Rodríguez

As Puerto Rico continues to grapple with the long aftermath of Hurricane Maria — from an unreliable electrical grid to ongoing water shortages — the need for stories that see the island as more than a backdrop feels especially urgent.

That’s part of what makes “Hurricane Seasons,” an intimate new independent film about a Puerto Rican family returning home, feel so timely. The film, which screens Sunday at the Newport Beach Film Festival, stars comedian Aida Rodriguez as Glori, a Brooklyn-based artist and community-center worker. She returns to Puerto Rico to help her sister (Justina Machado) care for their terminally ill mother (Priscilla Lopez).

When their matriarch convinces the family to embark on a bucket-list road trip around the island, old family secrets surface as the 2019 protests following Hurricane Maria unfold around them. Directed by Nicole Gomez Fisher and written by Xavier Ortiz — with Rodriguez also serving as a producer — the film is both a story of a multigenerational family and a love letter to Puerto Rico.

For Rodriguez, who is best known as a stand-up comedian, “Hurricane Seasons” also marked a return to a part of her artistic identity that existed long before comedy — her love of acting. But she admits that stepping back into acting, especially as the film’s protagonist, wasn’t an easy transition.

Aida Rodriguez, left, and Priscilla Lopez in a scene from “Hurricane Seasons,” directed by Nicole Gomez-Fisher.

(Laura T Magruder)

“It was terrifying. It was very scary because as a stand-up comedian, I work very hard at trying to obtain my most authentic self so that I can share it with everybody — to be my truest self, my truest Aida,” she says. “And when you loan yourself to a character and the art form of acting, you’re loaning yourself to that character and bringing yourself to that character, of course, because that is why they choose you. But you are telling a story from the perspective of another person.”

Rodriguez had pursued acting before going into stand-up comedy. Upon moving to Los Angeles, she quickly booked acting work, signed with an agency and began taking classes.

But comedy eventually taught her to do almost the opposite of what acting required.

“When I started doing standup, the direction and the notes were always like: ‘Release any character you have in mind and just access yourself,’” she says. “So it was a battle for me. Coming back to becoming an actor and giving the character Glori what Glori deserved — and allowing Glori to live, and Aida to sit in the back — became something important for me to do.”

She adds that it took a lot of work with coaches and classes for her to relax into acting again, allowing Aida the comedian to rest while focusing on what this role required of her.

The film’s protagonist, Glori, is a Brooklyn-born-and-raised Puerto Rican woman whose connection to the island runs deep, despite her living stateside. This is something Rodriguez, who is half Puerto Rican and half Dominican, born and raised in the States, also personally relates to.

That tension — between where you live, where your family comes from, and who gets to decide whether you are “Puerto Rican enough” — is one of the film’s central themes and one reason the script resonated with Rodriguez.

“My testimony through my art has always been finding unity, solidarity, power and connection with other people,” she says. “I think that the story of growing up in the States and connecting to the island is a universal story that most people, regardless of where they come from, experience. [There’s this] idea that you’re never American enough nor whatever you are — in this case Puerto Rican enough — because there’s always a judge and jury on both sides.”

Rodriguez sees those tensions as a consequence of a much larger and complex history. She believes so much of the judgment on both sides is a lingering effect of colonization.

“For me, that was one of the most attractive things about the script — [it] was being able to engage in a conversation about what being Puerto Rican really is,” she says. “Is it based on colonial standards? Or is it based on maintaining our cultural richness and our legacy, that is handed down to us regardless of where we are?”

That question takes on even more weight today as Puerto Rico sits in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, which Rodriguez believes shifted the relationship between Puerto Ricans on the island and those living stateside.

“There was a shift, because there are wounds from both places,” she says. “There are wounds from the people on the island that stayed and stuck it out. [They want to ask] the ones who left, ‘why do you get to claim this, if you’re not here sticking it out with us?’ Then the people who leave feel like, ‘we had to do this, so that we can not only survive, but send money back to the island.”

Rodriguez explains that, in many ways, the aftermath of the hurricane sparked arguments on both sides that were necessary to begin healing the tension. She believes it highlighted issues that Puerto Ricans, as part of a diaspora, could no longer ignore; it also highlighted an island and a community that Americans outside of the Latine community paid little to no attention to.

“It took a hurricane for people to know what Puerto Ricans were,” she says. “I think there was a cultural shift and there was a conversation that needed to be had, about what happens on the island. And what that means to those of us who are not there.”

That conversation serves as the meat and bones of “Hurricane Seasons,” in which Puerto Rico isn’t simply a location. It’s an integral presence in the story. Rodriguez, Ortiz and Gomez Fisher all agreed that filming most of the movie on the island was essential, not only creatively but also economically and culturally.

“The other thing that was very important about taking the movie back to Puerto Rico was to invest in Puerto Rico and to stimulate some sort of revenues for the island and that the crew was a Puerto Rican crew,” she says. “The DP [director of photography] was a Puerto Rican DP — all people that live on the island.”

It was important to them that if they were going to tell a story about Puerto Rico that was also shot in Puerto Rico, that Puerto Ricans on the island actually benefited from the production.

“It’s not cool to go to Puerto Rico and shoot a movie and bring in your own people from the States, and the people in Puerto Rico have to be inconvenienced with their roads being blocked and things shut down and an influx of Americans that come there to be disrespectful and them not making anything out of it,” Rodriguez says.

This commitment shows in the protest scenes. Rather than using background actors, the film features real Puerto Rican residents, including a local activist and singer.

“It didn’t feel rehearsed. It didn’t feel fake,” she says. “I just think that the feelings and the passion and the rage and the sense of urgency is still there.”

Ortiz’s commitment to specificity extended to the family casting, intentionally matching the actors to the real-life relatives they are based on.

“It wasn’t performative. It was actually real because that’s what all of our families look like,” she says. “Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, we just have that diversity because of all the stuff that’s happened in the past.”

Glori’s character also represents a refreshing departure from the way Latina women are often portrayed onscreen. She is a mother, a daughter, a community center worker, an artist — and a woman with a complicated romantic and family history. She is beautiful and desirable, but her sexuality isn’t the defining characteristic of her existence — something we don’t see enough when it comes to Latina roles.

“For me, I didn’t have to step outside of myself for the role, which was really refreshing because every audition that I ever get, I do have to step out of myself because when people write Latinas in Hollywood, they tend to write them one way,” says Rodriguez. “They look a certain way, they talk a certain way, and that’s not the reality of what being Latino, especially in America, is like.”

Rodriguez could freely inhabit a Latina character without feeling as though she had to perform her Puerto Rican-ness for the audience.

“I didn’t feel like I had to perform my Latinidad. I could just exist in it,” she says.

Rodriguez adds she’s ready for a Hollywood that wants Latina actors to have the same range of characterization that white actors have long been afforded. She’s open to seeing Latinas being everything in TV and film, where can they exist in a world in which they can just be people who just happen to be Latinas.

“I really do look for a day when we can just be people and not just be the funny, spicy friend,” she adds. “Some Latinas are not spicy. Some Latinas are nerds, and some Latinas are quirky, and some of them are goofy and some of them are clumsy. And just like everybody gets to see the spectrum of whiteness with all the different kinds of characters, I would love to see that for our people. For all people of color, actually. I think it’s important to see us all as full human beings, and that means that we can be anything.”

The film’s multigenerational story touches on the cultural inheritance passed between mothers, daughters and grandmothers — whether through old traditions or ordinary rituals. It’s something audiences, regardless of background, can likely relate to.

“The most important message that I’ve kept from my [foremothers] was never to lose my sense of Puerto Rico; that, even if I don’t live in Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico lives in me,” she says. So much of that inheritance lives in the little things she remembers about her Puerto Rican grandmother, she says, from the té de tilo she’d make for an upset stomach; the recao that grew on her grandmother’s balcony because she didn’t have a backyard; or the azabache she still wears to this day for spiritual protection. They are the same small traditions she has passed on to her kids.

“My daughter makes better arroz con gandules than all of us,” Rodriguez says. “And her recipe is true to what my grandmother’s recipe was. That will continue to live on, until we are able to go back to our island and live in peace.”

That freedom is one reason Rodriguez believes independent film is so important for stories like “Hurricane Seasons.” Without a studio machine making decisions based primarily on commercial expectations, filmmakers have more room to tell a story on their own terms.

“Once the studio gets involved, they start thinking about dollars, which they got to make money, but they prioritize the dollars,” Rodriguez says. “And I think that’s why a lot of these big projects that they spend a lot of money on have failed because they don’t honor the storytelling. They don’t honor the authenticity of the world, the authenticity of the stories.”

Her hope is that “Hurricane Seasons” encourages more people to tell their own stories — especially Puerto Ricans.

“Puerto Ricans are not a joke; we’re not a punchline. You don’t get to tell us we don’t speak correct Spanish and make fun of our songs. Then, years later, appropriate our culture and become big time doing what we do, using our terms and our colloquialisms because it brings you capital,” she says. “We are people. We’ve been doing this for a very long time, and our grandmothers and our tias and tios matter, and they’re not [a] costume that you can just put on [to] make money off of it.”

Before we wrapped up the call, Rodriguez paused for a moment when I asked her what Puerto Rico means to her. Then her eyes lit up, and her voice softened as she described why the island means so much to her — and why so many people, even outside of the diaspora, find themselves drawn to it.

“Puerto Rico is a very special place, which is why so many people want to kick us out, so they can move [in],” she says. “But they’ll never have the magic, because the magic is us.”

With three weeks left to go until election day and polls showing her on the brink of losing, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has begun to channel the Sun King himself, Louis XIV:

L’État, c’est moi.

Gaslighting voters by insisting the political establishment that has left Los Angeles a mess and that she personifies is worth keeping in office for four more years is her only hope for victory. It’s a wild strategy that reached a crescendo during Tuesday night’s debate, as Bass kept bringing up the fact that L.A.’s ancien régime just doesn’t like her democratic socialist opponent, Nithya Raman.

“Your colleagues have a very difficult time working with you,” Bass snapped at one point, later claiming that Raman’s constituents don’t care for her even though the council member won reelection two years ago. The mayor twice bragged that immigrant rights groups support her; twice referenced Imelda Padilla, the moderate San Fernando Valley council member whose internet dragging of Raman has been out of the Burn Book from “Mean Girls”; and described her opponent as “not ready for prime time.”

Well, the way the mayor’s term has gone in the last couple of years, if it was a prime-time TV show, it might be called “Breaking Bad 2.” And it wouldn’t exactly be a hit.

If it were, two-thirds of Angelenos wouldn’t have decided to vote for anyone but Bass in the primary.

Bass arguably won the debate Tuesday night, but it felt like the technical “victory” — and that’s probably the wrong word — of a politician who is simply more polished. The mayor really needed a knockout punch, and that she did not achieve.

Instead, she in effect told voters that the last four years of disasters, inefficiencies and ineptitude are still a better option than taking a chance on the City Hall equivalent of the classroom dork.

Yet people are so angry at Bass and what she represents that a democratic socialist has a great shot at becoming L.A.’s next mayor — an unthinkable prospect even last year, with no one to blame but the ruling class that has left this great city hobbled, cynical and at the point of giving up.

So the establishment doesn’t like Raman: So what? And: Boo-hoo.

Casting Raman as a political leper while asserting that Bass represents stability and good times ahead isn’t the winning strategy that Bass and Raman’s critics think it is. It’s really just a sad coda for Bass.

She’s been a good soldier for L.A., someone who has participated in nearly every progressive movement to pass through Southern California since volunteering for Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign as a teenager nearly 60 years ago. Even as Bass embarked on a 22-year political career that has seen stops in Sacramento, Washington and City Hall, the native Angeleno always successfully depicted herself as a political outsider.

Because she was: a Black woman in a realm not meant for people like her. She was someone who co-founded a pioneering nonprofit in the crucible of a changing South L.A. in the 1990s and always seemed to land on the right side of history until becoming mayor in 2022.

Sadly, Bass didn’t turn out to be the visionary L.A. desperately needed.

Mayor Karen Bass, left, sits for Tuesday’s debate with Councilmember Nithya Raman, right. Between them are NBC4 reporter Conan Nolan, NBC4 News anchor Colleen Williams and Telemundo 52 anchor Alejandra Ortiz.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Like so many baby boomers, Bass eventually became The Man without realizing it. Today, she not only stands as the figurehead of the city’s liberal potentates, but she’s also calling on them to rally around one of their own — and they have responded in kind. Democratic politicians, bureaucrats and labor leaders, once rabble-rousers like Bass who nowadays seem to exist mostly to keep their sinecure, have labored mightily to convince unbelieving voters that Bass deserves another shot.

That’s always been the marvel of L.A.’s political establishment. It can take someone like Bass, once considered so radical that her days visiting communist Cuba in the 1970s torpedoed her chances of becoming then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s running mate in 2020, and transform her into an anodyne incumbent. It can make democratic socialists like Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez, Ysabel Jurado and Hugo Soto-Martínez — people who explicitly ran to take on a sclerotic City Hall — full-throated Bass supporters who have refused to support one of their own in Raman.

Raman was also becoming part of L.A.’s political chosen ones, to the point she initially endorsed Bass. But she now embraces her turn as the machine’s biggest sellout — whether it’s a true change of heart or a chameleonic self-serving measure, as critics maintain, remains to be seen. It was Raman who said at the end of the debate, “When the mayor is confronted with issues, she blames the system. With your support, we can actually change the system” — catnip to enough Angelenos that Raman seems to be at the cusp of victory and a monumental upset.

After the debate, NBC reporter Robert Kovacic interviewed elected officials to let them hype up Bass or Raman. The latter’s proxy was City Controller Kenneth Mejia, another person loathed by L.A.’s political know-it-alls because he keeps bucking the establishment. Mejia gushed about how Raman “destroyed” Bass with the enthusiasm of a Swiftie.

Bass’ supporters were Councilmember Monica Rodriguez and Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, both of whom gravely parroted their candidate’s warnings about just how dangerous a Raman mayoralty would be. Chavez Zbur reduced Raman’s not-bad performance to a “host of complaints” — ironic, because most of Bass’ night was spent bashing Raman instead of offering much of anything positive.

Rodriguez, meanwhile, told Kovacic that voters shouldn’t choose Raman because “we can’t afford that level of indecisive leadership.”

I rolled my eyes when Rodriguez — whose office declined a chance for her to sit down with me to talk up why Latinos should support Bass — said that.

She’s part of the fabled eastern San Fernando Valley Latino political machine, another group of former gatecrashers who assumed the trappings and stylings of the old guard once they assumed power. Rodriguez long blasted Bass with the same venom she reserved for Raman until the latter mounted her challenge — but now that Rodriguez’s power is under threat, she’s all of a sudden decided to become Bass’ ride-or-die?

Moves like that remind me of another French monarch, Louis XV. “After me, the deluge,” he is supposed to have said, a warning of what would happen once his reign ended.

If Bass’ vow to rule the same as before represents a decisive leader, more and more Angelenos seem to be saying, give us the Raman flood.

Besides, nobody ever said, nor ever put on a campaign sticker, “The establishment? It’s cool!”

Venezuelan provisional president Delcy Rodríguez’s all-smiles photo op with Trump in a Manhattan hotel on September 22 proved too much for some of her erstwhile supporters. For the Spanish leftist Juan Carlos Monedero, a staunch defender of Hugo Chávez, Maduro and at first Rodríguez, her New York appearance “clashed with the previous socialist and anti-imperialist discourse” of her movement.

Shortly before the encounter, Rodríguez evaded a reporter’s question about whether she would visit jailed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro in Brooklyn. Her decision to stay clear of Maduro is consistent with her attempt to chart a new course for Venezuela.

Rodríguez became interim president following the bloody U.S. military incursion on January 3, 2026 that resulted in the kidnapping of Maduro and the First Lady Cilia Flores. Facing the prospect of a second, more devastating military attack, Rodríguez shifted sharply toward Washington on foreign and oil policy while reshuffling the public administration and military at the expense of hardline pro-Chávez (Chavista) loyalists.

Rodriguez’s strategy goes too far

Rodríguez’s strategy from the outset was to demonstrate that she was not cowardly submitting to Washington’s dictates or acting as a collaborationist a la Vichy France. Her wholehearted embrace of policies pushed by Washington is designed to dispel any impression that she is bowing to U.S. pressure. On many key issues, she has become as Catholic as the Pope with regard to Trump, while retaining the Chavista label. Shortly after January 3, Rodríguez affirmed “there is no foreign agent” governing Venezuela, a claim unconvincingly echoed by the second in command Diosdado Cabello who alleged “we don’t depend on anyone.”

In a different vein, pro-Rodríguez analysts argue that the interim president has zero options given the U.S. threats. Either submit to Washington or expect massive bombardment and/or a return of the old regime.

But there is clear evidence that Rodríguez has some latitude, albeit limited, which she has declined to fully exercise. That’s because Trump is fully wedded to his partnership with her.

Trump decided to recognize Rodríguez rather than right-wing leader María Corina Machado – much to the disappointment of Miami-based anti-Communist hawks – for good reasons. A confidential CIA report requested by the Trump administration prior to January 3 warned that the Venezuelan opposition lacked support within the pro-Chavista armed forces as well as the police force. The conclusion was obvious: turning power over to Machado was a recipe for chaos, if not civil war.

Trump has assimilated the Pentagon’s assessment of “de-Baathification” following the U.S. invasion of Iraq as a “complete disaster,” responsible for the endless internecine conflict in that nation. Trump has repeatedly invoked the Iraq fiasco when discussing the Rodríguez government. At one press conference he noted with reference to Venezuela “We had, as you remember, Iraq, where everybody got fired…And you know what they turned into? ISIS. And we don’t want that.”

Moreover, the decision to recognize Rodríguez rather than Machado was not taken on a whim but rather followed months of careful deliberation at the highest level of the Trump administration. He now touts his partnership with Rodríguez as a major success at a time in which he has very few of them to tout. It is thus unlikely that Trump will readily turn his back on Rodríguez. The upshot is that Rodríguez has some room to maneuver.

How much wiggle room?

The Chavista movement under Rodríguez has retreated from its defining banner: the uncompromising defense of national sovereignty. To its credit, the movement’s leadership continues to cast itself as an opponent of the traditional elite and a defender of the collective production units known as “communes.” But these positive features fall short for a movement that once raised such high expectations. While retaining a sense of realism, Rodríguez could have at least maintained a more neutral position on issues that compromised national sovereignty.

One of the most troubling examples was Venezuela’s collaboration in the extrajudicial killing of Niño Guerrero, leader of the criminal Tren de Aragua, in a U.S. Southern Command missile strike in the state of Bolívar in June 2026. The Venezuelan government, which provided intelligence information to the Southern Command, issued a statement in which it “congratulated” all participants in the operation. In doing so, Caracas lent credence to Trump’s false narrative that drug traffickers are terrorists. At the very least, the Rodríguez government could have stayed out of the operation while maintaining a neutral public posture.

Equally striking was the marked presence of Israeli military officers, including senior army officer Brigadier General Elad Edri, at a formal farewell meeting on July 21 in which Rodríguez thanked Israel for its earthquake relief efforts. U.S. and Israeli military involvement in the recovery operations drew objections from Chavista social movements, such as the famed Caracas barrio-based Coordinadora Simón Bolívar. They especially resented the conspicuousness of the presence of military personnel of both nations, symbolized by a controversial photograph of a beaming Diosdado Cabello shaking hands with U.S. Southern Command chief Francis L. Donovan, who had overseen the January 3 incursion. This, then, was another instance in which the Chavista leadership offered Washington a level of support that went well beyond what was necessary given the circumstances.

Still another example of the lengths to which Rodríguez has gone in accommodating Washington is her willingness to accept the Pentagon’s participation in the Venezuelan oil industry. The mega oil deal reached between Washington and Caracas in late August gives the Pentagon 35 percent ownership of the operating company that is to exploit 17 Venezuelan oil fields representing nearly 150 percent of U.S. proven reserves. But there is no precedent for the Pentagon’s equity ownership of this nature which is of dubious legality. Venezuelan analyst Phil Gunson, who has been briefed on the deal, told the Guardian that the major oil companies “are concerned about the irregularities.” From Venezuela’s viewpoint, the involvement of the Pentagon in the nation’s oil business makes little sense.

From the perspective of the Pentagon and its Israeli counterpart, Rodríguez’s conciliatory stance appears to be a vindication and a reversal of Chavista defiance – if not a payback for past grievances. In January 2000 Chávez turned back a sizable relief operation that the same U.S. Southern Command was in the process of sending in response to catastrophic floods, which had devastated the state of Vargas the previous month. Chávez’s decision was an embarrassing rebuff for the Pentagon, if not humiliating.

Along similar lines, Roni Kaplan, spokesperson for the Israeli armed forces and a member of his nation’s aid mission, told CE Noticias Financieras-English on July 22, “it’s like when you fight with someone and they come to apologize, and when they say they’re sorry, you say, “‘I’ve already forgotten all about it.’” Kaplan’s statement puts in sharp relief the extent to which Rodríguez’s posture breaks with the Chavista past.

Where things now stand

The pro-Chavista think tank Misión Verdad puts a positive spin on Rodríguez’s strategy. According to its take, the Manhattan meeting with Trump marked the point at which “Washington’s asymmetric coercion and the strategic adaptation deployed by the Chavista movement converge.” For both Trump and Rodríguez, the aim was the same: “stabilization… to reduce political costs by sacrificing ideological orthodoxy.” The asymmetry according to the Misión Verdad statement “does not erase the agency of the quantitatively weaker actor; it alters its tactics, shifting it from open confrontation toward strategic adaptation.”

The adaptation demanded by the asymmetry is captured in a slogan championed by Diosdado Cabello: “Venezuela: Reborn United.” Strip away the Misión’s lofty language, and the message is that the Chavista movement needs to make a fundamental break with its past in important ways.

Adaption is understandable given the circumstances of January 3. But if Chavismo abandons the banner of defense of national sovereignty, little remains of what defined the movement. And that is precisely where the strategy of being “as Catholic as the Pope” in accommodating Washington has led.

That’s not to say there are easy answers or that an alternative strategy would necessarily succeed, particularly given Trump’s notorious unpredictability. Nor does it mean that Rodríguez deserves to be demonized as a sellout as so many on the left are doing. Such demonization underestimates the challenges and uniqueness of the situation, at the same time that it divides the solidarity movement. The relative unity of the Chavista leadership has been one of its strengths ever since Chávez’s death in 2013, and the same needs to be preserved in the solidarity movement.

The problem is that the options available to Rodríguez are scarce, whereas Trump has many. He need not pull off another January 3. Nearly all Venezuela’s oil-derived revenue is in a U.S. account handled by Marco Rubio. All Rubio has to do is to withhold it or scale it back whenever Rodríguez steps out of line with Washington.

Even with this reality hanging over her, Rodríguez and other Chavista leaders have put forward two major demands: free Maduro and Flores and an end to the sanctions, which remain largely intact. Rodríguez, however, has not put these two demands front and center in her dialogue with the Trump administration – not by a long shot.

As pressure from Miami grows for Venezuela to set an electoral timetable, the position that elections and harsh sanctions are incompatible would shift responsibility for any delay onto Washington. Last Spring, Chavista leader Ernesto Villegas, who headed the government’s Program for Peace and Democratic Coexistence, called for “elections free of sanctions.” Linking elections explicitly to the lifting of sanctions would allow the Rodríguez government to reclaim some distance from Washington, even as U.S. blackmail severely limits its ability to fully assert national sovereignty.

Steve Ellner is a retired professor of the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela where he lived for over 40 years and is currently Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives. He is the author and editor of over a dozen books on Latin American politics and history. In 2018 he spoke in over twenty cities in the U.S. and Canada as part of a Venezuelan solidarity tour.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.

Source: Counterpunch

Twenty-one years into its run, “Dancing With the Stars” is one of the hottest and buzziest shows on TV right now.

ABC’s competition series kicked off its 35th season in September, scoring its biggest premiere ratings since 2020. Fueling a lot of that viewership power are Gen Z and millennial viewers, attracted by a cast loaded with social media influencers, reality TV stars and nostalgic favorites. And a certain 55-year-old late-night sidekick has emerged as a social media hit with his lovable underdog journey: Guillermo Rodriguez.

Best known as the former parking lot security guard-turned-sidekick on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” who was discovered after he was caught sleeping in the car of the show’s announcer, Rodriguez regularly steals the spotlight on the late-night talk show with his humorous, humble interactions in comedy bits and as a red-carpet correspondent. Now, he’s expanding his profile as a celebrity contestant on “Dancing With the Stars,” paired with dance pro Witney Carson.

Rodriguez says he’s been asked to join the show before, but he passed because of a busy schedule and his insecurity as a dancer — “I’m not a dancer,” he tells me. “I dance when we have Thanksgiving, Christmas, but it’s for two seconds, four seconds. Not a minute and a half!”

He praises Carson, who is competing while pregnant, for her patience and encouragement in his journey.

“Oh, my God, Witney is a great partner,” he says. “She’s telling me, ‘Listen, just follow me. Follow the steps. Remember, do not look at the floor; look up. And just be yourself. If I want to ask you to be a diva, you be a diva. I don’t want you to laugh.’ She’s been fantastic. She’s helping me a lot. She tells me, ‘The audience know that you’re not a professional dancer, and that you’re trying hard and everything. Just enjoy because this only happens once in a lifetime.’” Read more from my conversation with Rodriguez in Guest Spot.

Also in this week’s Screen Gab, our writers recommend a miniseries about a mysterious sea creature terrorizing a small coastal town and a pair of psychological horror dramas exploring female rage. And just a quick PSA — not funded by taxpayers, I promise — before I wrap up: “Felicity” is now streaming on Netflix. If you want to get (re)acquainted with collegiate angst, the art of making “hey” pack the same power as a Keats poem or experience Keri Russell’s controversial haircut moment, give it a whirl. As a superfan who returned to it often when it was on Hulu, it’s my duty to warn you to proceed with caution when it comes to Season 4. — Yvonne Villarreal.

Turn on

Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times

Josh Hartnett as Calvin and Mackenzie Davis as Fonda in Netflix’s “Below.”

(Netflix)

“Below” (Netflix)

A first-rate sea monster miniseries, set in a small fishing village in Newfoundland, where the natives add an “s” to some verbs (“anyway you slices it,” “I gets it”), making them sound a little like Popeye. Creator Jesse McKeown drops enough “Jaws” references to let you know he’s aware of the similarities, but “Below,” which goes some crazy places in its latter half, is very much its own aquatic whirligig. Josh Hartnett plays fisherman Calvin Penney, attempting to harvest blue ice for vodka in the face of declining stocks, but finding his haul smelling strangely of ammonia. Mackenzie Davis is marine researcher Fonda Howander (year’s best name), who has an idea about that. (Global warming, your real-world villain.) The series, in which I detect a quality of Canadian naturalism, uses its special effects budget sparingly, and I would say, wisely; when something extraordinary happens, it doubly registers. But the series’ strength is in its evocative background and nicely drawn characters, going about their messy human business, as the town debates whether to let the government transplant them to somewhere less remote while Calvin tries to get his adult kids on his page. — Robert Lloyd

Summer H. Howell as the titular teenager in Prime Video’s “Carrie.”

(Robert Falconer / Prime Video)

“Carrie” (Prime Video) and “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story” (Netflix)

Killer women usher in the Halloween season with these two new horror series. The TV adaptation of Stephen King’s novel loosely follows the 1976 big-screen classic starring Sissy Spacek, but reimagines the bloody prom queen Carrie (Summer H. Howell) in today’s world, replete with cyberbullies and smartphones. The limited series from horror master Mike Flanagan (“The House on Haunted Hill,” “Midnight Mass”) pits the terror of the modern world — school shootings, conspiracy-theory fanaticism — against a naive girl’s deadly telekinetic powers for a smart and powerful reimagining of the chilling classic. “The Lizzie Borden Story” is the fourth season of the “Monster” anthology series from Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, and it stars Ella Beatty as the titular character. With the help of an enviable cast (Sarah Paulson, Vicky Krieps), it dramatizes the events before, during and after the 1892 ax murders of Borden’s father and stepmother, and jumps timelines to connect Borden’s story with that of another violent female killer who shocked the country a century later. Does it take historical liberties? Absolutely, and it makes for a thrilling new take on a notorious chapter in American crime. — Lorraine Ali

Guest spot

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

Witney Carson and Guillermo Rodriguez perform during Mariah Carey night on “Dancing With the Stars.”

(Eric McCandless / Disney)

When Guillermo Rodriguez signed up to compete on “Dancing With the Stars,” he came in with no dance background and the least nimble body, but he had experience in how to win over fans as the scene-stealing sidekick on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Now, Rodriguez has danced the cha-cha, paso doble, foxtrot and samba before millions of people — captivating audiences with assisted knee walks, floor drops and a bare-chested message for the world. He may be the lowest-scoring star on the leaderboard each week, but the 55-year-old knows how to hold an audience and, with professional partner Witney Carson, has managed to stay alive in the competition. After channeling his inner diva for Mariah Carey night on the show (cheekily performing to “Obsessed”) and making it past this week’s elimination round, Rodriguez spoke to us about how he’s feeling at this stage in the competition. — Y.V.

How is the diva life treating you?

Oh, my God, Yvonne, it’s hard work. Being a diva is not easy.

What body part is hurting you today?

You know what — my legs. My legs and my back hurt bad. If you’re in the 20s and 30s, it’s OK, but when you’re like in the 50s, it’s hard. In the 20s and 30s, you have all the energy and also your body is young.

When you get home from rehearsals or after performance night, what’s your routine? Are you doing a bath soak? Are you elevating your feet?

I actually I get in the pool, I get in the hot tub. But someone was telling me I gotta get a massage and I gotta get a cold plunge because that’s gonna help the body. Also, you know what is helping me. I haven’t [had a] drink in two months, and I feel good. I have a shot, I have a drink, so it can relax me and everything. But with “Dancing,” I cannot have a drink because I don’t wanna forget the steps.

You’ve said that you’re doing the show because you want to dance with your wife. How’s that going? Have you been showing her any moves at home?

I have a little bit. And she said, “Well, wait, this is it?” I go, “No, this is only the beginning [steps]. I still got to show [you] more. She goes, “Oh, now I understand why you’re so tired.” And I go, “Yeah, we have to rehearse and everything, and you gotta smile at the camera, you gotta watch your steps, you gotta move your hips and everything.” And I tell her, “When I move to the left, I hear a noise like [mimics creaking noises], ‘Oh, oh, my body is clicking!’ I move left to the left — my knee is making noise!’” But I’m having a lot of fun. It’s great.

How has this experienced changed you so far? How do you feel when you’re out there performing?

It changed me in that I get nervous and it’s hard, but when I go over there [onstage], I like it. I enjoy. You get like a minute and 12 or 40 [seconds], depending on the music. But I’m happy. I get to push myself.

I get out there and [I think], I gotta give my best. And I feel so good because a lot of the audience, they like it a lot. They go crazy and everything, and that makes me feel so good. You know what — I might not be the best dancer, but I’m trying my best, and the people see it. But who knows what’s gonna happen. I might go home next week.

Witney Carson and Guillermo Rodriguez perform the paso doble on “Dancing With the Stars.”

(Christopher Willard / Disney)

We’ve seen you in the bottom a few times. This week, you were there again. What was going through your head this week as you waited for the names to be called?

I feel very nervous. I said, “Oh, my God, this is it. We going home.” I told Witney [before the show], “Witney, I think this is it. I think we’re going home.” She said, “Well, listen, if we’re going home, we did a good job. You told me that you wanna pass the first week, and you already passed the first week, so you don’t have nothing else to lose.” But I feel very nervous. And then when they say, “The couple going home is Ciara [Miller] and Brandon [Armstrong],” I was like, “Oh, my God.” It was hard. And the dance was hard too. Samba is a fast dance. We didn’t have too much time to rehearse because we were going to New York back and forth.

The fandom for “Dancing With the Stars” goes hard. What has surprised you about the fan response?

A lot of the fans are voting for us. I want to say thank you to all the fans. They‘re keeping us alive. They’re voting a lot. They’re making it happen and everything. I was so surprised. [This week,] Carrie Ann [Inaba] give us bad comments, and the audience started booing. I was like, “Wow, this is so amazing! The audience is on our side.” They want us to keep going. And I told Witney, “Witney, we gotta keep going.” We dance for the people. If we make it past next week, it will be great. If we go home, we did it and that’s it.

On the other side of that, there can be some negative talk too, some frustrated fans who think other contestants should still be there. How do you deal with that? Or when the beefs get stirred up on social media? Are you paying attention to that?

I don’t know. The first week I was listening to the comments and everything, but now I don’t listen. I just go have fun. Everybody has different opinions. You cannot please everybody. So I just go have fun, enjoy, and that’s it. If they like it, [or] they don’t like it. Some people say, “Oh, he’s too old. He’s out of shape.” I say, “You know what? Come and dance yourself. It’s not easy.” Every week I try to do better and better.

How do you think Jimmy Kimmel would do in the competition?

Oh — you want me to be honest? He doesn’t dance. And he told me that. He told me, “You know me, that I’m not good.” And I go, “Yeah, I know you’re not good. You’re like a rock.” I told him, “Jimmy. I think when it’s time and they say, ‘Dancing the cha-cha-cha, here’s Jimmy Kimmel,’” I said, “I’m gonna come right away before you start and I’m gonna spray WD-40 so you can move good.”

Is there a song you really want to dance to if you had the opportunity to pick it?

Oh, I would like to dance to one that goes [begins singing “You’re the Best” by Joe “Bean” Esposito, which is featured in the “Karate Kid” soundtrack]: “You’re the best. You’re the best around. No one’s ever gonna keep you down. You’re the best.” I’m like, oh, my God, I would love to dance that one.

I know you’re super busy with all the rehearsals, but is there a show that you are enjoying right now, one that helps you unwind?

Oh yeah, there’s a show that I’m watching right now. It’s called “The Studio” with Seth Rogen. I cannot wait for the new season. I love the show. Seth Rogen is doing a great job. Bryan Cranston too, and Ike Barinholtz. Oh, my God, everyone in the cast is so funny.

We have to get you on that show, Guillermo. You can play yourself.

Yeah, I want to. I want to be in that show. Hopefully, it happens soon.

ICYMI

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MIAMI — A former Miami congressman and longtime friend of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison in connection with a secret $50 million lobbying campaign on Venezuela’s behalf during the first Trump administration.

Republican David Rivera has been jailed since jurors found him guilty in May on all counts, including failing to register as a foreign agent and conspiracy to commit money laundering as part of his work for former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro ’s government.

Rivera, 61, appeared stone-faced as Judge Melissa Damian denounced him for betraying his life’s mission, saying he would surely have been judged harshly his many friends had the millions of dollars come from the Cuban regime instead of its allies in Caracas.

“Nobody would accept that’s ok and I don’t think this is different,” the judge said. “There’s no dispute this money came from the Maduro regime.”

The seven-week trial offered a rare glimpse into Miami’s role as a crossroads for foreign influence campaigns aimed at shaping U.S. policy toward Latin America, highlighting the city’s reputation as a magnet for both anti-communist crusaders and corruption among its sizable exile population.

It included testimony from President Trump’s secretary of state, Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas and a top Washington lobbyist — all of whom testified they felt betrayed when learning of Rivera’s mammoth consulting contract with a U.S.-based affiliate of Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA.

Attorneys for Rivera plan to appeal and in June applied for a presidential pardon. Rivera faces additional federal charges in Washington, D.C., in a related foreign lobbying case.

Prosecutors said betrayal featured coded figures — ‘Sombrero’ and ‘Miss Clairol’

In an indictment unsealed in 2022, prosecutors alleged that Rivera was tapped by then Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez — now Venezuela’s acting president — to work Republican connections to get the first Trump administration to abandon its hard line and crippling sanctions on Venezuela.

As part of the charm offensive, Rivera and a co-defendant, political consultant Esther Nuhfer, sought to manipulate influential friends, including Rubio and Sessions. Their goal was to normalize relations with the new Trump administration even as the Maduro government faced sanctions over serious accusations of human rights violations.

But Rivera and Nuhfer didn’t disclose their lobbying work as required, for fear it would have ended Rivera’s political career as an anti-communist stalwart, prosecutors argued at trial.

“The United States and the public were the true victims of this fraud,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Roger Cruz said in urging a stiff sentence. “He used his position of trust — and betrayed it consistently and repeatedly.”

To hide his work, prosecutors allege, Rivera also set up an encrypted chat group called MIA — for Miami — with his main conduit to the Maduro government: Venezuelan media tycoon Raúl Gorrín, who was subsequently charged in the U.S. with bribing top Venezuelan officials.

Members of the group used playful code words to discuss their activities: Maduro was the “bus driver,” Sessions “Sombrero,” Rodríguez “The Lady in Red,” and their windfall payments “La Luz,” Spanish for “The Light,” according to copies of text messages presented to the jury. Rubio was known as “Miss Clairol,” because rubio means blond in Spanish.

Defense said only missing paperwork made the $50 million contract illegal

At Friday’s sentencing, attorneys for Rivera repeated their trial argument that the former congressman believed he was under no requirement to disclose the work. The three-month, $50 million contract with Rivera’s one-man consulting firm, they said, was focused on luring oil giant ExxonMobil back to Venezuela — commercial work that is generally exempt from the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

“David Rivera does not deserve to die in prison because he failed to file a FARA registration,” defense attorney Ed Shohat said at Friday’s hearing. “If he had filed that paper, that form, everything he did, including the $50 million contract, which totally distorted this case, is perfectly legal.”

Wholly distinct from that consulting work, they say, were Rivera’s meetings with Rubio and Sessions, which were focused on ushering in leadership in Venezuela that would be less hostile to the U.S. – not supporting Maduro in normalizing relations with the U.S.

“There’s not one word in any chat, not one document, not one thing he did to help Nicolás Maduro,” said Shohat.

Prosecutors said Rivera used the contract with the affiliate, New York-based PDV USA, as cover for illegal lobbying.

“This is a classic money laundering case,” the judge said Friday in rejecting Rivera’s motion to lower the federal guidelines range.

Where did the money go? A luxury yacht, among other things

The partners tried to hide the work — backdating documents and coming up with sham agreements, like one to justify a wire transfer of $3.75 million to a South Florida company that maintained Gorrín’s luxury yacht, prosecutors said.

The political activity included setting up meetings for Rodríguez in New York, Caracas, Washington and Dallas. As part of the effort, Rivera roped in Sessions, who later tried to broker a meeting for Rodríguez with the ExxonMobil executive who took over as CEO when Rex Tillerson became Trump’s first-term secretary of state. After a secret meeting in Caracas with Maduro, Sessions also agreed to deliver a letter from the Venezuelan president to Trump.

The outreach quickly unraveled, however. Within six months of taking office, Trump sanctioned Maduro and labeled him a “dictator,” launching a “maximum pressure” campaign to unseat the president.

And now, nearly a decade later, Rodríguez has emerged as the second Trump administration’s trusted partner after the U.S. military’s ousting of Maduro.

Rubio’s former housemate faced scandal before, but Cuban Americans support him

Before being elected to Congress in 2010, Rivera was a high-ranking Florida legislator and shared a Tallahassee home with Rubio, who eventually became the Florida House speaker.

Rivera faced earlier controversy, including allegations that he secretly funded a Democratic spoiler candidate in a 2012 congressional race. Last year, federal prosecutors dropped that case after an appeals court threw out a sizable fine imposed by a lower court. Rivera was also investigated — but never charged — for alleged campaign finance violations and a $1 million contract with a gambling company while serving in the Florida Legislature.

Despite all that, Rivera remains popular among Miami’s Cuban American establishment.

Friends of the former congressman, including the former president of Florida International University and Miami-Dade County’s supervisor of elections, packed the courtroom to show their support.

Sessions, in a letter seeking leniency that was read into the record by his chief of staff, said his former congressional colleague devoted decades to public service, much of it focused on defending liberty and democracy.

“I don’t think it’s productive for society by sending David away for a long, long time,” testified Liliana Ros, a longtime Miami GOP committee member.

Goodman writes for the Associated Press.

Caracas, September 25, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) –  Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez outlined a foreign policy built on “peace” and “dialogue” in her address at the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday.

Speaking before world leaders, Rodríguez insisted on peace over conflict, thanked the Trump administration for diplomatic backing, and committed to international cooperation on environmental, energy, and AI regulation. She went on to urge young Venezuelan migrants to return home and laid out a proposal for structural “democratic transformation” of the Caribbean nation. 

Opening her address, Rodríguez underscored Caracas’ rejection of warfare, linking global stability to diplomatic resolution. 

“Venezuela, which today knows what it is to lift its children out from under the rubble, extends its deepest solidarity to all peoples who suffer from war, and reaffirms that peace […] is not a naive aspiration, but the only truly human path,” she declared.

Rodríguez explicitly addressed the diplomatic rapprochement with Washington after the January 3 US military strikes and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. She expressed thanked Trump for aiding Venezuela’s reintegration into international forums following years of heavy economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation.

“I want to thank President Donald Trump and his government for their willingness to resume the path of diplomatic and cooperative relations with Venezuela,” Rodríguez stated, referencing the recent oil deal as “one of the largest ever signed” and pledging that it will contribute to regional energy stability.

Rodríguez refrained from condemning the US attack, calling it a “difficult moment” that resulted from the “exhaustion of domestic policies and heightened confrontation with the US.” She likewise made no mention of Maduro and Flores, presently detained 10-15 miles away from the UN headquarters and facing trial for charges including drug trafficking conspiracy.

The Venezuelan acting president had conveyed similar gratitude in a face-to-face meeting with Trump on Tuesday that she labeled as “historic.”

Turning to domestic affairs in her UN address, Rodríguez spoke of the severe wave of migration triggered by past political and economic crises, and vowed to the Venezuelan youth residing abroad that there will be improved conditions for their return.

“To the young people, who have grown up seeing a fractured country and who often decided to leave seeking what they could not find here: I tell you that it is worth believing again,” the acting leader affirmed. “This is the moment to build the country that many want to return to, and not just the one that many wanted to flee.”

This message was framed as part of what Rodríguez termed a “democratic transformation for a rebirth,” which she described as an institutional, orderly, and verifiable process.

“In Venezuela, there will be elections. We have already initiated a political dialogue with sectors of the opposition that leads to a process on equal terms for all,” she noted.

Though Rodríguez did not explicitly name unilateral sanctions from Washington and its allies, she stated that the country needs to be “free from economic restrictions” and pledged to “guide Venezuela toward an era of full democracy, recognized by its people and the world.”

The acting president’s UN speech came amid a flurry of diplomatic activity in New York, including meetings with International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, World Bank President Ajay Banga, and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) President Ilan Goldfajn.

On the sidelines of the UN assembly, Rodríguez also held bilateral meetings with Chilean far-right president José Antonio Kast to discuss regional trade and stability, as well as with a delegation from Trinidad and Tobago, led by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, initiating a “new stage in bilateral relations” centered on joint offshore natural gas exploration and maritime security.

Venezuela had suspended cooperation with neighboring Port of Spain after Persad-Bissessar backed the US’ military build-up on the country’s shores in late 2025.

Rodríguez’s New York trip coincided with a second round of US-backed talks between government negotiators led by National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez and a sector of the opposition led by former deputy Dinorah Figuera.

The latest negotiations reportedly focused on electoral guarantees, freedom of expression, institutional reform, including renewing the Supreme Court, and efforts to secure the unfreezing of Venezuelan assets abroad, including gold reserves worth approximately US $4 billion. The gold held by the Bank of England is set to be transferred to the US, to be released for post-earthquake recovery efforts under White House oversight.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Lisbon, Portugal.

Caracas, September 22, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez and US President Donald Trump held a first face-to-face meeting on Tuesday night in New York amid the rapid rapprochement between Washington and Caracas.

The closed-door gathering took place at the Lotte New York Palace hotel during a reception for world leaders participating in the ongoing 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly. Trump was flanked by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and other White House officials, while Rodríguez was joined by Foreign Minister Félix Plasencia.

The Venezuelan government published photos of the meeting, with the two leaders smiling for the cameras in front of the countries’ flags.

On her social media channels, Rodríguez praised the “historic” sit-down with Trump and reported that the discussions focused on strengthening “cooperation in strategic areas such as energy and mining.”

“We thanked President Trump and his government […] for its support for Venezuela’s reinsertion into multilateral spaces,” she stated. “Venezuela and the United States share a historic relation that, in this new era, we must drive forward through dialogue.”

Tuesday’s summit was the first between US and Venezuelan leaders since a brief encounter between Barack Obama and Nicolás Maduro during the 2015 Summit of the Americas in Panama.

Rodríguez is also set to be the first Venezuelan head of state to participate in the UN General Assembly since Maduro in 2018, during Trump’s first term. In 2019, then as vice president, Rodríguez addressed the UN General Assembly, denouncing US sanctions as a form of “state terrorism” and accusing Trump of “sticking his imperial claws” against Venezuela and Cuba

The high-level meeting follows a rapid diplomatic rapprochement between Caracas and Washington following the January 3 US bombings and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. In the months since, the acting Rodríguez administration has fast-tracked energy and mining reforms tailored to US and Western corporate interests while also realigning the country’s foreign policy.

The Venezuelan acting president and her diplomatic team have yet to mention Maduro in their New York trip. Maduro and Flores are presently detained in Brooklyn, some 10 miles from the UN headquarters, and facing drug trafficking conspiracy charges. Both pleaded not guilty.

At the time of writing, the White House has offered no details on Tuesday’s summit with Rodríguez.

However, in his UN speech earlier in the day, Trump hailed the US’ military operation to kidnap “outlaw dictator” Maduro.

“Our actions in Venezuela are proof that the United States will no longer permit threats to America to gain a foothold anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. And if necessary, we will use our unmatched military might to secure the vital national interests of the United States,” he said.

Trump went on to boast about US corporations entering the Venezuelan energy sector and praised a recent deal giving privileged access to more than 20 percent of the Caribbean nation’s reserves to a Pentagon-controlled firm as “perhaps the biggest deal ever made.”

“To the victor belong the spoils,” he added. Rodríguez and the Venezuelan delegation were shown listening to Trump’s speech in the UN live broadcast.

Prior to the high-profile Trump sit-down, Venezuela’s acting president held meetings with Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) President Ilan Goldfajn, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, and World Bank President Ajay Banga to discuss Venezuela’s reintegration into international financing and cooperation mechanisms.

“We are promoting new stages of engagement with the international financial system and working to ensure joint efforts for the benefit of the Venezuelan people. Venezuela’s future is built through partnerships, hard work, and the firm determination to keep moving forward and creating opportunities for our nation,” Rodríguez said. 

She also met with UN Secretary-General António Guterres, with whom she reportedly discussed Venezuela’s political and economic situation, cooperation with the UN, human rights, and dialogue.

The Venezuelan leader likewise held a brief conversation with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Lisbon, Portugal.