Kyle Loftis, who started filming street racing with a point-and-shoot camera and went on to become a pioneer in car culture media, has died, his company confirmed Wednesday. He was 43.
“We are extremely saddened to share that Kyle Loftis, the founder of 1320video, passed away last night,” the company wrote in a statement posted on social media. “We are in a state of shock.”
No cause of death has been disclosed.
The Sarpy County Sheriff’s Office and Gretna Fire Department in Nebraska responded to Loftis’ home Tuesday night, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said in a statement emailed to The Times.
“Loftis was declared deceased; his death is not suspicious,” the spokesperson wrote. “Out of respect for privacy, we will not be releasing further details.”
According to his LinkedIn page, Loftis attended the University of Nebraska at Omaha from 2000-2005 and earned a bachelor’s degree in management of information systems.
It was there, Loftis said in a 2023 video on his company’s YouTube channel, that his interests in car stereos and photography evolved into a passion for street racing — in particular, capturing races in still photos and on video and making that media available to fans.
“I’m a hardcore ‘car nut’ that’s taken his love for cars and turned it into the most amazing ‘job’ of my life,” Loftis wrote on LinkedIn. “Through my business, 1320Video, I’m able to experience the craziest & best automotive events (fitting my tastes) and share them with millions of people around the world!”
Back in the early days, Loftis posted his work on message boards and sold it on DVDs. For nearly 10 years after college, he worked for PayPal while building his motorsports media business on his own time. He dedicated himself to 1320Video full time starting in January 2015.
Currently, 1320Video has nearly 4 million subscribers on YouTube, more than 6 million followers on Facebook and nearly 3 million followers on Instagram.
“Kyle’s passion for motorsports inspired millions of people around the world and we will never forget what he has done to grow our beloved sport,” 1320Video wrote. “Kyle was a beam of light at every gathering… his enthusiasm, kindness, and creativeness was contagious.
“Let us pray that Kyle is in a better place.”
Garrett Mitchell — the YouTuber and stock car racer known as Cleetus McFarland — posted a tribute to his longtime friend on Facebook.
“Completely shocked about the loss of Kyle,” Mitchell wrote. “The most influential person on my life. We’re crushed. Please pray for his Mother and close friends, they need it most.”
Colombian singer Shakira (C) performs during a concert on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday. Photo by Andre Coelho/EPA
May 5 (UPI) — Colombian singer Shakira drew an estimated 2 million people to a free concert on Copacabana beach, generating an estimated $160 million economic impact, according to data from the city government and municipal agencies.
The show, held Saturday in front of the Copacabana Palace hotel, was part of the third edition of the “Todo Mundo no Rio” program, an initiative led by the Rio city government to attract tourism and economic activity during May, traditionally a low season.
According to Riotur and the Municipal Secretariat of Economic Development, the event boosted sectors such as hospitality, food services, transportation and retail. The city deployed a comprehensive operation covering security, logistics and public services, with the Operations and Resilience Center running at full capacity.
Todo Mundo no Rio com @shakira : 2 milhões de pessoas. A Loba fez história no Rio. Pode espalhar porque é número oficial da @Prefeitura_Rio .
Fonte: Riotur
Todo el mundo en Río con @Shakira: 2 millones de personas. La Loba hizo historia en Río. Pueden compartirlo: es la cifra… pic.twitter.com/jhq9bJIHtg— Eduardo Cavaliere (@CavaliereRio) May 3, 2026
The concert opened with a show of 1,500 drones — described as one of the largest displays of its kind at a music event — forming a she-wolf in the sky, a symbol associated with the artist. Minutes later, Shakira appeared on stage dressed in the colors of Brazil.
During the show, the artist spoke in Portuguese and recalled her early years in the country.
“Brazil, I love you. It is magical to see millions of souls together, ready to sing, feel and dance,” she told the crowd.
The performance included more than two hours of hits spanning different stages of her career, along with segments dedicated to women.
“Women don’t cry anymore. Alone we may be more vulnerable, but together we are invincible,” she said.
The show also featured appearances by well-known Brazilian artists, such as Anitta, Caetano Veloso, Maria Bethania and Ivete Sangalo.
The “Todo Mundo no Rio” program aims to position Rio as a global destination for large-scale events. It was launched in 2024 with Madonna, who drew 1.6 million people, and continued in 2025 with Lady Gaga, who attracted 2.5 million.
Copacabana has also hosted some of the largest concerts in the world. Rod Stewart drew 3.5 million people in 1994, The Rolling Stones, about 1.5 million in 2006, and Stevie Wonder, some 2 million in 2012.
According to official data released by Agencia Brasil, medical services handled about 400 cases during the event, with 64 transfers to hospitals due to general discomfort, minor injuries and alcohol consumption. Cleanup crews collected about 362 tons of waste, with nearly 2,000 workers deployed.
After her stop in Brazil, Shakira will head to the North American leg of her tour, with concerts in the United States between June and July. These include dates in Inglewood, Palm Desert and San Jose, Calif., Dallas, Atlanta, Miami, Baltimore, Boston, Newark, N.J., and New York, before ending this leg in Atlantic City, N.J. on July 25.
Everyone wants to be “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” as the 20-year sequel strutted to an estimated $77 million in the U.S. and Canada in its opening weekend, highlighting the spending power of women moviegoers at the box office.
The film, which returned stars Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci, nudged out Lionsgate’s “Michael” for the domestic top spot at theaters this weekend. In its second outing, the Michael Jackson biopic brought in $54 million, upping its overall North American total to $183.8 million and its cumulative global haul to $423.9 million.
Worldwide, Walt Disney Co.-owned 20th Century Studios’ “The Devil Wears Prada 2” brought in $233.6 million, according to studio estimates. The theatrical revenue, both domestic and worldwide, edged studio expectations. Already, the film has brought in 72% of the total revenue that the original movie made ($326 million).
The 2006 original has become a cult classic, with lines like Streep’s infamous “that’s all” and Tucci’s “gird your loins” now millennial catchphrases. The popularity of that film has continued over time with repeat viewings on cable television and the Disney+ streaming service.
“Nostalgia is a big driving factor for movies like this,” Andrew Cripps, head of theatrical distribution for Walt Disney Studios, said. “It’s just one of those movies that got into the zeitgeist.”
The fashion-forward sequel had a production budget of about $100 million. The film notched a 77% approval rating on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Women comprised the majority of the audience for “The Devil Wears Prada 2” this weekend, representing 71% of moviegoers, according to data from EntTelligence.
The strong showing for “The Devil Wears Prada 2” highlights the spending potential of female moviegoers, who have had few big movies aimed at them in the last few years.
Despite the billion-dollar blockbuster that was “Barbie” in 2023, Hollywood has largely failed to consistently deliver big films targeted to women. That’s led multiple box office analysts and studio executives to note that the industry is leaving money on the table.
In the past, comparable titles to “The Devil Wears Prada 2” would have been 2008’s “Mamma Mia” or the “Sex in the City” film, but those kinds of movies are now few and far between.
“There haven’t been enough movies for females,” Cripps said. “When you can give them a good movie, as long as the movie plays well and I think this one plays brilliantly, there’s a big audience out there.”
Universal Pictures, Nintendo and Illumination’s “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” continued its run with a third place finish of $12.1 million at the box office this weekend, followed by Amazon MGM Studios’ “Project Hail Mary” in fourth and Neon’s horror flick “Hokum” in fifth, according to Comscore data.
The bridge will provide a safe passage for wildlife(Image: Mario Tama/Getty Images)
After multiple setbacks and delays, the opening of the world’s largest wildlife bridge has finally been revealed. Spiralling costs and building delays pushed the project back by at least a year.
Work has been underway on the bridge for four and a half years. Now, it has been confirmed that the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing over the 101 Freeway in Agoura Hills, north of Los Angeles, will open on December 2.
The project leaders made the announcement on Earth Day. Managers said: “What a journey this has been! And we cannot wait to celebrate with you all.”
The main section of the bridge, which spans 10 lanes of the freeway, has largely been completed and landscaped. Work still left to do includes building over Agoura Road and connecting both ends of the bridge to the open space on either side.
It will eventually allow wildlife to safely pass through. California’s regional director for the National Wildlife Federation, Beth Pratt, has already seen some wildlife enjoying the bridge.
She told KNX News Radio: “I’ve recorded multiple species of butterflies up here. We’ve had, I think, eight species of birds.
“We’ve had red-tailed hawks and American kestrels fly by, so wildlife are already responding to it, even though it’s not connected to the landscape.”
The goal of the project is to reinvigorate the mountain lion population in the area. Animals that are frequently hit by cars on the freeway are also set to benefit, which include bears, bobcats, foxes, coyotes and deer.
The bridge has faced multiple delays and criticism. In 2022, the project broke ground with a $90million price tag (£66.5million) and was set to be completed by 2025.
However, reports today say the total has climbed to $114million (£84.5million), which has been paid for through private donations and public funds.
Project leaders have said near-record rainfall, which saturated the site in 2023 and 2024, delayed work. Project costs were also pushed higher due to inflation, labour shortages and the complexity of the project.
In a blog post, project leaders said: “The criticism often flattens a far more complicated reality. This is not a standard overpass. Engineers are effectively building a living ecosystem over 10 lanes of one of the busiest freeways in the country.”
It added: “Projects of this scale should be questioned, audited and debated—especially when it’s the public’s money being used.
“But they should also be judged on their purpose. In a region where wildlife populations face genetic isolation and frequent freeway deaths, doing nothing carries its own cost.
“The real question is not whether the crossing is ambitious—it clearly is. It’s whether Southern California is willing to invest in repairing the environmental missteps that made the project necessary in the first place.”
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will hear arguments this week over whether the Trump administration may revoke temporary protected status for about 350,000 Haitian and 6,100 Syrian immigrants.
TPS allows people who are already in the United States to legally reside and work here if they are unable to safely return to their home country because of a sudden emergency such as war or a natural disaster. The humanitarian program, enacted by Congress in 1990, has since been used by Republican and Democratic administrations alike.
Since President Trump returned to office last year, his administration has terminated such protections for immigrants from 13 countries. Court challenges on behalf of Haitians and Syrians have been consolidated into a single case, Mullin vs. Doe, which the justices will hear Wednesday.
The high court’s ruling could eventually have sweeping repercussions for all 1.3 million immigrants from the 17 countries that were designated for TPS at the start of this administration. That’s because the federal government is arguing that decisions regarding the program are almost entirely immune from review by courts.
“Temporary means temporary and the final word will not be from activist judges legislating from the bench,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, who did not provide their name, wrote in response to a request for comment.
Lower courts have repeatedly deemed the administration’s actions improper.
“We’re seeing clear gamesmanship from government to insulate all TPS decision-making from any oversight,” said Emi MacLean, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, who is counsel in the case for Syrians and in other cases challenging five of the terminations. “They’ve created a farce of a process to justify the ends that they sought, which was to strip humanitarian protections from over a million people.”
In the Trump administration’s appeal, Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer argued that Congress gave the Homeland Security secretary the power to grant or end the temporary protected status for troubled countries and barred judges from intervening.
He pointed to a provision that says: “There is no judicial review of any determination of the [secretary] with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation, of a foreign state.”
Citing this hands-off provision, Trump’s lawyers won brief emergency orders last year that allowed the administration to strip legal protections from about 600,000 Venezuelans. In that case, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had quickly reversed an extension granted by the Biden administration three days before Trump was sworn in.
The circumstances surrounding the Syria and Haiti cases are different. Advocates for the immigrants argue that the administration failed to conduct the required process to properly evaluate each country’s conditions.
They point to emails in July from a Homeland Security official to a State Department official. The Homeland Security official listed TPS designations coming up for review — Syria, South Sudan, Myanmar and Ethiopia. In response, the State Department official wrote: “I confirm that State has no foreign policy concerns with ending these TPS designations.”
State Department travel advisories for both countries warn people against traveling to either because of the risk of terrorism, kidnapping and widespread violence. U.S. citizens are advised to prepare a will.
For Syria, the advisory cites active armed conflict since 2011. For Haiti, it says the country has been under a national state of emergency since March 2024.
But Federal Register notices announcing the terminations said country conditions had sufficiently improved. The notice for Syria, for example, says “the Secretary has determined that, while some sporadic and episodic violence occurs in Syria, the situation no longer meets the criteria for an ongoing armed conflict that poses a serious threat to the personal safety of returning Syrian nationals.”
If the government loses, Homeland Security officials would have to reevaluate the TPS decisions in consultation with the State Department and make a decision based entirely on the country conditions themselves.
The government could start over, in that case, and still find that TPS is no longer warranted — if the process bears that out.
In a friend-of-the-court brief led by immigration law scholars at Georgetown and Temple universities, they explained that before TPS existed, similar forms of humanitarian relief were determined by the executive branch “without reference to any statutory criteria or constraints, and with little if any explanation for why nationals of certain countries received protection while others did not.”
With TPS in 1990, Congress sought to end that “unfettered discretion,” they wrote. Instead, the statute requires the Homeland Security secretary to terminate TPS if the review finds that conditions justifying the designation no longer exist. Otherwise, the law states, it “is extended.”
“The point of the TPS statute was to depoliticize humanitarian decisions,” said MacLean, the ACLU attorney. “Secretary Noem in all of her TPS decisions has completely undermined that fundamental goal.”
Ahilan Arulanantham, who is arguing for the Syria case on Wednesday, added that if the government wins, “it also means they could probably grant TPS to countries that don’t deserve it.” Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA, has represented the National TPS Alliance in separate litigation during this administration and Trump’s first.
Top Homeland Security and State Department officials from the George W. Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden administrations filed a brief arguing that the Trump administration’s terminations of TPS for Syria and Haiti were “not based on evidence and sharply departed from past inter-agency practices.”
Haiti was originally designated for TPS in 2010 after a massive earthquake devastated the country and redesignated because of subsequent natural disasters and gang violence. In November, Noem announced that she would terminate TPS for Haiti, effective Feb. 3. She wrote in the Federal Register that “there are no extraordinary and temporary conditions in Haiti” that prevent Haitians from safely returning.
But even if there were, she continued, “termination of Temporary Protected Status of Haiti is still required because it is contrary to the national interest of the United States.”
The Homeland Security spokesperson said TPS for Haiti “was never intended to be a de facto amnesty program, yet that’s how previous administrations have used it for decades.”
Syria, meanwhile, “has been a hotbed of terrorism and extremism for nearly two decades,” the spokesperson wrote, “and it is contrary to our national interest to allow Syrians to remain in our country.”
In the Federal Register notice for Syria, Noem added that maintaining its TPS designation would “complicate the administration’s broader diplomatic engagement with Syria’s transitional government” by undermining peace-building efforts.
The Supreme Court will take up the question of whether the Homeland Security secretary can use national interest as a reason to revoke TPS. Attorneys for the TPS holders believe any decision to revoke TPS must come down to the country conditions alone.
Syria and Haiti are among the countries for which the Trump administration has also paused processing all immigration benefits. If their TPS protections expire, those immigrants would become vulnerable to detention and deportation even if they are eligible for other forms of relief.
U.S. Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer argued that Congress gave the Homeland Security secretary the power to grant or end the temporary protected status for troubled countries and barred judges from intervening.
(Aaron Schwartz / Getty Images)
Attorneys for the TPS holders say the terminations were also driven by racial animus. They point to various statements by Trump over the years, including his false claim that Haitians were eating the pets of people in Springfield, Ohio, that they “probably have AIDS” and that Haiti is among the “shithole countries” from which he would permanently pause migration.
Among those affected is a 35-year-old Haitian woman who has lived in the U.S. since 2000 and is raising her four U.S. citizen children in a Southern state. The woman requested to be identified by her middle and last initials, B.B., out of concern for her immigration case.
After graduating high school, B.B. got into nursing school but couldn’t attend because she didn’t qualify for financial aid. She said later getting TPS allowed her to become a certified nursing assistant, and she now works as a medical coordinator while owning a nail salon and three real estate properties.
Though B.B.’s TPS remains active because of the court proceedings, her driver’s license expired Feb. 3 and she has since had to rely on friends and rideshares to get around while repeatedly requesting a renewal.
She said she worries most about her children. If she were deported back to Haiti, she said, she would leave them in the U.S. for their own safety.
“It’s like planning your death,” she said. “I’m 35 and I already have a will — not because I’m going to die but because of the situation.”
On a call with reporters, attorneys and advocates, a Syrian man said he earned his master’s degree in the U.S. and now works in the healthcare industry. The man, who was identified by a pseudonym, said he and his wife are afraid of what their future will look like.
“TPS gave us something we had not had in years: a place to settle and a moment to grieve,” he said, later adding that “telling Syrians to go back right now is not a policy — it’s abandonment.”
Among the public, there is broad support for TPS and other humanitarian programs. According to a poll conducted last month by the firm Equis Research, 68% of Latino and 65% of non-Latino voters support fighting to give back legal protection to those who have lost their temporary protected status or asylum protections as a result of the current administration’s actions.
Earlier this month, the House voted in favor of a bill that would require new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to redesignate Haiti for TPS. Among those who crossed the political aisle to support it were 10 Republicans and Rep. Kevin Kiley, an independent from Rocklin, Calif., who caucuses with Republicans. The measure faces an uphill battle in the Senate.
In an interview with The Times, Kiley said his vote was about common sense and being humane.
“It’s particularly dangerous for people that would be returning where the gangs that are ravaging the country are just lying in wait outside the airport in Port-au-Prince,” he said, referring to the Haitian capital.
And because most won’t return willingly, Kiley added, “really all you’d be doing is removing work authorization from 350,000-some people who are going to mostly remain in the country, who will not be able to work anymore and may end up being more reliant on public assistance in states where they’re eligible.”
At the same time, Kiley said, the TPS system hasn’t worked as intended because most so-called temporary designations drag on.
“The system needs to be reformed,” he said. “But that’s all separate and apart from what we do with the folks who were already given this designation.”
Times staff writer David G. Savage in Washington contributed to this report.
Where is Million Dollar Secret filmed? – The Mirror
Need to know
The Netflix series refers to the location as The Stag and you could book a stay there yourself
You could stay at the luxury estate(Image: Netflix)
Everything you need to know about stunning filming location of Netflix’s Million Dollar Secret
The second season of Netflix’s competition series Million Dollar Secret is now streaming. A new line-up of 12 contestants find themselves battling for a huge cash prize.
To do this they must identify who among them secretly holds a million-pound prize. Meanwhile they want to be in possession of the box with the money at the end of the game to take it home.
Hosted by Liverpool born comedian and actor Peter Serafinowicz, the show has previously been compared to shows like The Traitors and Hotel Fortune. While the group try identity the secret millionaire they also take part in daily challenges and are able to earn clues to the millionaire’s identity.
The series is filmed in luxurious surroundings. It is a venue that you can actually stay at if you’re lucky enough. It takes place at the spectacular Château Okanagan in Kelowna, Canada. The private estate sprawls across 44 acres on the shores of Okanagan Lake.
Production company 4filming says the venue is “known for its French-inspired elegance” and “sits on the shores of Okanagan Lake, offering breathtaking views and an exclusive atmosphere.” The château can house up to 16 guests with luxury amenities including a wine cellar, ballroom, and private beach house. Extras are available at an additional cost including wellness treatments, wine tasting and even helicopter transfers from the airport. Its website indicates a minimum three-night stay.
The property is split in two depending on the size of groups reserving a stay. There is either the Grand Residence or the Estate Villa for smaller groups. Usually it operates on a single-reservation basis, meaning guests have exclusive use of the venue.
It comes fully staffed with a chef, concierge and valet services. Originally built by the German Holzhey Family in the late 1950s, the former family home now operates as a private villa and wellness spa.
The booking website indicates various prices depending on the date and number of guests booked. It ranges from approximately $2,000 (1,475) a night for one room, or from $40,000 (£29,500) for the entire Grand Residence.
When you break a promise as clear as “No new wars,” you shouldn’t be surprised when even your most loyal supporters revolt. And that’s exactly what is happening to President Trump.
One such disillusioned supporter is Tucker Carlson — who on a recent podcast with his brother Buckley admitted, in essence, “My bad.”
“You wrote speeches for him. I campaigned for him. I mean, we’re implicated in this, for sure,” Tucker Carlson said during the conversation.
“In real ways, you and me, and millions of people like us, are the reason this is happening right now,” Calson confessed, referring to the Iran war. “We’ll be tormented by it for a long time. I will be, and I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people, and it was not intentional.”
Having worked for Carlson for six years at the Daily Caller, I’ve always found him intelligent and funny and generous, even as I have profoundly differed with him on a variety of issues throughout the Trump era.
It did my heart good to hear him accept some responsibility for what Trump has wrought.
A lot of people were complicit in boosting Trump, and some of them have even subsequently criticized him for various sins (failing to release the Epstein files, going to war with Iran, etc.). But this is the first time I can recall anyone of this stature explicitly apologizing for helping elect Trump. And that warrants a certain amount of respect.
Still, let’s be clear-eyed about what Carlson is — and isn’t — saying here. Specifically, it’s worth noting that the apology doesn’t extend to validating those of us who opposed Trump from the beginning.
In fact, it almost can’t.
Doing that would require the confessor to reinterpret not just Trump’s presidency, but also the entire ecosystem that made supporting Trump a viable option in the first place.
It would mean admitting that the framework he used to evaluate Trump was flawed, not just the outcome.
That would end up being perceived as an indictment on the broader Republican electorate — and on Carlson’s worldview and judgment — not just on Trump’s recent performance or (even more conveniently) the notion that Trump has changed or was co-opted by Israel (or whomever) since 2024.
It’s a much bigger ask than saying, “I regret this specific result.”
Specifically, Carlson is not conceding that the “Never Trump” crowd got it right — which is what those of us who have spent a decade opposing Trump (with little fanfare) have been dying to hear for a decade (even more so than “I’m sorry.”)
This is an important distinction, partly because it means that, although Carlson is now a convenient ally in the “resistance,” he is not opposing Trump for the same reasons that most Democrats or Never Trump conservatives oppose Trump.
If you put aside Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran, the Carlsons’ second-biggest criticism of Trump (based on their two-hour-long podcast) is his failure to more vigorously defend the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters.
That’s right. It’s not that he sicced immigration enforcers on immigrants and that they subsequently killed two American citizens. It’s not that DOGE fired lots of good people. It’s not that this president tried to use the Department of Justice to seek vengeance on his political rivals. It’s that Trump — the person who pardoned these people — wasn’t aggressive enough in defending the criminals who stormed the U.S. Capitol while trying to overturn the 2020 election results.
And while there’s no reason to doubt Carlson’s remarks are sincere (he has been a vocal opponent of war with Iran) and meaningful (he’s an influential figure), his comments may also signal something else: a recognition that opportunity awaits.
Consider this: Trump’s political standing is in deep trouble (Trump’s approval rating is down to 33%, according to a new AP-NORC poll).
What is more, Trump’s fading fortunes aren’t just isolated to Trump. As always, there is collateral damage: JD Vance.
Once seen as Trump’s obvious heir, Vance now finds himself in a difficult position, defending the war in Iran and attacking the pope, while simultaneously releasing a book about his Catholic conversion.
In that sense, Carlson’s apology could be less a grudging epiphany than a strategic recalibration. It acknowledges that Trump has gone off the rails but stops short of examining why it was destined to go wrong in the first place.
Carlson gets close to the answer when he tells his brother, “there were signs of low character. We knew that,” but then dismisses it by saying “there are tons of people of low character who outperform their character.”
Without deeper reflection, this apology risks becoming just another pivot — one that has as much to do with positioning as it does with repentance.
And that would be a shame.
It’s easy to regret an outcome. It’s much harder to interrogate the instincts that led you (and tens of millions of Americans) to enable it.
Apologies like Carlson’s won’t close the chapter on this long national nightmare.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Millions more Americans might qualify for dual Canadian citizenship under a recent change to Canada’s requirements that has led to a surge in applications from its southern neighbor.
For people like Zack Loud of Farmington, Minn., it was a surprise to learn that under a new law, Canada already considered him and his siblings citizens because their grandmother is Canadian.
“My wife and I were already talking about potentially looking at jobs outside the country, but citizenship pushed Canada way up on our list,” he said.
Since the new law took effect Dec. 15, immigration lawyers in the United States and Canada say they have been overwhelmed by clients seeking help submitting proof of citizenship applications. Driven by politics, family heritage, job opportunities and other factors, thousands of Americans are exploring whether the easier process makes now the right time to gain dual citizenship.
Nicholas Berning, an immigration attorney at Boundary Bay Law in Bellingham, Wash., said his practice is “pretty much flooded with this.”
“We’ve kind of shifted a lot of other work away in order to push these cases through,” he said.
Immigration attorney Amandeep Hayer said his Vancouver, British Columbia-area practice went from about 200 citizenship cases a year to more than 20 consultations per day.
How the new law works
Canada has been changing its citizenship laws for decades, whether to update historic interpretations of law or to address discrimination issues.
Previously, Canadian citizenship by descent could only be passed down to one generation, from a parent to a child. But the new law opened up citizenship to anyone born before that date who could prove they have a direct Canadian ancestor — a grandparent, great-grandparent or even more distant ancestor.
Those born on or after Dec. 15 need to show that their Canadian parent lived in Canada for 1,095 days.
Under the new law, descendants of Canadians are already considered citizens but must provide proof to obtain a certificate of citizenship. Hayer estimated that there are millions of Americans who are Canadian descendants.
“You are Canadian, and you’re considered to be one your whole life,” said Hayer, who advocated for the new law in parliament. “That’s really what you’re applying for, the recognition of a right you already have vested.”
“The best way I can put it is like, if a baby’s born tomorrow in Canada, the baby’s Canadian even though they don’t have the birth certificate,” he said.
Americans interested in dual citizenship
American applicants have different motivations, but many say President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and other topics have led them to seek dual citizenship.
Michelle Cunha, of Bedford, Mass., said she decided to move to Canada after reflecting on decades of political activism and deciding she had “nothing left to give.”
“I put in my best effort for 30 years. I have done everything that I possibly can to make the United States what it promises the world to be, a place of freedom, a place of equality,” Cunha said. “But clearly we’re not there and we’re not going to get there anytime soon.”
Troy Hicks, who had a great-grandfather born in Canada, said he was spurred by an international trip.
“I recently went to Australia and you know, first words out of the first person I talked to in Australia was basically an expletive about Trump and the U.S.,” said Hicks, of Pahrump, Nev. “It was just like, whoa, I walked off a 20-hour flight and literally the first words of somebody’s mouth to me were that. … So the idea of doing that with a Canadian passport just seemed easier, better, more palatable.”
Maureen Sullivan, of Naples, Fla., said she was motivated by the immigration crackdown in Minnesota, which hit home when her teenage nephew encountered federal officers near his high school in St. Paul. Sullivan, whose grandmother was Canadian, said she sees citizenship in Canada as an option in case things in the U.S. “really go south.”
“When I first heard about the bill, I couldn’t believe it. It was like this little gift that fell in my lap,” Sullivan said. “There was kind of this collective excitement amongst the (family) who just felt like, we wanted to feel like we were doing something to take care of our security in the future if needed.”
How much will Canadian citizenship cost?
For those with documentation ready at hand, the proof of citizenship application fee is a relatively inexpensive 75 Canadian dollars ($55).
But costs will climb for those seeking help from an attorney or genealogist to locate records like birth, death and marriage certificates that can establish the lineage to a Canadian ancestor.
Cunha said she used an attorney and estimates the cost will be about $6,500.
However, Mary Mangan, of Somerville, Mass., filed her application in January using advice from online forums.
“There are some situations where a lawyer might be the right thing, but for many people, I would guess 90% of people can probably do this on their own,” Mangan said.
The website for the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada office, which processes applications, says processing times for a certificate is around 10 months, with more 56,000 people awaiting a decision.
The agency said that from Dec. 15 to Jan. 31, it confirmed citizenship by descent for 1,480 people, though not all were Americans. Last year, 24,500 Americans gained dual U.S.-Canada citizenship.
What’s the reaction in Canada?
Fen Hampson, professor of international affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, said Canadians are generally a “welcoming people.”
Hampson said some also worry a surge of interest from Americans could delay efforts by refugees and asylum-seekers fleeing vulnerable situations.
“I think where people start looking askance is someone who’s never been to Canada, who has very thin ties. They can get a passport, becoming Canadians of convenience. People don’t like that,” he said.
On the outskirts of Somalia’s southern port city, the land has become an open graveyard for cattle. Some are left where they fell, while others are buried in shallow graves after consecutive failed rainy seasons.
For many families here, pastoralists who rely on livestock for milk, meat, and income, animals were everything, but what was once a lifeline of food and income has now become a stark symbol of loss.
The impact is not just felt in Kismayo, but across the country, with 6.5 million people forced to skip meals and go hungry every day. Drought and rising costs only pushing the country deeper into crisis.
The humanitarian director at Save the Children, Francesca Sangiorgi, says the crisis is being driven by repeated climate shocks that are compounding over time. “We’re seeing multiple rainy seasons that have failed across the country,” she tells Al Jazeera, adding that even when rain arrives, it is often too uneven and too late to restore livelihoods that have already collapsed.
What’s the scale of the crisis?
The scale of Somalia’s hunger crisis is severe and rapidly worsening.
With a third of the population facing severe food insecurity (classified as IPC Phase 3 and above), many households are struggling to get enough food to meet their basic daily requirements (PDF) — and in some cases going without food altogether, leaving them more vulnerable to malnutrition and illnesses such as diarrhoea, measles, and other infections.
Of these, more than 2 million people are in the most critical conditions short of famine (IPC Phase 4 or emergency levels), where families are facing extreme shortages and are increasingly forced into displacement in search of basic needs, moving towards already overcrowded aid camps where resources are rapidly dwindling.
Children are among the most affected. According to the UN, an estimated 1.8 million children under five in Somalia are at risk of acute malnutrition, putting their survival in immediate danger.
Sangiorgi notes that the deterioration has been unfolding rapidly, its effects already evident.
“The situation of children across the country is extremely concerning,” she explains. “We’re seeing the spread of child illnesses across the country. Dropout rates are extremely high right now, and they continue to rise because of the drought. We want to make sure that children have a chance at life—access to the health and nutrition services they need, as well as education.”
According to Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, more than 3.3 million people have been displaced, severely straining the already limited resources and basic services in these communities.
What does the crisis look like on the ground?
Near Kismayo, one of Somalia’s largest camps for displaced people has formed, sheltering families who have nothing to eat and have travelled from across Jubbaland.
One woman describes how her herd has fallen from 200 cattle to just four, ending her very livelihood.
Barwaqo Aden, a displaced Jamame resident in Lower Juba, arrived at the camp only recently, but her eight-month-old daughter is already in the local hospital with severe malnutrition due to the lack of resources.
Others arrive after exhausting journeys, fleeing areas controlled by the armed group al-Shabab. A displaced resident, Hodhan Mohamed, walked for days and crossed the River Juba by boat before reaching a crowded settlement, unsure what she would find. Like many new arrivals, she now waits for assistance that is limited and uncertain.
Sangiorgi explains that secondary displacement – when people who have already been forced from their homes are displaced again – is becoming increasingly frequent. “As services and commodities continue to shrink across the country, the prices of essential goods keep rising as well.”
More than 3.8 million Somalis are currently displaced, making up 22 percent of the population. Many have been uprooted multiple times, moving from one settlement to another as aid resources dwindle and access to support becomes more limited.
What’s driving the crisis?
At its core, the crisis is primarily driven by climate shocks.
Somalia has had three consecutive failed rainy seasons in recent years, drying out rivers, wells, and pasturelands.
For livestock-dependent communities, the impact has been immediate: animals are dying, and with them, livelihoods are disappearing.
As local production collapses, families are forced to buy from markets even as food, fuel, and water prices continue to rise. In rural areas, especially, incomes no longer stretch far enough to meet needs.
Insecurity caused by armed conflict adds further strain, displacing communities and limiting access for aid workers in some regions.
Beyond Somalia, the global economic crisis linked to the US–Israeli war on Iran has also played a role in constricting supply chains. A UN aid chief told the Reuters news agency in March that these disruptions are compounding costs and weakening the ability to deliver assistance, as humanitarian systems come under growing strain.
MSF reported last month that transport costs have risen by up to 50 percent in parts of Somalia, making it harder for people to reach health facilities and increasing the cost of delivering care as fuel prices climb.
The organisation also said more than 200 health and nutrition facilities have closed since early 2025 due to sharp funding cuts, leaving critical gaps in already overstretched health services.
What does the aid collapse look like?
As the need for aid rises, humanitarian funding and response capacities are only shrinking.
The UN response plan for Somalia is currently funded at just 20 percent of what is required — with $1.42bn needed but only $288m received. That discrepancy has forced major cuts, reducing the number of people targeted for assistance from 6 million to just 1.3 million.
For Somalia, which relies heavily on imported food and external assistance, the consequences are immediate. Fewer supplies are reaching ports, while the cost of delivering essentials continues to rise, testing an already fragile system.
As UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told Reuters in March, “These [constraints] will damage our humanitarian supply chains, reduce the humanitarian supplies we can get to people who need them, but they’ll also drive up energy costs and food costs across the region, this really is a perfect storm of factors right now, and I’m seriously worried,” he stated.
The humanitarian response has been cut by 75 percent, meaning millions of Somalis are no longer receiving assistance, even as the crisis deepens on the ground.
Disruption to fuel and fertiliser supplies due to the Strait of Hormuz closure will hit crop yields, UNDP chief warns.
Published On 23 Apr 202623 Apr 2026
The Iran war will push more than 30 million people back into poverty, with the knock-on effects of the conflict likely to increase food insecurity in the coming months, the United Nations has warned.
Disruption to fuel and fertiliser supplies due to the ongoing blocking of cargo vessels through the Strait of Hormuz has already lowered agricultural productivity and will hit crop yields later this year, the UN’s development chief said on Thursday.
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“Even if the war would stop tomorrow, those effects, you already have them, and they will be pushing back more than 30 million people into poverty,” said Alexander De Croo, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
He also warned of other fallouts of the United States-Israeli war on Iran, including energy shortages and falling remittances.
Much of the world’s fertiliser is produced in the Middle East, and one-third of global supplies passes through the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran and the US are jostling for control.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) last week warned that a prolonged crisis in the strait could lead to a global food “catastrophe”.
India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Kenya, and Egypt are among the countries most at risk, according to the FAO.
“Food insecurity will be at its peak level in a few months – and there is not much that you can do about it,” De Croo said.
Straining humanitarian efforts
The knock-on effects of the Iran conflict have already wiped out 0.5 percent to 0.8 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP), according to De Croo, who noted, “Things that take decades to build up, it takes eight weeks of war to destroy them.”
De Croo, the former prime minister of Belgium, also warned that the Middle East crisis is straining humanitarian efforts in other parts of the world, with the sector already facing funding cuts.
The US-Israeli attacks on Iran, which began on February 28, have also choked up key humanitarian aid routes, delaying life-saving shipments to some of the world’s worst crises.
“We will have to say to certain people, really sorry, but we can’t help you,” De Croo said. “People who would be surviving on help will not have this, and will be pushed into even greater vulnerability.”
1 of 2 | A layer of smog covers downtown and the nearby areas in 2019 in Los Angeles. California has some of the worst rankings in air pollution in the United States, the 2026 State of the Air report from the American Lung Association said Wednesday. File photo by Etienne Laurent
April 22 (UPI) — More than 152 million people in the United States – about 44%– live in areas that have unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution, the American Lung Association said in the 2026 State of the Air report released Wednesday.
The report also noted that 44.6% of U.S. children live in counties that have failing grades for at least one measure of air pollution,while 10% of children live in counties with failing grades in all three measures. These measures include ground-level ozone (smog) and both short-term and year-round particle pollution (soot).
“Infants, children and teens are especially vulnerable to the health harms of breathing pollution,” the report said. “Their lungs are still developing, they breathe more air for their body size than adults and they frequently spend more time outdoors.”
The report showed that trends from last year’s edition continued and often grew worse, including extreme heat in many places that affected ozone levels and wildfires in Canada that affected ozone and particle pollution.
“Clean air is not something we can take for granted,” American Lung Association President Harold Wimmer said in announcing the report, the Washington Post reported. “For decades, people in the U.S. have breathed cleaner air thanks to the Clean Air Act. Unfortunately, that process is now at risk due to extreme heat and wildfires, fueled by climate change, and policy changes that are making the problem worse.”
The Clean Air Act became effective in 1963. This is the 27th edition of the State of the Air report, which was first released in 2000. The report has reflected the act’s successes over the years, but over the past decade, also the challenges of the changing climate, the American Lung Association said.
“Increases in high ozone days and spikes in particle pollution related to extreme heat, drought and wildfires are putting millions of people at risk and adding challenges to the work that states and cities are doing across the nation to clean up air pollution,” the report said.
The authors of the State of the Air report noted that levels of unhealthy air vary widely across the country and that people of color disproportionately live in areas with poor scores. A person of color is 2.42 times as likely as a white person to live in an area with poor scores for all three air pollution measures.
For the seventh year in a row, Bakersfield, Calif., was the metropolitan area with the worst level of year-round particle pollution. Fairbanks, Ala., moved to the worst spot for short-term particle pollution. Los Angeles remained the metropolitan area with the worst ozone pollution. It’s held that spot for 26 years of the report’s 27-year history.
Only one city – Bangor, Maine – had good marks in all three measures.
In county rankings, San Bernardino in California had the highest level of ozone pollution; the five worst counties in the country in this measure were all in California. In short-term particle pollution, Fairbanks North Star Borough in Alaska was ranked as the worst. In long-term particle pollution, Kern County in California held that spot.
Twenty counties throughout the United States had failing grades for all three measures of air pollution: Maricopa in Arizona; Fresno, Imperial, Kern, Kings, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Bernardino, Stanislaus and Tulare in California; Lake and Marion in Indiana; Wayne County in Michigan; Butler and Cuyahoga in Ohio; Allegheny, Dauphin and Philadelphia in Pennsylvania; and Bexar County in Texas.
Riverside County has been ordered to pay $2.25 million to a former sergeant who said he was pressured into early retirement in retaliation for reporting workplace harassment by a superior.
Sgt. Frank Lodes was forced to leave the job he loved in 2022 — penning a resignation letter in a Del Taco parking lot — while a high-ranking department official threatened him with mounting investigations, according to the complaint. On Tuesday a civil jury concluded that Lodes resigned involuntarily due to his reporting of a hostile workplace and was awarded the multimillion-dollar payment as compensation for his emotional damages.
Lodes’ attorney Bijan Darvish said the award was a “significant number” that adequately represents the harm inflicted on Lodes, noting that the period since his forced retirement has been the “darkest four years” of Lodes’ life.
He said that his client did not wish to comment on the verdict as discussing the events remained painful. The Sheriff’s Department and the county did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Being a cop was his life; he lived and breathed it 24/7,” Darvish said. “It was his entire identity, and that’s why it was so difficult for him when it was taken away.”
The jury award comes amid a rare wide-open governor’s race that includes the head of the Sheriff’s Department, Chad Bianco, who is a leading GOP candidate for the seat. Bianco has staked his campaign on his lengthy career in law enforcement, which spans more than three decades, including serving as the elected sheriff of Riverside County since 2019.
Although high-ranking Sheriff’s Department officials were involved in Lodes’ case, Darvish said there was no evidence presented at trial that Bianco had direct knowledge of his client’s mistreatment. Bianco was not a defendant in the lawsuit. His campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Darvish argues that the case points to a departmental culture of covering up allegations of misconduct.
“When there’s a harassment complaint made against the captain and they never investigated, and they pressure someone to resign and withdraw the complaint,” he said, “then that’s a systemic issue.”
The retaliation began after Lodes, a 25-year veteran of the department, formally reported workplace harassment with human resources in March 2022, according to the complaint.
Lodes had been called mentally ill in front of his peers by a captain during a promotability meeting around October 2021. A few months later, he found degrading posters of his head on a child’s body shoved inside his uniform pockets and gun holster and plastered over the station walls, according to the complaint.
The department responded to his harassment report by launching an investigation into Lodes unlawfully using informants and threatening him with possible criminal prosecution, according to Darvish.
The jury agreed that these allegations were a manufactured excuse to cover up unlawful retaliation.
Within days of filing the workplace harassment complaint, a Internal Affairs sergeant packed Lodes’ personal belongings in a box and drove them to his house, according to the complaint. The sergeant spent hours pressuring Lodes, then 47, to accept early retirement.
The following day, Lodes was told to meet with a high-ranking official in the Sheriff’s Department in a Del Taco parking lot who instructed him to resign immediately and withdraw his harassment complaint.
The $2.25-million award in the civil case will come from the county’s coffers.
The award casts renewed scrutiny on Bianco’s Sheriff’s Department two weeks before primary election ballots land in Californians’ mailboxes.
He was also in the spotlight in March after seizing more than 650,000 ballots from the November election as part of an investigation to determine if they were fraudulently counted. He put the investigation on hold shortly before the California Supreme Court halted it pending further review.
Times staff writer James Queally contributed to this report.
Some billionaires put their money into space rocket launches. Others invest in longevity treatments to extend their time on Earth.
But when New York grocery and oil magnate John Catsimatidis tapped into his fortune for a passion project, he chose WABC, an AM radio station well past its glory years.
Catsimatidis , 77, acquired WABC in 2019 and has turned it into the most listened to talk station in the U.S., according to Nielsen data, reaching more than 400,000 listeners a week.
He is also on the air every day as part of the station’s award-winning evening program “Cats & Cosby,” where he and veteran journalist Rita Cosby hold a daily salon with like-minded friends and big-name political figures.
In a windowed studio overlooking Third Avenue in midtown Manhattan, Catsimatidis can be seen scrolling through his mobile phone and looking as if his mind is elsewhere while on the air. But he quickly snaps into delivering a concise opinion or question whenever Cosby directs him.
“John can look like he’s taking a little bit of a nap, but he’s always ahead of you in the conversation,” said radio consultant Jerry Crowley, who first gave Catsimatidis his own program at Salem Broadcasting’s WNYM.
Catsimatidis is among the circle of media commentators who speak regularly with President Trump, whom he’s known for 45 years and strongly supports. The relationship has made WABC part of the national political conversation.
In December, Trump revealed the U.S. military’s first land strike on Venezuela to Catsimatidis during a morning call into WABC, to the surprise of some national security TV correspondents.
Catsimatidis may become even more well-known soon thanks to his cameo role in the Oscar-nominated film “Marty Supreme,” which will be available April 22 to the 60 million U.S. subscribers of streaming service HBO Max.
“Marty Supreme” director Josh Safdie cast Catsimatidis as Christopher Galanis, a financial backer of the table tennis phenom played by Timothée Chalamet in the film. Safdie told Vanity Fair he liked Catsimatidis’ “larger-than-life regional business man” look, which he noticed when the mogul ran for New York City mayor in 2013.
Rita Cosby and John Catsimatidis in WABC’s New York studio with former NY Gov. David Paterson and Edward Cox.
(Justin Jun Lee/For The Times)
Catsimatidis added some verisimilitude to the role as he once rented a basement apartment to Marty Reisman, the table tennis champion who inspired the film.
“He put 20 pingpong tables in there,” Catsimatidis said. “And he was such a hustler. He’d give you 18 points and he’d still beat you.”
The brief scene required five days of shooting. “Even though it was a pain in the ass to do so many takes, I admire Josh for being a perfectionist,” Catsimatidis said during a recent interview at his office, where a plate of peeled or cut fresh fruit is always nearby.
After the film’s Christmas release Catsimatidis was getting calls from people he had not heard from in years.
“I didn’t know how important a movie this was,” Catsimatidis said. “When Josh said he had a role for me, I said, ‘OK. Why not? It’s a new adventure.”
Catsimatidis has had more than his share of adventures.
His father was a lighthouse keeper, living in solitude on the Greek island of Kandelioussa for 16 years before entering a family-arranged marriage with his mother. The couple emigrated from Greece to the U.S. when Catsimatidis was a toddler.
Catsimatidis grew up in West Harlem and studied electrical engineering at New York University. But he showed a talent for selling as a teenager when he hawked bottles of aftershave lotion out of the trunk of his Buick. In the late 1960s, he bought out a 50% share in an upper Manhattan supermarket where he worked as a clerk and, to the chagrin of his parents, dropped out of college to work full time in the grocery business.
John Catsimatidis during a live broadcast of his WABC radio show “Cats & Cosby” at the station’s New York studio.
(Justin Jun Lee/For The Times)
By the age of 25, he had opened 10 stores under the name Red Apple and was earning $1 million a year. In his 30s, he became a jet pilot and owned a regional airline. Investments in real estate and an oil refinery he bought out of bankruptcy have driven his current net worth up to $4.8 billion, according to Forbes.
Business success earned Catsimatidis a seat at the table in national politics. He backed the 1988 presidential campaign of fellow Greek American Michael Dukakis and donated to Bill Clinton. By 2016, he was aligned with Trump, as are most of the hosts on WABC, including Newsmax’s Greg Kelly and Fox Business Network’s Larry Kudlow.
Catsimatidis has been a fixture in the New York tabloids for decades, not always in a positive way as he’s had legal battles with unions at his businesses over the years. He now deals with the occasional furors that arise when managing outspoken on-air personalities in the current divisive political media environment.
He clashed with Rudy Giuliani, who is suing Catsimatidis for removing the former mayor from his hosting role at the station in 2024. Giuliani was pulled off the air after he refused to stop talking about false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election — a matter that cost Fox News $787 million in a defamation suit.
When WABC’s fiery morning host Sid Rosenberg is mentioned, Catsimatidis bows his head and performs the sign of the cross.
Rosenberg, a relentless Trump supporter, called New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani a “radical Islam cockroach” during an on-air rant last month. Catsimatidis had the host deliver an on-air apology and issued one of his own online.
Catsimatidis, who is also chief executive of the Gristides supermarket chain, is no fan of Mamdani’s policies and is among the New York business types who declared they would leave the city if the Democratic Socialist took office. But he said he maintains a cordial relationship with Mamdani and offered advice on the mayor’s proposal to open city-run grocery stores.
“I don’t care if you’re a socialist, a Republican, a Democrat or an independent,” he said. “As long as you have common sense.”
Catsimatidis made millions from buying New York real estate on the cheap in the 1970s when the city was in deep economic trouble. So he recognized a bargain when his Red Apple Media group bought WABC for $12 million from Cumulus Media.
WABC was the most listened-to station in the country during the heyday of top 40 radio in the 1960s — riding the wave of the Beatles — and well into the ‘70s. The station’s booming 50,000-watt signal at 770 on the AM dial reached 40 states.
WABC switched to an all-talk format in 1982 and boosted the careers of conservative radio personalities Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
The station’s fortunes declined under Cumulus, which was crushed by debt and losing ground to new competition from digital media.
The challenges did not discourage Catsimatidis, who recalls listening to WABC on his transistor radio as a student attending Brooklyn Tech High School in the 1960s. He loves the station’s legacy, and brought back its famous jingles with the dial position and call letters put to the tune of Rodgers and Hart’s “Manhattan.”
Catsimatidis even hired one of WABC’s legendary disc jockeys, Bruce Morrow — known to millions of baby boomers as Cousin Brucie. Morrow, now 89, plays oldies on Saturday nights.
But the investment has gone beyond nostalgia. After taking over, Catsimatidis told its president, Chad Lopez, to drop its weekend infomercials and replace them with locally produced shows. The decision meant walking away from $2.7 million in annual revenue, but Catsimatidis insisted.
“John said, ‘I want to make WABC great,’” Lopez said. “Once we went to more live and local programming, you could see the audience start coming in.”
The station also reduced its commercial load. A typical talk station carries up to 21 minutes of ads in an hour. WABC carries about six to eight minutes per hour at most.
WABC does not break out its finances, but Catsimatidis said it turns a profit, which he puts back into the business. The station has expanded its digital presence, creating podcasts of its daily programs and bite-size versions of longer interviews on the station for downloads.
Every bit of news made on the station’s programs is quickly turned into social media content. The livestream of the station attracts listeners in all 50 U.S. states and 176 countries. WABC programs are syndicated to 532 radio stations in the U.S., including 16 in California such as KINS in Eureka.
Catsimatidis speaks of grandiose-sounding plans to take on the BBC or replace the Voice of America with WABC content, while keeping an eye out for other distressed radio properties he could turn around.
“Whatever we can buy for nothing, we’ll buy,” he said. “They became distressed because of stupid management.”
Trade, Industry and Resources Minister Kim Jung-kwan attends a press conference at the government complex in Sejong, central South Korea. Photo by YONHAP / EPA
April 16 (Asia Today) — South Korea will begin receiving 27 million barrels of alternative crude oil in June, part of a broader effort to stabilize energy supplies and diversify import sources amid disruptions linked to conflict in the Middle East.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said the shipments are part of crude secured by a presidential envoy team, with additional policy measures being introduced to support refiners facing supply uncertainty.
A senior ministry official said the envoy team secured about 223 million barrels of alternative crude, excluding 50 million barrels previously allocated from Saudi Arabia. Of that, 27 million barrels are scheduled for shipment beginning in June.
The earlier 50 million barrels are expected to be shipped in April and May through the Red Sea port of Yanbu, with confirmation from Saudi Aramco that deliveries will proceed as planned, the ministry said.
South Korean refiners had faced disruptions despite existing contracts, as shipments were affected by instability and constraints linked to the Strait of Hormuz, a key global oil transit route.
The envoy delegation has secured a total of about 273 million barrels of crude from countries including Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia. Of that, roughly 250 million barrels from Saudi Arabia – which accounts for about one-third of South Korea’s crude imports – are expected to be delivered by the end of the year.
Officials said the government has already secured about 118 million barrels for April and May combined, indicating no immediate risk to domestic supply. Remaining volumes are expected to be shipped sequentially through the end of the year.
In parallel, the government is introducing measures to help refiners diversify import sources. For crude imported between April and June, authorities will ease requirements for refunds of the petroleum import levy and temporarily expand refund limits.
The ministry said it simplified freight cost calculations using an international benchmark index and removed restrictions on shipment volume, duration and frequency. It also temporarily lifted caps on freight cost compensation for diversified imports to expand financial support.
The program is backed by about 127.5 billion won (approximately $95 million) in funding, based on estimated demand from domestic refiners.
Officials said broader reforms may be considered if the situation persists.
The ministry also pushed back against claims that fuel consumption has increased following the introduction of a price cap. Data showed that weekly gasoline and diesel sales fell in five of seven weeks from late February to mid-April compared to the same period last year.
From mid-March to mid-April, after the price cap took effect, total fuel sales declined 12.4% year-over-year, the ministry said, urging observers to focus on overall trends rather than short-term fluctuations.
In March, Bad Bunny performed his first-ever concert in Asia when he played in from of 2,300 fans in Tokyo as part of Spotify’s Billions Club Live series.
Starting April 8, a filmed version of that performance will be available on Spotify for the “Nuevayol” artist’s millions and millions of fans not in attendance.
The show, officially titled “Billions Club Live With Bad Bunny: A Concert Film,” was billed as a special stop in the Grammy-winning performer’s “Debí Tirar Más Fotos World Tour” — which kicked off with a November concert in the Dominican Republic and has since sold out stadiums across Latin America and Australia. He notably didn’t include dates in the United States as part of the tour.
Footage of the Japan concert swept social media, as it showed Bad Bunny doing a never-before-seen salsa rendition of his 2018 collaboration with Drake. He also notably sang his 2021 single “Yonaguni,” which features lyrics in Japanese.
Bad Bunny’s generational run looks to have no immediate end in sight, as he will kick off the European leg of his world tour with a May performance in Portugal before making stops in Spain, England, Sweden, France, Poland and Italy.
But the “Dakiti” artist’s newsworthy year hasn’t been limited to the music world.
In February, it was announced that Bad Bunny will star — alongside Academy Award-winning actor Javier Bardem and multiple-time nominees Edward Norton and Viggo Mortensen — in Puerto Rican rapper Residente’s directorial debut, “Porto Rico.” The film, which has yet to announce a release date, will explore the complicated colonial history of Puerto Rico through Western/historical drama storytelling devices.
Israeli air raids on Lebanon have killed more than 1,450 people, including 126 children, and displaced some 1.2 million residents since March 2, according to Lebanese authorities. The bombardment has wounded more than 4,400 individuals.
In southern Lebanon’s Kfar Hatta, an Israeli attack killed seven people, including a four-year-old girl and a Lebanese soldier, the Ministry of Public Health reported on Sunday. The Israeli military had ordered the forced evacuation of the town the previous evening, an area where many displaced Lebanese had sought refuge.
As invasion expands deeper into southern Lebanon, leaving devastated villages behind, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has intensified calls for negotiation. “Why don’t we negotiate … until we can at least save the homes that have not yet been destroyed?” he pleaded in a televised address on Sunday, hoping to prevent destruction comparable to Israel’s Gaza operation.
In Toul village in the Nabatieh district, a couple were killed while their children, aged 15 and nine, were injured. Multiple bombardments have wiped out entire families in single attacks. Officials report that approximately 25 percent of all victims are women, children and medical workers.
On March 12, the Israeli military expanded its forced evacuation orders for southern Lebanon residents – from the Litani River to north of the Zahrani River, about 40km (25 miles) north of the Israeli border.
The massive displacement has overwhelmed the country’s shelter capacity. Many families are unable to find accommodation, spending nights in streets, vehicles, or public spaces as collective shelters reach maximum capacity. For many, this represents repeated trauma.
Between October 2023 and November 2024, amid cross-border fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, hundreds of thousands of residents of southern Lebanon’s border villages suffered the worst of the violence.
At its height, 899,725 people were forcibly displaced by Israeli forces back then. Most had returned by last October, only to be forced to flee again.
Israeli attacks during those 14 months inflicted extensive damage to homes and infrastructure. The World Bank estimated damage to residential buildings alone at approximately $2.8bn. About 99,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, preventing many families from returning even after the ceasefire.
Billionaire hedge fund founder turned environmental warrior Tom Steyer, a leading Democratic candidate for California governor, is facing mounting questions about how he earned his wealth — notably investments in private prisons that are now being used to house undocumented immigrants facing deportation.
Some of the most vicious political attacks come from his Democratic rivals and Sacramento special interest groups as the June 2 primary election fast approaches, but Steyer has been dogged for years about his past, controversial business ventures and how they help fund his unbridled campaign spending.
Steyer, 68, faced that ire during a town hall event in San Diego last week.
“Tom, you’re not going to come to San Diego and ignore this detention center,” Holly Taylor, a 37-year-old Democrat screamed at Steyer, holding signs with QR codes to help detainees at an Otay Mesa private prison that Steyer’s hedge fund backed. “It’s a concentration camp. They’re drinking water out of a toilet.”
Taylor, a crime scene cleaner from Pacific Beach, is among scores of people who gather weekly at the facility to raise money for detained immigrants to provide them some comfort amid the Trump administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
In 1986, Steyer, co-founded Farallon Capital, which had shares valued at $89.1 million in the Corrections Corp. of America in 2005, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. That company, now known as CoreCivic, operates private prisons around the nation that are housing people picked up by federal immigration agents, including the one in Otay Mesa.
It is not the first time Steyer has faced criticism about the connection with private detention facilities. At the California Democratic Party convention in February, protesters dressed in orange prison jumpsuits sought to draw attention to the controversy.
“Before he was a progressive, he made millions off of companies that operate ICE detention centers, that operate private prisons that incarcerated young children,” state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said during a recent interview with a political influencer known as Mrs. Frazzled.
“His entire campaign is built on the backs of kids in cages,” Rep. Eric Swalwell, (D-Dublin) wrote Tuesday in a post on X.
People protest outside of a lunch held by California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer at the 2026 California Democratic Party State Convention in San Francisco on Feb. 21.
(Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)
Several years earlier, Yale University’s graduate teachers union called upon the school — Steyer’s alma mater — to divest from Farallon because of concerns about how the private prison company treated detainees, notably minorities.
Steyer has repeatedly expressed remorse about his former firm’s ties with the detention company. In 2012, he sold his stake in Farallon, which was named in reference to islands off the coast of San Francisco and was once one of the largest hedge funds in the world.
“I deeply regret that Farallon made that investment, and I personally ordered the investment in CCA to be sold because it did not accord with my values then or now,” Steyer told The Times in 2019 after he launched a short-lived presidential campaign.
Asked to comment about the latest iteration of the controversy, Steyer’s campaign pointed to comments he made in March at a town hall in San Francisco about how among the hundreds of thousands of companies his hedge fund invested in, the private prison company changed the course of his life.
“It was a mistake, and I sold it over 20 years ago, thinking, not that it won’t be profitable, it’s just a mistake. I don’t want to be in that business. But let me say this, it wasn’t just a mistake,” Steyer said. “It was also a big wake-up call that I was in the wrong place, that I was in a business that was taking me to places I absolutely didn’t want to go. And there’s a reason I walked away from that business and walked away from a ton of money, because I felt like that is not the life I want.”
He added that he and his wife, Kat Taylor, have spent the past two decades pushing for rehabilitative justice — treatment instead of mass incarceration except for violent felons.
“Am I a perfect person? No, have I made mistakes? Yes,” Steyer said. “But for those of you who like to read the Bible, there is a moment on the road to Damascus when someone makes a change, and I have made a big change, and I did it a long time ago, and I’ve been pushing very, very hard the other way.”
Farallon also invested in fossil fuel projects, including an Australian coal mine that denuded thousands of acres of koala habitat and generated an enormous amount of carbon emissions.
Steyer, who has a net worth of $2.4 billion according to Forbes, has painted himself as a reformed billionaire who walked away from Farallon because of angst about how he earned his fortune. He has spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting Democratic causes, notably efforts to fight climate change.
“The truth is that is not where I think there is value, and that is not what I’m seeking in my life,” he said at a Sacramento town hall in March when retired state employee Gina Coates asked how, as a woman of color, she could believe his promises given his privilege as a wealthy white man.
“In terms of trusting me, let me say this, I left my business 14 years ago, and anybody who cared about money would not have done it,” Steyer said.
Steyer later said at the town hall that he left Farallon because he realized that he didn’t want to remain on that path.
“I want to have a meaningful life,” he said. “I want to stand with the people of this state and have actual prosperity. Twelve trillionaires and 40 million people who can’t make rent is not success.”
But Steyer and his wife continue to receive significant income from the hedge fund, including millions of dollars in investments, holdings and various complicated transactions in 2024, according to a statement of economic interest and tax returns he was required to file with the California Secretary of State’s office because of his gubernatorial run.
A Steyer campaign spokesman said Steyer created guardrails to ensure that he does not profit off companies he morally disagrees with.
“Tom has put in place an investment policy to ensure that he does not directly invest in fossil fuels, payday lending, or private prisons,” spokesman Anthony York said. “To the extent he inadvertently incurs exposure to those industries through third-party managers or liquid legacy investments, Tom will donate all profits to charity.”
After leaving Farallon, Steyer became one of the nation’s top Democratic donors. And he has used his wealth to fund his political ambitions. Steyer contributed nearly $342 million of his own money to his short-lived 2020 presidential campaign, according to the Federal Election Commission.
In the 2026 governor’s race, Steyer has donated nearly $112 million to his campaign as of Thursday, according to the California secretary of state’s office. He has been an ubiquitous presence on the airwaves, including local news programs and campaign ads that aired during the “Puppy Bowl” on the Animal Planet channel on Super Bowl Sunday. In the past month, Steyer has aired more than 5,000 ads, according to iSpot, which tracks television commercials.
California, home to 23.1 million registered voters, is home to some of the nation’s most expensive media markets. And candidates, particularly those who are not well known, need to spend heavily on television advertising if they hope to have a successful campaign.
But money is no guarantee of success. Billionaire Meg Whitman, the former eBay chief and formerly a longtime Republican donor, spent $144 million of her money on her 2010 gubernatorial bid. That set a record for a candidate’s contribution in a state race at the time, but Whitman lost to Jerry Brown by nearly 13 percentage points.
In 1998, Democratic multimillionaire Al Checchi who had been the co-chair of Northwest Airlines spent $40 million of his wealth on an unsuccessful run for governor, also a record at the time.
Steyer is one of the top three Democrats in the sprawling field to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom. And his liberal positions are drawing the ire of powerful forces in Sacramento. On Tuesday , the state’s Realtors donated $5 million to an independent expenditure committee opposing Steyer’s bid.
Taylor, who confronted Steyer at the San Diego town hall, said she had not planned to be so vocal. But as the event unfolded, she decided she had to speak, not only to Steyer but to the attendees. She and her compatriots gather every Sunday outside the Otay Mesa facility to raise money to help detainees buy food in the prison commissary and call their families.
“My main issue is that he has gotten financial gain off of these people suffering,” she said.
WASHINGTON — President Trump is requesting $152 million from Congress to begin “rebuilding” the prison on Alcatraz Island for operational use, though his administration appears to have taken few steps toward advancing the project.
The request, in the president’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2027, resurrects Trump’s attention-grabbing concept of converting the crumbling site — which has stood as a piece of history for more than 60 years — into a working federal prison.
But the Bureau of Prisons on Friday said it had no new information to share about the potential project and no updates about whether assessments that the agency had said it launched last year had been completed.
A spokesperson said the bureau was “moving forward, evaluating, and formulating the actions necessary” and pointed to to a May 2025 statement from bureau director William K. Marshall pledging to “vigorously pursue all avenues to support and implement the President’s agenda.”
The funding request was included in Trump’s budget proposal, which provides Congress with a look at the administration’s priorities ahead of the next fiscal year. Congress makes the ultimate funding decisions for the government.
Creating a working prison on the San Francisco Bay island would be extremely costly, the administration’s critics say, and would raise questions about its fate as a historic site that draws more than a million tourists a year.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said Friday she would attempt to block Trump’s proposal in Congress by any means possible, calling it “a stupid notion that would be nothing more than a waste of taxpayer dollars.”
“Alcatraz is a historic museum that belongs to the public, and San Franciscans will not stand for Washington turning one of our most iconic landmarks into a political prop,” she said in a statement.
The $152-million request is for only the first year of the project’s costs. How long the project could take or what the total cost could be are not clear. The budget proposal described the project as a “state-of-the-art secure prison facility.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
“It represents something very strong, very powerful, in terms of law and order,” Trump told reporters last year. “It housed the most violent criminals in the world. … It sort of represents something that’s both horrible and beautiful, strong, and miserable.”
He characterized the historic site as “rusting and rotting.”
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington), vice chair of the Senate appropriations committee, said Trump would waste taxpayer money on Alcatraz “while ignoring billions of dollars in repair-backlog needs for existing” federal prisons.
The government opened the federal penitentiary on Alcatraz in 1934, hoping to use the remote island to house particularly difficult prisoners, according to the National Park Service. Its cells held infamous criminals such as Al Capone, and several unsuccessful escape attempts captured public imagination.
The prison was closed in 1963 after becoming too costly to run. A group of Native American activists occupied the land during a period between 1969 and 1971, and in 1972, Alcatraz became a national recreation area under National Park Service management. It opened to the public as a national park attraction the following year and was later designated a National Historic Landmark.
Trump, who has pushed to round up criminals and pursued plans to open new detention centers in his second term, floated the Alcatraz idea last year, saying he wanted to send “America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders” there.
He directed the Bureau of Prisons to take up the task. In July, then-Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum visited the island.
“Alcatraz could hold the worst of the worst, it could hold middle-class violent prisoners, it could hold illegal aliens,” Bondi told Fox News during the visit. “This is a terrific facility; it needs a lot of work, but no one has been known to escape from Alcatraz and survive.”
The Bureau of Prisons said at the time that no final decision had been made as to whether to use the site, but that the agency would determine whether “it makes sense operationally, legally, and financially.”
The bureau said then that was working on a cost estimate and feasibility report to present to Congress following a site assessment with the National Park Service and work by engineers and planners on potential budgets and models.
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Friday opening Alcatraz would be “prohibitively expensive” for the federal government to undertake. He has previously characterized the concept as part of an attack by the Trump administration on national parks.
“Trump’s continued push to reopen it as a federal prison is a wasteful exercise in futility,” Schiff said. “He should focus on lowering the cost of living for the American people, not raising the cost of our prisons.”
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TORONTO — Sherritt International Corporation (“Sherritt” or the “Corporation”) (TSX:S) today announced that it has agreed with certain new and existing shareholders of the Corporation to complete a non‑brokered private placement of common shares of Sherritt (“Common Shares”) for aggregate gross proceeds of up to $50 million (collectively, the “Private Placement“). As part of the Private Placement, Seymour Schulich, through a corporation controlled by him, has agreed to subscribe for up to 68,600,000 Common Shares for aggregate gross proceeds of up to $14,406,000.
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Pursuant to the Private Placement, the Corporation will issue up to 238,095,238 Common Shares from treasury at a price of $0.21 per Common Share. The Private Placement is expected to close on or about April 7, 2026, subject to customary closing conditions and the receipt of required regulatory approvals, including approval of the Toronto Stock Exchange.
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The net proceeds from the Private Placement are expected to be used for general corporate purposes and to support the Corporation’s operations and strategic initiatives.
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An existing shareholder of the Corporation holding approximately 13.5% of the outstanding Common Shares is expected to participate in the Private Placement. Such participation constitutes a “related party transaction” within the meaning of Multilateral Instrument 61‑101 – Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions (“MI 61‑101”). The Corporation expects to rely on exemptions from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61‑101 on the basis that the fair market value of the securities issued to the related party does not exceed 25% of the Corporation’s market capitalization. The Private Placement will not result in a change of control of the Corporation.
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The securities offered have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or any U.S. state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.
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Commenting on the Private Placement, Brian Imrie, Chair of Sherritt’s board of directors (the “Board”) said, “This private placement marks a significant development for Sherritt as we continue to navigate through a challenging operating environment. We appreciate the strong support shown by both new and existing shareholders, which reflects their confidence in Sherritt’s future prospects.”
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Board of Directors Update
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In addition, Sherritt announces that Louise Blais has stepped down from its Board effective today, to focus on her commitments at her strategic advisory firm Blais Global.
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“On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank Louise for her invaluable contributions and dedication during her tenure,” said Mr. Imrie. “Her insights and leadership have helped guide Sherritt through an important period, and we wish her continued success in her future endeavors.”
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About Sherritt
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Sherritt is a world leader in using hydrometallurgical processes to mine and refine nickel and cobalt – metals deemed critical for the energy transition. Leveraging its technical expertise and decades of experience in critical minerals processing, Sherritt is committed to expanding domestic refining capacity and reducing reliance on foreign sources. The Corporation operates a strategically important refinery in Alberta, Canada, recognized as the only significant cobalt refinery and one of just three nickel refineries in North America. Sherritt’s Moa Joint Venture produces cost competitive critical minerals while maintaining high sustainability standards and has an estimated mine life of approximately 25 years.
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The Corporation’s Power division, through its ownership in Energas, is the largest independent energy producer in Cuba, processing domestically sourced raw natural gas to generate electricity for sale to the Cuban national electrical grid. Sherritt’s common shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol “S”.
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This press release contains certain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by the use of statements that include such words as “believe”, “expect”, “anticipate”, “intend”, “plan”, “forecast”, “likely”, “may”, “will”, “could”, “should”, “suspect”, “outlook”, “potential”, “projected”, “continue” or other similar words or phrases. Specifically, forward-looking statements in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the Private Placement, including the intended use of proceeds therefrom.
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Forward-looking statements are not based on historical facts, but rather on current expectations, assumptions and projections about future events, including commodity and product prices and demand; the level of liquidity and access to funding; share price volatility; production results; realized prices for production; earnings and revenues; global demand for electric vehicles and the anticipated corresponding demand for cobalt and nickel; the commercialization of certain proprietary technologies and services; advancements in environmental and greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction technology; GHG emissions reduction goals and the anticipated timing of achieving such goals, if at all; statistics and metrics relating to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) matters which are based on assumptions or developing standards; environmental rehabilitation provisions; environmental risks and liabilities; compliance with applicable environmental laws and regulations; risks related to the U.S. government policy toward Cuba; and certain corporate objectives, goals and plans for 2026. By their nature, forward-looking statements require the Corporation to make assumptions and are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties. There is significant risk that predictions, forecasts, conclusions or projections will not prove to be accurate, that the assumptions may not be correct and that actual results may differ materially from such predictions, forecasts, conclusions or projections.
A rolling wave of “No Kings” protests swelled through America’s small towns and big cities Saturday, with crowds gathering to blast President Trump, Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdowns, the war in Iran and high gas and food prices.
Saturday’s demonstrations were expected to draw millions of people nationwide, including thousands for a downtown Los Angeles rally. More than 40 protests were planned for L.A., Orange and Ventura counties, part of the national “No Kings Day of Nonviolent Action.”
No Kings Coalition organizers were hoping that turnout for the rallies in all 50 states could combine to form the largest single-day protest in U.S. history. They pointed to growing anger over the country’s direction, including fatal ICE shootings and troops dispatched to the Middle East, since the first “No Kings” demonstration was held last June.
On Saturday morning, hundreds gathered around the reflecting pool at Pasadena City College. A band rolled through with a fascism-themed parody of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues.” Sign-toting protesters lined Colorado Boulevard, drawing a constant stream of honking from the cars driving by. For many, the Iran war was top of mind.
“Every time we protest, there’s something completely new, which speaks to the chaos of the Trump administration,” Cindy Campbell told The Times. “ICE raids last year, Epstein files a few months ago. Now, war.”
“This administration doesn’t serve us. It serves billionaires,” said Kent Miller, of Monrovia, who participated in the Pasadena protest. “War with Iran is only making life harder for working people.”
Miller pointed to a Chevron gas station advertising gas for $6.45 per gallon.
“See?” he said.
National coordinators said there has been increased interest in smaller communities, including Republican bastions, with higher-than-expected attendance during Saturday’s protests.
“I’m out here because I’m disgusted with what I’m seeing,” said Kersty Kinsey, a mother who was protesting near the Beaufort, S.C., City Hall. “People are suffering, and he’s playing golf. People are suffering, and he’s going other places and blowing things up.”
In Beaufort, an antebellum city founded in 1711, an estimated 3,000 people turned out — a marked increase over earlier “No Kings” rallies, said Barb Nash, one of the coordinators. Amid the moss-draped live oaks and blooming pink and white azaleas, a person in a purple Barney dinosaur costume held a sign reading: “Dino’s for Democracy.” A young girl handed out homemade “Resistance Cookies.”
Los Angeles coordinators said they expect more than 100,000 people at the local events, which were being planned for Beverly Hills, Burbank, West Covina, West Hollywood and Thousand Oaks. One group planned a “Road Outrage” car caravan to motor through Mid City with flapping flags calling for “No War,” and “ICE Out of LA.” At a Torrance gathering, cars honked, protesters waved flags, and a person in an inflatable green cow costume hoisted a large American flag.
The White House, in a Saturday statement, dismissed the protests as a “Trump Derangement Therapy Session.”
Organizers said they have been particularly encouraged by the surge of interest from groups in rural communities that wanted to join the loose-knit No Kings Coalition and hold protests.
Jaynie Parrish, founder of the Arizona Native Vote project, started planning a protest for her tiny town of Kayenta, on the Navajo Nation in northern Arizona, only earlier this week.
“My dad, who’s a [military] veteran and an elder, said: ‘We should go,’ and I said, ‘OK,’” Parrish told The Times.
“Our folks don’t always protest for things, but this was very important,” Parrish said. “A lot of our families are feeling the impacts right now of higher prices and things being cut. A lot of our healthcare benefits are being cut … and our tribal sovereignty is being threatened.”
Upbeat Midwestern activists withstood whipping winds to form a line of protesters stretching nearly three blocks of Burlington Avenue in Hastings, Neb. Under the crisp blue skies, one of the protesters, Drew Fausett, told The Times in a phone interview that he is a registered Republican in the decidedly red state.
“My politics haven’t really changed — but the party around me has,” Fausett said. “It used to be the two parties were two sides of the same coin, and they would work together — but not anymore.”
He and his wife, Becky, have attended “No Kings” and other protests because “it’s the only way to show that people have different opinions,” he said. “People are out here speaking for their families and their neighbors. That’s what this is all about.”
Trump’s policies are hurting many in Nebraska — including farmers, said Debby Thompson, one of the Hastings organizers.
“We want to urge our representatives in Congress to not just rubber stamp whatever Trump wants because it’s really hurting rural folks and farmers,” Thompson said. “The tariffs and huge increase in prices on fertilizer are hitting farmers really hard.”
The “No Kings” campaign sprouted in June as an act of defiance on Trump’s 79th birthday. He wanted a military parade in Washington to mark his milestone, and anti-Trump protesters came out in force — an estimated 5 million people around the country — with their own display. At the time, Trump’s second-term policies were coming into focus, including ramping up immigration raids, deploying the National Guard to L.A. in response to protests, and mass firings within the federal government.
A subsequent event in mid-October drew even larger crowds, with an estimated 7 million people protesting around the country.
Saturday’s event coincided with a dip in Trump’s approval ratings. A Reuters/Ipsos poll last week found 36% approve of Trump’s job performance, marking the lowest level since his return to office last year. In a separate Fox News Poll released last week, 59% disapproved of his job performance.
“Since the last ‘No Kings,’ we’re seeing higher gas prices and groceries, all while there’s an illegal war in Iran,” national organizer Sarah Parker of the organization 50501 said during a Thursday press briefing. “We’ve also seen our neighbors executed — American citizens executed.”
Widespread protests and candlelight vigils followed January’s fatal shootings by ICE agents in Minneapolis of Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, and Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse.
“The defining story of this Saturday’s mobilization is not just how many people are protesting — but where they are protesting,” Leah Greenberg, co-founder of Indivisible, said during the press briefing. She said two-thirds of the RSVPs to national organizers came from outside of major urban centers.
The Los Angeles event was organized by the local chapter of 50501 (short for “50 protests, 50 states, 1 movement”) and other progressive groups, including the ACLU, Human Rights Campaign, Indivisible and Public Citizen, as well as labor unions such as Unite Here Local 11 and the Service Workers International Union.
“There’s an affordability crisis in this country — people can’t afford groceries or healthcare,” Joseph Bryant, SEIU executive vice president, said in a statement. “But this administration is focused on expanding its power, starting unnecessary wars that benefit billionaires, and targeting immigrants and citizens who dare to stand up for them.”
Tourism chiefs are predicting a near two million jump in the number of Brits holidaying at home this Easter
11:40, 27 Mar 2026Updated 11:47, 27 Mar 2026
Around five million more Brits plan to holiday at home rather than go abroad this Easter(Image: Parkdean Resorts)
Around 12.5 million Brits are planning an Easter staycation – as the Middle East war deters families from jetting abroad.
The number of people who say they intend to holiday in the UK over the Easter weekend is up sharply from 10.6 million last year. The near two million surge will help deliver a bumper £4.8billion boost to tourism and the wider economy, according to VisitEngland, which published the data.
The number saying they hope to holiday at home dwarfs the estimated 7.4 million who are planning a trip abroad this Easter. Of those definitely aiming to take a staycation during the Easter break, the majority will be short breaks of one to three nights.
It came as VisitEngland’s Trip-Tracker revealed that more than a quarter of those it surveyed, 28%, were worried about the impact of the Middle East conflict on their upcoming travel plans in April and May. The top concern was having less money to spend due to the economic impact. There have already been fears of air fare price hikes and possible flight cancellations.
The number of people planning an Easter staycation this year also marks a big jump on 2024’s 11 million, and nearly double the 6.5 million in 2023. A further 5.1 million people surveyed said they were undecided about whether to take an overnight holiday trip in the UK during the Easter weekend. The top reasons were “waiting to see if I can afford it” and “waiting to see what the weather is like”. Forecasts for the weather suggest it will be a mixed bag next week, but with settled conditions over the Easter weekend itself.
However, those driving for days out and holidays in the UK face a hit to the wallet from soaring fuel prices on the back of the Iran war. The nationwide average for unleaded has jumped to 150p a litre, up 17p since before the conflict erupted. Diesel drivers have been hit even harder, with diesel now averaging 176.68p per litre, a leap of 34p in recent weeks.
RAC head of policy Simon Williams said: “Petrol has now broken through the unwelcome milestone of 150p a litre (150.11p), something drivers haven’t seen since mid-May two years ago while the average price of diesel is now approaching 180p at 177.68p.
“With the long-awaited four-day Easter weekend almost within touching distance, the cost of getting away by car is going to be noticeably higher this year.
“And with average prices at motorway services at 166p for unleaded and 182p for diesel, drivers on long journeys will need to plan very carefully where they refuel. The best advice remains to shop around for fuel and make use of free apps such as myRAC to never pay a penny more for fuel than is absolutely necessary.”
Some families may also think twice given another wave of bill increases – including water and council tax – from the start of April, and warnings that food price inflation could jump again.
Kate Allen, owner of Devon-based Finest Stays, said: “For now, we’re not seeing a slowdown. Bookings are up around 10% on this time last year, with more guests opting to stay in the UK rather than travel further afield to places like Dubai.
“The Great British holiday is very much in favour, as we’re a nation that prioritises getting away, and domestic breaks are benefiting from that shift. That said, there’s a nervous undercurrent. Fuel costs feel like a slow leak, pressure building rather than bursting.
“We’re expecting more guests to postpone or cancel, and that’s where it gets tricky. Terms and conditions may cover it, but it doesn’t make refund conversations any easier when the wider impact on businesses and homeowners isn’t fully understood.”
Tourism Minister Stephanie Peacock said: “It is wonderful that so many people are planning on having a staycation this Easter weekend, whether that’s spending time visiting our stunning landscapes and coastlines or exploring our vibrant towns, cities and cultural landmarks. Supporting domestic tourism helps local areas thrive – fuelling small businesses, boosting pride, and strengthening community economies.”
VisitEngland chief executive Patricia Yates said: “Tourism businesses and destinations will be looking to the critical Easter weekend for much needed cash flow so it’s encouraging to see so many of us are planning a holiday at home, with its ease, convenience and certainty of budgeting. We also know that the cost of living remains a concern for holidaymakers, leaving it difficult too for businesses to plan in advance.
“We have incredible activities, experiences and places to stay for all tastes and budgets, and there really is nowhere quite like Britain in springtime. From walks in our beautiful countryside with the promise of a pub lunch or discovering contemporary culture in our buzzing cities to enjoying fish and chips on the beach, there is something for everyone. So, a rallying cry to please go out and explore the amazing destinations and events here on our doorstep this spring. Tourism businesses will be very pleased to welcome you, you will have an amazing time and create memories to make you smile all year.”
It came as trade body UKHospitality stepped up criticism of what has been dubbed a new “tourist tax”. Labour is proposing to allow regional mayors in England to introduce a “visitor levy” on overnight stays, as already happens in some European countries. While details of how it would work are still to be finalised, it could either be a per head charge or a percentage of the cost of the stay. Small businesses – from guesthouses to B&Bs – say it could lead to closures.
Modelling by Oxford Economics, commissioned by UKHospitality, which assumed a 5% levy, warned it could lead to a £1.6billion tax increase for holidaymakers by 2030, and a £2.2billion hit to the economy.
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has settled for roughly $1.2 million a lawsuit from Michael Flynn, the former national security advisor to President Trump who pleaded guilty during the Republican’s first term to lying to the FBI about his conversations with a top Russian diplomat and was later pardoned.
Court papers filed Wednesday do not reveal the settlement amount, but a person familiar with the matter, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity to disclose nonpublic information, confirmed the total as about $1.2 million.
The settlement resolves a 2023 lawsuit in which Flynn sought at least $50 million and asserted that the criminal case against him amounted to a malicious prosecution. It also represents a stark turnabout in position for a Justice Department that during the Biden administration had pressed a judge to dismiss Flynn’s complaint. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, a former personal lawyer for the president, has openly criticized the Russia investigation in which Flynn was charged and the Justice Department in the last year has opened investigations into former officials who participated in that inquiry.
The Justice Department cast the settlement as an “important step in redressing” what it says was a “historic injustice” of the Russia investigation that shadowed Trump for much of his first term.
“This Department of Justice will continue to pursue accountability at all levels for this wrongdoing. Such weaponization of the federal government must never be allowed to happen again,” a spokesperson said.
In a separate statement, Flynn said: “Nothing can fully compensate for the hell that my family and I have endured over these many years — the relentless attacks, the destruction of reputations, the financial ruin, and the profound personal toll inflicted upon us all. No amount of money or formal resolution can erase the pain caused by a prosecution that should never have been brought.”
The settlement is the latest turn in the long-running legal saga involving Flynn, one of six Trump associates charged as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. That investigation found Russia interfered in the election on Trump’s behalf and that the Trump campaign eagerly welcomed the help, but it ultimately found insufficient evidence of a criminal conspiracy.
Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general who vigorously campaigned at Trump’s side, served for weeks as his first national security advisor before being pushed out of his position. He remained a Trump ally even after agreeing to cooperate with Mueller’s team. He was pardoned in the final weeks of the president’s first term.
Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI when he said he had not discussed with the Russian envoy, Sergey Kislyak, sanctions that the outgoing Obama administration had just imposed on Russia for election interference. During that conversation, Flynn advised that Russia be “even-keeled” in response to the punitive measures, and assured him “we can have a better conversation” about relations between the countries after Trump became president.
The conversation alarmed the FBI, which at the time was investigating whether the Trump campaign and Russia had coordinated to sway the election. In addition, White House officials were stating publicly that Flynn and Kislyak had not discussed sanctions, which the FBI knew was untrue.
Flynn was ousted from his position in February 2017 after news broke that Obama administration officials had warned the White House that Flynn had indeed discussed sanctions with Kislyak and was vulnerable to blackmail. He pleaded guilty months later to a false statement charge.
But Flynn later sought to withdraw his guilty plea, saying federal prosecutors had acted in “bad faith” and broken their end of the bargain when they sought prison time for him.
The Justice Department in 2020 moved to dismiss the case, asserting that the FBI had no basis to interview Flynn about Kislyak and that any statements he made during the interview were not material to the FBI’s broader counterintelligence probe.
Flynn was pardoned by Trump in November 2020, ending the court case and the legal wrangling.
In his lawsuit, Flynn maintained his innocence and said he was targeted by the “virulently anti-Trump leadership” of the FBI’s Russia investigation. He contended that investigators pursued him despite knowing there was no evidence of a crime and coerced his guilty plea.
“He was falsely branded as a traitor to his country, lost at least tens of millions of dollars of business opportunities and future lifetime earning potential, was maliciously prosecuted and spent substantial monies in his own defense,” says the lawsuit, adding that Flynn will continue to suffer “mental and emotional pain.”
