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The U.S. has provided Ukraine, Russia, and Europe with "outlines of a durable and lasting peace," U.S. State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce said on April 17.
The U.S. and Ukraine have signed a memorandum of understanding on a minerals deal that is yet to be finalized, Deputy Prime Minister and Economic Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko said on April 17. White House officials have previously underscored the importance of the deal for progressing with peace talks.
"(U.S.) President (Donald) Trump and the United States want this war to end, and have now presented to all parties the outlines of a durable and lasting peace," Bruce said.
The U.S. has communicated the proposal in Paris with Ukrainian and European officials. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio communicated the same to Russia over a phone call.
"Rubio spoke today with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The Secretary conveyed to his Russian counterpart the same message the U.S. team communicated to the Ukrainian delegation and our European allies in Paris," Bruce said.
The spokesperson said the proposal was welcomed in Paris.
"The encouraging reception in Paris to the U.S. framework shows that peace is possible if all parties commit to reaching an agreement," Bruce said.
The U.S. has led separate talks with Ukraine and Russia in Saudi Arabia to reach a ceasefire. On April 6, Zelensky said Russia is rejecting an unconditional ceasefire because it wants to continue launching missile strikes from the Black Sea.
Moscow has shown signs it is unwilling to move forward on a peace deal with Ukraine. Russian authorities have listed maximalist demands in ceasefire negotiations with Ukraine and the U.S.
Ukraine has already agreed to a U.S.-proposed full 30-day ceasefire, saying on March 11 that Kyiv is ready if Russia also agrees to the terms. So far, Moscow has refused.
The 47th Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF) opened on Thursday, continuing a legacy that dates back to 1935 – making it one of the oldest film festivals in the world. In recent years, the festival has expanded its scope, spotlighting not just feature films but also television series across competition and themed sections. MIFF offers audiences a rich cinematic experience, from time-honored classics to groundbreaking independent projects from around the globe. While the main competition results are under wraps until the winners are announced, here's a look at some standout selections from this year's lineup.
At any film festival, the opening and closing selections tend to draw special attention, and this year is no exception. In honor of the 80th anniversary of victory in World War II, MIFF appropriately opened with a wartime drama: ‘His Name Was Not Listed', a screen adaptation of the novella by celebrated Soviet author Boris Vasilyev.
Vasilyev is best known for his poignant wartime stories, including ‘And the Dawns Here Are Quiet' and ‘Tomorrow Was the War' – which have been adapted for screen numerous times. These two are cemented as Soviet cinema classics. Interestingly, ‘His Name Was Not Listed' had never been made into a film during the Soviet era, although it was staged at Moscow's iconic Lenkom Theatre and later adapted for television. Now, at last, this deeply human story reaches the silver screen.
The film follows young Lieutenant Kolya Pluzhnikov, who arrives at the Brest Fortress on June 21, 1941 – just one day before Nazi Germany launches its surprise invasion of the Soviet Union. The crowded station and bustling crowds offer no hint of the horrors to come. Eager and optimistic, Kolya is still trying to report to his unit when, at 4 a.m., the bombs begin to fall, and war explodes into his life.
The festival closes with ‘What We Wanted to Be', a romantic melodrama from Argentine director Alejandro Agresti. The story centers on a man and woman who meet every Friday at the same café to share who they might've become in a different life. Spanning decades, their imagined selves evolve alongside their real lives, offering a tender meditation on love, dreams, and the quiet power of tradition.
With this year marking eight decades since the defeat of Nazi Germany, MIFF is honoring the occasion with a series of war-themed films. Beyond the premiere of ‘His Name Was Not Listed', the retrospective sections shine a light on both iconic and early-career works by legendary Soviet filmmakers.
Among the most anticipated screenings is Tatyana Lioznova's ‘Seventeen Moments of Spring', a 12-part espionage drama from 1973 that has become a cultural touchstone in Russia. Originally made for television, the series will be shown in its entirety over six days – a rare chance to see it on the big screen. For generations of Russians, its hero isn't just Colonel Maxim Isaev from Yulian Semyonov's novels, but rather his on-screen alias, Otto von Stierlitz. This is a prime example of a screen adaptation eclipsing its literary source.
Set in 1944, the series follows Stierlitz as he works to derail secret peace negotiations between Nazi Germany and the Western Allies – talks that could sideline the USSR in postwar power dynamics. The show's cultural impact was immense, sparking widespread use of its quotes and even inspiring an entire subgenre of dry, absurdist “Stierlitz jokes.”
What's more, the historical premise isn't purely fiction. In 1943, Allen Dulles – then head of the US Office of Strategic Services – stepped up contact with German officials, concerned about how the war would end and what the postwar order might look like. By early 1945, Dulles and SS General Karl Wolff had met twice to discuss Germany's conditional surrender. When Soviet leadership got wind of it, tensions flared between Stalin and Roosevelt. Eventually, on April 29, 1945, the German surrender was signed – with Soviet representatives present, and the process managed by military officers rather than intelligence agents.
MIFF also turns the spotlight on student films by two giants of Russian cinema. The first, ‘There Will Be No Dismissals Today', is a collaboration between Andrei Tarkovsky and Alexander Gordon. The film tells the story of a buried German munitions depot, dormant for 15 years yet still deadly. A team is assigned to disarm the volatile cache, risking their lives to prevent disaster.
Nikita Mikhalkov's student film ‘A Quiet Day at the End of the War' transports viewers to 1944, as the front edges westward. In one village, the fighting has ceased, but peace hasn't yet arrived. Soldier Andrei Komarov and a young Kazakh woman named Adalat discover artwork inside a ruined church, a brief but beautiful reprieve that draws them together. Featuring future Soviet film legends – Lev Durov, Sergey Nikonenko, Natalia Arinbasarova, Alexander Kaidanovsky, Yuri Bogatyrev, and Alexander Porokhovshchikov – the film offers a glimpse of greatness in its early stages.
MIFF's retrospective offerings also include mid-century American masterpieces – films that long ago became cornerstones of global cinema and are always worth revisiting.
Audiences will get to see Charlie Chaplin's final silent films, ‘City Lights' and ‘Modern Times', on the big screen. While talkies had already taken hold in the 1930s, Chaplin remained loyal to silent cinema until his full transition with 1940's ‘The Great Dictator'. ‘City Lights' premiered in 1931, still squarely within the silent era, but by the time ‘Modern Times' debuted in 1936, the writing was on the wall. Though Chaplin penned dialogue for the film, he ultimately decided not to give voice to his Little Tramp – making ‘Modern Times' a poignant farewell to an era.
Billy Wilder's ‘Sunset Boulevard' (1950) adds another layer to this conversation. The noir classic captures the tragedy of faded fame in the dawn of sound cinema. A down-and-out screenwriter stumbles into the reclusive world of a forgotten silent film star, whose delusions of a comeback unravel into heartbreak and madness. It's a haunting meditation on Hollywood's ever-turning wheel.
No MIFF would be complete without its fan-favorite “Wild Nights” section – a showcase for the bold, bizarre, and genre-defying. This program is all about breaking boundaries and challenging audiences.
Among the standouts is the Canadian throwback ‘Vampire Zombies... From Space!', a loving spoof of 1950s sci-fi horror. Set in 1957, it follows a ragtag group trying to foil Dracula's interstellar scheme to turn a sleepy town into his undead army. The film is made even more fun by cameos from cult icons Judith O'Dea (Night of the Living Dead) and Lloyd Kaufman, founder of Troma Entertainment.
South Korean director Min Kyu-dong returns to thrillers after a 20-year detour into romantic comedies. His latest, ‘The Old Woman with the Knife', features a sixty-something hitwoman who takes out society's worst while wrestling with her own past. Min's breakout horror film Memento Mori (1999) marked him as a talent to watch – and now, he's come full circle.
Norwegian director Emilie Blichfeldt makes her feature debut with ‘The Ugly Stepsister', a twisted reimagining of Cinderella from the villain's point of view. Here, stepsister Elvira wages a violent, bloody campaign to become the belle of the ball and seize the legendary glass slipper for herself.
Finally, Argentina's ‘Play Dead' dives deep into classic horror territory, echoing The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes. A young woman wakes up in a basement, injured and surrounded by corpses. Realizing she's been abducted, she fakes death to survive as a horrifying ritual unfolds above.
By Dmitry Kuzmin, Russian movie critic and contributor to one of the country's top streaming services
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A Ukrainian serviceman fires a Caesar self-propelled howitzer towards Russian troops on a front line in Donetsk region, Ukraine, April 18, 2025.Anatolii Stepanov/Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a temporary Easter ceasefire in Ukraine starting Saturday, citing humanitarian reasons, as Russia and Ukraine swapped hundreds of captured soldiers in the largest exchange since Moscow's full-scale invasion started over three years ago.
According to the Kremlin, the ceasefire will last from 6 p.m. Moscow time on Saturday to midnight following Easter Sunday.
“We assume that the Ukrainian side will follow our example. At the same time, our troops must be ready to repel possible violations of the truce and provocations from the enemy, any of its aggressive actions,” Putin said at a meeting with Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, in a video shared by the Kremlin's Press Service.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the ceasefire “another attempt by Putin to play with human lives.” He wrote on X that “air raid alerts are spreading across Ukraine,” and “Shahed drones in our skies reveal Putin's true attitude toward Easter and toward human life.”
The two sides meanwhile exchanged hundreds of POWs on Saturday. Russia's Ministry of Defense said that 246 Russian service members were returned from territory controlled by Kyiv, and that “as a gesture of goodwill” 31 wounded Ukrainian POWs were transferred in exchange for 15 wounded Russian soldiers in need of urgent medical care.
Zelenskyy said that 277 Ukrainian “warriors” have returned home from Russian captivity.
Putin's ceasefire announcement came after U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are “coming to a head” and insisted that neither side is “playing” him in his push to end the grinding three-year war.
Trump spoke shortly after Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the U.S. may “move on” from trying to secure a Russia-Ukraine peace deal if there is no progress in the coming days, after months of efforts have failed to bring an end to the fighting.
In January 2023, Putin had ordered his forces in Ukraine to observe a unilateral, 36-hour cease-fire for Orthodox Christmas. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had stopped short of stating his forces would reject Putin's request, but dismissed the Russian move as playing for time to regroup its invasion forces and prepare additional attacks.
Russia's Defense Ministry said Saturday its forces pushed Ukrainian troops from the village of Oleshnya, one of their last remaining footholds in Russia's Kursk region where the Ukrainians staged a surprise incursion last year.
Zelenskyy wrote on X that Ukrainian forces “continued their activity on the territory of the Kursk region and are holding their positions.”
The Associated Press was unable to immediately verify the claim by Russia.
According to Russian state news agency Tass, Russia is still fighting to push Ukrainian forces out of the village of Gornal, some 7 miles (11 kilometers) south of Oleshnya.
“The Russian military has yet to push the Ukrainian armed forces out of Gornal ... in order to completely liberate the Kursk region. Fierce fighting is underway in the settlement,” the agency reported, citing Russia security agencies.
Russian and North Korean soldiers have nearly deprived Kyiv of a key bargaining chip by retaking most of the region, where Ukrainian troops staged a surprise incursion last year.
In other developments, the Ukrainian air force reported that Russia fired 87 exploding drones and decoys in the latest wave of attacks overnight into Saturday. It said 33 of them were intercepted and another 36 were lost, likely having been electronically jammed.
Russian attacks damaged farms in the Odesa region and sparked fires in the Sumy region overnight, Ukraine's State Emergency Service said Saturday. Fires were contained, and no casualties were reported.
Russia's Ministry of Defense, meanwhile, said its air defense systems shot down two Ukrainian drones overnight into Saturday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a temporary halt in fighting in Ukraine, citing humanitarian reasons, the Kremlin said Saturday.
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MOSCOW, April 19. /TASS/. The US leadership, including President Donald Trump, is aware of the fundamental causes of the conflict in Ukraine. However, a longstanding anti-Russian sentiment - built over many years and decades - hinders their ability to pursue reasonable solutions, Russian Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov told VGTRK interviewer Pavel Zarubin.
"In my view, the leadership of the US administration, including President Donald Trump, understands the root causes of the Ukraine conflict. Yet, an anti-Russian backdrop has been cultivated over recent years and even decades across both America and Europe," Ushakov explained. "This environment prevents many officials - some of whom share our perspective - from advocating for more sensible ideas."
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly voiced his support for resolving the Ukrainian crisis, emphasizing that such a solution must consider Russia's interests and address the root causes of the conflict. According to Putin, only by doing so can lasting peace be achieved - a goal Moscow strongly advocates for.
Earlier, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov disclosed that during a conversation on February 12, Putin briefed President Trump on the importance of tackling the underlying issues fueling the Ukrainian conflict.
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Comedian Tim Dillon isn't expecting a certain member of the British royal family to stream his newly released stand-up special on Netflix.
And he thinks the same logic should apply to Democrats who may fault him and other entertainers for President Donald Trump's return to power.
“You can't go to war with straight white men for four years and then ask why they didn't vote for you,” Dillon told CNN. “That seems crazy. I've made fun of Meghan Markle a lot. I can't then go, ‘Why don't you think Meghan Markle is watching (my special)?' I just think you have to pick your fights in a better way.”
As with much of Dillon's commentary, the provocation was delivered in the style of a punchline — but with a point that matters for both political parties as well as the fast-changing media landscape.
Digital creators like Dillon — irreverent, predominately male and previously politically unclassifiable — emerged as a key force behind Trump's victory. Democrats and Republicans alike have credited these podcasters, YouTubers and self-styled contrarians for driving support for Trump among men, particularly those under 40.
It's not yet clear if the dynamic will hold. Democrats say they're already adapting to address corners of the Internet they have long overlooked, and Republicans concede Trump's singular celebrity may prove challenging to replicate. Within the entertainment industry, opinions are mixed on how this new wave of influencers will wield their clout going forward.
Some have pulled back from partisan politics in the wake of the election while other influential figures, like Barstool's Dave Portnoy, have selectively criticized Trump's performance so far.
Regardless of how the two parties proceed, Dillon predicted: “You're going to see a lot more attention being paid to the Internet.”
Dillon, 40, stands near the center of the political transformation that is taking place. Though openly gay and a resident of deeply blue Los Angeles, he has few allegiances and for years his barbs mocked cultural and political establishments across the spectrum. But as the election neared, his critiques of Democrats, voiced weekly in his long-running podcast, grew increasingly acerbic. Then, less than two weeks before Election Day, he released an 83-minute interview with Trump's running mate JD Vance – an improbable booking that remains surreal, if not absurd, even to Dillon.
“It was actually the goal and why I started comedy — JD Vance,” Dillon said with his characteristically dry delivery. “I knew about him when I started out in 2010 and I had it all plotted out like ‘A Beautiful Mind' on the wall.”
Then, more seriously: “It was kind of fortuitous. We just have this podcast that's big and people listen to it.”
The elevation of comedians as political influencers has been years in the making. Stand-up comics have become some of the country's most recognizable and highest-paid celebrities. The top 10 comedy acts of 2024 grossed nearly $400 million in tickets, up 52 percent from the year before, according to Billboard. Americans spent tens of millions of hours watching their specials on Netflix and other streaming services. Dillon's latest release, “I am Your Mother,” rose to Netflix's coveted Top 10 most-watched list after debuting on Tuesday.
The Trump campaign, more than that of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, appeared attuned to that reality. From sit-downs with Dillon and the comedian Theo Von to appearances with the online pranksters known as the Nelk Boys, podcaster Joe Rogan and Twitch streamer Adin Ross, Trump's team placed calculated bets on an ecosystem of influencers who may not be conventionally political but command attention — and, more crucially, loyalty — from the digital generation.
“Trump understands the two cultural forces that I've seen in my lifetime that have changed the way people have behaved: reality television and social media,” Dillon said. “He understands social media and using it to communicate. Now that we have phones, we're all starring in our own reality television shows. He understands that, and he was able to utilize that understanding to connect with people in a way that Kamala didn't seem to understand. I felt like he just had the upper hand.”
A post-election review of the digital landscape by the progressive media watchdog Media Matters found right-leaning online content has five times as many followers as programs on the left. Former Daily Show Host Trevor Noah is the only left-of-center voice among the top 10 most popular internet shows, the analysis said.
“The Democratic Party lost control of the cultural zeitgeist and the ways in which culture is formed,” said Rob Flaherty, the deputy campaign manager and digital chief for former Vice President Harris. “What you ended up with is an online environment where all the fervor is on the right, and all the people in the middle are seeing is that fervor.”
For his part, Dillon downplayed his role in Trump's victory, and he isn't alone in doing so. Comedian Andrew Schulz, for example, recently asserted that Trump's appearance last year on his popular “Flagrant” podcast made the Republican's supporters “feel more comfortable voicing how they were already going to vote” but didn't alter their ballot.
“Maybe in those situations, he feels a little less radioactive,” Schulz told the Los Angeles Times.
The Trump campaign, though, certainly saw value in these appearances (Trump once appeared three hours late for a campaign event so he could tape his interview with Rogan). Democrats also clearly disagree with Schulz and are now making a push to match the right's digital dominance.
The Democratic National Committee recently announced plans to overhaul its online communications. Already, the party's potential 2028 contenders have made early attempts to mimic Trump's success. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshears launched competing podcasts. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmner recently gabbed on a Detroit Pistons basketball podcast while Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro talked Philadelphia Eagles and Trump with outspoken ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith earlier this year.
Within the Democratic Party, some have begun to explore how to build a podcast ecosystem to rival the MAGA-friendly manosphere. More simply, some say what the party really needs is its own Joe Rogan.
Already, though, Democrats have confronted the challenges of neutralizing the right's digital advantage. A person close to Harris' campaign said several popular online shows turned down offers to interview the Democratic nominee, including Hot Ones and podcasts hosted by the Ringer's Bill Simmons and former NFL stars Travis and Jason Kelce, for fear of alienating Trump supporters in their audience.
“Voters are attuned to when candidates are inauthentic and in 2025 there are very few Democrats who could go in there and hold their own because it's a different part of the internet that Democrats have not lived in,” said Ammar Moussa, a Democratic strategist who oversaw rapid response for the Harris campaign. “I don't think our solution to winning elections is as simple as finding a candidate who can go on the Nelk boys. There are larger issues. But how many Dem operatives are regularly listening to Joe Rogan or Andrew Schlutz or even know who the Nelk boys are?”
Dillon is quick to point out that he also extended an invitation to Vance's Democratic counterpart, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Rogan, Schulz and Von have publicly said they offered Harris interviews as well. Harris instead sat down with Alex Cooper's sex-positive show “Call Her Daddy” and “All the Smoke,” hosted by former NBA stars Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, but mostly focused on rallies and high-stakes television appearances during her short three-month campaign.
“I don't do many interviews, but none of them are super contentious,” Dillon said. “They're all just kind of a conversation. So I don't think I would have been disrespectful in any way.”
But as he eviscerated the Democratic playbook, identity politics and the country's costal elites, Dillon acknowledged why the Harris campaign may have avoided him.
“Yeah, I mean, I think I agree with Vance more than I do with Tim Walz.”
As for his interview with Vance, Dillon said he wished he had pressed the Republican on the outsized influence of tech giants like billionaire Elon Musk in Trump's orbit, which he has since criticized on his show. Dillon has also been bothered by the administration's crackdown on foreign college students involved in campus protests against Israel.
“I'm a free speech guy. I don't love that,” Dillon said. “We always talk about these antisemitic conspiracy theories that run rampant. They're all over the place. I think a great way to feed those theories are things like this — deporting people that have been critical of Israel.”
Alex Bruesewitz, a Trump adviser heavily involved in the campaign's digital strategy, said their approach was simply to find the online shows with the largest audiences outside of conservative media. Initially working off a list of potential podcasts recommended by Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White, the campaign ultimately fielded suggestions from the president's children or other influencers who interviewed Trump.
After each appearance, Bruesewitz, a 28-year-old who served as Trump's Gen Z whisperer and as a liaison between the campaign and online creators, would print out the metrics for Trump to review. “He loved the ratings, and when you showed him that, he would want to do more,” Bruesewitz said.
“It's not something I would recommend for all politicians, but they're going to start doing it anyway,” he added.
What remains to be seen is how these influencers respond as the political world reacts to Trump's successful playbook. One person involved in the entertainment industry called the months since the election a “dissection period” where many comedians are anticipating a surge of invitations and requests from ambitious politicians but are still weighing how much they care to engage, if at all.
For online creators, there may be limited audience payoff in serving as the new political gatekeepers. For instance, Shapiro's appearance on Steven A. Smith's podcast drew just 27,000 views on YouTube — a figure dwarfed by subsequent interviews in the last month with billionaire businessman Mark Cuban and conservative commentator Ben Shapiro.
“The entertainment business wants to make money,” Dillon said. “It doesn't exist to teach people lessons. That's not why it was invented. There was a belief after Trump was elected the first time that the job of the entertainment business was to act as a resistance to Trump, and it proved pretty ineffective. I think what it should be doing is entertaining people. I think that's what it's going to get back to doing. I don't think it's going to effectively marshal any type of political capital.”
In his latest Netflix special — which also cracked the streaming service's Top 10 list — Andrew Schulz made no mention of the presidential race where he briefly held a starring role. But his online show recently hosted Chamath Palihapitiya, the billionaire investor and “All-In” podcast host who has emerged as staunch defender of Trump's tariff policies.
Since speaking to Trump and Vance last year, Von has mostly interviewed other comedians and entertainers, though he did release a two-hour episode with right-wing commentator Candace Owens. Dillon's weekly show has largely reverted to hour-long monologues, aside from a conversation with Steve Bannon, the populist strategist and former Trump adviser.
Conventional Republican figures, so far, have had less luck breaking into these spaces than Trump, even amid a continued dalliance with the alt-right.
“A lot of politicians have come up to me asking me to help them get on the podcast circuit,” said Bruesewitz, “And you have to tell them, ‘They don't really want to talk to you.'”
For now, that's Dillon's position. While he's open to inviting presidential contenders or their running mates on his show down the line, he isn't interested in vetting them for America along the way.
“I find everyone really boring, and the only person I really am interested in hearing from is myself,” Dillon said. “That's why my show is fun for me to do – because I just say my opinion.”
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For hundreds of thousands of people every year who dream of studying or researching in the United States, a student visa is the golden ticket.
Now, for hundreds of people already at US colleges and universities, it is turning into a one-way ticket back to their home countries as President Donald Trump's administration continues an aggressive effort to revoke visas and push academics out of the country – whether voluntarily or in handcuffs.
Visa programs in the US are complicated, with many requirements and conditions, and the State Department says it has broad powers to terminate them.
Coming to the United States for anything but tourism usually means wading through an alphabet soup of visa types – more than two dozen for people who do not intend to become permanent residents of the US.
But only three apply to people from other countries who plan to study in the United States. An F-1 visa is used by students attending an academic institution like a high school or college. The much less common M-1 visa applies to students in a vocational program.
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To accept students with those visas, an educational institution first must be certified by the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit, or ICE, through the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, known as SEVP.
In its disputes with Harvard University, the Trump administration has threatened to decertify the university from SEVP unless it agrees to give the Department of Homeland Security detailed disciplinary records on its international students – part of a broader White House effort to bring elite US colleges into lockstep with its political ideology. If Harvard is dropped from the program, it would not be able to accept students on an F-1 visa, with existing F-1 students traditionally allowed to seek a transfer to another US school.
Additionally, many people with educational plans come to the US on a J-1 “exchange visitor” visa. This path includes not just academic study but also a “cultural component” supervised by a US organization approved by the State Department, a list that includes thousands of educational institutions. Professors, researchers and physicians typically come to the US on a J-1 visa.
Although it comes with more strings attached than the F-1 visa, some students prefer the J-1 because it allows their spouses to work in the US, said Lisa Murray, exchange program director with the non-profit American Immigration Council.
CNN's Jake Tapper reports
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“Many prestigious scholarships, fellowships or grants are specifically tied to J-1 sponsorship,” Murray told CNN.
All three types of educational visas use a government online database called SEVIS – the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System – to allow colleges and universities to provide legally required information to the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security about international students at their institutions. That information includes the student's address and confirmation of their academic work.
“US higher education institutions take the responsibility of enrolling international students and complying with SEVP requirements very seriously and understand the consequences of not doing so,” Fanta Aw, CEO of the non-profit Association of International Educators, said in a statement.
“Institutions have codes of conduct and disciplinary measures in place to address student conduct which may result in terminating a student's SEVIS record as outlined by SEVP, just as there are established grounds for the government or the institution to withdraw its certification.”
While a person's legal status – their ability to remain in the United States – is determined by US Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of the Department of Homeland Security, visas are issued by the State Department and can be revoked for a number of reasons, including violating laws and providing false information on an application. The State Department's Foreign Affairs Manual makes clear a visa holder does not have to be formally charged with any crime before a visa can be terminated.
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“The Department may revoke a visa when it receives derogatory information directly from another US Government agency, including a member of the intelligence or law enforcement community,” the manual says.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has terminated hundreds of visas under a rarely used provision that allows for revocation if a person's presence in the US “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
In the move's wake seems to be a two-tiered system to get affected students to quickly leave the country. First, the State Department revokes a visa, then ICE tells the student to leave immediately or, in at least one case, finds and detains them.
Tufts University doctoral candidate Rümeysa Öztürk was confronted last month by federal agents on a street in Somerville, Massachusetts, and handcuffed as she shrieked in fear and confusion, as seen in surveillance video viewed around the world. Though Öztürk's F-1 visa had been revoked four days earlier, she hadn't gotten notice of it before her arrest, says a petition filed by her lawyers in federal court in Boston challenging the legality of her detention.
Öztürk was “engaged in activities in support of Hamas,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson has said, without specifying the alleged activities. Her lawyers say she is unfairly being punished for speaking out in favor of Palestinian rights.
Many foreign students now targeted for deportation say they have done nothing criminal or controversial in the US other than publicly support the Palestinian cause in the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.
And removal orders for students have not just affected visa holders. Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Madawi – pro-Palestinian activists at Columbia University – are now fighting deportation after the State Department ordered revocation of their permanent legal resident status, commonly known as a “green card,” and arrested them in March and April.
More than 100 international students who have had their visas revoked claim the government is “stripping them of their ability to pursue their studies and maintain employment in the United States and risking their arrest, detention, and deportation,” a lawsuit filed on their behalf in federal court in Georgia states.
Some of the students targeted never were protesters and or charged with a crime, plaintiff's attorney Dustin Baxter said.
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“Not only would they revoke the person's student visa – even if there was no conviction, if there was just an arrest, and sometimes there wasn't even an arrest, there was just an encounter and maybe a ticket – they would revoke the student visa,” Baxter said.
Some foreign students say the first notice they received about their visa revocation was not from ICE but their school. Meanwhile, many universities got no formal notice of their students' visa revocations and found out only by seeing a student's name in government records, school officials say.
After four students and two recent graduates of Stanford University in California had their student visas rescinded, the “University learned of the revocations during a routine check of the SEVIS database,” it said in a statement on April 4.
That marks a major change from the way that system historically has been used, an immigration attorney told CNN.
“Up until Trump took office, it was really up to the designated school officers to initiate that revocation in SEVIS,” said Jeff Joseph, president-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “What we're seeing now is that ICE is doing it themselves.”
Since Trump's second term began, the administration has put out warnings that the government has its eyes on people living in the US on visas.
“US visa screening does not stop after a visa is issued,” the State Department said in March in a Facebook post. “We continuously check visa holders to ensure they follow all US laws and immigration rules – and we will revoke their visas and deport them if they don't.”
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Traditionally, the expiration of an exchange visitor visa does not mean a person is immediately considered to be in the country illegally. In fact, the State Department's website advises J-1 visa holders, “If your visa has expired and you do not plan to travel outside of the US, you do not need to renew the visa.” ICE tells F-1 visa holders, “You can stay in the United States on an expired F-1 visa as long as you maintain your student status.”
But a number of students who have been told via email by the Department of Homeland Security their visas were revoked are getting the message they must “self-deport” within seven days if they want to avoid being arrested.
“Do not attempt to remain in the United States. The federal government will find you,” one such email says, according to Boston immigration attorney Nicole Micheroni, who said she received the message apparently intended for a client.
While Rubio has publicly touted efforts to revoke student visas, the State Department has been tight-lipped about individual decisions.
“Due to privacy considerations, and visa confidentiality, we generally will not comment on Department actions with respect to specific cases,” an agency spokesperson told CNN in response to questions about several cases.
Before a person in ICE custody can be deported, several steps can be taken, including exercising the right in many cases to petition the Board of Immigration Appeals. But the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 2024 that visa revocations are almost never appealable.
“Congress granted the Secretary (of State) broad authority to revoke an approved visa petition ‘at any time, for what he deems to be good and sufficient cause,'” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote.
A student visa holder “who violates a term or condition” of their legal status cannot apply for another visa until being out of the country for at least five years, according to State Department guidelines.
Hundreds of thousands of new student visas are approved every year, according to the State Department, many of them for people extending existing visas or changing to a different type of visa as their educational status changes.
Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a nephrology specialist and an associate professor at Brown University, was deported in March after ICE said she returned to the US from a trip to her native Iran, where she attended the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Alawieh originally came to the US on a J-1 visa to study at three American universities over six years but changed to an H-1B visa for skilled workers when she took the position at Brown, according to a court filing by her lawyers.
The total number of student visas issued peaked in 2015, when nearly 1 million visas were approved. The approvals for F-1 visas dropped 27% the following year, according to State Department figures, then barely cleared six figures in 2020, when Covid travel restrictions and a temporary suspension of processing at embassies and consulates sent the numbers plummeting.
Student visa approvals have returned to pre-Covid levels, but 2024 figures were still less than three-quarters of the 2015 record. Hundreds of institutions of higher education cited “social and political environment” in the US, as well as “feeling unwelcome,” as factors in declining international student enrollment during the first Trump administration, the non-profit Institute of International Education found.
Trump's tone on international students has changed dramatically since the earliest days of his presidential ambitions.
“When foreigners attend our great colleges & want to stay in the US, they should not be thrown out of our country,” Trump tweeted in August 2015, two months after launching his first campaign with a famous escalator ride at Trump Tower.
A decade later, his administration has canceled more than 1,000 scholars' visas – and counting.
CNN's Gloria Pazmino and Rafael Romo contributed to this report.
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Appraisal of international public affairs leaders warned companies against aligning with ‘polarizing' Trump ally
Associating with the Donald Trump administration's multibillionaire adviser Elon Musk and misusing artificial intelligence are among the most surefire ways for companies to damage their brands, a new survey of more than 100 international public affairs leaders found.
Those findings stem from an appraisal conducted by the Global Risk Advisory Council, which was chaired by the head of the US Small Business Administration during Joe Biden's presidency, Isabel Guzman.
In a statement, Brett Bruen of the Global Situation Room, the Washington DC-based public affairs firm that commissioned the survey, said the council's “reputation risk index” contains an “unambiguous warning” for chief executive officers. “If you squander stakeholder and consumer goodwill on these issues, it won't be coming back anytime soon,” said Bruen, before calling on companies to “slow down” and “make a distinction between transitory and tectonic transitions”.
Nearly 30% of a 117-member group hailing from 17 different countries and 58 industries – among them former heads of state and US officials – indicated that aligning oneself with Musk, or being targeted by him, generated the strongest likelihood possible of being thrust under heightened scrutiny.
The world's richest person – whose holdings include the aerospace company SpaceX, the electrical vehicle manufacturer Tesla and the social media platform X – donated part of his wealth to Trump's successful run for a second presidency in November. After Trump returned to the Oval Office in January, Musk has overseen brutal federal budget and staffing cuts overseen by the president's so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), giving him what Guzman has described as a “controversial omnipresence in the media landscape”.
That observation falls in line with some public opinion polling that has suggested strong disapproval of the work Musk has done for Trump. A Quinnipiac University survey released in March which showed 60% of voters look down on the way that the businessman and Doge “are dealing with workers employed by the federal government”. Stock in Tesla slumped amid the backlash. And there were subsequently reports that Musk would gradually shift away from his prominent place within the Trump administration.
“The impact of association with influential figures in today's heavily divided environment cannot be understated, especially with a deeply polarizing leader like … Musk,” Guzman wrote in a summary of the index's findings.
Yet an even greater threat to brands were earning stories that feature “creating deepfakes, misinformation, biased decision-making or unethical applications that cause harm or manipulate public perception”, the survey said. Attracting that kind of coverage was reportedly viewed “as the most likely to gain negative online news attention”, the survey added.
An unnamed council member reportedly said: “AI, if not understood or managed in companies, can have an incredible trickle-down effect that may not be reversible.” One of the group's experts noted that organizations these days need to regard AI policies as equally standard to those that account for more mundane aspects of their operations.
Rolling back diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives aiming “to ensure fair treatment and full participation for all individuals” was labeled brands' third top risk. The Trump administration has aggressively moved to eliminate such measures within the government, military and beyond, including at Harvard, where the White House recently axed more than $2bn in federal research funding after the university refused to end DEI programs, one of several demands from the president.
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Anticompetitive practices and facing allegations of defamation round out the top five reputational risks flagged by the first edition of a survey planned for quarterly publication.
“This data is not just numbers; it indicates the complex communications challenges facing organizations constantly,” wrote Guzman, adding the committee's members suspect that reputational threats are bound to only escalate in the short term.
Other members of the council that produced the survey include Iceland's former foreign affairs minister Thórdís Kolbrún Reykfjord Gylfadóttir; Bank of Ireland public affairs head Paul O'Brien; DoorDash's global head of public affairs Taylor Bennett; American Association of Exporters and Importers president Eugene Laney; and Maria Toler, the founder of SteelSky Ventures, a venture capital fund focused on women's healthcare.
The Power Within: The Kyiv Independent's first-ever magazine. Be among the first to get it.
U.S. Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, a pro-Ukraine Republican representing Pennsylvania, visited Ukrainian troops near the front line on April 18, following his meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv.
"These are amazing soldiers, the men and women of the Ukrainian military, much like the men and women of the U.S. military, have this amazing fighting spirit. They're fighting for their democracy, they're fighting for the freedom – all of us in America need to stand behind them," Fitzpatrick said in a video address filmed on the front line, published on his Facebook account.
"I always have and always will have their back. I encourage all my colleagues in Congress to come here."
Fitzpatrick's visit comes as Washington signaled that it was ready to cease its mediation efforts to end Russia's war against Ukraine if one of the sides "makes it difficult."
In a post shared on Facebook, Fitzpatrick published another video, showing him signing an artillery shell with a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“It was my profound honor to deliver a very ‘personal' message to Vladimir Putin today, from the front lines of the war near the Russian border, on behalf of our PA-1 community,” Fitzpatrick wrote.
He said he had spent several days on the ground, visiting artillery units of the National Guard and the drone operators from the Third Assault Brigade, who he praised for "completely changing warfare - not just here but across the globe."
Fitzpatrick said that during the visit, the group was shelled near the Russian border, tracked by Russian drones, and forced to carry out an emergency evacuation from the area.
According to Fitzpatrick, the territories previously occupied by Russian forces were "completely burned down."
“That's what they do. They overwhelm you with bodies, overwhelm you with artillery with not a lot of thought behind it,” he said.
Earlier on April 17, Fitzpatrick met with President Volodymyr Zelensky, during which the two discussed U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine, the proposed full and unconditional ceasefire, and broader efforts to achieve what Zelensky described as “a dignified and lasting peace.”
Zelensky praised Fitzpatrick's commitment, particularly his decision to meet with Ukrainian soldiers near the front. “This is very valuable. Thank you for your support!” Zelensky said.
Fitzpatrick serves as the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Energy, the Environment, and Cyber.
Peer-reviewed study's findings raises fresh question on the toxic substances' impact on fertility
Microplastics have been found for the first time in human ovary follicular fluid, raising a new round of questions about the ubiquitous and toxic substances' potential impact on women's fertility.
The new peer-reviewed research published in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety checked for microplastics in the follicular fluid of 18 women undergoing assisted reproductive treatment at a fertility clinic in Salerno, Italy, and detected them in 14.
Follicular fluid provides essential nutrients and biochemical signals for developing eggs. Contaminating that process with bits of plastic quite likely has implications for fertility, hormonal balance and overall reproductive health, the authors wrote.
The findings represent a major step toward figuring out how and why microplastics impact women's reproductive health, but are also “very alarming”, Luigi Montano, a researcher at the University of Rome and study lead author, said.
“This discovery should serve as an important warning signal about the invasiveness of these emerging contaminants in the female reproductive system,” the study states.
From the top of Mt Everest to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, microplastics and smaller nanoplastics have been detected throughout the environment. Food is thought to be a main exposure route: recent studies found them in all meat and produce products tested.
Microplastics are particularly dangerous because they can contain any number of 16,000 plastic chemicals. That includes highly toxic compounds like PFAS, bisphenol and phthalates that are linked to cancer, neurotoxicity, hormone disruption or developmental toxicity.
Microplastics have been found throughout the human body and can cross the brain and placental barriers.
Montano's latest paper is part of a larger project he's leading for which he has also detected microplastics in human urine and semen, and examines the impacts on fertility. He said he suspects microplastics are among chemicals driving plummeting sperm counts and a drop in overall sperm quality.
“We have proven this decline, especially in areas where pollution is bad,” Montano said.
Though men are more susceptible to the substance's toxic effects, he added, women are also possibly impacted. Animal research has linked the presence of microplastics to ovarian dysfunction and health problems, like reduced oocyte maturation, and a lower capacity for fertilization. Another study on mice showed alterations to ovarian tissue.
The paper notes a “possible presence of correlation between the concentration of microplastics” and reproductive health in the women who participated in the new study.
Montano added that the bisphenol, phthalates, PFAS and other highly toxic chemicals that use microplastics as a “trojan horse” to get into the body, and into the ovaries, are “very dangerous”. The chemicals are already well-known for disrupting hormones and harming women's reproductive health.
The follicular fluid paper offers a “very important finding”, said Xiaozhong Yu, a University of New Mexico microplastics researcher, but he added that more work is needed to determine the dose and level of exposure at which adverse effects start to happen.
“This is the work in the next phase – we need to quantify,” Yu said. His team is also attempting to answer some of those questions with broader epidemiological research.
Montano's team is doing similar work, and he's spearheading research that is trying to determine how much reducing the use of plastic in the kitchen and eating an organic diet, will reduce the level of microplastics in the body.
The substances' ubiquity makes it difficult to avoid, but reducing the amount of plastic used in the kitchen – from packaging to storage to utensils – can likely reduce exposures. Pesticides can contain microplastics, or in some cases are a form of microplastics, so eating organic may help.
Experts also advise that people avoid heating plastic, or putting hot food and liquid in plastic.
Single-use paper coffee cups, for example, can shed trillions of bits of plastic when hot liquid is added. Similarly, tea bags can release billions of particles, and microwavable plastic is also a problem. Plastic utensils that briefly come into contact with hot pans can also leach chemicals, and wood and stainless steel alternatives are better.
The world is growing nervous about U.S. assets and for good reason.
Over the past 15 years, money from around the world has poured into U.S. stocks and U.S. bonds. That has led to a dramatically unbalanced situation in which nearly everyone everywhere has a financial stake, direct or indirect, in what happens in the United States, while the U.S. has only a passing interest in what happens elsewhere.
Unless you're a market junkie, you may not realize how dramatic this shift has been. The numbers, though, tell a striking story, particularly in the case of U.S. stocks.
Back in 2010, U.S. stocks made up 48 per cent of the MSCI World stock market index – a hefty but not overwhelming share of the global action.
Now, the U.S. share of that benchmark has surged to around 72 per cent.
In practical terms, that means anyone who buys a global stock market index fund is really buying a U.S. fund in disguise. From an investor's perspective, the world outside the U.S. has dwindled to little more than an afterthought.
Is this a great idea? Probably not.
The risks of betting so much of the world's wealth on a single country are surging now that Washington is in the hands of incompetents. Donald Trump's on-again, off-again tariffs underline how incoherent his economic agenda is. Meanwhile, the enormous U.S. budget deficit continues to swell on his watch, raising concerns about how much longer the rest of the world will be willing to finance Americans' extravagance.
The foreign-exchange market is already registering its concerns. The U.S. dollar has lost about 8 per cent of its value against other major currencies since Mr. Trump was inaugurated.
This is an extremely unusual development. People usually flock to the safety of the greenback in times of economic tension.
Not this time, though. Despite all the international friction over trade and rising yields on U.S. government bonds – both things that would normally be expected to propel the U.S. dollar higher – investors are headed for the door.
Many expect this exodus to continue. In the most recent edition of Bank of America's widely followed Global Fund Manager Survey, a net 61 per cent of big investors said they expected the U.S. dollar to depreciate over the next 12 months. That is the most bearish that large money managers have been on the greenback since 2006.
The darkening sentiment seems to be going hand-in-hand with fading confidence in the administration. In just three months, Mr. Trump has managed to trash much of the credibility that the U.S. has spent decades building up. As many commenters have observed, his country is starting to resemble a banana republic. Out-of-control leader? Check. Fraying rule of law? Check. Precarious financial situation? Double check.
The U.S. budget deficit is expected to surpass 6 per cent of gross domestic product this year. Budget gaps of that size used to occur only during emergencies such as wars. Now they are occurring in peacetime and with no end in sight.
If the Republican majority in Congress continues on its current course, Washington's deficits over the next decade will swell by trillions of dollars and the accumulated debt of the U.S. will climb to historic heights when measured against the size of the country's economy.
The prospect of runaway deficits is already undermining the greenback's privileged position as the globe's ultimate safe asset. Recent market upheavals suggest that “investors [have] started to question the role of the dollar as the reserve currency,” according to a note this week from Zhengyang Jiang, a finance professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School, and several colleagues.
The growing doubts around the greenback mean that foreign investors are likely to demand higher yields on U.S. Treasury bonds as compensation for the increasing risk of holding U.S.-dollar assets. This is not good for U.S. equity prices because it makes bonds a more attractive alternative to stocks.
Unfortunately, Washington's other option – cutting its deficit to restore faith in the greenback – doesn't bode well for Wall Street, either. Any attempt to reign in the deficit is likely to result in lower corporate profits and thus lower stock prices.
What should investors take away from all this? One useful idea is to make sure your portfolio is not betting too much on an increasingly fragile-looking U.S. economy.
“Late last year, we suggested investors should begin diversifying away from the U.S.,” Beata Manthey, an equity strategist with Citigroup, wrote in a note this week. “Recent developments have reinforced this view.”
She argues that the U.S. is no longer the only game in town. Tariff frictions, the rise of China as a developer of artificial intelligence and Europe's new willingness to spend on defence all suggest that investors may want to start looking for growth elsewhere.
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MOSCOW, April 19. /TASS/. Iran does not intend to establish contacts with Syria's transitional government until it ensures security in the country, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said.
"Iran is not engaging with the current Syrian government. We have no contacts and we are not in a hurry to establish them. <...> We are not taking any measures against it (the new transitional government - TASS). We are just waiting for them to complete their work to ensure security, stability and to establish an inclusive legitimate government that includes all ethnic groups," he told RT in an interview.
According to the top Iranian diplomat, the Syrian issue was raised during his meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov. Both Iran and Russia are extremely concerned about the situation in Syria, and both sides are interested in ensuring stability and security in the region, Araghchi added.
WASHINGTON, April 19. /TASS/. The current US option for a settlement in Ukraine ‘would be hard for Vladimir Zelensky to swallow,' The Washington Post columnist David Ignatius wrote.
"The current [US presidential special envoy Steve] Witkoff package would be hard for <…> Vladimir Zelensky to swallow. But the dealbreaker might be that it doesn't seem to include US-backed security guarantees. Instead, Ukraine would apparently be left to fend for itself with assistance from European nations, but probably without the US ‘backstop'," the article said.
"European officials have told me that without American help, their military and intelligence support won't be sufficient to protect Ukraine after a peace agreement. The Europeans don't have enough troops or modern weapons to deter an all-out Russian attack. They lack the command-and-control systems needed to monitor a ceasefire and coordinate a response," Ignatius pointed out.
According to him, the toughest problem for Europe is insufficient intelligence capabilities. "Kiev last month managed to survive a six-day cutoff in US intelligence support, intended to squeeze concessions from Zelensky. But if it had gone on another week, Ukrainian officials are said to believe the consequences would have been disastrous," the article emphasized.
Earlier, Bloomberg reported, citing sources, that the US authorities are ready to recognize Crimea as Russian territory as part of the peace agreement between Moscow and Kiev. According to the agency, such a move shows US President Donald Trump's desire to achieve a ceasefire and settlement of the conflict in Ukraine. The final decision has not been made yet.
The news agency also emphasized that on Thursday, Washington presented its allies in Paris with proposals for a Ukrainian settlement. Among them are the easing of sanctions against Russia and the refusal to discuss Kiev's membership in NATO. In addition, the US draft implies that all territories liberated by Russia will remain under Russian control. Discussion of these plans will continue next week in London.
This blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here:
Russian president Vladimir Putin on Saturday announced an Easter truce in the conflict in Ukraine starting this evening and lasting till midnight on Sunday.
“Today from 1800 (1500 GMT) to midnight Sunday (2100 GMT Sunday), the Russian side announces an Easter truce,” Putin said in televised comments, while speaking to Russian chief of staff Valery Gerasimov, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
It is approaching 8pm in Kyiv and Moscow. This blog will be closing shortly. You can keep up to date on the Guardian's Russia-Ukraine coverage here.
Here is a summary of the updates from today's live blog:
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a unilateral 30-hour Easter ceasefire in Ukraine on Saturday, after Washington said it could abandon peace talks within days unless the Moscow and Kyiv show they are ready to stop the war. According to the Kremlin, the ceasefire will last from 6 p.m. Moscow time (1500 GMT) on Saturday to midnight (2100 GMT) following Easter Sunday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the ceasefire “another attempt by Putin to play with human lives.” He wrote on X that “air raid alerts are spreading across Ukraine,” and “Shahed drones in our skies reveal Putin's true attitude toward Easter and toward human life.”
Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said that Kyiv had in March “agreed unconditionally to the U.S. proposal of a full interim ceasefire for 30 days,” which Russia rejected. “Putin has now made statements about his alleged readiness for a ceasefire. 30 hours instead of 30 days,” Sybiha continued, writing on X. “Unfortunately, we have had a long history of his statements not matching his actions.”
Ukraine and Russia conducted a swap of more than 500 prisoners of war on Saturday, the latest in a series of exchanges since Russia launched a full-scale invasion more than three years ago. Zelenskiy, in a post on the Telegram messaging app, said 277 Ukrainian service personnel had returned home from Russian captivity. Russia's Defence Ministry said 246 servicemen had been handed over by Kyiv. It said a further 31 injured prisoners of war had been handed over to Ukraine and 15 of its own wounded servicemen had also been returned by Kyiv.
Moscow's troops have driven out Ukrainian forces from nearly all of Russia's western Kursk region, Russia's military chief Valery Gerasimov said. “The bulk of the area where the invasion took place has now been cleared,” Gerasimov told Putin in a televised meeting. “It's 1,260 square km, 99.5%.”
Posting on X on Saturday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said “our forces continued their activity on the territory of the Kursk region and are holding their positions”. He added: “In the Belgorod region, our warriors have advanced and expanded our zone of control.”
Russian troops are “solidifying their presence” in the village of Kalynove in the Donetsk region, the Kyiv Independent reported, citing the DeepState military blog, which is considered close to Ukraine's army. The publication reports, sourcing DeepState, that Russian forces are deploying infantry, and establishing logistical routes and communication lines in Kalynove.
The US is prepared to recognise Russian control of the Ukrainian region of Crimea as part of a broader peace agreement between Moscow and Kyiv, Bloomberg News has reported, citing people familiar with the matter. According to Bloomberg, the people said a final decision on the matter had not yet been taken, and the White House and state department did not respond to a request for comment.
US congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, a pro-Ukraine Republican representing Pennsylvania, signed an artillery shell with a message intended for Vladimir Putin during a visit with Ukrainian troops yesterday after a meeting with president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Fitzpatrick was filmed signing an artillery shell with a message that read: “To: Putin, From: PA-1. #PeaceThroughStrength.”
Australia will use “whatever avenues” it can to help Melbourne man Oscar Jenkins, who faces a 15-year jail term in Russia for fighting with Ukrainian troops. The prime minister said on Saturday that the government would “continue to make representations to the reprehensible regime of Vladimir Putin” to release Jenkins, 33, a former teacher who fought with Ukraine's armed forces against Russia's invasion.
Last weekend, Alla Shyrshonkova got on the 62 bus on a journey to her cottage near the Ukrainian city of Sumy. It was a warm spring day. “I thought I'd sit with friends, have some tea. Birds were singing. The weather was beautiful. It was so nice,” she recalled.
“The bus was packed. There wasn't a single free seat. People were standing. Some were going to church for Palm Sunday. There were families with children.”
As she reached the city centre she heard a loud bang. Two minutes later – as the bus made its way down Petropavlivska street – there was a second massive explosion. “The blast was in front of me, so I didn't see it. I only heard it. I was sitting behind the driver, with my back to him. When I heard the noise, I covered my head with my hands and ducked.”
After that, she said, “rocks, glass and everything went flying”. Shyrshonkova lifted her head. Blood was gushing “like a fountain” from her arm. “I saw cars on fire and smoke. People were lying at my feet. I said to them: ‘Get up, get up.' They were silent.”
A conductor called the name of the driver – “Kolya” – but there was no reply. Passengers tried to climb out of a window. Eventually, a teenage boy opened a door and she staggered out.
The double strike on Sumy was the bloodiest single moment this year in Russia's murderous war against Ukraine. The Iskander ballistic missiles carried deadly cluster of munitions which released a wave of shrapnel. Thirty-five people were killed.
Read the full story here:
Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said Kyiv remains committed to the 30-day ceasefire agreement. In a post on X, he urged countries to remain “vigilant” and ensure that Russian forces also uphold the truce.
Putin has now made statements about his alleged readiness for a cease-fire. 30 hours instead of 30 days. Unfortunately, we have had a long history of his statements not matching his actions. We know his words cannot be trusted and we will look at actions, not words.
Russia can agree at any time to the proposal for a full and unconditional 30-day ceasefire, which has been on the table since March.
We want to see Russian forces actually cease fire in all directions. We also urge all of our partners and the international community to be vigilant. Only actions, not words, reveal the truth: this war began and continues only because of Russia.
The Guardian's Luke Harding reports on Putin's announcement of a temporary Easter ceasefire in Ukraine:
Vladimir Putin has announced an “Easter Truce”, saying that Russian forces will stop combat operations from 6pm Moscow time on Saturday until midnight on Sunday.
In a surprise move, Russia's president said he was ordering a temporary halt to the fighting out of “humanitarian considerations”. He said he expected Ukraine to follow suit and said this would be a test of whether the “regime” in Kyiv was interested in peace.
Putin's made his remarks in a meeting with Russia's commander-in-chief Valery Gerasimov, which was broadcast on state television. Ukrainians reacted sceptically, pointing out the announcement was made at the same time as an air raid alert sounded across the Kyiv region.
Russia has broken numerous ceasefire since its 2014 covert invasion of eastern Ukraine. Unlike Ukraine, it has refused to implement a 30-day pause in fighting proposed more than a month ago by the Trump administration.
Speaking on Saturday, Putin said Kyiv was guilty of violating a deal “100 times” to refrain from attacking Russian energy infrastructure. He commanded Gerasimov to prepare an “immediate response” if this were to happen again.
Read the full story here:
Ukraine and Russia conducted a swap of more than 500 prisoners of war, the latest in a series of exchanges since Russia launched a full-scale invasion more than three years ago.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in a post on the Telegram messaging app, said 277 Ukrainian service personnel had returned home from Russian captivity. He thanked the UAE for helping with the mediation of the swap and wrote on X:
In total, since the beginning of the full-scale war, 4,552 people—both warriors and civilians—have been successfully brought back home from Russian imprisonment.
We remember all those who remain in captivity. We are searching for everyone who could be there. We must bring them all home.
Russia's Defence Ministry said 246 servicemen had been handed over by Kyiv. It said a further 31 injured prisoners of war had been handed over to Ukraine and 15 of its own wounded servicemen had also been returned by Kyiv.
It is approaching 6pm in Kyiv and Moscow. Here is a summary of the updates so far from today's live blog:
Russian president Vladimir Putin on Saturday announced an Easter truce in the conflict in Ukraine starting this evening and lasting till midnight on Sunday. “Today from 1800 (1500 GMT) to midnight Sunday (2100 GMT Sunday), the Russian side announces an Easter truce,” Putin said in televised comments, while speaking to Russian chief of staff Valery Gerasimov. Putin said he assumed Ukraine would follow Russia's example, but told Gerasimov, to ready Russian troops to repel any violations of the truce by Kyiv.
President Donald Trump has said negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are “coming to a head” and insisted that neither side is “playing” him in his push to end the grinding war. Trump spoke on Friday shortly after secretary of state Marco Rubio warned that the US may “move on” from trying to secure a Russia-Ukraine peace deal if there is no progress in the coming days, after months of efforts have failed to bring an end to the fighting.
US vice-president JD Vance met on Saturday with the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and the foreign minister, archbishop Paul Gallagher. As the US pushes to end the war in Ukraine, Parolin reaffirmed Kyiv's right to its territorial integrity and insisted that any peace deal must not be “imposed” on Ukraine but “is built patiently, day by day, with dialogue and mutual respect”.
At least six people have been injured by Russian attacks across Ukraine over the past day, local authorities said on Saturday, according to the Kyiv Independent. Citing the Ukrainian air force, the publication reported that Russia deployed eight missiles of different types, and 87 long-range drones. Of those, 33 were shot down and 36 turned out to be decoy, the air force said. The overnight attack caused damage in five regions across the country, the Ukrainian air force said.
Russia's defence ministry accused Ukraine on Saturday of attacking Russian energy facilities 10 times over the past 24 hours. A 30-day moratorium was brokered by the US in March between Ukraine and Russia against strikes on each other's energy infrastructure. However, both nations have repeatedly accused the other of violating it.
On Saturday, a Ukrainian drone strike on a car in the Kursk region killed a woman and injured a man and a child, regional governor Alexander Khinstein said on Telegram.
Russia on Saturday said it had retaken the penultimate village still under Ukrainian control in its Kursk frontier region, where Kyiv's forces launched a surprise offensive in August. “During offensive operations, units of the Northern Group of Troops liberated the village of Oleshnya,” the Russian defence ministry said on Telegram. “In the areas of the Kursk region where Ukraine armed force mounted an incursion, the main part of the territory … is now liberated. That's 1,260 square kilometres, 99.5 percent,” Gerasimov told Putin in a televised meeting. The Guardian has been unable to independently verify the reports.
Posting on X on Saturday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said “our forces continued their activity on the territory of the Kursk region and are holding their positions”. He added: “In the Belgorod region, our warriors have advanced and expanded our zone of control.”
Russian troops are “solidifying their presence” in the village of Kalynove in the Donetsk region, the Kyiv Independent reported, citing the DeepState military blog, which is considered close to Ukraine's army. The publication reports, sourcing DeepState, that Russian forces are deploying infantry, and establishing logistical routes and communication lines in Kalynove.
The US is prepared to recognise Russian control of the Ukrainian region of Crimea as part of a broader peace agreement between Moscow and Kyiv, Bloomberg News has reported, citing people familiar with the matter. According to Bloomberg, the people said a final decision on the matter had not yet been taken, and the White House and state department did not respond to a request for comment.
US congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, a pro-Ukraine Republican representing Pennsylvania, signed an artillery shell with a message intended for Vladimir Putin during a visit with Ukrainian troops yesterday after a meeting with president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Fitzpatrick was filmed signing an artillery shell with a message that read: “To: Putin, From: PA-1. #PeaceThroughStrength.”
Australia will use “whatever avenues” it can to help Melbourne man Oscar Jenkins, who faces a 15-year jail term in Russia for fighting with Ukrainian troops. The prime minister said on Saturday that the government would “continue to make representations to the reprehensible regime of Vladimir Putin” to release Jenkins, 33, a former teacher who fought with Ukraine's armed forces against Russia's invasion.
Russia and Ukraine will conduct a new prisoner swap on Saturday mediated by the United Arab Emirates, a source close to the negotiations told Reuters. Nearly 500 Russian and Ukrainian prisoners and 46 injured soldiers will be exchanged in the latest swap to be mediated by Abu Dhabi. The exchange will involve 246 prisoners from each side, the source said.
Although Volodymyr Zelenskyy is yet to respond to Russian president Vladimir Putin's announcement of a temporary Easter ceasefire, the Ukrainian president has just posted an update on X about the Kursk region.
Zelenskyy said Ukrainian troops were “holding their positions”. He wrote:
I have just received a report from commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi.
Today, our forces continued their activity on the territory of the Kursk region and are holding their positions. In the Belgorod region, our warriors have advanced and expanded our zone of control.
As for yet another attempt by Putin to play with human lives-at this moment, air raid alerts are spreading across Ukraine. At 17:15, Russian attack drones were detected in our skies. Ukrainian air defense and aviation have already begun working to protect us. Shahed drones in our skies reveal Putin's true attitude toward Easter and toward human life.
Here is what Vladimir Putin said about the temporary Easter ceasefire on Saturday, as reported by the Associated Press (AP):
Guided by humanitarian considerations, today from 18:00 00:00 from Sunday to Monday, the Russian side declares an Easter truce. I order that all military actions be stopped for this period.
We assume that the Ukrainian side will follow our example. At the same time, our troops must be ready to repel possible violations of the truce and provocations from the enemy, any of its aggressive actions.
Russia's military chief of staff Valery Gerasimov on Saturday said troops had retaken more than 99% of territory seized by Ukraine in the Kursk region in an incursion launched in August.
“In the areas of the Kursk region where Ukraine armed force mounted an incursion, the main part of the territory … is now liberated. That's 1,260 square kilometres, 99.5 percent,” Gerasimov told Russian president Vladimir Putin in a televised meeting, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The Guardian has been unable to independently verify the report.
Putin said he assumed Ukraine would follow Russia's example, but told the chief of Russia's general staff, Valery Gerasimov, to ready Russian troops to repel any violations of the truce by Kyiv, reports Reuters.
Russian president Vladimir Putin on Saturday announced an Easter truce in the conflict in Ukraine starting this evening and lasting till midnight on Sunday.
“Today from 1800 (1500 GMT) to midnight Sunday (2100 GMT Sunday), the Russian side announces an Easter truce,” Putin said in televised comments, while speaking to Russian chief of staff Valery Gerasimov, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
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The Yomiuri Shimbun
16:30 JST, April 19, 2025
In the recent meeting held at the White House between economic revitalization minister Ryosei Akazawa and U.S. President Donald Trump over U.S. tariff measures, it became clear that Trump considers the current situation surrounding car exports and defense burden-sharing with Japan to be problematic.
Meanwhile, a subsequent meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other officials showed their interest in the topic of rice exports to Japan.
The government intends to consider measures to address these concerns in order to conclude the negotiations on the new U.S. tariffs.
When Akazawa entered the Oval Office on Wednesday evening, he found himself being ushered into the chair right in front of Trump's desk for a face-to-face meeting with the U.S. president. His original negotiating partners, namely Bessent, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, intently watched the conversation between Akazawa and Trump on the sidelines.
Trump spouted off, saying that the U.S. trade deficit with Japan is as high as $120 billion (about ¥17 trillion) and that not a single U.S. car is running on Japan's roads. He went on to complain that the United States is defending Japan, but Japan is not bearing any of the burden.
The U.S. trade deficit with Japan is actually $68.5 billion as of 2024.
Understanding that Trump tends to exaggerate everything while not paying attention to the facts and tries to negotiate to his advantage, Akazawa tried his best to speak with a cool head.
Akazawa stressed that Japanese companies have been contributing greatly to job creation in the United States through investment and that Japan does not discriminate against U.S. cars.
He also explained that Japan's share of the cost of hosting U.S. troops in the country, in what is dubbed the “sympathy budget,” is over ¥1 trillion for the period from fiscal 2022 to fiscal 2026.
At a ministerial-level meeting held afterward at a different location, Bessent, Greer, and Lutnick said that U.S. motor vehicle safety standards were not being treated as at the same level as Japan's. They were also critical of Japan's system of importation and distribution of rice for being highly regulated and nontransparent and called for the country to import more meat, seafood and potatoes.
As these topics had already been touched on in the USTR report on foreign trade barriers, the Japanese side were already aware of them.
However, Bessent and other officials did not specify in advance what they would prioritize in the talks and refrained from evaluating the Japanese proposal to increase its imports of agricultural products. Akazawa has reportedly asked them to clarify what issues they are prioritizing.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba intends to soften the U.S. position with more specific proposals, with increases to the imports of U.S. rice and soybeans being considered as one bargaining chip.
China was the destination of 54% of U.S. soybean exports in 2023. With the imposition of high retaliatory tariffs between the two countries, Japan intends to partially make up for the drop in China's imports of them.
In the area of automobiles, the government intends to find ways to ease the certification system for vehicles of overseas makers.
Bessent and the other U.S. negotiators did not make reference to Japan's share of the defense burden during the meeting. Therefore, the issue is not expected to be a major topic of the tariff negotiations. However, the prevailing view within the Japanese government is that: “Now that Trump has mentioned it, we have no option but to include some measures.”
Ishiba is considering a visit to the United States in order to reach an agreement with Trump before the House of Councillors elections in the summer.
The Japan-U.S. tariff negotiations are among the first bilateral talks related to the tariff measures and are thus other countries are paying close attention to them. Both sides are expected to put their cards on the table in the second round of the talks, which could be conducted before the end of the month.
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In Flushing, Queens, fresh produce, soy sauces and seaweed-flavored snacks line the aisles at Chang Jiang Supermarket. Chang Jiang sits amid a row of stores in this majority-Asian community, where colorful storefronts feature signs in Chinese and fresh fruit is sold in boxes on the sidewalk.
Local grocers are often the lifelines of the communities they serve. Indian grocers offer cake rusk biscuits to accompany chai tea, and Chinese grocers reliably keep red jars of Lao Gan Ma chili oil and dried plums in stock.
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But Chang Jiang Supermarket — like other Asian American grocery stores — is caught in President Donald Trump's trade war. Most imported goods face a 10% tariff even after the Trump administration suspended reciprocal tariffs against a laundry list of countries. But his biggest target, by far, is China. Last month, it began with Trump raising US tariffs on Chinese goods by 20% before tit-for-tat escalation rose levies to a whopping 145%. With no negotiations in sight for the two nations, that's putting community ties under growing strain — especially for Chinese grocers like Chang Jiang.
“With the way things are now, if the tariff doesn't come down, after two months, there won't be any more inventory (from China) in the market,” said Wu, the Queens supermarket's manager, who spoke to CNN on the condition that only his last name is used.
Across the US, shoppers can expect to see prices rise on seafood, coffee, fruit, cheese, nuts, candy bars and other imported foods due to Trump's across-the-board 10% tariffs. The anticipated price hikes will hit low-income shoppers the hardest, because they spend a greater share of their incomes on essentials like groceries. And for those who depend on produce and other items from China, the astronomical tariffs on Chinese goods will have an even greater impact.
“Companies in China still depend on us consumers. However much they increase, it all impacts us consumers,” he said.
During a phone interview in Mandarin, Wu said the suppliers he buys from are raising prices on all products. While manufacturers have not increased prices for the goods they currently have on hand, new inventory could see significant hikes of 30%, 40% or even 50%.
It's often not even the cost of items that's an issue right now, Wu said. Some manufacturers have stopped shipping goods to the US entirely due to the tariffs, he said, leading to limits on sales and possible shortages in the short term.
“The price hasn't increased very much (for what suppliers currently have on hand),” he said. But instead of selling him the 50 or 100 items he needs, “they'll say, ‘I'll just give you five or 10 items, and that's it.'”
The supermarket hasn't raised prices for its customers just yet. But in two months, when his inventory from China will run out, Wu says he'll be forced to turn to suppliers in other countries — perhaps Taiwan or somewhere in Southeast Asia — to make up for the loss.
“We hope that (the trade war between the US and China) is solved as soon as possible,” he said. “If it keeps on getting delayed for two months, the consequences will be unimaginable.”
But it's not just this New York community — a similar pain is felt across the coast at Wing Hop Fung in Arcadia, California. The family business imports teas, Chinese herbs and other Asian products in this majority-Asian community near Los Angeles.
“Our biggest trading partner is China, so when we hear that these tariffs are going up, we definitely feel it's a threat to small minority family businesses like ours,” Lan Ong, whose parents started Wing Hop Fung in 1985 and who now runs the business, told CNN affiliate KCAL/KCBS earlier this month.
She said containers were arriving from China with six-figures worth of products, and she isn't sure how the business will absorb tariffs that will more than double the costs.
Ong has been trying to work with her suppliers and vendors, she added, but “as soon as that import, that container, arrives to our warehouse, that tariff has to be paid right away.”
The demand for specialty and ethnic grocery ingredients has only been rising over the past decade, Phil Lempert, editor of trade publication Supermarket Guru, told CNN.
The market for these specialty ingredients is expected to reach $153.2 billion worldwide in 2032, up from 2023's $81.6 billion market, according to estimates from Fortune Business Insights. That's largely because of broadening American tastes for Asian, Hispanic and Middle Eastern dishes, among others.
“The internet has exposed us to foods from all over the world,” Lempert said. “You have a whole bunch of people going to the stores to be able to find foods they can't find in their traditional supermarket.”
That interest had led to a transformation of the supermarket industry in the United States. H Mart, a Korean grocery store with a dedicated online fanbase, has grown to nearly 100 locations across the nation since its founding in Woodside, Queens, in 1982. Patel Bros, founded in Chicago in the 1970s, says it is now the largest Indian grocery chain in the United States. Asian supermarket chain 99 Ranch also has locations in multiple states from California to New Jersey.
The H Marts of the world have the resources to prepare and fortify their supply chain, Lempert said. But for small, locally owned grocery stores, there isn't much they can do.
In Honolulu, the uncertainty of Trump's tariffs has rattled small businesses in Chinatown. Chu Lan Shubert-Kwock, who founded the local Chinatown Business & Community Association, said that the trade war “will set us back.”
“(Businesses are) not going to stock up until they sell their stuff,” she told CNN affiliate KHNL/KGMB last week. “You are not going to buy until you're sure how much your goods are going to be, and how much you can sell them for.”
She added: “Nobody wins in this trade war.”
In time, shoppers at these stores might see less product in the store. They'll also see higher prices, Lempert said.
At Chang Jiang, Wu had a warning for customers who are worried about their favorite products going away or getting more expensive.
“I'm calling for everyone to stock up during this short period of time when goods are still at their current prices,” he said, “because prices will definitely skyrocket later.”
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Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff will resume talks in Rome on Saturday
Iran's top negotiator believes reaching an agreement on its nuclear programme with the US is possible as long as Washington is realistic, as the two sides prepare to resume talks in Rome on Saturday.
Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, and the US Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, will begin indirect negotiations through mediators from Oman, after their first round in Muscat, which both sides described as constructive.
“If they demonstrate seriousness of intent and do not make unrealistic demands, reaching agreements is possible,” Araqchi told a news conference in Moscow on Friday after talks with Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.
Tehran has, however, sought to tamp down expectations of a quick deal. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said this week he was “neither overly optimistic nor pessimistic”.
The talks take place under the shadow of Donald Trump's threat to attack Iran if it does not reach a deal with the US over its nuclear programme.
The US president told reporters on Friday: “I'm for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can't have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Trump, who ditched a 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and six powers during his first term in 2018 and reimposed crippling sanctions on Tehran, has revived his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran since returning to the White House in January.
Washington wants Iran to halt production of highly enriched uranium, which it believes is aimed at building an atomic bomb.
Tehran, which has always said its nuclear programme is peaceful, says it is willing to negotiate some curbs in return for the lifting of sanctions, but wants watertight guarantees that Washington will not renege again as Trump did in 2018.
Araghchi said Iran's right to enrich uranium was “non-negotiable”, after Witkoff called for its complete halt.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal's limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the west says is necessary for a civilian energy programme.
In an interview published on Wednesday by French newspaper Le Monde, the UN nuclear watchdog chief, Rafael Grossi, said Iran was “not far” from possessing a nuclear bomb.
Grossi, who held talks with Iranian officials during a visit to Tehran this week, said the US and Iran were “at a very crucial stage” in the talks and “don't have much time” to secure a deal.
NEW YORK, April 19. /TASS/. The natural resources deal that Washington is planning to conclude with Kiev is not related to the settlement of the Ukraine conflict, Spokeswoman for the US Department of State Tammy Bruce said.
"This is something that is separate. This is not a part of the ceasefire talks. It is not an element within the agreement to stop this catastrophe," she told Fox News.
Bruce added that US President Donald Trump "would expect that to be signed toward the end of next week."
On April 17, Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko announced the signing of a memorandum on the minerals deal, describing it as a sign of productive cooperation and a shared aim to finalize a full agreement. The sides are working toward setting up an investment fund for Ukraine's reconstruction, which, once formalized, will need to be ratified by both nations' parliaments, she added. However, she did not disclose any specifics regarding the deal's provisions.
The signing was halted on February 28 following a disagreement between Vladimir Zelensky and Trump during a White House meeting. On March 27, Kiev reported receiving a revised draft from Washington, which was significantly more stringent than the original. The new version requires Kiev to repay over 120 billion dollars in aid. Additionally, the US would oversee the investment fund dedicated to Ukraine's reconstruction, which would be financed through Kiev's income from licensing fees and extraction leases. Since then, Ukrainian officials have repeatedly stated they are still finalizing their stance on the deal, while Zelensky criticized Washington for shifting the agreed terms.
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An American citizen says he and his wife were detained for hours by US border agents when they returned to the United States after a short trip to Canada.
Bachir Atallah told CNN he and his wife, Jessica, were driving back into the US Sunday evening after visiting family in Canada for the weekend when U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents stopped them for a secondary inspection at the Highgate Springs checkpoint in Vermont.
Atallah, who is originally from Lebanon, said he was told to park his Range Rover and hand over his keys. When he asked the officer why, the officer placed his hand on his gun and told him to exit his vehicle, Atallah said. He said he was then handcuffed and led into a cell, where his belongings were confiscated. He said his wife was put into a cell across from his.
“Seeing my wife's mascara running because she was crying, it was heartbreaking,” Atallah said. “It wasn't humane.”
While detained, Atallah said he gave CBP agents the passcode to his phone after they asked for it. Despite his pleadings, agents never told him why he and his wife were being detained, he said. He said he was never read his rights.
“The traveler's accusations are blatantly false and sensationalized,” CBP officials said in a statement to CNN affiliate WMUR. “CBP officers acted in accordance with established protocols. Upon arrival at the port of entry, the traveler was appropriately referred to secondary inspection – a routine, lawful process that occurs daily and can apply for any traveler.”
A mass deportation campaign by the White House has sparked fear as it aims to slow arrivals at the border and remove undocumented immigrants. President Donald Trump has also threatened to send certain US citizens to offshore prisons, a notion experts say has no legal basis.
“I feared for my life,” Atallah said.
Without answers as to what was going on, Atallah said he started to have chest pains and felt dizzy, and told CBP to call an ambulance. A record reviewed by CNN shows Emergency Medical Services evaluated Atallah around 8 p.m. Sunday night.
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Atallah said he was told by CBP if he went to the emergency room, an officer would accompany him and then return him to the cell to start the entire process from the beginning. He said he chose to stay, to not to leave his wife.
Atallah said after he was first handcuffed, he told officers to call his lawyer, his sister Celine Atallah, who works as an immigration attorney.
A person identifying himself as an officer at US Customs and Border Patrol left a voicemail message on Celine's phone close to 9 p.m., informing her Atallah and his wife were at Highgate Springs CBP, they were “safe” and they would “be here for a little while,” the message said.
“He wanted my help, not to know that he's fine,” Celine Atallah said in an interview.
Bachir and Jessica left around 11 p.m. Sunday, he said.
“Thank God we're safe,” they said in Arabic once they got into their car to drive home.
When reached by phone on Friday, Atallah said he was in Lebanon visiting family. He told CNN after his and wife's treatment last week, he's worried about returning to the US.
“I hope they don't retaliate because I'm speaking out,” Atallah said.
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White House ‘border czar' Tom Homan discusses increased ICE efforts to arrest migrant criminals and President Donald Trump's deportation policies on ‘America Reports.'
A Guatemalan national residing in the U.S. illegally has been indicted for his alleged role in smuggling a 14-year-old girl into the country.
Juan Tiul Xi, 26, was indicted on Thursday for allegedly coaxing a 14-year-old girl into illegally entering the U.S., according to a Department of Justice (DOJ) statement. Tiul Xi is also accused of submitting a sponsorship application containing false statements to gain custody of the teen.
"The prior administration's border policies created an environment that enabled human trafficking and allowed bad actors to take advantage of at-risk children," Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. "We are committed to protecting children from the scourge of human trafficking and will not rest until we deliver justice for those who suffered during the border crisis."
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announces the arrest of gang members involved in four homicides, Friday, April 4, 2025, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
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Tiul Xi allegedly entered the U.S. illegally under the Biden administration in 2023. The DOJ alleges that after entering the country illegally, Tiul Xi encouraged the teen to say she was his sister. The Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) then reportedly relied on Tiul Xi's false statements to release the teenager into his custody on Sept. 5, 2023.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, along with other federal law enforcement agencies, attend a pre-enforcement meeting in Chicago, Illinois, on Sunday, Jan. 26, 2025. (Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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The DOJ says Tiul Xi is charged with one count of encouraging or inducing illegal entry for financial gain, one count of making a false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement, and one count of aggravated identity theft. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison for encouraging illegal entry, up to 5 years for the false statement, and 2 years for the identity theft charge, according to the DOJ.
"This case is a testament to ICE's commitment to hold predators accountable for the harm they inflict on children," said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Todd Lyons.
Officers from the FBI conduct immigration enforcement in New York on Thursday, January 30, 2025. (FBI)
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ORR Acting Director Angie M. Salazar said that the office has "significantly increased" its sponsor vetting process which now prioritizes "the well-being of the child."
"We hope that our commitment is evident by our collaboration with law enforcement to right previous wrongs and help bring these crimes to light," Salazar said in a DOJ press release on Tiul Xi's indictment.
The case is part of the DOJ's Operation Take Back America, which the DOJ says aims to combat "the ongoing threats and risks that the American people elected President Trump to address."
Rachel Wolf is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital and FOX Business.
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Reachy 2 is touted as a "lab partner for the AI era."
IN TODAY'S NEWSLETTER:
- 'Terminator' director James Cameron flip-flops on AI, says Hollywood is 'looking at it all wrong'
- Nvidia announces plans to make AI supercomputers in US for first time
- 4-legged hydrogen-powered robot you can actually ride
Director James Cameron attends the "Avatar: The Way Of Water" World Premiere at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square in 2022 in London, England. (Karwai Tang/WireImage)
'I'LL BE BACK': James Cameron's stance on artificial intelligence has evolved over the past few years, and he feels Hollywood needs to embrace it in a few different ways.
MADE IN AMERICA: Nvidia on Monday announced plans to manufacture its artificial intelligence supercomputers entirely in the U.S. for the first time.
RIDEABLE 4-LEGGED ROOT: Kawasaki Heavy Industries has introduced something that feels straight out of a video game: CORLEO, a hydrogen-powered, four-legged robot prototype designed to be ridden by humans. Unveiled at the Osaka-Kansai Expo 2025, this futuristic machine is built to handle rugged terrain with ease, combining cutting-edge robotics and sustainable energy.
Reachy 2 Humanoid robot is pictured. (Hugging Face)
AI LAB PARTNER: The folks at Hugging Face, the open-source artificial intelligence gurus, just jumped into the world of robotics by acquiring Pollen Robotics. And right out of the gate, they are offering the Reachy 2, a super-interesting humanoid robot designed as a "lab partner for the AI era."
AI MIND READER: Researchers in California have achieved a significant breakthrough with an AI-powered system that restores natural speech to paralyzed individuals in real time, using their own voices, specifically demonstrated in a clinical trial participant who is severely paralyzed and cannot speak.
ROBOT MILKS COWS: In a dairy barn managed by robots, cows can choose to be milked whenever they like, which is often more frequent than the twice-a-day schedule in traditional farms. This increased frequency is more comfortable for the cows and can lead to roughly a 10% increase in milk production.
Astronaut milking robot in a photo. (Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson)
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Andrea White, a city archaeologist in St. Augustine, Florida, spoke to Fox News Digital about the recent excavation of 18th-century British redoubts in the Sunshine State.
Archaeologists in the oldest city in the United States recently excavated part of an historic district — unearthing remnants of its short-lived British past.
Fox News Digital spoke with Andrea White, a city archaeologist in St. Augustine, Florida, about the excavation. The project took place in the city's Lincolnville neighborhood and wrapped up in February. (See the video at the top of this article.)
Archaeologists were digging at the site as they made way for construction and discovered the dried-up moat of a British redoubt, or small outpost.
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"We knew there were a series of British redoubts," White said.
"In St. Augustine, everyone thinks about the Spanish period, but we actually had a 20-year period where the British were in control of both East and West Florida."
The British inhabitants of St. Augustine built the redoubt in 1781, due to fears of attacks by the Spanish. (City of St. Augustine Archaeology Program via AP)
St. Augustine was primarily a Spanish military town in the first 200 years of its history, beginning in 1565.
Florida came under British control when Spain traded it for Havana, Cuba, which had been captured by the British.
In 1763, through the Treaty of Paris, the British gained control of Florida and the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) ended. But the British inhabitants of St. Augustine still worried about attacks by the Spanish — hence the fortifications, according to numerous historical accounts.
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At the end of the American Revolution, the Spanish crown was given back control of Florida in exchange for some of their assistance to the British. The Sunshine State didn't become U.S. territory until 1821.
"The Spanish actually attacked both [the port of] Mobile and Pensacola," White said. "So there was a great fear that there could be an attack on St. Augustine."
The redoubt contained a dry moat with organic material, including seeds, that will undergo additional testing. (City of St. Augustine Archaeology Program via AP)
"A series of these small redoubts were constructed sort of surrounding the historic town with plans to actually connect them by a series of walls and defensive moats," White added.
"But that kind of never came to fruition because the American Revolution ended, and so did the threat to the British at the time."
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One of the most surprising parts of the excavation, first reported by The Associated Press, was not what the archaeologists found, but what they didn't find.
"We know there's at least six additional [redoubts] out there."
White told Fox News Digital the artifacts they uncovered were few and far between.
"In [an] urban context, we're used to finding tons of artifacts because people have lived here for over 4,000 years, but in this case, it was really the lack of artifacts that surprised us," the historian said.
ANCIENT TOMB TIED TO ROMAN GLADIATOR DISCOVERED BY ARCHAEOLOGISTS
"So we might've found a few pieces of pottery, a couple of pieces of [shotgun pellets], little pieces of lead that would've been used to fire out of a gun," she said.
But while many people may think archaeology is just about digging up artifacts, White encouraged a broader perspective about the field.
The excavation took place in the city's Lincolnville neighborhood. St. Augustine was established by the Spanish in 1565. (City of St. Augustine Archaeology Program via AP)
"Everyone associates archaeology with finding things, and it's really the information that we're after as archaeologists," White said.
She added, "[It's] not what you find, but what you'd find out."
One of the most interesting takeaways was the amount of seeds in the moat, which had survived thanks to the environmental conditions.
"They were really well-preserved because it's kind of in the water table at this point in time. The water table has risen over the last few centuries," she noted.
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"So we've just started working with an ethnobotanist … and she's been starting to help us study these plant remains, these seeds. We're hoping to learn a lot more."
White also said the redoubts were some of the only British-constructed fortifications in the city. When they took control of the territory, the British inhabitants usually reused Spanish infrastructure instead of building their own.
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"Everything else was either already here and the Spanish built it, and the British might've modified it a little — but this was something that was uniquely British," she said. "We know there's at least six additional [redoubts] out there."
White added that she hopes the group finds "evidence … now that we sort of know what to look for, especially since there's not a lot of artifacts associated with them."
St. Augustine's city archeology program conducts over 60 projects a year, with archaeologists constantly learning more about the city's past.
St. Augustine archaeologists hope to conduct more excavations in the future, as the city's archeology program conducts dozens of projects per year. (City of St. Augustine Archaeology Program via AP)
At a time when many fascinating excavations are taking place across the world, from Europe to the Middle East, White emphasized the amount the U.S. has to offer in terms of archaeology.
"I think sometimes we're surprised: 'Wait, there's archaeology in America, in our own backyard?'" she said. "Yes, there is archaeology everywhere."
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"It may not be as old as some people want to think, but there's stuff everywhere. [Archaeology is] always fascinating … and it's a great way to learn about ourselves today, too."
Fox News Digital's Brooke Curto, as well as The Associated Press, contributed reporting.
Andrea Margolis is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business. Readers can follow her on X at @andreamargs or send story tips to andrea.margolis@fox.com.
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The Supreme Court is preparing to wade into one of the most significant aspects of the legal battles raging during the second Trump administration, one that could redefine how far federal judges can go in blocking certain presidential actions.
At issue is a growing use of nationwide injunctions in federal courts across the country. These court orders halt federal policies across all 50 states. National injunctions have hindered President Donald Trump from moving forward with his executive order to curtail birthright citizenship, and the Supreme Court will soon examine those decisions by lower courts.
On Thursday, the justices agreed to hear expedited arguments on May 15 in Trump's appeal of three lower court rulings that blocked his order. While Trump ultimately seeks to uphold his birthright citizenship order, the major question before the justices centers on whether lower court holds against his plan can be narrowed to apply only to the plaintiff beneficiaries, rather than the current “universal” or national block on the policy.
“This Court should declare that enough is enough before district courts' burgeoning reliance on universal injunctions becomes further entrenched,” acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris wrote in the emergency filing. She urged the justices to limit the rulings to the individual plaintiffs and jurisdictions involved, which would allow the administration to proceed with its efforts in other jurisdictions.
The trio of cases, consolidated together for one hour of oral arguments in the middle of May, offers the justices a direct opportunity to address growing concerns over judicial overreach.
It also places Trump's immigration crackdown squarely before a court that has been historically reluctant to limit its own power but now faces pressure from both sides of the political aisle.
Trump's executive order, issued just hours after his inauguration, targets automatic citizenship for children born in the United States to parents who are in the country illegally or on temporary visas. The order asserts that such children are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, and therefore do not qualify as citizens under the 14th Amendment.
The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, guarantees citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” For more than a century, courts have interpreted this clause to mean that virtually anyone born on U.S. soil is a citizen, regardless of parental immigration status.
Civil rights groups and Democratic-led states immediately challenged the order, pointing to Supreme Court precedent, including the 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark. That case confirmed birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to noncitizen parents, establishing a principle that has remained largely untouched for more than 125 years.
Thomas Wolf, director of democracy initiatives at the liberal Brennan Center for Justice, called the order a direct violation of the Constitution. “If you're born here, you're one of us,” he wrote for the Brennan Center for Justice in January. “It doesn't matter who your parents were.”
Wolf warned that Trump's order contradicts both the plain language of the 14th Amendment and the long-established legal consensus surrounding it.
Some conservative legal scholars disagree. Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation argues that the amendment has been misinterpreted. He argued in a 2018 article that undocumented immigrants do not fall fully under U.S. jurisdiction because they owe allegiance to another country. In his view, their children are not constitutionally entitled to citizenship.
Four separate district courts and three federal appeals courts have kept the Trump policy on hold during litigation, finding it very likely unconstitutional. One court called the order “blatantly unconstitutional.”
The more direct legal conflict the justices are undertaking centers on whether a single district judge can block a federal policy for the entire country. The Trump administration argues that universal injunctions go far beyond the role courts are meant to play, which is to resolve disputes between actual parties.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, wrote in a 2020 concurring opinion that such injunctions allow plaintiffs to “shop” for favorable judges and force the government to win unanimous support across every circuit just to enforce its laws. “A single successful challenge can stop a policy cold,” he wrote.
That viewpoint is gaining traction as the judiciary faces increasing scrutiny over its role in national policymaking.
The Supreme Court has never clearly defined the limits of nationwide injunctions, but both Republican and Democratic administrations have raised concerns about abuse of the tactic for years, and the complaints from conservatives have been rising as courts have levied 17 national injunctions against Trump's policies since his January inauguration.
“This is extraordinarily unusual,” Spakovsky said in a recent Heritage Foundation podcast. “In the entire history of the U.S. there has only been … a little over 180 nationwide injunctions ever issued … and a vast majority of the ones recently have been against Donald Trump.”
It is important to underscore that the scope of this eventual ruling, even if the high court grants Trump something close to his desired outcome, would likely not preclude all national injunctions going forward. That is because the presidential action at hand is not reviewable under the Administrative Procedures Act, the law that allows courts to review specific agency decisions.
“The inapplicability of the APA makes these cases particularly good vehicles for considering whether universal relief comports with Article III and traditional principles of equity,” the government wrote in a footnote of its application to the high court.
Still, the Supreme Court has an opportunity to limit national injunctions in other non-APA cases, making the grant for oral arguments important nonetheless.
Another dispute, Garland v. Texas Top Cop Shop, has drawn attention as a possible future vehicle for resolving the injunction issue.
That case involves the Corporate Transparency Act, a bipartisan anti-money laundering law passed in 2021. A federal judge in Texas struck down the law and barred the government from enforcing it against anyone, not just the plaintiffs in the case.
On Jan. 23, the Supreme Court temporarily lifted the injunction while the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit continues to handle the case.
While the justices declined to take up the case for a merits argument for now, Gorsuch issued a comment in the order that the justices should address the use of nationwide injunctions “definitively.”
“I would, however, go a step further and, as the government suggests, take this case now to resolve definitively the question whether a district court may issue universal injunctive relief,” Gorsuch wrote.
Notably, the appeal in question arose from the former Biden administration's problems with the lower court injunction, underscoring the nature of bipartisan distaste for national injunctions.
Legal experts are divided over whether the birthright citizenship case is the best opportunity for the high court to act.
Jonathan Entin, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, questioned whether the justices would want to address the injunction issue in a case where every lower court has already ruled against Trump's position.
“This doesn't strike me as the best vehicle, I can't say that the Supreme Court is going to agree with me on that, right? I don't feel confident in predicting that,” Entin said.
The professor also noted that there are ways in which the justices could signal another future opportunity for them to address the scope of nationwide injunctions in a case where the law is more cut-and-dry, such as the issue with the Top Cop Shop case that rose to the justices' chambers earlier this year.
The Supreme Court's ruling is expected this summer. At a minimum, it could clarify how far district courts can go in blocking certain presidential actions.
SUPREME COURT TO HEAR TRUMP BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP CASE
It's also not likely that this will be the last time the effort to curtail birthright citizenship will be weighed by the high court, given the fact that lower courts are still toiling over the thorny 14th Amendment questions as various lawsuits proceed in lower court.
But in the short term, the decision, expected by summer, could set the ground rules for how courtrooms handle many of Trump's executive decisions for the next four years.
President Donald Trump is weighing a crackdown on the tax-exempt status of left-wing groups, an exercise of executive power that would test his authority under the law.
Trump has directed the Internal Revenue Service to look into revoking Harvard University's tax-exempt status and has said he is considering doing the same for the nonprofit watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. He also reportedly plans to strip some environmental groups of their tax-exempt status.
In pursuing such measures, the administration could argue that the organizations broke rules designed to prevent them from engaging in political activity or violated other regulations.
Trump's plan to go after these groups will invariably spark legal challenges and stretch the administration's power in targeting organizations that it says have breached the bounds of their tax-exempt status.
The Internal Revenue Code says that it is not lawful for the president or any other executive officer to “request, directly or indirectly, any officer or employee of the Internal Revenue Service to conduct or terminate an audit or other investigation of any particular taxpayer with respect to the tax liability of such taxpayer.”
The Trump administration has asked the top IRS attorney to revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status, the Washington Post reported this week. The request is specifically because of the university's handling of antisemitism and diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.
“Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?'” Trump said on social media. “Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!”
Likewise, Trump told reporters that the administration is “looking at” CREW. The organization's founder, Norm Eisen, is an attorney who was involved in Trump's first impeachment.
“It's supposed to be a charitable organization,” Trump said. “The only charity they had is going after Donald Trump. So we're looking at that. We're looking at a lot of things.”
CREW pushed back in a statement.
“For more than 20 years, CREW has exposed government corruption from politicians of both parties who violate the public trust and has worked to promote an ethical, transparent government,” the group said. “Good governance groups are the heart of a healthy democracy. We will continue to do our work to ensure Americans have an ethical and accountable government.”
The administration is also planning executive orders that could strip away the tax-exempt status of some environmental nonprofit groups, according to Bloomberg. Republicans have long accused environmental advocacy groups of getting funding from China and having ties to foreign governments.
Going after green groups would almost certainly spark court battles.
Joe Bishop-Henchman, executive vice president of the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, noted to the Washington Examiner that the Supreme Court held in Bob Jones University v. United States in 1983 that the IRS can revoke an organization's tax-exempt status if it violates public policy.
“I think if the administration follows very closely the precedent laid out there, then, yeah, they can do it,” Bishop-Henchman said.
Bishop-Henchman said his group doesn't hold a position on the matter but urges the administration to keep it to policy rather than politics.
“If it were to come out that it's not about underlying policy, but about using the IRS to play politics with your political enemies, that's something we've opposed from President [Richard] Nixon to now,” he said.
HERE ARE THE MAJOR DILEMMAS FACING THE GOP AS IT WRITES TAX OVERHAUL
Unfair IRS treatment of tax-exempt political or ideological groups has long been a contentious topic in Washington. During the Obama administration, Republicans were outraged when the IRS acknowledged that it had subjected some conservative and Tea Party groups to heightened scrutiny in applying for tax-exempt status.
The scandal led to hearings and investigations by Republicans and diminished funding for the tax agency.
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Child psychologist Dr. Judith Joseph explains the disruptive behavior and what parents can do to help prevent it.
"A Minecraft Movie," the big-screen adaptation of the popular video game "Minecraft," has been packing theaters with rowdy kids and teens since its release this month, spurring a social media phenomenon and sparking concern for America's youth.
Videos on social media show young theatergoers huge reactions to one key scene, where one of the film's stars, Jack Black, yells out the phrase "Chicken Jockey!" as a small, Frankenstein-looking creature lands on top of a chicken in a boxing ring to face off with co-star Jason Momoa.
The scene has prompted excited fans to scream, shout, throw popcorn around, jump up out of their seats, and in one instance in Provo, Utah, toss a live chicken in the air during a screening, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
Springs Cinema & Taphouse in Sandy Springs, Georgia, told FOX 5 Atlanta that its staff has had to clean up popcorn, ICEEs, ketchup and shattered glass.
5 THINGS MINECRAFT TEACHES KIDS (PLUS ONE BAD THING, TOO)
The scene featuring the "Chicken Jockey" in "A Minecraft Movie" has spawned some chaotic movie theater behavior from young audiences. (Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)
"The movie-going experience has changed a lot since I was younger," Josh Gunderson, director of marketing and events at Oviedo Mall in Florida, told FOX Business. "And TikTok has changed that quite a bit."
"There's a part of me that says this is just dumb fun. There's another part of me [that says] for the poor people who are there at the movie theaters having to clean up this mess, it's a disaster," Raymond Arroyo, Fox News' contributor and host of the "Arroyo Grande" podcast, told Fox News Digital.
"And obviously, you know a safety hazard, because … anytime you get 200 young boys in a room, and they're all yelling and jumping in 20 directions, it's sort of like, you know, a social media ‘Lord of the Flies,' that's what this is. And I get why they're calling in the cops. I get why some theater chains are saying you can only come with a parent because you can't have that kind of mayhem every day and at every showing."
Arroyo added, "I think, if anything, it shows the deep passion and the connection that these boys feel to this video game, and therefore they've carried over to the movie. And that's part of the reason it's such a big hit."
"…anytime you get 200 young boys in a room, and they're all yelling and jumping in 20 directions, it's sort of like, you know, a social media ‘Lord of the Flies.'"
WATCH: KIDS CAUSE CHAOS DURING 'MINECRAFT' MOVIE VIEWINGS
"A Minecraft Movie" has earned $557 million worldwide so far, led by the established fandom of the games and the social media buzz created by filming videos related to "Chicken jockey" and other meme-able moments related to the game.
The movie's director, Jared Hess, spoke with Entertainment Weekly about the chaotic screenings.
"It's been way too fun. People are sending me these really hilarious speeches that a lot of teenagers are giving right before the movie. It's so hysterical, man. I'm staying up way too late," he said.
Some screenings have had police called to break up the antics, which Hess thinks is a little much.
"A Minecraft Movie" director Jared Hess has been amused by the chaotic screenings: "It's weird when you're having too much fun and the cops get called." (Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Pictures)
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"It's weird when you're having too much fun and the cops get called," Hess told the outlet. "It's funny because I think it's just literally cheering and throwing popcorn, which is so funny to me that cops are getting called for popcorn. Yeah, it's hilarious. I've seen so many funny videos. It's great, especially when people are climbing on their friends' shoulders and standing up and cheering for those moments. It's like this crazy anticipation. But, man, I'm just glad people are making memories with their friends and families."
Arroyo is "all for engagement," comparing the theater experience to that of midnight screenings of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" or sing-alongs to "Grease."
"Singing along or clapping in unison or doing silly things at a certain point in a movie everybody knows and loves … throwing popcorn, throwing live chickens, throwing the guy next to you up into the air, I'm not sure that's the best way forward.
"If there can be a more contained audience participation, I think everybody would be on board. But the moment you are [causing] a mess and injuring people, that turns into something very different, and I get why they don't want to tolerate that. It shouldn't be tolerated."
Fox News contributor Raymond Arroyo "is all for engagement" from audiences, but thinks it needs to be more contained. (Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)
ELVIRA CRITICIZES ARIANA GRANDE FOR DIVA BEHAVIOR AT ONE OF HER SHOWS
Arroyo also sees it as an opportunity to instill some life lessons in young boys.
"Boys need an element of freedom, and they need to be a little wild. That's a good thing," he said. "On the other hand, they need to know how and when to rein that in and to discipline themselves, and I worry that when you let this kind of mayhem just go on and say, ‘Oh let them throw the popcorn, we love it,' like the director said, that may be good for the ticket sales, it's bad for society. Boys need to learn how to control themselves in public settings. The world is not your rec room."
"I worry that when you let this kind of mayhem just go on and say, ‘Oh let them throw the popcorn, we love it' …that may be good for the ticket sales, it's bad for society. Boys need to learn how to control themselves in public settings."
Jack Black recently attempted to dissuade audiences from bad behavior by popping up at a screening in Los Angeles to deliver a warning.
"For today's presentation of ‘A Minecraft Movie,' please no throwing popped corn, and also no lapis lazuli… and absolutely no chicken jockeys!" he said in a video shared on social media.
Jack Black dropped in at a recent screening to warn fans to not throw popcorn and "absolutely no chicken jockeys!" (Chino Lemus)
JACK BLACK FELT 'WHOLE FOR THE FIRST TIME' AFTER TRYING PSYCHEDELIC DRUGS AT 13
"I love the Jack Black public service announcement," Arroyo said. "I think he's worried, too, about their welfare. These are young kids for the most part. And you can see how excited they are because it's a big part of their lives."
Arroyo further explained why the "Minecraft" mania has been sweeping the nation.
"I think a way to put this in context, so everybody doesn't freak out, what the Barbie movie was for girls and women, this movie is for young boys and teens. It strikes a deep chord, it's something that's part of their growth and childhood and everyday life. It's also how they communicate. A lot of [kids], they put their headsets on, and they're talking while they're playing ‘Minecraft.' So it is a… touchstone for them."
He continued, "It's an exciting moment. It's like Hollywood validating their lived experience, so that's why you're seeing this level of excitement, I think. And it's a callback that they feel is only theirs, it's their own little personal thing. So it becomes kind of a communal ritual almost for them. That's what this is. This is a communal ritual of young guys saying, look, we all play this, we get the reference even though these idiot parents and everybody else don't.
According to Arroyo, part of the excitement from young audiences for the "Minecraft" movies is seeing "Hollywood validating their lived experience." (AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)
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"But there is a level where you have to say, ‘Guys, you've crossed a line here.' You need an adult in the room," Arroyo added.
National theater chain Regal Cinemas is trying to manage some of the excitement by offering "Chicken Jockey" screenings on April 20.
"Customers are invited to dress up as their favorite ‘Minecraft' characters, whoop, yelp, clap and shout ‘Chicken Jockey!' There are some rules we don't break. So here's the deal: build excitement? Absolutely. LOL with friends till you're rolling in the aisles? Totally. But please don't go full Creeper in the auditorium," their website states.
Representatives for Warner Bros. Pictures and Cinema United (formerly the National Association of Theater Owners) did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
At least one theater chain, Regal Cinemas, is offering a "Chicken Jockey" screening where fans can make some noise but keep it clean and respectful. (Kate Green/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Pictures)
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Arroyo noted that the hype for the "Minecraft" movie appears to be part of a cultural shift in taste from the superhero domination of the Marvel movies to an upswing in video game-based stories.
"This is the prevailing culture among young people, particularly for boys. ‘Mario Bros' was a big hit. You saw ‘The Last of Us' on HBO, ‘Fallout' [on Amazon Prime]. These are all video games that have spawned spin-offs. Some of them good, some of them not so good. But there's this built-in IP and what novels and stories and Broadway provided in years past to Hollywood, now video games are furnishing with IP and storylines that are already well-known enough that it diminishes your risk when you bring it to the big screen."
He added, "That is dying out, and we just imagine kids remain excited about that. I don't think they do. It doesn't hold the same fascination it held for us."
Fox Business' Pilar Arias contributed to this report.
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April 19, 1995, started off as a beautiful spring day for Amy Downs, a teller at a credit union inside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
"I remember the red buds were blooming," Downs recalled to Fox News Digital. "I was so excited. I was getting ready to close my very first house. I don't think I did any work in that first hour of the day. I was running around talking to all my friends about the house.
"And then I was looking at my watch, thinking, ‘Oh gosh, it's almost nine o'clock. I'm going to get in trouble. I had better get back to my desk.'"
Downs flew past her boss. A co-worker who was six months pregnant sat beside her. Downs asked if she needed anything.
OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING: FBI AGENT REFLECTS ON RESPONSE TO ATTACK 29 YEARS LATER
Amy Downs is speaking out in National Geographic's "Oklahoma City Bombing: One Day In America." (National Geographic/Brandon Widener)
"I don't know if the words even came out of my mouth or not, because that's when the bomb went off and everything went black," Downs said.
It was 30 years ago when a truck bomb detonated outside a federal building in America's heartland, killing 168 people in the deadliest homegrown attack on U.S. soil. Downs and other survivors and witnesses are speaking out in a new National Geographic docuseries, "Oklahoma City Bombing: One Day in America."
April 19, 1995, started as a beautiful spring day for Amy Downs. Then her life forever changed. (National Geographic/News9 Oklahoma City)
"I think it's so important to remember what happened and the lessons that were learned," Downs said of why she chose to come forward.
A rubble pile and heavy damage are visible at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on the afternoon of April 19, 1995, in Oklahoma City, Okla. (National Geographic/Danny Atchley)
Downs was 28 years old when she found herself trapped upside down in her office chair. She had fallen three floors down and was buried under 10 feet of rubble. Whenever she gasped for air, it burned down to her chest. Her body was pierced with glass.
"I remember hearing roaring and screaming, and this powerful rushing sensation, like I was falling," said Downs. "I found out I had fallen. … I couldn't move. I couldn't see. It was very hard to breathe. I had no idea what had happened. I just knew it was bad."
Firefighters ran through thick smoke toward the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. (National Geographic/Danny Atchley)
Downs screamed for help, but no one replied. In the darkness, she heard silence. Suddenly, after what felt like an eternity, there was a sudden commotion of firefighters. One said, "Let's split up. Let's look for the daycare babies."
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Edye Raines and her mother, Kathy Sanders, realize the blast occurred in the building where America's Kids Daycare is located. (National Geographic/News9 Oklahoma City)
They were referring to the children at the America's Kids Daycare inside the building.
"I was confused," said Downs. "I thought, ‘Why are they looking for the daycare babies here? The daycare is on the second floor, and we're on the third floor.' I had no idea that we were at the bottom of what was once this nine-story building."
Rescue workers search through the rubble looking for survivors. (Roman Bas/AFP via Getty Images)
Fire Chief Mike Shannon heard Down's cries for help. Just as he was about to go get her, his crew learned there was a possibility of another bomb that was about to go off. It forced them to immediately evacuate, leaving Downs behind.
District Fire Chief Mike Shannon heard Amy Downs' cries for help. (National Geographic)
Shannon was determined to stay with Downs, but fellow firefighters refused to leave him behind. In the documentary, Shannon described how he heard the echoes of Downs sobbing, begging him to save her, as he was being rushed out.
At that moment, Downs believed her life was coming to an end.
Mike Shannon recalled hearing Amy Downs' pleas for help. (National Geographic/Brandon Widener)
"I now knew it had been a bomb, and it looked like there was another one," she said. "I was getting ready to die. I prayed, or maybe you could call it bargained with God. I kept promising God anything, just to be able to live. I prayed for a second chance. My reality was that I was 28 years old and getting ready to die, and I've never really lived. I had a lot of regrets about how I had not been living."
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Panicked onlookers, survivors and first responders clear the area after the threat of a possible second explosive device in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building April 19, 1995, in Oklahoma City. (National Geographic/News9 Oklahoma City)
In between tears, she began to recite portions of Psalm 23 to comfort herself.
"The only thing I could remember was, ‘I walked through the valley of the shadow of death,'" said Downs. "I couldn't remember what came next. I thought that was awful. And then, of all the weird things to do, a song popped into my head that we used to sing growing up in church. I started singing this song, and I felt peace. This was the first time that I thought I was at peace with what was getting ready to happen."
Luke Franey, who had just escaped through the rubble, is led away. (National Geographic/News9 Oklahoma City)
There was no second bomb. Once the firefighters realized this, they rushed back in. Shannon remembered to look for Downs. When Downs heard the sounds of men again, she promised in the darkness to bake them, anyone, chocolate chip cookies if they could save her.
Amy Downs speaking to her mother from the hospital bed after her rescue. (National Geographic/KFOR-TV)
Six and a half hours later, she was free.
"I was in the hospital for about eight days," she said. "The biggest injury was my leg, which had been split open. My bone was intact, but the leg was open. But the hardest part was finding out that 18 of my 33 co-workers were killed. … Grief is something that I couldn't comprehend. Dealing with the grief and trauma was the hard part. The injuries were nothing."
President Bill Clinton departs the White House briefing room in Washington, D.C., April 19, 1995, after meeting with reporters to discuss the bombing. (National Geographic/Marcy Nighswander/The Associated Press)
Downs was one of the last survivors to be pulled from the rubble after the bombing, which killed 168 people, including 19 children. Nearly 700 others were injured.
GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE TRUE CRIME HUB
The Oklahoma City bombing killed 168 people, including 19 children. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Downs struggled with survivor's guilt.
"I remember on the eighth day in the hospital, they found my best friend's body," she tearfully said. "She had baby girls at home."
District Fire Chief Mike Shannon confers with a colleague at the site of the bombed Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. (National Geographic/Danny Atchley)
As Downs grieved, the community banded together. In just 72 hours after the bombing, 7,000 people waited in line to donate blood, FOX25 reported.
An Oklahoma City firefighter walks near explosion-damaged cars on the north side of the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City after a car bomb explosion April 19, 1995, in Oklahoma City. (National Geographic/Jim Argo/USA Today Network)
"We have our differences, and differences are not a bad thing," she said. "But I think it's cool when we know when to put aside those differences and come together for good."
Downs was still in the ICU when she saw a group of nurses glued to a television screen. It was revealed that the bombing was orchestrated by two former U.S. Army buddies, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.
Timothy McVeigh is pictured sitting on his car while he was selling anti-government bumper stickers at Mount Carmel, Waco, during the ATF/FBI standoff with the Branch Davidians in April 1993. (National Geographic/Michelle Rauch/Courtesy FBI Multimedia)
They shared a deep-seated hatred of the federal government fueled by the bloody raid on the Branch Davidian religious sect near Waco, Texas, and a standoff in the mountains of Ruby Ridge, Idaho, that killed a 14-year-old boy, his mother and a federal agent.
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Timothy McVeigh is escorted out of the Noble County Courthouse in Perry, Okla., to be transferred to Tinker AFB for his arraignment April 21, 1995. (National Geographic/News9 Oklahoma City)
"When I found out that it was an American, not only that, but somebody who also served in our military … I struggled with that," she said. "I could not wrap my brain around that. My father is from the Greatest Generation. He lied about his age when he was 17 years old to fight World War II. It just didn't add up. How could you be an American? How could you serve our country? How could you do this?"
According to the documentary, Downs later faced McVeigh in court.
Timothy McVeigh was executed in 2001. (Getty Images)
"It was very disturbing," she said, shuddering. "He almost seemed proud of it."
Terry Nichols was convicted of being an accomplice to Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. (Bureau of Prisons/Getty Images)
McVeigh was executed by lethal injection in 2001. He was 33. Nichols, now 70, is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Downs was ready to embrace her second chance at life. She went from a 355-pound "couch potato" to losing 200 pounds and completing a full ironman triathlon. She went on to work for the same credit union, now called Allegiance Credit Union, where she served as president and CEO.
Amy Downs said, after her rescue, she was determined to turn her life around. (National Geographic/Danny Atchley)
"I'd flunked out of college because I couldn't pass a math class," she said. "But I was very fortunate to have bosses who mentored me and believed in me. … I had promised God that I would never live my life the same if I survived, and I meant that. … I went back to college, got my degree, did all the things. … And just this week, I retired. So, I decided to launch a new chapter."
WACO DOC: CULT LEADER DAVID KORESH ‘NEEDED TO FULFILL HIS DESTINY,' RESULTING IN HORRIFIC TRAGEDY
Mike Shannon is featured in the National Geographic docuseries "Oklahoma City Bombing: One Day in America." (National Geographic/Brandon Widener)
Today, Downs is a full-time speaker. She also created a new bucket list. She and her sister are planning to walk about 160 miles of Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage known as "The Way of St. James." She's also eager to ride her bicycle across the United States.
"I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up," the 58-year-old chuckled.
The Oklahoma National Memorial on the day of Timothy McVeigh's execution June 11, 2001, in Oklahoma City, Okla. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Downs hopes viewers watching the documentary will learn how a community became united during tragedy.
Floral tributes commemorate the 19 children killed in the Oklahoma City bombing at the base of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in April 1995. (National Geographic/Courtesy The Stephen Jones Oklahoma City Bombing Archive, Dolph Briscoe Center, at the University of Texas)
"It showcases the strength of the human spirit and the courage of these men who rushed in to help," she said. "And the way we came together. The thing is, we are all going to face times in our lives when we're buried under the rubble, where devastation comes to us. … We will face difficult times.
"I think the lesson from this is that, as people, we can come together. And when you come together during times of difficulty, you are stronger than you realize. And together, you will get through it."
National Geographic's "Oklahoma City Bombing: One Day in America" is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Stephanie Nolasco covers entertainment at Foxnews.com.
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Sen. Chris Van Hollen on Friday detailed his recent meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, saying the Maryland man wrongfully deported to El Salvador described being “traumatized” by his time at the country's notorious CECOT prison and has since been moved.
“He said he was not afraid of the other prisoners in his immediate cell but that he was traumatized by being at CECOT and fearful of many of the prisoners in other cell blocks who called out to him and taunted him in various ways,” Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, told reporters at Dulles Airport near Washington, DC, after landing back in the US.
The US senator said Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national and Maryland resident, told him he had been moved from the maximum-security prison to another detention center nine days ago.
“He's no longer at CECOT,” Van Hollen said. “He's at a different prison which is pretty far outside of San Salvador.” The senator shared that the new facility is in Santa Ana where “conditions are better” but did not provide additional details.
Van Hollen also claimed the Trump administration has committed to paying El Salvador $15 million to detain prisoners, including Abrego Garcia. He claimed that $4 million has been “paid out” so far.
The senator traveled to the Central American nation earlier this week in a push for the man's release and met with him Thursday – after initially being denied access to the maximum-security prison. Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March, and his case has been at the center of the fight over the Trump administration's hardline deportation push.
Van Hollen said the case has broad significance for the due process rights of all Americans.
“This case is not just about one man, it's about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody who resides in the United States of America,” he said. “If you deny the constitutional rights of one man, you threaten the constitutional rights and due process for everyone else in America.”
While Abrego Garcia had not been legally in the US prior to his deportation, a 2019 court order said he could not be returned to El Salvador and the Trump administration admitted in court documents he was deported there due to a clerical error.
A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia's return from CECOT, and the Supreme Court largely endorsed that order.
Top Trump officials have denied that he was mistakenly deported and argued in recent days that because Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran national, he belongs in El Salvador. US officials have also alleged he is a member of the MS-13 gang, which the administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organization – a claim his attorneys dispute.
“He's a citizen of El Salvador, he's in El Salvador, he's home,” Trump border czar Tom Homan told CNN's Kaitlan Collins Thursday on “The Source.” “He's an MS-13 member, which is now classified as a terrorist, so we removed the illegal alien MS-13 member who has a final order removal issued by an immigration judge to his homeland.”
Abrego Garcia's lawyers maintain that he does not have ties to MS-13.
President Donald Trump's administration has seized on Van Hollen's visit in particular to swipe at Democrats critical of Abrego Garcia's incarceration in El Salvador.
“Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland looked like a fool yesterday standing in El Salvador begging for attention from the Fake News Media, or anyone. GRANDSTANDER!!!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform Friday morning.
The White House was also quick to compare an image of Van Hollen's meeting with Abrego Garcia with one of Trump meeting with Patty Morin, whose daughter was murdered by an undocumented El Salvadorian immigrant in 2023, in the Oval Office earlier this week.
“We are not the same,” the White House account posted on X.
The White House said on social media Friday that Abrego Garcia is not and will “never” return to the United States.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele similarly said in a Thursday night post on X, “Now that [Abrego Garcia has] been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador's custody.”
Van Hollen also addressed Bukele's Thursday X post that Abrego Garcia had been “sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!”
Salvadoran government officials, the lawmaker said, had placed the glasses on the table and the two men did not take a sip.
“When I first sat down with Kilmar, we just had glasses of water on the table and I think maybe some coffee. And as we were talking, one of the government people came over and deposited two other glasses on the table with ice and I don't know if it was salt or sugar around the top. But it looked like margaritas,” Van Hollen said.
He continued: “If you look at the one they put in front of Kilmar, it actually had a little less liquid than the one … in front of me to try to make it look — I assume — like he drank out of it. Let me just be very clear: Neither of us touched the drinks.”
This incident is “a lesson into the lengths President Bukele will do to deceive people about what's going on,” Van Hollen added.
The senator, further describing the meeting, said Abrego Garcia said he missed his family and that his loved ones keep him going.
“He said that thinking of you, members of his family, is what gave him the strength to persevere, to keep going day to day even under these awful circumstances,” Van Hollen said, adding that Abrego Garcia spoke “several times” about his five-year-old son who has autism and who was in the car when he was pulled over by immigration agents.
Recalling his first phone call with Abrego Garcia's wife, Jennifer, following the meeting, Van Hollen said he conveyed to her that her husband told him “first and foremost, that he missed her and his family.”
“And as he said that, you could see a tear come down,” the senator added.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN's Aditi Sangal, Tori B. Powell and Kit Maher contributed to this report.
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The death toll from US airstrikes on an oil port in western Yemen has risen to at least 74 people, the Houthi-run health ministry reported, marking the deadliest day since the United States escalated its aerial campaign against the Iran-backed group last month.
US Central Command said Thursday the strikes on Ras Isa fuel port in Hodeidah province were aimed at cutting off revenue to the Houthis, adding the port has been used as a source of illicit profits to the group.
“The objective of these strikes was to degrade the economic source of power of the Houthis, who continue to exploit and bring great pain upon their fellow countrymen,” CENTCOM said in a statement. “This strike was not intended to harm the people of Yemen.”
The fatalities included workers at the port and paramedics, the health ministry said on Friday, adding that some 171 people were wounded.
CNN reached out to the Pentagon for comment regarding the reported toll and was directed to CENTCOM's earlier statement.
Houthi rebels vowed on Friday to continue their military operations against Israel and US forces in the region.
“Yemen will not back down from continuing its support operations for the Palestinian people until the Israeli aggression on Gaza stops and the siege is lifted,” the Houthi-controlled armed forces in Yemen said in a statement.
The militant group said the US “aggression” against Yemen would “only lead to further targeting, engagement, and confrontation.”
The Houthis shot down a US MQ-9 Reaper drone on Friday, the sixth since March 3, US officials told CNN. Each MQ-9 costs about $30 million, the officials added, and the US only has a few more than 200 of the sophisticated drones in its arsenal.
Since mid-March, US airstrikes have pounded Houthi targets in Yemen, hitting oil refineries, airports and missile sites, with US President Donald Trump vowing to use “overwhelming force” until the US achieves its goal of stopping the Houthis from targeting shipping in the Red Sea.
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Far from being cowed by US airstrikes, Yemen's Houthis may be relishing them
Houthis have launched numerous missiles against Israel and disrupted shipping in the Red Sea in attacks they say are in solidarity with Palestinians against Israel's war in Gaza since the October 7, 2023 attacks.
Video aired on Al-Masirah shows the injured receiving treatment at a hospital after dawn, many with visible burns to their bodies.
“Multiple air raids targeted the area,” a man who identified himself as a civil defense worker told Al-Masirah as he lay on an examination table, breathing heavily. “I found myself falling on the ground as a rocket hit.”
Another survivor at the hospital described the moment the port was struck.
“One strike after another, the whole area was lit on fire,” he told Al-Masirah. “When we managed to leave the area, we saw the place where we were hiding earlier getting struck too.”
The US says its campaign is working. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said that multiple Houthi leaders had been killed.
CNN earlier reported that the total cost of the US military's operation against Houthi militants in Yemen neared $1 billion in three weeks, according to three people briefed on the campaign, but the attacks had so far had limited impact on the group's capabilities.
While as many as 80 Houthi military officers may have been killed, according to analysts, the senior echelon of its military and political leadership appears intact. So are at least some of its missile-launching sites.
On Monday, the Houthi-run health ministry said US attacks had killed at least 123 people, including women and children, and injured 247 others since March 15, the Houthi-run Saba news agency reported. CNN cannot independently verify the numbers.
Meanwhile, the Houthis have continued to launch more than a dozen ballistic missiles at Israel, and barrages of drones and missiles at US navy ships. While none caused major damage, the threat remains.
Early Friday, Israel's military said it intercepted a missile from Yemen. No injuries were reported, Israel's emergency service said.
CNN's Nadeen Ebrahim, Tim Lister, Eyad Kourdi, Dana Karni and Natasha Bertrand contributed reporting.
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Former Rep. Barbara Lee, a progressive politician with more than 30 years of service under her belt, is projected to win Oakland, California's special mayoral election.
Lee and her more centrist challenger, Loren Taylor, were the top two challengers in a crowded field of nine jockeying to lead the struggling Bay Area city. Lee will finish the two years left on former Mayor Sheng Thao's term.
Oakland uses a ranked choice voting system, where voters rank candidates from most to least preferred. In multiple rounds of tallying, the candidate who receives the fewest votes is eliminated, and their supporters' votes are carried over to their next preferred pick until there is a winner. Taylor initially led Lee in the early stages of the voting after Tuesday's election, but as candidates were eliminated, Lee took the lead on Friday evening by about 5,000 votes and was declared the winner by multiple outlets, including the San Francisco Chronicle.
Lee herself has not claimed victory as of this writing with the new results, but posted, “Oakland! This evening's results are encouraging. I decided to run for Mayor knowing that Oakland is a deeply divided City–and I ran to unite our community. We worked hard every day to earn every vote!”
Sixty percent of Oaklanders voted to oust Thao last November. She has since been federally indicted on bribery, corruption, and fraud charges. She was the nation's first mayor of a major city to be voted out of office midterm in over a decade. Lee was against the recall and pledged to unite the city, while Taylor took a more tear-down approach.
A win for Taylor would have signaled a pushback against progressive leadership in California. The former Oakland City Council member has called himself a “pragmatic progressive” in the past but has leaned more toward the center on issues.
Political insiders saw Lee as the front-runner in the contest, but in the race's final weeks, Taylor narrowed the gap, making inroads with voters frustrated by the status quo.
Lee released a video the week before the election outlining a voting strategy for her supporters. In it, she told viewers to rank her in the top slot, followed by candidates Renia Webb, Suz Robinson, Swaney, and Cristina Grappo in the second through fifth-place spots on their ballots. Taylor, who narrowly lost to Thao in 2022 under the ranked choice voting system, did not.
Taylor spent several months outraising Lee, tapping into voter frustration, and pitching his vision of a new Oakland.
“It's not about whether or not we appreciate her service in Congress,” Taylor said about Lee. “It's about what we need right now to fix Oakland's problems — and particularly with the urgency that Oaklanders need.”
Taylor tried repeatedly to tie Lee to Thao while Lee attempted to link Taylor to President Donald Trump.
Lee, 78, came out of retirement to run for mayor after an open letter by a group of self-described “business, labor, community, government, and faith leaders who rarely agree on things” said “extraordinary times” brought them together and implored her to get in the race and keep the city from turning to shambles.
Oakland's new mayor will have to hit the ground running.
The city that has yet to bounce back from the pandemic, is plagued with serious public safety problems, has seen city services slashed due a budget deficit and years of fiscal mismanagement.
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A second round of nuclear talks between the United States and Iran is underway, as what both sides are looking for in a deal begins to take shape.
Delegations from both countries met in Oman last weekend for talks mediated by the Gulf Arab nation. This weekend's round is being held in Rome.
President Donald Trump has threatened that the US will resort to military strikes against Iranian nuclear sites, with Israel's help, should Tehran fail to reach a deal with its interlocutors.
Since last weekend's talks, which both parties described as “constructive,” remarks from various members of the Trump administration have flip-flopped, oscillating between maximalist demands that Iran has said were “red lines” and a more conciliatory approach.
Here's what we know.
A nuclear deal was reached in 2015 between Iran and world powers, including the US. Under the deal, Iran had agreed to limit its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.
That agreement was, however, abandoned by Trump in 2018 during his first presidential term. Iran retaliated by resuming its nuclear activities and has so far advanced its program of uranium enrichment up to 60% purity, closer to the roughly 90% level that is weapons grade.
Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful.
Last month, Trump sent a letter to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei proposing negotiations on a new nuclear deal, making it clear that Iran had a two-month deadline to reach an agreement, a source familiar with the letter's contents told CNN.
Days later, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said the Islamic Republic rejected direct negotiations with the US. He said however that Iran's response, delivered by Oman, left open the possibility of indirect talks with Washington.
Trump has said that the deal he seeks with Iran would not be similar to the 2015 agreement inked under the Obama administration.
“It'll be different, and maybe a lot stronger,” he said.
Related article
Trump envoy stresses need for verification in Iran nuclear talks
Comments from Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who represented the US last weekend, have suggested differently as of late.
Iran has in recent weeks been vocal with its concerns about striking a nuclear deal with Trump, who it says has a history of backtracking. The Islamic Republic has also voiced objections to any deal that fully dismantles its nuclear program, as opposed to only limiting its uranium enrichment to civilian-only use – as was stipulated under the 2015 agreement.
Formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 deal ensured through a number of mechanisms that Iran's nuclear program would be exclusively peaceful.
But conflicting remarks from US officials before and after last Saturday's meeting have muddied Washington's demands.
Witkoff, who represented the US last weekend, said that moving forward, talks with Iran would be about verification of its nuclear program, but stopped short of mentioning a demand to fully dismantle Iran's nuclear program, as other US officials have said in the past. In other words, indicating a deal that would be similar to the Obama-brokered agreement.
“The conversation with the Iranians will be much about two critical points,” Witkoff told Fox News on Monday. The first is verification of uranium enrichment, “and ultimately verification on weaponization, that includes missiles, type of missiles that they have stockpiled there, and it includes the trigger for a bomb.”
However, Witkoff later reversed his position in a statement on X in which he said any final deal with Iran would require it to “stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program.”
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‘The US can start a war with Iran, but it will not get to finish it,' warns former State Department adviser Vali Nasr
Asked to explain Witkoff's apparent reversal, an administration official told CNN: “It's the most recent elaboration of policy.”
Other officials have been hawkish on what the US expects from Iran. On Sunday, a day after Witkoff started talks with Iranian negotiators in Oman, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called on Tehran to fully dismantle its nuclear program.
“Iran, come to the table, negotiate, full dismantlement of your nuclear capabilities,” he said on Fox News.
Iranian officials have dismissed that proposal as a non-starter, accusing the US of using it as a pretext to weaken and ultimately topple the Islamic Republic. Tehran is entitled to a civilian nuclear energy program under a UN treaty.
The UN nuclear watchdog has however warned that Iran has been accelerating its enrichment of uranium up to alarming levels.
Iran this week doubled down on its right to enrich uranium and accused the Trump administration of sending mixed signals.
“Iran's enrichment (program) is a real and genuine matter, and we are ready to build trust regarding potential concerns, but the issue of enrichment is non-negotiable,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters on Wednesday, state-run Press TV reported.
Related article
US-Iran negotiators hold ‘constructive' nuclear talks, will meet again next week
Foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei weighed in early Thursday on X, likening the shifting US position to “a professional foul and an unfair act in football.”
“In diplomacy any such shifting (pushed by hawks who fail to grasp the logic/art of commonsensical deal-making) could simply risk any overtures falling apart,” he wrote. “It could be perceived as lack of seriousness, let alone good faith. … We're still in testing mode.”
Iranian media has reported that Tehran had set strict terms ahead of the talks with the US, saying that “red lines” include “threatening language” by the Trump administration and “excessive demands regarding Iran's nuclear program.” The US must also refrain from raising issues relating to Iran's defense industry, Iranian media said, likely referring to Iran's ballistic missile program, which the US' Middle Eastern allies see as a threat to their security.
Meanwhile, Iran's highest leadership has approached the talks with extreme caution.
In his first comments on the issue since the Iranian and American negotiators met in Oman, Khamenei said Tuesday that Tehran is “neither overly optimistic nor overly pessimistic” about talks with the United States over its nuclear program.
Israel has been among the staunchest advocates for Iran to fully dismantle its nuclear weapon and never acquire a nuclear bomb.
On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office issued a statement defending his aggressive policy towards Iran, saying, “Israel will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.”
A source familiar with the matter told CNN on Monday that Witkoff spoke with Ron Dermer, Israel's Minister for Strategic Affairs and Netanyahu's closest confidant, about the first round of US-Iran talks in Oman.
Dermer was sitting beside Netanyahu in Washington last week when Trump suddenly announced the US-Iran talks would begin imminently. The surprise revelation of the start of negotiations appeared to startle Netanyahu, who has increasingly pushed for a military option against Iran.
Sources familiar with the matter had previously told CNN that news of the US-Iran nuclear talks were “certainly not” to Israel's liking, and it remains unclear if Netanyahu was given advance notice of the negotiations or if he was consulted ahead of time, the sources said.
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US intelligence agencies believe Israel is likely to strike Iranian nuclear facilities this year
Sitting beside Trump at the Oval Office earlier this month, Netanyahu touted a Libya-style nuclear deal between the US and Iran, which in 2003 dismantled the North African nation's nuclear program in the hopes of ushering in a new era of relations with the US after its two-decade oil embargo on Moammar Gadhafi's regime.
After relinquishing its nuclear program, Libya descended into civil war following a 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled Gadhafi's regime and led to his killing. Iranian officials have long warned that a similar deal would be rejected from the outset.
Dermer and Mossad director David Barnea met Friday with Witkoff in Paris ahead of the second round of Iran talks.
Earlier this year, US intelligence agencies warned both the Biden and Trump administrations that Israel would likely attempt to strike facilities key to Iran's nuclear program this year, according to sources familiar with the assessments.
However, The New York Times reported Wednesday that Trump had urged Israel not to strike Iran's nuclear sites as soon as next month in order to let talks with Iran play out, which could impact planned engagements for Trump's national security team in the coming days.
The Israeli Prime Minister's Office did not deny the veracity of the article, instead asserting that Israel's actions have delayed Iran's nuclear program.
Responding to the New York Times' report that he'd waved off Israeli strikes, Trump said on Thursday: “I wouldn't say waved off,” but “I'm not in a rush to do it because I think that Iran has a chance to have a great country and to live happily without death.”
“I hope they (Iran) want to talk, it's going to be very good for them if they do, and I'd like to see Iran thrive in the future, do fantastically well.”
CNN's Leila Gharagozlou, Alex Marquardt, Kevin Liptak, Kylie Atwood, Michael Williams, Alayna Treene, Alireza Hajihosseini, Pauline Lockwood, Eyad Kourdi, Dalia Abdelwahab, Betsy Klein, Oren Liebermann and Abbas Al Lawati contributed reporting,
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President Donald Trump is registering the worst economic approval numbers of his presidential career amid broad discontent over his handling of tariffs, inflation and government spending, according to the latest CNBC All-America Economic Survey.
The survey found that the boost in economic optimism that accompanied Trump's reelection has disappeared, with more Americans now believing the economy will get worse than at any time since 2023 and with a sharp turn toward pessimism about the stock market.
The survey of 1,000 Americans across the country showed 44% approving of Trump's handling of the presidency and 51% disapproving, slightly better than CNBC's final reading when the president left office in 2020. On the economy, however, the survey showed Trump with 43% approval and 55% disapproval, the first time in any CNBC poll that he has been net negative on the economy while president.
Trump's Republican base remains solidly behind him, but Democrats, at -90 net economic approval, are 30 points more negative than their average during his first term, and independents are 23 points more negative. Blue collar workers, who were key to the president's election victory, remain positive on the Trump's handling of the economy, but their disapproval numbers have shot up by 14 points compared to their average for his first term.
"Donald Trump was reelected specifically to improve the economy, and so far, people are not liking what they're seeing," said Jay Campbell, partner with Hart Associates, the Democratic pollster on the survey.
The poll was conducted April 9 through 13th and has a margin of error of +/-3.1%.
The results show that Trump has so far been able to convince only his base that his economic policies will be good for the country over time: 49% of the public believe the economy will get worse over the next year, the most pessimistic overall result since 2023. That figure includes 76% of Republicans who see the economy improving. But 83% of Democrats and 54% of independents see the economy getting worse. Among those believing the president's policies will have a positive impact, 27% say it will take a year or longer. However, 40% of those who are negative about the president's policies say they are hurting the economy now.
"We're in a turbulent, kind of maelstrom of change when it comes to how people feel about what's going to happen next," said Micah Roberts, managing partner with Public Opinion Strategies, the Republican pollsters for the survey. "The data… suggests more than ever that it's the negative partisan reaction that's driving and sustaining discontent and trepidation about what comes next."
While partisanship is the most significant part of the president's negative showing, he loses some support among Republicans in key areas like tariffs and inflation, and has seen a notable deterioration among independents.
Tariffs look to be a substantial part of the overall public's discontent. Americans disapprove of across-the-board tariffs by a 49 to 35 margin, and majorities believe they are bad for American workers, inflation and the overall economy. Democrats give tariffs a thumbs down by an 83-point margin and independents by 26 points. Republicans approve of the tariffs by a 59-point spread — 20 points below their 79% net approval of the president.
Large majorities of Americans see Canada, Mexico, the EU and Japan as more of an economic opportunity for the United States rather than an economic threat. In fact, all are viewed more favorably than when CNBC asked the question during Trump's first term. The data suggest the public, including majorities of Republicans, do not embrace the antipathy the president has expressed towards those trading partners. On China, however, the public sees it as a threat by a 44% to 35% margin, substantially worse than when CNBC last asked the question in 2019.
The president's worst numbers come on his handling of inflation, which the public disapproves of by a 37 to 60% margin, including strong net negatives from Democrats and independents. But at 58%, it's the lowest net positive approval from Republicans for any of the issues asked about the president. 57% of the public believe we will soon be, or are currently in, a recession, up from just 40% in March 2024. The figure includes 12% who think the recession has already begun.
The public also disapproves of the president's handling of federal government spending by a 45% to 51% and foreign policy by a 42% to 53% margin.
Trump's best numbers come on immigration, where his handling of the Southern border is approved by a 53% to 41% margin, and deportation of illegal immigrants is approved 52% to 45%. The president achieved a slight majority of support from independents on deportations and 22% support from Democrats on the Southern border. While still modest, it's the best-performing issue for Trump among Democrats.
Meanwhile, Americans have turned more negative on the stock market than they've been in two years. Some 53% say it's a bad time to invest, with just 38% saying it's a good time. The numbers represent a sharp turnaround from the stock market optimism that greeted the president's election. In fact, the December survey represented the sharpest swing toward market optimism in the survey's 17-year history and the April survey is the sharpest turn towards pessimism.
The president's troubles with his approval rating do not appear to be translating for now into significant potential gains for Democrats. Asked about congressional preference, 48% of the public support Democratic control and 46% support Republican control, barely changed from CNBC's March 2022 survey.
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Katie Stockton thinks she has a viable option for investors trying to withstand wild market swings.
She manages the Fairlead Tactical Sector ETF (TACK), which is designed to be nimble in times of market stress. It's not tied to an index.
"What we try to do is help investors leverage the upside through sector rotation, but also minimize drawdowns," the Fairlead Strategies founder told CNBC's "ETF Edge" this week. "That's obviously a big advantage longer term when you can just go into a less deep hole to climb out of."
According to Stockton, her ETF is particularly nimble in this environment because it uses multiple strategies — not just one. Since President Donald Trump announced his "reciprocal" tariffs on April 2, the ETF has fallen just over 4%, while the S&P 500 has lost 6.9%.
Stockton's ETF rotates monthly between all 11 S&P 500 sectors.
"We don't own technology anymore," Stockton said. "Some of the sectors that we like to invest in have fallen out of favor."
As of April 16, the fund's top sector holdings included consumer staples, utilities and real estate, according to Fairlead Strategies.
As of Thursday's close, the Fairlead Tactical Sector ETF is down 4% so far this year.
Meanwhile, ETFs that are centered around specific sectors or strategies are largely under pressure. For example, the Invesco Top QQQ Trust (QBIG), which tracks the top 45% of companies in the Nasdaq-100 index, is down 22% in 2025.
The GraniteShares YieldBoost TSLA ETF (TSYY) is off 48% since the beginning of the year.
BTIG's Troy Donohue, the firm's head of Americas portfolio trading, thinks Stockton's ETF employs a sound strategy – particularly during the recent "dramatic pullback."
"TACK is a great example of how you can be nimble during these market times," Donohue said. "It's great to see it in an ETF product that has performed really well during this recent drawdown."
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The White House letter sent to Harvard University outlining a list of demands about the university's hiring and admissions was sent without authorization, according to the New York Times, citing two unnamed people familiar with the matter.
The April 11 letter, which demanded that Harvard eliminate its DEI programs and screen international students for ideological concerns, among other sweeping changes, was "unauthorized," people familiar with the matter told the Times.
The contents of the letter were authentic, but "there were differing accounts inside the administration of how it had been mishandled," per the Times.
The letter was signed by Josh Gruenbaum, the commissioner of the General Services Administration, Sean R. Kevney, the acting general counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services and Thomas E. Wheeler, the acting general counsel of the Department of Education.
A Harvard spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC that "the letter that Harvard received on Friday, April 11, was signed by three federal officials, placed on official letterhead, was sent from the e-mail inbox of a senior federal official, and was sent on April 11 as promised."
"Recipients of such correspondence from the U.S. government—even when it contains sweeping demands that are astonishing in their overreach—do not question its authenticity or seriousness," the spokesperson said.
"It remains unclear to us exactly what, among the government's recent words and deeds, were mistakes or what the government actually meant to do and say," the spokesperson added.
"But even if the letter was a mistake, the actions the government took this week have real-life consequences on students, patients, employees, and the standing of American higher education in the world."
The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment on the New York Times report.
The April 11 letter set off a public feud between the White House and Harvard.
The university on Monday rejected the White House's demands that were put forth in the April 11 letter, putting almost $9 billion in federal funding for the university at risk.
The White House quickly fired back and, in response, said it would freeze approximately $2.2 billion in grants to the university.
According to the New York Times, the April 11 letter came as lawyers at Harvard University were in dialogue with the White House about how the school handled antisemitism and other issues.
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Marc Bowker's shop, Alter Ego Comics, has been a staple on North Main Street in downtown Lima, Ohio, for 16 years.
The shop sells comics and collectibles and frequently hosts community events, including an annual free comic book day, where they give away thousands of comics.
But now Bowker says he doesn't know what Monday will bring, given the whiplash of President Donald Trump's tariff policy.
He said suppliers are charging him as much as 34% more as a direct result of tariffs, some of which he's had to pass down to his customers.
"If you see prices go up at your local small business, it's not because we want to," he told Business Insider. "It's because we're forced to."
About 70% of Alter Ego's revenue comes from high-end collectibles based on characters from brands like Star Wars, Marvel, DC Comics, and Disney. Those products are made in China, which has been hit with up to a 245% tariff rate for some goods. Bowker said his profit margins have been slashed in half on many items, including some that were pre-ordered months ago.
"The tariff is not being paid by the Chinese government, the tariff is being paid by the American consumer and the American small business, and the American company paying to have the product manufactured in China," he said.
Small business owners and retail experts told BI that smaller businesses are being hit hard by tariffs. Meanwhile, bigger, corporate counterparts are better positioned to weather the storm.
Trump has framed his economic policy as explicitly for middle America. "President for Main Street, Not Wall Street," the White House touted on an online recap of Trump's speech earlier this month after his tariff policy sent financial markets tanking and businesses around the world scrambling.
Businesses on America's main streets are feeling the impact of Trump's trade war.
Many independent retailers — some of which have been longtime fixtures in their towns — are struggling to adapt to the tariffs, especially the steep tariff placed on goods from China. Think bridal stores, toy stores, coffee shops, specialty food and beverage stores, and importers.
"It's all devastating, but small businesses have a worse ability to manage it," Wayne Winegarden, an economist at the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank, told BI. "This is not pro-Main Street, this is anti-Main Street."
"The larger companies are in a better position to absorb some of the costs," said Winegarden. "They have probably more fat that they can cut than small businesses. Small businesses operate in lower margins, so they can't really absorb it as easily."
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Winegarden said a lot of small businesses are family-owned, and are the classic example of how Americans climb the economic ladder to middle class, upper middle class, and beyond.
"These tariffs just cut off rungs," he said.
Trump has said Americans could feel "short-term" pain as a result of tariffs, but experts said that pain may not be short-term for everyone, and that it's the small businesses that will go out of business first.
"It's temporary for Starbucks. They will withstand it," Winegarden said, adding, "But if it's a year, that's probably too long for a lot of small businesses, and that's permanent pain."
Jason Miller, a Michigan State University professor and expert in supply chain management, told BI there were several factors that make tariffs harder for small businesses. For one, their cash flow is more limited, meaning they aren't necessarily able to pay a tariff for a product that they won't actually sell until some point in the future, sometimes months later.
Small retailers are also less likely to source directly from vendors and instead rely on an intermediary like a wholesaler or importer. That gives them far less leverage to negotiate prices on their goods.
"They're in a take it or leave it situation," Miller said.
In contrast, a huge buyer like Walmart has a lot more options and negotiating power to get better deals on the products they sell.
Miller said toy stores stand out to him as a sector of small businesses that could be especially hard hit by the tariffs on China, where 80% of all toy imports to the US come from.
Owners of independent, brick-and-mortar bridal shops, a common fixture on main streets, previously told BI they are also being hit hard, as a majority of wedding dresses sold in the US come from China.
In contrast, David's Bridal CEO Kelly Cook said the company, which is the largest bridal retailer in the US, was more tariff-resilient thanks to its larger and more varied supply chain and production.
Peter Cohan, associate professor of management at Babson College, told BI that the pain small players on Main Street are feeling would likely exacerbate the existing trends toward market concentration, with cascading effects on prices, innovation, employment, and economic inequality.
"Small retailers employ nearly half of all US private-sector workers. Their decline would eliminate jobs disproportionately in local communities," said Cohan. "Concentrated employers can suppress wages. Retail giants like Walmart have been linked to lower wages in local labor markets."
Cohan added that the tariffs could push out local retailers and allow large corporates to expand unchecked, which hurts competition for consumers and workers. Walmart's rapid expansion between 1990 and 2010 was often associated with the decline of local retailers within the same region, and Amazon's rise is similarly associated with the reduction of local bookstores, which diminished diversity in the publishing industry.
"Dominant retailers use their buying power to demand lower prices from suppliers, but these savings are rarely passed to consumers. Instead, suppliers may cut quality or reduce wages to meet demands," said Cohan. "Profits would concentrate among shareholders of large firms, worsening wealth gaps."
When Trump announced widespread tariffs on April 2, Victor Schwartz and his daughter Chloe Schwartz, who owns and runs VOS Selections, a specialty wine and spirits importing company based in New York, spent the next two days in an intense math marathon trying to figure out how to re-price their products — and which ones to give up.
A week later, Trump decided to pause so-called reciprocal tariffs on most trading partners for 90 days but left a 10% baseline rate in place, and the Schwartzs' efforts immediately disappeared into the wind.
"We're in that position of having to make firm decisions about what our pricing was going to be under very uncertain situations," Victor Schwartz told BI. "This means we have to be much tighter in our inventory. We had to reduce some orders where we could, we stopped some orders where we could, we didn't move forward on new projects or we delayed them."
Despite being a small, owner-operated company of just 19 employees, VOS Selections handles around 600 products from 350 different producers around the world. Its vast portfolio used to be a merit, yet under constantly changing tariff rates, it became more of a nightmare.
Alcohol is a heavily regulated product, and regulations mandate that importers report their prices at least one month ahead of time before anything reaches retailers — prices importers cannot change later. For Schwartz, this means deciding prices for May in March, leaving room for supplier negotiations, shipping delays, and port processing. Any surprise expenses in this process, such as a sudden change in tariffs, would spell disaster for a small business with limited cash flow.
But surprise expenses aren't the only concern, said Schwartz. Retail stores and restaurants that buy wines from him haven't been doing well in the first quarter under dampened consumer sentiments and other tariff-associated costs, which he said caused his business to be down 16% in comparison to the first quarter in 2024.
"If a restaurant has a $20 price point for their white wine, and I can no longer offer it at $20, they're going to buy something else, and I'll lose that business," said Schwartz. "The customer that was paying $20, they're not going to say 'yes, we really liked that wine, so we're willing to pay $24 for it.'"
"There is an inflexibility in pricing in terms of what the customer is looking for," he added.
Schwartz's business is now the lead plaintiff in the broadest lawsuit yet against Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs, which no prior president has done. The lawsuit argues that Trump's use of the IEEPA to completely bypass Congress violates constitutional limits on executive power, and that a decadelong trade deficit does not meet the "unusual and extraordinary threat" criteria in the Act.
As of April 18, the Liberty Justice Center, a Libertarian legal group that is representing this lawsuit in court, has filed an application with the US Court of International Trade for a temporary restraining order to suspend Trump's tariffs.
Winegarden, from the Pacific Research Institute, said he is concerned that the tariffs would do what COVID did to small businesses. Where Winegarden lived in New York, the storefronts that closed down during the pandemic have remained shuttered for years.
"Everyone talks about small businesses, right? They're the heroes," Winegarden said. "Everyone liked small businesses, so it's just so ironic. Why are we implementing policies that punish them in particular?"
Do you have a story to share about how tariffs are affecting your small business? Contact these reporters at kvlamis@businessinsider.com or katherineli@businessinsider.com.
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The startup carrier, which will begin flying later this year, reveals designs intended to rival the titans of sky-high luxury.
The center seats in Riyadh Air's business class cabin.
As motorsport enthusiasts and high-net-worth individuals flocked to Saudi Arabia for the F1 weekend, Riyadh Air used the event as a backdrop for a big unveiling. On April 19 at the Jeddah Yacht Club it showed off the seats that will soon fill the front of its planes: a plush business class designed to lure luxury-leaning travelers away from Emirates and Qatar Airways, the industry's heavy-hitters.
The startup carrier, which is set to begin flying near the end of this year, offered a first glimpse of the designs for the five-star service it plans to deliver. The cabin includes privacy panels, lie-flat seats, mood lighting, large screens and high-speed Wi-Fi, all cloaked in a color palette of deep purples, gold and stone. The interiors are inspired by the twisting canopies of traditional Arabian tents, with colors and materials that reflect Saudi heritage.
Iran and the United States held a second round of negotiations Saturday over Tehran's rapidly advancing nuclear program in Rome, U.S. and Iranian officials said.
The U.S. official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door negotiations at the Omani Embassy in Rome's Camilluccia neighborhood. Iranian state media also reported the talks starting just before noon Saturday as journalists watched outside.
The talks in Italy over Easter weekend again will hinge on U.S. billionaire Steve Witkoff, the U.S. Mideast envoy of President Donald Trump, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Whether the two men find common ground in the high-stakes negotiations could mean success or failure in the talks.
The negotiations will again be mediated by Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi.
That talks are even happening represents a historic moment, given the decades of enmity between the two countries since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis. Trump, in his first term, unilaterally withdrew from Iran's nuclear deal with world powers in 2018, setting off years of attacks and negotiations that failed to restore the accord that drastically limited Tehran's enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
At risk is a possible American or Israeli military strike on Iran's nuclear sites, or the Iranians following through on their threats to pursue an atomic weapon. Meanwhile, tensions in the Middle East have spiked over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and after U.S. airstrikes targeting Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels killed more than 70 people and wounded dozens more.
"I'm for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon," Trump said Friday. "I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific."
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told Iranian state TV the talks were "indirect" with the delegations in "different halls" at the embassy. He earlier wrote Saturday on X that Iran "always demonstrated, with good faith and a sense of responsibility, its commitment to diplomacy as a civilized way to resolve issues."
"We are aware that it is not a smooth path, but we take every step with open eyes, relying also on the past experiences," Baghaei added.
Araghchi met Saturday morning with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani ahead of the talks with Witkoff.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, also met Tajani on Saturday. Grossi's agency would likely be key in verifying compliance by Iran should a deal be reached, as it did with the 2015 accord Iran reached with world powers.
Tajani said Italy was ready "to facilitate the continuation of the talks even for sessions at the technical level."
A diplomat deal "is built patiently, day after day, with dialogue and mutual respect," he said in a statement.
Both men have been traveling in recent days. Witkoff had been in Paris for talks about Ukraine as Russia's full-scale war there grinds on. Araghchi will be coming from Tehran, Iran, after a visit to Moscow, where he met with officials, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia, one of the world powers involved in Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal, could be a key participant in any future deal reached between Tehran and Washington. Analysts suggest Moscow could potentially take custody of Iran's uranium enriched to 60% purity — a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.
Oman's capital, Muscat, hosted the first round of negotiations between Araghchi and Witkoff last weekend, which saw the two men meet face to face after indirect talks. Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, has long served as an interlocutor between Iran and the West.
Ahead of the talks, however, Iran seized on comments by Witkoff first suggesting Iran could enrich uranium at 3.67%, then later saying that all enrichment must stop. Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote on X before the talks that Iran would not accept giving up its enrichment program like Libya, or agreeing to using uranium enriched abroad for its nuclear program.
"Iran has come for a balanced agreement, not a surrender," he wrote.
Iran's internal politics are still inflamed over the mandatory hijab, or headscarf, with women still ignoring the law on the streets of Tehran. Rumors also persist over the government potentially increasing the cost of subsidized gasoline in the country, which has sparked nationwide protests in the past
Iran's rial currency plunged to over 1 million to a U.S. dollar earlier this month. The currency has improved with the talks, however, something Tehran hopes will continue.
Meanwhile, two used Airbus A330-200 long sought by Iran's flag carrier, Iran Air, arrived at Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport on Thursday, flight-tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press showed. The planes, formerly of China's Hainan Airlines, had been in Muscat and re-registered to Iran.
The aircraft had Rolls-Royce engines, which included significant American parts and servicing. Such a transaction would need approval from the U.S. Treasury given sanctions on Iran. The State Department and Treasury did not respond to requests for comment.
Under the 2015 deal, Iran could purchase new aircraft and had lined up tens of billions of dollars in deals with Airbus and Boeing Co. However, the manufacturers backed away from the deals over Trump's threats to the nuclear accord.
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TRUMP, the memecoin tied to U.S. President Donald Trump, gained more than 9% in the past 24 hours following a $320 million token unlock. The price now sits around $8.40, still down more than 88% from its peak above $71 on Jan. 18.
The recent unlock may spell further trouble for investors, who are estimated to have lost a total of $2 billion after purchasing the token earlier this year.
Token unlocks typically flood the market with new supply and tend to depress prices. But in this case, the market appears to have priced in the release beforehand, potentially explaining the price uptick. Still, the $320 million unlock raises the risk of a large sell-off, especially given TRUMP's thin liquidity.
Data from CoinMarketCap shows that just $1.3 million could move the token's price by 2% on major exchanges. The move also comes during the Easter holiday weekend, when trading volumes are subdued and price swings can be more pronounced.
On social media, rumors are swirling about a possible event for large token holders, supposedly being organized by Trump himself. These claims remain unverified and highly speculative.
Data from Dune analytics shows there are currently 636,000 TRUMP token holders on-chain, with just 12,285 wallets having more than $1,000 worth of the cryptocurrency.
Francisco is a reporter for CoinDesk with a passion for cryptocurrencies and personal finance. Before joining CoinDesk he worked at major financial and crypto publications. He owns bitcoin, ether, solana, and PAXG above CoinDesk's $1,000 disclosure threshold.
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The XRP price rebound faces reversal risks as bearish patterns, fractal trends, and profit-taking pressure point to a potential 40–50% correction.
XRP (XRP) has bounced nearly 30% after a four-month low of $1.61 amid rising tariff tensions. However, the rebound may be short-lived as technical patterns and on-chain signals now point to a deeper correction ahead.
XRP is forming a classic bearish reversal pattern that could see its price falling by at least 40% in the coming weeks.
Dubbed inverse-cup-and-handle (IC&H), the pattern forms when the price rounds off in a curved descent (cup) followed by a brief consolidation phase (handle) — all atop a common neckline support level.
The pattern is confirmed by a breakdown stage, where the price breaks decisively below support and falls by as much as the pattern's maximum height.
As of April 19, XRP had entered the pattern's handle-formation phase, eyeing a decisive close below the neckline support at around $2. In this case, the primary downside target will likely be around $1.24, almost 40% below current prices.
The IC&H target aligns with XRP's 200-3D exponential moving average (200-3D EMA; the blue wave) at around $1.28 — and further coincides with a November 2024 top.
Additionally, veteran trader Peter Brandt suggests that XRP's market cap could drop by 50% in the coming weeks.
XRP's inverse cup-and-handle pattern is unfolding in line with its historical price behavior, signaling that its 2025 rally may have topped out.
For instance, the cryptocurrency saw sharp pullbacks to its aggregated realized price following major surges in previous cycles, most notably in 2018 and 2021.
For traders, the realized price serves as a psychological benchmark, representing the average price at which the XRP supply was last moved.
When the market price trades well above this level, most holders are in profit, which can encourage complacency or profit-taking. Conversely, if the price nears the realized price, fear of losses tends to rise, and selling pressure can intensify.
In 2025, XRP surged past $3.20 before losing steam, repeating patterns seen in past bull-to-bear cycles. The current realized price at around $1, a likely downside target in 2025 down about 50% from the current prices.
Interestingly, XRP's $1 realized price target is closer to its 200-week EMA (the blue wave in the chart below) at $0.81, a bear market target discussed in Cointelegraph's analysis in late March.
Adding to the bearish outlook, over 80% of XRP addresses are currently in profit. The metric historically reached similar levels during previous market tops, often preceding significant rounds of profit-taking and pullbacks.
Related: 81.6% of XRP supply is in profit, but traders in Korea are turning bearish — Here is why
If history repeats, such similar conditions could incentivize traders to exit positions, accelerating XRP's retracement toward the realized price.
Sentiment around XRP reaching a new all-time high above the $3.55 level is deteriorating, according to prediction market data from Polymarket.
As of April 19, the odds of XRP achieving this milestone before 2026 have dropped to just 35%, marking a sharp 25% decline from peak confidence levels in March, as shown below.
The upside momentum in the crypto market has faded overall in April, coinciding with a broader decline in risk appetite driven by escalating global tariff tensions under Donald Trump's trade policies.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
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Critics on the right and left say the bitcoin reserve is a pointless industry handout — and using tariff revenue is even dumber.
If Donald Trump's sweeping global tariffs send household good prices soaring and drive the economy into recession, at least one industry could profit.
The Trump administration is considering using tariff revenues to buy Bitcoin for a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve,” a top administration crypto official said in an interview last week.
The White House's proposal is driving interest from crypto industry figures who have made building the reserve one of their top priorities.
It is uniting critics on the right and left, however, who have cast the reserve as a pointless industry giveaway that will come at the expense of ordinary taxpayers. Using tariff money would add insult to injury, they say.
“There is nothing here but a conjunction of bad ideas,” said George Selgin, an economist and professor emeritus at the University of Georgia. “The tariffs are a bad idea, the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve is a bad idea, and using the tariff revenue for the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve is a bad idea.”
Ever since Trump proposed across-the-board tariffs on the campaign trail last year, he has touted the idea as a way to both build domestic industry and raise revenue.
Trump has suggested that tariff revenue could replace the nearly $5 trillion the government hauls in income tax revenue per year, while a top trade official in his administration estimated they could raise $6 to $7 trillion over a decade.
Both numbers are fantasies, according to economists of all political stripes. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center said the massive tariffs — if they all go into effect as initially proposed on “Liberation Day” — could raise about $3.3 trillion over that period, assuming they don't send the economy into a tailspin.
The relatively meager scale of the tariffs' revenues has not stopped the Trump administration from cooking up ideas for how to spend them on everything from tax cuts for the rich to deficit reduction.
Last week, Bo Hines, the executive director of the Presidential Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, added another proposal to the mix. In an interview with investor and crypto influencer Anthony Pompliano, Hines said the administration could use tariff revenue to buy bitcoin.
“We are looking at many creative ways, whether it be from tariffs, whether it be from something else,” Hines said. “Everything is on the table, and like we have said, we want as much as we can get.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
When Trump announced that he wanted to create a “strategic reserve” of bitcoin at a crypto conference last July, it cemented his place as the industry's favored presidential candidate.
Supporters have cast bitcoin as a modern-day gold with near-limitless future growth potential. Socking it away could protect against depreciation of the U.S. dollar and inflation, they say.
Trump followed through on his promise almost as soon as he was in office by creating the reserve — but he disappointed some bitcoin boosters by stocking it only with tokens that had already been seized by the government. Still, Trump promised that he would search for “budget-neutral” ways to buy more bitcoins.
Tariffs could be one way of building the store, according to Hines. But they would hardly be budget-neutral, Selgin said, since they are essentially a tax on the consumers buying imported goods.
The tariffs would have a disproportionate impact on low-income households, according to the Budget Lab at Yale University, which calculated they would cost an average household $3,800 per year.
Regardless of how they pay for it, critics say that it's inappropriate for the government to buy up an asset like bitcoin with no inherent use that is subject to wild price swings — and, in fact, has dropped in price since Trump's tariff announcement. If the government does wind up buying bitcoin, critics have warned, selling any substantial portion of it could depress the digital asset's price.
“You have a lot of people in the bitcoin community, bitcoin bulls who would like to see the government do a lot more, because it will benefit them,” said Selgin, who also serves as a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute. “These people are trying by hook or by crook to rationalize something that really is just a subsidy for them, without any benefits for other people.
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Crypto analyst Benjamin Cowen anticipates that Bitcoin BTC/USD will maintain its dominance over altcoins until there are alterations in the US monetary policy.
What Happened: In a video post on Wednesday, Cowen communicated his insights to his 892,000 YouTube subscribers. He anticipates that the total market cap of altcoins, excluding Bitcoin and Ethereum, will persist in its decline against Bitcoin.
Cowen's prediction is that Bitcoin will continue to outperform altcoins until the US Federal Reserve relaxes its monetary policy. “My base case right now for Bitcoin dominance is that it will likely go higher until quantitative tightening is over,” Cowen expressed in the post.
The term Bitcoin dominance refers to the proportion of Bitcoin's total market capitalization in comparison to all other crypto assets. A rise in Bitcoin dominance signifies that Bitcoin is either ascending faster than other crypto assets or its descent is less severe.
Also Read: Bitcoin, Solana and Pepe Show Bullish Reversal Signs Amid Market Recovery
Regarding the timeline for the Federal Reserve to relax its monetary policy, Cowen said, “Now, I don't know how long it's going to take them to end quantitative tightening, it's possible they end it this summer.”
At the time of the report, Bitcoin was trading at $84,270.
Why It Matters: The dominance of Bitcoin over altcoins has significant implications for investors and the broader cryptocurrency market. If Bitcoin continues to outperform altcoins, it could lead to a consolidation of investment in Bitcoin, potentially driving its price even higher.
Conversely, a shift in the US monetary policy that leads to an easing of the Federal Reserve's current stance could disrupt this trend, leading to a more even distribution of investment across different cryptocurrencies.
This prediction by Cowen provides valuable insight for investors navigating the volatile cryptocurrency market.
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Crypto Analyst Predicts 195% Bitcoin Rally, Says Bull Market Not Over Yet
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Prominent macroeconomist Lyn Alden believes Bitcoin is on track to finish 2025 above its current price of around $85,000.
“Before all this tariff kerfuffle, I would have had a higher price target,” Alden with Natalie Brunell on Coin Stories.
While she still expects Bitcoin to post gains by year-end, Alden noted that the tariffs introduced in February have tempered her earlier bullish outlook.Lyn Alden Says Liquidity Surge Could Propel Bitcoin to Higher Targets
Alden explained that a major liquidity boost could push Bitcoin toward more ambitious targets.
Such a scenario might occur if the U.S. bond market faces a crisis, prompting the Federal Reserve to respond with quantitative easing or yield curve control.
Despite current macro headwinds, Alden believes there is still a “good chance” Bitcoin surpasses the $100,000 mark in 2025.
However, she warned that global market volatility remains a key obstacle, especially because Bitcoin trades continuously — unlike traditional equity markets with limited trading hours.
“Because it trades 24/7, if people are worried about how things are going to open on Monday, some pools of capital can sell their Bitcoin on a Sunday and prepare,” she said, pointing out that Bitcoin often reacts first to market jitters due to its round-the-clock nature.
While its correlation to tech-heavy indices like the Nasdaq 100 has been noted, Alden believes Bitcoin can sometimes diverge, particularly when broader market conditions weigh on U.S. equities without directly impacting global liquidity.
She drew comparisons to the period between 2003 and 2007, when a weak U.S. dollar cycle fueled capital flows into commodities, emerging markets, and gold — bypassing U.S. stocks.
A similar environment could prove favorable for Bitcoin, Alden suggested.
“If we encounter a five-year period like that again, that could be a period where Bitcoin does pretty well, even as the U.S. stock market doesn't do particularly well,” she added.
This brand new interview with can be described as nothing short of a masterclass on the U.S. dollar's global reserve currency status: the tradeoffs, trade deficits, and USD hegemony's impact on the working class.Is Trump closing the window on USTs as primary… — Natalie Brunell ⚡️ (@natbrunell)
In a previous research report published in September, Alden described Bitcoin as a “Global Liquidity Barometer,” noting it moves in sync with global M2 money supply 83% of the time over any given 12-month stretch.Bitcoin Could Face Extended Consolidation Despite Bullish Hype: 10x Research
As reported, 10x Research's head of research Markus Thielen has argued that Bitcoin may be entering a period of extended consolidation.
In a recent market note, Thielen warned that short-term technical signals are painting a more cautious picture, even as many analysts forecast new all-time highs by mid-year.
Thielen pointed to the Bitcoin stochastic oscillator, a technical indicator that measures momentum, suggesting the market is displaying traits more consistent with a late-cycle top than the beginning of a new bull run.
While Thielen urges caution, other analysts maintain a more bullish stance.
Economists Timothy Peterson and Jamie Coutts, Real Vision's chief crypto analyst, expect Bitcoin to hit new highs in Q2.
Bitcoin is trading near the low end of its historical seasonal range. Nearly all of Bitcoin's annual performance occurs in 2 months: April and October. It is entirely possible Bitcoin could reach a new all-time high before June. — Timothy Peterson (@nsquaredvalue)
Last week, Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan reiterated his December prediction that Bitcoin could hit $200,000 before the close of 2025.
Hougan argued that recent developments in U.S. trade policy, particularly under former President Donald Trump's renewed tariff push, could act as tailwinds for Bitcoin.
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What Is 'Idle Mine'? This Free iOS and Android Game Pays Real Bitcoin
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After finding success with Bitcoin Miner, a vibrant mobile game in which players can earn real Bitcoin rewards for fake-mining an array of cryptocurrencies, Fumb Games has pivoted into a very different kind of mining game.
Idle Mine on iOS and Android is cut from the same cloth as Bitcoin Miner, as both are “idle” experiences that require minimal input, typically in the form of pressing buttons and deciding when and how to spend in-game funds on upgrades. In this case, however, your little miners are digging out gems and serving customers as you expand your operation.
But it also provides real Bitcoin rewards, which you can cash out and spend as you please. Granted, the earnings are tiny—so keep your expectations in check. But if you want to stack up satoshis while playing a simple phone or tablet game, Idle Mine is another option. Here's how it works.
Idle Mine is an iOS and Android game that was first released in 2024. This idle game tasks you with running a gem mining operation by spending in-game coins to upgrade particular mines, add staff, and better serve customers.
That's all done via menus, and when you're not interacting with menus, the game essentially plays itself: The miners run around, collecting gems and serving customers, and your earnings gradually increase over time.
That's why it's considered an “idle” game, because so much of the experience is automated. It's a lightweight management sim, in other words. There also isn't much strategy needed, since the game will always put a current “mission” at the top of the screen. Following those is an easy way to keep things simple and focus on gradually earning Bitcoin.
As you play and make upgrades, you'll earn tiny bits of Bitcoin denominated in satoshis, or 1/100,000,000 of a single BTC. This is real Bitcoin that you can withdraw to a ZBD wallet and then transfer elsewhere or spend as you please.
Idle Mine also has optional in-game purchases to help boost your earnings or speed up mine upgrades. It also has optional video ads that you can watch to get special boosts, such as adding a 5x multiplier to free gifts of coins or “magic gems” used for certain upgrades.
As noted above, you should keep your expectations modest. If you play a fair bit of Idle Mine daily, then you might be able to stack up a couple hundred satoshis each day. But at a price of $85,000 per Bitcoin, 200 satoshis is only worth about 17 cents.
We've played hours and hours of the game over time, stacking upwards of 4,000 satoshis… but that's barely a few bucks in total, and we'd rather not think too hard about the per-hour rate.
Basically, it's a little bit of free crypto as a bonus for playing the game, but don't expect that Idle Mine or any other play-to-earn Bitcoin game will make you rich.
Funds can be withdrawn into a ZBD wallet, though note that U.S. users in some states may not be able to use ZBD due to local restrictions. Be sure to check before you start racking up hours in pursuit of BTC rewards.
Idle Mine and Bitcoin Miner have both instituted a variable daily withdrawal limit, which is apparently tied to the price of Bitcoin. As of this writing, Idle Mine players can withdraw 330 satoshis per day, or about $0.28 worth.
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Bitcoin has remained sideways for the last couple of months, tossing between the $88K and $75K levels. It hasn't made any significant moves to either side.
Keep reading to find out how Bitcoin can move in the weeks to come. We'll also suggest some of the best altcoins you can buy to benefit from a potential $BTC rally.
It's still too early to say that BTC has gone into bearish territory. Although the recent dips replicate its previous bearish run patterns, the dips aren't as sharp.
Plus, these drawdowns are mostly attributed to macroeconomic factors, including, of course, Trump's tariffs. The fundamentals of the coin itself have little to do with these dips.
A large part of the unrealized short-term losses are also because of the recent dips. A good thing, though, is that STHs aren't selling $BTC as of now.
Their willingness to sit on some losses shows that the market participants still believe in a positive long-term proposition.
If you look at Bitcoin's weekly chart, you'll notice a sharp bounce from the 50 EMA, which also happens to be a critical support zone for the token.
What's more, the bounce is also occurring from the 50% Fibonacci level, showing continued strength.
Another bit of positive news is that even after the recent turbulence, long-term holders are still sitting on unrealized profits and seem to be willing to absorb a bit of loss as well.
All in all, Bitcoin seems to be well-positioned for a good rally that could see the king cryptocurrency reclaim its recent highs. If you're looking to make the most of the upcoming run, here are some of the best cryptos to buy now.
Bitcoin's long-term bullish bias is very much intact thanks to unfazed institutional interest and increasing support from governments worldwide.
If you want to make the most amount of gains from the next Bitcoin bull rally, a cheap crypto like BTC Bull Token ($BTCBULL) that's built to follow Bitcoin's coattails could be the answer.
$BTCBULL is likely to closely follow Bitcoin's upward trajectory because it will give free (and real) $BTC to its token holders. This will happen every time Bitcoin crosses a new landmark, such as $150K, $200K, and $250K.
The good news keeps coming, as the project's tokenomics suggest that 40% of the total supply will be used for PR and marketing. Again, this will bolster $BTCBULL's hype in the market.
BTC Bull Token is currently in presale, which has gone from strength to strength to collect over $4.8M so far. One token is available for just $0.00247, and here's how to buy $BTCBULL.
Given the number of cryptos that have flooded the market in the last few months, finding profitable opportunities has become increasingly difficult. Enter MIND of Pepe ($MIND).
$MIND is not just the best AI agent coin, but it's also, quite frankly, a genius.
After it has studied the ongoing trends and chatter around crypto on online platforms like X, $MIND will use its revolutionary hive-mind intelligence to find out the best cryptos to invest in.
In addition to such expert insights into crypto investing, $MIND token holders will also get exclusive access to the tokens created by MIND of Pepe firsthand.
Naturally, these tokens will be built out of viral ideas, meaning they'll be in a pole position to join the list of the top trending cryptos.
The best part? MIND of Pepe is currently in presale ($8M+ raised), which is why each token is available for a low price of $0.0037215. For more info, check out our guide on how to buy $MIND.
Comedian ($BAN) is unlike the two cryptos mentioned above, seeing as it has no real utility. In other words, it's a pure meme coin that only thrives on market hype and community interest.
However, because of how intense meme coin rallies can be, the ROI potential of tokens like $BAN is multiple times greater than almost every single conventional investment.
$BAN, for instance, has gained more than 71,000% since its launch in October 2024. After a nearly month-long consolidation, the token has surged past its recent resistance level.
$BAN is up over 17% in the last seven days and is currently trading at $0.04527.
Comedian, by the way, is inspired by the controversial artwork of Maurizio Cattelan, which simply features a yellow banana taped to a wall.
This modern artwork is controversial because it's allegedly a disrespect to contemporary art, which features more sophisticated themes and intricate designs.
Meme coins, however, thrive on such virality, which is exactly why $BAN has been so successful.
Although Bitcoin's bullish outlook is undoubtedly great for your crypto portfolio, it's important to remember that the market can change tides overnight.
We suggest accounting for the current market volatility and uncertainty and only investing an amount you're happy sidelining.
Lastly, kindly do your own research before investing, as none of the above is financial advice.
Disclaimer: The information found on NewsBTC is for educational purposes
only. It does not represent the opinions of NewsBTC on whether to buy, sell or hold any
investments and naturally investing carries risks. You are advised to conduct your own
research before making any investment decisions. Use information provided on this website
entirely at your own risk.
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Although Bitcoin (BTC) continues to hold steady in the mid-$80,000 range, analysts are forecasting that significant volatility may be imminent for the leading cryptocurrency. That said, most analysts predict a potential price rally for the apex digital asset.
In a CryptoQuant Quicktake post, contributor Mignolet highlighted that approximately 170,000 BTC has recently moved from the 3–6 month holder cohort. Historically, such large movements from this group have often preceded notable price swings.
Mignolet shared the following chart, noting how spikes in BTC movement from the 3–6 month cohort have frequently led to heightened price volatility. Notably, green boxes denote upward price movement, while red boxes indicate price declines.
Several crypto analysts have shared their insights on recent BTC price action based on both on-chain metrics and technical chart patterns. For example, seasoned crypto analyst Master of Crypto made an observation about the realized price of short-term holders (STH) versus long-term holders (LTH).
According to the analyst, STH are currently mostly in the red, with a realized price of around $92,700, while LTH have a realized price of $26,500, meaning they're sitting on gains of over 200%.
Master of Crypto added that whenever such a wide gap exists between STH and LTH realized prices, it often paves the way for severe price volatility. They concluded by saying “either the weak hands fold, or we rip higher.”
Seasoned crypto analyst Ali Martinez provided an optimistic take on potential BTC price action based on on-chain analytics. The analyst noted that more than 15,000 BTC have been withdrawn from crypto exchanges over the past week.
Low exchange reserves are typically bullish for BTC, as they suggest investors prefer to hold rather than sell at current prices. Additionally, reduced exchange balances reinforce the supply scarcity narrative for the asset.
Another analyst, Ted, drew attention to BTC's correlation with the global M2 money supply. According to Ted, Bitcoin is tracking the growth in global M2 with a 108-day lag, suggesting a potential trend reversal as early as May. The analyst further added:
I think for the next few weeks, BTC could consolidate between $75K-$90K. During this timeframe, retail will most likely panic sell while smart money will accumulate.
Meanwhile, noted analyst Titan of Crypto recently stated that BTC's consolidation around the $83,000 level could be laying the groundwork for a rally toward $135,000. At press time, BTC trades at $84,553, up 0.5% in the past 24 hours.
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Ash is a seasoned freelance editor and writer with extensive experience in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry. Over the course of his career, he has contributed to major publications, playing a key role in shaping informative, timely content related to decentralized finance (DeFi), cryptocurrency trends, and blockchain innovation. His ability to break down complex topics has allowed both seasoned professionals and newcomers to the industry to benefit from his work.
Beyond these specific roles, Ash's writing expertise spans a wide array of content, including news updates, long-form analysis, and thought leadership pieces. He has helped multiple platforms maintain high editorial standards, ensuring that articles not only inform but also engage readers through clarity and in-depth research. His work reflects a deep understanding of the rapidly evolving blockchain ecosystem, making him a valuable contributor in a field where staying current is essential.
In addition to his writing work, Ash has developed a strong skill set in managing content teams. He has led diverse groups of writers and researchers, overseeing the editorial process from topic selection, approval, editing, to final publication. His leadership ensured that content production was timely, accurate, and aligned with the strategic goals of the platforms he worked with. This has not only strengthened his expertise in content strategy but also honed his project management and team coordination skills.
Ash's ability to combine technical expertise with editorial oversight is further bolstered by his knowledge of blockchain analysis tools such as Etherscan, Dune Analytics, and Santiment. These tools have provided him with the data necessary to create well-researched, insightful articles that offer deeper market perspectives. Whether it's tracking the movement of digital assets or analyzing blockchain transactions, his analytical approach adds value to the content he produces, ensuring readers receive accurate and actionable information.
In the realm of content creation, Ash is not limited to just cryptocurrency markets. He has demonstrated versatility in covering other emerging technologies, market trends, and digital transformation across various industries. His in-depth research, coupled with a sharp editorial eye, has made him a sought-after professional in the freelance writing community. From developing editorial calendars to managing content delivery schedules, he has honed a meticulous approach to project management that ensures timely, high-quality work delivery.
Throughout his freelance career, Ash has consistently focused on improving audience engagement through well-researched, insightful, and relevant content. His ability to adapt to the evolving needs of clients, whether it's enhancing the visibility of digital platforms or producing thought-provoking pieces for a wide range of audiences, sets him apart as a dynamic force in the field of digital content creation. His contributions have helped to shape a well-rounded portfolio that showcases his versatility, technical expertise, and dedication to elevating the standards of journalism in blockchain and related sectors.
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The Bank for International Settlements warns that crypto and stablecoins may destabilize finance and widen inequality, urging stronger regulation in response.
The growing adoption of cryptocurrencies may pose risks to the traditional financial system and exacerbate wealth inequality, according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
In an April 15 report, the BIS warned that the number of investors and amount of capital in crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi) have “reached a critical mass,” with investor protection becoming a “significant concern for regulators.”
The size of the crypto market signals that authorities should be worried about the “stability of crypto over and above the role it may have for TradFi and the real economy,” the report states, highlighting the role of stablecoins, which the BIS said have “become the means through which participants transfer value within crypto.”
The report calls for targeted stablecoin regulation on stability and reserve asset requirements that will guarantee the redemption of stablecoins for US dollars during “stressed market conditions.”
Related: Spar supermarket in Switzerland starts accepting Bitcoin payments
The report comes two weeks after the US House Financial Services Committee passed the Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy, or STABLE Act, with a 32–17 vote on April 2.
The STABLE Act aims to create a clear regulatory framework for dollar-denominated payment stablecoins, emphasizing transparency and consumer protection.
On March 13, the GENIUS Act, short for Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins, passed the Senate Banking Committee by a vote of 18–6. The act aims to establish collateralization guidelines and require full compliance with Anti-Money Laundering laws from stablecoin issuers.
Related: $400M Web3 investment fund ABCDE halts new investments, fundraising
The BIS also raised concerns about how crypto markets may worsen income inequality by enabling larger investors to capitalize on the emotions of less sophisticated retail participants, as seen during the FTX collapse in 2022.
“As prices tumbled in 2022, users actually traded more,” the BIS report noted. “Most disturbingly, large bitcoin holders (“whales”) were selling as ordinary retail investors (“krill”) were buying.” It added:
The report concludes that DeFi and TradFi have similar underlying economic drivers, but DeFi's “distinctive features,” like “smart contract and composability,” present new challenges that need proactive regulatory interventions to “safeguard financial stability, while fostering innovation.”
Magazine: Uni students crypto ‘grooming' scandal, 67K scammed by fake women: Asia Express
Ethereum is trading below critical resistance levels after enduring weeks of heavy selling pressure and lackluster performance. Since breaking below the psychological $2,000 mark, the price has dropped more than 21%, signaling growing uncertainty among short-term investors. This decline has raised questions among market participants, especially as Ethereum's on-chain fundamentals remain robust.
Top analyst Ted Pillows shared insights suggesting that ETH is now trading near bear market lows—yet the network has never looked stronger. Over 95% of all stablecoin transactions are processed on Ethereum, and it still leads in Total Value Locked (TVL) across DeFi and Real World Asset (RWA) protocols. It is also the only altcoin with an approved spot ETF in the US, and numerous upgrades are lined up to improve its speed and reduce transaction costs.
Despite these strengths, Ethereum's price remains suppressed, leading to growing speculation: is this just market sentiment at play, or could it reflect coordinated manipulation to shake out weak hands before a reversal? As Ethereum continues to dominate the utility narrative in crypto, many long-term holders see this downturn as a strategic accumulation zone, while others brace for more downside.
Ethereum Fundamentals Shine Despite Bearish Market Conditions
Ethereum is facing a critical test as it trades near major demand levels while macroeconomic uncertainty deepens. Global tensions persist as US President Donald Trump escalates his trade war with China. The recent 90-day tariff pause for all countries except China has done little to ease market fears. As economic pressure builds between the world's two largest economies, investors are increasingly turning away from high-risk assets like crypto, driving volatility across digital markets.
Ethereum, like the broader crypto market, has suffered under this weight. The asset is now hovering just above bear market lows after a prolonged decline, prompting concerns over its short-term price action. Yet, despite the technical weakness, Pillows points to Ethereum's strong fundamentals as a reason to remain optimistic.
According to Pillows, Ethereum remains the backbone of the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. It processes over 95% of all stablecoin transactions, commands the highest Total Value Locked (TVL), and leads the charge in Real World Asset (RWA) tokenization. It's also the only altcoin the US has approved for a spot ETF, adding institutional legitimacy.
With several protocol upgrades ahead aimed at improving scalability and reducing costs, Pillows believes Ethereum's current valuation could represent a long-term buying opportunity. As he puts it: if you believe in fundamentals, ETH remains the top bet among altcoins.
ETH Price Stuck In Range: Bulls Eye $1,800 Breakout
Ethereum is trading at $1,590 after several days of choppy price action between $1,500 and $1,700. The market remains stuck in this narrow range as bulls struggle to regain momentum amid broader macroeconomic uncertainty. The inability to reclaim key resistance zones has kept ETH under pressure, and a decisive breakout is needed to shift sentiment.
Bulls are currently eyeing the 4-hour 200-day Moving Average (MA) and Exponential Moving Average (EMA), both sitting near the $1,800 level. Reclaiming this zone would mark a major short-term victory for buyers and could signal the beginning of a recovery phase. A clean break above $1,800 would also invalidate the current lower-high structure and potentially drive ETH toward higher supply areas near $2,000.
However, the downside risks remain. If Ethereum fails to hold above current support levels and dips below $1,550, the next leg could send the asset beneath the $1,500 mark. For now, the $1,500–$1,800 corridor defines Ethereum's battleground, and traders are closely watching for a breakout that sets the next major direction.
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Whatever the trade
Bitcoin whales are buying again, and that's rarely a quiet signal.
Large holders are scooping up $BTC at levels not seen since the last bull market, while mid-sized wallets are finally flipping bullish too.
But here's the thing: when Bitcoin rallies, it rarely moves alone.
Altcoins with strong narratives, meme energy, or smart positioning often surge even faster. If you're scanning the market for the best altcoins to watch as momentum builds, we've got three that are starting to heat up.
On-chain data shows a clear pattern: large Bitcoin holders – aka whales – are steadily increasing their positions. That kind of accumulation usually signals long-term confidence.
More interestingly, even mid-sized holders, who tend to be more reactive to short-term sentiment, are now showing signs of accumulation too. This double signal suggests that broader belief in a new bullish cycle is forming.
Meanwhile, Benjamin Cowen, a well-known analyst in the space, recently said in an interview that Bitcoin could climb as much as 137% if macro and market conditions align.
While that's a best-case scenario, it shows just how much upside analysts are starting to factor in. If $BTC does take off like that, the altcoin market could ignite in its shadow.
BTC Bull Token ($BTCBULL) isn't just another meme coin hoping to go viral. It's designed to mirror Bitcoin's rise – but with serious perks.
As Bitcoin climbs to key milestones like $150K, $200K, and beyond, $BTCBULL holders are rewarded with real $BTC. Yes, actual Bitcoin.
At a current price of $0.00247, $BTCBULL has already raised over $4.8M during its presale, signaling strong early interest.
The token also features built-in supply burns as $BTC hits milestones, creating natural scarcity that could drive value over time.
Every time Bitcoin hits a milestone, $BTCBULL's supply shrinks (hello, token burns), and rewards drop straight to holders – but only if you bought $BTCBULL through Best Wallet and still hold it there. No Best Wallet? No airdrops.
The project has already partnered with Best Wallet to make claiming rewards easy – no BRC-20 headaches or complex $BTC wallets required. Buy $BTCBULL on Ethereum, hold it in Best Wallet, and if Bitcoin pumps, so do your rewards.
With Bitcoin whales accumulating and price predictions turning bullish, $BTCBULL is positioned to capitalize on the surge like few others.
Mind of Pepe ($MIND) is a meme coin unlike anything the space has seen before.
At its core is a self-evolving AI agent designed to act in the best interest of $MIND holders. It has its own blockchain wallet, can interact with decentralized apps (dApps), and even launch new tokens – all autonomously.
What sets this project apart is the AI's integration with social media. Mind of Pepe runs its own autonomous account on X, where it scans crypto conversations on X in real-time using hive-mind analysis.
Mind of Pepe identifies early narratives, predicts meme trends before they go mainstream, and engages with influencers to help shape the conversation.
This intelligence isn't just for show – it's delivered exclusively to $MIND holders through token-gated communities and Telegram drops.
As the AI continues to learn and evolve, it becomes a stronger force in the space – part influencer, part analyst, part builder. In a world where narrative drives value, $MIND offers direct access to the machine that's helping write it.
With market sentiment turning bullish again, $MIND is well-positioned to ride the next meme-fueled breakout. If you're looking to buy in, $MIND is currently priced at $0.0037215, with over $8M already raised during its presale.
Green Bitcoin ($GBTC) is a new crypto project offering a fresh take on staking – combining climate-conscious values with a gameified DeFi experience.
Priced at around $0.09914, $GBTC runs on Ethereum's proof-of-stake network, promoting sustainability while letting users earn rewards through prediction-based staking.
Here's how it works: holders can stake their $GBTC and guess the future price of Bitcoin. If their prediction is accurate, they earn extra rewards. If not, they still receive base staking income. It's part DeFi, part game, and built for a market that's increasingly leaning into eco-aware narratives.
The token's supply is capped, with deflationary mechanics in place, and the platform plans to use part of its ecosystem to fund renewable energy initiatives.
In a crypto world trying to shake off its carbon-heavy image, $GBTC offers a rare value proposition: make money, have fun, and feel a little better about your portfolio's footprint.
With bullish Bitcoin sentiment rising again, it could quietly become one of the best altcoins to watch in the months ahead.
Bitcoin's momentum is building fast – and it's pulling some high-potential altcoins into the spotlight.
$BTCBULL mirrors Bitcoin's rise with real $BTC rewards, $MIND fuses memes with AI-generated insights, and $GBTC gamifies staking with a green twist.
Together, these projects capture where the market is heading: narrative-driven, utility-backed, and community-powered. With whales accumulating and sentiment flipping bullish, this could be the ideal time to explore beyond Bitcoin itself.
Just don't forget – all crypto investments come with risk. Never invest more than you're willing to lose, and always do your own research (DYOR).
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Vignesh is a young journalist with a decade of experience. A proud alumnus of IIJNM, Bengaluru, he spent six years as a Sub-Editor for a leading business magazine, published from Kerala. His interest in futuristic technologies took him to a US-based software company specialising in Web3, Blockchain and AI. This stint inspired him to view the future of journalism through the lens of next generation technologies. Now, he covers the crypto scene for Coinpedia, uncovering a vibrant new world where technology and journalism converge.
Bitcoin dominance is decreasing, suggesting a potential shift towards altcoins.
Despite overall crypto market volatility, altcoins are showing signs of strength as Bitcoin's dominance weakens.
Analysts anticipate a possible altcoin season fueled by capital rotation away from Bitcoin.
Bitcoin dominance is starting to fade—and the market is paying close attention. As BTC.D breaks below a key support level, analysts are eyeing a potential shift in momentum from Bitcoin to altcoins. For many, this could mark the beginning of a new altcoin season.
Excited? We are too! Dive in.
April kicked off with a total crypto market cap of $2.63 trillion. But the first half of the month brought major volatility.
Between April 5 and 7, the market dropped sharply by 9.8%, hitting a low of $2.31 trillion. It didn't stay there long—between April 9 and 12, the market bounced back, climbing 11.71%. As of now, total market cap sits at $2.65 trillion, still 5.2% below this month's high.
Altcoins Follow the Trend
Altcoins mirrored Bitcoin's moves, but with some promising signs.
The altcoin market started April at $991.26 billion, then dropped to $831.83 billion by April 7. From April 9 to 12, it rebounded 11.6%. Today, the altcoin market cap is around $958.43 billion – about 7.8% below the April peak.
Looking at the four-hour chart, Bitcoin dominance peaked at 63.98% on April 7, meeting strong resistance. It briefly broke above that level on April 16 but quickly fell back. BTC.D now sits at 63.83%.
If this trend continues, Bitcoin dominance could retest the monthly low of 63.16%—a move that could fuel even more optimism around altcoins.
Crypto analyst Crypto Rover shared on X that we may see sharp capital inflows into altcoins soon. Since April 16, the altcoin market has grown by 1.99%. Interestingly, when Bitcoin dropped from $84,936.62 to $84,479.38, the alt market climbed from $947.58 billion to $948.94 billion.
Top altcoins are already showing strength:
As Bitcoin dominance shows signs of weakening and top altcoins begin to climb, traders are watching closely. If this momentum holds, we could be at the start of a strong altcoin cycle.
Momentum is building beneath the surface, and the market may be closer to a full altcoin breakout than it seems.
Stay ahead with breaking news, expert analysis, and real-time updates on the latest trends in Bitcoin, altcoins, DeFi, NFTs, and more.
The Altcoin Season Index measures the performance of altcoins relative to Bitcoin. A low index value, such as 15, can indicate potential for an altcoin rally.
Lower Bitcoin dominance often leads to capital flowing into altcoins, boosting their prices as investors diversify from BTC to major altcoins.
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According to AltcoinGordon on Twitter, an insider source at Blackrock has indicated that the upcoming week will be monumental for cryptocurrency markets. This suggests potential large-scale movements or announcements that could significantly impact trading strategies. Traders should remain vigilant for any official statements or market shifts that could influence Bitcoin and altcoin prices.
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Web3 fund ABCDE halts new investments and fundraising to support existing projects and launch its new crypto incubator, Vernal.
Web3 and blockchain-focused investment fund ABCDE is halting new investments, but the $400 million fund remains committed to supporting its existing projects.
In an April 19 X post, ABCDE co-founder and Huobi exchange founder Du Jun said the $400 million fund will no longer invest in new projects or raise capital for the second phase of the fund.
However, Jun said the fund will continue to “post-investment support and exit arrangements of existing projects” to ensure the firm's commitment to entrepreneurs and liquidity providers (LPs).
“My personal work focus will also gradually shift from financial investment in the primary market to strategic investment-led and deep incubation-based, focusing more on industrial synergy and long-term value creation,” Jun added.
The announcement comes nearly three months after ABCDE's last investment into an Ethereum layer-2 (L2) solution, Soon (Solana Optimistic Network), which raised $22 million through a non-fungible token sale to mark the launch of its mainnet, Cointelegraph reported on Jan. 22.
The Soon mainnet claims to outperform Solana in speed and efficiency, delivering average block times of 50 milliseconds compared to Solana's 400 milliseconds.
ABCDE is a $400 million fund, with 28% of its investments in Bitcoin (BTC) scaling technology, 16% in Ethereum liquid staking derivatives finance (LSDFi) infrastructure, and an additional 12% invested in L2s, restaking and smart contract platforms, Cryptorank data shows.
ABCDE has invested over $40 million worth of capital into over 30 projects over the past three years, with an internal rate of return (IRR) “still at the global leading level,” despite the current market environment, Jun said.
Related: Trump family memecoins may trigger increased SEC scrutiny on crypto
ABCDE's suspension of fundraising efforts was announced a month after the fund's co-founder launched a new incubator brand, Vernal.
The new incubator is set to announce its shareholders and incubation rules for the first batch of projects in May, along with its first investments.
Jun said that the decision to halt ABCDE's fundraising efforts was not made due to financial constraints or lack of funds but because of a fundamental concern for the current development trajectory of the crypto industry.
Related: Crypto, stocks enter ‘new phase of trade war' as US-China tensions rise.
“Frankly speaking, I am increasingly unable to agree with the current ecological atmosphere of the primary market,” Jun said in an April 19 X post, adding:
“What is more worrying is that some primary funds not only have no reflection on this, but also hype up their ‘listed projects' and short-term market value performance, but never mention the value creation of the projects themselves,” he added.
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has urged fourth-generation cryptocurrency projects to embrace more collaborative tokenomics to compete with major centralized tech companies entering the crypto industry.
“The problem right now, with the way we've done things in the cryptocurrency space, is the tokenomics and the market structure are intrinsically adversarial. It's sum 0,” Hoskinson said at Paris Blockchain Week on April 9. “Instead of picking a fight, what you have to do is you have to find tokenomics and market structure that allows you to be in a cooperative equilibrium.”
“You can't build a global ecosystem this way, and you can't win this way,” he added. “Because here's the thing. The incumbents are much larger.”
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A recent report from Bitso, a long-standing Ripple partner, highlights growing traction among Latin American users for XRP.
The report shared the activities of Latin American (LATAM) users on Bitso's crypto platform in the previous year. Notably, it highlighted some interesting details, including XRP's meteoric rise to fame among its customers.
For context, the 2024 report shows that despite a decrease in activities on the platform, the acquisition of XRP increased substantially. The outline indicated that users bought more of the asset than prominent coins like Ethereum, Solana, and Dogecoin.
Meanwhile, the report underscores XRP's preference last year. XRP accounted for 9% of all purchases on the Bitso platform, 3% more than the meme coin PEPE, which ranks next to it. In addition, Ethereum, Solana, and Dogecoin acquisitions accounted for 5%, 4%, and 2% of all LATAM buy activities, respectively, falling short of XRP's traction.
However, Bitcoin and stablecoins dominated trading activity on Bitso last year. The pioneering cryptocurrency accounted for an average of 22% of all purchases, down from 28% in the first half of the year alone. Meanwhile, stablecoins led proceedings, with 39% of acquisitions tied to the dollar-pegged digital asset.
Furthermore, Mexicans bought more XRP than any other Latin American geographical region. Aside from preferences for Bitcoin and stablecoins, 10% of buying activities among the nation's users were accumulating XRP.
Meanwhile, the report identified a drastic change in average portfolio distribution as preferences among LATAM users evolve. Interestingly, a notable rotation was seen, particularly towards XRP, as users held more of the token compared to the previous year.
The statistics show that in 2023, XRP was not part of the average portfolio composition of Latin American users on Bitso. However, things escalated quickly last year, resulting in an average distribution of 13%. This means that portfolios of users in the region comprise at least 13% of XRP, a testament to the emerging interest in the ecosystem.
Notably, factors such as potential regulatory clarity and the asset's performance may have contributed to this newfound interest in the XRP. For context, XRP grew 238% in 2024, its strongest performance since 2021, with most of the rally happening in the last quarter of the year. Interestingly, the optimism triggered by Donald Trump's election victory and the resignation of US SEC Chair Gary Gensler ignited this foray.
Bitso's report highlighted a renewed interest in the XRP ecosystem in Latin America. Notably, the crypto exchange is a long-standing Ripple partner, facilitating cross-border remittances in LATAM. In 2022, Bitso processed $3.3 billion in remittances between the US and Mexico for Ripple.
DisClamier: This content is informational and should not be considered financial advice. The views expressed in this article may include the author's personal opinions and do not reflect The Crypto Basic opinion. Readers are encouraged to do thorough research before making any investment decisions. The Crypto Basic is not responsible for any financial losses.
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by our writers are their own and do not represent the views of U.Today. The financial and market information provided on U.Today is intended for informational purposes only. U.Today is not liable for any financial losses incurred while trading cryptocurrencies. Conduct your own research by contacting financial experts before making any investment decisions. We believe that all content is accurate as of the date of publication, but certain offers mentioned may no longer be available.
Old-school commodity trader Peter L. Brandt, who has been in the business since the mid-1970s, has stirred the crypto community with his recent tweet, where he predicts Ethereum to nosedive to a 2022 low of $800.
Brandt shared a chart, which clearly demonstrates the way he expects Ethereum's price trajectory to go from the current trading point. The chart shows a descending triangle pattern, which usually predicts further and deeper price declines.
Over the past year, the second largest cryptocurrency has already displayed a massive 46% decline. Since Wednesday, when ETH crashed by 4%, following Bitcoin down after the Fed Reserve's announcement about maintaining the current interest rates, it has recovered by 3.56% and is changing hands at $1,601. When Brandt published his chart, ETH traded at $1,587 per coin.
ETHUSD pic.twitter.com/pi73odO96z
Earlier this week, Peter Brandt slammed Ethereum as “worthless junk.”
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Sat, 04/19/2025 - 07:20
'Rich Dad Poor Dad' Author Stuns With Bitcoin Price Forecast: Over $1 Million
Yuri Molchan
As covered by U.Today, earlier this week, the famous NBA player Scottie Pippen predicted the start of the biggest altcoin season this Sunday. He stated that historically, such a bull run has always begun approximately 340 days after a Bitcoin halving.
The most recent halving took place last year on April 20. That year, the SEC also approved on spot ETFs based on Bitcoin and Ethereum. All along, Bitcoin ETFs have been showing much higher inflows and smaller outflows than Ethereum ETFs.
Scottie Pippen stated that he was bullish on ETH long-term since he is building a project on this network. It is focused on AI, gaming and tokenization of real-world assets (RWA).
Tron founder and owner of two crypto exchanges, Poloniex and Huobi, Justin Sun, also tweeted that despite the recent poor performance, Tron does not intend to sell its Ethereum holdings. What they plan is to seek more opportunities to collaborate with Ethereum developers and work to improve the crypto space together.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are not investment advice; they are provided for informational purposes only. The opinions expressed by our writers are their own and do not represent the views of U.Today. Every investment and all trading involves risk, so you should always perform your own research prior to making decisions. U.Today is not liable for any financial losses incurred while trading cryptocurrencies. We do not recommend investing money you cannot afford to lose.
Anthony Pompliano agrees with critics claiming the Federal Reserve isn't truly independent but says firing its chair will just make things worse.
Crypto entrepreneur Anthony Pompliano says that US President Donald Trump shouldn't follow through on his recent threat to fire the head of the US Federal Reserve, saying it would set a dangerous precedent — especially considering the true motive behind it.
“I do not believe that the President of the United States should come in and unilaterally fire the Fed President,” Pompliano said in a video posted on X on April 18.
Pompliano said, “Where you have a disagreement and then the firing, I think that's not really the area that we want to go into.”
It comes after Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social to accuse Fed chair Jerome Powell of being too slow to cut interest rates. “Powell's termination cannot come fast enough!” Trump said on April 17.
Pompliano explained that while the Fed is meant to operate independently, he agrees with critics who argue it's not truly independent. “The Fed, I think, is highly politicized, even though they pretend not to be,” he said.
Pompliano acknowledged his own criticism of the Fed, saying he's not exactly a fan, but emphasized that even if the Fed has made mistakes, responding in kind isn't the right approach.
“I still think that just because somebody else is doing something wrong doesn't mean that you should do something wrong,” Pompliano said.
US Senator Elizabeth Warren recently warned that if Trump eventually moves to fire Powell, it could undermine investor confidence in the integrity of US capital markets and trigger a financial crash.
“A big part of our economy strong, and a big part of the world economy strong, is the idea that the big pieces move independently of politics,” Warren said during an appearance on CNBC.
Related: Fed's Powell reasserts support for stablecoin legislation
Lower interest rates often lead to increased liquidity, which has historically led to higher prices of perceived riskier assets like Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
It comes not long after Powell said establishing a stablecoins legal framework was a “good idea.”
In an April 16 panel at the Economic Club of Chicago, Powell said, “The climate is changing, and you're moving into more mainstreaming of that whole sector, so Congress is again looking [...] at a legal framework for stablecoins.”
Magazine: Your AI' digital twin' can take meetings and comfort your loved ones
LGA1954 in, LGA1851 out.
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Shipping documents sourced from NBD.ltd purport that Intel might switch to the LGA1954 platform for its next-generation Nova Lake processors on desktop (via Olrak). This is accompanied by PCH tooling likely intended for the 900-series chipsets. Importantly, these listings do not indicate an imminent launch, especially since Nova Lake has officially been confirmed as a 2026 product.
Nova Lake is officially a part of Intel's product family, set to supersede Arrow Lake next year. Preliminary silicon configurations allege two clusters of eight Coyote Cove P-cores and 16 Arctic Wolf E-cores, complemented by four Low-Power Efficient (LPE) cores in the SoC Tile, adding up to 52 hybrid cores. Intel's engineers explore numerous design strategies, so whether this ambitious 52-core project will ever see the light of day is unclear.
The information within the manifests implies that Intel is actively distributing LGA1954 testing hardware to its global facilities. Specifically, these are not full-fledged motherboards but appear to be some form of a specialized interposer to test voltage regulation for the upcoming platform. Either way, these kits are designated for "NVL-S", the shorthand for Nova Lake Desktop.
There are also mentions of reball jigs or reballing stations for an 888-ball BGA chip, measuring 600 mm2 (25mm x 24mm), and these seem to be for Nova Lake's PCH. Existing 800-series chipsets (Z890, B860, and H810) use a package that's around 650 mm2. So, Nova Lake's south bridge might be a tad smaller than Arrow Lake's, but this isn't particularly informative.
The limited lifespan of LGA1851 is a letdown, though the rumored Arrow Lake Refresh might offer some solace to enthusiasts who've invested a lot in this platform. Intel platforms typically last for two generations, and while LGA1700 was an exception, the 13th and 14th generations were mere refreshes, using the same process nodes, and (almost) similar architectures, stemming from Alder Lake.
LGA1954 will feature 1,954 electrically active landing pads. The total count, including debugging pins, could exceed 2,000, as many sockets feature more pads than their name indicates; a fact that was meticulously confirmed by a manual count of all the pads on an LGA1851 motherboard at an event in Japan. If this leak holds, Nova Lake and possibly even Razer Lake should be compatible with the LGA1954 platform, but the provided details are stretched too thin for us to draw any conclusive statements.
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Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he's not working, you'll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.
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https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.04752https://arxiv.org/pdf/2409.14085
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2409.14085
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Are trunked networks ever used in amateur radio or outside of big commercial/government systems? Is there a standardized way to feed back channel info to the SDR frontend for trunked operation in GNU Radio? Eg. The control channel will tell the terminal to tune to traffic channel at X Mhz to receive or send a call, which requires reconfiguring the frontend.
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Y'all can use 25 kHz for repeaters? Here in Germany repeaters are 12.5 kHz only, allegedly due to a lack of free frequencies...
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Most people don't associate Skullcandy—known for its plasticky skull-and-crossbones aesthetic—with premium audio. Skullcandy admitted as much at a launch event this week in New York City. Since its inception in 2003, it has aimed at (and impressively captured) the wallets of cash-strapped suburban punks across America with low prices, punchy colors, heavy bass, and skulls.
That's why its new $100 noise-canceling headphones are both exciting and ironic—they're made in collaboration with Bose, a company known best as the business-class choice for the parents of Skullcandy kids. The Method 360 ANC offer similar noise canceling to the Bose QuietComfort Ultra in a similar design, but with a larger charging case (good for 32 hours of battery life with ANC on) and slightly larger earbuds. It's a “we'll dumb this down for Junior” approach that I'd love to see employed more in affordable products.
In my limited time with the headphones so far, I've been impressed with the noise canceling and audio quality, even with stiff competition from Google, JLab, and others in the sub-$100 space. They have multipoint pairing and a nine-hour battery life with ANC on, which is excellent for a full day of work. The one downside? Putting the buds back in the charging case is a bit of a pain at first—for whatever reason, they snap magnetically into the case upside down. That's not much of a deal-breaker to me, and I look forward to more testing before our upcoming review.
Alongside the Method 360 ANC, available now for $100, the company unveiled several other new audio products at its NYC event set to arrive throughout the year, from the Crusher 540 Active workout headphones to the revived Aviator 900 ANC and open-earbud Push 720 Open. Oh, and Tony Hawk was there—he's the brand ambassador for the new Method 360. —Parker Hall
If you've ever longed to join the Macrodata Refinement team at Lumon Industries, you'll be excited to hear that Atomic Keyboard has unveiled a real-life limited edition Severance keyboard. Called the MDR Dasher, this mechanical keyboard is modeled after the Data General Dasher 200 terminal from the late ‘70s, the same unit that inspired the show's production design team.
There's no Escape, Control, or Option keys—because, well, there is no escape. It's a cold grid of 73 chunky keys with a 70 percent keyboard layout. The bulky, aluminum case is dressed in shades of industrial blue, with an off-white frame that looks like it's been sitting in a forgotten department since the '80s. Instead of a mouse pad, there's a tactile trackball beside a cross-shaped directional pad.
There's no practical need for a keyboard like this in 2025, but it's a cheeky collector's item for fans of the Apple TV+ series. The MDR Dasher will be compatible with macOS, Windows, and Linux via USB-C. Atomic Keyboard isn't clear on the price yet (it says $399, but the price is crossed off, and it notes that final pricing is to be determined), and there's no release date, but you can sign up for email alerts on its site. —Boutayna Chokrane
This week, Apple says it will begin analyzing user data to improve its artificial intelligence models, a move widely seen as a means for the company to catch up to rivals like OpenAI and Google. Instead of relying on synthetic training models, Apple will use anonymized customer data to check the work of its synthetic data and improve it. The data is aggregated, so Apple isn't collecting emails or texts but instead tracking “trends in real user data” to compare with results from synthetic data. It only applies to users who have opted in to Device Analytics and will roll out in iOS 18.5, iPadOS 18.5, and macOS 15.5.
This will upgrade the quality of artificial-intelligence text-generation features like Writing Tools and summarizations, though it's unclear how quickly we'll see improvements. Apple's new-and-improved Siri was supposed to be here by now—a part of the broader Apple Intelligence rollout—but instead we're left with a marginally souped-up Siri that can tap into OpenAI's ChatGPT. That's about it. A few weeks ago, the company delayed the version of Siri it promised last year, one that can understand your personal context. It's now expected to arrive in 2026.
The Lyma Laser Pro has officially launched in the US this week for a cool $5,995. First released in Europe last year, the at-home, FDA-cleared skin-care tool has racked up a wait list of over 16,000 Americans, which the company says translates to more than $100 million in sales.
What does it do? The Laser Pro uses near-infrared cold laser technology to boost collagen production to address wrinkles, cellulite, redness, scarring, hyperpigmentation, and post-surgical recovery. Triple the size and power of the original Lyma Laser, the Pro delivers a continuous 808-nanometer laser beam at 1,450 milliwatts—deep enough to penetrate 10 centimeters into the dermis. Lyma claims visible results in 30 days if you stick to three minutes a day. What's more fascinating is that, unlike LED light therapy, this laser works over sun protection factor (SPF) or makeup without (supposedly) losing efficacy. I'm currently testing it—stay tuned for the full review. —Boutayna Chokrane
A few weeks ago, Verizon announced a three-year price lock for customers, citing rising prices in a challenging economic climate. Now, Comcast is following suit. This week, the company announced a five-year price guarantee if you subscribe to a new Xfinity Internet package, which includes a Wi-Fi router/modem and unlimited data, starting at $55 per month and going up to $105 depending on the plan. That also includes a free Xfinity Mobile line for one year. Comcast claims there's no annual contract, so you're free to cancel it at any time with no penalty.
Like all of these price lock initiatives, there are caveats. It applies only to new residential customers, and you're limited to 400 Mbps internet. You have to enroll in paperless billing and autopay or you'll pay extra, and there could be equipment-installation and other fees. If you downgrade the service, regular rates will apply. The promotion ends June 23.
Beats is getting into the cable business. Announced this week, the Apple-owned brand is launching Beats Cables, including USB-A to USB-C, USB-C to USB-C, and USB-C to Lightning varieties. The reinforced cables come in a 20-cm size in Bolt Black (AKA black) as well as 1.5 meters in signature Beats colors like Surge Stone, Nitro Navy, and Rapid Red (available this summer). The stylish cables provide data transfer at USB 2.0 rates and fast charging at up to 60 watts for the USB-C version, or 15 watts for the USB-A to USB-C cable. They're available now at Beats' site and Apple's site and stores, starting at $19 for a single or $35 for a two-pack. —Ryan Waniata
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This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
The summer of 2021 was brutal for residents of the Pacific Northwest. Cities across the region from Portland, Oregon, to Quillayute, Washington, broke temperature records by several degrees. In Washington, as the searing heat wave settled over the state, 125 people died from heat-related illnesses such as strokes and heart attacks, making it the deadliest weather event in the state's history.
As officials recognized the heat wave's disproportionate effect on low-income and unhoused people unable to access air-conditioning, they made a crucial change to the state's energy assistance program. Since the early 1980s, states, tribes, and territories have received funds each year to help low-income people pay their electricity bills and install energy-efficiency upgrades through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP. Congress appropriates funds for the program, and the Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, doles it out to states in late fall. Until the summer of 2021, the initiative primarily provided heating assistance during Washington's cold winter months. But that year, officials expanded the program to cover cooling expenses.
Last year, Congress appropriated $4.1 billion for the effort, and HHS disbursed 90 percent of the funds. But the program is now in jeopardy.
Earlier this month, HHS, led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., laid off 10,000 employees, including the roughly dozen or so people tasked with running LIHEAP. The agency was supposed to send out an additional $378 million this year, but those funds are now stuck in federal coffers without the staff needed to move the money out.
LIHEAP helps roughly 6 million people survive freezing winters and blistering summers, many of whom face greater risks now that the year's warm season has already brought unusually high temperatures. Residents of Phoenix are expected to have their first 100-degree high any day now.
“We're seeing the warm-weather states really coming up short with the funding necessary to assist people in the summer with extreme heat,” said one of the HHS employees who worked on the LIHEAP program and was recently laid off. Losing the people that ran the program is “absolutely devastating,” they said, because agency staff helped states and tribes understand the flexibilities in the program to serve people effectively, assistance that became extremely important with increasingly erratic weather patterns across the country.
In typical years, once Congress appropriates LIHEAP funds, HHS distributes the money in the fall in time for the colder months. States and other entities then make critical decisions about how much they spend during the winter and how much they save for the summer.
The need for LIHEAP funds has always been greater than what has been available. Only about 1 in 5 households that meet the program's eligibility requirements receive funds. As a result, states often run out of money by the summer. At least a quarter of LIHEAP grant recipients run out of money at some point during the year, the former employee said.
“That remaining 10 percent would be really important to establish cooling assistance during the hot summer months, which is increasingly important,” said Katrina Metzler, executive director of the National Energy and Utility Affordability Coalition, a group of nonprofits and utilities that advances the needs of low-income people. “If LIHEAP were to disappear, people would die in their homes. That's the most critical issue. It saves people.”
In addition to Washington, many other states have expanded their programs to provide both heating and cooling programs. Arizona, Texas, and Oregon now offer year-round cooling assistance.
HHS staff plays a crucial role in running LIHEAP. They assess how much each state, tribe, and territory will receive. They set rules for how the money could be used. They audit local programs to ensure funds are being spent as intended. All that may now be lost.
But according to Metzler, there are some steps that HHS could take to ensure that the program continues to be administered as Congress intended. First, and most obvious, the agency could reinstate those who were fired. Short of that, the agency could move the program to another department within HHS or contract out the responsibilities.
But ultimately, Metzler continued, LIHEAP funds need to be distributed so those in need can access it. “Replacing the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program is a nearly impossible task,” she said. States “can't have enough bake sales to replace” it.
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Google has firmly established itself in the market as a top contender in the high-end smartphone market and fights it out with Apple's iPhone and Samsung Galaxy series. In the Pixel 9 Pro, Google goes another step further with a phone that in all aspects (design, functionality, features) gathers for a high-end contender to both its rivals.
Now, thanks to a magical Amazon offer, the Pixel 9 Pro is available at a historical low price—below Black Friday—so it's the perfect time to invest in this top-of-the-line smartphone. Regardless of how much storage space you require, you can have this device for a price that is unbeatable: $799 for the 128GB model (original price: $999), $849 for the 256GB model (original price: $1,099) and $919 for the 512GB model (normal price: $1,219 which marks a 25% discount).
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The Pixel 9 Pro is powered by Google's latest Tensor G4 processor which delivers first-rate performance optimized for AI-intensive tasks. The chipset delivers effortless multitasking and app performance and also offers such capabilities as real-time language translation and pro-level photo editing. Paired with 16GB of RAM, it is ready to handle taxing applications super easily.
The Google phone has a stunning 6.3-inch Super Actua OLED screen with 495 PPI of pixel density. It is HDR-compatible with up to 3,000 nits peak brightness measurements and delivers a great deal of visibility even when subjected to direct sunlight. Its refresh rate varies from 1Hz to 120Hz which makes it super smooth at scrolling and optimizes the battery life. Of course, the screen is also protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 which makes the device highly scratch and drop-proof.
If you like photography, you will absolutely love the Pixel 9 Pro's three-camera rear camera setup (and the competitions is quite far behind). The setup includes a 50MP wide-angle camera with ƒ/1.68 aperture for stunning detail and clarity, a 48MP ultrawide lens with macro focus for capturing detailed close-ups, and a 48MP telephoto lens with 5x optical zoom and Super Res Zoom up to 30x. These smartphones arrive loaded with premium features like Night Sight mode for low-light photography and the quite unique Magic Eraser for the removal of unwanted objects from photographs. Even the selfie camera is on par with a 42MP ultra-wide lens which ensures a crisp selfie and can handle high-end video calls.
Battery life is also great on the Pixel 9 Pro: It has a high-capacity 4,700mAh battery and offers over 24 hours of use between charges. For those needing even more life, Extreme Battery Saver mode offers up to an incredible 100 hours of use. The phone charges rapidly (fast-charging to up to 55% in about 30 min) and also fast wireless charging and wireless charging with reverse wireless charging through Battery Share.
At its Amazon record-low price of $799 for the 128GB model, $849 for the 256GB model, and $919 for the 512GB model, the Pixel 9 Pro offers a great value for one of the most advanced smartphones on the market today. Given speculations that prices may double as a result of looming tariff increases in the U.S., you should better act fast.
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Buying cloud storage might seem like the modern solution for managing your files, but let's be honest—it comes with its own set of challenges. Subscription fees stack up over time, and you're often left wondering about the safety and privacy of your data.
For those who prefer a reliable, one-time investment, nothing beats a physical hard drive at home. As it is, the Seagate Portable 5TB external hard drive is available for just $119 on Amazon, down from $129 just ahead of the tariffs increase. The 4TB model is priced at $99 (down from $124) which makes it also very popular.
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The Seagate 5TB HDD is a high-quality storage solution if you're dealing with large files, whether they're photos, videos, games or critical documents. With a massive 5TB of storage space, this drive can hold up to 700 five-minute 4K videos or over two million average files. It's perfect for backing up priceless family videos or for expanding your gaming library without worrying about running out of space.
Small and portable, the Seagate drive itself is only 4.54 inches in length and 3.15 inches in width which allows it to fit easily into a bag or even a pocket. Weighing in at only 0.56 lbs, it's built to be portable without sacrificing durability. Its slim black profile will make it fit easily into any environment, at home or on the road.
The drive features USB 3.0 connectivity for transfer speeds up to ten times faster than USB 2.0. This provides fast and effective transfer of large files—like high-definition movies or entire collections of games. For compatibility with older systems, the Seagate drive is also backward compatible with USB 2.0 ports at reduced speeds. Its plug-and-play nature simplifies setup: simply plug it in with the included USB cable, and your PC or Mac will recognize it immediately with no software to install.
It is pre-formatted as exFAT and works with Windows and macOS computers right out of the box. This compatibility is great if you work on both operating systems or need an OS-agnostic storage device. Mac users who would like to use Time Machine backups can also reformat the drive to their needs without any issues. Gamers will love this hard drive too as it plugs in flawlessly with Xbox and PlayStation consoles.
Whether you're safeguarding memories or expanding your digital library, this is a great deal!
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Amid rising tariffs and growing uncertainty in the electronics sector, consumers are bracing themselves for higher costs for flagship phones. As manufacturers and retailers adjust to these changes, Amazon is offering an outstanding deal on Samsung's latest flagship device, the Galaxy S25 Ultra. This deal significant because of the huge discount but it also beats the price on Samsung's official website.
Now marked down to $1,129 on Amazon which is a 14% below its list price of $1,419, the Galaxy S25 Ultra 512GB is officially available for a record low price (previous low was $1,184). For comparison, Samsung's website sells the same model for $1,219, which only serves to highlight Amazon's advantage. We recommend you to act quickly, before tariffs push prices up even higher or supplies run low.
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The Galaxy S25 Ultra is Samsung's innovation flagship and it was released in January 2025. It merges the newest hardware with advanced AI features to deliver a top-of-the-line experience. At its heart is Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite processor (the most powerful chip from Qualcomm right now) specially designed for Galaxy phones. The chip offers huge performance improvements including faster processing speeds and better AI capabilities—ideal for multitasking, gaming, and CPU-intensive apps.
We also love Samsung's S25 Ultra stunning display: Its massive 6.9-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X screen offers QHD+ resolution and a refresh rate of up to 120Hz with the promise of rich colors and silky-smooth graphics for gaming or streaming. The display reaches a brightness of up to 2,600 nits which makes it perfectly visible even in direct sunlight. The display is topped with Corning Gorilla Glass Armor 2 to avoid scratch and accidental drops.
We also all know that Samsung is one of the best regarding photography. The Galaxy S25 Ultra quad-camera setup includes a 200MP wide-angle lens with optical image stabilization that captures stunningly detailed photos with rich colors and sharp contrasts. There's also a brand-new 50MP ultra-wide sensor which excels at landscape and macro photography, and two telephoto lenses with 5x and 3x optical zoom allow users to capture clear images of distant objects. The front 12MP camera delivers high-quality selfies and video calls.
Battery life is another area where the Galaxy S25 Ultra doesn't disappoint: The big 5,000mAh battery delivers all-day performance despite heavy workloads. Quick wired charging at 45W and wireless charging at 20W offer quick top-ups as and when needed. Reverse wireless charging is also available on this phone which allows you to top up other devices on the go.
On the software side, the Galaxy S25 Ultra runs Android 15 with Samsung's One UI 7 interface. The user-friendly software provides productivity tools like Seamless Actions Across Apps and Now Brief to multitask with ease. Samsung has also assured seven years of OS updates for this device with a commitment to long-term support and security patches.
Our advice: Order one now before tariffs drive prices up (or stocks run out).
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A team of scientists has identified areas of the brain that are activated when a person becomes aware of themself and their thoughts. This enigmatic process appears to be controlled by the thalamus, a central region of the brain already known for its function as a filter between sensory signals and the cerebral cortex, the portion of the brain that governs higher-level processes such as memory, thought, and personality.
Conscious perception is the ability of human beings to become aware of the stimuli received by their senses. It is a different state from simply being awake, where sensations are processed automatically and unreflectively. Rather, conscious perception requires a detailed and voluntary analysis of external stimuli. For example, we can breathe automatically, but we can also be aware of our breathing and modify its rhythm. Likewise, when listening to a song, we can pay attention to and differentiate the instruments that compose it.
Recently, neurologists have set out to find the part of the brain where this change in perception occurs. Researchers had traditionally suspected that such a function must be controlled by the cerebral cortex, because it is where advanced brain processing occurs. The thalamus has never been ruled out from being involved in conscious perception, however it has typically been assigned a minor role as a filter that prepares sensory information to the cortex. A new study recently published in Science redefines that view, positioning the thalamus as an active participant in conscious perception.
Most studies of consciousness involving the thalamus have faced skepticism, either because they lack key observational data of the thalamus at work or, if they are evidenced with data, because of the controversial way in which that data was likely obtained. To see whether a patient's brain region “lights up” with activity when paying conscious attention to something, it's necessary for that patient to be aware of stimuli—that is, be conscious—while simultaneously having their brain surveyed with invasive sensors.
But in this new research, a team from Beijing Normal University in China turned to a group of people who already had thin electrodes inserted into their brains as part of an experimental headache therapy, bypassing the ethical question of whether this sort of research justifies an invasive operation.
The researchers administered a visual perception test to these patients. A blinking object was displayed on a screen, which would hide itself for half of the time of the test. These characteristics meant the patients had to pay attention to the object and adjust their eyes and focus to keep watching it, rather than just regard the screen without analyzing it. This thus facilitated conscious perception, with the already-implanted electrodes then recording the brain activity that accompanied this.
The researchers say that this is one of the first simultaneous recordings of conscious perception, and the information they recorded, they say, offers strong evidence for the hypothesis that the thalamus region acts a kind of gateway to conscious perception. “The findings indicate that the intralaminar and medial thalamic nuclei regulate conscious perception. This conclusion represents a significant advance in our understanding of the network that forms the basis of visual consciousness in humans,” the authors write.
This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.
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After Ubisoft tried its hand at a Star Wars game with 2024's Outlaws, EA is back with another single-player game, this time from developer Bit Reactor and produced by Star Wars Jedi studio Respawn Entertainment. It's called Star Wars: Zero Company, and if you've been wanting the franchise to deliver a turn-based tactics game, this might be it.
Unlike the recent Jedi games or Star Wars Squadrons, which were set during and after the Original Trilogy, Zero Company is set during the Clone Wars. Thanks to this weekend's Star Wars Celebration panel featuring Bit Reactor, Respawn Entertainment, and Lucasfilm Games, we know even more details of what to expect. In fact, here's a trailer.
“At Lucasfilm Games, we're huge tactics fans and we have wanted to make a game like this for a long time,” Douglas Reilly, GM & VP, Lucasfilm Games, said. “The best tactics games are all about meaningful choices, and we're confident we have chosen the right squad in Bit Reactor to deliver a compelling and innovative title that is authentic to Star Wars.”
Players will take on the role of Hawks, the customizable leader of Zero Company (meaning, yes, they can look however you want them to look), an elite outfit put together during the Clone Wars to do covert missions. Said team includes a trusty astromech, a Jedi padawan named Telia Tria, an Umbaran sharpshooter named Lucco Bronk, a Clone Trooper named Trick, and a Mandalorian named Klive. [Note: Spellings are not final as we got them from audio.) But, you don't have to use them.
You are also able to create and customize your own team of characters too. So, if you want a full team of just astromech droids, you can do that. Similar to the recent XCOM games from Firaxis—several among that team left to start Bit Reactor—you'll control the squad members and use their various abilities in tactical, grid-based combat. The team's exploits will have them waging a shadow war across the galaxy.
The Clone Wars was picked as the era for the game because, unlike many other eras in Star Wars, it's about a battle between relatively similarly sized forces: the Jedi/Clones and the Separatists. Players will make decisions throughout that have major, at times, permanent consequences and the map is, apparently, the biggest in a Star Wars game to date. There's also a bond system that, depending on which characters you use, will create new branches of the game. No two playthroughs will be alike.
Also of note, the music will be by Gordy Haab, who game fans know from his work on Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Survivor. And, yes, there will be cameos.
Star Wars: Zero Company deploys in 2026 on PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Series X|S.
Additional reporting by Germain Lussier.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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From social media impressions and those who've seen it, Andor will go out as it came in: a full, 12-episode banger.
The Disney+ series' Star Wars Celebration panel mostly looked back at season one, but also offered some hints about what's to come.
Star Wars Celebration shared a new trailer for the Light & Magic doc series ahead of its return to Disney+.
Surely honor among thieves will be upheld in a galaxy far, far away.
The first episode of Star Wars' new anthology series dives into what happened to Ventress after the events of Dark Disciple.
He did in a deleted scene from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which played at Star Wars Celebration Japan.
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Best Low SupportVuori AllTheFeels BraRead more
Best Medium SupportNike Swoosh Medium SupportRead more
Best for RunningLume Six Alta Medium Impact Sports BraRead more
Best for Strength TrainingGymshark Ruched Sports BraRead more
Women's sports bras were the bane of my teen existence. Few things are as humbling as struggling to wriggle out of a sweaty one post-workout. I've contorted, clawed, nearly dislocated a shoulder—and I once triggered what I can only describe as a sports bra-induced locked jaw. They were too tight, flattened my chest (and soul), and, on a bad day, gave me a decent dose of body image issues.
Somewhere between my fourth fitness renaissance and the realization that I hadn't worn a regular bra since pre-pandemic, I became a convert. After years of trial and error, I discovered the bra styles that worked (thank goodness for adjustable straps). Now I wear them to work, to work out, and sometimes to do absolutely nothing at all.
The right sports bra should be soft but structured, snug but breathable, and—for me—cute enough to pass as a top, like the Vuori AllTheFeels bra ($58). After testing dozens over the past few months—during runs, lifts, rides, and flows—I found the best sports bras worth your attention.
For more activewear recommendations, check out our guides to the Best Leggings, Best Running Shoes, and Best Barefoot Shoes.
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Most days, I'm in activewear, and the Vuori AllTheFeels Sports Bra is my favorite everyday bra for light support. Vuori's BlissBlend fabric (75 percent recycled polyamide and 25 percent elastane) is buttery soft and breathable. I have worn this bra for low-impact workouts, but the level of support feels too low for anything more than walking. It's perfect for lounging or running errands. If you're looking for extra support during more intense workouts, the Vuori Yosemite bra is my favorite and is designed with a flattering strappy back.
Materials: 75 percent recycled polyamide, 25 percent elastane.
Size Range: XXS through XXL.
Nike's Dri-FIT technology is moisture-wicking magic. It's quick to dry and bounce back into shape, even during your sweatiest workouts, so you're never left feeling soggy or cold. It's the most versatile bra in my rotation—I wear it for cycling, running, hiking, yoga, or even just a long walk on a hot summer day. If you order a bra size too small, the waistband can get uncomfortable, but if you nail the fit, you'll appreciate the balance between support and mobility. The thick waistband locks everything in place while giving your chest enough room to breathe and move naturally through your workout. Plus, the sewn-in pads don't shift or fold, even after multiple washes.
Nike's move to sustainability is a bonus; they use recycled polyester sourced from plastic bottles to reduce waste and carbon emissions. It comes in a rainbow of colors, with regular seasonal drops, so you're sure to find one you like.
Materials: Body—72 percent polyester, 28 percent spandex; Mesh—81 percent polyester, 19 percent spandex; Back lining—72 percent polyester, 28 percent spandex; Pad back fabric—100 percent polyester; Pad—100 percent polyurethane.
Size Range: XXS through 4X.
This is the lightest sports bra I've ever worn. This is the running bra that I wear in Mississippi or Virginia when the humidity goes over 93 percent during the day and it feels like there's a chemical reaction between my skin and sunlight that instantly covers me in sweat. This is also the bra I will take this summer on a family trip to the Philippines, where any heavier sports bra will take forever to line-dry outside.
Lume Six has two proprietary fabrics. DreamSupport makes up the front panel, and FeatherAir makes the straps on the back. Both are made from a proprietary blend of recycled polyester and elastane, with a thin cotton lining in the interior of the front so you don't have to deal with soaked, sweaty boob pads. Both fabrics feel paper-thin, without being stiff or uncomfortable. Although it's billed as a medium-impact bra, I use the Alta for high-sweat, high-impact activities like running and in humid climates. I would also suggest sizing up, as Lume Six suggests; I sized into an XS, which fits, but tightly. A larger size would be more comfortable for longer extended wear. —Adrienne So
Materials: Front—76 percent recycled polyester, 24 percent elastane; Back—74 percent recycled polyester, 26 percent elastane; Lining—61 percent polyester, 35 percent cotton, 4 percent spandex.
Size Range: XXS through 3X.
There's something about this Gymshark bra that makes me feel like I trained harder than I probably did. They look great on basically everyone and don't skimp on function. I adore the crossover back for upper body days when I want to see my back and shoulder pump in real time. It's medium support, but the compressive fabric holds everything in place like a high-support bra. I don't get any bounce or jiggle, even during HIIT exercises. Despite the ruched front and V neckline, I've never (knock on wood) had a nip slip incident. The straps are adjustable, the pads are removable, and the seasonal color drops mean you'll probably end up with more than one. Don't fight it. In fact, the Ruched Strappy Sports Bra, the Strap Feature Sports Bra, and the Blur Seamless Bralette have all muscled their way into my drawer.
Materials: 78 percent polyester, 22 percent elastane.
Size Range: XXS through XXL.
The Solace Sports Bra, crafted from Powervita fabric (75 percent nylon, 25 percent lycra) is soft, supportive, and airy. The bonded chest band remains flat and secure, even during deep stretches and inversions. This is a great bra for low-impact activities (yoga, barre, and pilates), but I especially reach for this during heated workouts, because it wicks moisture away and dries fast. Not to be overlooked, the crossover straps are so cute. I do wish they were adjustable, though.
Materials: 75 percent nylon, 25 percent lycra.
Size Range: XXS through XL.
Merino wool has many fantastic qualities, but being stretchy and compressive is not necessarily one of them. That's why this racerback sports bra is a remarkable feat—I have many merino wool bras, but none of them retain their shape and offer as much support as this one, although I should note here that I'm a 34A, so in my case, the claims of good support are not being tested as thoroughly as they might with other people.
Branwyn's sports bra is made from a blend of 76 percent merino, 14 percent nylon, and 10 percent elastane. The fabric itself is knit in a seamless, compressive, 4-way knit structure, so there are no seams to rub or chafe. I wear it mostly rock climbing, without a shirt, and it's long enough on my short torso for it to not be totally obvious that I'm only wearing a bra (I think). Moreover, it's BPA-, PFAS- and forever-chemical-free, which I prefer for garments that I wear close to my skin. There are sleeves for removable bra pads, but they're not included, and it's dark and thick enough that I don't worry about anything showing anyway. My only caveat is that since it's heavier than almost any other sports bra I own, it also takes longer to dry, both on the line and on my body. —Adrienne So
Materials: 76 percent extra fine merino wool, 14 percent nylon, and 10 percent elastane
Size Range: XS through XXL
Engineered by an orthopedic surgeon, the Forme Power Bra uses a blend of six tension fabrics and eight double-fabric panels to nudge your shoulders back, lift your chest, and train your upper body into better alignment. I wear it to Pilates. I wear it under my hoodies. I wear it as a top when I'm running errands because it's also cute. Forme claims it helps with recovery and deeper breathing, and while that may sound like wellness speak, I found that wearing this bra for just a few hours made me more aware of my posture.
If you get the Forme Power Bra, stretch out the armholes (Forme suggests 10 to 20 times) before your first wear so it's not too tight around the pits. The brand also sells the Revive Bra for $188, created specifically for those with musculoskeletal disorders or pain in the upper spine or shoulders—we're in the process of testing it ourselves.
Adidas PowerReact Train Medium-Support Bra for $35: The PowerReact crossback is a good sports bra but doesn't necessarily wow. It offers medium support, so it's fine for activities like HIIT, cycling, and other high-impact workouts. The band size does run tight, so I would size up if you have a larger cup size.
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New research to be presented at this year's European Congress on Obesity (ECO 2025, Malaga, Spain, 11-14 May) shows that the internationally recognized body mass index (BMI) cut-off points greatly overestimate overweight and obesity in male athletes. The study, from Italy, also proposes new cut-off points for overweight and obesity in this group.
Body mass index (BMI) is a key method for measuring people's weight status, defining whether they have normal weight, overweight or obesity. It is easily calculated by dividing an individual's weight in kilograms by the square of their height in metres. A BMI of 25 kg/m2 or above is in indicator of overweight and a BMI of 30 kg/m2 or above indicates obesity in white men and women of all ages, according to World Health Organisation's (WHO) categorisation system.
However, some research has found that this classification system may not be good at identifying overweight and obesity in athletes and its use in this group has long been subject to criticism.
BMI doesn't distinguish between body fat and lean mass, which includes muscle. As a result, a muscular athlete with low body fat can be wrongly classified as living with overweight or obesity. Despite this, many sports organisations still rely on the traditional BMI classification system."
Professor Marwan El Ghoch, Department of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy
In a new study, Professor El Ghoch and researchers from the University of Verona in Italy and Beirut University in Lebanon set out to determine how accurate the BMI cut-offs of 25 and 30 kg/m2 are at identifying overweight and obesity in male athletes and, if they were found to be inaccurate, to establish better cut-offs.
The cross-sectional study involved 622 males (average age of 25.7 years, BMI ≥ 20 kg/m2) who had been referred to the Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, of the University of Verona, Italy, and participated in sports including soccer, rugby, basketball, volleyball, cross-fit, karate and others at a competitive level.
The participants were categorised using the current BMI system and by their body fat percentage (BF%).
Using the current BMI system, more than a quarter of the individuals were categorised as living with overweight or obesity. Some 451 (72.5%) individuals were of normal weight (BMI 18.5-24.99 kg/m²), 148 (23.8%) individuals were with overweight (25 kg/m²-29.9 kg/m²) and 23 (3.7%) were with obesity (30 kg/m² and above).
Total body fat percentage (BF%) was measured using dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans – known to be a highly accurate tool for measuring body composition – according to age- and gender-specific cut-off points. A BF% of 21% or above was classified as overweight and a BF% of 26% or above was classified as obesity.
Using this system, fewer than 4% of the individuals were categorised as living with overweight or obesity. Some 598 (96.1%) individuals were of normal weight, 19 (3.1%) were with overweight and 5 (0.8%) were with obesity.
Professor El Ghoch, who led the study, says: "This demonstrates that the current BMI cut-off points are clearly flawed in determining weight status in athletes, as many of the athletes were misclassified as living with overweight or obesity, where in reality, very few had body fat levels in this range."
The researchers went on to use statistical modelling to identify more accurate BMI cut-off points for young male athletes. The new cut-offs, which take into account athletes' lower BF%, are 28.2 kg/m2 for overweight and 33.7 kg/m2 for obesity.
Study co-author, Professor Chiara Milanese, of the University of Verona, explains: "Although DXA scans measure body composition accurately, they are not always available in sports settings. In contrast, weight and height, the two measures needed to calculate BMI, are easy to obtain and, with the new BMI cut-offs that we identified, BMI could be a highly useful tool in sports clubs, both at training grounds and in competitions.
"A direct assessment of body composition remains the gold standard but, in its absence, we encourage sports organisations and committees to adopt the new BMI classification system."
The authors add that several further pieces of research are needed. These include identifying new cut-offs for female athletes and, potentially, specific cut-offs for different sports, particularly those were not included in the current study.
European Association for the Study of Obesity
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Yamal and Olmo came off the bench to spark an incredible comeback as Barcelona came back from 3-1 down to win 4-3 and edge closer to La Liga glory.
Hansi Flick opted to rotate for Barcelona's clash with Celta Vigo, leaving both Lamine Yamal and Dani Olmo out, but the pair proved decisive in sparking an incredible second-half comeback.
Barcelona had the lead within 11 minutes thanks to Ferran Torres; the winger drifted off the left flank, drove beyond a challenge and shot from the edge of the box, finding the bottom corner.
But Celta hit back within four minutes. Borja Iglesias got on the end of a cross into the box and finished. Wojciech Szczesny had charged out of his goal and dived to attempt to cut out the ball in, but left his goal completely open.
Before half-time, Robert Lewandowski got beyond the Celta backline but his wild effort flew well over the crossbar. Just seconds later, Szczesny made a superb double save to keep Barca level.
At half-time, despite the stalemate, Hansi Flick resisted the urge to introduce Yamal and Olmo, and within five minutes, Celta had the lead, as Iglesias again beat Szczesny. The striker took advantage after Frenkie de Jong completely failed to clear a long ball, and drove a superb finish into the bottom corner from an acute angle.
Approaching the hour, Flick smashed the emergency glass and introduced Yamal for Torres and Olmo for Fermin Lopez, but that could not stop Iglesias from completing his hat-trick, as he got onto the end of a long ball, burst beyond the defence, and finished coolly.
Swiftly after, substitute Olmo found the net after Raphinha's clever pass, hitting the bottom corner and sparking hope of a comeback, and Raphinha then hit the net himself to equalise, after an assist from fellow sub Yamal.
In injury time, Olmo went down in the box, and a VAR review recommended the awarding of a penalty. Raphinha scored, and Barcelona are now on the verge of La Liga glory. With a performance like this, it is little surprise.
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The international soccer association FIFA is searching for volunteers to help organize this summer's Club World Cup, which includes several matches held in New Jersey during the month-long tournament.
Volunteers perform a variety of roles during the competition, from assisting teams and officials on game days to supporting the media and welcoming fans to each event. While the positions are unpaid, they provide a unique opportunity to be part of a worldwide initiative and interact with famous soccer players and representatives.
"As a volunteer at a FIFA event, you're at the heart of the team," the association said on its website. "It's a chance to develop skills, make global connections and create unforgettable memories!"
Anyone interested in applying is encouraged to do so by visiting volunteer.fifa.com/invite/FCWC2025. No prior experience is necessary, and applicants can indicate their preferred city on the form.
Volunteers must be 18 years old as of Jan. 1, 2025 and be a United States citizen or permanent resident. They must also speak English (though knowledge of additional languages is a plus); be available for the entire tournament, including pre-event training sessions; and have a positive attitude that includes a passion for soccer.
If selected, volunteers must attend training sessions to prepare for the Club World Cup. The tournament begins Saturday, June 14, and culminates with the final at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford Sunday, July 13.
MetLife is one of 12 venues throughout the country selected to host matches during the tournament. The stadium will be the site of five group stage matches in the tournament, one quarterfinal and both semifinals in addition to the final.
The FIFA Club World Cup features 32 club teams representing six continents. This year's participants include European teams like Chelsea, Manchester City and Real Madrid, as well as Major League Soccer clubs Seattle Sounders and Inter Miami.
The Club World Cup was first organized in 2000 and took place annually from 2005 to 2023. Starting with this year, the tournament will be held every four years like the World Cup, which is contested among national teams.
The FIFA World Cup, hosted jointly by the United States, Canada and Mexico, will take place next summer. MetLife Stadium will also be the site of that tournament's final on July 19, 2026.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: FIFA Club World Cup at MetLife Stadium needs volunteers
Bayer Leverkusen boss Xabi Alonso has dismissed speculation linking him with replacing Carlo Ancelotti at Real Madrid.
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The Gunners were briefly level in the tie after Mariona Caldentey's penalty, but goals from Kadidiatou Diani and Melchie Dumornay gave OL the win
Arsenal will need to beat Lyon in France next week if they are to reach a first Women's Champions League final since they triumphed in the 2007 edition of the competition, after falling to a 2-1 defeat at home. The Gunners were by no means poor in the first leg of this semi-final and they had plenty of chances to get a positive result - they just didn't take them. Instead, clinical finishes from Kadidiatou Diani and Melchie Dumornay fired the eight-time European champions to victory in London, despite Mariona Caldentey briefly equalising from the spot.
It took Lyon just 17 minutes to break the deadlock, though they should've done so earlier when former Arsenal star Danielle van de Donk somehow missed from inside the six-yard box. It wouldn't come back to bite her, though, as Diani arrowed a shot beyond Manuela Zinsberger to put the visitors in a good position in the early stages. The Gunners had a whole host of opportunities to change the result, however, with Frida Maanum also guilty of a big miss and Alessia Russo watching a header crash off the bar, after Dumornay had hit the woodwork from range at the other end.
Despite more chances for Caitlin Foord, Beth Mead and Russo, it wasn't until 12 minutes from time that there was another goal and it was a controversial one. There were confusion, and no real appeals, when the referee was instructed by the VAR team to take another look at Lyon goalkeeper Christiane Endler making contact with Leah Williamson in the box, resulting in an Arsenal penalty that Caldentey coolly converted.
However, there was still time for Lyon to retake the lead, with an incisive team move finished off by Dumornay late on to give the French champions the advantage heading into their home leg next week.
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Florian Wirtz has a preference for a particular club as Manchester City and Bayern Munich lag behind in pursuit of the Bayer Leverkusen star.
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As is the way the likes of FIFA and UEFA run their respective organizations, the decision to expand the long-running Club World Cup from seven teams to 32 ahead of the 2025 edition of the tournament was one that was clearly financially driven and now it appears that interest in the competition is not as high as they would have hoped.
The summer tournament, which takes place across the United States and is something of a warm-up for the FIFA World Cup that will run in many of the same cities and stadiums, sees the biggest clubs in world football go head to head for the prize.
Fans of the likes of Real Madrid, Chelsea and Manchester City, among many others, who want to attend the event would do well to check out what Go Sport Travel have to offer ahead of the blockbuster competition, with great deals to be had.
The extended format sees European clubs and their players do battle having had little rest on completion of their domestic and continental campaigns, and this feeling of oversaturation may well have passed on to the club's fans.
FIFA is so desperate to sell tickets for the Club World Cup that they are attempting to use these as incentives to secure tickets for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with one such example being the guarantee of a ticket to the final of the 2026 tournament, just so long as you buy 20 tickets for this summer's event.
On the move to increase the number of teams and games involved in the Club World Cup, FIFA president Gianni Infantino put his case forward, commenting on the new structure,
“Everyone thinks that the country winning their own national or continental competition is the best in the world,”
“But that's actually not the case. So we decided to create a real World Cup for teams.” Infantino added.
This argument is perhaps a sound one, but given just how much bigger the club football season has become, with the likes of the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League now adopting larger league phases, there is a sense that not only are players being burned out, so are supporters.
That said, the competition in the US provides fans Stateside to finally get to see their idols live and in person, having thus far had to settle for seeing them on their screens instead.
So if there is one winner when it comes to the larger FIFA Club World Cup concept, then it's the football-mad fans across North America, who will no doubt turn out in their tens of thousands when the competition kicks off from June 14th.
A big pull for the competition is obviously seeing Lionel Messi in action, but there are plenty of other superstars involved, with Real Madrid trio Vincius Junior, Jude Bellingham and Rodrygo also being hugely popular in the US, not to mention Man City forward Erling Haaland.
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Stefanie is a local blogger and social media content marketer from Maryland and most recently a wife and a mother. She has an unhealthy obsession with puns, sarcasm and caffeinated beverages.
Thank you for stopping by and hopefully for engaging with Eye On Annapolis with your comments, letters, and opinions both here and on our social channels. There has never been a more critical time for community involvement than today–for any number of reasons. Annapolis and Anne Arundel County are our homes and this site is about the quality of life we all share. It is written for the local community by the local community.
As is the way the likes of FIFA and UEFA run their respective organizations, the decision to expand the long-running Club World Cup from seven teams to 32 ahead of the 2025 edition of the tournament was one that was clearly financially driven and now it appears that interest in the competition is not as high as they would have hoped.
The summer tournament, which takes place across the United States and is something of a warm-up for the FIFA World Cup that will run in many of the same cities and stadiums, sees the biggest clubs in world football go head to head for the prize.
Fans of the likes of Real Madrid, Chelsea and Manchester City, among many others, who want to attend the event would do well to check out what Go Sport Travel have to offer ahead of the blockbuster competition, with great deals to be had.
The extended format sees European clubs and their players do battle having had little rest on completion of their domestic and continental campaigns, and this feeling of oversaturation may well have passed on to the club's fans.
FIFA is so desperate to sell tickets for the Club World Cup that they are attempting to use these as incentives to secure tickets for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with one such example being the guarantee of a ticket to the final of the 2026 tournament, just so long as you buy 20 tickets for this summer's event.
On the move to increase the number of teams and games involved in the Club World Cup, FIFA president Gianni Infantino put his case forward, commenting on the new structure,
“Everyone thinks that the country winning their own national or continental competition is the best in the world,”
“But that's actually not the case. So we decided to create a real World Cup for teams.” Infantino added.
This argument is perhaps a sound one, but given just how much bigger the club football season has become, with the likes of the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League now adopting larger league phases, there is a sense that not only are players being burned out, so are supporters.
That said, the competition in the US provides fans Stateside to finally get to see their idols live and in person, having thus far had to settle for seeing them on their screens instead.
So if there is one winner when it comes to the larger FIFA Club World Cup concept, then it's the football-mad fans across North America, who will no doubt turn out in their tens of thousands when the competition kicks off from June 14th.
A big pull for the competition is obviously seeing Lionel Messi in action, but there are plenty of other superstars involved, with Real Madrid trio Vincius Junior, Jude Bellingham and Rodrygo also being hugely popular in the US, not to mention Man City forward Erling Haaland.
Banneker-Douglass-Tubman Museum to Host ‘Night of Sacred Sounds' Celebrating Jazz and Spoken Word
Kick Gas Annapolis to Host Electric Vehicle Showcase on May 4
Stefanie is a local blogger and social media content marketer from Maryland and most recently a wife and a mother. She has an unhealthy obsession with puns, sarcasm and caffeinated beverages.
Thank you for stopping by and hopefully for engaging with Eye On Annapolis with your comments, letters, and opinions both here and on our social channels. There has never been a more critical time for community involvement than today–for any number of reasons. Annapolis and Anne Arundel County are our homes and this site is about the quality of life we all share. It is written for the local community by the local community.
Kylian Mbappe was absent from Real Madrid training as the forward faces a race against time to be fit for the Copa del Rey final with Barcelona.
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Samson Jura
Lionel Messi has cast uncertainty over his potential participation in the 2026 FIFA World Cup, emphasizing that his physical condition will determine whether he represents Argentina in the tournament co-hosted by the USA, Canada, and Mexico.
The Inter Miami star, who turns 39 during the competition, acknowledged the challenges of a packed schedule and his age but left the door open for a record sixth World Cup appearance.
Injury concerns and cautious optimismMessi's recent seasons have been marred by recurring injuries, including a muscle issue that sidelined him during Argentina's March qualifiers. Despite his absence, La Albiceleste secured World Cup qualification with dominant wins over Uruguay and Brazil.
The eight-time Ballon d'Or winner admitted he “doesn't want to set that goal” yet, prioritizing day-by-day assessments of his fitness. “I'll take it day by day and see how I feel physically above all else,” Messi told Simplemente Fútbol. “Last year, I missed games due to injuries, but this pre-season has been good, and I feel strong”
Club World Cup as a litmus testMessi is expected to lead Inter Miami at the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup in June, a tournament he views as critical to gauging his readiness for international duty. The event could serve as a proving ground for his ability to endure a grueling schedule, which includes MLS matches and international commitments.
Argentina's readiness with or without MessiWhile fans hope for a fairytale send-off, Argentina has demonstrated it can thrive without its captain. The team's 4-1 thrashing of Brazil in March showcased depth, with Julián Álvarez, Enzo Fernández, and Alexis Mac Allister stepping up.
Coach Lionel Scaloni has urged patience, stating Messi will decide “whenever he wants” and dismissing speculation as premature. “We need to leave him alone. He'll decide when he's ready,” Scaloni said.
Legacy and historical stakesIf Messi competes in 2026, he would become the first player to feature in six World Cups, cementing his status as one of football's greatest ambassadors. However, his focus remains on maintaining peak performance. “I'll be honest with myself. If I'm not 100%, I won't go,” he implied.
As the countdown to 2026 continues, Messi's decision will hinge on his body's resilience—a balancing act between legacy and longevity that only he can navigate.
ALSO READ:Gabon International Aaron Boupendza dies after a nasty fall in China
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David Beckham once again proved that class is permanent after scoring a goal from an impossible angle at the Inter Miami training ground.
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Mar 27, 2025; Miami, FL, USA; Jessica Pegula (USA) celebrates after match point against Alexandra Eala (PHL)(not pictured) in a women's singles semifinal on day ten of the Miami Open at Hard Rock Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images
American tennis sensation Jessica Pegula is on fire and ready to conquer the tennis world, with the unwavering support of retired tennis star Lindsay Davenport. Pegula, who reached the US Open final last year only to narrowly miss out on the title, has been climbing the ranks and making a name for herself on the court.
Currently sitting at an impressive third place in the WTA rankings, Pegula has left behind big names like Coco Gauff as she continues her winning streak. With two titles already under her belt this season and a spot in the quarterfinals at the Stuttgart Open, Pegula's star is undoubtedly on the rise.
Lindsay Davenport, a former World No.1, has expressed her confidence in Pegula's abilities, highlighting her clean shots and strategic gameplay. Davenport commended Pegula's perseverance and growth, especially after her strong performance in Miami and Charleston.
Davenport shared her belief in Pegula's potential, stating, “There is no reason why you cannot win Wimbledon or the US Open.” Encouraged by Pegula's skill set and determination, Davenport sees a bright future ahead for the rising tennis star.
Pegula's recent victory over Sofia Kenin in Charleston, where she clinched her first clay court title despite being down in the second set, showcases her resilience and competitive spirit. With an impressive record of 25 wins this year and counting, Pegula is proving to be a formidable force in the tennis world.
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The most seasoned frequent fliers in sport chat time zones, sleep hacks, melatonin fails and more.ByStephanie LivaudaisPublished Apr 19, 2025 copy_link
Published Apr 19, 2025
© Instagram @arynasabalenka, @bigfoe1998
Following the ATP and WTA tours can serve as both a geography lesson and an exercise in time zone calculations, for tennis fans and players alike.While each week might leave bleary-eyed tennis fans to wonder if their fave's 4:00 a.m. start time is worth setting an alarm for, the pros have to navigate changing time zones too. Part of the job means constant globe-trotting and always being ready to perform at their peak on the court, or to serve face at a promotional event off of it—and do it all while staying fresh week after week.“And now with a baby, it's much harder,” new mom Belinda Bencic, a winner in Abu Dhabi, told me. “She's going to be up all night and everything, no matter what time.“But also, I think we tennis players are just so used to it by now. Our bodies are used to changing time zones and conditions all the time.”👉 Read more: Alexandra Eala shares reality of travel, difficulty of securing visas with Philippine passportAll that travel means jet lag is always just around the corner. A temporary sleep disorder that occurs when someone quickly crosses several time zones, jet lag means the body's internal clock is out of sync with the local time.
While each week might leave bleary-eyed tennis fans to wonder if their fave's 4:00 a.m. start time is worth setting an alarm for, the pros have to navigate changing time zones too. Part of the job means constant globe-trotting and always being ready to perform at their peak on the court, or to serve face at a promotional event off of it—and do it all while staying fresh week after week.“And now with a baby, it's much harder,” new mom Belinda Bencic, a winner in Abu Dhabi, told me. “She's going to be up all night and everything, no matter what time.“But also, I think we tennis players are just so used to it by now. Our bodies are used to changing time zones and conditions all the time.”👉 Read more: Alexandra Eala shares reality of travel, difficulty of securing visas with Philippine passportAll that travel means jet lag is always just around the corner. A temporary sleep disorder that occurs when someone quickly crosses several time zones, jet lag means the body's internal clock is out of sync with the local time.
“And now with a baby, it's much harder,” new mom Belinda Bencic, a winner in Abu Dhabi, told me. “She's going to be up all night and everything, no matter what time.“But also, I think we tennis players are just so used to it by now. Our bodies are used to changing time zones and conditions all the time.”👉 Read more: Alexandra Eala shares reality of travel, difficulty of securing visas with Philippine passportAll that travel means jet lag is always just around the corner. A temporary sleep disorder that occurs when someone quickly crosses several time zones, jet lag means the body's internal clock is out of sync with the local time.
“But also, I think we tennis players are just so used to it by now. Our bodies are used to changing time zones and conditions all the time.”👉 Read more: Alexandra Eala shares reality of travel, difficulty of securing visas with Philippine passportAll that travel means jet lag is always just around the corner. A temporary sleep disorder that occurs when someone quickly crosses several time zones, jet lag means the body's internal clock is out of sync with the local time.
👉 Read more: Alexandra Eala shares reality of travel, difficulty of securing visas with Philippine passportAll that travel means jet lag is always just around the corner. A temporary sleep disorder that occurs when someone quickly crosses several time zones, jet lag means the body's internal clock is out of sync with the local time.
All that travel means jet lag is always just around the corner. A temporary sleep disorder that occurs when someone quickly crosses several time zones, jet lag means the body's internal clock is out of sync with the local time.
I think we players are just so used to it by now. Our bodies are used to changing time zones and conditions all the time. Belinda Bencic on tennis' calendar
👉 Read More: Emma Navarro's first stop in Charleston, and more “super niche tennis lessons"For athletes, jet lag can negatively affect performance, recovery, focus, and mood—so staying on top of it, or finding how to power through, is key when competing abroad.“You know what's funny, I just try to push through things,” former world No. 1 Naomi Osaka told me in Miami. “I would probably have to take jet lag tips from somebody.”Osaka asked and so we answered. Baseline has gathered the best travel tips, trusted sleep hacks, a few fails, and more from sport's most seasoned frequent fliers:☀️ Get some sunlightThe first tip every player mentioned was getting natural sunlight, and lots of it. But the right sunlight is just as important.Light exposure has been shown to reset the body's internal clock, and viewing sunlight within the first hours of waking is said to boost alertness, mood and sleep quality. It's especially helpful when players are travelling east, such as going from North America to Europe, or Europe to Asia. This usually causes worse jet lag than the opposite direction because it shortens the day, making it harder for the body to adjust.
For athletes, jet lag can negatively affect performance, recovery, focus, and mood—so staying on top of it, or finding how to power through, is key when competing abroad.“You know what's funny, I just try to push through things,” former world No. 1 Naomi Osaka told me in Miami. “I would probably have to take jet lag tips from somebody.”Osaka asked and so we answered. Baseline has gathered the best travel tips, trusted sleep hacks, a few fails, and more from sport's most seasoned frequent fliers:☀️ Get some sunlightThe first tip every player mentioned was getting natural sunlight, and lots of it. But the right sunlight is just as important.Light exposure has been shown to reset the body's internal clock, and viewing sunlight within the first hours of waking is said to boost alertness, mood and sleep quality. It's especially helpful when players are travelling east, such as going from North America to Europe, or Europe to Asia. This usually causes worse jet lag than the opposite direction because it shortens the day, making it harder for the body to adjust.
“You know what's funny, I just try to push through things,” former world No. 1 Naomi Osaka told me in Miami. “I would probably have to take jet lag tips from somebody.”Osaka asked and so we answered. Baseline has gathered the best travel tips, trusted sleep hacks, a few fails, and more from sport's most seasoned frequent fliers:☀️ Get some sunlightThe first tip every player mentioned was getting natural sunlight, and lots of it. But the right sunlight is just as important.Light exposure has been shown to reset the body's internal clock, and viewing sunlight within the first hours of waking is said to boost alertness, mood and sleep quality. It's especially helpful when players are travelling east, such as going from North America to Europe, or Europe to Asia. This usually causes worse jet lag than the opposite direction because it shortens the day, making it harder for the body to adjust.
Osaka asked and so we answered. Baseline has gathered the best travel tips, trusted sleep hacks, a few fails, and more from sport's most seasoned frequent fliers:☀️ Get some sunlightThe first tip every player mentioned was getting natural sunlight, and lots of it. But the right sunlight is just as important.Light exposure has been shown to reset the body's internal clock, and viewing sunlight within the first hours of waking is said to boost alertness, mood and sleep quality. It's especially helpful when players are travelling east, such as going from North America to Europe, or Europe to Asia. This usually causes worse jet lag than the opposite direction because it shortens the day, making it harder for the body to adjust.
The first tip every player mentioned was getting natural sunlight, and lots of it. But the right sunlight is just as important.Light exposure has been shown to reset the body's internal clock, and viewing sunlight within the first hours of waking is said to boost alertness, mood and sleep quality. It's especially helpful when players are travelling east, such as going from North America to Europe, or Europe to Asia. This usually causes worse jet lag than the opposite direction because it shortens the day, making it harder for the body to adjust.
Light exposure has been shown to reset the body's internal clock, and viewing sunlight within the first hours of waking is said to boost alertness, mood and sleep quality. It's especially helpful when players are travelling east, such as going from North America to Europe, or Europe to Asia. This usually causes worse jet lag than the opposite direction because it shortens the day, making it harder for the body to adjust.
The top jet-lag tip players swear by? Natural sunlight exposure. © Instagram @naomiosaka
© Instagram @naomiosaka
Frances Tiafoe, a fan of the Washington Wizards, says there are pros and cons to losing sleep during this part of the red-clay season.“I go to Europe every year and that's usually around NBA Playoffs time. So for me, I struggle with jet lag to get on the proper time, but then also it's like… You wake up at 3 a.m. and don't really mind it because you can just put the game on,” Tiafoe tells me with a grin.“In my mind I'm just like, 'Oh well, I can watch hoops for five hours!' But then, I can't see at two o'clock. It just takes longer for me.”🥗 Stay one step aheadThe protocol for beating jet lag is to always stay one step ahead:“Basically, as fast as possible, you have to kind of pretend you're already in the time zone that you're going to,” Bencic explained. “So even on the plane, you should try to sleep and try to eat at the time zone that you're going into.“The quickest way to adapt is to kind of shock yourself on the first day. Just try to stay awake or go straight to sleep.”Or, as Tiafoe puts it: “For a couple days, just tell yourself you're not tired, even though you're dying.”
“I go to Europe every year and that's usually around NBA Playoffs time. So for me, I struggle with jet lag to get on the proper time, but then also it's like… You wake up at 3 a.m. and don't really mind it because you can just put the game on,” Tiafoe tells me with a grin.“In my mind I'm just like, 'Oh well, I can watch hoops for five hours!' But then, I can't see at two o'clock. It just takes longer for me.”🥗 Stay one step aheadThe protocol for beating jet lag is to always stay one step ahead:“Basically, as fast as possible, you have to kind of pretend you're already in the time zone that you're going to,” Bencic explained. “So even on the plane, you should try to sleep and try to eat at the time zone that you're going into.“The quickest way to adapt is to kind of shock yourself on the first day. Just try to stay awake or go straight to sleep.”Or, as Tiafoe puts it: “For a couple days, just tell yourself you're not tired, even though you're dying.”
“In my mind I'm just like, 'Oh well, I can watch hoops for five hours!' But then, I can't see at two o'clock. It just takes longer for me.”🥗 Stay one step aheadThe protocol for beating jet lag is to always stay one step ahead:“Basically, as fast as possible, you have to kind of pretend you're already in the time zone that you're going to,” Bencic explained. “So even on the plane, you should try to sleep and try to eat at the time zone that you're going into.“The quickest way to adapt is to kind of shock yourself on the first day. Just try to stay awake or go straight to sleep.”Or, as Tiafoe puts it: “For a couple days, just tell yourself you're not tired, even though you're dying.”
The protocol for beating jet lag is to always stay one step ahead:“Basically, as fast as possible, you have to kind of pretend you're already in the time zone that you're going to,” Bencic explained. “So even on the plane, you should try to sleep and try to eat at the time zone that you're going into.“The quickest way to adapt is to kind of shock yourself on the first day. Just try to stay awake or go straight to sleep.”Or, as Tiafoe puts it: “For a couple days, just tell yourself you're not tired, even though you're dying.”
“Basically, as fast as possible, you have to kind of pretend you're already in the time zone that you're going to,” Bencic explained. “So even on the plane, you should try to sleep and try to eat at the time zone that you're going into.“The quickest way to adapt is to kind of shock yourself on the first day. Just try to stay awake or go straight to sleep.”Or, as Tiafoe puts it: “For a couple days, just tell yourself you're not tired, even though you're dying.”
“The quickest way to adapt is to kind of shock yourself on the first day. Just try to stay awake or go straight to sleep.”Or, as Tiafoe puts it: “For a couple days, just tell yourself you're not tired, even though you're dying.”
Or, as Tiafoe puts it: “For a couple days, just tell yourself you're not tired, even though you're dying.”
“For a couple days, just tell yourself you're not tired, even though you're dying,” says Tiafoe.© Instagram @bigfoe1998
© Instagram @bigfoe1998
When asked her go-to way to fend off jet lag, Doha winner Amanda Anisimova had a straightforward strategy: “Take melatonin for the first few nights!”Melatonin supplements can help regulate sleep and help the body adjust to a new time zone quicker—but it's not a magic fix. Timing is everything, as research shows melatonin only works if taken at the right time, around 30 minutes before the desired bedtime.In fact, it can do more harm than good when it's not, which Stefanos Tsitsipas found out the hard way at the 2023 French Open. After crashing out to Carlos Alcaraz following a sluggish straight-sets performance, the Greek said: “One thing that I'm going to try to avoid in the future is to (not) have melatonin pills and naps before matches, because it clearly doesn't seem to be working.”Risks can even go beyond a poor match or a lethargic morning, as a bad batch of melatonin threatened to derail Iga Swiatek's career last year. The five-time Grand Slam winner tested positive for low levels of a prohibited substance called trimetazidine, a contamination that was eventually traced back to the supplements she took "for jet lag and sleep issues.”
Melatonin supplements can help regulate sleep and help the body adjust to a new time zone quicker—but it's not a magic fix. Timing is everything, as research shows melatonin only works if taken at the right time, around 30 minutes before the desired bedtime.In fact, it can do more harm than good when it's not, which Stefanos Tsitsipas found out the hard way at the 2023 French Open. After crashing out to Carlos Alcaraz following a sluggish straight-sets performance, the Greek said: “One thing that I'm going to try to avoid in the future is to (not) have melatonin pills and naps before matches, because it clearly doesn't seem to be working.”Risks can even go beyond a poor match or a lethargic morning, as a bad batch of melatonin threatened to derail Iga Swiatek's career last year. The five-time Grand Slam winner tested positive for low levels of a prohibited substance called trimetazidine, a contamination that was eventually traced back to the supplements she took "for jet lag and sleep issues.”
In fact, it can do more harm than good when it's not, which Stefanos Tsitsipas found out the hard way at the 2023 French Open. After crashing out to Carlos Alcaraz following a sluggish straight-sets performance, the Greek said: “One thing that I'm going to try to avoid in the future is to (not) have melatonin pills and naps before matches, because it clearly doesn't seem to be working.”Risks can even go beyond a poor match or a lethargic morning, as a bad batch of melatonin threatened to derail Iga Swiatek's career last year. The five-time Grand Slam winner tested positive for low levels of a prohibited substance called trimetazidine, a contamination that was eventually traced back to the supplements she took "for jet lag and sleep issues.”
Risks can even go beyond a poor match or a lethargic morning, as a bad batch of melatonin threatened to derail Iga Swiatek's career last year. The five-time Grand Slam winner tested positive for low levels of a prohibited substance called trimetazidine, a contamination that was eventually traced back to the supplements she took "for jet lag and sleep issues.”
With baby Bella in tow, Bencic won her first title since maternity leave in Abu Dhabi.© Instagram @belindabencic
© Instagram @belindabencic
Having travelled the world over year after year since they were teenagers, some professional tennis players have developed the envy-inducing ability of being able to fall asleep anywhere and anytime for a power nap.Aryna Sabalenka is one of those people.“Oh, I'm not the person to talk about jet lag! You just give me an opportunity to sleep, and I'm gonna sleep, you know? I'm easy when it's about sleeping,” the world No. 1 said, laughing.👉 Read more: Aryna Sabalenka makes mental strides as tennis spectator
Aryna Sabalenka is one of those people.“Oh, I'm not the person to talk about jet lag! You just give me an opportunity to sleep, and I'm gonna sleep, you know? I'm easy when it's about sleeping,” the world No. 1 said, laughing.👉 Read more: Aryna Sabalenka makes mental strides as tennis spectator
“Oh, I'm not the person to talk about jet lag! You just give me an opportunity to sleep, and I'm gonna sleep, you know? I'm easy when it's about sleeping,” the world No. 1 said, laughing.👉 Read more: Aryna Sabalenka makes mental strides as tennis spectator
👉 Read more: Aryna Sabalenka makes mental strides as tennis spectator
"I'm not the person to talk about jet lag!" says Sabalenka. "You just give me an opportunity to sleep, and I'm gonna sleep."© Instagram @arynasabalenka
© Instagram @arynasabalenka
👉 Read More: Thorne taps Ben Shelton to launch new on-the-go performance lineFor the rest of us, experts recommend sticking to a strict sleep schedule (even when you're not tired yet) and limit napping to a short snooze not too late in the day.“Sometimes, like everyone, I'm struggling with sleeping, but I think it's important to try to shut down all of your thoughts—which is probably not that easy!” Sabalenka added. “Just try to block everything out, concentrate on your breathing, and just pull down your nervous system.”Stay tuned on Baseline for more of Game, Set, Recharge, which features your favorite ATP and WTA pros sharing their favorite travel tips, wellness secrets and more.Sources: Mayo Clinic, WebMD
For the rest of us, experts recommend sticking to a strict sleep schedule (even when you're not tired yet) and limit napping to a short snooze not too late in the day.“Sometimes, like everyone, I'm struggling with sleeping, but I think it's important to try to shut down all of your thoughts—which is probably not that easy!” Sabalenka added. “Just try to block everything out, concentrate on your breathing, and just pull down your nervous system.”Stay tuned on Baseline for more of Game, Set, Recharge, which features your favorite ATP and WTA pros sharing their favorite travel tips, wellness secrets and more.Sources: Mayo Clinic, WebMD
“Sometimes, like everyone, I'm struggling with sleeping, but I think it's important to try to shut down all of your thoughts—which is probably not that easy!” Sabalenka added. “Just try to block everything out, concentrate on your breathing, and just pull down your nervous system.”Stay tuned on Baseline for more of Game, Set, Recharge, which features your favorite ATP and WTA pros sharing their favorite travel tips, wellness secrets and more.Sources: Mayo Clinic, WebMD
Stay tuned on Baseline for more of Game, Set, Recharge, which features your favorite ATP and WTA pros sharing their favorite travel tips, wellness secrets and more.Sources: Mayo Clinic, WebMD
Sources: Mayo Clinic, WebMD
Sinner has not played since winning the Australian Open at the start of the season. He accepted a ban in February following a deal with the World Anti-Doping Agency, which had challenged a tribunal's decision to clear him after two positive tests.
The 23-year-old's ban will end on May 4 and he will make a return at the Rome Masters that begins three days later. His national team captain believes Sinner will hit top gear, though, only in time for the year's second Grand Slam, which starts on May 25.
"His physical preparation is focused on Roland Garros. It's a gruelling event with long, best-of-five-set matches," Volandri told Italy's La Gazzetta dello Sport earlier this week.
"I'm convinced the preparation he's had over the past three months will be beneficial in the long run. He has not been able to complete a proper winter pre-season in recent years and this break allows him to recharge for the next two to three seasons."
Sinner, who was cleared to return to training from April 13, ramped up his preparations this week with a stint in Monte Carlo, and also practiced with Indian Wells champion Jack Draper of Britain at the Tennis Club de Beaulieu in France.
Volandri, who guided Italy to Davis Cup glory in the last two years, said he had spoken to Sinner's coach Simone Vagnozzi and had no doubt about the player's mindset before his comeback in Rome.
"He told me Jannik is extremely motivated, fully focused on upcoming tournaments and mentally calm," Volandri said.
"Let's not forget nothing replaces match adrenaline and that's why I don't expect a winning streak right away ... But the more matches he plays, the closer he'll get to his ideal form for Paris."
Aussie tennis Alex de Minaur has once again fallen to Carlos Alcaraz in his fourth-straight defeat to the Spaniard as his fiancee Katie Boulter embarks on her second clay campaign. De Minaur reached the quarter-finals of the Barcelona Open, where he faced Spaniard and No.2 Alcaraz.
Unfortunately, de Minaur struggled to overcome the higher-ranked opponent having succumbed to the 21-year-old in a hard-fought 7-5 6-3 defeat. De Minaur looked strong in the first set as he broke to take a 3-1 lead. He then broke again after Alcaraz had broken back.
Although the Aussie wasn't able to stop the Spaniard winning four of the last five games to claim the first set. And Alcaraz took his game to the next level in the second to continue his winning record over the Aussie.
De Minaur has now lost all four matches to Alcaraz in their career battles as he still seeks a major victory over the likes of Jannik Sinner and Alcaraz. While de Minaur will be disappointed not to have reached the semi-final, he still gained 200 points. This has seen him leapfrog Caper Ruud, Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev on the live rankings and he will remain as World No.7 off the back of his Monte Carlo efforts last week.
This puts him in good stead ahead of Roland Garros, where a higher ranking will see him avoid the likes of Alcaraz, Sinner and Novak Djokovic until late into the tournament. Alcaraz has now won eight matches in a row after winning Monte Carlo.
"I started quite badly with the serve, I was struggling a little bit mentally with [it]," said Alcaraz. "It was just the first few games with my serve, then I think I improved a lot. I calmed myself down and started to think positively again. Alex started strong, playing aggressively, and the first set was really tight."
Despite the setback, de Minaur has shown huge improvements on clay across the last two years. His bigger forehand and tenacious defence holds him in a good position to make another deep run at Roland Garros in 2025. And only for the second time his partner Boulter will also be in Paris for the main card of the French Open.
Alcaraz 7-5 up on De Minuar in 59 minutes.Was 1-3 and 3-4 15-40 down...19 consecutive sets won in Barcelona. pic.twitter.com/CZJJvQ2jbj
— José Morgado (@josemorgado) April 18, 2025
In exciting news for Boulter she will take part in the Madrid Open after securing entry into Roland Garros for just the second time in her career. Boulter will enter due to her ranking, but the British star hasn't always enjoyed her time on clay.
Boulter was knocked out in the first round of the French Open last year in her first ever match at Roland Garros. However, she has since moved to improve her clay court form. Most recently she helped lead Great Britain into the BJK Cup finals on clay.
The top women's star helped GB score a 2-1 victory over Germany in the first tie, before she won the deciding doubles rubber in the second tie to beat Netherlands 2-1. Boulter posted she had arrived in Madrid ahead of the WTA event, which will give her another chance to push herself on clay in a new challenge for the British star.
Katie Boulter 🇬🇧 arrives for WTA Madrid pic.twitter.com/3EsHRnJ6BG
— Chris Goldsmith (@TheTennisTalker) April 18, 2025
Saturday, 19 Apr 2025
FILE PHOTO: Tennis - Australian Open - Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Australia - January 26, 2025 Italy's Jannik Sinner celebrates winning the final against Germany's Alexander Zverev REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo
(Reuters) -World number one Jannik Sinner may take time to hit his stride on his return from a three-month doping ban next month but will be in top form when he heads to the French Open, Italy's Davis Cup captain Filippo Volandri said.
Sinner has not played since winning the Australian Open at the start of the season. He accepted a ban in February following a deal with the World Anti-Doping Agency, which had challenged a tribunal's decision to clear him after two positive tests.
The 23-year-old's ban will end on May 4 and he will make a return at the Rome Masters that begins three days later. His national team captain believes Sinner will hit top gear, though, only in time for the year's second Grand Slam, which starts on May 25.
"His physical preparation is focused on Roland Garros. It's a gruelling event with long, best-of-five-set matches," Volandri told Italy's La Gazzetta dello Sport earlier this week.
"I'm convinced the preparation he's had over the past three months will be beneficial in the long run. He has not been able to complete a proper winter pre-season in recent years and this break allows him to recharge for the next two to three seasons."
Sinner, who was cleared to return to training from April 13, ramped up his preparations this week with a stint in Monte Carlo, and also practised with Indian Wells champion Jack Draper of Britain at the Tennis Club de Beaulieu in France.
Volandri, who guided Italy to Davis Cup glory in the last two years, said he had spoken to Sinner's coach Simone Vagnozzi and had no doubt about the player's mindset before his comeback in Rome.
"He told me Jannik is extremely motivated, fully focused on upcoming tournaments and mentally calm," Volandri said.
"Let's not forget nothing replaces match adrenaline and that's why I don't expect a winning streak right away ... But the more matches he plays, the closer he'll get to his ideal form for Paris."
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Tom Hogue)
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Roger Federer was part of several unforgettable matches throughout his career, both as a winner and a loser.
Federer has been named the most elegant player ever by Juan Martin del Potro, with the former having retired from the sport in 2022.
Swiss legend Federer called time on his career with 20 Grand Slam titles, with that tally behind only Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.
Still playing on the ATP Tour, Djokovic has 24 such wins to his name, with Nadal having retired last season on 22.
Another legend in Andre Agassi said Federer was the best player he played against, with the latter having added 11 Grand Slam runner-up finishes to his 20 wins.
Surprisingly, his glittering career included just one triumph at the French Open, which Federer won in 2009.
He beat Swede Robin Soderling 6–1, 7–6(7–1), 6–4 at Roland Garros, a tournament that was dominated by one of his fierce rivals Nadal.
READ MORE: What Novak Djokovic said when asked if he thought Roger Federer's dominance was ‘finished' in 2008
And speaking after the success on the clay court, the Swiss icon said: “It was probably my greatest victory, I was under big pressure. I did it and it's phenomenal.
“It was great to be on the podium as a winner for a change. Andre said it was my destiny to win this and that I deserved it.”
As was the case for many players at the French Open, coming out on top was hugely difficult given the dominance of Nadal.
The King of Clay won a stunning 14 titles at Roland Garros, with Bjorn Borg coming closest to challenging that figure with six.
READ MORE: What Roger Federer did towards the end of his tennis career which ‘amazed' Pete Sampras
But despite being the top seed in 2009, Nadal suffered a shock defeat in the fourth round, losing to an inspired Soderling.
The 23rd seed enjoyed a stunning run all the way to the final, but didn't have enough in the tank to pull off one more shock against Federer.
Soderling was, however, gracious in defeat, saying after the match: “Roger was too good for me today, he played much better.
“He is a worthy winner and for me he is the best player in history. He gave me a lesson in how to play tennis.”
Report
LIVE COVERAGE: Follow all the action from Qualifying for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
HIGHLIGHTS: Relive the FP3 action from Saudi Arabia as Norris and McLaren dominate
F1 ACADEMY: Lloyd narrowly holds off Weug to take thrilling maiden victory in Jeddah
AS IT HAPPENED: Follow all the action from final practice for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
Aston Martin boss Cowell brushes off Verstappen future talk in Jeddah
Lando Norris ended the third and final practice session of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend fastest of all, leading his McLaren team mate Oscar Piastri by 0.024s while George Russell was best of the rest in third.
Free Practice 3 took place in hot 30 degree conditions as the sun began to set over the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, with the final opportunity to make set-up tweaks getting under way at 1630 local time.
PRACTICE DEBRIEF: Can McLaren carry their strong Friday form into Qualifying – and who are their main threats in Jeddah?
While the majority of the field opted to remain in the garages during the early stages of the session, Gabriel Bortoleto hit the track immediately, attempting to make up time after a fuel leak in his Kick Sauber had forced him to miss the more representative FP2.
Jack Doohan was the first driver to complete a lap on the Pirelli soft tyres, with the Haas pairing of Esteban Ocon and Ollie Bearman also choosing to burn a set early, as Aston Martin sent out Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll to bed in some medium rubber.
Practice 3 results
With 10 minutes gone, Lewis Hamilton headed out to discover if overnight improvements had transformed his prospects after struggling on Friday. Although his initial effort fell short of Bearman's then-target time by 0.115s, it put him half-a-tenth clear of Ferrari team mate Charles Leclerc – who had a near miss with the wall at the final corner in a moment of wild oversteer.
As the track grew ever more busy, the times tumbled with Piastri and Norris leading the way before Max Verstappen usurped the duo by 0.045s.
HIGHLIGHTS: Catch up on the FP2 action in Saudi Arabia as Norris leads a McLaren 1-2 while Tsunoda crashes out
Setting up an intriguing Qualifying session, drivers were finding time on their second timed efforts on the soft tyres following one or two cooldown laps. This process also highlighted how traffic could be an issue later on Saturday, with Isack Hadjar one driver caught out by a slower driver when on a timed effort.
Cautious of the threat of yellow or red flags, drivers were sent out onto the track for their second runs on fresh soft tyres with 17 minutes remaining. George Russell revealed Mercedes' hand with a 1m 28.214s to move briefly to the top, before Piastri bettered this by 0.701s with a 1m 27.513s, an effort that Norris fell 0.158s short of.
Hamilton's Saudi Arabian struggles continued in final practice
But in the closing stages, Norris found time and reversed these positions, with his session-best 1m 27.489s clear of Piastri by 0.024s. Having found an extra tenth, Russell improved to third while Verstappen benefitted from a tow to go fourth, although 0.845s off the pace.
Hamilton's struggles continued in the second runs as he ended the session four tenths and seven places behind fifth placed Leclerc. In 12th, Hamilton's gloomy Friday feeling that he was simply trying to reach the top 10 and make Q3 looked like an ever-increasingly difficult task.
READ MORE: Aston Martin boss Cowell brushes off Verstappen future talk in Jeddah
Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz continued a strong weekend for Williams in sixth and seventh, while Pierre Gasly backed up his FP1-topping pace by again featuring in the top 10.
Yuki Tsunoda bounced back from his FP2 crash to go ninth fastest, 1.181s off Norris but inside 0.3s of team mate Verstappen.
With the final practice session of the weekend now complete, the drivers and teams will have a final chance to debrief before returning to action for Qualifying at 2000 local time.
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‘Getting most out of the tyres' the deciding factor in Saudi Arabia as Russell pushes to catch McLaren
© 2003-2025 Formula One World Championship Limited
Report
FP3: Norris pips McLaren team mate Piastri in final practice at the Saudi Arabian GP
AS IT HAPPENED: Follow all the action from final practice for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
Aston Martin boss Cowell brushes off Verstappen future talk in Jeddah
‘Getting most out of the tyres' the deciding factor in Saudi Arabia as Russell pushes to catch McLaren
PRACTICE DEBRIEF: Can McLaren carry their strong Friday form into Qualifying – and who are their main threats in Jeddah?
McLaren's Ella Lloyd thrived under intense pressure from the more experienced Maya Weug to secure her first win in F1 ACADEMY, taking Race 1 victory around the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.
The British driver had the advantage of starting on the front row of the grid, where she got the better of her Rodin Motorsport teammate Emma Felbermayr at Turn 1 to storm into the lead.
READ MORE: The storylines to get excited about as F1 ACADEMY returns in Jeddah
From there, she managed the race calmly over the opening stages, charging away from battles behind her to build a solid lead over her rivals. Felbermayr continued to drop back, losing P2 to Red Bull Racing's Alisha Palmowski before Weug broke into the top three.
Just as series leader Doriane Pin was getting stuck into a fight for P6 with Tina Hausmann, disaster struck for Williams driver Lia Block, who had started in last place on the grid after she crashed out of Qualifying.
She was tagged from behind by Courtney Crone, bringing out the Safety Car and forcing Chloe Chong into a retirement as she sustained damage after trying to avoid the collision.
Lloyd controlled the restart well but the gap to Weug, who had taken P2 from Palmowski, rapidly closed down as Race 1 approached its end. The two took part in a thrilling drag race on the final lap, but the Briton managed to stave off the Ferrari driver and cross the line 0.176s ahead.
F1 ACADEMY: Chambers beats Pin under the floodlights in Jeddah for first pole position
Palmowski similarly held off Pin for the final podium spot as Alba Larsen took P5 over Aston Martin's Tina Hausmann. Chloe Chambers, polesitter for Race 2, finished in P7, leaving Nina Gademan to take the final point of Race 1.
Chambers will be hoping to convert her maiden pole position to victory when Race 2 kicks off at 15:05 local time on Sunday (UTC+3).
You can read a full report on what happened in Race 1 on the F1 ACADEMY website here.
AS IT HAPPENED: Follow all the action from second practice for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
FP2: Norris tops the times during second practice in Saudi Arabia as Tsunoda crashes
‘Getting most out of the tyres' the deciding factor in Saudi Arabia as Russell pushes to catch McLaren
AS IT HAPPENED: Follow all the action from final practice for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
WATCH: Tsunoda crash brings out the red flags during FP2 in Saudi Arabia
© 2003-2025 Formula One World Championship Limited
By Glenn Garner
Associate Editor
The band is back together… but it turns out they were never really apart.
After The Who drummer Zak Starkey announced he was exiting the band earlier this week, founding member Pete Townshend took to social media to explain that the group has worked through their issues.
“News flash! Who back Zak! Zak is not being asked to step down from The Who,” wrote Townshend on Instagram. “There have been some communication issues, personal and private on all sides, that needed to be dealt with, and these have been happily aired.”
Watch on Deadline
Starkey reposted the statement on his own Instagram, writing, “V grateful to be a part of The Who family Thanks Roger and Pete xx.”
In a longer statement on the band's website, Townshend explained that he and lead singer Roger Daltrey have asked Starkey “to tighten up his latest evolved drumming style to accommodate our non-orchestral line up and he has readily agreed.”
A post shared by Yolanda Tarbox (@yaggerdang)
“I take responsibility for some of the confusion,” Townshend continued, adding that they “didn't put enough time into sound checks, giving us problems on stage.”
Noting that Starkey “made a few mistakes and he has apologised,” Townshend added, “We are a family, this blew up very quickly and got too much oxygen. It's over. We move forward now with optimism and fire in our bellies.”
After rumors that drummer Scott Devours would replace Starkey in the lineup, Townshend apologized “for not crushing that rumour before it spread.”
Townshend's statement comes after Starkey announced he “suffered a serious medical emergency with blood clots in my right bass drum calf,” which is “now completely healed and does not affect my drumming or running.”
Following reports thatDaltrey had friction with Starkey during a recent performance in which he couldn't hear over the drums, Starkey said he was “surprised and saddened anyone would have an issue with my performance that night, but what can you do?”
“I plan to take some much needed time off with my family, and focus on the release of ‘Domino Bones' by Mantra Of The Cosmos with Noel Gallagher in May and finishing my autobiography written solely by me,” added Starkey. “29 years at any job is a good old run, and I wish them the best.”
Daltrey previously revealed onstage last month that he's “going blind,” adding: “Fortunately I still have my voice, because then I'll have a full Tommy.”
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By Anthony D'Alessandro
Editorial Director/Box Office Editor
SATURDAY AM: Warner Bros‘ didn't have a Good Friday, they had a Great Friday with Ryan Coogler's Michael B. Jordan starring Sinners winning the day with $19.2M and A Minecraft Movie‘s third Friday banking $16M. Penciled out, the Legendary co-production A Minecraft Movie will win the weekend at $45M while Sinners will leg out like a horror movie with $40M, the 11th best opening ever over an Easter frame. The entire weekend for all film is expected to hit $134M, which is 104% ahead of the same frame a year ago (a non-Easter one), and only -2% behind the Easter 2024 weekend.
For what we had been hearing about Sinners in the $30M range before a few days ago, this is a solid start for an original movie in period horror, which is a tricky genre at the box office (Focus Features pulled it off with Nosferatu over Christmas with a $21.6M 3-day, $40.8M 5-day). A $40M start for an original movie in a post-strike-streaming-Covid era is to be commended. It cannot be denied that with Coogler, Warner Bros Motion Picture motion picture co-chiefs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy made an excellent movie. Look at these exits: Solid ‘A' CinemaScore, 5 stars PostTrak, 92% positive, and a massive 84% definite recommend. Men and women over 25 respectively gave the 2 hour and 17 minute running film 93% positive. High scores among diverse groups with Black moviegoers turning out at a huge 49% giving the pic 95%, Caucasians at 27% grading it 91%, Hispanic and Latino at 14% (90%) and Asian at 6% an 86% grade. The under 18 crowd who made it into Sinners gave the movie an A+.
Watch on Deadline
We'll get into the economics on Sinners in a bit.
After seeing the movie a week ago, I questioned whether a prestige film such as Sinners with its awards patina (great cinematography, production design and acting all around) with its horror bent was better suited for the fall coupled with a TIFF world premiere, a populist festival for moviegoers. We don't often think of horror pairing with bunnies, peeps, lilies and chocolate. However, a tracking source pushed back, reminding me about the power of Easter weekend, that this was clearly the better date in its access to audiences to launch Sinners versus anytime in September or October. In addition, it was wise that Warners went with A Minecraft Movie in the first weekend of April versus Easter weekend. How's that? Had A Minecraft movie launched this weekend, it would run into Disney/Marvel Studios' Thunderbolts* two weeks from now. In the case of Sinners, the movie is counterprogramming to the MCU title in its R-rated sensibility.
Imax, PLF and select 70MM are pulling in 47% of the weekend gross for Sinners with strong plays in the East, South and West. Currently, AMC Lincoln Square in NYC is the top grossing multiplex with $114K.
more…
UPDATE, FRIDAY MIDDAY: Warner Bros' Easter double feature weekend is currently shaping up with Ryan Coogler's Sinners winning Good Friday over A Minecraft Movie, $18 million to $16.5 million, but the Mojang movie looks to overtake the R-rated Michael B. Jordan movie, $44M–$40M, for its third No. 1 weekend win. Both projections could go higher as the weekend continues, per sources. Some see Minecraft potentially hitting $50M; Minecraft is playing at 4,032 theaters, while Sinners is at 3,308 sites.
It's the second time that Warner Bros has led the Easter weekend box office in the No. 1 and No. 2 spots following The Curse of La Llorona ($26.3M) and Shazam (third weekend of $16.4M) going 1-2 in 2019. Last night's turnout by Black moviegoers at 46% indicates good walk-up business for Sinners, especially after the excellent word of mouth, and we're hearing a high Imax share as well. Sinners is the first release shot with Imax film cameras since Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, and the last until next year's The Odyssey.
Coogler leaned heavily into Imax in the promotion of the film with a viral video breaking down aspect ratios; Imax premieres in NYC, Mexico City and London; and inviting tastemaker friends Lebron James, Adele, Jay-Z, The Weeknd and Snoop Dogg to screen the film at Imax's Playa Vista headquarters. Exclusively in Imax auditoriums, sequences in the film visually expand to fill the screen, allowing moviegoers to experience more picture with detail and clarity.
RELATED: Ryan Coogler Teases ‘Sinners' Themes And Supernatural Elements Beyond Vampires In His “Personal Love Letter” To Cinema
Social media reach on Sinners was pretty big at 222.5 million per RelishMix across X, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Facebook. That's higher than the social media universe before the release of comps Us (123M), Nope (179.8M) and Candyman (144.3M, $22M opening). Jordan and co-star Hailee Steinfeld are socially activated with 24M followers apiece. Among the positive reaction online, RelishMix noticed that fans loved how the trailer didn't give everything away, and they love how Coogler and Jordan are a combo much like Tim Burton and Johnny Depp.
RELATED: Everything We Know About Ryan Coogler's ‘Sinners': From The Themes To How It Was Shot
Elsewhere this weekend, third will go to Angel Studios' second weekend of The King of Kings at 3,535 theaters, with $6M today and $17M in its second weekend. That will take its running cume before Easter Monday to an estimated $45M.
In fourth is 20th Century Studios' The Amateur with $8M in its second weekend, -46%, after a near $3M Friday at 3,400 sites. Its 10-day total would stand at $28M.
Fifth is A24's Warfare at 2,670 locations seeing $1.4M today, $4M (-50%) for its second weekend and a running total by Sunday of $16M. The movie will easily eclipse the domestic run of the 2008 Iraq War bomb-squad unit movie The Hurt Locker at $17M stateside, which you'll remember won the 2009 Oscar for Best Picture.
PREVIOUSLY, FRIDAY AM: Warner Bros' $90 million+ period vampire movie Sinners chalked up $4.7 million in Thursday night previews that began yesterday at 3 p.m. Out of the gate with preview-night audiences, Sinners gets 5 stars on PostTrak with 80% definite recommend, an excellent exit that could bode well for over-indexing, knock on wood. Rotten Tomatoes is also high on the Ryan Coogler-Michael B. Jordan reteam, with reviews at 97% certified fresh and exits at that level as well.
The diversity demos last night were 46% Black, 30% Caucasian, 15% Latino and Hispanic and 5% Asian.
Sinners in its preview take is under that of genre comps like 2022's Nope ($6.4M Thursday night, $44.3M opening) and 2019's Us ($7.4M, $71.1M).
The miracles of Good Friday at the box office, with 72% of K-12 schools and a close to a third of colleges on break, were already in effect last night, with Warner Bros/Legendary's A Minecraft Movie shooting up in its daily take by 21% over Wednesday with $6.5M, sending the Jared Hess movie past the three-century mark at the domestic box office with $303.3M. A Minecraft Movie pulled off the feat in 14 days, three days slower than Illumination/Nintendo/Universal's Super Mario Bros which took 11 days to cross $300M. That movie ended its U.S.-Canada run at $574.9M. A Minecraft Movie ends its second week with $102.9M.
One of the two movies will wind up as No. 1 during the Easter holiday frame with respective weekend takes of $40M+. Who can ding a studio for owning the top two slots over a holiday weekend? Good on Warner Bros.
Sinners is booked at 3,308 theaters including premium auditoriums of Imax 70MM, Imax digital, 70MM, Dolby, PLFs and motion seats.
Also opening this weekend is Bleecker Street's remake of the Ang Lee movie The Wedding Banquet starring Bowen Yang and Lily Gladstone at 1,133 theaters. The movie gets 3 stars from PostTrak audiences and a 50% definite recommend.
The rest of the week is as follows:
2.) The King of Kings (Angel) 3200 theaters, Thu $2.4M (+15% over Wednesday), Total $28M/Wk 1
3.) The Amateur (20th/Dis) 3,400 theaters, Thu $1M (-6%), Total $20.1M/Wk 1
4.) Warfare (A24) 2,670 theaters, Thu $891K (-6%) Total $12M/Wk 1
5.) Drop (Uni) 3,085 theaters, Thu $617K (+2%) Total $10.1M/Wk 1
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By
Althea Legaspi
After the Who announced that they had parted ways with drummer Zak Starkey earlier this week, band co-founder Pete Townshend took to social media to say this is not the case.
“News Flash! Who back Zak!,” Townshend wrote on Instagram on Saturday. “Zak is not being asked to step down from The Who. There have been some communication issues, personal and private on all sides, that needed to be dealt with, and these have been aired happily.”
The guitarist's post directed fans to visit the band's official website “for the full statement,” which was updated about an hour later, with a statement signed by Townshend. He opened by reiterating what he wrote on Instagram and added that he and Roger Daltrey wanted Starkey to “tighten up” his drumming style. “Roger and I would like Zak to tighten up his latest evolved drumming style to accommodate our non-orchestral line up and he has readily agreed,” Townshend said. “I take responsibility for some of the confusion. Our TCT shows at the Royal Albert Hall were a little tricky for me. I thought that four and a half weeks would be enough time to recover completely from having a complete knee replacement. (Why did I ever think I could land on my knees?) Wrong!”
This appears to confirm reports that Daltrey appeared upset with their performance at the Royal Albert Hall shows. When the band attempted to play the Who's Next deep cut “The Song Is Over” for the first time in their history, Daltrey stopped the song after just one verse and sounded frustrated.
“To sing that song, I do need to hear the key, and I can't,” he said. “All I've got is drums going boom, boom, boom. I can't sing to that. I'm sorry, guys.”
In Townshend's statement on the band's website Saturday, he acknowledged that the issues could've been exacerbated by a short sound check. “Maybe we didn't put enough time into sound checks, giving us problems on stage,” he continued. “The sound in the centre of the stage is always the most difficult to work with. Roger did nothing wrong but fiddle with his in-ear monitors. Zak made a few mistakes and he has apologised. Albeit with a rubber duck drummer.”
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The hubbub began on Wednesday following the Who's performances at Royal Albert Hall. “The band made a collective decision to part ways with Zak after this round of shows at the Royal Albert Hall,” a representative for the band said in a statement announcing the initial news. “They have nothing but admiration for him and wish him the very best for his future.”
By Wednesday afternoon, Starkey addressed his then-departure. “I'm very proud of my near thirty years with The Who,” Starkey —the oldest child of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr who grew up around original Who drummer Keith Moon — told Rolling Stone in a written statement. “Filling the shoes of my Godfather, ‘uncle Keith' has been the biggest honor and I remain their biggest fan. They've been like family to me. In January, I suffered a serious medical emergency with blood clots in my right bass drum calf. This is now completely healed and does not affect my drumming or running.”
He added: “After playing those songs with the band for so many decades, I'm surprised and saddened anyone would have an issue with my performance that night, but what can you do? I plan to take some much needed time off with my family, and focus on the release of Domino Bones by Mantra Of The Cosmos with Noel Gallagher in May and finishing my autobiography written solely by me. Twenty-nine years at any job is a good old run, and I wish them the best.”
On Saturday, it appears the parties have resolved their communication issues. “We are a family, this blew up very quickly and got too much oxygen. It's over,” Townshend said. “We move forward now with optimism and fire in our bellies.”
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“As for Roger, fans can enjoy his forthcoming solo shows with his fabulous drummer, Scott Devours, who it was rumoured might replace Zak in The Who and has always been supportive of the band,” Townshend concluded. “I owe Scott an apology for not crushing that rumour before it spread. He has been hurt by this. I promise to buy him a very long drink and give him a hug.”
This article has been updated with an official statement from the Who on their website.
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For Ryan Coogler's genre-bending vampire film, “Sinners,” cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw shot 65mm on steroids in both IMAX and Ultra Panavision 70. Durald Arkapaw is now the first female DP able to embrace shooting 15-perf IMAX 65mm — with hopefully many more to come. The film was also the first pairing of IMAX with the anamorphic Ultra Panavision 70 on the same film.
The result is one of extreme, almost heady disparity in aspect ratios (1.43:1 for IMAX 65mm and 2.76:1 for Ultra Panavision 70) that allow the film to emphasize both its period trappings and supernatural atmosphere. Yet Coogler didn't originally conceive of “Sinners” in large format. The director first thought of the film as being a good fit for 16mm.
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“Sinners” stars Michael B. Jordan as twin gangsters Smoke and Stack, who flee Al Capone's Chicago to open up a juke joint back home in Clarksdale, Mississippi. As Coogler and Durald Arkapaw immediately began planning their visual strategy, though, they realized “Sinners'” otherworldly take on the Jim Crow South and the macabre impact of the blues as “the devil's music” demanded the larger expanse of 65mm.
“I read the script and I was just blown away,” Durald Arkapaw told IndieWire. “The visuals just jumped off the page, and I could already see in my head how layered and textured the light would be for the scenes that he wrote. And then when we started talking more in early prep, the conversation of large format came up. And so it elevated everything I had read because it was already so visual. And so we were very excited by exploring 65mm.”
They went to FotoKem and looked at 70mm prints of “2001: A Space” and “The Hateful Eight,” the Quentin Tarantino Western that revived the seldom-used Ultra Panavision 70 after nearly 50 years (best exemplified by “Ben-Hur”).
Then they shot Ultra Panavision test footage in the Lancaster desert. “Ryan brought up Ultra Panavision because he was really interested in the kind of flat horizon of the Mississippi landscape and being able to see that,” said Durald Arkapaw, who first worked with the director on “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” “And how far people would travel to meet up, and workers in the cotton fields, and the kind of weight of the sky and the texture of the ground.”
They shot IMAX test footage as well, which blew them away. “I don't see this story in any other format now that we've shot it,” she continued. “Ryan's friends with Chris [Nolan], and I had a conversation with his cinematographer, Hoyte [van Hoytema]. He was very encouraging about taking [IMAX] and using it to the best of your ability and not feeling encumbered by it.”
Durald Arkapaw, who's been a film lover since her college days at the AFI, was thrilled to be creating big visuals in large format. Plus, she shoots a lot in anamorphic (her favorite film is “There Will Be Blood,” which served as a major inspiration).
“I always take care to make it feel grounded and realistic, because it's very important to Ryan that we're building real worlds with real characters that have depth,” Durald Arkapaw said. “And then the horror aspect of it all was important, too. ‘The Thing' is one of his favorite films that was also shot anamorphic. It has a lot of tension and tight spaces and darkness and mood. And so, for me, it's like trying to build that contrast into the negative.”
During prep, Coogler sent Durald Arkapaw some photographs from the Farm Security Administration that production designer Hannah Beachler shared with him. “These were from around 1935 and were shot on Kodachrome slide film and had this beautiful color saturation and depth to the image, depth to the blacks, to the shadows,” she said. “So those were a big inspiration and reference for us, making sure that all skin tones have this depth and look beautiful.”
Kodak provided 65mm 5219 and 65mm Ektachrome film stocks. The latter was a large format first to capture workers jumping off a truck and walking toward the camera for some joyous portraiture-like shots.
In terms of cameras, Durald Arkapaw chose the IMAX MSM 9802 and MKIV Reflex, along with the Panavision System 65 Studio. These were accompanied by the following lenses: Panavision IMAX (50mm and 80mm) and Panavision Ultra Panatar 1.3x anamorphic. In addition, Dan Sasaki, Panavision's vice president of optical engineering, made a bespoke 80mm Petzval lens with an aggressive field curvature, which increased de-focus toward the edges of the frame. This was used for a phantasmagorical scene toward the end of the film.
The director and cinematographer crucially explored during prep what could and couldn't be shot in IMAX because it's such a noisy camera for dialogue scenes. They wound up devoting nearly 30 minutes to IMAX. Of course, the bravura vampire fights inside and outside the juke were in IMAX. But so were several emotional moments, too.
“The IMAX sequences are used as a candid look into the characters,” Durald Arkapaw said. “The 2.76 anamorphic frame feels so cinematic. You're watching a movie through the most beautiful of lenses, and then when you step into the IMAX world, it almost feels like a look behind the curtain and into the soul of the character. This pulls you deeper in, and it becomes an experience. This ebb and flow in formats is very immersive and engaging.”
In fact, Coogler switched one of two opening scenes inside a church used as a framing device from Ultra Panavision to IMAX because its soul-searching intensity was better suited for the format. “Sinners” begins with a horribly shaken Sammie (newcomer Miles Canton) entering his pastor father's church service in Clarksville with his broken guitar. The movie then flashes back to reveal the unworldly events of the day before.
“We had shot the opening of the church scene in Ultra Panavision when [Sammie] goes inside in the morning to find his guitar and meets his father,” Durald Arkapaw said. “And when he returns to the church, Ryan decided he wanted to shoot that IMAX. It was not prepped as IMAX, and then we changed systems. I find that really lovely 'cause it allows you to see that space and have a different emotional relationship with it 'cause it's shot two ways.”
But the movie's extraordinary highlight in IMAX is a surreal musical scene inside the juke that occurs when Sammie makes his electrifying debut with the blues song, “I Lied to You” (from composer Ludwig Göransson and Grammy-winning songwriter Rafael Sadik). He's suddenly joined by an array of multicultural musicians and dancers from the past and future and together they perform Göransson's “Magic What We Do (Surreal Montage).”
The live performance was shot in a single day as a oner using the 80-pound IMAX camera on a steadicam, which winds its way around the juke in two sections. The performance is so explosive, in fact, that it sets the roof on fire and blows it away. For that, the camera tilts up for a VFX takeover of the actual burning roof, which they shot a plate for on the last day of filming. Then it transitions into a 50-foot Technocrane pull out for an exterior night shot in another location with the vampires.
For Durald Arkapaw, it was quite the challenge in IMAX, requiring prep, previs, and rehearsal to work out the precise camera moves. Framing and focus were key in getting all the performers in the shot, who are seen very briefly. But one of the many benefits of the large format was showing off the colors and textures of designer Ruth Carter's elaborate costuming in such vivid detail.
“It was a beautiful scene that Ryan wrote, and it had many layers to it,” Durald Arkapaw said. “And it grew to something bigger when we shot it. Everyone was very inspired by it 'cause it had so much meaning. Ryan is so specific about representing different cultures. It's very important to him. It's all departments working together on a very high level. All of these cultures woven together.”
Yet “Sinners” needs to be seen in IMAX 70mm at one of 10 select locations to enjoy the full frame experience of 1.43:1.
“The IMAX frame is so different,” said Durald Arkapaw, “because your eye needs to be able to scan the image, whereas traditional films allow you to see the image without moving your eyes across the screen. This is why my love for widescreen photography, along with center weighted framing, lends itself to these two formats so well. The guidelines for how to frame can stay consistent across both formats. This allows for the two formats to stand out as different, but a stylistic through line can be achieved to tie both worlds together.”
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By Caroline Frost
pmc-media-editor-2024
Hugh Jackman enjoys a celebrated friendship with industry peer and Deadpool & Wolverine co-star Ryan Reynolds.
But that didn't stop him unloading to his live audience at Radio City Music Hall, where he's halfway through a 12-show run of musical review titled From New York, With Love.
The Daily Mail newspaper reports that Jackman shard “one little gripe” about his time filming the blockbuster superhero film alongside Reynolds – that the established song and dance man was left out of the Marvel movie's musical number.
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In footage obtained by The Daily Mail, Jackman joked with his audience:
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“Don't tell Ryan… I don't need to be in every scene in the movie. But Ryan is a writer. And when I see the script, I see that the scene that I'm not in is the opening sequence which is a dance number to an NSYNC song by Ryan.
“I'm like, the one scene I'm not in has dance. Now Ryan, he's very talented, but dancing?”
Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)is the 34th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the sequel to Deadpool (2016) and Deadpool 2 (2018). It made $1.338 billion at the box office on its release in 2024.
Jackman got a laugh from his audience, before saying he was going to try to “rectify” the issue – recruiting his trainer and former dancer Beth Lewis to perform with him “the dance that got away.” The pair danced to NSYNC's 2000 hit Bye Bye Bye.
Jackman will continue to perform at Radio City Music Hall on select weekends through to the final shows on August 15 and 16.
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By Caroline Frost
pmc-media-editor-2024
Jeff Bridges has shared that he'd be up for making a sequel to The Big Lebowski – which brought him one of the most beloved roles of his career.
Bridges, who played “The Dude” in the 1998 Cohen Brothers thriller, spoke to the audience after a screening of the original film at the Orpheum Theatre in LA.
The Daily Mail newspaper reports that Bridges was asked about the prospect of returning to the role that helped make him a star, and replied that he and original co-star Julianne Moore were of the same mind:
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“Of course. Julianne and I would fantasize about that. We did another movie together, Seventh Son, she played a witch in that movie. And we would often say, ‘Gee it's all set up for a sequel.'”
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He added, though, he thought the prospect of the Coens wanting to return to the subject matter was unlikely:
“I don't think the brothers are going to do that. I don't think that's their style. But I must say, they surprise us all the time… If they called me up and said, ‘Hey let's do it again,' I'd say, ‘Absolutely, come on.'”
The beloved thriller follows the life of Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski, slacker and enthusiastic bowler, who is assaulted as a result of mistaken identify. Besides Bridges and Moore, the original cast included John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, David Huddleston, John Turturro, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tara Reid, David Thewlis, Peter Stormare, Jon Polito, and Ben Gazzara.
The original film made a relatively small box office of $46.7million on its release, but has become an enduring fan favorite, with its eccentric characters, unique dialogue and memorable soundtrack.
The Daily Mail reports that Bridges, who won a Best Actor Oscar for his role in Crazy Heart (2010), previously called The Big Lebowski “one of my favourite movies I've ever been involved in.”
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By Anthony D'Alessandro
Editorial Director/Box Office Editor
Gosh, it's been a long time since the season one finale of Ahsoka — one year and seven months. But two teases came out of the Ahsoka panel tonight at Star Wars Celebration in Tokyo about season 2, which is going into production next week. First, Hayden Christensen is coming back as Anakin Skywalker — that makes all the sense in the world. Anakin is the Jedi Master of Ahsoka, and the duo have a very complex relationship. But in more news, Game of Thrones‘ actor Rory McCann is stepping in to play evil Jedi Baylan Skol after the death of Ray Stevenson.
Also, Admiral Ackbar is returning — and that's not a trap. “He's going head-to-head with Thrawn,” promised Ahsoka creator Dave Filoni.
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“It took all of my effort to resist writing the line — ‘It's a trap!' Because I'm like, I can't do that, that would be so lame. Because this guy can't always get into traps. You'd think he would see it this time,” joked Filoni.
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Stevenson died in May 2023 before season one of Ahsoka debuted. He played a key nefarious antagonist who locks horns with Rosario Dawson's Ahsoka. Dawson worked with McCann 20 years ago in Oliver Stone's Alexander. She concurred with Filoni that when it came to filling in Stevenson's shoes, it boiled down to an actor and their eyes. McCann possessed that intensity.
Filoni got emotional when remembering Stevenson.
“Season 2 was predictably a big challenge because of losing Ray,” said Filoni.
“I knew Ray from working on voice acting with him,” he said, “It was a challenge for me to consider continuing for a while. But I have a wonderful support group in Jon (Favreau) and Rosario (Dawson)”.
Favreau, Dawson and Christensen were also on stage today in Tokyo with Filoni.
“I found a way in — I had Ray in my head. I'm grateful for all my conversations with him about Baylan. So, I understood what to do, it just took a while to get there. I'm very confident now that Ray would be happy with the direction that we've chosen,” added Filoni who made the decision in concert with the late actor's family.
“The character is meant to be the parallel to Ahsoka in every way. If there's a light, there's a dark, and Baylan is representing a different journey for a Jedi as you (Rosario) represent one who walked away from the (Jedi) order, so did he. That's a parallel that must continue,” said Filoni.
McCann's credits are numerous including Gladiator II, Hot Fuzz, Jumanji: The Next Level as well as 39 episodes of HBO's Game of Thrones as Sandor ‘The Hound' Clegane.
The last we left off in October 2023 with the Ahsoka season one finale, Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) made the jump to hyperspace via a space loop while Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson), Sabine (Natasha Liu) and Ezra (Eman Esfandi) were marooned in the green tundra tumbleweeds of Peridea in a galaxy far, far away. Thrawn's m.o. is to reassemble the Empire aka “The Thrawn campaign,” which was a series of military and political maneuvers by the blue man to restore the Empire and implode the New Republic.
Filoini has been a fan of Thrawn since author Timothy Zahn introduced him in the post Return of the Jedi novel Heir to the Empire. “He is the iconic villain. Thrawn doesn't have the force, but holds his own against everybody.”
Dawson said that she hasn't read all the scripts for season 2, and that's because Filoni “keeps re-writing them.”
Hayden Christensen will return as Anakin Skywalker for Ahsoka Season 2. pic.twitter.com/WOxZtcXd1x
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By
Tim Chan
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Rolling Stone may receive an affiliate commission.
Travis Scott has been a longtime wrestling fan and the rapper is now putting his stamp on a new collection of wrestling merch for WWE.
Dubbed the “CJ for WWE Wrestlemania 41 Legends Collection,” the pieces are part of Scott's Cactus Jack clothing line, and being released just in time for Wrestlemania 41, which takes place this weekend in Las Vegas.
The apparel and merch collection was first teased on the Cactus Jack Instagram earlier this week. Many of the pieces will be available at WWE World at the Las Vegas Convention Center but if you can't make it out to Vegas, you can also buy the Cactus Jack x WWE collection online.
A post shared by Cactus Jack (@cactusjack)
Here's a look at some of the best things to buy from the new collaboration. As with all Cactus Jack collabs, pieces are moving fast so we recommend picking up what you want while sizes and inventory are still in stock.
$55
Grab this CJ x WWE T-shirt as part of the officially-licensed collection. The 100% cotton tee comes in black with graffiti-style “Sage the Stage” lettering on the back, and a textured Wrestlemania graphic on the front.
$130
Made in the USA, this screen-print jersey pays tribute to John Cena, who has announced that he is retiring after Wrestlemania. Designed for a loose fit, the lightweight jersey is available in sizes small to 2XL.
$55
A bunch of other WWE fan favorites are included as part of the new Cactus Jack collection, including The Rock, whose infamous words, “Know Your Role,” are immortalized on this T-shirt.
$55
We love the vintage feel of this “Stone Cold” Steve Austin T-shirt, which pays tribute to one of the all-time WWE greats. This cotton tee features a spray paint-style illustration on the front and back. Fanatics says the spray painting is done by hand, so every T-shirt will be a little bit different. What that means: every T-shirt is a unique collectible that no one else will have.
$140
This official Cactus Jack x WWE hoodie celebrates Wrestlemania's arrival to Sin City, with a Cactus Jack Vegas logo, detailing on the arms, and the iconic red Wrestlemania logo spray-painted onto the back. As with the Steve Austin shirt, each piece will be unique thanks to the spray effect. This is a heavyweight cotton hoodie and available in sizes small to 2XL. Size up if you want that streetwear-inspired oversized fit.
$55
We're picking up this Cactus Jack x WWE hat, which features a worn-in look and feel, with handwritten-style lettering. The front features a Cactus Jack and WWE script while the word “Wrestlemania” adorns the back of the cap. This is a one-size-fits-all baseball cap, with an adjustable velcro strap.
$1,200
If you really want to go all out, spring for this instant collector's item from Cactus Jack. The WWE Replica Title Belt re-imagines the iconic champion's belt as a modern-day art piece, with rhinestones, chopped-up logo detailing, and hand-drawn graphics. This is the real deal too, with the belt measuring 51.5 x 11.5 inches in length and weighing under over five pounds.Fanatics says each belt is individually hand-assembled down to the little details, meaning no two are the same. Consider this the ultimate display piece for wrestling fans and Travis Scott fans alike.
Scott has appeared as himself on WWE events before, most recently surprising the crowd at a WWE Elimination Chamber event in Toronto last month. The rapper was joined in the ring by Cena and The Rock, the latter of whom had nothing but praise for Scott.
“I feel like with Travis, he loves the business and loves pro wrestling. He's a culture guy. Travis Scott is one of the greatest already, of all time. He's a GOAT, a legend, an icon, he loves the business,” The Rock said. “We get guys and girls like that who want to come in and who are already tapping into the culture and disrupting culture in their own cool way. They want to come in, have fun at the show. Maybe they want to sit and enjoy or be on camera. But some want to get involved. Some, like Travis, deeply want to get involved. That's what you saw tonight.”
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By Glenn Garner
Associate Editor
SPOILERS: This post contains details about the Season 17 finale of RuPaul's Drag Race
RuPaul's Drag Race has crowned the 17th winner of its flagship series.
During Friday's Season 17 finale of the MTV drag competition series, which featured a surprise appearance from ‘Giving Us Lifetime Achievement' honoree Liza Minnelli, host RuPaul had finalists Jewels Sparkles, Lexi Love, Onya Nurve and Sam Star each perform an original song.
Jewels and Onya then advanced to the final round, in which they lip-synced for the crown to Lady Gaga's ‘Abracadabra' from her new album Mayhem.
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Taking home the $200,000 grand prize from TodayTix, Onya Nurve was crowned the winner of Season 17. “Time and time again, Onya Nurve delivered that ‘something extra' that made her our undisputed champion,” said RuPaul.
The 14x Emmy winner added, “Condragulations to all the queens, and especially our finalists, for serving one of the most competitive seasons in Drag Race herstory!”
Runner-up Jewels Sparkles received a $25,000 prize provided by Anastasia Beverly Hills, which also awarded Lexi Love and Sam Star $10,000 each. Crystal Envy won Miss Congeniality and was awarded $10,000 courtesy of Olay Body, which also tipped the remaining Season 17 queens $2,000 each.
RuPaul, who performed ‘Good Luck and Don't F%k It Up', presented Minnelli with the ‘Giving Us Lifetime Achievement' award in recognition of her dazzling contributions to entertainment. Previous recipients include Bob Mackie and Cassandra Peterson (aka Elvira).
The drag superstar returns next month for the milestone Season 10 premiere of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, premiering May 9 on Paramount+.
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By
Charisma Madarang
Donald Trump‘s administration is preparing to deport a new group of Venezuelan men detained in Texas, said the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in an emergency Friday court filing. ACLU lawyers urged the Supreme Court to block the administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to justify sending migrants to El Salvador‘s notorious prison system known for torture, extrajudicial killings, and other human rights abuses.
Migrants have already been placed on buses “presumably headed to the airport” and are at risk of being deported to prison in El Salvador, read the emergency application. Last month, the government sent 238 men to El Salvador without due process, citing dubious claims that the men had ties to gangs that the president has deemed terrorist organizations. CBS' 60 Minutes released a report that found 75 percent of the Venezuelans — 179 men — deported had no apparent criminal record.
Attorneys for the ACLU also filed similar requests for immediate intervention with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C.
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Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could continue deporting migrants under the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime law from 1798. All nine justices agreed, however, that anyone the administration is seeking to deport under the act must receive notice and be given the opportunity to challenge the removal through “habeas petitions” — meaning that migrants have the right to have their detention or deportation reviewed by the federal court, but only for themselves and in the area where they are being detained.
In Friday's emergency filing, the ACLU said that Venezuelan migrants currently in custody in Texas were given notices that they were subject to removal under the act and could be deported as soon as Friday or Saturday. The government's “lightning-fast timeline” does not give the Venezuelan migrants “a realistic opportunity to contest their removal under the AEA,” argued the application, which also said that some of the notices were in “English only” and “do not inform proposed class members of their right to contest the designation in a federal court.” As far as the migrants in government custody and their attorneys know, “the government is not giving notice to proposed class members' immigration attorneys,” stated the filing.
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The ACLU said that any imminent deportations without proper legal review would be “in direct contravention” of the April 7 order from the Supreme Court.
Boasberg declined to issue an order late Friday blocking deportations from northern Texas, saying he lacks the authority to issue a nationwide order after the high court tossed his order earlier this month.
Trump and his administration have continued to defy court orders, in what legal scholars have warned is escalating to a constitutional crisis. After the Department of Homeland Security admitted that it had wrongfully deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a Salvadoran prison mega-prison due to an “administrative error,” a district court judge ordered the Trump administration return him to the U.S.
The Supreme Court, noting that Abrego Garcia's deportation was “illegal,” unanimously upheld that court order and directed the administration to “facilitate” his release and return to America. Trump and his administration have refused to comply, arguing the court didn't say that and that they don't have to do anything because Abrego Garcia is in the custody of El Salvador.
Trump's administration sought to halt the lower court's order with an appeal, but were quickly shut down by a three-judge panel on Thursday.
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The judges wrote that Trump officials are “asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order,” adding that his administration “claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”
On Wednesday, Boasberg ruled that the administration's “willful and knowing” actions — and their stonewalling during subsequent hearings in his court — constitute “probable cause for a finding of contempt.” (That ruling was temporarily halted by an appeals court.)
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Dr. Oz was forced to jump into medical mode during a visit to the White House on April 18, 2025 when his granddaughter suddenly fainted, per a TMZ report.
The outlet, which has video footage of the reality star's bravery, says Dr. Oz and his family members were listening to a speech in the Oval Office when chaos ensued because Daphne Oz's daughter, Philomena Bijou, lost consciousness.
A post shared by D A P H N E O Z (@daphneoz)
Bijou survived the incident. The press was ordered out of the room immediately after the panic started. The speech was halted as family members huddled around the child. The eleven-year-old was able to stand and left the room with her mother. Daphne Oz, who formerly hosted the cooking show “The Chew,” initially alerted everyone to the emergency by exclaiming, “Phil fainted!”
“A minor family member fainted during Dr. Oz's swearing in ceremony in the Oval Office. We are happy to say she is okay,” CBS says the White House explained in an official statement.
Dr. Oz has four children with wife Lisa. People says the pair met through a mutual connection to medicine, as their fathers were both surgeons.
Four of the couple's grandchildren belong to their daughter, Daphne Oz, and her husband, John Jovanic.
In a May 2024 Instagram post, Dr. Oz announced the birth of his newest grandchild, a boy named Ozzie who was welcomed by his youngest daughter, Zoe.
A post shared by Dr. Oz (@dr_oz)
In March 2025, the physician shared a Facebook update on the growing boy, marveling at the baby's impressive mane. “Fun week with the grandkids. Ozzie is full of personality to go with all that hair!” he captioned the post.
Parade says Dr. Oz's exact net worth isn't known, but is estimated to be between $100 and $315 million.
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The breadth and depth of music on television were on full display on April 15 at IndieWire and Disney's Pass the Remote panel, where some of the best composers and music supervisors in the business gathered in front of a packed theater at Vidiots Foundation in Los Angeles to discuss their work.
Music supervisors Tiffany Anders (“Good American Family”) and Jen Ross (“English Teacher”) joined composers the Newton Brothers (“Daredevil: Born Again“), Siddhartha Khosla (“Only Murders in the Building,” “Paradise”), Ariel Marx (“Dying for Sex”), and Michael Paraskevas (“Agatha All Along“) for a lively panel on the pleasures and challenges of creating great soundtracks.
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One common thread throughout the discussion was the impulse to use music as an expression of character. For Anders, the needle drops on “Good American Family” — which include everything from 1970s ballads like “Sometimes When We Touch” and “Romeo's Tune” to later radio hits from Jimmy Eats World, Meat Loaf, and Miley Cyrus — were carefully chosen to represent the kind of music the middle American family at the story's center would consume.
“The parameters were, what did these people from the late '90s and 2000s grow up listening to?” Anders said. “What kind of stuff do they respond to? We went for that zone of radio music that they connected to and maybe said a little bit about them.” When Michael, the stressed-out father and husband played by Mark Duplass, loses his job and blasts Green Day in his car, Anders felt it was the only choice for his “mad music.” “It's not gangsta rap, it's not metal. It's not Korn. It's Green Day, which is perfectly Michael. He's a wounded man-child, and the song has this pop sensibility to it while still having an edge.”
On “Daredevil: Born Again,” composers Andy Grush and Taylor Stewart, collectively known as The Newton Brothers though they are not actually siblings, took their cues from the title character and his relationship to the imposing city in which he lives. “Taylor and I decided that the city was an omniscient presence that is always calling out to its people, whether they're the vigilantes or just everyday people,” Grush said. “The idea was to create the city's own theme that calls out and is only answered — or sometimes not answered — by the themes of each character.”
Stewart added that the score also had to build on the theme music established by composer John Paesano on an earlier iteration of “Daredevil” or risk infuriating the franchise's fans. “On IP that's not particularly old, as a fan, you're expecting a certain something from the character,” he said. “We had discussions about how to incorporate that, but then enhance things with organs and choirs, bringing in more religious elements. But there was a lot to work with already.”
While The Newton Brothers had to think about what to carry over from the prior “Daredevil” seasons and where to branch out in new directions on “Daredevil: Born Again,” Khosla had to reinvent his own score for the fourth season of “Only Murders in the Building,” a series he has been on since the beginning.
“[Showrunner and co-creator] John Hoffman wants to reinvent stuff every season, which is exciting,” Khosla said. “We don't have to use the same score every year. John and I have a conversation a few months before they shoot, and he walks me through the arc of the whole season, and then I just start writing new themes.”
Khosla's work elsewhere on “Paradise” is as far from the catchy piano hooks of “Only Murders in the Building” as you can get, featuring a sophisticated blend of classical techniques and synth music that evokes mood more than melody. The tense score grew out of conversations between Khosla and showrunner Dan Fogelman, with whom he has been friends for more than half his life.
“Dan and our directors were very specific about what they wanted the audience to feel,” Khosla said. “They wanted us to constantly feel like we were trapped in this world and couldn't get out. So it's very tonal, textured, weird-sounding string stuff and a lot of loops.”
“Dying for Sex” presented a different kind of challenge for Marx, who had to create a musical language for the show's unusual tone — a tone that veers between jaunty comedy, charged eroticism, and devastating tragedy. She credits the unusually long pre-production period, during which she was brought on early, with enabling her to experiment with multiple ideas.
“It was all about just seeing what was working and how to play the comedy,” Marx said. “I tried to stay true to the idea that this is about a woman whose body is betraying her, and she's using her body and her last days to experience as much life as possible. So there are a lot of humorous sounds that are very organic, but also very fun.”
The Marvel series “Agatha All Along” might not seem very similar, but in its own way, its tonal range is as broad as that of “Dying for Sex,” as the show jumps genres and emotions throughout its first season while reinventing its title character after her introduction on “WandaVision.”
“Agatha was the supervillain, just straight-up evil,” Paraskevas said. “Here, she's an antihero, and we're trying to sympathize with her, but you don't really understand her trauma and motivations until the very end of the show. So there was this balance that we had to find. The first thing we did was get rid of the traditional superhero sound — no French horns, no trumpets. We had this weird ensemble of strings, six trombones, a tuba, and a lot of processed effects and electronics.”
For “English Teacher,” Ross took a big swing by using 1980s pop songs like Scandal's “The Warrior” and The Bangles' “Eternal Flame” on what is a contemporary show, but the idea was to give the series a timeless feel and to associate it in viewers' minds with classic coming-of-age movies that adult viewers grew up watching. (That's why many of the cues come from movies, like “Flashdance” and “Streets of Fire.”) “We also wanted to find the humor and the heart,” Ross said. “That's why we use a lot of songs that bring some kind of familiarity, but still work in a very timeless way. We weren't trying to just play a joke. We were trying to make a greater narrative with it.”
There was added pressure on Ross given that “English Teacher” has no score — the songs have to do the heavy lifting. “We didn't have a composer for the show, so one of the first conversations I had with the showrunner was about the fact that he thought the dialogue and the songs should set the tone and an emotional narrative. That's really how we found the 1980s of it all, and then we found other songs that were current to complement them.” One of the challenges? For some of the 1980s songs, original versions were impossible to clear because artists had re-recorded them — just one of the less desirable aspects of a job that Ross and Anders say is as administrative and business-oriented as creative.
Anders added that her background working in record stores, where she had to recommend albums to customers based on their taste, prepared her for the job of music supervising — where she often has to pick music that doesn't necessarily align with her own taste but is right for the material and the showrunner. “You need to be able to think of something really quick as a backup, and you need to know who owns it,” Anders said. “You need to know who wrote it. You need to know all this information as a researcher and be able to offer suggestions for replacements. I can't think of a single show that I've been on where that hasn't been needed, no matter what the budget is.”
Finding music that fits the showrunner's vision was a key concern for everyone on the panel. The composers and music supervisors all noted that filmmakers all communicate differently — some directors and showrunners can speak in very specific musical terms, while others don't have the language, and part of the job is interpreting what they're looking for.
“It's a lot like a relationship,” Grush said. “I haven't been on a date in a really long time, but it reminds me of what that is like. You meet someone, you sit down, and you're like, ‘Do they like spaghetti or do they want hot dogs?' Maybe they want to go to a Dodger game, and you don't know. That's what it feels like on every project.”
Watch the full video from the Disney Composing Panel at IndieWire's Pass the Remote series on April 15 at Vidiots in Los Angeles above. Register here to attend the “Sly Lives” screening and Q&A on May 3.
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By Glenn Garner
Associate Editor
The truth is still out there, and with any luck, Agent Dana Scully could be back on the case.
Ryan Coogler recently gave an update on his upcoming reboot of The X Files, which he revealed is “immediately next” for him, noting that he's “spoken to the great Gillian Anderson” about the series.
“She's incredible. Fingers crossed there,” said Coogler on Last Podcast on the Left.
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“I've been excited about that for a long time, and I'm fired up to get back to it. Some of those episodes, if we do our jobs right, will be really f—ing scary,” he teased, adding: “We're gonna try to make something really great, bro, and really be something for the real X Files fans, and maybe find some new ones.”
Following news of Coogler's reimagining, Anderson said she “cannot think of a better way around for a reboot to happen,” calling the filmmaker “a bit of a genius.”
“Whether I am involved in it is a whole other thing,” she added. “I'm not saying no. I think he's really cool and I think if he did it, it would probably be done incredibly well. And maybe I'll pop in for a little something something.”
Originally running for nine seasons from 1993 to 2002, The X Files starred Anderson and David Duchovny as FBI Special Agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder, who are tasked with investigating cases of the paranormal.
In addition to the feature adaptations, The X Files (1998) and The X Files: I Want to Believe (2008), the show was brought back for a two-season revival from 2016 to 2018.
Last year, OG series creator Chris Carter revealed that Coogler is “going to remount The X Files with a diverse cast” amid the Black Panther director's five-year exclusive deal with Disney Television through his Proximity Media banner.
“So, he's got his work cut out for him because we covered so much territory,” said Carter on the On the Coast podcast, acknowledging that a modern update in which the characters investigate the paranormal would look different as “we're steeped in conspiracies” today.
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By Armando Tinoco
Staff Writer
Pedro Pascal is teasing The Fantastic Four: First Steps, in which he plays the role of Reed Richards, Mister Fantastic.
Although the Marvel superhero has elastic abilities, it's his intellect that Pascal is focused on in playing the character.
“With Reed, his body may stretch, but this is a brain character,” the actor said in an interview with ComicBook. “I guess I'll just give it completely away. I thought of the brilliance of an octopus. Not in any literal physical translated way, but I put it into my subconscious. Yeah. That's the biggest character secret reveal that I've given to you.”
Pascal also compared the differences in physical demands between his Fantastic Four character and Din Djarin in The Mandalorian.
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“You know, with Din Djarin, there's so much physical authorship that is a collective effort, with my work, Brendan Wayne's work, Latif Crowder's work, other bodies that have stepped into the armor, but primarily, those two guys and myself,” he said. “With Reed, that, for me, was a brand new kind of experience to author something that is very, very familiar to the world, has previous authorship, a very specific understanding of the pages of the comics, and different evolutions and stuff like that. And then something that is so independent in its identity as far as our version is concerned. To me, you know, his body may stretch, but this is a brain character, and it's really his mind that was the most important to me.”
The Fantastic Four: First Steps opens in theaters on July 25 and it also stars Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Ralph Ineson, Julia Garner, Paul Walter Hauser, John Malkovich, Natasha Lyonne, Sarah Niles, and more.
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A paranormal investigator has reacted with sadness to the news that a former smallpox hospital and "paranormal hotspot" is being demolished.
The site, which also served Don Styler's Physical Training Centre, has been a popular spot for paranormal investigators over the years.
The former hospital is set to be demolished ahead of its purchase by the Ministry of Defence. This comes after guns and drugs were seized at the site.
Paranormal investigator Tony Ferguson, who has visited the site several times with his team, said: "This will be such a sad occasion, as many paranormal teams have investigated, experienced, and caught many unexplained things at this site."
READ MORE: Gosport: Is this gym and former smallpox hospital haunted?
The site, often referred to as Monk's Walk, has been a hotbed for paranormal activity, with investigators capturing various unexplained phenomena.
Mr Ferguson and his team recently made a final visit to the site, accompanied by fellow investigators GS Exploring with Ghosts and Exploring the Afterlife.
During their visit, the team reportedly encountered several unexplained phenomena, including male voices telling them to "get out" and responses to questions related to the hospital.
Mr Ferguson said: "A lot of these captures were heard in real time, and the camera has backed up the evidence.
"We also heard many taps, knocks, and bangs in the buildings, but as investigators, we like to rule these out, as this could be the building deteriorating."
READ MORE: Gosport: Guns and drugs seized at personal training centre
Having investigated the location when it was active and in use, Mr Ferguson expressed sadness at seeing the state of the building due to vandalism.
He added: "I think I can speak for many paranormal investigators and gym users that they will be sad to see this knocked down, especially for the legacy of Don Styler, who was a well-liked and respected person in Gosport."
The MoD moved to purchase the site in 2024 on the condition that the existing buildings would be demolished by Gosport Borough Council prior to completion of the purchase.
A spokesperson for the MoD said: "We have purchased land in Monks Walk, Gosport, to support operational requirements and this land will then form part of the security perimeter around Defence Munitions Gosport.”
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