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Actor Hayden Panettiere, the child actor who rose to stardom in television and also spoke with raw frankness about her struggles with fame and mental health, died Sunday, according to her family. She was 36.

Panettiere’s father, Skip, announced the actor’s death in a statement shared with The Times on Sunday.

“It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden. She was an incredible light and a force of nature who brought immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her — and to the millions who watched her onscreen,” his statement said.

No other details were released.

She starred on “Nashville” (2012-18) and, before that, “Heroes” (2006-10). Her early work included roles in the 1990s on the soaps “One Life to Live” and “Guiding Light.” She was a model and a singer, having released several singles.

Panettiere also starred in the “Scream” horror movie franchise as well as in hits “I Love You, Beth Cooper” and “Remember the Titans.”

She first gained major attention with “Heroes,” where she played a cheerleader with superpowers. On “Nashville,” she played a troubled country music star, doing her own singing and performing on tour.

Panettiere has been candid about her struggles while living so much of her life in the public eye.

Panettiere gave birth to her daughter, with boxing champ Wladimir Klitschko, in 2014 and battled postpartum depression. She gave up custody of the child in 2018, a decision she called “heartbreaking.”

In May, the actor published a memoir, “This Is Me: A Reckoning,” in which she opened up about her alcoholism and depression after the birth of her daughter.

In interviews about the book, she reflected on the scrutiny and cruelty she faced as a young actor.

“It blows my mind that people could be so cruel,” she told the New York Times. “Looking back as an adult and a mother of a daughter, it’s hard to believe that grown adults were OK with ripping you apart at such a tender age. At any age, really.

“I just can’t believe I made it through alive,” she added.

Panettiere started in movies at the age of 9 when she voiced Princess Dot in the 1998 Pixar movie “A Bug’s Life.” Two years later, she made a splash in the role of a young football-obsessed fan and daughter of assistant coach Bill Yoast (Will Patton) in the biographical drama “Remember the Titans.” The actor told “ET” in 2023, “If I had a wish to go back to any time in my life, it would be going back to ‘Remember the Titans.’ … There were so many stars made from this movie.”

Panettiere was passionate about animals and began advocating for whale conservation in her teens. She came out as bisexual earlier this year, telling Us Magazine that she was sad to have waited until age 36 to do so.

She spoke up about her experience with domestic abuse after a public altercation in Los Angeles in 2022 involving a then-boyfriend. Brian Hickerson was on probation at the time following multiple domestic violence charges that dated back to 2018.

In 2025, her brother, Jansen Panettiere, died suddenly of complications from a heart problem. He had struggled with substance abuse and she got him into treatment, she told Us Magazine.

At the height of her fame on “Heroes,” she was regularly followed by the paparazzi and was the focus of much tabloid attention. Looking back on that time recently, she told a podcaster: “It was just sheer terror.”

In the statement on Sunday, Panettiere’s father said the family asked for privacy “as our family takes time to process this unimaginable loss.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Emmerdale star Christopher Coghill, who plays villain Kev Barton, was once struck over the head with a handbag by a fan who was horrified at his on-screen behaviour

Soap star Christopher Coghill has discussed what happened during a bizarre fan encounter in Selfridges.

The actor, who portrays Kev Barton in ITV soap Emmerdale, describes his character as “a sympathetic psychopath, if you will”, adding he remains unfazed about being typecast as a villain following his stint playing paedophile Tony King in EastEnders in 2008.

He said: “You’ve got to give people a bit of credit. When I started in EastEnders, there were people who were like, ‘You know, there are people out there who really can’t tell the difference between what they see on telly and real life, and because of the character you’re playing, you’re going to get a lot of shit, and you might need police protection’.

“And then you go out, and people go, ‘Oh, you’re brilliant in EastEnders’, and that was kind of it. I did get hit over the head with a handbag in Selfridges, but apart from that..”

His Emmerdale colleague William Ash, who takes on the role of Caleb Miligan, said he’s encountered similar reactions, adding: “People are genuinely generally really nice. You don’t get any grief, really. I did have one woman at the at the petrol station going ‘oh, you’re right horrible to Moira’.”

The duo, who previously shared the screen in the 2003 drama Burn It and portrayed brothers in both the 2006 one-off comedy Magnolia and a 2016 episode of Moving On, find themselves embroiled in an Emmerdale storyline centred on an assault on Billy Fletcher (Jay Kontzle) at the depot.

Kev is responsible for the attack and Caleb possesses CCTV footage of the incident, but has been concealing it so he can pin the blame on his bitter rival, Joe Tate (Ned Porteous).

Coghill said of the footage: “I hold my hands up, it does look bad – I am bent over him with a crowbar and he’s in a pool of blood.”

Yet it might not prove to be the leverage that Caleb believes it to be.

Ash said: “I think [Caleb and wife Ruby, played by Beth Cordingly] just don’t know how to handle him, like most people in the village. It’s like he’s such a loose cannon. You just don’t know what you’re going to get from him.”

Coghill is equally insistent that he wants no further singing scenes for his character, following his on-screen serenade to estranged husband Robert (Ryan Hawley) with If You’re Not The One by Daniel Bedingfield, and his subsequent attempt to convey his emotions to long-lost son Lewis (Bradley Riches) through a rendition of Boyzone’s Father And Son.

Coghill said: “Do you know what, [producer] Laura Shaw did say to me the other week, do you want to do All I Want For Christmas Is You? And I said, if you keep me till Christmas 2029, I’ll do it then. That’s how my contract negotiations are going. But no, it’s excruciating. Horrible.

“If I could sing, I wouldn’t be an actor. If I could sing, I would have been in a band in the 1990s.”

Emmerdale airs weeknights at 8pm on ITV1 and STV, and is available to stream from 7am on ITVX, STV Player and YouTube.

Nick Offerman is more than just his facial hair. For one thing, the actor made viewers weep with his Emmy-winning turn as Bill, a man who found unexpected love in “The Last of Us.”

Then again, Bill did have a great beard.

Fans who celebrated Ron Swanson and his mustache on “Parks and Recreation” have had much to enjoy with the two roles that earned Offerman Emmy nominations this year. As Chester A. Arthur, corrupt politician-turned-surprise president in Netflix’s limited series “Death by Lightning,” and retired professional wrestler and recovering addict Jinx in the Apple TV series “Margo’s Got Money Troubles,” he had two powerful redemption arcs to navigate. As well as some mighty coifs.

“I pride myself on that,” he deadpans. “It’s not something you can learn. I literally come by it honestly because it’s what Mother Nature provided me. Benedict Cumberbatch got the cheekbones and the nimble, articulate language tools. I got whiskers, and shoveling, and slow talking. We all get our things.”

Nick Offerman as Chester A. Arthur in “Death By Lightning.”

(Larry Horricks/Netflix)

Speaking by video chat from the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, where he’s playing Eugene O’Neill opposite wife Megan Mullally’s Broadway diva in “Iceboy! The Musical,” Offerman is humble and erudite, poking fun at himself while praising colleagues. He is “sincerely gobsmacked” by the double nod. He is also fresh-faced, because he’s filming the Alex Garland film “Elden Ring” in London during his downtime. “Here is this meager little mustache that someone made me, and I glue it on every night,” he says, holding up two tiny hairy wings.

In contrast, Arthur’s mutton chops just won’t stop. “If a president is not thin and has facial hair, then it’s been suggested that I should play him,” Offerman says. “People send me all of them, you name it: McKinley, Harrison, Teddy Roosevelt.”

Of course, the actor goes beyond whiskers to create his roles. To play Arthur, he read “Destiny of the Republic” by historian Candice Millard, which the show is based on. He also read Scott Greenberger’s biography “The Unexpected President.”

But ultimately he found his character on the pages of creator Mike Makowsky’s scripts. “The incredible advantage of great writing is that they’ve answered a lot of the questions for you,” Offerman says, adding, “Makowsky told me that he had me in mind when he was writing it. Once you learn about Chester, you’re like, ‘That’s a mixed compliment.’”

Nick Offerman.

(Billy Delfs / For The Times)

He says working on “Death” was “exquisite,” likening the shoot to a camp for theater kids, delighting in the depth of talent in the cast, and recalling when he and star Michael Shannon, at the time performing plays together in Chicago, used to get up to youthful drunken shenanigans, “like climbing a building outside the L&L Tavern.”

Jinx would probably have enjoyed that in his early years. When we see him on “Margo,” he’s been brought low by pain, prescription drugs and a lost love (Michelle Pfeiffer), trying to make amends with his daughter Margo (Elle Fanning), who’s struggling with single parenthood.

“Jinx desperately wants to be a good guy, he wants to be a good dad, he wants to be a good lover,” says Offerman. “He wants to be the hero of any circumstance, but unfortunately he has these frailties that I know too well.”

Offerman trained for three months with bodybuilder Grant Roberts “to create the body of, thankfully, a former pro wrestler, so you don’t necessarily need terrific abs,” Offerman says. Then for three weeks during the shoot he worked with pro wrestler Chavo Guerrero Jr. “I’m a former fight choreographer for the stage, and I do my own stunts, so I’ve been waiting this whole time to play a swashbuckler. By the time we were done, I was flying off the top rope.”

The physical preparation helped him find his way into the role. “What I learned about pro wrestlers, who are incredibly generous and loving people, is that they are all hurt, all the time. They’re all performing through pain,” he notes. “So how can I summon everything I have to blow away this audience with superheroic energy, even though I’m just this dumb theater-school kid?”

Offerman with “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” co-stars Elle Fanning, center, and Michelle Pfeiffer.

(Apple TV)

Jinx’s look is also key to the portrayal. For present-day scenes, Offerman sports his own beard, with some color added. But for flashbacks, “they made my spray tan extra dark, gave me this gorgeous mane of hair and put some braids in my beard. I was just over the moon. People complain about three hours in the makeup chair. I don’t complain because someone is putting their masterpiece on my head. I have the tractor and the hay rack that they’re building their float on that’s going to win the Rose Bowl Parade. It’s such a privilege to get to drive their masterpiece around.”

He soon faced Fanning. “She’s such a badass professional. It was so fun because she inspires me to also be more flexible and creative.” He calls Pfeiffer “a cinematic Mt. Rushmore. That was very thrilling because I traditionally have not been cast as people who have heat with glamorous movie stars.” He giggles.

“I understand that I have value as a performer, but I still don’t get how I got this part,” he says, sounding a bit baffled. “This is the best part of my life. I’ve had some wonderful parts that I’m very grateful for, but I’ve never had scenes with such complicated emotional relationships.”

He adds a point that could apply to Chester Arthur as well. “It’s fun to be a protagonist who gets to indulge in human weakness, knowing that we hopefully will bring the audience back around to caring about you.”

In the summer of 2020, the year “Ted Lasso” debuted on Apple TV, the largest audience for a televised soccer match in the U.S. was 1.7 million. Shortly before the soccer-based sitcom returned for a fourth season last Wednesday, nearly 63 million viewers in the U.S. watched the World Cup final.

Brendan Hunt, the actor who plays Lasso’s loyal sidekick Coach Beard in the series, can’t prove the show is responsible for that growth. But since he can’t disprove it either, he’ll just go with the flow.

“I would love it if we’ve had a role at all,” he said. “If we are a pebble in that avalanche, then I’m happy.”

What the Emmy-winning series has undeniably done is bring soccer into millions of unsuspecting households that had previously avoided the sport like a plague. So while Jason Sudeikis, the star and co-creator, alongside Hunt, of “Ted Lasso,” insists the show is not about soccer, the sport sure gets a lot of screen time. And that has made the game more palatable and popular for a public that can now relate to it.

“We tricked them by putting soccer in a comedy show,” Hunt said. “The first thing you’ve got to do to get somebody to become a soccer fan is just make them care about one team, to find one team.

“In this instance we’ve made them care about this fictional team and that easily can transmute, if you’re not careful, into caring about other teams. And then hopefully the sport itself.”

After a three-year hiatus, “Lasso” returned for Season 4 last week with the series’ eponymous title character, played by Sudeikis, returning to Richmond to coach a fledgling second-division women’s team. Hunt’s understated character makes his first appearance of the season in Episode 2 Wednesday.

“He is clearly going through something,” Hunt said. “Is it just what happens to Beard when he’s away from Ted for too long or is there something important that has happened? We’ll find out before too long.”

Speaking of having gone through something, Hunt, who plays a fictional coach for a fictional team, spent the first part of his summer being a very real journalist at a very real tournament, attending 14 World Cup games in more than half a dozen stadiums — including the Spain-France semifinal in Arlington, Texas, which he watched from the press box, and the Spain-Argentina final, part of which he watched from field level.

“That was a really cool experience,” said Hunt, who did a World Cup podcast with Rebecca Lowe, the studio host of Fox’s tournament coverage.

But for Hunt, 54, the most passionate soccer fan among the writers and actors on “Ted Lasso,” the sport was an acquired taste. Half a lifetime ago, Hunt was a die-hard Chicago Bears fan working in residence with an improv group at a small, aging theater in Amsterdam when he got swept up in Dutch soccer culture.

Eventually, he said, he was contributing weekly columns to Sp!ts, a free commuter newspaper in Amsterdam, chronicling his growing infatuation with the sport. When Sudeikis, another Midwesterner, joined the comedy troupe, Hunt began proselytizing about the sport, using PlayStation games to draw in Sudeikis.

“I found a secret that I had to tell everybody,” Hunt said. “When Jason came to Amsterdam, by that point I was fully a zealot. It was like a new recipe. ‘This thing is great!’

“I’ve been doing it ever since. I just have a slightly larger platform from which to do it.”

That platform is “Ted Lasso,” based around a soft-drawling college football coach, and Beard, his quiet but intense assistant. The concept debuted in a 2013 promo for NBC’s coverage of the English Premier League, then launched as a full-blown sitcom during the angst and fear of the coronavirus pandemic seven years later.

The series, with its message of optimism, kindness and patience and its call to “be curious, not judgmental” — a sentiment Lasso mistakenly credits to Walt Whitman — proved to be the perfect tonic for those trying times. Before it paused after Season 3, it had become the most-watched original streaming series across all platforms and the first Apple TV show to cross the billion-minute mark in a single tracking week.

But in addition to all the messaging and positivity, the show also included soccer. The offside rule and promotion and relegation are the butts of repeated jokes and there are discussions of tactics, positions, formations and other game-related details that would have previously frustrated viewers.

“Lasso,” however, proved U.S. soccer IQ was higher than expected; the sport may not have become fully mainstream, but it was no longer a foreign concept.

“There’s just a wider sense of like, ‘yeah, we’re fine. Soccer’s fine,’” Hunt said of the U.S. public. “We don’t need to explain it to people or impress it upon people. The World Cup has sort of finally cemented that.

“It feels like less and less of a capital S struggle right now.”

Brendan Hunt, left, and Jason Sudeikis in “Ted Lasso.”

(Apple TV)

For Hunt, who has been a season-ticket holder for LAFC and Angel City, getting to be a credentialed World Cup journalist — and a participant in the halftime show at the final — were once such far-fetched dreams that they never even made his bucket list. Getting paid to write scripts for a project he’s passionate about, then act out those scripts as a make-believe coach, was once only slightly less unbelievable.

Yet Hunt has done it all — and after a three-year break he’s back doing it again.

“It’s definitely fun,” he said. “For one thing it makes me a little more useful in the writers’ room than I would be on ‘Grey’s Anatomy.’ And it also means that a world that I already really enjoy has now opened its arms to us.

“The world of football, to have responded so well to this show, has been truly a touching part of this experience.”

And no one can’t prove the show hasn’t played at least a small role in making the U.S. a soccer country at last.

A new mutual defence pact between Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan has raised questions about the shifting geopolitical landscape of the Middle East, where fallout from the US-Israel war on Iran has prompted some countries to seek new arrangements to safeguard their security.

The pact, termed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, was signed in the Saudi city of Mecca on Friday.

“The agreement is intended to strengthen collective deterrence against any act of aggression, and stipulates that any armed attack against any one of the three states shall be regarded as an attack against them all,” a statement from the meeting reads.

“It further provides for the enhancement of all aspects of defence cooperation among the three states.”

While it is not yet clear what such an agreement might look like in practice, analysts say the pact points to growing questions about the durability of US security guarantees.

“Regional states have harbored growing doubts about the reliability of the US security partnership for more than a decade,” Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a Middle East fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, told Al Jazeera over email.

“Both the decision to begin military operations against Iran and the subsequent conduct of the war and the on-off attempts to resolve it have only intensified those concerns and accelerated efforts to diversify security and defence relations.”

But, Ulrichsen added, building new defence pacts is likely not intended “to replace or supplant the US, but to provide additional strategic and policy options”.

Uncertainty over US role

While the administration of US President Donald Trump has yet to weigh in on the pact, analysts say the agreement is an effort by the three countries to reorient themselves after the turmoil of the Iran war.

“This is one of the first major geopolitical signs that the regional order is being reshaped by the US-Israeli war on Iran,” Sina Toossi, an analyst at the Center for International Policy, told Al Jazeera.

“The significance is less about a formal military alliance than about what it says regarding how regional states are reassessing security.”

Toossi pointed to the long-running alliance between the US and Saudi Arabia. For decades, the two countries have enjoyed a strong relationship, hinged on shared security interests. But the pact could be a sign that Saudi Arabia is looking to expand its security alliances.

“Rather than relying primarily on Washington, Saudi Arabia appears to be broadening its security partnerships and laying the groundwork for more intra-regional security arrangements,” Toossi explained. “That is arguably the most important takeaway.”

Media reports have also indicated that US partners in the Middle East were frustrated that the Trump administration had launched February’s war against Iran with little apparent thought to the impact on allies in the region.

Iranian forces have launched waves of missile and drone strikes against US military facilities in the Middle East, causing bystander casualties. Iran has also targeted civilian infrastructure, including energy and desalination plants.

Tehran’s decision to close the Strait of Hormuz, a key conduit for the region’s energy exports, has also imposed a steep cost on local economies.

Despite heavy strikes by the US and Israel, Iran has largely maintained its ability to restrict traffic through the strait, and Washington has struggled to provide partners with sufficient air defence munitions, many of which went to Israel.

‘Normative deterrence’

Under the circumstances created by the war, the longstanding reliance on Washington for security in the region has become more strained.

“It’s a fluid, tabula rasa era in the Middle East,” Brett McGurk, a key architect of Middle East policy under former US President Joe Biden, wrote in a social media post.

But analysts note that Friday’s security pact is best understood as an effort to supplement regional security cooperation with other countries and deter Iran.

“These countries are all US partners, and they recognise that there is no framework that can replace the United States,” Yasmine Farouk, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera.

Farouk added that it would also be a mistake to see the pact as a step towards greater confrontation with Iran.

She noted that all three countries involved have generally called for mediation and de-escalation since the US and Israel first launched their attacks on Iran in late February.

“What these countries have in common is that they are not seeking regional escalation,” she said, underscoring that the importance of the agreement might be something closer to “normative deterrence”.

Iran, she explained, has emerged from the war hardened and more confident in its ability to use force to advance its goals.

“There is a long-term perspective here on strategic cooperation, not just a deterrent effect.”

Marvel’s new X-Men team appears to be coming together.

“Heartstopper” star Kit Connor is reportedly Marvel Studios’ pick to play Scott Summers, the mutant hero also known as Cyclops, in its upcoming “X-Men” reboot. According to Deadline, the film’s director, Jake Schreier, and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige had met with a number of candidates before landing on the British actor.

Marvel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Cyclops is one of the leaders and founding members of the X-Men. He needs to wear special eyewear — usually goggles or glasses — to control the beams of energy that blast from his eyes. The character was previously portrayed by James Marsden in Fox’s original “X-Men” film trilogy (2000, 2003, 2006) as well as in the 2014 crossover “X-Men: Days of Future Past.” Tye Sheridan played a younger version of the character in “X-Men: Apocalypse” (2016) and “Dark Phoenix” (2019).

Marsden is among the original “X-Men” actors set to reprise their roles in the upcoming “Avengers: Doomsday.”

Connor’s casting follows recent reports that Samara Weaving has landed the role of Emma Frost in the upcoming “X-Men” film. Created by Chris Claremont and John Byrne for the comics, the mutant-villain-turned-hero is a powerful telepath also known as the White Queen. The character has previously appeared onscreen in “X-Men: First Class” (2011) portrayed by January Jones.

With his “X-Men” casting, Connor would join his fellow “Heartstopper” and “Heartstopper Forever” star Joe Locke in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Locke made his franchise debut as William Kaplan, a.k.a. Billy Maximoff, in the 2024 Disney+ series “Agatha All Along.”

These latest “X-Men” developments follow the debut of the MCU’s new Jean Grey, portrayed by Sadie Sink in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day.” Although no official announcements have been made regarding Sink’s future Marvel projects, she is expected to appear in the “X-Men” reboot.

The “X-Men” reboot is expected to land some time after next year’s “Doomsday” follow-up, “Avengers: Secret Wars.” In 2024, Feige told Entertainment Weekly that “the whole story of ‘Secret Wars’ really leads us into a new age of mutants and of the X-Men.”

TikTok said Wednesday it will close its Nashville office in October, laying off 250 workers.

The move is a retrenchment from the social video company’s expansion into Nashville in 2024 and comes as many tech companies are reevaluating their workforce amid the growth of artificial intelligence.

“We have decided to close our Nashville office to streamline our operations and better align our teams for long-term growth,” said TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, which oversees TikTok’s U.S. operations. “We remain fully committed to providing secure, safe and positive experiences for the 200 million Americans that create, discover and connect with what they love on TikTok.”

The decision was specific to the Nashville office to bring its teams closer together, according to a TikTok USDS Joint Venture spokesperson.

TikTok‘s U.S. operator notified the State of Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development about the number of layoffs and the office closure on Wednesday. The WARN notice did not detail what roles were at the office, but some jobs were related to content moderation, according to Nashville Metro Councilmember Terry Vo.

“I’m disappointed for all the Nashvillians who are waking up to this reality,” Vo said.

TikTok did not respond to questions on what types of roles were at the Nashville office or whether artificial intelligence was a factor for the layoffs.

TikTok in 2024 signed a 143,610 square foot lease at the Moore Building in the Music Row area, having spent several million dollars to build out the space, according to the Tennessean. The lease also roughly tripled its office space in Nashville, the Tennessean reported.

The social media company has its U.S. headquarters in Culver City.

In 2024, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) expressed disapproval of the TikTok office opening in Nashville because at that time, TikTok’s parent company was Chinese tech giant ByteDance.

“When TikTok’s CEO was in Washington, I made it clear to him that Tennesseans are extremely concerned about China’s influence,” Blackburn said in a statement in 2024, adding there were concerns about how the company would handle U.S. user data and whether it would push for the Chinese government’s interests.

Since then, the U.S. government, TikTok and ByteDance came to an agreement last year to establish a separate entity called TikTok USDS Joint Venture overseeing TikTok’s operations and data protection in the U.S. that is majority American owned.

A spokesperson for Blackburn did not immediately return a request for comment on TikTok’s office closure in Nashville.

Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Oregon-based Enderle Group, said he expects more layoffs at other TikTok U.S. office locations due to the new ownership.

“When a new ownership takes over a company, they make adjustments to the staffing levels,” Enderle said.

Maybe there is something in the fog. Matthew Rhys landed two Emmy nominations in different categories for darkly comedic and darkly chilling turns this TV season.

Rhys is nominated for lead actor in a comedy series for his deft performance as Tom Loftis, a single dad and the mayor of a cursed New England island who is trying to balance the town’s supernatural threats with his efforts to boost tourism, in Apple’s TV’s breakout horror-comedy series “Widow’s Bay.” The word-of-mouth buzz around the series, which premiered in April, intensified each week leading up to its finale last month and prompted chatter around its prospects as a major Emmys contender. The series arrived late in the season, so only its first seven episodes qualify for the 2026 awards cycle, but that was enough for Rhys to nab a nod.

It wasn’t the only performance from Rhys that voters boosted. He is also nominated for lead actor in a limited or anthology series for his role as the sociopath Nile Jarvis, a famed and formidable real estate developer who once was the prime suspect in the killing of his wife, in Netflix’s “The Beast in Me.” Nile finds himself in a cat-and-mouse dynamic with his new neighbor (Claire Danes), an author in search of her next book subject who is suspicious of his innocence.

Prior to this year’s nominations, Rhys received five Emmy nominations over his career, including for his lead roles in “The Americans” and “Perry Mason,” as well as a guest actor nod in “Girls.” He won in 2018 for his role as KGB spy Philip Jennings in “The Americans.”

The Times spoke with Rhys about his nomination; these are edited excerpts.

Matthew Rhys as Mayor Tom Loftis in Apple TV’s “Widow’s Bay.”

(Apple)

Congratulations on your exciting morning — it’s a big day in the Rhys-Russell household [Keri Russell, Rhys’ partner, is nominated for lead actress in a drama for her role in “The Diplomat”]. Let’s start with the most important question: What’s in the fog, Matthew?

[laughs] I love how it took me a moment. I was like, “Wait, what?” Oh, yes, the fog! What’s in the fog is an incredible Season 2.

Place me in the moment when you got the news.

I was in Brooklyn Bridge Marina at the time. I just got off a boat, and I thought, “Oh, God, it’s 11:40.” So I thought quite possibly [they] got to our categories. I checked my phone and there were the many texts. That was the exciting moment because if you haven’t been nominated, there’s no text.

Did one text stand out from the others?

The real pinch-me moment — this is going to sound like a real name drop — but it really got me emotional because I thought, if I’d have told my 18-year-old self that Gary Oldman would text me to congratulate me, I wouldn’t have believed it. That’s when it got me in an emotional way because he’s such a true hero.

Let’s start with “Widow’s Bay,” which recently wrapped its first season. There’s something so thrilling about how it broke through the way that it did. What has struck you about how viewers responded to this horror comedy?

There was a great degree of nervousness about how this would land, whether indeed it would land at all, and the fact that it has, and kind of the depth and the complex nature that’s landed or resonated with people in different ways, is what I’ve loved. Some people go, “Oh my God, it’s so funny”; some people say, “Oh my God, it’s terrifying” — some people say both. And some people pick up on the weirdest things, and then some people pick up on the most obvious, great things. But it’s the length and breadth and the variety of its resonances that has really made me very happy, and really made me doff my cap to [creator] Katie Dippold, for what she did.

What should networks and studios take away from the success of “Widow’s Bay” if they are really paying attention?

Take the risk. And challenge audiences. Everyone’s more than ready for it and thirsty for it in a real way. I really hope this does something in the Hollywood psyche, where they go, “Let’s put away the remakes and let’s just get after new challenging, original material.”

What guidance did you get from Katie about who Tom was and how to play him?

She’s dizzyingly collaborative, so she said, “Tom is yours.” It was more me going, “But what about this for Tom?” She would help, but she really said, “Tom is yours to create now. Everything I’ve done is on the page.” And it was. That’s the beauty of her writing. If you’re true to it, and you don’t get in the way of it, it sings.

The way Tom reacts to situations and people is such a master class in facial expressions. Did you recognize that would be your tool for your performance early on?

We had a kind of sliding scale — Hiro [Murai, executive producer and director], myself and Katie — because it was a departure for me. I’d go, “I don’t know where this lives or where reality lives.” And as much as anyone can say, “Play for real” — playing it for real can mean many things. It can mean a very minimal reaction, and it can mean a great reaction, and so there were times when I was like, “I’m gonna hit the sliding scale, and you let me know where it should be landing, or where, in your opinion, it’s landing in a real way.” Sometimes they were like, “Maybe a little less,” and then they were like “Maybe a little more.” That element of collaboration was wonderful too.

The moment on the boat is a GIF I send often. The jolt.

It’s funny, we have a great and incredible stunt coordinator Paul [Marini]. He said, “You have to lead where the momentum of the energy would be; it’d be your hips. So let your hips lead, and then let your body follow.” And I was like, “Oh, that’s smart.” Then if you do that, then it has a degree of comic effect to it. But my pelvis hasn’t quite recovered.

Matthew Rhys as Nile Jarvis opposite Claire Danes as Aggie Wiggs in Netflix’s “The Beast in Me.”

(Netflix)

Sort of like your dance moment in “The Beast in Me” — lead with the hips. This is your thing, Matthew.

Anytime, in the stage direction, it says “dances,” I’m like [mimics vomit sound]. That strikes ice in my veins because I’m always like, “Oh my God.”

That’s your horror comedy.

That is my true horror comedy because my dancing can be horrific and comical when it is to be neither.

Let’s talk about “The Beast in Me.” Nile Jarvis was also quite the departure from you. What was your entry point to understanding him and figuring out how chilling to make him?

It was a lot of YouTube watching, where you just type in “psychopaths” and stuff comes up. I read Jon Ronson’s “The Psychopath Test” and “The Journalist and the Murderer” [by Janet Malcolm]. The writing was so strong in “The Beast in Me,” so much of Nile was preemptively done for me. As [director] Antonio Campos said, “The trick might be not to do too much because enough has been said.” Everyone has this predisposed idea of who he is and, therefore, the idea we came up with was to do not as little as possible, but to be minimal with it because he’s aware of what everyone thinks of him and there’s a degree of enjoyment and relishing in that.

Have you been able to sensibly eat a roast chicken since?

No, not sensibly. It’s become Pavlovian for me now. When I eat roast chicken, I devour it in a slightly psychotic way. I love that scene. It’s an astute piece of writing to say so much about someone without words.

What would you be best suited to achieve: rebranding the town of Widow’s Bay as a tourist destination or charming your neighbors into signing paperwork for the construction of a running path through the backwoods of their properties?

I’m not saying I could charm the neighbors, but I would attempt to charm the neighbors. Playing Tom was exhausting in a way that playing Nile wasn’t. I always spent the end of the day on “Widow’s Bay” going, “My God, I’m exhausted” — because you’re just vibrating on a higher level with Tom. It’s always like, “Listen, please!” The pitch is always higher; you’re always like, “You’ve got to listen to me!” Or if you’re terrified, you’re just hyperventilating.

I know the news of these nominations is still fresh and I don’t want to tell you how to approach the big night, but I just have to say, this could be the moment you take a page from Philip Jennings of “The Americans” and come with a wig and getup so when they pan to you during both categories, you can make them feel distinct.

That’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to Jennings it. I’m going to PJ it. When it pans to me in the second category, I’m gonna look completely different. I’m going to be dressed as Elizabeth [Jennings].

Well, congratulations. How do you think you and Keri are going to celebrate?

Keri, in true “Americans” style, is having me meet her in a clandestine spot that I don’t know anything about, so who knows what. I don’t know what the afternoon is going to unfold, but it’s a big surprise. She might end up killing me, who knows.

RITA ORA’s fourth studio album is almost complete – but no one is quite sure what to expect from it.

Aside from her husband, Hollywood director Taika Waititi, that is.

Speaking to Bizarre’s Jack at a London screening to mark the 10th anniversary of his hit film, Hunt For The Wilderpeople, Taika said Rita’s long-awaited album was “amazing”.

He added: “This new record is incredible. I’ve heard a lot of it.

“It was such a departure from stuff that she’s probably known mostly for. It’s a different sound.”

Taika directed the sultry video for Rita’s latest ­single, All Natural, and also directed and starred in the video for 2023’s Don’t Think Twice.

HEART RIGHT NOW

Rita Ora wows in red gown as she reunites with Taika Waititi on red carpet

RAGING RITA

Rita Ora fuming as gig is cancelled at last minute due to thunderstorm

Getting Oscar-winner Taika to work on your project can’t come cheap, but Taika assured us with a wink that he and Rita had come to an arrangement.

He chuckled: “There is a very mates’ rates deal going on. I think it’s been free each time. It’s just fun to get to work together.

“It’s great because we’re kind of in similar ­industries, but they’re very different disciplines – and when you’re with someone, you want to be able to do some work together.

“I’m really amazed and surprised at what she does, but also super- confused all the time.”

Taika masterminded two of Marvel’s biggest hits – Thor: Ragnarok in 2017 and Thor: Love And Thunder in 2022.

He also plays the alien Korg in the films.

Taika admits that he’d love Marvel book bosses to sign up Rita for a role alongside him one day.

He said: “Younger me would like to see a Bond Girl Rita, but I think I’d find it more fun to see her doing a Marvel film.

“It would be great to see her as a villain.” Watch this space . . . 

RAYE’S GLOWING WITH PRIDE

CHRISTMAS came early for Raye fans as she took to the stage in a sparkly red dress.

The Where Is My Husband! singer wouldn’t have looked out of place at a festive party as she headlined Brighton Pride on Saturday.

Her bill-topping set followed epic performances from Jessie J and Leigh-Anne ­Pinnock.

The Little Mix singer kept cool in a yellow bikini top and combat trousers – putting her growing baby bump on display.

She is expecting her third child with footballer husband Andre Gray. They had twin girls in 2021.

Brighton hosts the UK’s biggest Pride festival, but it is dwarfed by WorldPride, which took place in Amsterdam over the weekend.

Going all out to impress, organisers in the Netherlands somehow managed to land Madonna to perform.

She owned the Dutch stage in a bright purple corset and matching boots.

Taking camp to the next level, Madge was joined for her epic set by Kylie Minogue, who sang with Nick Cave at his Brighton gig on Friday.

Rumours are rife that the duo have a song together on a remix edition of Madonna’s latest album, Confessions II.

We should be so lucky . . . 

ARIANA’S IN FULL BLOOM

ARIANA GRANDE is dominating this week’s Official Chart First Look.

The One Last Time singer is on track to land three songs from her new album, Petal, inside the UK Top 20.

The album’s title track and second single, Petal, is currently at No3, while Kiss Me is at No6 and Stay sits at No11.

The album was streamed 62million times on its first day of release on Spotify, making it the platform’s 16th biggest first-day album debut by a female artist.

Ariana’s 2019 album, Thank U, Next, remains her biggest first-day debut, with 70million streams in its first 24 hours.

MUSIC guru Chris Herbert is the man who discovered the Spice Girls more than 30 years ago, and now he’s backing another feisty young act, Allegra.

She is gearing up to drop a new project called Unreleased EP on August 21 and has her sights set on collabs with top stars.

Allegra, right, said: “I’d love to work with someone like Rita Ora. We’d have so much fun. She’s got such cool style and I think we’d just have fun.”

Opening up about how she ­performs best, she added: “I like it when I’m feeling a bit sexy.

“I think I’m a bit angry at, like, a situationship or an ex- boyfriend, I’m looking hot in the music video and I’m like, ‘OK, I’ve got this’.”

1D GOING IN RIGHT DIRECTION

DURING their heyday, One Direction were a money-making machine.

And even though the That’s What Makes You Beautiful singers split up back in 2016, the cash keeps rolling in.

New accounts for the band, made up of Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson and the late Liam Payne, have revealed they each made £2,636 a week last year.

And to top it off, they had to do absolutely no work for it.

Their two firms, 1D Media Ltd and PPM Music Ltd, are now worth a combined £3,814,044 – up more than £687,000 from the previous year.

It’s not a bad life, eh?

Vincent Pastore, best known for playing gangster informant Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero on HBO’s “The Sopranos,” has died. He was 80.

Pastore was found dead in his Bronx residence Saturday by a friend who did a wellness check after he had not been heard from for three days, his manager Steve Atterman confirmed to The Times. No cause of death was revealed.

While Pastore was best known for his time on the HBO drama starring the late James Gandolfini, he was often cast as an Italian American bad guy in other film and TV projects. His early credits include “Goodfellas,“ “Carlito’s Way” and “The Jerky Boys: The Movie.” He also appeared in the 1996 HBO TV movie “Gotti,” alongside future “Sopranos” co-stars Tony Sirico, Dominic Chianese and Frank Vincent.

A New York native, Pastore was born on July 14, 1946, in the Bronx. He fought in the Vietnam War and went on to graduate from Pace University with a degree in drama. He spent most of his young adulthood running bars and nightclubs in New Rochelle.

He didn’t get into acting until he was in his 40s in the late ‘80s at the encouragement of acting siblings Matt and Kevin Dillon. In a 1999 interview with The Times, Pastore offered his thoughts on why the brothers saw potential in him: “I guess because I looked like a gangster!”

“They used to live in a nearby town, and they used to come to my club a lot, and I became good friends with these guys,” Pastore said. “Kevin brought me down to meet his manager, and I had an interview. I took acting classes and some classes in college, but I didn’t have a clue how to break into film and the New York business. The agent gave me a guidepost, and I started doing some independents and a lot of theater. I started to study acting at 42!”

Pastore appeared in nearly 200 movies and TV projects, and twice in singing roles on Broadway (2007’s “Chicago” and 2014’s “Bullets Over Broadway” productions). But it was his role in David Chase’s 1999 drama “The Sopranos” that became his signature role.

Big Pussy was seminal to the show’s lore as Tony’s longtime best friend and trusted mob enforcer; his betrayal in becoming an FBI informant led to his murder and became one of the show’s most memorable scenes early in the show’s run.

Given his propensity to be cast as a mobster, Pastore was once asked whether he ever considered turning down a job because he thought it portrayed Italian Americans in a bad light.

“No, I haven’t turned any work down,” he told The Times. “The only time I turned work down is when I can’t do it because of ‘The Sopranos.’ I don’t think I am in a position [to turn down work] … when you got a daughter in grad school and you are paying her expenses, it’s pretty hard to turn a job down…You just hope the films are going to be good.”

Pastore is survived by his daughter, Renee.

Spoiler alert: This post contains details from the new film “Spider-Man: Brand New Day.”

Apparently Tom Holland isn’t the only “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” creative with a bad habit of accidentally spoiling movies.

Grammy winner Steve Lacy joined the festivities during the film’s Hollywood premiere on Monday, detailing more than just his original song for the latest “Spider-Man” flick. The “Oh Yeah” and “Bad Habit” singer also allegedly spilled the beans on “Stranger Things” alumna Sadie Sink‘s “Spider-Man” character, which Marvel has kept tightly under wraps. Lacy delivered the accidental reveal while speaking with Twitch star Valkyrae, who hosted the film’s official red carpet stream. During Monday’s carpet, Valkyrae asked Lacy to name his favorite character from the movie “without spoiling anything,” according to video shared on social media.

“Jean. I like Jean,” he responds, “she’s the villain but, like, there’s a reason to her madness.” After Valkyrae asks whether his answer was a spoiler, Lacy seemingly tones down his enthusiasm for the character. “I like her character. I don’t know why.”

Lacy didn’t quite link Sink with this mystery Jean. Still, it’s worth noting that Sink’s role has been the subject of much speculation, with fans suspecting she would play Marvel-verse X-Men telekinetic and telepath Jean Grey. Sink would be the third actress to play the role, after Famke Janssen and “Game of Thrones” alumna Sophie Turner. (Another Marvel universe Jean is Jean De Wolff, a Spider-Man ally who was a police detective and captain.)

“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” will also see Tom Holland, Zendaya and Jacob Batalon reprise their roles and also features Mark Ruffalo and Jon Bernthal among others. Holland recently starred alongside Zendaya and Bernthal in Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey.”

The trailer, released in March, shows Peter/Spider-Man (Holland) reeling as he struggles to reconnect with his friends. To his dismay, MJ (Zendaya) has a new man in her life. As in the previous films, Peter attempts to balance his personal woes with superhero struggles — but he’ll have another Avenger in his corner. The clip shows Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner (a.k.a. the Hulk) guiding Peter through an “enormously dangerous” physical evolution and teases several baddies, including Bernthal’s antihero Punisher.

Sink has been all-in on the “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” press tour, managing to keep tight-lipped about her role. Earlier this month, Marvel shared playful videos of Sink somewhat discussing her role to help stave off eager fans’ curiosity. In one clip, she provides “Spider-Man” fans with three incredibly helpful clues: She does not play Spider-Man, she does not play Aunt May (who perished in “Spider-Man: No Way Home”) and she is definitely in the latest movie.

When it comes to spoiling “Spider-Man” and other Marvel films, it often seems like the call is coming from inside. Over the years, Holland has gained a reputation for his loose lips, spoiling plot details from “Spider-Man” and “Avengers” films.

Maybe accidental spoilers are just par for the course?

“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” hits theaters, with showings on Thursday leading into Friday’s release.

AMMAN, Jordan — When Iranian ballistic missiles repeatedly struck Jordan last week, killing three American service members and wounding dozens of others, it brought the spotlight on a U.S. military presence the government of this desert kingdom has long worked to downplay.

Jordan has been a decades-long military and counterterrorism partner with the United States, opening its territory over the years to U.S. and other Western troops in their engagements throughout the region. But faced with a population that is overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian and suspicious of the U.S. for its all-out support of Israel, the government had kept those relationships at a low profile.

But now, Jordan’s growing role in the United States’ war with Iran — and the intensifying Iranian retaliation that role invites — is spurring uncomfortable conversations for the government.

“Jordanians are trapped in a dilemma: They’re being dragged into a war they didn’t want, but the cause of that war is ironically the ally they bargained with to protect them in the first place,” said Sean Yom, a professor of political science and Jordan expert at Temple University who wrote the book “Jordan: Politics in an Accidental Crucible.”

“So they’re asking what’s the wisdom of having this geopolitical bargain with a patron like the U.S. when one of the sources of our instability is the relationship that’s supposed to guarantee our security.”

Since the ceasefire broke down July 8 and the U.S. began launching near-daily waves of strikes on Iran, Jordan has been targeted on nine occasions, with ballistic missiles and drones hitting U.S. assets and facilities and endangering some 4,000 service members at a number of Jordanian military bases across the country.

One of those salvos, on July 17, hit a housing unit in Muwaffaq Al-Salti, a Jordanian base in the country’s east, killing three U.S. service members and wounding at least four others. Also attacked were King Faisal Airbase, Prince Hassan Airbase and the airport in Aqaba.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed the strikes not only killed and wounded dozens of U.S. military personnel, but also damaged drones, helicopters, F-15 preparation hangars, radar sites, missile defense systems and munitions depots.

More worryingly for Jordan, the IRGC issued statements thanking “honorable people” in Jordan for providing “sincere cooperation and precise information,” which it said enabled it to target and kill “dozens of American terrorist forces.”

“Seize every opportunity to dismantle American institutions and expel the American occupation army from Jordan,” one of the statements said.

As word of the attacks spread, Jordan’s government, normally reticent about foreign military deployments in the country, embarked on damage control.

Officials and members of parliament swiftly condemned Tehran for violating the country’s sovereignty, while the foreign ministry summoned Iran’s charge d’affaires in Amman, the Jordanian capital, and demanded Iran cease attacks on the kingdom. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, meanwhile, rejected Iran’s claim that the U.S. has bases in the country.

“There are no American bases in Jordan. We have American troops that are in Jordan as part of our long-standing military cooperation,” he said at the Aspen Security Forum earlier this month. Safadi was referring to the 2021 defense agreement that allows U.S. forces unfettered access to 12 facilities in Jordan, including five air bases; the agreement was approved via royal decree and bypassed parliament.

“Their presence is governed by a defense agreement that fully respects our sovereignty,” he said.

Yet government statements didn’t do much to allay concerns. Though many Jordanians have little love for Iran, more than 300 politicians, academics, lawyers, retired military officers and tribal leaders signed an open letter last week calling on the government to withdraw from the defense agreement and keep Jordanian installations neutral — a bold move in a country where opposition to government policies (especially in security matters) can be a red line.

“Jordan is not a party to this war. Its people should not have to bear the consequences or pay the price for policies that do not serve the nation’s supreme interests,” the letter said.

“We urge the avoidance of the dangers associated with aligning ourselves under the American umbrella; this requires adopting a policy of genuine neutrality, based on refraining from any military or logistical involvement that serves any party to the conflict.”

Another sign of popular anger came Sunday: When one member of parliament exhorted the body to send condolences to Congress for the killing of the U.S. service members, others shouted him down, saying the legislature wasn’t a funeral parlor to console “criminals” and “child killers,” in reference to the United States’ support for Israel in Gaza.

Jordan grapples with questions similar to those facing its gulf neighbors, all of which rely on the U.S. security umbrella that has exposed their nations to Iranian attack. But those countries’ oil riches afford them leverage to push back on the U.S. presence, while Jordan — a resource-poor nation of some 11 million people — cannot.

The conflict, meanwhile, has only compounded Jordan’s economic woes. Tourism, which official figures say accounts for almost 15% of the country’s GDP and had just begun to recover from the 2023 Gaza war, has cratered since the start of military operations against Iran. One month after the war, gas prices rose by 11%, a body blow for Jordan’s perpetually anemic economy.

All that has made the kingdom ever more reliant on U.S. largesse. Washington gives Amman roughly $1.45 billion annually, including around $800 million that go straight to government coffers for budgetary support. It would be hard pressed to substitute that level of support from Europe or elsewhere, experts say.

At the same time, Jordan has become a vital nerve center for U.S. forces. The U.S. military has since 2019 spent hundreds of millions of dollars on upgrades for Muwaffaq Al-Salti and other facilities, according to U.S. federal contracting documents, laying aircraft aprons, taxiways, munitions depots and other infrastructure.

Satellite imagery of those bases from 2019 onward show significant construction and an increasing presence of U.S. assets, including F-16s, F-18s, drones and helicopters.

Now, with U.S. troops deployed in gulf nations proving vulnerable to Iranian barrages, Pentagon planners have transferred assets to locations farther away from Iran, especially Jordan.

In recent days, despite a pause in operations against Iran, flight tracking sites showed brisk U.S. military traffic, with logistical aircraft — including the massive C-17 Globemaster and KC-35 fueling tankers — making repeated trips between Jordan and U.S. military hubs in Europe.

As performers protest and studios sue in their war on artificial intelligence, the entertainment industry is deepening its dependence on it.

Although few places are better than Hollywood at crafting a narrative and concealing what happens off-frame, a Los Angeles Times survey of job postings sheds light on what is happening offstage.

Among hundreds of job postings in late June, more than one in 10 was likely connected to AI. The top studios’ public postings suggest they have been recruiting people to build AI tools. They are also recruiting teams to defend their intellectual property against unauthorized AI use.

“There are plenty of studios that are hiring [for AI] but never talk about it in public,” said Yoland Yan, a co-founder of ComfyUI, a company that helps studios juggle different AI tools.

Companies have been hesitant to detail how they use generative AI in film production — partly because they are concerned about consumer and union backlash.

The Walt Disney Studios complex on May 3 in Burbank.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

Some in Hollywood described AI use as the new cosmetic surgery, where everyone knows it is happening, but few will admit to it.

Recent want ads show Amazon MGM Studios trying to find a principal AI executive and Walt Disney Studios advertising for a production innovation technologist job.

“What you’re seeing in those job postings is that adoption is already happening,” said Bryn Mooser, chief executive of Asteria, an AI film studio.

Netflix recently posted a job that didn’t exist a year ago.

The streamer was hiring for the role of “Manager, Generative Workflows,” a job to help integrate more AI into Netflix films. It promised hands-on experience with the cutting-edge technology.

“The industry is flooded with speculative GenAI roadmaps, but few are battle-tested in production,” the post said, referring to generative AI. The post said the role will work on introducing AI into Netflix’s slate of films being released in the U.S. and Canada.

Although some companies may be shy about sharing their AI plans, big stars who don’t have to answer to others have been more open about their embrace of the new technology for storytelling.

An exterior view of the Netflix sign at Netflix on Vine in Hollywood in 2025.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

Rejecting AI is like picking a horse and buggy over a car, said “Star Wars” creator George Lucas.

“Artificial intelligence means it’s much easier for us to make movies,” he told a trade magazine earlier this year. “There’s nothing you can do about it. That’s progress. It’s the future.”

Some in Hollywood have a softer stance on artificial intelligence, with studios cutting deals with AI companies, and filmmakers like Martin Scorsese backing AI companies.

Ben Affleck launched an AI film tech company then sold it to Netflix for half a billion dollars.

When launching InterPositive, Affleck said he wanted to keep “storytelling human” by building AI tools that could fix lighting, generate missing shots and other things while “keeping creative decisions in the hands of artists.”

The Times’ survey turned up two senior InterPositive roles to update the programming to apply AI to visual effects .

The Culver Studios on Feb. 12 in Culver City.

(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)

To gauge what is happening behind the scenes, The Times used Claude Code to build a scraper to identify job postings at Disney, Universal, Paramount, Warner Bros., Sony, Netflix and Amazon MGM. It found around 250 film studio job postings that were still public as of late June. Around 30 of those seemed to be connected to AI.

Disney, Netflix and Amazon had job postings that were about using AI on the creative side of the business. Universal, Paramount, Warner Bros. and Sony had job ads suggesting they were also using AI but for marketing, distribution and audience analytics.

The postings suggest the Disney, Netflix and Amazon studios are building repeatable AI workflows for visual effects, animation, sound and dubbing. The companies also seem to be building in-house teams to develop custom generative-AI models, while also using third-party software.

None of the jobs advertised were to create AI that wrote scripts or created AI actors.

Disney’s ten or so AI jobs showed the century-old studio building out its AI research and production muscle, while protecting its vault of beloved characters.

Mouse House is hiring PhD-level talent to study “computer graphics and AI” for Pixar and Disney films, people to “bridge the gap between research and practical studio application.”

Industrial Light & Magic, the Disney-owned visual effects shop, was searching for supervisors to “explore emerging technologies (including AI/Machine Learning)” to develop new production workflows.

The company’s audio post-production unit, Skywalker Sound, seemed to be recruiting to build proprietary AI models for soundtracks, voice separation, and voice transfer, the process of taking a speaker’s tone and pitch, and applying it to new content.

Disney was also hiring to defend itself. Three of its jobs were for “content security” to assess AI tools and guard against piracy, watermarking and rights-protection work.

The company’s public posture has so far been pursuing lawsuits against AI companies for inappropriate use of copyrighted material, and it pulled out of its plans to invest $1 billion in an equity investment deal with OpenAI.

Netflix’s posts suggested it is bringing more AI to the creative side of its business.

Netflix’s senior director of creative innovation, Girish Balakrishnan, outlined at the Runway AI film festival how AI was used to create soccer fans in “Brazil ’70” and establish shots for fight scenes in “Glory.”

Amazon, an early adopter, was hiring a principal AI executive to drive AI-tool adoption across production, plus roles in operations automation and LLM content classification, the listings revealed.

The Seattle-based streamer has been the most aggressive AI adopter in studios, and commissioned three AI animation series through its GenAI creator fund in May. Amazon has also bankrolled a Manhattan Beach production services company, Innovative Dream.

Even as studios build bigger AI teams, many in the industry are resisting, and some film fans are concerned.

The actors’ guild SAG-AFTRA in June ratified a new four-year contract with special protections against synthetic performers, and the union has backed a national bill designed to protect individuals from unauthorized, AI-generated digital replicas.

Studios have met with the union twice a year since 2023 to provide a confidential report on their AI-related activities. The studios tell the union they aren’t yet using AI that would entirely replace humans, said a person familiar with the discussions.

The union says it has no evidence that generative AI is being used to create performances, and the studios are supposed to notify the union if that happens.

Actors, writers, production staff and movie fans are still resistant to the overuse of AI and defining when and where it is acceptable, so studios are treading lightly, said AI film studio CEO Mooser.

“It’s been really a challenging thing to adopt both socially, ethically and legally, but we are seeing more adoption of it than we’ve ever seen before,” he said.

Issy Wong takes three wickets to help Southern Brave make it two wins from two in the women’s Hundred, as they beat Sunrisers Leeds by five wickets at Headingley.

WATCH MORE: ‘What a ball!’ – Wonderful Wong gets three for the Southern Brave

Available to UK users only.

MUNICH, Germany — Nicholas Brownlee had just fallen in love with opera and was eager to see if his emerging bass-baritone voice could handle Richard Wagner’s music. It did not go well.

“I kept reading how you have to wait to sing this big repertoire,” Brownlee said. But there was one bit of Wagner — Wolfram’s “Song to the Evening Star” from “Tannhäuser” — that’s “a little bit lighter. I figured it was more appropriate.”

So he brought it to his teacher, Thomas Rowell, at the University of South Alabama and asked what he thought.

“I just laughed at him and told him to go away,” Rowell recalled. “He knew that big voice was there, and he was so eager to try on the clothes, but they didn’t fit for a while. It was still a very young instrument.”

Reminded of that exchange nearly 20 years later, Brownlee smiles. “I was a bit ambitious,” he said. “But this was just me.”

Now that ambition — what he calls “a fire in my belly that burns brighter every day,” — has helped propel Brownlee to the very top of his profession at age 37. And he’s done it by singing a lot of Wagner.

Brownlee recently made his debut as Wotan, embattled king of the gods, in “Die Walküre” at the Bavarian State Opera House, part two of a complete “Ring” cycle directed by Tobias Kratzer. He had previously sung the role in “Das Rheingold,” the opera that opens the cycle.

The critics reached for superlatives. “A heroic baritone straight out of a textbook,” wrote Markus Thiel in Merkur, “with a powerful, resonant voice, a force of nature.” Carlota Moseguí in Platea Magazine praised his voice and said Brownlee “possesses all the qualities to become the definitive Wotan of his generation.”

Next, Brownlee heads to the Wagner shrine in Bayreuth, Germany, where he will star as the title character in “Der Fliegende Holländer” (“The Flying Dutchman.”) And his upcoming season is one Wotan after another.

“It’ll be ‘Siegfried’ time in Munich, then ‘Walküre’ time in Buenos Aires, then ‘Rheingold’ time in Barcelona,” he said. Add to that two of the “Ring” operas in Frankfurt and then two complete cycles next summer back in Munich.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing to have a student who goes that far, especially from a small regional state university like ours,” said Rowell, who remains close friends with Brownlee and officiated his wedding to mezzo-soprano Jennifer Feinstein. “I have to pinch myself. I’m enjoying it vicariously.”

Does Brownlee worry at all about damaging his voice from so much heavy singing?

“I don’t think you’re supposed to say this, but no, not really,” he replied. “We like to put this big stamp on Wagner and say ‘Be Careful!’” But he said he finds the demands of each opera different enough to help him avoid burnout.

Still, he promises that his roles the following season will be more varied, including a return to one of his favorites — Baron Scarpia in Puccini’s “Tosca.” And down the road are two Verdi roles — the villainous Iago in “Otello” and the comic Falstaff.

Of the latter, he said, “I want to flex a different muscle. I talk fast, I’m a bubbly, fun guy, but what I do on stage is so serious all the time. Boy it would be fun to just be a jolly fat guy!”

Just how did a boy from a working-class family in a small town outside Mobile, Ala., become one of a handful of go-to singers in the world for these demanding roles?

His first success as a vocalist actually came as the youngest grandchild in a large extended family, performing Conway Twitty imitations to grab attention. Classical music had to wait until he fell under the spell of his high school choral director.

When he went to college, he planned to study conducting, but Rowell heard him sing and cajoled him into joining the Mobile Opera chorus.

“I went in the first day and I hated it,” Brownlee recalled. “I said, this is in Italian, who cares? That’s for stuffy elite people, not for us blue-collar fellas.”

Still, his curiosity made him determined to figure out why some people loved the art form. So he sat by the side of the stage one night to watch the emotional final scene of Verdi’s “La Traviata,” when the heroine dies after being reunited with her lover.

“When she said, ‘O, gioia!’ and she fell into his arms, and now she’s dead, Alfredo’s weeping over her, and Germont is feeling half-responsible, I was weeping uncontrollably,” he said. “And I didn’t even know what they were saying.”

That’s when he started taking voice lessons, and from there followed years of study and apprenticeships both in the U.S. and later in Germany. Along the way he competed twice in the Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Auditions.

The first time, still in his early 20s, he made it to the semifinals in New York. “I did not go on to the finals, which was absolutely correct,” he said. “Failure is a great lesson.” (Coincidentally, one of the winners that year was Ryan Speedo Green, who performed Wotan in May at Walt Disney Hall and will bein the Met’s upcoming “Ring” cycle.)

Brownlee returned in 2015, and this time he took home one of the top prizes. Other awards have followed, including in 2025, best male singer at the International Opera Awards and the Richard Tucker Award for most promising American singer.

Yet this American singer is still barely known to most opera audiences in his native country. Brownlee’s career has so far been largely in Germany, where he and Feinstein are raising their two daughters and are currently applying for dual citizenship.

“I can perform anywhere in Europe and be home in two hours to see my girls,” he said. “In America that’s just not something you can do.”

He may be rooted in Europe for now, but major U.S. houses are beckoning with increasing urgency.

When he appeared at Chicago’s Lyric Opera this past spring as the prophet Jochanaan in Richard Strauss’ “Salome,” general director John Mangum called his performance “absolutely thrilling.” He said Brownlee is “definitely going be at the top of our list” as the company charts its future Wagner performances.

And Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, who heard him sing a major role for the first time during the Munich run of “Walküre,” said “I was blown away. … We’ll definitely be offering him big roles at the Met in upcoming seasons.”

Silverman writes for the Associated Press.

United States President Donald Trump has joined criticism of England’s tactics in their World Cup semi-final loss to Argentina, by questioning Harry Kane’s second-half “defensive” role.

Manager Thomas Tuchel’s second-half substitutions have been criticised by pundits and supporters following the 2-1 defeat, as Argentina scored two late goals to set up Sunday’s final against Spain (20:00 BST).

BBC Sport reported on Thursday how a number of key players had been left disappointed at how England were instructed to finish the game having taken the lead through Anthony Gordon.

Tuchel reverted to a back five and made a number of defensive-minded substitutions in the closing stages as Lionel Messi inspired a dramatic comeback.

“You have a great player in England who I’ve played golf with. And he is Harry [Kane] who has been fantastic,” said Trump.

“I think they perhaps made a mistake when they made him a defensive player. What do I know about soccer? They took the lead, and they took their best player and put him on defence.

“We got to be a little offensive, right. But no, I’m not going to call it, what do I know about coaching? But that was a little unusual.”

Tuchel was quick to brush off Trump’s criticisms when mentioned to him in a news conference later.

Speaking at Trump Tower during a reception on Friday, the president also spoke about the moment he asked Fifa to review USA striker Folarin Balogun’s one-match suspension.

Balogun, 25, was set to miss his side’s last-16 tie against Belgium after being shown a straight red card for a foul on Bosnia-Herzegovina defender Tarik Muharemovic in the previous round.

But Fifa made the shock decision to suspend the automatic one-match ban for 12 months, leading to widespread criticism.

Trump said: “This has been a tournament like no other. Filled with fierce competition, unforgettable moments. Probably the most unforgettable is when they gave that gentleman… is it a red card?

“And I was forced to call Gianni [Infantino]. I said ‘Gianni, I’d like to make a recommendation. Let the guy in the game!’ No, I didn’t say that. I said I’d like to wage a complaint.

“And actually I had no idea what was going to happen, but you know it is so much better the way it worked out because there is no controversy. [Belgium] won the game and our team had all of its players. You made another great decision if you think about it, but you’ll never get credit for it.”

Trump also thanked Fifa president Infantino and described the World Cup in the US, Mexico and Canada as “the most successful sporting event, maybe in the history of the world”.

Infantino said the World Cup had “exceeded expectations”.

“The American dream, Mr President, came to reality. We united the world in America,” he said.

“This is not just the greatest World Cup of all times, it is the greatest human, social and cultural event that mankind has ever witnessed and we are all part of it and for this I thank you very much, Mr President.”

Death in Paradise star Danny John-Jules is unrecognisable as a taxi driver in new BBC comedy Ann Droid, starring alongside Diane Morgan

Actor Danny John-Jules became a firm fan-favourite on Death in Paradise.

He became one of the original cast members when the crime-drama first kicked off in 2011 as Officer Dwayne Myers.

The actor played the role for seven years before his departure in 2018. Yet devotees of the BBC programme have witnessed him reprise his role intermittently over the years, with his most recent appearance coming in the 2024 Christmas special.

Despite handing in his badge upon leaving, fans remain optimistic he might make a comeback in a forthcoming series.

However, in the meantime, he appears in a new BBC comedy, Ann Droid.

It charts the story of lonely widower Sue (Sue Johnston) whose son Michael (Paul Ready) opts to purchase her an AI eldercare robot to provide companionship and ensure her wellbeing.

Yet the robot she chooses to name Linda (Diane Morgan), receives a frosty reception as Sue makes her feelings abundantly clear that she doesn’t want a robot under her roof.

Throughout the six episodes, audiences will witness an unexpected friendship develop between the two as the series explores themes of loneliness, bereavement, humanity versus technology, and growing older, reports the Express.

While the opening episode broadcasts on Friday (July 17), all instalments are ready to stream on BBC iPlayer, with a well-known face making an appearance in episode two.

As Sue encounters her mate Eileen (Kathryn Hunter) waiting for a cab to transport her to her aunt’s 108th birthday celebration, the driver who arrives turns up in a vehicle looking somewhat battered.

The taxi driver, called Brian is portrayed by Death in Paradise’s Danny John-Jules. While Sue points out the hazards of his motor, Eileen tells her to calm down as Brian has been ferrying her about for more than 40 years.

He responds: “And I’ve only been sober for the last five!” Subsequently, Brian shows up once more when he brings Eileen back to meet Sue and Linda.

Before departing, he remarks: “Oh, I need some more customer reviews. Preferably ones above the two stars I’m getting at the moment. Would you mind?

“Oh, and don’t mention I got lost and had four pints at lunch or that I ran out of petrol and we had to walk the last 2km, ok?”

Ann Droid is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

London — It’s a scorching day and the city feels blanketed by the heat. Even the unusually strong air conditioning in a suite at the Raffles hotel is no match for the temperature. Octavia Spencer immediately peels off her jacket after entering the room and realizing there are no cameras present for our interview. Hannah Waddingham, her co-star in “Ride or Die,” kicks off her heels as they settle onto a plush sofa.

“You’ve seen that we look nice,” Spencer says. “So now we can do this.”

There’s a relaxed, familiar vibe between the actors. They didn’t know each other prior to filming the series, now streaming on Prime Video, but they did develop a real-life friendship during production in Prague last year. It was perhaps inevitable considering that “Ride or Die,” created by Tessa Coates, is about two best friends whose relationship is upended when one of them is revealed to be a professional assassin.

Spencer, 56, plays Debbie Claybourne, a lawyer whose career has been put on hold due to her British husband David’s political aspirations. The actor was approached by Skydance, now part of Paramount, as part of a development deal with the studio. She said yes almost immediately, and by happenstance both she and the producers imagined Waddingham, 51, in the role of Judith Burton, a skilled assassin who works for a shady organization run by the Director (Bill Nighy).

“It was always just the two of us for these roles,” says Spencer, who won an Oscar in 2012 for “The Help.” “We did a Zoom and I was sitting there thinking, ‘I hope she says yes.’”

In “Ride or Die,” Spencer plays Debbie, a lawyer and wife of a British politician, who is best friends with secret assassin Judith, played by Waddingham. (Dusan Martincek / Prime)

“It’s Octavia Spencer and I’m thinking, ‘Be cool, be cool,’” Waddingham chimes in. “Octavia and Tessa start telling me the plot and at the end I said, ‘Who the hell are you going to get to play Judith?’ Octavia’s face filled the whole screen and she said, ‘We want to make you Judith, dummy.’”

Each professes to be a fan of the other, but Spencer is particularly effusive. She admits to initially having to remind herself that Waddingham is, in fact, an actual person and not Rebecca Welton, her character on “Ted Lasso.” She turns to her co-star. “We know you’re a brilliant comedian, but you also showed us in ‘Game of Thrones’ this depth,” Spencer tells Waddingham, adding, “With her beauty and that statuesque presence she has, this role was literally written with a woman of her caliber in mind.”

Waddingham turns red. “I’m not good when she does this,” she admits.

“Well, it’s very true,” Spencer responds. “I think it was kismet. I knew it was meant to be when we were at the upfronts for Amazon and we were in the wings with Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon, just chatting it up. I’ve always had severe stage fright. They walked out and I got really quiet, centered myself, and then I felt these arms around me. She wrapped me up from behind, and it was like, ‘OK, I’m good.’ That’s what it has felt like this entire process.”

Waddingham’s memory of that day, her second time meeting Spencer after their first call, is slightly different. “Octavia is so established in Hollywood,” she says. “I’m still a newcomer in this town. So I was having the worst impostor syndrome that day. I was thinking, ‘I look like a competition winner.’”

Nerves settled by the time the production started in January 2025. Before joining forces in Prague, Waddingham flew to Ischgl, an Austrian ski town known for its party vibe, to shoot the show’s opening sequence. The James Bond-style scene introduces Judith as talented, serious and a bit of a loner. That perception is quickly upended when the character arrives at Debbie’s home in London for their book club meeting and the duo begin singing along to Salt-N-Pepa’s “Shoop.”

“Octavia is so established in Hollywood,” Waddingham says of meeting her co-star. “I’m still a newcomer in this town.”

(Bexx Francois / For The Times)

“That was our first scene together and we didn’t plan anything or talk about it,” Waddingham says. “But we had an unspoken, organic process.”

“We had a lot of trust,” Spencer adds. “I knew she was going to come in with 1000% and that I was going to too. Some of those things you figure out when you’re on the set and some of those things just happen in the moment.”

Showrunner Matt Miller points to the scene as evidence of the actors’ “instant chemistry.”

“It really feels like this is a friendship that has endured 25 years from the moment they get on screen,” Miller says, speaking with Coates over video call later. “From the second you see them dancing around, you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, these two are best friends.’”

Coates and Miller wanted to ensure that the characters’ history was baked into the scripts. They’ve been friends for decades, so there had to be a shorthand between them that was immediately apparent and they had to be on equal footing. The duo are forced on the run across Europe, dogged by their past, and successfully get themselves out of danger.

“These characters came from a great desire to see women like this on screen,” Coates says. “So many stories suggest aging is the worst thing that could possibly happen to you. But what if getting older seemed really cool and you got wiser and better at your job and gave less of a s— about things?”

Coates adds they wanted both characters to be competent and clever women who happen to be thrown into difficult circumstances.

“Women in their 50s are just as capable, just as beautiful, just as sexy,” Spencer says. “We’re just aging.”

Spencer and Waddingham, both executive producers on the series, never sought top billing over the other. Although the show is ostensibly an action comedy, they wanted to ground it in real emotions. Everything is tethered to this friendship.

“Women in their 50s are just as capable, just as beautiful, just as sexy,” Octavia Spencer says. “We’re just aging.”

(Bexx Francois / For The Times)

“There couldn’t be one more important than the other,” Waddingham says. “The thing they say about relationships is that when one is at 90 and the other is at 10, or one is at 80 and the other is at 20. That’s what this had to be straight away. If you have that pendulum back and forth, you can create magic.”

Although both characters find small romances throughout the story, men are sidelined for the far more important relationship: their own. And it’s not always an easy partnership between them.

“There is a love story at the center of this,” Spencer says. “It’s not a romantic love story, but it is a familial relationship. It’s contentious, and the relationship is fractious at points.”

Waddingham adds, “You have to be able to call each other out, and then get through that storm and let the water settle.”

Still, there is a lot of action in “Ride or Die.” Judith frequently kicks ass, often taking on groups of imposing men. It’s deeply satisfying to watch Waddingham, who did most of her own stunt work, take these men down.

“In theater, I never had an alternate,” she explains. “I’m not usually Method, but with this I thought my exhaustion from fighting and the stunt training would lend itself to Judith’s exhaustion and her frailty. It wasn’t particularly healthy, if I’m honest, but that fractured tiredness really helped play the role.”

She adds, “It’s a real art form. The first stunt work I did was on ‘The Fall Guy’ and learning to stop before you punch someone in the face is hard.”

“That’s why I was terrified for you,” Spencer interjects. “Because I did punch somebody in the face. The only other time that I actually had to do stunts was on ‘Snowpiercer.’ It was so exciting watching you, but then I was like, ‘Somebody could hit her for real.’”

Waddingham felt added pressure knowing Judith’s background. “She’s not just an assassin, she’s a notorious assassin of 30 years,” she says. “If you see her punching someone, like when we’re running out of the gala, that punch can’t be some girly thing. You have to believe she can do it perfectly and effortlessly.”

Waddingham did much of her own stunt work in “Ride or Die.” “It’s a real art form. The first stunt work I did was on ‘The Fall Guy’ and learning to stop before you punch someone in the face is hard.”

(Bexx Francois / For The Times)

Both actors approached the show with complete dedication. Waddingham and Spencer appear in almost every scene, which vacillate between action, comedy and drama. Debbie, named after Coates’ mother, feels betrayed by Judith and her husband, who is involved in shady dealings with an Albanian gang. “There were the rigors of it physically, but there was also the emotional rigor of it,” Waddingham says.

“It might have been the most challenging job that I’ve ever done,” Spencer agrees. “The most challenging, but also the most gratifying. I knew I would not be called upon to do any stunt sequences, but I did have physical stuff I needed to do. And then dealing with the emotional weight of Debbie discovering that two very important relationships are not at all what she thought they were was a lot.”

She pauses. “But you know what, why not?” she continues. “We don’t want to be in a comfortable place all the time. You want to know you completed something that was very difficult to do. I feel very proud now, looking back.”

“We couldn’t have left our hearts and our bodies and our brains on it any more than we did,” Waddingham agrees. “It is splattered with us. I’ve been very privileged to go from ‘Ted Lasso’ to this, because ‘Ted’ is a very hard act to follow in terms of that constant and emotional push and pull. This has that as well.”

While filming “Ride or Die,” Waddingham found out Apple TV had greenlit a fourth season of “Ted Lasso,” which premieres Aug. 5. She wasn’t expecting to be pulled back to her Emmy-winning role of Rebecca after the series ostensibly concluded in 2023. “I didn’t know anything about it,” she says. “No clue.”

“We found that out together,” Spencer says.

Waddingham had only two weeks off after wrapping “Ride or Die” before flying to Kansas to film the first episode of Season 4, which sees Rebecca attempting to lure Jason Sudeikis’ Ted back to London to coach Richmond’s women’s soccer team. The rest of the series then shot in England. The new episodes keep Rebecca as one of the emotional cores of the show.

“I haven’t really stopped since then,” Waddingham says. “When I’m older, I’m going to have a little sleep. But this is what you wait for in your life.”

For Spencer, “Ride or Die” has raised the bar on what type of project she wants to do as a producer and as an actor.

“It is hard to get things made,” Spencer says. “I don’t have time to do things just for a paycheck. It has to resonate with me because your time and health are your most valuable commodities, and time is something that you have no control over. As an artist, I want to be fulfilled and when you get a project like this now everything has to compare. I’ve learned to be very discerning.”

She gestures to Waddingham. “Don’t you want to be excited about things?” she asks.

“Yes,” Waddingham agrees. “And it just doesn’t happen very often. But this was remarkable from the beginning. To be able to spend a couple of days together right now and regroup, it’s almost like a therapy session. We’ve had distance to reflect on all the good and all the exhausting, and on what we have created together. I know that neither of us will ever forget this.”

Spencer nods. “It is a dream. I feel very fortunate that we get to look for projects like this for ourselves and have an active voice in procuring those things for ourselves and for other people. But you dream it, and then you get something like this, and it surpasses everything you ever thought you could want.”

The United Kingdom’s surprising decision to buy a dozen conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) F-35A fighters has taken another turn. According to a U.K. Royal Air Force official, “We did not buy those aircraft for their dual [nuclear] capability, we bought them for our conversion unit. At the same time, we stated we would get back into the [nuclear] role supporting NATO. The two are separate functions.”

The official, Air Vice-Marshal Jim Beck, the Royal Air Force’s Director Capability and Programs, was speaking today at the Global Air & Space Chiefs’ Conference in London. Their words were reported by Gareth Jennings, aviation desk editor at Janes.

As you can read about here, the United Kingdom announced in June last year that it would buy 12 F-35As alongside the short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) F-35B models it already uses.

At that point, the U.K. Ministry of Defense specifically highlighted the F-35A’s ability to join the NATO nuclear mission, which would see the jets armed with U.S.-owned B61-12 nuclear gravity bombs. The F-35B, with its smaller weapons bays, is not able to carry these weapons.

B61-12 test drop by an F-35A

“The U.K. will purchase 12 new F-35A fighter jets and join NATO’s dual-capable aircraft nuclear mission in a major boost for national security,” the U.K. Ministry of Defense announced. The ministry described this as the “biggest strengthening of the U.K.’s nuclear posture in a generation, complementing the U.K.’s existing sea-borne deterrent.”

Earlier in June 2025, the Strategic Defense Review, published by the U.K. Ministry of Defense, had suggested that the future Lightning Force could comprise a mix of F-35As and F-35Bs.

At the same time, however, the Royal Air Force had noted that the F-35As would be assigned to a training unit and would primarily be used in that role.

As the F-35A is cheaper to operate, it is considered a better option to use for training sorties, including keeping pilots current on the F-35B. The ministry said buying the 12 jets will bring a savings of 25 percent per aircraft over the F-35B.

“Day-to-day, the F-35As will be used in a training role on 207 Squadron, the Operational Conversion Unit (OCU),” the Royal Air Force said. “As the F-35A carries more fuel than the F-35B variant, it can stay airborne for longer, extending the available training time in each sortie for student pilots. As F-35As also require fewer maintenance hours, there will be increased aircraft availability on the OCU. These factors combined will improve pilot training and reduce the amount of time for pilots to reach the frontline squadrons.”

The tradeoff is that the F-35A can’t be used to train for STOVL missions, but this part of the F-35B profile can be trained in the simulator, while an F-35A training unit frees up more F-35Bs to deploy aboard the two Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers.

Now, the words of the Royal Air Force official today cast doubt on whether the F-35As will actually take on the nuclear strike role, something that was specifically highlighted in the U.K. Defense Investment Plan published last month.

As well as today’s underscoring of the priority of the training mission, it should be noted that the new F-35As will be based at RAF Marham, in eastern England, and it’s unclear whether the airfield retains the underground weapons vaults for nuclear bombs. Some reports suggest the vaults that existed there in the Cold War have been dismantled or even filled in completely. In the past, we speculated that the jets might have to make use of nearby RAF Lakenheath, where there is evidence that the United States has brought nuclear bombs back to the United Kingdom, for its own use.

At the same time, as we have explained in the past, while the nuclear-sharing program provides access to U.S.-owned weapons, it still requires the United States and NATO to approve their use.

U.K.-operated nuclear-capable F-35As would not offer the same sovereign capability as the Royal Navy’s ballistic missile submarines, around which the British nuclear deterrent is based.

Then there is the issue of how much training, and other resources, would have to be assigned to the nuclear mission to ensure that it could actually be executed. Certainly, this would be nothing like the Cold War era, when a handful of jets stood fully armed, round the clock, on each assigned RAF base, with their crews waiting for the alert to sound.

The reality would likely involve the unit switching to focusing on the nuclear mission in times of crisis. This raises a question about how long this would take, and to what degree it would provide a real deterrent, bearing in mind the need to spin it up to be combat-ready.

These are all questions we have asked before in relation to the U.K. F-35A’s proposed nuclear role.

Now, the Royal Air Force itself is dialing back expectations in this regard.

Ultimately, the best chance of the Royal Air Force having a meaningful dual-role nuclear mission would be to buy more F-35As. As it stands, the 12 F-35As are part of the core buy, not additional to it.

The U.K. Ministry of Defense has long said that it still expects to procure 138 F-35s over the lifetime of the program. So far, 48 F-35Bs have been delivered, and the government is committed to buying 15 more F-35Bs and the 12 F-35As for delivery by 2033.

The lack of numbers has seen the United Kingdom rely on U.S. Marine Corps F-35Bs to make up the required aircraft numbers during carrier cruises.

The F-35A argument would become much more compelling, and more cost-effective, if it were to be bought in larger numbers.

The F-35A is more capable in general, with superior range and payload, and it can maneuver at 9G, while the F-35B is cleared for 7.5G.

One unresolved issue as far as the British are concerned is the F-35A’s refueling receptacle, which is incompatible with their fleet of Voyager tankers. Modifications could provide the British F-35A with a probe, but would likely only make sense on the back of a bigger buy.

While many senior Royal Air Force officers might favor getting more F-35As, the jet is now also competing with the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP), at the center of which is the Tempest crewed stealth fighter, as well as emerging drone programs.

In the meantime, the British are struggling to find money for more basic elements of the F-35B, which still critically lacks a standoff strike capability. A report late last year found that a history of “cost-cutting” throughout the U.K. F-35 program “has caused significant problems in its use,” which have affected the jet’s “capability, availability to fly, and value for money.”

The U.K. Ministry of Defense also needs to spend more than $83 billion over the next four years to fund its  nuclear-powered submarine programs, which include a true sovereign  nuclear capability of the kind that the F-35A is unable to provide.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Hold the Bat Signal — “The Batman Part II” has been delayed yet again.

The DC Studios film is now set to hit theaters Feb. 18, 2028. The sequel to Matt Reeves’ 2022 reboot “The Batman” was previously slated to bow Oct. 1, 2027 after it was pushed back from its original release date of Oct. 3, 2025.

Reeves took to social media Wednesday to share the new date along with camera test footage from the film. The video, the first proper look at Robert Pattinson’s return as the Caped Crusader, shows him in a new Batsuit, turning toward the camera as what appears to be snow falls around him. There are also some flashing lights in the background.

The filmmaker has previously shared “The Batman Part II” casting news as well as a glimpse of the Batmobile in social media posts.

Many details about “The Batman Part II” have been kept under wraps, but here is everything we know about the upcoming sequel.

Which characters are returning?

In addition to Pattinson’s return as Bruce Wayne, “The Batman” alumni Jeffrey Wright, Andy Serkis and Colin Farrell will reprise their roles as James Gordon, Alfred Pennyworth and Oz Cobb (a.k.a. the Penguin), respectively. Zoë Kravitz is not expected to return as Selina Kyle/Catwoman.

Other actors confirmed to come back include Jayme Lawson as Gotham’s mayor, Bella Reál, and Gil Perez-Abraham as Gotham City Police Dept. officer Martinez.

Barry Keoghan, whose character was briefly teased at the end of “The Batman,” is also reportedly likely to return as the Joker.

Who are the new cast members?

The newcomers venturing into Gotham for this next installment include Sebastian Stan, Scarlett Johansson, Charles Dance, Sebastian Koch and Brian Tyree Henry.

While their roles have yet to be confirmed, a number of outlets have reported that Stan is expected to portray Harvey Dent, a Gotham district attorney who is perhaps better known as the villain Two-Face, while other rumors say the Marvel star will play the sadistic killer Victor Zsasz. According to other rumors, fellow Marvel alum Johansson could be playing Gilda Dent — Harvey’s wife — or Poison Ivy.

What is ‘The Batman Part II’ about?

Details around the sequel’s plot have yet to be revealed, but the movie is expected to take place after the events of the HBO series “The Penguin,” which was set after “The Batman.” A number of Reeves’ social media teases have included glimpses of snow.

Over the years, the director has mentioned that the sequel will see the young Dark Knight struggling with his understanding that the world is more morally gray than his previous worldview, and that the film’s big villain will be someone who hasn’t appeared on the big screen before.

In the latest episode of “The De Los Podcast,” actor and comedian Fabrizio Guido spoke with hosts Fidel Martinez and Suzy Exposito about his role in the Netflix series “Running Point” — as well as being a part of a new wave of young Latino Hollywood stars and how he got his start in the stand-up comedy world.

Having grown up in L.A. himself, Guido talked about owning the persona of “Running Point” character Jackie Moreno: a concession-worker-turned-executive-assistant from Boyle Heights.

“I just felt I had all the tools necessary to bring this character to life,” Guido said. “It was a really important opportunity for people to see this side of L.A. … to get to know that kid that you see on the street or at the mall [and say] ‘Oh, that guy reminds me of Jackie.’”

Part of the appeal of the character was the chance to “showcase how much heart L.A. has.”

Alongside actors like Xolo Maridueña, Keyla Monterroso Mejia, Isabela Merced and Jenna Ortega, Guido is part of a new class of young Latinos taking Hollywood by storm — something the “Running Point” star said is “an honor.”

“It can be isolating if you’re the only Latino on a set,” Guido shared. “So to have peers that share a similar upbringing as you — you walk away with a friendship most of the time because you have stuff in common.”

He also mentioned that the bump in Latino talent has led to diversity in roles within the community.

“For the longest time, it could’ve been stereotypical — the only things Latino could play,” Guido said. “For the first time we’re starting to see this emergence of what it means for each one of us to be Latino. I’m bringing my experience to the table, Keyla is bringing her experience to the table, Xolito is bringing his. We’re not going by what the industry thinks Latino is, we’re bringing what we think Latino is.”

But beyond the acting world, Guido has also tackled the stand-up comedy scene in recent years.

He shared that he got his first gig thanks to comedian Gabriel Iglesias, who he worked with on the Netflix sitcom “Mr. Iglesias.” The arena comic convinced Guido to do a five-minute set — which Guido worked on for two weeks — at the Brea Improv.

“I got on stage, did my first joke and was super nervous,” he said. “Second joke did really well and it afforded me enough time to get present and then I ran through my five minutes, got off stage a different person. I knew I was in love. I felt like something in my life had shifted in that moment and I’ve been in love with stand-up ever since.”