woman

The public reckoning against British actor-comedian and convicted rapist Russell Brand continues after his conviction and prison sentencing for rape and sexual assault charges.

British screenwriter and producer Jemima Goldsmith accused ex-boyfriend Brand of “violence, coercive control and abuse” during their relationship. In a tweet shared Monday morning, Goldsmith (formerly Jemima Khan) alleged that she had Brand “removed from my house in 2014 during a violent incident.” Goldsmith, whose producing credits include “American Crime Story” and “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” said she did not press charges against Brand at the time and that she was “relieved” by the actor’s recent rape and sexual assault convictions.

The BBC confirmed on Wednesday that Thames Valley Police officers responded to Goldsmith’s Oxfordshire home for a reported incident in July 2014. Officials told the outlet that police made no arrests at the time and “also ensured the victim’s partner left the address, as per the victim’s wishes.”

“I am glad and relieved that Russell Brand has finally faced justice,” Goldsmith wrote.

A legal representative for Brand did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.

Goldsmith, 52, said in her post that she chose not to go public with her allegations against Brand because she was concerned about “the impact of the press attention on my then teenage children.” She said she has not been in contact with the actor, 51, since the alleged incident.

“Whilst my pain in relation to this, pales in comparison to what the women have testified in court have suffered, this was a difficult period in my life which has had a lasting impact,” she continued.

Goldsmith spoke out about her relationship with Brand as British police confirm further investigation of criminal allegations against him. The actor, famed for films including “Get Him to the Greek” and “Arthur,” was sentenced Monday to more than a decade in prison for rape and sexual assault charges. A jury found Brand guilty last week on one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault involving four women. He was acquitted on two rape counts and one count of attempted indecent assault. He stood trial for three weeks in October.

“Several people have contacted the investigation team during and since the trial to provide information or report a potential criminal allegation,” the Metropolitan Police Service said Tuesday in a statement to The Times. “Detectives are assessing this information as part of their ongoing enquiries.”

Brand was tried for charges stemming from his interactions with six women in the U.K., spanning from the late 1990s to the late aughts. Shortly after the jury handed down its verdict, police confirmed that they provided prosecutors with investigations into two additional rape allegations against the actor.

Goldsmith said in her post that she aided the British reporters behind the joint investigation by the Times of London and Channel 4 that made allegations against Brand public in 2023. Following the investigation, additional women came forward with allegations against the actor that his defense attorney took issue with during the trial. The “well of justice had been corrupted and contaminated” by the documentary, Brand attorney Ian Winter argued during the court proceedings.

After speaking out against Brand, Goldsmith addressed resurfaced reporting about a harassment injunction she and Brand obtained against a woman in 2014. The woman, a massage therapist who Goldsmith hired to work on Brand at her house, accused the actor of physical assault in 2014. Police determined at the time “there was no case to answer and that no criminal offence had been committed,” Goldsmith said.

She accused the woman of feeding “several untrue stories” to multiple British tabloids and then engaging in a “campaign of vicious antisemitic and threatening abuse online and in emails.” Goldsmith included examples of the alleged vitriolic messages in her tweet and alleged the woman sent similar messages to her loved ones, workplace and to journalists. She said the woman also accused her of “wild and untrue” crimes.

Goldsmith said she agreed to a harassment order to prevent the woman from “targeting me and my family.” She said in her post that she agreed to vary the harassment injunction so the woman could report her incident with Brand to police again if she wished.

Goldsmith added that any changes to the injunction must also be approved by Brand and that she has not heard from the woman’s attorney on the matter since May.

Chloe Smith explained why there were so many on her flight

A woman says all she could see were dead people when she looked down the aisle of her recent flight – describing it as ‘absolutely chaos’. A ghost whisperer has explained there is one place where your loved ones are always with you even after they are gone – every plane you board. Chloe Smith says she has been seeing spirits for over a decade – dedicating her life to exploring the unknown.

The 29-year-old psychic medium, author, and podcaster has now made her latest claim as she believes that the “dead” are “on planes”.

“Before boarding a plane, my loved ones will be by my side as well as spirits from other passengers,” said Chloe, from Ashbourne, Derbyshire. “Whispering, standing next to people, or surrounding them in white light for protection. Flying is the most anxiety-inducing thing for me, but instead of closing my eyes, I opened them and saw angels and loved ones surrounding people.

“Knowing that even in the times we feel most scared and worried, our loved ones are still by our side. Not because they choose to travel by plane but because they want to be by our side.”

Chloe made the revelation whilst boarding an easyJet flight. In the clip, she says: “There are so many dead people on this plane with me, and I’m not even exaggerating. You’re most likely thinking they can travel wherever they want to be – why would they want to travel on a plane?

“But when you’re feeling anxious and not yourself – that is when your loved ones are with you the most. So as I look down the aisle of the plane, it is full of spirits. I’m not even exaggerating, but I feel good for it. I feel healed, I feel protected, but it is absolutely chaos.”

The psychic medium believes that spirits of your loved ones help ‘change’ the outcome of the flight. She claims this is done by surrounding you to calm your nerves and flight anxieties.

Even on flights, her work is never done, as some spirits linked to other passengers are allegedly urging her to pass messages onto others on board, Chloe said: “I would say they change the outcome, but there have been many moments I myself have panicked at the thought of not being able to get off the plane, feeling claustrophobic and trapped; my loved ones have soothed that.

“So much love and calm surrounds you, allowing you to switch off from the anxiety of flying. Knowing your loved ones is truly by your side no matter what.

“But if they have something they want to say, they will make themselves known, for example. I look up; there is a man right there in my face telling me to tell the passenger four rows down that the hidden jewellery is in a box on top of the wardrobe.”

Friends say they haven’t heard from her since November 6

A woman has disappeared in a tourist hotspot after leaving her hotel. Friends have been left worried after Emily Lummis disappeared after stepping out of her holiday accommodation.

The 38-year-old has not been seen for days after she vanished in Lisbon, Portugal. The last sighting of her came on November 6. The missing persons report states that she was last seen leaving the Palacio do Governador hotel in the district of Belem.

This sighting came around 12pm with no further updates made as of yet. The Brit, who is from London, is described as being blonde, around 5ft 4ins tall and of a slim build.

Emily also allegedly goes by the name ‘Lyra’. She was last seen wearing jeans, a grey jumper and a black overcoat. Brits abroad, expats and locals have been urged to contact the police with any information they may have.

Her friend Ravi has posted the report online. She said: “I’m here looking for help. Lyra, also known as Emily Lummis, has been missing since Friday 6th Nov, 12pm. Last seen leaving her hotel Palacio do Governador in the district of Belem.

“She is English, slim blonde, 38 years old, 5ft 4. Last seen wearing jeans, a grey jumper and a black overcoat.

“We are now increasingly worried. Please contact us if you have any information on seeing her or her whereabouts. Contact- Police no. +351 261 860 710 in Lisbon.”

DESCRIBED as “ruthless, calculated and manipulative”, the depravity of Russell Brand has appalled the nation as every chilling detail of his sex attacks played out in court.

By his own admission, he was a “hedonist” and “an exploiter of women” who used his celebrity status and every emotional tool in his arsenal to achieve what he considered to be “my birthright” – having an “orgasm”. 

Brand, who was jailed for 10 years and six months this week, said he had “dedicated a lot of [his] life” to “beyond reckless philandering” – acts that saw him be “persuasive, seductive, begging and flirting” and even pretend to be gay to sleep with women. 

Now, in the wake of him being convicted for three sexual assaults and one rape, more questions have emerged about this master of manipulation and what else he sought to control. 

It has been speculated that even his romances may have had a calculated nature behind them – apparently benefiting his career, status, wealth or a combination of them all.

Most notable in this theory is his relationship with Katy Perry. Before dating and then marrying the popstar, all within the space of 10 months, an ex-girlfriend claimed Brand told her his aim was to find a world-famous girlfriend in order to make him a global superstar. 

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At the time in 2010, Brand was famous in the UK for his stand-up specials, hosting Celebrity Big Brother spin-off Big Mouth and had parodied himself in films including Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him To The Greek and St Trinian’s. 

But the comedian was barely known stateside and no doubt, a relationship with Perry – who was quickly becoming the world’s most famous popstar thanks to mega hits I Kissed a Girl, Hot N Cold and Teenage Dream – would help him to achieve that. 

Brand himself admitted that he “pushed to get married early” due to feeling “inadequate and insecure” and according to Perry, he longed to be “an equal” both in their relationship and to be seen as one by the outside world. 

But this determination to be considered on the same level manifested itself in a dark way. It led him to “mock her and be mean behind her back,” according to one source, who claimed he “just couldn’t cope with her star eclipsing his”.

It also led him to share a deliberately unflattering, make-up free photo of Perry to his 1.8million followers on Twitter, now known as X, in 2010 – an act decreed as “cruel”, “mean” and “disrespectful” by fans. 

While Brand deleted the snap within 48 minutes of posting, it had already gone viral and exposed his wife to bile from online trolls across the globe, who eagerly branded her “ugly” among other hurtful comments. 

A source who knew the couple told The Times that Brand “found himself resenting her success” while “her career rocketed” and his was waning – most notably after his film Arthur, which he had been “given full rein on”, flopped at the Box Office in 2011.

Brand would later admit he “didn’t handle [their] marriage very well” due to his insecurity and loneliness while Perry was “pursuing her dream of … becoming the world’s most famous pop star”. They divorced in 2012. 

Yet the romance with Perry wasn’t the only time Brand has faced claims of having weaponised his love life for fame and financial gain.

Back in 2006, Brand’s career was still in its early days. He was a BBC Radio host, presenter on Big Brother Efourum – later known as Big Mouth – and had appeared on shows like Richard & Judy, Kings of Comedy and The Bill. 

That soon changed after he was photographed with world-renowned supermodel Kate Moss following a one night stand and the subsequent war of words in the love triangle involving them and Libertines frontman Pete Doherty. 

The publicity from those snaps coupled with the attention garnered from fuming Doherty calling him a “hairy t***” and “no replacement”, gave Brand’s star a huge bump. 

A year on from their romp, Brand had made a whopping 19 appearances on TV shows including on The Royal Variety Performance, The Big Fat Quiz Of The Year and Soccer AM.

He had also presented The BRIT Awards and released his first memoir My Booky Wook.

Brand would also capitalise from the Moss tryst by boasting about it in his second autobiography, My Booky Wook 2, where he described Moss as like “an angel of my own devising”.  

Prior to those feats, Brand seemed keen to distance himself from bad boy, lothario image and paint himself in a more wholesome light by claiming he was ready for lasting love.

He told the Mirror in 2006 about having sworn off sex and his master plan: “I’d like to settle down and have children.”

Yet at the same time, Brand – who claimed to have deleted 784 numbers from his phone to avoid temptation – ferociously flirted with his female interviewer.

When asked how long his abstinence, then at 22 days, would last, he replied: “Is that an offer? Because it’s incredibly indiscreet!”

Brand would later tell her: “You’re quite attractive and it’s making me think I should maybe face the other way a bit more.

“I think it’s the tights, your hair, the cleavage, the boots. And you’re all cute and blushy and Northern and sweet.”

Brand would tell her “blushing is an indication of sexual availability” and quizzed her about cheating multiple times, including asking: “Are you faithful at the minute?”

That was the same year, that Brand was accused of drugging and raping a 20-year-old student at an Edinburgh flat he was renting.

Brand denied any knowledge of the 2006 claims and, later, his friend Trevor Lock was charged with rape. The case was later dropped by police and prosecutors. 

He also started dating future wife Laura Gallagher – then a 19-year-old art student, while he was 31 – that same year. They broke up in 2007 after he cheated on her multiple times.

The next known relationship was with Perry, who he spent two years married to before dumping her and demanding a divorce via text message in 2012. 

A source, who knew the couple, claimed the split followed his struggles living stateside and dealing with “her star eclipsing his”.

They added: “He was becoming more disillusioned spending time in Hollywood and the failure of Arthur – a project he had been given full rein on.”

That year Brand returned to the UK and appeared to be attempting to reestablish himself as a British icon, with performances including at the London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony.

He appeared in a BBC documentary about substance abuse and addiction – which drew heavily from heroin and sex addictions, made a comeback comedy tour called Only Joking and even briefly dated Spice Girl Geri Horner.

The romance was over in less than two weeks but was so intense that the singer and Brand apparently spent three days looking at houses together in North Devon, according to a source.

At the time of the split, Horner said: “It’s been a whirlwind. All I want is to be in a loving relationship. Is he my ideal man? I’m choosy. I want someone who’s trustworthy, sweet and kind.”

By 2014, Brand had reinvented himself again as an activist – following a scandal-hit relationship with Jemima Goldsmith, the then-editor of political magazine The Spectator.

Post Brand’s conviction, she claimed to have suffered “violence, coercive control and abuse” during their year-long romance. She has not reported those claims to the police.

Their split followed an alleged 2014 “violent incident”, which ended with her having to “call the police to have him removed from my house”. 

Prior to the break up, there was more trouble linked to a masseuse hired by Brand, who claimed she was treated “like a prostitute” and was “the victim of wrongful and criminal conduct” – which the couple denied. 

The case was investigated by police but no charges were brought. Masseuse Szilvia Berki was taken to the High Court, where she had no legal representation and would be bankrupted by the £50,000 legal costs she was forced to pay.

She was subjected to a type of gagging order called an anti-harassment injunction, which prevented her from speaking about the case.

While the case was all unfolding, Brand was painting himself as a man of the people and campaigner. 

He released a book titled Revolution, which criticised capitalism and claimed democracy was broken. 

He joined housing and anti-gentrification protests and a group of young mothers who refused to leave their homes after being issued with eviction notices after funding was cut at their hostels. 

Then in 2015, when the case with masseuse Berki was settled, he started dating future wife Laura for a second time – a woman he married two years later and had three kids with.

Recalling how Brand came back into her life, Laura told Grazia in 2020: “My ex had literally moved out of our flat that day, and I was heartbroken, with mascara running down my face

“A friend dragged me out on a walk to the canal in east London, where I’d never been in my life, and as we came on to the footpath, Russell was standing there, like he’d organised it.”

Laura would remain a bedrock who has stood by him through the claims of abuse in Channel 4’s Dispatches in September 2023 and the many police interviews that would follow. 

In the lead up to those years, Brand had already started to raise doubts about the government, police and media online.

He began sharing dangerous myths that the Covid-19 jabs posed a risk to health and peddled anti-establishment narratives.  

Six months after the documentary came out, Brand was baptised in the River Thames by TV adventurer Bear Grylls in a Christian rebrand that would endear him to religious worshippers in America and the UK. 

Since then Brand has peddled false theories about the ‘mainstream media’, claimed those who spoke out are often silenced and pushed extreme far right theories. 

It led to fans championing his cause outside of Southwark Crown Court throughout his trial – including one group with a banner that read: “Christ was crucified for telling the truth, Russell is the truth”.

Those worshippers will likely continue to cast doubt upon the three sexual assault and one rape convictions that a jury found Brand guilty of last week. 

But for all of the many faces adorned by Russell Brand, it was not enough to prevent his past from catching up with him. 

Yesterday, he was sentenced to nearly 11 years imprisonment and will have to serve at least seven years before he can be considered for parole.  

Upon his release, Brand will no doubt emerge as another new man and with another grand plan to rise to fame once more. 

Ultrarunner Stephanie Case speaks to BBC Sport about becoming the first women to run 100 miles in Antarctica, saying that she wanted to prove to every mother in the world that ‘motherhood is not the finish line’ and that they can ‘go out and do big adventures and dream big.’

Nov. 9, 2026 11:37 AM PT

NEW YORK — USC remained No. 3 in the Associated Press Top 25 women’s basketball poll released Monday, garnering one first-place vote ahead of its showdown on Sunday with top-ranked South Carolina.

Defending national champion UCLA tied for 10th in the rankings with Iowa after collecting two home wins over Lehigh and UC Irvine last week. The Bruins host Arizona on Thursday.

South Carolina remained the No. 1 team in the top 25 in the first regular-season poll after wins over Maryland and North Carolina, two ranked teams, to start the season. The Gamecocks received all other first-place ballots from the national 33-member media panel.

Kim Barnes Arico and Michigan used the biggest regular-season win in program history to move up to No. 2. It’s the Wolverines’ best ranking ever and came after a 77-66 victory over then-No. 2 UConn last week. Michigan, which was ranked fifth in the preseason poll, surpassed its previous high of fourth on Feb. 7, 2022.

“To be in position today to beat Connecticut and be the No. 2-ranked team in the country, it’s just a credit to our players and credit to our staff,” Barnes Arico said in a phone interview. “To have an opportunity to be in the top five and beat the best program of all time this week was really special.”

The Wolverines were one of 10 Big Ten teams ranked this week, matching the record set by the Southeastern Conference last season.

UConn dropped two spots to fourth while Duke rounded out the first five.

The rest of the rankings

Texas, Louisville, Vanderbilt, Louisiana State were next. UCLA and Iowa were tied for 10th. Kentucky and Notre Dame followed them. Oklahoma jumped up seven spots to No. 14 after routing North Carolina in the season opener in France.

Texas Christian, Washington, Ohio State, Minnesota, Oklahoma State and Maryland were 15-20. The final five were Ole Miss, Illinois, North Carolina, West Virginia and Nebraska. The Cornhuskers entered at No. 25 while N.C. State fell out.

Conference supremacy

The Big Ten has 10 teams in the top 25. The Southeastern Conference has seven, including four in the top nine. The Atlantic Coast Conference has four and the Big 12 three. The Big East has one.

Michigan’s signature win

Barnes Arico’s team has now beaten a top five team three times in the past five years. The Wolverines topped No. 5 Baylor in 2021 and fifth-ranked Indiana in 2022. The coach also accomplished a rare feat, ending another long UConn winning streak. She was the coach at St. John’s when the Red Storm ended the Huskies’ 99-game home winning streak. Last Thursday, the team ended UConn’s 39-game, regular-season winning streak. Barnes Arico is one of the few coaches who has beaten Geno Auriemma at different schools, joining Texas coach Vic Schaefer.

“When I think back at UConn and Geno, I have the most respect for him of any coach that’s ever coached in our game,” Barnes Arico said. “He’s been able to maintain consistency and what he’s accomplished has been unreal and unheard of. To be one of two coaches that have beat him at two different places is really incredible. People go through a lifetime and never beat Connecticut ever.”

Game of the week

No. 3 USC visits No. 1 South Carolina on Sunday. The two teams met twice last season with the Gamecocks winning both matchups. One was in the regular season while the other came in the second round of the NCAA tournament. The Trojans have JuJu Watkins back after she missed the last 20 months recovering from an anterior cruciate ligament injury she suffered in the NCAA tournament her sophomore year.

Jill said escaping the situation was difficult and that she only gradually came to understand the extent of what had happened to her.

“By the time I got away, I was very aware of what he was doing and it took some effort to get away,” she said.

“I was by then aware that I could not have been the only one.

“I tried to raise the alarm, I tried to warn people.”

Salah Fayed was one of three Fayed brothers who purchased Harrods, the luxury Knightsbridge department store, in 1985.

After his death, Mohamed Al Fayed was accused by more than 20 women of sexual assault in a BBC documentary Predator at Harrods that aired in 2024.

Since those allegations more than 400 alleged victims or witnesses have come forward to lawyers.

Earlier this year, Police Scotland said it was carrying out further investigations into allegations connected to Balnagown Estate.

In a statement, a police spokesperson said: “Three people have been identified in connection with offending against a number of victims.

“Our inquiries are ongoing and it would be inappropriate to comment further.”

The Metropolitan Police is separately investigating allegations linked to Mohamed Al Fayed and those suspected of facilitating his offending.

It said it was one of the largest and most complex investigations it was currently undertaking.

“Seven suspects have so far been interviewed under caution on suspicion of offences including aiding and abetting rape and sexual assault, assisting the commission of sexual offences, and human trafficking for sexual exploitation,” a Met Police statement said.

“To date, 168 victims have now come forward. We will continue to assess victim testimonies for evidence of human trafficking.”

In a confidential note, shared with survivors, of a meeting between the Met and the All Party Parliamentary Group for Survivors of Fayed and Harrods, it said about 70 people had been referred to the Home Office as potential victims of trafficking.

RAPIST Russell Brand was banned from BBC’s Los Angeles office in 2019 after allegedly flashing a woman in the toilets and exposing himself to her a decade earlier.

The disgraced comedian, 51, allegedly followed his victim – known by the pseudonym of “Olivia” – into the loos and exposed his penis in June 2008, minutes before recording Radio 2’s The Russell Brand Show.

At the time, his co-host Matt Morgan said on air that Brand had “showed his willy to a lady” 25 minutes earlier, but the incident was not investigated by the Beeb.

Olivia, who was not employed by the BBC but worked for another company in the same building, said she felt she couldn’t report the incident in 2008 because she feared repercussions.

She told the The Sunday Times: “I’d like to think my employer would have backed me, but I was worried that if I had gone up against him [Brand] and lost, I would have been responsible for any costs.

“It was a very different time and culture. There were also elements of embarrassment that this creep did this to me. It was shame.”

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However, the incident became a popular joke among BBC’s LA staff, with the corporation admitting last year that it was “often joked about”.

The revelations come as The Sun revealed that Brand secretly moved nearly £9million from one of his firms, which could stop money going to his victims.

Brand began diluting his vast wealth prior to standing trial for rape, despite always protesting his innocence, a Sun probe has revealed.

He shifted £8.7million out of his TV and stand-up company last year.

Legal experts expect the former comedian and actor will be subject to significant financial claims from victims on both sides of the Atlantic after he was last week found guilty of one rape and three sexual assaults.

He also resigned as a director of one firm in 2023, just weeks after he was publicly accused of being a sexual predator.

It comes as the religious influencer faces a significant jail term when he is sentenced today, November 9, at London’s Southwark crown court.

It has also emerged that Brand claimed he groped other students as part of a sick “genital grabbing” game while he was at school.

In his first memoir My Booky Wook, Brand, now 51, says he played a grubby game called “genital grabbing”, where he would grope other students over their clothes.

He later wrote of his classmates: “No one was safe from me… every female was a potential target.”

When he was in his 20s, this morphed into what was called the “knobstacle course” – his challenge of trying to charm women into going to bed with him.

It  has been claimed Brand molested a female friend at a posh hotel — before paying for her to go through rehab.

The woman says he followed her to the toilets before pushing her into the disabled cubicle and sexually assaulting her.

The newly resurfaced material comes after the fiend was found guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault following a trial at Southwark Crown Court earlier this week.

He was acquitted of three charges.

After he was convicted, it emerged that he is being investigated over two new rape claims.

Lately, Pamela Abdy has been feeling “pure, unadulterated rage.”

Abdy exited her role as co-chair and chief executive officer of Warner Bros. after the studio was acquired by Paramount Skydance in a controversial merger that closed last month.

The now-former studio executive received the inaugural Vanguard Award at the Women in Film Honors gala on Thursday evening. She thanked every single female director, producer and executive she has worked with throughout her career, including Greta Gerwig, Emerald Fennell, Zoë Kravitz, Margot Robbie, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, whom she feels ever-growing gratitude toward.

“But lately, other feelings, and one in particular, have risen to the surface with undeniable ferocity, and that feeling is pure, unadulterated rage,” she said onstage in the Beverly Hilton’s opulent ballroom. “Rage for these women, rage for me and even more rage for the entire generation of women who deserve to have their potential recognized and elevated.”

“Rage at how women are under attack everywhere,” she continued. “Rage at how our health and our well-being always seem to come second to how we show up in a room. And here’s the problem: As a leader who happens to be a woman, I am supposed to sublimate this rage. And you know what happens when they tell you to tamp down a fever? Sometimes it just burns hotter.” (All remarks onstage were interpreted into ASL by Keturah Holiday and Amber Berteloot.)

“When I researched the term vanguard, I came across a few meanings,” Pamela Abdy said at the 2026 Women in Film Honors gala, where she received the inaugural Vanguard Award. It can mean “a leader who brings new ideas, political movements or art.”

(Unique Nicole / Getty Images)

She has been called difficult, emotional and combative, Abdy said. She’s been told to put on her “big boy pants,” to smile more. She’s been told that movies starring women and directed by women don’t make as much money as those made by men, that their audience is limited. (Even after “Barbie,” which she oversaw alongside Mike De Luca, grossed more than $1.4 billion.)

“It is getting harder, not easier, to be a woman in the business,” Abdy said. “We tell ourselves because a few of us made it into these chairperson seats, we broke through, that we paved the way for the next generation. But I don’t think it’s true.”

When Gerwig made “Barbie,” people consistently referred to her as a “female director,” Abdy said — not a “director.” But when people talk about the highest-grossing male directors, they don’t call them “male directors.” We still have the “Most Powerful Women in Hollywood” lists. But the men don’t have a separate list; they are the list, she added.

“So I have to ask: What business are we leaving for future vanguards?” Abdy said. “Is it a healthy industry for the next generation of storytellers and executives to step into? One that allows women to enter with an open heart and mind, without having to fight the fights we’re still fighting?”

“These are the questions I think about when I focus on funneling my rage,” she continued. “Rage can be destructive, but I think of it as fuel, as something that can burn bright, something that can be harnessed to fight on for what we think is right, what we believe in and what we deserve.”

Jane Fonda, right, presented Salma Hayek Pinault with the Jane Fonda Humanitarian Award at Thursday’s Women in Film Honors gala.

(Unique Nicole / Getty Images)

Abdy then paused to acknowledge how heartening it was to see so many women elected in the midterms on Tuesday. Earlier in the evening, WIF Chief Executive Kirsten Schaffer shouted out Keisha Lance Bottoms, the first Black woman elected governor of a state, in Georgia; Gina Hinojosa, the first Latina governor elected in Texas; and the six transgender and nonbinary candidates who made history.

Filmmaker Nancy Meyers, who presented Abdy with her honor, praised Abdy and De Luca’s historic tenure: “Barbie” is the highest-grossing film in Warner Bros. history. “Sinners” set an Oscar record with the most nominations ever by a single movie. And last year’s best picture winner, “One Battle After Another,” was “another feather in Pam’s very crowded hat.”

After Meyers’ introduction, a highlight reel played Abdy’s greatest hits, including video submissions from some of her friends in the industry: Gerwig, Robbie, Kidman, Bullock and Ryan Coogler, among others.

Bullock cheekily reminded Abdy that, when she accepts her award, “remember that when they gave it to you, you were initially employed at the place where you are no longer employed.” Then, when Bullock “realizes” that this is the WIF Honors gala, she backtracks. “Never mind, forget everything I just said. Say everything you want to say, toot your own horn. They love you.”

This seemed, for the most part, true about the hundreds of women in attendance. As soon as Abdy turned her speech toward rage, a faint “preach!” rang from somewhere in the ballroom. The 15-minute speech was met with a standing ovation.

At the Women in Film Honors gala, WIF Chief Executive Kirsten Schaffer asked: “Whose stories make it to the big screen? Whose vision of the future are we living in?”

(Unique Nicole / Getty Images)

“In the executive suites of Hollywood, in the past three months, we’ve lost 50% of our top women leaders, which has been a major blow, because it’s not like we had that many to begin with,” Schaffer said. “So what are we going to do about it? At WIF, we have a very simple answer: We keep going. We keep opening doors. We keep investing in each other. We keep hiring each other. We keep fostering the next generation of storytellers.”

Abdy wasn’t the only honoree Thursday evening. Jane Fonda presented Salma Hayek Pinault with the Jane Fonda Humanitarian Award for her philanthropic work, including with the Kering Foundation (established by her husband’s luxury group), which fights gender-based violence across the U.S., Mexico, France, Italy, Korea and the U.K. Hayek Pinault dedicated the award to Dolores Huerta, who died last week and attended the gala last year, and called Huerta “a womb for our community.”

Sharon Stone presented Hannah Waddingham with the Crystal Award for Advocacy in TV, and Maria Giulia Prezioso Maramotti (granddaughter of the founder of Italian clothing brand Max Mara, which sponsored the event) presented actor Adria Arjona with the WIF Max Mara Face of the Future Award. Emmy Rossum gave writer, director and producer Beth de Araújo and actor Gemma Chan (in absentia) the Crystal Award for Advocacy in Film for their upcoming movie “Josephine,” about a young girl who has witnessed a sexual assault.

Beth de Araújo — who wrote, directed and produced the upcoming movie “Josephine” — received the Crystal Award for Advocacy in Film (along with star Gemma Chan, in absentia) at the gala.

(Unique Nicole / Getty Images)

“In our film ‘Josephine,’ we attempt to transport you back to your youth, to a time before you understood the concept of sexual assault,” De Araújo said. “What happened to you once you became aware of it? How did this start to inform the way you moved your body through the world, the way you thought about your own safety?”

“For me, I certainly became very, very scared, and I hid. I locked myself inside so that there were barriers between myself and danger,” she continued, tearing up. “But I’m very tired of being scared. It is time for those who are committed to violence to be scared of us.”

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Bottoms, who formerly advised ex-President Joe Biden, beat Republican Rick Jackson.

Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms has made history as the first Black woman elected governor in the United States.

The former Atlanta mayor emerged victorious over her billionaire opponent, Republican Rick Jackson, who spent more than $200m of his personal fortune in an attempt to succeed popular outgoing Republican Governor Brian Kemp.

Bottoms, an adviser to former US President Joe Biden, was propelled to victory in part by the state’s significant Black voting bloc, which turned out in large numbers during early voting.

During the campaign, she faced Republican attempts to characterise her time as mayor as a crime-ridden decline for the state’s largest city.

“It’s a longstanding playbook to paint Atlanta as this big bad place,” Bottoms told the Associated Press news agency.

Bottoms’s win marks the third consecutive time that Georgia Democrats have nominated a Black woman for governor. Stacey Abrams lost in 2018 and 2022 to Kemp, who is leaving office in January after eight years due to term limits.

Angel City and “Ted Lasso” both came to life in the summer of 2020 when the rest of the world was preoccupied with something far more serious, the global COVID-19 pandemic.

In those dark times, the series about kindness, grace, optimism — and soccer — became the show we didn’t know we needed, but suddenly couldn’t do without.

Angel City, meanwhile, would play its first NWSL game two years later, by which time “Lasso” and Jason Sudeikis, the title character of the Apple TV series about a fictional Premier League team and its manager, had already won multiple Emmys.

Hollywood is a small town, so it wasn’t long before Sudeikis reached out to Kara Nortman, a venture capitalist who co-founded Angel City in 2020, and asked to talk about women’s soccer.

Angel City co-founders Natalie Portman, left, Kara Nortman and Julie Uhrman speak during the team’s equity summit in Australia during the 2023 Women’s World Cup.

(Hanna Lassen / Getty Images)

“And I was like, ‘You had me at hello,’” Nortman said.

What was supposed to be an hour-long phone call turned into four-hour meeting in person, Nortman said.

“The most fun conversation I’ve had in a long time,” she remembered last month. “It really started as a shared passion and interest in women’s sports and building communities and new leadership models and all the things that ‘Ted Lasso’ is about that are far beyond football.”

What the conversation led to was the foundation for the just-completed fourth season of “Ted Lasso,” which focused on the unique challenges faced by women’s soccer teams and players — challenges Nortman knows only too well as the co-owner of a team. That’s why she was credited as a consultant on the series.

And the collaboration comes at a time when the soccer team and the soccer TV series are both at the top of their game, with “Lasso” drawing record audience numbers this summer and Angel City advancing to this weekend’s NWSL playoff quarterfinals after the most successful season in its history.

“They could have continued writing about the men’s team,” Nortman said. “They chose to write about women’s football.

“I’m super proud that we were part of what helped them really understand how to write a beautiful script that was really representative of a lot of challenges we went through.”

The challenges go beyond just salaries, media attention and funding to things as serious as child care and the rash of ACL injuries in the women’s game and as frustrating as hand-me-down uniforms and locker rooms. In “Ted Lasso,” the women’s team Sudeikis coaches — a man coaching women? That topic is addressed, too — uses a dressing room abandoned by a men’s team, one with urinals but without enough working showers.

Angel City captain Sarah Gorden dribbles the ball in front of Boston Legacy’s Sarah Schupansky at Dignity Health Sports Park on Sunday.

(Katelyn Mulcahy / Getty Images)

One player nearly misses a game because she can’t find a babysitter, something that really happened to Angel City captain Sarah Gorden. Another player is recognized by a fan while working for a food-delivery company to supplement her tiny soccer salary, something that really happened to English star Lucy Bronze in her early playing days.

For many viewers, the “Ted Lasso” plot lines were their introduction to those real-life issues.

“The vibe of authenticity,” Nortman calls it.

“They got right the ACLs, they got right the locker-room dynamic, they got right the training facility,” she said. “I think they got all those things right.”

Sudeikis and Brendan Hunt, the creative geniuses behind “Ted Lasso,” declined to be interviewed for this story, as did everyone involved with the series. But Sudeikis has long denied the show is about soccer.

“This show is as much about soccer as ‘Rocky’ is about boxing,” said Sudeikis, who described the eponymous title character as a cross between John Wooden and Mister Rogers.

Actors Jason Sudeikis, center, and Tanya Reynolds, right, lead a professional women’s soccer team through authentic challenges during the fourth season of “Ted Lasso.”

(Colin Hutton / Apple TV)

But the series has always had soccer in it. So it was natural that Sudeikis and Hunt, who both have long supported women’s sports, would turn their massive spotlight on women’s soccer and bring attention to the glaring inequalities that had slowed the development of the game.

And Nortman wasn’t the only one from NWSL to join that cause. The “Lasso” season opener, shot largely in Kansas City, Mo., was a paean to that city’s women’s soccer team, the Current, and its stadium, where the team has sold out every game over the last three seasons and is unbeaten in its last 32 matches there. (Angel City opens the playoffs in Kansas City on Saturday.)

The synergy helped both sides, with “Lasso” shattering viewership records, trailing only Amazon Prime Video’s “Reacher” as the most-streamed series overall in September, while NWSL’s viewership numbers through the first half of the season jumped 61% on ABC and ESPN. The average season attendance of 11,032 was the second-highest in history.

“Once we knew that Jason and the cast were going to feature a season about women’s soccer and start that season at one of our stadiums with one of our teams, the authenticity with that just lent itself to doing an integration,” said Jennifer Levine, the league’s vice president for public relations and communications.

Kansas City Current fans cheer during the team’s first match at CPKC Stadium in 2024. It is the first stadium built solely for a pro women’s soccer team and was featured in the latest season of “Ted Lasso.”

(Jamie Squire / Getty Images)

“There was a lot of crossover between what they were doing and what we’re doing. So it kind of created a perfect storm for us. Being a part of the cultural conversation as part of ‘Ted Lasso’ will only add to the excitement around the NWSL.”

But will it solve the problems and level the inequities that continue to plague women’s soccer?

“I like to hope it helps,” Levine said. “They have been honest. … I think the writing team and the cast did an incredible job portraying what it’s like to be a women’s footballer.

“Everything that we’re doing at the league with investing in infrastructure and building more purpose-built stadiums and building training facilities, it’s all to improve the experience that viewers are seeing in ‘Ted Lasso.’”

Or as Sudeikis’ character once put it, “doing the right thing is never the wrong thing.”

⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.

It takes frighteningly little to destroy a happy family. So much love, so much joy, so much shared history can be erased by one terrible act or the discovery of something rotten that had been festering undetected. Austrian filmmaker Marie Kreutzer explores the unimaginable in “Gentle Monster,” in which a celebrated concert pianist learns that her husband and the father of her son might be involved in child pornography. Instantly, her life shatters, the pieces so scattered she may never be able to pick them all up.

Léa Seydoux plays Lucy, a musician who brings an element of social commentary to her avant-garde live performances, delivering ethereal covers of emphatic love songs written by men — such as Bryan Adams’ “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” — to interrogate that gender’s general discomfort with emotions. It’s an important early clue into Kreutzer’s larger aims, but first the writer-director establishes Lucy’s endearing rapport with her sensitive husband Philip (Laurence Rupp) and their pre-tween son Johnny (Malo Blanchet). Having recently moved to the German countryside after living in Munich, they’re adjusting to a quieter existence with fewer neighbors but less-reliable cell service. Lucy and Philip’s sex life remains robust and Johnny enjoys the extra outdoor space. Nothing’s ever perfect, but all seems well enough.

Yet when the police arrive unannounced one morning, Philip isn’t surprised. Led by Elsa (Jella Haase), the authorities inform him they need to confiscate his computers and hard drives. He offers no resistance, quickly getting on the phone to his lawyer. Lucy comes downstairs, baffled by what’s going on as he’s taken away. When she later visits the police station to get more information, she’s directed to the second floor. That’s when Lucy realizes the horrible truth: That’s the floor assigned to the crime unit specializing in stopping sexualized violence against children. Philip, the love of her life, has been accused of storing and sharing child pornography.

As Philip awaits trial at home, Lucy processes the shock, too smart to believe this is all some awful misunderstanding. Hurriedly packing a bag, she drives off with Johnny, the two of them moving in with her regal, chilly mother Eloise (Catherine Deneuve), although Lucy does not tell her why she’s left Philip. (The judgy Eloise, herself a musician, smugly assumes that her daughter figured out that having a family is death for an artist.) Philip repeatedly calls Lucy, hoping to explain himself, but she now cannot trust anything he says. Seydoux keeps her character’s storm of emotions intriguingly opaque. Shame, disgust, anger, sadness and confusion equally course through Lucy, who starts wondering about the extent of Philip’s criminality. Did he ever abuse their son?

Kreutzer, whose 2022 drama “Corsage” starred Vicky Krieps as a rebellious 19th century empress, explores Lucy’s odyssey as she grapples with the dawning fact that she long shared a bed with a pedophile. But “Gentle Monster” eventually introduces a parallel storyline involving Elsa, the investigator. When she’s not cracking down on child pornographers — grim work that she nonetheless takes great pride in — she’s minding her aging father, Hermann (Sylvester Groth), who is experiencing severe cognitive decline. His live-in nurse Natalia (Patrycja Ziółkowska) tells Elsa that he tried to sexually assault her, which upsets Elsa but also puts her in a bind: Natalia is the only care worker Hermann has actually gotten along with. Elsa abhors his behavior but she desperately wants Natalia to stay, frantically assuring her that she’ll get him to stop.

Although both plotlines concern predatory men, “Gentle Monster” expands its thematic scope to more broadly discuss the emotional labor that women are forced to perform. Philip’s rich parents insist their son couldn’t have done anything wrong, while Elsa’s absent brother leaves her to figure out what to do about their ailing father. In their own ways, Lucy and Elsa shoulder a significant burden that has been imposed on them by someone they love, their devotion now being exploited. And in both cases, there is a societal expectation that it’s their duty to be a solo support system — Lucy as a mother and wife, Elsa as a daughter. As accomplished as these two women are, ultimately they’re reduced to being nurturers and caregivers.

Unfortunately, much like Lucy’s stilted deconstruction of male love songs, “Gentle Monster” ends up a little too intellectual for its own good, its ideas more interesting to mull over than to feel deeply. In addition, there’s a nagging narrative tidiness to Lucy’s and Elsa’s stories so conveniently echoing each other. And as formidable as Seydoux can be, the character isn’t so much heartbreakingly conflicted as she is oddly muddled and underdeveloped. Kreutzer does not fully succeed in elucidating how women are imperiled by sexual predators — even when they are not the ones directly affected — but her uneven film ripples with pain. Lucy’s behavior may be frustratingly inconsistent, but many viewers will recognize the immeasurable suffering that drives it.

Dolores Huerta, the fiery and resolute activist who helped launch and guide the nation’s first enduring labor union for poor farmworkers and later became an inspiration to women and liberal true believers, has died. She was 96.

Erik Olvera, a spokesman for Huerta’s family, told The Times on Wednesday that Huerta died in Bakersfield, surrounded by members of her “huge family.” The cause, he said, was cancer.

“It’s a tough time,” Olvera said. “She was incredibly beloved, and not only was she beloved, but she was an icon to so many people around the country and around the world, really. If anything, her family is clinging to memories and clinging to each other as they mourn.”

Huerta never gave up on her dream of a more equitable distribution of wealth in America, campaigning for working people for years beyond standard retirement age.

The emotional compass of the United Farm Workers of America for decades, the petitemother of 13 attained singular stature as a rule-breaking proto-feminist, godmother of the Chicano power movement and doyenne of American labor.

Huerta’s fervent crusading for the dispossessed made her the potent alter ego to her union co-founder, the soft-spoken and methodical César Chávez, though the full complexity and pathology of their relationship only became apparent late in her life.

The duo’s history took an unexpected and dark turn in March 2026, when two women came forward to say they had been sexually assaulted by Chávez when they were teenage girls, with Huerta telling the New York Times that the venerated labor leader also had twice forced sex on her, resulting in a pair of pregnancies.

Nearly 96 at the time, Huerta said she had remained silent for six decades to protect the farmworker movement. But she added: “I now understand that I am a survivor — of violence, of sexual abuse, of domineering men who saw me, and other women, as property, or things to control.”

Some wished Huerta had spoken out earlier, at least within the insular union, in order to prevent others from being victimized. But her many champions insisted the late-life revelation reflected badly only on Chávez, who for decades before his fall from grace had been an American civil rights icon and a virtual secular saint to the political left.

Some historians insist that Huerta be given full recognition for teaming with Chávez during much of the early foundational work that produced the UFW, from its founding in 1962 in the San Joaquin Valley farm town of Delano through her leave from full-time work with the union in the late 1980s.

It was Huerta who hurried from pickup truck to back stoop to pool hall, to recruit many of the union’s first members; Huerta who stormed up and down the picket lines to keep striking workers out of the fields; Huerta who helped negotiate one of the first contracts ever for farmworkers in North America; and Huerta who struggled to keep the union relevant, as its membership and clout faded. She turned the phrase “Sí, se puede!” into a chant that animated rallies and marches well into a new century.

Complications and byzantine controversies helped stymie the union in its adolescence, with Huerta usually supporting Chávez, even as he became distracted from the union’s central work and demanded absolute power. Their obsession with loyalty and often-imagined conspiracies ended with purges of some of the UFW’s most dynamic leaders and organizing stagnation, even as field hands continued to labor under abysmal conditions.

Huerta later devoted much of her time to women’s rights, Democratic Party politics and community organizing.

In 1999, the 69-year-old great-grandmother helped obtain extra government benefits for workers who lost their jobs in a citrus freeze and stared across the contract bargaining table at lawyers for the giant Gallo wine company. Even late in life she still toured the nation as a public speaker and used her foundation to register voters and campaign for progressive causes. Liberal groups clamored to have Huerta at the front of their marches. Often sporting a jaunt red beret, she locked arms with activists one-quarter her age.

Her Dolores C. Huerta Foundation supported endeavors as diverse as a performing arts camp for children, higher education mentoring for high school students and food distribution to victims of floods that inundated the Central Valley in 2023. The foundation became something of a family business — headed by her daughter, Camila Chávez, and supported by legal advice from her son, Emilio Huerta, while four other relatives served on the board.

In another step to cement Huerta’s legacy, one of her nonprofits broke ground in 2025 for the Dolores Huerta Peace & Justice Cultural Center in Bakersfield, the San Joaquin Valley city she called home. The $35-million project, paid for largely by the state of California, will include an academy to teach future generations how to become community organizers. “They are the ones who are going to guide us forward,” the 95-year-old told a crowd, which stood under a scorching sun for the groundbreaking.

Through it all, Huerta insisted her primary loyalty remained la causa — the struggle to win better wages, working and living conditions for poor people, particularly farmworkers.

Beginning with the early organizing days in the 1960s, Huerta inspired passions almost as intense as her own. She won almost breathless admiration from followers for the way she faced down sometimes violent anti-union forces, worked for days with little rest and negotiated late into the night, while others faded. She alienated others with a waspish temper, an unwillingness to forgive even small slights and inattention to some of the details that make a union work.

To the union faithful, she was the “Madonna of the Fields.” Some said Huerta reminded them of the soldaderas, a handful of women warriors who followed Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa into battle during the Mexican Revolution. The growers, whom she almost always scorned, had another name for her: “the dragon lady.”

A woman of frenetic energy who lived in a world of myriad contradictions, Huerta was one of the only women in many board rooms and union halls full of men. She was a jet-setting, president-schmoozing pragmatist, who in unguarded moments spoke mystically about her two youthful encounters with UFOs. She was the devout Catholic who had the last four of her children with a man she never married, Richard Chávez, Cesar’s younger brother. (Only in 2026 did she acknowledge having two other daughters, given to others to raise, fathered by César Chávez.)

Her relationship with Cesar Chávez was as complex as it was volatile — a fact acknowleged by UFW regulars long before Huerta’s charges about his sexual misconduct.

The two met through their work for the Community Service Organization (CSO), a progressive group that sought better government services and equal rights for poor and minority people. Both were called to the cause by the organization’s founder Fred Ross Sr. — Huerta in Stockton and Chávez in San Jose — and later united over their common concern for farmworkers. But even when he became statewide leader of the CSO, Chávez could not persuade the group to focus its energies on organizing field workers.

It was 1961 and Chávez was living in East Los Angeles when he called Huerta to his home one day and said, “We have got to start the union. If we don’t do it, nobody else will,” Huerta once recalled. He left the CSO, and Huerta followed.

Both soon moved their families to the Kern County farm town of Delano. Chávez relied on Huerta for nearly everything. When she wasn’t going door-to-door to recruit new members, Huerta negotiated with growers and created union hiring halls. She formed farmworker ranch committees and moved to the East Coast for months to promote the union’s national grape boycott.

But Chávez and his right hand also clashed routinely during their decades-long collaboration. The two would explode in shouting matches over strategy, while other union leaders shrank from the room. In audio recordings of one 1979 confrontation reviewed by the New York Times, Huerta fought back and demanded respect as Chávez called her a “stupid bitch” and accused her of stealing. Huerta might quit, or be fired. Inevitably, she would be back in the fold within a few days or weeks.

“Their commitment to the cause trumped all else and grew into a mutual dependence that survived decades of discord,” wrote Miriam Pawel, a former Los Angeles Times editor, in the biography “The Crusades of Cesar Chávez.” Asked by ABC News if she tried to protect Chávez, Huerta replied, “Always. Always.”

During a wine grape strike in the Central Valley, Huerta and other UFW women once locked arms in a human blockade between the union’s male picketers and replacement workers wielding two-by-fours. She blocked one worker’s car with her own, to prevent him from going to work and breaking a 1965 strike against rose growers in McFarland.

Chávez never doubted Huerta’s resolve. He once called her “totally fearless, both mentally and physically.”

Her years of community organizing in Stockton taught Huerta how to inspire even the most humble of her poor constituents.

In the union’s founding days, Huerta helped recruit a 19-year-old grape picker named Eliseo Medina to perform a one-man picket at the Port of Los Angeles — supposedly to stop the loading of a shipment of non-union grapes. The grapes never materialized. But Medina recalled how Huerta’s spirit and determination galvanized him.

“Dolores had a gift for making you believe in yourself,” Medina said. “She has an ability to inspire you and urge you to do things you could not think were possible. She is one of those life-changers.”

An Echo Park mural features Dolores Huerta alongside artist Frida Kahlo.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Medina left the Chávez-Huerta led union, believing it had strayed from its core work. He went on to become the international secretary treasurer of the more than 2-million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) — just one of many UFW acolytes who fueled the labor movement as it staged a modest resurgence in the 21st century.

Huerta was at the center of many of the union’s landmark achievements, including the negotiation of a contract in 1966 with the Schenley Wine Co. It was the first labor agreement obtained by farmworkers themselves with an agricultural company, according to the union’s history.

But the UFW’s fortunes would rise and fall. One low ebb came in 1973 with the loss of many contracts to the Teamsters Union, which struck sweetheart deals with growers. But some union insiders also complained that the UFW had failed by not winning enough concessions for the workers it represented. The union’s membership plummeted.

Two years later, momentum swung again, as the union helped persuade California Gov. Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr. to impose the toughest farm labor regulations in the nation.

The union’s membership would spiral downward until Chávez’s death, at 66, in 1993. There was a sense among many insiders that the union became overly insular, with repeated purges designed to promote absolute fealty to Chávez.

In one incident, students graduating from English classes at the union’s headquarters, La Paz, ended a slide show with the words: “The Union is not César Chávez, the Union is not La Paz, the Union is the farmworkers.” Huerta, fuming, demanded to know which of the teachers had planted this message, which she viewed as an act of treason against Chávez — an episode detailed by one of the teachers, Jeffrey W. Rubin, who went on to become a history professor at Boston University.

“Confronted there by Huerta, Richard Chavez, and Cesar Chavez himself, we were accused of being part of a subversive plot, railed at, called ‘chicken s—’ by Cesar, and thrown out of La Paz and the union,” wrote Rubin, who kept the episode quiet for years.

At the same time, the UFW lost contracts and sometimes failed to provide the benefits it promised to workers. Huerta was one of many union leaders unable to set Chávez, and the UFW, on a better path.

Dolores Huerta at rosary, standing next to the body of labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez (1927 – 1993) at rest in the pine coffin in Delano, Calif., on Wednesday, April 28, 1993.

(Jose Galvez/Los Angeles Times)

As Chávez’ son-in-law Arturo Rodriguez took control of the union in 1993 and began clawing to regain members and clout, Huerta remained the UFW’s most public persona.

At hundreds of marches across the nation that she attended with regularity throughout her life, parents would push forward, telling their children they were witnessing a historic figure. Asked for an autograph, she would boldly scrawl: “Sí, se puede.”

The phrase — “Yes, it can be done” — had been part of the union’s fabric since 1972, when some doubters suggested the union would fail in its campaign against an anti-union law in Arizona. Huerta responded, “Sí, se puede,” creating a mantra for the American left.

Born April 10, 1930, in Dawson, a small mining town in the mountains of northern New Mexico, Dolores Clara Fernandez moved to Stockton when she was 3, along with her mother, two brothers and two sisters. Her father and mother had divorced, but Juan Fernandez’s legend had been fixed — a brawling union leader and New Mexico state legislator. Her mother, a hotel operator, believed in public service and would not let the poorest guests go hungry.

Dolores thrived on a middle-class upbringing of Girl Scouts, violin lessons and tap dancing, describing her mother’s generosity as a guiding force. She was bright and popular and even founded a teen center where she and other kids hung out.

But Dolores would recall her high school years as a time of slights and rewards not received — injustices she linked to her Mexican American heritage. When police ordered her teen center shut down, it became clear it was because they did not like whites socializing with Mexican American, Black and Filipino kids.

Those setbacks would not be forgotten.

Dolores Huerta in Santa Fe, N.M., in 2019.

(Associated Press)

After community college in Stockton, Huerta became a teacher. But she left after just a year, because, she said: “I thought I could do more by organizing farmworkers than by trying to teach their hungry children.”

Soon she met Ross and Chávez and her life’s path would be set. Even her name seemed to brand her for the work. When she divorced her second husband, Chávez advised her to hold on to her last name. Dolores Huerta means Sorrows of the Orchard.

Along the way, there would be great personal heartache.

In 1968, she was at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on the night Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was shot. The Democratic presidential front-runner had just finished his California primary victory speech — thanking Chávez and Huerta — when an assassin gunned him down.

Twenty years later, her politics thrust Huerta even more directly in the path of violence. A television camera captured the images of a San Francisco police officer clubbing her as she and others peacefully picketed an appearance by Vice President George H.W. Bush. The blows ruptured Huerta’s spleen and nearly killed her.

She later won an $850,000 settlement from the city for the attack. Some in the union said that Chávez‘s insistence that Huerta give the money up to the UFW created another rift that caused her to leave the union.

Huerta would struggle, as well, to find time for her expansive family — which in the end included 13 children, counting the two fathered by César Chávez.

Among her greatest heartaches grew out of the struggles of her oldest daughter, Celeste, a schizophrenic who, on occasion, would leave the institutions where she lived and wander the streets.

Huerta’s union zealotry would inspire a range of emotions from her other children.

“We understood very quickly she wasn’t ours to have,” said son Emilio, the lawyer, a Central Valley activist.“She sort of belonged to the farmworker movement. And it was our job to support her.”

He and several other of the Huerta offspring devoted their lives to the UFW and related causes, basking in a sense that their family played a part in history. That did not always make up for the personal slights — the times their mother would fob them off on union allies or neighbors, or miss a birthday.

In a bittersweet essay, Dolores’ daughter Juanita once recalled how her mother forgot to pick her up from junior high school. She compared Huerta to a train “rattling all the windows behind me, blaring out its horn, announcing its simultaneous arrival and departure with an incredible clamor, but rushing constantly forward.”

At a 69th birthday party in 1999, Huerta told a large dinner gathering that her own sacrifices had been overblown.

“It was our families who sacrificed,” she said. She then told a story about driving a carload of children to school one day in an automobile limping along because a tire had been slashed by union opponents. “That,” she said, “was kind of how we made it through life.”

Approaching her 90th birthday in 2020, Huerta spent a day that might have been more typical for someone half her age. She protested at the Fresno County Board of Supervisors for increased pay for home healthcare workers, who made just $12 an hour. Huerta hadn’t planned on being arrested that day, but when she felt police used excessive force on one of the protest leaders, she changed her mind. Take me too, she said, according to USA Today. Officers cinched a plastic zip-tie around her wrists and led her away.

More typically in her later years, she supported her foundation. In one moment, she might be campaigning for a bond measure for a middle school gym in the poor San Joaquin Valley community of Weedpatch; in seemingly the next, she would be stumping via Zoom for Joe Biden, during his fight to take the White House from President Trump.

In 2020, USA Today named Huerta one of the 100 women “who’ve made a substantial impact on our country or our lives over the past 100 years.” By then, at least half a dozen schools across America bore her name. Others considered taking her name after they removed Chávez’s following the sexual abuse revelations.

President Obama presented Huerta with the country’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 2012; the one-time community organizer, who made his way to the White House, honoring a woman still doing the work.

“The great social justice changes in our country have happened when people came together, organized and took direct action,” Huerta said in accepting the honor. “It is this right that sustains and nurtures our democracy today.”

Olvera, the family spokesman, said Wednesday that Huerta’s relatives would be announcing the details of a public memorial in the coming days.

Liev Schreiber appeared to be scolding an interviewer Tuesday during the red-carpet premiere for his new Apple TV series, “Nocturne.”

A bystander captured a behind-the-scenes snippet of the 59-year-old, who was seen speaking to a female reporter, likely part of the Apple TV team.

“Talk to people like they value what they do,” Schreiber said in the clip. “It’s not a f— sound bite, especially when we’re doing it in-house for our own people.”

The Tony Award winner added, “We’re trying to make the show compelling” and suggested that the reporter “engage” with the individuals involved in the project.

It is unclear what question was asked in the lead-up to the awkward interaction, although the “Ray Donovan” actor followed up with: “Three words isn’t gonna do anything for anybody and the monkey who f— thought of that is shooting themselves in the foot.”

The woman, who was holding an Apple TV microphone, continued to smile, telling someone in the background, “I hope you’re rolling on this.”

“What I’m trying to say is,” Schreiber continued, “if you wanna give them something that they can use, talk to people like they’re humans, not like they’re social media.”

The woman then appeared to reframe her question, to which the “Spotlight” actor agreed to respond on camera, adding, “That’s a real question; let’s talk about that.”

The Times reached out to Schreiber’s representatives and Apple TV but did not hear back.

Schreiber is both executive producer and star of “Nocturne,” which is set to premiere Oct. 30.

The drama is based on the Lars Kepler crime novels, including “The Sandman” and “Lazarus.” The series follows Jonah Lynn (played by Schreiber), an ex-soldier turned homicide detective who moves from Philadelphia to western Pennsylvania for a quieter life. But the town is shaken up by an imprisoned serial killer, Jurek Walter (“Adolescence” actor Stephen Graham), which prompts FBI agent Saga Bauer (“Atlanta’s” Zazie Beetz) to go undercover.

Tribute specials are always a bit macabre. They exist, and are sometimes quickly thrown together, to honor and celebrate an artist who impacted so many. They are also ratings and advertising cash grabs that air on major TV and streaming platforms.

“CMA Presents I Will Always Love You: A Celebration of Dolly Parton,” which aired Wednesday on ABC and Disney+, was a lovely tribute to the music and cultural icon who died from cancer in August. It also was a missed opportunity. As music superstar Vince Gill said toward the end of the two-hour program, “this is not a memorial; but a celebration of an undeniable force of nature. Dolly was somebody that everyone loved: City, country, young, old.”

But most likely because the event was put on by the Country Music Assn. — which naturally wanted to showcase its own talent — it lacked a chance to really celebrate that she and her music could not be contained by one genre.

This isn’t just ironic because Parton’s most-known song — a song that was both the title of the special and the end performance of it — was made all the more famous by Whitney Houston, another iconic performer and also one who happens to have been a woman a color and who did not have any other direct ties to the Nashville scene. Dolly herself, famously, appreciated so many other kinds of music. After her passing, Eminem shared on social media a letter she’d written to him to congratulate him on his 2022 induction to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

“She definitely didn’t have to take the time to do it,” he said as part of the post. “Even for a kid who mostly listened to rap music, she was an icon. A superstar in every sense.”

That said, from Reba McEntire opening the show with stories of just how kind her friend was in real life to a pre-recorded tribute from Bono where his Irish accent briefly attempts to slip into a Southern one while emulating her conversations with him, there were some touching and memorable moments. We’ve rounded up five of them here:

Reba McEntire, “He’s Alive”

Technically, the song is meant to be the apostle Peter singing about Jesus Christ’s resurrection. But McEntire’s take on Parton’s take of the Don Francisco gospel brought in the very modern-day sense of fear that so many parents and partners feel when their loved ones go out to dangerous jobs or even just leave the house for school or concerts.

Carrie Underwood, “I Will Always Love You”

There’s no denying that this is a perfect song and that Underwood is a once-in-a-lifetime voice. And credit must be due to Underwood for pulling off an undertaking where any little slip would be pounced on by critics. But staging her to stand in front of one of the many animatronic butterflies that lined the stage in such a way that it looked like she had angel wings was … a choice.

Carly Pearce and Kristin Chenoweth, “9 to 5”

Both of these women, especially Tony winner Chenoweth, are masters of stage presence. Their banter with each other before singing, not to mention their duet itself, embraced the liveliness and feminine feminist-ness of that song.

Ella Langley, “Jolene”

This was not the most powerful performance of the night, as Langley seemed happier to dance on the stage than belt out the music. And it didn’t boil with the grief and seething rage of a scorned woman the way that Beyonce’s 2024 cover did. But it was nice to see a symbolic baton be passed to the “Choosin’ Texas” singer.

Zac Brown, “Butterfly”

Brown’s backstory of writing, and then recording, what would become his 2025 duet with Parton came off as sweet and genuine. It also helped it not feel awkward or gratuitous when he and the producers opted not to recast the Parton half of the song and instead let her voice carry through the speakers.

50 Cent, the king of petty hip-hop feuds, strikes again.

On Wednesday, Fitty shared a video on his Instagram account of a 20-year-old man identified in police filings as Don Roberts, who is accused of pistol-whipping William Roberts III, the 21-year-old son of Miami-raised rapper Rick Ross.

“I appreciate everyone who believed in me, my family and my friends. I’m out and I’m innocent. The Lord know I’m innocent,” said Don Roberts in the video clip. “50 [Cent] I appreciate you for everything you’re doing for me and believing in my innocence, much love.”

It is unclear if the “Many Men (Wish Death)” rapper posted bail for Roberts — which inmate records indicate was $50,000 — although the rapper was public about his support for the suspect after news broke about the incident.

For context, there’s a longtime beef between Rick Ross and 50 Cent, which dates back to the late 2000s. Both artists released diss tracks aimed at each other, including Ross’ 2009 music video of “Cold Blood,” which showcases the rapper at 50 Cent’s fictional funeral.

On Tuesday, 50 Cent posted Roberts’ inmate information to his Instagram account saying that the Florida man “will be out tomorrow.”

The “21 Questions” singer wrote in the Instagram caption that he was “sending” Drew Findling — the trial lawyer involved in the acquittal of Chicago rapper Lil Durk (Durk Banks), who in September was found not guilty of murder for hire, conspiracy and stalking in the 2022 killing of a rival’s cousin.

“This is a big misunderstanding that can easily be resolved,” continued the rapper, who also used the incident to tease his 2026 film, “Street Fighter.”

The incident involving William Roberts occurred earlier this month, per People, who alleged Don Roberts attacked him at gunpoint at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Fla.

William alleges he was speaking to a woman on a street corner on Oct. 11 when Don exited his vehicle and yelled at her, “That’s what we doin’,” per the affidavit. According to William, Don and the woman were previously involved in a romantic relationship.

William claims that Don approached him with a tan handgun in his right hand and said, “I don’t care who your daddy is, I’ll kill you right here.” According to the affidavit, William alleged that Don hit him on the right side of his head with the firearm.

Although this led to minor swelling, William did not seek medical attention and claimed that he waited to contact police because he was afraid.

Don Roberts was arrested Oct. 16 on charges of aggravated assault and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill.

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Monday directed the federal government to bolster federal research into women’s health, a move pushed by his wife, first lady Melania Trump.

The Republican president signed an executive order that creates a new women’s health division at the National Institutes of Health and a White House task force to focus on the issue. That panel was set to hold its first meeting Monday after the Trumps held a Rose Garden signing ceremony.

“Beginning today we will change the reality of women’s health,” Melania Trump said. “Previous generations fought for women’s rights. Our generation will fight to discover the cures that will ensure a woman can live her life in health and to the fullest.”

The president, who spoke after his wife, said the order will “promote new research and really go after the understudied diseases affecting women.” The order is also intended to promote diagnostic technology and improve treatment.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who recently completed treatment for breast cancer, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will lead the White House task force. Donald Trump said the task force will coordinate with various federal agencies and programs. The order does not include specific funding goals.

The initiative comes after a series of meetings the first lady had with federal health officials.

The president called it a “historic action” and praised the first lady’s work.

“She’s accomplished so much,” he said before pivoting into unscripted commentary on White House renovations, including the patio stone that now covers what was once the Rose Garden lawn.

Shifting back to women’s health, the president expressed surprise that some of the order’s requirements had not already been imposed.

“Who the hell wouldn’t have a women’s health division?” he said, after recalling that he’d asked Melania Trump, “Are you sure they don’t have that?”

The executive order calls for targeting maternal health, mental health and endometriosis. It also mentions other health concerns and diseases, including Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis, heart disease and stroke.

Melania Trump helped shape the order and the task force in consultation with physicians, White House officials, Kennedy and the Republican president. The initiative adds a new dimension to her policy portfolio as first lady.

In Donald Trump’s second term, the first lady has focused on improving foster care systems and expanding technology and artificial-intelligence access in education. In Trump’s first presidency, the first lady’s signature initiative, Be Best, focused on child well-being, safe social media use and reducing drug abuse.

The White House ceremony comes weeks before Nov. 3 elections and as Donald Trump’s job approval ratings have declined, including among women.

About 4 in 10 independent women supported Trump during the 2024 election against Democrat Kamala Harris and in the pre-presidency period, according to AP-NORC polls. That dropped to around a quarter in the opening months of this midterm election year, the period marked by Trump’s hard-line immigration crackdown in U.S. cities and the opening weeks of the Iran war.

Barrow writes for the Associated Press.

On a blazing hot Silver Lake morning, ushering in yet another heatwave day, Anna Holmes and I say “no” to a steamy sidewalk table at Millie’s Cafe, opting instead for an indoor, air-conditioned spot. Our server reads our order back to us, shaking his head in theatrical disbelief. “Pancakes. French toast. Biscuit. Waffle with whipped cream.” He glances from one of us to the other. “No protein?” he asks. “Just the carbs?”

“I guess I’ll have some egg whites, too,” I cave. Not so my brunch companion who confirms, “Just the carbs.” Holmes grins, “I’m not a fan of fad diets that make women hate ourselves.”

In fact, Holmes has built a career of saying “no” to woman-hating of all kinds — starting in 2007, when she founded the boundary-pushing feminist website Jezebel, the sister site of the notoriously provocative Gawker. “I decided that NO would be our mantra of sorts,” she writes in her new book, “The Power of No: A Celebration.” “‘No’ to diet tips, ‘no’ to sexist gossip, ‘no’ to conspicuous consumption. We drove the point home again and again … creating new definitions and examples of what it means to be female.”

Raised in a biracial, working-class family in Davis, Calif., Holmes escaped to New York at 18, chasing her writer’s dream. “Davis was a safe, homogenous little town,” she tells me, spearing one of the sliced strawberries fanned prettily across her waffle. “Being Black, I wasn’t one of the homogenies. I couldn’t wait to get out.”

“The Power of No: A Celebration” by Anna Holmes

(Crown)

Accepted by several top universities, Holmes said ‘yes’ to New York University. “They gave me money,” she explains. “And they had a journalism school.” After graduating, Holmes grabbed a rung on the media ladder and started climbing: writing and editing for Glamour, InStyle and Entertainment Weekly. Holmes published her first book, “Hell Hath No Fury: Women’s Letters from the End of the Affair,” featuring a collection of breakup letters from the likes of Anaïs Nin, Charlotte Brontë and Sylvia Plath, in 2002.

“So, you’ve always been a slacker,” I say.

Holmes laughs. “I come by my drive honestly. It stems from my fear of failure. And growing up lower-middle class, without the kinds of connections the wealthier kids had.”

Next came the breakthrough media success of Jezebel. Her project quickly reached 10 million monthly views, exceeding Gawker’s. But the bold irreverence that drew droves of devoted readers to Jezebel brought contention, too. In June 2010, Jezebel reported that women’s exclusion from senior positions at “The Daily Show” — which the article called a “boys’ club” — was “frustrating and alienating” for women. The story earned an on-air mention by Jon Stewart, who announced “Jezebel thinks I’m a sexist prick” — and an open letter signed by more than 30 female “Daily Show” employees, refuting Jezebel’s allegations.

Author Anna Holmes.

(Annie Noelker / For The Times)

Weeks later, under the header “How feminist blogs like Jezebel gin up page views by exploiting women’s worst tendencies,” former Gawker employee Emily Gould wrote in Slate, “When Jezebel was founded, it proposed itself as an explicit alternative to traditional women’s magazines … but the easiest way for Jezebel writers to be provocative is to stoke readers’ insecurities — just in a different way.”

Holmes says some Jezebel haters were anti-feminist or far-right. “Others were politically aligned with Jezebel, but felt we were too pop-culture-focused. Some accused us of being snarky to other women,” she adds.

After three years, Holmes resigned. “I’d done what I went to Jezebel to do,” she says. “Also, the 14-hour workdays were threatening my marriage, my sanity and my health. I was smoking too much. Drinking too much. Gaining weight.”

Holmes said a final goodbye to her creation in 2013 by publishing “The Book of Jezebel: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Lady Things.” Despite — and because of — having founded one of the internet’s most provocative publications, she helped lift up journalists, and journalism, in her wake.

“I would follow Anna off of a cliff, professionally and personally,” says Reyhan Harmanci, Wired’s editorial director, who reported to Holmes at Topic magazine a decade ago. “She channels her curiosity in a way that opens the world to readers.”

Former Gawker editor A.J. Daulerio also lights up at the mention of Holmes’ name. “If you look back at Anna’s history of finding and developing talent, you can see her impact. Writers who’ve worked with and for her can be found on podcasts, on mastheads at major publications and on bestseller lists.” Meanwhile, New York magazine’s Emily Gould, who wrote the biting Slate critique of Jezebel in 2010, has come to admire Holmes. “Nobody’s right 100% of the time,” Gould says, “especially when publishing around the clock and reacting to news as it unfolds. My current sense of Anna is that she’s genuinely brave, clear-sighted and wise. I’m eager to read her new book.”

Post-Jezebel, Holmes wrote the “Bookends” column for the New York Times Book Review. Her byline grew a few picas when she replaced Roxane Gay as editor of the Times’ popular “Work Friend” column. Having “made it there,” Holmes decided to leave New York.

“I never considered myself a New Yorker,” she says, stirring a foam flower into her latte. “When people asked, I’d say, ‘I’m from California but I live in New York.’”

While deliberating about where to go next, Holmes says, “I got a job offer with the Obamas’ production company in L.A.”

“The Obamas?” I blurt. Holmes nods. “I was tired of New York. And wanting to be closer to my elderly mom.” In the first week of the COVID shutdown, Holmes packed her two hissing black cats, donned an N95 mask and flew to LAX. Six years later, after several moves around town, she shares the upper half of a sun-splashed 1920s duplex with Ewok and Harriet.

“I didn’t have a writing community in New York and I don’t have one here,” Holmes says about her L.A. move. “I had a media community in New York. If that exists here, I’m not invited to those parties.” She cocks her head. “Every once in a while, I wonder, ‘Does Susan Orlean have regular salons? And if so, can I please go?’”

Holmes continues to settle into a slower, more domestic groove. “I’m 53 now,” she says. “I don’t want to go out all the time. I like going to bed early. All the cliches are true of me: moving from NYC to L.A. and ending up in Silver Lake — with a Volvo, no less. In my defense, I dress like a tomboy, I don’t have tattoos and I’ve never been to Bar Stella.”

Since her big move, Holmes has written “The Power of No” and is finishing up her fourth book, a sexual memoir. Her articles on wildly divergent topics continue to appear in the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Atlantic and L.A. Material.

“The Power of No” is a slim but impactful guide to the human dance between yes and no; vulnerability and ambition. The book consists of readily digestible yet smart, sophisticated bits, including quotes from luminaries, research findings, anecdotes from Holmes’ own life and others, practical tips, and lists like “Ways to Say No” (which is especially helpful to have on hand during the upcoming holiday season).

“No,” Holmes writes on Page 1: “As uttered by a woman, a provocation. Has there ever been a more fraught relationship between women and word?” By way of example, she cites what she calls “my biggest NO, my strongest rejection of what was expected of me as a woman: founding Jezebel.”

“Has writing about ‘no’ made you better at saying it?” I ask Holmes.

“I don’t purport to be good at it,” she answers. “But I’m more cognizant now of wanting to say it, at least.”

Maran, author of “The New Old Me” and other books, lives in Silver Lake.

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.

Two women filed a lawsuit Thursday against former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, saying they were sexually exploited by him and other men in violation of a federal anti-trafficking law.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Orlando, Fla., comes nearly two years after the House Ethics Committee said the Florida Republican had regularly paid for sex, including once with a 17-year-old girl, purchased and used illicit drugs, and violated state laws while a member of Congress.

Gaetz had left office when the report was released and denied wrongdoing. But the report helped to tank his nomination to become attorney general in President Trump’s second administration.

Two women said they were in their early 20s in 2017 when they met Gaetz through Joel Greenberg, who was a tax official in Seminole County and is now in prison for a raft of crimes, including a sex crime.

Gaetz provided drugs and paid the women for sex, out-of-state travel, lodging and other expenses, according to the lawsuit.

“Much of the conduct alleged against me is false,” Gaetz said in response.

“The lawsuit relies almost exclusively on a Congressional Committee report that didn’t allow me to confront my accusers. Now I will finally have that chance,” he said in a statement.

Gaetz also appeared to mock the women on the social platform X, sharing a 2018 social media photo of the backs of three women in bathing suits looking at the ocean in the Bahamas.

“I’m shocked nobody responded to their repeated cries for help, posted to instagram,” he said Thursday.

The lawsuit also names Greenberg, another man and businesses tied to Greenberg’s family.

“Every part of this venture ran on an exploitative power imbalance,” the women’s attorney, Spencer Kuvin, said in the lawsuit. “On one side stood a sitting congressman, an elected tax collector, and a former state legislator, men with public office, private homes, and money to spend. On the other stood young financially vulnerable women in their early twenties.”

Gaetz hosts a political talk show on One America News Network. He was recently appointed to the board of Triumph Gulf Coast, which oversees how Florida spends money recovered for damage from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

White writes for the Associated Press.

Oct. 14, 2026 10:13 AM PT

COLUMBIA, S.C. — U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace’s former fiance and two of his business associates were charged with sex crimes and voyeurism on Wednesday over an episode the South Carolina congresswoman described in detail during a speech last year on the House floor about how crimes against women are not investigated thoroughly.

John Douglas Osborne committed sex acts on a 23-year-old incapacitated and intoxicated woman while Mace’s ex-fiance Patrick Bryant and Eric Bernard Bowman watched, according to sworn statements by agents from the State Law Enforcement Division, which brought the charges.

The men talked about who would assault the woman beforehand, took photos and recorded the assault, which was also seen on a security system feed at the home in Sullivan’s Island, an affluent suburb of Charleston, state agents said. The woman had fallen into a pool and was passed out on a couch covering herself with a pillow, agents said.

Another woman who happened to be watching the feed saw the assault and took pictures and wrote about it in a journal, police said. Mace and Bryant were not yet engaged at the time of the October 2018 assault.

Osborne, 46, is charged with first-degree assault and battery and two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct. Bryant, 53, and Bowman, 46, are each charged with voyeurism.

Along with the voyeurism charge, Bowman was also charged with obstruction of justice after agents said he did a factory reset on a cellphone he knew investigators were seeking in a search warrant, and with publishing the name of a victim of criminal sexual conduct after posting the victim’s name and a video of her on X.

Bryant didn’t return a message seeking comment on Wednesday, and attorneys who have been listed as representing Bowman and Osborne in other cases did not immediately return messages.

Mace, a Republican, described the assault at length in a nearly hourlong speech in February 2025 that named the men and described other photos and videos found when she looked at Bryant’s cellphone when they were still together.

Mace said she “accidentally uncovered some of the most heinous crimes against women imaginable. We’re talking about rape, non-consensual photos, non-consensual videos of women and underage girls, and the premeditated, calculated exploitation of women and girls in my district.”

At the time, Bryant completely denied the allegations. “I take this matter seriously and will cooperate fully with any necessary legal processes to clear my name,” he told the Associated Press.

The State Law Enforcement Division didn’t say if their investigation into any of the men is continuing.

After the arrests, Mace released a statement detailing the 25 bills she says will protect victims of sexual assault, harassment or discrimination, including in retaliatory defamation and libel lawsuits that may result from allegations they bring to light.

The Republican, who is leaving the House this term after losing her bid to be South Carolina governor, introduced a proposal this week to require that anyone who brings such a case and loses must pay attorney fees for the defendant.

“Protecting women and holding predators accountable isn’t a slogan. It’s been one of my top priorities in Congress. For too long, survivors have faced broken systems while predators exploited loopholes and walked free,” Mace said in her statement.

Kinnard and Collins write for the Associated Press.