life

Some of us are booked and busy six days a week traveling to the Mamanuca Islands of Fiji by way of the current season of “Love Island USA.” But sometimes an escape needs an escape. Peacock has a new beachy series that adapts Elin Hilderbrand’s bestselling 2023 novel, “The Five-Star Weekend.”

Now streaming, the series stars Jennifer Garner as Hollis, a lifestyle influencer grieving the death of her husband who decides to host a getaway to Nantucket with old and new friends — played by Regina Hall, Chloë Sevigny, D’Arcy Carden and Gemma Chan — to try to heal. It’s primarily a story of grief, resilience and female camaraderie. But there are glimmers of romance, too, courtesy of Hollis’ childhood boyfriend Jack, played by Timothy Olyphant. It reunites Olyphant and Garner two decades after they starred in the 2006 romantic comedy “Catch & Release.” And it’s not the only series that features Olyphant this month. He’ll also appear in Apple TV’s “Lucky,” which premieres Wednesday with two episodes, as a con artist father to the titular character (Anya Taylor-Joy). Olyphant stopped by Guest Spot to discuss both series.

But this week didn’t just bring new summer launches. A look back at some of the standout series and performances from the recent season of television arrived Wednesday when 2026 Emmy nominations were announced. HBO Max’s “The Pitt” and “Hacks” led the pack — you can check out the full list of nominees here. But you may have more fun reading what our awards czar Glenn Whipp considered a snub or a surprise — come for his pitch-perfect Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce wedding comparison, stay for his astute observations. We also checked in with some of this year’s nominees: Rhea Seehorn (“Pluribus”), Sepideh Moafi (“The Pitt”) and Matthew Rhys (“Widow’s Bay”). (And, hey, if you’re a fan of “Widow’s Bay,” be sure to check out TV critic Robert Lloyd’s brilliant spotlight on K Callan, who has received well-earned praise for her turn as Ruth, the town’s forgetful secretary with a secret.)

Elsewhere in Screen Gab, our writers recommend two animated series that expand two beloved franchises. One focuses on the early days of your favorite “Adventure Time” duo, Finn the Human and Jake the Dog, the other revisits Marvel’s band of heroic mutants.

Meanwhile, I’ve been on my own nostalgia kick, revisiting episodes of “Tales From the Crypt” on Shudder. That decaying Crypt Keeper’s maniacal laugh, I fear, makes me feel like a kid again. Let’s see how long that lasts. See you next week!

— Yvonne Villarreal

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Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times

Finn and Jake in “Adventure Time: Side Quests.”

(Cartoon Network Studios)

“Adventure Time: Side Quests” (Disney+, Hulu)

We return to the Land of Ooo in the days when Finn the Human (now voiced by Sasha Knight, Jeremy Shada being almost 30) had not yet turned 13, and the order of the day was to go out and fight things. You’d think reviving a cartoon was easy — just draw the characters, make some similar voices — but we are talking about one of the greatest epics of this century, and I approached this revival with some trepidation. First, I looked to see whether longtime showrunner Adam Muto was still in charge, and he isn’t. But new captain Nate Cash is a veteran of the “Adventure Time” art department, wrote more than 40 episodes of “SpongeBob SquarePants” and was the supervising director on Patrick McHale’s great “Over the Garden Wall,” whose art director Nick Cross is the art director here. The new visual style, which dispenses with the usual outlines and detailing in favor of a sort of painterly Little Golden Book look, is jarring at first, but it grows on you — I mean, I’d buy an “Adventure Time” Little Golden Book — and keeps “Side Quests” from reading like a retread. The stories are good, the new monsters inventive. It’s got spunk. Most importantly, John DiMaggio is back as Jake the Dog, along with Tom Kenny as the Ice King, Olivia Olson as Marceline and Hynden Walch as Princess Bubblegum. Even series creator Pendleton Ward popped in to voice Lumpy Space Princess and write an episode — a seal of approval. — Robert Lloyd

A scene from Season 2 of Marvel’s “X-Men ’97.”

(Marvel)

“X-Men ‘97” (Disney+)

Regardless of whether you attribute it to “fatigue,” it’s no secret that comic book superhero stories have struggled to draw audiences to theaters these last few years. But some of the best offerings of the genre have been on TV. “X-Men ‘97” is a revival of one of my formative media experiences — “X-Men: The Animated Series.” Boasting some returning talent among the cast and creatives, “X-Men ‘97” continues the story of the iconic mutant team as they navigate being superheroes in a world that doesn’t always accept them for who they are. The first season leaned into some signature X-Men themes around tolerance, xenophobia and extremist violence while trying to thwart a superpowered genocidal human-android hybrid that wields an army of killer robots. The second season, which premiered earlier this month, picks up after the cliffhanger that saw members of the X-Men team scattered across time to cross paths with different versions of the powerful supervillain Apocalypse. Expect plenty of action, interpersonal tensions and philosophical dilemmas around destiny and morality. — Tracy Brown

Guest spot

A weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they’re working on — and what they’re watching

Timothy Olyphant in “Lucky.”

(Jessica Brooks / Apple TV)

Is it even July if Timothy Olyphant isn’t on your screen? Whether you prefer a breezy watch or a grifter thriller, the veteran actor has it covered. In Peacock’s “The Five-Star Weekend,” he plays the cool and charming high school sweetheart who softly orbits the show’s grief-stricken protagonist (Jennifer Garner) as she tries to heal from the death of her husband. The green flags are less obvious with his turn in Apple TV’s crime thriller “Lucky” as John Armstrong, an imprisoned father whose daughter (Anya Taylor-Joy) is on the run after the multimillion-dollar heist he got her caught up in collapses. It has the pair caught between a determined FBI agent (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) and the ruthless mob boss (Annette Bening).

And there’s more Olyphant in the pipeline. Production on Season 2 of FX’s “Alien: Earth” is underway. And later this year, he can be seen reprising his “Once Upon a Time in … Hollywood” character James Stacy — the true-life star of late-1960s western show “Lancer” — in David Fincher’s “The Adventures of Cliff Booth.” When does he sleep? When we caught him by phone in mid-June, he assured us he had just completed a lengthy nap. He discussed what it was like sharing screen time with Bening, reuniting with Garner and the small-time sports event that had his attention. — Y.V.

In “Lucky,” you’re playing a con artist who has brought his daughter into a criminal underworld. What did their father-daughter dynamic reveal to you?

There is something compelling about exploring a relationship in which a man has done a lot of damage to his kid without even seemingly knowing it. The idea of hurting your kids is like just the worst nightmare possible. The idea of doing it without even being aware of it makes it even worse. I knew [creator Jonathan] Tropper was behind it all, and he’s an extremely good writer, so I knew it was in good hands with exploring that material in a really elegant way.

You’re known for playing lawmen, but you have also played antagonists — both types of characters are often willing to cross lines or bend rules or sacrifice things to achieve what they see as the greater good. How do you think about those two types of figures?

I do find it compelling exploring the conflict between of feeling like you have to break rules in order to enforce rules and this idea of the original sin. Any interesting character has to be aware they’re capable of sin, except for maybe on “Law & Order,” but for the most part, life is complicated.

In the first two episodes of “Lucky,” your interactions are strictly with Anya and with Annette — both are dynamic performers at different stages in their careers. What stands out to you about sharing scenes with them?

Anya is really impressive because she has a composure and a strength to her that just seems beyond her years. I certainly didn’t have it when I was her age, and I just have a tremendous amount of respect for her and how she handled things on the other side of the camera,. And Annette is just a wonderfully unpredictable actor, take to take. You never see the same thing twice, and you never feel like you’re not playing in the right sandbox. It’s just a honor and a pleasure to work with her.

There’s a moment where Annette put her hand on your cheek — it terrified me.

Can I tell you? Only one take. And I’m smart enough to know, when that she did that, I thought to myself, “This is going to be on TV.”

Let’s also talk about “Five–Star Weekend.” Its focus is not necessarily on romance, but of friendship between women, but you do factor in as a flirtation of sorts for Jennifer Garner’s character. You’ve worked together before in 2006’s “Catch and Release.” How was it to reunite with her for this?

A pleasure. She’s a pro and gave just a wonderful performance in that show. It was easy-peasy working with her. I show up. They gave you a lot of cool things to say, and somebody hands you really cool wardrobe, the acting partner is really good, and so it makes the job pretty simple.

Timothy Olyphant as Jack and Jennifer Garner as Hollis in Peacock’s “The Five-Star Weekend.”

(Greg Gayne / Peacock)

You’re also reprising your “Once Upon a Time in … Hollywood” character James Stacy in David Fincher’s “The Adventures of Cliff Booth.” What’s it like being directed by him? How does he deliver a directing note?

That’s just that experience is really high up on the bucket list, and I just thank my lucky stars I had that opportunity. It was a very special experience.

He gives them [notes] out quite generously, is what he does. He gives you many and often, it’s really unlike anything I’ve experienced. I really enjoyed. It felt like a workout; it was this intense exploration of of the work. I hope I get another opportunity [to work with him]. I’d be thrilled.

You’re beginning production on Season 2 of “Alien: Earth.” What has it been like playing this android with bleached hair and eyebrows in this fictional world? The level of artistry of that set is quite something; I can’t imagine what it’s like being on that set.

It’s essentially child’s play, but sometimes it feels like you’re saying that with capital letters — this falls under that category. So many of the effects are practical, so many of the creatures are practical, so it’s a kick to be around that stuff. It’s a lot of oohing and aahing when you’re working with practical effects. And it’s about something. It’s got something to say. That’s pretty special when those two things come together.

Being on a set with those monsters that I watched as a kid, that I was thrilled watching those movies — to now wake up one day, and you’re part of that, you pinch yourself a little bit.

What can you tease about the new season?

It’s gonna get weird. There’s a lot going on on the surface and under the surface on this one.

Before I let you go, what show has your attention? I know you’ve been busy, so if you can’t tell me what you’ve watched recently, is there something you plan to watch on your long plane ride?

Does the World Cup count? I’ve got the World Cup fever. It’s just one of the greatest sporting events in the world.

Are you primarily rooting for us? Who are you going for?

What do you mean, am I rooting for us?

I mean, when we’re not playing, who are you rooting for?

I root for Brazil. My wife grew up in Brazil, so there’s a lot of Brazilian enthusiasm here in this house. I root too for our people to the north; I’m a fan of the Canadians. I just love that event. I love that it’s all these countries and everything evens out on that grass. It’s pretty great.

ICYMI

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STORAGE Wars legend Darrell Sheets left behind a chilling suicide note blaming online bullying before taking his own life.

Newly released police documents have shed shocking new light on the 66-year-old’s death as police records reveal his final days.

Darrell died at 67 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, the US Sun confirmed in April.

Officials responded to reports of a deceased person at Darrell’s home at 2am on April 22, according to a statement from Lake Havasu City Police Department obtained by The U.S. Sun.

He was pronounced dead at the scene after his girlfriend called 911 reporting she had heard a gunshot

Investigators have found a handwritten note hidden inside a black basket in a bathroom closet near where he was found dead.

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According to the report, obtained by TMZ, detectives said the note appeared to reference the online abuse Darrell had been facing

Police summarised the message as reading: “I could not take anymore the Facebook bulling, f*** you [redacted]”.

Investigators also noted the handwriting appeared shaky.

The heartbreaking discovery came as cops pieced together Darrell’s final hours, revealing a disturbing picture of stress, sleepless nights and family turmoil before the fatal gunshot.

Darrell’s girlfriend told investigators he had struggled to sleep on the night he died and got out of bed in the early hours before walking into the doorway of his office

She said he told her to “go back to bed” – before moments later a single gunshot rang out.

Police records also reveal growing family tension in the days before his death.

Darrell’s girlfriend said his son had recently visited and the pair became embroiled in a heated argument over “family drama” before he left.

She claimed the situation worsened after Darrell received text messages from his daughter-in-law accusing her of being suspicious and stealing money from him.

The messages allegedly left the reality star visibly upset.

In a follow-up interview, his girlfriend told detectives the arguments between Darrell and his son became so intense she left the house after the son was yelling at him.

She claimed Darrell later told her he did not want to be alone with his son and had been “sad as hell” following the confrontation, believing he had let him down.

Investigators also revealed Darrell had been battling severe insomnia for months and was under huge pressure in the run-up to his death.

His girlfriend said he often struggled to sleep and was dealing with overwhelming stress – but insisted he had never spoken about harming himself and that their relationship remained strong.

The medical examiner later ruled his death a suicide.

Following the tragedy, his son Brandon Sheets broke his silence with an emotional tribute, calling Darrell “the best dad a son could ask for”.

He also revealed plans to reopen his father’s Arizona store, Show Me Your Junk, to continue the family legacy.

The mention of Facebook bullying in Darrell’s final note has also raised fresh questions, after fellow Storage Wars star Rene Nezhoda previously claimed Darrell had been facing relentless online harassment before his death.

Police investigated the bullying claims as they worked to understand what led to the TV star’s devastating final moments.

Darrell appeared on Storage Wars as a main castmember from 2010 to 2021 and was known as “The Gambler” for his high-risk purchases.

He continued to make appearances on seasons 14 and 15 as a guest buyer before leaving the show for good.

Darrell was joined by his son, Brandon, for nine seasons on Storage Wars.

Darrell also made appearances on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno and on Rachael Ray’s cooking show.

After retiring from Storage Wars, he moved to Lake Havasu, Arizona, where he operated an antique shop called Show Me Your Junk.

He previously had health issues, including a heart attack in 2019 that he had surgery to recover from.

UK: For help and support, call the Samaritans for free from a UK phone, completely anonymously, on 116 123 or go to samaritans.org. 

US: If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org. 

Martina and artist Sketkh Williams, Sketch by Sketkh’s host, provide a welcoming atmosphere across identities, skill levels and nerdy interests, while also playing to their own backgrounds in theater. The sessions feature dramatic lighting, staging and soundtracks, and use professional cosplayers as models. Embodying characters from “Star Wars,” video games, anime and other IP, these pros don’t just dress the part, they take pains to hit their characters’ canonical stances for attendees to capture.

For Martina and Williams, the events are an alternative to nude or more traditional figure drawing sessions. “That just doesn’t interest us,” says Martina. “We’re both theatrical people, so for us part of putting on a show is seeing characters, some cool costume design and a theme.”

• Best for: Practiced amateurs with nerdy interests
• When: Every other Thursday at 7:30 p.m.
• Ticket price: Starts at $23.18

Dallas Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland had early-stage chronic traumatic encephalopathy when he died by suicide at age 24 in November, according to test results released by his family Tuesday through the Concussion & CTE Foundation.

“While this diagnosis does not change the tragedy of his passing, it provides important context about some of the struggles he may have been facing,” Kneeland’s family, including girlfriend Catalina Mancera, said in a statement.

CTE is a degenerative brain disease that has been found in people who experience repetitive head trauma and can be diagnosed only after death.

“We share this information to help people understand what NFL and other high contact sport athletes might be struggling with,” the family said. “Raising awareness is important to us. We continue to remember Marshawn with compassion for the person he was, rather than defining him by the final moments of his life. One Love.”

Frisco, Texas, police said Kneeland didn’t stop when state Department of Public Safety troopers tried to pull him over on Nov. 5 for a traffic violation. The 2024 second-round draft pick was pursued by authorities in his vehicle and then on foot before being found “deceased with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” Frisco police said in a statement at the time.

Police-dispatch audio from the incident revealed that Kneeland had sent out a group text to say goodbye to his family.

Researchers at the Boston University CTE Center analyzed Kneeland’s brain tissue and determined that the athlete, who started playing tackle football at age 7, was in stage one of four of CTE.

“Unfortunately, I was not surprised to find CTE in the brain of Mr. Kneeland, because we have found this progressive brain disease in nearly half of the athletes we’ve studied who have died before the age of 30,” Dr. Ann McKee, the center’s director, said in a statement.

“Thanks to the generosity of our brain donor families, we now better understand the earliest stages of CTE, and it is bringing us closer than ever to diagnosing it during life. My team and I are fully dedicated to finding effective treatments and a cure for CTE.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

LOS ANGELES — A lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges that the Trump administration’s immigration agencies have been sharing confidential information about Iranian asylum seekers with the Iranian government, violating national immigration regulations and endangering countless Iranians, court filings argue.

The lawsuit depicts a coordinated campaign between the U.S. and Iranian governments to identify Iranians in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody and pressure them to return to Iran — a marked departure from decades of diplomatic hostility between the two governments and an ongoing war.

Roughly 600 Iranians were put in immigration detention last year, according to public records obtained by the National Iranian American Council. In June, an Iranian woman was among the two dozen migrants the U.S. deported to the Central African Republic — in a marked departure from a decades-long practice by the U.S. of welcoming Iranian dissidents, exiles and others since the 1979 Islamic Revolution forced a large number of Iranians to flee.

The U.S. government is allowed to work with government officials of foreign countries to coordinate deportation logistics. However, federal regulations passed in the late 1990s prohibit the government from sharing information that could reveal that the individual getting deported applied for asylum.

“Congress made these confidentiality protections mandatory precisely because lives depend on them, and no agency and no administration, of either party, may set them aside,” said Ali Rahnama, the interim executive director of Iranian American Legal Defense Fund.

Starting in March 2025, the U.S. State Department arranged monthly meetings with Iranian officials, using the Pakistani embassy as an intermediary, in which U.S. officials shared detailed, sensitive information about detained Iranian immigrants who the U.S. government hoped to deport, lawyers for the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund and the Public Citizen Litigation Group wrote in a complaint.

The information included details about asylum applications filed by people who say they were persecuted for converting to Christianity, for their sexuality or for participating in the Women, Life, Freedom protests against the Iranian government in 2022, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

ICE forced Iranian asylum applicants who had been detained in numerous facilities, mostly southern states, to meet with an Iranian government official who had extensive and specific knowledge about their applications, according to the complaint. The information was shared even after the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran started the Iran war in February 2026.

The lawsuit is seeking to halt sharing information about asylum seekers with the Iranian government and appoint an independent monitor to prevent future disclosures.

“Despite the U.S.’s ongoing war with Iran, the administration seems more committed to mass deportation than protecting human lives,” Michael Kirkpatrick, attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group said in a statement.

The complaint names the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin and the Department of State as some of the defendants. The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment on Tuesday morning.

The allegations come amid President Trump’s ambitious and aggressive immigration crackdown that involved over 600,000 deportations and causing roughly 1.9 million immigrants to voluntarily leave in 2025 alone, according to an announcement made by DHS.

Iranian officials acknowledged in September 2025 that as many as 400 Iranians could be returned under an agreement with the Trump’s administration. That month, the first of three deportation flights brought dozens of Iranians back to Iran. The second deportation flight was in December 2025, and the final recorded deportation flight departed at the end of January 2026, roughly a month before the war on Iran started, and just weeks after the Iranian government killed thousands of citizens as part of a brutal crackdown on protests. The New York Times reported at the time that some of those deported in the flights in September, December and January were asylum seekers.

Riddle writes for the Associated Press.

The history of all living things is examined through five key species chosen for the way they move, feed and reproduce and also for their size and intelligence

Chris Packham famously hates so-called “T-shirt” animals – preferring beetles and bugs to the more box-office elephants, lions and tigers.

But for his major new BBC series examining the history of every living creature’s existence, the presenter had to block that prejudice as he looked back over 4 billion years. In Evolution, viewers will see how every plant and animal evolved – differently – from a single celled organism called LUCA.

And in order to explain this effectively, the five episodes focus on the elephant (size), ostrich (reproduction), horse (movement), bat (feeding) and dolphin (intelligence) to show what changes have happened over the millennia until they started to look a bit like the creatures we recognise today.

“TV likes an iconic species, something to put on the T-shirt,” Chris laughs, acknowledging that he doesn’t normally go for these “celebrity” animals which tend to draw in viewers, but go against the grain for Chris. “On Springwatch we’re always keen to champion the underdog, we make films about slugs and snails and flies and all those sorts of things, so we’re trying to build up that idea in people’s minds that everything counts – not just the fluffy birds in the nest, or the cute pine-marten kits. Survival of the cutest has always been an issue.”

“But had we picked, I don’t know, some innocuous little bug, it wouldn’t have looked great,” he laughed. “I’m not a great fan of T-shirt animals, but I am a fan of using them constructively.”

He even admits that filming the series, in different locations around the globe, brought him one of the best moments of his life, when he found himself right in the middle of a pod of dolphins during a break in filming. “It was absolutely extraordinary,” he says. “There were times when the cameraman was doing something and I was still in the water and I could just actually just be there with them.

“I dived down about four metres and I looked down and I had a dolphin right underneath me, under my chest. And I had couple on one side, I mean they never touch you, but they’re close, and a couple on the other side – and then I looked up and they were above me. And I was like in the middle of a pod of dolphins. You can hear them the whole time, they’re constantly clicking. So you can here that that’s that communication going on.

“It was just five minutes or something, it wasn’t a lot of time, but long enough to actually just engage, and realise that this was one of the most remarkable moments in my entire life. To be in that environment with these astonishing animals. I thought ‘blimey, I’m Flipper’.”

The five-part science show, which must be Packham’s most ambitious programme to date, has clear similarities in scope to Sir David Attenborough’s 1979 series Life on Earth, which set out to look at the earliest life forms. “I’d say it was more modern in its narrative structure,” he says thoughtfully. “Also, we’re catering for an audience that we know we need to surprise. We want to feed them short snippets, which are basically entry information into a bigger story, if you like. Those twenty-second things that get people to prick up their ears. And we want people to down the pub and say, ‘do you know what? I just watched this programme and, you won’t believe it, we couldn’t have a head before we had an arse’.

“I don’t think Life on Earth is like that. That felt very 1970s, because that’s when it was made, this just feels like a really modern, cutting-edge version.”

To film the series the BBC team were very careful about where they went in order to limit the carbon footprint. “Ten or 15 years ago, we would have gone to multiple locations to make a series like this,” Chris says. “But I’m pleased to say that each of our programmes was essentially made in one location.”

The elephants in the series opener were filmed in Kenya and the ostriches in South Africa. The horses were in the UK, with three days in France which was reached by train. Then the dolphins were in the Bahamas and the bats were in Borneo.

Chris says his role as presenter on the show, from the team who previously brought us Earth, is to keep the audience enthralled, and showing his own excitement is a big part of that, just as he experienced while watching his hero Attenborough. He particularly remembers a programme made by the veteran broadcaster about birds of paradise, filmed in Papua New Guinea.

“They were my dream birds because they’re mental, they look like space aliens,” he explains. “And I was sat there waiting for it to come on, just thinking, ‘you b****rd, I want to go to Papua, I want to see that.’ But in fact my response to the programme, and a testament to his broadcasting, was that I absolutely loved it because I felt the connection to the birds through his joy.”

Chris found himself caught up in some beautiful moments that will also tug at the audience’s heartstrings, such as when a baby ostrich hatched out of its egg right into his hands. “You’re peering into it, it’s not even in the world yet, and it’s like you’ve had a sneak preview into a life which is going to unfold,” he marvels. “It’s just this little thing moving, and that was really very emotional, that formation of new life.”

Learning new stuff is “the greatest joy” of his job. “I get to work with people who know more about a subject than I do. And their job is to tell me and the team everything they know about it in 30 seconds,” he says. “So my joy is that I attend the University of Zoology every single day that I’m working, and this is updated information, so we’ve constantly gone to the latest science.”

While they don’t skirt away from the technical stuff, like explaining how DNA works, Chris feels it is carefully woven into the narrative. “There’s no dumbing down, but we are conscious constantly of building a narrative which will keep our audience engaged.”

– Evolution, BBC2, Monday 13 July, 9pm

Gustavo Dudamel’s farewell to Los Angeles will also function as a benefit for his homeland of Venezuela, which suffered catastrophic losses from twin earthquakes in late June.

Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic announced Monday that the beloved composer’s final Hollywood Bowl performance as the orchestra’s music and artistic director, originally programmed as “Celebrating Gustavo at the Bowl: A Musical Legacy,” will instead be called “A Concert for Venezuela.” Still scheduled for Aug. 23, the show will raise funds for communities affected by the earthquakes.

“Venezuela will always be my home, and every moment, my thoughts are with the families whose lives have been forever changed by this tragedy,” Dudamel said in a statement. “The suffering is immense, but so is the strength and resilience of our people. This concert at the Hollywood Bowl is an invitation to stand together and transform our compassion into action.”

A full program and special guests will be announced later. Dudamel and the musicians will contribute their time and services free of charge.

Donations will benefit Dudamel’s Earthquake Recovery to Support Venezuelan Communities fund, in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme and the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean fund. The L.A. Phil will contribute $50,000 to the fund, announced President and Chief Executive Kim Noltemy.

“In moments of profound need, our responsibility as an institution extends beyond the stage,” she said. “We are grateful for the opportunity to provide direct financial support to relief efforts for communities in Venezuela with a $50,000 charitable donation and to stand alongside Gustavo in bringing this concert to life at the Bowl.”

Twin earthquakes on June 24 devastated Venezuela, with more than 3,300 deaths and more than 30,000 people reported missing. As international rescue teams depart and locals are left to search through rubble, Venezuelans abroad, including L.A. restaurants, have looked for ways to send support.

Dudamel, who was born and raised in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, wrote in a 2015 op-ed for The Times that he is a “product” of El Sistema, the country’s government-funded youth music program. He has been the music director of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra since 1999.

Once again, Walker Kessler sat hunched forward, ears and eyes intently locked onto the person whose words would change his life.

This wasn’t his bewildering 2022 NBA draft day experience captured on video that began with him hearing commissioner Adam Silver announce he had been chosen by the Memphis Grizzlies only to learn moments later that he had been traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves, only to learn two weeks after that he’d been dealt to the Utah Jazz.

No, this time it was about the love of his life, Abbie Stockard. Glued to a screen, Kessler reacted to the words, “Your new Miss America is … Alabama!” as if he’d been electrocuted. He jumped from his chair and put his hands over his mouth, speechless as Stockard was crowned.

Nineteen months later, Kessler — now the Lakers center — found his voice while on a Fourth of July outing at Lake Martin, Ala., and asked Stockard to marry him. She said yes.

The Lakers obtained the 7-foot-2 Kessler from the Jazz on July 1 in exchange for 2031 and 2033 first-round picks and 2028 and 2030 pick swaps, bringing to L.A. a strong defensive presence to accompany offensive-first star guards Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves.

Kessler, 24, agreed to a four-year, $130 million contract, not a bad nest egg for newlyweds. The Instagram story of the two sharing their engagement was captioned: “The future Kessler’s. Let’s get y’all married!!!”

Kessler’s mother, Andrea, played matchmaker two years ago, taking a photo of Stockard during an Auburn basketball game and sending it to her son. He messaged her on Instagram.

Stockard was on the dance team at Auburn, where she studied pediatric nursing. Now she is a former Miss America engaged to the Lakers’ newest star.

“I get to marry Walker Kessler — my best friend!,” she wrote on social media. “Our story is truly one that only the Lord could have written. So many things I once thought were coincidences were really His perfect plan unfolding, and our story is greater than anything I could have imagined.

“There’s no one else I’d rather spend the rest of my life with, doing life together and cheering each other on!”

In 201 games with the Jazz, Kessler averaged 9.5 points, 9.3 rebounds and 2.4 blocks across 25.3 minutes. He played only five games last season while recovering from a shoulder injury.

The American democratic experiment stands on shaky ground. Not since the Civil War have these proverbially United States been so disunited. As the nation throws itself a grand old 250th birthday bash in Washington, the mood in much of the country is more funereal than festive.

All-out partisan warfare has sown chaos. Republican legislators, taking their lead from a president who sees half the nation as his personal enemy, have put their own party’s interests over the republic’s. Staying in office has become the only thing that matters. The values imparted to me throughout my public school education — equal opportunity, impartial justice, respect for expertise, basic honesty — have been abandoned by a new breed of politician that has turned governance itself into a blood sport.

Where can one turn for reassurance that America’s best years are still ahead? Would you believe me if I said the theater? I’m not toeing the line for my field. I’m merely calling attention to a development that’s been gaining strength since I first reported on it in 2015. A cohort of playwrights, breathtakingly diverse demographically as well as aesthetically, has been rejuvenating American theater.

These writers aren’t on a sociological mission. They’re not trafficking in grievance or appealing to a particular political base. They let their plays do the talking. And they’ve been trying to have a conversation that isn’t hijacked by the most doctrinaire voices in the room.

From an institutional perspective, the American theater is in bad shape. The triple whammy of the COVID-19 closures, inflation and technological disruption has left everyone hurting. The Mark Taper Forum had to suspend programming for more than a year, smaller companies still in operation are producing fewer shows, and producers everywhere are gravitating toward the bankably familiar.

But despite this difficult terrain, it has been a boom time for American playwriting. For more than a decade, I’ve been teaching a course at the California Institute of the Arts called American Drama Now, and each year the selection of plays has become harder to whittle down. I designed the seminar partly around theater offerings in Los Angeles to connect students to recent developments in the field and to consolidate awareness that something special is happening in the American theater.

The current generation of playwrights has revealed itself to be remarkably resilient and independent. It has had no other choice. By the time many of these rising talents were accruing debt in graduate writing programs, the dream of a sustainable career in the nonprofit theater had already gasped its last breath.

When Wendy Wasserstein, Tony Kushner, Craig Lucas and Jon Robin Baitz emerged in the late 1970s and ’80s, it was still imaginable that a chosen few playwrights could make a living via the regional theater circuit, that constellation of companies founded as an alternative to the Broadway model.

That prospect was growing dimmer a few years later when playwrights such as Suzan-Lori Parks and Lynn Nottage came into prominence. But hope was still alive in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Regional theaters such as Seattle Rep, the Guthrie, the Goodman and Baltimore Center Stage remained committed to their missions while New York nonprofit companies continued to hold the line off-Broadway.

When did the picture change? In 2009, “Outrageous Fortune: The Life and Times of the New American Play” was published by the Theatre Development Fund, and one of the key findings in this study written by Todd London with Ben Pesner and Zannie Giraud Voss is that “there is no way to view playwriting as anything but a profession without an economic base.” A chasm had opened between the network of increasingly corporate-minded nonprofit theaters and the artists this system was built to serve.

The situation has grown bleaker in the last decade and a half as commercial pressures have ramped up and media consolidation and digital shortsightedness have obliterated arts coverage. Yet there’s been an unexpected upside. Theater artists who have come of age in this period have been released from the burden of having to conform to notions of regional theater respectability.

Instead of worrying about the timid taste of subscription audiences, these dramatists have been writing for themselves and their communities, dreaming up plays that don’t have to fit into institutional slots or stay within the staid bounds of traditional proscenium house decorum. The irony is that in not trying to pass muster with more conservative theatergoers (and their fastidious institutional guardians), playwrights have been winning over not just critics but also formerly squeamish artistic directors and perennially nervous Broadway producers.

The playwrights who appear regularly on the syllabus in American Drama Now — Young Jean Lee, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Annie Baker, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Samuel D. Hunter, Martyna Majok, Jeremy O. Harris, Will Arbery, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Quiara Alegría Hudes, Ayad Akhtar, among them — are of different ages, sensibilities and backgrounds. What they share is an appreciation of the complexities and contradictions in being an American.

The politics of identity for them is a lived experience. And as dramatists, they’re uniquely positioned to appreciate the conflicted loyalties and communal tensions of American life in dramatic rather than dogmatic terms. Whatever agendas they may personally espouse, these writers are too alert to the messiness of history and human nature to be rigidly ideological in their work.

The ongoing war between woke and anti-woke factions is a fatuous melodrama best left to the satirists. The goal of playwrights grappling seriously with what it means to be an American today isn’t to score social media points but to shed light on the fractured reality of our collective experience.

Characters in plays by Young Jean Lee, such as “Straight White Men,” are often “trying on masks to see what might prove effective in a given situation.”

(Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Identity is not a fixed fact but a raucous collision of parts. No single category can contain the Whitmanesque multitudes jockeying for position inside us. Race, religion, ethnicity, gender, age, sexuality, class, disability and geography don’t line up in perfect political harmony, and each social marker tells only a fraction of the whole story. (Money, the great unequalizer, may be the most taboo subject of all.) “We are not only but also,” the sociologist and cultural historian Todd Gitlin wrote in his 1995 book “The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America Is Wracked by Culture Wars.” We also overlap and often even clash with ourselves.

Discussion around identity can be dangerous. How can anyone be expected to navigate the minefield? Tribalists and traditionalists have controlled the terms of the battle, one by simplifying, the other by denying, the way privilege has shaped our compound selves.

Playwrights know better. They understand the way oppression, which falls disproportionately on the marginalized, has warped all of us. History, whether acknowledged or not, is etched in our souls.

It is a long-held tenet of the theater that the most interesting characters, like the most interesting people, are defined by their schisms and paradoxes. (How else could Hamlet have maintained his centuries-long hold?) Dramatists are more cognizant than ever of the sociopolitical import of these contradictions and they’ve been chronicling the way this historically freighted baggage emerges in the drama of everyday life.

All the world is indeed a stage and all its inhabitants merely stock players, as Jaques lays out in “As You Like It.” Hegel described Shakespeare’s characters as “free artists of their own selves.” The truth where we and our contemporary stage surrogates are concerned is somewhat more constrained. Culture and representation largely determine the range of our performance possibilities.

Plays such as Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ “Appropriate” reexamine “the canon of great American family dramas … to uncover the stories that have been suppressed.”

(Craig Schwartz)

Jacobs-Jenkins has recognized perhaps more acutely than any of his peers the way dramatic forms have locked us into set scripts about our lives. He tackles genres — adapting a Dion Boucicault melodrama in “An Octoroon,” reexamining the canon of great American family dramas in “Appropriate” — to uncover the stories that have been suppressed in the dominant white middle-class narratives that would prefer not to think of themselves as political.

Lee’s standout identity plays — “Straight White Men,” “The Shipment” and “Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven” — reject the illusion of stable, coherent characters propagated by psychological realism. The figures in her uncategorizable works are in experimental flux, trying on masks to see what might prove effective in a given situation. Even “Straight White Men,” which uses the old home-for-the-holidays genre as a springboard, can’t help spinning away from the drama’s droll hyper-naturalism toward something resembling performance art. (Not even straight, white men want to be confined to a box, even a relatively plush one.)

“Fairview,” by Jackie Sibblies Drury, “theatricalizes the experience of the white gaze.”

(Jeff Lorch)

In “Fairview,” Jackie Sibblies Drury theatricalizes the experience of the white gaze, ultimately reversing the comfortable position white theater audiences have traditionally held. Bess Wohl’s “Liberation,” this year’s most decorated play, reanimates the history of the 1970s feminist movement by questioning what it could be leaving out of the picture. “The Balusters,” by David Lindsay-Abaire, brings the current culture wars to the stage with unique sensitivity through the squabbles of a neighborhood association torn between protecting its town’s heritage status and coming to terms with the more pluralistic demands of the 21st century.

“Fairview,” “Liberation,” and “The Balusters” are extremely funny plays that also happen to be deadly serious. If philosophy begins in wonder, trenchant social drama seems to start in laughter.

What do theatergoers want? They don’t just want to look; they also want to be seen. Isn’t that what any of us wants when gazing into the mirror held up to nature, as Hamlet describes the theater? To be granted a more expansive view of ourselves and others?

E pluribus unum, the motto of the United States, is so fundamental that it’s printed on our currency. There’s perhaps no place where the truth of this phrase — out of many, one — is more regularly realized than at the theater, where strangers transform over the course of a show into that mysterious organism we call an audience.

Gitlin ends “The Twilight of Common Dreams” with a plea: “For too long, Americans have busied themselves digging trenches to fortify their cultural borders, lining their trenches with insulation. Enough bunkers! Enough of the perfection of differences! We ought to be building bridges.”

A coalition mindset doesn’t mean denying history or pretending that America has been a level playing field. It’s been anything but in this “melting pot where nothing melted,” to quote the rabbi whose eulogy sets Kushner’s “Angels in America” in motion. But history happens to all of us, not just a select few. And to be an American is to be embroiled in the great democratic experiment that has been defined by division from the beginning. Empathy, the nuclear fusion of playwriting, is expanded when we’re allowed to take in more of our patchwork selves. Today’s dramatists have been extending a generous invitation to their compatriots: We’ll show you our complexity, if you’ll show us yours.

Can you tell the story of America in 10 movies? Maybe so — at least a version of it — if you stick to moments of serious national friction and those rare instances when a filmmaker meets the mood with a true vision. If you want tearjerkers about red, white and blue triumph, this is not your list (although the Space Race drama “The Right Stuff” always does the trick). Meanwhile, our current state of disunity and division will find its own expressions in time; start with “Civil War,” though it’s a bit too soon. Instead, we thought about historical pivot points and built a list of classics, along with a few alternatives for each title.

The Great Depression

Henry Fonda, left, in the 1940 film “The Grapes of Wrath,” directed by John Ford.

(20th Century-Fox)

‘The Grapes of Wrath’ (1940)

America is a broken place in John Ford’s poetically charged adaptation of the Steinbeck novel: a downbeat landscape of Oklahoma dust storms, long shadows and the teetering sight of a car turned into a truck transporting a family westward. This will always be one of those essential movies about a particular national dream — not just a myth — of emerging from economic catastrophe and being reborn in the promised land of California. Ford, with the instincts of a showman, foregrounded hope on the horizon via inspired performances by Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell’s pragmatic Ma Joad getting the final word (“We keep a’coming…”). But there is still so much darkness in “The Grapes of Wrath,” especially in its scenes of John Qualen’s Muley Graves, crumpled on the ground, suddenly a squatter on his own piece of land. He’s no match for the bulldozers. As long as the idea remains that property gets its purpose from those tending it, working it, nourishing it and dying on it, the film will never become a relic. Its binding values of labor and community remain relevant, even if today’s Hollywood rarely speaks to them. — Joshua Rothkopf

See also: “Modern Times,” “Sullivan’s Travels,” “Bonnie and Clyde”

Postwar optimism

Michael Hall, from left, Teresa Wright, Myrna Loy and Fredric March in the 1946 movie “The Best Years of Our Lives.”

(Samuel Goldwyn Productions)

‘The Best Years of Our Lives’ (1946)

World War II ended with ticker-tape parades and soaring expectations. William Wyler’s sweeping drama arrived just as America was beginning to reckon with what coming home actually meant. Harold Russell, a real-life veteran who lost both hands during the war, plays a sailor struggling to imagine a future with the woman he loves. Dana Andrews is a decorated bombardier who returns to the same soda fountain job he held before the war, discovering that military heroism doesn’t necessarily translate into peacetime opportunity. The movie became one of the biggest hits of 1946 because it understood a challenge facing millions of Americans: The war had given the country a common purpose but peace meant each person had to find their own. Yet for all its honesty about that dislocation, the film remains remarkably hopeful. Its faith that people can rebuild their lives and start over feels almost radical today. Seen from the distance of eight decades, it feels like a dispatch from a country that had just survived a catastrophe and still believed its best days lay ahead. — Josh Rottenberg

See also: “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Miracle on 34th Street,” “Giant”

Capitalism, unchecked

Daniel Day-Lewis in the 2007 movie “There Will Be Blood,” directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

(Paramount Vantage)

‘There Will Be Blood’ (2007)

“I drink your milkshake — I drink it up!” Oil man Daniel Plainview’s deranged metaphor, allegedly taken from congressional transcripts from the 1920s Teapot Dome scandal in which Interior Secretary Albert Fall defended the practice of directional oil drilling, a.k.a. drainage, became a catchphrase when “There Will Be Blood” arrived in 2007. Elon Musk probably has a T-shirt in the back of a drawer emblazoned with the line. It epitomizes the American ethos of extracting resources that belong to someone else and then brutally bragging about the beatdown. Paul Thomas Anderson’s movie is part history lesson, part horror film, which, when it comes to chronicling the American experience, feels like the perfect blend. The oil man’s exploits take place more than a century ago, but seem particularly relevant now with Musk newly minted as the world’s first trillionaire and income inequality rapidly widening. Plainview confesses, “I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed.” It neatly sums up the endgame in which we find ourselves — and his vanquishing of the preacher Eli speaks to what we worship in the United States. He’s finished and sometimes it feels like we are too. — Glenn Whipp

See also: “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “WALL-E,” “Sorry to Bother You”

Post-Vietnam/Watergate cynicism

‘Nashville’ (1975)

Ronee Blakley in the 1975 movie “Nashville,” directed by Robert Altman.

(Paramount Pictures)

Could one movie capture the breadth of emotions around this year’s 250th anniversary celebrations as well as Robert Altman did the bicentennial? As the country was still reeling from the assassinations and discord of the 1960s, the despair of Vietnam and the scandals of Nixon and Watergate, there was a soul-baring uncertainty to what it even meant to be an American. With 24 main characters interwoven around the town of Nashville, home of country music and intersecting political undercurrents, the film tries to make sense of the chaos. While the conspiracy thrillers of the 1970s are seen as the most direct response to the moral malaise of the moment, Altman finds an unexpected way to gild his innate skepticism with a light filigree of hope, a complex quilt of characters capturing the contradictions inherent in the American identity. And yet as cynical and beaten-down as the film’s viewpoint can often be, there is still a spark of decency and perseverance. That is the America that Altman celebrates, even as he lets no one off the hook. Few films capture the hum of life in all its maddening beauty quite like this one. — Mark Olsen

See also: “Blow Out,” “The Conversation,” “The Parallax View”

‘Network’ (1976)

Robert Duvall, Faye Dunaway and William Holden in the 1976 movie “Network,” directed by Sidney Lumet.

(MGM Studios / Getty Images)

Much has been made over the years about how prescient this film was, as if screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky and director Sidney Lumet saw the constrictive dangers of corporate consolidation in the distance and came back to warn us. But if these rumbling premonitions have remained true across multiple eras of an ever-evolving media landscape, have we really learned anything? Perhaps we really do live in a “demented slaughterhouse of a world,” as the unhinged newsman Howard Beale says in one of his apocalyptic broadcasts, and have all along. Maybe what “Network” nails most of all is apathy: that even the most righteously committed can have their heads turned from their true goals and then struggle to get back on track. What may be most shocking rewatching the film today is the suspicion that some current media figures see the maneuverings of villainous executives played by Robert Duvall and Faye Dunaway and somehow think that they were the heroes of the story all along. Not even Lumet or Chayefsky would have predicted that. — Mark Olsen

See also: “Broadcast News,” “The Insider,” “Nightcrawler”

Gentrification and racial tensions

Spike Lee, left, and Danny Aiello in the 1989 movie “Do the Right Thing.”

(Universal Pictures)

‘Do the Right Thing’ (1989)

Spike Lee’s masterpiece was met with hand-wringing when it arrived in theaters 37 summers ago, with white critics fretting how “urban audiences” would react to its shocking ending of brutality and angry protest. “If some audiences go wild, [Lee] is partly responsible,” critic David Denby wrote in New York Magazine. Nobody rioted. “Do the Right Thing” made some people uncomfortable because it told truths from a Black perspective that they did not want to accept. That unwillingness to have hard conversations and learn from them remains evident today as we prepare to celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday without an honest reckoning of the anguish that lies beneath the storybook version of America’s founding. The paradox is that Lee’s movie is itself that conversation, its characters engaging in a series of arguments, evenhanded and empathetic, about how race affects the lives we lead in America. Until our country engages in that dialogue, nothing will change. For a moment, the Black Lives Matter movement signaled a willingness to grapple with the past. But the pendulum swung and we’re back to days of “Driving Miss Daisy” denial. But “Do the Right Thing” remains with us, its urgency and relevance undiminished, waiting for an America open to listen and live up to its idealized aspirations. — Glenn Whipp

See also: “Get Out,” “12 Years a Slave,” “Fruitvale Station”

The rise of the yuppies

Roddy Piper, left, and Keith David in the 1988 movie “They Live,” directed by John Carpenter.

(Universal Pictures)

‘They Live’ (1988)

“I believe in America,” the guy says, but we’re not in the private office of some all-powerful Corleone. Rather, this is a working man in a plaid shirt and denim. As the sun sets on his sad L.A. tent city (inspired by the real-life Justiceville), he only wants what everyone else wants: a hard day’s work for fair pay and the chance to get ahead. “It’ll come,” he says, serenely. He doesn’t know he’s in a John Carpenter movie — Roddy Piper was never put to better on-screen use — and that those keeping him down are, in fact, aliens hypnotizing us into an unseeing stupor as they carve up the world’s resources. Released at the tail end of Reaganomics, Carpenter’s most politically forward thriller now feels like a decoder ring for ’80s-era greed, detachment, complacency and ruthlessness. Carpenter meant us to to see his bug-eyed space invaders as yuppies. He also intended us to question whether we were selling each other out, just to join the “human power elite” for a tiny piece of pie. “They Live” looms just on the other side of appreciated. Many genre films say what our more prestigious dramas can’t about the creeping forces that are changing America; this one still feels like it’s getting away with murder. — Joshua Rothkopf

See also: “American Psycho,” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “After Hours”

’80s women in the workplace

Harrison Ford, left, Melanie Griffith and Sigourney Weaver in the 1988 movie “Working Girl.”

(20th Century Fox)

‘Working Girl’ (1988)

Mike Nichols’ zeitgeisty hit opens on a shot of the Statue of Liberty hoisting her torch like a paycheck. Down by her green toes, Melanie Griffith’s Staten Island secretary Tess McGill ferries to Manhattan to type memos for important men. Tess has a job, not a career. But 1988 was the first year that female undergraduates outnumbered men on college campuses. Even without a degree, Tess is ambitious to climb the corporate ladder — once she swaps out her practical white sneakers for a pair of pumps. The script by Kevin Wade throws up hurdles of sexism and class snobbery, never sugarcoating how Tess’ male co-workers treat her like a blow-up doll. (Critics dismissed Griffith, too, until this performance earned her an Oscar nomination.) Yet note how her Ivy League-educated boss Katharine (Sigourney Weaver) isn’t immune to harassment either; she’s just mastered how to parry her colleagues’ advances. Fantastic as it is, “Working Girl’s” core flaw is that Tess can’t snag her seat at the conference table until she yanks Katharine out of it. Weaver said that when she showed the script to real-life working girls on Wall Street, they asked, “This awful secretary steals your man, wears your clothes, takes your office — who’s going to sympathize with her?” Millions did and still do. — Amy Nicholson

See also: “9 to 5,” “Baby Boom,” “Silkwood”

Digital alienation

Justin Timberlake, left, and Jesse Eisenberg in the 2010 movie “The Social Network,” directed by David Fincher.

(Merrick Morton / Columbia TriStar )

‘The Social Network’ (2010)

In 2010, Apple introduced the iPad, Instagram launched its app and Silicon Valley still looked to many tech-besotted Americans like a force for progress. At a moment when technology companies were promising to bring people closer together, David Fincher’s acerbic drama about the founding of Facebook had a darker theory about why people wanted to connect in the first place. Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay traces Facebook’s creation back to a very old human desire: getting noticed by the people who matter. Instead of celebrating innovation, the movie unfolds through lawsuits and broken friendships. At Harvard, Jesse Eisenberg’s Mark Zuckerberg fixates on the exclusive final clubs that won’t quite accept him. It’s a surprisingly sour approach for a Facebook origin story. Years before social media became a political battleground, Fincher was focused on something more basic — the fear that everyone else had been invited to a party you couldn’t get into. The movie ends with Zuckerberg alone at a computer, refreshing the Facebook page of the woman who dumped him and waiting for her to accept his friend request. More than 15 years later, it’s still hard to think of a better image for the loneliness and insecurity lurking beneath our connected lives. — Josh Rottenberg

See also: “Her,” “Eighth Grade,” “Ingrid Goes West”

Post-9/11 anxieties

A scene from the 2004 movie “Team America: World Police,” directed by Trey Parker.

(Melinda Sue Gordon / Paramount Pictures)

‘Team America: World Police’ (2004)

To add drama to the ennui over the 2000 U.S. presidential campaign, “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone pledged to immediately produce a silly sitcom about the winner. “That’s My Bush!” ran for eight episodes in the spring of 2001, with plans to spin off into a feature called “George W. Bush and the Secret of the Glass Tiger.” But the Sept. 11 attacks changed everything, including the work of satirists. Parker and Stone pivoted to “Team America: World Police,” a bomb-throwing comedy about our country’s napalm-strength combination of naiveté and swagger. To prevent an attack hailed as “9/11 times a thousand,” a squadron of puppet commandos blows up the planet themselves. The dark joke is these marionettes aren’t behaving much differently than the action heroes who have shaped the national id — it’s a through-the-looking-glass lens into our Hollywoodized view of the globe, down to the Parisian streets made of cobblestone croissants. At once straight-faced, sacrilegious and scatological, “Team America” needed nine tries to eke past the MPAA. Yet in divided times, it was a unifier. The political spectrum from Kim Jong Il to Alec Baldwin got equally savaged and the film’s eff-yeah patriotic theme song (“Rock and roll! The internet! Slavery!”) could even be heard blaring from real-life tanks in Fallujah. — Amy Nicholson

See also: “Eddington,” “Idiocracy,” “Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay”

Ralf Little is best known for his roles in Death in Paradise, The Royle Family and Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps.

Ralf Little became a household name back in 1998 when he joined the beloved BBC sitcom The Royle Family.

Since then, he’s gone on to feature in Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps and Death in Paradise, which he departed in 2024.

Although he’s featured in a plethora of other shows, including his popular series with friend and former co-star Will Mellor.

This weekend, however, he’s back on our screens as he’s due to appear on Sunday Brunch alongside Tim Lovejoy and Simon Rimmer.

Having been firmly in the public eye since the age of 17, we take a closer look at the star’s life away from the cameras.

Childhood tragedy

The BBC actor suffered a devastating personal loss as a youngster when his elder sister Ceri passed away while he was just nine years old. At only 14, Ceri tragically lost her life after falling from a 150-foot clifftop during a family holiday in Cornwall.

Opening up about his late sister on his programme with Will Mellor, Ralf was visibly moved as he touched upon his own decision not to have children, reports the Express.

He said: “My parents were fantastic with us and did the best that they could. But their relationship broke down really in a really difficult way and that was very difficult for us.

“You know, there’s no way of putting this that’s not blunt, but, you know, they had three kids and an idyllic family life and then one of the kids was alive one week and dead the next.

“Everything, their entire lives, crumbled right in front of their eyes from that moment on. It’s like, you know, you can’t protect them. My mum was really… my mum was really protective of us. Really protective.

“And it happened anyway. It happened anyway because you can’t wrap your kids in cotton wool and protect them 24-7. Like, it’s a lot. And it’s only when I’m forced to sort of say these things out loud that I realise quite what a lot it is.”

Ralf has also opened up about how the loss of his sister drove him to pursue greatness and push himself to be the very best he could be.

Death in Paradise exit

Ralf became a firm fan-favourite on the long-running BBC crime drama after joining the cast as DI Neville Parker in 2020. He confirmed his departure four years later, with Don Gilbet stepping in as DI Mervin Wilson.

The actor chose to leave the show after both he and the producers felt his character had naturally run its course. At the time, he announced: “My time on Saint Marie has come to an end – what an end! New adventures await Neville, and he got to sail away into the sunset with his best friend. Who knows what happens for them next!”

However, his mother feared his departure would spell the end of his acting career, as he revealed to The I last year: “About six months ago, I went to visit her. My mum’s done this my whole career – she’s always worried about me.

“She went: ‘So, I’ve been thinking, now that your career’s over, you could go back to medical school this September and qualify in five years, and the good news is you could still work till you’re 75.”

Medical dreams

Best known for his roles in Death in Paradise, The Royle Family and Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Ralf could easily have ended up on a very different path in life.

Prior to launching his acting career, Ralf had ambitions of becoming a doctor, studying at the University of Manchester Medical School. He ultimately dropped out, however, when he landed the role of Anthony Royle, choosing to pursue acting full-time instead.

It seems a talent for medicine runs in the family, as Ralf’s brother is a doctor and his sister works as a nurse. When quizzed about whether he ever wonders what might have happened had he stuck with his medical studies, he told The Telegraph in 2021: “Yes. Being a doctor is a calling. I was serious about it. Acting was just a fun hobby.

“I look at NHS workers now, and they’re unbelievably heroic, but I guess I’m lucky not to have to deal with the s**t that’s thrown at them.”

Medicine wasn’t the only alternative career Ralf could have pursued, either. He was once a semi-professional footballer, having turned out for semi-pro side Maidstone United in the early 2000s.

Coronation Street has welcomed real-life family members to the Cobbles over the years

Soap operas blur the line between drama and reality when family members land roles on the same show.

Coronation Street star Isabella Flanagan plays Weatherfield’s Hope Stape, daughter of Fiz Brown (played by Jennie McAlpine), on the ITV show alongside her brother William, who portrays Joseph Brown, son of Chesney (Sam Aston).

The siblings also share a real-life connection to Emmerdale’s April Windsor star Amelia Flanagan, who is their big sister.

Cousins Brooke Vincent and Ellie Leach have both enjoyed successful stints on the show, while Rick Neelan actor Greg Wood is actually the real-life brother of Tommy Orpington star Matt Milburn.

Last month, Rosie Fleeshman became the latest member to follow in the footsteps of her famous sibling, Richard Fleeshman, enjoying a guest stint on Corrie. Their mum has also starred on the show.

Richard first graced the soap as Craig Harris in 2002, with his family, including father Tommy Harris (Thomas Craig), mother Angela Harris (Kathryn Hunt), and sister Katy (Lucy-Jo Hudson).

The family arrived in Weatherfield as part of a witness protection scheme, and they quickly stirred up some drama. Moreover, young Craig was central to several dramatic storylines during his tenure.

In 2005, he lost his entire family when his sister Katy killed their father Tommy in a rage, and their mother Angela took the fall. Unable to cope with the guilt, Katy later took her own life.

The character also embarked on a romance with Rosie Webster (Helen Flanagan), becoming her first boyfriend. Craig even plotted to flee to Berlin with Rosie.

However, in 2006, Craig departed alone and bid farewell to the cobbles. Since then, actor Richard has kept himself occupied, appearing in shows such as Call the Midwife and Death in Paradise, as well as stage productions.

Richard hails from a talented family, as his mum, Sue Jenkins, who joined the cast of Coronation Street as Gloria Todd in 1985, became a regular face at the Rovers Return pub. She worked alongside Julie Goodyear, who famously played landlady Bet Lynch.

Beyond her time on Corrie, Sue also portrayed Jackie Corkhill in Brookside from 1992 to 2001, and made a brief appearance in Emmerdale in 2008 as Bonnie Drinkwater.

In 2024, Richard appeared on Loose Women and spoke to panellists Kaye Adams, Kelle Bryan, Linda Robson, and Jane Moore about his role on sci-fi show, The Ark and paid tribute to his mum’s time on Brookside.

“She was amazing in that show”, he said. “I was allowed to watch certain episodes growing up. Some of them were a little bit past my bedtime. It was an amazing show and such a great following.”

The revelation of Sue and Richard’s roles on Corrie left fans astounded. On X, previously known as Twitter, one viewer posted about Sue’s stint on Corrie.

Another fan responded: “That’s Richard Fleeshman’s mum!” A third person commented: “Wow, all this time watching and I never knew that, I can see her son in that photo now.” Yet another added: “Her real-life son played Craig Harris, son of Psycho Tommy!”

Richard’s dad is David Fleeshman, who appeared in Boys from the Blackstuff, and he credited his parents for inspiring his successful career. He said, “I grew up with both of them being around the industry fully, so it was just everything I knew.”

Coronation Street airs weekdays on ITV and ITVX

About six months after Toni Morrison died in the summer of 2019, Literary Cleveland began hosting annual community tribute parties on the Nobel Prize-winning author’s birthday, Feb. 18. Lorain, Ohio — a suburb of Cleveland — is where Morrison was born and raised, and where she set several of her novels. During these gatherings, participants were prompted to read aloud from their favorite Morrison works, and share why they savored those particular lines.

Over time, these meetings began to feel increasingly intimate, even “sacred,” according to Literary Cleveland’s Executive Director Matt Weinkam, which prompted him, in tandem with Ohio Humanities head Rebecca Asmo, to brainstorm how to take their program state-wide. “This is Toni Morrison, one of our greatest writers,” Weinkam recalls thinking. “We needed to do something bigger.”

At the time, Weinkam and Osmo were also trying to figure out how to commemorate America’s semiquincentennial. Weinkam was listening to Morrison’s entire oeuvre on audio and realized that when you organize the 11 novels in a certain order, “they tell the history of America.” So how, he thought, “could you use the literature of Toni Morrison to view our country through a different lens — through her lens?” He says they knew honoring Morrison as a consequential figure not just in literature but also in the context of American history would be central to Ohio’s celebration of the semiquincentennial.

“[But] only as the project was coming together did we strike on the fact that her novels trace American history from ‘A Mercy,’ set in 1690, through ‘God Help the Child,’ in the 2010s. Not only does her work re-center African Americans in the story of our country, it also tackles major events from our founding, through slavery, to the impact of Jim Crow, to the great migration and beyond.”

In the months leading up to the 250th anniversary, they decided to bring the Morrison salons they were curating in Cleveland to all 88 Ohio counties. For assistance they connected with Britt Lovett, a strategist, community leader and fellow Morrison acolyte.

“People say that reading Toni Morrison is challenging,” says Lovett. “[But] reading Toni Morrison is like my grandmother speaking to me.”

In February, on what would have been Morrison’s 95th birthday, they officially launched “Beloved: Ohio Celebrates Toni Morrison,” a yearlong homage including readings, workshops, lectures and a monthly book club that meets on Sunday evenings. They intentionally programmed the book club so that it would take readers through our U.S. history utilizing Morrison’s vision: Weinkam proposed reading Morrison’s novels in the order in which they are set rather than the order in which they were published. “That simple shift,” says Lovett, “changed everything.”

They began with “A Mercy,” one of Morrison’s later novels, published in 2008 — which is set in the late 17th century, before slavery took hold and the country became “racialized.” Next came “Beloved,” then “Sula” and “Jazz.” “Experiencing the novels this way reveals how Morrison traced generations of Black American life across centuries of our nation’s history,” Lovett says. “What may appear to be individual stories become part of a larger narrative about memory, freedom, family, belonging and the ongoing project of America itself.”

For Morrison, writing fiction was a form of “literary archaeology,” excavating history, and how the past hovers over the present. Her quest was what she termed “rememory.”

Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is a Princeton professor and author of “America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries” who has studied Morrison. “She understood the ongoing national effort to disremember — this startling combination of dismembering and remembering — to protect the innocence of America,” Glaude says. “Instead, her novels relentlessly expose the horror and the magisterial efforts on the part of ordinary people to overcome them. In doing so, she takes us to the beating heart of this fragile experiment — something we desperately need to remember in this 250th year of the country.”

In 1973, as an editor at Random House, Morrison published and collaborated with collectors in compiling “The Black Book,” a seminal volume that tells the story of the African American experience in America in the form of an encyclopedic scrapbook that spans from 1619 through the 1940s. There is no narrator, and this is intentional. The visuals — newspaper clippings, slave auction notices, patent applications by Black inventors, photographs, sheet music, relate their own powerful story “Black life as lived” — great joy juxtaposed with the tragedy and legacy of slavery. From her work on that groundbreaking assemblage emerged the idea for “Beloved,” which won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Nearly seven years after Morrison’s death at 88, we are living in a golden age of Morrisonia. Three extraordinary new books, published this year, shed light on the brilliance and complexity of Morrison’s life and work, and place her as an American eminence, a visionary who saw fiction as a means through which to recast her country’s story. “On Morrison” by Namwali Serpell; “Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship” by Dana Williams; and a posthumously published collection of Morrison essays entitled “Language as Liberation: Reflections on the American Canon.” Serpell writes that “Morrison has shaped the way we think about everything.” Morrison herself said that she wrote to “think the unthinkable,” to write novels that were “relentlessly black,” giving no deference to the “white gaze.” Her refusal to sugarcoat the interior and exterior lives of her characters, whether enslaved or traumatized by the past — by events in American history — was purposeful.

“You’re confronted with horrific acts of violence,” Serpell says. “Not to present it in spectacular fashion, nor to feed any kind of voyeuristic or prurient interest on the part of the audience, but to use quiet language — beautiful language — in order to actually get us to step back and think about why this violence is happening and where it’s coming from.”

In that way, Morrison’s work was always a radical experiment — and is perhaps why, according to the American Library Assn., “The Bluest Eye” her 1970 debut — continues to be one of the most frequently “challenged” books in the U.S. “Beloved” runs a close second. But this also is among the reasons her books are considered must-reads in the classroom, and contemporary classics.

John Freeman is an executive editor at Knopf who oversees Morrison’s publishing program. “Her books persist today because they beckon us doubly: they invite us to look clearly at what America is, to come to grips with the fantasies and shadows developed to avoid this awful knowledge,” Freeman says. “They also tell us one phenomenal love story after another.”

Through her book club, cultural icon Oprah Winfrey introduced millions of readers to Morrison by featuring four of the author’s novels. “From ‘The Bluest Eye’ through ‘Beloved,’ ‘Jazz,’ ‘Home,’ ‘A Mercy’ and ‘Love,’ Morrison’s words have helped me become more of myself,” Winfrey says. “She understands the lives of Black women like no one else I’ve ever read. Reading her, I’ve often felt seen in places I didn’t know how to name.”

(HarperCollins; Penguin Random House)

In Morrison’s essays, lectures and other public comments — including as a professor at Princeton for nearly two decades — she occupied the role of public intellectual, always teaching us how to view America’s evolution as a country, and how it became “racialized.”

In a Granta interview conducted late in her life, she challenged the interviewer to consider that the concept of “whiteness” is peculiarly American: “Think about it, “ she prompted. “If you come to this country from Germany or Russia, or anywhere you got off the boat, got on the land, in order to become an American, you have to be white. That’s the quality that brings the country, its people together — having a non-white population. My concept is that if you were from Sweden, you were Swedish. You didn’t have to say, ‘I’m a white Swede.’ You know what I’m saying?”

As we prepare to celebrate America’s 250th, it’s useful to reflect on how Morrison viewed the intersection of fiction, history and memory, how the mission of her fiction was to uncover truths omitted by the standard historical records and history’s “sages.” In her 1987 essay, “The Site of Memory,” she utilized a river as a metaphor to discuss how imagination excavates forgotten histories and people. “All water,” she wrote, “has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. Writers are like that: remembering where we were.”

Haber is a writer, editor and publishing strategist, and co-founder of the Ink Book Club on Substack. She was director of Oprah’s Book Club and books editor for O, the Oprah Magazine.

EXCLUSIVE: Rae Knopik, 31, was always determined to find out more about her Italian roots, and now she’s able to dive into her history further than she ever imagined after winning a €1 (86p) home in Troina with the love of her life

A couple managed to snap up a €1 (86p) home in Italy after finding love in the romantic country. Rae Knopik, 31, had always been determined to explore her Italian heritage, and now she’s able to delve into her roots further than she ever dreamed possible. The social media personality, who has amassed over 35,000 followers on Instagram eager to follow her adventures, opened up about how she managed to secure her dream home alongside her fiancé Declan Norrie, 31.

Rae, who is American, explained that her family originally hails from Sicily. Her ancestors ended up settling in the US when her great-great-grandmother and great-great-grandfather emigrated, despite her great-great-grandmother being reluctant to do so at the time.

Rae explained: “She never learnt English and never smiled in her family photographs. I found her so fascinating and I wanted to return to my Sicilian heritage.”

Eventually, Rae relocated to Florence, where she lived for a period of time. It was there that she met Declan, the man she is now set to wed.

“I met the love of my life when I was in Florence. Four weeks after meeting him, I was on a plane to Australia, and I’ve been here ever since,” she added.

However, when Covid struck, the pair began browsing the internet for travel videos while they were unable to venture far from home, and it was during this time that they stumbled across the €1 (86p) property in Troina. While it’s not something many people would seriously contemplate without a lot of thought, they simply thought “why not?” and threw their names into the hat.

After taking part in a series of interviews, they heard nothing for quite some time — but then everything changed in an instant.

Rae added: “They waited for about 12 months. We didn’t tell anyone about it in case the house didn’t pan out but, in May 2022, they said ‘you have won the house, would you like to come see it?'”

The couple flew over in June and snapped it up almost immediately. They later found out that roughly 60,000 people had entered for the property, meaning they had truly struck gold.

When asked about the condition of the property, Rae said: “We knew it was going to be a complete renovation. We didn’t know how long it’d been since someone had lived in the house.

“They clean it up, but you know it’s going to be a complete renovation. We didn’t even think we’d have running water so we were pretty pleased with the house.

“It was over 60 years since someone had lived in it. It is a complete renovation journey.”

The couple must now carry out a full overhaul of the property, entirely at their own expense. There are also certain conditions they are required to adhere to.

Renovation regulations, however, can vary considerably depending on the area when it comes to €1 properties. It’s therefore essential to thoroughly research the rules before putting in an application for any property.

She also pointed out that people can have the wrong idea about purchasing them. They are far from simple bargains, as Rae explained that a considerable amount of effort and money is required to make them habitable.

Nevertheless, Rae has ambitious plans for the property, and the couple are also planning to tie the knot in Italy, with some of the locals even intending to come along. For this young pair, they may well end up returning to the very place that sparked their whirlwind romance.

When asked to describe Troina, Rae said that as you drive towards it, it looks like “a castle in the sky”, adding that “it’s quite romantic”. She now hopes the home will be transformed into a stunning retreat for them to share with loved ones once the renovation is complete.

“I want my family to use it,” she added. “Me and Declan want to settle there at some point for months or even years, but I hope it will be used by my family.”

You can keep up with Rae’s journey on Instagram.

We did it! America made it to 250 years of existence!

OK, not everyone may be feeling especially celebratory as we hit the semiquincentennial, as culture critic Mary McNamara wrote in her essay this week, but we can still find some solace in wanting to do better and be better. I’ve always believed the arts are a reflection of the heart and soul of a people. And in a country as multicultural and diverse as ours, that can look very many different ways. While it’s true that social media and the internet at large has siloed us, nothing stays the same and, like it or not, change and progress are very much at the root of America’s existence, as is acceptance of different ways of living. What makes this country great are those varied experiences and how art can be an entryway to them.

It’s among the ideas that my colleagues dug into this week as they examined culture through the lens of America’s 250th anniversary, detailing 10 films that capture America in times of profound change, the quintessential American song, artworks that redefine what it is to be American, what literature belongs in the American canon, how playwrights have embraced the country’s diversity and why orchestras have been sitting out this Fourth of July. Television critic Robert Lloyd also wrote about a number of recent series, both historical and satirical, that take a closer look at America’s history (you will learn, laugh, cry or all three).

If that gives you enough inspiration, there are several Fourth of July events to watch over the weekend, including traditions like the “Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks Show,” now in its 50th edition, on NBC, Telemundo and Peacock, and Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest on ESPN and ABC as part of their “Disney Celebrates America” programming. If you’re looking for something fresh, the America250 initiative will be streaming a ball drop from Times Square in New York beginning Friday night, which CNN is also covering via “Independence Eve Live With Anderson & Andy: Celebrating 250,” a New Year’s Eve-style production with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen. Similarly, PBS will be broadcasting “A Capitol Fourth: 250th Weekend Celebration” from the U.S. Capitol and from George Washington’s home in Mount Vernon. It will feature performances from the National Symphony Orchestra, Trace Adkins, Patti LaBelle, Kool & The Gang and more.

On Saturday, America250 will stream “America’s Block Party” from the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, which features performances by Chris Stapleton, the Smashing Pumpkins, Chaka Khan and Anthony Ramos. CBS will also air some of those acts on “The Great American Block Party 250,” along with performances from the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., by the Zac Brown Band, Jon Batiste, Goo Goo Dolls and the War and Treaty (it will also stream on Paramount+).

In keeping with this week’s theme, we’ve also rounded up several series and films that we recommend watching over the long holiday weekend that tell a story about America or Americans in all their glory — imperfect, diverse and unique. Now that’s something to celebrate. — Maira Garcia

Turn on

Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times

“The Americans” (Hulu)

Matthew Rhys as Philip and Keri Russell as Elizabeth in “The Americans.”

(FX )

This series may seem like an odd choice to recommend during the July 4 holiday, particularly when the main characters are driven by values that are pointedly un-American. The FX series, which concluded its six-season run in 2013, stars real-life couple Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as Russian spies posing as a suburban couple living in Washington in 1981. Critics celebrated the drama as the couple took on their assignments to undermine the U.S. government while also concealing their true identities from their friendly neighbor — an FBI counterintelligence agent — and their two American-born children. Their journey is further complicated as they grow more attached to American lifestyles and values. Rhys, who is currently stirring up awards season buzz with his lead roles in Apple TV‘s “Widow’s Bay” and Netflix’s “The Beast in Me,” won an Emmy for lead actor in a drama during the show’s final season. Fans of “The Americans” are still shaken by the memory of the devastating series finale. — Greg Braxton

“Spirit of ’76” (VOD)

Jeff McDonald, left, David Cassidy and Steven McDonald in “The Spirit of ’76.”

(Philosophical Research Society)

In this energetic, colorful, low-budget 1990 ode to the bicentennial year, travelers from a colorless 2176 attempt to travel to 1776 to reclaim foundational knowledge lost when “the magnetic storm degaussed all recorded history.” They arrive instead on July 4, 1976, where a different sort of freedom holds sway — freedom to get down, freedom to boogie. It’s a friends-and-family affair, written and directed by Lucas Reiner, with appearances by his brother Rob and father Carl; a story co-authored by Roman Coppola; and costumes by his sister Sofia. David Cassidy and Olivia d‘Abo star as among the visitors from the future; Leif Garrett (like Cassidy, a 1970s TV and pop idol) is a disco-mad lothario. Also on board are Tommy Chong, Barbara Bain, Don Novello, Moon Zappa and performance artists the Kipper Kids as men in black. Julie Brown is a sex worker who has something to say about the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that will sound distressingly timely. Brothers Jeff and Steve McDonald — from the band Redd Kross, and not playing brothers — are the bike-riding, long-haired, slang-slinging teens who join in to help the time travelers accomplish their mission. One word: tetrahydrozoline. — Robert Lloyd

“The Simpsons” (Disney+, Hulu)

“The Simpsons” has long been an American staple on television.

(The Simpsons © 2025 by 20th Television)

With more than 800 episodes across 37 seasons, “The Simpsons” is basically on track to reaching its own semiquincentennial milestone. Its relevance in today’s landscape may be debated, but the animated series has audaciously and consistently captured the American experience with its piercing satire about societal and cultural events and shifts, as well as its reflections on the frustrations and absurdities of daily life for a middle-class family living in a quintessential American suburb — an ideal that has long stood as a standard of success for generations of Americans and now feels like a fantasy for many who still strive for it. (Insert GIF of Homer disappearing into a shrub here.) It’s one of the most entertaining time capsules of a good chunk of America’s run so far. And hey, there are plenty of July 4 episodes to pre-game, pair with, or distract from your social obligations. — Yvonne Villarreal

“American Movie” (VOD)

Bill Borchardt, left, and Mark Borchardt in the documentary “American Movie.”

(Sony Pictures Classics)

One of the breakout documentaries of the ’90s, Chris Smith’s portrait of aspiring Wisconsin filmmaker Mark Borchardt suggests that if you want to understand America, you could do worse than spend some time in his company. Borchardt has no Hollywood connections, no money and seemingly no realistic path to finishing his low-budget horror movie “Coven” (which he stubbornly insists on pronouncing “COE-ven”). Working the graveyard shift at a cemetery and battling his own drinking, he somehow keeps persuading friends and relatives to help him inch the film toward completion. The movie is often hilarious but it never makes Borchardt the punchline, leaving open the question of whether he’s a genuine outsider artist or simply incapable of recognizing impossible odds. When he starts feeling sorry for himself, he has a way of snapping out of it: “No one has ever, ever paid admission to see an excuse.” As America marks its 250th birthday, with so many of the country’s problems seeming unsolvable, Borchardt reminds us that impossible sometimes just means unfinished. — Josh Rottenberg

“Reservation Dogs” (Hulu, Disney+)

Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis), Elora Danan Postoak (Devery Jacobs), Bear (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) and Cheese (Lane Factor) in “Reservation Dogs.”

(Shane Brown / FX)

This is perhaps too on the nose, but what is the story of America without Native Americans and Indigenous storytellers? Don’t worry, “Reservation Dogs” is not meant to be a history lesson. A coming-of-age dramedy, the series follows a group of teenagers living in a small town in the Muscogee Nation in rural Oklahoma. Culturally specific and infinitely relatable, the teens are grieving one of their own as they navigate familiar perils of adolescence: future aspirations (or lack thereof), relationships and rivalries, family and more as they grow into who they are meant to be. Created by Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi, the show was celebrated for its representational milestones both in front and behind the camera for the entirety of its three season run. But what keeps this show on my perpetual rewatch list is its humor, heart and endless humanity. And Cheese! — Tracy Brown

“Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” (Paramount+)

Una (Rebecca Romijn), Capt. Pike (Anson Mount) and Spock (Ethan Peck) in “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.”

(Marni Grossman / Paramount+)

Despite being set on a starship traveling through the far reaches of space, “Star Trek” is a quintessentially American show that celebrates very American ideals and aspirations. The franchise depicts a future where good people want to do good, are endlessly curious, believe in justice and diplomacy and strive to maintain peace. They’re also willing to fight for what they believe in. “Strange New Worlds,” though created in our modern streaming times, captures a lot of the spirit and swagger of the original series — and not just because it features some characters that originated there. The show follows Capt. Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise as they explore strange new worlds and boldly go where no one has gone before. Pike wields a kind of empathetic, nice dad next door charm and all the capabilities of a decorated starship officer, which makes him a perfect ambassador for his exploratory mission. He’d probably also make a good host of a big Fourth of July backyard bash. — T.B.

“Mo” (Netflix)

Mo Amer in Season 2 of his eponymous Netflix series.

(Eddy Chen / Netflix)

The immigrant experience has been portrayed in a number of films and series over the years — though I’d argue there still aren’t enough. This series created by and starring comedian Mo Amer captures not only the realities of navigating the American immigration system, with its draconian requirements and regulations, but also the experience of multicultural life in the melting pot that is Houston, Texas. Here, Amer plays a fictional version of himself, a Palestinian refugee who is trying to get legal status while encountering personal and professional roadblocks at every turn. It’s funny and melodramatic, occasionally veering into silliness, but it brilliantly highlights the very real struggle of finding your place in the world when you don’t know where you can call home or where you belong (the Spanish saying, ni de aqui, ni de alla, neither from here nor there, applies). And it’s one of the very few humanizing onscreen depictions of the Palestinian American experience. — Maira Garcia

“Pose” (Hulu) and “Fellow Travelers” (Paramount+)

Mj Rodriguez as Blanca and Billy Porter as Pray Tell in “Pose.” (FX)

Tim (Jonathan Bailey) and Hawk (Matt Bomer) in “Fellow Travelers.” (Ben Mark Holzberg / Showtime)

The struggle for gay rights has been a long chapter in American history and in the case of these two series, one depicts it through New York’s ballroom scene and the other through the halls of Washington. “Fellow Travelers,” created by Ron Nyswaner and based on Thomas Mallon’s novel of the same name, depicts the romance between Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller (Matt Bomer) and Timothy “Tim” Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey) beginning in the 1950s during the height of McCarthyism and the Lavender Scare and goes through the decades, culminating with the AIDS crisis of the ‘80s. If you want a good cry this weekend, start here. “Pose,” meanwhile, is at turns celebratory and heartbreaking as it depicts the experience of a group of Black and Latino members of the ball scene in the ‘80s and ‘90s. The series highlights the opulent costumes and performers in drag who would leave it all on the floor for a chance at glory among their peers, but also the interpersonal relationships and challenges faced by trans characters like Blanca (Mj Rodriguez, who scored an Emmy nomination for her performance in 2021), Elektra (Dominique Jackson) and Angel (Indya Moore), as well as gay characters like Pray Tell (the inimitable Billy Porter). Both shows are reminders that LGBTQ+ rights were hard won and that the struggle continues. — M.G.

ICYMI

Must-read stories you might have missed

Comedy saved Teruko Nakajima’s life.

In 2016, Nakajima received psychiatric care at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, diagnosed with depression, PTSD and suicidal ideation. Her doctors searched for ways to manage her stress by exposing her to various activities, including video games, serene Icelandic landscapes and an aerial silks performance. The last brought her anxiety down, revealing that the arts were the answer. Her doctor prescribed the arts, comedy specifically, so she went to the Upright Citizens Brigade for class.

She found a calling and a safe space in comedy.

“I didn’t know I was born a comedian,” Nakajima said. “Finally, I really felt I was accepted as a comedian, validated for who I am.”

Nakajima shares her healing journey to the stage in “Made in America,” which just had an encore performance at UCB on Tuesday after its award-winning run in 2022 (it is also available for streaming on UCB’s website through Tuesday). The one-woman show arrives in time for the United States’ 250th anniversary on Saturday, documenting Nakajima’s search for the American dream as a first-generation Japanese American woman. “Made in America” premiered in 2022 at the Hollywood Fringe Festival during Joe Biden’s presidency and following the Jan. 6 United States Capitol attack. In 2026, its musings on identity and belonging pierce through today’s political landscape shaped by Donald Trump’s second presidency.

“I wanted to let people know this is an American story,” she said.

“Made in America” is about Nakajima’s life. It begins in her mother’s womb. She felt so safe there, she yearned to return. Growing up, she experienced an emotionally and physically abusive life at home, recalling her father breaking furniture and her mother’s alcohol-induced belittling comments. But her name, Teruko, translates to a “shining child.” Thus, she proclaims in the show, “I’m a superstar!”

The beauty in “Made in America” is Nakajima’s ability to find the humor in her trauma. When the show transitions to her life in America, she talks about her life as a dominatrix in New York City and her struggles with romance in Los Angeles. Her comedic jabs at the American economy and humorous reflections juxtapose somber moments of stillness in the midst of her struggles. This balance puts her life into perspective, revealing a positive personality beneath a dark saga.

Nakajima performs “Made in America” at Upright Citizens Brigade Theater.

(Nick Rasmussen)

“I look very happy-go-lucky and cheerful, but actually, I am a very dark person because I have a dark history,” she said. “I always wanted to leave my story behind. I wanted to leave my mark in this world before I died, so I needed to make something.”

The first class Nakajima took at UCB was John Flynn’s storytelling course. There, she started building pieces of the show without realizing it. As they added up, the idea for a show surfaced. After class one day, she asked Flynn to direct it. Flynn, who has been teaching at UCB in New York and L.A. for about 20 years, agreed.

“She disarms people,” Flynn said. “There’s something about her that is just so unique and so delightful that you won’t forget her.”

Flynn first met her at his storytelling open mic. She walked in with her emotional support dog Titi (also known as Tiny Teruko), wearing her signature red heart-framed glasses, without lenses. Soon, these glasses would make him double over in laughter when she performed and cried, dabbing her eyes with tissue through the frame.

“When you start to learn her story and the experiences she’s had, it is amazing that she is so positive,” he said. “She’s such a sort of undeniable positive energy that she just radiates all the time, which is so compelling and why people are so drawn to her.”

Revived at UCB amid Trump’s second term and the nation’s 250th birthday, Nakajima’s show doubles as a defiant immigrant love letter to America — and a refuge for audiences feeling alone.

(Nick Rasmussen)

Nakajima puts all of herself into the show. Aside from comedy, she has been a cheerleader in Japan, a salsa dancer in New York and a sculptor on the side — she loves sculpting MLB players’ butts; Derek Jeter is her favorite. In the show, she folds these aspects of her life into a single story, dancing from section to section. Comedy is more than just laughs; it’s storytelling.

“I am so good at cheering people up, since I was very little,” she said. “I had no competition with others because I’m the one and only. Nobody looks like me.”

Together, Flynn and Teruko parsed through her life stories to give the show an arc. For Flynn, it’s like carving away at what is already there to create something fun and cohesive, like a sculpture. “What’s fun about directing one-person shows like this is that it’s usually just two people in a room putting something together,” Flynn said.

Bringing the show back this year, the work gets sharper and tighter, but the biggest shift is in its conclusion. Once optimistic about the future of life in America, the show now has a stronger desire to make change. There was a sense of hope in 2022 for women like Nakajima, an immigrant who sought safety in a new country and struggled with abuse from her family and strange men. Today, as Trump’s immigration policies lean on deportation and discrimination, she simply wants to be seen.

“America, thank you for not giving up on me,” Nakajima said toward the end of the show. She is proud to be American, not just because she gets to have the same nationality as her dog Titi, but primarily because of the new life it offered her. America promised happiness. Whether it actually comes is another story, but in this one, the promise itself gave her a sense of purpose.

“After the show, people come to me in person and through messages,” she said. “A lot of people said, ‘I felt like I am not alone.’ That gives me so much hope and unity. I feel safe and like I have something to look forward to because I’m not the only one.”

Flynn realized how much he took for granted while working on the show with Nakajima. “I think, even though these are scary times and things seem to be going in directions that aren’t the best, there are still great people, and there’s something that is still there and is not dying and is still fighting,” Flynn said.

When she began her acting journey, Nakajima thought she’d turn to drama, but there’s something more unguarded in comedy.

Nakajima holding up her dog Titi during a performance of “Made in America.”

(Nick Rasmussen)

“I’m very authentic and invincible through comedy,” she said.

By the end of “Made in America,” Nakajima is no longer trying to find her way back to her mother’s womb. She is confident in her place in the world. She remembers that she is a star. She brings out her dog Titi, who was hidden on stage throughout the entire performance, and shares that UCB gave her a new outlook on life. Comedy breaks away her stresses and allows viewers to be vulnerable with her.

“I always wanted to feel safe,” she said. “I never had that. Finally, I found a safe space, and then I realized that I’m actually important. I’m actually worthy. I’m so happy right now to be able to express myself through comedy because it’s the truth.”

July 2 (UPI) — The pilot of a small plane that crashed into Beijing’s tallest building was a 66-year-old man who was suffering from “chronic insomnia and anxiety” and wrote about “ending his life” in his diary, authorities said Thursday.

The man died in the June 26 crash and wounded 13 others in the 109-story Citic Tower.

The pilot was identified as Liu and was a divorced freelancer who lived alone in Beijing, the Chaoyang district government said in a statement.

“The comprehensive investigation concluded that this was a case of endangering public safety caused by personal reasons,” the statement said.

One of the injured people has been discharged from the hospital, officials said.

Liu had taken off from an airport in the Pinggu district. That day he had flown accompanied and solo flights, the Chaoyang government’s statement said.

“During his solo flight, he deviated from the designated area and lost contact with the airport, subsequently colliding with the high-rise building and dying at the scene,” the statement said.

Liu obtained his sport pilot’s license in 2021 and private pilot’s license in 2024.

The plane was a two-seat, single-engine Aurora SA60L manufactured by Chinese company Sunward Aircraft, according to Flightradar24. It’s designed for touring, aerial photography and recreational aviation.

All references to the crash, video and images were scrubbed from social media in China. The state media, whose headquarters is across the street from the tower, didn’t report anything about the crash until the following day.

Chinese authorities often attribute random acts of violence to people seeking “revenge on society,” offering little information on the exact motive.

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, help is available 24/7. Call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline for free, confidential support. Globally, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has contact information for crisis centers around the world.

One British expat was left completely overwhelmed and exhausted after ditching her life in the UK, and revealed what no one talks about when making such a huge change

Many of us have contemplated what it would be like to ditch the UK and move abroad. One Brit who made it a reality found the move came with surprises and heartbreaking challenges.

Maria Randall, who hails from London, had been on a spontaneous three-day holiday with her husband when they made the brave decision to leave the UK in favour of sun-soaked Croatian rays. Just three weeks later, with their dog in tow, the couple boarded a one-way flight in the summer of 2023, filled with excitement ahead of their new life on the Adriatic coast.

But the reality of the mega move quickly sank in, and Maria found herself overwhelmed and drained.

“I was exhausted,” the 54-year-old told creatorzine.com. “People imagine moving abroad is exciting and glamorous, but I felt strangely numb. Everything had happened so quickly that I had barely had time to process it. I was excited, scared and wondering whether I had completely lost my mind.”

Even Maria’s first solo trip to the supermarket left her in tears as she got lost when Google Maps stopped working and felt deflated on arrival. And sadly, things didn’t get any better.

“I did not recognise any of the products on the shelves,” she recalled. “Something as simple as buying food suddenly felt difficult.”

Feeling overwhelmed and peckish, Maria innocently grabbed a cereal bar as she walked around the shop, only to be met with a furious local. “A man started shouting at me in Croatian, and I burst into tears,” Maria said.

“Later, I realised he worked for the supermarket and probably thought I was trying to steal the cereal bar before paying for it.

“Looking back now, it is funny. At the time, I wanted to get on a plane and go home. Coming from Britain, I was used to quieter and more reserved interactions. I genuinely thought people were arguing all the time. It took me a while to realise that what sounded aggressive to me was often just a normal conversation.”

As the couple began to settle into their new life in Croatia, their beloved dog sadly died shortly after the move. “Everything still felt unfamiliar and unsettled, and suddenly I was dealing with the loss of a much-loved family member as well,” she said.

Tragedy struck again when Maria lost her younger brother and mum, all within an 18-month period. She shared: “Nobody really talks about that side of living abroad. People see the sea, the sunshine and the photographs, but they do not see what it feels like when major family events happen hundreds of miles away.”

In addition to the family losses, Maria, who is severely lactose intolerant, faced her own health battles and was rushed to the hospital following a dairy contamination incident. “Being in an ambulance and then a hospital environment where I struggled to understand what was happening around me was one of the most frightening experiences I have had since moving here”, she revealed.

Despite the challenges and setbacks, things turned a corner. “I began to understand the culture. I started to appreciate the people,” Maria said.

“I made friends, many of them fellow expats who understood exactly what it was like to start again in a new country.” Maria even found herself taking on an unexpected business venture by running her own boat tour company, Island Discovery.

She explained: “It started as a conversation, then somehow I had a boat, then a website, then a skipper, then our first guest.” Maria’s skipper, Pasko, is actually someone she had met on a boat trip soon after arriving in Croatia.

“We stayed in touch, and when I launched Island Discovery, he was the first person I asked to join me”, she said. “Today I joke that he is my Croatian son.”

Maria has now settled into her life in the beautiful seaside town of Podstrana near Split, and is busy running boat tours around the Croatian coastline. Her love for the Adriatic Sea is part of why she stayed through the challenges she faced.

“There is something magical about the Adriatic,” she said. “The colour of the water still amazes me, and some mornings when I am walking my Jack Russell, Sid, along the coastline, I spot dolphins in the distance. Those moments never get old.”

While she misses parts of the UK, including Wagamama and “a proper Chinese takeaway”, Croatia has firmly become their home. “It is where I have built a business, it is where I have made friendships, it is where I walk Sid every morning,” Maria shared.

Today, she believes that many people underestimate the realities of uprooting their lives abroad. She also noted that Croatia has changed significantly in recent years, with higher rents, rising food and restaurant prices, and a “huge amount of development taking place”.

“Everywhere I look, there are new apartment blocks, villas and construction projects appearing, she said. “Personally, I think Croatia has changed significantly since joining the EU and later adopting the euro, although that’s just my observation.”

Despite this, it’s the place where Maria “rediscovered” herself and now calls home. “When I moved here, I thought I knew exactly who I was. What I did not expect was to spend my fifties learning about websites, social media, marketing, accounting, boating and how to build a business from scratch,” she explained.

“I realised I was tougher than I thought. I learned not to let other people dictate my mood. I learned to laugh at myself when things go wrong. Looking back, I do not think Croatia simply changed where I live. I think it changed who I am.”

Looking back, Maria said: “If I could give one piece of advice to the version of myself boarding that Croatia Airlines flight in July 2023, it would simply be, ‘buckle up, it will be one hell of a ride’.”

Do you have a travel story to share? Email webtravel@reachplc.com

Former Wimbledon finalist Eugenie Bouchard is now commentating at the championship

While Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams have grabbed plenty of headlines during Wimbledon, off the court its Eugenie Bouchard generating all the buzz.

The tennis star, who made it to the final in the championship in 2014, is now one of the pundits commentating on the games on the BBC. She has been winning over viewers, with Wimbledon watchers posting comments on X saying she was a “stand out” new addition to the coverage team and dropping fire emojis to show their appreciation.

“From a historic Wimbledon final to crushing the court in a whole new sport, she’s still a total ace!” one posted on the platform, which was formerly Twitter.

As well as her tennis and commentary skills, Eugenie is also known for her lavish lifestyle, from travel to bags worth hundreds of pounds.

Brand deals

The star was a favourite with some big brands after bursting onto the tennis scene over a decade ago, and things ramped up even further after her success at Wimbledon.

She ended up bagging some major brand deals, working with the likes of Coca-Cola and Nike during her career.

Worldwide travel

Eugenie, who has previously revealed that she was named after Princess Eugenie as her mum is a fan of the Royal family, is no stranger to the high life. She regularly shares snaps on Instagram that show her on her travels, whether its glam nights out in Miami or chic dinners in Paris.

The star, who has previously been spotted boarding a private plane, recently said on Instagram that she travelled a lot for work, sharing: “I’ve taken 36 flights in 2026 so far. That’s 1 flight every 3.7 days. The amount of times friends have said to me ‘following your travel on ig makes my head spin’… lol. I’m type A so if I don’t have something that needs to get done immediately, or somewhere to rush off to, I feel panicky inside. after noticing this, I have started forcing myself to take days off, even entire weekends.”

Handbag collection

According to reports, Eugenie has amassed quite the handbag collection, with an array of pricey totes in her wardrobe.

She apparently forked out over £1,000 for a Louis Vuitton bag after pocketing some prize money, and her collection is now said to include a pink Gucci bumbag worth hundreds as well as a Chanel bag worth thousands of pounds.

Pricey jewellery

Eugenie has evidently developed a taste for the finer things and thanks to her brand deals and winnings, she’s been able to fund a stunning jewellery collection.

The tennis star has previously been snapped sporting a gold Daytona watch – which can cost well over £20,000, and she’s also known to wear flashy gold rings including a costly Kenzo.

Famous friends

Eugenie apparently counts a number of celebrities as friends, including The Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons and fellow Canadian star Drake.

The sports star was previously romantically linked to Jack Brinkley-Cook, the son of supermodel Christie Brinkley.

Coverage of Wimbledon is airing on BBC One and BBC Two, as well as being available to stream on BBC iPlayer

“Lethal Weapon” star Danny Glover has revealed he has been living with Alzheimer’s disease for years.

In an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt that aired on the “Today” show on Wednesday, the 79-year-old actor and activist opened up about living with the disease. According to People, he received his diagnosis in 2023, which was not long after he was awarded an honorary Oscar in 2022.

“I could live with it, in a sense,” Glover says of his condition, which has been affecting his movement, speech and memory. “I’m sure as it advances, things are going to be different and changing.”

A neurodegenerative disease, Alzheimer’s is a type of dementia that affects memory, thinking and behavior and worsens over time, according to the Alzheimer’s Assn. Holt reports that more than 7 million Americans over 65 are living with Alzheimer’s, with Black men suffering at a rate double the national average.

Glover and his family say the Hollywood icon is sharing his story now to “have ownership of his life” and to help remove the stigma around the disease.

“They’ve got my back,” Glover says of his family’s support.

Besides his portrayal of L.A. police Det. Roger Murtaugh in the “Lethal Weapon” film series, Glover is known for roles in movies including “Places in the Heart” (1984), “The Color Purple” (1985), “To Sleep With Anger” (1990), “Angels in the Outfield” (1994), “Dreamgirls” (2006) and “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” (2019). He’s also been a vocal advocate for social justice and humanitarian causes both in the U.S. and abroad.

He was the recipient of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 2022.

“I don’t feel like it’s the end of my life,” he said in his interview with People about living with Alzheimer’s. “There’s work to do.”

Early in “Romería,” the film’s main character, Marina, is asked by some children if she’s ever seen the Santa Compaña, a collection of ghosts who, in Spanish legend, supposedly wander in a pack across the landscape. Humoring the kids, Marina says she hasn’t. That’s good, one of the girls responds. “They’re spirits that can’t die.”

As it happens, Marina is actually on a journey of sorts to connect with the dead — and so is Spanish writer-director Carla Simón, whose third feature is an autobiographical tale about her own quest to make peace with her late parents. Slender but flecked with magical touches, “Romería” is so gentle it never quite qualifies as haunting. Nonetheless, Simón stirs up the ineffable sadness that comes with wanting answers to the mysteries of your family — and then, like it or not, receiving them.

Newcomer Llúcia Garcia plays Marina, an 18-year-old aspiring filmmaker. It’s July 2004, and she’s traveled to the picturesque port city of Vigo to obtain government paperwork that will make her eligible for a university scholarship. She never knew her father Alfonso, who died in 1987. For some reason, there are no records indicating that she was his daughter. Hence the trip to Vigo to see her paternal grandparents for the first time so she can authenticate her ancestry.

Simón, whose previous features “Summer 1993” and “Alcarràs” also grappled with family matters, follows along with Marina on the way to this anxious meeting. Marina’s mother died only a few years after Alfonso, making Marina an orphan. But the mom’s parting gift, a diary, provides opaque glimpses into her life with Alfonso in the mid-1980s. Before Marina arrives at her grandparents’ home, though, she must run a gauntlet of uncles, aunts and cousins, their reactions to her existence varying from warm to wary. Repeatedly, Marina is told she looks just like her mom, but the comment occasionally contains a trace of bitterness. Many of these new faces view her as an unwelcome reminder of a past they’d prefer to forget. When they see Marina, it’s like they’re looking at a ghost.

The strongest component of Garcia’s doe-like performance is the way it captures someone in the midst of shedding her adolescence, gingerly trying on adulthood. Over the course of a few days, this bashful teen, always armed with her camcorder and far less free-spirited than her cousins, will be beset by her father’s feuding family. Silently observing the passive-aggressive maelstrom, Marina will receive an intense immersion in what her life might have been like if he’d lived.

But she quickly realizes that their memories of the man are far from perfect. No one can decide exactly where Alfonso lived in Vigo. And, more troublingly, Marina’s belief that he died in 1987 is contradicted by relatives, who insist that it was five years later. If Marina has that information wrong, what else does she not know?

“Romería” is hardly the first film in which an impressionable soul goes on the hunt for the parents she never had. Likewise, viewers will not be startled when Marina eventually discovers painful secrets about her mom and dad that cause her to reconsider those phantom figures.

Simón, who undertook a similar odyssey at the same age, never allows this delicate story to succumb to self-indulgence or an inflated sense of its own importance. Instead, her film is suffused with a rich, casual immediacy. Simón and her star bracingly recall the electricity of youth as Marina prepares for life as an artist. The movie, in part, is about how she finds her voice.

Simón’s films favor naturalism and “Romería” leaves ample room for Spain’s seaside beauty and glorious sunshine. The calming locales both complement and contradict the plot’s revelations, which are hardly bombshells but do speak to how well-to-do families labor to shove inconvenient skeletons into the closet. If anything, Marina will be more shocked by her grandparents (José Ángel Egido and Marina Troncoso), whose fiercely icy demeanor suggests this teenager should consider herself lucky not to have grown up around them.

Because “Romería” is a coming-of-age story, Marina will be tempted by cute boys; she’ll also begin to display a rebellious streak. As the picture rolls along, Garcia shows a more assertive side, relishing her character’s emergence from her shell. But this modest saga saves its biggest surprise for its final reels, when the narrative folds in on itself beguilingly, allowing Marina to relate to her mom and dad in ways she never had before. Maybe we can never truly know our parents, but if we’re lucky, we can gain the maturity to one day see them in ourselves.