One of the toughest decisions for Jared Honig came three years ago. He’s a Granada Hills High graduate and was a teacher and girls’ basketball coach at his alma mater “forever.”
But he and his wife lived in Santa Clarita and just had a third child.
So when the Valencia High girls’ basketball coaching job opened, the decision was made to leave Granada Hills to be closer to home. Three years later, Honig has Valencia in the Southern Section Division 1 semifinals with a playoff game on Saturday night at home against Windward.
The team is rising. The Vikings knocked off Troy and the winningest coach in California history, Kevin Kiernan, in the quarterfinals.
“That’s my first time coaching against him,” Honig said. “That was pretty cool.”
Leading the Vikings has been sophomore Kamilla Basyrova, who made a school-record 94 three-pointers last season and has already broken that record this season while averaging 19.8 points.
“Kamilla is an amazing three-point shooter,” Honig said.
Senior Cara McKell is averaging 17.8 points. The Vikings face an improving Windward team that struggled early but has caught fire, led by Charis Rainey.
Honig is starting to prepare his two girls and one boy for future basketball competitions. They’re 8, 6 and 3. He’s found a new home at Valencia High.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.
THERE are hundreds of cities across Europe – but this one in Spain has been named the best place to visit this year.
European Best Destinations has announced the ‘best places to travel in Europe 2026’.
Sign up for the Travel newsletter
Thank you!
Madrid has been voted the best destination to travel to in 2026Credit: AlamyA popular activity is taking a rowboat across the lake in El Retiro ParkCredit: Alamy Stock Photo
This ranking was made from the votes of travellers from 154 countries, highlighting the most “captivating places”.
Madridclaimed top spot with the publications said it’s “one of Europe’s most compelling capitals — where culture, lifestyle, gastronomy and quality of life converge with rare intensity”.
Kara revealed some of her favourite spots too, she said: “At Pez, the only thing on the menu is huge sloppy pieces of tortilla chased with a cana (small beer) or tinto de verano for €2.50.
“My favourite rooftop bar is El Cielo de Montera, which felt more like a swanky rooftop members club.
“The pool is reserved for hotel guests, but its the best place for an Aperol Spritz and views of the city (costs €10 but it gets taken off bill).”
One highly-rated drinking spot is the Sky Bar terrace at the top of the Hotel Riu Plaza Espana.
It has 360-degree views of the city which visitors can enjoy with classy cocktails.
Or check out Calle 365 Discoteca, a stylish nightspot with dancing, delicious food trucks, cocktails and beers from just £2.50.
For live music head to Sala Equi which is a former adult-movie theatre turned bar and music venue.
Madrid is the birthplace of tablao flamenco and there are often high-quality performances with tablaos (flamenco venues) in the city centre.
In the summertime Madrid has lively plazas, and long, grand, tree-lined boulevards full of shops.
Madrid’s largest public park is El Retiro Park it has over 15,000 trees and is described as a ‘green oasis in the heart of the city’.
If you fancy getting on the water, visitors can hire a €4 rowing boat to take in King Alfonso XII’s monument from the lake.
Other top spots include the Prado Museum which contains some of Europe’s finest art collections.
There’s free entry between 6pm and 8pm Monday to Saturday.
Madrid is also one of Europe‘s most walkable cities so it’s easy for exploring, but it’s also very easy to use the Metro.
The city has over 3,000 hours of sunshine each year – mild temperatures start in spring at around 18C.
In the height of summer, the city can reach highs of 32C.
In March, Brits can fly from London Stansted to Madrid with Ryanair from £15.
Here are the ‘best places to travel in Europe 2026’…
News of Eric Dane’s death Thursday was met with an outpouring of grief by celebrities, who expressed their admiration for the TV star’s mischievous on-screen charisma and his advocacy efforts during his battle against ALS.
Dane is best known for his role as Dr. Mark Sloan, or “McSteamy,” on “Grey’s Anatomy” and recently portrayed the dark and secretive father Cal Jacobs in HBO’s “Euphoria.” He died at age 53, less than a year after publicly announcing his diagnosis with the neurodegenerative disease.
Alyssa Milano, who was Dane’s romantic co-star on “Charmed,” shared a heartfelt message on Instagram praising his cheeky, yet tender spirit and deep love for his daughters.
“I can’t stop seeing that spark in Eric’s eye right before he’d say something that would either make you spit out your drink or rethink your entire perspective,” said Milano. “He had a razor-sharp sense of humor. He loved the absurdity of things.”
HBO Max shared a statement on Instagram, lauding Dane’s talent and saying the network was “fortunate to have worked with him on three seasons of Euphoria.” The show’s creator, Sam Levinson, shared a statement with Variety saying he’s heartbroken by the loss of a dear friend.
“Working with him was an honor,” Levinson said. “Being his friend was a gift. Eric’s family is in our prayers. May his memory be for a blessing.”
Former “Grey’s Anatomy” showrunner Krista Vernoff shared an Instagram post fondly reminiscing about when Dane returned to the set in 2021 to film a dream sequence featuring his character, who died in Season 9. Although it was shot during the pandemic, he “broke the rules” and gave her a huge hug.
“The thing I will remember most about Eric Dane are his hugs,” Vernoff wrote. “The best hugs. Oh my friend. I wish you peace.”
Dane was preparing to publish his memoir, “Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments,” later this year with Maria Shriver’s publishing imprint, the Open Field.
Shriver said Dane was heroic in the way he handled his disease and used his platform to raise awareness about ALS.
“He told me he wanted his family to know how much he loved them, and he wanted to leave them a story they could be proud of,” she said in a statement on X. “My love goes out to his family, and to all those battling this cruel disease, as well as all those caring for someone battling it.”
In 2025, Dane drew on his personal experiences with the condition to portray a firefighter living with ALS on “Brilliant Minds” and advocated for legislation to provide funding for ALS research and give patients early access to treatments.
He worked closely with the nonprofit organization I Am ALS to raise money to research new treatments for the disease, which currently has no cure.
“Eric brought humility, humor, and visibility to ALS and reminded the world that progress is possible when we refuse to remain silent,” the organization said in a statement. “Eric was more than a supporter of our mission — he was part of our family.”
ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a progressive disease that damages nerve cells controlling voluntary muscles, typically causing death two to five years after diagnosis.
Nina Dobrev, Dane’s co-star in the western romance movie “Redeeming Love,” wrote on her Instagram story that she was heartbroken by his death.
“He was warm, generous, prepared, and so passionate about what he did,” she said. “He led with kindness and made everyone on our set feel seen.”
Times staff writer Alexandra Del Rosario contributed to this report
Stepping into Jr. Market boutique in Highland Park is like entering a 1980s time warp. Built into a refurbished shipping container, it’s filled with everything from tiny Walkman-style portables to colorful, number-flip clock radios and, naturally, boomboxes of all sizes. Few are more imposing than the TV the Searcher, a Sharp boombox from the early ‘80s that features a built-in, 5-inch color television.
“Try lifting it, it’s really heavy,” warns Spencer Richardson, the shop’s owner. Indeed, the machine is at least 15 pounds without the 10 D batteries that power the unit. He adds, “I don’t think you’re taking this to the beach so you could watch TV while you listen to music.”
An affable, hyper-knowledgeable proprietor in his early 30s, Richardson repairs and resells analog music technology from the 1980s or earlier. In bringing these rehabbed players back into circulation, he’s helping others rediscover a musical format once left for dead. While his hobby-turned-side hustle started as “a gateway to discover sounds” that he otherwise would not have heard, it now attracts curious customers willing to drop $100-plus for a vintage Technics RS-M2 or My First Sony Walkman. His customers include older baby boomers and Gen X‑ers nostalgic for the players of their childhood, but most have been millennials like himself, drawn to something tactile and analog in an era when everything else disappears into the digital ether.
A rare Technics RS-M2 stereo radio tape deck. “I’ve worked on a lot of tape players and this one shouts quality inside and out,” Richardson writes on Instagram.
(Spencer Richardson)
Unlike turntables, which have become increasingly high-tech thanks to the “vinyl revival” of the last 20 years, almost all cassette players in current production rely on the same, basic tape mechanism from Taiwan, Richardson explains. Though cassette culture is enjoying its own period of rediscovery — albeit on a far smaller scale — he hasn’t seen a market emerge for newly engineered tape decks. And he’s fine with that.
“I’m not one of those people that’s like, ‘Why don’t they make good new tape players?’” he says. “No one needs to make it better. You’re still better off buying a refurbished one from the time when they made them.”
That’s where he steps in.
Richardson works on a Nakamichi tape deck out of his repair studio in downtown L.A.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
It’s easy to forget that when cassettes debuted in the mid-1960s, the technology was groundbreaking. Not only were the players far more portable than turntables but unlike records, tapes were resilient to being tossed about. Even more profoundly, cassettes democratized access to the act of recording itself since cassette technology required minimal infrastructure and cost.
“I think about how incredible it must have been for people to realize they could just put whatever they wanted onto a tape, dub it, give it to a friend,” says Richardson.
Entire genres of music, especially in the developing world, became far more accessible across borders. In some countries, big records are still released on cassette. “I have a Filipino release of Kanye West’s ‘College Dropout’ on tape,” Richardson says.
The constraints of the technology guided the listening experience. Because skipping songs on a player was a hassle, most people sat with cassette albums as a track-by-track, linear journey, the antithesis to the algorithmic, shuffle-centric playlists ubiquitous on today’s streaming platforms. It’s a pace that Richardson appreciates.
“I want things to be intentional and slow,” he says. “I don’t need them to be optimized.”
He learned how to repair gear by watching YouTube videos, perusing old manuals and through trial and error.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Born in the early 1990s, Richardson grew up in Santa Monica and the Pacific Palisades, where his mother’s home was lost in the L.A. wildfires last year. He’s just old enough to remember cassettes as a child: “My mom had books on tape like ‘Winnie the Pooh,’ but I wasn’t out buying tapes.” Fast forward to the mid-2010s and he was working at the now-defunct Touch Vinyl in West L.A. “Back in 2014, we started this little in-store tape label,” he explained. “Bands would come to play, and we’d duplicate 10 tapes and give them away or sell them.” Richardson slowly began collecting cassettes but after the store closed a few years later, he realized how hard it was to find people to service his tape players.
Finally, once the pandemic hit in 2020 and everyone was stuck at home, he decided to learn how to repair his gear by watching YouTube.“I was just fascinated by the videos, absorbing soldering techniques and tools you might need,” he said. With no formal engineering background, Richardson began collecting information online, perusing old manuals, learning through trial and error. “You just need to get your hands in there and be like, ‘Oh, OK, I see how this works,’ or maybe I don’t see how this works, and I’m just going to bang my head against the wall, and then a year later, try again.” His first successful repair was for his Teac CX-311, a compact stereo cassette player/recorder that he still owns. “It has some quirks but runs well.”
A few years later, Richardson’s girlfriend, Faith, suggested he start selling his players online via an Instagram account — jrmarket.radio — originally created for a short-lived internet station. Tim Mahoney, his childhood friend and a professional photographer, shot the units against a plain white backdrop, as if for an art catalog. A community of enthusiasts quickly found his account and Richardson began selling pieces online and via pop-ups. In 2024, the owners of vintage clothing store the Bearded Beagle invited him to take over the parking lot space behind their new location on Figueroa St. Opening a brick-and-mortar store hadn’t been his ambition but Richardson accepted the opportunity: “I never envisioned opening my own physical store. It’s hard enough to have a retail space in Los Angeles to sell something that’s very niche.”
Jr. Market operates as a shop Thursday through Saturday in Highland Park.
(Spencer Richardson)
Jr. Market — whose name is inspired by Japanese convenience stores known as “junior markets” — isn’t trying to appeal to audiophiles though Richardson does stock studio-quality recording decks. He primarily looks for players with appealing visual design, most of them made in Japan where Richardson has been traveling to since graduating high school. Through those trips, he’s learned where to source pristinely-kept gear, including his best-selling Corocasse: a bright red plastic cube of a radio/tape player, introduced by National in 1983. He also keeps an eye out for the unique Sanyo MR-QF4 from 1979, an elongated boombox with four speakers, designed to play either horizontally or flipped into a vertical tower.
The store also stocks a small selection of portable record players, including a Viktor PK-2, a whimsical, plastic-bodied three-in-one turntable, tape player and AM radio that looks like something designed by a modernist artist for Fisher-Price. That went to local author and historian Sam Sweet, who visited the store with no intention of buying anything and left with the Viktor, which now sits on his writing desk. “Spencer’s part of a grand tradition of workshop tinkerers and specialty mechanics,” Sweet says. “The refurbished devices he sells are as much a reflection of his ethos and expertise as they are treasures of the past.”
Last year, Imma Almourzaeva, an Echo Park art director, came to the store and purchased a massive 1979 Sony “Zilba’p” boombox, which is nearly 2 feet wide and over a foot tall, with wood veneer panels to boot. Almourzaeva, who grew up in Russia in the ‘90s, wanted a player that offered “the tactile feel of my childhood and bringing it back into my daily routine, something familiar, something warm.” The Zilba’p is the largest boombox Richardson has carried and Almourzaeva said, “It’s aesthetically a showstopper. Maybe I have a Napoleon complex because I’m pretty small too. It’s like ‘go big or go home’ for me.” She shared that she recently bought a Soviet-era boombox from Richardson for her brother for Christmas. “It turned out my mom grew up using the same brand of stereo,” Almourzaeva says. Richardson had told her that Soviet boomboxes are “very DIY, more funky and finicky.”
Refurbishment is one of Richardson’s specialties, including repairing customer units, each of them a puzzle he enjoys solving. No matter if a player is sparse or feature-packed, the simple act of playing a cassette creates a sense of calm and focus for him. “You’re not distracted, because it doesn’t do anything else,” he says. In a time where every “smart” device is marketed with dizzying arrays of features, that simplicity can feel downright revolutionary.
“Strip Law,” a new cartoon premiering Friday, finds Netflix in an Adult Swim state of mind, which is to say there was no thought of it being made for everybody. (Possibly including some of the people it was made for.) It’s rude, lewd, surreal in a banal sort of way, at times ridiculously violent — that is, the violence is ridiculous.
It was the cast that attracted me: Adam Scott, once more the schlemiel as leading man; Janelle James, sure of her own magnificence, not far from her character on “Abbott Elementary”; and Keith David, whose deep, sonorous voice is almost necessarily one of authority, turned to good or evil or in between as the script demands. James and David, especially, I could listen to for days.
Created by Cullen Crawford, (“The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” “Star Trek: Lower Decks”), the series is centered on a failing Las Vegas law firm, headed by Scott’s Lincoln Gumb, with James as Sheila Flambé, “a magician and three-year all-county sex champion” he hires as his “co-counsel in charge of spectacle.” Niece Irene (Shannon Gisela), an iron-pumping 16-year-old, works as his investigator; she wears a blindfold labeled “Underage” whenever she’s required to be in a bar. Stephen Root plays his disbarred (later undisbarred — rebarred?) lawyer uncle, Glem Blorchman, the strangest of them all — “It’s 115 degrees out so I put marshmallows in gin,” is something he says as they gather to watch Christmas movies. And David plays Lincoln’s nemesis, Stevie Nichols, the very successful former partner of Lincoln’s late mother, upon whom the son remains perversely fixated.
Much of it is the sort of thing that will work or not work depending on your mood, but generally I prefer the small throwaway jokes to the big gross ones. There are self-reflexive meta gags about “hard-working cartoon writers” and “reappropriating out-of-date catchphrases.” There are many nods to “The Simpsons,” including “frosty chocolate milkshakes” and James L. Brooks’ Gracie Films logo. The final episode, of 10, takes place within the finale of a “Suits”-like legal dramedy. (“It’s against their nature to let something be sweet and fun and airy,” that firm’s bromantic lawyers say of Lincoln’s team. “They have to make it dark and strange and crass.”) And there are left-field references to Cocteau Twins and Bikini Kill, whose “original bass player” Glem claims to be. (“I don’t know what Bikini Kill is,” says Irene. “Neither did I, according to Kathleen Hanna,” says Glem.)
There are various oddball judges (nothing remotely legal happens in a courtroom); “local character” Lunch Meat, who turns up in many roles; a barman, Mr. O’Raviolo, who switches between exaggerated Irish and Italian accents in mid-sentence. Comedian George Wallace plays himself as the mayor of Las Vegas. A Halloween Christmas episode parodies “Miracle on 34th Street”; another takes off on Colton Burpo, the “boy who saw Heaven,” which includes a live-action trailer for a faith-based film featuring Tim Heidecker as a coke-snorting atheistic Lincoln. A virtual reality HR seminar is hosted by “a computerized amalgamation of all five personalities of the Rat Pack,” an immersive Autoverse, in which actors create situations that somehow amount to a driving test. There are the “Nevada-grown” Hot Dates, a sexualized version of the California Raisins; riots occur when the characters are redesigned to be more respectable (“They’re walking away from years of established canon,” laments Lincoln.)
The series felt a little off-putting at first, as if it were straining for effect, but gathered steam as it went on, either because the later episodes are weirder or better written, or because one just gets used to being in that world with those people. There is just enough character in the comedy to create stakes in the narrative; its misfit energy has fueled the screen’s bands of outsiders throughout the years. (“Even when you’re a disaster, you’re a disaster for the right people,” Irene tells Lincoln.) As to the famous fine line between stupid and clever, the stupidity and the cleverness are all but inextricable, and to the point.
The credits declare that the series is “proudly made by real, non-computer human beings,” which is pleasant to know, and in 100 years will still have been the best way to make cartoons, even if by then they are only made by and, for all we know, for machines. The thin-lined drawing style is standard for more or less realistic 21st-century adult TV animation, with perhaps a hint of comics artist Daniel Clowes laid on. But the characters are expressive, and the medium is used to unreal ends, which is, after all, what cartoons are good for.
Brandi Glanville finally has some answers about what caused her mysterious facial issues — her breast implants.
The “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” alum is “taking care of the face now that [she’s] figured out what was wrong,” Glanville told TMZ on Wednesday. The outlet caught up with her as she was leaving a doctor’s office where she had been treated with “lasers and different things.”
Last week, InTouch reported that Glanville had surgery to remove her breast implants earlier this month. According to the outlet, she got her implants in 2007 after the birth of her son Jake. Glanville was told her left implant had a “slow leak,” while her right implant was “completely ruptured.”
“I had silicone all over my lymph nodes,” the reality TV star told TMZ. “That’s what caused the infection in my face. … [I]t couldn’t get out because my lymph nodes were all clogged.”
Glanville had been struggling for the last few years with a mysterious ailment that caused recurring facial swelling, speech impairment and the loss of teeth, leaving her reluctant to go out in public. In 2024, she revealed that, after she’d spent more than $70,000 on treatments, doctors were still stumped by what could be causing her facial disfigurement, though some suggested it could be because of a parasite. Glanville even tried using Nair, the hair-removal product, to fight the parasite.
Glanville told TMZ that she had been shocked to learn that her breast implants had been the cause of her facial disfigurement. She said she had visited 21 doctors over the years trying to investigate her condition, to no avail. She only learned that her nearly 20-year-old breast implants were damaged after having them examined with a sonogram.
“I learned a really, really hard lesson,” said Glanville, advising people to make sure to get their implants checked after 10 years even if they feel fine.
“I’m not saying don’t [get implants],” she added. “Just do it and make sure you stay on top of it. [And] you really have to be vigilant about [getting] sonograms. Ask you doctor.”
Glanville appeared to be in good spirits now that she is on the road to recovery. She plans on getting her teeth fixed next.
Despite doctor’s orders, “I can’t rest,” she said. “I’ve been home for three years.”
The first hour of “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” convinces you that the King is the greatest entertainer who ever lived. By the end of it, he’s a god. Director Baz Luhrmann claims he made this Imax documentary so that any poor souls who never got to see the King live can worship him in action. Really, I think Luhrmann is praying that in a thousand years, some alien civilization will discover this footage and build a whole religion around the thrall Elvis’ hip thrusts had over a crowd.
If that future comes to pass, then Luhrmann himself will be elevated as a key disciple. He’s so devoted to Elvis that this is his second tribute in four years, the other being, of course, his 2022 biopic “Elvis,” starring Austin Butler, who was good in the role if not quite iconic. That more traditional film hewed to the genre’s standard rise-and-fall narrative and was dinged mostly because the King’s life represents so many things to so many people — race, class, controlling relationships — that it’s impossible to please everyone or for any actor to fill his blue suede shoes.
“EPiC” sticks to the surer footing of documentary footage: the man himself performing over two dozen tunes — including “That’s All Right,” “Burning Love” and “In the Ghetto” — plus twice that number on the background soundtrack. (I’m not into his gospel hits, but they suit the mood.) A dream concert that’s longer and larger than what fans could have seen in reality, the movie is stitched together primarily from Elvis’ Las Vegas appearances in 1970 and 1972. You can tell which year it is by the amount of rhinestones on his costumes, which become increasingly maximalist.
When Elvis retook the stage in 1969, he hadn’t performed before a live audience in nine years and he’d gotten a little uncool. Beatlemania had dinged his appeal so perilously that editor Jonathan Redmond splices its arrival with images of car crashes and missile attacks. Reporters at that comeback show noted that most of his fans were now — horrors! — over 30, with the exception of a 25-year-old who said he attended out of nostalgia.
Luhrmann quickly sets up the essential framework, then Luhrmann picks up a year after Elvis proved he was still a smash. No longer constrained by moral panic, the Army draft or the decade he spent trapped within the Hollywood industrial complex, this is the King at arguably the high point of his career, right in that sweet spot before his 1973 divorce from Priscilla Presley, after which his mood and health started to flag.
This Elvis comes across confident, breezy, comfortable and funny. In one scene, he jokes about the difficulty of lunging to the ground in a tight jumpsuit (an outfit he adopted because he was nervous of ripping his pants). Later, he switches up the lyrics to “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” to croon, “Do you gaze at your forehead and wish you had hair?”
The camera often seems to be right under his chin, gazing as the sweat on his cheeks and lashes shimmers under the Vegas lights like diamonds. His spell over the crowd feels at once intimate and volcanic. You get the best look at his charisma when Elvis targets his energy at an unsuspecting back-up singer in the middle of “Suspicious Minds.” Slowly striding toward the girl, he hypnotizes her as skillfully as a snake charmer and then, as a punchline, lunges in her direction. She jumps and giggles.
While we become familiar with the faces of his band members, the film doesn’t bother to mention any of their names, not even in the credits. They deserve better, but the film is about how the concert felt, not how it came to fruition. Still, once you get over the contact high of Elvis’ psychedelic neon pink paisley shirt in the rehearsal studio, it’s delightful to see that he gives as much of himself when performing in a small setting as he does in a massive one. He loses himself in thrall to the beat, gyrating his pelvis so fast it resembles a machine gun.
Naturally, there’s a montage of the women in the audience overwhelmed by joy, from a sobbing little girl who won’t let go of his arm to a glamazon in a dangerously low-cut minidress who scoots under the curtain before it closes. The ladies tug on his scarves and toss bras at him, one of which he wears on his head. Surprisingly to modern eyes, when his female fans grab and kiss him, Elvis smooches them back, even after he wades into a sea of his admirers and emerges with the chains on his jumpsuit torn off. If you happen to spot your mother or grandmother in the crowd, well, good for her.
In lieu of mentioning Elvis’ off-stage reality, Luhrmann deepens a song’s effect by cutting to personal photographs that are a little out of context. As Elvis wails the line, “And I miss her,” from his cover ballad about a bad husband, we see a shot of Elvis’ dead mother, Gladys. “Always on My Mind” becomes a brisk yet moving acknowledgment of Priscilla and his infant daughter Lisa Marie. Otherwise, Lurhmann only wants to celebrate the good stuff. There’s no tragedy here. It’s ecstasy minus the agony.
If Elvis was ever cranky, that’s been stripped out. Though we hear him get hound-dogged by nosy questions from the press, the closest Elvis comes to snark is when he sits on a stool to play “Little Sister.” He sings the chorus, then cranks up the tempo a notch and suddenly starts belting the Beatles’ “Get Back,” before smoothly transitioning once more into his own song. Point made: Don’t give those Brits too much credit for revolutionizing rock ‘n’ roll.
Lurhmann’s got his own score to settle. In the Butler version of “Elvis,” he made the case that, as big an artist as Elvis was, he should have been bigger. Colonel Parker, Elvis’s manager, kept his cash cow on a leash, tethering him first to middling B-pictures, then to casinos. The Beatles invaded his country; he never played a single gig in theirs. We never got to find out who Elvis, with his magpie love for all music, might have become if he’d traveled the world and gotten to pick up an ashram sitar.
And while that argument got a little drowned out in the biopic by Tom Hanks’ double-phony put-on accent as Parker, this rapturous salute to the King’s majesty wants to make sure we don’t miss it now. Lurhmann even scores his footage of the Colonel to “The Devil in Disguise.” Hey, every religion needs a heel.
Pressure continues to mount for Casey Wasserman to resign as head of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee following the release of a salacious email exchange he had with Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Wasserman is hardly the highest-profile name mentioned in more than 3.5 million pages of documents released Jan. 30 by the Department of Justice in compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Nor is he the most frequently mentioned. President Trump outranks him in both categories. And there’s far more egregious behavior by other men alleged in the files (Bill Gates comes to mind).
But Wasserman is the rare case of a wealthy, renown American elite whose empire is crumbling under calls for accountability from the public, local lawmakers and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
Bass this week urged Wasserman to resign as head of the committee overseeing the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games because of his ties to Maxwell. “I cannot fire him,” Bass told CNN’s Dana Bash. “My opinion is that he should step down. That’s not the opinion of the board.”
The LA28 Olympics board of directors has stood by Wasserman, stating they reviewed the documents and support him remaining as chair.
There is no suggestion in the files of criminal wrongdoing by Wasserman, but he did show criminally bad judgment in flirting with Maxwell, who was renowned (along with Epstein) for connecting older men with young women and teens. She was found guilty of child sex trafficking and other offenses in connection with Epstein, and in 2022, she was sentenced to 20 years. Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019 but was found dead in his cell before his trial.
In a 2003 email exchange between Wasserman and Maxwell, he asked, “What do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?” Then in a separate message, he asked, “Where are you, I miss you. I will be in nyc for 4 days starting april 22…can we book that massage now?”
Maxwell wrote back, “All that rubbing — are you sure you can take it?”
Stop reading here if you’re on the verge of vomiting.
Otherwise, continue: “There are a few spots that apparently drive a man wild — I suppose I could practise them on you.” Maxwell also mentioned being in Brazil, and when she asked Wasserman if he had ever been, he responded, “Never … take me!”
Revolting? Yes, but not quite as damning as other exchanges in the files between Epstein and men more powerful than Wasserman.
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk repeatedly sought invitations to Epstein’s private island in 2012 and 2013, four to five years after the disgraced financier was convicted by a Florida state court of soliciting a prostitute and procuring a child for prostitution. Epstein served 13 months. His criminal past, however, didn’t seem to bother Musk, who wrote to Epstein in 2012, “Do you have any parties planned? I’ve been working to the edge of sanity this year and so, once my kids head home after Christmas, I really want to hit the party scene in St Barts or elsewhere and let loose. The invitation is much appreciated, but a peaceful island experience is the opposite of what I’m looking for.”
Epstein responded, “Understood, I will see you on st Barth, the ratio on my island might make Talilah [Musk’s then-wife] uncomfortable.”
“Ratio is not a problem for Talulah,” Musk replied.
If only he’d caught half the heat as Wasserman, he might have retreated long enough to spare us from his juvenile X posts or his next monstrosity of a car design. (Let’s face it. The Tesla Cybertruck looks like a giant toenail clipper.)
Yet the American billionaires and influential cabal of men revealed to have had unsavory, immoral or potentially illegal dealings with Epstein and Maxwell have faced little to no consequences for their actions, unlike prominent figures in the U.K. and Europe who have suffered serious blowback.
Former Prince Andrew was stripped of his title and is now simply Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Booted out of his royal Windsor lodgings, was slumming it on the king’s private estate in Norfolk. He was arrested by British police Thursday on suspicion of misconduct in public office related to his links with Epstein.
Peter Mandelson, the former British ambassador to the U.S., was fired over his relationship with Epstein. And Norway’s former prime minister, Thorbjørn Jagland, now faces charges over his connections with Epstein.
Here in the United States? By the power of redaction or redemption, Trump still holds office, as does U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, the highest-ranking official other than the president to be prominently named in the Epstein files. Lutnick was grilled last week in a Senate hearing about his ties to the late financier and the fact that he visited Epstein’s island in 2012 with his family, despite previously claiming that he’d cut off contact with Epstein in 2005. Trump has stood by Lutnick.
Their varying levels of bad judgment and stupid behavior (at best) have gone largely unpunished. And as we learned during Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi’s hearing, the Justice Department has held “exactly zero powerful men” accountable.
Wasserman is the exception. The grandson of Hollywood mogul Lew Wasserman, he has been a formidable Los Angeles sports and entertainment executive and founder of the Wasserman agency. Following the latest release of Epstein files, multiple artists and athletes including Chappell Roan, Abby Wambach and the Dropkick Murphys left the agency, citing ethical concerns. Wasserman announced last week that he is selling his agency, stating that he had “become a distraction” due to the public reveal of the Maxwell emails.
External pressure for him to step down from his lead role on the LA28 Olympic committee continues. Attorney Michael Carrillo, who has represented survivors of Epstein’s sex trafficking, called for the removal of Wasserman at a news conference in West Hollywood on Tuesday. Local elected officials, survivors and other activists also called on Bass, the LA28 board of directors and executive committee, and the L.A. County Board of Supervisors to remove Wasserman.
Wasserman, who was integral in the L.A. Olympics bid from its launch in 2015, maintains he had no contact with Maxwell or Epstein in the past 20 years. He said he deeply regrets his correspondence with Maxwell, “which took place over two decades ago, long before her horrific crimes came to light.”
It’s an apology with a “yeah, but …”
Perhaps Wasserman will resign and take the fall for cavorting over email with Maxwell. Meanwhile, the rest of America’s wealthy Epstein cabal continue to float above reproach, and reckoning.
Bright yellow T-shirts reading, in raspberry type, “¡Bienvenido Gustavo!” marked Gustavo Dudamel’s first concert as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic the first Saturday afternoon of October 2009 at the Hollywood Bowl. Eighteen thousand tickets were distributed free for a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, an Angeleno “Ode to Joy” broadcast worldwide. The exultant young Venezuelan conductor’s message was: There is no North, South or Central America. We are one.
We are now in “Gracias Gustavo” season, and times, we are daily reminded, they are a-changin’. But what remains consistent is that Dudamel begins again, in the first month of his six-month homestretch as L.A. Phil music director, by dwelling on the composer he says has meant the most to him since his earliest days as a kid conductor in Caracas. His first major recording boasted startlingly propulsive performances of Beethoven’s Fifth and Seventh Symphonies, with the uproarious Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, recorded 20 years ago this month. In August, Dudamel will end his L.A. Phil tenure as he began it, with Beethoven’s Ninth at the Bowl.
Through these two decades, thick and COVID-lockdown thin, Beethoven has been Dudamel’s composer of uplift. This weekend he confronts, for the first time, Beethoven’s daunting mystical and mystifying “Missa Solemnis.” In following weeks, he will pair Beethoven symphonies with two of the most arresting and original of the dozens of new works he has premiered in Los Angeles — Gabriela Ortiz’ Glitter Revolution ballet score, “Revolución Diamantina,” and the first part of Thomas Adès “Dante” ballet.
To begin the Beethoven month at Walt Disney Concert Hall, however, Dudamel turned to another Beethoven work that has long obsessed him, the rarely heard complete incidental to Goethe’s tragedy, “Egmont,” which has the ever-relevant theme that matters most to Dudamel — the profound joy that arises from victory over injustice. For this, he had the assistance of actress Cate Blanchett and playwright Jeremy O. Harris.
Here, too, Beethoven serves as a musical, spiritual and political touchstone. “Egmont” comes in the middle of Beethoven’s career, his heroic period. The historic Egmont was a Flemish general, a hero to his people in the Netherlands who attempts to serve the 16th century Spanish emperor, Philip II, and rife for Goethe’s romanticizing. A remarkable polymath, Goethe himself served as an advisor to Weimar’s Grand Duke, brilliantly balancing political compromises with literature’s highest spiritual callings. He admired the spirit of liberty, for instance, yet opposed the French Revolution and supported Napoleon, believing that ensuing populist disorder would then, as it turned out, require autocracy.
Goethe’s Egmont must learn to love before he can act to defend his people against Philip. The hero goes to his death at the point of self-realization that only in sacrifice may he ascend to and become a symbol for glory.
In the play, which begins as historic epic and becomes, for Goethe, increasing personal and interior, Egmont gains perspective on the complexities of his place in politics by contemplating nature and being. Among Goethe’s many passions were scientific study. He immersed himself in the natural world and befriended the pioneering German environmentalist, Alexander von Humboldt.
It could, thus, have been hardly coincidence that Dudamel opened the program with the premiere of “Humboldt’s Nature” by Venezuelan composer Ricardo Lorenz. The five-part, 25-minute symphonic poem for a large orchestra rife with percussion follows Humboldt’s account of his journey to Venezuela in 1799.
Symphonic glitter sets the stage of New Andalusia. Guacharo birds shriek. Latin rhythms take us to coastal regions. Sandy percussion accompanies a journey up the Orinoco River. Throughout, Lorenz’s orchestra, imaginatively colored, reflects vast nature. But the score ends with the shock of humanity, as Humboldt encounters enslaved Cubans.
The one thing Goethe lacked was a sophisticated ear for music (and possibly sound). But Humbolt’s account could practically be the starting place for Beethoven’s “Egmont,” begun a decade after the Venezuelan encounter. In the popular overture, elicitation of tumult concludes, with startling exhilaration, in the kind of grand Beethovenian triumph that never fails to excite. The incidental music, though, offers needed theatrical context. That includes two songs for Egmont’s love, Klärchen, four entr’actes, a melodrama for Egmont as he approaches his execution and, powerfully as only Beethoven can, a battle cry.
Goethe has never lost relevance. Matthew Bell’s new biography, “Goethe’: A Life in Ideas,” has given Germany’s Shakespeare new attention. One of the greatest plays of our time, Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia,” confronts Goethe’s “Elective Affinities” with our own elective affinities. One of the greatest operas of our time, John Adams’ “Doctor Atomic,” contemplates the creation of nuclear weapons as the functioning of a latter-day Faust, Goethe’s most lasting creation.
“Egmont,” too, readily speaks to us and it has been on Dudamel’s agenda for years. While performances of the complete play with the incidental music are rare, a half-hour concert version, also rare but less so, proves effective. Dudamel did it with the Berlin Philharmonic in June, a performance of which can be viewed on the orchestra’s Digital Concert Hall. The narrator is a young Austrian actor, Felix Kammerer, who is riveting (as he is in Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein”). He adds a slight introduction revealing Egmont’s indecisiveness, but otherwise sticks to Goethe.
Cate Blanchett narrates Beethoven’s incidental music to “Egmont” with Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
(Elizabeth Asher / Los Angeles Philharmonic)
Harris, who is the author of “Slave Play,” has other elective affinities. He has created a new, effusively angry text for Blanchett. It begins as a dirge. Battalions are gathered on the banks of Portland, Ore.; Bethlehem; Charlotte, N.C.; Tehran; Minneapolis; Brussels. The Egmont Harris references is the historical one, not Goethe’s. The text become a bald call for action.
Much of it was lost to the audience, since reverberant amplification gave heroic heft to Blanchett’s voice at the cost of intelligibility. But her intensity, whether seated on the lip of the stage, where she begins, or standing in the organ loft where she winds up at the end, spoke for itself.
Beethoven’s music improves Goethe, extracting its humanity and frailty, and Dudamel’s performance probed its profound inevitability of good triumphing over evil. Soprano Elena Villalón added lithe touch to Klärchen’s songs, sung in their original German.
But Beethoven can do little for Harris’ and Blanchett‘s agitprop. Theirs is the necessity of the moment to act rather than indulge an Egmont who has to feel before he can respond. Although Blanchett was the joyless conductor in the film “Tár,” her curious little dance in the organ loft at the moment of musical triumph may have meant recovered joy or simply that the world, in which we are no longer one, has gone crazy.
Equally peculiar was a performance of Schumann’s Piano Concerto that served as transition from “Humboldt” to “Egmont.” One of the concerto highlights of Dudamel’s music directorship in L.A. is a performance, eight years ago, of the concerto’s mood-shifting eloquence, for which he and Mitsuko Uchida were in wondrous accord.
This time, the soloist was the stellar emerging pianist Yunchan Lim, who keeps to himself, either lost in dreamy reverie or, like a jumpy teenager, in ferocious attack mode. Having little choice, Dudamel let Lim be. Like Egmont, Lim’s glory may one day arrive when he can express purpose for his actions.
We’re in something like award season no man’s land right now: the whirlwind of the Oscar nominees luncheon is behind us, but most of the major precursors have yet to be handed out. Which leaves less for the pundits to chew on, perhaps, though it also means there’s finally some spare time to catch up on your reading.
I’m Matt Brennan, editor in chief of The Envelope. Let me be of some assistance.
Cover story: ‘Sentimental Value’
(Christina House / For The Times)
After an entire award season’s worth of conversations about one of the top contenders, it’s rare to hear a new one this late in the game. But when I ran in “Sentimental Value” director Joachim Trier last week, he happily shared his point of view on an anecdote his editor, Olivier Bugge Coutté, recently shared with The Envelope about killing one of Trier’s darlings. “He was right,” Trier admitted with a half-rueful smile, after describing the elaborate aerial shot over a theater audience with which he originally intended to open the film.
Such candor is also a mark of contributor Bob Strauss’ interview with Trier and star Stellan Skarsgård about making the year’s most-nominated international feature, from their discussion of the stroke that permanently altered the actor’s process to bon mots about the film’s depiction of Netflix, demanding directors and more. I was most tickled by Skarsgård’s, um, unvarnished description of the small screen: “The narrative form of television is based on you not watching,” he tells Strauss. “It explains everything through dialogue so you can make pancakes at the same time.”
Digital cover: Kate Hudson
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
When contributor Amy Amatangelo sent me her pitch for a story on “Song Sung Blue,” it swiftly answered the question I want every pitch to answer: Why are you the right person to write this story?
“I am a lifelong Neil Diamond fan,” she wrote. “My dad loved him. I saw him in concert as a child. My dad and I danced to ‘Beautiful Noise’ at my wedding.”
So it was a no-brainer to set her up with this week’s digital cover star, nominated for playing one half of the film’s Neil Diamond tribute band. “Although she’s had a slew of successes in the interim,” Amatangelo writes of the 25 years since “Almost Famous,” “it can sometimes seem that we’ve underappreciated, and perhaps underestimated, Kate Hudson.”
‘Train Dreams’’ not-so-secret weapon
(Lauren Fleishman/For The Times)
Speaking of pitches, the most frequently suggested subject for coverage since the Oscar nominations (not-named-Chalamet-or-DiCaprio division) may be “Train Dreams” cinematographer Adolpho Veloso. Which already made the Brazilian’s wizardry one of the industry’s worst-kept secrets. Count contributor Emily Zemler’s profile among the final nails in the coffin.
“Capturing the enormous trees that would have existed in the early 20th century was a challenge,” she writes of the film, which spans the life of an itinerant logger in the Pacific Northwest. “The production went to protected parks, where they had to be cautious about not affecting the environment. ‘How do you shoot a movie where they’re supposed to be cutting those trees, but they cannot even get close to those trees?’ Veloso says. ‘It was almost like shooting stunts.’”
ONE of Asia’s biggest airport projects is underway and it will make it so much easier to travel to one of the country’s most famous landmarks.
Travellers will be able to get to the beautiful Taj Mahal so much quicker – in half the time – once building work is completed.
Sign up for the Travel newsletter
Thank you!
A new, huge airport is under construction in IndiaCredit: Noida International AirportNoida’s International Airport will have lots of natural light, shops and restaurantsCredit: Noida International Airport
Noida International Airport is being built near Jewar in India and once fully constructed, will be one of Asia’s biggest airports.
The first phase will include the building of one terminal and one runway -which will handle 12million passengers each year.
The long-term masterplan could see it expand to accommodate up to 120million passengers per year with multiple terminals and up to six runways.
This would make it rival Asia’s other biggest and busiest airports including Beijing Daxing and Dubai International Airport.
Inside terminal one will be automated check-in kiosks, contactless boarding systems, spacious lounges and waiting zones.
The design of the airport is to make it easy for passengers to move about which it has done by separating the arrivals, departures and baggage areas.
There will be lots of seating too in zones between check-in, security and boarding.
The waiting areas will be air-conditioned, there will also be Wi-Fi, prayer rooms and child care areas.
As for its aesthetic, the terminal will be light and airy with a white and see-through roof that is wavy to mimic the flow of a river.
There’s a central courtyard where travellers can get some fresh air – it also has plenty of greenery and shaded areas.
Designs show escalators on the outside and inside, along with shops, restaurants and cafes.
The airport will sit in Jewar, which will make it easier for travellers heading to Agra where the Taj Mahal is.
The new airport will be light, airy and could see up to 120million passengersCredit: Noida International AirportThe new airport will be two hours from Agra, the home of the Taj MahalCredit: Getty Images
The mausoleum that sits on the bank of the river Yamuna in Agra sees up to eight million visitors every year.
Until the airport is up and running, travellers have to fly into New Delhi before heading almost four hours south by car.
The location of Noida International Airport will cut that travel time in half – from Jewar it will take just over two hours.
As for when the new airport will open, there is no date yet although local reports suggest it could be as early as next year.
Both IndiGo and Akasa Air have confirmed they will operate at the airport, although these will be for mainly domestic destinations.
When it comes to Brits, international routes are yet to confirmed if they will be to the UK, with destinations mentioned including Zurich and Dubai.
Current UK-India routes are operated by British Airways and Virgin Atlantic.
The original target opening was two years ago in September 2024, however construction is still ongoing.
The airport covers around 5,000 hectares, making it one of the largest airport sites in India once fully built.
King Salman International Airport is set to surpass all other airports in size, including the current biggest airport in the world which is also in the country.
The 22sqm airport will feature six runways – up from two – parallel to each other and will be built around the existing King Khalid International Airport.
It will approximately be the same size as Manhattan in New York – or twice the size of the city of Bath, in the UK.
And now the airport has moved into its construction phase.
The airport will be designed by Foster + Partners, a UK firm which is behind London‘s famous Gherkin.
Inside, travellers will be able to explore 4.6sqm of shops.
A lot of features in the airport are set to include high tech, such as climate-controlled lighted.
Travellers will have plenty of seating, indoor and outdoor spaces with greenery and vast glass windows, ideal for a bit of plane spotting.
The airport was announced back in 2022 and is part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman‘s Saudi Vision 2030 – which is set to make Riyadh into a major hub for transport, trade and tourism.
It will eventually accommodate up to 120million passengers each year, which is then expected to rise to 185million by 2050.
And the number of aircraft takeoffs will rise from 211,000 per year to over one million.
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — In some families, children are expected to attend the same college as their parents or root for mom or dad’s favorite team.
In Azaria Hill’s family, the children were encouraged to go to the Olympics. Not to watch, but to compete.
Hill’s father Virgil, a boxer, earned a silver medal at the 1984 Summer Games. Hill’s mother, Denean Howard, met Virgil at the 1984 Games and won Olympic gold that year running with her sister, Sherri Howard, in the 4×400-meter relay. The sisters won silver medals in the 4×400 at the 1988 Olympics before Denean earned another silver at the 1992 Games.
“At a very young age, since I could understand what the Olympics were and knew what my family did as Olympians, I knew that’s something that I wanted to do and wanted to experience,” Hill said.
But her top marks of 11.70 seconds in the 100 meters and 23.93 in the 200 didn’t rank in the top 100 for U.S. women in 2021, her senior year at Nevada Las Vegas. So if she was going to continue the family tradition, she knew she’d have to find another sport.
Jadin O’Brien was in a similar fix. She won two NCAA titles in the pentathlon but finished seventh at the U.S. trials ahead of the 2024 Games. To realize her Olympic dream, she’d have to change sports too.
Luckily for both women, there was a well-worn path from the track to the Winter Olympics: Just hop onto a sled. On Friday, Hill and O’Brien will complete their journeys when the two-woman bobsled competition gets underway at the Cortina Sliding Centre.
“I never thought that this would even be a possibility or an opportunity,” Hill said. “It just kind of fell into my lap and I was really good at it. I stuck it out and worked hard and here I am a Winter Olympian.”
She has Kaysha Love, a UNLV teammate, to thank for that. An 11-time high school track champion in Utah, Love was encouraged by her college coach to take part in a 12-day bobsled rookie camp after COVID shortened the track season her senior year. That led to more auditions and 14 months later she and pilot Kaillie Humphries won a World Cup race.
U.S. bobsledders Azaria Hill, left, and Kaysha Love take part in a training run Wednesday in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
(Aijaz Rahi / Associated Press)
After just six races, Love made the 2022 U.S. Olympic team as a brakewoman. She then tried to sell Hill on the sport.
“She was like ‘I think you should try it. Let’s see if you can do it,’” Hill remembered. “I went to my first rookie camp and I did really well, got invited back to some more camps, and ended up making my first World Cup team.”
That was in December 2023. Two years later she made it to the Olympics as the brakewoman for Love, who is now a driver.
“That’s completely opposite of what I thought I’d be doing,” Hill said. “The first time it is definitely scary. I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if I even want to do this.’ It is an acquired taste.
“But Keisha Love was just super positive.”
O’Brien’s rise to Olympian in the two-person bobsled, the second-fastest sliding sport of the Winter Games, has been even swifter. Elana Meyers Taylor, a five-time Olympian and five-time medalist, began recruiting O’Brien to be her brakewoman after the Beijing Games. At first she resisted, but last summer O’Brien decided she needed a rest from track “and bobsled seemed like a good alternative, so I took it up.”
Jadin O’Brien, left, and Elana Meyers Taylor prepare for a bobsled training run at the Milan-Cortina Olympic Games on Wednesday.
(Aijaz Rahi / Associated Press)
In her World Cup debut four months later, O’Brien pushed Taylor to a fourth-place finish, earning a spot on the Olympic team.
“There was so much I needed to learn,” she said. “Luckily there were quite a few girls who were very patient with me, who helped me understand the sport, understand form.”
One of the most important things she had to learn is when to pull the brake.
“If you do it too early, then you’re going to drastically hurt your time. If you do it too late, there’s a chance you’re going to ruin the runners because the track ends at a certain point,” O’Brien said.
And that decision has to be made in a heartbeat at the end of a mile-long ice chute covered at speeds exceeding 90 mph.
“It’s terrifying. You’re going super, super fast. As a brakeman you can’t see what’s going on because your head is down,” she said. “But at the same time it’s very thrilling. You feel like you’re flying if the run is done right. It’s almost addicting.”
Track athletes like Hill, 27, and O’Brien, 23, have a long history of success in bobsled, where speed and power at the start are important. Lauryn Williams won a gold medal on the track in the 2012 London Games and a silver on the back of Taylor’s sled two years later in Sochi. Lolo Jones won three world championships on the track and two in a bobsled. Most of the Jamaican team in Cortina is made up of sprinters who couldn’t catch Usain Bolt, so they climbed in a bobsled instead.
“They’ve got just an athleticism that is very applicable to pushing sleds,” said Curtis Tomasevicz, a former football player at Nebraska who won gold and silver Olympic medals in the four-man bobsled before becoming a coach with the U.S. team. “We’re recruiting athletes that have a sprinting ability and we feel like we can teach them to be bobsledders in a short amount of time.”
For Hill, that transition from the sprints to a sled has allowed her to carry on a family tradition. And she’ll have 11 relatives — including two Olympic medalists — at the Cortina Sliding Centre on Friday when she creates her own memories as the first Hill to compete in the Winter Games.
“They’re super excited seeing me on this journey, being that I’ve been able to kind of follow my own mission, create something for myself,” she said. “It’s almost like they’re kind of experiencing it again, but just in a different way.
“This has definitely exceeded my expectations of what I thought being an Olympian would be. It’s so much fun.”
Lorenzo Hernandez, who was the football coach at Garfield for 24 years until stepping down after the 2024 season, is coming out of retirement to become head coach at Whittier High. He met with his new players Wednesday afternoon.
Hernandez helped elevate the Garfield program beyond the annual Garfield vs. Roosevelt rivalry game, with the Bulldogs becoming one of the best in the City Section year after year. He has been the school’s athletic director.
He rejoins former Garfield principal Andres Favela, who’s the principal at Whittier.
Whittier will be switching leagues in the fall, moving from the Del Rio League, in which the team has won one league game in the last three years.
Hernandez said he received approval from his family to return to coaching and sees Whittier similar to Garfield in receiving strong neighborhood support.
On the cusp of what promises to be a bitter showdown with major league owners, the players’ union has no leader. Tony Clark, the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Assn., resigned under pressure Tuesday.
Why did Clark resign?
Clark and the union had engaged separate attorneys as federal authorities investigated alleged financial improprieties within the MLBPA, an affiliated licensing company and an affiliated youth sports venture.
The union also commissioned an investigation, initially focused on those allegations, that uncovered an “inappropriate relationship” between Clark and an employee, a person familiar with the matter confirmed to The Times, with the eight-man MLBPA player leadership team advising Clark that he should depart. The employee was his sister-in-law, the person confirmed.
The allegations remain under federal investigation, meaning that player leaders determined Clark could have been a liability on at least two fronts as players and owners head toward what is expected to be the most contentious collective bargaining in the sport in 31 years.
The Athletic first reported Clark had resigned; ESPN first reported on the relationship.
Who will replace Clark as the union leader?
The MLBPA issued a statement late Tuesday saying player leaders had met Tuesday. Players planned to canvass their peers scattered across spring training camps, then meet again Wednesday, with the possibility of voting on a new executive director then.
That could be either a permanent hire or an interim hire; the latter would reflect the urgency of the upcoming labor negotiation. Although the collective bargaining agreement does not expire until Dec. 1, Commissioner Rob Manfred said last week he expected talks on a new deal to start soon after opening day.
Bruce Meyer, the union’s deputy executive director and lead negotiator, would be the most logical successor. The MLBPA hired Meyer away from the NHLPA in 2018, one year into a bargaining agreement in which Clark and union negotiators were widely viewed as being badly beaten by Manfred and league negotiators.
No. It just acknowledged his resignation.
Is Meyer’s ascension a foregone conclusion?
Bruce Meyer in 2022
(Richard Drew / Associated Press)
Likely, yes, but not foregone. In 2021, with Meyer as lead negotiator and pushing for a better deal even as a 162-game season was threatened, players voted to accept the deal on the table. The union promoted Meyer into his current position in 2022.
In 2024, ESPN reported a majority of player representatives supported the replacement of Meyer with Harry Marino, who had unionized minor league players. Ultimately, Clark stuck with Meyer.
At this late date, however, internal bargaining preparations are underway, and Meyer is now a veteran of MLB negotiations. The goal is to “keep everything as stable as we can this year,” Angels pitcher Brent Suter told reporters. Suter is one of eight players on the union’s player leadership team.
Does this mean the players are divided and the owners are united?
No, and not that simple in any case.
On what looms as the core bargaining issue — the potential adoption of a salary cap — Clark and Meyer were aligned. Clark was the union voice calling a cap “institutionalized collusion,” with Meyer filling in the details of why the MLBPA believed a cap would not necessarily enhance parity and could leave players liable to receive a shrinking percentage of revenue over time.
Manfred has argued the current system helps elite players while squeezing the salaries and the jobs of the so-called middle class.
The owners currently appear united on pushing for a salary cap. If at some point they believe they have to do what the NHL did to get a cap — that is, lose an entire season — the interests of the large-market owners and the small-market owners could diverge.
What does this mean in terms of a potential lockout?
Nothing, really. Within the game, a lockout is considered all but inevitable.
Manfred has said he views a lockout as a negotiating tool. If MLB locks out players Dec. 1, no games are lost. If a lockout remains in place April 1, regular-season games could be lost.
In the last collective bargaining negotiation, owners locked out players in December, and a new deal was reached in March, preserving a 162-game season that started one week late.
I’ve never lived in Pasadena, but the city that sits below the San Gabriel Mountains in northeast L.A. has always felt like home. As a kid, I’d run into my aunt’s neighbors and coworkers while shopping with my mom on Lake Avenue. I knew to expect a wait at now-closed Roscoe’s Chicken ’n Waffles after my cousin’s Sunday dance recitals. Years later, when I worked at an office off Fair Oaks Avenue, I’d pass my lunch breaks by walking around the neighborhood and admiring the Craftsman homes.
It turns out, many Black Southern Californians have a similar relationship to Pasadena and Altadena, its neighboring hillside community that suffered tremendous losses in the Eaton fire. After the fire, restaurateur Greg Dulan of Dulan’s on Crenshaw spent months offering free meals to residents in collaboration with World Central Kitchen. Like me, he had fond childhood memories of traveling there from his South L.A. neighborhood to visit relatives.
A year later, the Pasadena-Altadena area is still recovering, with grassroots efforts led by longtime locals and business owners, including restaurateurs and chefs who opened their dining rooms to provide a safe space for community members to gather and grieve, organized donation drives and provided free meals and resources to those in need.
At Deluxe 1717 on the border of Pasadena and Altadena, chef-owner Onil Chibas extended the bistro’s hours to remain open continuously from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
“That way, if it’s four o’clock and you’ve just finished with your contractor and you’re hungry or you want a glass of wine or a cup of coffee, we’re open,” he said.
The Eaton fire destroyed long-standing Black-owned restaurants in Altadena, including Little Red Hen Coffee Shop which first opened in 1972 and was once frequented by comedian Richard Pryor, and Pizza of Venice, a popular pizzeria on Fair Oaks Avenue.
That makes it all the more important to support the Black-owned restaurants in the area that are still standing, with several located just blocks from the burn sites. Almost all are now concentrated in Pasadena, a reminder of how deeply affected Altadena itself remains a year after the blaze. From two new bakeries to a sandwich shop and a fish market that doubles as a Jamaican restaurant, here are 10 Black-owned spots to put on your radar.
North Korea has been designated a “high-risk jurisdiction” for money laundering and terrorism financing for the 16th consecutive year, financial authorities said Wednesday.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which is tasked with combating money laundering and terrorism financing, has put North Korea in the highest risk category along with Iran and Myanmar, according to the Financial Intelligence Unit under the Financial Services Commission.
“The FATF remains concerned by the DPRK’s continued failure to address the significant deficiencies in its anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism regime and the serious threats posed by the DPRK’s illicit activities related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and its financing,” the organization said on its website, referring to North Korea by the acronym of its formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The FATF, which works under the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, has categorized North Korea as a “high-risk jurisdiction” since 2011.
Copyright (c) Yonhap News Agency prohibits its content from being redistributed or reprinted without consent, and forbids the content from being learned and used by artificial intelligence systems.
He’s four months removed from disk replacement surgery in his lower back — the same back that has endured six other operations, including spinal fusion in 2017.
Woods won’t be taking part in this week’s Genesis Invitational, a tournament he has hosted since 2020, as he continues to recover from that procedure. The 15-time major championship winner told reporters at Riviera Country Club on Tuesday that he has been able to start taking full golf shots during his training.
Still, the 2026 Masters tournament is less than two months away. So considering everything mentioned above, it would seem pretty unlikely that Woods would be ready to compete in the first major championship of the year.
Right?
Well, a reporter asked Woods quite simply, “Is the Masters off the table for you?”
Woods gave an even simpler answer.
“No,” he said without hesitation or further elaboration. He did give a slight smile after a brief pause, for what that’s worth.
It should come as no surprise that Woods would be doing everything he can to be able to play April 9-12 at Augusta National. He has won the event five times, most recently in 2019.
Woods missed all of the 2025 season as he recovered from a back surgery the previous year and surgery for a ruptured Achilles tendon in March. He spoke Tuesday on the multiple challenges he faces in attempting to return to the PGA Tour and also brought up the possibility of playing on the PGA Champions circuit.
“The disc replacement has been one thing. It’s been a challenge to have had a fused back and now a disc replacement. So it’s challenging,” said Woods, who added that his back is still sore following the most recent procedure.
“And I entered a new decade. So that number is starting to sink in and has [me] thinking about the opportunity to be able to play in a cart. That’s something that, as I’ve said, I won’t do out here on this tour, because I don’t believe in it. But you know, on the Champions tour, that’s certainly an opportunity.”
Expedia’s Air Hacks Report shows how holidaymakers can save hundreds on flights – including the cheapest day to fly, best time to book and most affordable month to travel
Save money by being aware of the best – and worst – days to fly (Image: Getty Images)
New figures from travel agency Expedia have uncovered how holidaymakers can knock hundreds of pounds off their flight costs, with Friday now officially crowned the most budget-friendly day to jet off. Expedia has put together a comprehensive guide of “Air Hacks” to help travellers secure the best bargains throughout the year.
The latest Air Hacks Report shows that travellers can pocket an average saving of 18% by departing on a Friday rather than a Saturday. Despite being the busiest travel day of the week, Friday delivers the strongest value for money. Meanwhile, Tuesday emerges as the quietest day for flying but most expensive to book.
According to the report, the best day to book is Sunday, as this gets you the best deal and June is the most affordable month to fly, with flights 68% cheaper on average than December, which represents a potential saving of £250 per ticket.
For optimal booking, the most affordable window for domestic economy flights is between 31 and 45 days before departure, which will save people around £38 compared to booking six months out.
For international travel, adults can save an average of £93 by booking between 15 and 30 days ahead of time instead of six months, though purchasing tickets 31 to 45 days before can still yield a saving of £85.
Regarding UK airports, the cheapest to fly from, on average, are Belfast (£170), Liverpool (£171), and Bournemouth (£171). Conversely, the most expensive airports to fly from are London Heathrow (£533), Humberside (£420), and Manchester (£404).
Melanie Fish, a spokesperson from Expedia, said: “We are very excited to release these new findings and share our top air hacks for 2026 to ensure holidaymakers get the best value for money, as well as an enjoyable travelling experience.
The report also uncovered emerging travel trends. Twenty percent of travellers have booked an “extreme day trip,” which involves a roundtrip flight within 24 hours to visit a new destination.
Over half (51%) of international flyers now opt for morning departures, with only 15% choosing an evening flight. Furthermore, a third of travellers now fly with only a carry-on bag, and 29% admit they wear extra layers to avoid baggage fees.
The company, which launched a ‘Flight Deals’ feature to help users find flights 20% below the norm, hopes these insights will help holidaymakers navigate the overwhelming and expensive process of planning a trip.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a child of Southern segregation who rose to national prominence as a powerful voice for Black economic and racial equality, has died.
Jackson, who had battled the neurodegenerative condition progressive supranuclear palsy for more than a decade, died at home surrounded by family. His daughter, Santita Jackson, confirmed his death with the Associated Press. He was 84. Jackson was originally diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2017 before the PSP diagnosis was confirmed in April.
Handsome and dynamic, an orator with a flair for memorable rhyme, Jackson was the first Black candidate for president to attract a major following, declaring in 1984 that “our time has come” and drawing about 3.5 million votes in Democratic primaries — roughly 1 in 5 of those cast.
Four years later, using the slogan “Keep hope alive,” he ran again, winning 7 million votes, second only to the eventual nominee, Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis. His hourlong speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention brought many delegates to tears and provided the gathering’s emotional high point.
Rev. Jesse Jackson and his wife, Jacqueline, acknowledge the cheers of delegates and supporters before his emotional speech to the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta on July 20, 1988.
(John Duricka / Associated Press)
“Every one of these funny labels they put on you, those of you who are watching this broadcast tonight in the projects, on the corners — I understand,” he said. “Call you outcast, low down, you can’t make it, you’re nothing, you’re from nobody, subclass, underclass; when you see Jesse Jackson, when my name goes in nomination, your name goes in nomination.”
For nearly a generation, from the 1970s into the 1990s, that ability to absorb the insults and rejection suffered by Black Americans and transmute them into a defiant rhetoric of success made Jackson the most prominent Black figure in the country. Both beneficiary and victim of white America’s longstanding insistence on having one media-anointed leader serve as the spokesman for tens of millions of Black citizens, he drew adulation and jeers but consistently held the spotlight.
Supporters greeted his speeches with chants of “Run, Jesse, run.” Opponents tracked every misstep, from audits of his grants in the 1970s to his use of the anti-Jewish slur “Hymietown” to refer to New York City during the 1984 campaign, to the disclosure, in 2001, that he had fathered a daughter in an extramarital affair.
As he dominated center stage, the thundering chorus of his speeches — “I am … somebody” — inspired his followers even as it sometimes sounded like a painful plea.
Jackson’s thirst for attention began in childhood. Born out of wedlock on Oct. 8, 1941, he often stood at the gate of his father’s home in Greenville, S.C., watching with envy as his half-brothers played, before returning to the home he shared with his mother, Helen Burns, and grandmother, Mathilda.
During high school, his father, Noah Robinson, a former professional boxer, would sometimes go to the football field to watch Jesse play. If he played well, Noah would sometimes tell others, “That’s one of mine.” For the most part, however, until Jesse was famous, he shunned his son, who was later adopted by the man his mother married, Charles Jackson.
It was his grandmother, known as Tibby, who encouraged Jackson’s ambition. A domestic in stringently segregated Greenville, Tibby brought home books and magazines, such as National Geographic, that her white employers’ children had discarded.
“Couldn’t read a word herself but she’d bring them back for me, you know, these cultural things used by the wealthy and refined,” Jackson once said. “All she knew was, their sons read those books. So I ought to read them too. She never stopped dreaming for me.”
Her dreams propelled Jackson toward college — as did a need to avenge the childhood taunts that echoed in his head. An honors student, he turned down a contract to pitch for the Chicago White Sox to accept a football scholarship to the University of Illinois.
At Christmas break, he came home with a list of books. A librarian at the McBee Avenue Colored Branch referred him to the white library downtown and called ahead to clear the way. When he entered the main library, two police officers stood at the loan desk. A librarian told him it would take at least six days to get the books from the shelves. When he offered to get them himself, the officers told him to leave.
“I just stared up at that ‘Greenville Public Library’ and tears came to my eyes,” Jackson told a biographer, Marshall Frady.
That summer, 1960, Jackson came home and led a sit-in at the library, his arrest a first taste of civil disobedience. In the fall, he transferred to North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro. There he became the star quarterback and participated in the beginnings of the sit-ins that became a signature part of the civil rights movement led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
“It wasn’t a matter of Gandhi or Dr. King then,” he said of the library sit-in, “it was just my own private pride and self-respect.”
With his height and his oratorical flourishes, Jackson was a charismatic figure who led protests in Greensboro. Once, during a demonstration outside a cafeteria, as police were about to arrest the demonstrators, Jackson suggested they kneel and recite the Lord’s Prayer.
“Police all took off their caps and bowed their heads,” he said. “Can’t arrest folks prayin’.”
Then he led the demonstrators in “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
“They stopped, put their hands over their heart,” Jackson said. “Can’t arrest folks singing the national anthem.”
After half an hour, he recalled, “we got tired and let ’em arrest us.”
Elected student body president, Jackson graduated in 1963. A grant from the Rockefeller Fund for Theological Education brought him to the Chicago Theological Seminary, where he hoped to find a venue for social activism.
That summer, Jackson traveled to Washington, where he heard King deliver his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Two years later, he and a group of college buddies piled into vans to drive south for King’s Selma-to-Montgomery march. He met King there, and early the next year, King asked Jackson to head his Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Operation Breadbasket in Chicago. The goal was to win economic gains for Black people with a combination of consumer boycotts and negotiated settlements.
At 24, Jackson was the youngest of King’s aides. Operating out of a hole-in-the-wall office at SCLC’s South Side headquarters, he began by organizing preachers, arranging for them to urge their congregations on Easter to boycott products made by a local dairy that employed no Black workers.
During the following week, Country Delight lost more than half a million dollars in revenue. Within days, the company offered a deal: 44 jobs for Black workers. Without waiting for a boycott, other dairy companies called with offers, too.
King soon asked Jackson to be the national director of Operation Breadbasket. Jackson hesitated — the job required him to leave the seminary six months short of graduation. Jackson recounted in his autobiography that King told him, “Come with me full time and you’ll learn more theology in six months than you would in six years at the seminary.” He earned his ordination several years later.
In 1968, Jesse Jackson stands to the left of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., where King was assassinated the next day.
(Charles Kelly / Associated Press )
In April 1968, Jackson joined King in Memphis, where the civil rights leader had decided to stand with striking Black sanitation workers. Few of King’s staff supported the effort, worrying that the strike — and the planned Poor People’s Campaign in Washington — distracted from the main goal of attaining voting and political rights for Black Americans.
During a planning meeting, King blew up at his aides, including Jackson. “If you’re so interested in doing your own thing, that you can’t do what this organization is structured to do, if you want to carve out your own niche in society, go ahead,” King yelled at Jackson, according to the latter’s account. “But for God’s sake, don’t bother me!”
The next day, standing below the balcony of the Lorraine Motel where the team was staying in Memphis, King yelled down at Jackson in joviality, as if to mitigate the outburst, inviting him to dinner.
Within moments, shots rang out. Jackson later said he ran upstairs and caught King’s head as he lay dying. Andrew Young, a King aide who later became U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told Frady that he doubted Jackson had cradled King’s head, but that they all had rushed to the scene and all had gotten blood on their clothes.
But if all of them were touched by King’s blood, only Jackson wore his gore-stained olive turtleneck for days, sleeping and grieving in it, wearing it on NBC’s “Today Show” and before the Chicago City Council. In dramatizing the moment to his own benefit, Jackson provoked hostility from King’s widow and others in the movement’s leadership that lasted decades.
Richard Hatcher, the first Black mayor of Gary, Ind., and a Jackson supporter, recalled that once Jackson decided to run for president, the campaign thought it had the backing of the Black leadership.
“Big mistake. Big mistake,” Hatcher said. “Over the following months, every time things seemed to get going, here would come a statement from Atlanta, from Andy [Young] or Joe Lowery or Mrs. King, ‘We don’t think this is a good idea at all.’“
As Jackson’s media prominence grew — including a cover photo on Time magazine in 1970 — tensions erupted between Jackson and SCLC, in part because of the sloppy bookkeeping that became a Jackson characteristic. In late 1971, SCLC’s board suspended Jackson for “administrative impropriety” and “repeated violation of organization discipline.” Jackson resigned, saying, “I need air. I must have room to grow.”
Rev. Jesse Jackson raises a clenched fist from a police van after he and 11 others from Operation Breadbasket were arrested during a sit-in at the Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co., offices in New York City on Feb. 2, 1971. The organization, part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, has been protesting A&P’s alleged discrimination against blacks.
(MARTY LEDERHANDLER / Associated Press)
Calling a dozen Black celebrities to New York’s Commodore Hotel, Jackson formed his own organization. Originally called People United to Save Humanity — the presumptuous title was soon changed to People United to Serve Humanity — PUSH became his pulpit. Like Operation Breadbasket, its goal was to boost minority employment and ownership.
Jackson traveled the country preaching self-esteem and self-discipline. Thousands of youngsters took pledges to say no to drugs, turn off their television sets, study. They became the core of his voter registration drives, the inspiration for the “I am somebody” chant that would define his public ministry.
As with Operation Breadbasket, Jackson used PUSH to hold corporate America to account. In 1982, for example, he launched a boycott of Anheuser-Busch with the slogan “this Bud’s a dud.”
“We spend approximately $800 million with them [annually]. Yet, out of 950 wholesale distributorships, only one is Black-owned,” Jackson said.
Shortly thereafter, Anheuser-Busch contributed $10,000 to Jackson’s Citizenship Education Fund, contributed more than $500,000 to the Rainbow PUSH coalition, and established a $10-million fund to help minorities buy distributorships.
In 1998, 16 years later, the River North beer distributorship in Chicago was purchased by two of Jackson’s sons, Yusef and Jonathan. (Jackson’s eldest son, Jesse Jackson Jr., won election to Congress from Chicago in 1995, but resigned and was convicted of fraud in 2013 for misuse of campaign funds. Jackson and his wife, Jacqueline, also had two daughters, Jacqueline and Santita. A third daughter, Ashley Laverne Jackson, was the child of his relationship with a PUSH staff member, Karin Stanford.)
Critics called the PUSH campaigns elaborate shakedowns. Others, like Jeffrey Campbell, president of Burger King when Jackson opened negotiations in 1983, found the encounter with Jackson and his rhetoric of economic empowerment inspiring.
“Before they came in, my view was that we ought to fight them, that this guy Jackson was a monster, and I had the backing of my bosses to walk out if necessary,” Campbell told the Los Angeles Times in 1987. But Campbell said he quickly changed his mind.
“He got to me very quickly, without me realizing it, when he started talking about fairness. He would say: What is fair? Blacks give you 15% of your business — isn’t it fair that you give 15% of your business, your jobs, your purchases back to the Black community, the Black businesses?
“That little seed began to grow in the back of my mind,” Campbell said. “It was the right question to ask me.”
How Jackson handled money gave critics additional openings. Between 1972 and 1988, PUSH and its affiliates attracted more than $17 million in federal grants and private contributions. After many audits, the Justice Department sought $1.2 million in repayments, citing poor recordkeeping and a lack of documentation.
Jackson gave little thought to such issues. “I am a tree-shaker, not a jelly-maker,” he would often say.
Management held little interest for him. But politics was a different matter.
From the moment he began urging and registering Black Americans to vote, Jackson found his milieu. He used PUSH resources to staff get-out-the-vote drives that helped elect Hatcher in Gary, Kenneth Gibson in Newark, N.J., and Carl Stokes in Cleveland.
In those days, he also advocated participating in both parties, what he called “a balance of power.” In 1972, he claimed he had registered 40,000 Black voters to support Illinois’ white Republican senator, Charles Percy.
That same year, at the Democratic convention in Miami, Jackson unseated Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s 58-member Illinois delegation and replaced it with a “rainbow” of his own, even though he had never voted in a Democratic primary. Liberal Democrats who despised Daley as a corrupt big-city boss hailed Jackson as a hero.
In the decade to come, Jackson basked in celebrity and international travel, including a controversial meeting with Yasser Arafat. Jackson met the then-leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1979 when he traveled to Syria to free U.S. pilot Robert Goodman, who’d been shot down while on a bombing mission. By the time Jackson declared his 1984 presidential campaign, he had burnished his foreign policy credentials.
At the convention that year in San Francisco, he predicted that in an era of Reaganomics, a Rainbow Coalition of ethnic and religious identities could retake the White House.
“We must leave the racial battleground and come to economic common ground and moral higher ground,” he said in a memorable speech.
“America, our time has come. We come from disgrace to amazing grace. Our time has come,” he said. “Give me your tired, give me your poor, your huddled masses who yearn to breathe free and come November, there will be a change, because our time has come.” Delegates roared to their feet.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a candidate for the democratic nomination for President, works the crowd from onstage following a speech at the Cincinnati Convention center, Friday, April 13, 1984.
(Al Behrman / Associated Press)
But they did not nominate him. Nor did the convention of 1988. Addressing Black ministers in Los Angeles in 1995, the hurt still showed as Jackson railed at the injustice of beating Al Gore in the presidential primaries, only to watch as he was tapped by Bill Clinton to be his running mate in 1992.
“In 1988, I beat him in Iowa, a state 98% white; he said it was ’cause of liberals and farmers. So I beat him in New Hampshire; he said it was ’cause he was off campaigning in the South. So I beat him in the South on Super Tuesday; he said Dukakis had split his support. I beat him then in Illinois, in Michigan; he said he wasn’t really trying. I beat him then in New York; said he ran out of money. But now, here I am this afternoon, talking to y’all in this church in South Central L.A. — and he’s vice president of the United States.”
To many of his Democratic opponents, however, Jackson’s “rainbow coalition” symbolized not common ground, but the party’s devolution into a collection of identity caucuses whose narrow causes doomed them to defeat. In 1992, many of those critics gathered around Clinton as he formulated his “New Democrat” campaign. Clinton soon used Jackson as a foil.
The occasion came when Jackson invited rap singer and activist Sister Souljah to a political event featuring the Arkansas governor. In an interview, Souljah had wondered why after all the animus of white people toward Black people, it was unacceptable for Black people to kill whites. Clinton, instead of delivering the usual liberal-candidate-seeks-Black-votes hominy, lashed out at her words.
The moment bought Clinton a priceless image of willingness to speak truth to the party’s interest groups but came at the price of Jackson’s rage.
“I can maybe work with him, but I know now who he is, what he is. There’s nothin’ he won’t do,” Jackson said to Frady. “He’s immune to shame.”
By then, however, Jackson’s prominence had already begun to wane. Indeed, the role of race leader, itself, had started to disappear. The civil rights revolution in which Jackson had figured so prominently had allowed a new and more diverse generation of Black elected officials, corporate executives and public figures to flourish. Their success eroded his singular platform.
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., right, laughs after saying goodbye to Rev. Jesse Jackson, reflected left, after Obama addressed the Rainbow PUSH Coalition’s annual conference breakfast in Rosemont, Ill. on June 4, 2007
(harles Rex Arbogast / Associated Press)
Jackson continued to travel, agitate, protest, but the spotlight had moved on. He dreamed that Jesse Jr. might one day win the office he had pursued. When, instead, another Black Democrat from Chicago, Barack Obama, headed toward the Democratic nomination in 2008, Jackson’s frustration spilled into public with a vulgar criticism of Obama caught on microphone.
In Obama’s White House, he suffered what for him might have been the severest penalty — being ignored.
Yet to those who had seen him in his prime, his image remained indelible.
“When they write the history of this campaign,” then-New York Gov. Mario Cuomo said after the 1984 contest, “the longest chapter will be on Jackson. The man didn’t have two cents. He didn’t have one television or radio ad. And look what he did.”
Jackson is survived by his wife, Jacqueline, and six children, Jesse Jr., Yusef, Jonathan, Jacqueline, Santita and Ashley.
the Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks at the League of United Latin American Citizens convention Friday, June 30, 2006, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Hundreds of millions of people around the world are celebrating the Lunar New Year. They’re welcoming in the Year of the Horse. Rob McBride reports from the Temple of Earth in Beijing, on the first day of the Chinese New Year.
About 1.4 billion people began marking the Lunar New Year on Tuesday amid fireworks as China enters the Year of the Fire Horse, one of 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac.
Known as the Spring Festival in China, the new year, based on the lunar calendar, also brings about the world’s largest annual human migration, called Chunyun, as millions travel across the country for family reunions.
It is also a huge opportunity to boost domestic consumption in the world’s second-largest economy, which has been driven by exports.
Monday night’s gala, one of the largest state-sponsored televised events, was marked by a stunningly synchronised kung fu performance by robots and children.
The Year of the Horse, said to bring optimism and opportunity, is following the Year of the Snake, which represented transformation and strategy.
Here is a quick snapshot of the festival.
Worshippers offer incense sticks at a temple on the eve of the Lunar New Year, welcoming the Year of the Horse, in Hong Kong, China, February 16, 2026 [Tyrone Siu/Reuters]
What’s Lunar New Year?
It is the most important holiday in China and is celebrated by millions of people in the country and in East and Southeast Asia.
In the days leading up to it, people clean their homes and decorate with red lanterns, couplets, and paper cuttings that represent prosperity and good fortune.
On the eve of the Lunar New Year, families gather for a large reunion dinner, exchanging hongbao, red envelopes of cash as a symbol of blessings and good fortune.
The celebrations usually last about 15 days, ending with the Lantern Festival. Fireworks, dragon and lion dances, temple fairs across big cities and the hinterland are common during this period.
In the Chinese zodiac, each year is associated with one of the 12 zodiac animals, which is believed to influence the year’s character and fortune.
The animal from the Chinese zodiac is then paired with any one of the five elements: metal, wood, water, fire and earth.
This is the Year of the Fire Horse.
This year’s official holiday is nine days, rather than the typical eight, with New Year’s Day falling on Tuesday, February 17.
Lantern installations at Yuyuan Garden before the Lunar New Year, in Shanghai, China, February 10, 2026 [Chenxi Yang/Reuters]
What’s Year of the Fire Horse?
The Chinese zodiac system is incredibly complex, repeating every 12 years, each represented by an animal in this order: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.
The year of one’s birth decides their zodiac sign; meaning, the ones born last year were Snakes, this year’s children would be Horses and next year’s would be Goats.
A complex mechanism decides how the year will be paired with one of the five elements.
This year, the element is Bing, or big sun, paired with the Horse. This pairing occurs every 60 years, most recently in 1966.
For those who believe in the Chinese zodiac, the Year of the Fire Horse represents an explosion of energy and independence, with unpredictable realignments.
Zhang Huoqing, owner of a toy shop, unpacks horse plush toys in Yiwu, Zhejiang province, China, January 21, 2026 [Nicoco Chan/Reuters]
Why is China hoping the Lunar New Year spending will boost the economy?
The Spring Festival in China is not just cultural but also economically significant, typically driving a spike in consumption across multiple sectors.
People spend heavily on food and festive goods, entertainment, and tourism, with retail and e-commerce platforms registering a surge in sales during the pre-holiday period.
The Chinese government is also expecting a record 9.5 billion passenger trips during the 40-day Spring Festival period, up from nine billion trips last year, as they travel for annual reunions.
The government has also issued consumer vouchers worth more than 360 million yuan ($52m) this month to boost consumption.
China is looking to boost domestic spending in its next five-year economic plan, where households save nearly a third of their income.
Worshippers light their incense sticks on the first day of the Lunar New Year, the Year of the Horse, at the Taoist temple of Sin Sze Si Ya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, February 17, 2026 [Hasnoor Hussain/Reuters]
Where else is Lunar New Year celebrated?
It is a global phenomenon extending beyond China. In East and Southeast Asia, several countries observe the Lunar New Year under distinct cultural pretexts.
For instance, Vietnam celebrates Tet Nguyen Dan, which emphasises family reunions and specific culinary traditions like banh chung. In South Korea, Seollal, or the Korean New Year, focuses on honouring ancestors and the consumption of tteokguk, a rice cake soup believed to grant people another year of age.
In Southeast Asian countries like Singapore and Malaysia, the holiday is a multicultural event marked by public holidays.
Diaspora communities in cities like San Francisco, London, and Sydney also host some of the largest celebrations in the world, featuring massive parades, dragon boat races and fireworks.
Fun fact about the Year of the Horse
This Lunar New Year found its mascot in a rather unusual place: in the World of Harry Potter, a wildly popular British production. And that too in the franchise’s most popular villain, Draco Malfoy.
In Mandarin, the name Malfoy is written phonetically as “ma er fu”. The opening character, ma, signifies “horse” and the closing character, fu, represents “fortune” or “blessing”.
When Robert Duvall was floundering around in college, his father, a career Navy man who retired with the rank of rear admiral, told him to shape up — and start acting.
“I wasn’t pushed into it but suggested into it,” Duvall once told an interviewer. “They figured I did skits around the house. They figured I had a calling, or whatever, in that line.”
They figured correctly. With his weathered face and receding hairline, he did not stand out for his movie star looks but for the intensity and depth he brought to his craft. New York Times film critic Vincent Canby in 1980 called him “the best we have, the American Olivier.”
Duvall, a veteran of many leading roles but best known for his sharp portrayal of supporting characters such as “The Godfather’s” Irish American consigliere and the unhinged Army colonel who loved the smell of napalm in the morning, died at 95 on Sunday, his wife, Luciana Duvall, announced on Facebook.
“Bob passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by love and comfort,” she wrote.
Although he could play comic characters such as Maj. Frank Burns, the priggish Army doctor who was obsessed with nurse “Hot Lips” Houlihan in “MASH,” Duvall specialized in tightly wound tough guys.
In “The Great Santini,” he was a Marine fighter pilot who was as overbearing and explosive with his family as with the men under his command. In “The Apostle,” he was a preacher who killed his wife’s lover with a baseball bat. In “The Godfather” and “The Godfather Part II,” he was Tom Hagen, a buttoned-down attorney who was loyal to his mob bosses and lethal to those who got in their way. He was an expert, one critic said, in playing “self-controlled men who should not be pushed too far.”
Duvall was known for pouring himself into his characters. He could move with the grace of the tango aficionado he became or with the slow, pained gait of the cancer-ridden editor he played in “The Paper.” He was a keen student of dialect; doing movies in the South, he meandered down backroads, learning just the right way to frame a question in rural Mississippi or deliver a compliment in west Texas.
He loved playing country people and particularly loved westerns.
“That’s our genre,” he said in a 2011 interview with the News and Advance in Lynchburg, Va., near his home on a 362-acre horse farm. “The English have Shakespeare, the French Moliere, and the Russians Chekhov. The western is ours.”
When asked about his acting technique, Duvall would describe it as simply as his favorite character — Augustus McCrae, the wry trail boss on the TV miniseries “Lonesome Dove” — might have described riding a horse.
“It’s just talking and listening,” Duvall told The Times in 2006. “Nothing’s precious. Just let it sit there and find its own way.”
Nominated seven times for an Academy Award, Duvall won lead actor honors in 1983 for his role as Mac Sledge, a broken-down country singer in “Tender Mercies.” A guitar player since childhood, he did his own singing and wrote two of the songs.
Turning down his studio’s offer of a cast party at glitzy Studio 54, Duvall hosted a heartfelt hoedown in his New York City apartment. The crowd ate down-home food cooked by character actor Wilford Brimley, who had flown in from Tennessee. As the party ended at 3 a.m., an exuberant Duvall had everyone join hands for a chorus of “Amazing Grace.”
Willie Nelson — who sang duets with Duvall at the party — told Village Voice columnist Arthur Bell that “Tender Mercies” was dead-on accurate.
“These people Bobby portrayed in his movie, I grew up in those parts and know each of them personally,” he said. “And I’ll probably be that character he plays someday if I don’t take care of myself.”
Many of Duvall’s characters had hardscrabble backgrounds, but Duvall grew up in privilege. Born in San Diego on Jan. 5, 1931, he was raised in places around the U.S. where his naval officer father was posted.
When he was 10, the future star of so many westerns rode his first horse and got to know his first Texans on a family trip to see his mother’s relatives.
By his teen years in Annapolis, Md., Duvall had become an excellent mimic, absorbing dialects and mannerisms wherever he happened to be. He did hilarious impressions of people like his cousin Fagin Springer, a singing evangelist from Virginia, and the tough old cowhands on his uncle’s Montana ranch. Years later, on the set of “The Godfather,” he did impressions of Marlon Brando.
In his more than 85 movies, many of his characters were heavy drinkers, but not Duvall. He went to a Christian Science boarding school in St. Louis and to Principia College, a Christian Science college in Elsah, Ill., and never smoked or drank.
When the affable, athletic Duvall was nearly kicked out of college for poor grades, administrators summoned his parents for an emergency meeting. Everyone agreed he was miscast as a history major. The boy’s only talent, besides tennis, appeared to be acting.
Switching to drama — a decision supported by his parents, who wanted him to stay in school — he turned his academic career around.
In a college production of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons,” Duvall so deeply merged into the character of a ruthless businessman haunted by a bad decision that he found himself crying. “That clinched it,” wrote Judith Slawson in “Robert Duvall: Hollywood Maverick,” a 1985 biography. “Acting was for him.”
Graduating in 1953, Duvall was drafted into the Army. He trained in radio repair at Camp Gordon in Georgia but spent his off-duty time with a community theater group in nearby Augusta. When he left the service in 1955, he studied at New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, a training ground for such top talents as Gregory Peck, Steve McQueen and Jon Voight.
Sanford Meisner, the school’s legendarily demanding director, was impressed.
“There are only two actors in America,” he told playwright David Mamet years later. “One is Brando, who’s done his best work, and the other is Robert Duvall.”
In New York, Duvall worked night shifts at the post office, washed dishes and kept auditioning. He shared an apartment at Broadway and West 107th Street with a fledgling actor named Dustin Hoffman. The two also palled around with Gene Hackman and James Caan.
Over coffee at Cromwell’s Drugstore, the yet-to-be-discovered actors would discuss the mumbling, moving technique of another young actor.
“If we mentioned Brando once, we mentioned him 25 times,” Duvall told The Times in 2014.
After several years of off-Broadway productions, summer stock and roles in TV dramas such as “Naked City” and “The Twilight Zone,” Duvall landed his first Hollywood role in 1962.
As Boo Radley, a mysterious recluse in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Duvall was on-screen for less than five minutes at the film’s end and had no lines. But he played a pivotal character and the film launched a cinematic career that lasted more than five decades.
In the 1979 Vietnam War epic “Apocalypse Now,” he delivered one of the most famous lines in the history of film. As the swaggering Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore, he orders U.S. helicopters to destroy a coastal Viet Cong-held village so he and his men could surf there.
“You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that,” Kilgore says nonchalantly as the village before him erupts in flame. “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
Kilgore’s chilling monologue topped the list of best movie speeches in a 2004 BBC poll. Duvall later said he had no idea people would remember it.
Duvall seldom played leading men, but Mac Sledge, in “Tender Mercies,” was a notable breakthrough.
“This is the only film where I’ve heard people say I’m sexy,” he told an interviewer. “It’s real romantic — rural romantic. I love that part almost more than anything.”
Duvall was married three times before meeting Luciana Pedraza, a young woman who was dared by her friends to approach him on a Buenos Aires street and invite him to a tango gathering. She played opposite him in “Assassination Tango,” a 2002 film in which he portrays a hit man dispatched to Argentina. They married in 2005 and for years practiced tango on a dance floor they installed in one of their barns.
In addition to his wife, Duvall is survived by his older brother William, an actor and music teacher. His young brother John died in 2000.
Duvall’s legacy includes a wide range of films, from “True Grit” to “True Confessions.” He played a retired Cuban barber in “Wrestling Ernest Hemingway”; a cynical TV executive in “Network”; a dirt-poor Mississippi farmer in “Tomorrow”; a quietly effective corporate attorney in “A Civil Action”; a middle-aged astronaut in “Deep Impact”; a grizzled cattleman in “Open Range”; a tobacco company bigwig in the satirical “Thank You for Smoking”; and in the miniseries “Ike,” he was Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower.
He also tackled some less commercial projects. In 1977, he directed a documentary about a Nebraska rodeo family, “We’re Not the Jet Set.” In 1983, he wrote and directed “Angelo, My Love,” a drama inspired by and starring Romani whom Duvall came to know in New York City.
He worked well into his later years. In the 2009 film “Get Low,” he was a backwoods hermit who staged his own funeral. Two years later, he was a rancher and ex-golf pro who takes a young golfer under his wing in the spiritual drama “Seven Days in Utopia.” And four years after that, he played an alcoholic and abusive justice in “The Judge,” earning a supporting actor Oscar nomination — the oldest actor at the time to do so.
In “A Night in Old Mexico” (2014), he played an ill-tempered rancher preparing for suicide after losing his land to foreclosure. His plans change when he meets an adult grandson he never knew he had and the two wander across the border into bars and bordellos and reflect on life.
“No one plays wise old coots more convincingly,” the New York Times said.
Duvall drew on his inner curmudgeon throughout his career.
As an actor who prided himself on an up-close, deep-down knowledge of his characters, he sometimes bristled at direction.
“If I have instincts I feel are right, I don’t want anyone to tamper with them,” he told After Dark magazine in 1973. “I don’t like tamperers and I don’t like hoverers.”
Horton Foote, who adapted “Mockingbird” for the movies and wrote “Tender Mercies,” became one of Duvall’s few lifelong friends in the industry.
When Duvall was checking out Southern churches as he researched “The Apostle,” which he wrote, directed and starred in, the two were frequently in touch on the phone.
“I could always tell he’d been with a different preacher,” Foote told The Times in 2006, “because he’d try out these different voices.”
Authenticity was so important to Duvall that he gave some key roles in “The Apostle” to local people with little or no acting experience.
Rick Dial, who played a small-town radio reporter in the film, was actually a local furniture salesman.
“Rick improvised a lot of his dialogue,” Duvall told Backstage magazine in 2001. “At the end of ‘The Apostle’ when they cart me off, his skin turned a certain color of grief. I don’t know who told him to do that. He just did it.”
For Duvall, known as an actor who “just did it” in film after film, that was the highest kind of praise.
