women

First all-women cohort of winners hails from Colombia, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, South Korea, the UK and the US.

This year’s prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize has been awarded to six grassroots environmental activists from around the world for their efforts to fight climate change and save biodiversity.

For the first time since the prize was created in 1989 by philanthropists Richard and Rhoda Goldman, all recipients of the award are women: Iroro Tanshi, from Nigeria; Borim Kim, from South Korea; Sarah Finch, from the United Kingdom; Theonila Roka Matbob, from Papua New Guinea; Alannah Acaq Hurley, from the United States; and Yuvelis Morales Blanco, from Colombia.

Sometimes described as the “Green Nobel”, the Goldman Prize recipients are chosen from each of the world’s six primary regions. They each receive $200,000 in prize money.

“While we continue to fight uphill to protect the environment and implement lifesaving climate policies – in the US and globally – it is clear that true leaders can be found all around us,” said John Goldman, vice president of the Goldman Environmental Foundation.

“The 2026 Prize winners are proof positive that courage, hard work, and hope go a long way toward creating meaningful progress.”

Morales Blanco, the winner for the region of South and Central America, fought some of the world’s biggest oil companies to successfully stop the introduction of commercial fracking into Colombia.

The 24-year-old grew up in a family of fishermen along the banks of the Magdalena River in the Afro-Colombian community of Puerto Wilches. “We had nothing but the river – she was like a mother who took care of me,” she said.

She began organising protests after a major oil spill in 2018, which forced the relocation of dozens of local families and killed thousands of animals. Her activism, which made her a target for intimidation and forced her to temporarily relocate, helped halt projects and elevate fracking as an issue in Colombia’s 2022 election.

Two of the other five recipients of this year’s prize have also focused their efforts on fighting fossil fuels, which are causing both global climate change and more localised pollution around the world.

Borim, the winner for Asia who started the Youth 4 Climate Action organisation, won a ruling from South Korea’s Constitutional Court that the government’s climate policy violated the constitutional rights of future generations, the first successful youth-led climate litigation in the continent.

Finch, Europe’s winner, told The Times newspaper she will use her prize money to keep fighting fossil fuels.

Together with the Weald Action Group, she fought oil drilling in southeastern England for more than a decade, securing the “Finch ruling” from the Supreme Court in June 2024, stating that authorities must consider fossil fuels’ impacts on the global climate before granting permission to extract them.

Two other recipients have fought against the destructive environmental impact of mining projects.

Papua New Guinea’s Roka Matbob, winner for Islands and Island Nations, led a successful campaign that saw the world’s second-largest mining company, Rio Tinto, agree to address environmental and social devastation caused by its Panguna copper mine, 35 years after it was closed following an uprising.

And the award recipient for North America, Acaq Hurley, from the Yup’ik nation in the US, successfully fought alongside 15 tribal nations to stop a mega- copper and gold mining project that threatened ecosystems in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region, including the largest wild salmon runs in the world.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Tanshi, Africa’s winner, rediscovered the endangered short-tailed roundleaf bat and has been working to save its refuge, the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary, from human-induced wildfires.

SACRAMENTO — California Democrats caught a huge break with Eric Swalwell’s sexual assault scandal. It surfaced in early spring rather than midsummer.

Just think of the Democratic debacle that could have occurred.

What if the accusations of sexual misconduct, including alleged rape, had come to light after the gubernatorial candidate had triumphed in the June 2 primary and qualified for the November ballot?

Under California law, it would have been impossible to remove him from the ballot and insert a Democratic replacement.

“It would have been pretty devastating,” notes Assemblywoman Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz), who heads the Assembly Elections Committee.

“It has given us a lot to think about.”

There’s a glaring flaw in California’s election system that should be fixed for the future. But exactly how is trickier than it might seem.

Here’s what I’m talking about:

Prior to April 10 — doomsday for Swalwell — the then-congressman from the East San Francisco Bay was leading the large field of Democratic candidates for governor. Just barely. But he was starting to pull away, based on polling and endorsements.

A survey conducted by the independent Public Policy Institute of California just before Swalwell’s accusers went public showed him leading all candidates — Democrats and Republicans — with 18% support among likely voters.

He was closely trailed by Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host, with 17%. Another Republican and a Democrat — Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer respectively — were tied for third at 14% each. Democratic former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter followed at 10%.

You can now toss all those numbers in the trash. But the point is that Swalwell was headed for victory in the primary. His next stop was the governor’s mansion because no Republican has won a statewide race in California in two decades.

The Democratic front-runner was raking in endorsements from interest groups and democratic politicians. He was considered the safest bet in a generally unimpressive field, a regular middle-class guy — and a white male, the only ethnicity and gender that has ever been elected governor in California.

Former state Controller Betty Yee, a Democratic darkhorse candidate for governor, was pretty much on target when she observed after Swalwell’s campaign collapsed:

“The obsession with who looks the part [of governor] almost got us an alleged sexual predator in Sacramento — ignoring the reality we need to actually fix our fraught state.”

But what if the victims of Swalwell’s alleged sexual improprieties — five women at last count — had waited a few more months to go public? And that’s conceivable. After all, they had remained silent for years. Apparently the nightmare of their alleged assailant becoming governor inspired them to talk now.

Although Swalwell quickly dropped out of the race, there’s no way to erase his name from the primary ballot. But at least voters can choose among seven other “major” Democratic contenders.

If he had already won in the top-two primary, however, and a Republican had also qualified for the November ballot, Democratic voters would have been left high and dry.

Presumably no sane person, no matter how partisan, would vote to elect an alleged rapist as governor. But the only other choice would have been a Republican lackey of President Trump. He’d undoubtedly win by default in a landslide.

“If Democrats had been stupid enough to nominate Swalwell, they’d have been stuck with him,” says Tony Quinn, a Republican elections analyst.

“Even dying doesn’t get you off the ballot. You don’t want to be the party nominee? So what, you are.”

No write-in candidacies are allowed in California’s general elections, although they are in the primary. That’s an inexplicable flaw.

“I’ve thought for years there should be a write-in option to deal with such a problem,” says UCLA law professor Rick Hasen, an expert on elections law.

Also, he points out, California’s top-two primary system — which advances only the top two vote-getters regardless of party — “cuts out minor parties from being relevant. You ought to be able to write in a minor party candidate.”

One reason a candidate can’t be removed from the ballot, election officials claim, is that tens of millions ballots have to be printed early enough to mail to every registered voter one month before election day.

Nonsense. In this era of rapidly expanding technology, you’d think that dilemma could be resolved even within snail-paced government bureaucracies. If nothing else, mail out a supplemental ballot just for the governor’s race.

But a bigger question is exactly who would choose the replacement for a departed candidate.

In a presidential election, the party hierarchy — a convention or national committee — would choose another nominee.

But there are no party nominees in California’s top-two open primary system. Parties don’t choose candidates for the November election. Voters regardless of their party do. So, in Swalwell’s case, the Democratic Party alone wouldn’t be entitled to select his substitute — unless the law were changed.

Or, perhaps the No. 3 vote-getter in the primary could automatically be elevated to the general election. We then could wind up with two candidates from the same party. But at least there’d be a better choice than an alleged sexual predator.

“I kind of miss those days” when parties nominated, says Pellerin, who was Santa Cruz County’s chief elections official for 27 years. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about — whether this is the best primary system.”

As I recently wrote, my vote would be to junk the top-two system and return to pre-”reform” party-nominating primaries.

Advocates of the top two primary — including myself — thought it would produce more centrist officeholders. It really hasn’t. It has just caused additional problems — like occasionally sending two candidates of the same party to the November runoff.

Meanwhile, all California voters should be grateful that Swalwell’s accusers courageously went public in April, not August.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Swalwell supporters scramble after he drops out of governor’s race. Who will benefit?
California love: Californians are pouring money into Democrats’ Senate races in other states
The L.A. Times Special: There’s a wide gap between rumor and fact. That’s where Eric Swalwell lurked

Until next week,
George Skelton

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England’s Lionesses are no strangers to making history.

The past decade has been rich in landmark moments; a first tournament medal, a first major trophy, and a first title defence – on foreign soil to boot.

When Sarina Wiegman’s side play Iceland in Reykjavik on Saturday (17:30 BST) they will reach another milestone – the 500th fixture for England’s senior women’s team.

The game is important for securing qualification for next year’s World Cup in Brazil, with England keen to win more silverware in the famous white shirt.

But regardless of the result, the match will be etched in history as a reminder of how far the English women’s game has come.

In 1921, the Football Association (FA) banned women’s football, considering the game “most unsuitable for females”, external.

The decision consigned women’s football to park pitches and small venues for half a century before the decision was overturned in 1971.

To mark 500 not out, BBC Sport takes a look at 11 defining moments in the history of England’s women.

The Indian government is seeking to expedite the implementation of a 2023 law that reserves 33 percent of seats in parliament and state assemblies for women, but has linked the move to a sweeping redrawing of parliamentary constituencies, sharpening political tensions.

“We’re set to take historic steps to empower women,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said before a special sitting of parliament on Thursday as his government introduced three bills to be debated in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament.

While two of the three bills relate to extending the number of women in parliament and state assemblies, a third bill relates to “delimitation”, as the process to redraw parliamentary boundaries based on population is called in India. The bill aims to increase the overall size of parliament from 543 Lok Sabha seats to 850.

The bills are being taken up during a three-day special session and will require a two-thirds majority in both houses to pass. Modi’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) holds 293 seats in lower house of parliament while a two-thirds majority would require 360 votes.

Women currently account for 14 percent of the Lok Sabha members. “We are all united to give rightful positions to women in India,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said on Thursday.

Several Asian countries, including India’s neighbours like Nepal and Bangladesh, have similar quotas for women in national legislatures. India already mandates that one-third of seats be set aside for women in local governing bodies.

Opposition alleges ‘gerrymandering’

While there appears to be broad bipartisan support for putting more women into parliament, opposition parties have raised concerns over changing the voting boundaries, warning it could tilt the political balance in favour of Modi’s Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP draws much of its support from the densely populated north, and critics said expanding seats in parliament would, therefore, benefit it the most. Leaders in southern states, where birth rates have declined more sharply, said a population-based delimitation exercise could increase seats in the north and disadvantage southern regions that have slowed population growth and built stronger economies.

The Indian Constitution mandates that parliamentary seats be allocated by population and revised after each census. However, boundaries have not been redrawn since the 1971 census as successive governments delayed the process.

The government is now proposing that delimitation of new seats be based on the last completed census, in 2011, and come into effect for the next general election in 2029.

But opposition parties want the government to wait for the results of an ongoing census, which was launched this month, a formidable logistical challenge that will take a year to carry out – and even longer for the data to be processed.

The main opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, said that while his Indian National Congress party supports increasing the number of women in parliament, the government’s approach is aimed at consolidating power.

“The proposal that the government is now bringing has no connection to women’s reservation,” Gandhi said in a statement on social media. “It is merely an attempt to seize power through delimitation and gerrymandering.”

Congress parliamentarian Gaurav Gogoi alleged that the intention of the government was not to implement women’s reservation but to introduce delimitation “through the backdoor”, according to a report in India’s Scroll.in website.

Akhilesh Yadav, member of parliament from the Samajwadi Party, asked whether Muslims will be given some kind of reservation within the quota for women, The Indian Express reported.

The BJP pushed back on the criticism, saying it would implement a uniform 50 percent increase in seats across all states and maintain proportional representation nationwide. However, the draft delimitation bill does not explicitly spell this out.

Speaking in parliament, Modi said the legislation is “not discriminatory” and “will not do injustice to anyone”.

But the opposition was not convinced. Some members from southern states turned up in parliament dressed in black as a mark of protest.

MK Stalin, chief minister of the southern state of Tamil Nadu and a rival to the BJP, burned a copy of the bill and raised a black flag in protest, urging people across the state to do the same.

“Let the flames of resistance spread across Tamil Nadu,” Stalin said, accusing the BJP of trying to marginalise the state through redrawn boundaries. “Let the arrogance of the fascist BJP be brought down.”

It seems like a simple ask that male politicians don’t sexually harass or even rape women, but also, it seems like an open secret in Congress that sexual misconduct is too common.

Take Eric Swalwell, whose epic political immolation has captivated this week’s national political news, including a TMZ-obtained video of the then-congressman bleary-eyed in a bathrobe on a yacht that was literally the least-worst revelation.

For years “there were swirling rumors about Eric,” former Rep. Jackie Speier told me. Speier in 2018 thought she’d put in place tough new rules to stop sexual misconduct among her former colleagues, and the type of backroom shrugs that allowed men to prowl unchecked.

But despite her efforts, Speier, who represented a part of the Bay Area near Swalwell’s district until 2023, said the problem remains Congress itself, and the “crippling” power that elected officials have over their staffs. Don’t get her started on how that power imbalance is even worse for young lobbyists.

“I’ve always said that Congress is Hollywood for ugly people,” she said. “It’s a whole environment that becomes, I think, toxic.”

But also one that, she added, isn’t inevitable.

The 2018 change

In 2017, the #MeToo movement had swept into the public consciousness and ignited calls for change.

Armed with that outrage and the roiling fire of public opinion, Speier set out to change archaic rules that governed how sexual misconduct was handled in Congress.

“I’ll just run through what it was like,” she told me. “If you wanted to file a complaint, you had to be prepared to go through some period of counseling; to have a cooling off period; to participate in mandatory mediation; and sign an NDA, and then the taxpayers picked up the tab if there was a settlement. It was kind of jaw dropping to think that that was the policy.”

It wasn’t just policy, it was culture. Speier herself had been the victim of an assault when she was a young staffer — a senior staffer pushing her against a wall and forcibly kissing her. And like so many women, she put the episode aside and went on with her career because speaking out would have likely brought her more grief than justice.

But by 2017, she realized the public was at a “tipping point,” and, as she said then, “Congress has been a breeding ground for a hostile work environment for far too long.”

With Rep. Bradley Byrne, a Republican from Alabama, they passed the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 Reform Act.

It did away with the weird and coercive requirement for counseling and a cooling off period and most significantly, forced sexual harassers to pay for their own settlements instead of pinning the cost on taxpayers.

But even with the new rules, some colleagues didn’t seem to get it. Speier recalled one man who, informed of possibility he would have to pay sexual harassment settlements out of his own pocket, asked if he could purchase insurance to cover those costs.

“How about you keep your zipper up?” Speier wondered.

The bigger problem

Still, Speier said she thought the law made a difference not just in how claims of misconduct were handled, but in the culture of Capitol Hill.

But, “over time it just was relaxed,” she said.

When Speier left office in 2023, Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) was under investigation for sexual harassment — a claim Congress deemed unfounded, but bounced Santos from its ranks for a bunch of other misconduct.

Let’s be real — Congress has never been without scandal.

But Speier said that doesn’t mean sexual abuse can’t be stopped. She just thinks the rules she put in place need to be even tougher: A zero-tolerance approach similar to what corporate America often enforces.

“I’m thinking now that the way to fix this may be something more direct and straightforward and simple, much like they do in the private sector,” she said.

“When the CEO is having an affair with a subordinate and it becomes known, he’s history. He’s relieved of his duties, and if we made it clear that if you sexually harass a staff member, or you have an affair with a staff member, you will be expelled, or you will be subject to expulsion of Congress, that will change their behavior.”

I love her enthusiasm and I support tossing out miscreant members, but I’m not sure even that will keep the zippers up. But there is always hope.

And something has to be done.

“These cases underscore the fact that these women do not feel comfortable coming forward,” she pointed out. “So we’ve got to figure out why and close that hole.

“Is it because they’re fearful that they’ll be retaliated against or that they’ll be ostracized or blackballed? I don’t know the answer, but I’m really urging my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to fix this, and part of fixing it is talking to these women who were, in fact, sexually harassed and assaulted and find out why they didn’t feel comfortable coming forward.”

That’s the real issue, and the real demand we should be making. From the Oval Office to district offices, too many elected leaders have proven they’ll use their power to obtain sex — by coercion or even force.

And too many women remain afraid to speak out because they still suffer both career and social consequences — a realistic fear that coming forward could end their own ambitions, or at least leave them battling to not be defined by the abuse.

Yes, Swalwell and others have been shamed into resigning.

But it’s past time to make sexual abuse a one-strike-you’re-out offense — for the perpetrator, not the survivor.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Swalwell supporters scramble after he drops out of governor’s race. Who will benefit?
The deep dive: ‘Rebuilding After Fires, L.A. Neighbors Join Forces and Innovate
The L.A. Times Special: In L.A. County, many homeless people enter shelters, only to end up back on the streets

Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

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Lieutenant General Susan Coyle has held several senior command roles over her nearly 40-year military career, including during operations in Afghanistan and the Middle East.

Australia has announced that its army will be led by a woman for the first time in its 125-year history, as part of a reshuffle of the country’s defence force leadership.

Lieutenant General Susan Coyle, the current chief of joint capabilities, will become the chief of army in July, the government said in a statement on Monday. She will replace Lieutenant General Simon Stuart, who assumed the post in July 2022.

Coyle’s career spans nearly four decades, during which she has held several senior command roles, including during operations in Afghanistan and the Middle East.

Her appointment comes as the Australian military seeks to boost the number of female officers in its ranks. It is facing a wave of allegations of systemic sexual harassment and discrimination.

“From July, we will have the first ever female chief of army in the Australian Army’s 125-year history,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement.

Defence Minister Richard Marles called Coyle’s appointment a “deeply historic moment”.

“As Susan said to me, you cannot be what you cannot see,” Marles said.

“Susan’s achievement will be deeply significant to women who are serving in the Australian Defence Force today and women who are thinking about serving in the Australian Defence Force in the future.”

Australia’s army is undergoing a major transformation, equipping itself with long-range firepower, drones and other modern combat tools.

Coyle, 55, stressed her experience in areas such as cyber-warfare. “This breadth of experience provides a strong foundation for the responsibilities of command and the trust placed in me,” she said.

Women currently make up about 21 percent of the Australian defence forces, or ADF, and 18.5 percent of senior leadership roles. The ADF has set a target of 25 percent of overall participation for women by 2030.

Last October, a class action lawsuit was filed against the ADF alleging it failed to protect thousands of women officers from systematic sexual assault, harassment and discrimination.

The government on Monday also appointed Vice Admiral Mark Hammond, the current chief of the navy, as the head of the ADF, succeeding Admiral David Johnston.

The current deputy chief of the navy, Rear Admiral Matthew Buckley, will replace Hammond as head of the branch.

SACRAMENTO — There has never been a California governor’s race like this one. And that was even before the leading Democrat was shoved aside by shocking accusations of sexual assault.

For months, the contest has been uninspiring, unexciting and unwatchable. It really shouldn’t have been called a “race.” It was more like a slow trot. No candidate has drawn even 20% of voters’ support in independent polling. Half the 10 main candidates have been stuck in single digits.

And in less than a month, voters will start casting mail-in ballots.

But suddenly eyes and ears have opened.

Democratic frontrunner Eric Swalwell, a congressman from the East San Francisco Bay, was accused by a former young female staffer of twice sexually assaulting her when she was too intoxicated to consent.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Friday and CNN soon followed with a similar report, adding accusations of sexual misconduct from three other women.

“I was pushing him off of me saying no,” the anonymous former staffer told CNN. “He didn’t stop.”

Swalwell, who is married and has three children, strongly denied the accusations.

The incidents “never happened,” he said. “I will fight them with everything I have….

“I have certainly made mistakes in judgment in my past, but these mistakes are between me and my wife. And to her I apologize deeply for putting her in this position.”

Sorry, congressman, but if someone is running for governor of the nation’s largest state, the mistakes aren’t just between him and his wife.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco told Swalwell, in essence, that it’s his right to fight the accusations, but he should do it on his own time, not the Democratic Party’s. She was among the first of party leaders to call on him to abandon the race.

Bye, bye Eric. Might as well depart the House, too.

A leading candidate for California governor has never crumbled so fast. It was like a dam bursting.

Powerful interests and major politicians had been coalescing behind the 45-year-old congressman because he charmed them or they were loyal colleagues or — most important — he seemed like a potential winner.

Political players, including campaign donors, seek to invest their capital in anticipated victors. Their expected return is access and favors. And Swalwell had been racking up lots of endorsements.

But almost immediately after the sex scandal broke, supporters began fleeing the reeking corpse.

Marital infidelity is one thing, but alleged sexual assault — rape — cannot be tolerated, especially by a party dominated by female voters.

Labor unions, other interests and influential politicians began backing off their endorsements. Many urged Swalwell to fold his campaign. And with his support collapsing, he really was left ultimately with no other choice.

So, now the most pertinent question is which candidate will replace Swalwell as the Democrat with the best chance of surviving the June 2 top-two primary and winning a spot on the November ballot.

If it’s a Democrat against a Republican in November–the most likely matchup–the Democrat is a virtual cinch to succeed the termed out Gov. Gavin Newsom. No Republican has won a statewide race in California in 20 years.

State Democratic Chairman Rusty Hicks — as part of his effort to pressure lagging candidates to exit the race and make more room for faster runners — released a nonpartisan, party-paid poll last week. It was conducted before Swalwell’s collapse.

It showed two Republicans tied for the lead with 14% each: Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton.

Among Democrats, Swalwell led with 12%, slightly ahead of billionaire hedge fund founder Tom Steyer at 11%. Former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter had 7%. Then came former U.S. Health Secretary Xavier Becerra, San José Mayor Matt Mahan and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, each with 4%.

Former state controller Betty Yee and state schools chief Tony Thurmond barely registered at 1% each.

For weeks, it has been deemed conceivable that both Republican candidates would finish ahead of all Democrats in the June 2 primary. Democratic voters would splinter their support among the party’s crowded field. That would lock out Democrats from the November ballot and guarantee the election of a Republican.

But President Trump seemed to botch that for the GOP last week by endorsing Hilton. Trump presumably will help the former British politico draw votes from Bianco and indirectly assist a Democrat in finishing second.

There’s a new twist, however. Where will Swalwell’s votes go? If enough go to the Democratic laggers rather than the party frontrunners, both Republicans could still wind up one-two.

No gubernatorial contest in modern times has been this wide open.

These candidates’ failure to make waves isn’t all their fault. Some were slow diving into the water. But even those who tried to make a splash were inundated by Trump.

Practically all the public’s attention has been on the president and his oddball or vengeful or unprincipled actions.

Now the Democratic race is more wide open than ever.

Steyer — a liberal climate fighter — has run an energetic campaign, spending more than $100 million of his own money on TV ads. But will Californians elect a mega-rich governor? They never have.

Porter has been running better in polls than the latest Democratic survey showed. She’s straight forward on all the issues, but a bit too liberal and feisty for some establishment Democrats. Swalwell’s fall is her opportunity to rise.

Becerra — a former state attorney general and congressman — has an impressive resume, but was too slow out of the starting gate. This is his chance to sprint, if he can.

No candidate is more qualified to be governor than centrist Villaraigosa, a former state Assembly speaker. But voters apparently are looking for someone younger. He’s 73.

Mayhan is a moderate who started too late and has fallen far short of expectations. He now has a second chance.

It soon will all be in the hands of voters, whether they’re interested or not.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Eric Swalwell’s bid for California governor is over. Let the political scrambling begin
Knives out: GOP’s best shot at California governor’s office in decades mired in angry internal debate
The L.A. Times Special: Newsom reluctant to endorse a successor, break gridlock in governor’s race

Until next week,
George Skelton

—
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Berlin’s Eta becomes first female head coach of a top-tier European club after her appointment by the Bundesliga side.

German football club Union Berlin has made history by naming Marie-Louise Eta as manager, making her the first female head coach in Bundesliga history, following the sacking of Steffen Baumgart.

Eta, who was given the job on Sunday, becomes the first female top-flight coach of a men’s team in a major European league. The 34-year-old, who was the first female assistant coach in the Bundesliga, will take over for the remainder of the season.

“I am delighted the club has entrusted me with this challenging task,” Eta said in a statement.

She made history in 2023 as the first female assistant coach in the Bundesliga and across the top divisions of Europe’s “big five” football leagues. She had to step in for media duties for head coach Nenad Bjelica when he was suspended for three games in 2024.

Baumgart was sacked on Sunday morning after the club’s form flatlined in the second half of the season, with Saturday’s 3-1 defeat by last-placed Heidenheim the final straw.

“I’m delighted that Marie-Louise Eta has agreed to take on this role on an interim basis before she becomes head coach of the women’s first team as planned in the summer,” Union sporting director Horst Heldt said in a statement.

Union have won just two games since Christmas and sit seven points above the relegation playoff spot.

“We’ve had an absolutely disappointing second half of the season,” Heldt said.

“Our situation remains precarious, and we desperately need points to stay in the league.

“The performances in recent weeks don’t give us the confidence we could turn things around with the current set-up.”

As a player with Turbine Potsdam, Eta won the Champions League in 2010, along with three Bundesliga titles. She has already committed to taking over Union Berlin’s women’s Bundesliga team from the summer.

Women have managed men’s football teams in the lower divisions but never in the top flight.

German third-tier Ingolstadt FC are currently coached by Sabrina Wittmann, while French second-flight club Clermont were managed by Corinne Diacre for three seasons until 2017.

April 11 (UPI) — Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., who is running for California governor, is facing several allegations of sexual misconduct and assault.

CNN reported that four women have made allegations against him, including one woman who claims he raped her.

Swalwell denies any wrongdoing.

“These allegations are false and come on the eve of an election against the frontrunner for governor,” Swalwell said in a statement. “For nearly 20 years, I have served the public — as a prosecutor and a congressman and have always protected women. I will defend myself with the facts and, where necessary, bring legal action. My focus in the coming days is to be with my wife and children and defend our decades of service against these lies.”

The latest woman to make an allegation told CNN that Swalwell raped her when she was drunk and left her bruised and bleeding in 2024.

“I was pushing him off of me, saying no,” the woman told CNN. “He didn’t stop.”

She said another incident happened in 2019. She woke up naked in a hotel room with him after a night of drinking with no memory of what happened. She said she could feel physically that they had sexual contact.

On Thursday, Swalwell’s attorney sent the woman a cease-and-desist letter alleging that she “made false statements accusing Mr. Swalwell of sexual assault and nonconsensual sexual encounter.” The letter threatened to sue her, The San Francisco Chronicle reported. CNN reported another woman got a similar letter.

The attorney letters said the claims were “undermined” by their “voluntary and cooperative relationship with Mr. Swalwell over the course of many years” after the alleged incidents.

The attorney also sent CNN a letter saying that Swalwell has never had nonconsensual sex with any woman or had sex with any staff member.

Swalwell, 43, is married and has three young children. He was elected to Congress in 2012.

On Friday afternoon, Swalwell allies, including California Democratic Reps. Jimmy Gomez and Adam Gray, withdrew their endorsements and called on him to drop out of the race, The Chronicle reported. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also called on him to leave the race, as well as Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.

On Saturday, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., announced on X: “I am filing a motion to expel Eric Swalwell from Congress.”

She created several more posts against Swalwell.

“I am extending a call to any Swalwell victims to contact my office with information,” she posted. “All victims deserve to be heard. I will be bringing a vote to expel Rep. Swalwell from Congress next week, will Democrats vote to protect this corruption? I am not going to serve with these sexual deviants, that is not what Congress is about.”

One woman said she met Swalwell online because she was interested in Democratic politics, CNN reported. She said she ended up extremely drunk inside his hotel room after a night out and didn’t remember what had happened. She said earlier in the evening he had kissed her and put his hand on her leg without consent.

Social media creator Ally Sammarco said she received unsolicited nude images from Swalwell, CNN reported. She had met him on Twitter to talk about politics.

Several organizations, unions and donors have rescinded their endorsements following the allegations.

THERE was a time a while back when, whenever the gossip mags wrote about Jennifer Aniston, they’d always preface her name with ‘Sad’.

Sad Jen Aniston – it was like one of those three-part names like Sarah Jessica Parker or Sarah Michelle Gellar, and call me a cynic, but I’m convinced we haven’t seen the last of her.

For someone who was allegedly one of the most desirable women on earth, this must have been extremely annoying, especially when a quick roll-call inevitably followed, ticking off the regiment of men it took to award Aniston, 57, her nickname; Brad Pitt, John Mayer and Justin Theroux, for starters.

But now she is apparently planning to marry someone called Jim Curtis who she has been dating since 2025; celeb-years are like dog-years when it comes to relationships, so this is like a decade for the rest of us.

He looks like one of those men who habitually whispers ‘Rock Star’ at his reflection every morning.

He appears to have the aw-shucks charm of Pitt, the narcissism of Mayer and the pretentiousness of Theroux – without apparently having the independently successful careers of all of these, having only come to public notice when Aniston fell for his charms.

To be fair, she has rarely looked lovelier, and Curtis, 50, is wolfishly handsome.

But ‘wellness coach’ Mr Curtis – who has reportedly encouraged Aniston to ‘look inward (unfortunate suggestions of a colonoscopy there) – has a distinct whiff of snake oil about him, or rather, of woo-woo.

As a friend says: “They’ve done intensive regression therapy together, and Jen and Jim believe they met in a past life.

“They feel their souls were destined to find each other again in this timeline to complete their journey. It’s all very woo-woo and spiritual, but it absolutely works for them.”

What is woo-woo? Boiled down to its sticky residue, it’s extreme silliness masquerading as spirituality.

Woo-woo is especially attractive to disappointed women of a certain age; crystals, Goddess workshops and having a shaman on Skype speed-dial.

Gong baths, forest baths, any bath that doesn’t feature water; meditation, mindfulness, manifestation, and ‘cacao ceremonies’ where menopausal women pay other menopausal women to make them a hot chocolate in a flask while they watch the sun rise; call it a cacao ceremony and pay a hundred quid for the privilege.

Past-life regression: a couple I knew told everyone they met that in a past life, and that the woman was apparently the husband’s mother in Ancient Rome.

Their ageing whippet was also with them in Rome, which explained why, at 8,000 years old, he sometimes struggled on his daily walk.

Curtis himself was ‘regressed’ on a television talk show as a youngster and discovered that he was a Native American who was murdered.

The Wonder Of You

It’s funny how regressions bring up such dramatic results – no one’s ever just a bank clerk bored with their daily commute.

Until she saw sense and started showing off what her mama gave her again on Traitors, the most flagrantly silly face of homeland woo-woo was probably Charlotte Church, who in 2022 turned her very big house in the country into a ‘wellness retreat’ complete with a shower which the singer described as akin to a ‘very large and unusual-shaped vagina’, and a ‘womb room’.

According to planning documents, Church aimed to create ‘a system of non-hierarchical participatory democracy’ inside the property.

‘The Dreaming’ was due to open in 2022 – but was postponed due to a problem with too much sewage, which unkind souls might say is the overriding impression that one got from the whole daft enterprise.

But one can see why high-maintenance women might go for men like Mr Curtis.

After the parade of go-getting career-driven arch-narcissists Aniston has been left high and dry by, it might be refreshing to look into the limpid eyes of some smooth-talking guru who only wants to talk about The Wonder Of You.

The only Woo Woo I’ve got time for is this one: ‘Mix vodka, peach schnapps and cranberry juice, and garnish with a lime wedge’

On the other hand, knowing how prevalent stealth-narcissists are on the dodgy borderline where self-care meets self-advancement, there’s an equal chance that Dr Love is simply staring into your eyes in order to see his own reflection.

Falling for a snake-oil smoothie is the modern equivalent of those women who used to fall for vicars, and hang around making themselves useful in church in the hope that earthly love might eventually get a look-in.

Perhaps in a decade’s time, all this meditation, mindfulness and manifestation will be seen for what it is – old-fashioned eccentricity with a self-improving spin.

Personally, the only Woo Woo I’ve got time for is this one: ‘Mix vodka, peach schnapps and cranberry juice, and garnish with a lime wedge’.

WASHINGTON — Morning broke in the Middle East on Wednesday with a wave of attacks by Iran. Air defenses in Kuwait were overwhelmed. Three dozen drones and 17 ballistic missiles were shot down over the United Arab Emirates. The most important oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia suffered a hit. Sirens flared in Tel Aviv, and a devastating drumbeat of Israeli strikes targeting Iran’s allies in Lebanon killed scores in Beirut.

A day after President Trump hailed a ceasefire in his war with the Islamic Republic, reversing course on his threat to escalate, the only country spared from attack appeared to be Iran itself.

The “fragile truce,” as Vice President JD Vance called it, began with a calculated show of force from an Iran militarily weakened by six weeks of U.S.-Israeli strikes, yet strategically positioned to press for sweeping concessions from an American president eager to end the war.

Strait flush

A naval vessel sails on March 1 in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway through which much of the world’s oil and gas passes.

(Sahar al Attar / AFP/Getty Images)

The president’s main conditions for a truce were the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and, through negotiations, a definitive end to Iran’s nuclear work. But Tehran offered no sign of relenting on its enrichment program, and by Wednesday afternoon, had warned that tanker traffic would halt through the strait until Israel paused its attacks in Lebanon.

It was the clearest demonstration yet of Iran’s emboldened position to use the strait — treated for decades as a free and open international waterway — as a bargaining tool, threatening its closure over any number of demands, or else implementing a toll system as reparations for its war damage.

By Friday, U.S. negotiators flying to Islamabad for talks can expect Iran’s hold on the strait to weigh against all other priorities, including American demands that Iran relinquish its right to enrich uranium, the source of decades of tortured diplomatic efforts.

The White House said that traffic had increased through the strait on Wednesday. But it also described reports of its closure, briefed to a displeased president, as “completely unacceptable,” serving as a stark reminder in the West Wing of the new world its war had brought.

James Acton, co-director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, called the ceasefire framework “a foreign policy disaster” for the United States that revealed Iranian leverage long predicted by independent experts and intelligence analysts.

“Let’s assume the ceasefire actually takes hold — and as far as I can see, it hasn’t done so far,” Acton said. “Iran has the upper hand, and frankly, it’s not close.”

“The negotiations are likely to focus on opening the Strait of Hormuz, which is clearly Trump’s top goal, not Iran’s nuclear program,” he added. “Because Iran has demonstrated it can close the strait — and inflict large economic costs on the U.S. and large political costs on Trump — it now has plenty of leverage over the United States.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during a news briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room on Wednesday. Leavitt spoke to reporters on a range of topics including a two-week ceasefire deal between the U.S., Iran and Israel.

(Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

Unclear terms

The Trump administration reportedly urged two allies of Tehran — China and Pakistan — to pressure the Iranians into a ceasefire ahead of a Tuesday evening deadline, self-imposed by Trump, to escalate the conflict. The resulting truce was described not in a shared statement among the warring parties, but in separate, differing social media posts that all but guaranteed misinterpretation between the two sides.

A statement from the Pakistanis, who have helped mediate the talks, said the ceasefire extended to hostilities in Lebanon. The Israeli statement said it did not; Trump’s post omitted any mention of Lebanon at all.

But the president’s statement did say that a 10-point plan from Iran could serve as the basis for negotiations over a long-term truce going forward. The White House was forced to walk that back Wednesday afternoon, claiming that Iran had presented its diplomats with another, secret 10-point plan substantially revised from those detailed in the press.

“They put forward a more reasonable and entirely different and condensed plan to the president and his team,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. “The idea that President Trump would ever accept an Iranian wish list as a deal is completely absurd.”

In social media posts and interviews with select reporters on Wednesday, Trump appeared to suggest exactly that — floating sanctions relief for Tehran and proposing a plan to share revenue from a Strait of Hormuz toll system that could raise global oil prices while directly funding the Iranian government.

Limited achievements

Experts agree that the U.S.-Israeli campaign succeeded in significantly degrading Iran’s drone and ballistic missile infrastructure. But in a statement on Wednesday, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said any deal between Washington and Tehran had to include structural limits on those programs — suggesting concern in Israel that Iran could reconstitute its military within a matter of years.

Iran’s continued attacks on its neighbors Wednesday, its downing of American aircraft last week, and its retention of its nuclear material have raised doubts among U.S. allies about whether Washington’s military capabilities can deliver on its promises.

“There is less respect for what the United States — and Trump in particular — can accomplish, be it through military force or diplomacy, and for the strategic thinking that underlies U.S. policy,” said Patrick Clawson, director of the Iran program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “These attitudes are even stronger in Europe, Russia and China.”

Iran’s military weaknesses have been uncovered as well. Few of its missiles and drones inflicted physical damage throughout Israel and the Arab world.

Yet the psychological impact — on local populations, on the economy of metropolitan Dubai, on the commercial shipping sector and the oil market — has proven Iran is capable of exacting greater pain than its conventional military capabilities would suggest.

Whether the United States can return the Strait of Hormuz to its status before the war, as a free and open waterway, may depend on longstanding allies that Trump has ostracized over the course of the war.

“We launched a war that affected the rest of the world, with little consideration for its effects,” said Dennis Ross, a veteran diplomat on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict who served in the George H.W. Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations.

“When you berate allies and leave them out but expect them to be there when you need them, you discover that you don’t have them,” Ross added. “No one is going to assume that the U.S. is more reliable after this.”

What else you should be reading

The must-read:The new LACMA is divisive. It’s also ambitious, disorienting — and radically alive
The deep dive: Excitement over ‘affordable’ L.A. Olympics turns to angry sticker shock over high-priced tickets
The L.A. Times Special: Bruce Springsteen’s comeback at Kia Forum is no victory lap. It’s a battle against Trump

More to come,
Michael Wilner
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When the Hulu adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” premiered during the early months of the first Trump presidency, it was seen by many as a timely prophecy — the crimson cloaks and white bonnets of the story’s eponymous sex slaves became a symbol of protest against a president who, though not a religious man himself, embraced many policies supported by the far-right Christian minority, especially those regarding the reproductive and civil rights of women.

This was not the plan, of course, or at least not as regards the Trump factor. The book was written in 1985, the show greenlit long before Trump became president, which only proves the grim resilience of Atwood’s themes. So it shouldn’t be surprising that the sequel series, “The Testaments,” also has name-specific cultural resonance. Plum-cloaked in a YA-leaning, high school drama that owes as much to “Pretty Little Liars” or “Gossip Girl” as it does to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “The Testaments” gives us an apocryphal version of the Epstein files.

Based on Atwood’s 2019 Booker Prize-winning novel, “The Testaments” takes place some years after the final events of “The Handmaid’s Tale” series and revolves around Ardua Hall where Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd), having regained her Gileadean status, oversees the instruction of young women as they prepare to take up their lives as obedient wives and, Under His Eye, fruitful mothers.

Agnes (Chase Infiniti) is our initial central character and narrator. Though we know from her backward-looking tone that change is coming, her initial main worries are her mean stepmother and when (or if) she will finally begin to menstruate. She and her friends — Becka (Mattea Conforti), Shunammite (Rowan Blanchard) and Hulda (Isolde Ardies) — have all graduated from the “Pinks” (little girls) to the “Plums” (young women) but only Becka has achieved the “blessing” of menarche, which means she can now be chosen by an unmarried (or widowed) Commander or other man of lesser rank.

This particular form of reaping occurs midway through the season at a dance where all the eligible girls meet with all manner of young bachelors, only to discover that the oldest and most powerful members of the elite get first choice. Watching as the men joke among themselves before staking their claims, it is difficult not to think of Jeffrey Epstein parceling out young women to his powerful male friends (albeit not for marriage).

Though touched on throughout “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the horrifying connection between status and the systematic procurement of women is the sinister force that drives “The Testaments.” A global infertility crisis may have been the catalyzing force for Gilead’s rise but this “privilege” of power is not about repopulation; Agnes and the Plums are simply victims of sexual grooming taken to its pathological conclusion.

Becka is the only one who is less than thrilled by her “prospects” — everyone else, including Agnes, can hardly wait to be married off and, with any luck, quickly become pregnant (not that they know anything about sex, forced by the state or otherwise).

Having been raised in a beautiful home with no material wants, Agnes knows little about the outside world. Like most women in Gilead, she is not allowed to read or write, and she and her friends coolly accept public executions, torture and other means of corporal punishment as the inevitable consequence of breaking any of the many rules drilled into them. They accept that their bodies are instruments of the devil designed to compel men to commit lustful acts and that they are responsible for ensuring that this does not happen.

Ann Dowd reprises her role as Aunt Lydia in “The Testaments.”

(Russ Martin / Disney)

But girls will be girls and even under the stern eye of Aunt Vidala (Mabel Li) and the more kindly countenance of Aunt Estee (Eva Foote), they tease each other and romp together, compare hairstyles and trade snarky comments about the Aunts as they dream of a happy ending.

In its own way, that’s even more chilling and resonant than the horrors of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Enslavement will always require some level of violence, but violence tends to spark rebellion — indoctrination is always more effective. Training people to believe they are fated, or even happy, to live without freedom, rights or real choice is the only way a totalitarian society can survive.

Showing this is far less exciting than the images of grown women being killed or stripped of their rights as presented in “The Handmaid’s Tale” (though “The Testaments” does offer a few very chilling flashbacks). But as social commentary, it’s difficult to beat the sight of young women, recognizable in so many ways as modern teens, complying with their own enslavement, out of ignorance and, as events proceed, the gut-wrenching fear of what the truth might mean.

Gilead’s future hangs on whether the Plums remain ignorant and compliant, as does the story of “The Testaments.” Agnes may not share Becka’s unhappiness with forced marriage, but she is soon given other things to worry about, including a growing attraction to one of the Eyes who guards her and a request to mentor one of the school’s new “Pearl Girls.” These young female missionaries, dressed in white, have been sent into Canada to draw girls to Gilead’s cause. Among the recruits is Daisy (Lucy Halliday), who Aunt Lydia puts under Agnes’ care.

Shunammite, the sharpest-tongued of Agnes’ friends, is convinced Daisy is a spy. Daisy, whose backstory includes, in the first episode, a brief glimpse of Elisabeth Moss’ June, certainly upsets things, most often by reacting to Gilead’s penchant for public atrocities the way a non-sociopath outsider would.

Over the course of the season (upon which many, many plot-point embargoes have been placed), Agnes and Daisy form a bond that threatens Agnes’ worldview, as well as her friend group. The novel “The Testaments” is a much larger and more complex book than “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Each are presented as historical records of a government long gone, but where Bruce Miller, who adapted both, had to first spin a series out of “The Handmaid’s Tale’s” relatively short and fairly elliptical story, he has much more to work with here.

He does so carefully, and perhaps a tad too slowly. Much of the first season is spent getting to know the girls, especially Agnes (whose pre-Gilead identity is obvious to anyone who read or watched “The Handmaid’s Tale.”) Coming off her Oscar-nominated performance in “One Battle After Another,” Infiniti masterfully conjures the rigorous placidity of a young woman so accustomed to holding herself in check she has a hard time recognizing the difference between her mask and her real self.

Her friends share the same disability, though to greater and lesser degrees. As their characters, Conforti, Blanchard and Ardies, deftly carve out discrete personalities beneath their plum-colored homogeneity, each playing a role that is, in turn, playing a role while also remaining desperately human.

Halliday as Daisy is the rawest nerve among them, but all the main characters, including the Aunts, are people trapped inside uniforms and all allow their intelligence to shine through state-imposed ignorance, embodying both the tense acceptance of indoctrination and the disorientation that strikes when it begins to crack.

Dowd, of course, is next level. Compressing and occasionally revealing all that she has been through in “The Handmaid’s Tale” and before, what she manages to make Aunt Lydia is both Dorian Gray and his portrait. What exactly Aunt Lydia is doing by handing Daisy into Agnes’ care is not made clear but she is obviously doing something.

Both “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Testaments” were written as historic documents gathered from a fallen regime; it doesn’t break any embargo to say that at some point Gilead will fall. Whether that fall begins, or occurs within, the action of “The Testaments” remains to be seen.

But we all know what happened to Epstein in the end.

In the midst of the escalation of the Gaza conflict that has been going on since 2023, the world is once again witnessing the heartbreaking reality of women crying among the ruins of their homes and the burning of property, mothers who have lost children, and families separated by military attacks. Global media were quick to point to this event as a symbol of the suffering of civil society. But behind the empathy shown, there is also a question that is rarely asked: how exactly can Palestinian women be represented, and who can shape that narrative?

For decades, women in conflict zones, such as the Middle East, have often been portrayed in the same framework, as passive victims who need to be rescued and protected. In the context of Gaza, this pattern has resurfaced. Global media coverage often only highlights women’s plight without giving enough space for their voices, perspectives, and agency in conflict. This narrative does look humanistic, but it also contains an element of simplification that makes the world unaware of the more complex reality behind it.

This is where postcolonial feminism offers a sharper critique and helps us to look further at this issue as a form of epistemic violence. This perspective emphasizes that in understanding women’s experiences, it cannot be separated from considerations about the history of colonialism and global power relations. In the context of the Gaza conflict, this means that violence is experienced by women. Not only a patriarchal problem but also supported by aspects of colonialism, militarization, and inequality politics (Enloe, 2014).

This phenomenon cannot be separated from the thoughts of Lila Abu-Lughod, who mentioned “politics of saving” in her work entitled Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Abu-Lughod (2013) criticized how the Western world portrays Muslim women as an oppressed group in need of rescue. This narrative is not only a form of simplifying women’s representation but can also be used as a legitimacy for political, cultural, and even military intervention from external actors. Such as the concept of militarization of daily life raised by Enloe (2014), who explains that militarization does not only occur on the battlefield but also enters into the reality of daily life, including in how the media frames conflicts. Where in this context the representation of Palestinian women as passive victims is used to affirm certain narratives about war, security, and the legitimacy of power.

The term “security politics” in the Gaza conflict appears in a more subtle form. Palestinian women are positioned as a universal form of suffering but are rarely seen as political subjects with diverse experiences and aspirations. The suffering they experience in conflict becomes a global consumption, while structural contexts, such as colonialism and power inequality, are often ignored.

An important question then arises: who really has the right to speak on behalf of Palestinian women? This is where Spivak’s (2009) thoughts on the concept of the subaltern become relevant. Spivak himself argues that the subaltern group is a group that is in a marginalized position so that its voice is not heard in the dominant discourse. Even when they are “represented,” their voices are often mediated or even filtered by stronger actors.

In many news narratives about Gaza, Palestinian women rarely appear as the main narrator of their own experiences. Brand awareness is often told by foreign journalists and international organizations. Or humanitarian institutions as “representatives.” As a result, the narrative that is born is not a complete reflection of the reality they face, but rather a form of representation that has been framed according to the logic and direction of global media reporting.

This issue becomes more complex when we look at how the media tends to ignore the agency dimension. Palestinian women not only live in the shadow of conflict but also have active agency in various forms of resistance, both as activists, journalists, medical personnel, and community leaders. They have the capacity to build solidarity and even contribute to political struggles as well as peace. However, aspect II rarely gets the same spotlight as the narrative of suffering.

This disregard of agency can create an imbalance of representation. Palestinian women are only seen as passive victims, which makes them look like they also have no capacity as active actors. This inequality is not only a question of representation but also a question of power regarding who has the right to define reality for a particular purpose.

In the digital era, this is certainly starting to change. Social media provides a space for Palestinian women to be able to speak directly to a global audience. Through various social media platforms, they can share experiences and aspirations that are often not featured in the mainstream media. This ultimately opens up the possibility of a more authentic and diverse counternarrative.

However, the digital space is still full of limitations. Certain narratives can easily go viral, while others sink and disappear without a trace. In other words, while social media can offer opportunities, the space is not completely free from the influence of broader power structures.

Rereading the narrative of Palestinian women in the era of the Gaza conflict is a form of recognition that representation is not neutral. It is always related to interests, ideologies, and power relations. The narrative of “rescue” may seem like a form of concern from the surface, but if you look further, it can also be a form of control over the other party’s representation. Looking at the Gaza conflict through the lens of feminism is to question basic assumptions in global reporting. Do we really see them as individuals? Do we really hear their voices, or just voices about them?

Therefore, it is important to change our perspective. Instead of seeing Palestinian women as victims who need to be saved, we need to recognize them as subjects who have the capacity to speak, form agencies, and share their experiences in the form of real reality. This is not to ignore the real suffering but to place Palestinian women’s experiences in armed conflict in a broader, fairer, and closer context to reality. As Abu-Lughod (2013) reminds us, the more important question that arises is not how to save Muslim women, but how to understand the conditions and realities that shape their life experiences.

Ultimately, the lens of feminism, particularly postcolonial feminism, invites us to not only have empathy but also to be more critical. By looking further at how the narrative is formed, who can benefit, and which voices are ignored.

Perhaps the more relevant question is not whether Palestinian women need protection and rescue, but whether the world is ready to hear and see them as subjects who have the capacity to speak and move. Because what needs to change is not them, but the way we understand them.

SACRAMENTO — Why would an immigrant living here illegally risk jail and deportation by trying to vote? That has always puzzled me.

And why would a political pro waste time and money soliciting votes from noncitizens when there are millions of legal voters available to persuade?

The answer is that undocumented immigrants don’t. And neither do campaign consultants.

President Trump and MAGA Republicans who echo his diatribe are hallucinating or outright lying when they claim without evidence that there’s widespread fraud in American elections — specifically in blue states like California that vote for Democrats.

Trump reiterated the fabrication last week when he signed an executive order seeking to place tight federal controls on increasingly popular mail-in voting.

“Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating,” Trump reiterated. “Cheating on mail-in voting is legendary. It’s horrible what’s going on.”

“See you in court,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom replied.

California and several states partnered in filing a lawsuit accusing the president of an illegal power grab. They pointed out that states have a constitutional right to administer elections pretty much as they see fit.

Trump hypocritically voted by mail himself in a recent Florida special election.

“You know what, because I’m president of the United States,” he told reporters when asked about the vote. “I had a lot of different things” to do. For him, voting by mail was convenient.

As for the rest of us, apparently in Trump’s mind we don’t do anything important enough to warrant handy mail voting.

The reality is that egotistical Trump still can’t admit to himself that he lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden fair and square. Democrats must have cheated, he thinks — or says he does.

The main way Democrats cheat, Trump and his followers assert, is to round up noncitizens and register them to vote — especially immigrants from Latin America.

It’s nonsensical. As if some undocumented immigrant struggling to survive and dodge ICE agents really gives a rat who’s elected governor or senator. Voting fraudulently is a crime — a misdemeanor or a felony, punishable by a steep fine and/or jail time.

And a campaign pro is going to break the law by offering cash or groceries to a noncitizen for her vote? That would be felony stupid.

“We can’t get Latinos who have been here legally for three generations to vote. If you’re going to spend money getting votes, that’s where you’re going to spend it,” says Republican consultant Mike Madrid, who has written a book about Latino political influence.

“The notion that Democratic operatives are going after undocumented immigrants is absurd.”

People who migrated here illegally, Madrid adds, “don’t want to touch the government in any shape or form. They just want to put in a hard day’s work and retreat to the shadows. They couldn’t care less about politics and voting in the United States.”

No hard evidence of significant election fraud in America in recent years has been produced by Trump or anyone else.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a leading Republican candidate for governor, apparently was trying to impress Trump and win his endorsement by seizing more than 650,000 ballots cast in November’s Proposition 50 election.

The sheriff said he was investigating claims — unsubstantiated — of election fraud. But the project is now on hold. A good place for it.

It was a waste of the sheriff’s resources to collect the ballots and would be an even bigger misuse of personnel and money to sift through all of those documents in a fruitless search for fraud.

I called Assemblywoman Gail Pellerin, a Democrat who was Santa Cruz County’s chief elections official for 27 years. She chairs the Assembly Elections Committee.

In all of those years supervising elections, Pellerin told me, she encountered only one clear case of fraud. A landlord snatched a ballot that had been mailed to a tenant and illegally cast it.

But a voter must sign the envelope containing a mailed ballot and the landlord’s signature didn’t match the intended voter’s as given when she originally registered. Election officials contacted the intended voter, who said she hadn’t received her ballot yet. The landlord was prosecuted and convicted.

Signatures are checked with the use of technology in California. That’s the main method of verifying a mailed ballot’s legality.

Pellerin says her own signature didn’t match up once. “I got sloppy and my signature had changed since I registered 20 years earlier.” She was contacted by an elections official and her ballot ultimately was counted.

In every election, she says, there are cases of a mother signing the ballot for a daughter who’s away at college, or someone signing for an aging parent. The signatures invariably don’t match and the voters are contacted.

But that’s about the extent of so-called cheating, Pellerin says.

“Immigrants are here to make their lives better,” she says. “They’re not going to risk any path to citizenship by trying to participate in an election.”

When voters register, they must answer under penalty of perjury whether they’re a citizen.

Trump’s convoluted intervention in state-operated voting would, among other things, direct the United States Postal Service to design new envelopes with bar codes that verify voter legality. The feds would refuse to send ballots to people deemed ineligible to cast them.

Gosh, what could possibly go wrong under the Trump administration?

Californians have embraced mail-in voting. In the gubernatorial election 40 years ago, only 9% of ballots were cast by mail; 20 years ago, 42% were. In November, it was up to 89%.

But baseless claims by Trump and his grovelers of “cheating” will persist. It fires up the conservative base and raises political money.

It also maligns noncitizens and dedicated elections officials who keep voting fraud-free.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: California election experts sound alarm as rate of rejected ballots quadruples
What the … : Californians may need to mail ballots early as Supreme Court signals support for new election day deadline
The L.A. Times Special: The loophole that keeps a Trump loyalist serving as L.A.’s top federal prosecutor

Until next week,
George Skelton

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The “Cultural Re-existence” column will provide insights into how our ancestral practices, habits, customs, and traditions remain alive today because Venezuelans preserve them through the human spirit they embody and amplify. These are expressions of women and men grounded in reality, history, and a consciousness of their subjective revolutionary role, as well as their responsibility and commitment to defending life.

March, in addition to being the month honoring women, is a month of celebration centered on Venezuela’s most widespread traditional rhythm: joropo. (1) And although this is a community tradition with unique variations throughout Venezuela, on March 19 the town of Elorza in Apure state hosts a ten-day festival that draws thousands of people from all over Venezuela and other countries, to participate and enjoy concerts until dawn, joropo llanero singing and dancing contests, sports and recreational activities linked to the Llano culture, as well as culinary and artisan fairs. Another iconic date this month is March 15, since in 2014 the Bolivarian government declared “Traditional Venezuelan Joropo in All its Diversity” to be part of the nation’s cultural heritage. From that moment, this date has been commemorated as National Joropo Day.

As a community-based festival, the Venezuelan joropo in its various forms—in the eastern, north-central coastal, llanos, western, and Andean regions—has seen Venezuelan women become committed cultural creators who are conscious of their community’s identity, the very identity that has allowed them to endure since colonial times, keeping alive the feelings, thoughts, and actions that extend beyond their own lives, into the lives of their children and grandchildren. 

Venezuelan women, as practitioners of the various joropos, have had to fight—as women and as joropo creators—against the Inquisition, the nation-state, and the cultural industry for their right to exist. It is well known that these institutions demonized them for “disturbing devotion,” and even today they compel them to adopt a masculinized representation of their own identity or impose the sexualization of their aesthetic expression. There is a historical debt to acknowledge the heroic insurgency that the practice, creation, and celebration of the various Venezuelan joropos have meant for the Venezuelan people, and this debt is owed primarily to the joroperas [female joropo practitioners] for their unrelenting commitment to our identities, even during the most complex moments of our history as an insurgent people.

For these reasons, we wanted to inaugurate our column with the perspective that Venezuelan women have on this popular community festival. Through Fabiola José, we were invited to the 3rd “Mujer Joropo” (Joropo Women) Gathering, held in honor of singer Cecilia Todd and dancer María Ruíz. This was our cue to attend the “Joropazo” organized at the San Carlos Barracks in Caracas on March 15, and to participate as singers and spectators in this gathering of women, an artistic-cultural initiative that brought together singers, dancers, and musicians of all ages, with repertoires integrating both the traditional music and dances of our communities and more contemporary musical and choreographic expressions that speak to multigenerational dialogue and the enduring relevance of this popular art form.

Honoring women’s role in joropo

Carolina Veracierta is the organizer of Mujer Joropo. A dancer, writer, designer, and singer, she explained to us that the project “focuses on women not just in a supporting role but as a protagonist, a creator, and carrier of ancestral knowledge.”

“For me, the joropo isn’t just a musical genre or a dance; it’s the language through which my body and my voice express my very essence. It’s the echo of my childhood in Monagas state and the strength that has sustained me on stages far away,” she explained. “When I dance the joropo, I don’t just move my feet; I shake off my sorrows, celebrate my victories, and honor the women who, before me, kept the rhythm in their skirts and in their songs to accompany the milking of cows.”

Asked about the importance of an event featuring women exclusively, Veracierta argued that joropo has historically had “a very masculine narrative” but that women have always been present, “sustaining the rhythm and in tandem with the man’s foot-stomping.”

“Celebrating it among women is an act of sorority and empowerment,” she concluded. “Joropo has the soul of a woman.”

Amaranta Pérez, another artist featured in the event, told us that joropo brings her an immediate jolt of happiness. “It takes me back to my family’s roots between Parmana and Valle de la Pascua [Guárico state], it is a sort of therapy,” she said. “I especially cherish the lyrics that express the love for our people, landscapes, history, and the folk tales from our wonderful authors that are turned into songs.”

Amaranta defended the importance of events like Mujer Joropo to help correct women’s “unequal” participation in the artistic sphere.

For her part, singer, professor, and bassoonist Luisana Pérez affirmed that “joropo for me is synonymous with Venezuela, from its history to the yellow, blue, red and eight stars that make up the national flag.”

Concerning Mujer Joropo, Luisana explained that “it was unusual to see women playing the mandolin, the harp, or the cuatro” and that these kinds of events “are a beautiful way to reclaim the role played by women in joropo.”

More than 20 artists participated in this third edition of Mujer Joropo, demonstrating the commitment of contemporary Venezuelan women to their own history, to the artistic legacy of their ancestors, and to the responsibility of preserving and promoting the heritage they now hold.

From underground communal festivity to national identity manufactured by the music industry

On April 10, 1749, the governor and captain general of Venezuela, Don Luis Francisco de Castellanos, published what may be the first documented reference to the joropo. He did so in the form of a decree banning the Xoropo Escobillado, “…due to its extreme movements, insolence, heel-stomping, and other indecencies, it has been frowned upon by some people of sound mind…”. The official decided to consult the Royal Audience on this matter, likely due to widespread controversy, and in the meantime, warned that those who violated the ban would face public scrutiny plus two years of imprisonment, and women would be “…confined to hospitals for an equal period…”.

Although this is the first formal ban to explicitly name joropo, we cannot overlook the fact that, as early as 1532, the Catholic Church’s published constitutions regulated and prohibited popular festivals in general, especially those where the music and dances of Mulatto, Black, and Indigenous women “…disturb devotion…,” or where both sexes mingle in dance, or those where the veneration of saints was a pretext for throwing a party. 

If we consider that there is evidence that the first vihuelas [medieval Spanish string instrument] arrived in 1529 in the territory we now call Venezuela, and if we acknowledge the express order of the Catholic Monarchs to ship instruments and musicians starting with Columbus’s second voyage (1493), we could infer that between these dates and Governor Castellanos’s ban, there were some 220–250 years of incubation for what would eventually become an irreversible trend in popular culture, which the colonial order had no choice but to accept.

Although the term xoropo has been interpreted as coming from Arabic as jarabe ( شراب , sharab), for the Andalusian researcher, poet, and musician Antonio Manuel Rodríguez Ramos, the root is undoubtedly that of drinking ( شرب , shurib), and he explains that initially, this is how the festival of drinking, singing, dancing, and eating might have been called. And the fact is that drinking –alcohol– was the best way for converts to avoid suspicion from the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, which was formally operational in our country between 1610 and 1821.

Related to other rhythms including fandangos, jácaras, folías, jarabes, and sones, Venezuelan joropos were documented in the independence struggle that led Bolívar’s armies as far as Peru during the nineteenth century. In the mid-twentieth century, one of these joropos, the llanero, was established as the national music style and dance, though it was a version that had certainly lost its communal and rustic character. By then, the music industry, aware of the deep roots these sounds had in Venezuelans, marketed a series of commercial products featuring music, lyrics, and singers stylized to fit institutional, urban, and bourgeois tastes.

As we noted above, on March 15, 2014, the Venezuelan government declared “Traditional Venezuelan Joropo in All its Diversity” as part of the nation’s cultural heritage, recognizing it as an element of identity and unity –not only in many of our festivities and collective expressions throughout the country, but also as a collective process of community organization. The declaration of the diversity of joropos as cultural heritage was the result of a series of debates that took place both within the community of cultural workers and among research specialists.

With the same strategy of asserting the joropo not only as a dance but as a complex cultural system that integrates music, song, dance, poetry, and oral traditions passed down through generations, Venezuela proposed to the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage that the Venezuelan joropo be included on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The committee approved the proposal on December 9, 2025.

Venezuelan joropos thus allow people to come together and reclaim their humanity through the recognition of their own dignity. Through parrandas, festivals for singing, dancing, eating, and drinking, joropo expresses a communal setting where agriculture, cattle rearing, and fishing were the means of sustaining life. Persecuted by the colonial order, homogenized by the nation-state, and commercialized by the music industry through jingle-franchise schemes, Venezuelan joropos also survived the journey from the rural countryside to the oil-driven urban environments.

This continuous history of persecution, denial, whitewashing, and normalization has actually pushed joropo women and men to sneak away, resonate, hold firm, reinvent themselves, and stand out in a permanent process of self-consciousness, recognition, and realization. It is not merely a connection to the land, to love, to our mothers, but to the dream of living in a free land, and the will to produce a cultural liberation project.

Note

(1) With a myriad of local expressions, joropo is the most widespread traditional rhythm in Venezuela. Its execution typically features at least one singer, maracas as percussion, the Venezuelan cuatro [four-stringed instrument], and other string instruments such as the harp or the mandolin. The most well-known variations are the joropo llanero, from the plains region, joropo oriental from the eastern coastal areas and Margarita island, and joropo central from Miranda and Aragua states in the center of the country. Listen to the songs above for examples.

Fabiola José is a Venezuelan singer. She has performed in countries across South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. Her singles and albums are available on all digital platforms. She hosted and produced “Cantante y Sonante” for Radio Nacional de Venezuela. In 2018–2019, she created a series of videos for social media, published on her YouTube channel #HechoEnCasa. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Music from IUDEM, Caracas (2005); specialized under Maestro Tom Krause in Spain (2007); and an M.A. in Arts and Cultures of the South from UNEARTE, Venezuela (2020).

Fidel Barbarito is a Venezuelan musician and researcher, with a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music and history, respectively. He teaches in the undergraduate and graduate programs at the National Experimental University of the Arts (UNEARTE). Together with Fabiola José, he promotes several musical projects aimed at disseminating traditional folk repertoires, integrating them with contemporary compositions inspired by these sounds. Joropo llanero. Parranda de reexistencia is one of his published essays.

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

Cambridge won a fourth consecutive Men’s Boat Race as Oxford claimed their first victory in the women’s race since 2016.

The Cambridge men came in as strong favourites for the 171st event but Oxford did well to stay with them for much of the race in tricky and blustery conditions along the 4.3-mile course from Putney to Chiswick.

But the class of the Light Blues came through in the final third as they pulled clear to triumph by 11.02 seconds for a seventh win in eight years.

In the 80th edition of the women’s race, Oxford made a blistering start and Cambridge were unable to respond as the Dark Blues stayed strong to win by 9.4 seconds and celebrate their 31st overall success.

WASHINGTON — One year ago, Donald Trump stood in a sun-kissed, unpaved Rose Garden and defiantly announced a new era of global trade, raising tariffs on countries worldwide and sending shock waves through the global economy.

The president promised short-term pain rippling through American households would make way for a U.S. economy that would soon take off. But experts say they are still waiting for receipts — and question whether they will ever come.

A year of turbulence

Tariff rates shifted so unpredictably for so long — across countries and with remarkable speed — that companies are still struggling to build stable, long-term supply chains capable of supporting future planning and growth. U.S. markets recorded one of the most volatile years in history, marked by extreme swings and modest gains driven by a handful of stocks for tech companies largely inoculated from import duties.

A customer visits a Costco food court in San Diego on March 18.

(Kevin Carter / Getty Images)

Federal customs duties brought in tens of billions of dollars. But a study published this week by the European Central Bank found that U.S. importers and consumers, not foreign exporters, bore the brunt of the costs that paid for it — and that an even larger share of the burden will fall on American households and companies the longer Trump’s tariff policies stay in place.

Despite the president’s pronouncements, tariff earnings have barely made a dent in the federal debt.

Tax cuts and additional spending on defense and immigration enforcement have increased the annual deficit. In the months of January and February alone, net customs duties hit an average of $27 billion — a significant figure that has essentially offset the costs of Trump’s war with Iran, now estimated to be more than $57 billion since its start.

In February, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump had exceeded his authority by bypassing Congress to impose tariffs on an emergency basis. But the decision has merely prompted the Trump administration to look for ways to bypass the high court, as well.

“Even after the court ruling, the Trump administration continues to wield tariffs in a haphazard and ill-conceived fashion,” said Kimberly Clausing, a professor of tax policy and law at UCLA School of Law. “One year in, Trump’s tariffs have only generated higher prices, economic disruption, frayed alliances, and manufacturing job loss.”

Farmers in New Delhi take part in a March 19 protest demanding a minimum support price for crops.

(Sajjad Hussain / AFP / Getty Images)

Since the court ruling, Trump has moved away from using broad emergency powers to justify tariff rates, now citing laws on national security and unfair trade practices to keep them in place. Those are being challenged, as well.

“Trump’s tariff mania injected uncertainty into global business supply chains that he is refusing to let the Supreme Court undo,” said Aaron Klein, chair of economic studies at the Brookings Institution.

“It would be one thing if Trump replaced the existing tariff system with a coherent strategy approved by the very Republican Congress he controls,” Klein added. “Instead, Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff by tweet and let the courts figure it out months later destroys business’ ability to plan and undermines global confidence in America’s trustworthiness.”

‘Mounting downside’

Whether or not the president’s tariff policies survive, they have succeeded in ushering in a new era of international trade, shifting global reliance on the U.S. dollar and on the American consumer market, experts said.

“The euro, the Chinese yuan and crypto will be the biggest beneficiaries as the dollar loses market share,” said Kenneth Rogoff, an economist and professor at Harvard. “Future historians may well look back some day and see Liberation Day as marking the beginning of the end of the dollar’s absolute dominance in global markets, and the ‘exorbitant privilege’ it has given to the United States as issuer of what once upon a time was the world safest currency.”

Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said that Trump’s tariff policies have upended global shipping, prompted China to increase offshore investments in countries like Vietnam to process Chinese inputs for the U.S. market, and elevated long-term uncertainty over investing in North America — a trifecta that has ensured that U.S. companies and consumers bear the costs.

“While the president promised an American ‘industrial renaissance,’ manufacturing jobs have been lost every month since early 2023,” Lovely said. “Easy to see the mounting downside of his tariff barrage, hard to find much upside.”

More than 100,000 net jobs in the U.S. manufacturing sector have been lost over the last year, in part due to the increased costs facing U.S.-based manufacturing companies for parts and inputs, said Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

That has made domestic manufacturing less competitive. “The trade war has also increased the prices facing consumers at a time when affordability is their top concern,” Strain added.

Customers shop at the Sanya International Duty Free City in Sanya, in south China’s Hainan province, on Jan. 10. In December 2025, China launched special customs operations in the Hainan Free Trade Port, allowing easier entry of overseas goods and expanding zero-tariff coverage.

(Guo Cheng / Xinhua / Getty Images)

The policy has become a political albatross for the president, who now proceeds through a midterm year with a bipartisan majority of Americans dissatisfied with his approach to their top concern. Seven in 10 Americans believe that tariffs have increased their costs of living, according to a recent poll, including 64% of Republicans and 67% of independents.

Sung Won Sohn, a former commissioner at the Port of Los Angeles, said that inflation aggravated by Trump’s tariff actions has complicated policy at the Federal Reserve, fueling uncertainty in the U.S. stock market.

The Supreme Court’s decision, which prompted legal ambiguity on the administration’s path forward and opened the door to a flood of litigation for potential tariff refunds, further added to uncertainty. “The net result is decreased economic efficiency,” Sohn said.

Trump faces worse poll numbers on inflation than former Presidents Carter and Biden, both of whom faced challenges with increased prices on goods. Today, 72% of Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of rising prices, according to a CNN poll released this week.

“The real damage from the tariffs — and their uneven unwinding — is not captured in headline GDP figures,” Sohn added. “It shows up in slower decision-making, reduced productivity, and a persistent fog over the economic outlook.”

What else you should be reading

The must-read: A serial arsonist terrorized Hollywood. It ended only after two sisters died in a house fire, authorities say
The deep dive: The books that created the César Chávez myth — and those that brought him down
The L.A. Times Special: Electric bikes can be fast and dangerous. Here’s how to stay safe

On a personal note, hats off to my colleagues for stepping in during my parental leave — it’s great to be back.

More to come,
Michael Wilner

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‘We’re going to be vocal about it, we’re going to make noise until we’re heard,’ South Africa’s gold medallist says.

Double Olympic champion Caster Semenya ⁠says she intends to fight ⁠against the introduction of gender testing for the female category at the Olympics, a policy the South African insists “undermines women’s rights”.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) unveiled the policy last week and it is expected to become a universal ⁠rule for competitors in female elite sports after years of fragmented regulation that led to controversy.

Semenya has been at the centre of one of those controversies due to her long-running legal case against World Athletics over her right to compete on the track despite having a ⁠Difference of Sexual Development (DSD).

“We’re going to be vocal about it, we’re going to make noise until we’re heard,” the 35-year-old athlete told the Reuters news agency on Monday.

“Now it’s a matter of women standing for themselves to say, ‘Enough is enough.’ We are not going to be told how to do things.

“If really we are accepted as women to take part, why does my appearance or my voice, why do my inner parts ‌need to be a problem to take part in the sport?”

DSDs are a group of rare conditions involving genes, hormones and reproductive organs. Some people with DSDs are raised as female but have XY sex chromosomes and blood testosterone levels in the male range.

The IOC policy document said including “androgen-sensitive XY-DSD athletes” in the female category in events that rely on strength, power or endurance “runs fundamentally counter to ensuring fairness, safety and integrity in elite competition”.

Semenya, who won two Olympic and three world titles in the 800 metres before being limited to shorter events, believes the IOC got the science wrong.

Semenya said “there’s no science” that XY-DSD gave an athlete ⁠an advantage. “I’ve been there, I’ve done that. There’s no such thing as that,” she said.

“There are people ⁠who are delusional. There are people who are convinced because a woman is masculine, a woman is born with intersex conditions, the DSD, they’ve mentioned all those things [that they have an advantage].

“But what I say is that if you’re going to be a great athlete, it’s through hard work.”

The test that will be applied to ⁠all athletes who want to compete in the female class will be conducted by a cheek swab or saliva analysis.

There will be further investigation for any athletes who test positive for the SRY gene, ⁠which is on the Y chromosome and triggers the development of male characteristics in ⁠mammals.

“What this decision does, it undermines women. It undermines women’s dignity. It violates women’s rights because we know historically, these [tests] have failed before,” Semenya said.

“Women need to be celebrated. Women are not supposed to be questioned about their gender. Why that is their physique? Why it is how they look like? It doesn’t matter. Neither also the ‌hormone level. Those are the things that are obviously genetics that cannot be controlled.”

Semenya said IOC President Kirsty Coventry, the first woman and first African to hold the office, had failed to properly consult her or other athletes living with DSDs about the policy.

“They sent us ‌a ‌letter the day they were going to publish [the new policy],” she said.

“If you’re going to consult, consult with a genuine heart. Don’t consult because you’re ticking the box. Unfortunately, they have ticked a wrong box.”

In a new report, Doctors Without Borders says sexual violence is the ‘defining feature’ of the conflict in Sudan.

Hanaan was 18 years old when she was raped by members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group accused of committing widespread “war crimes” during nearly three years of fighting against Sudan’s army.

She was walking alongside a female friend to her makeshift home in an encampment for displaced people in South Darfur, when four men on motorbikes stopped them and asked where they were going.

“Two took each girl, and they raped us,” she told Doctors Without Borders, an international medical NGO known by its French initials MSF.

“I feel uncomfortable in my body, heavy. I don’t feel pain, apart from in my back – because they beat me, they beat me with their guns on my back,” she said.

Hanaan – not her real name – shared her testimony as part of a report released by MSF on Tuesday, which details the widespread use of sexual violence as a weapon in Sudan’s ongoing brutal civil war.

The NGO said 3,396 survivors of sexual violence sought treatment in MSF-supported health facilities across North and South Darfur between January 2024 and November 2025.

The data, presented in the report titled, There is Something I Want to Tell You…, was drawn from MSF programmes in just two of Sudan’s 18 states and reflects only a fraction of the crisis, while the true scale of the phenomenon remains unknown.

Women and girls accounted for 97 percent of survivors treated in MSF programmes. The RSF and allied militias were found to be primarily responsible for the systematic abuse.

Children among the survivors

“Sexual violence is a defining feature of this conflict – not confined to front lines, but pervasive across communities,” Ruth Kauffman, MSF emergency health manager, said in a statement.

“This war is being fought on the backs and bodies of women and girls. Displacement, collapsing community support systems, lack of access to healthcare and deep-rooted gender inequalities are allowing these abuses to continue across Sudan.”

Following the RSF’s capture of el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, on October 26, 2025, MSF treated more than 140 survivors fleeing to Tawila. Among them, 94 percent were attacked by armed men, with many reporting assaults along escape routes.

The assaults “deliberately targeted non-Arab communities as a means of humiliation and terror, echoing previous RSF atrocities such as the dismantling of Zamzam camp”, the report said. The RSF took control of famine-hit Zamzam camp in the western Darfur region after two days of heavy shelling and gunfire in April 2025.

Survivors described attacks not only during fighting, but in everyday settings, such as fields, markets and displacement camps.

Children were also among the survivors. In South Darfur, one in five survivors was under 18, including 41 children younger than five, the organisation said.

MSF called on the United Nations, donors and humanitarian actors to urgently scale up health and protection services in Darfur and all of Sudan, and on all parties to the conflict to cease and prevent sexual violence and hold perpetrators accountable.

SACRAMENTO — It’s probably time for California to reform the outdated “reform” that could be leading us into an absurd November election with no Democratic candidate for governor allowed on the ballot.

The absurdity is that Democratic voters outnumber Republicans in California by nearly 2 to 1. But the voters’ choices for governor could be restricted to just two Republicans — both disciples of President Trump, who is despised in this state.

We’d be electing our first GOP governor in 20 years.

The odds against this scenario are high. But it’s an increasing possibility.

It’s conceivable because of a crowded Democratic field of candidates and a 2010 reform placed on the ballot after a late-night deal demanded by a Republican state senator — Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria — in exchange for his vote to pass a stalled budget and tax increase.

The compromise led to voter approval of California’s unique top-two open primary. The top two vote-getters advance to the November runoff, regardless of party. It’s called an open primary because voters can choose any candidate, no matter their party.

So two Democrats or two Republicans might be the only choices in November — in statewide, congressional and legislative races. That doesn’t happen often, but it has a few times.

It doesn’t reflect the current reality of American politics, with voters sharply polarized between Democrats and Republicans. They want to vote for someone from their own party and are not interested in choosing among two perceived evils.

We should consider returning to a primary system that produces party nominees — one Democrat and one Republican — to give voters a more varied selection in November. Maybe even allow a third or fourth candidate to emerge from minority parties.

It’s too late to change for this year, but we could for future elections. It would require voter approval.

For the present, we’re saddled with the unwieldy dilemma of there being eight major Democratic candidates and just two Republicans. If the combined Democratic vote is splintered among the eight Democrats in the June 2 primary, the two Republicans could end up finishing first and second.

Political data guru Paul Mitchell, who has been running primary election simulations, pegs the chances of a Democratic lockout at 20%.

“There’s only a one-in-five chance, but you don’t want to see a one-in-five chance with something this important,” says the statistician, who works mostly for Democrats.

“To be safe, the Democratic Party needs to have a candidate polling at 20% or more. And none of the Democratic candidates are half way there. It’s scary.”

Mitchell bases his assessment on a poll released last week by state Democratic chairman Rusty Hicks, part of an effort to pressure low-polling Democratic candidates to step out of the race.

The survey showed both Republicans leading the field — former Fox News host Steve Hilton with 16% and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco at 14%. At 10% each were three Democrats: Rep. Eric Swalwell of the San Francisco Bay Area, former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter and wealthy climate activist Tom Steyer. No other Democrat registered above 3%. There were 24% undecided.

The straggling candidates need to ask themselves, Hicks says: “if you’re polling 1% to 2%, do you have a path to get to 20?

“All of these candidates are experienced. They know in their gut when they’re viable or not.”

Mitchell says, “A lot of folks are now looking at why we have a wacky system that causes [a party chair] to tell candidates they should drop out of a race.”

Yes, it does smack of being undemocratic even if it’s practical politics.

Mitchell says the top-two system should be scrapped.

Hicks agrees.

“Things that were promised [by top-two promoters] have not been delivered,” the state party chairman told me. “It’s time to consider going back to the kind of system voters like.”

Appealing to the middle

I called around and got different views from veteran Democratic strategists.

“It was sold as reform, but it’s not reform. It’s a distortion of the process,” one former political consultant told me, asking for anonymity because of his current employment. “Everybody thought it would yield more moderate, consensus candidates, but that’s not what’s happening.”

Consultant Steve Maviglito, who ran the 2010 campaign against the top-two system, says it’s undemocratic because it risks not giving voters “a chance to cast a ballot for a candidate they have some belief in. That’s what our system is built on.”

The grand theory, he notes, was that candidates would be forced to appeal to the middle.

“Just the opposite,” Maviglio argues. “Democrats want a strong Democrat and Republicans want a strong Republican. The only thing in the middle of the road is a dead armadillo.”

Moreover, he points out, the top-two system has been manipulated by Democrats — including Sen. Adam Schiff and Gov. Gavin Newsom — to boost a Republican in the primary to guarantee a non-competitive, easy election in November.

That’s a bit sleazy.

“The top-two has actually been hugely good to Democrats,” says Democratic strategist Garry South. “They need to think this through. Since the top-two primary was implemented, there have only been three same-party runoffs for state office out of 26 races — all three of them Democrats.

“The current specter of two Republicans [in November] is not the fault of the top-two primary system. It’s due to every Democrat and their brother — or sister — taking a flier and filing for governor.”

“Never,” replies consultant David Townsend when asked whether the top-two primary should be junked. He ran the ballot campaign authorizing it. Townsend insists today’s Legislature contains more moderate Democrats because of the top-two and that they provide a check on the liberal majority.

That’s true to some degree.

OK, we could leave the top-two system for the Legislature and scuttle it for statewide offices.

The thought of being limited to a choice between two Republicans — or two Democrats — for governor is unacceptable and un-American.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: USC cancels gubernatorial debate amid uproar over candidates of color being excluded

The L.A. Times Special: It’s been decades since California had a governor’s race like this one. That was a shocker

Until next week,
George Skelton

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SACRAMENTO — When the confetti dropped after the final buzzer, the UCLA women’s basketball team was dancing.

Lauren Betts and Charlisse Leger-Walker looked at each other as Tate McRae’s “Just Keep Watching” played, then Gabriela Jaquez, from across the court, locked eyes and raced to join them in time.

It was time, once again, for the Bruins to celebrate by performing their dance routine. This time, No. 1 UCLA also answered a key question during its Final Four-clinching 70-58 win over No. 3 Duke.

Yes, the Bruins (35-1), barely challenged all season and always dancing and smiling, could actually deal with adversity after all.

UCLA earned its second straight Final Four berth despite trailing at halftime for the second time all season and coming from behind to win while down in the second half for the first time.

They will face the winner of Monday’s game between No. 1 Texas and No. 2 Michigan.

“That was definitely adversity,” said Gianna Kneepkens, who scored seven points. “We regrouped, and the way we were talking to each other gives me so much confidence.”

UCLA trailed Duke 39-31 at the half after missing all four three-point attempts and committing 12 turnovers.

UCLA center Lauren Betts drives to the basket over Duke forward Toby Fournier in the first half of the Bruins’ win in the Elite Eight of the women’s NCAA tournament Sunday.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

“We really didn’t execute our game plan very well,” UCLA coach Cori Close said of the first half. “We didn’t control rebounds. We weren’t the aggressors in creating catches. We didn’t go strong to the rim and execute our stuff.”

But they turned on the aggression early in the third quarter, taking deeper shots and forcing three jump-balls and four turnovers as the Bruins rallied from a deficit in the second half for the first time all season. UCLA outscored Duke 20-8 in the third quarter.

“We were really reactive in that first half and let the game come to us,” said Leger-Walker, who finished with five points and six assists. “We let them dictate what was going on out there. It’s not how we’ve played in the season, when we’ve been up and feeling good. So, you know, we could feel that coming into halftime, and we all kind of took a breath, reset, and a lot of that was on the defensive side.”

Betts was also activated late, with 15 of her 23 points and eight of her 10 rebounds coming in the second half while she matched a season high five blocks.

“I was pretty mad,” Betts said of her emotions at halftime. “I just didn’t like how that first half happened. I know that I could have been a lot more aggressive. I think going into a game like this, sometimes you just take yourself out of your head and you realize, oh, this is the Elite Eight and my season is on the line. So I’ve got to wake up a little bit. Going into the locker room, I was just pretty certain that I wanted to win this game.”

Angela Dugalic shot four of eight with four rebounds and two steals in the second half and was the catalyst for many big moments, including a buzzer-beating floater to end the third quarter and a lead-extending layup and free throw off an offensive rebound to create separation in the fourth. She finished with 15 points off the bench.

Dugalic and the other veterans led a halftime conversation before Close came into the locker room.

“When Cori came in, she was super steady, and I think that gave us a sense of calm,” Dugalic said. “We still were pretty neutral. We understood that the first half wasn’t a good representation of how we want to play basketball. But Cori came in and what she said right now is, like, ‘How do we stick back to our values and stay neutral, focus on next-play speed?’”

Duke forward Delaney Thomas, left, tries to draw a foul against UCLA forward Angela Dugalic during the first half Sunday.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Duke (27-9) scored 18 points off the Bruins’ 18 turnovers, tied for the most UCLA has committed all season. Twelve of them came in the first half. But UCLA turned it around in the second half with 18 points off 13 Duke turnovers.

The Blue Devils entered the game limiting opponents to 26.8% from three-point range, ranking 15th nationally, and aggressively challenged the Bruins’ offense. UCLA responded by becoming one dimensional, solely trying to get the ball to Betts in the post.

But Gabriela Jaquez, who finished with nine points and five rebounds, hit a three-pointer early in the third quarter to get UCLA back within five, and Duke missed six consecutive shots while the Bruins narrowed the gap. Toby Fournier (10 points) also committed her third foul early in the quarter, forcing the Blue Devils’ center off the floor.

Both offenses stalled for a period in the third quarter, but consecutive Duke turnovers led to a Leger-Walker fast-break layup and a Kneepkens three-pointer for UCLA’s first lead since the opening seconds of the game.

Duke didn’t score for 5:40 during the third quarter until Taina Mair (team-high 21 points) made a free throw with 32 seconds remaining. The eight Blue Devils’ points were tied for the fewest they’ve scored in a quarter this season.

“You can only learn from moments like this, which is a really positive thing,” said Leger-Walker, with one piece of the NCAA tournament net tied to her Final Four hat. “Definitely not something we want to have as a pattern, though.”

The Bruins held the ball with the clock running down, and Leger-Walker dribbled it to around the top of the three-point line and stopped. Her teammates surrounded her and the group huddled around each other as time expired.

“I just said, ‘I love you guys,’” Betts said of the moment. “That was it. I said, ‘I love you guys.’”

They’ll dance on down to Phoenix next, looking not to avenge the Final Four defeat to UConn a year ago, but ready to prove they have grown to be a championship team.

“Now we really know what it takes to build a rally too,” Rice said.

UCLA center Lauren Betts holds up a piece of the net after the Bruins’ win over Duke in the Elite Eight of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament Sunday.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

SACRAMENTO — The team that can’t stop dancing won’t stop dancing.

The top-seeded UCLA women’s basketball team beat Duke 70-58 in the Elite Eight. It wasn’t balletic, but beautiful.

Sunday’s game at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento wasn’t a fun, free-flowing joy ride that so many of the Bruins’ wins have been this season.

It was a rattling, teeth-gritting, heart-thumping roller-coaster ride — weeeeee!

The Bruins weren’t having fun, exactly. They were having the time of their lives.

And in the end, they shoved their way to the front of the stage — and back to the Final Four.

Now the TikTok countdown is on before final exams in Phoenix, where redemption and legacy and a rematch await with either winner of the No. 1 Texas vs. No. 2 Michigan tussle in the Fort Worth Regional final.

And any questions — ahem, mine — about how the barely-battled-tested boogie-down Bruins respond to a significant stress test were answered.

The Bruins are built for this.

They’re not just talented. And they’re not just talented dancers (and postgame, Lauren Betts, Charlisse Leger-Walker and Gabriela Jaquez reprised the routine that went viral when they did it with the UCLA Dance Team during halftime of a men’s game this season).

They’re tough. And they’re locked in.

And unlike last season, when their program’s Final Four debut ended in a 85-51 national semifinal blowout loss to eventual champion Connecticut, they’re ready for what comes next.

They let us know in the second half Sunday.

Duke came floating in, still buzzing from Friday’s buzzer-beater in the Sweet 16. That slow-motion-in-real-time three-pointer by Ashlon Jackson that rolled around and around the rim as though the basketball gods needed just a little more time to determine UCLA’s opponent Sunday.

UCLA’s Lauren Betts, left, Gabriela Jaquez celebrate after the Bruins defeated Duke on Sunday to advance to the Final Four.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

It was to be Duke, who proved a dangerous No. 3 seed. The Bruins weren’t prepared for the Blue Devils to be so prepared for them, trailing at the break for just the second time this season. The first time was in November against Texas, when the Bruins — now a program-record 35-1 — suffered their only loss this season.

Still their only loss.

Even a fool could read the determination on the Bruins’ faces as they roared back from a 39-31 halftime deficit; they’d come so far together, but they so badly wanted to go further.

No one was ready to get off the ride, not least the six seniors who played the entirety of the second half, seizing momentum and the moment and hitting the Blue Devils (27-9) with a white-knuckled flurry of activity.

“Compliment them,” Duke coach Kara Lawson said, “for turning up their defensive intensity.”

There were 50-50 balls in name only, because UCLA seemed to be winning 100% of them.

UCLA players were ripping away passes. They were diving all over the floor and were all over the boards. They ratcheted up the intensity so much it spread into the stands, where the largely pro-Bruins crowd of 9,627 cheered deliriously.

Shots started falling. Turnovers stopped cascading. UCLA found its rhythm.

And UCLA’s 6-foot-7 star center Betts did what she does, with 15 points, eight rebounds and two blocks in the second half, of which she played all 20 minutes.

“I was just pretty mad,” she said. “You know, my senior season is on the line, so I kind of got to wake up a little bit.”

Angela Dugalic continued to be the matchup nightmare she has been all March; the 6-4 sixth woman scored 15 timely points to take some pressure off Betts.

UCLA coach Cori Close watches play during the Bruins’ win over Duke on Sunday.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

“I’m just so proud of her,” Betts said. “The confidence and her poise … you could get in your head in moments when we’re down … but she did all the right things and what we needed at the time.”

It was an entertaining Elite Eight clash that was brought to you by two coaches who staged, like up-and-coming chefs, under two of the greatest leaders the sports world has known.

UCLA coach Cori Close and Lawson committed to making sure we won’t lose John Wooden’s and Pat Summitt’s recipes — never mind all the seismic, disorienting shifts happening in college sports.

A former Tennessee star, Lawson brings Summitt’s brand crackling intensity to Duke, a mindset that she’s said calls for supreme confidence, chasing excellence and holding oneself to an all-around standard of success.

UCLA’s bench was uplifted all season by Close’s warm intentionality, learned from years of mentorship from Wooden. The main ingredients, she’ll tell you, requiring a dollop of growth, gratitude, of giving and not taking.

“[Our] team culture is not this nebulous thing or phrases on a wall,” Close said. “It’s a group of people that are willing to be committed to the hard, right behaviors over and over again. I cannot tell you how many times throughout that game we referred to our values, who we are, what our identity was, what we had to get back to.

“… I’m just really humbled and thankful to be a part of a team and staff that cares about things from the inside out. What you saw on the court is a reflection and a byproduct of what’s happened on the inside.”