WASHINGTON — Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche on Tuesday wouldn’t rule out the possibility that people who carried out violence during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol will be considered for payouts from a new $1.776 billion fund to pay individuals who believe they were targeted politically.
Pressed during a Congressional hearing over whether those who assaulted police officers would be eligible for compensation from the “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” Blanche responded that all people can apply if “they believe they were a victim of weaponization.” The acting attorney general also refused to say whether he would direct those responsible for deciding who receives payments — a commission whose members he is tasked with appointing — to restrict funds to those convicted of violence.
“What I will commit to is making sure that the commissioners are effectively doing their jobs, and that includes setting guidelines as you’re describing,” Blanche told Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat. The decisions on payouts will be made a five-member commission appointed by the attorney general.
Appearing before Congress for the first time since taking the reins of the Justice Department last month, Blanche was peppered with questions about the fund announced on Monday to compensate those who believe they were mistreated by prior administrations’ Justice Department. Blanche said the fund was “unusual” but not unprecedented, adding that those who benefit will not be limited to Republicans or to people who were investigated or prosecuted by the Biden administration. At one point, Blanche said President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter — who faced gun and tax prosecutions under his father’s administration — could also apply.
Blanche defends $1.8 billion fund
Tuesday’s hearing was meant to address the Trump administration’s budget request for the Justice Department but quickly delved into other controversies that have escalated concerns about the erosion of the law enforcement agency’s tradition of independence from the White House. Blanche defended the creation of the fund without any acknowledgment that the Trump administration has pursued investigations of Trump’s political opponents, sparking criticism that the department is being weaponized in precisely the same way they allege it was under Biden’s administration to prosecute Trump.
In the weeks since assuming control of the Justice Department after Pam Bondi’s firing, Blanche has moved aggressively to advance the president’s priorities — pushing forward cases against Trump’s political foes, cracking down on leaks to media outlets and establishing the new fund to resolve Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns.
Democrats described it as an illegal abuse of power designed to line the pockets of Trump supporters with taxpayer dollars. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the Senate appropriations subcommittee holding the hearing, blasted the move as a “pure theft of public funds.”
“Rewarding individuals who committed crimes is obscene,” the Maryland Democrat said. “Every American can see through this illegal, corrupt, self-dealing scheme.”
The fund is in keeping with Trump’s long-running claims that the Justice Department during the Biden administration was weaponized against him, even though then-President Biden himself was investigated during that time and his son was prosecuted. Merrick Garland, who served as attorney general during the Biden administration, has repeatedly denied allegations of politicization and has said his decisions followed facts, the evidence and the law.
Trump administration has been rewriting the history of Jan. 6
The mere possibility that violent rioters at the Capitol could be considered for payouts is consistent with a Trump administration pattern of rewriting the dark history of Jan. 6, a trend that began when the president pardoned and commuted the prison sentences of the participants in the melee and that continued with the Justice Department firing some prosecutors who put them behind bars.
Under questioning from Merkley, Blanche said that he “will definitely encourage the commission” responsible for deciding on the payouts to “take everything into account.” But when asked whether he believes those convicted of violence should be entitled to compensation, Blanche said: “My feelings don’t matter.”
When Merkley suggested that Trump was using the Justice Department to target his political enemies, Blanche replied that this was precisely the sort of “disgusting” behavior of the Biden administration that the fund was meant to address.
“That is completely inappropriate and wrong,’ Merkley said. “There is no comparison to the absolute fair minded pursuit of justice under the previous administration, and this administration’s pursuit of an enemies list.”
Questions over the meaning of ‘weaponization’
In announcing the fund Monday, the Trump administration did not name specific individuals who might stand to benefit from it. The money itself would come from the federal judgment fund, which pays out court judgments and compromise settlements of lawsuits against the government.
Blanche told lawmakers that the Justice Department is committed to “full transparency” in providing public information about beneficiaries of the new fund.
“It’s not limited to Republicans. It’s not limited to Democrats. It’s not limited to January 6th defendants. It’s limited only by the term weaponization,” Blanche said, though the administration has not said how it will define “weaponization.”
Meanwhile, there were signs of discomfort about the fund even among some Republican members of Congress. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters that he’s “not a big fan,” adding that he isn’t sure how the administration intends to use it, but doesn’t “see a purpose for that.”
Thune’s comments come after Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who lost reelection in a GOP primary on Saturday, called it a “slush fund.”
“We are a nation of laws,” Cassidy said. “You can’t just make up things.”
Richer and Tucker write for the Associated Press. AP reporter Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.
If anyone needs the axiom “Tell me who you’re with, and I’ll tell you who you are” whispered to them every morning as a reminder to do better, it’s Spencer Pratt.
Can someone do that ASAP, por favor?
Instead of holding events around Los Angeles to convince skeptics that his mayoral campaign is for everyone, the former reality television bad boy has bunkered himself inside an echo chamber of sycophants, friendly podcasters and milquetoast media outlets.
Instead of offering an on-ramp to join his pissed-off posse, he calls Mayor Karen Bass “Basura” — trash — and her supporters “Bassholes,” insults that his followers share and like on social media by the thousands.
Instead of enlisting surrogates to push an uplifting vision for L.A.’s future, Pratt elevates those who speak of the city as a West Coast Chernobyl.
Now that Pratt has shown his electoral quest isn’t a farce, it’s time he shows all Angelenos that they can rely on a Republican entertainer with no political experience to head a largely progressive, multicultural metropolis.
Instead, he continues to double down on his doomsday message, exciting the type of people who have been whining that L.A. is a “Lost Cause” since the days of the Watts riots.
They’re the ones depicting Pratt in AI-generated videos as a superhero — Batman, Luke Skywalker and a gladiator, among others — battling Bass, cast as a clown, Darth Vader, the Joker or as herself handing out needles to half-crazed homeless people.
They hound anyone who points out that L.A. is nowhere near as apocalyptic as they make it out to be, when homicides are at their lowest since the 1960s, burglaries are down 30% from last year and unsheltered homelessness has dropped two years in a row. They follow Pratt’s example and call unhoused people with drug problems “zombies” and “bums” while depicting the L.A. of the past as a problem-free playground out of “The Wonderful World of Disney” that derailed once Democrats took over.
Not all of Pratt’s supporters are this obnoxious. But he repeatedly platforms the worst of them and shows no signs of stopping. That nihilism might sell books and gain followers — but it’s no way to prove to Angelenos he’s serious about fixing anything other than his reputation.
Mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, left, poses with a supporter during a campaign event in Sherman Oaks.
(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)
Anyone who truly loves the city complains about it even on its best days. They realize L.A. can never be perfect, and that’s what makes it so wonderful. When people try to better their part of paradise, everyone benefits.
But Pratt needs to realize that Angelenos don’t want the city to be torn down, as dissatisfied as they may be. Criticizing the status quo is necessary — but waging a campaign of humiliation, a la Donald Trump, isn’t how to heal L.A. It won’t get large swaths of the city on your side, and it can’t spark the true change City Hall so desperately needs.
Instead, we get people like former Times contributor Meghan Daum — who now calls herself the “official Liberal Elite for Pratt” — gushing in the Atlantic about how her man is the “factory-reset option” to Make L.A. Great Again.
Or just to the days when the problems that have long racked L.A. didn’t lap up to the denizens of Prattland — until they did?
These are the people who stayed largely silent as Trump unleashed ICE goons across Los Angeles last summer. They said nothing about housing affordability and violent crime in the years when those issues primarily afflicted South L.A. and the Eastside. They didn’t have a fit about homelessness until encampments spread beyond Skid Row.
Pratt’s loudest fans fundamentally loathe modern-day L.A., and that should chill all other Angelenos. These haters would be his primary constituents and populate his brain trust if he does beat Bass — and if he lets them take over, heaven help the City of Angels.
I’m not discounting Pratt’s chances of winning — he’s too savvy a media pro to fully flop. I knew Bass and Raman would misjudge the anger of Angelenos, fail to capitalize on that rage and find themselves on the defensive against Pratt’s populist push. I also figured he would eschew politeness for the demonizing that has tainted past L.A. elections, from Yorty’s mayoral campaigns of the 1960s to the San Fernando Valley secession movement a generation ago to the continued charges of communism thrown at the democratic socialist wing of the City Council.
I don’t blame Pratt for jumping into the race after his life was upended. And I sure don’t underestimate L.A.’s middle-class malaise, long a reactionary force in city politics with a winning track record that spans decades. But I can’t trust the guy and his crew for just now beginning to say they care about reforming L.A., when all he has fought for is his dark idea of the city.
And if you think L.A. needs a complete makeover, then you probably never really loved it in the first place.
On a recent podcast with Adam Carolla — who has long railed against L.A.’s liberal, multicultural ways and is planning to move to Nevada after his children graduate high school — Pratt huffed that he will “be done with trying to live” in the city if he doesn’t become mayor.
“I’ll go find somewhere that my kids will not have to see naked zombies,” he said, in a comment that was cheered on and seconded by his online army.
Do Angelenos really want to entrust their city to someone who might pick up his ball and quit on a place he professes to love, if he doesn’t get his way?
On a Thursday night in West Hollywood, a sleek, multi-level townhome is filled with stylish guests holding fragrance vials the way partygoers cling to cocktails. They raise scents to their noses as they mingle and float through the space.
In one nook, two well-known faces in the fragrance community, Tishni Weerasinghe (@thatbrownperfumegirl) and Chase Chapman (@thescentchase), host stations with their favorite home scents — pre-bedtime spritzes to everyday comforts for working from home — as a small group leans in, asking questions and noting which scents resonate. Inhaling the blend of white musk, floral notes and amber of Rouat Al Musk by Lattafa, a $16 fragrance from Weerasinghe’s collection, attendees oooh and nod in enthusiastic approval.
In another corner, guests try fragrance pairings, scents expertly paired with drinks, letting the aroma and flavors mingle through their senses. Outside on the rooftop, the crowd spills into smaller conversations over refreshments and city views.
Sarah Bowen, co-founder of the Smellers Club, sniffs a fragrance.
This is the Smellers Club. To an outsider, it might seem like a gathering centered around a niche fixation, but within this world, fragrance is much more expansive. Here, it’s a bridge between people, a tool for self-expression, a way to understand your own taste and increasingly, a reason to connect. The night’s gathering is taking place in the home of Daniel Scott and Ronn Richardson, the duo behind the fine home fragrance line Space.
Some guests are simply scent-curious, while others have deep roots in the world of fragrance. One attendee, Jess Blaise, the co-founder of Haitian Spotlight LA, credits her Haitian heritage and the fragrance rituals modeled by her mother for her connection to scent. She recently purchased a bottle of Carnal Flower by Frederic Malle for her personal collection, a luxe tuberose known for its white floral profile and appeal among niche collectors. Of her culture, she explains, “Part of your presentation — of dressing up — is your scent.”
The gathering was hosted in the home of Daniel Scott, left, and Ronn Richardson, co-founders of the home fragrance brand Space. Space offers a range of luxury home fragrances and candles.
Across Los Angeles, fragrance clubs are transforming what was once a solo ritual into something communal. From rooftop gatherings in West Hollywood to casual park meetups further east, these hangouts tap into a growing desire for laid-back, low-stimulation ways to spend time together, offering an alternative to the usual rotation of restaurants, bars and crowded nights out.
Reverie of Scent turns a small nook of Elysian Park into a mini fragrance lounge on Saturday mornings once a month. Founded in November 2025 by Marian Botrous, with support from her husband, Errol, and her sister, Marlene, the club started with just four members at the first meetup. By their sixth gathering this past April, attendance had quintupled, with a mix of regulars and newcomers at every session.
“It’s a huge world,” Botrous says of perfume. “Exploring it together makes it more interesting.”
Fragrance lovers hang out on the rooftop at Smellers Club’s West Hollywood gathering.
At her picnic-like gatherings, attendees show up with blankets, snacks and scents to swap or discuss. With 2-milliliter samples running up to $12, “collecting new scents gets expensive fast,” Bostrous says. “Our meetups make it accessible and fun.”
There’s a mix of casual socializing and structured discussion — conversations have explored the motivations behind wearing fragrance, from seduction to personal comfort, as well as the cultural impact of certain perfumes, like Chanel No. 5 and its connection to Marilyn Monroe and old-school luxury glamour. At one meetup, a member brought in a fragrance called Scentless Apprentice, inspired by the novel “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer” by Patrick Süskind (which Kurt Cobain loved so much that he wrote the Nirvana song “Scentless Apprentice”).
Artist Megan Lindeman, who founded Silverlake Scent Club in August 2025, is also bringing people together to explore scent as a shared social experience. Lindeman says she was inspired by Los Angeles’ broader scent culture and a curiosity about what it would feel like to center smell in a communal setting. The group meets monthly in her Silver Lake backyard, where attendees explore fragrance as both material and memory.
Black Girl Perfume Club was founded in 2023 by Taylyn Washington-Harmon, launching online before expanding into in-person meetups. Across Substack, Instagram and IRL gatherings, it brings together fragrance lovers and newcomers eager to deepen their understanding in an interactive way. “I started the club back when fragrance’s popularity was still pretty niche, and now seeing it move into the mainstream is really exciting,” says Washington-Harmon. As interest grows, she hopes more people will also explore the range of artistry produced by Black-owned fragrance lines.
Back at the house in West Hollywood, people continue to vibe at the event led by Sarah Bowens and Jon Kidd, Los Angeles natives and the duo behind the Smellers Club, launched in January. They’re siblings-in-law who grew up together in the church and are quick to note that their respective partners, Zana and Zion, are unofficial team members and rock-star supporters.
Jess Blaise tests out a scent by Selnu.
Between the both of them, Kidd brings the “fraghead” energy — a name for fragrance devotees who bring a passion and certain fluency of fragrance culture. Bowens, who comes from an events background, heads curation and considers herself more in the beginning stages of her fragrance journey.
When they first started hosting these events, Bowens wasn’t sure how captivating they’d be. “I was like, can people really sit here for hours and talk about fragrance?” she says. She got her answer quickly, watching guests chat, laugh and dive into lively conversations for hours.
Kidd points to wine and book clubs as “event muses” for the Smellers Club. “At a certain point, it stops being about the books or the wine — and for us, even the fragrances,” he says. “It becomes about the people.”
Chase Chapman sets up scents from his personal collection of fragrances for guests to discover at the Smellers Club gathering.
As people navigate adulthood and personal growth cycles, challenging habits and shedding old identities, there are a few underlying questions: Who am I, really? What do I actually like? And what feels good and in alignment with being at ease? Fragrance communities can be a surprisingly grounding place to explore these existential meditations. Bowens, for example, was recently drawn to strawberry-forward Fruits of Love by Dossier, which surprised her since she considered herself someone who didn’t like fruity scents. Such realizations are familiar in the community: You can miss out on something satisfying simply because it doesn’t match your predefined tastes.
Farah Elawamry, a fragrance-focused content creator known as Farah’s Thoughts, has examined fragrance marketing and its ties to rigid gender norms, explaining that “the iris note is always given to women’s fragrances and orris is always given to the masculine fragrance genre, and they’re literally the same note — one is the root, one is the flower.” Once you start diving into the history and psychology of fragrances, she says “you begin to question what you actually like versus what marketing people are telling you to enjoy.”
Compared with the typical nightlife scene in Los Angeles, attendee Shaunt Kludjian says gatherings like these feel more intentional. “This turned out to be better than the clubs in L.A.” he says. “Everyone’s just vibing and connecting over scent.” Kludjian is founder of the Los Angeles candle company Whiff and came to the event to network. Frustrated by traditional candle formats, he launched a line of portable candles packaged in small, tuna-like tins designed to make “home follow you wherever you go.”
As Kidd looks around and watches strangers become friends over a sniff of musk or jasmine, he reflects on part of the magic of the Smellers Club and other fragrance communities.
“Fragrance is a portal to your memory,” he says. “So by coming to something curated that’s a wonderful night, you’re ingraining a memory.”
What started as a question of what smells good has become something else — small moments of recognition between many people who, just hours earlier, had been total strangers. Maybe that’s the point. The bottles will get put away. Everyone will return to their separate corners of the city. But the feeling of being seen, of finding your people — even briefly — sticks with you long after the scents dissipate.
Local officials the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Sunday updated reporters on the Bundibugyo Ebola virus outbreak there, which has caused the WHO to declare it a health emergency of international concern and the United States to enacte travel restrictions. Photo by Marie Jeanne Munyerenkana/EPA
May 18 (UPI) — The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday restricted non-U.S. passport holders from entering the United States if they have been in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo or South Sudan in the past 21 days.
The agency made the announcement as there have at least 346 cases and 88 deaths in the DRC, on top of several cases that have been confirmed in nearby nations in people who been there, the CDC said over the weekend.
The CDC said that is coordinating with various agencies and companies to manage travelers who have been exposed to Ebola as it also deploys employees to support containment of the outbreak in the three nations.
“CDC assess the immediate risk to the general U.S. public as low, but we will continue to evaluate the evolving situation and may adjust public health measures as additional information becomes available,” the agency said in a situation summary.
In the last five days, the World Health Organization confirmed that the Ebola virus circulating in the three countries right now is the Bundibuyo virus, one of four known strains that have affected humans since Ebola was discovered in mid-1970s.
Although there is an approved, licensed vaccine against Ebola which has successfully been used to quell outbreaks, the vaccine — called Ervebo — only protects against acquisition of the Zaire species of Ebola virus, making it useless in the current outbreak, according to the CDC.
WHO on Saturday declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
In its update, WHO said that there are “significant uncertainties to the true number of infected persons and geographic spread associated with this event at the present time. In addition, there is limited understanding of the epidemiologic links with known or suspected cases.”
Ebola spreads from wild animals to humans and from human to human through direct contact with blood or other bodily fluids from infected individuals, and carries a case fatality rate of roughly 50%.
A number of affected Americans have reportedly been exposed to the virus during the outbreak.
The CDC has recommended that people who have traveled through the two countries in the last 21 days should immediately seek medical attention if they develop Ebola symptoms, which can include fever, weakness, vomiting, diarrhea or unexplained bleeding.
In addition to roughly 30 CDC employees dispatched to the region, and will join officials from several other global and regional health agencies, the WHO is expected to convene an emergency committee to advise the agency’s director-general on its response the outbreak.
When Andrea Werhun started writing her memoir, “Modern Whore,” nearly a decade ago, she was afraid to be honest about working as an escort and stripper. But she embraced going public to “use storytelling to advocate for the plight of sex workers.”
In the documentary version of “Modern Whore,” directed by Nicole Bazuin, Werhun has gone not one, but several steps further. Werhun, 36, is not only the main interview subject, she’s also the frequently topless star of all the vividly depicted reenactments of her experiences. The documentary also features bright colors, funky music and an often jaunty tone.
Well Documented
With networks and streamers seeking to create compelling content, many have found the answer in true stories. But with the surge in documentaries, it can be hard to sift through what’s worth your time. Each month, we provide an inside look at a documentary and others you should add to your queue.
Werhun, who started escorting in college and still does sex work even while pursuing writing and acting, was a consultant on Sean Baker’s “Anora,” and he served as a producer here, offering feedback on their script and numerous cuts of the film. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2025 and is now available on video on demand.
Werhun and Bazuin recently discussed the film’s style and goals in a joint video interview edited for length and clarity.
How much were you consciously trying to make this different from other documentaries about sex workers?
Bazuin: I wanted this to feel like a storybook come to life — we literally jump inside Andrea’s book with Andrea as our storyteller and reenactor of her own experiences. People might expect a film about sex work to be be drab or dour, and we wanted to confront that right away with vivid colors and a stylized expressionistic mode that can support all the moods of her experiences. Stylized films sometimes can contain more truth than realistic forms.
Werhun: Cinema verité, which is typically how sex workers are portrayed in documentaries, inevitably comes off as voyeuristic.
Most documentaries about sex work don’t include R-rated reenactments starring the film’s subject. Why include that?
Bazuin: We wanted to disrupt expectations audiences might have and to make it a more human portrait.
Werhun: I love performing and I’d love to have an acting career and this was an excellent showcase of my abilities.
But also it would feel censored if there weren’t any tits, if there were no sex scenes in a film about sex. I’m not ashamed of the fact that I’ve used this body to make a living. Nicole and I crafted the scenes meticulously to convey a point that is artistic, funny and educational.
Bazuin: The movie runs the gamut tonally. It’s a “Trojan whore” for a feminist and sex worker manifesto for political and social change, so we also show the challenges and the assaults that Andrea experienced because we want laws that would make this work safer, including the decriminalization of sex work.
Andrea, why interview your boyfriend and mom on camera?
Werhun: The sex worker stereotype is that we’re isolated and vulnerable, with no support systems; that stereotype makes predators think we’re easy victims. I wanted to dispel the idea that we are incapable of having loving, meaningful relationships.
This is presented as a film memoir yet you then include other sex workers’ perspectives.
Werhun: Unfortunately, when it comes to sex work storytelling, there is a proliferation of cis white, educated women and those tend to be the stories that get platforms. But that experience is minute compared to the wide range of sex workers, so it was vital to expand the narrative to include other perspectives, whether it’s race, gender orientation or class. What we have in common is that we all deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.
You say you’re rewriting the usual story of sex workers as victims or villains but you were a victim, both of exploitative working conditions and sexual assault. Will sex workers always be victimized without legal protection?
Werhun: Most of our clients are not bad people, they’re paying for a service we’re willing to provide. But under any criminalized model, there is inherently exploitation and people don’t feel safe accessing justice. If we don’t have labor rights, we’re going to be victimized. Even strippers are not comfortable going to the police.
We’re fighting a society that wants to keep our work in the dark, to pretend that this isn’t happening, that it can be abolished by throwing people into prison. Criminalization is harmful and guarantees there are more victims.
Where does OnlyFans fit into the sex work equation?
Werhun: The beauty of escorting and stripping is that you can dip in and out. With OnlyFans you’re working 24/7, creating content, interacting with your fans and doing constant self-promotion. With sex work in person, no one has to know about it but OnlyFans will follow you for the rest of your life. I did it for a year and a half and it paid my rent but it’s not my preferred type of sex work. It’s great for people who live online.
How did audiences respond to the film at festivals?
Werhun: Obviously, creating this film was a trust fall. The film is a song and dance on behalf of all whores, trusting humanity to hold me and not hurt me. I was pleasantly surprised by how audiences warmly embraced it. Some people were working through their prejudices in real time and it’s amazing to watch them transform. We hope the film can inspire social change. If it pulls your heartstrings, then when issues of criminalization and legal change arise, people might say, “I remember that movie and I think whores deserve to have equal rights with everybody else.”
Over the last five years, there has been a significant shift in how fashion and sports intersect, both on and off the court, with athletes’ influence extending beyond the court and into culture at large. Why now? And how has athlete style evolved?
These were some of the questions that three prominent athlete stylists — Brittany Hampton, Courtney Mays and Dex Robinson — unpacked last week at the panel “Game Changers: Where Sport Meets Style.” Moderated by Image contributor Darian Symoné Harvin and co-organized with the Only Agency, the event took place at the private members club Gravitas, a hub for folks at the intersection of sports, business and luxury in Beverly Hills. Gathered in the swanky yet intimateupstairs bar and events room, guests sat in plush chairs and sipped pink vodka cocktails and flipped through Image’s May sports and arts issue ahead of it hitting the newsstands. An also-plush takeaway?Stress balls in the shape of footballs, courtesy of the Only Agency.
The evening could’ve kept going — Hampton, Mays and Robinson had so much to say about an industry that is still widely misunderstood and filled with gatekeeping. The below edited version of the conversation gives you a glimpse into the demanding yet deeply fulfillingworld of styling athletes.
Darian Symoné Harvin: Athletes often are not sample size. How do you source clothes and work with brands? Are they supportive? Anything you would tell brands if you could?
Courtney Mays: Size inclusivity is a huge thing. Because, especially when you’re talking about the W[NBA], you’re talking about women who are sometimes a men’s size 13 shoe, who are sometimes a 36-inch inseam. And although we’re using this platform to talk about larger issues, sometimes the larger issue is: I’m here and I’m a plus-size woman. Sometimes you have to use your presence to talk about those things, if you’re not verbally saying that, [and] you have to get the brands to stand behind you.
“We’re making sure that that Old Navy looks like Bottega,” said Courtney Mays, “so that at the end of the day you feel like the superstar that you are. We’re really curating the moment.”
Brittany Hampton: It’s also important for everyone that’s in the room to know that stylists can’t always get the ask that you guys may be asking for. If I have a seven-foot athlete, which I do have on my roster, and he’s, you know, he’s massive — he wears a 16-and-a-half shoe. There may only be a few brands [with his size]. There are going to be certain things that I may even have to pull out of his own closet. And then it still means, “Well, why do we have to give you that budget for that?” And it’s like, well, because I had to have an assistant go get that piece from his closet, have it dry-cleaned, have it picked up, then have it delivered to set. It’s still a process, there’s value in the work that we put in. We’re trying our hardest.
DSH: From a tunnel walk to a press run to a campaign, how do you break down your budget and your fee?
Dex Robinson: Each stylist approaches fees and pricing a different way, right? Also depends on how you were groomed or how you came into the situation. I was an assistant for years before I ever said I was a stylist, and even then I kind of treaded lightly before I was like, “I am a lead stylist.” I was someone’s assistant, and that’s when I asked all the questions that I needed to ask about what my fees would be. I knew the structures, I knew the things, so I wasn’t asking my peers, “Oh, how do I charge for this?”
BH: I do want to jump in and state for the people in the room that may or may not know we’re speaking in terms of expenses. The current budgets that they are talking about are particular to clothing expenses. That does not allot to our fees. We have labor that is very imperative, labor that goes into us doing market research, that goes into us having assistance across cities most of the time. I live in Los Angeles. None of my clients live in Los Angeles. So let’s say my client is currently in the playoffs and lives in Cleveland, but I’m pulling from both New York and Los Angeles, then we’re meeting in Cleveland to have a fitting with him, and that all takes a tailor of this, of that, etc. Now, having tunnel looks is one thing, but then also having a campaign is something completely different. We also then have to be very strategic about brands that we’re pulling from. And we are using our own cards!
CM: A lot of times, we are giving our own money down to say, “I’m taking this half a million dollars’ worth of wardrobe out of your store, and I’m promising you that I’m going to bring it back in a certain amount of time.”
DR: It’s a more lengthy exercise to get people to let you borrow clothes versus [when] the [clients] just pay for this stuff and I don’t have to worry about it after. I would much rather let them have it in their wardrobe and I figure out what to do with it after. And I’m not like, “Oh, you wore this one time,” and just throw this out. No, we gonna cut the arms off of this. We gonna turn this into some shorts.
When asked for one piece of advice for aspiring stylists, Dax Robinson encouraged people to first do their research. “Being fashionable does not make you a stylist … it takes years of perfecting a craft to become a stylist.”
But then to pull from a [showroom], that’s a whole ‘nother situation. That’s not really a money exchange, that’s more of a publicity exchange. And again, it’s still based off your name or your client.
CM: That’s when it’s important to get the shot. We live in a social media world. When we work with brands and we work with designers, we work with PR firms — what they’re looking for is that image. Not only the tunnel walk, but maybe it’s the walk out of the hotel or that paparazzi shot.
So we’re also partnering with photographers, saying, “Hey, our clients are going to the opening of LACMA. We need to capture the moments before.” Just like all the celebrities, they go to the SAG Awards, whatever, and they have these beautiful editorial shots before they even hit the red carpet. Why? Because they invested in a photographer to come to their home, to their hotel room, and say, “Let’s use 15 minutes before you walk out the door, get this BTS, get this shot, and we’re going to make it look beautiful.” Because we want to build the relationships with the brands of the clothing that we’re wearing.
DSH: What I love about what you’re saying is that it’s not only the tunnel, it’s not only the press run, it’s not only the campaign. It’s like, how are you creating this world around who the athlete is? To me, that’s exciting. It’s when you get into the creativity.
Let’s say that you receive a cold email from someone who wants to work with you. What kinds of questions do they ask that lets you know that they’re informed or they mean business? What lets you know, “Oh, they’ve done their homework a little bit, and they’re not just going to toss me around as a possibility”?
BH: We are brand architects, and because you guys are reaching out to us about a particular client, our job is not to just create a character, right? We don’t just create characters. We work with athletes. We understand that we have to know that athlete before they even walk in the room, and we have to understand their identity, understand their brand, and then build that with you [the brands] before we can even do the job right. There’s nothing more that I love than being on a call with a full production team for a full hour for a commercial. Because we actually want to know: One, what’s going into that player. Two, what they look like. Three, what they’re going to be doing, if there’s a double or if they’re going to be active — our talent is very performative, they’re performance-based first, and so we have to remember that when we’re dressing them.
Brittany Hampton on the role stylists play beyond the tunnel walk: “We’re not just bringing them a rack of clothes. We’re truly there to help build their identity and then who they’re about to become.”
CM: I feel like those conversations need to happen at the onset of working with a new client, with the agent, with the manager, with the assistant so that you can understand what the broader goal is for that client. A lot of times when people hire stylists, whether it’s per project or for a longer stint, a season, I think it’s like, “Oh, they just need clothes.” Like, I just had a job. [Her team] was like, “It’s the opening of the WNBA season. She needs clothes tomorrow.” Like an idiot, I took it: I really want to work with this girl. I’m gonna just send her a box. And I knew that was the dumbest thing I could have ever done, because I’ve never met her in person. I didn’t have the right sizes, and I think it ruined the relationship, because I didn’t have any context. So the fact that I couldn’t execute in 24 hours is sticking with me. I should have said no, because that is not my job — to go shop for you at the mall. My job is to really have a conversation about what your goals are, what your fit is, what brands do you love, what do you want to do when this basketball thing is over? I think that part and those conversations are important.
BH: It’s also important to have emotional intelligence. As we are the people that work with athletes on a consistent basis, we have to understand their bodies, but we also have to understand that they win games, they lose games. And half the time we are picking up their energy. We’re not just bringing them a rack of clothes. We’re truly there to help build their identity and then who they’re about to become. Sometimes you don’t get that lucky and get to have someone for that long, but the relationship building and creating that trust is something that’s so important, which is why those factors matter, like hiring someone maybe a month in advance and setting up those calls between the client and the stylist. Even if we just get on the call and we just want to shoot the shit and we’re like, “What colors do you like? What size do you like? What are brands that you love? Who do you look up to in terms of fashion?” Because some of these kids like it, and some of them absolutely don’t know.
DR: Well, that [direct relationship] might not be the reality depending on how big your client is sometimes, too. I’ve worked with people where they had to have that middleman for a little bit until they felt comfortable. So it wasn’t a situation where you could do that direct situation until they were ready. It’s also a different situation for me as a male, because guys don’t like being around other guys, so that’s why [women] dominated [the styling landscape] for years. Think about it. Like, as a guy, your mom is your first stylist. And then when you get a shorty you may say, “Yo, babe, I look nice. I’m good.” Guys really feel confident with a woman saying, “You look nice.” Not, “Yo, bro.” And then, even for me, a lot of the bigger guys I worked with, it was really their wives that was like, “You know what? My man can’t dress. I need you to come in.”
CM: That’s still the case. It’s somebody’s girlfriend or wife or agent. Like, “Please help.”
DSH: I want to talk about the people who you all work with when you are on set. I’m thinking particularly about glam. I’m curious about the makeup, hairstyle and grooming conversation that you are having, and why it matters.
“What you’re saying is that there’s a level of love that you have to put into it, and it’s not just about the clothes, but about the person,” reflected moderator Darian Symoné Harvin. “What do you like off the court? Where do you want to be? Where do you want to show up, right?”
CM: I feel like the stylist always becomes the creative director. We’re the hype man. We’re the one that’s talking to the hairstylist to say, “OK, she’s wearing this dress, we got to do XYZ, LMNOP.” We’re talking to the hairstylist. We’re talking to the photographer. We’re saying, “OK, we need a green backdrop instead of a yellow.” And I feel like that’s why we’re asking for certain rates; it’s not just me going to Old Navy to get y’all some jeans. And even if I am, because sometimes [Old Navy is] cute, we’re tailoring it. We’re making sure that that Old Navy looks like Bottega, so that at the end of the day you feel like the superstar that you are. We’re really curating the moment.
DSH: What advice would you give if you were sitting across a coffee table with a stylist who says, “I want to get into styling athletes”? What’s the one honest piece of advice you would give them?
BH: We can’t do everything. There are hundreds and hundreds of athletes across the board, and although we all came from a world of gatekeeping, it’s just not that anymore. Like we all have to share relationships. We have to continue to boost one another up. There’s been jobs where I’m like, “I can’t take that. Can you take that? Would you want that? This could be a good girl for you.”
DR: I think that a lot of people think because they’re fashionable, that means they should be a stylist. And I think being fashionable is just that. Being fashionable does not make you a stylist. I think it takes a sharpened eye. I think it takes understanding skill and proportion. I think it takes years of perfecting a craft to become a stylist. I think that people should just do research. I think that people should assist people. I think that when you come into a space and you don’t assist people, [maybe] you can easily attain a client, but retaining them is going to be hard, and I think that’s a difference, right? I wish a lot of the younger people that came into the space were more open to being a student first and not trying to become a professor.
CM: I also think that what we do is such an intimate thing. We’re getting people dressed. We’re in their homes, we’re in their hotel rooms. We’re with their families. Come as your authentic self and know that you have to do your best professionally — but also there’s a level of love that you have to put into it, and it’s not just about the clothes, but about the person, and about their goals and their aspirations. Make sure that you become a part of those conversations in a real, authentic way.
BH: It’s not just transactional. This is truly our passion. And we want to continue to work and just push for every person that comes after us.
From California Rock, 1,100 feet above Yosemite Valley, the crown jewel of America’s beloved national parks spreads out beneath you.
The jaw-dropping north face of 8,800-foot Half Dome towers to the east. The silky green ribbon of the Merced River meanders through the valley floor below, astonishingly lush during the spring snow melt. Even cars in the parking lots look fabulous, their roofs and windshields sparkling in the golden sunshine like so many tiny gems.
And then you realize those gems are everywhere — as far as the eye can see — because every single parking space in the valley is full.
On the way down from that vantage point, Upper Yosemite Falls Trail, which was practically empty at 9 a.m., had turned into a human conveyor belt by 11 a.m. Hundreds of people trudged up the steep switchbacks in single file.
People hike the Upper Yosemite Falls trail in Yosemite National Park on Saturday.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
That’s what’s giving parks enthusiasts heartburn this spring.
Even before the summer rush, which begins in earnest in a few days with Memorial Day weekend, California’s most visited national park is seeing enormous crowds. There have been more than 836,000 visits so far in 2026, according to National Park System data — about 100,000 more than this time last year.
The reason, according to parks advocates, is the Trump administration’s decision to abandon a reservation system implemented in 2020 to limit crowds during the COVID-19 pandemic. The system has been used on and off since then to help control the number of visitors and preserve a sense of natural tranquility.
On Saturday, there seemed to be an uneasy balance: The crowds were large but well-managed, with some visitors worried about the months ahead.
On the valley floor, as hundreds of people pressed together to gaze in awe at Lower Yosemite Falls, Jeff Wilson of Folsom said he was having flashbacks to 2023, the last time the park allowed entry without permits.
“It was just absolute bumper-to-bumper traffic all the way around the loop. Zero places to park, cars just circling all day, and people pulling off into just random spots,” Wilson said. “It was an absolute mess.”
People walk to the bottom of Yosemite Falls in Yosemite National Park on Saturday.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
There were echoes of that everywhere on Saturday. Parking lots filled up fast — the lot at Curry Village was full by 8 a.m. — and cars were stashed in every unmarked flat spot their owners thought they could get away with.
Once people found somewhere to leave their cars, they didn’t dare move them. Most relied on the free shuttle that circles the valley floor. The big white buses were jammed to capacity by midday, as were the bus stops, where people often had to wait for several shuttles to pass before one arrived with room.
Still, the lines were reasonable to enter the park and pay the fee — $35 per car for U.S. residents and President Trump’s new $100 per person extra charge for foreigners. That means a family of four from abroad would have to pay $435.
People who arrived very early breezed through the toll booths, and even those who showed up after 9 a.m. said they waited only about 15 to 30 minutes. That was a dramatic improvement over recent weekends, when social media lit up with complaints of hour-and-a-half ordeals.
Traffic flowed slowly but smoothly on the main paved roads around the valley floor. There was the occasional outburst as angry drivers leaned heavily on their horns, filling the peaceful meadow with a sudden blast of urban agita, but in general, things remained calm.
“We thought it would be more crowded,” said Laura Yuen, from the Bay Area. “But it’s actually manageable. We’re on bikes, and people are making room and are courteous.”
Arriving early and stashing the car was key for Yuen and her companion.
“A couple of sights have been crowded — those were the really touristy spots. But other than that, it has been beautiful,” she said. “This is a great time of year to come.”
Whether the good times will last once the high season begins is the question.
People board a shuttle in Yosemite National Park on Saturday.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
Since Trump returned to office in 2025 and unleashed Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency on the federal work force, the National Park System has lost nearly a quarter of its employees to layoffs and buyouts, according to the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Assn.
And the Trump administration has proposed about 3,000 more job cuts — roughly another 25% — in the coming year. Trump has also proposed slashing nearly $800 million from the park system’s roughly $3-billion operating budget.
All of which risks tipping the delicate balance into chaos and gridlock, critics warn.
By 2 p.m., a flashing sign at the entrance to Curry Village advised that the parking lot was full and directed people to try their luck elsewhere.
Still, dozens of drivers crept around the lot, hoping to pounce if someone pulled out. It looked like an especially depressing way to spend an afternoon surrounded by some of the most celebrated natural wonders on Earth.
Kunal Khandwala of San José was among those searching for a spot until he gave up and pulled over, blocking a few cars but ready to move if their owners returned and needed to leave.
His friends had hopped out and joined the line at the Curry Village Pizza Deck, waiting to grab some food and go find a quiet spot for a picnic — far from the village.
The situation was “testing,” Khandwala said, but not intolerable if you relaxed and remained patient.
And anything was better than subjecting yourself to the shuttle, he joked.
People raft down the Merced River with Yosemite Falls in the background in Yosemite National Park on Saturday.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
“The waits are insane,” he said, pitying people who had only a day in the park and were hoping to hit all of the highlights by bus. “There’s no way. You’re not going to see everything you want if you rely on the shuttle.”
Parks officials were unable to provide the number of visitors who arrived on Saturday, or compare that to the crowds on recent weekends.
But with Memorial Day looming, this weekend felt like the calm before the storm.
Which is why Wilson, the frequent visitor from Folsom, said he is “very, very much pro-reservation. It is a hassle — you have to plan ahead — but it just makes it a better experience for everybody.”
He had also brought his bike, which seemed to be the best way to elude the masses.
“This is my favorite place in the world, no matter what the crowds are like,” he said before pedaling off. “As long as you can get in, come, have a good time, you’ll love it.”
VIENNA — Vienna’s famed coffeehouses have embraced the Eurovision Song Contest. They have also been touched by tensions over Israel’s inclusion in the sequin-drenched pop music competition.
When officials announced a list of “Eurofan Cafes” — Vienna coffee shops offering food and music from competing countries — Israel was initially left out.
MQ Kantine, a modern café in the city’s arty museums quarter, offered to step in. Now it has falafel, bagels with lox and kosher wine on the menu, a string of small Israeli flags hanging from the ceiling — and a police officer outside the door.
Security is tight across Vienna during the international music contest, whose “United by Music” slogan rings sightly hollow this year. Five countries are boycotting because Israel is taking part. Pro-Palestinian activists are planning a protest concert — one of several Eurovision alternatives across Europe — and an anti-Israel march before Saturday’s grand final.
At MQ Kantine, volunteers take turns to monitor for potential trouble. But so far the mood has been supportive, said Daniel Kapp, a PR consultant and pro-Israel campaigner.
“It’s beautiful,” he said, as people drank coffee and beer on the café terrace in the spring sunshine, though he noted that the police officer on duty showed that all is “not entirely normal.”
“My feeling is that Austria to a certain degree has learned from its history,” Kapp said, referring to the deadly antisemitism under the Nazis before and during World War II. “Which is why the support for Israel is a lot more normal than it is in other countries.”
Israel has competed in Eurovision for more than 50 years, and won four times. But its participation has been contested since it launched a war in Gaza after 1,200 people were killed in a Hamas-led cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023. More than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which operates under the Hamas-run government and whose detailed records are viewed as generally reliable by the international community.
Israel’s government has repeatedly defended its campaign as a response to the Oct. 7 attack. But a number of experts, including those commissioned by a United Nations body, have said that Israel’s offensive in Gaza amounts to genocide. Israel, home to many Holocaust survivors and their relatives, has vigorously denied the claim.
The latest Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon and the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran have driven tensions still higher.
The 2024 Eurovision contest in Malmo, Sweden, and last year’s event in Basel, Switzerland, saw pro-Palestinian protests that called for Israel to be expelled. Five countries — Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain — pulled out of the 2026 contest after organizers allowed Israel to compete.
Partying amid tight security
The tensions have produced a Eurovision of two halves. An upbeat party atmosphere prevails inside the Wiener Stadthalle arena and in the separate Eurovision Village fan zone. But getting in means passing through a ring of steel, with searches, scanners and a ban on all bags inside the arena. Armed police are a very visible presence on the streets.
Awareness of risk from terror plots is high in the city after a 21-year-old Austrian man accused of pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group pleaded guilty to plotting to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna in 2024.
Israeli singer Noam Bettan told Israeli media that, like last year’s Israeli competitor Yuval Raphael, he practiced performing while being booed. There were scattered shouts amid the cheers when he performed in the first Eurovision semifinal on Tuesday. He secured a spot in Saturday’s final by being one of the top 10 finishers in voting by viewers and national juries.
Organizers said four people were removed from the 10,000-strong audience for disruptive behavior.
Austrian Eurovision fan Ivo Herzl, who attended the semifinal, said “the vibe was incredibly positive.” He is showing support for Israel by making and selling Mazel Lov T-shirts — a play on “mazel tov,” a Hebrew and Yiddish phrase of congratulations.
“Vienna has always been a city of tolerance,” Herzl said. “It’s the city of music and we’ll always do everything possible for everyone to enjoy a musical event.”
Some Israeli fans said they were reassured by the tight security. Oz Yona, attending his first Eurovision, said he had experienced “no hate” and felt Austria took antisemitism seriously.
He came with friends to cheer for Israel, though he was not optimistic about Bettan’s chances — for musical rather than political reasons.
“I don’t think he will win,” Yona said. “Finland is better this year. Greece is better this year. We have a good song, but not a winning song.”
Birgitta Peterson and Kristina Nilsson, who wear matching pink bomber jackets and call themselves the Swedish Ladies, love to explore new cities and meet up each year with their “Eurovision family” of fellow fans. They plan to wave Israeli flags at Saturday’s final, after Swedish contestant Felicia said earlier this year that she didn’t think Israel should be in the contest.
They say tensions over Israel have divided a fan community long known for its friendliness and embrace of diversity.
“The wounds are very deep at the moment,” Nilsson said.
“This event should really be about ‘united by music’ and happiness,” she added. “That’s what Eurovision is all about.”
CANNES, France — The movies of Na Hong-jin aren’t hard to love — they’re as obsession-worthy as the stylish rigor with which they are made. His 2008 debut, “The Chaser,” found new febrility in the post-Fincher serial killer thriller. “The Wailing” somehow added ghosts, demon-possessed children and inky black crows to the mix with a near-crazed sense of showmanship.
That was 10 years ago. Na, 51, now sits on the other side of a project that has consumed him for years, a sci-fi action film called “Hope” that arrives with expensive CGI, a pair of A-list stars (Michael Fassbender and Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander) and James Cameron-sized franchise ambitions. It will undoubtedly make Na’s gallows-humor-inflected brand more global, even if it lifts him out of the cult niche that’s nourished him to date.
Cannes is an unlikely place to launch “Hope.” That could be seen as a sign that the festival’s increasing accommodation of blockbuster bigness doesn’t need Hollywood. Na sits in the corner of a Côte d’Azur waterfront lounge on a glorious midday, the sky an almost abstract blue. He tugs at his goatee distractedly. His world premiere is tonight.
Neon, the distributor currently enjoying a six-year Palme d’Or winning streak, will release “Hope” in America sometime after its summer bow in Na’s native South Korea. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity. It also contains significant spoilers.
A scene from the movie “Hope,” directed by Na Hong-jin.
(Neon)
When did you realize that you had a big sci-fi alien monster movie in you?
The idea came to me in 2017 in Seoul. The premise started off with somebody watching news in a diner or a small restaurant. It was that image that I had in my head. So I started developing that initial image in more detail. By 2018, I was able to write my first draft.
“Hope” brings to mind several genre classics, from “Jaws” and John Carpenter movies like “The Thing,” to something more homegrown such as Bong Joon Ho’s “The Host.” Were those inspiring to you?
I must have looked all the genre films that I could find, including the ones you mention, before I went into filming. And, as I hope you noticed, I was looking more at films from before 2000 and I tried to reflect that look.
It seems like you’re using Cannes as a moment to pivot or reinvent yourself. Is that intentional?
I didn’t intend for this to be a turning point in terms of style or direction going forward. I never thought of it that way. What I really dwelled on was thinking about how to tell this story in a way that was approachable and entertaining for people.
Why did you set the story in the demilitarized zone?
If you look at it from a universal perspective, what happens in this very shabby, humble, small, insignificant space potentially creates an impact that can go on infinitely. I think none of the characters in the film do anything with any malice. I guess the underlying story I want to tell is that there is no reason for evil intention behind anything, but innocent acts can build up to something tragic.
Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander are wonderful surprises in the movie as some rather dignified aliens. What led you to them?
When I was casting the alien roles, I had a bigger story in mind. I don’t know whether there’ll be a sequel after this one, but if so, that sequel is going to be centered around them. So picking the right actors was very important for me. We asked them to learn this invented alien language, which they prepared and came onto set knowing.
How important to you is comedy and releasing tension with laughs?
Very. I try to really think it through and if it comes out the way I intended, that gives me such a thrill. I tried to incorporate it in many places.
A lot of the movie feels like a virtuoso chase sequence, people barreling down the road, guns blazing. But it took me a minute to realize that the more interesting question is: Who’s doing the chasing? Is “Hope” meant to make us examine our own violence?
Yes, very much so. And two of the major chase scenes were designed so that what starts off as righteous somehow tilts toward being unjust. I wanted the action to bring up that transition in perspective.
You’ve premiered at Cannes before but, in a way, it feels like the wrong festival for a movie like this. You’re laughing because I think you agree with me.
It goes without saying. I’m incredibly nervous. And I feel so grateful that you’re treating me so nicely and gently.
A scene from the movie “Hope,” directed by Na Hong-jin.
(Neon)
Why did it take you 10 years to make this film?
There was a pandemic in the middle of that. But except for the pandemic where everything stopped, I was working my ass off before and after. It still took this long. I’m a little concerned myself, like: How did this happen?
With “Hope,” are you saying goodbye to the filmmaker you once were?
Not at all. Throughout the entire process of making this film, I was bloodthirsty. I was thirsting for blood. I have another script written already.
And maybe now it’ll go faster because there won’t be a pandemic. Are you hoping that this movie is going to have an impact on the Korean film industry?
It’s not my place to say that. I’m not sure. I want things to be freer.
Would it be a mistake to read this film as an allegory for what’s happening now in the world? Is it a plea for understanding?
I don’t regard it as a plea for understanding. Rather, let’s hope people will be able to relate to it and be empathetic about the story and realize for themselves, understand for themselves. Maybe there’s something more to it, but you take away what you will from that.
Your dark humor flares on occasion. Did you make it a point to try to preserve that?
Well, you can’t just do something like this without having that. It’s not fun.
This doesn’t feel like an “Avatar”-style film. There’s an openness to it, a sense of exploration. Do you believe in heroes?
I do believe in heroes, but, as I tell in the story, anyone can be a hero.
WASHINGTON — Thousands of people streamed onto the National Mall for a daylong prayer rally Sunday headlined by President Trump and billed as a “rededication of our country as One Nation under God.”
Against the backdrop of the Washington Monument, worship music blared from a stage that made clear the event’s Christian focus. Arched stained-glass windows, set underneath grand columns resembling a federal building, depicted the nation’s founders alongside a white cross.
The nation’s tradition of separating church and state, however, was not on display. Most speakers celebrated Christianity’s ties to American history, a blending of ideas that critics decried before the gathering as Christian nationalism.
Trump read a passage of Scripture in a video shown at the rally. Filmed in the Oval Office, it was the same footage used during a marathon Bible-reading event last month. The verses from 2 Chronicles are often cited by those who claim America was founded as a Christian nation.
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways,” Trump read, “then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
Other leading Republicans, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), were also on the schedule for the event, part of the celebrations marking the nation’s 250th anniversary.
Only one name on the Rededicate 250 program was not Christian. Most were among Trump’s longtime evangelical supporters, including Paula White-Cain of the White House Faith Office and evangelist Franklin Graham of Samaritan’s Purse.
“We are deeply concerned that what is really being rededicated is a nation to a very narrow and ideological part of the Christian faith that betrays our nation’s fundamental commitment to religious freedom,” said the Rev. Adam Russell Taylor, a Baptist minister who leads the progressive Christian organization Sojourners.
The conservative Christian lineup featured guests who often assert that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, a narrative disputed by many historians and other religious traditions and inconsistent with American legal precedent.
Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, noted the religious diversity of early America, including Jews, Muslims and Indigenous people. “I want to shine a light on America’s history as a nation that welcomes, celebrates and protects people of all faiths and those of no faith,” Pesner said.
‘It’s all about Jesus’
Many in the crowd wore Trump hats and patriotic colors, joining the festivities under a sweltering sun.
“It’s all about Jesus,” said Denny Smith, 72, of Rhode Island, who rented a motorized scooter to traverse the National Mall.
Retha Bond, a 58-year-old from southern Illinois, said she was here to hear Trump speak nearby on Jan. 6, 2021. She said she did not join the protesters who rioted later that day at the Capitol, attacking police officers while attempting to overturn the presidential election result, but she has remained a steadfast Trump supporter.
“I’m not saying Trump is the savior,” Bond said. But she said that “this is one of the most important things that could be going on in the world, for us to rededicate our nation back to God.”
At least one event speaker mentioned the slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Kirk’s activism has been a powerful example for Alessandra Seawright, 15, of Santa Fe, N.M., who came to Rededicate 250 with her mother.
“I think we just need more of this in our country, and we just need to share the word of the Lord,” she said. “We love going to events like this.”
They also attended Kirk’s memorial service in Arizona, which mixed Christian worship and political messages. Events like these, Seawright said, help her feel less alone in her conservative Christian beliefs.
Prayer event spurs protest
Hegseth, who has infused Christian language and worship with his role leading the Pentagon — drawing criticism — asked the gathering in a video to pray to “our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Referencing George Washington’s faith, he said, “Let us pray without ceasing. Let us pray for our nation on bended knee.”
Orthodox Jewish Rabbi Meir Soloveichik was the only non-Christian religious leader listed on the program. To applause, he told the crowd, “Antisemitism is utterly un-American” — a seeming reference to debates dividing the right.
Soloveichik serves on the Trump administration’s Religious Liberty Commission along with White-Cain, Graham and Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Bishop Robert Barron, Catholic clerics also featured on the program.
The event was organized by Freedom 250, a public-private partnership backed by the White House. Congressional Democrats have questioned the nonprofit’s structure and finances, which they see as a Trump-controlled end run around a separate commission charted by Congress a decade ago to prepare semiquincentennial events.
Progressive groups staged counter-programming. Among them were the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which advocates a strict separation of church and state, and the Christian organization Faithful America. The two groups displayed a large balloon near the mall of a Trump-like golden calf, a biblical reference to idolatry.
On Thursday evening, the Interfaith Alliance projected protest slogans onto an exterior wall of the National Gallery of Art. “Democracy not theocracy,” said one. Another said: “The separation of church and state is good for both.”
Stanley writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Peter Smith in Pittsburgh contributed to this report.
TECATE, Mexico — White sage burning, Norma Meza Calles gathers guests at a Mexican wellness resort into a semicircle facing Kuuchamaa Mountain and asks everyone to close their eyes and feel its presence.
“This is sacred to us like a church for you all. The mountain is our healer, our psychologist,” said Meza Calles, a Kumeyaay Nation tribal leader who explains that in its creation story a shaman transformed into the mountain. “Here is where we gather strength to live in this difficult world.”
Then she calls for a moment of reflection. But the silence is pierced by the crushing of rock. U.S. federal contractors have been blasting and bulldozing Kuuchamaa, which straddles the U.S.-Mexico frontier, to make way for new sections of border wall.
Indigenous leaders say that in the Trump administration’s rush to build border wall segments, contractors are desecrating Native American sacred places and cultural sites at an unprecedented pace, more than 170 years after the international boundary split the territories of dozens of tribes.
Blasts on sacred mountain
Wall construction has ramped up along the 1,954-mile border even as illegal crossings have plummeted to historic lows. Much of it began this year after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security waived cultural and environmental laws.
In California, explosions on Kuuchamaa, also known as Tecate Peak, send rocks hurtling down its Mexico side.
“We feel that in our DNA,” said Emily Burgueno, a California member of the Kumeyaay Nation, noting that “body” and “land” are the same word in the Kumeyaay language. Some tribal leaders met with Homeland Security officials to urge them to protect Kuuchamaa and are looking into legal action.
“No one ever consented or supported the use of dynamite on the mountain,” Burgueno said.
In Arizona, Homeland Security contractors last month carved through a massive, 1,000-year-old fish-shaped geoglyph called Las Playas Intaglio. The rare drawing, etched into the desert floor much like Peru’s Nazca Lines, was created on a lava field in what is now the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.
Construction crews work April 24 on a new border wall segment near the end of a previously built section on Kuuchamaa Mountain, seen from Tecate, Mexico.
(Gregory Bull / Associated Press)
The Tohono O’odham Nation said it had pointed out the site on its ancestral land for contractors to avoid.
“This was a devastating and entirely avoidable loss,” Tohono O’odham Chairman Verlon Jose said in an April 30 statement. “There is nothing more important than our history, which is what makes us who we are as O’odham. The site was also an irreplaceable piece of the United States’ history, one none of us can ever get back.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that a contractor “inadvertently disturbed” the site west of Ajo, Ariz., on April 23, but it vowed to protect the remaining portion. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott is talking to tribal leaders to determine next steps.
Members of the Inter-Tribal Assn. of Arizona, which represents 21 tribes, traveled to Washington last month to lobby against a 20-foot secondary wall being built along that section of the border, as well as a primary 30-foot bollard wall planned on Tohono O’odham tribal lands.
They met with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a Cherokee Nation member, who listened but made clear his intent is to build more border wall as fast as possible, the Tohono O’odham Nation said in a statement.
Hundreds of miles under contract
The Trump administration says the barriers are necessary to keep people and drugs from entering the U.S. illegally. It wants walls to cover at least 1,400 miles of the border.
Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year devoted more than $46 billion to the effort.
CBP has awarded contracts or begun construction on over 600 miles of new border wall, with companion surveillance technology. A double wall is planned or under construction along an additional 370 miles.
In Arizona, where the Patagonia Mountains descend to the border, heavy machinery crawls along freshly graded roads to extend a double wall that could block a wildlife corridor for endangered ocelots and jaguars. Jaguars have long coexisted with the Tohono O’odham, who consider the species “spiritual guardians,” Austin Nunez, a tribal leader, said in a 2025 lawsuit that unsuccessfully challenged the Homeland Security waivers.
In Sunland Park, on New Mexico’s border with Mexico, crews this year set off blasts on Mt. Cristo Rey, a pilgrimage site topped with a limestone crucifix.
CBP is seeking to seize a strip of the mountain owned by the Roman Catholic Church for wall construction. The Diocese of Las Cruces asked a judge this month to deny the land transfer as an affront to religious liberties and the “faithful who seek to commune with God on Mount Cristo Rey.”
In western Texas, the federal government in February notified ranchers on the Rio Grande east of Big Bend National Park of its interest in their land that contains canyonland pictographs and petroglyphs, said Raymond Skiles, a retired Big Bend National Park ranger.
“There are pictographs, paintings of shaman figures and various things that we don’t know how to interpret,” said Skiles, describing the drawings on his family’s ranchlands.
After community backlash, CBP’s online planning map showed the 30-foot-wall plans were scrapped for surveillance technology, patrols and some vehicle barriers. A segment in the national park and neighboring Big Bend Ranch State Park would rely on technology alone.
CBP says it recognizes the importance of natural and cultural resources and is working to minimize the construction’s impact, including leaving drainage gates open in wildlife corridors for animal passage. Illegal border crossings have littered, polluted and trampled sensitive habitat, the agency says.
CBP also says 535 miles of remote, rugged border terrain will solely rely on detection technology.
Many tribes would prefer that to walls.
Norma Meza Calles, a Kumeyaay Nation leader, leads a guided tour of traditional Kumeyaay uses for local plants at a wellness center in Tecate, Mexico.
(Gregory Bull / Associated Press)
Desecrating Native American sites is a felony
Tribes along the border “are all experiencing the same tragic desecration of our cultural and sacred sites,” said Burgueno, chair of the Kumeyaay Diegueño Land Conservancy, a nonprofit organization in California that works to protect Kumeyaay lands. “This is a great example of the federal government not following federal laws.”
Desecrating a sacred Native American site on U.S. federal or tribal land is a felony, punishable by imprisonment and fines. In 1992, the National Park Service listed Kuuchamaa Mountain in the National Register of Historic Places, giving it limited protection. It noted that “discarding or disturbing the mountain’s natural state would be sacrilegious.”
Rising 3,885 feet above sea level, Kuuchamaa has also captivated non-Native people.
Sarah Livia Brightwood Szekely said her father, Edmond Szekely, felt the mountain’s healing energy when he arrived in Tecate, Mexico, as a Hungarian Jewish refugee during World War II, and started the renowned wellness resort, Rancho La Puerta, which she now runs.
“There are all of these people that have a deep relationship with the mountain,” she said.
Meza Calles leads walks at Rancho La Puerta to teach guests about Kuuchamaa.
Traditionally, young men would spend 40 days at its base in a coming-of-age ceremony before becoming warriors or shamans, she said. Today’s rituals are shorter. People suffering from a death, debt, divorce or other difficulty seek Kuuchamaa’s healing, she said.
“It’s sad they are ruining the mountain,” she said. “We’ll see how far they go. Destiny is destiny. But the fight is not over.”
Watson and Lee write for the Associated Press and reported from Tecate and Santa Fe, N.M., respectively.
President Trump succeeded in his effort to defeat Sen. Bill Cassidy in Louisiana’s Republican primary, a signal of the enduring strength of the president’s hold on his party despite an unpopular war and soaring gas prices.
Cassidy was one of seven Republican senators in 2021 who voted to convict Trump on the impeachment charge of inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6 that year. He placed last in a three-way race Saturday against U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, who was endorsed by Trump, and state Treasurer John Fleming.
“His disloyalty to the man who got him elected is now a part of legend, and it’s nice to see that his political career is OVER!” Trump said of Cassidy on social media late Saturday.
With 92.3% of ballots tallied, Letlow had 44.8% of the vote and Fleming had 28.3%. Cassidy trailed with 24.7%.
Letlow and Fleming will advance to a runoff next month. Whoever wins that contest is virtually assured victory in November in deep-red Louisiana. In his last reelection in 2020, just months before his vote to convict Trump, Cassidy won 59% of the vote.
In a primary season where Trump is crusading to vanquish members of his party with whom he’s been at odds, the Louisiana race comes just days before the president tries to oust another Republican foe, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky. But Trump has opted so far to stay out of a hard-fought Texas GOP runoff later this month between incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, a traditional conservative, and state Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton, who is more politically aligned with the president’s MAGA movement.
Massie, who faces a primary that has become the most expensive of its kind, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that’s he’s confident he will prevail Tuesday despite a string of social media insults from the president and fundraising by Trump allies such as billionaires Miriam Adelson and Paul Singer.
“I think it’s going to help my fundraising,” Massie said. “People don’t like this.”
With state polls showing Massie with a slight lead, the congressman said, “that’s why the president is losing sleep and tweeting about me.”
Trump’s success in defeating Cassidy left the Louisiana senator defiant: “Let me just set the record straight. Our country is not about one individual, it is about the welfare of all Americans and it is about our Constitution.”
“If someone doesn’t understand that and attempts to control others through using the levers of power, they’re about serving themselves, they’re not about serving us,” he added.
Trump has attacked Cassidy for his 2021 vote and his opposition to some aspects of his agenda, particularly vaccine and other health policies pushed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. During Kennedy’s Senate confirmation hearings last year, Cassidy, who is a doctor, expressed deep skepticism about the nominee’s anti-vaccine views, but ultimately voted to confirm him.
Trump recently blamed Cassidy for thwarting the nomination of wellness influencer Casey Means as surgeon general. Means is a longtime ally of Kennedy’s, and Cassidy had also questioned her stance on vaccinations.
On Saturday morning, Trump continued his attacks, calling Cassidy a “a disloyal disaster” on social media. He later congratulated Letlow on her first-place finish.
In his concession speech, Cassidy said: “I find that people of character and integrity don’t spend their time attacking people on the internet.”
Despite the president’s opposition to his candidacy, Cassidy had run ads featuring images of Trump, praising top White House issues that the senator had supported including the president’s massive tax package enacted last year, while casting Letlow as insufficiently conservative.
The outcome also notches a high-profile win for Kennedy’s political operation, which supported Letlow and opposed Cassidy in the race. The two men have repeatedly clashed over nominations and the department’s changes to vaccine policy. With certainty of his departure when his term ends in January, Cassidy could make the health secretary’s job even more difficult as he finishes out his term with an eye to his legacy and priorities.
Cassidy’s departure will also leave a leadership vacuum for the GOP atop the Senate Health Committee next year. The panel oversees health agencies and confirmations for key leadership positions at the agencies, and Cassidy brought his medical expertise to the role. He has built a reputation as a healthcare policy wonk willing to work across the aisle.
Only two other Republican senators who broke with Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, remain in the Senate. Collins, who represents a state Trump lost in 2024, has largely avoided the president’s wrath while she fights for her political life in one of the most competitive races of the midterms. Murkowski won reelection in 2022.
“You can disagree with President Trump, but if you try to destroy him you’re going to lose because this is the party of Donald Trump,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“There’s no room in this party to destroy his agenda or to destroy him or his family as a Republican,” Graham said. “It’s just a reality.”
Cohrs Zhang writes for Bloomberg. Bloomberg writers Tony Czuczka and Se Young Lee contributed to this report.
Situated in the south west of Germany, on the border of the iconic Black Forest mountain range, the city has jointly been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site
13:19, 17 May 2026Updated 13:19, 17 May 2026
Baden-Baden has been described as “one of Europe’s most elegant hidden gems” (stock image)(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
If you’re thinking about a trip to Europe, but want something a bit off the beaten track, one “hidden gem” with historic spas, Roman ruins, and incredible museums could be just the ticket. Situated in the south west of Germany, on the border of the iconic Black Forest mountain range, the city has, along with Bath in Somerset and nine other locations, jointly been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site as one of ‘The Great Spa Towns of Europe’.
Travel influencer Katherine McQueen, who has 685,000 followers on Instagram, where she is known as vineyardsandvoyages, posted a look into everything the city has to offer. She said: “This is one of Europe’s most elegant hidden gems… and most people skip it.”
Describing the city as “polished, romantic, and completely different from the bigger stops most travellers add to their itineraries”, she hailed its “pastel streets, grand architecture, thermal baths, elegant cafés, beautiful gardens, and old-world glamour around every corner”. But it was the history which she hailed as its most important element.
“People have been coming here for the thermal waters since Roman times, and wellness is still one of the biggest reasons to visit today,” she said. “You can soak in mineral-rich baths, wander through historic spa buildings, and experience a side of Germany that feels slow, refined, and deeply relaxing.”
Katherine also praised the city’s glittering casino, food – including, of course, the iconic Black Forest gateau – and location, calling it “one of the most unexpectedly charming places I’ve visited in Germany”.
The city in question is Baden-Baden, located around 15 miles east of the French border, and 42 miles west of Stuttgart.
In the post Katherine explained more about what the city has to offer. “Some of the bathhouses here feel more like palaces than spas, with mineral pools, grand domes, and centuries of wellness history,” she said. “But it’s not just a spa town. It’s also filled with elegant architecture, gardens, colonnades, and beautiful places to wander.”
She added: “The whole city has this refined, romantic atmosphere. Long covered walkways, grand buildings, art, gardens, and peaceful corners everywhere.”
Concluding, she said: “It has that rare mix of history, wellness, food, architecture, and nature, all in one very walkable little city. Everywhere you look, there are details that make it feel grand without feeling overwhelming. This town rewards slow wandering. Hidden side streets, stairways, dreamy corners, and beautiful views around every turn.”
The city’s official tourism website says: “Baden-Baden was founded 2,000 years ago to do people good. Thermal water at temperatures of up to 68 degrees gushes out of the earth from 12 thermal springs in Baden-Baden. Even today, our spa town at the foot of the Black Forest is the perfect place to enjoy spa tradition – whether in the Caracalla Spa or in the historic Friedrichsbad Spa.”
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How can I get to Baden-Baden?
By air: Direct flights to Baden-Baden are available from London Stansted Airport. Indirect flights are also available from most other UK airports.
By train: You can take the Eurostar to Paris or Brussels, with various connecting routes available.
By car: You can drive by taking the Eurostar and then heading south east through France, or east into Belgium before crossing, into Germany. Once arriving in France, the route is between 400 and 450 miles, taking between six and seven hours.
CONCORD, N.H. — A growing effort to raise suspicion about the security of voting systems has kindled a back-to-the-future moment among conservatives in some parts of the U.S.
Republican lawmakers in at least six states have introduced legislation that would require all election ballots to be counted by hand instead of electronic tabulators. Similar proposals have been floated within some local governments, including about a dozen New Hampshire towns and Washoe County in the presidential battleground state of Nevada.
Despite no evidence of widespread fraud or major irregularities, conspiracy theories have proliferated among his allies that voting systems were somehow manipulated to favor Democrat Joe Biden. That has prompted calls to ban electronic tabulators used to scan ballots, record votes and compile race tallies.
“It’s our responsibility, and it should be our desire, to count every vote and to imbue confidence in our citizenry that our elections are fair and free, and that their vote is being counted,” said New Hampshire state Rep. Mark Alliegro, sponsor of a hand-counting bill that is similar to ones proposed in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Washington and West Virginia.
Alliegro said he was motivated by his analysis of recounts in nearly 50 New Hampshire state legislative races, not by the 2020 presidential election.
But some of the bill’s supporters reference the 2020 election to explain why they argue his hand-count legislation is needed. They cite a belief — despite evidence disproving it — that Trump actually won a landslide victory and that cheating is the only way to explain how New Hampshire voters elected a Republican governor and GOP majorities in the Legislature, but then backed Democrats for federal office.
Critics of the proposals to ditch electronic ballot tabulators and return to hand-counting are blunt about what they see as the motivation.
“It’s coming from conspiracy theories and lies,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Common Cause, a nonpartisan group that advocates for expanded voter access. “It’s attempting to lower people’s confidence in elections.”
Albert and others said it’s unrealistic to think election officials can count millions of ballots by hand and report results quickly, given that ballots often include dozens of races. The partisan review last summer of the 2 million ballots cast in Maricopa County, Ariz., which included a hand count, took several months and hundreds of people to complete.
“If you have a jurisdiction with 500 voters, you might be OK. But if you have a jurisdiction with thousands of voters, tens of thousands of voters, hundreds of thousands of voters, it’s just not going to work,” said Jennifer Morrell, a former elections clerk in Colorado and Utah who now advises state and local election officials.
Even in New Hampshire’s small towns, hand-counting is a complicated, lengthy process when a typical ballot might include 50 questions, said Milford Town Clerk Joan Dargie, who spoke against the proposed legislation on behalf of the New Hampshire City and Town Clerks Assn. She estimates her town would have to boost election workers from 200 to 350, and said many of her fellow clerks have said they will quit if they have to tabulate every ballot by hand. “People who are asking to get rid of machines obviously haven’t worked in an election,” she said.
As one example, Cobb County, Ga., performed a hand tally ordered by the state after the 2020 election. It took hundreds of people five days to count just the votes for president on roughly 397,000 ballots, said Janine Eveler, elections director for the county in metro Atlanta. She estimates it would have taken 100 days to count every race on each ballot using the same procedures.
Counting by machine isn’t just faster. Multiple studies have shown it’s also more accurate, said Charles Stewart, professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The first research on the topic was done almost two decades ago, comparing recounts of New Hampshire races that were originally tabulated by hand with those tabulated by machines. In that study and subsequent research, the machines won, he said.
“Counting votes is very tedious. Human beings are bad doing tedious things, and computers are very good at doing tedious things,” Stewart said.
Most states also conduct postelection audits that are designed to identify any irregularities with ballot scanning and counting. But with many Republicans believing Biden was not legitimately elected, election machines have become a popular target.
In Nevada, a Republican county commissioner is pushing a proposal that would require hand-counting of all ballots, along with a return to primarily in-person voting and beefing up uniformed security at polling places.
“I’m 82 years old, and I’ve been through a lot of elections,” said Washoe County Commissioner Jeanne Herman. “I know that something is not right.”
The proposal has drawn opposition from other commissioners, the biggest labor union in the state and a rare front-page editorial in the largest newspaper in northern Nevada, which said the measure could cost taxpayers “millions of dollars to chase down Facebook rumors of illusory election fraud.”
In West Virginia, a bill to repeal the state law governing tabulation machines died in committee earlier this month. In Missouri, lawmakers have not yet acted on a proposal that would ban electronic voting machines and tabulation equipment and require hand-counting to be livestreamed and recorded.
The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Mitch Boggs Jr., said he has no proof elections have been manipulated but is responding to constituent concerns.
“You file what the constituents are asking for,” Boggs said. “But at the end of the day, what they’re really wanting is just the transparency. They want to know that our elections are secure.”
Republican state Rep. Petty McGaugh said the legislation would delay election results and likely undermine their accuracy. When she became clerk of rural Carroll County in 1995, election staff were still hand-counting ballots by marking tallies in blocks of five on paper. She noticed multiple errors and eventually switched the county to an electronic tabulation system.
“I don’t really think that in this day and age we need to go back to hand-counting where it’s so susceptible to human error,” she said. “We’ve got to start trusting electronics and computers.”
In New Hampshire, that message seems to have gotten through. Last week, a state House committee unanimously recommended killing the hand-counting legislation and voters in nine towns where the question was on the ballot in local elections rejected it.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Thousands of people rallied Saturday in the cradle of the modern civil rights movement to mobilize a new voting rights era as conservative states dismantle congressional districts that helped secure Black political representation.
U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey called Montgomery “sacred soil” in the fight for civil rights.
“If we in our generation do not now do our duty, we will lose the gains and the rights and the liberties that our ancestors afforded us,” Booker said in the Alabama capital.
The crowd was led in chants of “we won’t go back” and “we fight.”
“We are not going down without a fight. We are not going down to Jim Crow maps,” Shalela Dowdy, a plaintiff in the Alabama redistricting case said, alluding to racial gerrymandering in several states that has followed the recent Supreme Court decision to roll back the Voting Rights Act.
A crowd of thousands gathered in front of the city’s historic Alabama Capitol, where the Confederacy was formed in 1861 and where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke in 1965 at the end of the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march. The stage, set in front of the Capitol, was flanked from behind by statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and civil rights icon Rosa Parks — dueling tributes erected nearly 90 years apart.
Speakers said the spot was once the temple of the Confederacy and transformed into holy ground of the civil rights movement.
Some in the crowd said the effort to redraw lines has echoes of the past.
“We lived through the ’60s. It takes you back. When you think that Alabama’s moving forward, it takes two steps back,” said Camellia A. Hooks, a 70-year-old Montgomery resident.
The rally began in Selma, where a violent clash between law enforcement and voting rights activists in 1965 galvanized support for passage of the Voting Rights Act. It then moved to the state Capitol, where King gave his “How Long, Not Long” speech the same year.
The Supreme Court ruling involving Louisiana hollowed out a tenet of the Voting Rights Act that was already weakened by a separate high court decision in 2013 and then narrowed further over the years. That helped clear the way for stricter voter ID laws, registration restrictions and limits on early voting and polling place changes, including in states that once needed federal pre-clearance before they could change voting laws because of their historical discrimination against Black voters.
Veterans of the civil rights movement are alarmed by the speed of the rollbacks, noting that protections won through generations of sacrifice have been weakened in little more than a decade.
Kirk Carrington, 75, was a teen in 1965 when law enforcement officers attacked marchers in Selma on what became known as Bloody Sunday. A white man on a horse wielding a stick chased Carrington through the streets on that day, he said.
“It’s really just appalling to me and all the young people that marched during the ’60s, fought hard to get voting rights, equal rights and civil rights,” Carrington said. “It’s sad that it’s continuing after 60-plus-odd years that we are still fighting for the same thing we fought for back then.”
The effect in Montgomery
Montgomery is home to one of the congressional districts that is being altered in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling.
A federal court in 2023 redrew Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District after ruling that the state intentionally diluted the voting power of Black residents, who make up about 27% of its population. The court said there should be a district where Black people are a majority or near-majority and have an opportunity to elect their candidate of choice.
But the Supreme Court cleared the way for a different map that could let the GOP reclaim the seat. While the matter remains under litigation, the state plans special primaries Aug. 11 under the new map.
Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures, who won election in the district in 2024, said the dispute is not about him but rather people’s opportunity to have representation.
“When Republicans are literally turning back the clock on what representation, what the faces of representation look like, what the opportunities, legitimate opportunities for representation look like across this country, then I think it starts to resonate with people in a little bit of a different way,” Figures said.
Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, a Republican, said the Louisiana ruling provided an opportunity to revisit a map that was forced on the state by the federal court.
“People tend to forget what happened. When this thing went to court, the Republican Party had that seat, congressional seat 2,” Ledbetter said last week. “There’s been a push through the courts to try to overtake some of these red state seats, and that’s certainly what happened in that one.”
Evan Milligan, the lead plaintiff in the Alabama redistricting case, said there is grief over the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, but it is crucial that people recommit to the fight.
“We have to accept that this is the new reality, whether we like it or not,” Milligan said. “We don’t have to accept that this will be the reality for the next 10 years or two years or forever.”
The television industry has changed dramatically over the last decade, but one tradition that won’t die is the annual gathering of ad-buying execs in Manhattan to hear the pitches of networks and streamers looking to sell their commercial time.
This past week’s lavish presentations, known as the upfronts, included the usual array of big-name actors (Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jennifer Lopez), NFL legends (Tom Brady and Mike Tomlin) and “Real Housewives,” past and present.
Jennifer Lopez and Brett Goldstein speak onstage during the 2026 Netflix Upfront at Sunset Pier 94 Studios on May 13.
(Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Netflix)
The selling buzzwords are far different from the days when the presentations were a vehicle for networks to boast about their ratings and present new program line-ups. The 2026 upfronts talked a lot about “connections” and “community” as the personalized nature of TV viewing brought on by streaming video-on-demand has been fully integrated into the buying and selling of commercials.
“Three of us could be watching the same show, maybe at a different time, maybe at the same time, but receive very different advertising based on what ad technologies, know about us as an audience segment,” said Josh Mattison, executive vice president of digital revenue pricing, planning and operations for Walt Disney Co. “The old model would be, hey, did 10 million people watch this ad? I think the new model is, which 10 million people watch this ad.”
Here’s a sampling of what ad executives were seeing and hearing this week:
Using new ad tools that target viewers
Every company presentation touted advancements in the ability to target consumers now that advertising has become the main source of revenue growth in the streaming business. They also played up new services — such as NBC’s Performance Insights Hub — providing advertisers with up to date information on the effectiveness of their advertising so they can adjust accordingly.
Streamers can take the consumer research collected by advertisers and align them with the viewing habits of their subscribers. The data are analyzed in a secure room to protect consumer privacy.
Netflix doesn’t ask subscribers for personal information in the sign-up process, as it can discourage people from buying the service. But the company does use the viewer habits on the platform to help advertisers reach the customers they seek.
“We are seeing where there is overlap and use that to help our advertisers target better,” Amy Reinhard, president of advertising for Netflix, told The Times. “It’s all based on viewer preferences.”
Every company is turning to AI to respond to the needs of advertisers. NBC now offers them the chance to insert commercials that relate to the action seen on the screen during live sports events.
Creators are going mainstream
YouTube’s annual upfront gatherings used to have the feel of an alternative show business universe, with personalities who built their rabid followings on the streaming platform far away from the audiences for traditional TV.
Now creators such as the sports stunt group Dude Perfect have their own studios. Beast Industries, the corporate home of MrBeast, held its own invitation-only breakfast for marketing executives at a high-end New York venue . YouTube stars, such as Jesser, are landing shows on other platforms.
At YouTube’s presentation at Lincoln Center, longtime favorites such as “Call Her Daddy” podcast mogul Alex Cooper and “SubwayTakes” host Kareem Rhama appeared on stage to announce new projects on the platform, looking more like established show producers rather than social media renegades.
Ten years ago, YouTube advertisers had to worry about their spots running next to Islamic State videos. Now it’s become common for marketers to embrace YouTube stars and fully integrate products and messages into their programs.
“When creators talk about your products on YouTube, viewers are 13 times more likely to search for your brands and five times more likely to buy,” said Paul Downey, president of Americas & Global Partners for YouTube.
Mary Ellen Coe, chief business officer for YouTube, told The Times that advertisers can determine if a creator is right for their brand by looking at audience numbers, subscriber data and comments from their communities of fans. But many have their own personal focus groups at home that introduce the hottest YouTube personalities.
“Most of these advertisers have children and teenagers and they go nuts for them,” Coe said.
“My kids don’t watch TV — they watch YouTube,” said Anthony Pedalino, vice president and head of media investment at the ad buying firm Giant Spoon. “So I think this is a bit of future proofing.”
Other companies are seeking creators for their platform.
Amazon Prime Video introduced an alternative feed of some of its NBA games on its streaming platform Twitch, which will turn them into a “CreatorCast.” The streamers who are regulars on the site call the action live in an effort to bring in younger fans. The format will be used in WNBA games in the league’s new season.
Fox touted its creator initiative that develops programs for Tubi, the company’s fast-growing ad-supported streaming platform that now has 100 million active users. The company also has a partnership with TikTok to support creators who want to turn their short-form clips into full-length programs.
There’s always room for comfort food
Amid all the innovations in ad buying and audience measurement presented during the week, many of the programs and personalities offered up by the major networks and streamers were extremely familiar.
“They may be resigned to the fact that people are going to go to emerging platforms for more niche and esoteric programs,” Pedalino said.
Oprah Winfrey made an entrance on the Beacon Theatre stage to promote the move of her podcasts to Amazon Prime Video.
Disney rolled out the cast of “Scrubs” to announce another 10-episode order of the early 2000s sitcom for Hulu. The series had a successful reboot as Gen Z viewers continue to devour vintage programs. Amazon Prime announced “The Greatest,” a Michael B. Jordan-produced mini-series on legendary heavyweight fighter Muhammad Ali, not exactly uncharted territory.
Fox introduced a reboot of “Baywatch,” which was canceled after a single season on NBC in 1990, but went on to become a worldwide hit in syndication over the decade that followed. The slow-motion shots of toned lifeguard bodies running into Venice beach waters are coming back without a hint of irony.
Netflix brought out the set of “Pop Culture Jeopardy” at its presentation at Sunset Pier 94 Studios, NBC previewed comedies with proven prime time stars and touted its 100th anniversary which will be celebrated with an old-fashioned variety special later this year.
WASHINGTON — In recent weeks, several social media influencers have popped up in online feeds touting the California gubernatorial campaign of billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer.
Some complain about the price of gasoline. Others mention environmental concerns. One cites her newfound sobriety as evidence that people can change — a nod to Steyer’s self-proclaimed metamorphosis from hedge fund titan to scourge of big corporations.
“I did not expect the most progressive governor candidate to be a billionaire, but look at the policies you guys,” said one content creator on TikTok with the user name Jaz R. “Hear me out. I know Tom Steyer is a billionaire, but he also is for the people.”
The posts include direct-to-the-camera appeals, with personal details interwoven into messages of support for Steyer. An influencer goes for a stroll as onscreen text touts Steyer’s policies. Some seek to convey authenticity, if occasionally ham-fistedly; one influencer mispronounces Steyer’s last name.
What they do not include is a disclosure that their creators were paid by the Steyer campaign to produce the videos, according to a complaint filed this week with California’s Fair Political Practices Commission and a Times review of the posts.
The complaint alleges that the Steyer campaign failed to notify the influencers it hired of their obligation to inform their audience when their posts have been sponsored by the campaign.
California passed a law in 2023 requiring that influencers disclose if they have been paid to create promotional content for or against a candidate or ballot measure, one of the few jurisdictions in the country with such a requirement. There is no such requirement at the federal level.
“Every time there’s a new technology, you have to create legislation that requires them to disclose,” said state Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Orange), who sponsored the bill.
Violating the law doesn’t carry criminal, civil or administrative penalties, but the FPPC can take influencers who break the law to court and ask a judge to force them to comply.
The complaint was filed by two California women — political influencers themselves — who said they noticed a number of new accounts that suddenly started posting similar-sounding videos promoting Steyer earlier this month.
“They had the exact same language, they had the same talking points,” said Beatrice Gomberg, who worked with Kaitlyn Hennessy in their digital sleuthing efforts.
The FPPC did not comment on the complaint.
Steyer’s campaign appears to have relied on paid influencers more than any candidate for governor, according to the most recent campaign finance filings.
That spending represents only a small fraction of the massive campaign war chest Steyer has seeded with nearly $180 million of his own money. But the complaint highlights the growing degree to which political candidates have come to seek out the authenticity that social media influencers seem to offer.
Steyer campaign spokesperson Kevin Liao said the campaign had properly followed the rules in hiring influencers and that the campaign is “confident” that Gomberg and Hennessy’s complaint is “baseless.”
“Creators make their living generating content. The campaign believes in compensating people for their time and work product and has paid creators to generate content,” Liao said in a statement. “Payments for creator content are disclosed in campaign finance reports, and we notify creators we directly work with of their disclosure requirements.”
While many of the new Steyer influencers have few followers, Steyer’s campaign disclosed in its most recent campaign finance report that it had paid thousands of dollars to numerous social media influencers with massive audiences, the Sacramento Bee reported.
Several of the videos produced by these popular social media personalities also failed to disclose that they had been paid by the campaign, according to the complaint and The Times’ review of the content.
But even accounts with few followers can still have a big impact if they are producing a steady stream of content supporting Steyer, said veteran California political strategist Mike Madrid.
“What they’re trying to do is trip the algorithm,” he said. “It looks like it has a bigger audience than it really does. It’s taking the concept of astroturfing into the digital age.”
Gomberg and Hennessy said they became friends after meeting at an April campaign event for Xavier Becerra, Steyer’s chief Democratic rival in the race, who holds a narrow advantage over Steyer in several recent political polls.
The pair have been prolific social media supporters of Becerra’s campaign ever since, though they insist they are not being paid for their efforts.
They said they discovered that many of the new pro-Steyer accounts seemed to be run by influencers — mostly women — who had previously created different social media accounts to hawk other products.
One of the pro-Steyer influencers had an online portfolio listing numerous clients, including the Steyer campaign and a gummy designed to boost arousal, according to the complaint and the Times review of the publicly accessible website.
The pair said they stumbled on an advertisement placed by a vendor for the campaign on a platform used by creators to find work. The advertisement indicated that creators would be paid $10 for each post, with bonuses for posts that amassed large viewership.
The vendor who posted the ad did not respond to a request for comment.
The advertisement has since been updated to say that it pays $1,000 per month and that creators will have to disclose that it is paid content.
As Gomberg and Hennessy dug deeper, they determined that some of the influencers promoting a candidate for governor weren’t even based in California.
A TikTok account using the handle jess.votes, for example, appears to be connected to a woman registered to vote in Florida. Other accounts were connected to women who indicated elsewhere that they were based in Pennsylvania, Missouri and Michigan.
Several influencers who created seemingly paid content promoting Steyer did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Times.
The brouhaha over paid social media content is just the latest instance of the growing political impact of online creators.
Eric Swalwell’s campaign for governor — and congressional career — came to an end after multiple women accused him of sexual assault. A pair of influencers had publicly raised concerns about Swalwell’s behavior and helped connect victims with journalists who produced highly detailed reports of the allegations.
The California law requires influencers to disclose in a political post’s audio or text that it was sponsored and who paid for it.
The onus is on the creators to make the disclosure, but campaigns are required to tell them that they must do so. Despite passage of the law, the issue has so far remained largely under the radar.
“I have dozens of candidates and campaigns and I have not heard this issue come up one time,” said a campaign finance lawyer who requested anonymity because they represent numerous candidates with active campaigns.
Gomberg and Hennessy said that they were driven to call attention to potential violations of the disclosure requirements because of their concern about the corrosive influence such paid content could have if left unchecked.
“You have people who have trust in these creators,” Hennessy said. “You have a responsibility to your audience.”
A handout photo made available by the World Health Organization shows temperature screening at Mpondwe border point with the Democratic Republic of Congo, near Bwera, Uganda, in May 2019. The Democratic Republic of Congo declared an Ebola outbreak on Friday as 65 people have died from the disease in the country’s eastern region. File Photo by the World Health Organization/EPA-EFE
May 15 (UPI) — The Democratic Republic of Congo declared an Ebola outbreak on Friday as 65 people have died from the disease in the country’s eastern region.
There have been about 246 cases reported, many of them in the Ituri province’s small mining towns of Mongbwalu and Rwampara. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement Friday that it is meeting with DRC, Ugandan and South Sudanese leaders to prepare a response to the outbreak.
Uganda and South Sudan border the Ituri province.
Africa CDC said that the DRC’s national research laboratory has detected Ebola in 13 of 20 samples it has tested.
There have been 16 prior Ebola outbreaks in the DRC since 1976 when it first identified the virus within its borders. Vaccines are available for the Zaire strain. Africa CDC said that early testing indicates the current strain is not the Zaire strain.
“Africa CDC stands in solidarity with the government and people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo as they respond to this outbreak,” Dr. Jean Kaseya, director general of Africa CDC, said in a statement. “Given the high population movement between affected areas and neighboring countries, rapid regional coordination is essential.”
The mining towns where the outbreak is centered experience a lot of inbound and outbound traffic, raising concerns about the disease spreading further.
Ebola is a severe illness with a high fatality rate in humans, reaching as high as 90% in some cases, the World Health Organization says.
Infection can be spread by direct contact with a person who is infected or object surfaces that are contaminated with bodily fluids from a person who is sick or has died from the disease.
The Ebola virus can incubate between two and 21 days. Symptoms include fever, fatigue, malaise, muscle pain, headache and sore throat, before progressing to vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, rash and symptoms related to impaired kidney and liver functions.
There were 64 cases of Ebola reported in the DRC last year, with 45 deaths, a 70% rate of fatality, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That outbreak occurred from September to December in the remote Bulape health zone in the Kasai province, which has a relatively low population density.
KEY WEST, Fla. — Ruthie Browning dove into the calm, blue water off Key West, Fla., expecting to see “a big, old rock with stuff growing all over it.”
She was on a pilgrimage with other Black divers and community members, visiting sacred sites including one where a British slave ship — the Henrietta Marie — sank 326 years ago.
The vessel had delivered 200 enslaved people from West Africa to Jamaica and was heading back to Britain in 1700 — near the peak of the trans-Atlantic slave trade — when it was swallowed up in the churning waters of New Ground Reef where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Gulf of Mexico.
A concrete marker at the site memorializes the people on that ship.
As Browning and her group prepared to dive in early May, the water was calm. The marker, 20 feet below, was visible from the glassy surface. “I thought I’d look at it, pay my respects and that’ll be that,” she said.
But something unexpected happened. Tears filled her eyes. She gently told herself: If you can be quiet, maybe they will speak.
Staring at the monument, which is now a small living reef covered in corals and sponges, she felt her ancestors’ words: “My daughter, we’re so glad you’re here.”
Overwhelmed, Browning lingered by the marker bearing the words: “Henrietta Marie. In memory and recognition of the courage, pain and suffering on enslaved African people. Speak her name and gently touch the souls of our ancestors.”
She felt submerged in gratitude.
“Without their stamina, their spirit and survival, I wouldn’t be here today. None of us would be here today,” she said.
Pilgrimages aren’t meant to be easy
For the pilgrims in Key West, the gathering was an act of devotion, a quest for connection with their roots and for spiritually nourishing generations to come. They had tried to dive to the marker last summer, but the water was too choppy.
“The ancestors were not smiling down on us then,” said Jay Haigler, master diving instructor with Underwater Adventure Seekers, the world’s oldest Black scuba diving club. “This year was different.”
Such a pilgrimage was never meant to be easy, said Michael Cottman, who has written two books about the Henrietta Marie and was part of the National Association of Black Scuba Divers that installed the marker in 1992.
Cottman believes the site contains “spiritual turbulence.”
“Even if it wasn’t carrying enslaved people, it embodies the oppression of our people,” he said.
The group organized an annual pilgrimage in the 1990s, but it didn’t continue. The latest trip was spurred by an underwater interview project proposed by Stanford University anthropologist Ayana Omilade Flewellen, who serves on the board of Diving With a Purpose, a Black scuba diving nonprofit dedicated to documenting slave shipwrecks.
The submerged interviews also helped her connect as a pilgrim, Flewellen said. “I felt a kind of tenderness in my heart.”
The spiritual experience helped her process a traumatic history rooted in death and suffering.
“It’s hard to attach your life with this history,” she said. “The only way I could do that was turn toward what the divers were experiencing on this pilgrimage. That’s where it all bloomed and blossomed.”
Ancient ritual at African refugee cemetery
The pilgrims also gathered on land. At Higgs Beach on the south side of Key West, they visited a memorial and burial ground for 297 African refugees who died in 1860 after being rescued by the U.S. Navy from three slave ships — Wildfire, William and Bogota. Over 1,400 refugees were housed by the government in a compound and provided food and medical care, said Corey Malcom, the Florida Keys History Center’s lead historian.
While many were sent back to Africa, hundreds died due to the horrific conditions on the ships, he said.
Largely forgotten for decades, the grave site was discovered by historians and geologists using ground-penetrating radar. In 2010, a large pit containing 100 more bodies was located at a community dog park across the street. The area is now fenced off, Malcom said.
On Saturday, pilgrims met at the cemetery and held an emotional libation ceremony, a sacred, ancient ritual rooted in Afro-Caribbean spiritual tradition. One by one, group members tearfully thanked their ancestors and poured white rum on the beach. The clear spirit is believed to act as a messenger, inviting ancestral souls for their blessings.
“To honor your ancestors and the road they’ve traveled is very, very important because we’re all connected,” said Addeliar Guy, one of the elders and an avid diver.
Underwater monument represents a living history
Joel Johnson trained for weeks for his first open-water dive at the Henrietta Marie site. Johnson, the president and CEO of the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, said what surprised him as he approached the monument was the vibrancy surrounding it. Fish darted among the corals that swayed with the currents; shells rested on the sandy bottom.
Conservation and protecting these habitats also preserve the history below the waves, Johnson said.
“This was not a place of death, but a place of life,” he said. “I didn’t feel like I was grieving for my ancestors. I felt like I was in the stream of history, recognizing that I’m a part of that. It made me happy.”
While underwater, Michael Philip Davenport, president of Underwater Adventure Seekers, was inspired to create art showing ancestors emerging from the monument.
“Their spirituality is still in that space,” he said. “I was feeling their lives and their tragedy.”
Dr. Melody Garrett, an anesthesiologist, started training with Diving With a Purpose in 2011 and has gone on missions to find the Guerrero, a Spanish pirate ship that wrecked in 1827 while carrying 561 enslaved Africans.
“A pilgrimage like this is so important now more than ever because there is an effort to cover up, rewrite and change history,” she said. She cited the Trump administration’s moves to remove references to slavery and Black history at National Park Service sites and federal museums, labeling it as divisive “anti-American propaganda.”
For Garrett, seeing these pieces of history gives her a strong sense of identity as an American, as the nation prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday.
“Black people have been here since before this country’s inception, longer than many other people have,” she said. “This is our country.”
Exhibit displays shackles used in slave trade
Remnants of the Henrietta Marie’s wooden hull are embedded at the site under layers of sand. The shipwreck was discovered in 1972 by treasure hunter Mel Fisher, but it wasn’t until 1983 that hundreds of intact items were recovered. Only a few slave ships were found out of the 35,000 used to transport over 12 million enslaved Africans; most vessels were intentionally destroyed to hide the illicit trade.
The artifacts, which occupy an entire floor of the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Key West, include over 80 sets of iron shackles, many of them child-size.
When Kory Lamberts first walked over wooden planks in the exhibit, they unexpectedly creaked.
“It was visceral,” he said. “It took me to a place. It also tells me that these were young people — children. These are baby shackles. There’s no sugarcoating it. The truth really hits you.”
While in Key West, Lamberts — who runs a nonprofit to make aquatics more equitable — said he brought back fish from the Henrietta Marie site, which he imagines would have absorbed the DNA of the ancestors. The group ate that fish for dinner the night after the dives — like a sacrament.
“I don’t practice a faith, but isn’t this what people are doing every Sunday at church?” he asked. “I wasn’t just bonded with this site through the experience of being there, but at this molecular level with a full circle moment of connection with myself and my history.”
Storms are common in northern India from March to June, before the annual monsoon rains arrive.
Published On 14 May 202614 May 2026
Duststorms, heavy rain and lightning have killed at least 96 people in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and damaged homes and other structures, officials said.
According to them, more than 50 people were injured in these weather-related incidents across several districts of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, on Wednesday.
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Storms are common in northern India from March to June, before the annual monsoon rains arrive.
Officials said many deaths were caused by falling trees, collapsing structures and lightning. Police and disaster response teams used chainsaws and cranes to clear fallen trees from roads and railway tracks in several districts.
Narendra Srivastava, an administrative official, said emergency teams were deployed across the affected areas and that homes, crops and power infrastructure were widely damaged, particularly in rural parts.
In Prayagraj district, residents were in panic as strong winds tore through neighbourhoods.
“The storm came suddenly, and the sky turned completely dark within minutes,” Ram Kishore said. “Tin roofs were flying, and people ran indoors. We could hear trees falling throughout the evening.”
In neighbouring Bhadohi district, Savitri Devi said her family narrowly escaped after strong winds damaged their mud house. “We rushed outside when the walls started shaking because of the wind,” she said. “Our roof collapsed moments later. We spent the night at a relative’s house.”
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath ordered officials to complete relief operations within 24 hours and for authorities to provide emergency aid and compensation to affected families.
President Zelenskyy says rescue operations continue after Russia used ‘more than 1,560 drones’ during its overnight attacks.
Published On 14 May 202614 May 2026
Russia launched a barrage of missiles and drones targeting Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, killing at least three people and wounding 40 others, Ukrainian authorities have said.
The Ukrainian military said on Thursday that the overnight strikes hit six districts of Kyiv and another six in the surrounding areas. Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said attacks had targeted ports in the southern Odesa region and railways.
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In a post on X, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said rescue operations were continuing following an attack on a nine-storey building in Kyiv after Russia launched “more than 670 attack drones and 56 missiles against Ukraine”.
“In total, since midnight yesterday, Russia has used more than 1,560 drones against our cities and communities. These are definitely not the actions of those who believe the war is coming to an end,” he wrote on Thursday.
“It is important that partners do not remain silent about this strike. And it is equally important to continue supporting the protection of our skies,” Zelenskyy added.
The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, said 40 people were wounded in the attacks, including two children, while Ukrainian emergency services said three people had been killed.
Reporting from Kyiv, Al Jazeera’s Audrey Macalpine said people are still feared trapped under the rubble of the building.
Macalpine said it was one of Russia’s largest attacks of the war, “in a single 36-hour period just by sheer number of drones”.
The attack comes as a setback for efforts to end the war after United States President Donald Trump raised faint hopes for peace by brokering a three-day ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow last week, and Russian leader Vladimir Putin suggested the war could be winding down.
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a Russian strike on the nine-storey residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine, 14 May 2026 [Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA]
The truce – put in place as Putin presided over a scaled-down military parade in Red Square to mark the anniversary of World War II victory – was marred by allegations of violations by both sides.
Ukraine and Russia launched long-range drone attacks immediately after it ended on Tuesday.
The Kremlin has poured cold water on the idea that Putin’s vague comments, issued Saturday, about the war “heading to an end” could mean a softening in Moscow’s position.
On Wednesday, it repeated its demand that Ukraine fully withdraw from the eastern Donbas region before a ceasefire and full-scale peace talks can take place.
Kyiv has rejected such a move as tantamount to capitulation.
Tucked inside the downtown skyline, four floors and 50 feet above Olive Street, the Rooftop Cinema Club is hosting daily summer showings of cult classics, blockbusters and an occasional art-house piece. Each ticket holder is provided a pair of wireless headphones, and sunglasses are recommended for earlier showtimes.
Cost: $21 to $27 for patio chairs. $32 to $36 for cushioned loveseat. Parking rates below the building range from $10 to $12.
Next film: “Saved!” on May 14, 8:15 p.m.
Other films: “Twilight,” “Josie and the Pussycats,” “Past Lives,” “10 Things I Hate About You.”
Food options: Outside food and drinks are not allowed. Concession stands carry popcorn, nachos, pretzels and other snacks. Full bar with cocktails, beer and wine.
Dog-friendly? Pets not allowed.
Things to note: Bring-your-own-blanket policy for cold nights. Age requirements vary; most showings are 16+, but select films are 18+ and 21+. If weather conditions become too extreme, showings may be canceled.
