use an attorney during the sentencing phase instead of representing himself as he did for most of the trial.

Routh was convicted of trying to assassinate a major presidential candidate, using a firearm in furtherance of a crime, assaulting a federal officer, possessing a firearm as a felon and using a gun with a defaced serial number.

“Routh remains unrepentant for his crimes, never apologized for the lives he put at risk, and his life demonstrates near-total disregard for law,” the prosecutors’ sentencing memo said.

His defense attorney had asked for 20 years plus the mandatory seven for the gun conviction.

“The defendant is two weeks short of being sixty years old,” Roth wrote in a filing. “A just punishment would provide a sentence long enough to impose sufficient but not excessive punishment, and to allow defendant to experience freedom again as opposed to dying in prison.”

Prosecutors said Routh spent weeks plotting to kill Trump before aiming a rifle through shrubbery as the Republican presidential candidate played golf on Sept. 15, 2024, at his West Palm Beach country club.

At Routh’s trial, a Secret Service agent helping protect Trump on the golf course testified that he spotted Routh before Trump came into view. Routh aimed his rifle at the agent, who opened fire, causing Routh to drop his weapon and run away without firing a shot.

In the motion requesting an attorney, Routh offered to trade his life in a prisoner swap with people unjustly held in other countries, and said an offer still stood for Trump to “take out his frustrations on my face.”

“Just a quarter of an inch further back and we all would not have to deal with all of this mess forwards, but I always fail at everything (par for the course),” Routh wrote.

In her decision granting Routh an attorney, Cannon chastised the “disrespectful charade” of Routh’s motion, saying it made a mockery of the proceedings. But the judge, nominated by Trump in 2020, said she wanted to err on the side of legal representation.

Cannon signed off last summer on Routh’s request to represent himself at trial. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that criminal defendants have the right to represent themselves in court proceedings, as long as they can show a judge they are competent to waive their right to be defended by an attorney.

Routh’s former federal public defenders served as standby counsel and were present during the trial.

Routh had multiple previous felony convictions, including possession of stolen goods, and a large online footprint demonstrating his disdain for Trump. In a self-published book, he encouraged Iran to assassinate him, and at one point wrote that as a Trump voter, he must take part of the blame for electing him.

Fischer writes for the Associated Press.

Feb. 4 (UPI) — Ryan Routh, who was convicted for an attempted assassination attempt on President Donald Trump in Florida, was sentenced to life in prison plus seven years Wednesday.

Before announcing the sentence, Judge Aileen Cannon called Routh an “evil” man.

Routh, 60, was convicted of hiding in the bushes at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach in September 2024. He pointed a military-grade SKS rifle toward Trump, who was then a candidate running for his second term, and a Secret Service agent.

He defended himself in the trial that ended in September. When the verdict was read, he stabbed himself in the neck with a pen.

Prosecutors argued in a court filing that Routh deserved a life sentence.

“Routh’s crimes undeniably warrant a life sentence — he took steps over the course of months to assassinate a major presidential candidate, demonstrated the will to kill anybody in the way, and has since expressed neither regret nor remorse to his victims.

“Routh’s crimes of conviction reflect careful plotting, extensive premeditation, and a cowardly disregard for human life,” prosecutors wrote. “Routh’s motive for his crimes was unconscionable — preventing the American people from electing the candidate of their choice for President. Routh’s gloss on his crimes has always been that anything he may have done was justified by events in Ukraine or American domestic politics.”

Since the conviction, Routh has been represented by court-appointed attorney Martin Roth. He requested a 27-year sentence and argued that he didn’t get a fair trial because he represented himself.

“Defendant recognizes that he was found guilty by the jury but asserts that the jury was misled by his inability to effectively confront witnesses, use exhibits, or affirmatively introduce impeachment evidence designed to prove his lack of intent to cause injury to anyone,” Roth wrote.

Routh had a psychiatric evaluation before the trial, which showed he had bipolar disorder and narcissistic personality disorder.

His family submitted letters of support to the court.

Routh’s son Adam wrote that his father “wants to move forward in the right way and continue to be someone who contributes to our family and his community.” He said, “we still need him, and he still has people who love and support him.”

Routh’s sister Nancy Meyers asked the court to consider placing her brother in a prison in North Carolina. She said the family was devastated by his actions but “committed to assisting him with his rehabilitative efforts.”