years

THE abandoned BT tower is set to be turned into a fancy hotel – and the first images of what it could look have been revealed.

The London attraction first opened in 1964 as the Post Office Tower, and was the city’s tallest building until the NatWest Tower opened in 1980.

The BT Tower then closed in 1981 to the public, bar some private events.

It has since been bought by MCR, an American hotel chain who also owns the High Line Hotel and TWA Hotel in New York, for £270million in 2024.

And new images released by architect Orms (behind The Outernet and The Standard Hotel) show what to expect from the 177m tower when it reopens.

The main attraction will be the rooftop swimming pool on the fifth floor, and open to both hotel guests and the public.

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The ground floor will be used for retail and food and drink spaces, while the hotel will take over the first and second floor. 

The Howlands Building will get a three to four storey extension upwards, which will be the hotel space as well.

Levels 24-30 are unconfirmed as to what they will be used for but could become art or culture areas.

And a public space will be part of the exterior as well, to make it more easily accessible. 

Designers Orms are behind the renovation, who has replaced Heatherwick Studios.

They said in the application: “While maintaining the overall structure, we will remove unsightly modern additions to the 1960s exterior on the ground floor.

“We will then introduce retail on the ground floor and add a modest pavilion structure on the roof.”

A planning application will be submitted in September, although works cannot start in 2029 due to BT decomposing on equipment inside.

Expected opening dates of the hotel are in 2033.

The tower was once known for its rotating restaurant, although this was forced to close after an IRA bombing.

Tom Segura and Christina Pazsitzky have reportedly split.

The comedy power couple are calling it quits after 18 years of marriage, according to TMZ. A source told the outlet that the pair separated a couple of months ago but remain amicable and plan to continue co-hosting their podcast, “Your Mom’s House.”

Reps for Segura and Pazsitzky did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.

Segura, 47, and Pazsitzky, 50, tied the knot in November 2008. Segura told “TigerBelly” podcast in 2018 that he met Pazsitzky while they were both doing open mic nights around Los Angeles. She was in a relationship with someone else (whom she lived with), so Segura and Pazsitzky were just friends. According to Segura, there was no flirtation in the early days, and he treated her with the respect he did any other fellow comic.

“I always thought she was attractive, but she was taken,” he said. “And then I got the call from one of my spies. … They broke up. And I was like, ‘I’m gonna swing in there, see what’s up.’”

According to Segura, he tried to ask Pazsitzky on what he thought was an L.A.-appropriate date — a hike — and she said no. He thought that meant she wasn’t interested in him, when, really, she just wasn’t interested in hiking.

“I called her the next time, and she’s like, ‘Hey, I know this bar you can still smoke at. Do you want to go there?’ And I was like, ‘OK. This is why she doesn’t want to go on a hike.’ So then, yeah, we went on dates and it just continued.”

Both comedians have used their marriage as source material for their comedy routines over the years and discuss their relationship on various podcast appearances, but especially on their own podcast, “Your Mom’s House,” which debuted in 2012.

In 2024, Pazsitzky told The Times that when they launched the podcast “we lived in a crummy two-bedroom apartment, we were newlyweds and we had no money. We got a mixing board, two mics and a computer, and at that point, we slept in one room and used the other room as an office. It bordered this other house where this lady would cook the smelliest food and have aggressive sex.”

“Oh, yeah, she was newly divorced and very performative with orgasms too,” Segura added.

The couple, who have two children, also spoke about their relocation from Los Angeles to Austin, Texas, in search of a slower pace and easier travel while touring. “Our lives are very normal, and we’re grounded family people. At the end of the day, we come home, our kids fart on Tom’s head, and I make dinner.”

A CITY with 3,000 sunshine hours a year that is barely visited by Brits is getting its first UK flights in more than a decade.

Launching later this month, Air Zimbabwe will connect the UK to Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe.

The first route takes of on July 22 from London Gatwick, with three flights a week.

It will be the first direct flights to the capital in 14 years, amid plans to open up travel between the UK and Africa.

The route was scrapped back in 2011 due to a financial difficulties at the time.

Fights start from £490 each way, or £675 return.

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While Zimbabwe welcomed 1.78million tourists in 2025, 76 per cent of this was from Africa.

Despite this, the UK is the biggest market for the city when it comes to European arrivals.

Harare is known as the City of Sunshine for its sunny weather all year round thanks to it high altitude.

It is also much better to visit in the autumn and winter, as this is where highs of 30C can be found (compared to the cooler summers of 20C).

The city is also known for its beautiful green spaces, such as Mukuvisi Woodlands where you can everything from zebras and giraffes to wildebeast and impalas.

It also a great jumping off point for going on safari, or visiting Victoria Falls.

Here are some other new flights launching in the UK soon:

GOODBYE boys, Wonderbra icon Eva Herzigova is officially off the market.

The supermodel, 53, married her longtime partner, Gregorio Marsiaj, following a 25-year romance.

Eva, who featured in the famous 1994 Hello Boys campaign for push bras, looked radiant in a flowing white dress as she tied the knot in Turin, Italy, on Saturday.

Joined by their three sons, George, Philipe and Edward, along with a close circle of relatives and friends, Eva and businessman Gregorio exchanged vows at a church, followed by a civil ceremony and an intimate dinner.

The couple first met in 2001 and got engaged in 2017.

Eva was previously married to Bon Jovi drummer Tico Torres in 1996, but the couple divorced two years later.

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She has also been linked to record executive Guy Oseary and model Kelly Rippy.

The model has previously rubbed shoulders with royalty.

In 2017, King Charles opened a pool with supermodel Eva.

Charles hailed the makeover “decidedly splendid” in New Cumnock, Ayrshire.

Eva joined a host of VIPs including Olympic swimmer Duncan Scott and entrepreneur Sir Tom Hunter at the re-launch.

————————————————

Genesis Scottish Open final round

-17 T Kim (Kor); -15 MW Lee (Aus); -13 R MacIntyre (Sco), M Fitzpatrick (Eng), J Keefer (US), K Nakajima (Jpn); -12 M Thorbjornsen (US), R McIlroy (NI); -11 SW Kim (Kor), V Perez (Fra)

Selected others: -9 T Fleetwood (Eng), V Hovland (Nor); -4 J Rahm (Spa), -2 J Thomas (US)

————————————————

Tom Kim’s drought is over. The South Korean shed tears of joy and relief after excelling on a compelling final day at the Genesis Scottish Open to claim his first title in three years.

Kim has endured a form and confidence crisis since his previous victory – as well as plummeting down the world rankings – but served a reminder of his talents with a faultless 64 to finish 17 under at the Renaissance Club.

The 24-year-old has sought counsel from Tiger Woods during the dark times and revealed the 15-time major winner was among the first to congratulate him on this long-awaited victory.

He triumphed by two shots, with Min Woo Lee the runner-up as crowd favourite Bob MacIntyre faltered in pursuit of a second home title, ending four adrift alongside Matt Fitzpatrick.

MacIntyre, Lee and Fitzpatrick had shared the lead after the fog-disrupted third round, but it was Kim who surged from one back for a brilliant win. He was the only player in the field to avoid a bogey in the fourth round.

“I can’t really wrap my mind over it,” said an emotional Kim of his win. “It’s really special and I’m just at a loss for words.

“Obviously I’ve had a tough couple years. I got to taste a lot of that humble pie and I got to really learn about myself and I’m still trying to grow, still trying to learn.

“I’m definitely appreciating this more now than I did a couple years ago, which is really cool. I thought about my family, all the people around my corner that have suffered with me and also celebrated with me and kind of remembering all those people really brought tears to my eyes.

“Obviously on TGL being on Tiger’s team, I’ve been able to ask him questions on certain things. He’s been really helpful a lot of the time. This was my first win in three years, and the first person that texted me was Tiger Woods. Shows you the person he is and how much he cares.”

As well as a winner’s prize of £1.2m, Kim secures a place in next year’s Masters at Augusta National.

Rory McIlroy’s third-round 73 left the world number two with too big a deficit to overcome despite matching Kim’s closing six-under 64, the lowest score of the day.

Americans Michael Thorbjornsen and Johny Keefer, who tied for seventh and third respectively, will make their Open Championship debuts next week, while the other spot at Royal Birkdale goes to Frenchman Victor Perez.

Ten newly identified victims were buried as the more than 8,000 slain Bosnian Muslim men and boys were remembered.

Thousands have gathered in Bosnia and Herzegovina to mark 31 years since the Srebrenica genocide, as leaders and activists worldwide use the anniversary to call on people to fight dehumanisation.

On Saturday, mourners, survivors, foreign dignitaries and religious leaders gathered at the Srebrenica-Potocari Memorial Center to commemorate those who were killed in 1995. People took part in the annual peace march before 10 newly identified victims were buried.

Bosnian Serb forces overran the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995, killing more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys over several days. Srebrenica had been declared a protected “safe area” by the United Nations Security Council two years earlier.

Denis Becirovic, Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, said honouring those who were killed was crucial to maintaining stability.

“If we fail to preserve the truth about our past, we will have neither a present nor a future,” he said.

The Dutch ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Henk van den Dool, said education was key to preventing a repeat of similar atrocities.

“One of the common goals we share with the Srebrenica Memorial Center, with the mothers, and with the survivors is to translate this enduring warning into meaningful action. One of the most meaningful and effective ways to do that is through education,” he said.

Pursuit of justice

Every year on July 11 , newly identified victims are buried at the Srebrenica-Potocari Memorial Center, as investigators continue to search for the remains of people buried in mass graves in surrounding areas.

More than a thousand victims remain missing following the genocide, which is widely recognised as the worst atrocity committed in Europe since the Holocaust during the Second World War.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called the massacre “a crime against humanity”, while the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, posted on X that he was “deeply moved” during his trip to Srebrenica last week.

“Today, as we stop to remember the victims and families who mourn them, we must also commit ourselves to fighting violence and dehumanisation wherever we encounter it and stopping hatred from taking hold,” Khan said.

More than 100,000 people were killed during the Bosnian War between 1992 and 1995. The conflict followed the dissolution of Yugoslavia, triggering a series of ethnic conflicts and wars of independence among the Balkan states that had previously formed a single country.

In recent days, campaigners have drawn comparisons between the Srebrenica genocide and Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, decried that senior Israeli officials are yet to be held legally accountable for their crimes.

“The United Nations this week remembered the genocide in Bosnia – the 8,000+ Muslim men and boys killed in Srebrenica in July 1995. The leaders of the genocide were convicted. The perpetrators of Israel’s genocide in Gaza remain at large,” Roth said on X.

The L.A. Zoo’s elephants are now in Tulsa, and the zoo’s longtime nonprofit partner is now in bankruptcy court.

The litany of woes at the L.A. Zoo grew longer last month as the city’s nonprofit partner, the Greater Los Angeles Zoological Association, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, citing “incessant litigation” from the city of Los Angeles as the cause.

The city sued GLAZA — its partner for more than half a century — in 2024 over a $50 million endowment that each side argued was theirs to steward.

The city won a preliminary injunction in Los Angeles Superior Court that barred GLAZA from keeping the money when its contract with the zoo ended last year. Following the split and lawsuit, GLAZA dwindled in size from 42 full-time employees to just four part-time employees.

Now GLAZA says it owes its creditors, including more than $300,000 that it needs to pay a law firm that has represented the nonprofit in its legal battle with the city.

“The City has designated an army of eight attorneys to overwhelm GLAZA with endless discovery, depositions, and court filings all to run up GLAZA’s legal fees,” the nonprofit said in a statement shared with The Times. “As a result, GLAZA has been left with no options other than to seek protection from the bankruptcy court to ensure the survival of GLAZA and the protection of its donors.”

Following its separation from the city, GLAZA executives hope the nonprofit can work in the animal conservation efforts in Southern California.

On July 1, the City Council approved $250,000 in outside lawyers related to the bankruptcy case.

The zoo is facing headwinds as membership has declined precipitously and facilities have deteriorated, according to an Los Angeles County civil grand jury report.

The city attorney’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment on GLAZA’s bankruptcy.

Pratt’s new frontier

Former mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt was far from Los Angeles as he took a meeting with President Trump in Washington, D.C., a few days ago.

Pratt, who came up short of the Nov. 2 runoff by a few percentage points, met with the president in the Oval Office, posting a photo of the rendezvous to social media Tuesday.

“I will never stop fighting for my community,” he wrote.

Pratt paired the visit with an announcement of a new media endeavor he plans to launch called “WAR.” He said the foundation will fight against political corruption, advocate for transparency in government and “restore common sense.”

The website for the foundation doesn’t have additional details, just a link to contribute and a link to a website selling Pratt merch.

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Pratt also posted a 9-minute video Wednesday calling out California’s election system, claiming that the results of the June 2 primary were skewed by fraud.

Representatives for Pratt’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Phoning it in

After the flag salute and brief comments, L.A. City Council meetings kick off with a public comment period, during which crusading citizens often let loose on city officials as the council members quietly listen, leave the room or chat among themselves.

It’s not always L.A.’s finest hour, as certain commenters often resort to slurs and ad hominem attacks about the council members’ race, ethnicity and even physical appearance.

On July 1, public comment expanded as new state law, SB 707, went into effect, requiring the council to take telephonic public comment.

The council also had to verbally state the amendments they make to motions due to the new law, Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson noted. Historically, the council has affixed amendments to a bulletin board in council chambers.

After frequent speaker Armando Herman used the N-word at the July 1 meeting, Harris-Dawson noted that the state legislature had done nothing about offensive comments at public meetings.

“Our friends in the state legislature made the decision to require us to have telephonic public comment. They did nothing, zero, about what we just heard. Since they want to intervene in our meetings, I’d call on them to do something about what they just heard,” he said.

The council did ban commenters from using the N-word and C-word last year. Speakers who use those words receive a warning and are booted from the meeting if they do it again.

Harris-Dawson said the new state law was “problematic” and noted another issue.

“We can’t verify if calls are bots or foreign agents, which poses a security risk,” he said in a statement to The Times.

State of play

— BOYLE-ING OVER: Mayor Karen Bass, Councilmember Ysabel Jurado and County Supervisor Hilda Solis were roundly booed and heckled by Boyle Heights residents during a town hall Thursday about the Boyle Heights fire. The three officials struggled to speak over the irate audience.

— SOLAR FLARE: Before the Boyle Heights warehouse fire, Lineage representatives lobbied City Hall over the rooftop solar array. The company says it was seeking a safer alternative to rapid shutdown devices.

— FISCAL EDUCATION: The Los Angeles Unified School District is facing “severe” indications it could be insolvent as soon as next year and has 45 days to fix its budget or risk an outside takeover. The Los Angeles County Office of Education has projected a $231 million cash shortfall by 2027.

— HIT THE STREETS: The LAPD is considering shutting down its police academy for part of 2028 to allow hundreds of officers to hit the streets for the Olympics, according to department sources. The move could lead to a drop in police hiring.

— LEGEND GONE: Billy G. Mills, one of the first Black men elected to L.A.’s City Council, died June 27. Mills was a civil rights leader before being elected to the legislative body in 1963, the same year Tom Bradley was elected to be a council member.

— IT TAKES A VILLAGE: Billionaire developer Rick Caruso’s Palisades Village will reopen in August after more than $100 million in renovations following the January 2025 wildfire.

— EVICTION BENEDICTION: Thousands of formerly homeless people whose housing subsidies will expire in December are no longer at risk of eviction, local housing officials announced Thursday. An infusion of new funds approved by Congress this year and a waiver of eligibility procedures have staved off a potential crisis that would have left 4,200 back on the street.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program had no operations this week.
• On the docket next week: The City Council remains on recess until Aug. 4.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

July 10 (Asia Today) — A special counsel team on Thursday sought a 13-year prison term for Han Hak-ja, leader of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, commonly known as the Unification Church, over allegations involving improper ties between religion and politics.

The team led by special counsel Min Joong-ki made the request during the final hearing in Han’s trial at the Seoul Central District Court. Han has been charged with violating the Political Funds Act and other offenses.

The special counsel asked the court to sentence Han to five years in prison on the political funds charge and eight years on the remaining charges.

“Han and others used vast financial resources to unlawfully and improperly use public authority in an effort to expand religious interests and influence and realize the integration of religion and politics,” the special counsel team said.

The team said the alleged crimes “directly violated the spirit of the Constitution and damaged representative democracy.”

“Han and others, as top leaders of a religious organization, privately used donations voluntarily made by believers and improperly colluded with political forces in an attempt to influence South Korea,” the team said.

The special counsel also sought prison terms for other defendants being tried with Han.

For a former chief of staff identified only by the surname Chung, the team requested four years in prison on the political funds charge and six years on the remaining charges.

For Yun Young-ho, former head of the church’s world headquarters, the team sought one year and six months in prison on the political funds charge and two years on the remaining charges. The team requested three years in prison for Yun’s wife, identified only by the surname Lee.

Han is accused of conspiring with Yun and others to deliver 100 million won, about $66,000, in political funds to People Power Party lawmaker Kweon Seong-dong in January 2022.

She is also accused of involvement in delivering gifts to former first lady Kim Keon Hee through Jeon Seong-bae, a religious figure known as Geonjin, while seeking favors related to church affairs in 2022.

Han also faces allegations that she embezzled church funds and ordered Yun to destroy evidence in October 2022 in preparation for a police investigation into allegations that she gambled overseas.

Han arrived at the court at about 9:29 a.m. wearing a black jacket and white pants and using a wheelchair. She did not answer reporters’ questions, including whether she had given gifts to Kim.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260710010003980

A guy who owns a beach resort on the coast of Florida, where hundreds of miles of overdeveloped shores are threatened by increasingly severe storms driven by global warming, is trying to tell Californians how best to manage our coast.

Guess who.

It’s not that we needed the help. If there’s any thought to adding an eighth wonder of the world to the current lineup of seven, I’d nominate the 1,100-mile treasure that kisses Oregon on one end and Mexico on the other. And it’s not by accident that coastal habitats are aggressively protected and most of the shoreline is free of mega resorts and architectural clutter.

A half century ago, Californians rose up against the threat of over-development. By the will of the people, the coast was enshrined in state law as a precious public asset accessible to the many, not a private playground fenced off for the few.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Coastal Act, and just as we begin the party, President Trump and his minions are scheming to pump some crude oil into the punch bowl.

And here’s how:

Going back to the 1970s, under the Coastal Zone Management Act, California has gotten high marks from the feds for the way in which its coastal regulatory agencies work with D.C. to manage federal projects. But now the state is under attack, which could mean that millions in federal dollars will be clawed back and the state’s voice muted.

So what horrible sins have we committed?

Sit down and take a deep breath.

We’re being accused of “environmental extremism.”

It’s just been far too many years of paying attention to water quality and vehicle and industrial emissions and all the rest. Imagine how that comes across to a president who wouldn’t admit to climate change if his putter melted in his hands or Mar-a-Lago became a swim-up hotel.

As penance for our crimes, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (the one who labeled us environmental extremists) ordered the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, to conduct “a full, formal review” of the state’s coastal management program.

“California has repeatedly and unfoundedly obstructed spaceport development,” Lutnick declared, referencing a dispute over how many rockets Elon Musk’s Space X can launch from the U.S. military’s Vandenberg base. (Per the California Coastal Commission, many of the launches are for private interests rather than military purposes, and even the federal government has noted that the thunderous sonic booms take a toll on sea life and humans.)

We’re also allegedly blind to basic economics and the preferences of the Trump administration when it comes to “offshore oil production, maintenance of pipelines and desalination.” And we need to fall into line in “removing regulatory barriers that hinder U.S. technological and economic leadership while responsibly stewarding coastal resources.”

Where to begin?

I thought California had the world’s fourth-largest economy, with technology as a primary driver. In fact, it’s just been reported that we drew 10 times more venture capital than any other state this year, with AI leading the way. If one or two other states matched our output, imagine the boasting Trump could do, legitimately, about the economy.

And while the administration seems intent on tapping more offshore oil, it’s toppling the nation’s offshore wind projects while the planet suffers through blistering, deadly heat waves directly related to greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

If the president’s blowtorch buddies want to call us “environmental extremists” for not burying our heads in the sand, it’s a badge of honor.

And another thing.

If Trump is so intent on keeping the world’s oil supply flowing, maybe he shouldn’t have bungled his way into a senseless war that has handed Iran the keys to the global gas pump, spiking prices for everyone.

By the way, it’s not as if the primary coastal regulatory agency in the state — the California Coastal Commission — has said nothing but “no” over the years to oil projects and desalination plants.

“When you look at the Coastal Act, it doesn’t prohibit offshore oil and gas production and we approved a lot of it,” said Susan Hansch, who retired from a top administrative position in 2021 after 47 years at the Coastal Commission. “It just has to be done correctly.”

The commission has also approved multiple desalination plants, but four years ago rejected one proposed for Huntington Beach, despite support for it from Gov. Gavin Newsom. I thought the rejection was the right call, because the proposal struck me as a private boondoggle, with no designated customer for the water and a slurry of environmental hazards.

A Falcon 9 rocket is launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Jan. 25.

(2nd Lt. Andrew Taller / U.S. Space Force)

Not that the Coastal Commission has been infallible over the years. It has worked many a critic into a lather, with complaints that the agency has stood in the way of housing development during the state’s mounting shortage, and that its permitting process is the equivalent of a years-long root canal.

Former Gov. Jerry Brown, who signed the Coastal Act into law in 1976, once called the commissioners “bureaucratic thugs.”

And Trump has feuded with the agency over, among other things, a 70-foot-tall flagpole erected on his Rancho Palos Verdes golf course without a permit. Last year, Trump envoy Ric Grenell said the Coastal Commission was a “disaster” and must “absolutely be defunded,” calling commissioners unelected and “crazy woke left.”

Getting rid of the commission, he said, “is going to make California better.”

I don’t think so.

Ten years ago, I had the privilege of traveling the length of the state and meeting some of the heroes of the coast going back to the 1960s.

They were there when the devastating Santa Barbara oil spill blackened beaches, turned the shoreline into a wildlife graveyard, and galvanized grassroots defense of the coast.

When plans by PG&E to build a nuclear power plant at heavenly Bodega Head triggered an uprising.

When a massive Sonoma Coast residential development pitch sparked fears that beach access would be lost.

In 1972, ordinary Californians circulated petitions, knocked on doors, and rode bicycles down the coast, rallying support for Proposition 20, which aimed to regulate coastal development. It passed despite a massive opposition campaign from corporate, industrial and real estate interests.

That victory led, four years later, to the Coastal Act and creation of the Coastal Commission, whose job was to balance sensible development, habitat protection and conservation, and equitable public access.

Richard Charter, an Ocean Foundation senior fellow, told me in Bodega a decade ago that the California coast is “a public miracle” that was protected by ordinary people who saw it as “a global treasure.”

The Coastal Act has led to the creation of 2,500 public beach access points in the state, and its greatest achievements include wetlands not plowed, habitats not destroyed, and the preservation of countless mesmerizing vistas where land meets sea and California leaves you in speechless, grateful awe.

At Tuesday’s Coastal Commission meeting, Jennifer Savage of the Surfrider Foundation stepped to the microphone and said to commissioners:

“Surfrider sees this federal review as a politically motivated attempt to strip California of the coastal protections that our communities and our marine ecosystems depend on, and Surfrider stands with you, and we will fight this every step of the way.”

If you’d like to join that fight, you can speak in person or remotely when NOAA hosts public hearings Aug. 10-12 in Santa Monica. You can find more details on the Surfrider Foundation website.

One of the early leaders of the Coastal Commission, the late Peter Douglas, anticipated these trials and uttered a phrase I’ve repeated many times over the years. In the year of the 50th anniversary of the Coastal Act, it’s worth repeating once more, and you should think of it as a a clarion call:

“The coast is never saved,” Douglas said. “It’s always being saved.”

steve.lopez@latimes.com

Victor Wemnanyama, the NBA’s tallest player, inked the third-largest rookie extension in history.

Hours after he told Spurs fans he was “here to stay”, Victor ⁠Wembanyama signed a ⁠multiyear contract extension with San Antonio that ESPN reported is for five years and $252m.

The deal, ⁠which is worth $50.4m per year, is the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) maximum rookie-scale extension and carries a player option ⁠for the fifth season.

“Spurs family, I’m here to stay,” Wembanyama tweeted Friday. “Whatever it takes.”

The Spurs, who did not confirm financial details, published photos and videos of Wembanyama inking his ‌contract.

Wembanyama has been viewed as one of the elite young players in the sport going back before the Spurs selected him No 1 overall in the 2023 NBA Draft.

The 7ft4in (2.24-metre) centre with an 8-ft (2.44-metre) wingspan has averaged 23.4 points, 11 rebounds, 3.5 assists ⁠and 3.5 blocks per game through ⁠three NBA seasons.

The Defensive Player of the Year and a first-time All-NBA first-team selection, Wembanyama finished third in Most Valuable Player (MVP) balloting this season ⁠after putting up career highs of 25.0 points and 11.5 rebounds per game.

He ⁠is a career 34.2% 3-point shooter ⁠who has made 2.2 triples per game, and he’s led the league in blocks in every season since his arrival.

The Spurs fell to ‌the New York Knicks in five games last month in Wembanyama’s first NBA Finals.

The current pieces around ‌him ‌include guards De’Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle, Devin Vassell and Dylan Harper, and the Spurs recently signed veteran forward Tobias Harris.

John H. Rousselot, the conservative Republican who represented part of the San Gabriel Valley in Congress for 14 years, was an officer of the John Birch Society and who tried to buy Charles H. Keating Jr.’s failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Assn., died Sunday. He was 75.

Rousselot, of Mission Viejo, died at Irvine Medical Center of congestive heart failure, said his son, Craig. He said his father had suffered a heart attack a year ago.

A glad-hander and energetic campaigner, Rousselot was controversial and colorful as he surfed the changing waves of political power as public relations expert, legislator or lobbyist.

He first gained office in 1960 when he ousted incumbent Democratic Rep. George Kasem in the 25th District. But he was so outspoken in defending the right-wing Birch Society, which he had just joined, that he failed to win reelection. In 1970, he was returned to Washington for half a dozen two-year terms in the 26th District, which included his native San Marino.

The congressman’s elective status ended in 1982 after redistricting threw him into a new 30th District, stretching from Bell Gardens to Azusa. Too long out of office and tainted by his association with Keating, Rousselot failed in a 1992 comeback campaign for the 25th District.

In Congress, Rousselot became active on the Banking and Currency Committee, and later the Economic and Budget and Ways and Means committees, where he staunchly opposed spending and tax increases, proposed cuts in the food stamp program, and worked for deregulation of the savings and loan industry. He also advocated U.S. military occupation of Cuba two years before the Cuban missile crisis.

As then-Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy and others criticized the Birch Society in the early 1960s, freshman Congressman Rousselot defended the group: “They are calm, firm, dedicated people who are merely trying to inform themselves about communism.”

If Kennedy read the group’s “blue book,” Rousselot told The Times in 1961, he’d know that “one of the main purposes of each chapter is to keep its members and guests who attend fully informed as to the nature, purpose and intent of the Communist conspiracy in this country.”

First turned out of Congress in 1963, Rousselot was named regional director of the Birch Society — heading the group in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Nevada and Idaho from an office in San Marino. He also served as national Birch Society public relations chairman. In both positions, he continued to insist that the organization’s purpose was to educate rather than advocate or indoctrinate.

But Rousselot resigned from the Birch Society with characteristic drama on April 17, 1979, when he was contemplating running for the U.S. Senate [he didn’t], “to demonstrate to the citizens of California that I am my own man, controlled by no organization or individual.” He also said that he had become disillusioned because Birch Society founder Robert Welch had besmirched President Eisenhower as a Communist agent and Winston Churchill as a traitor.

After Rousselot left Congress, he was in the Reagan White House as special assistant for business matters, then served as Western states coordinator for Reagan’s 1984 reelection campaign.

From 1985 to 1988, Rousselot was president of the National Council of Savings Institutions, a Washington-based lobbying group for banks and savings and loans. In addition to deregulation he worked to enable savings institutions to expand their business beyond mortgage lending.

In 1989, after lobbying for Keating, Rousselot was named the final chairman and chief executive of Lincoln Savings and Loan. With four others, he tried to buy the institution shortly before it was shut down by federal regulators who said that its assets were dissipated. Critics alleged that the attempted purchase was a scheme to delay the federal shutdown in the largest thrift collapse in U.S. history.

“I did nothing illegal, improper or unwarranted,” Rousselot told The Times a few years later.

Nevertheless, in 1993 his former association with the scandal-plagued thrift forced Gov. Pete Wilson to withdraw his appointment to the California Board of Prison Terms when legislators refused to confirm him.

John Harbin Rousselot was born Nov. 1, 1927, in San Marino and majored in political science and business administration at Principia College in Elsah, Ill.

In the 1950s, he established a public relations firm in Los Angeles and became president of the California Young Republicans.

From 1958 to 1960, when he resigned to run for Congress, he was national director of public information for the Federal Housing Administration.

Twice divorced, Rousselot is survived by his son, Craig of Irvine; two daughters, Robin Edwards of Lake Forest and Wendy Sirugo of San Dimas; a brother, Norman of Sonora, Texas; and five granddaughters.

A public memorial service will be planned at a later date.

July 10 (UPI) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Friday deported a man who was convicted of repeatedly sexually assaulting a child and ordered removed from the country in 2006.

Tou Lue Vang, who legally entered the United States in 1994, was convicted in 2006 of first-degree criminal sexual conduct for repeatedly sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl over the course of two years.

Vang was ordered to be deported to Laos in October 2006 but because of that country’s limits on how many deportees it accepts he, like many ethnic Laotians and Hmong, was permitted to stay, The New York Times reported.

Having been in the country legally ever since, Vang applied for a pardon during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown last year to prevent himself from being deported — which was granted in June.

“ICE deported Tou Vang, an illegal alien convicted child rapist,” Lauren Bis, acting assistant secretary of homeland security, said in a press release.

“This monster repeatedly sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl,” Bis said.

Vang was convicted repeatedly sexually assaulting the girl between 2002 and 2004, and justified his actions as being “a cultural thing … to marry and have sex with girls as young as 12,” and also suggested that the girl was just as guilty as he was of a crime, ICE said last week.

The Times reported that Vang has not been charged with serious crimes since his conviction and supervised release while awaiting his 2006 deportation.

ICE arrested Vang in December 2025, with plans to deport him, based on his prior conviction, but a Minnesota judge ordered that he be released from custody in February 2026.

Vang’s pardon request, which the Minnesota Clemency Review Commission granted on June 10, could prevent him from being deported, the federal government and legal experts have said.

The State Department said Friday that it had terminated Vang’s legal status in the United States and deported him immediately.

“Americans should never have to live in fear that foreign sex predators — shielded from deportation by their own elected officials — could endanger them or their children,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

“That’s why I terminated his legal status in the United States,” Rubio said. “Vang has now been removed from our country and will never pose a threat to any American ever again.”

July 10 (UPI) — Brazilian labor authorities rescued a 62-year-old woman from conditions they described as analogous to slavery after she spent more than five decades working as an unpaid domestic worker for the same family in the northeastern state of Ceará.

The rescue was carried out by Brazil’s Labor Inspection Office, part of the Ministry of Labor and Employment, after an anonymous complaint came through the government’s hotline for reporting labor abuses.

Labor officials told local media the woman, whose identity was not disclosed, performed household duties and cared for the family’s children. Her daily routine began around 4:30 a.m. as she prepared breakfast and got the children ready for school. She worked for 55 years without receiving a salary.

According to O Globo, the Labor Inspection Office found that the woman began working for the family at age 7 and remained employed continuously across three generations.

Throughout that period, she received no regular wages, had no financial independence and was denied the educational and economic opportunities available to members of the employing family.

Labor inspectors estimated the labor rights owed to the woman exceed 1.5 million Brazilian reais, or about $290,000. The calculation includes unpaid wages, vacation pay, annual bonuses, contributions to Brazil’s severance indemnity fund, overtime and other employment benefits, according to O Dia.

The employers signed a conduct adjustment agreement with the Labor Prosecutor’s Office in an effort to partially compensate the victim. Under the agreement, they committed to paying 50,000 reais, or about $10,000, in severance benefits, purchasing a home worth at least 150,000 reais, or about $29,000, for the worker and covering her social security contributions until retirement., according to Folha de S.Paulo.

The agreement does not fully settle the woman’s labor claims, and she may still seek additional compensation through the courts.

Under a joint decision by oversight agencies and a Brazilian human rights assistance center, the woman will temporarily remain at the family’s home but will no longer perform any work.

Authorities said an immediate separation could cause severe emotional distress because of her long-standing dependency and the abrupt loss of her only source of companionship after more than five decades.

The arrangement is temporary while social workers help her through a gradual process of gaining independence, learning to read and write, rebuilding ties with her biological family and preparing for an autonomous life.

The employers’ legal team challenged the findings authorities issued.

In a statement, the family’s attorneys said there had been no “rescue” and denied any criminal wrongdoing. They argued the decades-long relationship with the woman was based on shared living arrangements, care and mutual affection.

Although forced labor in Brazil has historically been concentrated in rural areas, cases of domestic servitude in urban households highlight what labor authorities describe as a serious structural problem. Labor inspectors reported a 400% increase in inspections involving domestic work in 2025.

The Labor Prosecutor’s Office has found that such cases predominantly involve Black women with limited education who are subjected from childhood to conditions of servitude disguised as “family affection.”

When then England manager Gareth Southgate was asked in 2020 whether there was a chance Haaland might have played for the Three Lions, he shut it down quickly.

“With players like him, they’re quite clear where they want to play,” Southgate said. “He feels that allegiance to the country that he’s playing for now and you’re always very respectful of that.”

Haaland was born in Leeds – where his father Alf-Inge was still based, having just left Leeds United for Manchester City – in 2000.

The family moved to Bryne in Norway three years later following his father’s retirement through injury.

The young Haaland’s talent was spotted early and he quickly moved through the youth teams at Bryne before signing for Molde in 2017, managed by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

He helped turn Haaland into an attacking force and has often spoken highly of his former player, expressing regret that he could not sign him when he became manager at Manchester United.

The young forward caught the eye during his time at Red Bull Salzburg before his spell at Borussia Dortmund – where he formed a close friendship with England’s Jude Bellingham – really announced him on the world stage.

His move to Manchester City came in 2022 – a transfer many felt had been inevitable given his father’s history and his own love of English football.

Yet even with his rapid ascension to stardom, Haaland continues to return to Norway frequently where he owns several properties.

“Despite Haaland’s global superstar status, he remains the exact same guy,” Norwegian football journalist Andreas Korssund told BBC Sport.

“He knows exactly where he comes from and regularly visits his small hometown in Rogaland. He is incredibly proud of his roots and always makes himself available to the Norwegian press when representing his country.”

Haaland has discussed his desire to run a farm in his home country when he retires and can frequently be spotted strolling around Oslo, where he owns an apartment.

He has leaned into Norway’s Viking history and is fiercely proud of representing his country, as illustrated by leading his team-mates in the Viking Row after beating Brazil.

It is that affinity with his heritage that has also led to him sporting his full title of Braut Haaland on the back of his national shirt – Braut is his mother’s maiden name and combining that with his father’s name is a Norwegian tradition.

“Haaland means everything to Norway,” says Korssund.

“He has become an unprecedented superstar in the world’s biggest sport. For a nation of just over 5.5 million people to produce one of the absolute greatest footballers on the planet is immense.”

When you think of beautiful bridges, it’s probably the world-famous ones that spring to mind. Marvels of engineering like San Francisco’s Golden Gate, or the rich history of London Bridge. However, according to Time Out magazine, the ‘most beautiful’ bridge in the world is a small stone arch tucked away in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Stari Most, which translates to ‘Old Bridge’, is located in Mostar, a city that lies on the banks of the Neretva River.

Commissioned by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1557 and completed in 1566, the bridge is made of local limestone and spans the river without using any central pillars.

In 1993, the original bridge was destroyed by shelling in the Bosnian War.

However, UNESCO aided its reconstruction, with divers recovering the original stones from the river and masons using the same 16th-century tools to re-create the structure as closely as possible.

It’s now a UNESCO World Heritage site, and has recently been named as the ‘most beautiful’ bridge in the world by Time Out.

UNESCO describes Stari Most as “a symbol of reconciliation, international co-operation and of the coexistence of diverse cultural, ethnic and religious communities.”

The bridge is visually stunning, standing 27 metres above the emerald green river below.

There is also a long history of daredevils and athletes jumping from the bridge into the water.

The first recorded leap dates back to 1664, according to Bosnian Voyager.

By the 19th century, it was a tourist attraction, with people from all over the continent flocking to the bridge to watch adrenaline seekers hurl themselves into the river.

Since 2016, the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series has transformed Mostar’s bridge into an elite global sporting stage that keeps the tradition alive.

The competition takes place in late July, and spectators line the river to watch world-class divers jump from the bridge.

South Sudan became the world’s newest country in July 2011 after nearly 99 percent of voters chose independence from Sudan.

Fifteen years later, most of the major promises that came with independence remain unfulfilled.

South Sudan remains one of the world’s most fragile states.

Oil finances nearly 90 percent of the government’s revenue, but the country remains wracked by deep inequality and violence: 82 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, and political jostling between rival groups has left the young nation in a perpetual state of conflict.

Elections have never been held since independence, millions remain displaced, and the country’s economy depends on pipelines running through Sudan, the very nation it fought to leave.

‘A failed promise’

Jok Madut Jok, 57, a professor and director of graduate studies at Syracuse University, is from Warrap, South Sudan, and still has family in both rural and urban parts of the country.

Jok says he recalls the joy of the time when South Sudan broke away to establish a new beginning. It was a moment of hope. Today, though, he feels as though he has been denied all that was promised at the time.

“South Sudan at the moment is a failed promise,” he says. “South Sudanese who had lived under brutal regimes in Sudan and had been excluded from money and development programmes, and were victims of security operations in the southern part, had hung their hopes on independence.”

Jok says people are now looking towards possibilities of political transitions to hold their government accountable.

Who controls what in South Sudan?

The country is technically governed by a transitional unity government created under the 2018 peace agreement.

But that peace remains fragile.

Violence continues across Jonglei, Upper Nile, Unity and Equatoria states with clashes involving government forces, opposition fighters and other armed groups.

Elections scheduled several times since independence have again been delayed, with the latest vote planned for late 2026.

Main political and armed groups:

Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)

The ruling party which led the independence movement.

Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO)

Led by Riek Machar, it is part of the unity government. It still maintains armed forces in parts of the country.

South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF)

The national army, formerly known as the SPLA, it is loyal to President Salva Kiir.

White Army

A loose network of armed youth, mainly from the Nuer ethnic group.

National Salvation Front (NAS)

It remains active, mainly in Equatoria province. The NAS never fully joined the peace agreement.

Who runs the government?

Salva Kiir – President since independence.

• Leader of the governing SPLM.
• Supported largely by influential sections of the Dinka, South Sudan’s largest ethnic community.

Riek Machar – Vice President.

• Leader of SPLM-IO.
• Historically backed by many Nuer supporters.
• His rivalry with Kiir triggered the 2013 civil war after political tensions exploded inside the ruling party.

Independence delivered, violence continued

Between 2011 and  2026, according to data compiled by the United States-headquartered Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), there were 13,256 attacks in South Sudan, which means 883 attacks per year on average – or more than two a day.

The majority of the attacks have been led by:

• Various communal and clan-based armed groups. These constituted 6,168, or just over 46 percent, of all attacks.
• The armed forces and police, who were responsible for 3,278 attacks.
• Unidentified armed groups, behind 2,276 attacks.
• Sudan’s People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition, responsible for 900 attacks.
• National Salvation Front, behind 269 attacksForeign actors, behind 154 attacks.
• Others, responsible for the remaining 184 attacks.

Jan Pospisil, 52, a researcher at the Austria-based Peace and Conflict Evidence Platform, recently conducted a survey of more than 22,000 respondents in South Sudan.

Of them, 98 percent said they were proud of being South Sudanese. At the same time, more than 52 percent of respondents said in 2023 that they didn’t feel safe speaking up politically, and in 2025, the results were approximately the same.

Hunger persists after 15 years of violence

Hunger is worsening across South Sudan, where an estimated 7.8 million people are facing crisis levels of food insecurity between April and July 2026, about 280,000 more than projected last year, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.

Of those, about 73,000 people are living in catastrophic conditions, facing starvation, extreme food shortages and a heightened risk of death.

Another 2.5 million are in emergency conditions, while 5.3 million more are struggling to meet daily food needs without exhausting what little they have left.

The nutrition crisis is worsening alongside this.

An estimated 2.2 million children under five now require treatment for acute malnutrition, an increase of about 90,000 cases since the previous assessment.

Another 1.2 million pregnant and breastfeeding women also need urgent nutritional support.

The crisis is being fuelled by conflict, displacement and repeated shocks that have destroyed livelihoods, disrupted markets and cut communities off from aid.

“My family is living in rural areas, some in the cities but have no access to quality healthcare, no clean drinking water, no road infrastructure,” Jok says. “Even if they were to farm and raise cattle, and create their own livelihoods, they usually are cut off from markets and from basic services that are the responsibility of the state, especially a state that extracts public resources from underneath the people.”

“It’s a feeling that people are totally excluded from the gains of independence,” he added. “It verges on criminal neglect.”

Economic inequality

Pospisil says despite the riches of the 150,000 barrels of oil that are extracted, sold and mainly exported every day, broader economic gains are not a reality for most of the public.

In most rankings, South Sudan languishes as the poorest nation in the world.

South Sudan mainly exports crude to China, but also has Chinese and Indian companies invested alongside state-held organisations that own blocks in the oil fields.

Entertainment power couple Margaret Qualley and Jack Antonoff have reportedly gone their separate ways for now.

“The Substance” and “Maid” star Qualley, 31, and Taylor Swift and Lorde collaborator Antonoff, 42, split and are going through a “rocky” time in their relationship, a source confirmed to People on Wednesday. Neither representatives for Qualley nor Antonoff immediately responded on Wednesday to The Times’ request for comment.

Speculation about the pair’s split began late Tuesday, with internet sleuths noting that Qualley — daughter of actor Andie MacDowell and Paul J. Qualley — apparently scrubbed photos featuring the Bleachers frontman from her Instagram page. Qualley in March shared photos from her A-list marriage to Antonoff to promote his upcoming song “Dirty Wedding Dress,” according to a social media page dedicated to the “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” actress. Those intimate black-and-white images are no longer visible on the actor’s page.

Reports of the Qualley-Antonoff split also come less than a week after Antonoff attended Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s lavish, but secretive, wedding bash in New York City sans Qualley. In addition to Antonoff, his fashion designer sister Rachel Antonoff and his ex-girlfriend Lena Dunham, models Gigi Hadid and Karlie Kloss, Sabrina Carpenter, Ashanti and Nelly were also in attendance at the Madison Square Garden spectacular.

Notably, Dunham in her latest memoir “Famesick” — released in April — wrote about Antonoff’s alleged romance with a “teen pop star” during their own romance. Many pop fans suspect the pop star, whom Dunham did not identify — to be “Melodrama” artist Lorde. When the rumors of the relationship publicly surfaced in 2018, Antonoff denied “seeing anyone” and dismissed the chatter as “dumb hetero normative gossip.”

Qualley and Antonoff tied the knot in August 2023, a little over a year after they got engaged in May 2022. Their nuptials at Parker’s Garage on Long Beach Island counted Cara Delevingne, Lana Del Rey, then-item Zoë Kravitz and Channing Tatum and Swift among the attendees.

Qualley and former fun. member Antonoff were first romantically linked in August 2021 when they were spotted kissing while on a date in Brooklyn, People reported. Their relationship gradually entered public consciousness, between Instagram posts, joint appearances at red carpet events and tidbits about their romance in various interviews.

“I am so happy that I found my person,” Qualley told Harpers Bazaar in September 2023. “And it’s real. It’s amazing. It’s the best feeling in the world. I’m so excited and so at ease all at once.”

LEIGH-ANNE Pinnock is pregnant with her third child – five years after she and husband Andre Gray welcomed twin daughters. 

The Little Mix singer, 34, took to social media to confirm the happy news, sharing a sweet post. 

Leigh-Anne wrote: “As one chapter ends, another begins.”

The Don’t Say Love hitmaker and footballer Andre, 34, are fiercely protective of their children and have never shown their faces or revealed their names. 

Earlier this year Leigh-Anne opened up on her decision to keep her daughters out of the public eye. 

She told People: “I remember when they were born, I was going through this online hate thing and really seeing the toxicity of social media.

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“I mean, I probably would’ve still decided to not show their faces anyway, but that just kind of confirmed it for me. I want them to be able to make that decision.

“I want them to be able to [choose] if they want to be famous or not, because once they’re out there, they’re out there.”

Leigh-Anne and Andre tied the knot in 2023 in a beachfront ceremony in Jamaica. 

They got engaged in May during lockdown, with Andre presenting Leigh-Anne with a £40,000 ring.

A year after Andre popped the question they revealed Leigh-Anne was pregnant with twins. 

TAMERA Mowry fans couldn’t believe the star’s real age as she took to social media to mark her birthday.  

She and twin sister Tia are 90s sitcom icons after starring in the series Sister, Sister – which aired on Nickelodeon in the UK from 1994 until 1999. 

Today Tamera shared a clip on TikTok revealing the women are celebrating their 48th birthday, and fans refused to believe it. 

The clip showed her being presented with a cake decorated with ‘3’ and ‘8’ candles, before someone off camera switched the first for a ‘4’. 

After jokingly running away from the cake, Tamera stopped and pulled the candles from the cake before holding them up and smiling at the camera. 

She wrote: “We spend so much time running from our age. Well, this year, I’m dancing with it. 48 and grateful, because every year is a gift not everyone gets to unwrap.”

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Rushing to comment, one fan wrote: “Why did I think she’s actually 38? She looks amazing.”

Another said: “There is no way they’re 48!!!”

Someone else wrote: “Oh baby you look 28.”

And a fourth added: “Excuse me, 48? You don’t look a day over 20.”

It comes after Tia spoke out following long-running rumours of a feud between the two sisters.

Confirming there are issues between them, she told Entertainment Tonight: “Yes, there’s distance.

“But when something is important to you… you will make time for it.

“We’ve made a pact with each other that we’ll reach out once per week, and that’s on Sundays.”

When Barack Obama made history as the first African American president, a dichotomy was born: Would Obama showcase his black heritage too much? Or would he, the son of a white mother, prove not to be “black enough”?

The latest speculation comes from Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson, who implied to Politico that he’s more authentically African American than the president.

“He’s an ‘African’ American. He was, you know, raised white. Many of his formative years were spent in Indonesia. So, for him to, you know, claim that, you know, he identifies with the experience of black Americans, I think, is a bit of a stretch.”

Obama has addressed the concept of blackness before.

“The notion that there’s some authentic way of being black, that if you’re going to be black you have to act a certain way and wear a certain kind of clothes, that has to go,” Obama said in 2014.

Conversely, activist Michael Skolnik started #ObamaAndKids this weekend in honor of Black History Month. The hashtag quickly became a top trending conversation on Twitter.

“This would be the last Black History Month celebration at The White House during the presidency of the first African-American in the history of The United States to hold the highest office in the land,” Skolnik wrote in a Medium blog post.

Obama himself has spoken openly about his race in connection with his presidency. Earlier this month, he talked with Los Angeles Times reporter Christi Parsons about his legacy.

“You’ve got a whole generation of kids where the only president they know … is African-American,” Obama said.

On Sunday, the White House released a video of 106-year-old African American Virginia McLauren meeting the president and First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House in a Black History Month celebration.

And last week, the president made a Black History Month joke in reference to black culture.

We’re nine months out from election day and at the start of official retrospection on the 44th presidency. But judging by the past eight years, and even the past month alone, Obama’s race will likely continue to be a topic of debate and conversation even after the torch is passed.

After 52 years of providing the Inland Empire with mini golf, roller skating and go-karting, Fiesta Village Family Fun Park is shutting down.

The Colton amusement park said in a statement Tuesday that it will remain open to the public for its final days this weekend.

“This decision has not been easy. For decades, Fiesta Village has been a place where families gathered, friendships grew and memories were made,” the company said in the statement.

Owner Michelle O’Brien said that rising operation costs and declining attendance were the main reasons behind the closure.

“It’s been a privilege to be the steward at the park. It’s devastating to have to close it, but you get to a point where there are no other options,” O’Brien said. “We’re so grateful that Fiesta Village carried a place in people’s hearts.”

The park first opened in 1974, with a mini golf course, waterslides and go-karts. O’Brien purchased it in 2002 and has operated it ever since. Under her and her husband Patrick’s ownership, the park added attractions such as the Scrambler and Tilt-a-Whirl, along with laser tag and a roller skating rink.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the theme park industry has struggled to fully rebound. Rising costs and a lack of tourism have made the business increasingly difficult to sustain.

Last year, California’s Great America, a Silicon Valley park operated by Six Flags Entertainment, had to cut its workforce and shorten its season. Even theme park giants such as Disneyland are seeing slight downturns in attendance. Disney previously said its U.S. theme parks saw a 1% drop in attendance compared with the prior year, which the company attributed to “continued softness” in attendance by international visitors. Disneyland’s Anaheim park also recently began offering $71 tickets to draw more local visitors.

For parks like Fiesta Village, the rising cost of essentials such as food ultimately makes survival harder, said Dennis Speigel, president of International Theme Park Services, a consulting firm. He added that competition from nearby parks is also drawing business away. As a Southern California venue, Fiesta Village sits within driving distance of destinations such as Knott’s Berry Farm and Disneyland.

“It’s hard for smaller parks to compete with the big entities that surround them. Particularly now as we continue to see this amazing growth in technology for rides and attractions,” Speigel said. “Big attractions are very expensive propositions for parks to put in, and parks like Fiesta Village can’t keep up with that.”

Given the current economic uncertainty, Speigel said, theme parks will probably see a “flat year” — meaning no major growth or decline industrywide.

After Fiesta Village’s final celebration with the public on Friday and Saturday, the park will host a private event Sunday before shutting down for good. It’s unclear what will happen to the property afterward.

“Thank you for allowing us to be part of your lives and your family traditions,” the company wrote. “We will always cherish the role Fiesta Village has played in bringing people together.”

Times staff writer Samantha Masunaga contributed to this report.

RAPPER Cardi B pays homage to the late Amy Winehouse with a style just like the Brit singer’s — including her trademark beehive.

The US star, 33, sported winged eyeliner, similar to Amy’s signature look, along with a purple, figure-hugging dress to a party at Paris Fashion Week.

Amy also wore a purple frock to the premiere of the film Psychosis in London in 2010.

This month marks 15 years since the Back To Black singer’s death at the age of just 27.

During her career, Amy had a string of showbiz spats, including mocking singer Dido and putting an Alexander McQueen dress on a barbecue after a fall-out.

She also called US rapper Kanye West the C-word on stage at Glastonbury in 2008.

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Now Cardi has revealed her own feuds have cost her lucrative brand deals, following ding-dongs with fellow rappers Nicki Minaj, Latto and BIA.

The New York-born star told her followers on X: “No lie, last year when I went off, I lost about three deals.

“I lost about three deals when I was bugging out and violating, and giving b*****s the f***ing business.”

Paris Fashion Week will continue until tomorrow evening, with a series of A-listers travelling to the French capital for a schedule of high-end events.

Fresh from attending Taylor Swift’s wedding to Travis Kelce in New York on Friday, Jennifer Lopez, 56, was photographed heading to a party on Monday in a halter-neck evening gown.

Meanwhile, singer Sabrina ­Carpenter, 27, wore a white dress to Dior’s haute couture autumn/winter fashion show held on the same evening.