May 8 (UPI) — Russia and Ukraine on Friday confirmed a three-day cease-fire and prisoner swap, which they said was agreed to after their leaders spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trump announced in a post on Truth Social that the countries agreed to pause the conflict Saturday through Monday, and for both country to swap 1,000 prisoners each that have been captured during the four-year war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the agreement in a post on X, and said that he has instructed his team to “promptly prepare everything necessary for the exchange.”
Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov also confirmed the deal, saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin found it acceptable and that Russia “welcomes” it, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
The deal comes less than a day before Russia celebrates Victory Day, its annual commemoration of the allied powers victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.
“This request was made directly by me, and I very much appreciate its agreement by President Vladimir Putin and President Volodymir Zelenskyy,” Trump said in the post, referring to calls he placed to both leaders and which they confirmed.
“Hopefully, [the cease-fire] is the beginning of the end of a very long, deadly, hard fought War,” Trump said. “Talks are continuing on ending this Major Conflict, the biggest since World War II, and we are getting closer and closer every day.”
The cease-fire in the biggest land war in Europe since World War II will include “a suspension of all kinetic activity,” as well as countries returning 1,000 prisoners each to one another.
Zelensky said there had been appeals and signals about a potential cease-fire to start on Saturday because of Victory Day, which motivated it to negotiate the pause and pursue the return of Ukrainians held during the war.
“An additional argument for Ukraine in determining our position has always been the resolution of one of the key humanitarian issues of this war — namely, the release of prisoners of war,” he said. “Red Square is less important to us than the lives of Ukrainian prisoners who can be brought home.”
Ushakov said that Trump, during the call with Putin, emphasized that Russia and the United States were allies during World War II, pointing to Victory Day as a potential date to start a cease-fire.
“An agreement on this matter was reached during our telephone contacts with the U.S. administration,” Ushakov said. “In turn, U.S. representatives were in contact with Kyiv.”
The South Korean Navy’s 3,200-ton Eulji Mundeok destroyer (front) and other vessels engage in the first live-fire drills of the year in waters off Taean, South Korea. File. Photo by YONHAP / EPA
May 8 (Asia Today) — South Korea’s Navy will deploy the destroyer Wang Geon to the Gulf of Aden next week with newly upgraded anti-drone defense systems, following heightened security concerns after an explosion aboard a South Korean-operated vessel near the Strait of Hormuz.
Defense Ministry officials said the 4,400-ton destroyer, assigned to the Cheonghae anti-piracy unit, is scheduled to depart from the naval port in Jinhae on May 15.
The deployment comes 10 days after an explosion and fire aboard the HMM Namu cargo vessel near the United Arab Emirates in waters close to the Strait of Hormuz. While South Korean officials later said it remains unclear whether the ship was attacked, the incident intensified concerns over growing threats to commercial shipping in the region.
The Wang Geon is expected to replace the destroyer Dae Jo Yeong in early June as part of the Navy’s regular six-month rotation in the Gulf of Aden.
Military officials and defense analysts said the latest deployment reflects a broader shift in South Korea’s maritime security posture as regional tensions escalate across the Middle East.
The destroyer has reportedly been equipped with enhanced counter-unmanned aerial systems designed to respond to drone and missile threats increasingly seen in the Red Sea and Gulf region.
According to defense industry experts, the upgrades include electronic jamming systems capable of disrupting hostile drones, along with improved integration between the ship’s close-in weapon systems and Rolling Airframe Missile interceptors.
The destroyer’s upgraded combat system is also expected to improve simultaneous threat detection and response capabilities against drone swarm attacks and low-cost unmanned systems.
South Korean officials have closely monitored attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who have used drones and cruise missiles to target more than 100 vessels since late 2023, according to international assessments.
The Wang Geon is the fourth Chungmugong Yi Sun-sin-class destroyer operated by the South Korean Navy. The vessel previously served in anti-piracy missions and is now undertaking its 10th overseas deployment.
The ship carries a Korean vertical launch system, anti-submarine missiles and Hyunmoo-3 cruise missiles designed for precision strike operations.
The deployment also follows remarks by President Lee Jae-myung last month supporting multinational efforts to secure freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.
During a virtual summit hosted by France and Britain on April 17, Lee said South Korea was a “key stakeholder” in Hormuz security and pledged to make a “practical contribution” to protecting maritime navigation.
Government officials later confirmed the comments signaled Seoul’s willingness to expand the operational scope of the Cheonghae unit beyond the Gulf of Aden.
Military planners are reportedly considering broader operations near the Strait of Hormuz, though officials said any expanded multinational mission could require parliamentary approval.
Lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties have argued that participation in multinational military operations during wartime conditions would need National Assembly consent under South Korean law.
The Cheonghae unit was originally established in 2009 to combat Somali piracy, but defense analysts say its mission has increasingly evolved toward countering asymmetric threats from state-backed groups and regional militias.
Since its creation, the unit has supported the safe passage of more than 40,000 vessels and gained international attention during the 2011 rescue of the Samho Jewelry crew from Somali pirates.
Officials say the Wang Geon’s upcoming deployment marks a turning point as South Korea expands its role in global maritime security operations amid rising instability in the Middle East.
Visitors look at the Micro RGB TV of Samsung Electronics exhibition booth during the World IT Show 2026 at COEX in Seoul, South Korea, 22 April 2026. Photo by HAN MYUNG-GU / EPA
May 8 (Asia Today) — Samsung Electronics is expanding staffing for its Future Robotics Office as the company accelerates investment in robotics, one of its designated next-generation growth businesses.
The device experience division accepted internal applications for the robotics unit through Friday.
Samsung has identified robotics as a promising future business and has continued investing in the sector through mergers, acquisitions and internal development.
The Future Robotics Office was created in 2024 after Samsung became the largest shareholder in Rainbow Robotics, a South Korean robotics company. The unit was established to speed development of future robotics technologies, including humanoid robots.
During a conference call after its first-quarter earnings announcement, Samsung said the robotics unit, led by Oh Jun-ho, had built a foundation to catch up with leading companies in the field.
The company said it was also working to bring key parts production in-house and secure the ability to develop customized components. Samsung said it would pursue domestic and international partnerships and acquisitions while building its own technologies.
The hiring push comes as Samsung adjusts parts of its business in China, where profitability has weakened. The company recently decided to stop selling televisions and home appliances in China, while continuing businesses such as mobile devices, semiconductors and medical equipment.
The move reflects Samsung’s broader strategy of redirecting resources from weaker business areas toward new technologies and future growth engines.
Although Samsung’s device experience division is currently facing profitability pressure, the company is seeking to secure an early position in robotics, a market expected to expand in the coming years.
There are six host cities (Miami, Houston, Dallas, Monterrey, Kansas City and Atlanta) where the WBGT could feasibly reach at least 32C (90F) during the afternoon which would be considered as extreme heat stress where the body really struggles to keep itself cool.
To reduce these risks, matches are generally scheduled outside the hottest part of the day, with many kick-offs taking place in the late afternoon or evening. Scotland’s group C game against Brazil in Miami, for example, will have a kick-off time of 18:00 ET (23:00 BST).
Some venues, including stadiums in Houston and Dallas, also have retractable roofs and climate control to moderate conditions.
Summer heatwaves are also a common occurrence in North America and Mexico where temperatures can rise 10C (50F) or more above average, potentially pushing conditions into much more challenging territory for both players and fans.
In New York for example, the location of this year’s World Cup final on 19 July at 15:00 ET (20:00 BST), a typical heatwave could result in air temperatures in the mid-30sC (mid 90F) and WBGT of around 30C (86F) leading to extreme heat stress.
Having arrived an hour later than the champion to the venue because of Manchester traffic, Dubois made a brisk, business-like ringwalk.
Wardley, in his first appearance since being upgraded to world champion, soaked in the atmosphere with a leisurely entrance. Draped in an Ipswich Town Football Club robe, he was greeted by a warm reception from the 18,000-strong crowd.
With a combined record of 42 wins – 40 coming by knockout – there was palpable anticipation inside the arena, and Wardley stayed true to his promise to bring the action early as Dubois immediately hit the canvas after a flush right hand.
Dubois winked to his corner but looked shell-shocked. He wrestled Wardley to the ground as both fighters swung for the hills.
Many expected Dubois to impose himself early before Wardley could settle. Considered the better technical boxer, he regrouped and landed a right in the second.
Momentum swung again in the third when Wardley, who looked sharp with his overhand right and uppercuts, sent Dubois wobbling. Dubois took a knee and survived the count before firing back with a right hand that rocked Wardley.
The fighters and fans struggled to catch a breath as trainer Don Charles urged Dubois to lean on his jab, and he followed that instruction to take control of proceedings.
Dubois’ left eye was swollen, but Wardley’s face looked a mess as Dubois set up his attacks with a left jab before landing his biggest shots in the fourth and the sixth.
Wardley, who was working in recruitment a decade ago, showed an extraordinary chin and heart as he refused to go down despite his legs trembling and blood pouring down his face.
Most would likely have been withdrawn by their corner, but Wardley has built a reputation on dramatic comebacks. This time, however, it felt different.
The doctor inspected Wardley’s injuries before the eighth round and allowed him to continue.
By the ninth, the referee looked ready to intervene as Wardley continued to absorb heavy punishment and the contest became increasingly difficult to watch.
Doctors again allowed Wardley to continue before the 10th and when the stoppage finally arrived in the 11th, there was almost a sense of relief.
A sensational fight had reached its conclusion.
Warren – a veteran of 45 years in the sport – described it as “the best heavyweight fight” he has ever promoted.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told Tenerife residents that the docking of a cruise ship hit by a Hantavirus outbreak does not pose the risk of triggering a Covid-like pandemic.
Thiago Avila, a member of the Global Sumud Flotilla, arrives to attend a hearing at the Ashkelon Magistrate’s Court in Ashkelon, Israel, on May 3. Israel has said he and Saif Abukeshek will be released Saturday. Photo by Abir Sultan/EPA
May 9 (UPI) — Two activists being held in Israel after the country intercepted its Gaza-bound aid flotilla are scheduled to be released Saturday, an aid organization said.
Human rights organization Adalah said that Brazilian Thiago Ávila and Spanish-Swedish citizen Saif Abukeshek were set to be released on Saturday.
The organization said on Instagram it had been told “that the two Global Sumud Flotilla leaders will be transferred to immigration authorities later today, pending deportation back to their home countries.
“Adalah is closely monitoring to ensure their release. Adalah and FIDH stress that Ávila and Abukeshek were abducted by the Israeli navy from international waters near Greece, held in total isolation under punitive conditions, and subjected to ill-treatment and torture, despite their mission being entirely civilian.
“Both have been on hunger strike since their detention began. Abukeshek escalated to refusing water on the evening of May 5. Their detention was unlawful from the start,” Adalah said.
“We are outraged that instead of speaking out and taking action to ensure the safety and immediate release of the at least 14 U.S. citizens illegally abducted by the Israeli military, the Department of State went out of its way to issue a formal condemnation of their humanitarian efforts,” it said.
The activists arrived via the Global Sumud Flotilla, which originated in Spain on April 12 bound for Gaza. It was intercepted by the Israelis in the Mediterranean Sea.
The flotilla alleged Israeli forces held people at gunpoint, smashed engines and destroyed navigation equipment on its ships.
“Intentionally leaving hundreds of civilians stranded on powerless, broken vessels directly in the path of a massive approaching storm. Furthermore, communications with multiple vessels have been jammed, severing their ability to coordinate or signal for help,” the group said.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition announced that Ávila’s mother, Teresa Regina de Ávila e Silva, died while he was detained by Israel.
“[Avila’s and Abukeshek’s] continued imprisonment is not only arbitrary and illegal, but also an act of profound cruelty that has denied Thiago the most basic human right: to say farewell to his mother,” the Coalition said in a statement.
Large-scale crude oil storage tanks are seen in the background at a Sodegaura Refinery in Sodegaura, Chiba Prefecture, Tokyo Bay, Japan, 06 April 2026. Photo by FRANCK ROBICHON / EPA
May 8 (Asia Today) — Japan is expanding imports of Russian Sakhalin-2 crude oil beyond a one-time emergency purchase, extending supply arrangements to multiple refiners and fuel networks around Tokyo Bay as concerns grow over instability in the Strait of Hormuz.
Japanese officials have reportedly asked Fuji Oil, an Idemitsu Kosan affiliate, to accept crude shipments from the Sakhalin-2 project after similar imports were arranged through Taiyo Oil.
The move comes as Japan seeks to reduce risks tied to Middle Eastern oil supplies while continuing to use sanction exemptions that remain in place for Sakhalin-2 energy resources.
The Sankei Shimbun reported Wednesday that the tanker Voyager, carrying crude oil from the Russian Far East project, was heading toward Fuji Oil facilities in Sodegaura, Chiba Prefecture.
Fuji Oil became a subsidiary of Idemitsu Kosan in November 2025 and operates a refinery that supplies petroleum products to the greater Tokyo metropolitan area.
According to ship tracking data cited by the newspaper, the Voyager departed Prigorodnoye Port in southern Sakhalin on April 24 and arrived near Imabari in western Japan on Sunday. The vessel later conducted unloading operations at Taiyo Oil facilities before departing for Tokyo Bay.
The tanker is expected to arrive in Sodegaura on Friday and leave Tokyo Bay on Saturday.
Idemitsu Kosan acknowledged the shipment was made at the request of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
A company spokesperson told Sankei that the import did not violate sanctions and described it as part of efforts to diversify procurement sources and maintain stable fuel supplies.
Before halting most Russian crude purchases after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Idemitsu sourced roughly 4% of its oil imports from Russia.
Analysts say the significance of the latest shipment lies not simply in Japan buying Russian oil again, but in Tokyo integrating Sakhalin-2 crude into a broader emergency procurement network involving multiple refiners.
Japan had already begun using the sanctions exemption amid rising Middle East tensions, but the latest deliveries suggest the mechanism is evolving into a more permanent contingency supply channel.
The development is also drawing attention in South Korea, which remains heavily dependent on Middle Eastern oil imports.
According to Korea National Oil Corp. data, South Korea imported about 1.03 billion barrels of crude oil in 2024, with 71.5% sourced from the Middle East. Saudi Arabia accounted for 32.2% of imports, followed by the United States at 16.4% and the United Arab Emirates at 13.7%.
Although South Korea has steadily increased imports of U.S. crude, its supply structure remains highly exposed to shipping disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz.
Energy analysts say South Korea may eventually need to move beyond reliance on strategic petroleum reserves alone and develop broader contingency planning that includes alternative suppliers, refinery compatibility and supply stability at major refining hubs such as Ulsan, Yeosu, Daesan and Incheon.
Japan’s latest actions suggest governments are increasingly seeking practical emergency supply options within existing sanctions frameworks rather than relying solely on traditional energy security measures.
In the fragmented mysteries of the great Argentine filmmaker Lucretia Martel, her explorations always start with sensory flashes: faces, spaces, objects, sounds in transfixing procession. The language is its own, resulting in disorienting but undiluted depictions of the worlds of modern elites (“La Ciénega,”“The Headless Woman”) and 18th century colonists (“Zama”) alike.
But now, with her first feature documentary, “Our Land (Nuestra Tierra),” Martel unravels a political crime and the larger offenses behind it with a vital clarity. The film is centered on the 2009 murder of Javier Chocobar, an Indigenous Chuchagasta man from Argentina’s northwestern Tucumán province, who was shot while defending his ancestral homeland from a thuggish incursion. The weight of the issue at hand — stolen land, territorial rights and the overdue recognition of a colonized country’s original peoples — brings out a tantalizing lucidity from the typically elusive Martel on a serious subject that requires discipline.
In one sense, she’s dealing with a rights issue too painful to be aggressively aestheticized, but she’s also exploring a blood-soaked injustice that can’t be treated conventionally. She begins, in fact, with rolling satellite images from space — as if to say: This appropriation of nature is the world’s problem, not just Argentina’s.
What follows, toggling between a courtroom and vast, contested land (filmed with dreamlike urgency by cinematographer Ernest de Carvalho), is a righteous, visually arresting swirl of fact and feeling, past and present. It’s also anchored by the stories of a community desperate to claim territory they’ve cultivated for centuries. “Our Land” is as honorable a documentary as you’re likely to encounter this year about what fighting looks like in today’s era of grab-what-you-can thievery.
First, we hear from the defendants, captured by Martel’s cameras at their 2018 trial in Buenos Aires (an unconscionable nine years after the shooting). The three accused men — a businessman and two ex-cops — flounder at positioning themselves as the true victims when their own handheld video of the incident shows otherwise: The confrontation with the Chuchagastas only escalated because they brought a gun. Their lawyers obnoxiously push a narrative of ownership versus trespassers, backed by reams of documents and tossed-around historical dates.
But as Martel patiently unfolds the Chuchagastas’ perspective — personal narratives that come to life in intimate photos, atmospheric sound design and warm home footage — we begin to understand that documents and files are a bogus battleground given their hundreds of years of careful tending. One community member distrusts dialogue to begin with, calling it a means to “give up something.”
“Our Land” is the work of a director whose attention is rigorous, whose care is genuine, but who is also conscious of her outsider’s perspective. It’s an ally’s respect. There’s no better proof of that than in her drone shots of this embattled community’s sun-soaked valley: elegant, purposeful, even awkward (a bird hits one) visitations from the air. They’re a reminder that she’s the filmmaker, surveying a story that belongs to others. Documentaries don’t get much more honest than that.
‘Our Land (Nuestra Tierra)’
In Spanish, with subtitles
Not rated
Running time: 2 hours, 3 minutes
Playing: Now playing at Laemmle Monica Film Center and Laemmle Glendale
NEW YORK — No quick dispatching of disease investigators. No televised news conference to inform the public. No timely health alerts to doctors.
In the midst of a hantavirus outbreak that involves Americans and is making headlines around the world, the U.S. government’s top public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been uncharacteristically missing in action, according to a number of experts.
To President Trump, “we seem to have things under very good control,” as he told reporters Friday evening.
To experts, the situation aboard a cruise ship has not spiraled because, unlike COVID-19 or measles or the flu, hantavirus does not spread easily. It has been health experts in other countries, not the United States, who have been dealing primarily with the outbreak in the last week.
“The CDC is not even a player,” said Lawrence Gostin, an international public health expert at Georgetown University. “I’ve never seen that before.”
Not until late Friday did CDC actions accelerate.
Health officials confirmed the deployment of a team to Spain’s Canary Islands, where the ship was expected to arrive early Sunday local time, to meet the Americans onboard. They said a second team will go to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska as part of a plan to evacuate U.S. passengers from the ship to a University of Nebraska quarantine center for evaluation and monitoring. Also, the CDC issued its first health alert to U.S. doctors, advising them of the possibility of imported cases.
At their first briefing, held Saturday by telephone only for invited reporters, officials pledged to be transparent in updating the public but said the media could not cite the speakers by name under rules set by aides to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. They did not directly answer a question about whether the U.S. passengers could leave the university medical facility when they wanted.
The CDC’s diminished role in this outbreak is an indicator the agency is no longer the force in international health or the protector of domestic health that it once was, some experts said.
The hantavirus outbreak is “a sentinel event” that speaks to “how well the country is prepared for a disease threat. And right now, I’m very sorry to say that we are not prepared,” said Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, chief executive officer of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
How the outbreak unfolded
Early last month, a 70-year-old Dutch man developed a feverish illness on a cruise ship traveling from Argentina to Antarctica and some islands in the South Atlantic. He died less than a week later. More people became sick, including the man’s wife and a German woman who both died.
Hantavirus was first identified as a cause of sickness of one of the cases on May 2. The World Health Organization swung into action and by Monday was calling it an outbreak. About two dozen Americans were on the ship, including about seven who disembarked last month and 17 who remained on board.
It’s WHO taking center stage
For decades, the CDC partnered with the WHO in such situations. The CDC acted as a mainstay of any international investigation, providing staff and expertise to help unravel any outbreak mystery, develop ways to control it and communicate to the public what they should know and how they should worry.
Such actions were a large reason why the CDC developed a reputation as the world’s premier public health agency.
But this time, the WHO has been center stage. It made the risk assessment that has told people the outbreak is not a pandemic threat.
“I don’t think this is a giant threat to the United States,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of Brown University’s Pandemic Center. But how this situation has played out “just shows how empty and vapid the CDC is right now,” she said.
Tumult under Trump
The current situation comes after 16 tumultuous months during which the Trump administration withdrew from the WHO, has restricted CDC scientists from talking to international counterparts at times and embarked on a plan to build its own international public health network through one-on-one agreements with individual countries.
The administration has laid off thousands of CDC scientists and public health professionals, including members of the agency’s ship sanitation program.
As this was playing out, Kennedy said he was working to “restore the CDC’s focus on infectious disease, invest in innovation, and rebuild trust through integrity and transparency.”
Waiting to hear from the CDC
The CDC has not been completely silent on hantavirus.
The agency on Wednesday issued a short statement that said the risk to the American public is “extremely low,” and described the U.S. government as “the world’s leader in global health security.”
Said Nuzzo: “Not only was that not helpful, it actually does damage because a core principle of public health communications is humility.”
The CDC’s acting director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, posted a message on social media that the agency was lending its expertise in coordinating with other federal agencies and international authorities. Arizona officials this week said they learned from the CDC that one of the Americans who left the ship — a person with no symptoms and not considered contagious — had already returned to the state. WHO officials said the CDC has been sharing technical information.
The CDC also is “monitoring the health status and preparing medical support for all of the American passengers on the cruise,” Bhattacharya wrote.
But federal health officials have mostly been tight-lipped, declining interview requests.
COVID-19 comparison
In interviews this week, some experts made a comparison with a 2020 incident involving the Diamond Princess, a cruise ship docked in Japan that became the setting of one of the first large COVID-19 outbreaks outside China.
The CDC sent personnel to the port, helped evacuate American passengers, ran quarantines, shared genetic data on the virus, coordinated with the WHO and Japan, held public briefings and rapidly published reports “that became the world’s reference data on cruise ship COVID transmission,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, a former CDC director.
Some aspects of the international response to the Diamond Princess were criticized, and it did not halt the outbreak or stop COVID-19’s spread across the world. But some experts say it was not for the CDC’s lack of trying.
“The CDC was right on top of it, very visible, very active in trying to manage and contain it,” Gostin said, while the agency’s work now is delayed and subdued.
Instead of working with nearly all of the world’s nations through the WHO, the Trump administration has pursued bilateral health agreements with individual nations for information sharing, public health support, and what it describes as “the introduction of innovative American technologies.” Roughly 30 agreements are currently in place.
That’s not sufficient, Gostin said. “You can’t possibly cover a global health crisis by doing one-on-one deals with countries here and there,” he said.
Stobbe writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Ali Swenson in New York, Darlene Superville in Washington and Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque contributed to this report.
If, god forbid, there’s a natural disaster in L.A. in the near future, Jena Malone might be one of your first responders.
“I’ve been studying Community Emergency Response Team training,” the actor-musician, 41, said, drinking coffee in the living room of her home overlooking pomegranate trees and a canyon in northeast L.A. “Whether it’s fire management or building a neighborhood tool shed, it’s less important for me to hit career milestones now than to transform how I live on this planet. Let’s build something where we’re all taking care of each other’s needs through mutual aid.”
Those are galvanizing priorities from Malone, who’s led generationally beloved films like the sci-fi noir “Donnie Darko,” played the axe-chucking Johanna Mason in two “Hunger Games” tentpoles and recently co-starred in the lesbian bodybuilding revenge flick “Love Lies Bleeding.” For almost as long, she’s also made experimental folk and electronic records that toy with avant-garde noise and quietly poignant songwriting.
This is a wild time in L.A. for anyone concerned about the city and its culture industries, and Malone is deeply invested in both. Just before the release of her new Netflix series, the Duffer Brothers-produced “The Boroughs,” she’s released her first album in nearly a decade. “Flowers For Men” is an effects-shredded, future-primitive record, written after the birth of her son upended her obligations — and expectations — toward the men in her life and the world they’ll inherit.
“It changed everything,” Malone said, about raising a son. “I grew up learning to thrive and mask in masculine spaces. Grind culture is a masculine toxicity that I inherited and indoctrinated myself in. But parenthood offers you this opportunity to burn your entire life down in sacrifice to finding out what’s real. I had no idea what it was to be a man. All of my ideas burned down and not much was being raised back up.”
For millennial film fans, Malone’s been a consistently compelling, trust-anything-she’s-in actor since her child-star turn in 1997’s “Contact.” Few embody a tortured, beguiling Americana quite like her.
“The Boroughs” — a high-profile follow-up to “Stranger Things” from the masters of unreality, created by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews — has a stacked cast that includes Alfred Molina, Geena Davis and Bill Pullman, set amid a bucolic retirement community under supernatural threat. A ragtag group of Duffer Brothers misfits teaming up to fight off eldritch horror might be the last safe bet in television.
Yet that’s also how Malone feels about the current climate of Hollywood — a once-stable neighborhood fending off malign forces. Institutional consolidation and retreat, spiraling costs, technological upheaval — they all add to a creeping sense that an era is over, and worse is coming.
“Film is in such a delicate transition. I think that where music was 20 years ago, film is now,” she said. “It’s like being on an elevator where every floor is on fire. A lot of the things that I loved about it no longer exist, even if what I love about it is still wildly potent. My stress levels go down and my creativity goes up when I’m building a world that does not rely on the film industry, even though it’s my main love.”
That feeling called her back to music on “Flowers For Men,” arriving nine years after her last LP. The ego-shattering experience of giving birth in 2016 and raising a son prompted reflections about what men’s inner lives were really like, and she wanted to write about them.
“I was raised by two moms, and I had this strange aspiration to become the dad,” Malone said, laughing. “I was the breadwinner of my family then. But being a parent was all brand-new to me. I kept seeing my father in him, my grandfather, these older relationships with men. It was asking me to look at him with curious, childlike eyes.”
“Flowers For Men” was written from a sincere curiosity about mens’ strictures, bad influences and better aspirations. To inhabit someone else’s life, she had to sound different, too.
“Film is in such a delicate transition. I think that where music was 20 years ago, film is now,” Malone said. “It’s like being on an elevator where every floor is on fire. A lot of the things that I loved about it no longer exist, even if what I love about it is still wildly potent.
(Evan Mulling/For The Times)
The most prominent instrument on the album is its layers of vocal treatments. Malone has a lovely natural voice — intimately whispered, with hints of ‘70s country rock. But here she douses it in pitch-shifted digital acid, like a late 2000s R&B record dropped in the pool at the Joshua Tree Inn.
It’s an uncanny combo, but its lends modern melancholy to “Barstow,” which has the narrative structure of a Townes Van Zandt banger but is corroded with bleary effects. “Create In Your Name” has a Billie Eilish-worthy late-night murk, with lyrics so devotional they almost sound consumptive. “Disaster Zones” is all blown-out ambience, and the LP closes on a showstopping cover of John Prine’s classic “Angel From Montgomery.”
“I just love that a man wrote a song where the first line is ‘I’m an old woman,’” Malone said. “As a female songwriter, it gives me so much permission. Now all the doors are open. If I was to give flowers to all of the different men that have touched or changed things that deserve celebration, John Prine would be one of them.”
That idea — celebrating men for the good they’re capable of — felt transgressive enough today that it cohered the album for her. But it also came with questions about how romantic partnership fit into her life. Settling into motherhood, she read up on relationship anarchy — which she sees as not abiding by tiers of connection. She bought books on ethical nonmonogamy (“Sex at Dawn” was a big one) to learn how other lives were not just possible, but maybe even more fulfilling.
(Perhaps this was not a stretch from an actor who played the wild child Lydia Bennet in “Pride and Prejudice.”)
“I had been under this societal understanding that hierarchical love, placing one partner above everything else, was the ultimate romantic expression. I could name hundreds of movies that brought that up,” she said. “But while I’m learning to take care of this child, I’m realizing that self-love is one of the most important parts of this equation. I need to have expression, some work in life that felt like another love. And then my family, and how important friends were. And all of a sudden there’s no world where I would just have one love, not even just romantic love.”
“I had been under this societal understanding that hierarchical love, placing one partner above everything else, was the ultimate romantic expression. I could name hundreds of movies that brought that up,” Malone said. “But while I’m learning to take care of this child, I’m realizing that self-love is one of the most important parts of this equation. I need to have expression, some work in life that felt like another love.
(Evan Mulling/For The Times)
“Flowers For Men” is, in her way, a bargain with that contradiction — to love men deeply, but never put them above all else, even as she got engaged to her partner, actor Jack Buckley, earlier this year.
She’s still sorting out how to present this album live. She said she’s a fan of the Dead City Punx model of renegade shows in forgotten corners of L.A. Maybe as the city seems to fall apart, she’ll find a leafy park or the back of a dingy bar that’s the right home for these strange, lonely yet hopeful songs.
“I want someone to walk into the bathroom and be like, ‘Whoa, why is there a woman singing to me?’” Malone said. “I like the idea that art makes you a little uncomfortable and you don’t have the previously held expectations to know how to hold it.”
The island is a popular holiday destination for Brits
16:06, 09 May 2026Updated 16:09, 09 May 2026
The MV Hondius stationary off the port of Praia
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has moved to reassure concerned residents in Tenerife that they will not come into contact with passengers from a hantavirus-affected cruise ship due to arrive on the island. Nearly 1million people call the island home, which also serves as a major holiday destination for British tourists and visitors from across Europe.
The UN health body confirmed there had been six cases of hantavirus linked to the MV Hondius vessel, with four patients currently receiving hospital treatment. It revealed that a total of eight cases, including three fatalities, had been recorded — though one suspected case has since been ruled out after returning a negative hantavirus test.
Around 22 British passengers and crew members aboard the ship are due to arrive in Tenerife on Sunday, with plans to fly them back to the UK on the same day. Representatives from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and the Foreign Office will meet the MV Hondius when it arrives in Spain’s Canary Islands, with British nationals on board undergoing hantavirus testing before disembarking.
Those who test negative and show no symptoms will be transported directly to a specially arranged repatriation flight with medical staff on board. British citizens returning home will be required to self-isolate for 45 days and will be prohibited from using public transport to reach their residences. The WHO confirmed on Saturday that no symptomatic passengers were currently aboard the vessel. In a letter to the residents of Tenerife, WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus acknowledged locals were “worried”.
The Ethiopian public health official described the virus as “serious” but stressed the outbreak was “not another Covid” and the “current public health risk from hantavirus remains low”.
He explained: “Spain’s authorities have prepared a careful, step-by-step plan: passengers will be ferried ashore at the industrial port of Granadilla, far from residential areas, in sealed, guarded vehicles, through a completely cordoned-off corridor, and repatriated directly to their home countries.
“You will not encounter them. Your families will not encounter them. Nearly 150 people from 23 countries have been at sea for weeks, some of them grieving, all of them frightened, all of them longing for home. Tenerife has been chosen because it has the medical capacity, the infrastructure, and the humanity to help them reach safety.”
Two British men are currently being treated for hantavirus in the Netherlands and Johannesburg, South Africa, while a third British man with symptoms is being cared for on the isolated South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha. The Foreign Office confirmed that a total of 30 passengers and crew aboard the MV Hondius are British nationals, with 22 still remaining on the vessel. The outbreak has been linked to a birdwatching trip in Argentina, which two of the passengers attended prior to embarking on the ship.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi (top 2-R) smiles to lawmakers before the arrival of Japan’s Emperor Naruhito at the parliament in Tokyo, Japan, 20 February 2026. File. Photo by FRANCK ROBICHON / EPA
May 8 (Asia Today) — A new political group supporting Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is set to launch within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, raising questions about the return of faction-style politics less than two years after the party formally moved to dismantle its traditional factions.
The Yomiuri Shimbun reported Thursday that the new group, called the National Power Research Association, will hold its first meeting on May 21 with participation from senior ruling party figures including former Prime Minister Taro Aso and former Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi.
The organization is being positioned as a policy study group, but analysts say it could effectively serve as a new political base for Takaichi inside the party.
The group’s abbreviated name, “JiB,” is derived from Takaichi’s campaign slogan, “Japan is Back,” used during the Liberal Democratic Party leadership race last year.
Founding documents distributed to lawmakers this week state that the government and ruling party “will work as one” to implement policy, with a focus on security, energy and resource issues.
George Glass, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, has reportedly been invited to speak at the inaugural meeting on U.S.-Japan relations and related topics.
Although Takaichi herself is not expected to attend the first gathering, the decision to feature the American ambassador highlights the group’s emphasis on the U.S.-Japan alliance, economic security and defense cooperation.
The organization was reportedly spearheaded by Hiroshi Yamada, a lawmaker close to Takaichi, along with senior party officials including Koichi Hagiuda.
Other participants include prominent ruling party lawmakers and potential future leadership contenders such as Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi and policy chief Takayuki Kobayashi.
The group is encouraging participation across current and former factions, both chambers of parliament and newly elected lawmakers.
Still, questions remain over whether the organization will be accepted as a legitimate policy forum or criticized as a de facto revival of faction politics under a different name.
The Liberal Democratic Party pledged reforms after political funding scandals triggered public backlash and accelerated efforts to dissolve traditional factions.
Critics argue that reorganizing lawmakers through policy groups risks recreating the same power structures the party had promised to dismantle.
The development is also being closely watched in South Korea because of its potential implications for regional security and economic policy.
If Takaichi strengthens her position inside the ruling party, analysts expect Japan to pursue more consistent policies on military expansion, the U.S.-Japan alliance, trilateral cooperation with the United States and South Korea, and energy and supply chain security.
At the same time, observers warn that a stronger conservative political base inside the ruling party could also affect disputes involving history, defense policy and constitutional revision.
Analysts say the launch of the new group signals that the Takaichi administration is beginning to build a longer-term organizational foundation for its security and economic agenda inside the ruling party.
Iran’s presence at the tournament has been shrouded in uncertainty since the US and Israel launched a war on the country in February.
Published On 9 May 20269 May 2026
Iran’s football federation has said the men’s national team will take part in the 2026 World Cup that begins in June, but demanded that joint hosts the United States, Mexico and Canada agree to its conditions amid the Middle East war.
The call on Saturday comes after Canada refused entry to the federation’s chief last month before the FIFA Congress because of his alleged links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the ideological arm of Iran’s military, which it designated as a “terrorist group” in 2024.
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Iran’s presence at the tournament, which will take place between June 11 and July 19, has been shrouded in uncertainty since the US and Israel launched a war on the Middle East country in February.
“We will definitely participate in the 2026 World Cup, but the hosts must take our concerns into account,” the Iranian federation said on its official website.
“We will participate in the World Cup tournament, but without any retreat from our beliefs, culture, and convictions.”
The Iranian football federation (FFIRI) President Mehdi Taj told state TV on Friday that Tehran has 10 conditions for attending the global spectacle, seeking assurances over the country’s treatment.
The conditions include visas being granted and respect for the national team staff, the team’s flag and its national anthem during the tournament, as well as demands for high security at airports, hotels and routes to the stadiums where they will play.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has insisted that Iran’s footballers would be welcome at the tournament.
But he warned that the US may yet bar entry to members of the Iranian delegation with ties to the IRGC, which it also designates as a terrorist organisation.
“All players and technical staff, especially those who have served their military service in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or IRGC, such as Mehdi Taremi and Ehsan Hajsafi, should be granted visas without any problems,” said Iranian football chief Taj.
FIFA chief Gianni Infantino has reiterated that Iran will play their World Cup games in the US as scheduled.
Iran, who are due to be based in Tucson, Arizona, during the World Cup, face New Zealand, Belgium and Egypt in Group G.
The Iranians open their World Cup campaign against New Zealand in Los Angeles on June 15.
“No external power can deprive Iran of its participation in a cup to which it has qualified with merit,” the Iranian federation said on Saturday.
Football has gained a foothold in the United States, and the country seems ready to host the World Cup this summer – which was not clear in 1994.
Back then, when the US last hosted the World Cup, the country had no professional league and the national team was cobbled together with ex-collegians, journeymen, and semi-professionals.
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“Leading into ’94, we were at risk on the ticket side,” former US Soccer President Sunil Gulati told Al Jazeera in a recent interview. “For the US Organizing Committee, it was a big concern if we could sell all the tickets.’’
In the end, the 1994 tournament was successful. A record 3.5 million (68,991 per game) attended matches; the US advanced from the group stage for the first time since 1930, losing 1-0 to eventual champions Brazil in the last 16; and seeds were planted for a professional league, Major League Soccer.
Football has since moved from the margins to the mainstream in the US.
MLS is thriving, the national team is ranked a creditable 16th in the world by FIFA, and as the World Cup returns this summer, ticket demand far outpaces supply.
“If you said in 1994 MLS would be a 30-team league, with [22] soccer-specific stadiums and averaging 20,000 crowds – not in our wildest dreams,” Gulati said.
“The landscape is completely different. The most visible thing is the development of professional leagues, MLS and the women’s league [NWSL]. We had no first division league. And now there is [also] USL Division 2 and 3. The number of teams has increased dramatically.”
Today, the US Soccer Federation, commonly referred to as US Soccer, sanctions 127 professional teams – 102 men’s and 25 women’s.
“Eighteen of the top 50 [valued] teams in the world are in MLS,” Gulati said. “That’s an extraordinary statistic. The women’s team in Columbus just sold for $205m. Commercial interest in soccer and soccer leagues is at an all-time high.”
Credit Joao Havelange for seeing the future. During his reign as FIFA president, Havelange usually got what he wanted, and he wanted the 1994 World Cup in the US, along with a professional league.
Easier said than done, though. Organised football has been played in the US since the late 19th century, with the American Cup inaugurated in 1884. But over the following decades, several professional leagues collapsed, and after the North American Soccer League (NASL) folded in 1984, there appeared to be little future for the game. Enter Havelange and FIFA.
“FIFA recognised a long time ago that, for the sport to grow internationally, it had to be successful in the US,” Farrukh Quraishi, a Tampa, Florida-based administrator who played in the NASL, told Al Jazeera.
“For me, it was purely a matter of time. This is a huge and wealthy market. Now, you look at who is buying clubs in MLS, and it’s a who’s who of NFL owners.”
Looking back, it’s remarkable that the US actually competed in World Cups and played host to one at all, without a nationwide professional league.
Brazil celebrates winning the 1994 World Cup after defeating Italy 3-2 in a penalty shootout [Ben Radford/Getty Images]
For years, football’s foundation in the country was built on amateur and youth participation. By the early 1990s, the numbers were high, with an estimated 18 million people playing the sport at some level in the US. But the pyramid lacked a top tier, leaving a dead end for aspiring players, little media coverage, and scattered fan interest.
The 1994 World Cup came and went, and, in 1996, MLS finally kicked off.
Havelange duly arrived to commemorate the inaugural game, sitting in the rickety stands of Spartan Stadium in San Jose, California.
The San Jose Clash edged DC United 1-0, as Eric Wynalda scored an 88th-minute goal – just in time to avoid the game going to a “shootout”, in which draws were decided by players going one-on-one with goalkeepers from 32 metres (35 yards) out. This novel method of deciding games ended in 2000.
Football-specific stadiums started springing up in 1999. Lamar Hunt’s Columbus Crew Stadium became the country’s first major purpose-built football venue since Mark’s Stadium in Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1922. Now, Columbus are on their second stadium, the ScottsMiracle-Gro Field, and a total of 22 MLS teams compete at their own venues.
Football finally became part of the American sporting scene.
“Is it in the same way as the NFL, with [average figures of more than 18 million] watching it, or the American Pastime that baseball is? No,” Gulati said.
“It’s not at that viewership level, [but] there is worldwide coverage of games. Look at everyone wearing jerseys on the street, Lionel Messi playing in Miami. It is part of the mainstream.”
‘Soccer still isn’t king in the US’
Not that the picture is not flawed. Wynalda, who went on to score 34 goals in 106 games for the US national team, sees the current system as a recipe for mediocrity, registering millions of youngsters but limiting their ambition as few US players take up prominent roles on MLS teams.
Most are offered the league’s minimum annual salary ($80,622) and only two US players were listed last year among the top 40 highest-paid, according to the MLS Players Association – Austin FC forward Brandon Vazquez (24th at $3.55m) and Nashville SC defender Walker Zimmerman (27th at $3.45m).
“Look at the growth of [MLS] and you can say soccer looks professional, looks like a big deal, looks major league. And a lot of people look at the sport with a different lens now because it’s a legitimate sport,” Wynalda, now a coach and commentator, told Al Jazeera.
“[But] facilities do not create ability. We need more focus on a competitive environment to develop players. We tell them winning doesn’t matter and then wonder why they can’t win. We’ve lost that competitive mentality.”
He favours introducing promotion/relegation as a solution.
“If you’re going to a team that is never going to be relegated, because it’s got enough money, you never learn how to fight relegation, how to beat 11 angry men with their livelihood on the line,” Wynalda said.
And while the MLS franchise model has created riches, with teams valued as high as Los Angeles FC at $1.25bn (thanks to owning the 22,000-seat BMO Stadium) by Forbes Magazine, the quality of play does not always correspond.
MLS teams have tended to struggle in CONCACAF competitions, although in 2022 the Seattle Sounders ended a 22-year drought for an MLS side to win the federation’s elite competition, which was previously won by DC United in 1998 and LA Galaxy in 2000.
“There are things we agree with and disagree with, on and off the field, but [MLS] is successful,” Fox Sports commentator Alexi Lalas, a central defender for the US in 1994, told Al Jazeera. “I don’t think you can argue against that.”
Thanks to the 1994 WC and MLS, football in the US became “a very different world, to finally be even recognised for what you did, let alone respected”, Lalas said. “You know, soccer still isn’t king in the US, but, let’s be honest, it’s part of the palate and certainly part of the landscape when it comes to this generation.”
Lalas predicts the US will harness the “magic” of being hosts to reach the quarterfinals, while Gulati expects the sport to continue to grow in the US after the World Cup.
“That is what the legacy of the tournament is about and why we bid,” Gulati said.
Sailors aboard the ROKS Dosan Ahn Chang-ho, a 3,000-ton South Korean naval submarine, bid farewell to family members at a naval port in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea, 25 March 2026. The submarine is departing across the Pacific for the first time to take part in joint drills with Canada in June aimed at bolstering maritime security and defense industry cooperation. Photo by YONHAP /EPA
May 8 (Asia Today) — South Korea’s first domestically designed 3,000-ton submarine has completed a long-distance Pacific deployment as Seoul seeks to strengthen its bid for Canada’s next-generation submarine procurement program.
The South Korean Navy said the Dosan Ahn Chang-ho departed Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii on Friday with two Canadian Navy submarine personnel aboard and is scheduled to arrive at Esquimalt Harbor in Victoria, British Columbia, in late May.
The submarine left Jinhae Naval Base on March 25 and traveled through Guam and Hawaii before heading toward Canada.
The deployment is seen as a major test of the submarine’s endurance, reliability and operational performance, as South Korean shipbuilders compete for Canada’s submarine project, estimated at about $42 billion.
The Dosan Ahn Chang-ho is expected to travel up to about 18,600 miles round trip, much of it independently. Defense officials say the mission is intended to demonstrate the submarine’s long-range capabilities, quiet operation, onboard living conditions and air-independent propulsion system.
Two Canadian Navy personnel, Maj. Britany Bourgeois and Petty Officer Jake Dixon, joined the submarine for the final leg from Hawaii to Canada.
The submarine is expected to take part in joint training with the Canadian Navy after arriving in late May. The exercises are expected to focus on anti-submarine warfare and interoperability.
Canadian officials are expected to assess whether the South Korean submarine meets key requirements for long-range patrols and operations near Arctic waters.
The Dosan Ahn Chang-ho will later participate in the U.S.-led Rim of the Pacific exercise, known as RIMPAC 2026, alongside South Korea’s next-generation Aegis destroyer Jeongjo the Great.
South Korea’s participation is expected to highlight its growing ability to operate with U.S. and allied naval forces in complex maritime environments.
Canada’s submarine procurement program calls for the acquisition of 12 submarines. South Korean shipbuilders Hanwha Ocean and HD Hyundai Heavy Industries are competing against Germany’s Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems for the contract.
Defense analysts say the Pacific deployment gives South Korea an opportunity to demonstrate proven operational capabilities directly to Canadian officials rather than relying only on written proposals or technical specifications.
The Dosan Ahn Chang-ho is the lead vessel of South Korea’s KSS-III Batch-I class. The submarine has an underwater displacement of about 3,700 tons, is 83.5 meters long and was designed and built in South Korea.
South Korean defense officials say the deployment marks a milestone for the country’s submarine program and reflects the expansion of the Navy’s operating range from coastal waters to the open ocean.
If South Korea wins the Canadian contract, it would mark the largest single defense export deal in the country’s history.
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung engaged in a phone discussion in his
presidential office. Photo by Yonhap / EPA
May 8 (Asia Today) — South Korean President Lee Jae-myung spoke by phone Friday with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to discuss ways to strengthen cooperation between the two countries, the presidential office said.
The two leaders agreed that South Korea and Canada should work more closely with the international community to support a peaceful resolution to tensions in the Middle East, secure freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and maintain stable energy supplies.
Kang Yu-jung, senior presidential spokesperson, announced the details in a written briefing.
Lee and Carney also reviewed follow-up measures from their bilateral summit held on the sidelines of last year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Gyeongju, South Korea, and assessed that the efforts were proceeding smoothly.
The leaders agreed that bilateral relations are expanding beyond security cooperation into the economy, energy, advanced industries and culture. They pledged to deepen strategic cooperation based on that momentum.
“For South Korea, Canada is a key partner,” Lee said. “At a time when the international order is increasingly complex and global energy supply chains remain unstable, I hope South Korea and Canada will further strengthen cooperation in security, the economy, energy, critical minerals and advanced industries.”
Carney expressed agreement and said it was important for middle powers such as Canada and South Korea to strengthen solidarity through a more practical approach.
The two leaders agreed to maintain frequent communication and direct officials at various levels to pursue concrete results across multiple areas of cooperation.
1 of 2 | Lee Ae-rirana, a birth mother whose daughter was adopted to the United States, cries in front of a photo of her late daughter, Park Mi-ae, outside the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Seoul on Friday. Photo by Asia Today
May 8 (Asia Today) — Five South Korean birth mothers who lost children to overseas adoption filed petitions Friday seeking a truth investigation into alleged abuses involving foreign adoptions.
The women submitted the petitions to South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, saying their children were taken through kidnapping, false documents, deception by adoption agencies or without parental consent.
TRACE, a coalition advocating for truth-finding on overseas adoptions and child rights, held a news conference outside the commission’s office in central Seoul and disclosed several cases.
“The methods differed, but the result was the same,” the group said. “The mothers lost their children, and the children had to live their lives believing they had been abandoned.”
One case involved Lee Ae-rirana, 53, who said she was told after giving birth in 1993 that her baby daughter was seriously ill. A week later, she was told the child had died.
More than a decade later, Lee learned that her daughter, Park Mi-ae, had been adopted to Minnesota. Park later left her adoptive family after conflict, experienced homelessness and died in 2023, according to the group.
Another mother, Lee Gui-im, said she temporarily placed her two sons in a childcare facility in 1983 because of financial hardship after being told she could take them back when they reached middle school.
When she returned three months later with winter clothes for the boys, she learned they had already been sent to France for adoption.
Lee said an adoption consent form kept by the facility contained a signature in the birth mother’s name that she had never written. She said she could not read or write at the time.
Other cases included children who were reported missing but later sent overseas by orphanages and children allegedly taken through kidnapping or abduction before being placed for adoption.
Han Tae-soon, who was reunited with her daughter through DNA testing 44 years after the child disappeared at age 5 and was adopted to the United States nine months later, attended the event to support other mothers.
Han is pursuing legal action against the government and adoption agencies, accusing them of turning missing children into orphans for overseas adoption.
Park Min-seo, an attorney at Wongok Law Office, said no one involved in the adoption process made a proper attempt to verify the children’s identities.
TRACE called for investigations into false records and illegal adoptions by agencies and childcare facilities, a full review of overseas adoptions conducted without parental consent, a dedicated investigative body, a formal government apology and a support system to reunite birth parents and adoptees.
A group of supporters surround an ISIS-linked family as they arrive at Melbourne International Airport in Melbourne, Australia, Thursday. The group of 13 women and children came home to Australia after years spent in a Syrian refugee camp following the fall of the Islamic State. Three of the women have been charged with crimes. Photo by Joel Carrett/EPA
May 8 (UPI) — Australia has charged three women linked to ISIS with crimes against humanity after they returned home from Syria.
They had allegedly moved to Syria to be part of the Islamic State caliphate in Syria, but once it fell, they were in refugee camps guarded by Kurdish guards. They were part of a group of 13 people who were returned to Australia. It’s not yet clear if other people returning to Australia will face charges.
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in February that he would not allow the refugees to repatriate to Australia.
Kawsar Ahmad, 53, and her daughter Zeinab Ahmad, 31, appeared in a Melbourne court Friday. Kawsar Ahmad was charged with four counts of crimes against humanity. Police allege she went to Syria in 2014 and kept a female slave in her home. Zeinab Ahmad faces two similar charges.
Another adult child of Kawsar Ahmad, Zahra Ahmad, arrived in Melbourne Thursday, but was not arrested.
Janai Safar, 32, appeared in a Sydney court and was charged with entering and remaining in a declared conflict zone and joining ISIS. She returned to Sydney Thursday with her son.
Safar’s lawyer, Michael Ainsworth argued for her release on bail, saying her alleged offenses happened when she was 21, and she has been in a refugee camp for nine years.
“This young lady … lived in truly horrific conditions in these refugee camps for many years,” Ainsworth said. “She has significant community ties here in Australia, she’s one of seven children. There’s a place for her to live.”
The Australian Federal Police said Kawsar Ahmad moved to Syria with her husband and children in 2014 and was complicit in buying a female slave for $10,000, “and knowingly kept the woman in the home.”
Zeinab Ahmad allegedly also traveled to Syria and kept a female slave in the home. A slavery conviction can bring up to 25 years in prison.
Federal police assistant commissioner for counter-terrorism Stephen Nutt said Thursday night that planning for the return of people from the Middle East began in 2015.
“Australian joint counter-terrorism teams methodically investigated all Australians who travelled to declared conflict areas and will ensure those who are alleged to have committed a criminal offense are put before the courts,” Nutt said.
Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.
This newsletter is about going to the movies, of course, but it’s about writing and reading about movies, too. And so it was exciting news this week that Film Comment, the venerable but shuttered publication that helped foster cinephilia in America, would return as a quarterly online publication.
A complete archive is now available online, going all the way back to the earliest issues in 1962. Looking for landmark writings by Manny Farber, Paul Schrader, Richard Corliss, Amy Taubin, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Kent Jones or countless others? It’s all there and well worth digging into. I began my career as an intern at Film Comment, publishing some of my own earliest pieces, and still consider it a North Star for writing about movies. Its return is most welcome.
Agnès Varda’s bruising brilliance
Sandrine Bonnaire in the 1985 movie “Vagabond.”
(Criterion Collection)
Though she became better known for her free-spirited, pixie-ish persona later in life, French filmmaker Agnès Varda was also capable of the bruising emotions of 1985’s “Vagabond,” arguably her greatest fiction feature and winner of the Golden Lion at Venice and the César for best actress for star Sandrine Bonnaire. Opening with the lead character found dead in a ditch, the film flashes backward to piece together her life from the memories of others, creating a fragmented portrait of an enigmatic young woman’s life.
Mezzanine will screen the film on Saturday at 2220 Arts + Archives, followed by a conversation between art critic Megan O’Grady and former Times staffer Carolina Miranda. Writing about the film in 1986, Sheila Benson said, “Just how Agnes Varda has kept ‘Vagabond’ from being a monumental downer is interesting, but she has. It is haunting. It is melancholy … but ultimately, beyond its central tragedy, it is an exhilarating film, the sort you leave burning to talk about with friends.”
A cartoon comes to life
Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall in the 1980 movie “Popeye.”
(Paramount Pictures / Getty Images)
It is one of the most deranged credit blocks imaginable: an adaptation of “Popeye” directed by Robert Altman, produced by Robert Evans, with a screenplay by Jules Feiffer, music by Harry Nilsson and starring Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall. When it was first released in December 1980, it was seen as too weird for kids and too naive for adults, but it has since been reconsidered as a unique snapshot of intersecting talents — a strange, wonderful, one-of-a-kind movie.
Vidiots will screen the film on Saturday afternoon with actors Paul Dooley and Donovan Scott, who played J. Wellington Wimpy and Castor Oyl. In our original 1980 review that is more positive than one might expect, Charles Champlin wrote, “Its difficulties arise not from a lack of ambition and innovation but from excesses of them.”
Neil Young + Devo = gloriously weird
Neil Young in the 1982 movie “Human Highway.”
(Shakey Pictures)
Neil Young’s place as a singer-songwriter and musician is unassailable — he’s an irascible, restless troubadour. But his sidebar work as a filmmaker, typically under the name Bernard Shakey, has had more sporadic and unpredictable output.
Young’s 1982 film “Human Highway” is probably the pinnacle of his work as a director, starring Young himself in an offbeat story of a small community in the shadow of a nuclear power plant. Dennis Hopper, Dean Stockwell, Devo and even former Times music critic Robert Hilburn all appear. Now Instant Image Hall will be screening the film on Saturday and Sunday along with a selection of Devo music videos in celebration of an exhibition at the MutMuz gallery.
After Young premiered a new cut of “Human Highway” a decade or so ago, I somehow found myself sitting across from him at a diner on a rainy midnight in downtown Toronto. (This job does have its moments.)
“My films are not super commercial, but they mean something to me,” Young said.
An Oscar-winning debut
Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger and Jack Nicholson in the 1983 movie “Terms of Endearment.”
(Paramount Pictures)
Part tearjerker, part family drama and part comedy, 1983’s “Terms of Endearment” trademarks a certain bittersweet tone that is still just pure magic. The story of a mother (Shirley MacLaine) and daughter (Debra Winger) across many years of ups and downs in their relationship, the film was the feature debut for James L. Brooks as writer-director and won five Oscars, including three for Brooks. The Academy Museum will play the film in a new 35mm print on Sunday afternoon.
When the movie came out on 4K disc in 2023, I spoke to Brooks about it. He talked about how even though it does have moments of great emotional weight, it was intended to play with a lighter tone overall.
“The whole thing was to make it as a comedy,” Brooks said. “The whole thing was to clock laughs. You had to, in order to do it right. And of course, once the audience leaves and it has its afterlife, it’s a drama because people are watching it alone. But I swear to you, in the theaters it was a comedy.”
A ’90s noir ripe for rediscovery
Jason Patric, left, Bruce Dern and Rachel Ward in the 1990 movie “After Dark, My Sweet.”
(Kino Lorber)
Set in the Coachella Valley with the woozy feel of a day drunk and a sense of uneasy menace, 1990’s “After Dark, My Sweet” is an adaptation of the novel by pulp icon Jim Thompson, directed by James Foley.
Jason Patric, then only 23, stars as Kevin Collins, known as Collie, a former boxer who escapes from a mental institution and is now just drifting. He falls in with Fay (Rachel Ward), an enigmatic, lonely alcoholic widow, who in turn introduces Collie to a shady man known as Uncle Bud (a delightfully sleazy Bruce Dern). Soon Collie is ensnared in a plot to kidnap a sickly rich boy that immediately goes off the rails.
On Tuesday at Vidiots, there will be a screening of Patric’s personal 35mm print of the film — a gift he received some 20 years ago and has never watched before. (It is said to be in pristine shape.) Along with a video introduction from actor and filmmaker Alex Winter, there will be a Q&A afterward with Patric moderated by critic and scholar Travis Woods, who contributed a commentary track to a recent Australian Blu-ray release of the film.
Patric organized the screening as a tribute to director Foley, who died in May 2025 at age 71. “After Dark” landed in between Foley making “Who’s That Girl” with Madonna and the David Mamet adaptation “Glengarry Glen Ross.” Among his other credits are “At Close Range,” “Fear” and the last two “Fifty Shades” movies.
“He was a good friend of mine at the time,” says Patric on a recent phone call from Santa Monica. “I know this was his favorite movie and it was closest to him. It’s the only movie that he had actually written that he directed. And I thought the best way to do that is just to show the movie.”
Patric, who says Collie is his favorite character in a career that also includes “The Lost Boys,” “Rush” and “Your Friends & Neighbors,” was first given the script and in turn gave it to Foley; developed it further together, trying to retain the language of Thompson’s novel. (The screenplay is credited to Foley and Robert Redlin.)
“It’s really a subjective piece of filmmaking,” says Patric. “So as Collie’s figuring things out, the audience is figuring things out.”
In her original review of the film, Sheila Benson wrote that “Collie is one of those roles actors lust after, the damaged dreamer, maybe dumb, maybe dangerous, and Patric demolishes the conventions of the role with breathtaking skill.”
“After Dark, My Sweet” landed just ahead of the Tarantino-inspired crime movie boom of the mid-’90s, alongside such noir-influenced precursors as Dennis Hopper’s “The Hot Spot,” John Dahl’s “Kill Me Again” and Stephen Frears’ Thompson adaptation “The Grifters.”
“This is just such an exciting film to want to reintroduce to audiences,” said Woods in a call. “And to get the opportunity to see this film on the big screen, which most people haven’t had that opportunity for 36 years, it’s just one of those really cool, really only in Los Angeles cinematic moments.”
New this week
Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel, photographed at the Sunset Marquis in April.
Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel is among the world’s most accomplished filmmakers and the true crime tale “Our Land (Nuestra Tierra)” is her first documentary. Carlos Aguilar spoke to Martel about it.
“Mad Bills to Pay” expands to multiple Laemmle venues after a weekend run in the Vidiots microcinema. Carlos Aguilar spoke to director Joel Alfonso Vargas about portraying the Dominican American community in the Bronx.
A new International Monetary Funds report says higher copper production and prices support Chile’s growth expectations, but warned of risks that include the crisis in the Middle East, rising oil prices and loss of domestic competitiveness tied to the sharp public spending cuts. File Photo by Mario Ruiz/EPA
SANTIAGO, Chile, May 8 (UPI) — An economic reform plan Chilean President José Antonio Kast announced to revive the country’s economy is drawing criticism over its potential short- and medium-term fiscal impact, as the International Monetary Fund lowered its growth projections for Chile.
The IMF’s World Economic Outlook report had estimated in mid-April that Chile’s gross domestic product would grow 2.4% in 2026 and 2.6% in 2027. However, the organization said this week it revised those projections to 2.2% this year and 2.5% in 2027 if external conditions and the country’s fiscal situation improve.
“Economic activity, driven by investment and exports in 2025, faces a period of heightened uncertainty,” the IMF said.
The report said higher copper production and prices support growth expectations, but warned of risks that include the crisis in the Middle East, rising oil prices and loss of domestic competitiveness tied to the sharp public spending cuts promoted by Kast.
The Chilean president’s plan includes proposals to reduce corporate taxes and cut bureaucracy in an effort to stimulate private investment. Congress is discussing tha proposal.
“Amid persistently high inequality, social discontent also remains a risk,” the IMF report said.
The IMF is not the only institution warning about the risks associated with the government’s National Reconstruction Plan.
Chile’s Autonomous Fiscal Council, an independent public agency tasked with monitoring the sustainability of fiscal policy, warned about the proposal’s possible impact on the country’s fiscal balance and public debt.
“The project commits fiscal spending with a high degree of certainty in the short term and reduces permanent revenue, while the positive effects depend on more uncertain future income associated with growth, which could lead to a deterioration in the fiscal balance if growth does not materialize at the estimated magnitude and speed,” the council said.
Jaime Bastías, director of the auditing school at Finis Terrae University, told UPI the IMF’s downgrade was “absolutely” expected because Chile’s central bank had already made a similar adjustment, while debate over financing the government’s proposal continues to intensify.
“The government’s plan can be an engine that helps us face the storm we are going through, but that is heavily conditioned on the state maintaining orderly public finances. The IMF says that if the proposed tax cuts are not offset through other channels, the country’s debt will grow too much, and that will create another problem,” Bastías warned.
Carlos Smith, a researcher at the Center for Business and Society Research at Universidad del Desarrollo, told UPI the IMF report shows that both external and domestic factors are likely to weaken household income and affect consumer spending.
“Consumption is one of the main drivers of Chile’s GDP. The IMF expects it to contract and that is already beginning to show, along with a very weak labor market. Chile is in a much weaker condition,” he said.
Smith said that although the IMF lowered its growth forecasts, the organization still appears optimistic about the long-term positive impact of the government’s proposed reforms.
“The impact will materialize more slowly than the finance minister expects. Therefore, the IMF is suggesting more efficient alternatives such as lower costs or more limited subsidies to create new jobs,” Smith said.
He added that while Ciles should adjust some aspects of the reform, he believes the plan is still moving in the right direction.
“I agree with the IMF that the proposal needs refinement and should focus on removing obstacles to investment projects without lowering the standards of our legislation or environmental protections. If that is achieved, I believe there is a possibility of reaching 3% growth by the end of the decade,” he said.
Bastías agreed, saying Chile could grow at 3% by 2030 if copper prices remain high, production increases and more private investment arrives.
“It is an optimistic scenario where we need to focus on stimulating those three factors. If that favorable future does not materialize, we will all pay the costs,” he said.
Following a beating in local elections, Prime Minister Keir Starmer (L) said Friday that he took responsbility for the losses suffered by Labour candidates across the country but vowed he would not quit. Photo by Neil Hall/EPA
May 8 (UPI) — Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed Friday that he would not stand aside following a disastrous Labour performance in “mid-term” local elections in England, Wales and Scotland.
With early results from 46 of the 136 races in England showing Labour losing hundreds of seats in councils to Reform and the Greens, Starmer said while the situation was “really tough,” he had been handed a mandate to change Britain by the electorate in the general election in 2024 and that he intended to fulfil his promise.
He said he believed the message voters had sent in Thursday’s elections was about the “pace of change, how they want their lives improved.”
“Labour was elected to meet those challenges and I’m not going to walk away from those challenges and plunge the country into chaos. I led our party to that victory, that is a five-year mandate to change the country. It was a five-year term I was elected to do, I intend to see that through.”
Acknowledging his government hadn’t done enough to convince people that things could improve, their lives could be better and that there was hope, he said Labour would “in the coming days” set out steps it would take to win over the electorate.
Repeatedly pressed on whether he would lead Labour into the next election, Starmer would only say that he intended to serve the full five years of his term.
Large numbers of Labour MPs believe that the party will lose if Starmer leads it into the next election but do not want him to quit right now, favoring an orderly, consensual process of finding a successor, as opposed to an all-out leadership battle.
Sky News’ chief political correspondent said a member of Starmer’s “top team,” had messaged her saying that he was “the reason Labour risks handing the country to Reform.”
With counting still underway, or yet to begin, in the vast majority of contests for council and mayoral contests, as well parliamentary races in Scotland and Wales, the opposition Conservative Party were also close to 200 seats adrift.
The Green Party and the Liberal Democrats had each added dozens of seats.
Speaking in the London borough of Havering, which Labour lost overnight to Reform UK, leader Nigel Farage hailed what he said was a “truly historic shift in British politics.”
“The pattern that’s emerging across the country is that Labour are being wiped out by Reform in many of their most traditional areas. And what you’re going to see later on today is the Conservative Party being wiped out in their heartlands like Essex,” he said, noting that the county was the heartland of the leadership of the Conservative opposition.
“We’ve been so used to thinking about politics in terms of left and right, and yet what Reform are able to do is to win in areas that have always been Conservative. But equally, we’re proving in a big way we can win in areas that Labour have dominated, frankly, since the end of World War One.
“At the moment, we’re winning one in three of all the seats that are up. But I genuinely think the best is yet to come. I’m very excited about the north-east results, the Yorkshire results, some more to come in the West Midlands. So it’s a big day,” added Farage.
Forecasts put Reform’s eventual gains when the results are complete at as many as 1,000 seats of the 5,000 up for grabs.
In Scotland, where voters are electing all 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, the ruling Scottish National Party is hanging by a knife edge amid a 17% swing to Reform.
However, the insurgent party’s rise could inadvertently help deliver First Minister John Swinney‘s 65-seat target, thanks to Reform UK candidates taking votes away from challenger parties, particularly those that oppose Scottish independence.
Swinney has said he would treat an SNP majority as a mandate to mount a second bid to secede from the United Kingdom, following a failed independence referendum in 2014.
Swinney told an election debate between the leaders of the five Scottish political parties plus Reform UK last month that holding a second independence referendum by 2028 was “perfectly conceivable.”
In Wales, where voters are electing a Senedd legislature that has been expanded to 96 seats, the ruling Labour administration was on track to lose power for the first time since devolution in 1999 and ending more than a century of Labour dominance in the country.
Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalists, and Reform UK, who were neck and neck in the polls, were expected to be the biggest beneficiaries, projected to emerge with 38 and 35 seats, respectively.
Deputy First Minister Huw Irranca-Davies told the BBC that he didn’t think Labour would be in a position to form the next government, saying the party’s campaign had failed to “cut through” to Welsh voters.
Wreathes are seen amongst the statues at the Korean War Veterans Memorial during Memorial Day weekend in Washington on May 27, 2023. Memorial Day, which honors U.S. military personnel who died while in service, is held on the last Monday of May. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
