Jon Stewart has signed a new deal that will keep the comedian at his weekly perch on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” through 2028.
Skydance Television, which owns Comedy Central, announced Monday that Stewart will remain as a once-a-week host and serve as executive producer in a deal that takes him through the 2028 presidential election.
“Jon Stewart is a generational talent and The Daily Show continues to be one of the most influential franchises on television and a cornerstone of Comedy Central,” George Cheeks, Co-Chair and Chief Content Officer, Skydance TV, said in a statement. “We are excited to continue our partnership with Jon and his award winning news team.”
Tuesdays through Thursdays will continue to be handled by “Daily Show” regulars Ronny Chieng, Josh Johnson, Jordan Klepper, Michael Kosta, and Desi Lydic.
Stewart is a signature talent for Comedy Central, which also the home of the long-running animated series “South Park.” The channel needed to retain its biggest names to keep the channel valuable to cable and satellite TV providers who pay to carry it.
Stewart first became “Daily Show” host in 1999, and tuned the satirical news program into an important voice in the national discourse. He stepped away in 2015 when he was among the highest-paid performers in the TV business.
Stewart had a production deal with HBO and hosted a series for Apple TV, “The Problem with Jon Stewart,” before rejoining “The Daily Show” in 2024 to host on Monday nights. He signed a second one-year deal in November that was set to expire at the end of this year.
While President Trump has attacked network late-night hosts who are critical of him, he has never gone after Stewart in any of his social media rants during his second term. Comedy Central is a cable network not subject to Federal Communications Commission authority, unlike Stewart’s late-night cohort Jimmy Kimmel, who appears on ABC. Both Trump and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr have threatened to pull Kimmel off the air.
Late-night TV is struggling overall as a genre due to younger viewers moving away from traditional TV to streaming, “The Daily Show” has continued to have a strong following. The program hit an eight-year high in viewing during the third quarter of 2026 according to Nielsen data. Comedy Central said the program has accrued 1.6 billion views across social media in 2026.
Skydance got out of the broadcast network late night business when it cancelled “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” The company said the program was losing $40 million a year. It replaced with “Comics Unleashed,” a non-topical comedy show from media mogul Byron Allen, who leases the late night hours from the network.
Despite other stars taking the top spot on the leaderboard, a lot of Strictly Come Dancing viewers think there’s other one ‘underrated’ star who could win the BBC show
Strictly fans think one ‘underrated’ star could win the show this year(Image: BBC)
Last night’s October 17 episode of Strictly Come Dancing was Icons Week, where the remaining couples paid tribute to musical icons. Viewers of the BBC show saw two couples top the leaderboard by both scoring 34 points. These were Love Island star Cach Mercer and partner Maddie Ingoldsby, who delivered a dapper Foxtrot that wowed the judges, earning 34 points (8, 9, 8, 9).
Actress Jaime Winstone, who was in the bottom two a few weeks ago, also was in the number one spot with her professional partner Carlos Gu after they performed an energetic, David Bowie-themed Paso Doble, scoring 34 points (8, 9, 8, 9).
Despite these two taking the top spot this week, a lot of Strictly viewers think there’s other one ‘underrated’ star who could snatch the glitterball from them.
Taking to X during the show, one fan wrote: “Tabby’s becoming one of my favourite contestants in this competition, she’s delivering in these dances and got potential winner written all over her.”
During last night’s show, British skeleton racer Tabby Stoecker and her professional partner Mark Karmalita scored a total of 29 points for their Samba.
This placed them in a three-way tie for 5th position on the leaderboard alongside Lacey Turner & Vito Coppola and John Nellis & Katya Jones.
Tabby, 25, has not topped the leaderboard outright in any week yet, but she came very close in Week 3 when she performed her Argentine Tango. She placed joint 2nd on the leaderboard with 31 points, just 2 points behind Delta Goodrem, who was awarded 33 points.
People seemed to agree with the original poster’s prediction, as the post racked up thousands of views and hundreds of likes.
One wrote: “Same, I had no idea who she was before strictly but she quickly became my fave celebrity I absolutely love her!”
While another added: “Tabby and Mark, I am obsessed!”
A third chimed in: “Oh, Tabby is that diva.”
While a fourth added: “Tabby is the underrated star of the series.”
However, not everyone agreed, as one person wrote: “Tabby, Cach, and Delta (if she comes back) are finalist material in my opinion.”
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While another added: “Would love to see Tabby win but, I think Lacey (Turner) might beat her.”
Last night’s show saw Delta Goodrem was missing from the episode due to a painful rib injury. Under standard Strictly Come Dancing rules, she was granted a bye through to Week 5.
Doctors advised her to rest and recover, and both Delta and the BBC confirmed the expectation is that she will return to the dance floor next week, provided her recovery goes smoothly.
The Strictly Come Dancing Week 4 Results show is on tonight at 7:10 pm on BBC One and is all available to stream live or on-demand via BBC iPlayer.
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In case it wasn’t already clear: Debora Cahn, the creator of “The Diplomat,” likes to leave viewers in suspense.
The Netflix political thriller has followed Kate Wyler (Keri Russell), the highly competent, intensely impulsive, deeply flawed and incredibly relatable career diplomat, as she’s cleaned up backroom deals, navigated volatile international crises and unstable government leadership — all while managing a topsy-turvy marriage tangled up in it. And the stakes escalate with each season’s finale, forcing Kate to test her limits. But the fourth season has brought her breaking point.
Alarmed by the questionable decision-making by President Grace Penn (Allison Janney) — as the bullying tactics used against the U.K. to ensure their cooperation against Russia become untenable — Kate resigns in unplanned, but grand fashion at the G7 summit in front of world leaders. She’s eventually joined by other members of Penn’s administration: chief of staff Billie Appiah (Nana Mensah), Secretary of State Miguel Ganon (Miguel Sandoval) and, most notably, her husband, Vice President Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell).
“We like a good cliffhanger,” Cahn says during a recent video call.
Cahn’s thought about how “The Diplomat” will ultimately conclude. But like the show’s savvy titular character, she perfectly executes the art of the charming evasion when pressed for answers — namely, how close are we to getting there?
Keri Russell as Kate Wyler, left, Rufus Sewell as Hal Wyler, Allison Janney as Grace Penn in Season 4 of “The Diplomat.”
(Netflix)
“I don’t know — maybe it just did,” she teases. Cahn then turns more serious: “I’ve always had an idea of what the end is. As with everything on the show, I’m always delighted to have that idea blown out of the water by a better idea, but so far it hasn’t happened.”
Cahn began her television writing career on Aaron Sorkin’s acclaimed political drama, “The West Wing,” spanning seasons 4 through 7. After working on shows such as “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Vinyl” and “Homeland,” she took the helm as creator and showrunner for the first time with “The Diplomat.” And writing a political drama today meant grappling with a creative responsibility she hadn’t faced before.
“I didn’t have to figure out what ‘The West Wing’s’ political position was going to be or what ‘The West Wing’ thought about the world,” she says. “I want to make a show that is compelling for a lot of different people. And there are certain things that are happening in the world that, as much as I try or would like to be even-handed, … [are] really difficult to ignore when you’re living at a time when you feel like democracy is crumbling.”
On a recent afternoon from her home in New York, Cahn spoke more about the new season of “The Diplomat.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation, which includes spoilers.
The marriage between Kate (Keri Russell) and Hal (Rufus Sewell) is tangled with their work.
(Netflix)
So much of the show, but particularly this season, is about lines that are drawn and the crossing of them. How did you and the writers decide what would be the line for Kate?
It took months and months and months to decide because we wanted to treat the question as realistically as possible. A lot of good people don’t quit. And so, why? What’s the reasoning? The whole season is examining that question for Kate and, in a way, for all of them. I didn’t want to be like, “Well, she doesn’t like the president, so she walked on out.”
What did you want out of that final moment of the season?
The moment when she stands up, she has come to a clarifying realization that her line has just been crossed. It happens in that room. And we argued about that a lot. We ended up feeling really strongly that it be what was happening right there. That this was a question she had wrestled with, but when you see that you are off the cliff, it will become clear what you have to do. So for her, Grace’s speech was that moment. She then walks out of the room and thinks: “What the mother f— did I just do? I’ve just ended my career. Have I ended my husband’s career?” That’s how she feels until she hears the door open and sees Billie walk out, and both of them go through a similar moment when they hear the door open, and Ganon walks out; then obviously the last one [is Hal] that really nobody was expecting. But for Kate, there is a big difference between having realized that you can’t go forward because your own line has been crossed, to realizing that you have started a movement, and that there is a contagion in that action.
How much did the real world, particularly international relations, inform or shape the season?
I don’t ever like to do a ripped-from-the-headlines show, particularly because we write it and then a year or two passes before it gets on air. But it did feel like, at a time when this administration was coming back into power again, and their first move was to fire people and really obliterate the institution that we were writing about, it didn’t seem like a story that we could walk around and ignore.
Bradley Whitford as Todd Penn and Allison Janney as Grace Penn in Season 4 of “The Diplomat.”
(Nick Wall/Netflix)
We haven’t had a woman president. We know the sexism around this topic:Women are too weak, women can’t make tough decisions. What was the lay of the conversation in the writers’ room about who Grace Penn would be as president?
The situation that we wanted to sustain throughout the season was she’s not doing these things because she got shot, her stomach hurts and she’s mad. She’s doing things because she became president, and she thinks this is how the country needs to be run. Is there an overcompensation around her making sure that people don’t think that she’s too weak and afraid to be a foreign policy hawk? I think in plenty of circumstances, women in positions like that are more likely to take a strong decisive military action because there is this looming concern of, “Well is she tough enough? Is she gonna try and have everybody hold hands and make up?” There is an instinct to make sure that people realize that that isn’t your plan. Every one of the decisions that she made, we made sure that there was a smart, strategic, security mandated argument for doing what she was doing.
What Grace says at the top of that summit regarding the U.K. and Russia, if you didn’t know what was going on behind the scenes, it would seem reasonable and strategic.
I’m happy to hear you say that because that was very deliberate. We went round and round with different versions of what she said in that speech because some people would listen to it and say, “Oh, my God, she can’t say that. It’s just overwhelmingly reprehensible.” Then we would show our Washington people, and they were like, “It’s not so bad.” Democrats who were like, “This isn’t crazy. This is kind of middle of the road these days.” We realized that we couldn’t have her saying things that have become accepted in Washington because the public would view it as monstrous, and we didn’t want to be portraying a villain.
Is that the most difficult thing for you as the showrunner of a political show today — a president as a villain?
It’s trickier than I hoped it would be. I’m not really interested in the presidency as much as I’m interested in the thousands of people who interact with the president and perhaps don’t, as individuals, wield as much power in their hands as that office holder does. But real power, particularly in numbers, can make things happen or stop really disastrous things from happening. Whether or not we think that there’s a villain in the White House, what does everybody else do to try to manage it?
Rory Kinnear, who plays Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge, sings opera in a scene where his character is having a hallucination.
(Clifton Prescod / Netflix)
There’s a surreal interlude with Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear) and his hallucinations — he’s singing opera, at one point. How did you arrive at that turn for him?
I would be lying if I didn’t say one of the big reasons I wanted to do that was because I found out Rory Kinnear sings opera. When we knew we were going to have this situation where he was going to through something even more stressful than everything that he’s been through up until now, it felt like it would be really great to see what’s going on in there [his mind]. I called him up and I said, “I’d like to have you singing ‘Pagliacci’ — is that OK?” And he was like, “Well, let’s start warming up now.”
For a brief moment, with Grace shot, Hal is acting president. I’m curious how you arrived at the length of time he’d fill in for Grace. It’s a few hours. And it reveals so much.
There’s a gravitational pull that we’ve been resisting ever since we made the president a big role, and then placed one of our leads in the role of vice president. There’s this pull toward the White House. But I’ve never wanted to be like, “Oh, well, then Hal’s president. Then, Hal dies, and Kate’s president! Everybody gets a chance.” Once he was VP, it started to seem equally absurd to not have a taste of that because it is, in fact, the reality in that job.
Making Hal a president for a long period of time wasn’t all that interesting to me, but I did want a little bit of a window into it. We think we really know what Hal Wyler is going to do in that role — and by we, I mean Kate, really —and it just isn’t true at all. It also turns out she really had no idea who he was as a vice president, and he’s a much different person than she thought. She thought he was going to continue to be a bull in a china shop, big swings and big ideas and asking for forgiveness, not permission. That’s not who he’s been in that job.
Billie (Nana Mensah), left, Kate (Russell), Hal (Sewell), Grace (Janney), Fitzwilliam (Neil Pearson) and Todd (Whitford) in “The Diplomat.”
(Nick Wall/Netflix)
Both couples faced questions like: Who is this person I married or how am I responding to who they are at this moment? What were you interested in exploring in both these dynamics?
The conversation that we were just having is in a way relevant for all four of them. Not only is Hal different than Kate thought he would be, Hal’s different than Hal thought he would be. I haven’t run a show before. This is this is my first time in that position, and I am absolutely different than I thought I would be. I was 100% sure I knew exactly how I would handle things, and it didn’t happen. That’s an idea that we wanted to keep alive for Hal and definitely for Grace. You can prepare for it all you want and still not know.
You can’t help but feel for Todd as he tries to figure out Grace. But then he nearly dismantles NATO and you’re like, Todd!
Todd goes through two phases. He has this terrible feeling of helplessness that is eventually supplanted by this terrible feeling of power that he’s unable to manage. In a lot of ways, the Todd story is the most realistic one we’re telling because a lot of people who’ve never done this before are making the most consequential decisions, literally in the world. And Todd’s not a dumb guy, and I don’t think the people that we’re watching do this are dumb people, but, boy, are they in over their head really fast.
I want to talk about Grace and Todd and the use of “babe.” There’s something so intriguing to me about what they’ve done with that pet name across the season.
You’re thinking about all my favorite things. I don’t know what to say other than I’m glad it’s reading. You take a term of affection, and, at a certain point, it just becomes a name. The affection that it carries with it is just a horrible memory of a moment that is clearly gone.
“For me, performance can’t be everything,” Miley Cyrus declared on Friday night, and you had to admire her choice of setting: onstage at the Hollywood Bowl in front of approximately 18,000 people who’d turned up precisely to see her perform.
A star since her teenage days on the Disney Channel’s “Hannah Montana,” the 33-year-old musician and actor was maybe half an hour into the first of two sold-out concerts at the iconic hillside amphitheater — a place close to Cyrus’ heart, as she explained in a videotaped intro recalling a gig she and her fiancé, Maxx Morando, caught last year by the French band Air.
“I step into wine, which soaks onto my boots,” she said in the dramatic black-and-white clip. “I don’t mind stained leather — it only adds to their character.”
Cyrus’ shows were billed as part of the rollout of her latest album, “Bass Persuades,” which came out in September (and which found her dropping her last name to go simply by Miley). Yet the two-night engagement is really meant to mark her grand return to the stage after she said a few years ago that she’d sworn off touring because it was too harmful to her mental health.
Is “grand” the right word for a comeback as equivocal as this one? Despite all the hype surrounding this weekend’s concerts, Cyrus spoke again and again Friday about how much less space for performance she has in her life these days than she used to; she talked repeatedly about her quest to balance her fans’ emotional needs with her own.
At one point, after singing a couple of numbers on a small B-stage about halfway up the bowl, she walked through the crowd back to the main stage, gripping and grinning the entire way. Then she described the toll her trip had just taken: “I appreciate each of you guys reaching out and touching me, and me getting to feel you. But I do want to say — it is a lot for me,” she said. “It is a little bit overwhelming.”
In an era of parasocial pop stardom, the radical honesty of Cyrus’ approach — her clear-eyed appraisal of the relationship that binds an idol and her audience — was kind of a thrill to behold. The problem was that her singing for the most part wasn’t.
As she described being overwhelmed, her band slowly revved up her song “Wrecking Ball.” It’s one of the great power ballads of the last 25 years, with a chorus as cathartic as any in modern pop; Cyrus, the showbiz lifer, surely understood the payoff she was building toward. Except when the moment arrived, she inexplicably dodged it, skipping the song’s first chorus and soft-pedaling the second — an anticlimax for the ages.
Indeed, Cyrus let the audience and her backup singers handle vocals for many of her biggest hits, among them “The Climb,” “Party in the U.S.A.” and “We Can’t Stop”; during that last one, she twerked for a second, evoking memories of the infamous 2013 MTV performance that briefly scandalized a nation.
She sang more heartily in songs from “Bass Persuades,” which would’ve been better news if that tuneless mishmash of bleary synths and dated club beats weren’t one of the year’s least likable pop records. (This month Variety reported that, after debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, the album took the biggest fall in chart history in its second week of release.)
The paradox of Cyrus’ career at this stage is that she wants to do the thing that nobody wants her to do — “Bass Persuades” is just the latest in a string of crummy LPs — and doesn’t want to do the thing that everybody wants her to do. Truly, her bad taste should be studied: On Friday, she welcomed Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips to the B-stage for a duet on “Karen Don’t Be Sad,” from the miserable psych-rock record they made together in 2015. Naturally, Cyrus said it was her favorite of her albums.
One highlight of the show was Cyrus’ tribute to her late godmother, Dolly Parton, whom she memorialized with a rendition of “Jolene” and with a funny and touching account of the time Parton tried unsuccessfully to get Cyrus to sing with her at the Bowl.
I also found myself moved near the end of the night by Cyrus’ performance of the only keeper on “Bass Persuades” — a dreamy little love song called “Let’s Get Married” for which Morando joined her onstage. As he played drums, she ran her hand tenderly over his chest before laying her head on his shoulder; the moment reminded me of that goofy intro video about the Air concert, which she likened to a bubble containing only the two of them.
“That’s how it feels when we’re together,” she said. “I think I’d live in that bubble.”
Sarah Storey’s performance with Julian(Image: BBC)
Sarah Storey’s performance didn’t just have the judges talking!
Judge Anton told Britain’s most successful Paralympian that she was better than she thought she was.
Craig told her she looked “fantastic”, but her solo dancing saw her “drop the ball”. Motsi didn’t agree entirely with Craig, saying she was “playing the role”.
As the scores came in, Sarah was given a message from icon Shania Twain herself, leaving them screaming.
Shania shared her hopes to see Sarah and Julian’s Tango at one of her UK shows. As for the scores, they were 5, 5, 5, 6, equalling a total of 21.
Remember Edward Warchoki? The Polish humanoid robot that went viral in April for chasing wild boars through a parking lot in Warsaw? Even late-night comedian John Oliver did a bit on him, calling Warchoki “a pretty canny PR campaign for anthropomorphic robots. All I’m saying is, ‘That is a nice way to get us all used to him before he’s inevitably one day used as a weapon of war.’ ”
Warchoki has not yet turned into a weapon of war — unless you consider being an online influencer a form of digital warfare. As the first robot influencer, Warchoki has his own social media accounts and appeared at Poland’s parliament. Last week he entered the art world when he was among the first visitors to what looks to be a fascinating exhibition, “How to Feel Real. Art, Technology and Us,” at MO Museum in Vilnius, Lithuania. The show is a collaboration of the modern art museum with ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, which specializes in media art.
According to a news release, the show “explores questions that are becoming increasingly urgent in a world shaped by technology: How do we feel real, and what does it mean to be alive?” Apparently Warchoki was there to address the issue head on.
“People keep asking me if I’m real, so when I heard about an exhibition asking what ‘real’ actually means, I thought: Finally, someone is asking the right question. I’m coming to the beautiful Vilnius to see what the artists have to say — and, of course, to check whether they think I’m real,” Warchocki said in the release.
A number of works in the exhibit explore artificial intelligence, automation, “and the ways machines are increasingly taking on roles we once considered distinctly human,” said MO Museum director Milda Ivanauskienė. “Bringing Edward into the museum is a playful extension of this idea, as his deliberately human-like and slightly absurd persona makes the questions raised by the exhibition tangible — inviting us to wonder why we are so eager to find the human in a machine.”
I am intrigued by this last question and wonder about it myself: Why exactly are we so quick to anthropomorphize AI? Every time I’ve interacted with a chatbot I feel the urge to be polite in my dealings, to say “please” and “thank you” when I ask questions. I certainly don’t do that with a Google search. And once, when I saw a delivery robot hopelessly stuck in a pothole, I felt genuinely bad for it. “Poor little guy,” I thought. I imagine if I met Warchoki, I’d react the same way.
I’m glad MO Museum is exploring these impulses by using artist’s thoughts and interpretations as a way to offer answers to an issue that is not going away — but only growing more powerful and omnipresent by the day.
I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt and I’ve got a pickle-kimchi lollipop to sell you. This is your arts and culture news for the week.
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The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY
Elim Chan conducts the L.A. Phil in 2024.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Elim Chan Conducts the L.A. Phil It will be a busy couple of weekends in L.A. for the San Francisco Symphony music director-designate. First up is a program featuring Dongshoon Shin’s “Dance Card,” Franz Liszt’s “Piano Concerto No. 2 in A major, S. 125” with pianist Yefim Bronfman, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s suite from “Swan Lake.” Next week will be “A Symphonic Ballet,” with Claude Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, L. 86,” Karen Gomyo premiering Samuel Adams’ “Violin Concerto No. 2 (The Wheel),” and Igor Stravinsky’s “Petrushka (1947).” “Swan Lake,” 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. “Symphonic Ballet,” 8 p.m. Thursday, 2 p.m. Oct. 17-18. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Kuniko Kato Presents Reich90 The North American tour of the Steve Reich Project, conceived and produced by Japanese percussionist Kato arrives downtown in honor of the composer’s 90th birthday. 7:30 p.m. Colburn School, Zipper Hall, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. colburnschool.edu
Victoria Marks : A Deer Walks into a Dance The award-winning choreographer and four performers (Rian Alcid, Maya Billig, Karen Chuang and Aaron Mason) explore the idea connection in a world of division via movement, text and the deconstruction of a (bad) joke. 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd., Westwood. cap.ucla.edu
SATURDAY
L.A. Opera’s new music director, Domingo Hindoyan, conducts a dress rehearsal of “Carmen.”
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Carmen Los Angeles Opera’s new music director, Venezuelan conductor Domingo Hindoyan, opens the company’s season with a new production of Bizet’s “Carmen.” It stars mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb, who has dazzled in Mozart at L.A. Opera. The Spanish gothic new production is by director/designer Thaddeus Strassberger and choreographer Antonio Najarro. (Mark Swed) The season-opening performance will be broadcast live in high definition, free of charge, at Steinmetz Park in Hacienda Heights and at the Santa Monica Pier. Through Nov. 7. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. Free simulcast, 6 p.m. Saturday, Santa Monica Pier and Steinmetz Park, 545 S. Stimson Ave., Hacienda Heights. laopera.org
Strauss, Ravel, Beethoven Music Director Jaime Martín conducts the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in Richard Strauss’ “Metamorphosen,” Maurice Ravel’s “Piano Concerto in G Major” with Conrad Tao, and Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major (Eroica).” 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Zipper Hall, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A.; 4 p.m. Sunday. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. laco.org
SUNDAY
Dale Brockman Davis, Alonzo Davis and David Hammons.
(Museum Associates)
The Brockman Gallery: Los Angeles,1967-1990 For more than two decades, the Leimert Park gallery, founded by Alonzo and Dale Davis, served as a vital cultural hub, staging exhibitions, festivals, concerts, literary events and more. Named after the brothers’ maternal grandmother, born enslaved, the Brockman Gallery was a flourishing, ongoing act of self-determination in the wake of the 1965 Watts Rebellion. It showcased Black artists whose opportunities were severely limited at mainstream, white-run institutions and galleries: David Hammons, Suzanne Jackson, John Outterbridge, Elizabeth Catlett, Betye Saar, Carrie Mae Weems, Senga Nengudi, Noah Purifoy and many more. More than 60 works by artists associated with the gallery will be included in this first full-scale consideration of the Brockman’s scope and impact. (Leah Ollman) Through Jan. 24. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. lacma.org
Pacific Jazz Orchestra: A Tribute to Quincy Jones Led by Chris Walden, and featuring vocalists Nayanna Holley and Adam ‘Aejaye’ Jackson, the ensemble performs early work by the late producer/composer. Presented by Ventura Music Festival, 3 p.m. Sunday. Rancho Campana Performing Arts Center, 4235 Mar Vista Drive, Camarillo. pacificjazz.org
TUESDAY
Mendelssohn & Brahms Members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic perform a program of chamber works from Joseph Haydn, Felix Mendelssohn and Johannes Brahms. 8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Ulysse Marion A new work by choreographer Dimitri Chamblas, created with former Paris Opera Ballet dancer Marion Barbeau and dancer and musician Ulysse Zangs, explores the journey of a performer throughout a life in art. 8 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org
THURSDAY
At the Very Bottom of A Body Of Water The latest work by Benjamin Benne, a dramatist many have been keeping close tabs on, continues his collaboration with veteran director (and fellow L.A. native) Juliette Carrillo, and dives even further into magical realism in an unconventional work exploring the oceanic depths that grief can reveal. (Charles McNulty) Through Nov. 29. Boston Court Pasadena, 70 N. Mentor Ave. bostoncourtpasadena.org
Judy Baca, detail from the 1960s segment of the Great Wall of Los Angeles mural.
(Judy Baca and the SPARC Archives.)
Skirball Cultural Center Three new exhibits open: “The 1960s — A Generation on Fire: Judy Baca’s Great Wall of Los Angeles” presents new murals as part of the evolving L.A. landmark; “Patrisse Cullors: Wishes Made Material” features three new works inspired by conversations between Black and Jewish communities; and “Jenny Yurshansky: What We Carry” explores local immigration stories, memories and family history through collected objects. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd. skirball.org
The SoCal scene
Zoe Ryan, director of UCLA’s Hammer Museum.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
ICYMI, the best of this week’s L.A. Times arts coverage:
Climate activists in Tallahassee this week unveiled a statue of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that was created to melt. “In response to the Governor’s recent ‘Don’t say climate change’ action in state law, 350Action (one of the world’s most influential climate change advocates) built quite a visual — a statue that couldn’t withstand Florida’s daily climate. It’s provocative but for a purpose, to encourage young people to vote in a few weeks for candidates that recognize the threat from climate change,” a news release noted of the “climate denial statue.”
And finally, not strictly arts related, but some Halloween fun for you: Street Food Cinema is hosting its annual Boo-ze, Bites and Frights events with some spooky horror film screenings at Heritage Square and the Ford over the next few weekends, including a Saturday showing of “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” which is a film that still genuinely terrifies me.
Actor Tom Arnold unleashed on Chuck Lorre on X in response to the former “Roseanne” writer-producer’s claims in his new memoir, “Sitcom.”
“He thinks he’s brilliant & beloved like Norman Lear but Chuck ‘Chuckles’ Lorre’s a terrible human, an angry dry drunk who lies every time he opens his mouth,” Arnold wrote Tuesday.
Arnold and the ’90s sitcom’s co-creator and titular star, Roseanne Barr, were married Jan. 20, 1990, four months after he first appeared on the show as a poker pal of Barr’s TV husband and four days after Barr’s real-life divorce from her husband of 14 years, William Pentland, was finalized.
Barr and Arnold were hostile to their writing and producing colleagues on the show and the network, Lorre told the Los Angeles Times’ culture critic Mary McNamara in an interview published Tuesday, the day of the book’s release.
“We were punished, the writers,” Lorre told The Times. “The word ‘cruelty’ comes to mind. And I still don’t know why, why so much cruelty. It wasn’t like we didn’t want to make a great show. We were proud to be on that show.”
Hired in 1990 after Barr fired all of the show’s writers, Lorre recalls in the book that he had a rude awakening when he took the job.
“I was now the co–executive producer on the number one show on television. I swaggered into the office assigned to me and met Danny Jacobson (a world-class comedy writer who would go on to cocreate ‘Mad About You’ with, sorry, Paul — ‘My Two Dads’ — Reiser),” Lorre writes in “Sitcom.”
Chuck Lorre, pictured in 2024, related several anecdotes in his book “Sitcom” that didn’t sit well with Tom Arnold.
(Willy Sanjuan / Invision / Associated Press)
“Danny, having been fired by Roseanne for being talented, was packing up his stuff when I walked in. He showed me a sloppy, hand-scribbled couple of pages and explained this was a ‘script’ by the show’s new executive producer, Tom Arnold. It had been part of Danny’s job to write real scripts and put Tom’s name on the front page — as if Tom had written them,” Lorre continues. “Bob, myself, and several other staff writers would be ordered to do this on many occasions…. Was it a portent of bad things to come? You tell me.”
For her part, Barr admitted after the 1990 firings, “Yeah, I probably was difficult to work with, now looking back.”
“I don’t think I was as especially clear as I could have been,” Barr told former Times television writer Rick Du Brow in a November 1990 article. “It’s like being a woman and an administrator — I never had any background like that. I didn’t know how, like I do now, to go in and say, ‘This is what I want you to do.’ I think that’s common with women in business. I would go in there and try to get them to agree with me rather than tell them what I want to do.”
Arnold’s social media screed doesn’t directly address any of Lorre’s claims in the book but resorts to name-calling and his own claims against the producer, who went on to create or co-create sitcom hits including “Cybill,” “Dharma & Greg,” the Charlie Sheen-starring “Two and a Half Men” and “The Big Bang Theory” and its offshoots.
“He trashes Trump but he is Trump & he’s a bitter hack who actually believes his lame vanity cards at the end of his lame shows are Paddy Chayefsky worthy,” Arnold wrote, invoking the three-time Oscar-winning writer of “Network.” “Chuckle’s made $800,000,000 off the backs of very talented women & a naive cracked up Charlie Sheen (clean & sober since he’s not under Lorre’s strange, abusive tutelage) then trashes them all to make him feel cool but don’t worry, Chuck hates himself more than we ever could.”
Some thoughts on uber producer Chuck Lorre’s new book… https://t.co/KaUN4fen9h
Lorre’s accounts of Arnold in “Sitcom” included several other anecdotes, including one seemingly questioning the “True Lies” and “The Stupids” star’s trustworthiness.
“Executive Producer Tom was angrily explaining to Bob [Myer] and me that some bastard had stolen Roseanne’s love letters to him and sold them to the National Enquirer. His plan was to hire a private detective and get to the bottom of this treachery. And he did. It took one day. The detective found a cashed check for twenty-five grand from the National Enquirer made out to Tom Arnold. Mystery solved.”
Lorre was famously fired after two years on the show, which Arnold recalled in concluding his X post: “I wish everyone could’ve seen his arrogant, sad clown face the day Roseanne made me fire him.”
Barr later fired Arnold from “Roseanne” in 1994 amid their divorce. In 2018, after posting a racist tweet, Barr was fired from the “Roseanne” reboot, which was resurrected as spinoff “The Conners.”
Charlene White, Brenda Edwards, Judi Love, and Kéllé Bryan returned to ITV screens this morning (Thursday, October 15) to front today’s instalment of Loose Women, where they were on hand to discuss the latest news and headlines from around the globe.
Just seconds in, today’s hosts shared some “sad news” that came as a shock as they expressed their love and support for their co-star, Ruth Langsford.
Earlier this week, Ruth took to social media to share the heartbreaking news that her dog Maggie had died, paying an emotional tribute.
On the show, Charlene said: “We’re going to start with some really sad news, actually. It came as a bit of a shock to all of us this morning when our Ruth shared the news that her beloved dog Maggie has sadly passed away.”
Sharing the emotional tribute Ruth had paid this morning, Charlene then added: “Loads of you watching will of course have known Maggie for years, wouldn’t they? All of us, she’s like a part of our family.”
Brenda said, “We were literally on the panel on Monday talking about Ruth and Maggie. Maggie is in every single conversation, and I’m sending so much love to Ruth right now because this is really sad.”
Admitting she didn’t understand the connection between owner and pet before she got her own cat, Judi added cat Bella is now a ‘part of the family.”
Charlene added: “We just absolutely adore Ruth, and we just know what a hit this will be”, as Kelle replied: “Absolutely, and I think the relationship between Maggie and Ruth’s mum has been one that we’ve all followed, and it’s been so lovely that every time Maggie goes in, mum lights up.”
The panel then sent their love for their co-star as tributes continue to pour in from fans and loved ones on social media.
In an emotional statement online, Ruth shared a photograph of Maggie as she wrote: “It is with a heavy heart that I tell you our beautiful Maggie has gone to sleep forever.
“She was 16 years old, and sadly, this was her time. Her passing was painless and peaceful, and we were with her until the very end. We are so thankful to have had her in our lives for 15 years… she gave us so much joy & unconditional love. We will treasure our memories forever. Rest in peace, our beautiful girl.”
Rachel Duffy, joint winner of The Traitors UK series four, has wowed fans after debuting a glamorous new makeover months after winning the iconic BBC reality show
12:15, 15 Oct 2026Updated 12:15, 15 Oct 2026
The Traitors star showed off a glam makeover (stock image)(Image: BBC)
A former champion of The Traitors has left people totally wowed as she showed off a super glam makeover. Rachel Duffy is primarily recognised for jointly winning series four of the BBC reality contest The Traitors UK in January 2026, and it’s fair to say life has changed for her a few months down the line.
Now commanding over 200,000 Instagram followers, she recently admitted she took part in a photoshoot, even though she was a bit nervous at first. However, it’s clear people thought she didn’t need to be, as they told her she looked absolutely sensational and showered her with kind words.
Alongside the pictures, she wrote: “FULL transparency. I was petrified doing this shoot! I mean I couldn’t sleep properly the night before. I even Googled how to pose for a magazine.
“I was so chuffed when @jackmurphyjewellers asked me to be their cover girl for @ulstertatler but it sent me into a spiral of self doubt. They should have asked someone younger, thinner, prettier – all these terrible thoughts that go through our heads when we don’t feel we belong.”
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She added: “Some days I have sooooo much confidence in myself and my ability but, on days like this shoot, it was very wobbly! I’m so grateful for the fabulous team at Jack Murphy’s for making me feel at ease, to @gemmamurphyjewel for hyping me up and covering me with the most beautiful diamonds (not to mention doing my zips b/c of my gammy hand), to Charlotte and Tara for being the best wing women and keeping me right and cheering me on behind the camera and to @jamierobb for being so chilled out and making it fun!
“There’s a huge difference between the first shots taken on the day and the last video here. I could have done it all over again.
“Point to my post – I overcame a lot of self doubt on the day and I am beyond happy at how these photos turned out. I’m getting the cover shot printed on my duvet. I’m very proud of myself for pushing through the doubt and encourage you to do the same.
“Here’s to backing ourselves more! A big thank you to @wearonceloved, @salon_602_ and @emzobeauty for making me look so pretty. You’re the best.”
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In the photographs, Rachel can be seen wearing a sleek, off-the-shoulder black dress. Beautifully figure-hugging, she looked absolutely breathtaking in every shot.
She styled her hair in an elegant half-up-half-down look, also modelling a chic black jumpsuit. Finished off with a delicate smoky eye and a touch of lipstick, she looked utterly stunning as she confidently worked the camera.
The post has since amassed more than 8,000 likes, with fans rushing to the comments section to share their reactions. They had plenty to say, clearly blown away by the stunning transformation.
One said: “Damn. Hot.” Another added: “I hope you feel as just as incredible as you look in these photos.”
A third replied: “You are simply gorgeous. One hot lady.”
Meanwhile, a fourth commented: “Wow, Rachel! You take my breath away! Go girl!”
Someone else also responded: “You look amazing. We are so good at putting ourselves down and filling our heads with negativity. Beautiful photoshoot.”
On Monday, the GMCA released a statement about Burnham’s meetings with Man City in his role as mayor for the region for almost a decade.
The statement said he had a formal meeting with Al Mubarak in October 2021 at the UK Government’s Global Investment Summit, arranged by the Department for International Trade; and that he met the club chairman “informally in the stands” at a testimonial match in 2019 for former player Vincent Kompany.
It also said that “in his capacity as mayor, he was a guest of Manchester City at home matches on a small number of occasions”.
A previous GMCA register of declarations for Burnham, seen by the BBC, detailed a “dinner with [then-Manchester City Council leader] Richard Leese and Chair of Man City” for an Everton match at the Etihad stadium in August 2017, valued at £300 for hospitality.
Below is another entry for “dinner with the Chairman at the Man City/Man Utd derby at the Etihad” in April 2018, valued at approximately £699.
Burnham previously declared those dinners, alongside a £150 pair of tickets to see Ed Sheeran perform at the stadium in May 2018.
But the register of declarations has since been deleted from the GMCA website, as first reported by The Sun. The BBC understands it is the authority’s policy to only publish entries from the current mayoral term.
BBC News has asked GMCA for more details about this policy – given its website has entries dating back to 2022, despite the current mayoral term beginning in 2024.
Downing Street has defended the two dinners with Man City’s chairman, saying this was hospitality received at home games, which had been declared, rather than separate meetings with the club chairman.
But political pressure on Burnham to be clearer about any former discussions with Man City is continuing to mount.
Tory shadow sports minister Louie French said: “Andy Burnham promised the country and House of Commons full transparency on his dealings with Manchester City.
“This was essential after his inappropriate intervention into football.”
And Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick said “this saga stinks” as he accused Burnham of having apparently “concealed his extensive links to Man City’s owners”.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has demanded for several days that No 10 release all details of meetings between the prime minister and senior figures at the club.
Burnham told the Rest Is Politics podcast last week he was “happy” to do this and would “quite clearly put out there everything that I have done working with them in my previous role as Mayor of Greater Manchester”.
“None of it is recent, actually, in terms of the meetings I had. I only had one significant meeting, actually, and that was in 2021.”
Asked at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday whether anyone at the club had raised the charges they were facing with him or his team, Burnham said: “They did not raise those issues with me.”
With the PM continuing to face pressure on the issue, he told MPs he was happy for “everything to be set out in full”, referring to the GMCA’s statement as “a full statement of my key dealings with the owners of Manchester City Football Club”.
When asked by reporters why the statement did not refer to the two dinners, and what the difference is between “everything” and “key dealings”, the PM’s press secretary referred back to the GMCA statement.
The list of meetings, which was published by the GMCA on Monday, did not include detail on what was discussed. The BBC has asked GMCA why the two dinners were not specifically mentioned.
In September Man City – which has dominated the top flight of English football for years – was found guilty by an independent commission of breaching Premier League financial regulations.
The commission found City had broken rules over a nine-year period between 2009 and 2018 by creating “sham” contracts with commercial partners to secretly funnel more than £830m into their football operations.
Sanctions are yet to be announced and City, which denies any wrongdoing, has lodged an appeal against the verdict.
Earlier this month, Sir Richard Leese – who was head of Manchester City Council for 25 years until 2021 – defended a decade-old deal between the council and Man City owners Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG).
Under the partnership between the authority and the company, which is linked to the United Arab Emirates royal family, land was leased to ADUG at “below comparable rates”, according to a University of Sheffield report.
Grand Designs viewers were left disgruntled as Kevin McCloud returned to a build from 25 years ago.
Viewers issued the same complaint (Image: Channel 4)
Grand Designs viewers claimed to “turn off” the Channel 4 programme as they rushed to social media to share their complaints.
Kevin McCloud’s architectural programme has been airing a new series, which has so far seen a ‘pink cloud house’ in London built by an eccentric couple, and a Cornwall family home designed to overlook the sea. On Wednesday, 14 October, the Channel 4 show took viewers back in time 25 years, revisiting a build in Yorkshire.
It looked back on earlier Grand Designs clips, where Chris and Gill designed and built their dream home from a 19th-century Mill. Kevin shared at the start of the episode: “West Yorkshire has always been a place of innovation, manufacturing and mills.”
He spoke about the disrepair of one mill, before it was brought back to life by “gutsy pioneers”. Kevin continued: “25 years ago, Chris and Gill put that same spirit of innovation into the restoration of one of these forgotten buildings.
“They took an abandoned mill and turned it into a high-tech home, and they did it in proper Yorkshire style – no nonsense, with grit.” Gill and Chris had bought the derelict 19th-century mill in 1999, without seeing the site.
“What a dump,” Kevin had declared at the time. But the couple were determined to transform it, and had high ambitions for “a radical hybrid home”. Looking back on the build, Kevin went on: “Amazingly, it’s been a quarter of a century since I last saw Chris and Gill, that is a really long time! So long in fact, that you have to ask, have they changed? Is the building as radical as it looked then, and most importantly, how well has that building over 25 years looked after them?”
As Kevin shared their story from over two decades ago, and reflected on where Gill and Chris were now, viewers were disgruntled at the revisit, rather than a new project on their screens. A number of fans quickly took to social media to share their frustrations.
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“Another pointless edition of #granddesigns,” one person fumed, as another said: “Always disappointing seeing ‘new’ @granddesigns and its the revisited version.” Someone else said: “There obviously hasn’t been many new ‘grand design’ projects in the country over the last few years as it’s a ‘revisited’ episode four shows into the new series.” Someone else replied by saying they’ve “turned it off”, as another added: “Was exactly my point too.”
Someone else wrote: “#granddesigns revisit, in other words, it’s a repeat.” However, other viewers were more excited about the revisit episode, with one sharing: “I can’t wait! This one was amazing at the time.” Someone else declared: “This was one of my favourite GD’s of all time.”
Ahead of the new series airing, Kevin spoke about the success of Grand Designs, and was asked about if the series has changed the way people build houses. He replied: “It is very chicken and egg, what came first?
“I think the great thing about television is that it can reflect society, and I think television is at its best when it is able to do that and hold a mirror up and say, this is us now. Channel 4 are very good at doing this, I think it is one of the most compelling things about the channel.
“Grand Designs has been going forever, and so the question is whether it holds a mirror up and I believe the answer is yes, it does so because we have no real formula. We find projects in the real world and we observe, that is it.
“Grand Designs strengths and its longevity are down to the fact it doesn’t really have a format other than that. It has a beginning and a conclusion, but what happens in the middle is not up to us, it is up to the people who are building. We, of course, go out of our way to find interesting and challenging projects that are more at the margins, that show us where we might be as a society in 5,10, 20 years time, not just where we are now. So, my short answer is possibly, but it is much more important for us to show examples of stuff which show the rest of society how we might be building and living in the future.”
