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“The Brady Bunch” superfans better hold onto their bell bottoms: The TV family’s retro home in Studio City will finally be accessible to the public for the first time.

The double doors to the midcentury Studio City home — made famous with its appearance in the beloved 1970s sitcom — will open to fans for three days in November thanks to a limited event by pop culture historian Alison Martino and her Vintage Los Angeles. Martino, an on-air host and producer for Spectrum news and the daughter of singer-actor Al Martino, unveiled the “Brady Experience” on Monday on Facebook.

“It’s like stepping back into our childhood! IT IS ASTONISHING and you will see every single room,” she announced. “I will personally be taking each and every one of you throughout the house.”

From Nov. 7 to 9, Martino will guide fans who have shelled out $275 each through the iconic Dilling Street property. The event is now sold out. Though the home’s facade appeared throughout the run of the family sitcom, its interior at the time bore no resemblance to the colorful rooms shown on screen. The interiors of the Brady residence were constructed on sets at Paramount Studios in Hollywood.

The famous abode, originally built in 1959 with late modernist architecture, was renovated decades after “The Brady Bunch” ended in 1974.

HGTV purchased the home in 2018 for $3.5 million (more than twice the asking price) and renovated the interior to match what “Brady Bunch” audiences saw onscreen. The home renovation network documented that process in “A Very Brady Renovation,” which featured the stars who portrayed the Brady children.

As part of the renovations, HGTV reproduced the groovy spaces from the set in the home, adding a second floor to accommodate the additional rooms. The network sold the home in 2023 for $3.2 million to Tina Trahan, a historic-home enthusiast and wife to former HBO executive Chris Albrecht.

The home, in all its “Brady Bunch” glory, has become “even more groovy with more remarkable vintage decor added,” Martino added in her announcement. She said nothing in the home would be off limits, allowing fans to “see every detail up close.”

Proceeds for the three-day event will benefit animal rescue Wags and Walks, a cause that Martino said Brady family dog “Tiger would definitely approve!”

Iren Limited (IREN 15.41%) stock has been quietly making shareholders richer this year. Today’s jump came after a big deal was announced in the artificial intelligence (AI) cloud infrastructure space.

Today, Iren shares spiked higher by 15.8% as of 3:08 p.m. ET. But Iren stock has been stealthily moving higher all year. Shares of the vertically integrated data center company have more than tripled year to date.

Image source: Getty Images.

The demand for AI infrastructure is soaring

The AI cloud infrastructure space is gaining headlines today after a huge deal between Microsoft and AI infrastructure company Nebius Group was announced. The deal could be worth up to $19.4 billion for Nebius, which had a market cap of just about $15 billion yesterday.

Previously known as a power provider for Bitcoin mining, Iren has shifted into AI cloud services at a time when demand is soaring. Iren has accumulated leading Nvidia chips to provide customers with AI cloud services.

In an August business update yesterday, Iren co-founder and co-CEO Daniel Roberts stated, “Demand for our AI Cloud is accelerating as we prepare for the delivery of approximately 9,000 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs [graphics processing units] over the coming months.”

Since the Nebius deal was announced, more investors are noticing Iren today. That’s after the stock more than tripled year to date, though.

Iren also announced the appointment of a new chief financial officer yesterday. Anthony Lewis seems like a logical pick, as he oversaw financing for Iren’s recently announced GPU chip purchases.

Iren’s market cap is around $8 billion after today’s jump. Its data center capacity is approaching 1 gigawatt. If it manages to secure a similar deal with a large tech company, investors are betting that its valuation can also grow quickly from here.

There may well be a few sighs of relief from senior finance company and banking executives following the Supreme Court’s ruling, but it is unlikely you will hear the champagne corks popping.

The verdict does almost certainly reduce the potential compensation bill significantly.

Lenders no longer face the prospect of having to pay £30bn to £40bn to aggrieved car buyers. The likelihood of the government stepping in also appears to have receded dramatically.

Nevertheless, the industry is not off the hook. The Financial Conduct Authority may still open a redress scheme for cases where dealers had a financial incentive from lenders to ramp up interest rates on loans as much as possible.

The Supreme Court’s ruling also upheld one consumer claim, in which the commission payments were deemed unfair – and that could provide a template for others to follow. All of this means the compensation bill could still be in the billions.

The Supreme Court’s intervention has been eagerly awaited since October, when the Appeal Court issued a verdict in three test cases which could have triggered an avalanche of compensation claims.

In each case, people who had bought cars on finance claimed they were partially or wholly unaware that the deal had involved a commission payment being made by the lender to the car dealer. They claimed that in law the commissions amounted to bribes, or secret payments.

The Appeal Court judges agreed, essentially saying that commission payments made by a finance company to a dealer for arranging a car loan were illegal if the car buyer had not given his or her “informed consent”.

They also concluded that a car dealer had a “fiduciary duty” towards the car buyer when it came to arranging a car loan. In other words, the dealer should set his or her own interests aside, and act purely on the customer’s behalf.

This meant that millions of car buyers could potentially claim compensation – if they could show that the dealer had not specified what commission payments they were receiving for lining up a finance deal. It was not enough for the details to be buried in small print.

Lenders had feared that this would lead to an avalanche of claims against them – and that the same arguments could be used to challenge other kinds of consumer finance agreements as well, potentially increasing the compensation bill still further.

But the Supreme Court threw very cold water over those arguments. The President of the Court, Lord Reed, dismissed the idea that car dealers had a “single minded duty of loyalty” to their customers, and insisted they “plainly and properly” had personal interests in the finance agreements they were involved in.

The ruling clearly blocks off what could have been a very wide avenue for compensation claims.

However, the court did side with one of the claimants. In the case of Marcus Johnson, a factory worker, it decided that the finance agreement was “unfair” under the terms of the Consumer Credit Act.

This was because the size of the commission payment was very large, and because Mr Johnson had been misled about the relationship between the dealer and the lender. He was, they said, entitled to compensation.

Analysts say this could open the doors for other cases in which the commission payments are seen to be egregious.

There is also a key question the Supreme Court ruling does not answer. This is what should happen in cases involving so-called Discretionary Commission Agreements (DCAs). These were finance deals in which the car dealer could set the interest rate of a loan, within a set scale. The higher the rate, the more commission they would be paid – and the customer would be unaware of the fact.

The Financial Conduct Authority banned such deals in 2021. It is now considering whether to launch a redress scheme for consumers who were affected by them. If it goes ahead, millions of car buyers could still have a claim, though it is not clear how much compensation they would get.

According to Richard Barnwell, a financial services advisory partner at accountancy firm BDO, the bill could still be substantial.

“We believe there is still a potential for redress, for example, if discretionary commission arrangements are deemed to be an unfair relationship, redress could still be from to £5bn to £13bn or more,” he said.

Other analysts agree. According to Martin Lewis, who runs the MoneySavingExpert website, “the Supreme Court has certainly narrowed the number of people who will be able to reclaim car finance. I think you’re probably talking the lower end of £10bn, as opposed to £40bn.”

That £10bn would still be a significant figure. But the finance industry appears to have avoided the potential free-for-all rush to claim compensation the earlier verdict had threatened to spark off.

And while the Treasury says it will “work with regulators and industry to understand the impact for both firms and consumers”, the BBC understands that the likelihood of the government intervening with retrospective legislation to protect financial firms has now diminished significantly.

Through the 12 days of the recent Israel-Iran conflict, China moved quickly to position itself as a potential mediator and voice of reason amid a spiralling regional crisis.

The day after Israel’s unprovoked attack on Iran on June 13, Beijing reached out to both sides to express its desire for a mediated solution even as the country’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, condemned Israel’s actions as a violation of international law.

Chinese President Xi Jinping soon followed with calls for de-escalation, while at the United Nations Security Council, China joined Russia and Pakistan in calling for an “immediate and unconditional ceasefire”.

When Iran threatened to blockade the strategically important Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil passes, Beijing was also quick to speak out.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs instead called for the “international community to step up efforts to de-escalate conflicts and prevent regional turmoil from having a greater impact on global economic development”.

Beijing’s stance throughout the conflict remained true to its longstanding noninterference approach to foreign hostilities. But experts say it did little to help shore up its ambition of becoming an influential player in the Middle East, and instead exposed the limitations of its clout in the region.

Why China was worried

Unlike some countries, and the United States in particular, China traditionally approaches foreign policy “through a lens of strategic pragmatism rather than ideological solidarity”, said Evangeline Cheng, a research associate at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute.

This approach means China will always focus on protecting its economic interests, of which it has many in the Middle East, Cheng told Al Jazeera.

China has investments in Israel’s burgeoning tech sector and its Belt and Road infrastructure project spans Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

Critically, China relies on the Middle East for more than half of its crude oil imports, and it’s the top consumer of Iranian oil. A protracted war would have disrupted its oil supplies, as would an Iranian blockade of the strategically important Strait of Hormuz – something threatened by Tehran’s parliament during the conflict.

“War and security instability not only undermines Chinese investment and trade and business… but also the oil price and gas energy security in general,” said Alam Saleh, a senior Lecturer in Iranian Studies at the Australian National University.

“Therefore, China seeks stability, and it disagrees and opposes any kind of military solution for any type of conflict and confrontations, no matter with whom,” he said.

John Gong, a professor of economics at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, told Al Jazeera that China’s top concern through the conflict was to avoid “skyrocketing oil prices” that would threaten its energy security.

Flexing diplomatic muscle, protecting economic might

Aware of China’s friendly relations with Iran and Beijing’s economic fears, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on Beijing to keep Tehran from closing the Strait of Hormuz as ceasefire negotiations stumbled forward this week.

It was a brief moment of acknowledgement of Beijing’s influence, but experts say China’s overall diplomatic influence remains limited.

“China’s offer to mediate highlights its desire to be seen as a responsible global player, but its actual leverage remains limited,” Cheng said. “Without military capabilities or deep political influence in the region, and with Israel wary of Beijing’s ties to Iran, China’s role is necessarily constrained.”

To be sure, Beijing has demonstrated its ability to broker major diplomatic deals in the region. In 2023, it mediated the normalisation of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. While seen as a huge diplomatic win for China, experts say Beijing owed much of its success to fellow mediators, Oman and Iraq. China also mediated an agreement between Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Fatah, in July 2024, under which they committed to working together on Gaza’s governance after the end of Israel’s ongoing war on the enclave.

But William Yang, a senior analyst for Northeast Asia at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, said the odds were stacked against China from the beginning of the latest conflict due to Israel’s wariness towards its relationship with Iran.

In 2021, China and Iran signed a 25-year “strategic partnership”, and Iran is an active participant in the Belt and Road project. Iran has also joined the Beijing-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and this year took part in China’s “Maritime Security Belt” naval exercises.

Iran’s “resolute opposition to American hegemony” also aligns well with China’s diplomatic interests more broadly, compared with Israel’s close ties to the US, Yang said.

China’s dilemma

It’s a scenario that could be repeated in the future, he said.

“This case also reinforces the dilemma that China faces: while it wants to be viewed as a great power that is capable of mediating in major global conflicts, its close relationship with specific parties in some of the ongoing conflicts diminishes Beijing’s ability to play such a role,” Yang said.

For now, Beijing will continue to rely on the US as a security guarantor in the region, he added.

“It’s clear that China will continue to focus on deepening economic engagement with countries in the Middle East while taking advantage of the US presence in the region, which remains the primary security guarantor for regional countries,” Yang said.

“On the other hand, the US involvement in the conflict, including changing the course of the war by bombing Iranian nuclear sites, creates the condition for China to take the moral high ground in the diplomatic sphere and present itself as the more restrained, calm and responsible major power,” he said.

The hit series has a new streaming home

Disney+ has added the ‘best limited series ever’ that features one of the stars from Department Q.

Originally airing on BBC back in 2018, The Cry has a new streaming home on the platform that is also home to Marvel and The Simpsons. The series is based on the novel of the same name, written by Helen Fitzgerald.

According to the synopsis, the four-part drama follows young parents Joanna and Alistair who travel from Scotland to a town in Australia to visit family and fight for custody of Alistair’s daughter, Chloe, against his Australian ex-wife, Alexandra.

READ MORE: Disney+ drops to £1.99 in rare deal Netflix and Amazon can’t beat

READ MORE: Disney+ announces summer schedule with new series from £1.99

However, on the drive from Melbourne to the coastal town of Wilde Bay, their baby son Noah goes missing. In the aftermath of this tragedy, under public scrutiny, their relationship collapses and her psychological state disintegrates.

Jenna Coleman leads the series as Joanna. Coleman is known for her roles in Doctor Who, period drama Victoria and The Sandman. Also starring are Nine Perfect Strangers star Asher Keddie along with Kate Dickie who recently appeared in Netflix series Department Q.

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Disney+ has brought back its popular deal that lets new and returning customers join its Standard with Ads plan for £1.99 per month for four months.

This means members can stream hit shows like Andor, The Bear and Alien: Earth, plus countless titles from Star Wars and Marvel, for a fraction of the usual price.

Many fans have praised the series online ever since its initial debut. One person advised other Disney Plus subscribers: “The Cry is in a class of its own. The acting is sublime. Set aside a day and binge-watch it.”

Another claimed: “One of the best TV dramas I’ve ever seen! Totally hooks you in and you never know what’s gonna happen next! Jenna Coleman is incredible!”

Someone else commented: “Honestly one of the best limited series I have seen in a long time. I binge watched it in one hit which at four episodes long is not hard to do!”

They continued: “Sure, it isn’t perfect, but who cares when the acting is this good, and the story so gripping, intriguing and surprising from the beginning right until the very end.

“It’s truly every parent’s worst nightmare losing a child, but how this situation plays out is so different to other stories like this that I have seen.”

One viewer shared: “I can’t stop thinking about this series and I want to watch it all over again. Jenna Coleman, brilliant and so believable; and Ewen Leslie is so convincingly unlikable and silently frightening.

“I love the way time is shifted and your brain is forced to work a little harder. Continuity rules are broken, as are comfort levels.”

The Cry is streaming on Disney+.

CADBURY has unveiled a brand new range of limited-edition Dairy Milk chocolate bars that change colour when chilled – and they’re ideal for summer snacking.

The new Cadbury Dairy Milk Summer Edition bars and the Iced Latte flavour are hitting shelves across the UK from June 2025, wrapped in cold-activated packaging that transforms in the fridge.

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Based in Birmingham, the chocolate giant confirmed that the special packs use thermochromic technology to reveal vibrant designs – including deck chairs, umbrellas, kites, and inflatables – when cooled. It’s the first time Cadbury has launched a product like this.

“This summer, Cadbury Dairy Milk is reigniting the debate around storing chocolate in the fridge,” said Mara Popa, junior brand manager at Cadbury Dairy Milk.

“Our new Cadbury Dairy Milk Summer Editions range features cold-activated packs, reminding consumers that chocolate is a great snacking option in the warmer weather.

“Additionally, our limited-edition Cadbury Dairy Milk Iced Latte tablet is designed to excite consumers with a brand new flavour crafted for summer.

This NPD also features colour changing packaging, highlighting the chilled chocolate trend in a playful way and tapping into the debate.”

The cold-reactive wrappers aren’t just eye-catching – they’re a clever nod to how Brits really eat chocolate.

According to Cadbury’s research, more than half the nation stores their bars in the fridge, especially during the warmer months.

Despite this trend, the brand has advised fans to think twice before chilling their choc. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), a spokesperson warned that the fridge might not always be the best place.

“Chocolate should always be stored in a slightly cool, dry, dark place such as a cupboard or pantry at temperatures less than 21°C to ensure the quality isn’t compromised,” they explained.

Still, curiosity is high.

A whopping 67 per cent of Brits said they’re open to trying chilled chocolate, and Cadbury is leaning into that interest with a playful summer twist.

All five bars in the Edition range will be available in major retailers nationwide and have a recommended price of £2.

However, prices may vary depending on the store.

Chocoholics can expect a limited run, so fans might want to snap them up quickly once they appear in shops.

The packaging not only changes colour, but also ties in with the look and feel of a traditional British summer – perfect for picnics, beach days, or just a cool treat at home.

The launch of the iced latte-flavoured Dairy Milk also adds to Cadbury’s growing line-up of coffee-infused treats.

The bar combines smooth milk chocolate with a creamy coffee centre and crunchy biscuit bits, designed to satisfy both choc and coffee lovers.

Cadbury has already seen success with coffee-flavoured chocolate.

The Twirl Iced Latte has popped up in B&M stores in recent weeks, earning rave reviews from fans.

Meanwhile, a collab with coffee brand Kenco gave us the chocolate-flavoured mocha – another hit among sweet-toothed sippers.

And it’s not stopping there.

From 2 June, the brand will also roll out a limited-edition Twirl White Dipped bar, combining its famous flaky layers with a coating of smooth white chocolate.

A post on Facebook teased the launch, calling it “unreal, indulgent, smooth, swirly, creamy, melty, new, and mouthwatering.”

Earlier this month, fans also spotted a new Cadbury Dairy Milk Balls pack in shops, drawing comparisons to the nostalgic Cadbury Tasters – small, round chocolate treats first launched in 1996.

With so many launches lined up and a summer full of colourful, cold-friendly packaging, Cadbury is clearly out to make this season a choc-filled celebration.

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The international humanitarian organisation, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has raised concerns about the critical situation regarding sexual violence in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. They report that the support and treatment available for victims are still insufficient, while assaults against women continue to occur at an alarming rate.

In 2024, approximately 40,000 victims and survivors received treatment from the MSF team in the North Kivu province. This trend continued into 2025. Between January and April 2025, the organisation says it cared for around 7,400 people in Goma and over 2,400 in Sake, which is near Goma.

Despite changes in the security landscape, sexual violence continues to be a pervasive issue. “The context in the region has changed, but the problem of sexual violence persists, with women remaining the primary victims,” explains Francois Calas, the MSF chief in North Kivu.

The ongoing insecurity in these conflict zones contributes to the perpetuation of violence. Most recorded acts of aggression are committed by assailants wielding weapons, who are often not identified due to the presence of numerous armed groups and the widespread availability of firearms.

Organisations like MSF have condemned the worsening access to treatment, noting that many health facilities no longer have the necessary medications and supplies to treat victims. Ongoing conflicts disrupt supply chains, and a decrease in humanitarian funding further exacerbates the situation.

The revelations by victims who spoke to MSF indicate the brutality of the assaults and the absence of secure places for women, both displaced and those in their homes.

“Armed men entered our house around 22:30,” reveals Nasha, a displaced woman who found refuge in a school. “Some husbands [men] were killed and women raped. It was the case with me. Three men wanted to rape me in front of my husband and my eight children. My husband resisted, and they killed him.”

Around Goma and Sake, other victims report having been assaulted on the highway or on their farms.

“They asked me to choose between allowing them to rape me or death,” said Rika, an inhabitant of a village situated forty kilometres to the west of Goma. “They raped me one after the other.”

In South Kivu, the situation remains preoccupying. In the territories of Kalehe and Uvira, about 700 survivors have been taken charge of since January 2025. There, too, the assaults continue sometimes during displacement or near health structures.

“We have suffered on the farms where we sought refuge,” says an inhabitant of the hills around Kamanyola. “Armed men do not authorise us to go through villages. Some women have even been raped while trying to reach a health centre,” the woman added.

MSF insists that the figures given are below the real figures. According to Luders Leriche, medical coordinator of South Kivu, the fear of reprisals, stigmatisation, distance, and weakness of the health system prevent many victims from accessing medical assistance. The social and psychological consequences are hefty and include isolation, rejection, and thoughts of resorting to suicide. While the women are the principal victims, the men are also affected, though the number of cases reported remains less than those involving women.

The French humanitarian organisation calls for urgent mobilisation, saying: “Despite the present challenges, it is imperative not to abandon these women and children. Their being taken care of must be an absolute priority.”

In the provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu, MSF proposes comprehensive care for victims, including preventive treatment for sexually transmitted infections, urgent contraception, vaccinations, psychological therapy, secure abortions, and hospitalisation for more severe cases.

Emergency risks continue to escalate when civilian protection measures are not strengthened and access to treatment is not maintained. Therefore, MSF emphasises the need to sustain and enhance humanitarian efforts, prioritising the care of victims, even in the face of reduced global funding.

A UK-based researcher said the cause of the internet outage in the secretive state seems to be internal rather than an external attack.

Internet access in North Korea has experienced a major outage, according to a United Kingdom-based monitor, but the exact cause may be internal rather than the result of a cyberattack.

Junade Ali, a researcher who monitors the North Korean internet, said on Saturday that the secretive country’s entire internet infrastructure is not registering on systems that monitor global internet activity.

“A major outage is currently occurring on North Korea’s internet – affecting all routes whether they come in via China or Russia,” Ali said.

“Hard to say if this is intentional or accidental – but seems like this is internal rather than an attack,” he said.

Pyongyang maintains several externally accessible government websites, including those for its Foreign Ministry and official news sources such as the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA). Both of these sites were down when Al Jazeera attempted to access them on Saturday morning.

Almost all of the country’s internet links and traffic are believed to pass through Chinese servers.

It is not known how many people have direct access to the global internet in North Korea, but estimates place the figure at a small fraction of 1 percent of the country’s population of some 25 million.

A highly-monitored and curated intranet is offered to North Korean citizens – known as Kwangmyong – while global internet access is strictly limited in the authoritarian country.

The country has been the target of cyberattacks in the past, including in January 2022, when United States-based hacker Alejandro Caceres removed every publicly visible North Korean website and kept them down for more than a week using distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

North Korea, ruled by third-generation dictator Kim Jong Un, has been accused by US and United Nations officials of operating armies of hackers from within the country as part of an escalating campaign of global cyber theft.

In a report published in December, US blockchain analysis firm, Chainalysis, said North Korean hackers set a new record for cyber theft in 2024, stealing more than $1.34bn worth of cryptocurrency through 47 cyberattacks.

The Emmys’ limited series/TV movie acting categories have come to represent some of the best and most-talked-about shows on television, and this year’s crop of contenders is no exception.

The seven actors who joined the 2025 Envelope Roundtable were Javier Bardem, who plays father, victim and alleged molester Jose Menendez in Netflix’s “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story”; Renée Zellweger, who reprises her role as the British romantic heroine in “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy”; Stephen Graham, who co-created and stars in “Adolescence” as the father of a teenage boy who commits a heinous murder; Jenny Slate, who plays the best friend of a terminally ill woman in FX’s “Dying for Sex”; Brian Tyree Henry, who portrays a man posing as a federal agent in order to rip off drug dealers in Apple TV+’s “Dope Thief”; Elizabeth Banks, who takes on the role of an estranged sibling and recovering alcoholic in Prime Video’s “The Better Sister”; and Sacha Baron Cohen, who appears as the deceived husband of a successful filmmaker in Apple TV+’s “Disclaimer.”

The Times’ news and culture critic Lorraine Ali spoke to the group about the emotional fallout of a heavy scene, the art of defying expectations and more. Read highlights from their conversation below and watch video of the roundtable above.

The 2025 Limited Series / TV Movie Roundtable: Elizabeth Banks, left, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jenny Slate, Javier Bardem, Brian Tyree Henry, Renée Zellweger and Stephen Graham.

Many of you move between drama and comedy. People often think, “Drama’s very serious and difficult, comedy’s light and easy.” Is that true?

Banks: I think the degree of difficulty with comedy is much higher. It’s really hard to sustainably make people laugh over time, whereas [with] drama, everyone relates to loss and pining for love that’s unrequited. Not everybody has great timing or is funny or gets satire.

Henry: There’s something fun about how closely intertwined they are. In my series, I’m playing a heroin addict running for my life, and I have this codependency with this friend … There’s a scene where I’ve been looking for him, and I’m high out of my mind, and I find him in my attic, and all he’s talking about is how he has to take a s—. And I’m like, “But they’re trying to kill us.” You just see him wincing and going through all these [groans]. It is so funny, but at the same time, you’re just terrified for both. There’s always humor somewhere in the drama.

Banks: There’s a reason why the theater [symbol] is a happy face/sad face. They’re very intertwined.

Renée Zellweger of “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.”

Renée, with Bridget Jones — how has she changed over the last 25 years and where is she now with “Mad About the Boy”?

Zellweger: Nobody’s the same from one moment to the next, one chapter to the next and certainly not from one year to the next. It’s been a really interesting sort of experiment to revisit a character in the different phases of her life.

What I’m really grateful for is that the timing runs in parallel to the sort of experiences that you have in your early 20s, 30s and so on. With each iteration, I don’t have to pretend that I’m less than I am, because I don’t want to be the character that I was, or played, when she was 29, 35. I don’t want to do that, and I certainly don’t want to do that now.

So it was really nice to meet her again in this place of what she’s experiencing in the moment, which is bereavement and the loss of her great love, and being a mom, and trying to be responsible, and reevaluating what she values, and how she comports herself, and what’s important and all of that, because, of course, I relate to that in this moment.

Stephen, “Adolescence” follows a family dealing with the fallout of their 13-year-old son being accused of a brutal murder. You direct and star in the series. What was it like being immersed in such heavy subject matter? Did it come home with you?

Graham: We did that first episode, the end of it was quite heavy and quite emotional. When we said, “Cut,” all of us older actors and the crew were very emotional. There were hugs and a bit of applause.

And then everyone would be like, “Where’s Owen?” [Cooper, the teenage actor who plays Graham’s character’s son]. “Is Owen OK? Is he with his child psychologist?” No, Owen’s upstairs playing swing ball with his tutor. It was like OK, that’s the way to do this — not to take myself too seriously when we say, “Cut,” but when I am there, immerse myself in it.

Let’s be honest, we can all be slightly self-obsessed. My missus, she’s the best for me because I’d phone her and say, “I had a really tough day. I had to cry all day. My wife’s died of cancer, and it was a really tough one.” She goes, “The dog s— all over the living room. I had to go shopping and the f— bag split when I got to Tesco. There was a flat tire. They’ve let the kids out of school early because there’s been a flood. And you’ve had a hard day pretending to be sad?”

Bardem: I totally agree with what Stephen says. You have a life with your family and your children that you have to really pay attention to. This is a job, and you just do the job as good as you can with your own limitations. You put everything into it when they say, “Action,” and when you’re out, you just leave it behind. Otherwise, it’s too much.

Certain scenes, certain moments stay with you because we work with what we are. But I think it doesn’t make you a better actor to really stay in character, as they say, for 24 hours. That doesn’t work for me. It actually makes me feel very confused if I do that.

On the show “Monsters” I tried to protect Cooper [Koch] and Nicholas [Alexander Chavez], the actors who play the children, because they were carrying the heavy weight on the show every day. I was trying to make them feel protected and loved and accompanied by us, the adults, and let them know that we are there for them and that this is fiction. Because they were going really deep into it, and they did an amazing job.

Elizabeth Banks of “The Better Sister.”

Elizabeth, in “The Better Sister,” you portray Nicky, a sister estranged from her sibling who’s been through quite a bit of her own trauma.

Banks: I play a drunk who’s lost her child and her husband, basically, to her little sister, played by Jessica Biel. She is grappling with trauma from her childhood, which she’s trying not to bring forward. She’s been working [with] Alcoholics Anonymous, an incredible program, to get through her stuff. But she’s also a fish out of water when she visits her sister, who [lives in a] very rarefied New York, literary, fancy rich world. My character basically lives in a trailer park in Ohio. There’s a lot going on. And there’s a murder mystery.

I loved the complication … but it brought up all of those things for me. I do think you absolutely leave most of that [heaviness] on set. You are mining it all for the character work, so you’ve got to find it, but I don’t need to then infect my own children with it.

Sacha Baron Cohen of “Disclaimer.”

Sacha, you have played and created these really gregarious characters like Ali G or Borat. Your character in “Disclaimer,” he’s not a character you created, but he is very understated. Was that a challenge?

Cohen: It took me a long time to work out who the character was. I said to [director] Alfonso [Cuarón], “I don’t understand why this guy goes on that journey from where we see him in Act 1.” For me it was, how do you make this person unique?

We worked a lot through the specificity of what words he uses and what he actually says to explain and give hints for me as an actor. A lot of that was Alfonso Cuarón saying, “Take it down.” And there was a lot of rewriting and loads of drafts before I even understood how this guy reacts to the news and information that he believes about his wife.

Jenny Slate of “Dying for Sex.”

Jenny, “Dying for Sex” is based on a true story about two friends. One has terminal cancer, and the other — your character — supports her right up until the end. Talk about what it was like to play that role in a series that alternates between biting humor and deep grief.

Slate: Michelle Williams, who does a brilliant job in this show, her energy is extending outward and [her character] is trying to experiment before she does the greatest experiment of all, which is to cross over into the other side. My character is really out there, not out there willy-nilly, but she will yell at people if they are being rude, wasteful or if she feels it’s unjust. [And she’s] going from blasting to taking all that energy and making it this tight laser, and pointing it right into care, and knowing more about herself at the end.

I am a peppy person, and I felt so excited to have the job that a lot of my day started with calming myself down. I’m at work with Michelle Williams and Sissy Spacek and Liz Meriwether and Shannon Murphy and being, like, “Siri, set a meditation timer for 10 minutes,” and making myself do alternate nostril breathing [exercises].

Brian Tyree Henry of “Dope Thief.”

Brian, many people came to know you from your role as Paper Boi in “Atlanta.” The series was groundbreaking and like nothing else on television. What was it like moving out of that world and onto other projects?

Henry: People really thought that I was this rapper that they pulled off the street from Atlanta. To me, that’s the greatest compliment … When I did “Bullet Train,” I was shocked at how many people thought I was British. I was like, “Oh, right. Now I’ve twisted your mind this way.” I was [the voice of] Megatron at one point, and now I’ve twisted your mind that way. My path in is always going to be stretching people’s imaginations, because they get so attached to characters that I’ve played that they really believe that I’m that person.

People feel like they have an ownership of who you are. I love the challenge of having to force the imaginations of the viewers and myself to see me in a departure [from] what they saw me [as] previously. Because I realize that when I walk in a room, before I even open my mouth, there’s 90 different things that are put on me or taken away from me because of how I look and how I carry myself.

Javier Bardem of “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.”

Javier, since doing the series are you now frequently asked about your own opinions on the Menendez case? The brothers claim their father molested them, and that is in part what led to them murdering their parents.

Bardem: I don’t think anybody knows. That’s the point. That was the great thing about playing that character, is you have to play it in a way that it’s not obvious that he did those things that he was accused of, because nobody knows, but at the same time you have to make people believe that he was capable.

I did say to Ryan [Murphy] that I can’t do a scene with a kid. Because in the beginning, they do drafts, and there were certain moments where I said, “I can’t. It’s not needed.” The only moment that I had a hard time was when [Jose] has to face [his] young kid. It was only a moment where Jose was mean to him. That’s not in my nature.

Henry: I discovered, while doing my series, “My body doesn’t know this isn’t real.” There’s an episode where I’m shot in the leg, and I’m bleeding out and I’m on all this different morphine and drugs and all this stuff, and I’m literally lying on this ground, take after take, having to mime this. To go through the delusion of this pain … in the middle of the takes, it was just so crazy. I would literally look at the crew and say, “Somebody hug me! Somebody!”

Stephen, that scene where you confront the boys in the parking lot with the bike, I was just like, “Oh, my God, how many times did he have to do that?” This kid gets in your face, and I was like, “Punch the kid!” My heart went out to you, man, not just as the character but as you being in there.

Graham: Because we did it all in one take, we had that unique quality. You’re using the best of two mediums. You’ve got that beauty and that spontaneity and that reality of the theater, and then you have the naturalism and the truth that we have with film and television. So by the time I get to that final bit, we’ve been through all those emotions. When I open the door and go into [Jamie’s] room, everything’s shaken. But it’s not you. It’s an out-of-body experience and just comes from somewhere else.

Bardem: Listen, we don’t do brain surgery, but let’s give ourselves some credit. We are generous in what we do because we are putting our bodies into an experience. We are doing this for something bigger than us, and that is the story that we’re telling.

What have been some of the more challenging or difficult moments for you, either in your career or your recent series?

Zellweger: Trying not to do what you’re feeling in the moment sometimes, because it’s not appropriate to what you’re telling. That happens in most shows, most things that you do. I think everybody experiences it where you’re bringing something from home and it doesn’t belong on the set. It’s impossible to leave it behind when you walk in because it’s bigger than you are in that moment.

Banks: I would say that the thing that I worked on the most for “The Better Sister” was [understanding] sobriety. I’m not sober. I love a bubbly rosé. So it really did bring up how much I think about drinking and how social it is and what that ritual is for me, and how this character is thinking about it every day and deciding every day to stay sober or not. I am also a huge fan of AA and sobriety programs. I think they’re incredible tools for everybody who works those programs. I was grateful for the access to all of that as I was making the series. But that’s what you get to do in TV. You get to explore episode by episode. You get to play out a lot more than just three acts.

Stephen Graham of “Adolescence.”

Stephen, about the continuous single shot. It seems like it’s an incredibly difficult and complex way to shoot a series. Why do it?

Graham: It’s exceptionally difficult, I’m not going to lie. It’s like a swan glides across the water beautifully, but the legs are going rapidly underneath. A lot of it is done in preparation. We spend a whole week learning the script, and then the second week is just with the camera crew and the rest of the crew. It’s a choreography that you work out, getting an idea of where they want the camera to go, and the opportunity to embody the space ourselves.

Cohen: That reminds me of a bit of doing the undercover movies that I do because you have one take. … I did a scene where I’m wearing a bulletproof vest. There were a lot of the people in the audience who’d gone to this rally, a lot of them had machine guns. We knew they were going to get angry, but you’ve got to do the scene. You’ve got one time to get the scene right. But you also go, “OK, those guys have got guns. They’re trying to storm the stage. I haven’t quite finished the scene. When do I leave?” But you’ve got to get the scene. I could get shot, but that’s not important.

Henry: There’s a certain level of sociopathy.

Slate: I feel like I’m never on my mark, and it was always a very kind camera operator being like, “Hey, Jenny, you weren’t in the shot shoulder-wise.” I feel like such an idiot. Part of it is working through lifelong, longstanding feelings of “I’m a fool and my foolishness is going to make people incredibly angry with me.” And then really still wanting to participate and having no real certainty that I’m going to be able to do anything but just make all of my fears real. Part of the thing that I love about performance is I just want to experience the version of myself that does not collapse into useless fragments when I face the thing that scares me the most. I do that, and then I feel the appetite for performance again.

Do you see yourself in roles when you’re watching other people’s films or TV show?

Graham: At the end of the day, we’re all big fans of acting. That’s why we do it. Because when we were young, we were inspired by people on the screen, or we were inspired by places where we could put ourselves and lose our imaginations.

We have a lot of t— in this industry. But I think if we fight hard enough, we can come through. Do you know what I mean? It’s people that are here for the right reasons. It’s a collective. Acting is not a game of golf. It’s a team. It’s in front and it’s behind the camera. I think it’s important that we nourish that.

Henry: And remember that none of us are t—.

Bardem: What is a t—? I may be one of them and I don’t know it.

Graham: I’ll explain it to you later.

Washington, DC – Top United States diplomat Marco Rubio has suggested his country’s “engagement” is what led Israel to allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza after a months-long blockade on food, medicine and other basic supplies.

At a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday, Democrat Jeff Merkley pressed Rubio, a Republican, about his stance on Israel’s blockade, which spurred fears of imminent famine in the Palestinian territory.

The secretary of state replied that the US is happy to see humanitarian assistance start to enter the territory.

“Ultimately, I don’t think you would have seen the events of the last couple days without our engagement and the engagement of others,” Rubio said.

Israel allowed several aid trucks to enter Gaza on Monday, and United Nations officials have said that around 100 more were cleared to reach the territory on Tuesday.

But that quantity still represents a fraction of the daily needs of Gaza’s population, which numbers over 2.1 million people.

“Israel remains a strong ally. We’re supportive,” Rubio continued. “We understand why for their security Hamas cannot exist. We are also very happy to see that they have allowed aid to begin to flow, and we hope that that will continue.”

Several Western countries, including close partners of Israel, have recently decried the Israeli siege on Gaza. On Monday, the leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Canada said in a joint statement that they were “horrified” by Israel’s military escalations in Gaza and its blockade on humanitarian aid.

They threatened to pursue “concrete actions” like sanctions if Israel continued to expand its military assault.

The administration of US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has remained staunchly pro-Israel, but experts say recent moves from the White House signal a growing gap between the US and Israel.

For example, Trump did not include Israel as a stop in his recent trip to the Middle East. He has also initiated diplomatic talks with Iran and declared a ceasefire with Yemen’s Houthi group — both of which are adversaries of Israel in the region.

The Houthis, for instance, continue to launch missiles and drones at Israel in a show of support for the Palestinians in Gaza.

Still, over the past three months, the US has refused to directly criticise Israel’s decision to prevent food and medicine from reaching Gaza.

But last week, at a stop in the United Arab Emirates, Trump indicated he wanted to get the situation in Gaza “taken care of”.

“A lot of people are starving. There’s a lot of bad things going on,” he said.

Also last week, in an interview with the BBC, Rubio said he was “troubled” by the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher also told the BBC on Tuesday that as many as 14,000 children in Gaza are at risk of dying in the next 48 hours if food does not reach them.

Last year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over possible war crimes in Gaza, including the use of starvation as a method of war.

On Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel would only allow a “basic quantity of food” into the Palestinian territory to stave off international pressure.

“Our best friends in the world – senators I know as strong supporters of Israel – have warned that they cannot support us if images of mass starvation emerge,” he said, according to the publication Haaretz.

The Gaza Government Media Office said on Tuesday that at least 58 Palestinians have died of malnutrition over the past 80 days.

At Tuesday’s Senate hearing, Rubio appeared to acknowledge that more aid needs to reach the Palestinians in Gaza.

“I understand your point that it’s not in sufficient amounts,” Rubio told Merkley. “But we were pleased to see that decision was made.”

The Chargers welcomed Arctos as a limited partner Tuesday as NFL owners approved a sale that transferred some the team’s shares to the Dallas-based private equity firm that already has ties to the Dodgers.

“Arctos’ track record in major professional sports speaks for itself,” Chargers owner Dean Spanos said in a statement, “and we are grateful for their alignment moving forward during this time of tremendous growth for our organization.”

According to a league memo The Times obtained last week, Arctos acquired 8% of the team’s shares. Spanos and his family will retain control of the Chargers organization with approximately 61% of the franchise.

Arctos now has stakes in two NFL teams less than a year after the league approved private equity ownership. The company acquired a 10% stake in the Buffalo Bills in January, adding to its portfolio that already included MLB, NBA, NHL and MLS teams. Arctos has ownership stakes in six MLB teams: the Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, San Francisco Giants, San Diego Padres, Houston Astros and Boston Red Sox.

“We’re honored to join the Los Angeles Chargers ownership group and are grateful to Dean and the rest of the management team for their partnership,” Arctos cofounder and co-managing partner Doc O’Connor said in a statement. “We’re excited to get to work and help the team achieve their vision however we can.”

Approaching a decade since their move to L.A., the Chargers have added two major ownership groups in the last year. Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores bought a 27% stake in the team in September, resolving a long-running dispute between Dea Spanos Berberian and her siblings as Gores and his wife bought Spanos Berberian’s share of the franchise.

Israel has said it will allow limited supplies of food into Gaza as it announced the launch of an intensified ground offensive into the battered Palestinian enclave.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that pressure from allies was behind the move. Late the previous evening, his office had said Israel would open the way for some food to enter the Gaza Strip following a “recommendation” from the army.

The announcement came shortly after the Israeli military launched “extensive ground operations” that are reported to have killed more than 150 people in the last 24 hours.

“Israel will allow a basic amount of food for the population to ensure that a hunger crisis does not develop in the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement late on Sunday.

Pressure from allies

The announcement comes amid mounting international pressure on Israel to lift a two-month-long siege that threatens widespread famine in the besieged territory.

Netanyahu said in a video address on Monday that the move came after “allies” had voiced concern about “images of hunger”.

Israel’s “greatest friends in the world”, he said without mentioning specific countries, had said there is “one thing we cannot stand. We cannot accept images of hunger, mass hunger. We cannot stand that. We will not be able to support you.”

“Therefore, to achieve victory, we need to somehow solve the problem,” Netanyahu said.

The aid that would be let into Gaza would be “minimal”, he said, without specifying precisely when supplies would resume.

A spokesperson for the United Nations aid chief, Tom Fletcher, confirmed the agency had been approached by Israel to “resume limited aid delivery”, adding that discussions are ongoing about the logistics, “given the conditions on the ground”.

Munir al-Bursh, the director-general of Gaza’s Ministry of Health, said Palestinian authorities had not been informed when the border would be opened, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.

Netanyahu’s far-right allies remain opposed to allowing any supplies into Gaza, insisting that military might and hunger will secure victory over Hamas.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir described the decision to allow limited food into the enclave as a “grave mistake”.

Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, from Ben-Gvir’s party, denounced the plan as a “tragedy”, saying it directly harms the “war effort to achieve victory” in Gaza.

Israel has been accused of weaponising hunger and using the blockade to try to ethnically cleanse the enclave.

Despite the blockade and intensified military offensive, sources on both sides told the Reuters news agency there has been no progress in a new round of indirect talks between Israel and Hamas in Qatar.

Netanyahu said the talks included discussions on a truce and a deal on the captives, as well as a proposal to end the war, in return for the exile of Hamas and the demilitarisation of the enclave – terms Hamas has previously rejected.

The Israeli military suggested in a later statement that it could still scale down operations to help reach a deal in Doha, Qatar.

However, Netanyahu stressed in his video address that the aim of the intensified offensive is for Israel’s forces to “take control of all” of Gaza.

“The fighting is intense and we are making progress. We will take control of all the territory of the Strip,” he said. “We will not give up. But in order to succeed, we must act in a way that cannot be stopped.”

Over the past week, Israel’s military said it had conducted a preliminary wave of strikes on more than 670 Hamas targets in Gaza. It said it killed dozens of Hamas fighters.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said in the week to Sunday, at least 464 Palestinians were killed, many of them women and children.

On Monday morning, sources told Al Jazeera that at least 23 Palestinians had been killed across Gaza since dawn, including five near al-Faluja market in Jabalia and six in Khan Younis.

There have also been reports of Israeli attacks in and around Nasser Medical Complex, and the targeting of the intensive care unit at the Indonesian Hospital, where at least 55 people are trapped, including four doctors and eight nurses.