Space

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who is taking a tour of U.S. defense contractors, on Friday visited a Long Beach rocket maker, where he told workers they are key to President Trump’s vision of military supremacy.

Hegseth stopped by a manufacturing plant operated by Rocket Lab, an emerging company that builds satellites and provides small-satellite launch services for commercial and government customers.

Last month, the company was awarded an $805-million military contract, its largest to date, to build satellites for a network being developed for communications and detection of new threats, such as hypersonic missles.

“This company, you right here, are front and center, as part of ensuring that we build an arsenal of freedom that America needs,” Hegseth told several hundred cheering workers. “The future of the battlefield starts right here with dominance of space.”

Founded in 2006 in New Zealand, the company makes a small rocket called Electron — which lay on its side near Hegseth — and is developing a larger one called Neutron. It moved to the U.S. a decade ago and opened its Long Beach headquaters in 2020.

Rocket Lab is among a new wave of companies that have revitalized Southern California’s aerospace and defense industry, which shed hundreds of thousands of jobs in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War. Large defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin moved their headquarters to the East Coast.

Many of the new companies were founded by former employees of SpaceX, which was started by Elon Musk in 2002 and was based in the South Bay before moving to Texas in 2024. However, it retains major operations in Hawthorne.

Hegseth kicked off his tour Monday with a visit to a Newport News, Va., shipyard. The tour is described as “a call to action to revitalize America’s manufacturing might and re-energize the nation’s workforce.”

Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson, a Democrat who said he was not told of the event, said Hegseth’s visit shows how the city has flourished despite such setbacks as the closure of Boeing’s C-17 Globemaster III transport plant.

“Rocket Lab has really been a superstar in terms of our fast, growing and emerging space economy in Long Beach,” Richardson said. “This emergence of space is really the next stage of almost a century of innovation that’s really taking place here.”

Prior stops in the region included visits to Divergent, an advanced manufacturing company in aerospace and other industries, and Castelion, a hypersonic missile startup founded by former SpaceX employees. Both are based in Torrance.

The tour follows an overhaul of the Department of Defense’s procurement policy Hegseth announced in November. The policy seeks to speed up weapons development and acquisition by first finding capabilities in the commercial market before the government attempts to develop new systems.

Trump also issued an executive order Wednesday that aims to limit shareholder profits of defense contractors that do not meet production and budget goals by restricting stock buybacks and dividends.

Hegseth told the workers that the administration is trying to prod old-line defense contractors to be more innovative and spend more on development — touting Rocket Lab as the kind of company that will succeed, adding it had one of the “coolest factory floors” he had ever seen.

“I just want the best, and I want to ensure that the competition that exists is fair,” he said.

Hegseth’s visit comes as Trump has flexed the nation’s military muscles with the Jan. 3 abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is now facing drug trafficking charges to which he has pleaded not guilty.

Hegseth in his speech cited Maduro’s capture as an example of the country’s newfound “deterrence in action.” Though Trump’s allies supported the action, legal experts and other critics have argued that the operation violated international and U.S. law.

Trump this week said he wants to radically boost U.S. military spending to $1.5 trillion in 2027 from $900 billion this year so he can build the “Dream Military.”

Hegseth told the workers it would be a “historic investment” that would ensure the U.S. is never challenged militarily.

Trump also posted on social media this week that executive salaries of defense companies should be capped at $5 million unless they speed up development and production of advanced weapons — in a dig at existing prime contractors.

However, the text of his Wednesday order caps salaries at current levels and ties future executive incentive compensation to delivery and production metrics.

Anduril Industries in Costa Mesa is one of the leading new defense companies in Southern California. The privately held maker of autonomous weapons systems closed a $2.5-billion funding round last year.

Founder Palmer Luckey told Bloomberg News he supported Trump’s moves to limit executive compensation in the defense sector, saying, “I pay myself $100,000 a year.” However, Luckey has a stake in Anduril, last valued by investors at $30.5 billion.

Peter Beck, the founder and chief executive of Rocket Lab, took a base salary of $575,000 in 2024 but with bonus and stock awards his total compensation reached $20.1 million, according to a securities filing. He also has a stake in the company, which has a market capitalization of about $45 billion.

Beck introduced Hegseth saying he was seeking to “reinvigorate the national industrial base and create a leaner, more effective Department of War, one that goes faster and leans on commercial companies just like ours.”

Rocket Lab boasts that its Electron rocket, which first launched in 2017, is the world’s leading small rocket and the second most frequently launched U.S. rocket behind SpaceX.

It has carried payloads for NASA, the U.S. Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office, aside from commercial customers.

The company employs 2,500 people across facilities in New Zealand, Canada and the U.S., including in Virginia, Colorado and Mississippi.

Rocket Lab shares closed at $84.84 on Friday, up 2%.

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 members, NASA pilot Mike Fincke, NASA commander Zena Cardman, mission specialist Oleg Platonov of Roscosmos and mission specialist Kimiya Yui from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency walk out of the operations center before boarding a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., in July. File Photo by Pat Benic/UPI | License Photo

Jan. 8 (UPI) — NASA said Thursday that four astronauts aboard the International Space Station will return to Earth a month earlier than scheduled after one of them suffered a “serious medical condition.”

Neither the astronaut nor the medical issue were made public, with NASA officials saying they were withholding the information due to medical privacy.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told reporters in a press conference that they expect to announce an anticipated undock and re-entry timeline in the next 42 hours.

It will be the first medical early return of an astronaut in the 25-year history of the orbiting laboratory.

“After discussions with chief health and medical officer Dr. J.D. Polk and leadership across the agency, I’ve come to the decision that it’s in the best interest of our astronauts to return Crew-11 ahead of their planned departure,” Isaacman said.

NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov make up Crew-11, which launched on Aug. 1 for the ISS aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.

Polk said the affected astronaut was “absolutely stable” but had suffered a medical incident “sufficient enough” that they would be best served by a complete evaluation on Earth.

“Again, because the astronaut is absolutely stable, this is not an emergent evacuation,” he said. “We’re not immediately disembarking and getting the astronaut down, but it leaves that lingering risk and lingering question as to what that diagnosis is, and that means there’s some lingering risk for that astronaut aboard.”

Though it is ISS’ first medical evacuation, Polk said it was being carried out as NASA was “erring on the side of caution for the crew member and in their best interest and their best medical welfare.”

The announcement came hours after NASA postponed Thursday’s spacewalk from the ISS due to an astronaut medical issue involving a single crew member.

“Safely conducting our missions is our highest priority, and we are actively evaluating all options, including the possibility of an earlier end to Crew-11’s mission,” NASA said in a statement. “These are the situations NASA and our partners train for and prepare to execute safely.”

Crew-11 was originally scheduled to complete its mission and return to Earth in late February, after being relieved by Crew-12.

Isaacman said they are now looking at earlier launch opportunities for Crew-12 to reach the ISS.

Until then, NASA astronaut Christopher Williams, who launched to the station late November, will maintain a U.S. presence on the orbital laboratory.

Along with Williams, the ISS is inhabited by cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev, who arrived via Russian Soyuz on Nov. 27.

Santa Fe, N.M. — Meow Wolf is coming to Los Angeles. And with its move to the Southland, the experiential art collective isn’t just taking over a former movie theater, it is, in a sense, placing a skewed spotlight on Hollywood’s grandiosity itself.

Born in Santa Fe, N.M., more than a decade ago, Meow Wolf’s fast-tracked rise has taken the company to Denver, Las Vegas, Houston and the Dallas suburbs. Along the way the firm has skirted the line between theme park-like interactive experiences and hand-made, outsider art, pitching itself as a new form of all-encompassing, maximalist, sensory overloaded entertainment — or, in the words of one of its creative directors, “that classic feeling of good confusion.”

Destined to open in late 2026 at West L.A.’s Howard Hughes entertainment complex, Meow Wolf has kept much of its plan for Los Angeles under wraps. Until now.

It’s been known that the installation would be taking over a large section of what had long been the Cinemark movie theaters. Meow Wolf, however, is using the location to lean into one of L.A’s longest standing — and currently troubled — ritualistic experiences. In the same way exhibitions in Santa Fe or Las Vegas begin in an otherworldly house or an extraordinary grocery store before getting truly psychedelic, Meow Wolf Los Angeles will launch via a fantastical movie theater, one complete with a concession stand — beware of the animated, sentient candy — and a grand auditorium. Here, describes co-founder and executive vice president Sean Di Ianni, guests may spy transparent seats that appear to be floating.

“Over your head will be etherealized seats — sculptures of these kind of translucent seats that will be animated with light and hyper-directional sound,” Di Ianni says. “You might hear the inner monologue of a previous audience.”

When Meow Wolf announced Los Angeles as its next destination for a full-scale, walk-through exhibition in 2024, it did so during a time of tumult, the company having just undergone a round of severe layoffs. And thus, Los Angeles became not just Meow Wolf’s next step but its rebirth.

During a two-day tour of Meow Wolf’s Santa Fe headquarters late last year, the company unveiled multiple pieces of art in various stages of planning, with installation in Los Angeles set to ramp up in the coming weeks. Though Meow Wolf is keeping certain story elements off the record for now, and some plans may shift as art is completed, expect an exhibit based around an intergalactic roadside attraction, a location destined for a pilgrimage. Throughout, guests will explore the hulls of a spaceship, hop on planet-traversing bikes and uncover a divey greasy spoon at the end of the galaxy, complete with sculptures of the proprietor at various stages of his life.

But by grounding it in the nostalgia and timeless appeal of a movie theater, the hope is to also learn some lessons from more linear entertainment. “We pushed really hard on this one to take that story experience to the next level,” says Shakti Howeth, creative director. “We got so much feedback from other shows that people want more of that. They want it to make sense. They want to understand it. They want to think about it afterwards. They want to grab onto certain characters.”

Thus, it will be Meow Wolf’s first exhibition with a firm beginning, middle and conclusion, even if the latter is a bit open-ended. Meow Wolf is known for its byzantine tales, but here the company is aiming to simplify, zeroing in on a story that coalesces around our instinct for a rite of passage. Think, for instance, of the way humans may trek to witness a newborn panda, or similarly cross the globe to capture the aurora borealis. Locally, ceremonial destinations such as Disneyland or the corner chapel spring to mind — anywhere people gather craving community, connection, reverence and, hopefully, a revelation.

Though narrative plans date to 2022, before Los Angeles was chosen as the locale, once the team knew it was moving into a former movie theater it was sold on the concept. That’s in part due to the transcendent nature of cinema, but also a recognition of what Los Angeles represents culturally.

“It’s cool that we’re creating a story about a pilgrimage because L.A. is that for so many artists, especially people involved in storytelling,” says Howeth. “It’s one of those places that’s built on layers and layers of dreams, and we’re really exploring that here. Not only dreams, but broken dreams — the compost that can happen when you digest broken dreams.”

It’s not the only way the exhibition hopes to reflect Los Angeles. Throughout, we’ll follow the lives of three characters, some known to Meow Wolf die-hards and some new creations, such as a Boyle Heights-raised usher. Elsewhere, an installation bathed in neon and shape-shifting projections nods to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House. And Meow recently completed the filming of multiple short movies that serve as cinematic parodies — a Bob Fosse-inspired musical, a Clint Eastwood-style western, a “Lethal Weapon”-like action flick and more. They’ll be shown throughout the space, and expect to encounter characters possessing a cult-like obsession to the films.

It isn’t lost on Meow Wolf creatives that they’re dabbling in themes of religious-like devotion to the art of storytelling at a time when Hollywood is in flux. The very venue for the exhibition, for instance, was open to the team largely because of the struggles that movie theaters have had to confront.

Early concepts had the exhibition starting, perhaps, in a motel, or a work that nodded to L.A.’s Midcentury architecture. “But being in L.A., a number of sites, due to the dire state of the movie theater business right now, were movie theaters,” says James Longmire, who works on Meow Wolf’s story development. “So why not a movie theater? Why not lean into that? In my mind, that immediately started to connect and feel a lot more resonant to this idea of art and story being important forces in humanity and human growth and how we grapple with not having answers to big questions.”

And it will be interactive. A spiritual temple, for instance, will house a secretive space that Meow Wolf creatives refer to as a “reverse escape room,” in which guests will have to work together to find and break into. Creative director Elizabeth Jarrett, who worked on Scout Expedition’s long-running immersive L.A. show “The Nest,” is helping to devise a handful of quests and what Meow Wolf is calling “story moments,” which will take over an entire space. Lighting and visual cues, for instance, may direct audience members to collaborate or reposition themselves — a psychic motel room, perhaps, where a tree has grown into a couch. Sit in the right spot and cause the room to come alive with projections and cinematics.

It was important, says Jarrett, for the so-called story moments to be triggered by the audience. “The audience has a sense of agency in the story advancing,” Jarrett says. “We’re communicating when an opportunity is arising for you to choose to engage. The guests are a protagonist and a character as much as any other character in this world. There are characters who speak directly to the audience. We’re experimenting with breaking the fourth wall.”

Not all of the art, of course, will reference film. Meow Wolf is planning, for example, a two-player game in which tarot cards will be digitally constructed exquisite corpse-style. And art curator AJ Girard is working closely with dozens of L.A. artists to bring them into the space. Gabriela Ruiz is one such artist who will have a large presence in the exhibition, a part of Ruiz’s work being an adorably vibrant, multicolored insect that will serve as a periscope.

“I thought about a little bug because they have the ability to see infrared and visualize the world differently than we do,” Ruiz says.

Girard, too, views the space as something of a commentary on L.A. “Social media and social capital is so relevant in our city,” Girard says. “How do we make fun of it in an avant garde, punk, radical way? How do we poke holes at it?”

It won’t be easy, especially for a city that sometimes takes its main, exportable art a bit too self-serious. But if Los Angeles has long viewed the movie theater as a temple, perhaps it’s time someone turns one into a playground.

“It’s partly our job to be playful with it, to not let that weight crush us,” Di Ianni says. “Let’s poke fun at movies. Let’s celebrate them. Let’s have fun with the reputation of Los Angeles and its insane impact. We have to play. That’s what we’re inviting the audience to come in to do. They’ll hopefully have meaningful, emotionally resonant experiences that show them a different perspective on their own stories, but to get them there, they’re going to have to play.”

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Meow Wolf likes to say that its upcoming Los Angeles exhibition is focused on the art of storytelling — why it matters, what it means and how stories transform.

“This exhibition is about the inevitability of change,” says creative director Elizabeth Jarrett, “and how the stories that we tell ourselves and others have the ability to affect the way we perceive change and the way we experience it.”

That also means that Meow Wolf, known for its large-scale, explorable installations in Las Vegas, Denver, Houston, the Dallas suburbs and its home base of Santa Fe, N.M., will double down on its experiments with other media. Throughout the Los Angeles show, guests will encounter mixes of live action and animation, shadow boxes, games and even a mini escape room, only here guests have to break into rather than out of a secret room.

The Times spent two days in Santa Fe late last year to preview Meow Wolf’s Los Angeles exhibition, set to take over part of the Cinemark complex at Howard Hughes L.A. near the end of this year. Here are five fast things to know about the experience.

When musician Cary Brothers found out that the Hotel Cafe was shutting down, he felt like he’d been told his parents were selling his childhood home.

The beloved music venue, which kick-started the careers of then-little-known singer-songwriters Adele, Sara Bareilles and Damien Rice, is closing its doors in early 2026, its co-founders Marko Shafer and Max Mamikunian announced in November. For those like Brothers, who considered the Hotel Cafe a second home, the news of the closure was a heavy blow.

Luckily for them, Shafer and Mamikunian plan to open a new location in the nearby Lumina Hollywood tower in early 2027. Brothers said it provides consolation, but not complete comfort.

“Yeah, they’re buying a great new house, but it’s not our house,” he said.

Elected the “mayor of the Hotel Cafe,” Brothers discovered the Hollywood haunt before it even had a liquor license. In those days, the cafe had a BYOB policy and sold buckets of ice for visitors to chill the alcohol they brought in with them, and jazz legends pouring out of local bars after last call capped off their nights with a 3 a.m. jam session in the Hotel Cafe’s piano room (or smoking room, depending on whom you ask).

Every penny they made went back into the venue, Shafer said.

Brothers has always likened the Hotel Cafe in that era to “‘Cheers’ with guitars,” where he could show up any night and a dozen of his closest friends would be there. Eagles songwriter Jack Tempchin used to say it was the closest thing to the front bar at the Troubadour in the ’70s.

“Nobody became the Eagles, sure, but the spirit was the same,” Brothers said.

Beginnings on Cahuenga Boulevard

The owners attribute much of Hotel Cafe’s success to good timing.

At the turn of the century, Mamikunian said, “Word on the street in Los Angeles was, it’s an industry town and music venues don’t work here.”

Mamikunian, on the other hand, believed the city was teeming with raw talent, but there was no place for it to develop. Judging by the laundry list of musicians who flocked to the Hotel Cafe in those early years, his hunch was spot-on.

“We hit it right when it needed to happen,” he said.

For independent artist Kevin Garrett, the Hotel Cafe was a “gym” where he could flex his creative muscles and experiment with his sound, judgment-free. For local folk singer Lucy Clearwater, it was her sign that moving to L.A. was the right decision for her career.

And for Ingrid Michaelson, the spot was ahead of its time in championing female artists. When the Hotel Cafe asked Michaelson to headline its 2008 all-female tour, she thought, “When does that ever happen, except for Lilith Fair?”

In Michaelson’s native New York, there were a handful of venues that cradled early-career musicians: the Living Room, the Bitter End, Kenny’s Castaways.

“But in L.A., there really was just the Hotel Cafe,” Michaelson, behind such 2000s hits as “The Way I Am” and “You and I,” said. “So it was this distilling of all the singer-songwriters in L.A., kind of coming through this one port.”

Through the musical generations

In its 25 years of operation, the Hotel Cafe has seen several generations of musicians shuffle through the space, Shafer said. Production manager Gia Hughes calls them the “graduating classes.”

In Brothers’ days, it was Joshua Radin, Bareilles, Meiko and other late 2000s singer-songwriters whose music regularly landed on shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” — or in Brothers’ case, the indie cult classic “Garden State,” directed by and starring fellow Northwestern alum Zach Braff.

Next came residencies from breakouts Johnnyswim and JP Saxe, and later, folksters Clearwater and her close confidant Rett Madison. Clearwater said that during her tenure, she would often join her fellow performers onstage to sing backing vocals or play a violin solo.

“Every four years it’s like a different kind of community that comes about,” Hughes said. “And it’s different, but it’s also not.”

It’s why Shafer and Mamikunian aren’t worried about losing the magic they created on Cahuenga. In their eyes, it was never confined to the space itself.

“I remember when we first talked about expanding the Hotel Cafe and everybody said, ‘Don’t do it. You’re going to ruin what you have,’” Shafer said, referencing the venue’s 2004 acquisition of additional space next door. (They expanded again in 2016 with their Second Stage annex, about half the capacity of the main stage.)

“When we did it, it changed the room so much for the better, and gave us access to bigger artists but still didn’t lose the intimacy,” he said about the expansion.

Shafer and Mamikunian thought they’d outgrown the Cahuenga space and had long been pondering a move. This year, the logistics lined up, Mamikunian said.

“It wasn’t anything dramatic,” he said. It was just time.

Hughes called the move “an opportunity to pursue a space that can check a lot more boxes for us, for the long term”: more parking, increased room capacity, greater accessibility.

A new beginning around the corner

Zoning clearances are still pending for the new location in Lumina Hollywood on Sunset Boulevard, a high-rise apartment building set to be upgraded by Morguard Corp. And although the new venue is slated for a 2027 opening, the timeline depends on an upcoming zoning hearing, expected in March or April, Mamikunian said.

But Shafer and Mamikunian opted to announce the closure while details were still being worked out rather than wait and risk information leaking to the public. Plus, this way, both artists and patrons have time to say their goodbyes.

After Clearwater heard the news, she rushed to a “Monday Monday” weekly showcase and immediately felt like she’d been transported back to 2017, when she spent four-plus nights a week at the joint.

“So many of my old friends from that time — some of [whom] I had fallen out of touch with — I saw all of them there,” the Bay Area-bred folk singer said. “You could feel everybody loving it so much.”

The singer said she couldn’t help but wonder whether things would have panned out differently had people shown out like that before Shafer and Mamikunian made their choice. But sipping red wine in the green room that night, she felt lucky just to be there.

“It’s the wood, it’s the bar, the backstage chairs, the little lanterns,” she said. “I’m just going to miss what it looks and smells like, but the people, that’s never gonna go away.”

Farewell for now

Earlier this month, the Hotel Cafe hosted its last-ever holiday event at the Cahuenga location. Hughes, with the help of her interior designer sister, Nina Hughes, spent hours that day decking the halls with carnival lights and ribbons galore.

Even before the night’s performances began, attendees were clinking glasses and giving lingering hugs — the kind befitting the last day of summer camp.

“It’s going to be a love fest,” Hughes predicted.

As heartfelt as that night’s musicians were in their speeches, bartender Dan Shapiro said waxing sentimental onstage has been the norm for weeks.

“People are always doing eulogies to the place,” Shapiro said with a chuckle. As he surveyed the lineup posted at the bar, he said he’d put his money on performer Lily Kershaw shedding a few tears. Fellow bartender Dave Greve concurred.

Against the odds, Kershaw didn’t cry as she led the crowd through a rendition of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s “Our House” a few hours later. Subsequent performers stayed on theme with songs composed of resonant lyrics like “So long stranger / I like to think I know you best” and “Hold on tight / don’t let go.”

As Brothers crooned his own tribute, he closed his eyes, as though praying.

James Babson, a longtime doorman at the Hotel Cafe, said its staff and attendees alike have always been reverent toward performers. For some, he said, the listening experience is “spiritual.”

“Maybe they’re not churchgoers, so they have this sense of community and transcendence, where that song touches them on this level, which takes them somewhere else,” he said.

Peter Malek felt it the first time he stepped inside the Hotel Cafe 20 years ago. Hooked on that feeling, he started visiting the venue several times a week. Sometimes, he never even made it inside, content to chat with Babson for hours at the door; other evenings he spent in the staff offices, cramming for his medical school exams.

According to Malek’s last tally, he’s been to the Hotel Cafe 1,333 times. Although he was saddened when he heard the news of the relocation — several months before almost everyone else found out — he said he isn’t expecting Shafer and Mamikunian to replicate what they built at the Cahuenga site.

Instead, Malek said, he’s left “happy that he witnessed it.”

All night at the Hotel Cafe’s holiday party, attendees wondered whether penultimate performer Dan Wilson, of the pop-rock band Semisonic, would play “the song.” No one had to name it.

When Wilson finally sang the magic words, “Closing time, open all the doors / And let you out into the world,” the room erupted into cheers.

It was the closest Brothers came to crying, but he held it in. There would be time for that later.

WASHINGTON — President Trump is not the first president to want more room at the White House for entertaining, says the longest-serving top aide in the executive residence, offering some backup for the reason Trump has cited for his ballroom construction project.

Gary Walters spent more than two decades as White House chief usher to presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush — a role that is akin to being the general manager of the residence.

“All the presidents that I had an opportunity to serve always talked about some possibility of an enlarged area” for entertaining, Walters said in an interview with the Associated Press about his recently published memoir.

Trump has been talking about building a White House ballroom for years, even before he entered the political arena. In July, the White House announced a 90,000-square-foot space would be built on the east side of the complex to accommodate 650 seated guests at a then-estimated cost of $200 million. Trump has said it will be paid for with private donations, including from him.

The Republican president later upped the proposed ballroom’s capacity to 999 people and, by October, had demolished the two-story East Wing of the White House to build it there. In December, he updated the price tag to $400 million — double the original estimate.

Images of the East Wing being demolished shocked historians, preservationists and others, but Walters said there is a long history of projects on the campus, ranging from conservatories, greenhouses and stables being torn down to build the West Wing in 1902, to the expansion of the residence with a third floor, to the addition of the East Wing itself during World War II to provide workspace for the first lady, her staff and other White House offices.

“So there’s always been construction going on around the White House,” Walters said.

Other presidents bemoaned the lack of space for entertaining

When Walters was on the job, the capacity of the largest public rooms in the White House was among the first topics he discussed with the incoming president, first lady and their social secretary, he said. The presidents he served all talked about the limited number of people the White House could handle.

When set up for a state dinner, the State Dining Room can hold about 130 people: 13 round tables each with seating for 10, Walters said. The East Room can accommodate about 300 chairs — fewer if space is needed for television cameras.

Trump complains often that both rooms are too small. He also has complained about the use of large tents on the south grounds, the main workaround for big events such as ritzy state dinners for foreign leaders. Walters said the tents had issues.

“When it rained, the water flows downhill and the grass became soggy, no matter what we tried to do,” Walters said. “We dug culverts around the outside of the tent to try and get the water.” Tents damaged the grass, requiring more work to reseed it, he said.

Walters admitted it was a bit jarring to see the East Wing torn down, and said he had fond personal memories of the space. “I met my wife at the White House and she worked in the East Wing, so that was a joy for me,” said Walters, 79.

His wife, Barbara, was a receptionist in the visitors office during the administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. The couple recently celebrated 48 years of marriage.

Broken bones alter usher’s career trajectory

Walters owes his place in history as the longest-serving White House chief usher to the misfortune of a broken ankle.

He was 23 in early 1970, honorably discharged from the Army and looking for a job that would allow him to finish college at night. The Executive Protective Service, a precursor to the U.S. Secret Service, was hiring and accepted him.

But shortly before the graduation ceremony, Walters broke an ankle playing football. He could not patrol out of uniform, wearing a cast and hobbling around on crutches, so he was given a temporary assignment in the White House Police Control and Appointments Center. He stayed for five years.

“This injury also changed the course of my career,” Walters wrote in his memoir, “White House Memories: 1970-2007: Recollections of the Longest-Serving Chief Usher.” He gained an ”in-depth knowledge of the ways and security systems of the White House that would ultimately greatly benefit me in my future role in the Usher’s Office.”

A few months after being promoted to sergeant in 1975, he learned of an opening in the Usher’s Office. He applied and joined as an assistant in early 1976.

A decade later, he was elevated to chief usher by Reagan, who gave Walters the top job in the residence overseeing maintenance, construction and renovation projects, and food service, along with administrative, financial and personnel functions. He managed a staff of about 90 butlers, housekeepers, cooks, florists, electricians, engineers, plumbers and others.

Walters retired in 2007 after 37 years at the White House, including a record 21 years as chief usher. He served under seven presidents, from Nixon to George W. Bush.

In that time, Walters saw a broad swath of presidential history: the only president who ever resigned, an appointed vice president become the only unelected president, a president be impeached and stay in office, a father and son become president and the Supreme Court decide the most closely contested presidential election in U.S. history.

He’s often asked what he liked most about his work and “without hesitation I say it is getting to know and interact directly with the president, first lady, and other members of their family. It was an honor to get to know them with my own eyes and ears,” Walters wrote.

Superville writes for the Associated Press.

Nobody does a jaw-drop reaction like Bobby Berk. It’s only surprising when you assume he’s probably seen it all after eight seasons traveling the world as the interior design expert on Netflix’s reboot of “Queer Eye”; writing his 2023 book, “Right at Home: How Good Design is Good for the Mind”; making many TV appearances (including a Taylor Swift video) and selling pretty much anything to make your home shine on BobbyBerk.com.

But in his new HGTV series “Junk or Jackpot?”, premiering Friday at 9:30 p.m. Pacific, genuine reactions come often from Burke as he enters the homes of Los Angeles collectors and sees not only rooms jam-packed with action figures, pinball machines, puppets, marionettes and more, but also some jackpot items just sitting on a bookshelf. In one episode, for example, a collector shows Berk a trading card he has that is appraised in the $100,000 range. “I’m pretty sure I said, ‘What the f—?’ though I assume it was bleeped because it’s HGTV,” says Berk from his Los Angeles home. “I’m used to Netflix, where I could say whatever I wanted. But, yeah, that was just crazy to me.”

Reactions aside, the real marvel on “Junk or Jackpot?” is watching an enthusiastic Berk swoop into people’s homes to help them learn how to come to terms with a collecting hobby that has grown into something that’s stifling homes and putting a damaging strain on relationships. “Obviously, I’m not a therapist. I’m a designer, even though in our field, we often make the joke that we’re not just designers, we’re marriage counselors,” he says.

But Berk, born in Houston and raised in conservative Mount Vernon, Mo., is a self-taught pro at identifying what isn’t working and doing everything possible to fix it, including in his own life. Case in point: Berk, not feeling safe coming out in Mount Vernon, left home at 15 and bounced around for several years in various cities, never finishing high school. “From 15 to 22, I moved around and can’t even count the amount of places I had to move around to just due to finances and situations going on in life,” he recalls.

Eventually, he landed in New York City and worked for stores like Restoration Hardware, Bed Bath & Beyond and Portico before he opened his first online store in 2006 and first physical store in Soho in 2007. Soon thereafter, Berk was racking up appearances on networks like HGTV and Bravo before “Queer Eye” came calling in 2018 and took him to new heights, including his 2023 Emmy win for structured reality program. He also received an honorary degree from Otis College of Art and Design in 2022.

Now, with “Junk or Jackpot?” about to launch, the 44-year-old Berk spoke about how he was handpicked by pro wrestler and movie star John Cena for the show, the key to helping collectors let go of things that are weighing down their lives, and, after living many places and traveling the globe, where he considers home with husband Dewey Do and their mini Labradoodle, Bimini.

What are the origins of “Junk or Jackpot?” and what does John Cena have to do with it all?

I’ve been toying back and forth with HGTV for years, even when I was still on “Queer Eye,” but with my exclusivity with Netflix, I couldn’t do design shows with anybody else. We always just kept that line of communication open, so then when this specific opportunity came about, Loren Ruch, the head of HGTV, who’s unfortunately since passed, reached out. He said, “Hey, John Cena’s created the show for us and you’re the top of his list of who he wants it to host it.” John was a big “Queer Eye” fan, so I said yes. It shot here in L.A., which was really important to me. We were really lacking for entertainment jobs here in the city so that was a big plus for me to be able to bring jobs here to L.A. to all of our amazing crews.

And it’s not your typical design show. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with a typical design show and they do help people. But coming from “Queer Eye” where everyone we helped was because it was somebody deserving, somebody that was going through something and needed that extra boost in their life. That’s what this was with “Junk or Jackpot?”

Every single collector, as we’re calling them, had a story going on. With Patrick and Roger [in the premiere episode], Roger had moved out and their relationship was on the rocks because there was literally no space for Roger. With Carly and Johnny in another episode, they had a kid that they weren’t expecting to have in their early 40s, so it was a life-changing moment for them. Their priority needed to be their son, J.D.

I love the show because it was helping people at these moments in their life where they’re like, “We have this thing that we love and has brought us joy, but now this thing is actually starting to have negative things happening in our life.” I wanted to come in and really bring back the joyous part of their collection.

HGTV hasn’t given you a huge budget to revamp the homes and the collectors have to work themselves to sell off their collectibles to pay for the renovation. How did that angle come about?

It was a bit of therapy and I wanted the collectors to really realize that, yes, the collection that they have has value but this other thing that is happening in their life because of this collection has value, too. I wanted them to either be able to prove to themselves that what they were wanting to change in their life had more value than those things. Like with Patrick, Roger had a value.

I wanted them to go through the exercise of “You need to start parting with things.” And if you notice, I never pushed them to get rid of the most precious pieces of their collection. I pushed them to get rid of the things that often they had duplicates of but weren’t necessarily something like, “Oh, I got this as a child” or “somebody got this for me.” I wanted them to emotionally disconnect with those things so they could prioritize things better in life and in the future, they would have a lot easier time letting go even if I wasn’t there to push them.

How do you consider budget with the collectors? In one episode, you choose to cover a brick wall instead of tearing it down and building a new one.

The homeowners are the ones footing the bill for this, because again, a portion of this is the exercise of letting go. To your point, if we had just come in at HGTV and said, “Here’s all the money!” They’re like, “All right, I have no motivation to get rid of anything.” I wanted to make sure we made budget-conscious decisions and I think that’s also a really important thing to share with people at home that you don’t always have to go out and knock out a fireplace if you hate the material. You can do a thing like micro cement and you can completely change it for a minimal cost.

What would you say you learned from shooting the first season of “Junk or Jackpot?”

I wouldn’t say I learned anything necessarily new, but it was reaffirmed to me the emotional attachment and mental health aspect that your space and design can have on you, either in a good way or a bad way.

In the bad way, your house becomes so cluttered and overwhelmed with something that used to spark joy for you, but it’s now having an effect on not only your mental health, but your relationships with other people. On the other hand, the difference in your mental health just redoing that space, reorganizing that space, reclaiming that space can have on your mental health and your relationships not only with yourself, but with your family and your friends.

Vivian, who collects Wonder Woman memorabilia, her friends stopped coming over because there was just nowhere to sit. Her best girlfriend used to come in from Vegas all the time, where she lives, and she would spend the night and now she’s like, “I just can’t anymore because I’m surrounded literally. It’s too much and I just can’t do it anymore.” You see how just changing your space really can change your life.

Season 1 is set in Los Angeles but assuming you get more seasons, would you want to do other cities or countries?

I personally would always love just to keep doing L.A. I live there and with “Queer Eye” for eight years, we traveled all over America. That being said, this is a very niche show, so it might be hard to continue doing it in the same city season after season, so we probably will have to go to other cities, and I’d be fine with that. But I would at least like another season or two in L.A. After spending the last eight years filming “Queer Eye,” I like being home.

That said, you have lived in New York, you’re in L.A. now and you also have a place in Portugal. Where do you call home?

L.A. is definitely home for me. Portugal’s great, but L.A. is definitely home. Although the more time we spend in Southeast Asia, specifically Vietnam, since my husband’s originally from there, that also feels like home. I believe in reincarnation, and I was definitely from over there in my last life. Like when I landed in Vietnam, in China, anywhere in Southeast Asia — I just feel very at home.

“Queer Eye” was such a roller coaster for all you guys but what are your reflections now that it is behind you? Were you able to enjoy it at the time?

Yes and no. It was an amazing roller coaster. I enjoyed most of it, but there were times where we were just exhausted. I don’t know if you know the flight app “Flighty,” but it tracks your flights and tells you how many hours you’ve been in planes every year and how many times you’ve been on the exact same plane. I was looking the other day at how much I flew in 2019. Keep in mind in 2019, five months of the year I was filming, so I wasn’t flying anywhere. So this was just seven months, and I flew 200 flights. I flew over 500,000 miles. I don’t miss that. That was a lot. But as much as I can remember of it, I look back with fondness.

The film, based on a true story, is based on a daring mission to the moon

We all know the story of the first moon landing when Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on its surface but almost as dramatic is the story of three astronauts who almost lost their lives on the USA’s third attempt to stand on the surface.

The Apollo 13 mission in 1969 saw Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise take off from earth on course for the moon. However, the mission almost ended in disaster and this 1995 blockbuster directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks and Lovell, Kevin Bacon as Swigert and Bill Paxton as Haise is being shown on ITV tonight.

After an unexpected explosion in space, NASA is running out of time to find a way to bring the three astronauts back to earth safely. The film was a huge commercial success when it was released, going on to become the third most successful film of 1995, behind Die Hard With A Vengance and Toy Story, which also starred Hanks.

Apollo 13 also went on to be nominated for nine Academy Awards and picked up two Oscars for Best Sound and Best Film Editing. It was also five BAFTAs and four Golden Globes.

It won over critics with an impressive 94 percent approval rating on the movie review aggregator site, Rotten Tomatoes. One critic described to film as Ron Howard’s “finest work”. They added: “In his finest directorial work, Ron Howard embraces everything that the astronauts of Apollo 13 aspired to be and ended up as. Unforgettable.”

Another said: “Director Ron Howard, who has built a career on easygoing, reassuring movies from Night Shift to The Paper, finally achieves true drama.” A third added: “For Apollo 13, the 1970 space mission, everything went wrong. But for Apollo 13, the movie, everything goes right. Director Ron Howard, who has a history of blowing hot and cold, is so far into his hot mode in this movie that he’s dang near on fire.”

Fans also couldn’t get enough of the movie. One wrote: “A phenomenal epic odyssey of the daring odds of the Apollo 13 crew trying to return back home against all odds after their space shuttle malfunctions. The cast is great, with Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, and Ed Harris all giving great performances.”

Another added: “Brilliant masterpiece!! It’s very gripping from start to finish!” While a third said: “All-time classic. An American masterpiece.”

Apollo 13 is on ITV4 at 6.35pm on Boxing Day, December 26.

‘For the latest showbiz, TV, movie and streaming news, go to the new Everything Gossip website‘.

On the Friday night after Thanksgiving, a hotel room on the 17th floor of the Hotel Indigo in Downtown Los Angeles was transformed into a leather dressing room. About a dozen friends crowded around a king-size bed, cracking open Tecates, vibing to techno house music from a portable speaker, and adjusting each other’s harnesses.

The flash of a digital camera went off like a strobe as Yair Lopez documented his friends before their night at an afterparty. They were all there as part of the L.A. iteration of CLAW: a national leather and kink convention that offers workshops, parties and community spaces for people interested in BDSM culture. Founded in 2002, the convention started out in Cleveland, but has also held events in in L.A. since 2021.

As others spent their Thanksgiving holiday with blood relatives at the dinner table, this particular gathering was dubbed “Leather Thanksgiving” — a celebration of chosen family, cobbled together from various corners of L.A.’s queer nightlife. For Lopez and his friends, that sense of belonging is only growing.

“This chain was gifted to me from a friend,” Lopez said as he adjusted the silver around his neck. “Chains with a lock represent that you have a dom and the other person has the key. I’m still waiting for the lock,” he added jokingly, glancing at his boyfriend.

It was a big day for Lopez. Earlier he showcased three of his photos as part of a leather art gallery and attended a screening of “Encuerados,” a short documentary he appeared in, which shadowed a group of Latino men carving out space in L.A.’s leather community. An “Encuerados” afterparty would soon follow.

For Lopez and his friends, leather is less about fetish and more about kinship, safety and visibility, in a city where queer Latino spaces remain scarce.

Lopez has become a visible force in L.A.’s leather underground scene, building community through both his art and the spaces he helps create. He has self-published his work through photos and zines; he also founded Contramundo, a Latino leather night at the Bullet Bar in North Hollywood. His community work even led to a third-place finish in the 2023 Mr. L.A. Leather competition.

He started shooting a decade ago, moving from street scenes and hikes to L.A.’s queer nightlife. That work eventually led him to the Eagle, where he found a muse and a community he didn’t know he needed.

“I grew up in a pretty religious Mexican household in the San Fernando Valley. I was made to feel ashamed of who I was, even my own body, so finding this felt so needed,” he recalled.

Located in Silver Lake, the Eagle is a legacy leather bar that has anchored L.A.’s kink scene for decades. It is also one of the few remaining spaces for this corner of queer nightlife. And while Lopez did feel seen through the leather community, there was still a piece missing.

“It is no surprise that a lot of gay spaces are predominantly white, so finding gay brown community is hard. But that changed when I started meeting other like-minded Latinos in leather,” Lopez said.

One of those Latinos was Leonardo Iriarte, the first Latino Mr. L.A. Leather and co-founder of Payasos L.A., a nonprofit that organizes events and mutual aid efforts to support Latino visibility in the leather world.

The group of friends ran into Iriarte as they made their way to the 18th floor, where he was DJing for the night in a large, dimly lit conference room.

Dressed in black leather pants and boots, Iriarte had “Mr. L.A. Leather 2011” embroidered across the back of his vest. The Michoacán native also happened to be the protagonist of the “Encuerados” documentary and host of the “” afterparty.

“When I moved to the United States in 2001, I didn’t move for the classic American dream of looking for a better life financially,” said Iriarte. “My purpose of moving here was to be free as a gay person.”

And while Iriarte did find that freedom he hoped for, he was not prepared for the racism he would encounter in the leather scene — especially after winning his title.

“I remember a hate campaign and even death threats after I won,” he said. “It was scary, but it opened a door for other Latinos, and this space has grown so much since.”

As it gets closer to midnight, the dark conference room swells with bodies moving to Iriarte’s pulsing techno. Partygoers poured in sporting leather chaps, chest-hugging harnesses, and even tejana hats for a vaquero-leather twist.

Lopez put down his camera to circulate and greet friends from over the years. He bumped into Orlando Bedolla, director of “Encuerados,” who first met Lopez four years ago while filming the documentary.

“I learned about his photography, the zine he was making, all of it,” Bedolla said. “I found him interesting because he is literally a Latino increasing Latino representation in the leather community.”

Bedolla recalled attending CLAW L.A. in 2021 and going to his first Latino party there after getting an invite from Payasos L.A. Inside, he found a room full of mostly Latino men in jockstraps, harnesses and leather. He was struck by the energy of an underground community he didn’t realize existed. That night would become the seed for the film.

On the dance floor, colored lights flashed across Lopez’s visage as he tried to keep track of his room key. His friends borrowed it to run upstairs to their shared room for more drinks — and he wondered aloud about how messy it would be after their two-night stay.

These spaces, low-lit yet overflowing with camaraderie, offer the community something harder to find anywhere else, especially during the holidays: the freedom to be fully themselves.

“When I step into spaces like this, I don’t just see leather,” Lopez said, taking a sip of his vodka soda. “I see people reaching for some kind of joy and connection we’re constantly told is wrong. But we all want to feel touched and seen — and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

NEXT time you’re exploring France, you might spot something that looks like a UFO.

However, it is more likely to be a swimming pool, built back in the 1970s.

Called “Piscines Tournesol” – or “sunflower pools” – it aimed to build 1,000 swimming pools across the country.

This was launched by then Secretary of State for Youth and Sport, Joseph Comiti.

They hoped to encourage more people to swim, after the a series of drowning incidents.

Not only that, but it followed a poor performance from the French swimming team in the 1968 Summer Olympics.

Around 700 were built, but there was one particular style that was praised.

With a number of designs put forward, the winner was created by architect Bernard Schoellerr – called Piscines Tournesol.

Despite plans for 250 “sunflower” pools across the UK, around 183 were built.

Each one was around 25m long and 10m wide, with a 35m diamater domed roof.

Most of the light came from the round port-hole style windows.

While named after the flower, the pools look more like a spaceship, many have said.

In good weather, the roofs open 120 degrees, so are half indoors and half outdoors.

Sadly only 100 remain across France, although a number are still open to the public, although there are a few also across Luxembourg and Belgium.

One of the easiest for Brits to visit is Piscine Tournesol d’Hellemmes, on the outskirts of Lille.

Or there is Tournesol Raymond-Mulinghausen, 30 minutes from the centre of Paris which even launched €1 swims this summer for kids.

And one of the oldest is Piscine Tournesol de Bonneveine in Marseille, which was granted heritage status in 2000.

I saw one on holiday in Luxembourg, in the early 80’s. It was on top of a hill, hidden behind some trees, just like a real UFO

It’s beautiful, so Space Age looking. Does it open any further, to expose the whole pool?

Here’s how to find the grand Grecian-style pool in the UK.

And we’ve rounded up the best outdoor swimming pools in the UK.