life

“For Want of a Horse,” a play by Olivia Dufault receiving its world premiere in an Echo Theater Company production at Atwater Village Theatre, wants to have a rational conversation about a taboo topic that can provoke instant outrage.

The subject is zoophilia, not to be confused with bestiality, though for many of us it will be a distinction without much of a difference.

Calvin (Joey Stromberg), a good-looking, mild-mannered married accountant, has harbored a secret for much of his life. He has a thing for horses. His erotic interest began at an early age, and all his efforts to lead a normal life have left him depressed and contemplating suicide.

His wife, Bonnie (Jenny Soo), is a permissive kindergarten teacher who’s having difficulty restraining a girl in her class who has discovered the joys of masturbation. Worried about her husband, she discovers through his browsing history that he’s once again visiting strange animal sites.

She suggests he keep a horse, explaining that she doesn’t want to end up a widow or divorcée. Calvin is taken aback by her generosity but has come to recognize that his preference is more than a kink. It’s part of his identity — and maybe the only part that makes his life seem worth living.

Joey Stromberg and Jenny Soo in “For Want of a Horse” at the Echo Theater Company.

(Cooper Bates)

A horse named Q-Tip (Griffin Kelly) enters the couple’s lives. A stable is secured, and the mare, who senses that something strange is going on, is indulged with apples and caresses.

Kelly, a statuesque presence in a dress, harness and boots, brings the horse to life with wild, unpredictable movements. The sheer size of the animal poses a threat to humans. One kick, as Q-Tip herself explains in one of her thought-bubble monologues, is capable of penetrating a steel wall. But controlling an animal’s food supply is an effective way of winning over its trust.

Calvin has found support in the online zoophilia community. PJ (Steven Culp), a man whose current inamorata is a bichon frise, is considering moving to a country where zoophilia isn’t illegal. He’s tired of the shame and the secrecy. He’s proud of his attachment to pooch, even if his thing for dogs has cost him contact with his daughter and ex-wife.

Dufault doesn’t shy away from sexual details. For PJ, intimacy depends on peanut butter. Calvin describes the physical signals that reveal Q-Tip’s erotic satisfaction. The play occasionally descends into sitcom humor. (PJ says he’s considering creating a human-dog dating app called Rin Tin Tinder.) But mostly the subdued tone steers clear of sensationalism.

The production, directed by Elana Luo, is scrupulously well-acted by the four-person cast. Stromberg makes Calvin seem not only reasonable but surprisingly sensitive. Soo’s Bonnie sweetly embodies the excesses of a kind of progressive piety. As PJ, Culp gruffly embraces his role as the play’s polemical fire-starter. And Kelly’s Q-Tip, in the production’s most physically demanding performance, straddles the human-animal divide with theatrical aplomb.

Steven Culp, left, and Joey Stromberg in “For Want of a Horse” at the Echo Theater Company.

(Cooper Bates)

The open-mindedness that Dufault, a trans playwright, brings to the play creates some dramatic slack. Possibly the same fear of making value judgments that has inhibited Bonnie from imposing common-sense discipline in her classroom has robbed “For Want of a Horse” of a propulsive point of view.

The play moves monotonously between Calvin and Bonnie’s bedroom and the stable. Scenic designer Alex Mollo has worked out an efficient way of shifting between these realms by employing the same set of wooden trunks. But the argument of the play doesn’t so much build as elapse.

Time takes its toll, and Calvin eventually has to make a decision. But the character who interested me most was Bonnie, whose reality is only glimpsed. The play tacitly uses her husband’s threat of suicide as a trump card. Zoophilia isn’t merely a fetish for Calvin but a nonnegotiable part of his identity.

This questionable assumption can be psychologically scrutinized not only from Calvin’s point of view but also from his wife’s. The play wants to have an intelligent debate, but it doesn’t want to interrogate certain political positions too skeptically.

At one point, Bonnie objects when Calvin compares his situation to that of homosexuality, but the conversation ends there. The reality is that the right wing has been making a similar claim, arguing that same-sex marriage opens the door to bestiality, polygamy and incest. “For Want of a Horse” inadvertently lends legitimacy to this line of reasoning.

Griffin Kelly in “For Want of a Horse” at the Echo Theater Company.

(Cooper Bates)

Not that extremist positions should be off limits, but they ought to be more rigorously addressed. Similarly, Bonnie’s concern about the issue of consent — how can a horse say yes to intercourse with a human — is introduced only to be dismissed in a shrug of mild-mannered bothsidesism.

While watching “For Want of a Horse,” I recalled a program on PBS called “My Wild Affair” that wasn’t about zoophilia but about the problematic nature of human bonds with untamed animals. Relationships with a seal, an elephant and a rhino, for example — obsessive, protective, loving friendships — all seemed to end if not in outright tragedy, then in shattering heartbreak.

Q-Tip is rightfully given the play’s last word, and Kelly, an actor (HBO’s “The Book of Queer”), writer and comedian, is the production’s driving force. We can never know what’s inside this mare’s mind because Q-Tip’s brain has evolved so differently from our own. Kelly plays the anthropomorphic game while retaining some of the inscrutability of a four-legged creature.

It is through language that we, as humans, traverse the chasm separating us from one another. That’s not possible with animals, even with our closest domestic companions. (Try explaining a necessary medical procedure to a cat.)

“For Want of a Horse” sets out to speak about the unspeakable, but its construction may be too tame for such a wild subject.

Patrick Muldoon, known for his roles on “Days of Our Lives,” “Melrose Place” and “Starship Troopers,” has died. He was 57.

The actor and producer reportedly died Sunday, his manager confirmed to Variety. According to Deadline, Muldoon died suddenly after a heart attack. The Times has reached out to Muldoon’s reps for comment.

Muldoon originated the role of Austin Reed on the daytime soap opera “Days of Our Lives.” He first portrayed the aspiring boxer and brother of Lisa Rinna‘s Billie Reed from 1992 to 1995, and returned to reprise the role from 2011 to 2012 (the character had since become a forensic accountant).

“Austin is a wonderful role,” Muldoon told The Times in 1995. The actor explained he took his “sweet time” mulling over whether to leave the show because “it was one hell of a decision to make.”

“I’m leaving for no other reason than why other people leave soaps,” Muldoon said at the time. “To take a shot at doing other things like nighttime, movies and other things. … I feel confident right now so I figured I better take the shot sooner than later. If I don’t, I’ll always wonder ‘what if.’ ”

He played the recurring villain Richard Hart on the primetime soap “Melrose Place” for three seasons beginning in 1995. Muldoon’s big-screen roles include Zander Barcalow, a pilot and rival of Casper Van Dien’s Johnny Rico, in Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 movie “Starship Troopers.”

Born September 27, 1968, in San Pedro, Muldoon’s early passions included football. He started playing at the age of 6 and would go on to play at Loyola High School and then at USC.

“I did fairly well for being a smaller tight end,” Muldoon told The Times in 2012, adding that getting run over during practice by USC teammate Junior Seau — the late linebacker who had a 20-year NFL career — was among the factors that led him to pursue acting instead. Muldoon began his acting career during the sport’s offseason, and his earliest roles were on shows such as “Who’s the Boss?” and “Saved by the Bell.”

In addition to acting, Muldoon was a producer with credits on films such as “Riff Raff” (2024), “Marlowe” (2022), “The Card Counter” (2021) and “The Comeback Trail” (2020). Most recently, he shared on Instagram his excitement of being among the executive producers for the upcoming film “Kockroach.”

A woman who moved from the Cotswolds to London over two decades ago has said that despite her vibrant life that there has been one massive downside of being based in the UK’s capital

There has been a noticeable ebb and flow in UK living patterns in recent years, as thousands of Britons weigh up whether they prefer city or countryside life.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, many left urban centres in favour of the wide open spaces and cleaner air of the countryside, though some later returned when restrictions were lifted and they missed the convenience and amenities of city living.

As the cost of living crisis has continued, the debate over whether to stay in cities or relocate to the countryside has remained ongoing. One woman, who moved from the Cotswolds to London to run a pub in the East End, has explained why she has no intention of returning.

Artist and mother-of-five Pauline Forster, 76, runs The George Tavern on Commercial Road in Tower Hamlets, having bought the building for £500,000 in 2003 when she was 53.

More than 20 years and a major renovation later, the Grade II listed building — which had once been earmarked for demolition — is still standing and thriving. She has said that despite the high cost of living in London, she values the space her property provides for those who need it.

She told The Times: “There’s room here for whoever needs it, including my five sons. I like the scale and space of it — why would you buy a terraced house when you can get all this?

“I’ll admit that the bills, wages and utility bills are horrendous, and have rocketed in the time I have been here. I do have a mortgage but if I live to 80, I’ll have paid it off. I don’t really care because I’ll never stop working and the George will continue well after I’ve gone.”

Pauline added firmly that “nothing” would tempt her back to countryside living, saying the stimulating environment of London is both what she wants and what she needs.

However, while Pauline has chosen to remain in the capital, others have taken a different approach, opting to live outside the city while still commuting in for work.

Olivia Newton, 37, works in London but lives in South Hams in Devon with her husband Will.

Despite a four-hour commute and £150 off-peak train fare, she says she has no plans to move back to the city, largely because of the benefits the journey brings to her mental health and productivity.

She told The Times: “I once dreaded ‘the commute’ and that was from Shepherds Bush to my office in Shoreditch, but it’s become an integral and valuable part of my life in its own right.

“I get time to have a good think and finish off the deck I’ve been putting off, attempt to get to the end of my book club book and occasionally just zone out and watch the waves splash at the tracks as we pass through Dawlish.”

Inside the ornate Bovard Auditorium, Larry David kept a full audience in stitches as he discussed the creation and legacy of his improv hit, “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” which concluded in 2024 after 12 seasons.

In a conversation with Lorraine Ali — who wrote “No Lessons Learned: The Making of Curb Your Enthusiasm,” which retraces the show’s long run with cast interviews, episode guides and behind-the-scenes material — David reflected on the separation between himself and the abrasive on-screen persona he adopted for more than two decades.

“I wish I was that Larry David,” he said.

David spoke about the outrageous audition process for “Curb,” wherein actors tried to navigate a brief written scenario without any dialogue to guide them as David lambasted them in character. Out of this process came iconic one-liners and beloved characters, such as Leon, played by J.B. Smoove.

“People bring out certain things, and when I would act with them, some of them would make me seem funny,” David said. “I go, ‘Oh, that’s good — let’s give him a part.’”

David cited “Palestinian Chicken” as one of his favorite episodes of the show. In the episode, David is caught between a delicious new Palestinian chicken restaurant, a Palestinian girlfriend and an outraged inner circle of Jewish friends.

He also spoke briefly about his upcoming episodic HBO series, “Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Happiness,” a historical spoof that will retrace United States history for the country’s 250th founding anniversary. The series will premiere on Aug. 7.

“A lot of wigs, costumes, beards — fake beards,” David said. “Nothing worse than fake beards.”

The controversial ending of “Seinfeld,” which David co-wrote with comedian Jerry Seinfeld, was polarizing among fans when it was released, David said. After a recent rewatch, however, David said he thought it was “pretty good,” to a round of applause from the audience.

Near the end of the panel, an audience member asked a question some definitely had on their mind: Will “Seinfeld” ever get a reunion?

“No,” David replied without missing a beat.

The third season of Apple TV’s “Shrinking” concludes with Jimmy (Jason Segel) being, well, “Jimmy-ed.”

For three seasons, Jimmy, a therapist grieving the loss of his wife, has used unconventional methods —think taking someone with aggression issues to a boxing ring — to get through to his patients. In the last moments of “And That’s Our Time,” Jimmy’s mentor and fellow therapist Paul (Harrison Ford) turns that approach on its namesake, flying across the country to give Jimmy a much needed push to move forward with his life. “Jimmy needed permission and encouragement from someone to say, ‘All right, it’s time,’” Segel says. “This is the end of this story and it’s time to start a new one.”

In the scene, Paul finally tells Jimmy he’s like a son to him. “I found ourselves writing a conversation that if we were lucky enough to have a conversation like that with our own fathers, we’d be grateful,” executive producer Bill Lawrence says. “A lot of my shows have an element of mentorship in them. To see Jimmy’s mentor come through for him in the way that I would always hope he would meant a lot to me.”

Lawrence had always envisioned the three-season arc for Jimmy ending this way. But when they found out the comedy would be returning for a fourth season, he and his fellow executive producers were faced with a dilemma: End the season the way they would have the series or push their original ending out for one more season. After much discussion, they decided to stick the landing.

“It still felt right,” Lawrence says. “This particular story with these characters has been told and you should feel, in a good way, like it’s gonna be OK for Jimmy. Jason is so good at it, watching him play the agony of trying to get through it all and come out on the other side was my favorite kind of journey on the whole show.”

Segel spoke to The Envelope about filming this pivotal scene and bringing the third season to a close.

What did filming this final scene mean to you? To play this part of Jimmy’s journey coming to an end?

I’m always really interested in, “What is the dirty underneath? If we go one level deeper, what is the thing that the person is not saying?” This arc with Jimmy over the three seasons had been building up to Jimmy finally saying the actual thing, which is some version of, “Who’s gonna want me now?”

Paul answers that question by telling Jimmy that his scars are “evidence of a life well–lived.”

I had a therapist I was talking to about having to show up somewhere with people I knew from 25 years ago. I remember having a little bit of apprehension because I’ve had a twisty-turny life. I thought, “God, there’s so much to catch up on and I’m showing up covered in scars.” And this therapist said to me, just matter of fact, “What a shame it would be to show up anywhere at 45 years old not covered in scars.” And I went straight to Bill and [executive producer] Neil [Goldman], this is a year ago, and I said, “This is what Harrison says to Jimmy at the end of this arc.” And we worked it in.

What was the actual day of filming the scene like for you?

It was a difficult day. It was loud that day. There was a little bit of discombobulation on the street. There was construction and they couldn’t hold the cars right. It wasn’t the ideal environment for a scene like this where you would love to hear a pin drop. People were coming into the restaurant asking, “Are you guys open?” It almost felt like we were making a student film. And Harrison and I took a minute and we walked away from the set and we started running the scene, walking up and down the busy street to kind of acclimate ourselves. And I’m walking up and down the street with this man who I idolize and we are at that moment like equals and teammates. We have to go build this scene together. It is a real honor to have that dynamic with him.

Do you think it was important to have such a pivotal scene outdoors?

They’re a good reminder that the show takes place in the real world and that you’re like a representative of reality almost. I think that there’s something vulnerable about all that taking place outside. … There’s other patrons there. It’s surrounded by people, surrounded by life, and Paul is showing up and telling Jimmy, “It’s time to step into it. Look, it’s all around you.”

This season we met Jimmy’s father (played by Jeff Daniels), who never really connected with his son and, in a heartbreaking moment, chooses a fishing trip with his buddies over staying for Alice’s (Lukita Maxwell) high school graduation.

One of the things this show does really well is handle these situations honestly. Whether it’s Parkinson’s or loss or a complicated relationship with a family member. It’s not gonna magically change. None of it. And so the show is very much true to, “How do we get through it with each other?” That’s really the theme of the show. These issues are gonna be there. What are we gonna do with the realities of life? I think the reason they brought Jeff Daniels in is to highlight why Jimmy so desperately wants Paul’s affection. Where is this coming from? Bill is a genius in terms of setting something up in a previous episode so that there’s a payoff in the finale. I think that we understand suddenly how desperate Jimmy is to have somebody say, “You’re my son and I love you.” And he finally gets that at the end from Paul.

The other major event that happens in the finale is that Alice leaves for college.

To me, [Jimmy’s relationship with Alice] has been the heart of the show and the most important storyline. The show started out with Alice parenting a troubled child in her father. And that dynamic slowly, slowly, slowly shifted to being the right direction. Until finally he is able to see her off to college and she feels safe to leave him behind. He is the parent and she is the child and everything is the right size again. I think watching Lukita as an actor and a human being grow up over these past four years, it’s been really the joy of my career. When I met her, she called me Mr. Segel. I realized she grew up with my “Muppet” movie. I have the real honor of being more of a mentor than a contemporary to Lukita. To get to the point where I am being surprised and challenged and blown away and moved to tears in scenes with Lukita is like the coolest thing in the world.

Cobie Smulders and Jason Segel in “Shrinking.”

(Apple TV)

We see Jimmy sit down at the restaurant with his potential love interest Sofi (Cobie Smulders), but we don’t hear their conversation.

It originally ended with a hard cut to black. Then then they did this beautiful cinematic pullback. I think the most important line is, “Hello.”

As the scene ends, Paul tells Jimmy that he can either “stay stuck” or “go make new scars.” Paul advises Jimmy to “choose wisely” and then winks at Jimmy. It’s a subtle nod to the famous “choose wisely” scene from “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”

Harrison is not so secretly one of the funnier people I know. He always knows exactly what he’s doing and we’ve had a few of those throughout the season, some little nods to Harrison’s body of work. It was a perfect way to end that scene. Paul slash Harrison is always just a little smarter than you. One of the great qualities that they have is they’re just a little bit ahead of you, which a great mentor should be, right?

Have you thought about how it will be to play Jimmy in the show’s fourth season now that this particular story arc has come to an end?

I think an equally interesting and complicated and fun area is someone deciding they’re ready to be happy. Because God knows it’s one thing in your house alone in front of the mirror [to say], “Now I’m gonna be happy.” And then you go out and in practice, it’s its own set of complications, right? And so, I’m actually really excited about that idea of someone saying, “OK, I’m ready to take it for a spin.” And then seeing that’s its own thing.

April 18 (UPI) — The only life jacket worn by a person who survived the sinking of the Titanic ever put up for auction was sold for $906,000 on Saturday.

The jacket, which was worn by Laura Mabel Francatelli, a passenger in first class who boarded lifeboat number 1, sold for nearly twice the roughly $473,000 it was expected to sell for., and reported.

The life jacket, sold during an auction that also included a handful of other Titanic artifacts, was sold by Henry Aldridge & Sons in Britain to the Titanic Museum and Attraction in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., and Branson, Mo., auctioneer Andrew Aldredge told The BBC.

Aldridge said that the life jacket is the only one from a survivor that has been offered for auction since the ill-fated ship set sale 114 years ago.

“It reflects the ongoing interest and passion for the story of the Titanic, and its passengers and crew,” he said, calling the opportunity to buy it a “once in a lifetime opportunity for collectors.”

Francatelli, who at the time of the sinking was husband of Sir Cosmo Edmund Duff-Gorden, a Scottish landowner and the 5th Baronet of Halkin, was the sister of novelist Elinor Glyn, and herself a famous dress designer who ran several famous salons in London, Paris and New York, according to Aldridge & Sons’ auction listing.

Her survival has carries slight controversy because the lifeboat that her husband shepherded several people onto as the Titanic was going down – for reasons that remain the subject of questions – lowered from the ship with only 12 people aboard, despite having room for 40.

The Titanic Museum and Attraction, which The Independent also reported purchased the life jacket, has since March 2025 had on display five of the 14 known life jackets to have survived the sinking, it said.

Most recently, the life jacket has been on display not only at the Pigeon Forge museum, but also at Titanic Belfast, a museum in Ireland.

This year’s festival will take place Saturday and Sunday at the USC campus, and it’s packed with a mind-boggling array of great participants and exhibitors. You can peruse the complete schedule, download the book festival app, and book your parking and panel reservations here.

I have warm fuzzy feelings about the festival, attending as a budding writer in the early aughts. As someone who aspired to “go long” but had no clue how to go about doing it, the event was an inspiration: all these hot-shot authors talking about their craft, and free admission no less.

Of course the event wasn’t the sprawling, magnificent behemoth it is now, with cooking demonstrations from the world’s greatest chefs, and bestselling children’s authors reading to tiny budding bibliophiles. The first festival in 1996 drew 75,000 book fans; last year, more than twice as many people showed up.

As the festival grew, so did the excitement. In 2007, I waited in line along with hundreds of other fans for the privilege of hearing Gore Vidal talk about his craft in UCLA’s Royce Hall. Gay Talese, one of my journalism heroes and a veteran of some of the very first festivals in the late ’90s, was always a pleasure. His stories about breaking into the New York Times conjured up a lost world that seems positively antediluvian now. “If you show up in a three-piece suit and a hat, and you look like you might have taken a bath recently, they don’t kick you out as fast,” Talese told a packed crowd in 2008.

By that time, much to my astonishment, I knew Talese personally. In 2004, I was working on a book about the New Journalism movement that he spearheaded. That year, he asked me to join him at the book festival as a guest. It was my first time in the “green room,” the backstage area where authors socialize over food and drinks. After ogling all the A-list talent in the room, I was asked by Talese to join him for lunch at a table along with novelists Jane Smiley and John Kaye, historian Doug Brinkley and social critic Naomi Wolf, all of whom were appearing at the festival. Reader, my mind was suitably blown. I just kept my mouth shut and listened.

I will be moderating a panel Sunday at 1:30 p.m. at the Ray Stark Family Theatre (plug) and I can’t wait. There is nothing like this festival; it is The Times’ annual gift to the Southland, and we should all be grateful we get to enjoy it.

Here are some of this weekend‘s festival highlights. All panels are an hour in duration.

📚 Ultimate Festival Guide

Saturday

Drawn to Life: A Conversation on Graphic Novels

Graphic novelists Henry Barajas, Eagle Valiant Brosi, Anders Brekhus Nilsen, Mimi Pond and Angie Wang discuss their latest graphic novels, each of which is based on true events or popular myths.

Where: Albert and Dana Broccoli Theatre
When: 10:30 a.m.

Robert Kirsch Award Winner Amy Tan in Conversation with Thomas Curwen

Acclaimed author Amy Tan is the recipient of the 2025 Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement, which recognizes a writer with a substantial connection to the American West. Tan’s expansive body of work, including essays, memoirs and bestselling novels “The Joy Luck Club,” “The Kitchen God’s Wife” and “The Bonesetter’s Daughter,” is widely celebrated for its profound exploration of the immigrant experience, family bonds and the quest for individual identity. Join us for a conversation with Amy Tan and award-winning former Los Angeles Times writer Thomas Curwen.

Where: Bovard Auditorium
When: 10:30 am

Modern Family: Humor, Chaos, and the Absurdity of Contemporary Life in Fiction

Novelists Jade Chang, Kevin Wilson and Sarah Levin discuss their new novels, which are fresh examinations of family in contemporary life: the ones we’re born with, the ones we make, and the ways we reach out for connection in an increasingly isolated, chaotic, and lonely world.

Where: Hoffman Hall, Edison Auditorium
When: 11 a.m.

The Mirror Effect: When The Writer Becomes The Story

Lana Lin, Melissa Febos, Susan Orlean and Amanda Uhle have produced literary and artistic work that has shaped conversations, influenced culture and established them as leaders in their fields. Now, they turn the pen inward and become the story. Exploring their careers, relationships, sexuality and more, these writers offer a rare and intimate look at the vulnerability, creativity and humanity behind their work

Where: Town and Gown
When: 1:30 p.m.

Democracy, Fascism and America Today

Join California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, Steven J. Ross, Omer Aziz, Erwin Chemerinsky and Los Angeles Times reporter Seema Mehta for a conversation about the state of our freedoms today and what our current political atmosphere could mean for the future of our democracy.

Where: Hancock Foundation, Newman Recital Hall
When: 1:30 p.m.

Sunday

Raising Gen Alpha: Parenting Today

How do we raise children in an age of rapid technological change, political polarization and global uncertainty? Drawing from their new books and their experience as parents, Reza Aslan and Jessica Jackley will explore how to have honest, age-appropriate conversations with kids about complex and challenging topics, while psychologist Darby Saxbe shares groundbreaking research on the science of fatherhood.

Where: Wallis Annenberg Hall
When: 10:30 a.m.

The Mosaic of Us: Individual Memoirs and the Collective Truth of Black Life in America

Join Austin Channing Brown, Tre Johnson, Tamika D. Mallory and Carvell Wallace as they reflect on the moments that shaped their lives, work and perspectives. Through individual stories of resilience, love, purpose and self-discovery, their experiences weave together like a mosaic to form a deeper collective portrait of Black life and identity in America today.

Where: Hancock Foundation, Newman Recital Hall
When: 10:30 a.m.

Poetry, Power & Sovereignty

Panelists Matthew Cuban Hernandez, Karla Cordero, Sonia Guiñansaca and Yesika Salgado will dive into what it means to be autonomous, to be your own supreme authority, to belong to yourself, the land(s) and people you choose.

Where: De Los Stage
When: 12:50 p.m.

Lionel Ritchie in conversation with Mikel Wood

The legendary performer will discuss his new book “Truly” with the Times’ pop music critic.

Where: Bovard Auditorium
When: 2:30 p.m.

Looking Deeper: The Asian American Experience in Historical Fiction

Christine Bollow, Karen Tei Yamashita and Naomi Hirahara dive deep into the myriad Asian American experiences at turning points in American history, shedding light on untold stories and essential characters in our shared history.

Where: Hoffman Hall, Edison Auditorium
When: 3:30 p.m.

Some of our finest contemporary writers got their laurels Friday night at the 46th Los Angeles Times Book Prizes ceremony at USC’s Bovard Auditorium.

At the awards ceremony, which opens the annual L.A. Times Festival of Books weekend, Oakland-born writer Amy Tan and literary nonprofit We Need Diverse Books received achievement honors, and finalists in 13 other categories became prize winners.

The presenters and awardees who took the stage balanced a spirit of playfulness — Times senior editor Sophia Kercher called the weekend’s festival “my personal Coachella” and Times columnist LZ Granderson saluted his fellow “booktroverts” — and one of reverence as they celebrated writing as an instrument for advocacy, imagination and history-keeping.

As Bench Ansfield virtually accepted his award in the history category for “Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City,” which exposes a pattern of landlords setting residential fires to collect insurance payouts, he said, “It’s a scary time to be a historian in the United States.”

“Our field, like so many other fields, is under attack,” Ansfield said. “To understand the crises in front of us, we have to understand our history.”

Among the crises highlighted was AI encroachment, the subject of science and technology category winner Karen Hao’s “Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI.” The AI expert and investigative journalist’s book is a critical investigation into the rise of OpenAI and its impact on society.

In Hao’s acceptance speech, read by presenter Jia-Rui Cook in her absence, the author said she “can’t help but be disturbed by how the themes of this book have grown more relevant by the day.”

“That said, I have never been more hopeful of our chance to advance a different future,” the author said, adding that L.A.’s history of resistance movements — including the recent Hollywood strikes — made it an apt place to accept her award.

“Gatherings like this are one of many radical acts of resistance against the imperial project that seeks to strip us of our meaning and our humanity,” Hao said. “Let us continue to resist defiantly together and let us remember lessons in history: When people rise, empires always fall.”

Tan echoed Hao’s sentiments as she accepted the Robert Kirsch Award, which celebrates literature with regional and thematic connections to the Western United States, for her acclaimed portfolio of writing exploring identity and cultural inheritance — often through the lens of the immigrant experience.

In her speech, “The Joy Luck Club” writer said that while she never particularly considered herself a “political writer,” her stance on that has changed as government actions have made her think critically about her own identities.

“My birthright and that of millions of others is now being argued before the Supreme Court, and no matter what the outcome is, it’s been a kick in the gut to know that those in the highest echelons of government and those who support them believe that we don’t belong.”

As an author, Tan said, “I imagine the lives of the people I write about,” and that act of compassion, for writers, inherently “reflects our politics and our beliefs. And so yes, I am a political writer.”

Later, Caroline Richmond, executive director of We Need Diverse Books, celebrated the work of her nonprofit — the recipient of this year’s Innovator’s Award — which has made it so her daughter “has never really had to look that far to find herself on the page.”

Still, she said ongoing book bans are threatening those strides toward a more diverse literary marketplace.

“The work is very much far from over,” Richmond said, “but I have to remind myself that the people banning books are never the good guys in history, and it’s up to us in this room and beyond — as readers, as book lovers — to fight back because diverse books, we really need them now more than ever.”

As the ceremony wore on, the room was as charged with celebration as it was with resistance.

When writer-editor and former child actor Adam Ross accepted the Christopher Isherwood Prize for “Playworld,” a semi-autobiographical novel about a teen growing up in 1980s New York, he gleamed with joy about his second novel being out in the world and finding readers.

“When it became clear to me that I was writing something that was going to be a lot bigger and take a lot longer than I planned, I promised myself I would use all of my ability to capture my experience of a particular era in an enduringly magical city, and to hopefully express it in such a way that any reader willing to embark on a journey with me, but upon finishing close the book and say, ‘Yes, I know exactly what that was like,’” Ross said in his acceptance speech.

“Winning this award makes me feel like I succeeded in that endeavor,” the author said.

Other winners included Ekow Eshun, who topped the biography category for “The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them,” which parses Black masculinity as embodied by various civil rights activists, philosophers and other visionaries, and Bryan Washington, who accepted the fiction award for “Palaver,” which details the tense reunion of a Jamaican-born mother and her queer son, who are navigating years of estrangement in Tokyo.

The 31st annual L.A. Times Festival of Books will host 500-plus authors and celebrities and 300-plus exhibitors across more than 200 events including panels, book signings and cooking demonstrations. Top-billed guests include musician-memoirist Lionel Richie, veteran actor and recent Golden Globe Carol Burnett Award honoree Sarah Jessica Parker, and the mastermind behind “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Larry David.

The schedule for the Saturday-Sunday event can be found here.

Here’s the full list of finalists and winners for the Book Prizes.

Robert Kirsch Award

Amy Tan

Innovator’s Award

We Need Diverse Books

The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose

Adam Ross, “Playworld: A Novel”

The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

Andy Anderegg, “Plum”

Krystelle Bamford, “Idle Grounds: A Novel”

Addie E. Citchens, “Dominion: A Novel”

Justin Haynes, “Ibis: A Novel” | WINNER

Saou Ichikawa translated by Polly Barton, “Hunchback: A Novel”

Achievement in Audiobook Production, presented by Audible

Molly Jong-Fast (narrator), Matie Argiropoulos (producer); “How to Lose Your Mother”

Jason Mott, Ronald Peet, and JD Jackson (narrators), Diane McKiernan (producer); “People Like Us: A Novel”

James Aaron Oh (narrator), Linda Korn (producer); “The Emperor of Gladness: A Novel”

Imani Perry (narrator), Suzanne Mitchell (producer); “Black in Blues”

Maggi-Meg Reed, Jane Oppenheimer, Carly Robins, Jeff Ebner, David Pittu, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Mark Bramhall, Petrea Burchard, Robert Petkoff, Kimberly Farr, Cerris Morgan-Moyer, Peter Ganim, Jade Wheeler, Steve West, and Jim Seybert (narrators), Kelly Gildea (producer); “The Correspondent: A Novel” | WINNER

Biography

Joe Dunthorne, “Children of Radium: A Buried Inheritance”

Ekow Eshun, “The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them” | WINNER

Ruth Franklin, “The Many Lives of Anne Frank”

Beth Macy, “Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America”

Amanda Vaill, “Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution”

Current Interest

Jeanne Carstensen, “A Greek Tragedy: One Day, a Deadly Shipwreck, and the Human Cost of the Refugee Crisis”

Stefan Fatsis, “Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat to) the Modern Dictionary”

Brian Goldstone, “There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America” | WINNER

Gardiner Harris, “No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson”

Jordan Thomas, “When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World”

Fiction

Tod Goldberg, “Only Way Out: A Novel”

Stephen Graham Jones, “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter”

Mia McKenzie, “These Heathens: A Novel”

Andrés Felipe Solano translated by Will Vanderhyden, “Gloria: A Novel”

Bryan Washington, “Palaver: A Novel” | WINNER

Graphic Novel/Comics

Eagle Valiant Brosi, “Black Cohosh”

Jaime Hernandez, “Life Drawing: A Love and Rockets Collection” | WINNER

Michael D. Kennedy, “Milk White Steed”

Lee Lai, “Cannon”

Carol Tyler, “The Ephemerata: Shaping the Exquisite Nature of Grief”

History

Char Adams, “Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore”

Bench Ansfield, “Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City” | WINNER

Jennifer Clapp, “Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters”

Eli Erlick, “Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950”

Aaron G. Fountain Jr., “High School Students Unite!: Teen Activism, Education Reform, and FBI Surveillance in Postwar America”

Mystery/Thriller

Megan Abbott, “El Dorado Drive” | WINNER

Ace Atkins, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World: A Novel”

Lou Berney, “Crooks: A Novel About Crime and Family”

Michael Connelly, “The Proving Ground: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel”

S.A. Cosby, “King of Ashes: A Novel”

Poetry

Gabrielle Calvocoressi, “The New Economy”

Chet’la Sebree, “Blue Opening: Poems”

Richard Siken, “I Do Know Some Things”

Devon Walker-Figueroa, “Lazarus Species: Poems”

Allison Benis White, “A Magnificent Loneliness” | WINNER

Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction

Stephen Graham Jones, “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter”

Jordan Kurella, “The Death of Mountains”

Nnedi Okorafor, “Death of the Author: A Novel”

Adam Oyebanji, “Esperance”

Silvia Park, “Luminous: A Novel” | WINNER

Science & Technology

Mariah Blake, “They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals”

Peter Brannen, “The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything: How Carbon Dioxide Made Our World”

Karen Hao, “Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI” | WINNER

Laura Poppick, “Strata: Stories from Deep Time”

Jordan Thomas, “When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World”

Young Adult Literature

K. Ancrum, “The Corruption of Hollis Brown”

Idris Goodwin, “King of the Neuro Verse”

Jamie Jo Hoang, “My Mother, the Mermaid Chaser”

Trung Le Nguyen, “Angelica and the Bear Prince” | WINNER

Hannah V. Sawyerr, “Truth Is: A Novel in Verse”

JACK Fincham was spotted leaving casting for a new reality TV show just days after opening up about his rebab and homelessness.

The former Love Island star, 34, flashed a big smile as he emerged from a studio in Soho wearing a retro tracksuit.

Jack looked pleased with himself after he met with producers for a big project for a Channel 5 show.

He sported a retro look in an 1980s Sergio Tacchini tracksuit which caught the attention of a few passer by who stopped to take selfies with Jack.

Jack added a pair of aviator sunglasses to his look and black trainers.

He looked in a high spirits after spending the afternoon with bosses for a secret new telly appearance, which is yet to be announced.

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HOME HELL

Jack Fincham leaves hotel to walk ‘life-saving’ dog after revealing he’s homeless

STAR IN DOCK

Jack Fincham in court for failing to carry out unpaid work after rehab battle

Jack has had a rough time lately and credited his pet dog Elvis for helping him get through his darkest times.

The reality star confessed he’s struggling with life after rehab as he told fans he’s homeless and living in a hotel with his dog.

Earlier this year, Jack relapsed into drinking and drugs and had just £20 to his name.

He then spent two months receiving £32,000 of treatment at Rainford Hall, Merseyside.

Jack opened up on life post rehab as he took to Instagram.

He admitted that he’s currently homeless and is not sure where to go moving forward as there’s nothing “much left” for him in England.

He said: “In case anyone is wondering where I am, I’m staying a hotel with the dog. I’m just gonna reset and work out what to do and where I wanna live.

“Got my beautiful dog Elvis, without him I probably wouldn’t even be here to be honest.”

Jack has owned his black Cane Corso dog, named Elvis, since at least September 2022, when the dog was involved in a biting incident.

Despite legal trouble regarding the dog being “dangerously out of control” in 2022 and June 2024, Jack has expressed his attachment to the pet.

The second incident that occurred in June 2024 led to a suspended sentence for Jack in 2025.

Meanwhile, Jack’s relationship with his family hasn’t been the same since he returned home.

Jack added: “One thing they told me in rehab and it’s true, you’re not gonna walk out of rehab to a red carpet rolled out for you because it’s stuff you should have been doing anyway.”

He also thanked the staff from his rehab, saying “that level of kindness I wasn’t used to for a while, I found it quite alien.”

Jack remains optimistic and hopes to get back into TV, saying: “I’m gonna do my acting and get back into TV work, I’m gonna do all the things I said I was gonna do.”

Jack previously did a stint in rehab back in 2021, but relapsed before Christmas last year.

He spoke of the spiral back in January, he explained: “Since then I have done drugs, I have done laughing gas.

“I have been so drunk that I’ve kissed a woman over Christmas and don’t even remember doing it. I’m embarrassed, mortified. I feel like an idiot.

“I am a 33-year-old man. I should be settled down, married. Instead I need help.”

Jack first shot to fame on Love Island, where he won over the nation with his charm and went on to win the series.

He won the show alongside Dani Dyer in 2018.

They were paired together on day one and chose to split the £50,000 prize.

But their relationship didn’t last long once they left the villa.

Why now? Why now?

Every time a woman comes forward with her story of sexual assault, this is the first question she faces. OK, maybe the second — after some variation of “Are you a lying slut?”

At least we are consistent. But on behalf of all survivors everywhere, of any gender, identity or age, let me give you some blanket answers to “Why now?”

Survivors come forward now, whenever now is, because they have reached the point in their recovery when facing the inevitable “lying slut” accusation is less terrible than watching their abuser strut around as if that person is not a dangerous, cruel predator who is almost certainly going to hurt someone else if they are not stopped.

Whether it’s in Congress, on a movie set, in the halls of their school — wherever that predator is just living their life without consequence — there is a survivor who has been cowering in the shadows of her own life, in pain, wanting to scream to the world that this person is not what they seem.

But the price of that honesty has always been steep. Too steep. Even after #MeToo.

Ask Cassie Ventura. Ask Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Ask E. Jean Carroll. Dolores Huerta. Simone Biles.

Even powerful women can’t escape the blowback, the fear. Even powerful women are steamrolled over and over again by the overwhelming presumption that they are lying, and there is an ulterior motive for coming forward at this particular moment.

Imagine just being an average person holding that secret. Who are any of us to stand up alone against a rich and powerful man whose very freedom will depend on crushing our credibility?

P. Diddy. Harvey Weinstein. Donald Trump. Cesar Chavez. Larry Nassar. Eric Swalwell.

Those men know power, and know how to use it.

“He thought he was untouchable. He acted with total impunity. He never thought that the consequences of his actions would follow him,” Ally Sammarco, one of the women who has spoken out about Swalwell (who has previously denied allegations of misconduct), told CBS.

It’s why the women of the Epstein files stayed silent for so long. It’s why there are thousands of rape survivors out there right now who have never said a word about what they endured, and maybe never will.

“Why now?” is just a more palatable version of “lying slut,” a question based on ignorance about how trauma — and society — works. A question meant not to elicit fact, but to feed the Jezebel frenzy men always use in their attempt to escape justice.

Here’s the truth about sexual assault: There is no right way to respond to it, no right time. There is no one reaction that proves it happened or that creates the perfect scenario that will protect the survivor’s reputation while delivering justice upon the predator. In fact, there is really no way at all to respond to a sexual assault that won’t bring secondary trauma.

Wait years and face disdain — that it didn’t happen, wasn’t serious, is only coming out now for some agenda, like politics or money.

Report it immediately and be prepared for every move, every smile, every sip of a drink, to be examined for signs that this was, if not consensual, somehow deserved — a gray area of shared responsibility.

Imagine, at a moment of crushing vulnerability, when your body has been violated and your mind is reeling trying to find safe ground, being bludgeoned by these accusations, stated or implied, that you brought this on yourself.

“Why now?” becomes “Why would you?”

Even when the scenario is one in which there can be no defense — such as the UCLA gynecologist, James Heaps, who on Tuesday pleaded guilty to sexually abusing five of his patients during exams — the cost of reporting is terrible. That case has wound on for years, leaving each of the victims to constantly relive their worst moments, constantly fear that all of their courage would come to nothing.

Which is why survivors don’t always come forward. Maybe they need time to put themselves back together, even just a little bit. Maybe the fear of all that societal scrutiny is just too much. Maybe they fear they won’t be believed, and their attacker will be free to harm them again.

Maybe they just want it to all go away. Maybe they do blame themselves, and are paralyzed by an unfounded shame.

There are so many reasons why survivors stay silent — and none of them are because it didn’t happen, or because they are lying.

Lonna Drewes, the Beverly Hills model who came forward Tuesday with an accusation that Swalwell drugged and raped her in 2018, summed up the experience of many, many survivors.

“I did not want to live anymore,” she said of how she felt after the attack. “I cried all the time for years.”

So here’s the real answer to “Why now?” from a victim’s statement that one of Heap’s survivors read in court.

“What you intended to break, you did not,” she said.

That is the answer to “Why now?” Because the bravery and courage at the heart of the survivor was bruised but not defeated.

Because she doesn’t want it to happen to anyone else.

Because she deserves to be free of his secrets: Ones she has been forced to keep out of fear of him, but also of us.

MY 600-LB. Life star Dolly Martinez has died at the age of 30, her sister has confirmed.

The TLC star died on Saturday, Lindsey Cooper shared in a heartbreaking social media post.

“It is with a heavy heart that I share the passing of my beautiful sister, Dolly,” she wrote.

“Dolly had the brightest personality she could light up any room with her laughter, her kindness, and her loving spirit.

“She had a way of making everyone feel special, and her warmth will stay with us forever.”

Her family has not revealed a cause of death but hours before confirming her sister’s death, Lindsey wrote on Facebook that Dolly was in hospital “fighting for her life.”

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TLC TRAGEDY

My 600-lb Life star dead at 50 as daughter shares heartbreaking message

“While our hearts are broken here, I find comfort in knowing she is now reunited with our dad in heaven. I can only imagine the joy of that reunion,” her sister said.

“Rest peacefully, Dolly. You will always be loved, always be missed, and never forgotten.”

Dolly featured in season 10 of the television show which aired in January 2022 when she was 25 years old.

During her time on the show, she bravely opened up about her poor mental health and struggles with food addiction.

She started the process at 593 pounds which meant she needed extra oxygen and assistance to live her day to day life.

Dolly had already suffered from congestive heart failure as a result of her weight.

Originally from Fort Worth, she moved to Houston where she hoped she would be able to get weight loss surgery.

Despite losing 40 pounds while on the TLC show, she did not qualify for the procedure.

Her Instagram account details numerous struggles throughout her life.

While private, the bio states, “Not homeless anymore. Living day by day.”

During her time on the show, it was revealed that Dolly and her estranged husband were unable to look after their daughter who was removed from their care at just 6 days old by Child Protective Services.

It is understood that the child remains under the guardianship of Dolly’s mother.

After returning to live with her husband, his alleged abusive behavior saw Dolly enter a homeless shelter, according to IMDB.

Dolly’s death comes less than a year after fellow My 600-lb. Life alum Latonya Pottain died at the age of 40 from congestive heart failure.

War has a way of curtailing imagination. When the news breaks of faraway civilian casualties — an erroneous air strike on a school that relied on outdated intelligence, for example — the mind takes refuge in abstractions and statistics.

Grief isn’t an infinite resource. There’s only so much distant suffering anyone can take in. Yet our moral health as a society depends on the recognition of our common humanity. We share something with the inhabitants of those countries whose civilization our government has threatened to destroy.

This is an important moment to experience “English,” Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, set in an English-language classroom outside of Tehran in 2008. The play, now having its L.A. premiere at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, reminds us of the lives — the hopes, the dreams, the sorrows — on the other side of the headlines. (As I write this, the New York Times homepage has a story that stopped me dead in my tracks: ”Iranian Schools and Hospitals Are in Ruins, Times Analysis Shows.”)

Babak Tafti, left, and Marjan Neshat in “English” at The Wallis.

(Kevin Parry)

“English” isn’t trying to win any political arguments. Its focus is on the characters, who are in a Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOFL) prep class. The exam will have an oversize effect on the future possibilities of this small, mishmash group of students.

Elham (Tala Ashe) needs a high score to pursue her medical education in Australia. Roya (Pooya Mohseni) wants to join her son in Canada to be part of her granddaughter’s life, but Persian is frowned upon in her son’s assimilated, English-language household. Omid (Babak Tafti), whose English is far beyond anyone else’s level in the class, has a U.S. green card interview coming up. And Goli (Ava Lalezarzadeh), the youngest of the students, wants at the very least to be fluent in the lingua franca of American pop culture.

Marjan (Marjan Neshat), the teacher whose love for the English language is infused with longing and regret, harks back nostalgically on her years in Manchester before she returned to Iran. She insists for pedagogic reasons that the students only speak English in the classroom. But Elham, a contentious and fiercely competitive student, suspects that Marjan’s zeal for anglophone culture, including Hollywood romantic comedies, masks a resentment for the Iranian life she is now stuck with. (Neshat and Ashe are gracefully reprising their Tony-nominated performances.)

Tala Ashe, left, and Pooya Mohseni in “English” at The Wallis.

(Kevin Parry)

Mastering English can open doors, but what if you wish you didn’t have to walk through them? Elham is angry that she has to leave to pursue her medical dreams. When she speaks English, she feels like a diminished version of herself. She calls her accent “a war crime,” and grows frustrated in class that she can’t easily explain what she’s thinking and feeling in her halting English.

The other students might not be as truculent as Elham, but they are just as ambivalent about the necessity of learning English. Toossi doesn’t grapple explicitly with the fraught internal politics of the Iran of the period. The conversation in the classroom doesn’t turn to the repressive regime or the state requirement of headscarves or the geopolitical strategies that have alienated the Islamic Republic of Iran from the global community.

When I saw “English” in 2024 at the Old Globe in San Diego, I was acutely aware of what the playwright was not addressing. At the Wallis in 2026, in the wake of Operation Epic Fury and the blitzkrieg of unhinged rhetoric from President Trump, whose rationales and goals for the war seem to change with every public utterance, I was intensely appreciative of what Toossi was putting front and center — the variegated humanity of her characters.

Tala Ashe and Marjan Neshat in “English” at the Wallis.

(Kevin Parry)

This Atlantic Theater Company & Roundabout Theatre production, directed by Knud Adams, had a critically touted Broadway run, receiving four Tony nominations, including best play. The physical staging, featuring a rotating cube from set designer Martha Ginsberg, shows us the classroom from different vantages, bringing the play’s shifting perspective to three-dimensional life.

Toossi follows the interplay of the differing viewpoints and lived experiences. She’s not as concerned with settling differences as with understanding the thoughts and emotions animating the clashes of her divergent characters. The actors relish the pesky, droll, frequently adorable, sometimes incendiary individuality of their roles.

The play does something unique with language. When a character speaks English, an accent is employed and the manner is often a bit stumbling. When a character speaks Persian, the English that is heard is natural and relaxed, the sound of a native speaker.

The result is that these Iranian characters, when talking among themselves in their native tongue, sound awfully like Americans having a conversation in the mall or at a nearby table at a restaurant. We are no longer separated by language. The notion of the Iranian “other” falls by the wayside.

The cast of “English” at the Wallis.

(Kevin Parry)

It’s hard not to wonder if one of those missiles raining down on schools in recent weeks hit when Marjan was showing “Notting Hill” or another favorite rom-com to one of the students she was hoping might realize her dreams of living abroad. Omid, whose English surpasses Marjan’s own level, has excited such hopes, and the touchingly Chekhovian quasi-romance between them adds a gentle note of amorous wistfulness.

Adams’ production creates a cinematic penumbra through the projections of Ruey Horng Sun, a soundscape by Sinan Refik Zafar that lyrically underscores the actions and the emotionally attuned lighting of Reza Behjat. The effect heightens the romanticism of characters who are no longer lost to us in translation.

But the destination of the play is less about what these students sound like to an American audience than what they sound like to themselves. And that is a universal journey that transcends even the starkest barriers of language, culture and politics.

A British woman who left the UK for the USA has spoken about how one incident forced her to re-evaluate her whole life in the country

A woman who moved from Yorkshire to the United States at the age of 22 has spoken about how one moment in her new home country caused her to re-evaluate everything.

Kari Wells, who built a career on the American cable channel Bravo, moved to Aspen, Colorado where she met her now husband Duncan with whom she has two children.

Later, the pair moved to Atlanta, Georgia, which is where things took a turn when she was robbed in October 2019 by two gunmen.

In the ensuing robbery, Wells was knocked out when she was hit on the back of her head by one of the gunmen. Despite surviving, the robbery would have a major impact on her with Kari telling the Telegraph she later received treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that in turn led to her writing her book ‘From Attitude to Gratitude’.

Speaking to the publication, she said that the incident was a “literal way” of being forced to “re-evaluate” her life. She explained: “It’s like I was juggling it all, and I was so busy that I wasn’t really living my life. I was on this treadmill, missing out on a lot of great things.

“The aftermath was more traumatising than the event because you go into this state… something that I cannot even explain.”

During her recovery, Wells convinced her husband to make several changes to their home including parking their car across their gate that they secured with cable ties.

Furthermore, the pair also moved back to where they’d first met in Aspen, Colorado. The incident also brought into even sharper relief for Wells the “insanity” of gun violence in the USA.

Although Kari is one of many people who has moved from the UK and Europe to the USA, in recent years there has been a growing trend in the opposite direction with Americans now moving to the UK and Europe.

According to data from the Brookings Institution reported in The Wall Street Journal, the USA saw negative net migration for the first time in nearly a century in 2025 with more people leaving than arriving last year for the first time since 1935 and the peak of the Great Depression.

Although this massive moment has happened during US President Donald Trump’s second term, in a phenomenon some have dubbed ‘The Donald Dash’, others say the situation is more complex than one person becoming leader.

Other examples include economic changes and the rise of remote working meaning more people can work from anywhere on the planet and don’t have to be tethered to their job by geography.

Gun violence is also a factor with Berlin-based employee of a Texas real estate investment firm Chris Ford using an example of active shooter drills, reports the Independent.

This, he said, was one major difference between life in the USA and life in European nations such as Spain and the Netherlands: “You don’t face the prospect of your five-year-old going into a kindergarten and doing an active shooter drill. The wages are higher in the U.S. but the quality of life is higher in Europe.”

For emotional support, you can call the Samaritans 24-hour helpline on 116 123, email jo@samaritans.org, visit a Samaritans branch in person or go to the Samaritans website.

Rudolph Walker’s love life away from EastEnders is just as dramatic as Patrick Trueman’s

Rudolph Walker is an EastEnders legend – but what do we know about his off-screen love life?

The actor joined the BBC soap way back in 2001 as Patrick Trueman – and it didn’t take him long to become a firm favourite with fans. The character has also played a part in several big storylines

From his many romances, marrying Yolande (Angela Wynter) and the recent murder of son Anthony (Nicholas Bailey), Patrick’s time in Walford has not been short of drama.

Away from the TV sets, though, Rudolph’s love life has been just as dramatic as his Walford alter ego. From being married three times to ending up homeless after a divorce, here’s a look inside the talented actor’s romances.

Rudolph was first married to Lorna Ross in 1968. The pair welcomed two children together, daughter Sheona and son Darren.

However, in the early 90s, Rudolph and Lorna went their separate ways. The pair remained on good terms, though, as years later, when Rudolph’s second divorce left him penniless and homeless, she helped him out through the tough times.

“Bless her. We are still extremely good friends. It didn’t take me out of what I was experiencing, but it cushioned a lot,” he told the Mirror.

Rudolph went on to find love again with Dounne Alexander, whom he married in August 1998. Dounne is the founder of Gramma’s, a collection of herbal pepper sauces that have been sold in shops such as Harrods and Fortnum and Mason over the years.

She was also awarded an MBE due to her work with the Joining Hands In Health campaign. In the mid-2010s, though, Rudolph and Dounne called it quits. However, the legal costs of his second divorce took their toll on Rudolph, and he spent two years broke and homeless.

“It was painful. It was extremely difficult. I just didn’t have any financial means. I was literally starting from scratch again in my 70s, with nowhere to live. It was a time of great pain and loneliness,” he shared.

The TV star went on: “Some days on my way to the studio, I would pull up at the side of the road, have a cry. I suppose it was a sort of double life.

“Questions of: ‘Who am I? Why am I in this position?’ There was no way the public watching me as Patrick every other night were aware that was what was happening.”

After Dounne, Rudolph began a romance with Evangeline Vincent, and the pair married in 2016. The couple is still together to this day.

EastEnders airs Monday to Thursday at 7:30pm on BBC One.

Debbie Dawtrey moved from Cambridgeshire to south-western France in 2023 and opened a hotel, but she’s found that one of the most significant problems has been difficult to overcome

Many of us dream about relocating to some idyllic corner of Europe to soak up the sun and embrace the advantages of Mediterranean living. However, beyond the complications of European red tape – and the considerable cost – there’s another significant obstacle that numerous people fail to consider.

Debbie Dawtrey, who relocated from Buckden in Cambridgeshire to south-western France in 2023, reveals that one of the most substantial challenges she’s faced is feeling socially cut off.

Debbie, 64, established a boutique hotel in the Charente, situated in the charming village of Confolens, and explains that while she remains extremely occupied throughout the tourist season, the colder months can prove incredibly isolating.

She told The Times: “I didn’t know anyone in the area and while the summers are busy with guests, contacts are transient and the winters are especially hard as people hunker down and close the shutters.”

Debbie, who is unmarried, explains she’s discovered a method of reconstructing her social connections by arranging a monthly supper club for fellow expats: “Every month we’d take turns in hosting a dinner and had lots of fun,” she explains, “it helped broaden our social circle.”

Debbie emphasises that becoming isolated is remarkably easy when relocating far from relatives and friends, and recommends “you have to really make an effort to put yourself out there”.

Even when you’ve attempted to master the native tongue, the capacity to initiate spontaneous conversations can prove far more challenging than forming friendships back in Britain.

While some individuals might frequent a neighbourhood pub, or perhaps become members of a fitness centre, these are more readily available in bigger towns and cities. Establishing a fresh existence in the French countryside – or indeed in a remote UK community, can prove quite demanding.

Even those working with substantial financial resources can find themselves yearning for what they’ve left behind. Earlier this year, Kate Ferdinand spoke candidly about her homesickness following her relocation to Dubai with her footballer husband Rio.

On her ‘Blended’ podcast in February, Kate became emotional and confessed she was pining for her family and friends back home. Kate and Rio relocated to the UAE last August and while her husband is “loving” his new existence there, matters aren’t quite as positive for Kate.

“I am enjoying it, but I miss home quite a lot,” she acknowledged. “I can’t talk about it because I get upset. I feel like we’ve opened our eyes to a different world. But I love London. I do feel happy in Dubai, but I’m just missing a part of me.”

A source close to the pair told The Mirror that the Dubai move hasn’t turned out as Kate had anticipated, and she considers the gleaming Middle Eastern metropolis “soulless.”

They revealed: “She’s struggling. She’s really missing home. She’s not enjoying it. And even though she’s got the kids and she’s got Rio there, she’s homesick. She can’t stop it and it’s very difficult. It’s just not home.” Kate is also feeling the absence of her stepsons. While Rio’s daughter Tia, 14, made the transition to the UAE alongside the family, his elder sons Lorenz, 19, and Tate, 17, stayed behind in the UK to pursue their promising football careers – a decision that has caused Kate considerable heartache.

Opening up on her podcast, she admitted: “I miss the big boys a lot and I’m struggling with that. I know this decision is right for my younger children and as a family we are settled there, but the boys are following their football careers. So they’re doing what they want to do, otherwise they’d be with us.”

She went on to say: “But it’s very hard because we’ve been through so much as a family and we’ve always been together and that’s a huge adjustment.”

Even for a high-profile international footballer, sometimes mum knows best.

In September 2023, when, by his own admission, Manchester United defender Harry Maguire was at his lowest ebb, as he was abused and mocked during an England appearance against Scotland (“I came on, played really well, then scored an own goal”), his mum Zoe took to social media.

She called the treatment of her son “disgraceful and unacceptable”.

“I didn’t want her to, but she just said, ‘I’m doing it! I’m not listening to you!'” Maguire said, smiling, as he spoke at length about his career so far and hopes for the future to journalists at the club’s training camp in Maynooth, 20 miles outside Dublin.

“I think it probably does affect your family a little bit more in those moments. They’ve seen what we’re going through and how tough it is.

“That was probably the lowest point, but it’s part of the journey.

“I wouldn’t change where I’ve been and what I’ve been through. It’s definitely made me stronger and got me to where I am today.”

It seems unfair to focus on negatives.

Maguire, 33, feels he has “performed really well” in six out of his seven seasons at Old Trafford.

“I still believe, even at my age, I’m arguably one of the best defenders in the world in both boxes,” he said. “I don’t think that’s in question really; that I can be really effective later on in games, whether you’re holding on to a lead or trying to chase a game.”

Yet the openness and the honesty with which he assessed his more difficult moments made it an obvious area to probe, 24 hours after it had been confirmed Maguire had signed a new deal that will give him an eighth campaign at the club, and potentially a ninth.

After all, this is someone who had the captaincy taken off him by then-manager Erik ten Hag and the club were prepared to sell to West Ham a couple of months before that Scotland game.

“Obviously your first emotion is anger and disappointment, that’s natural,” he said of the captaincy call.

“But I always thought unless you are one of the superstars and a world, world class player, you have ups and downs and things that you have to deal with. That’s why you see so many players have two or three years at the top, drop off, go to a different country and you don’t hear too much about them again.

“Wayne Rooney was here, one of the best players to ever play for this club, and he got so much pelters at times when he wasn’t doing too well. I always looked to the experience with players like Wayne and David Beckham and how they overcame it.

“I just kept my head down. I have great self-belief, more importantly, that I’m a top player. That’s what helps me when things are tough.”

Clearly, strength of mind is a positive character trait.

Maguire accepts it has been bumpy at times.

He did not go as far as to say he benefited from having the captaincy taken away but did admit “the form came back” after it happened. “I believe the form would have come back whether I was captain or not,” he added.

However, he concedes not everyone would have the mental strength to navigate their way through his pathway.

“Yes probably,” he said, when asked if it would have broken most players.

“I think there’ll be a lot who want to just close the book, go elsewhere and restart their career. I think it’s probably broken them a little bit earlier. It got to a point with the mocking and the abuse – if you want to call it abuse – there was only one way it could go.”

BUSTED’S Matt Willis today gave a health update on James Bourne after the star revealed he was having “life extending” surgery.

The singer, 42, was forced to pull out of the band’s tour last year with just hours to go after falling seriously ill.

Last week, after months of silence, James revealed he was having “major surgery” in a bid to “extend his life”.

Today, his best pal Matt, who he has known for over two decades, gave an update on his good friend’s health battle.

Asked on Good Morning Britain about how James’ condition and how he was doing, the star replied: “Ah, I mean, it happened quite quickly.

“He got ill just before the tour started, so he had to pull out of the tour, so we kind of put something up there.

HEALTH UPDATE

Busted star James Bourne reveals he is having major surgery to ‘extend life’

health battle

Busted could ‘never perform again’ says Matt Willis 

“But he put something out recently, kind of an update of how he’s getting on.

“And, you know, he’s not very well, but he’s going to be… he’s getting better.

“You know, he’s on the mend.”

Matt also added that he was “seeing James later”.

It comes just days after James issued a worrying update to his fans last Saturday.

“I realised it’s been about six months since I posted last,” he wrote on an Instagram story.

“I have a plan in place to have major surgery that should extend my life and hopefully make me well enough to come back to what I love the most which is touring and making music.

“It really sucks to be out of the game.

“But there is hope!”

James and Matt shot to fame alongside Charlie Simpson when Busted arrived on the pop scene in 2002 with What I Go To School For.

The band split a few years later, and then reformed in 2015, much to the delight of fans, and have been together ever since.

However, in September James pulled out of the band’s tour with McFly with just hours to spare.

In his statement, the singer cited health problems and said he “hoped to come back further down the line”.

He wrote: “The VS tour kicks off tomorrow night in Birmingham and as excited as I’ve been all year for this tour to begin, I’m really sorry to say that over the last 8 days it has become clear that I am not in good enough health to play these shows,”

Although he didn’t disclose what the health issue is, James said at the time: “There’s a lot of information I still don’t have about my condition but my bandmates, management and I are unanimous in deciding that I should focus on medical stuff for now.

“I really hope I can be in a position to come back further down the line.

“It’s still going to be an amazing show and I will miss being there!”

For 20 minutes of his life, Jim Whittaker was on top of the world.

He was the first American to summit Mt. Everest, reaching the highest point on Earth on May 1, 1963, with Sherpa Nawang Gombu.

“We were standing in the jet stream, on the edge of space,” Whittaker wrote in his 1999 memoir, “A Life on the Edge.”

He returned home a hero, with his picture on the cover of Life magazine, a White House fete and unexpected celebrity. And though life off the mountain didn’t always go smoothly, he disdained regret.

“If you stick your neck out, whether it’s by climbing mountains or speaking up for something you believe in, your odds of winning are at least fifty-fifty,” he wrote. “On the other hand, if you never stick your neck out, your odds of losing are pretty close to 100%.”

An adventurer until the end, Whittaker died Tuesday at his home in Port Townsend, Wash., his son Leif confirmed to the New York Times. Whittaker was 97. .

On March 24, 1965, Robert F. Kennedy, left, stands atop Mt. Kennedy in Canada after placing a black flag in memorial to his late brother, President John F. Kennedy. With him were Jim Whittaker; William Allard, a National Geographic Society photographer; and George Senner, a ranger.

(Doug Wilson / Associated Press)

He was 34 when he scaled Everest, a feat that shaped much of the rest of his life. His Washington state license plate read 29028, the generally accepted height of Everest when he climbed it. (GPS surveys later put it at about 29,035 feet.)

He was chosen for the expedition by its leader, Swiss mountaineer Norman Dyhrenfurth, because of his experience in climbing under icy conditions, including numerous summits of Mt. Rainier near his Seattle-area home.

But Everest, first scaled in 1953 by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, was a far more formidable and dangerous beast. And even if the Dyhrenfurth expedition was successful, only a chosen few of its 19 team members would reach the top. Still, Whittaker thought his chances were good.

“I’d trained hard, put 60 pounds of bricks in my backpack,” he told National Geographic Adventure magazine in 2003. “I swam in Lake Sammamish in winter to build up to the cold we would encounter.

“I didn’t know anyone who was in better shape.”

On only the second day of the group’s climb from base camp, tragedy struck when a giant section of an icefall — a glacier formation resembling a frozen waterfall — shifted, crushing team member Jake Breitenbach.

“I had told everyone back home that Everest was not a difficult climb technically; the only problem was the lack of oxygen and the weather,” Whittaker wrote in “Life on the Edge.” “Now it had killed one of us, and we’d only just begun.”

Because the only way to get back to base camp was via that icefall, Whittaker chose to stay above it on the mountain for five steady weeks as more camps were established up Everest. He lost 25 pounds and a considerable amount of strength due to the thin air.

Still, he was in better condition than many of the other climbers, and Dyhrenfurth chose him for the final assault. He and Gombu left the last camp in the middle of a windstorm, with a scant supply of oxygen.

How hard was it to breathe? “Put a pillow on your face, run around the block, and try and suck oxygen through that pillow,” he said. It was so cold, one of his eyeballs froze, making it unusable.

Reaching the summit after several hours, they stayed only long enough to take pictures and plant flags as 50-mph winds whipped around them.

“When you are up there, you are not ecstatic, you are not afraid,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2013. “You’re really not anything. But in the back of your mind, you know one thing: You gotta get off. Half of the climb is getting up, the other half is getting down.”

James Whittaker was born on Feb. 10, 1929, in Seattle, about 10 minutes before the birth of Louie, his twin brother. As the boys grew up, they took to rough-housing around the house, much to the chagrin of their mother.

“I believe that command to ‘Go outside and play’ is what started Louie and me on the path we have taken every since,” Whittaker wrote.

He was active in Boy Scouts and as a teenager joined a mountaineering club that sponsored climbs on the nearby Olympic and Cascade ranges. He tested himself on increasingly higher peaks, relishing moments such as breaking through cloud layers.

“I think nature is a great teacher,” he told the Seattle Times in 2013. “Being in nature that way is a good way to find out who the hell you are.”

After finishing West Seattle High School, Whittaker went on to Seattle University, graduating in 1952. He was promptly drafted into the Army, but his mountaineering experience led him to be assigned to the Mountain and Cold Weather Training Command in Colorado instead of combat duty in Korea.

In 1955, he became the first full-time employee of the Recreational Equipment Cooperative (later called REI) when it was housed in a 20-by-30-foot space above a Seattle restaurant. In his first year, he expanded the co-op’s offerings into ski equipment and introduced new concepts — such as opening on Saturday mornings so customers could pick up equipment for weekend trips — that boosted sales.

Whittaker, pictured on April 12, 1975, in Seattle, shows some of the gear he would be taking for an expedition to climb K2 on the China-Pakistan border.

(Associated Press)

Because of his connection to the co-op, he was appointed equipment coordinator of the Everest climb, and REI agreed to keep him on the payroll during the expedition.

In July 1963, he and other members of the Everest team, including Gombu, were presented the Hubbard Medal of the National Geographic Society — which partially sponsored the expedition — by President Kennedy, four months before the president was assassinated.

Two years later, Whittaker led a climb up Mt. Kennedy, a nearly 14,000-foot Canadian peak named for JFK, with Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in the climbing party. The two men forged a close friendship that extended to the wider Kennedy clan. In subsequent years, Whittaker went on ski vacations with the Kennedys, was a guest at the family compound in Hyannis Port, Mass., and hosted gatherings in Seattle that included mountain climbing.

Whittaker organized Robert Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign efforts in the Pacific Northwest and spoke to him by phone only minutes before the candidate was fatally shot in Los Angeles. Whittaker caught a flight to L.A. and was at the senator’s hospital bedside when he died and then served as a pallbearer at the funeral.

In mountaineering, Whittaker was closely involved in more high-profile ventures. He led a 1975 expedition up the world’s second-highest mountain, K2, that failed to reach the top. His return expedition in 1978 was successful, though he chose not to go to the summit himself.

That same year, he decided to quit REI, partly because of friction with the co-op’s board. He had been president and chief executive since 1971, and when he left, the co-op was a $46-million business with more than 700 employees.

Whittaker throws out the ceremonial first pitch before a baseball game between the Mariners and the Angels in 2013.

(Elaine Thompson / Associated Press)

Income from an endorsement agreement helped keep him financially sound, but an investment in a new outdoor gear company proved to be a disaster. The financial irregularities of a partner, who was convicted of felony bank fraud, doomed the venture, and Whittaker was left holding the financial bag.

He was nearly wiped out but got back on his financial footing when a venture capitalist asked him in 1986 to be chairman of the board, with stock options, of a new company called Magellan. It was a pioneer in GPS consumer electronics and holds numerous patents in the field.

Appropriately, Whittaker called one of the chapters midway through his book “Roller Coaster.” But he finished it with “Life Well Lived.”

“If you aren’t living on the edge,” he wrote, “you’re taking up too much space.”

Whittaker is survived by his wife, Dianne Roberts, and children Bobby, Joss and Leif.

Colker is a former Times staff writer.

NEW ORLEANS — A U.S. Army staff sergeant is trying to halt his wife’s deportation after she was detained inside a Louisiana military base where the couple was planning to live together just days after their wedding.

The effort to remove the soldier’s wife, who was born in Honduras and remained in a federal immigration detention center Monday, has drawn criticism from military family advocates who called the detention demoralizing in a time of war and warned that deporting spouses could undermine recruitment.

Staff Sgt. Matthew Blank said he brought his wife, Annie Ramos, 22, to his base in Fort Polk, La., last Thursday so that she could begin the process to receive military benefits and take steps toward a green card. The couple married in March.

Federal immigration agents detained Ramos as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda, which legal experts say has dispensed with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s practice of leniency toward families of military members.

“I never imagined that trying to do the right thing would lead to her being taken away from me,” said Blank, 23, in a statement to the Associated Press. “What was supposed to be the happiest week of our lives has turned into one of the hardest.”

Ramos’ detention was first reported by The New York Times.

Ramos entered the U.S. in 2005, when she was younger than 2 years old. That same year, her family failed to appear for an immigration hearing, leading a judge to issue a final order of removal, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

“She has no legal status to be in this country,” Homeland SEcurity said in an emailed statement. “This administration is not going to ignore the rule of law.”

In 2020, Ramos applied to receive Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, also known as DACA, but her husband says her application has remained “in limbo” amid legal fights to end the Obama-era program.

Last April, Homeland Security eliminated a 2022 policy that considered military service of an immediate family member to be a “significant mitigating factor” in deciding whether or not to pursue immigration enforcement. The administration’s new policy states that “military service alone does not exempt aliens from the consequences of violating U.S. immigration laws.”

Prior to the Trump administration’s mass deportation push, Homeland Security generally allowed the spouses of active-duty military members to gain legal status through policies like parole in place and deferred action that military recruiters promote, according to Margaret Stock, a military immigration law expert.

Ramos’ case would have been easy to resolve in the past, Stock said, but instead Homeland Security now appears to be focusing on detaining members of military families whenever the opportunity arises — including when, like Ramos, they are attempting to apply for legal status.

“It doesn’t make any sense — they’re going to get arrested for following the law? That’s stupid,” Stock said. “It’s bad for morale, it disrupts the soldiers’ readiness.”

In September, more than 60 members of Congress wrote to the Homeland Security and Defense Departments warning that arrests of military personnel and veterans’ family members was “betraying its promises to service members who play a key role in protecting U.S. national security.”

The Pentagon declined to comment.

Lydiah Owiti-Otienoh, who runs an advocacy group called the Foreign-Born Military Spouse Network, said she’s anecdotally seen an increase in cases where the lives of military families have been upended by tightening immigration restrictions. She believes the federal government is undermining its own interests by attempting to deport military spouses.

“It just sends a really bad message — we don’t care about you, about your spouses, anything you are doing,” Owiti-Otienoh said. “If military families are not stable, national security is not stable.”

Blank’s mother, Jen Rickling, told the AP in a statement that her daughter-in-law, a Sunday school teacher and biochemistry major, had been everything she hoped for — someone who “loves my son with her whole heart.”

“We absolutely adore her,” Rickling said. “I believe in this country. And I believe we can do better than this — for Annie, for other military families, and for the values we hold dear.”

Blank says he had been eager to start building a life and with Ramos on the base while he served his country.

“I want my wife home,” Blank said. “And I will not stop fighting until she is back where she belongs, by my side.”

Brook writes for the Associated Press.

A woman who moved to Valencia in June 2024 has shared the unexpected discovery about Spanish city life that ‘no one ever warns you about’ – but she insists it’s not necessarily a bad thing

An expat has shared the unexpected discovery she made after moving to Spain that “no one ever warns you about”, completely transforming her preconceptions of living overseas. The woman, who moved to Valencia in June 2024, has described how the actual experience fell somewhat short of her mental picture of a perpetually lively, thriving Spanish metropolis – though she insists it’s not entirely negative.

Sharing on TikTok under the handle @togethertowherever, she detailed how she was initially taken aback to discover substantial portions of the city appearing deserted during particular periods. She stated: “Valencia in August: one minute it’s buzzing… the next it’s a ghost town. Locals disappear, shops close, and suddenly you’ve got the whole city to yourself (and the tourists).”

The expat continued by clarifying that the scorching weather in Spain is a significant factor, with temperatures climbing so dramatically throughout the summer that numerous residents abandon the city entirely.

Valencia generally starts warming from approximately May, when temperatures sit around 23C on average.

This subsequently increases during early summer, hitting roughly 27C in June, before reaching its peak at about 29C throughout July and August.

After summer, temperatures steadily decline once more, with conditions becoming markedly cooler during autumn.

Throughout the winter period, from approximately November through April, the climate typically stabilises between about 19C and 14C, creating a considerably cooler yet still reasonably temperate environment when compared to numerous other European destinations.

She continued: “I just thought of something that was shocking to me when I first moved to Spain.

“I remember walking around thinking it was so quiet here. I thought I moved to a vibrant, energetic country and culture. I was walking around and realised the streets were really dead.

“As the summer starts and school is out, people start leaving town because it gets so hot and humid here. Slowly, starting in June, every day I notice more and more, the streets are quieter.

“In August, I notice tourists around and then September came about and everyone was back and it lively again and I was like, ‘Okay, that’s what I thought it was going to be like’.”

Baffled by this seasonal transformation, she questioned: “Anyone else feel that post-school exodus energy?”

Her clip generated discussion online, with one viewer responding: “Oh interesting because in winter it was busy!”

Someone else sought guidance, posting: “What area would you recommend for a family with kids of school age? Ideally we would love to live closer to school, we are starting the moving process for next summer and I’m so confused.”

The content creator answered: “There are lots of public schools as well as concertados. The international schools are the ones out of town a bit. I think on either side of Turia Gardens is great for families.”

Coronation Street has shared new spoiler for next week episodes with two villains under the spotlight, while an iconic character faces grave danger after a revenge twist

It’s a really big week on Coronation Street next week, with danger, bombshells and discoveries that could change everything.

One soap legend could be left fighting for his life after a deliberate act of arson. Details are being kept under wraps in terms of what unfolds, but recent hints suggest Roy Cropper’s life will be at risk.

There’s also a killer bombshell for one character, while a villain is finally exposed by his victim for their cruel and abusive behaviour. More than one baddie’s true colours come to light, very much paving the way for the dramatic murder episode airing later this month.

It’s certainly a week to watch as things become clearer, motives for the shock death grow and we see multiple characters taking centre stage. Kicking things off, Summer questions Theo about Billy’s last moments, but she’s shocked by Theo and Todd’s plans to move to Belfast.

READ MORE: Emmerdale fans ‘work out’ Dr Todd’s link to Graham – and it’s bad news for KimREAD MORE: Soap spoilers reveal legend faces death, divorce news and court verdict

Summer tells Todd her fears that Theo killed Billy, while George and Sarah try to stop Todd leaving. At the flat, Todd makes his bid for freedom, but will he get away?

Todd finally speaks out, standing up to Theo in a special episode before reporting the abuse to Lisa and Kit. Theo is desperate to flee, but will he make his escape or will he be stopped?

Sarah vows to find video evidence of the abuse Todd has endured, while Todd struggles to return to normality. Roy is in grave danger when Mal takes revenge, as the café is set on fire.

With everyone thinking Roy is out, they have no idea he’s unconscious in the smoked out flat upstairs, so will he be saved? Debbie sees Carl’s true colours when Summer tells her about Carl’s offer to give her information about Billy’s death, in exchange for his life insurance payout.

Debbie kicks Carl out, while Ronnie makes him an offer. Mal reports Kit for assault, but Kit plays it down to Lisa, claiming Mal is unhinged. Later, Lisa misplaces her police badge as she sets off for work.

Elsewhere, Jodie’s latest actions spark a rift with the family, and Ben quizzes Steve about their dad Jim. George confides in Glenda that he might have to sell the business, and Eva tries to get the Driscolls on good terms again.

Coronation Street airs weeknights at 8:30pm on ITV1 and ITV X. * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .

“Little House on the Prairie” alumna Melissa Gilbert remains steadfast in her support for husband Timothy Busfield, the Emmy-winning actor who has been embroiled in a child sex abuse scandal since earlier this year.

Gilbert, in her first sit-down interview since Busfield’s indictment in February, told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos she trusts her husband “with my children’s lives, my grandchildren’s lives, my nieces and nephews” and said she expects the “Thirtysomething” star will be exonerated at trial next year.

“Believe me, if I thought for a second that Tim Busfield hurt a child, he’d have a lot more to worry about than prison,” she said in part of the interview that aired Monday on “Good Morning America.”

In February, a New Mexico grand jury indicted 68-year-old Busfield on four counts of criminal sexual contact of a child. A month prior, New Mexico officials accused Busfield of of inappropriately touching two child actors, who are brothers, during his time as an actor, director and producer on the Fox crime drama “The Cleaning Lady.”

One child actor alleged that Busfield had first touched his “private areas” multiple times on set when he was 7, according to the complaint. He said Busfield touched him inappropriately again several times when he was 8. The affidavit also detailed a police interview with Busfield in which he suggested that the boys’ mother might have sought “revenge” on the director for “not bringing her kids back for the final season.”

Busfield turned himself in to law enforcement days after the warrant was issued and denied the accusations. He was jailed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Albuquerque but was released on his own recognizance Jan. 20.

For Gilbert, 61, the allegations and ensuing chain of events have been “hell.” Recent months have brought “the most traumatizing experiences of our lives,” she told Stephanopoulos, adding, “Our life as we knew it is done.”

The couple married in 2013. “The West Wing” actor Busfield has three adult children from two previous marriages and is the stepfather to Gilbert’s two adult sons from her two previous marriages. When the allegations first surfaced, a publicist for Gilbert said the actor would not comment on her husband’s case, denounced “any purported statements” and said that Gilbert was focused on caring for her and Busfield’s family.

During the Monday interview Gilbert said she and her husband are “grieving what we had: all of our plans, all of our dreams, all of our ideas, all of our projects.” She said her husband has become persona non grata — “canceled,” in her words — and that the allegations will continue to cast a shade over his career “even if he’s exonerated.” Busfield’s lawyer Larry Stein and Gilbert both told Stephanopoulos they are confident that will be the case.

When asked what justice for her husband might look like, Gilbert replied: “Exoneration and apology. Free him from this cloud.”

Elsewhere in the interview, attorney Stein doubled down on his belief that the child actors and their parents are “absolutely” making false allegations against Busfield. The actors’ parents did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Gilbert also told Stephanopoulos that before she married Busfield, she was aware he had been accused of sexual harassment twice by different women, once in 1994 and another time in 2012. Those two cases were mentioned in the January complaint against Busfield.

“I didn’t go into my relationship with him blind. I am neither naive nor am I complicit,” she said, adding she and her husband discussed those claims. “I heard his side of the story which no one has ever heard which is the truth. And when the time is right, and that is not now, Tim will tell the truth of all of these past allegations when he needs to.”