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ATLANTA — Not long ago, Georgia gubernatorial nominee Rick Jackson eagerly compared himself to his fellow billionaire in the Oval Office. He promised to be Donald Trump “with a Southern tone.” And sharing a summer rally stage, Jackson pointed at the president and declared, “I’m going to be this man’s favorite governor.”

On the debate stage this week with his Democratic opponent, however, Jackson discussed Trump only when Keisha Lance Bottoms brought him up. And he assured his audience that he’d “stand up to anybody.”

Jackson is not alone in his recalibration: Republican nominees for Senate, the U.S. House and governor’s offices across the country are sidestepping President Trump or openly distancing themselves as they debate before Election Day.

Those tactics, not unlike Republicans scrubbing Trump from their campaign websites, are the latest signs of how much Trump’s standing has fallen because of voters’ frustration with inflation, the Iran war and other matters. And the dynamics highlight the perilous options many Republicans face as they try to stitch together winning coalitions that go beyond Trump’s core supporters.

“Republicans right now are facing a voter turnout problem” in their own party, said GOP pollster Paul Shumaker, and must win “unaffiliated voters” who care most about the economy.

“You have to have something significant to change this narrative,” Shumaker said. But, he explained, that means “a significant victory in Iran” and seismic economic improvements — not something any Republican midterm candidate can force from behind a debate podium.

There’s a Trump tightrope on Iran, tariffs and rhetoric

Some Republicans are taking specific positions at odds with the president.

Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers said in his debate Thursday with Democrat Abdul El-Sayed that he’d urged the White House privately to reach a trade deal with Canada and end the president’s tariffs. Canada is Michigan’s largest trading partner, as it is for many Great Lakes and Midwestern states.

Days before, Rogers unveiled a new ad in which he said, “We know that Canada is not our enemy. We need to end the tariff war — now.”

That’s a noticeable departure from Rogers’ earlier, less specific statements praising Trump’s “America First” economic agenda while saying tariffs are not a “one-size-fits-all” solution.

Another Michigan Republican, Rep. Tom Barrett, already had bucked the president by voting for a war powers resolution intended to assert congressional authority over military actions in Iran. But debating Democrat Will Lawrence in their central Michigan district, Barrett added a criticism of Trump’s rhetoric Monday in Nebraska, where he floated the possibility of Iran attacking San Diego and Los Angeles.

The president mentioned those cities as part of his argument that higher gas prices because of his Iran war are a “small price to pay” to keep the country safe. But Democrats seized on the remarks, some insisting that Trump was calling for Iran to attack U.S. cities.

Barrett was asked whether Trump’s words were acceptable. Given the opportunity to echo the White House explanation that Trump was offhandedly mentioning a worst-case scenario he was trying to prevent, Barrett offered no defense.

“Nope,” he said flatly.

Many Republicans prefer a more generalized stiff arm

Reflecting the complex electoral balance, most Republicans have attempted to separate themselves without naming any firm difference with the president.

Running for a promotion to the Senate, Iowa U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson tried in her debate Wednesday against Democrat Josh Turek to reconcile her earlier promises to be a Trump ally in Congress’s upper chamber. She said it would be “really easy” to keep her word and still be bipartisan — a buzz word she’s already been featuring in her campaign.

“I’ll be President Donald Trump’s ally when it is important for Iowa, but I will push back on him — he knows this, because I talk to him regularly — on things that are wrong for our state,” she said. “That’s true no matter who’s in the White House. That’s true no matter who is governing and who has the gavel.”

That’s the same path Jackson took in Georgia, as he pivoted away from Trump by embracing outgoing Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican who has clashed with the president, starting with Trump’s false claims that he won Georgia in the 2020 presidential election.

“I will stand up to anybody, just like Brian Kemp has done,” Jackson said.

Another Republican House member, Mike Lawler of New York, made a point of name-checking a Democratic colleague, New Jersey’s Josh Gottheimer, and discussing bills they’d work on together. It was part of his argument that he’s able to challenge Trump and the party line.

“When I agree with the president I say it. When I disagree with the president, I say it,” he said in his closing remarks.

Hinson, meanwhile, referenced bills she’s worked on in the House that have been signed into law by both President Joe Biden and Trump.

But she also avoided criticizing Trump when asked about the president sending Affordable Care Act rebate checks to some Americans and promising a $5,000 bonus after the midterm elections if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate.

She said she “cares very deeply” about making sure Congress maintains the power of the purse and thinks it’s important to “live better within our means.”

Democrats pounce on either approach

Regardless of the Republican efforts, Democrats have continued peppering them with attacks and retorts about Trump. The most heated moments came when Democrat Cait Conley repeatedly said Lawler always voted with Trump.

“No matter how many times you say 100% of the time,” the congressman answered, “it’s provably false.”

When Rogers conceded in his back-and-forth with El-Sayed that the administration “probably” made errors in its mass deportation strategy, the Democrat answered swiftly.

“He said it was probably not right. I mean, it’s definitely not right,” El-Sayed said. “They killed two people.”

And while Georgia’s Jackson seemed uncomfortable talking about Trump, Bottoms was more than happy to mention him.

“I’m not running to be his favorite governor,” she said. “I’m running to work on behalf of people like you.” ___ Associated Press reporters Joey Cappelletti in Washington; Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa; and Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.

Barrow writes for the Associated Press.

Sept. 25, 2026 12:31 PM PT

TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey ’s Democratic lieutenant governor has resigned after the governor demanded he step down over sexual harassment allegations and ethical lapses involving his relationships with women.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill had given Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell an ultimatum that he resign by Friday, though she lacked the power to remove him if he said no. Sherrill announced the resignation at a news conference that afternoon.

“His decision will allow us to move forward with important work serving the people of our state,” she said. “In my administration we are committed to doing what is right, not what is politically expedient.”

Sherrill picked Caldwell, a Methodist pastor and former president of Centenary University, to be her running mate last year. They were elected together and took office in January, but within four months, Caldwell had become the subject of an anonymous complaint about his behavior with women.

In New Jersey, a governor can’t fire the lieutenant governor, as the post is independently elected. But lieutenant governors can be impeached and removed from office by the Legislature. A governor can strip a lieutenant governor of nearly all duties and responsibilities, effectively sidelining them from the administration.

Sherrill hired the law firm of a former New Jersey attorney general, Christopher Porrino, to investigate.

In a report released Thursday, the lawyers said Caldwell had committed several violations of state policy. It said Caldwell, 66, had made an advance toward a staff member’s friend and when he was rebuffed told the staffer, “you young women are looking for young sperm.”

The report also said Caldwell had tried to get a promotion for a state employee he was dating and brought personal guests to the opera and other ticketed events without paying for them, as required by ethics rules.

Caldwell denied any misconduct and said in a letter included in the report that he suspected his relationships with women were being subjected to extra scrutiny because he was a single Black man.

His lawyer, Thomas Calcagni, said Caldwell never made the sperm statement or used his position to further his romantic life. Caldwell did recommend a female friend for a promotion, Calcagni said, but only because he thought she would be a good candidate for the job. Caldwell denied ordering anyone to promote her or knowingly violating ethics rules by failing to disclose their personal relationship when he recommended her.

Sherrill had said Caldwell needed to resign because he committed “serious, repeated violations of state policy,” despite multiple warnings and trainings.

Besides being the first in line to become governor if Sherrill were to die, be removed from office or become incapacitated, Caldwell also had served as New Jersey’s appointed secretary of state. In that role, he had a supervisory role over the state’s elections.

In neighboring New York, a similar impasse has played out over the last year between Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and her estranged Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, who launched a caustic primary challenge to unseat her only to withdraw from the race as the election neared.

Hochul is running for reelection in November with Adrienne Adams, the former speaker of the New York City Council, as her replacement lieutenant governor nominee.

Catalini and Marcelo write for the Associated Press. Marcelo reported from New York.

A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Thursday that removes President Trump’s ban on three news outlets from White House grounds, a rebuke of the administraton’s most severe attack yet on the Washington press corps.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly said in his ruling that the administration’s ban is likely unconstitutional and that the outlets affected — CNN, MS NOW and Politico — were not given due process before the action was taken. Kelly also rejected the White House’s court argument that the ban was motivated by national security concerns. The restraining order will be in effect for 14-days as the litigation proceeds.

Kelly, appointed by Trump during his first term, made a similar ruling in 2018 after the White House tried to ban journalist Jim Acosta, then working for CNN. Acosta’s credentials were restored.

The three outlets jointly filed a lawsuit Monday alleging that the ban violates the 1st Amendment by retaliating against protected newsgathering as punishment for unfavorable coverage, amounting to viewpoint discrimination.

Trump announced the ban Friday in a Truth Social post, describing CNN, MS NOW and Politico as “fake news.” He claimed the outlets have long been unfair to him and that their negative coverage was a danger to the country.

Journalists from the three organizations were barred from White House grounds on Saturday, the day after Trump announced the ban in a Truth Social post.

CNN, MS NOW and Politico all reported Thursday that their access has not been restored despite the judge’s ruling. Politico reported that one of its journalists had a credential confiscated by Secret Service.

Whether the confiscation was a security snafu or a defiance of the court order remains to be seen.

In a emergency court hearing Wednesday, the White House shifted away from Trump’s initial stated reasons for the ban and argued that the three outlets engaged in reporting that threatened national security.

The administration went on to detail letters sent to each outlet that provided examples of such reporting. One was a background briefing set up by the White House, where an official briefed reporters on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House itself.

In response to the ban, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News, suspended pool coverage of President Trump this week as he traveled to New York for the General Assembly at the United Nations.

The four networks along with CNN rotate the coverage which is shared with other news organizations. While the networks that aren’t banned have sent reporters to cover President Trump’s activities, they are not shooting video.

Some right wing outlets sympathetic to Trump such as One America News have been providing video coverage, but they lacked the technical capabilities of the larger networks. Another outlet, Real America’s Voice, posted video that showed President Trump’s detail traveling through New York City.

Keven Tripp, the Los Angeles correspondent for NBC News Radio posted on X that the “Press is NEVER supposed to reveal operational aspects of security detail,” calling the move by Real America’s Voice “stupid and unprofessional.”

Sept. 22, 2026 6:37 PM PT

NEW YORK — Earlier in the month, President Trump warned voters that democratic socialists — extreme, crazed, lunatics, he called them — were threatening to transform America into “a communist country.”

This week, a smiling Trump patted on the shoulder one of the nation’s best known democratic socialists, shook his hand, and said he was “off to a start” to being a great mayor of the country’s largest city.

Trump’s cozy relationship with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, which began last year, has confounded people across the political spectrum. But with the midterms approaching, Republicans are increasingly frustrated by the unexpected bromance, which threatens the party’s message about Democratic radicalism.

“You’re trying to say, ‘Here’s how extreme they are,’ and the president’s saying, ’I love this guy,’” said veteran Republican strategist Doug Heye. “It doesn’t help.”

It’s hard to overstate the extent to which Republicans are focused on the rise of democratic socialism in the midterm season. At a moment when the party is saddled with Trump’s weak approval ratings on virtually every major issue — the economy and the war in Iran chief among them — Republicans from Georgia and Texas to New York and Michigan are working to scare voters away from Democratic candidates by warning that the party is controlled by far-left extremists.

At Trump’s unusual midterm convention in Texas earlier in the month, Mamdani’s name was evoked over and over again.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called the New York Mayor “Comrade Mamdani.” Rep. Tom Emmer, the No. 3 House Republican, called him “Mamdani the commie.”

Trump sent a similar message although he didn’t mention Mamdani.

“They call themselves democrat socialists, but actually they’re communists,” he said in his keynote address. “They’re crazy.”

In all, the words socialist or socialism were referenced dozens of times during the convention.

Trump did not mention those words while standing alongside Mamdani in New York on Monday, however. The president was in town for the United Nations General Assembly and made time to swing by Gracie Mansion.

Instead, the president highlighted efforts underway to work together, noting that he’s worked with numerous mayors over the years — “some great ones and some not so great ones.”

“Hopefully you’re going to be a great one,” Trump said while looking at Mamdani. “I’ll be able to say you’re going to be a great one. And you’re off to a start.”

Trump grew up in Queens, which Mamdani represented in the New York Assembly before running for mayor and winning a startling upset. He has since expanded his political power in the city, helping to push three candidates to victory in Democratic congressional primaries earlier this year.

It’s possible that Trump’s tone on Mamdani will shift again. After they had two surprisingly convivial meetings in the Oval Office, Trump started criticizing the mayor again.

“Sadly, Mayor Mamdani is DESTROYING New York! It has no chance!,” Trump wrote on social media in April in apparent response to a plan to create a new tax on luxury second homes in the city. “The United States of America should not contribute to its failure. It will only get WORSE. The TAX, TAX, TAX Policies are SO WRONG.”

Republicans in New York were quick to downplay the latest example of Trump’s friendliness with Mamdani.

David Laska, a spokesperson for the New York Republican Party, said, “President Trump is the greatest dealmaker in history, and he has proven repeatedly that he can deal from a position of strength with America’s enemies, be they foreign dictators or the mayor of New York City.”

Mamdani faced his own questions about why he was playing nice with a president that he’s previously described as a fascist.

“The president and I have both been very frank about the many disagreements that we have,” he said Monday. “I will continue to have conversations with the president, and frankly, anyone who can deliver relief to the people of this city.”

Peoples and Izaguirre write for the Associated Press.

Published on
18/09/2026 – 12:25 GMT+2

Britain’s most valuable private company has clarified where it intends to sell its shares.

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Nik Storonsky, Revolut’s founder and CEO, told French newspaper Les Echos on Thursday that the group is weighing a dual listing across the London Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq, confirming earlier media reports.

A spokesperson for Revolut confirmed the report to Euronews.

The US remains Storonsky preference, and he was candid about why, stating that “it’s a larger market. It includes institutional investors, hedge funds, fund managers and a considerable number of individual investors.”

“So we have the choice between selling in a small market with few buyers, or in a gigantic market with a huge number of buyers who will compete fiercely for our shares,” Storonsky added.

The comments mark a softening.

The Revolut CEO argued in 2024 that the London Stock Exchange simply could not compete with American venues, citing thin liquidity and the UK’s 0.5% stamp duty on share purchases, and had appeared to rule out listing at home altogether.

The London exchange has endured a prolonged drought of new listings, with companies either staying private or heading west. For instance, payments group Wise moved its primary listing to New York this year, and AstraZeneca has also expanded its presence in the US.

Revolut going public at anything near its current valuation would make it one of Britain’s largest listed companies, potentially worth more than Barclays or NatWest.

A secondary share sale in July valued the business at roughly $115 billion (€100bn), up from $75 billion (€65bn) in November.

No date for the IPO yet

When asked by Euronews about internal discussions regarding a timeline for the IPO, the spokesperson refused to comment, but pointed to a previous interview with Bloomberg in April of this year where the Revolut CEO stated “in two years time, but it depends on how good the market is.”

Progress as certainly been made as the company has spent this year assembling the regulatory foundations a listing will require.

It secured a full UK banking licence in March after a long wait that Storonsky has publicly blamed on British regulators, obtained a French licence in August, received conditional approval for a US national bank charter this month, and announced on Wednesday that it had applied for a Swiss licence alongside plans to invest more than 150 million Swiss francs (€158m) there.

Revolut has not stated which venue would host the primary listing, whether the two would happen simultaneously, or when formal preparations might begin.

An unprecedented surge in border crossings over the last decade reshaped America: Millions of people from more than 150 countries arrived, bringing the U.S. immigrant population to its highest levels.

Now, data obtained exclusively by the Associated Press paint a picture of who these migrants are, where they went and what happened after the border.

Some went to cities that have long been magnets for immigrants — New York, Miami — but increasingly, others found their way to smaller cities with less developed immigrant footholds. Blocks, neighborhoods and entire cities were remade in places like Elkhart, Ind., Knoxville, Tenn.,and Dodge City, Kan.

And while the vast majority of migrants traditionally were from Mexico, this surge included people from an astonishing number and diversity of countries: India, Ecuador, Ghana.

Via a Freedom of Information Act request, AP obtained federal records on the self-reported destinations of 4.5 million migrants released in the United States after crossing the Mexican border — both legally and illegally — between October 2018 and July 2025.

Migrants must provide U.S. Customs and Border Protection with a street address. AP obtained their destination ZIP codes, citizenship by country, ages, genders and the dates and border regions where they encountered authorities.

Some probably never arrived at the addresses they gave. Authorities lacked resources to check, though migrants must report truthfully to pursue their cases in court and get work permits. Some have moved elsewhere in the United States or left the country, voluntarily or involuntarily. But many have stayed put.

Data on their initial destinations after the southern border provides both a sweeping and an unusually granular look at how the immigration surge — one that peaked during President Biden’s administration and was a major reason voters returned his predecessor, Donald Trump, to the White House — is playing out today.

Here are some key takeaways from the data.

Cities drew migrants from several continents

The Border Patrol encountered migrants from 174 countries in one year alone, a sharp departure from earlier periods when they were nearly all Mexican and Central American. The growth of social media and new migration routes were key in bringing people from around the world. Cincinnati, for example, experienced a large number of arrivals from West Africa, Uzbekistan and India.

Some cities — ones that for generations have had robust international communities — were further diversified by the range of countries from which people arrived.

New York City’s Queens borough registered at least 25 nationalities with significant arrivals, including five countries that each sent more than 7,000 people: Ecuador, China, Colombia, Venezuela and India.

Philadelphia had 11 nationalities with at least 1,000 new arrivals, led by Brazil, Haiti and the Dominican Republic but also including Russia and Venezuela. The city’s metro area also received more than 1,000 migrants from Georgia.

Florida remained No. 1, but many people looked elsewhere

While Florida was the most popular state, Latin American immigrants increasingly looked elsewhere for more promising job prospects and a better quality of life. Many turned to places with small but established communities of immigrants from their homelands.

For Cubans, nine of the top 10 destination ZIP codes were in Florida, but people of the Caribbean nation also flocked to Louisville, Ky., Grand Island, Neb., and Odessa, Texas. Colombians went to the Denver suburb of Aurora. Paterson, N.J., was the top pick among Peruvians. Some Venezuelans headed to the growing suburbs south of Salt Lake City; others to pockets of Atlanta, Chicago and Denver.

More women and children came than men

Nearly 6 of every 10 migrants released at the border were women and children, a dramatic shift from a few years earlier when migrants were predominantly men.

The change is visible in many places and across nationalities, but some stand out. Tulsa, Okla., attracted Mexican women and children. Ecuadorian women and children went to Spring Valley, N.Y. Guatemalan women were drawn to Chattanooga, Tenn.

Those who came from China headed to L.A. and New York

Chinese migrants, who trekked by hundreds nightly in California’s mountainous border with Mexico, largely gravitated to two places: New York City, especially the Queens and Brooklyn boroughs, and a cluster of neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area.

Trump’s deportation machine hit some migrant magnets and overlooked others

Immigration arrests have hit some areas that ranked among the most popular destinations for migrants in recent years, including Miami and New York. Others that experienced a large migrant influx have gotten less attention from authorities, including Silicon Valley, Madison, Wis, and Stamford, Conn.

Jarrett, Kessler, Lodhi and Spagat write for the Associated Press.

José Rivera’s “Marisol” came out around the same time as Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America,” and both plays, vibrating with millennial anxieties, carry the earthly battle for human survival up to the heavens.

There’s a dramatically prominent Angel (Taylor Scott) as well in Rivera’s drama, now in an Open Fist Theater Company revival at Atwater Village Theatre. This celestial warrior has been protecting Marisol (Jade Santana) without her knowing it throughout her life. Marisol, referred to by a publishing colleague as “Miss Puerto Rican Yuppy Princess of the Universe,” still lives in the Bronx and is assailed by dangers just getting to and from work every day.

After an incident on the subway with a deranged man threatening her with a golf club, Marisol returns to her cramped, noisy apartment to learn that her guardian angel is abandoning her to enlist in the battle to replace a senile God, who (to judge by the ailing state of the universe) has grown too old for the job.

Jack Sharpe and Jade Santana in ‘Marisol’ at Open Fist.

(John Dlugolecki)

Marisol will have to fend for herself in New York, a dystopian landscape where crime is rampant, poverty is pervasive and the unhoused are threatened by roving gangs of Nazi skinheads who set them on fire for kicks.

What follows is a modern picaresque journey, in which a clever underdog has to rely on her wit and wiles to survive a corrupt and perilous world. Rivera’s play, which won an Obie Award, caught fire in its 1993 New York premiere at the Public Theater with its theatrical street sense, savage imagery and Puerto Rican-inflected magical realism.

The apocalyptic fears boiling up in the play are perhaps even more acutely felt today, with the ravages of climate change compounding each year and the threat of AI hanging an existential cloud over our heads.

But what’s most satisfying about this reencounter with “Marisol” is seeing a new generation embrace the play’s kinetic freedom. Rivera, who received an Oscar nomination for his adapted screenplay for the 2004 film “The Motorcycle Diaries,” solidified his reputation with this play after his breakthrough work “The House of Ramón Iglesia.”

Director Amanda Weier and her company approach “Marisol” as though it were a new play. The quicksilver changes of scene in this urban hellscape are handled with crisp dispatch. Subway cars and burned-out streets don’t require much in the way of elaborate illustration for the overhang of menace to be felt.

Occasionally, particularly in the early going, the blocking and Christopher Moscatiello’s sound design seemed to be working at cross-purposes. The production’s adventurousness, traversing every corner of Brad Bentz’s scenic design, can have a diffuse effect.

But the clever props design (Bruce Dickinson and Anna Krause) fills in any shoestring gaps. And Mylette Nora’s costumes artfully conjure both the underworld and the spiritual realm.

Jade Santana and Hutchins Foster in ‘Marisol’ at Open Fist.

(John Dlugolecki)

Santana’s Marisol, likable yet spiky, anchors the revival. Her interactions with the golf club maniac (Matthew Goodrich) and the scarred homeless man (Hutchins Foster) are fearfully intense, as they should be.

Grace Soens, who plays June, Marisol’s confederate at work, and Jack Sharpe, who takes on the role of Lenny, June’s mentally disturbed brother, expand this unstable world, where it’s hard to know who to trust.

“Marisol” is rife with ambiguity. One of the biggest questions is whether Marisol is dead or alive. But the surreal reality extends to the map of New York. Marisol can no longer tell if she is heading north or south. And the number of characters wielding golf clubs as deadly weapons raises the concern that the villains are interchangeable — and that the good guys have all fled.

One thing that’s certain is that Marisol will have to take up the fight for her own future. With no one left to protect her, she’s learning to look after herself and those she cares about. To become, in other words, the hero that’s needed to turn this momentous struggle around.

When Judy Collins comes to Los Angeles, she likes to stay at the Beverly Hilton in part because “they serve a fabulous breakfast,” she says over coffee at the hotel on a recent morning. “That’s rare today,” she adds. “Too often a place will just send up a cardboard shopping bag with the things you ordered in it.”

Collins knows her amenities: At 87, the Grammy-winning singer and songwriter still plays about 120 shows a year, drawing audiences around the world with her high, clear voice and an expansive repertoire that blends the hits that made her famous in the 1960s and ’70s — Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne,” Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns” — with traditional folk tunes and material of her own.

Yet now she’s preparing to hang it up with a lengthy farewell tour she’s calling Sweet Judy Blue Eyes (after “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” the folk-rock classic her one-time lover Stephen Stills wrote about her for Crosby, Stills & Nash). The night before our interview, Collins played L.A.’s Ford Theatre; she’ll be back through Southern California for a Sept. 27 date at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara and again next year for shows in Palm Springs and Aliso Viejo.

After we talk, she plans to do a bit of tai chi, for which she uses an app on her phone and which she wishes more people practiced. “Maybe that would alter civilization,” she says. “If we were all doing tai chi, we couldn’t be at war with Iran.” Then she’ll head to the airport for a flight home to New York, where she’s lived for decades — most of them with her husband, industrial designer Louis Nelson, who died in 2024.

At breakfast, Collins is wearing a patterned turquoise jacket over a matching dress and high-heeled black leather boots.

“You like these?” she asks of the boots. “These are Stuart Weitzman. I bought them 30 years ago, and I’ve never stopped wearing them.”

That’s a well-made boot.
They fit, they’re great and I reject all invitations to get rid of them.

Has your thinking about clothes changed over the decades?
I used to dress in jeans because I was a cowgirl — I hung out with rodeo riders in Colorado. As I came up, I liked what was simple. My mother made all our clothes on a Singer sewing machine for years. Now I love beaded things. I have full closets I need to go through.

Before you came onstage last night, an announcer told the audience not to take pictures or videos.
That’s my management’s doing — it’s important to them, so I go along with it. But the pictures are usually bad. Also, the phones take people’s minds off what’s going on onstage. People need the chance to focus. We’re in a period of insanity right now, so people need time to sit wherever they are. They could go to the ballet or to the theater, but they choose to come to me, and they get to sit there and they get to listen and they get to think about their own lives.

As a performer, that’s what you seek to provide.
I’m providing silence. It’s such a noisy world — so full of crappy music that plays outside all these hotels and places where we stay. It drives me nuts.

You have a line in the show where you say, “Something unexpected happened — I turned 87.” It got a good laugh.
People applaud too.

What are they saying by applauding?
They want to be acknowledged for their own ages, whether they’re 87 or 90 or 19. People are coming to see me, but they’re also coming to see their history. They’ll remember what happened 60, 70 years ago — they were probably marching at the same things I was marching at. And if they’re 19, they want to know why we’re not marching now.

Judy Collins performs on “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” in 1969.

(CBS via Getty Images)

You said we’re in a period of insanity.
This country is losing so much of the depth of our origin. The fact that workers who’ve come to this country are being taken off to God knows where — it makes no sense. Number one, these people often have some sort of legality. And secondly, they do the work here. Nobody else wants to go up to the orchards in Oregon and pick the fruit. Do you?

I can’t say that I do.
I don’t want to do that.

This tour is billed as your grand farewell.
So long, you guys.

I’m always reluctant to trust that framing. Cher’s done like eight farewell tours.
I hadn’t counted them up — shame on me.

Should we really believe you?
I think we have to believe in the present tense. What you’re hearing is what’s happening.

You had a music stand onstage with you. What was on it?
All the lyrics to all the songs.

You can’t possibly need the lyrics anymore.
Oh, yes, I do.

You’ve been singing some of them for decades.
Doesn’t matter — it has to be there in case you have to look at it.

Would you say you do look? Or is it more of a security blanket?
It’s a security blanket. But my eyes wander — I like to see who’s in the audience and what’s going on. I like to look up and down the aisles, and I like to fantasize: How did this happen?

Your life and career?
I mean, I know how it happened. I was 16, and I started going to the Denver Folklore Society, which was run by a guy named Lingo the Drifter. And Lingo the Drifter had these wonderful evenings where we all played the guitar and sang and drank illegal whiskey and so on.

Judy Collins last month in Beverly Hills.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Before Denver, you lived briefly as a kid in Los Angeles.
My father was a very eclectic and fabulous radio personality. He had a radio show for 30 years in Seattle then here in Hollywood, broadcasting out of CBS — a big deal. If we weren’t in school, we would drive up Santa Monica Boulevard into Hollywood and we’d stand around and watch them produce the radio mysteries. People would walk in a sandbox to get the sound of somebody walking up the gravel road to the door.

Are you familiar with the term “nepo baby”?
No.

It refers to the child of a famous artist who follows in their parent’s footsteps.
Oh, that’s interesting.

People use it derisively, as if to say that a kid has overly benefited from their advantages.
We certainly had advantages. For instance, the Library of Congress, which is the jewel in the crown — I don’t know what they’re doing now — but they sent us Braille books and they sent us all the shows from New York and they sent us the recordings of all the Shakespearean plays by the great Dame Judith Anderson and John Gielgud. I had all that growing up. In some ways, I wasn’t raised — I was trained. I got to see how a professional has to handle his life. My father was a professional in all ways. He drank — occasionally, not all the time — but he was absolutely organized about everything, including that.

You’ve been sober for something like half a century.
Forty-eight years. I’m in my 49th now.

You ever miss drinking?
Oh, my God, no. I was so sick — I was gone. Bye-bye.

Some people replace one addiction with another.
I had an eating disorder, which is still kind of … You know, last night, I asked for apple juice during the show — I was in trouble because I wasn’t eating. When my husband died, I stopped eating again. I’d stopped eating in the ’60s and ’70s and ’80s, but I got over that. But suddenly I didn’t want to eat again.

Would you consider that disordered eating?
I don’t know. Anyway, I have to really be careful. We had a talk about it last night. I have to eat these protein bars, and I have to eat them all the time.

Do you remember the first gig you played after your husband died?
Oh, yes — I had to go out. When my son took his life in 1992, I got a call from Joan Rivers — she and I knew each other pretty well. She was getting ready to go out and do her show in Las Vegas, and she called me in New York and she said, “I have to tell you this” — her husband had just killed himself — she said, “You cannot stay home. You have to go out.” I was canceling all my shows, and she said, “You can’t do that because you won’t ever get over this if you do.”

How did you take that advice?
I said, “Thank you,” and I called my staff and I said, “Put ’em back on.” My mother came out with me, Louis came out with me, my sister came out with me, and it was incredibly true: I had to be working or else I would die. So when it came to Louis, I was out three days later.

What did that feel like?
Well, it was wonderful because I was working. I can work and get through anything — that’s the psychological effect of what I’m doing on the stage. I’m interacting with people, I’m hearing the laughter, I’m hearing the music. What could be more healing?

This is why I’m wondering why you plan to stop touring.
But you see, I have all these other things to do — I have a life that’s not just touring. I’m working on the music for a Broadway show. And I’m doing a new book — it’s called “Singing Through the Storm,” and it’ll be out next year, I hope.

Judy Collins and Leonard Cohen attend the 41st annual Songwriters Hall of Fame ceremony in New York in 2010.

(Larry Busacca / Getty Images)

You’ve interpreted the music of so many great songwriters: Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen. Was there ever a writer whose work you admired but couldn’t find your way into?
No.

OK.
I’ll tell you my funniest Leonard story. In 2014, I think it was, I went to this little group in Norway called Democrats Abroad — lonely group of people. That night, this woman came up to me and said, “Hi, I’m Marianne.” I said, “Hi, Marianne.” And then she said, “I’m Leonard’s Marianne.” She said, “There’s something I’ve wanted to tell you for many years: We were living together in Spain, Leonard and I, and he was writing songs and we were swimming in the nude. And then one day he came to me and he said, ‘Marianne, I’m going to New York to sing my songs for Judy Collins,’ and he went to New York and he played you all his songs and you recorded them.” Marianne said, “I just wanted to tell you that you ruined my life.” Fortunately, we became friends on Facebook.

You opened last night’s set with “Both Sides Now.”
Oh, yes.

This might be the most famous song you do. Some artists would save it for later in the show.
I don’t want people to wonder for an hour and a half: Will she? Won’t she? What will I do if she doesn’t?

Do you still enjoy singing “Both Sides Now”?
I love it. It was Al Kooper who brought me to Joni — she sang it to me over the phone. Al is living a very sane, quiet life in the Northeast now. He’s married — never goes out anymore. It’s hard to think of Al Kooper just sitting there enjoying his marriage and his garden.

What will you do on the plane home today?
I’ll probably get out the computer and noodle around on the book and see what I can come up with.

The work never ends.
It never ends because it’s not done.

Amanda Seyfried and Thomas Sadoski are calling it quits.

The former couple, who tied the knot in March 2017, told People that they had been separated for some time.

“We have been separated for a while, and it’s proven to be the right move for us and our family unit. We’ve got each other forever — and it’s GOOD,” Seyfried and Sadoski told the outlet.

On Tuesday, Seyfried shared a piece of prose by poet and author Bianca Sparacino on her Instagram stories that read:

“Maybe in another lifetime.”

“No.

“This is all you get. So please, just fight for the things that crack light into your life, fight for the things that soften you. Protect the people you love, leave them better than you found them. Defend your heart, do whatever it takes to keep it open despite what it has been through. Forgive, not just others, but yourself, as well. Slow down. Taste, and touch, and feel and care. Create the things you want to see in this world, stay as curious as possible. Honour your joy, do not shy away from the good that is trying to reach you, do not convince yourself that you are unworthy of it. Be strong enough to be gentle. Be brave enough to break. Be all that you are. Be all that you are.”

The pair met back in 2015 while starring in “The Way We Get By,” a two-person off-Broadway play that explores love and lust and takes place the morning after a drunken hookup. It was Seyfried’s stage debut. “I feel like the luckiest guy in New York right now, to be honest with you,” Sadoski told Backstage on Broadway at the time. “I mean, I get one of the great American playwrights, one of the great American directors, and a perfect scene partner, I’m a pretty happy guy.”

The two teamed up again the same year to play love interests once more in “The Last Word.”

After spending a good portion of the year pretending to be in love with Seyfried on stage and screen, in October 2015, Sadoski split from his wife of eight years, studio casting executive Kimberly “Becky” Hope. By March 2016, the “Newsroom” actor was romantically linked to the “Mamma Mia!” star.

Seyfried, 40, and Sadoski, 50, tied the knot in a private countryside ceremony in 2017. There were no family or friends on the guest list, just their officiant and Seyfried’s dog, Finn. Shortly after the nuptials, the pair welcomed a baby girl, Nina. In 2020, they had a son, Thomas Jr.

The couple have raised their family on a farm in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, a property the “Mean Girls” star bought in 2013, while also maintaining properties in Los Angeles and Manhattan. But last month, Seyfried listed her 2,700-square-foot Los Angeles residence for about $3.2 million.