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Police make chance find of sculpture that adorned Doors singer's Paris grave until its 1988 disappearance
Carved out of white marble and covered in graffiti, the hefty bust disappeared in 1988. Now, 37 years later, the doe-eyed sculpture that once adorned the grave of the American singer Jim Morrison has been found, in what Paris prosecutors described as a “chance discovery”.
Police in France said they had been carrying out a search related to a fraud case when they happened to stumble upon the bust of the frontman of the Doors. The announcement, made on social media on Monday, was accompanied by a photo showing the graying sculpture still covered in graffiti and missing a chunk of its nose, reportedly sliced off by souvenir hunters before its disappearance.
Conceived as a tribute to Morrison, the sculpture was carved after his death by the Croatian artist Mladen Mikulin. It was placed at his grave at Paris's Père-Lachaise cemetery in 1981, 10 years after the singer died in the French capital at the age of 27.
While the exact circumstances of Morrison's death remain shrouded in mystery, most early accounts say the singer died of cardiac arrest in his bathtub.
From its perch on top of Morrison's headstone, the statue welcomed the throngs of visitors who came to snap photos, lay flowers and – before the hiring of a guard to watch the site – smoke pot and party with one of Père-Lachaise's most famous residents.
Seven years after the bust was placed at the site, it disappeared. Rumours swirled over what might have happened: some spoke of two fans who had managed to cart off the bust, reportedly weighing 128kg, on a moped in the middle of the night; others repeated the seemingly baseless claim that authorities had hidden the sculpture in order to protect it.
In 1994, after years had gone by without any sign of the sculpture, two Americans were arrested for attempting to erect their own bronze version of the bust at Morrison's grave site.
Todd Mitchell, who said he had travelled from Utah and spent thousands of dollars of his own retirement fund to resurrect the bust, said the security guard was initially confused when he came across him and his nephew scrambling to bolt the bust to Morrison's headstone in the dark. “He just looked dumbfounded … Most people are destroying stuff in that cemetery,” Mitchell told the Salt Lake Tribune in 1994.
On Monday, as fans of Morrison celebrated what police described on social media as an “unusual discovery”, there was little news on whether the bust would be returned to the singer's tomb. Benoît Gallot, the curator of the Père-Lachaise cemetery, told Le Figaro: “The police haven't contacted us, so I don't know whether the bust will be returned to us.”
Smotrich vowed that the level of destruction in Gaza will be unprecedented globally.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has praised a top Israeli minister after he vowed that Israel will carry out the “conquering” and “cleansing” of the Gaza Strip, as the military escalates its genocide in order to implement its permanent occupation plan.
In a statement on Monday, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that Israel's goal is “destroying everything that's left of the Gaza Strip,” with the military working to completely level already destroyed infrastructure.
“We are conquering, cleansing, and remaining in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed,” Smotrich went on, per a translation by Israeli outlet Haaretz. This is effectively an admission that Israeli officials intend to carry out ethnic cleansing.
On social media on Monday, Netanyahu praised that statement, saying that Smotrich was “speaking the truth” — even as international experts warn that Israel's ethnic cleansing campaign violates a deluge of international human rights laws.
Similarly to Smotrich, Netanyahu pledged that Israel's goal is to “take control of all” of Gaza. “We will not give up. But in order to succeed, we must act in a way that cannot be stopped,” he said.
The statements were made in response to criticism from some Israelis over the government's announcement on Sunday that it will allow “minimal” humanitarian aid into Gaza after nearly three months of Israel's total aid blockade.
The blockade has had horrific effects on Palestinians in the Strip, with human rights advocates warning that famine is imminent or already ongoing across the entire area. Further, the Israeli military has killed hundreds of Palestinians in the last few days alone in its escalated campaign and ground assault.
Netanyahu reassured far right coalition partners that the small trickle of aid was a tactic to quiet criticisms from foreign allies and pave the way for Israel's total forced displacement plan, known as “Gideon's Chariots.”
“Our best friends in the world — senators I know as strong supporters of Israel — have warned that they cannot support us if images of mass starvation emerge,” he said. “We must avoid famine, both for practical reasons and diplomatic ones. Without international backing, we won't be able to complete the mission of victory.”
Smotrich had a similar message. “Truth be told, until the last of the hostages returns, we should also not let water into the Gaza Strip. But the reality is that if we do that, the world will force us to halt the war immediately, and to lose,” Smotrich said, per Drop Site. “We are disassembling Gaza, and leaving it as piles of rubble, with total destruction [which has] no precedent globally.”
Earlier this month, following Israeli officials' approval of Gideon's Chariots, Smotrich had said that Israel must “stop being afraid of the word ‘occupation,'” vowing to escalate Israeli acts that have already been deemed illegal.
The Trump administration is cracking down on political dissent. Under pressure from an array of McCarthy-style tactics, academics, activists and nonprofits face significant threats for speaking out or organizing in resistance.
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Live Updates
• High-stakes call: President Donald Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin for nearly two hours this morning, according to a US official, a day after top administration officials met with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky in Rome. Putin said the call with Trump was “frank and substantive,” according to Russian state media. The conversation comes as the White House noted earlier today that the US president has “grown weary and frustrated” with both sides and wants the conflict to end. Trump also held a call with Zelensky today, the Ukrainian presidency said.
• SCOTUS ruling: The Supreme Court today allowed the Trump administration to move toward ending temporary deportation protections for potentially hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans. This comes just days after SCOTUS blocked Trump from moving forward with deportations under a sweeping wartime authority, siding with Venezuelans who feared they were poised for imminent removal.
• Trump's agenda: House Republican leaders are still trying to resolve major internal battles over Trump's massive domestic policy bill even as House Speaker Mike Johnson is engaged in last-ditch negotiations to win over GOP members before an expected floor vote later this week. Issues related to Medicaid are among the biggest sticking points.
US President Donald Trump's phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin has concluded, according to a US official and Russian state media TASS.
The call lasted nearly two hours, according to a US official. The official said Trump will provide a readout shortly.
Putin said the conversation with Trump was “frank and substantive,” according to TASS.
TASS also reported that Putin “expressed his position on the ceasefire during the conversation.”
Putin thanked Trump for US support in “resuming the direct talks between Russia and Ukraine,” following the high stakes phone call.
“The US president expressed his position on the secession of hostilities, ceasefire, and from my end, I have emphasized that Russia stands for peaceful resolution of the Ukrainian crisis. We just need to outline the most effective routes of moving towards peace,” Putin said while speaking to reporters.
Earlier today, Trump also held a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to the Ukrainian presidency.
This post has been updated with more of Putin's remarks on the call.
A federal judge ruled today that the Trump administration unlawfully removed the board of the US Institute of Peace earlier this year and that subsequent actions taken by officials installed by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to cripple the agency are therefore “null and void.”
The lengthy ruling from US District Judge Beryl Howell is the latest defeat for the Trump administration in its attempts to exert authority over independent agencies.
USIP is not a federal agency within the executive branch. It was created by Congress as a nonpartisan, independent body in 1984 and owns and manages its headquarters.
“The President second-guessed the judgment of Congress and President Reagan in creating USIP 40 years ago,” Howell, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, wrote in the 102-page ruling.
What happened: In March, the Trump administration fired most of USIP's board and acting President George Moose. The three remaining board members — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Defense University President Peter Garvin — said they were installing Kenneth Jackson as acting USIP president.
Days later, DOGE personnel, accompanied by Washington, DC, police, gained access to the headquarters after having been turned away during an earlier attempt. Some USIP officials remained in the building after DOGE's arrival, including Moose, a retired career diplomat. He was later forced to exit the building by DC police.
Shortly after, USIP filed suit against the administration in an effort to stop its dismantlement and to try to stop the transfer of its private building and endowment to the federal government.
Howell wrote that Trump and his subordinates “used brute force and threats of criminal process to take over USIP's headquarters, despite being cautioned that this organization did not fall within the Executive branch and its leadership was not subject to the President's unilateral Executive branch removal power.”
“This Administration then went even further, taking severe actions to dissemble USIP, including terminating its appointed Board members, its expert management, its dedicated staff and contractors located in both Washington, DC, and around the world, and dispersing its assets and headquarters building,” the judge wrote. “These actions against USIP were unlawful.”
The Supreme Court today allowed President Donald Trump's administration to move toward ending temporary deportation protections for potentially hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans.
At issue is a move earlier this year by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to end a form of humanitarian relief known as temporary protected status for Venezuelan migrants.
Seven Venezuelan nationals who are covered by Temporary Protective Status, or TPS, and a group that represents others challenged the move, arguing in part that Noem's decision was motivated by racial and political hostility.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only justice to note her dissent.
House Republican leaders are negotiating over GOP members' conflicting demands before an expected floor vote on the GOP's massive tax and spending cuts package later this week.
Among several sticking points is the timeframe over when new Medicaid work requirements would kick in and whether to change the federal-state cost sharing program for Medicaid.
Nearly 80 million children, senior citizens, people with disabilities, parents and adults without dependents rely on Medicaid and the related Children's Health Insurance Program. Most US adults say they don't want to see decreases in Medicaid spending, according to a recent KFF poll.
Republican lawmakers voted to pass a budget blueprint in April that gave the House Energy and Commerce Committee instructions to shave $880 billion in funding from programs in the committee's jurisdiction. They have said they want to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse. It's uncertain, however, whether Republican lawmakers' Medicaid revamp will achieve their topline goal for the cuts needed to help finance President Donald Trump's sweeping tax and spending cuts agenda.
More than 60 House Republicans represent districts with higher-than-average Medicaid enrollment, according to a CNN analysis of Medicaid enrollment data and 2024 election results.
While most Republican districts aren't heavily reliant on the program, Speaker Mike Johnson's historically tight margin in the House means that he can only afford a handful of Republican “no” votes to pass any changes to Medicaid without Democrats' help.
Read more about districts throughout the country that depend on Medicaid.
CNN's Manu Raju contributed reporting to this post.
President Donald Trump's phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin is underway, a US official says.
More on the call: Earlier today, Vice President JD Vance said he believes Trump will ask Putin whether he is “serious” about peace with Ukraine during the phone call. Vance stressed that the United States is “not going to spin its wheels” in its attempts to reach a resolution.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters today that Trump has “grown weary and frustrated with both sides of the conflict,” adding that his goal “is to see a ceasefire and to see this conflict come to an end.”
CNN's Kit Maher contributed reporting to this post.
President Donald Trump held a phone call with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday, according to the Ukrainian presidency.
Trump had been expected to start his diplomacy on Monday with a call to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
House Republican leaders are still trying to resolve major internal battles over President Donald Trump's massive domestic policy bill even as House Speaker Mike Johnson is engaged in last-ditch negotiations to win over GOP members' conflicting demands before an expected floor vote later this week.
Among the major issues that are still unresolved: The timeframe over when new Medicaid work requirements would kick in, whether to change the federal-state cost sharing program for Medicaid, when green energy tax credits would be phased out and how much Americans can deduct from the state and local taxes they pay.
There are also big questions such as how much the sweeping bill will add to the deficit and how many Americans would lose access to benefits like Medicaid and food stamps, since the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has yet to release an official estimate on the bill's impact to the debt and the economy.
House GOP leadership aides said on Monday morning that key decisions have not been finalized even though Johnson wants the bill passed out of his chamber by Thursday.
“Everything is in plan all the way until the end,” said one leadership aide, noting the talks are “extremely difficult” given the narrowness of the majority and the diversity of the demands. But aides contended that “95%” of the bill had been agreed to among House Republicans.
More on the bill: The bill calls for first-time work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries to be implemented by 2029, but GOP hardliners are demanding that timeframe be moved up — something that is causing angst among more moderate members. Moreover, some of the hardliners want to pare back the amount of money the federal government pays into state-run Medicaid programs, a change that moderates have long resisted.
Johnson is expected to continue talks on Monday with his members.
Vice President JD Vance said he believes that President Donald Trump will ask Russian President Vladimir Putin if he is “serious” about peace with Ukraine in a phone call this morning.
Vance stressed that the United States is “not going to spin its wheels” in its attempts to reach a resolution.
“The talks have been proceeding for a little while. We realize that we're at a bit of an impasse here. I think the president's going to say to President Putin, look, are you serious? Are you real about this?” Vance said to reporters aboard Air Force Two. “There are a lot of economic benefits to thawing relations between Russia and the rest of the world, but you're not going to get those benefits if you keep on killing a lot of innocent people.”
While Vance said “it's hard to pinpoint one” obstacle to reaching a ceasefire, he reiterated how “one open question” is whether Putin is serious about negotiating peace.
“He has made some concessions. He has taken some serious steps in these conversations. But we feel like we're at a point where we're hitting an impasse and that's why the president is talking to him on the phone. I think honestly that President Putin, he doesn't quite know how to get out of the war,” he said.
“I'm not sure that Vladimir Putin has a strategy himself for how to unwind the war, of course, that's been going on for a few years now,” Vance added, saying he thought “the president would agree” with that.
Vance also said that the US is still “more than open to walking away.”
“We want to see outcomes, and the first major outcome that we wanted to see, which we were glad about, is that we wanted to see the Russians and the Ukrainians to put a real peace proposal on the table. What would you need to do in order to stop fighting? That happened. The second thing is that they needed to agree to talks with one another,” he said.
While Putin didn't show up for direct talks that he proposed last week, Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in Turkey on Friday and agreed to a large-scale prisoner swap. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who agreed to meet with Putin directly, criticized him for sending a “low-level” delegation and said the Russian leader was “afraid.”
Ahead of Trump's 10 a.m. ET call, Vance said, “I was just on the phone with him. I know he's looking forward to it and I wish him all the best. I think he's the right guy to negotiate for the country.”
During a briefing with reporters on Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump has “grown weary and frustrated with both sides of the conflict,” adding that his goal “is to see a ceasefire and to see this conflict come to an end.”
Pressed on whether the president still wants to meet with Putin, as he told reporters last week in the Middle East, Leavitt said it will depend on today's call.
Vice President JD Vance said he thought about visiting Israel after his trip to Rome, but cited logistical and security reasons as the obstacle, rather than Israel's expanding military operation in Gaza.
“I think there's a lot of overstatement there. I haven't seen the story to be clear, so I don't want to speak to the details. But the simple reason is: We thought about going to Israel. We also thought about going to a couple of other countries that the president would like me to visit here in the next few months,” Vance said in a gaggle aboard Air Force Two.
“Logistically, it was just a little bit too hard on basic things like, who the hell is going to take care of our kids if we take another couple of days overseas?”
Axios had reported that Vance considered traveling to Israel on Tuesday but decided against it due to the expansion of Israel's military operation in Gaza, citing a senior US official. CNN has not independently confirmed this reporting.
“But on some more serious things like, how do we provide security? How do we make sure that we get all the assets that we need in order to do the right official delegation? So, I'm sure we'll visit Israel sometime in the future, but not today,” Vance said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said today that the controversial Qatari plane that President Donald Trump said he plans to accept is “the Air Force's project” and that Trump “has nothing to do with it.”
Leavitt pushed back on reports that the Qatari royal family will gift the Trump administration the luxury plane, which would be retrofitted and used as Air Force One during Trump's second term. She criticized the media for what she called “a lot of misinformation” around the gift.
“Let's be very clear, the government of Qatar, the Qatari family, has offered to donate this plane to the United States Air Force, where that donation will be accepted according to all legal and ethical obligations,” Leavitt said. “It will be retrofitted to the highest of standards by the Department of Defense and the United States Air Force – this plane is not a personal donation or gift to the president of the United States, and everyone who wrote that last week should go and correct their stories, because this is a donation to our country and to the United States Air Force.”
CNN has reported that the Department of Defense plans to accept the luxury Boeing 747-8 jet, which would be retrofitted for the president's use with security features and modifications before being donated to Trump's presidential library after he leaves office. Trump has denied that he would use the plane after his term concludes.
Trump suggested in an interview that aired last week that the Qataris approached him directly with the possibility of gifting a luxury jet replacement for Air Force One, claiming that one Qatari official said: “If I can help you, let me do that.”
Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have raised concerns about the plane. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said Tuesday that the plane “poses significant espionage and surveillance problems.” And Democratic Sen. Jack Reed, ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, said accepting it would pose “immense counterintelligence risks by granting a foreign nation potential access to sensitive systems and communications.”
President Donald Trump's spokesperson voiced confidence Monday in the White House Medical Unit and professionals at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center amid questions about whether physicians there missed signs of former President Joe Biden's prostate cancer.
“The White House physician we have here is phenomenal, and the team of physicians that take care of the president, particularly at Walter Reed Medical Center, are great,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a White House briefing.
Biden's White House physician, Dr. Kevin O'Connor, left the White House Medical Unit when Biden left office. Dr. Sean Barbabella, the current physician to the president, provided a readout of Trump's medical exam earlier this year showing he was fit to serve in office.
“He's in great health, and he trusts his physicians,” Leavitt said.
She said to the best of her understanding, Trump was screened for prostate cancer during his physical exam. Usual medical advice is to not test men over the age of 70, but it's not unusual to apply different standards to presidents.
Biden's office revealed Sunday the former president had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. Some MAGA-world allies, including Donald Trump Jr., have suggested without evidence that Biden's team tried to cover up the medical issue.
President Donald Trump has invited Pope Leo XIV to the White House, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a briefing on Monday.
The president's invitation to the first American pontiff was delivered in a letter via Vice President JD Vance, who attended the pope's first Mass on Sunday and later met with the pontiff.
“The vice president passed along a letter to the pope from the president and from the first lady, extending their warm wishes and inviting them to the White House as soon as they possibly can come,” Leavitt said.
The White House declined to weigh in on comments from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday that Israel will take “control of the entire Gaza Strip,” during a briefing with reporters Monday.
“I'll have to talk to the president about those comments as they just came, I believe, from the prime minister this morning, and I'll let him speak on that,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday. “The president has made it very clear he wants to see this conflict in the region end, he wants all hostages to be released…as for the prime minister's comments, I'll let the president himself respond to those.”
Earlier Monday, Netanyahu said that Israel plans to take control of all of Gaza, less than 24 hours after the country's military launched an extensive ground operation in the territory, in addition to an air campaign that intensified last week.
“We have intense, massive fighting going on – intense and immense. There is progress. We are going to take control of the entire Gaza Strip – that's what we're going to do,” Netanyahu said Monday.
The UN and prominent aid organizations have raised the alarm over the new offensive, saying it is civilians who are bearing the brunt of the assault. More than 300 people have been killed and over 1,000 others have been injured after Israel ramped up intense airstrikes since Thursday, according to a CNN count of this week's Palestinian Ministry of Health data.
While traveling in the Middle East last week, Trump once again proposed the idea of the US taking over Gaza, offering the idea of a “freedom zone” as he continued to muse about redeveloping the war-torn enclave.
CNN's Dana Karni and Kara Fox contributed reporting to this post.
The sweeping bill aimed to advance President Donald Trump's legislative agenda will not add to the deficit, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed today – despite multiple nonpartisan reports that say otherwise.
Asked by CNN's Alayna Treene if the president is alright with the bill potentially adding to the deficit, Leavitt pushed back and said, “This bill does not add to the deficit.”
A preliminary estimate from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, however, said the package would add $3.3 trillion to the nation's debt over the next decade. And annual deficits would jump from $1.8 trillion in 2024 to $2.9 trillion by 2034 as the federal government would continue to spend more than it would raise in revenue, the committee projected.
Leavitt went on to claim that the bill, which includes a slew of provisions on taxes, the border and energy, “will save $1.6 trillion,” according to the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
The press secretary added that “the president absolutely understands and hears the concerns of fiscal conservatives and of Americans who want to get our fiscal house in order. That's what the intention of this bill is.”
The primary issue with getting aid into Gaza is logistical — not political — and the Trump administration does not want to see a humanitarian crisis unfold there, US special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff told ABC News' “This Week” on Sunday.
Describing President Donald Trump as a “humanitarian,” Witkoff said that “everyone is concerned about the humanitarian conditions in Gaza,” adding that “logistically … I don't think there's any daylight between President Trump's position and (Israeli) Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu's position.”
“I think the issue now is, how do we logistically get all of those trucks into Gaza? How do we set up the aid stations? There are many things — initiatives that we are working on to address this. The Israelis have indicated that they're going to begin to allow a lot more of these trucks to get in,” he said.
Adding that the logistics of aid are “complicated,” Witkoff said: “We do not want to see a humanitarian crisis, and we will not allow it to occur on President Trump's watch.”
Witkoff's comments came hours before Israel announced Sunday that they would allow a “basic amount of food” to enter Gaza, which would end an 11-week blockade of all aid into the territory, which has been criticized by many in the international community.
On Saturday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a post on X that “a policy of siege & starvation makes a mockery of international law.”
The House Rules Committee has set the key vote to take up the rule on President Donald Trump's massive domestic policy bill for 1 a.m. on Wednesday.
That will give House Speaker Mike Johnson today and tomorrow to negotiate final changes to the bill before that key meeting. At that meeting, an amendment would be added to the bill to make the changes to win over holdouts in his conference.
The rule outlines the parameters for floor debate and must pass the full House before the chamber can take up and pass Trump's bill along party lines.
Johnson wants to pass the bill in the House on Thursday.
President Donald Trump said he's going to call for a “major investigation” into the celebrity endorsements of former Vice President Kamala Harris, accusing his 2024 rival of paying Bruce Springsteen, Oprah Winfrey and Bono for their support and showing up at rallies.
There is no evidence that Harris paid for celebrity support, nor did Trump provide any. Continuing to obsess over crowd size, Trump claimed “this was a very expensive and desperate effort to artificially build up her sparse crowds.”
This comes as Springsteen is on tour, calling the president “unfit” for office and urging his fans to stand against authoritarianism.
Trump bashed Springsteen last week in response, telling him he “ought to keep his mouth shut” and calling him a “pushy, obnoxious JERK.”
Nuclear discussions between the United States and Iran will fail if Washington demands that Tehran abandon domestic enrichment of uranium, a nuclear fuel that can be used for a bomb if enriched to high levels, an Iranian official said.
“Regarding zero enrichment, we said from the beginning that if this is their (American) position, it is natural that the work will not actually get anywhere,” Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht Ravanchi was cited as saying by Iran's Nour News on Monday. “Our position on enrichment is clear, and we have repeatedly stated that enrichment is a national achievement for us. We will not back down on the issue of enrichment.”
Iran and the US have had four rounds of talks to reach a nuclear deal that could see crippling US sanctions lifted in exchange for Tehran putting curbs on its nuclear program.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff, who is leading the American delegation to the talks, told ABC over the weekend that Washington “cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability” under an agreement.
“Enrichment enables weaponization, and we will not allow a bomb to get here. But short of that, there are all kinds of ways for us to achieve our goals in this negotiation,” Witkoff said, adding that the next round of talks may take place in Europe this week.
Iran has repeatedly said that any suggestion that it abandon enrichment would be a non-starter, insisting that it reserves the right to enrich uranium under the UN's Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Witkoff had previously suggested that Iran could be allowed some uranium enrichment.
On Monday, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said that the issue “is not negotiable under any circumstances,” criticizing American negotiators for reversing their positions after each round of negotiations, according to Iran's state-run IRNA news agency.
United States Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Pope Leo at the Vatican on Monday.
Vance arrived at the Vatican at 7:56 a.m. local time for a meeting with Pope Leo, according to a spokesperson for Vance's office, who said Rubio was also in attendance.
Vance's meeting with the Pope wrapped up at 8:40 a.m. local time, according to Vance's office.
On May 19, Vice President JD Vance met with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican. Here, Vance passed on a letter from President Donald Trump, inviting the pope to the White House. #CNN #news
President Donald Trump has expressed frustration in recent days over the state of negotiations to end the war in Ukraine — a goal he often said on the campaign trail he would achieve within a day of taking office.
Trump said last week that he believes he alone can advance the stalling peace talks, and he's arranged a phone call to speak directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin this morning as part of that effort.
Here's how we got here:
Talks in Turkey yield little progress: Ukraine and Russia held their first direct talks in three years last week in Turkey, but the discussions were limited in scope and lacking the presence of each country's leader.
Putin originally pitched the meetings as a face-to-face with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which he initially accepted. But neither leader ultimately attended, and Zelensky criticized his Russian counterpart for not sending a higher-level delegation.
The meetings yielded a prisoner swap and further talks about the two presidents meeting, but little appeared to substantively change on each country's ceasefire terms.
Zelensky meeting in Rome: Zelensky said he had a “good meeting” yesterday in Italy with US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who traveled to Rome for the inaugural mass of Pope Leo XIV.
It was the first time Zelensky and Vance sat down together since the vice president castigated the Ukrainian leader in February's infamous Oval Office meeting.
“I confirmed Ukraine's readiness for genuine diplomacy and stressed the importance of a complete and unconditional ceasefire as soon as possible,” the Ukrainian leader said of the sitdown in Italy.
Breaking up the “logjam”: Rubio told CBS' “Face the Nation” yesterday that while patience is needed, “we don't have time to waste” in the peace effort. The secretary of state indicated Trump speaking directly with Putin should get talks moving, and warned Russia against delivering unrealistic ceasefire proposal terms.
Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff echoed Rubio, telling ABC's “This Week” that Trump's call will “clear up some of the logjam and get us to the place that we need to get to.”
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Phasing out fossil fuel subsidies must be tied to new subsidies that raise living standards for working and poor people.
The bad news on climate change is plentiful. For one, there is no sign of a decline in global carbon dioxide emissions and the Earth is getting hotter faster than ever before, despite constant pledges of government action. And now, of course, the second Trump administration is implementing policies that represent the biggest attack on nature, climate and people ever.
Yet, as world-renowned progressive political economist Robert Pollin shows in this exclusive interview with Truthout, there are also hopeful signs on the climate front. There is indeed an energy transition underway. Pollin also tackles the challenge that fracking represents, which is still widespread across the U.S. energy landscape, and the problem with the persistence of fossil fuel subsidies. In this context, he advances a concrete green transition program for phasing out fracking operations in the state of Pennsylvania and proposes alternative measures of support for working people and the poor to meet their energy needs.
Pollin is Distinguished University Professor of Economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is the author of scores of books and academic articles, and was selected by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the “100 Leading Global Thinkers for 2013.” The interview that follows has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
C.J. Polychroniou: Global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have increased by nearly 70 percent since 1990 and hit a record high of 37 billion tons in 2023. And now the Trump White House wants to increase oil and gas production, which is a further blow to the urgent task of rapidly reducing the flow of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions. Considering this, is it realistic to expect that CO2 emissions can be reduced by 45 percent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050?
Robert Pollin: The goals of reducing global CO2 emissions by 45 percent relative to the 2010 level of about 33 billion tons and to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 was first advanced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in a 2018 report called “Global Warming of 1.50C.” The IPCC is a UN agency focused on advancing credible research on all aspects of climate change, including, in particular, what we need to accomplish to stop the ever-deepening calamities resulting from rising average global temperatures, such as what we saw only a few months ago with the devastating fires that devoured major sections of Los Angeles. In this 2018 report initially, and in several subsequent studies, the IPCC has been making the case that achieving their 2030 and 2050 CO2 emission reduction targets was necessary to prevent the average global temperature from rising by more than 1.50 Celsius than the global average between 1850 and 1900 — i.e., the pre-industrial level.
Given that global CO2 emissions have not fallen at all since the 2018 IPCC report came out, it is clear that the world will not succeed in bringing emissions down from the current level of 37 billion to about 18 billion tons in the next 4.5 years. This was obvious even before Donald Trump returned to the White House in January and launched his campaign, as promised, to obliterate any and all policies, regulations or even any words in any federal government documents that in any way gesture toward a U.S. climate stabilization program. Thus, in February, The Guardian reported that, “The Trump administration is stripping away support for scientific research in the US and overseas that contains a word it finds particularly inconvenient: ‘climate.'” As just one follow-up in March, Lee Zeldin, Trump's Environmental Protection Agency administrator, pronounced that, “Yesterday was the most consequential day of deregulation in American history. …Today marks the death of the Green New Scam.”
And yet, even in the face of these assaults from Trump and company, we can still point to some positive developments on which we build.
First, while it is true that global CO2 emissions have not fallen since 2018, they also have risen only slightly since 2013, from 35 to 37 billion tons. This is while overall global economic activity — as measured by global GDP — has expanded by 31 percent. So there is some evidence emerging — absolutely too slowly to be sure, but emerging nonetheless — of global CO2 emissions decoupling from overall economic activity.
Second, the average costs of generating electricity from solar and wind power have plummeted since 2010, making them the low-cost alternatives, without subsidies, relative to fossil fuel energy. Thus, on average, generating electricity from onshore wind sites was 23 percent more expensive than fossil fuel alternatives in 2010, but was 67 percent cheaper in 2023. Electricity from solar panels was, on average, 414 percent more expensive than fossil fuel alternatives in 2010, but was 56 percent cheaper in 2023.
Moreover, global investments in renewable energy reached about $2 trillion in 2024. This was about equal to 2 percent of 2024 global GDP. According to my own estimates, and those of other researchers, we need to reach an annual clean energy investment level of about 2.5 percent of GDP per year, every year, to achieve a zero-emissions global economy by 2050. So, at least as of this past year, we have started to approach that necessary investment scale.
One of the most important components of this overall renewable investment expansion is that small-scale solar electricity installations — i.e., mini-grids — are growing rapidly in rural sub-Saharan Africa. This is where, at present, roughly 80 percent of the 680 million people throughout the globe still have no access to electricity.
Finally, within the U.S., clean energy investments were expanding rapidly while Joe Biden was still in office, induced in large part by the Biden-era programs such as the Inflation Reduction Act. Thus, even in West Virginia, a state that is very poor, still dependent on its fossil fuel industry, and deep red in its politics (Trump won West Virginia in 2024 with 70 percent of the vote), $5.3 billion had been committed by the time Biden left office to build a low-emissions steel mill; a battery storage equipment manufacturing facility; a renewable energy microgrid industrial site; a hybrid vehicle transaxle manufacturing plant; and multiple solar farms. Trumpite bluster aside, I am guessing that the people of West Virgina are not inclined to chase these projects out of the state, even allowing that the word “climate” is likely to slip into some of the documents supporting them.
Many countries across Europe have banned fracking, but hydraulic fracturing remains at the heart of the U.S. energy landscape. Even Kamala Harris opposed a fracking ban during her 2024 presidential campaign, after having supported a ban during her brief initial presidential run in 2019. How do we move away from fracking without disrupting the economies of those states that rely heavily on fracking operations?
Fracking is a technology used to extract oil and natural gas from underground rock formations, such as sandstone, limestone, or shale rock deposits. This technology is employed as a means of increasing the rate at which oil and gas can be extracted profitably from such rock formations. But fracking operations also generate severe environmental and health impacts through water and soil contamination as well as noise pollution. This is why five U.S. states have banned fracking (California, New York, Washington, Maryland and Vermont). But within the U.S., fracking operations continue in up to 30 other states, and are most extensive in Texas, Pennsylvania and North Dakota. In political terms, the case of Pennsylvania was most important for the 2024 election, since it was the largest and most important swing state over which Trump and Harris were competing for votes. The Harris campaign had obviously calculated that supporting a fracking ban was a strategic nonstarter, since they believed that a fracking ban would inflict major damage to Pennsylvania's economy.
In fact, the Pennsylvania economy would experience a major hit if fracking were banned and no large-scale alternative economic activities were introduced to substitute for the jobs and incomes that would be lost through shutting down fracking. But a fracking ban should not be understood as an isolated, one-off policy measure. It should rather be recognized as one component of a much larger green transition program, in Pennsylvania and everywhere else.
My own research with co-authors on this specific question of comparing the economic impacts of continuing with fracking versus advancing a green transition project in Pennsylvania produced the following major results:
Governments across the world continue to subsidize the production and consumption of fossil fuels, as you and co-authors show in a new extensive study. How large are global fossil fuel subsidies, and how should we understand the political economy of fossil fuel subsidies, given that there are obvious benefits in removing them?
Fossil fuel subsidies constitute a massive obstacle to advancing a viable climate stabilization path, i.e., to reach zero global emissions by 2050. This is because they create perverse incentives, making it cheaper for consumers to continue purchasing oil, coal and natural gas to meet their energy needs and for producers to continue profiting off of selling the stuff. At the same time, fossil fuel subsidies represent a huge financial resource that could be mobilized to help pay for the transition to a global clean energy-dominant infrastructure. As of the most recent 2023 figures, global fossil fuel subsidies amounted to $1.1 trillion, equal to about 1 percent of global GDP. To put this figure in perspective, as noted above, I estimate that we need approximately 2.5 percent of global GDP per year devoted to clean energy investments to build a 100 percent clean energy, zero-emissions global economy by 2050. So, if we could transfer this 1 percent of global GDP out of subsidizing fossil fuels and into building a clean energy economy, those funds alone would cover roughly 40 percent of the entire funding level that is needed.
And yet, unfortunately, matters aren't quite so straightforward. In fact, it would be both undesirable and unrealistic to move all $1.1 trillion out of fossil fuel subsidies and into clean energy investments. This is because, in many countries, fossil fuel subsides provide critical support to low-income and working-class people, by reducing the costs these people must pay to meet their energy needs. As such, any workable program to phase out fossil fuel subsidies must also be committed to enacting alternative measures to maintain support for working people and the poor. Such alternative forms of support could include food, housing or cash subsidies. These alternative subsidies would have to be generous enough and maintained over time, so that, at a minimum, the overall living standards of working people and the poor would be defended when the fossil fuel subsidies are eliminated. Better still would be to make the alternative subsidies generous enough so that the living standards for working people and the poor would rise through the substitution of the alternative subsidies for fossil fuel subsidies.
In fact, in terms of providing the necessary money to support generous alternative subsidy measures, eliminating fossil fuel subsidies can release formidable levels of funds to both deliver generous alternative subsidies for working people and the poor, and to still provide large-scale funding for clean energy investments. This is because, by far, the largest beneficiaries of fossil fuel subsidies are high-income households and the fossil fuel corporations themselves — two groups who don't need or deserve such subsidy support but are nevertheless happy to pocket the money if governments continue to hand it to them.
I can illustrate this point by considering the case of Indonesia, which is one of the case studies we review in our study. As of the most recent 2023 data, total fossil fuel subsidies in Indonesia — including the funds received by both consumers and fossil fuel corporations — amounted to about $35 billion. This was equal to about 2.5 percent of Indonesia's 2023 GDP. Of the $35 billion total, we estimate that the poorest 10 percent of Indonesian households received an average of $110 in subsidies while the richest 10 percent received $1,248. That is, the richest 10 percent of Indonesian households received 11 times more support than the poorest 10 percent through the country's fossil fuel subsidy program. This massive disparity resulted because rich households spend much more money buying oil, coal, or natural gas than poor households, but all households — rich, poor, and those in between — are able to purchase all of their fossil fuel energy at reduced costs due to the country's subsidy program.
What if, as an alternative, all Indonesian households, at all income levels, received a cash, food or housing subsidy equal to what had been the fossil fuel subsidy amount received by the country's middle-income households? In that scenario, all Indonesian households would have received about $380. Subsidies for the poorest 10 percent of households would then have increased more than 300 percent. At the same time, under this alternative subsidy plan, Indonesia would still have freed up about $8 billion in funds that could then be channeled into building the country's clean energy infrastructure. This level of clean energy investments would amount to about a 500 percent increase over Indonesia's clean energy investment spending level for 2023.
The overall points that emerge from this Indonesia case are basically the same as with the program to eliminate fracking in Pennsylvania and establish a just transition program for the state's fossil fuel industry-dependent workers and communities. That is: 1) phasing out fossil fuel subsidies is an absolute imperative that must be accomplished as one centerpiece of a global climate stabilization program; and 2) for the fossil fuel phase-out to be accomplished according to any reasonable standard of social and economic justice, the overall project must include robust measures to defend and improve the living standards of working people and the poor.
The Trump administration is cracking down on political dissent. Under pressure from an array of McCarthy-style tactics, academics, activists and nonprofits face significant threats for speaking out or organizing in resistance.
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C.J. Polychroniou is a political scientist/political economist, author and journalist who has taught and worked in numerous universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. Currently, his main research interests are in U.S. politics and the political economy of the United States, European economic integration, globalization, climate change and environmental economics, and the deconstruction of neoliberalism's politico-economic project. He is a columnist for Global Policy Journal and a regular contributor to Truthout. He has published scores of books, including Marxist Perspectives on Imperialism: A Theoretical Analysis; Perspectives and Issues in International Political Economy (ed.); and Socialism: Crisis and Renewal (ed.), and over 1,000 articles which have appeared in a variety of journals, magazines, newspapers and popular news websites. Many of his publications have been translated into a multitude of languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish. His latest books are Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet (with Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin as primary authors, 2020); The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic, and the Urgent Need for Radical Change (an anthology of interviews with Noam Chomsky, 2021); Economics and the Left: Interviews with Progressive Economists (2021); Illegitimate Authority: Facing the Challenges of Our Time (an anthology of interviews with Noam Chomsky, 2023); and A Livable Future Is Possible: Confronting the Threats to Our Survival (an anthology of interviews with Noam Chomsky, 2024).
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A ruling in the attorney general's favor could affect 12 million permanent legal residents currently living in the US.
During an appellate court hearing last week, a lawyer for the Trump administration argued that Attorney General Pam Bondi has the authority to revoke a person's green card at any time, for any reason she sees fit — even if they have lived lawfully in the United States for decades.
Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney Lindsay Murphy made the argument before a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday in a case involving Mohammad Qatanani, a Palestinian-born Muslim imam who has lived in New Jersey since the mid-1990s.
Qatanani initially applied for a green card in 1999, but was denied that status in 2006, after federal officials discovered that he had been arrested, detained, and tortured in 1993 by Israeli officials who claimed he had ties to Hamas. Qatanani has denied the allegations.
He appealed that decision and was granted permanent residence status in 2008, after which the government continued to appeal his legal right to live in the U.S. In 2020, an immigration judge ruled in his favor, but in 2021, the DOJ's Board of Immigration Appeals unilaterally reversed the ruling, rescinding his green card. Qatanani appealed that decision, prompting the hearing that was held last week.
Two of the judges on the panel seemed skeptical of the Trump administration's arguments, while the third judge, a Trump appointee, appeared open to them.
U.S. Circuit Judge Arianna Freeman inquired whether an attorney general could rescind a person's green card “even 10, 20 years later,” to which Murphy responded affirmatively.
“The regulation doesn't impose any time limit, so yes,” Murphy said, arguing that the attorney general, as head of the DOJ, has the authority to determine, on their own, whether to revoke green cards from immigrants like Qatanani.
Freeman questioned that rationale. “That's an extraordinary position for the government to be taking, don't you think?” Freeman said.
U.S. Circuit Judge Cheryl Ann Krause also criticized Murphy's argument.
“Don't we need some kind of principal limit if we're going to adopt the government's position here?” Krause asked. “What, if any, limit is there on the attorney general reviewing the adjustment of status going back 50 years?”
If a shift in policy like this is allowed, it could affect up to 12 million permanent legal residents currently living in the U.S.
Legal experts have similarly disputed the idea that the DOJ or the attorney general can revoke a green card unilaterally without granting a person their due process rights.
“The law contained within the Immigration and Nationality Act is clear. The Department of Homeland Security cannot unilaterally ‘revoke' a permanent resident's status,” Amelia Wilson, assistant professor of Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, told Newsweek.
Wilson added that the government “bears the burden of proving by clear, unequivocal, and convincing evidence that the permanent resident should have their status taken away. At that point, it is the immigration judge — and only the immigration judge — who can effectively strip an individual of their green card.”
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Chris Walker is a news writer at Truthout, and is based out of Madison, Wisconsin. Focusing on both national and local topics since the early 2000s, he has produced thousands of articles analyzing the issues of the day and their impact on the American people. He can be found on most social media platforms under the handle @thatchriswalker.
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GOP hardliners are reportedly pursuing an end to states' Medicaid expansions and an earlier start to work requirements.
Republicans pushed their massive reconciliation bill through the House Budget Committee late Sunday after striking a deal with GOP hardliners who tanked a vote on the package late last week, complaining that the measure's proposed cuts to Medicaid and other programs were not sufficiently aggressive.
The final vote on Sunday was 17-16, with the four Republicans who voted against the bill on Friday switching their votes to “present,” allowing the legislation to clear the committee.
Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, one of the Republicans who switched his vote, said during Sunday's hearing that he is “excited about the changes we've made” — prompting Democratic committee members to ask, “What changes?”
“Do not be fooled,” Democratic Rep. Stacey Plaskett of the U.S. Virgin Islands said Sunday. “The ‘no' votes from certain Republicans on Friday were because the cuts were not fast or deep enough. In the back room, Republicans agreed to deeper and especially faster cuts to programs.”
WATCH: Republicans admit they made a backroom deal to change their budget bill — but they won't tell the American people.One thing is clear: the only reason this vote passed tonight is because they've plotted behind closed doors to make their health care cuts even worse. pic.twitter.com/BWeEHlafMq
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) wrote in a social media post after joining Norman in voting “present” that “after a great deal of work and engagement over the weekend,” the legislation “now will move Medicaid work requirements forward and reduces the availability of future subsidies under the green new scam” — a reference to clean energy tax credits established by the Inflation Reduction Act.
Roy and other Republican hardliners are also reportedly pursuing changes that could force states to end their Medicaid expansions, which would strip coverage from millions and potentially kill tens of thousands of people per year.
In its current form, the Republican reconciliation bill would inflict the largest cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in U.S. history, slashing or eliminating benefits for millions by implementing strict work requirements and forcing many Medicaid recipients to pay more for coverage, among other changes — all while giving major tax breaks to the wealthy.
The legislation's Medicaid work requirements, which policy experts have condemned as cruel and ineffective, were slated to begin in 2029, but GOP hardliners want them to start immediately.
The changes sought by Roy, Norman, and other far-right Republicans must get through the House Rules Committee before the bill can reach the House floor. The GOP controls the panel, and both Roy and Norman are members.
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said following Sunday's vote that “Republicans have spent months lying about their plan to make the largest cuts to healthcare and food assistance in American history.”
“Kicking 13.7 million people off their healthcare apparently wasn't enough for House Republicans,” Boyle added. “The only reason this vote passed tonight is because they've plotted behind closed doors to hurt even more families while refusing to share this backroom deal with the American people. This fight isn't over, and we're going to make sure every American knows exactly how they've been betrayed by Donald Trump and the Republican Party.”
The Trump administration is cracking down on political dissent. Under pressure from an array of McCarthy-style tactics, academics, activists and nonprofits face significant threats for speaking out or organizing in resistance.
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Jake Johnson is a staff writer for Common Dreams. Follow him on Twitter: @johnsonjakep.
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América Sánchez and Adal Jair Maldonado Marcos died in the wreck that injured 22 other crew members
Mexico is grieving two cadets in the country's navy that were killed on Saturday when the tall training ship Cuauhtémoc crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge.
América Sánchez, 20, and Adal Jair Maldonado Marcos, 23, died in the wreck that injured 22 other crew members, including three critically.
The body of Sánchez was scheduled to be transferred on Monday to the naval academy in her home state of Veracruz. She was in her final year as a navy cadet and was part of the international training cruise scheduled to visit 15 countries.
Sánchez's mother, Rocío Hernández, said her daughter was “exemplary” and “a dedicated student” who dreamed of becoming a naval engineer.
“She was a warrior, a soldier who didn't give up, who always fought for her goals,” Hernández said of her daughter, according to the BBC. She said that Mexico's navy would hold a private ceremony for her at the naval academy before she brings her home.
Meanwhile, friends and relatives of Maldonado have reportedly been paying their respects in San Mateo del Mar, a coastal town in the state of Oaxaca. His friends told local media he had dreamt of following in his father's footsteps in becoming a sailor.
An investigation into Saturday's crash remains ongoing. It could take a year.
Commercial water traffic in the vicinity of the wreck remained suspended on Monday.
According to New York police, the Cuauhtémoc – which had 277 people on board – lost power as it was departing New York Harbor for Iceland and was dragged toward the Brooklyn Bridge by the current. Its three masts measuring more than 157ft (48m) collided with the base of the bridge, whose clearance is around 41m (134.5ft).
The ship reportedly had a local harbor pilot – familiar with the conditions of the water there – and an area docking pilot helping guide the ship. At least one was onboard at the time of the crash.
Bystanders captured the moments the ship collided with the bridge, which collapsed all three of the ship's masts.
The ship left Acapulco, Mexico, on 6 April and was scheduled to stop in Aberdeen, Scotland, in July amid a global goodwill tour. The National Transportation Safety Board was scheduled to hold a news conference to provide updates on the investigation on Monday afternoon.
In October of last year, just days before the U.S. presidential election, Head of the McCain Institute Evelyn Farkas told the Kyiv Independent that a Donald Trump victory would be the "worst-case scenario" for Ukraine.
In the months since, a victorious Trump has taken office, dismantled the global post-World War II security architecture, blamed President Volodymyr Zelensky for starting Russia's full-scale invasion, and left Ukraine in limbo, all without securing a peace deal.
The Kyiv Independent sat down with Farkas at the Kyiv Security Forum on May 8 to ask her if that worst-case scenario had come true, or if there was still some hope left for Ukraine.
The Kyiv Independent: When we last spoke, you said a Trump election victory was the "worst-case scenario" for Ukraine — are we now in it?
Evelyn Farkas: I imagined an administration that turned its back on Ukraine. And we aren't there yet.
It remains to be seen ultimately what position the United States takes. Our government has not clearly delineated — aside from saying that we want to make peace — what our position is on the definition of peace.
It seems to me it's part of a negotiating strategy — where you don't tell anyone what you really want and you confuse everyone.
It's not a negotiation strategy that I would employ (but) it could potentially work. But it does, of course, make people nervous about what the ultimate objective is because it hasn't been clarified.
If the ultimate objective is not to support Ukraine, then that is the worst-case scenario because it means that Russia will not be stopped.
Russia will then turn its aggressive attention to other neighboring states — first the ones that used to be part of the Soviet empire, and then it will threaten Europe, and ultimately the United States.
The Kyiv Independent: Have you noticed a shift in rhetoric from the White House in recent weeks towards Russia?
Evelyn Farkas: As I've said all along, my view is to stay open-minded and give the administration the benefit of the doubt until they make some definitive statement one way or the other. Then we can judge it.
Vladimir Putin doesn't want an end to the war because it will likely mean the end of his political existence, if not his actual existence.
But right now, I am encouraged by the fact that the vice president and even the president have indicated impatience with Putin.
And maybe there's a dawning realization that in this world that Vladimir Putin is not stronger after Prigozhin marched on Moscow, and he's weaker economically, politically, militarily, and heavily dependent on China.
In this world, Vladimir Putin doesn't want an end to the war because it will likely mean the end of his political existence, if not his actual existence, because there will be a lot of angry veterans running around Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The Kyiv Independent: Why do you think it has taken the White House so long to realize this?
Evelyn Farkas: Probably because there are competing interests. There are those who really want to bring the war to an end and do it in a way that's sustainable, that looks like a victory for the president, not a defeat. Because there are some versions of a peace agreement that would look like a defeat for President Trump and for the United States.
And then there are others who are interested in making deals with the Russian elites, Putin and his oligarchs. And the people interested in making deals probably have the upper hand.
And so initially, at least, I think the impatience and the overwhelming desire to make business deals were impacting their diplomacy more in the beginning.
And now it seems that the reality is becoming understood — you can't just go and make business deals. You can't just quickly make peace so you can make business deals. That's not going to work.
The Kyiv Independent: How much has this peace process been driven by people's personal interests rather than America's interests?
Evelyn Farkas: It's hard to say from the outside, but it is disconcerting to see a lack of a clear separation between the governance, the business of the American people, and the special interests of people working in the administration.
The Kyiv Independent: What do you think of U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff's performance?
Evelyn Farkas: I think he was a peculiar choice because he's not a seasoned diplomat, and I don't really know whether he's a seasoned business deal broker either.
And so he seems to have been enlisted to try to maybe charm Putin and entice him with some offers, perhaps business offers. But that hasn't worked.
The Kyiv Independent: Do you think that Witkoff was the one who was charmed?
Evelyn Farkas: I can't say, I don't know him. Of course, he was repeating things the Kremlin told him, and we know that the Kremlin sells a bunch of propaganda and lies.
So he was either charmed by them, or for some other reason, he felt like he needed to repeat their propaganda and really omit some of the truth when he spoke publicly.
The Kyiv Independent: Here in Ukraine, at some moments during Trump's term, it has seemed like the U.S. might not only abandon Ukraine, but outright betray it by giving Russia everything that it wants — was that felt by Ukraine supporters in the U.S.?
Evelyn Farkas: I think for pro-Ukraine people in the United States, there was a lot of concern around statements like 'Ukraine can't ever become part of NATO', that 'Crimea was always Russian.'
Those kinds of statements are a betrayal of Ukraine and its interests.
And frankly, they are a betrayal of our interests, because our interest is in stopping Putin's neo-imperial aggression, and getting a just, lasting peace for Ukraine.
"The American people feel very clearly that Ukraine was and is the victim, and Russia was and is the aggressor.
And that is not articulated clearly from the White House."
So, yes, we were alarmed by those statements because they seemed to indicate that that was the private negotiating position of the administration. Again, not a lot has been made public.
And of course, when the issue of the Coalition of the Willing was raised by the Europeans, led by U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the reaction from the White House was non-committal. And that's also disturbing because you can't have a deterrence of Putin, and that is to say, a lasting peace for Ukraine, without the United States military to back it up.
The Kyiv Independent: Do you think Trump and Zelensky's relationship is OK now, or could we see it revert to a time similar to the infamous Oval Office showdown?
Evelyn Farkas: You can't rule it out. I was shocked by the treatment of President Zelensky in the White House. It was appalling.
I think a lot of it is tactics, although, of course, Trump (does) seem to have this preference for Russia over Ukraine that goes all the way back to the 80s when he visited Moscow.
The Kyiv Independent: What can Democrats do, if anything, right now to help Ukraine?
Evelyn Farkas: Continue to work with Republicans who want to support Ukraine.
(Republican Senator) Lindsey Graham has a sanctions bill that has a veto-proof majority. There should be more efforts like that, more bipartisan legislation.
The Democrats... I wish sometimes they would be more honest about things that we did wrong, things that we might have done better, in order to actually give the Republicans an incentive to do more right now in Ukraine.
Politicians rarely do that, though.
And the last thing that they can do is continue to speak to their constituents. And then listen to their constituents, because there are a lot of constituents who care and who want America to do the right thing when it comes to Ukraine and other places in the world.
The Kyiv Independent: Do you get the sense that American public opinion differs very wildly from the opinions that we get out of the White House on Ukraine?
Evelyn Farkas: Yes. The polls show that there's still a majority of Americans in favor of supporting Ukraine.
But in the White House, it's unclear. And I think the American people feel very clearly that Ukraine was and is the victim, and Russia was and is the aggressor.
That is not articulated clearly from the White House.
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The Department of Defense has directed commanders to identify service members with a history of gender dysphoria who have not come forward under a new policy preventing people who identify as transgender from serving in the military.
At least some of the troops with gender dysphoria, characterized by the belief that one's gender identity does not match one's biological sex, are undergoing or have completed transgender procedures in an attempt to align their sex with their gender identity.
Active-duty troops have until June 6 to identify themselves as being unable to serve because of gender dysphoria. The deadline is July 7 for reserves.
“Commanders who are aware of service members in their units who meet the criteria of this policy will direct individualized medical record reviews,” the official said. “Any individuals who meet the criteria of the policy and do not voluntarily identify themselves and go through the voluntary separation process will be processed involuntarily unless they are granted a waiver.”
Troops who are involuntarily separated may lose certain benefits that they would receive if they come forward, according to the Department of Defense.
An estimated 4,200 troops have gender dysphoria. The force has about 2.1 million troops.
The military uses its readiness program to make sure troops are qualified and fit for duty. Medical evaluations are conducted through the program periodically, including an annual health screening.
When asked about concerns that commanders could abuse the process, the official told reporters in the call that leaders are confident in commanders' exercising their discretion and protecting the privacy of troop health information.
“Any negative action that they would take to one of their assigned service members that would be retaliatory would be completely unacceptable regardless of whether it concerned this policy or any other policy,” the official added later.
Troops who are discharged under the new policy are eligible for up to $125,000 in separation payments, depending on their rank and how long they've been serving.
Prime Minister Mark Carney in Rome, on May 17. Lester Pearson and Mr. Carney share much in common, starting with the vital importance of Canada-U.S. relations.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
John Ibbitson is a media fellow at the Fraser Institute and a senior fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Polic
When the Liberal Party is in trouble, it sometimes recruits a former public servant to save the day. Prime Minister Mark Carney is just the latest example.
Mackenzie King was deputy labour minister and then minister of labour, before leading the Liberal Party from opposition (where it had been for a decade) to forming government in 1921.
Lester Pearson served as a diplomat for many years before taking on the leadership of the Liberal Party in 1958, which had been defeated in the 1957 federal election after 22 years in power.
And as we all know, Mr. Carney was governor of the Bank of Canada and of England, later replacing Justin Trudeau at a time when the Liberal Party appeared certain of defeat, then taking it to victory on April 28.
“I feel it has much to do with the Liberal belief that it is the nation's natural governing party,” James Rusk, a former correspondent for The Globe and Mail, pointed out to me. “Hence, it naturally turns when in trouble to those who know something about governing.”
Pearson and Mr. Carney share much in common, starting with the vital importance of Canada-U.S. relations.
Mr. Pearson got along famously with John F. Kennedy. And things started well with Lyndon Johnson. The prime minister agreed, at the president's request, to send Canadian troops to Cyprus on a peacekeeping mission in 1964. The next year, the two governments signed the Auto Pact, which eventually led to today's integrated North American automotive sector.
But Pearson discovered that the relationship with a president can swiftly change. Johnson was furious when the prime minister proposed in a 1965 speech that the Americans consider pausing their bombing campaign in Vietnam. “You pissed on my rug,” he reportedly yelled at Pearson when the two were at Camp David, grabbing him by the lapels.
Mr. Carney's challenge as prime minister is to preserve the integrated automobile sector made possible by the Johnson-Pearson Auto Pact. President Donald Trump appears determined to relocate the Canadian and Mexican automotive sectors to the United States, while also proposing that Canada become an American state.
During a meeting at the White House earlier this month, relations seemed cordial, but Mr. Carney apparently made no progress in changing Mr. Trump's mind. Tariffs and counter-tariffs are now part of the relationship.
Both Pearson and Mr. Carney achieved international fame before becoming Liberal leader. The former famously won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957, after helping broker an end to the 1956 Suez Crisis. The latter was governor of the Bank of England during Brexit, when Britain withdrew from the European Union.
Each displayed a great deal of flexibility, to use a charitable word. As opposition leader, Pearson opposed acquiring nuclear-tipped anti-aircraft missiles from the United States, until it became clear that he could get elected by reversing that position, and so he did.
Mr. Carney is devoted to the cause of fighting global warming. Yet his first act as Prime Minister was to cancel the unpopular consumer carbon tax.
Each faced a divided country. Pearson grappled with a restless Quebec that was questioning what place, if any, it should have in Canada. Mr. Carney confronts deep levels of alienation among many people in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Pearson was opposed by a Western Conservative populist, John Diefenbaker. Mr. Carney is opposed by a Western Conservative populist, Pierre Poilievre.
The two men were quite different personally. Lester Pearson was good-humoured and lacking pretension. Mr. Carney was described in The Guardian in March as being charming and confident, but also possessing a “volcanic temper.” He appears quite sure – even full – of himself.
Pearson knew little about economics and cared even less, entrusting the nation's finances to his friend Walter Gordon. As finance minister, Gordon presided over a botched attempt at greater economic independence from the United States. Mr. Carney, with his PhD in economics from Oxford (a university Pearson attended as well), is seeking to preserve the integrated Canada-U.S. economy that Gordon tried to weaken.
The federal government balanced its books during the Pearson years. The Carney government aims to continue the deficits established by the government of Justin Trudeau, whose father Pierre was recruited by Pearson for Cabinet, and engineered to be his successor.
Pearson is regarded as one of Canada's most successful prime ministers, establishing public health care and pensions, while giving Canada the Maple Leaf flag. Mr. Carney's legacy remains to be discovered.
He should think himself grateful were he one day to be compared favourably with that other public servant who became prime minister.
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Russia's war against Ukraine is waged not only with missiles and tanks, but with distorted myths — powerful narratives that romanticize empire, rewrite history, and embolden Russian soldiers to reduce once prosperous cities to rubble.
Those very same myths surfaced at the Photo London Festival from May 15 to 18, where the inclusion of Russian photographer and fashion designer Gosha Rubchinskiy's new book "Victory Day" sparked fierce backlash.
"The book is a non-partisan representation of post-Soviet military on Red Square," Rubchinskiy declared on May 14 in an Instagram post, adding that the photos "serve as a deeply personal representation of the individual outside of ideology and propaganda."
Though Rubchinskiy has long insisted that his work transcends politics, critics argue the photographer has been promoting pro-Russian propaganda through art and, in the case of "Victory Day," aestheticizing a war founded on violent falsehoods.
"His work extensively uses Soviet and Russian nationalistic symbols, which is problematic because they are currently used to justify war crimes, torture, and the killing of civilian Ukrainians," Emine Ziyatdinova, a Ukrainian photographer of Crimean Tatar descent, told the Kyiv Independent.
"As someone who is part of Russian society, it is nearly impossible (for Rubchinskiy) not to be aware of the semiotic connotations of these symbols and what they represent to the victims of these regimes."
The black and white portraiture and "architectural studies" of Rubchinskiy's "Victory Day" were taken from 2018-2019, already half a decade into Russia's ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine.
Rubchinskiy invokes in the photo book's description potent military symbols like Red Square and the World War II memorial in Volgograd — sites that are meant to reinforce the Russian state narrative of the country's military strength.
"For the last three years of the ongoing full-scale war in Ukraine, multiple Ukrainian cultural figures, curators, politicians, historians, scholars, and artists have tried to show Western cultural institutions that Russian culture is political and aligned with Russian imperialistic ideas."
In particular, Red Square is the location for Russia's largest Victory Day military parade, where during this year's commemoration, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Soviet soldiers "of different ethnic backgrounds… will forever remain Russian soldiers in world history."
Positioning the Allied Victory against the Nazis during World War II alongside the claim that it is somehow a book dedicated to "over 20 years of Russian youth culture," Rubchinskiy also appears to imply that this Soviet imagery can be claimed by Russians alone, and not the millions of Ukrainians, Belarusians, Kazakhs and other nationalities that fought and died serving in the Soviet army.
"Victory Day" was presented at the Photo London Festival by the exhibitor A/political, which says on its website that it prides itself on "producing radical knowledge through cultural terror."
"The presence of Gosha Rubchinskiy's work under the satirical title 'A/Political' at the London Photo Fair is yet another major disappointment and a clear example of the West's ongoing unwillingness to de-romanticize Russian aesthetics, which are rooted in military propaganda and oppression," Ukrainian photographer Daria Svertilova told the Kyiv Independent.
"For the last three years of the ongoing full-scale war in Ukraine, multiple Ukrainian cultural figures, curators, politicians, historians, scholars, and artists have tried to show Western cultural institutions that Russian culture is political and aligned with Russian imperialistic ideas. After three years of continuous horrors perpetrated by Russia in Ukraine, one would think these issues should be self-evident — but unfortunately, they are not."
Although "Victory Day" has yet to be widely released, an image displayed on Photo London's website depicts a young military conscript wearing the historic St. George Ribbon.
The black and orange ribbon has been a military decoration since the times of the Russian Empire and was later mainly associated with commemorating Eastern Front veterans of World War II. It has been banned in Ukraine since 2017 after becoming one of the main symbols of Russia's war of aggression.
The Soviet army played an important role in defeating Nazi Germany, but during that time it was also responsible for a number of massacres, as well as deportations and forced relocations — atrocities that the Soviet government systematically attempted to cover up. Under Putin, Russia has distorted the history of World War II even further by using the accomplishments of the Soviet army as a means to "justify" Russia's war against Ukraine, who they depict as Nazis.
"The Russian state and society failed to recognize the war crimes and genocide the Soviet Union committed during World War II," Ziyatdinova explained.
"The glorification of these symbols in this exhibition normalizes them together with the past and current war crimes, instead of questioning what the Soviet Union and Russian state have done wrong."
At the time of this publication, neither the exhibitor A/political nor the Photo London Fair replied to the Kyiv Independent's request for comment.
"Victory Day" is not the first of Rubchinskiy's projects since 2014 that blur the line between art and pro-Russian propaganda.
His 2014 book "Crimea/Kids" is a romanticized portrayal of youth in Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. Promoting the book in the months leading up to Russia's illegal annexation, he was already speaking of the peninsula as Russian.
"All these kids were born in a new country, and because of the internet, they feel the same as other young people in London, China, or Japan. That's why it's interesting for me to see how these young kids born in an informational context manage to keep this kind of Russian spirit, this Russian view on things," he told German media outlet 032c in January 2014.
Speaking to British magazine Dazed in September 2014, already several months after the illegal annexation, he called Crimea's youth movement "a new Russia."
For natives of the Crimean peninsula like Ziyatdinova, who cannot return home as long as the Russian occupation continues, the depoliticization of the occupation — during which people have been not only forced from their homes but also arbitrarily jailed for opposing it — is especially painful.
It is wrong to publish a book on Crimea "with an emphasis on the Russian legacy on the peninsula, ignoring the ethnic persecutions, the military force and extensive propaganda used during the occupation," Ziyatdinova said.
"This book pretty much lies within the soft Russian propaganda claiming the newly occupied territories (as their own)."
Despite repeatedly claiming to be above politics, Rubchinskiy has occasionally let slip his belief that Russia suffers from biased media portrayal. In a 2018 article for British media outlet i-D, he lauded the World Cup for spotlighting Russia on the global stage.
"The World Cup is a unique reason to come to Russia and see what's going on here by your own eyes," he said. "Sometimes you should check for yourself and decide your own feelings about things rather than believe other people's opinion from the media."
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine also became a launchpad for Rubchinskiy's fashion collection Duval, which he tweeted about on Feb. 25, 2022 — just one day after the war began.
At this point — four years into Russia's invasion of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and the unlawful annexation of Crimea — Ukrainian political prisoners, including filmmaker and writer Oleh Sentsov, were already suffering harsh conditions in Russian detention, with Sentsov declaring a hunger strike to coincide with the international sporting event to demand the release of all Ukrainians imprisoned by Russia.
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine also became a launchpad for Rubchinskiy's fashion collection Duval, which he tweeted about on Feb. 25, 2022 — just one day after the full-scale war began.
His one-word tweet, "Duval," framed on the brand's website as "a statement of rebellion against the war," turned a tragedy for millions of Ukrainians into the Russian fashion designer's personal branding.
Such a move is part of the bigger issue which critics see with Rubchinskiy's work — namely, how it exploits post-Soviet trauma, repackaging collective pain as aesthetic currency.
"It is a space where pain, collapse, and violence experienced in the post-Soviet world are transformed into consumable images — rendered as aesthetic or nostalgic resources, easily instrumentalized," Ukrainian visual artist Yana Kononov explained in a post on Instagram on May 18.
"(Rubchinskiy's) work functions as a conduit for ideological slipperiness — capable of satisfying both authoritarian desire and Western taste for the 'critically charged'."
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A statue of Britain's late Queen Victoria, outside Windsor Castle in Windsor, west of London on May 7, 2019.ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images
John Turley-Ewart is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail, a regulatory compliance consultant and a Canadian banking historian.
Monday, Victoria Day, is the past‘s shout-out to the present. The current moment makes that shout-out all the more poignant: A reminder from Victorian era Canadians that they forged a working federation while laying rails to hang an economy on. They were nation builders.
Queen Victoria, whom the day honours, was a strong proponent of Confederation in 1867. She told a Canadian delegation she took the “deepest interest in it” because she believed it would make her North American provinces “great and prosperous.”
And such was the dream. By 1876 the Intercolonial Railway was in place, connecting the economies of the Maritimes, Ontario and Quebec. Treaties were being signed with Plains First Nations and Dominion Land Surveys were developed in Western Canada to divide land into parcels of one square mile for farming and inexpensive homesteads.
Canada was a new frontier for investment. Capital flowed from Britain, new banks and insurance firms were founded. Immigrants were arriving. In November of 1885 the greatest infrastructure achievement of Victorian Canada was completed, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). Using iron spikes, workers fastened a transcontinental economy to the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
The work was hard, the idea of Canada caught people's imagination, but the gap between its promise and the economic reality gave reason for many to think Canada was a failed project. Despite completing the CPR, the economy wobbled, banks failed, and Ottawa's coffers ran low. Hundreds of thousands of Canadians moved south to the United States in the 1880s and early 1890s.
While Canada's current Liberal Prime Minister, Mark Carney, rightly said “never” to the idea of Canada becoming the 51st state in his recent visit to the White House, some Liberals in the late 1880s said “maybe” to the idea back then.
The union that Queen Victoria presided over, after all, was an alliance of strangers. There was little truck or trade between the three-and-a-half million people spread across a giant continent. Most provinces were more familiar with their U.S. neighbours than each other.
The appeal of late 19th-century America to Canadians of the time rings familiar today. Carnegie, Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford – the billionaires of their day were the faces of a modern industrial economy that produced skyscrapers, the modern corporation, modern steel production, modern finance, the petroleum industry and the beginnings of the auto industry.
In contrast, Canada seemed a motley crew of regions that trains happened to roll through from time to time. The promise of a national economy was not a reality.
What changed?
Investments that farmers in Ontario and Quebec were making in new equipment and farming methods to improve productivity in the late 1880s and 1890s began paying off as the 20th century approached. The result was bumper crops and bumper profits from sales to export markets that also spread to the Prairies. This reinforced the demand for new farm equipment, driving added manufacturing capacity and innovation in the process.
The knock-on effect could be seen in the growth of banking and the demand for engineers, lawyers and a professional managerial class. With more deposits coming from farmers in Ontario and Quebec, there was more capital to support larger, complex projects that continued to give momentum to productivity improvements, including two new national railways built between 1900 and 1912.
Mining for gold, silver and other minerals took off in Ontario and B.C. Developing efficient sources of energy, such as hydroelectric power in Ontario and Quebec helped electrify cities while making it easier to produce steel as well as pulp and paper.
Today, Canada is in the kind of economic ebb that tested the country in the late 1880s. If Canadians who built the economic foundations of Canada in the three decades after Confederation could speak, they would tell us that national infrastructure isn't enough. Building productive businesses is equally important if you want the prosperity Queen Victoria believed Canada was capable of.
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MOSCOW, May 19. /TASS/. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office has declared the activities of the international non-governmental organization Amnesty International undesirable in Russia.
"The Prosecutor General's Office has made a decision to recognize the activities of Amnesty International Limited, an international non-governmental organization registered in London, as undesirable on the territory of Russia," the statement reads.
The PGO explained that since the beginning of the special military operation Amnesty International activists have been doing everything possible to fuel the military confrontation in the region: they justify crimes committed by Ukrainian neo-Nazis, call for an increase in their funding, and insist on Russia's political and economic isolation. "The participants in the organization support extremist organizations and finance the activities of foreign agents," the agency said.
The organization positions itself as an active promoter of human rights protection in the world, but in reality, the London headquarters of Amnesty International is a training center for global Russophobic projects paid for by the Kiev regime's accomplices.
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A Japanese comic book warns of a “real catastrophe.” A psychic predicts mass destruction. A feng shui master urges people to stay away.
This might sound like the plot of a disaster movie but for Japan's tourism industry, a recent spate of so-called earthquake-related “predictions” like these has led to more superstitious travelers, particularly in East Asia, canceling or delaying their holidays.
Seismologists have long warned that accurately predicting when an earthquake might strike is all but impossible. Japan is a country with a good track record of withstanding even powerful tremors and the prospect of a major quake is something its population lives with on a daily basis.
But the fear of a “big one,” amplified by both soothsayers and social media, is prompting some travelers to get cold feet. And for many, it's a comic book that's scaring them away.
Published by manga artist Ryo Tatsuki in 1999, “The Future I Saw” warned of a major disaster in March 2011, a date which turned out to coincide with the cataclysmic quake that struck Japan's northern Tohoku region that month.
Her “complete version” released in 2021 claimed that the next big earthquake will hit this July.
At the same time, psychics from Japan and Hong Kong have shared similar warnings, triggering some unfounded panic online that has led to a flurry of cancelations of travel plans from destinations in the region.
CN Yuen, managing director of WWPKG, a travel agency based in Hong Kong, said bookings to Japan dropped by half during the Easter holiday and are expected to dip further in the coming two months.
The speculations have scared off mostly travelers from mainland China and Hong Kong, which are Japan's second- and fourth-largest sources of tourists, respectively. But the fear has also spread to other markets such as Thailand and Vietnam, where social media platforms are overflowing with posts and videos warning people to think twice before traveling to Japan.
Anxieties provoked by these prophecies have, according to Yuen, become “ingrained.” He added that “people just say they want to hold off their trip for now.”
Related article
Japan is bracing for a once-in-a-century earthquake. Does it need to?
Japan is no stranger to severe earthquakes. It lies on the Ring of Fire, an area of intense seismic and volcanic activity on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.
Fears of a “big one” have been mounting since the Japanese government warned in January that there was an 80% chance of a severe earthquake hitting the country's southern Nankai Trough within 30 years. Some seismologists have been critical of these warnings, questioning whether they can ever be accurate.
Tatsuki's work has a significant following in East Asia and her fans often believe she can accurately see future events in her dreams.
She draws a cartoon version of herself in the manga, where she shares visions she gleans from her slumbers with other characters. Some of these dreams turn out to bear close resemblance to real-life events.
Her 2011 quake prediction — or coincidence — made Tatsuki famous not just in Japan but also in other parts of Asia like Thailand and China. The comic book has sold 900,000 copies, according to its publisher. It has also been published in Chinese.
Fans believed she also predicted the deaths of Princess Diana and singer Freddie Mercury, as well as the Covid-19 pandemic, however critics say her visions are too vague to be taken seriously.
The manga's cover bears the words “massive disaster in March, 2011,” leading many to believe that she predicted the 9.0-magnitude earthquake more than a decade before it hit Tohoku.
The quake triggered a deadly tsunami that killed tens of thousands and crippled the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, resulting in the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
In the latest edition, “The Future I Saw (Complete Version),” Tatsuki warned that on July 5 this year, a crack will open up under the seabed between Japan and the Philippines, sending ashore waves three times as tall as those from the Tohoku earthquake.
The author was recently asked what she thought about the canceled trips resulting from readers' interpretations of her book.
Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun reported last week that while she viewed it “very positively” that interest in her work has made people more prepared for disasters, she urged them not to be “overly swayed” by her dreams and “act appropriately based on expert opinions.”
She's not the only doomsayer.
Chinese media has been reporting the predictions of a self-proclaimed Japanese psychic who suggested a massive earthquake would strike the densely populated Tokyo Bay Area on April 26. Though the date passed without incident, the prediction triggered immense interest on Chinese social media.
Qi Xian Yu, a popular feng shui master and Hong Kong TV personality known as Master Seven, also urged people to stay away from Japan, starting in April.
Japan's Cabinet Office took to X earlier this month to explain that modern technology has yet to be able to accurately predict an earthquake.
Meanwhile Yoshihiro Murai, governor of Miyagi prefecture, which was hit hard during the 2011 quake, spoke out against the impact of superstitious beliefs on Japan's tourism.
“I believe it is a serious issue when the spread of highly unscientific rumors on social media had an effect on tourism,” he said during a press conference.
Related article
Why tourist information centers are some of Asia's top tourist attractions
Despite all the social media static, it's unclear whether the fearmongering is working — Japan remains a wildly popular destination.
Samantha Tang, from Hong Kong, is one of those who has shelved her trip to the country. Originally she planned to visit Wakayama, a beach destination about 50 miles south of Osaka, in August, but has gotten cold feet.
“Everyone says so much about an earthquake coming,” said the 34-year-old yoga teacher, who says she has gone on vacation to Japan at least once a year since the end of the pandemic.
Another Hong Kong traveler, Oscar Chu, 36, who usually visits Japan multiple times per year, has changed his mind this year as well.
“It's best to avoid it. It's going to be really troublesome if an earthquake indeed happens,” he said. He explained he wasn't too worried specifically about being in an earthquake but was wary of the ensuing travel chaos and flight disruptions.
Still, plenty of tourists are undeterred.
Japan has seen the number of visitors surge to a record-breaking 10.5 million in the first three months of 2025, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization.
Meanwhile, 2.36 million mainland Chinese travelers visited Japan in the first quarter of this year, up 78% from last year, the tourism body said.
During the same period, some 647,600 Hongkongers visited Japan, marking an overall 3.9% year-on-year growth.
And that's only tourists from East Asia.
In March alone, 343,000 Americans visited Japan, along with 68,000 Canadians and 85,000 Australians.
Vic Shing from Hong Kong is among those who haven't changed their plans. Although he has heard about “the prophecy,” he said he remained committed to his Japan vacation this year. He is visiting Tokyo and Osaka in June.
“Earthquake predictions have never been accurate,” he said.
Even if one did hit, “Japan has encountered many massive earthquakes before. It shouldn't be too bad when it comes to disaster management,” he added.
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Portugal's ruling center-right Democratic Alliance (AD) won a snap parliamentary election on Sunday but again fell short of the majority needed to end a long period of instability as the far-right Chega gained a record share of the vote.
Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said the election result was a vote of confidence in his party, but with votes from abroad still to be counted Chega could supplant the center-left Socialists as the main opposition party, ending almost 40 years of dominance by the country's two major parties.
Continued political instability could delay structural reforms and major projects in Portugal, including lithium mining in the north, and potentially compromise the efficient deployment of EU funds and the long-delayed privatization of TAP airline.
The election, the third in as many years, was called one year into an AD minority government's term after Montenegro failed to win a vote of confidence in March when the opposition questioned his integrity over dealings of his family's consultancy firm. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Electoral data showed the AD making gains, winning 89 seats in the 230-seat parliament, nine more than in the previous election.
Montenegro, who has ruled out any deal with Chega, said he expected to form a minority government.
“The Portuguese don't want any more snap elections, they want a four-year legislature,” Montenegro said as his supporters chanted “Let Luis work,” his campaign slogan.
Chega gained 8 seats for a total of 58, winning a record 22.6% of the vote, while voters appeared to punish the Socialists for their role in bringing down Montenegro's government.
They fell to 58 seats from 78, prompting Socialist leader Pedro Nuno Santos to say he would step down.
Chega leader Andre Ventura, who was hospitalized during the campaign after collapsing on stage with an esophageal spasm, said his party had “swept the left block off the map in style.”
“There are moments in life during which God says, just stop a little bit,” he told a crowd of jubilant supporters. “This time I am not going to listen. I am not going to stop until I become the prime minister of Portugal.”
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Russian authorities have detained nine residents of Stavropol Krai, accusing them of plotting an attack on police officers during May 9 celebrations on behalf of a "terrorist group," the Federal Security Service (FSB) said on May 19.
Eight of the detainees are minors, according to the Russian Investigative Committee.
A teenager from the Andropovsky district was accused of joining an unspecified "international terrorist organization" via the Telegram messaging app and recruiting eight other people, including seven teenagers aged between 14 and 16.
The FSB claimed that the detainees planned to attack police officers during the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, which Russia commemorates on May 9 with opulent military parades.
Russian authorities have managed to thwart the plot targeting a municipality in southwestern Stavropol Krai, the statement read. The suspects are in detention and awaiting trial.
Russia's claims could not be independently verified, as the country often uses its legal system and sham trials to oppress real or perceived opposition.
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SASHA LEZHNEV is Senior Policy Adviser at the Sentry.
JOHN PRENDERGAST is Co-Founder of the Sentry.
Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast
Every year, illicit gold worth more than $30 billion flows across the globe, including gold originating in conflict zones and authoritarian states. Much of it is smuggled to gold-trading centers such as Dubai or Hong Kong before silently entering the global market. Unlike drug trafficking, the trade in illicit gold does not register to many in the West as an emergency because its primary victims are not in wealthy countries. But this trade is underwriting deadly crises around the world. It is financing both sides of the Sudanese civil war; the authoritarian regime of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela; transnational criminal networks, such as Venezuela's Tren de Aragua, which the United States recently designated a foreign terrorist organization; multiple armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and Russia's war in Ukraine.
Over the past decade, gold has nearly tripled in price, reaching record highs earlier this month. One can smuggle more than $1 million worth of gold in nothing more than a briefcase, and demand for it is always strong because, unlike critical minerals, gold is universally valuable. Illicit gold can also be melted and enter formal markets with gold that is legally mined. As a result, profiteers are searching for and extracting gold under worsening humanitarian and environmental conditions.
The illicit gold trade directly affects U.S. national security because it is fueling armed conflicts and transnational criminal enterprises. And because the gold is being laundered into global supply chains, it threatens global business risks for banks, tech companies, and jewelers. The United States, global financial institutions, various regulators, and U.S. allies such as the United Kingdom and the European Union have the capabilities to help curb this trade. They must use them.
These players should help the largest gold-trading centers, where most illicit gold is laundered—principally the United Arab Emirates but also China, India, Switzerland, and Turkey—reform. The UAE is of particular concern. In 2022, the country imported and refined an estimated 400 tons of smuggled gold before selling it on global markets. Banks and regulators may find willing local partners: some of the trading centers are facing financial hurdles as a result of smuggling and other money-laundering issues, and they want to increase their credibility in the global financial system. If they meet certain due diligence standards, banks and regulators should offer them financial incentives, including positive evaluations and memberships to global gold organizations, which would improve their reputation and increase their share of global trade.
The United States, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, should also work with the gold industry to establish and lead a public-private illicit gold initiative that can publish real-time data on the gold trade and independently monitor and certify trading centers. Rubio, together with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, should create an illicit-gold task force that can investigate and sanction gold-trafficking networks and exchange data on these networks with banks and refiners. In the absence of such measures, illicit gold will further infiltrate global markets and fund war and criminal gangs.
Although artisanally mined gold provides a livelihood for mining communities in many countries, many small-scale mines situated in conflict areas or authoritarian states frequently employ children as young as eight years old and damage the environment by using corrosive chemicals, including mercury and cyanide. Gold from such mines is then usually smuggled to neighboring countries for initial refining before being shipped or smuggled to a refinery in a global gold-trading center—most often Dubai or Hong Kong. There, it gets made into bars or jewelry and laundered into the world supply chain.
The massive scale of the global gold trade—more than $380 billion in 2024—makes illicit gold very valuable to the criminal groups and repressive regimes that sell and smuggle it and to the traders and refiners who buy it. As a result, illicit gold is increasingly a driver of war. In Sudan, for instance, where gold makes up 70 percent of exports, the ability of the country's warring factions to purchase weapons is heavily dependent on their procuring and selling illicit gold. That fact did not stop the UAE from importing $1 billion in Sudanese gold in 2023. The largest gold mine in Sudan is controlled by a company linked to the UAE's royal family. According to investigations by the United Nations and TheNew York Times, the UAE even provided weapons to Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces—which the U.S. government determined has committed genocide in Sudan—in part to ensure access to the country's gold. Abu Dhabi denies this involvement.
Such trade also helps sustain the repressive regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, which sold more than $1 billion of illicit gold to UAE companies in 2020. Armed groups in the region that commit human rights abuses and deforest the Amazon rainforest, including Tren de Aragua, also mine and traffic illegal gold to the tune of $2.2 billion per year.
Russia's involvement in the illicit gold trade spiked after many Western states sanctioned Russian gold following the country's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The measures have forced Russia, the world's second-largest producer of gold, to try to smuggle out its product and source additional gold from illicit sources, including both sides of the Sudan conflict. The UAE's imports of Russian gold—$2.5 billion in 2023—have fueled Moscow's war economy.
Gold also drives the escalating conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where Congolese forces are fighting an insurgency by the Rwandan-backed M23 movement. In 2022, the Congolese and Emirati governments set up a de facto gold-trading monopoly in eastern Congo that was worth $1.9 billion and likely included trade in conflict gold, according to UN experts. This arrangement, however, cut out Rwanda, angering Kigali; afterward, M23 forces, armed by the Rwandan government and supported by up to 12,000 Rwandan troops, took over the swaths of eastern Congo that include its gold mines. Rwanda set up a refinery and exported a record $1.5 billion worth of gold in 2024, despite the fact that the country has nearly no domestic production. In 2024, Uganda, which also supports the M23, likewise exported a record $3.4 billion of gold, including gold from eastern Congo. The development group Swissaid estimates that between 32 percent and 41 percent of the gold produced in sub-Saharan Africa in 2022 may have been illicit—far above the global average. Nearly all the illicit gold exported from this region flows to the UAE.
Like many cash transactions, the illicit gold trade is insufficiently monitored by governments and industry. There is also no system for sharing real-time data on gold traffickers, meaning bodies that have the power to sanction entities moving illicit gold are often behind in tracking them. The only publicly available data on where gold is traded is two years old, by which time illicit gold has left its country of origin and been laundered into the global supply chain. These data gaps allow countries that have little or no domestic production to buy and sell illicit gold without consequence.
There have still been attempts to better regulate this trade. In 2012, for instance, the London Bullion Market Association, an international trade association for gold made up mainly of global banks and refiners, created a due diligence system to audit refineries for high-risk gold—or gold that may have been mined illegally or in a conflict zone—in their supply chains. There's a nascent auditing system for mines, too. Certain regions, including the Great Lakes region of Africa, have set up intergovernmental processes to certify whether mines are conflict free and devoid of child labor. In 2024, the private sector introduced a system by which refiners, miners, and industry associations can share data.
There have also been budding attempts to hamper the beneficiaries of smuggling. Beginning in 2020, the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force placed the UAE on its so-called gray list of higher-risk countries, in part because of the country's trade in illicit gold. This threatened to diminish the UAE's access to the global financial system; after Abu Dhabi heavily lobbied task-force countries and introduced a few reforms, the task force removed the UAE from its gray list. That same year, the London Bullion Market Association began pressuring the governments of international gold-trading centers—China, India, Switzerland, Turkey, and the UAE—to reform their gold-buying practices. This resulted in some changes. The UAE, for instance, passed a law requiring independent audits for its refiners, suspended 30 of them for not keeping proper records, and introduced a new corporate tax on gold dealers.
The United States and Europe have started to take slightly more aggressive action, too. The European Union has kept the UAE on its own gray list, marginally affecting the country's credit risks and capital flows. In 2024, the United Kingdom and the United States sanctioned a $300 million gold-laundering network operating in Hong Kong, Russia, and the UAE, and, earlier this year, also sanctioned a UAE-based conglomerate, which includes a gold company, for supporting the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces.
Although these measures are starting to produce some welcome changes, illicit gold continues to flow through trading centers, and the vast majority of illicit traders remain unimpeded. This is because the implementation of these measures is insufficient and uncoordinated and because there are not nearly enough concrete consequences—including sanctions or prosecutions—for illicit-gold traffickers and the refiners that purchase from them.
It is essential to address the illicit gold trade before it grows into an uncontrollable black market for criminals, traffickers, armed groups, and rogue regimes that threaten U.S. national security and the integrity of the global financial system. But key gold-trading centers have incentives to reform. These centers want full access to the global financial system. The Financial Action Task Force will reevaluate the UAE in 2026, creating an urgency for the Emiratis to curb the illicit-gold trade that takes place in their country. The task force should stringently examine Abu Dhabi's requirements for importers and bullion dealers bringing in gold from high-risk countries, perhaps by requiring a financial paper trail for all imported gold and the implementation of due diligence audits. It should also call to end cash-for-gold transactions above minimal amounts.
The trading centers also seek greater legitimacy in global gold markets in order to sell more gold and improve their international reputation, especially in the face of new refining competition in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Entities such as the London Bullion Market Association could provide these trading centers with benefits—such as accepting some of their refiners as members—if, for example, they adequately reformed and implemented their cash-for-gold and customs policies. If they failed to do so, they would instead be cut off from the association's market. In 2022, both the London Bullion Market Association and the World Gold Council launched a gold-bar integrity program that uses blockchain technology to make gold transactions more traceable. They could offer to include UAE-based refineries in their program if those facilities agreed to follow much stricter due diligence and transparency measures; this would open the refineries up to the London Bullion Market Association's massive market and help them gain prestige in the global gold trade.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has an important role to play, too, as a platform for governments, the private sector, and civil society to coordinate and share information on illicit gold. Banks and jewelers must also enhance their due diligence efforts by, for example, red-flagging gold exported from trading centers known to buy and sell illicit gold, banning cash transactions above small amounts, and requiring proof of payment for all gold imports as opposed to only certificates of origin, which are easy to fake.
When he was a senator, Rubio called the illicit gold trade a “direct threat” to U.S. national security because of how it was strengthening the Maduro regime and demanded that Washington choke it off. Now, as a central figure of the Trump administration, Rubio has an opportunity to do so. He should help lead a public-private illicit gold initiative, partnering with the London Bullion Market Association, the World Gold Council, bullion and central banks, and allies such as the United Kingdom and the EU. The resulting entity should publish real-time data related to the gold trade, which would help curb smuggling by allowing banks and refiners to instantaneously cut off high-risk illicit gold,independently monitor trade centers to catch smugglers, and certify relevant centers as conflict free. The U.S. government should work with the customs department of the UAE, the government of which is already a strategic partner, to identify gold-smuggling patterns and companies and help indict and prosecute bad actors.
Rubio and Bessent should also establish a U.S. government illicit-gold task force to investigate and sanction gold-trafficking networks. Recent sanctions against such networks, including British and U.S. sanctions against UAE-based companies and EU sanctions against a Rwandan refinery, are a good start, but to have a global effect these sanctions must be more far-reaching and coordinated. As part of the task force, the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network could issue alerts, exchange information with banks and refiners to stay updated on traffickers, and encourage trading entities to file reports on suspicious transactions. The State Department could also encourage shippers and jewelers to share any information they may have on smuggling networks.
Rogue actors are increasingly profiting from illicit gold. But if the U.S. government works together with industry and key allies, it can help end this deadly trade and bolster its own security interests. Targeting the system's pinch points—refineries, trading centers, and the governments that allow illicit trade—is the place to start.
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DANIEL WALDENSTROM is Professor of Economics at IFN Stockholm and the author of Richer and More Equal: A New History of Wealth in the West.
Daniel Waldenstrom
Spend a few minutes browsing political commentary or scrolling social media and you will discover a seemingly settled truth: inequality in the West is soaring, the middle class is being hollowed out, and democracies stand on the brink of oligarchy. The idea is seductive because it fits everyday anxieties in many Western countries—housing has grown increasingly unaffordable, billionaire wealth mushrooms unfathomably, and the pandemic exposed yawning gaps in social safety nets. Yet the most influential claims about inequality rest on selective readings of history and partial measurements of living standards. When the full balance sheet of modern economies is tallied—including taxes, transfers, pension entitlements, homeownership, and the fact that people move through income brackets across their lives—the story looks markedly different. Western societies are not nearly as unequal as many believe them to be.
This is not a call for complacency. Concentrated economic power can distort markets and politics; pockets of deep poverty persist in rich countries; and in the United States, the top of the distribution has indeed sprinted ahead of the rest. But focusing only on the eye-catching fortunes of tech founders or hedge-fund managers obscures a quieter, broader transformation: households across the income spectrum now own capital on a scale unimaginable to earlier generations, and basic measures of well-being in Western societies—including life expectancy, educational attainment, and consumption possibilities—have improved for nearly everyone.
Getting the facts right matters because bad diagnosis breeds bad prescriptions. If governments assume that capitalism is inexorably recreating the disparities of the Gilded Age, they will reach for wealth confiscations, price controls, or ever-larger public sectors funded by fragile tax bases. If, instead, the evidence shows that free-market economies have enriched middle classes by expanding asset ownership, that entrepreneurs' fortunes are associated with advances shared with the broader public, and that much of the post-1980 rise in recorded inequality reflects methodological quirks, then a different agenda follows: states should encourage ambition, protect competition, widen access to wealth-building, and ensure that public services complement—not smother—private prosperity. In short, before treating inequality as an existential crisis, it is worth double-checking the thermometer.
The prevailing narrative about inequality—popularized by the economist Thomas Piketty in his bestselling 2014 book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century—depicts a U-shaped curve. In this view, the extreme concentration of income and wealth among a narrow elite in the early twentieth century was broken only by the world wars and taxes on capital. The turn toward market liberalization around 1980 unleashed a second wave of plutocracy. Charts of top-income shares appear to confirm the story: since 1980, the top one percent's slice of pretax income has surged, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom. Add the proliferation of celebrity billionaires, the stagnation of median wages, and the eruption of high-profile corporate scandals, and the picture seems complete.
Three kinds of evidence underpin this interpretation. First are tax-return data that track pretax market income: salaries, dividends, and realized capital gains. These show widening gaps because high earners captured disproportionate gains from globalization and digital technology. Second are surveys of household wealth that measure who owns stocks and real estate; when asset prices boom, wealthy portfolios balloon. Third are particular statistics that make headlines—the many CEOs paid hundreds of times more than average workers, or the eight men who together are richer than half the world—and feed public outrage.
But such evidence has limits. Starting the clock in 1980 is rhetorically convenient because inequality was then unusually low, following decades of steep taxation and stringent regulation that had dampened entrepreneurship and curtailed many ambitious career paths. Today's levels, although higher than those of the late 1970s, are far below those of the pre–World War II era when taxes were much lower than they are today. In addition, most estimates of income inequality have actually plateaued in the last two decades. Likewise, focusing on pretax income ignores the consequences of progressive taxation and, crucially, the vast public spending on health care, education, and pensions that disproportionately benefits lower- and middle-income households. Finally, wealth surveys often exclude mandatory pension assets and undercount owner-occupied housing—the two largest stores of middle-class wealth.
Recent work on U.S. income distribution by the tax economists Gerald Auten and David Splinter shows that correcting for underreported income at the bottom, income shifted into tax-deferred retirement accounts, and welfare transfers flattens the trend dramatically: in the United States, the top one percent's share of after-tax income is only slightly higher today than it was in 1960, nowhere near the doubling implied by estimates presented by Piketty and his co-authors. Europe's picture is flatter still, thanks to heavier redistribution and less winner-take-all compensation at the top of the corporate ladder.
The canonical data tell only part of the story, and the least flattering part at that. A growing body of scholarship reassesses the long-run distribution of wealth by adding what earlier studies neglected. Three findings stand out.
First, private wealth has exploded—but so has broad ownership of it. Reconstructed national balance sheets for France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States show real per-adult wealth roughly tripling since 1980 and rising more than sevenfold since 1950. Crucially, an increasing share of that capital sits in the homes and pension funds of ordinary households. In 1900, assets held by the elite—agricultural domains and shares in industrial or financial corporations—dominated; today, residential property and funded retirement accounts represent the majority of private assets. That shift parallels mass homeownership: in most Western countries, 60 to 70 percent of households now own the roof over their heads—an equity stake unavailable to their great-grandparents. Most workers hold pension claims in mutual funds or index funds, granting them the high returns of stock markets at low risk—what amounts to financial democratization.
Second, wealth concentration has fallen—not risen—over the past century. In Europe, the top one percent now owns barely a third of the share it held in 1910, right before the beginning of the transformative era of world wars, democratization, and the growth of governmental capacity, and since the 1970s that share has been essentially flat, even as real wealth—that is, wealth adjusted for inflation—has tripled with rising asset prices. The United States shows a clearer uptick beginning in the 1970s, most visible among the spectacular fortunes of tech and finance titans, whose gains have outpaced even the impressive wealth growth of the middle class. Yet U.S. concentration remains closer to its 1960 level than to its pre-1914 peak. The dominant quantitative fact of the century, therefore, is not a new Gilded Age but a dramatic wealth equalization propelled by mass asset ownership.
Third, the fact that people move through different income brackets over the course of their lives should temper typical measures of inequality. So, too, should the effects of welfare payments. Annual snapshots lump graduate students with retirees living off savings, making income and wealth gaps appear wider than lifetime consumption gaps. When studies in different countries instead follow individuals over time, they typically find that within only a few years, half the households in the bottom income decile have climbed to higher levels. Many top-decile households can drop to lower rungs of the ladder after business or investment setbacks. Government welfare programs further compress differences. In Sweden, when public pension entitlements are capitalized and added to assessments of personal wealth, this alone cuts the measured wealth inequality—known as the Gini coefficient—by almost half. In the United States, the market's redistributive role is smaller, but when Social Security, Medicare, and employer-provided health insurance are treated as in-kind income, median households fare far better than raw wage data suggest.
These facts undermine the image of an inexorably widening chasm between a plutocratic elite and the rest. Yes, superstar entrepreneurs have amassed fortunes measured in tens of billions. But that outcome signals success, not failure: they furnished goods and services that millions freely bought. Their booming companies also supply jobs, higher wage earnings, and substantial tax revenue—directly through profits and payrolls and indirectly by raising the broader tax base. Over the past four decades, life expectancy in advanced economies (including in the United States despite the much-noted increase in “deaths of despair”) rose roughly six years, high school completion became nearly universal, and personal computers once reserved for elites went mainstream.
Those who typically bemoan the rise of inequality don't correctly weigh the size and division of the pie. Rising real incomes and higher asset values are preconditions for mass prosperity and for a well-funded public sector. Even advocates of government intervention should champion efficient growth: every percentage point of GDP adds billions to tax revenue. The West's most durable path to fairness, then, is to scale up the channels through which ordinary households acquire assets—including affordable housing supply, portable retirement accounts, and low-fee index funds—and to keep markets open so new firms can challenge incumbents.
That perspective should also moderate calls for annual taxes on the stock of net wealth, which have recently been proposed by some politicians and researchers, and have even been discussed officially at G-20 and UN meetings. These so-called wealth taxes are problematic because they hit illiquid assets, forcing entrepreneurs or farmers to borrow or liquidate. Scandinavian experience of such taxes shows that they produce meager revenues, come with high administrative costs, and encourage capital flight. If capital is to be taxed, a more efficient and equitable way is to tax capital income—such as dividends, realized gains, and corporate profits.
Misreading inequality courts several risks. It diverts energy from the real challenges to Western economies, which include lax productivity growth, aging populations, and the imperatives of climate adaptation. These problems will strain public budgets. But excessive state-centrism and confiscatory wealth taxes impede capital formation and make financing those tasks harder, not easier. Misunderstanding inequality also breeds regressivity: taxing housing wealth indiscriminately can hit asset-rich but cash-poor retirees; taxing private firms can force sales to multinational giants with cheaper credit. And it corrodes trust: when citizens hear that capitalism benefits only the elite—even as their own living standards rise—they may grow cynical about official statistics and susceptible to populist cures worse than the disease.
A more accurate reading of the data supports a balanced agenda. To be clear, excessive wealth concentration poses risks—most notably to political integrity. Transparent rules for campaign financing and party contributions are essential to minimize the undue influence of money. Core welfare services, such as education and health care, should not become overly dependent on private funding, otherwise they would tie the quality of care to personal wealth—and in the process deepen inequality. The solution is not to curb wealth itself but to safeguard the integrity of political institutions and ensure equitable access to public goods.
States should celebrate entrepreneurial success and foster competition by reducing regulatory burdens—especially those that disproportionately affect smaller and younger firms. Taxation on labor income should be modest enough to incentivize hard work and also allow for the accumulation of new wealth, while capital taxation should target income rather than wealth or inheritances. Public investment should focus on building the capabilities that let households become stakeholders—education, infrastructure, and a rules-based climate that rewards risk-taking. Such an agenda accepts that inequality can coexist with, and even flow from, broad prosperity. Frustration with privilege should be channeled into reforms that expand opportunity rather than cap success.
This agenda advances neither laissez-faire complacency nor egalitarian maximalism. It is an acknowledgment that the West's most remarkable achievement is not the fortune of a Jeff Bezos or Bernard Arnault but the mundane riches enjoyed by millions whose grandparents lived without antibiotics, central heating, or college degrees. Policymakers would do well to remember that progress before they diagnose calamity—and nurture the conditions that make it possible: secure property rights, open markets, and an efficient public sector powered by the very economic growth its advocates sometimes disparage.
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MOSCOW, May 19. /TASS/. Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya) is discussing with aviation authorities of many countries the possibility of resuming air traffic, the agency's head Dmitry Yadrov told reporters.
"We are constantly working with the Foreign Ministry, the Transport Ministry, and the Economic Development Ministry on international air traffic. We are in dialogue with the aviation authorities of many countries. Many countries that have suspended flights are ready to resume them," he said.
According to Yadrov, Russian airlines are ready to fly to certain countries, but they need guarantees that their aircraft will receive necessary maintenance and will not be subject to sanctions-related restrictions.
Currently, it is possible to fly from Russia to 38 countries without connecting flights, 17 of which are served by both domestic and foreign airlines.
BUCHAREST, May 19. /TASS/. Independent pro-European candidate and Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan received 53.93% of the votes after 99.4% of the ballots were counted, while his rival, the leader of the nationalist Alliance for the Union of Romanians George Simion, got 46.07%, the Permanent Electoral Authority reported.
Thus, Nicusor Dan became the fifth president of Romania after the fall of the totalitarian Ceausescu regime in 1989. Even before the results were fully summarized, the media announced him as the "mathematical" winner of the second round of the presidential election because he had received the necessary 50+1% of the vote after 92.4% of the votes had been counted.
Dan won a convincing victory among Romanians who voted in Romania, but lost to Simion among those who voted abroad. After counting 82% of ballots from the Romanian diaspora, Simion received 55.12% of the votes, while Dan got 44.88%.
Meanwhile, Dan won among Romanians in Russia and China, according to stiripesurse.ro. In Russia, where two polling stations were opened — in Moscow and Saint Petersburg — Dan received 58.65% of the votes, while Simion garnered 41.35%. The news outlet points out that only 115 Romanians voted in Russia. In China, Dan won 84.23% of the vote, while Simion won 15.77%. Dan also won the election among Romanians in Kazakhstan, Iran, India, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, and Uzbekistan.
The Alliance for the Union of Romanians recognized Nicusor Dan's election victory. "I would like to congratulate my opponent Nicusor Dan, he won the election," party leader George Simion said in a video posted on his Facebook (a social media site banned in Russia since it is owned by Meta corporation deemed extremist by the Russian authorities). "This was the will of the Romanian people. I want to thank all the more than five million Romanians who put their trust in me," he emphasized. Earlier reports indicated that Simion had called for mass protests against the alleged vote rigging.
Dan has already received congratulations from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, French President Emmanuel Macron, Moldovan President Maia Sandu, and Vladimir Zelensky.
An early-morning crash has torn one family apart, Toronto police said Sunday as they announced three children had died in a collision allegedly caused by an impaired teen driver.
Police revealed details at a news conference hours after the crash, which took place shortly after midnight at the eastbound off-ramp at Renforth Drive and Highway 401.
Acting Insp. Baheer Sarbanandan said a 19-year-old driving a Dodge Caravan eastbound on the highway was allegedly speeding while exiting at Renforth Drive. The driver allegedly lost control, went over a raised median and collided with a Chrysler Pacifica minivan that was facing northbound while stopped at a red light.
This was “a tragic collision that took away three children's lives,” Sarbanandan said.
Inside the minivan were a mother, her four children and a male acquaintance of the family.
Sarbanandan said two of the children—a 15-year-old and 13-year-old—were pronounced dead at the scene.
A six-year-old was taken to a nearby hospital and declared dead some time later.
The 40-year-old man behind the wheel, a 35-year-old woman and a 10-year-old child are currently in hospital and are in stable condition. Their names were not immediately released.
Police said 19-year-old Ethan Lehouillier of Georgetown, Ont., was arrested at the scene and is facing 12 charges, including three counts of impaired driving causing death and three counts of impaired driving causing bodily harm.
“We educate the public of the dangers of drinking and driving and this is a result: a family is torn apart,” said Sarbanandan.
He added one person's decision to drive impaired wound up being “a fatal decision.”
Police are appealing to witnesses who saw the Dodge Caravan travelling eastbound on the 401 to come forward with information. They are also looking for dashcam footage, Sarbanandan said.
The crash comes nearly a decade after a comparable incident in September 2015 in which another impaired driver caused the deaths of three children and their grandfather.
On Sept. 27, 2015, Daniel Neville-Lake, 9, his brother Harrison, 5, and sister Milly, 2, and Gary Neville, 65, died after the crash in Vaughan, Ont. The children's grandmother and great-grandmother were also seriously injured.
Marco Muzzo was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty in 2016 to four counts of impaired driving causing death and two of impaired driving causing bodily harm. He is also under a 12-year driving ban.
Muzzo was granted full parole in February 2021 and subjected to a number of conditions including that he stay out of Brampton, Ont., and the Regional Municipality of York.
Jennifer Neville-Lake, the children's mother, made a post of “grief and solidarity” with the victims of Sunday's crash in an afternoon Instagram post.
I'm heartbroken after hearing the news,“ she wrote in the caption to a photo depicting several pale yellow and blue packets of forget-me-not, sunflower and moonflower seeds. ”I am so so sorry.”
In the coming week, the Republicans' battle to shape a measure that cuts both spending and taxes will take centre stage. The U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, on May 18.Annabelle Gordon/Reuters
In a profession that the American public considers full of low-lifes, there's a struggle under way over who has the high road.
That's the key question this week for Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress, as they battle to produce the “big, beautiful” spending bill that President Donald Trump considers one of his highest priorities.
It's also the principal philosophical question for Democrats, without the White House power base for five of the past eight years and with minority status in Congress. They are engaged in a parallel struggle over how to get out of their post-Joe Biden funk and lure back from the GOP the blue-collar voters who were the nucleus of the New Deal coalition.
Stymied late last week on deporting migrants by the Supreme Court he packed with three appointees – all of whom voted to halt his policy – Mr. Trump is looking for a big domestic victory to pair with what he considers the artful deals he made with his trip to the Middle East. That presidential voyage had more the air of a state governor's 1980s trade mission to Asia than earlier presidential visits to the Middle East by Republicans from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush, which generally were aimed at festering international issues and had underpinnings of diplomacy rather than commerce.
In the coming week, the Republicans' battle to shape a measure that cuts both spending and taxes will take centre stage. The GOP battle of the deficit bulge will allow Democrats to stand aside for a rare pleasant moment and watch their partisan rivals tear each other apart over which Republicans are the purest on budget issues, which are the more loyal MAGA foot soldiers, and which have the more virtuous views of the purpose of political power itself.
Naturally, the political figures who are engaged in this triptych of tussle all think they have the high road, when in real life politicians regard the high road the way Robert Frost did in a beloved 1915 poem: The Road Not Taken.
“Claiming the high ground has a long, rich tradition,” Democratic Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts, who has been in Congress for 49 years, said in an interview. “The Republicans have the high ground when they talk about rooting out waste and enhancing government efficiency, but when it comes to cutting student loans and slashing Medicaid they're on shaky ground with tens of millions across the country.”
This week it will be fight time – and showtime – on Capitol Hill.
Even if, in a rare 10:00 meeting Sunday night, the House budget committee finesses the issues separating the Republicans, there likely will be a fight on the floor of the chamber.
The Republicans need 217 votes in the House. Though avoidance is a time-honoured, favoured political tactic, this chore cannot be avoided. Mr. Trump wants the House to pass a spending bill this week. It then must pass the Senate, where it will be tested by different GOP schisms.
The Republicans have 220 House members, meaning they can afford only three defections. More than double that number – an estimate, because it's impossible to know which lawmakers will bend and which won't – consider themselves “budget hawks.” They are resolute, for now, in demanding steep cuts in spending, especially in Medicaid, the health care program for the poor. Also at issue: the timing for implementing work requirements for Medicaid and the elimination of clean-energy tax credits, a priority in the oil belt.
Passing a spending bill with these moving parts would be tough enough in ordinary circumstances.
But this is a period when Republicans, now in thrall of the Trump notion that reform is an insufficient tactic when destruction of established political conventions and agencies is more meritorious, believe there is righteousness in rebellion. To many of them, the budget cuts in the package endorsed by the House leadership reflect their colleagues' timidity, are insufficiently deep, and are too protective of established precepts and programs.
Then there is the President, who advocates deep program cuts but also deep tax cuts. He's not an old-time-religion anti-deficit evangelist. He's a preacher of the low-tax gospel.
The combination of all that makes compromise, in olden times the lubricant of legislation, odious – and thus elusive.
That's without adding the argument – gaining some support in a party seeking to consolidate its appeal to the poor and striving, once the heart of the Democrats' winning coalition – that cutting health care for the poor is bad politics, and also bad morals. That argument will be more prominent when the measure reaches the Senate.
The Democrats aren't immune to intraparty intransigence, even though it was Michelle Obama who coined the phrase “When they go low, we go high” at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.
Their fight is whether to veer into the middle lane of American politics or to turn sharply left.
The left-leaning purists believe the high road (and a return to power of the Democrats) consists of protecting the poor, boosting the prospects of the middle class, supporting ethnic and gender minorities, and fighting the plutocrats and the oligarchs – a word suddenly prominent in the party – whom they believe Mr. Trump personifies.
The self-proclaimed realists, on the other hand, believe Americans are recoiling from the liberal orthodoxy and identity politics that have come to define the Democrats in this age. The disdain for Mr. Trump the two groups share isn't a strong enough bond to permit them to plot a road ahead.
No wonder a YouGov poll last month showed politicians more often are disliked than liked by Americans, with Democrats only slightly less disliked than Republicans. And, according to the Gallup Poll, three out of five Americans have very little or no confidence in Congress.
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WASHINGTON, May 19. /TASS/. Vladimir Zelensky's meeting with US Vice President JD Vance in Rome took place amid Kiev's concern over US President Donald Trump's upcoming phone call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, The Washington Post reported, citing sources.
According to the newspaper, the Ukrainian side is experiencing "heightened anxieties" about the upcoming conversation between the leaders of the US and Russia. "Zelensky and his top aides want to make sure that talks between Putin and Trump won't deliver a fait accompli that Ukraine can't accept," the newspaper quoted a US diplomat as saying.
Earlier, Vance and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Zelensky in Rome for the first time since the White House dispute. According to the press service of Zelensky's office, following the meeting, he sent Trump a letter following the meeting with new proposals for cooperation between the two countries in the defense industrial complex and trade.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
The Supreme Court is pictured, Jan. 10, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to strip legal protections from 350,000 Venezuelans, potentially exposing them to deportation.
The court's order, with only one noted dissent, puts on hold a ruling from a federal judge in San Francisco that kept in place Temporary Protected Status for the Venezuelans that would have otherwise expired last month. The justices provided no rationale, which is common in emergency appeals.
The status allows people already in the United States to live and work legally because their native countries are deemed unsafe for return due to natural disaster or civil strife.
The high court's order appears to be the “single largest action in modern American history stripping any group of non-citizens of immigration status,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, one of the attorneys for Venezuelan migrants.
“This decision will force families to be in an impossible position either choosing to survive or choosing stability,” said Cecilia Gonzalez Herrera, who sued to try and stop the Trump administration from revoking legal protections from her and others like her.
“Venezuelans are not criminals,” Gonzalez Herrera said.
“We all deserve the chance to thrive without being sent back to danger,” she said.
The ramifications for the hundreds of thousands of people affected aren't yet clear, Arulanantham said. The Homeland Security Department did not immediately comment on the Supreme Court's order.
A federal appeals court had earlier rejected the administration's request to put the order on hold while the lawsuit continues. A hearing is set for next week in front of U.S. District Judge Edward Chen, who had paused the administration's plans.
The case is the latest in a string of emergency appeals President Donald Trump's administration has made to the Supreme Court, many of them related to immigration and involving Venezuela. Last week, the government asked the court to allow it to end humanitarian parole for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, setting them up for potential deportation as well.
The Supreme Court is pictured, Jan. 10, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
The high court also has been involved in slowing Trump's efforts to swiftly deport Venezuelans accused of being gang members to a prison in El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act.
The complex economic and political crisis in Venezuela has driven more than 7.7 million people to leave the South American nation since 2013. Venezuela's most recent economic troubles pushed year-over-year inflation in April to 172%. The latest chapter even prompted President Nicolás Maduro to declare an “economic emergency” last month. Maduro, whose reelection last year to a third term has been condemned internationally as illegitimate, also has cracked down on his political opponents.
In the dispute over TPS, the administration has moved aggressively to withdraw various protections that have allowed immigrants to remain in the country, including ending the temporary protected status for a total of 600,000 Venezuelans and 500,000 Haitians. That status is granted in 18-month increments. Venezuela was first designated for TPS in 2021; Haiti, in 2010.
The protections had been set to expire April 7, but Chen found that the expiration threatened to severely disrupt the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and could cost billions in lost economic activity.
Chen, who was appointed to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama, found the government hadn't shown any harm caused by keeping the program alive.
But Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote on behalf of the administration that Chen's order impermissibly interferes with the administration's power over immigration and foreign affairs.
In addition, Sauer told the justices, people affected by ending the protected status might have other legal options to try to remain in the country because the “decision to terminate TPS is not equivalent to a final removal order.”
Congress created TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she would have rejected the administration's emergency appeal.
___
Associated Press writers Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, Gisela Solomon in Miami and Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
President Joe Biden speaks from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — In Joe Biden's family, there's a saying that the three worst words anyone can hear are “you have cancer.”
One decade ago, his son Beau died from a brain tumor. Several years later, his wife Jill had two cancerous lesions removed in her own brush with the disease.
Now it is the former president's turn. Biden's office disclosed his prostate cancer diagnosis over the weekend, saying it has already spread to his bones.
Although the cancer can possibly be controlled with treatment, it is no longer curable. The announcement is a bitter revelation that a disease that has brought so much tragedy to Biden's life could be what ends it.
“Cancer touches us all,” Biden wrote on social media. “Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places.”
Even before the diagnosis, Biden's post-presidency was shadowed by questions about his health and whether he should have run for reelection. As questions about his fitness for office mounted, he abandoned the campaign and Donald Trump retook the presidency by defeating Kamala Harris. As the 82-year-old Biden works to safeguard his damaged political legacy, he'll also be fighting a disease that shaped the final chapters of his decades-long career.
Biden was serving as Barack Obama's vice president when Beau died in 2015. He decided not to seek the Democratic nomination the following year, which helped clear a path for Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016.
Valerie Jarrett, a longtime Obama adviser, said Biden wanted to “channel his grief into action and figure out how we can do better” on treating cancer to “make sure that other people didn't have to go through what he went through.”
The effort was formalized as a White House task force, with Biden in charge. After a few years out of office, Biden re-entered politics to campaign against Trump in 2020. The heartache from Beau's death was never far from the surface though. His eldest son had been Delaware's attorney general and often viewed as Biden's political successor.
“Beau should be the one running for president, not me,” Biden said, a thought he echoed on many occasions.
He made fighting cancer a focus for his presidency, resurrecting a “moonshot” initiative to increase funding for research and improve treatment. He unveiled the initiative at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in 2022, echoing the Democratic icon's famous speech declaring that “we will go to the moon” six decades earlier.
“Beating cancer is something we can do together,” Biden said.
By this point, he had already signed legislation known as the PACT Act to expand healthcare benefits for veterans. The law guarantees treatment for chronic illnesses blamed on burn pits, which were used to dispose of chemicals, tires, plastics, medical equipment and human waste on military bases.
Biden left no doubt that he believed Beau's death resulted from his service with the National Guard in Iraq.
“When they came home, many of the fittest and best warriors that we sent to war were not the same — headaches, numbness, dizziness, cancer,” he said. “My son Beau was one of them.”
Denis McDonough, who led the Veterans Affairs Department under Biden, said the president didn't talk about Beau's death during policy discussions. But he said it was clear that Biden “knew the experience that other families were having, and he was going to be damn sure that we weren't going to miss an opportunity to address that.”
McDonough recalled that Biden wanted the new law to take effect as quickly as possible.
“He had an option to stretch it out,” he said. “He said no way.”
The following year, first lady Jill Biden had two cancerous lesions removed, one above her right eye and the other on her chest. They were both basal cell carcinoma.
Learning of the diagnosis “was a little harder than I thought,” she told The Associated Press during a trip to Africa.
“I'm lucky,” she said. “Believe me, I am so lucky that they caught it, they removed it, and I'm healthy.”
Biden's cancer diagnosis is not the first time that he's faced his own mortality.
Months after ending his first presidential campaign in 1988, he collapsed in a New York hotel room. In his memoir “Promises to Keep,” he described “lightning flashing inside my head, a powerful electrical surge — and then a rip of pain like I'd never felt before.”
He had suffered a brain aneurysm that required surgery. Biden wrote that “I had no real fear of dying. I'd long since accepted the fact that life's guarantees don't include a fair shake.”
McDonough imagined that Biden would feel similarly about his current situation.
“He's always on to the next fight,” he said.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Israel has launched a new wave of air and ground operations across Gaza, and the army ordered the evacuation of the enclave's second-largest city, Khan Younis, where Israel carried out a massive operation earlier in the war that left much of the area in ruins.
The Israeli military released a video on Monday showing what they say are troops operating in the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile after a nearly three-month blockade and warnings by global experts of impeding famine, Israel says it will allow a limited amount of humanitarian aid into Gaza even as it launches “extensive” new ground operations there.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the Israeli military was entering the Gaza Strip “with force”. “As we promised, we have launched a powerful campaign against Hamas,” said Netanyahu.
Doctors worked to treat injured children on Monday at a hospital in southern Gaza. A group of Palestinian men also sat by the wrapped body of a leader of the armed wing of a Palestinian militant group which said he was killed in a shootout during an Israeli operation in Khan Younis.
Palestinians began evacuating Gaza's second-largest city, Khan Younis on Monday after Israel ordered its evacuation. Israel has stepped up its offensive in Gaza in what it says is a bid to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages abducted in the October 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war.
Displaced Palestinians flee from Khan Younis, Gaza, amid the ongoing Israeli military offensive in the area, on Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Displaced Palestinians flee from Khan Younis, Gaza, amid the ongoing Israeli military offensive in the area, on Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians line up for donated food at a community kitchen in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip, Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip are seen beyond a sunflower field on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza, Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The first few aid trucks have entered Gaza following nearly three months of Israel's blockade of food, medicine and other supplies, Israel and the United Nations said Monday, as Israel acknowledged growing pressure from allies including the United States.
Five trucks carrying baby food and other desperately needed aid entered the territory of over 2 million Palestinians via the Kerem Shalom crossing, according to the Israeli defense body in charge of coordinating aid to Gaza, COGAT.
The U.N. humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, called it a “welcome development” but described the trucks as a “drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed.” Food security experts last week warned of famine in Gaza. During the latest ceasefire that Israel ended in March, some 600 aid trucks entered Gaza each day.
Fletcher said an additional four U.N. trucks were cleared to enter Gaza. Those trucks may enter Tuesday, COGAT said. Fletcher added that given the chaotic situation on the ground, the U.N. expects the aid could be looted or stolen, a growing problem as resources became increasingly scarce.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his decision to resume “minimal” aid to Gaza came after allies said they couldn't support Israel's new military offensive if there are “images of hunger” coming from the Palestinian territory.
Shortly after Israel announced the first trucks entered Gaza, the U.K., France and Canada issued a sharply worded joint statement calling the aid “wholly inadequate.” They threatened “concrete actions” against Israel, including sanctions, for its activities in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, calling on Israel to stop it “egregious” new military actions in Gaza.
There was no immediate Israeli comment.
Israel over the weekend launched a new wave of air and ground operations across Gaza, and the army ordered the evacuation of its second-largest city, Khan Younis, where a massive operation earlier in the 19-month war left much of the area in ruins.
Israel says it is pressuring Hamas to release the remaining hostages abducted in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war. Hamas has said it will only release them in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal.
Netanyahu repeated Monday that Israel plans on “taking control of all of Gaza.” He has said Israel will encourage what he describes as the voluntary emigration of much of Gaza's population to other countries — something that Palestinians have rejected.
In a video statement, Netanyahu said Israel's “greatest friends in the world” had told him, “We cannot accept images of hunger, mass hunger. We cannot stand that. We will not be able to support you.”
The Trump administration, which has voiced full support for Israel's actions and blames Hamas for deaths in Gaza, has expressed growing concern over the hunger crisis. President Donald Trump — who skipped Israel on his trip to the region last week — voiced concern, as did Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Netanyahu's video statement appeared aimed at pacifying anger in his nationalist base at the decision to resume aid. Two far-right governing partners have pressed Netanyahu not to allow aid into Gaza.
Aid into Gaza would be “minimal,” Netanyahu said, and would act as a bridge toward the launch of a new aid system in Gaza. A U.S.-backed organization will distribute assistance in hubs that will be secured by the Israeli military.
Israel says the plan is meant to prevent Hamas from accessing aid, which Israel says it uses to bolster its rule in Gaza.
U.N. agencies and aid groups have rejected the plan, saying it won't reach enough people and would weaponize aid in contravention of humanitarian principles. They have refused to take part.
According to aid officials familiar with the plan, it will involve setting up distribution points mostly in southern Gaza, forcing many Palestinians to move south once again. The recent ceasefire saw hundreds of thousands return to homes in the north.
The statement by France, Canada and the U.K. marked one of their most significant criticisms of Israel's handling of the war in Gaza and Israel's actions in the occupied West Bank.
“We oppose any attempt to expand settlements in the West Bank,” the three countries said, calling them illegal.
The countries said they have always supported Israel's right to defend itself against terrorism but called the military escalation in Gaza disproportionate. The countries earlier criticized the new U.S.-backed proposal for aid delivery in Gaza, saying it would not align with humanitarian law.
Canada has already imposed a series of sanctions against Israel over the last two years regarding settler violence in the West Bank. It was unclear how much France can act unilaterally given that it is a member of the European Union.
In a separate, letter Monday, the foreign ministers of Germany, Italy, Japan and 18 other countries — not including the United States — called for Israel to fully reopen humanitarian aid delivery to Gaza by U.N. and NGOs.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 others. The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel's retaliatory offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
The war has displaced around 90% of its population, most of them multiple times.
___
Magdy reported from Cairo and Shurafa from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Farmoush Amiri in New York, Sam Mednick in Jerusalem, Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel contributed.
___
Follow AP's war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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At first, behavioral ecologist Zoë Goldsborough thought the small figure seen on the back of a capuchin monkey in her camera trap footage was just a baby capuchin. But something, she said, seemed off. A closer look revealed the figure's unexpected coloration. She quickly sent a screenshot to her research collaborators. They were perplexed.
“I realized that it was really something that we hadn't seen before,” Goldsborough said.
Further observation of the video and cross-checking among researchers revealed that the small figure was actually a monkey of a different species — a baby howler.
“I was shocked,” Goldsborough said.
As Goldsborough searched through the rest of her footage, she noticed the same adult monkey — a white-faced capuchin nicknamed “Joker” for the scar on his mouth — carrying a baby howler monkey in other clips, too. Then, she noticed other male capuchins, known scientifically as Cebus capucinus imitator, doing the same thing. But why?
Using 15 months of camera-trap footage from their research site on Jicarón Island, a small island 55 kilometers (34 miles) off the coast of Panama and part of Coiba National Park, Goldsborough's collaborators from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, University of Konstanz, and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, among others, studied the odd behavior to find an answer.
They found that, starting with Joker, four subadult and juvenile male capuchin monkeys had abducted at least 11 infant howler monkeys between January 2022 and March 2023. With no evidence of the capuchins eating, caring for or playing with the infants, the study authors suspect the kidnapping behavior is a kind of “cultural fad” — and potentially a symptom of the monkeys' unique conditions in the ecosystem of Jicarón. They reported their initial findings Monday in the journal Current Biology.
Still, many questions remain. And unraveling the mystery could be crucial, the researchers said. The howler population on Jicarón is an endangered subspecies of mantled howler monkeys, Alouatta palliata coibensis, according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, a global assessment of species' vulnerability to extinction. Additionally, howler monkey moms give birth only once every two years, on average.
Examining the capuchin kidnapper case “was kind of like a roller coaster where we kept having different interpretations, and then we would find something that proved that wrong,” said Goldsborough, the study's lead author and a doctoral student with the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and University of Konstanz.
Jicarón Island is uninhabited by humans. With no electricity and a rocky terrain, scientists have to haul their gear and other materials to the island with boats when the tides are right, making in-person observations of the skittish capuchin monkeys difficult. That's why they use camera traps: hidden, motion-triggered cameras that capture photos and videos of the ground-dwelling capuchins.
But there's a major limitation to their work: You don't know what you can't see, and the camera traps don't capture what's happening in the treetops, where howler monkeys live. So, the study team couldn't definitively confirm how, when, or why capuchins abducted the babies.
At first, the researchers thought it was a rare, one-time case of adoption. Monkeys have been known to “adopt” abandoned infants of the same or other species. But Joker wasn't caring for the howlers — he was just carrying them on his back, with no clear benefit to himself, until the infants eventually perished of starvation without access to breast milk.
It's an odd behavior for male primates, said Pedro Dias, a primatologist at Veracruzana University in Mexico who studies Mexico's mantled howler monkeys and was not involved in the research. In primatology, it's fairly common to find females adopting or abducting infants to then care for them as a maternal instinct, he said. But on Jicarón, the males were not providing maternal care.
When behavioral ecologist Corinna Most first read about the Jicarón monkey kidnappings, she suspected something else was going on. “They're probably eating these babies,” said Most, an adjunct associate professor at Iowa State University who studies baboons, of her initial thoughts.
Abduction for predation isn't uncommon in the animal world, added Most, who was not involved with the research. But as she learned more about the team's observations, she was surprised to find that wasn't happening in this case, either.
Instead, the capuchins toted around the baby howlers for days with few interactions — no play, minimal aggression and little interest. Why they would exert the energy to steal babies is largely unclear, said study coauthor Brendan Barrett, a behavioral ecologist and Goldsborough's adviser.
However, it's important to note that these island capuchins evolved in a different environment from their mainland relatives, explained Barrett. Capuchins are “destructive, explorative agents of chaos,” he said. Even on the mainland, they rip things apart, hit wasp nests, wrestle with each other, harass other species and poke around just to see what happens.
On an island without predators, “that makes it less risky to do stupid things,” Barrett said. Island capuchins can also spread out since they don't need strength in numbers for protection, allowing them to explore.
With this relative safety and freedom, Jicarón's capuchin monkeys might be a bit bored, the researchers proposed.
Boredom, it turns out, could be a key driver of innovation — particularly on islands, and particularly among younger individuals of a species. This idea is the focus of Goldsborough's thesis research on Jicarón and Coiba's capuchins, the only monkey populations in these areas that have been observed using stones as tools to crack nuts. Consistent with the abductions, it's only the males who use tools on Jicarón, which remains a mystery to the researchers.
“We know that cultural innovation, in several cases, is linked to the youngest and not the oldest,” Dias said.
For example, evidence of potato-washing behavior in macaques on Japan's Koshima Island was first observed in a young female nicknamed Imo.
There are a few possible reasons for this, Dias explained. Adolescence is a time during which primates are independent from their mothers, when they start to forage and explore on their own. At that stage the monkeys also aren't fully integrated into their group's society yet.
Over-imitation — a tendency in human children to imitate the behavior of others even if they don't understand it — could possibly be at play as well, Most said.
This over-imitation isn't found in other animals, Most emphasized, but, “I almost feel like this is what these other capuchins are doing,” perhaps as a way to socially bond with Joker, she observed.
Most said she has usually thought that necessity, rather than free time, is the mother of invention in nature. But “this paper makes a good case for (the idea that) maybe sometimes animals that are really smart, like capuchins, just get bored,” she noted.
People and other primates famously share a certain level of intelligence defined by tool usage and other metrics, but some shared traits could be less desirable, Goldsborough said.
“One of the ways we are different from many animals is that we have many of these sort of arbitrary, nearly functionless cultural traditions that really harm other animals,” she added.
As a kid growing up in the northeastern United States, Barrett said he used to catch frogs and lightning bugs in mason jars while exploring the outdoors. While he never meant to hurt them, he knows those activities usually aren't pleasant for the animal.
It's possible that the capuchins' kidnapping behavior is similarly arbitrary — if not moderately entertaining for them. Barrett and Goldsborough said they hope this new behavior fades away, much like fads among humans come and go. Or perhaps the howler monkeys will catch onto what's happening and adapt their behavior to better protect their babies, Goldsborough added.
“It kind of is like a mirror that reflects upon ourselves,” Barrett said, “of us seemingly doing things to other species that can harm them and seem atrocious that have no real purpose.”
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A federal judge ruled Monday that the Trump administration unlawfully removed the board of the US Institute of Peace earlier this year and that subsequent actions taken by officials installed by the Department of Government Efficiency to cripple the agency are therefore “null and void.”
The lengthy ruling from US District Judge Beryl Howell is the latest defeat for the Trump administration in its attempts to exert authority over independent agencies.
USIP is not a federal agency within the executive branch. It was created by Congress as a nonpartisan, independent body in 1984 and owns and manages its headquarters.
“The President second-guessed the judgment of Congress and President Reagan in creating USIP 40 years ago,” Howell, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, wrote in the 102-page ruling.
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Supreme Court lets Trump move toward ending temporary deportation protections for Venezuelans
In March, the Trump administration fired most of USIP's board and acting President George Moose, and the three remaining board members — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Defense University President Peter Garvin — said they were installing Kenneth Jackson as acting USIP president.
Days later, DOGE personnel, accompanied by Washington, DC, police, gained access to the headquarters after having been turned away during an earlier attempt. Some USIP officials remained in the building after DOGE's arrival, including Moose, a retired career diplomat. He was later forced to exit the building by DC police.
Shortly after, USIP filed suit against the administration in an effort to stop its dismantlement and the transfer of its private building and endowment to the federal government.
Howell wrote that Trump and his subordinates “used brute force and threats of criminal process to take over USIP's headquarters, despite being cautioned that this organization did not fall within the Executive branch and its leadership was not subject to the President's unilateral Executive branch removal power.”
“This Administration then went even further, taking severe actions to dissemble USIP, including terminating its appointed Board members, its expert management, its dedicated staff and contractors located in both Washington, D.C. and around the world, and dispersing its assets and headquarters building,” the judge wrote. “These actions against USIP were unlawful.”
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Former Arizona Supreme Court Judge Andrew Gould discusses the U.S. Supreme Court blocking the Trump administration's deportations of suspected Venezuelan gang members under the Alien Enemies Act on 'Fox Report.'
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to lift a lower court injunction that blocked President Donald Trump's decision to terminate the protected legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants living in the U.S., in a win for the administration as it looks to deliver on its hard-line immigration enforcement policies.
The decision clears the way for the Trump administration to move forward with its plans to terminate Biden-era Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protections for roughly 300,000 Venezuelan migrants living in the U.S. and allows the administration to move forward with plans to immediately remove these migrants, which lawyers for the administration argued they should be able to do.
U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer argued as much when he asked the Supreme Court to lift the injunction this month, arguing in an emergency appeal that a lower court judge had overstepped their authority by blocking the administration from ending the program for certain Venezuelans.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ASKS SUPREME COURT TO REVIEW EL SALVADOR DEPORTATION FLIGHT CASE
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem (Jabin Botsford/Washington Post via Getty Images)
"The district court's reasoning is untenable," Sauer told the high court, adding that the program "implicates particularly discretionary, sensitive, and foreign-policy-laden judgments of the Executive Branch regarding immigration policy."
At issue was the TPS program, which allows people from certain countries to live and work in the U.S. legally if they cannot work safely in their home country due to a disaster, armed conflict or other "extraordinary and temporary conditions."
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Trump's administration seeks to end protected status for certain migrants. (Getty Images)
The protections were extended during the end of the Biden administration, shortly before Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in February abruptly terminated the program for a specific group of Venezuelan nationals, arguing they were not in the national interest.
In March, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California agreed to keep the protections in place, siding with plaintiffs from the National TPS Alliance in ruling that the termination of the TPS program, which is extended in 18-month increments, is "unprecedented" and suggested that the abrupt termination may have been "predicated on negative stereotypes" about Venezuelan migrants.
U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images)
Sauer disputed this in the appeal to the Supreme Court. In it, he also accused the lower court judge of improperly intruding on the executive branch's authority over immigration policy.
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"Forceful condemnations of gang violence and broad questioning of the integrity of the prior administration's immigration practices, including potential abuses of the TPS program, do not evince discriminatory intent," Sauer said, describing Chen's descriptions as "cherry-picked" and "wrongly portrayed" as "racially tinged."
Fox News's Shannon Bream and Bill Mears contributed to this report.
Breanne Deppisch is a national politics reporter for Fox News Digital covering the Trump administration, with a focus on the Justice Department, FBI, and other national news.
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Former Arizona Supreme Court Judge Andrew Gould discusses the United States Supreme Court blocking the Trump administration's deportations of suspected Venezuelan gang members under the Alien Enemies Act on 'Fox Report.'
The Supreme Court on Monday lifted an injunction against the Trump administration, allowing it to move ahead, for now, with its plans to end protections for hundreds of thousands of migrants in the U.S.
The decision is a victory for the Trump administration, allowing it to move forward with its plans to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protections for hundreds of thousands of people who came to the U.S. through parole processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans.
The TPS program provides legal status and work permits for these individuals.
This is a breaking news story. Updates to come.
Breanne Deppisch is a national politics reporter for Fox News Digital covering the Trump administration, with a focus on the Justice Department, FBI, and other national news.
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The Supreme Court is seen in Washington, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
The Supreme Court is pictured, Jan. 10, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
Supreme Court is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to strip legal protections from 350,000 Venezuelans, potentially exposing them to deportation.
The court's order, with only one noted dissent, puts on hold a ruling from a federal judge in San Francisco that kept in place Temporary Protected Status for the Venezuelans that would have otherwise expired last month. The justices provided no rationale, which is common in emergency appeals.
The status allows people already in the United States to live and work legally because their native countries are deemed unsafe for return due to natural disaster or civil strife.
A federal appeals court had earlier rejected the administration's request to put the order on hold while the lawsuit continues.
The case is the latest in a string of emergency appeals President Donald Trump's administration has made to the Supreme Court, many of them related to immigration. Last week, the government asked the court to allow it to end humanitarian parole for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, setting them up for potential deportation as well.
The high court also has been involved in legal battles over Trump's efforts to swiftly deport Venezuelans accused of being gang members to a prison in El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act.
The administration has moved aggressively to withdraw various protections that have allowed immigrants to remain in the country, including ending the temporary protected status for a total of 600,000 Venezuelans and 500,000 Haitians. That status is granted in 18-month increments.
The protections had been set to expire April 7, but U.S. District Judge Edward Chen ordered a pause on those plans. He found that the expiration threatened to severely disrupt the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and could cost billions in lost economic activity.
Chen, who was appointed to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama, found the government hadn't shown any harm caused by keeping the program alive.
But Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote on behalf of the administration that Chen's order impermissibly interferes with the administration's power over immigration and foreign affairs.
In addition, Sauer told the justices, people affected by ending the protected status might have other legal options to try to remain in the country because the “decision to terminate TPS is not equivalent to a final removal order.”
Congress created TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she would have rejected the administration's emergency appeal.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
CORRECTS NAME SPELLING: Witness Dawn Richard testifies in Manhattan federal court during the sex trafficking and racketeering trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs, Monday, May 19, 2025, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
Witness Kerry Morgan arrives at Federal Court for the Sean “Diddy” Combs trial on Monday, May 19, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)
Cassie Ventura, left, and Sean “Diddy” Combs appear at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating “China: Through the Looking Glass” in New York on May 4, 2015. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)
Dawn Richard arrives at the 66th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
Witness Kerry Morgan arrives at Federal Court for teh Sean “Diddy” Combs trial, on Monday, May 19, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)
NEW YORK (AP) — Singer Dawn Richard told jurors at Sean “Diddy” Combs' sex trafficking trial on Monday that the hip-hop mogul threatened to kill her if she told anyone she saw him physically abusing his longtime girlfriend.
Richard testified that Combs made the threat the day after she witnessed the Bad Boy Records founder punch and kick Casandra “Cassie” Ventura after taking a swing at her with a skillet. Richard said he told her and another woman who saw the attack that “we could go missing” if they didn't stay quiet.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitzi Steiner asked Richard what she took “we could go missing” to mean.
“That we could die,” Richard responded, saying she was shocked because all of this happened just as she was beginning to record with Diddy — Dirty Money, a musical trio with Combs and another R&B singer.
Richard disclosed the alleged threat as she returned to the witness stand to kick off the second week of testimony in Combs' sex trafficking and racketeering trial in Manhattan federal court.
Later Monday, Cassie's onetime best friend and former roommate, Kerry Morgan, testified that Combs left her with a concussion after choking her and then slinging a wooden hanger at her in 2018 when he came to Cassie's Los Angeles home enraged because he thought Cassie was dating someone else.
Morgan said she was going to sue Combs, but Cassie met her at a pizza parlor and had her sign a non-disclosure agreement in return for $30,000 from Combs while accusing her of “milking” and “overexaggerating” the attack. The episode ended the women's 17-year friendship, with Morgan and Cassie both testifying that they haven't spoken since.
Morgan, a reluctant witness who acknowledged that she only testified in response to a government subpoena, said she saw Combs beat Cassie at least twice, including once so severely that she thought her friend had been “knocked out.”
She said she encouraged Cassie to break up with him after realizing that the very confident woman she had met in 2001 during modeling gigs had “lost her spark” and had assumed a slumped posture as she catered to Combs' needs. But she said Cassie was reluctant to end the relationship.
“He controlled everything. She would've lost all of her livelihood,” Morgan said, noting that Combs paid for Cassie's car and apartment, and had her under contract with Bad Boy.
Combs, 55, is accused of exploiting his entertainment powerbroker status to abuse women, including Cassie, through threats and violence. He has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers argue prosecutors compiled proof of domestic violence, but not the federal crimes charged.
During four days of testifying last week, Cassie said she wanted a loving relationship in her nearly 11 years with Combs but was instead subjected to repeated drug-fueled “freak-offs” with male sex workers that left her too exhausted and damaged to pursue her music career.
Shortly after Cassie finished testifying, Richard took the stand and said she witnessed Combs attack Cassie on multiple occasions, including during a visit to Combs' home recording studio in 2009, when Richard said she and another woman saw Combs hit Cassie “on the head and beat her on the ground.”
She said Combs tried to hit Cassie over the head with a skillet, but Cassie was able to deflect it.
On Monday, Steiner asked Richard how often she witnessed Combs beat his girlfriend.
“Frequently,” Richard said. “He would punch her, choke her, drag her, slap her in the mouth. I saw him kick her, punch her in the stomach.”
Witness Dawn Richard testifies in Manhattan federal court during the sex trafficking and racketeering trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs, Monday, May 19, 2025, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
Richard said that on other occasions, she saw Combs punch Cassie in the face with a closed fist and that she saw him punch her in the stomach during an argument at a restaurant.
Cassie used makeup, clothing and sunglasses to cover up injuries, which included bruising on her face, eyes, lip, arms and knees, Richard said.
Richard testified that the beatings sometimes occurred when Cassie spoke up for herself, “if she had an opinion about something.”
At other times, she said, “it could be random. We wouldn't even know where it came from.”
Richard, who also performed in the group Danity Kane, said Combs' staff, including his bodyguards, also witnessed violence.
“They wouldn't react. They wouldn't do anything,” Richard testified.
Richard supported Cassie's testimony that Combs had stifled Cassie's fledgling singing career, saying she heard Combs tell Cassie that he “owned her” and that any success she had would be on his terms.
“It would come when he said it would come,” Richard said.
Bad Boy signed Cassie to a 10-album deal in 2006, but only released one — the self-titled “Cassie,” which came out the same year. Cassie and Combs started dating in 2007 and broke up for good in 2018.
Cassie testified last week that although she continued to go to the recording studio and work on songs, Combs refused to release them.
“He was in charge of her career,” Morgan testified, adding that Cassie sometimes expressed frustration that her music wasn't being released.
Richard said Combs would get mad — sometimes violent — when she and other artists offered to help Cassie write songs.
“Mr. Combs didn't like that when we talked to Cassie and oftentimes, we would pay for it,” Richard testified, adding: “If you didn't stay in line, there was consequences.”
She recalled Combs cursing and telling her to stay out of his relationship.
Defense lawyer Nicole Westmoreland suggested that Richard was testifying because she was angry with Combs for ending Danity Kane and Diddy — Dirty Money, and because she has a pending lawsuit against him.
“You felt that Mr. Combs ruined your career not once but twice?” Westmoreland asked.
“Yes,” Richard answered.
She contended, though, that she was sad, not angry, over the end of the groups, and is suing Combs because he mistreated her and withheld earnings.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Residents in London, Kentucky are digging through tornado-stricken neighborhoods after severe storms killed at least 19 people across the state. (AP video: Carolyn Kaster)
At least 19 people were killed after weekend storms moved through Kentucky–including a devastating tornado that damaged hundreds of homes, tossed vehicles and left many people homeless. (AP video: Carolyn Kaster)
Severe storms killed at least 18 people in Kentucky with 10 more hospitalized in critical condition, authorities said. Gov. Andy Beshear said the death toll could still rise. (AP video: Dylan Lovan & Carolyn Kaster)
Redeemer Lutheran Church is damaged, Sunday, May 18, 2025, along Highway 27 in Somerset, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
A piano rests atop what is left of the destroyed Sunshine Hill Baptist Church, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
A path of destroyed homes is seen, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
An American Flag is posted near destroyed homes, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Family friend Melvin Brock, right, finds a photo as he sifts through what is left of Wilson's destroyed home, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Edwina Wilson holds a photo she found in what is left of her destroyed home, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Macey Coffey carries salvageable items from what isleft of Edwina Wilson's destroyed home, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Edwina Wilson stands in what is left of her destroyed home, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
A resident holds her grandson's tory train as she looks for salvageable items of her daughter's destroyed home, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Redeemer Lutheran Church is damaged, Sunday, May 18, 2025, along Highway 27 in Somerset, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
A billboard and Speedway gas station are damaged, Sunday, May 18, 2025, along Highway 27 in Somerset, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
LONDON, Ky. (AP) — Officials in Kansas and Texas were evaluating damage on Monday after tornadoes touched down overnight, just days after more than two dozen people were killed in storms that swept through parts of the Midwest and South.
Kentucky was hardest hit by last week's storms. A devastating tornado damaged hundreds of homes, tossed vehicles, left many homeless, and killed at least 19 people, most of them in southeastern Laurel County.
“We have 1,001 things going on. But we're managing it. And we're going to get it all cleaned up,” said London Mayor Randall Weddle at the city's small airport, which was a beehive of cleanup after it took a direct hit from a tornado. Officials were using it as a base to get water, food, diapers and other supplies out to the community.
Meteorologists predicted a fresh “multi-day” mix of dangerous weather conditions across the central U.S. with heavy rains, thunderstorms and potential tornadoes, according to the National Weather Service.
The Kentucky storms emerged from a weather system Friday that killed seven in Missouri and two in northern Virginia, authorities said. Damage assessments were underway Sunday as Kentucky readied its request for federal disaster assistance, Gov. Andy Beshear said.
In London, city worker Ashley Taylor was back at work Monday loading doughnuts to take to a hospital and dispatch center even though there was a tarp on her roof. She was lucky — the houses across her street were destroyed late Friday night.
She survived the storm with nine other people and three dogs in the crawl space of a neighbor's home,
“We prayed like never before — and just thankful for everything God did for us,” Taylor said.
Laurel County Fire Major Leslie Leatherman was one of the dead from the area. His fellow firefighters found his body shielding a woman who was yelling for help in a field near a destroyed subdivision. It turned out to be his wife and officials aren't sure if he knew who he was protecting in all the darkness and chaos, the fire department said on social media.
The city of Greensburg, Kansas, said on social media Monday morning that there were power outages but it was safe after the “storm scare.” In 2007, Greensburg was slammed by an EF5 tornado that was more than 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) wide and packed winds up to 205 mph (330kph), leveling more than 90% of the town of 1,400 and killing 12.
A powerful tornado tore through Reno County, Kansas, late Sunday, moving through rural areas and into the small community of Plevna, county Emergency Management officials said in a news release on Monday. The tornado damaged several homes, trees and utility poles, then continued to cause damage for about 5 miles (8 kilometers) north and east of the city. Damage was extensive, but no injuries or deaths were reported, officials said.
A National Weather Service team planned to head out Monday to survey Plevna tornado damage, said Andy Kleinsasser, a meteorologist with the service's office in Wichita. There were no known injuries or fatalities, Kleinsasser said. The tornado started in Stafford County and cut a path that was at least 20 miles (32.2 kilometers) long through Reno County, he said.
In the western part of Kansas, Interstate 70 was reduced to one lane near Grinnell, a town of 260 people, because of tornado damage and downed power lines.
In St. Louis, Mayor Cara Spencer said five people died, 38 were injured and more than 5,000 homes were affected on Friday. About 130 miles (210 kilometers) south, a tornado in Scott County killed two people, injured several others and destroyed several homes, Sheriff Derick Wheetley wrote on social media.
In Texas, possible tornados caused significant damage in Mingus and Gordon about 70 miles (112 kilometers) west of Fort Worth. Schools were damaged and classes canceled the rest of the week. No injuries or deaths were reported.
About 1,200 tornadoes strike the U.S. annually, and they have been reported in all 50 states. Researchers found in 2018 that deadly tornadoes were occurring less frequently in the traditional “Tornado Alley” of Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas and more frequently in parts of the more densely populated and tree-filled mid-South.
The Trump administration has massively cut staffing of National Weather Service offices, with outside experts worrying about how it would affect warnings in disasters such as tornadoes.
The office in Jackson, Kentucky, which was responsible for the area around London, Kentucky, had a March 2025 vacancy rate of 25%; the Louisville, Kentucky, weather service staff was down 29%; and the St. Louis office was down 16%, according to calculations by weather service employees obtained by The Associated Press. The Louisville office also was without a permanent boss — the meteorologist in charge — as of March, according to the staffing data.
Experts said any vacancy rate above 20% is a critical problem.
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See more photos from the severe storms in the South and Midwest here.
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Associated Press writers Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina; Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas; Sarah Brumfield in Cockeysville, Maryland; and Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Officers at a prison in Costa Rica captured a cat with two packages of marijuana and cocaine attached to its body. According to the Costa Rican Ministry of Justice and Peace, the officers confiscated the drugs and handed over the cat to National Animal Health Service for health evaluation.
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Israel has launched a new wave of air and ground operations across Gaza, and the army ordered the evacuation of the enclave's second-largest city, Khan Younis, where Israel carried out a massive operation earlier in the war that left much of the area in ruins.
The Israeli military released a video on Monday showing what they say are troops operating in the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile after a nearly three-month blockade and warnings by global experts of impeding famine, Israel says it will allow a limited amount of humanitarian aid into Gaza even as it launches “extensive” new ground operations there.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the Israeli military was entering the Gaza Strip “with force”. “As we promised, we have launched a powerful campaign against Hamas,” said Netanyahu.
Doctors worked to treat injured children on Monday at a hospital in southern Gaza. A group of Palestinian men also sat by the wrapped body of a leader of the armed wing of a Palestinian militant group which said he was killed in a shootout during an Israeli operation in Khan Younis.
Palestinians began evacuating Gaza's second-largest city, Khan Younis on Monday after Israel ordered its evacuation. Israel has stepped up its offensive in Gaza in what it says is a bid to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages abducted in the October 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war.
Displaced Palestinians flee from Khan Younis, Gaza, amid the ongoing Israeli military offensive in the area, on Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Displaced Palestinians flee from Khan Younis, Gaza, amid the ongoing Israeli military offensive in the area, on Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians line up for donated food at a community kitchen in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip, Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip are seen beyond a sunflower field on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza, Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The first few aid trucks have entered Gaza following nearly three months of Israel's complete blockade of food, medicine and other supplies, Israel and the United Nations said Monday, as Israel acknowledged pressure from allies.
Five trucks carrying baby food and other desperately needed aid entered the territory of over 2 million Palestinians via the Kerem Shalom crossing, according to the Israeli defense body in charge of coordinating aid to Gaza, COGAT.
The U.N. called it a “welcome development” but said far more aid is needed. Food security experts last week warned of famine in Gaza. During the latest ceasefire that Israel ended in March, some 600 aid trucks entered Gaza each day.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his decision to resume limited, “basic” aid to Gaza came after allies said they couldn't support Israel's renewed military offensive if there are “images of hunger” coming from the Palestinian territory.
The U.N. humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, said the first few trucks were a “drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed.” He said an additional four U.N. trucks were cleared to enter Gaza. Those trucks may enter tomorrow, according to COGAT.
Fletcher added that given the chaotic situation on the ground, the U.N. expects the aid could be looted or stolen, which has been a growing problem as the blockade continued and resources became increasingly scarce. He urged Israel to open multiple crossings in northern and southern Gaza to permit a regular flow of aid.
Israel over the weekend launched a new wave of air and ground operations across Gaza, and the army ordered the evacuation of its second-largest city, Khan Younis, where Israel carried out a massive operation earlier in the 19-month war that left much of the area in ruins.
Israel says its offensive is a bid to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages abducted in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war. Hamas has said it will only release them in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal.
Netanyahu said Monday that Israel plans on “taking control of all of Gaza,” as well as establishing a new system to distribute aid that circumvents Hamas. He has said Israel also will encourage what he describes as the voluntary emigration of much of Gaza's population to other countries — something that Palestinians have rejected.
Israeli forces move along the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
The Trump administration has voiced full support for Israel's actions and blames Hamas for deaths in Gaza, though in recent days it has expressed growing concern over the hunger crisis.
President Donald Trump — who skipped Israel on his trip to the region last week — voiced concern about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, as did Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
In a video statement posted to social media, Netanyahu said Israel's “greatest friends in the world” had told him, “We cannot accept images of hunger, mass hunger. We cannot stand that. We will not be able to support you.”
Netanyahu said the situation was approaching a “red line” and a “dangerous point,” but it was not clear if he was referring to the crisis in Gaza or the potential loss of support from allies.
The video statement appeared aimed at pacifying anger in Netanyahu's nationalist base at the decision to resume aid. Two far-right governing partners have pressed Netanyahu not to allow aid into Gaza.
At least one of them, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, appeared to be on board with the latest plan.
“No more raids and going in and out, but conquering, cleansing and remaining until Hamas is destroyed,” he said. “We are destroying what is still left of the strip, simply because everything there is one big city of terror.”
Aid into Gaza would be “minimal,” Netanyahu said, and would act as a bridge toward the launch of a new aid system in Gaza. A U.S.-backed organization will distribute assistance in hubs that will be secured by the Israeli military.
Israel says the plan is meant to prevent Hamas from accessing aid, which Israel says it uses to bolster its rule in Gaza.
U.N. agencies and aid groups have rejected the plan, saying it won't reach enough people and would weaponize aid in contravention of humanitarian principles. They have refused to take part.
According to aid officials familiar with the plan, it will involve setting up distribution points mostly in southern Gaza, forcing many Palestinians to move south once again. The recent ceasefire saw hundreds of thousands return to homes in the north.
The war has displaced around 90% of its population, most of them multiple times.
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip are seen at the Kerem Shalom Crossing in southern Israel, Monday, May 19, 2025. A day after Israel said it would resume allowing aid into the territory. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israeli special forces disguised as displaced Palestinians meanwhile launched a rare ground raid into Khan Younis early Monday, according to local residents.
The forces killed Ahmed Sarhan, a leader in the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, in a shootout, the group said. Palestinian witnesses said his wife and daughter were detained.
The forces drove in on a civilian vehicle and carried out the raid under cover from heavy airstrikes. At least five other people were killed, according to Nasser Hospital.
Also on Monday, an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp killed five people, including a woman and a girl, and wounded 18, mostly children, according to Al-Awda Hospital, which received the casualties.
The Israeli military said it struck militants in what it described as a Hamas command center in Nuseirat.
Smoke rises following an Israeli army bombardment in Khan Younis, Gaza, as seen from southern Israel, Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 others. The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel's retaliatory offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
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Magdy reported from Cairo and Shurafa from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writer Sam Mednick in Jerusalem, Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel contributed.
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Follow AP's war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Jalen Brunson de los Knicks de Nueva York ahce un gesto hacia los aficionados en el juego 6 de las semifinales de la Conferencia Este ante los Celtics de Boston el viernes 16 de mayo del 2025. (AP Foto/Frank Franklin II)
Oklahoma City Thunder's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2) celebrates after the team's win against the Denver Nuggets in Game 7 in the Western Conference semifinals of the NBA basketball playoffs, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Kyle Phillips)
Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton, left, celebrates along with forward Pascal Siakam after scoring during the second half in Game 5 of an Eastern Conference semifinal NBA basketball playoff against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards (5) celebrates a win against the Golden State Warriors after Game 5 of an NBA basketball second-round playoff series, Thursday, May 15, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
The parity era continues in the NBA.
The New York Knicks haven't won an NBA championship since 1973. The Indiana Pacers won their most recent title that year — in the ABA. The Oklahoma City Thunder franchise has one title in its history, that coming in 1979 when the team called Seattle home. And the Minnesota Timberwolves have never even been to the NBA Finals.
Meet the NBA's final four.
When Commissioner Adam Silver hands one of those teams the Larry O'Brien Trophy next month, it'll mark a league first — seven championship franchises in a seven-year span.
There hasn't been a back-to-back NBA champion since Golden State in 2017 and 2018. From there, the list of champions goes like this: Toronto in 2019, the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020, Milwaukee in 2021, Golden State in 2022, Denver in 2023 and Boston last season.
It's the longest such run of different champions in NBA history; Major League Baseball, the NHL and the NFL have all had longer ones, and not too long ago, either.
But for the NBA, this is different. The league wanted unpredictability, especially after four consecutive Cleveland-vs.-Golden State title matchups from 2015 through 2018.
And things have been highly unpredictable since. No matter what the Finals matchup is this year, the NBA will be seeing 11 conference-champion franchises in the span of seven seasons.
“We've still got eight more wins to achieve our ultimate goal,” Minnesota coach Chris Finch said. “We've still got two more series. We're only halfway there.”
The season is over for 26 of the NBA's 30 clubs. But the fun stuff is just starting.
The Western Conference finals — No. 6 seed Minnesota vs. No. 1 seed Oklahoma City — begin Tuesday night in Oklahoma. The Eastern Conference finals — No. 4 seed Indiana vs. No. 3 seed New York — begin Wednesday night in Manhattan. The Wolves lost the West finals last year; the Pacers lost the East finals a year ago.
“You've got to have big dreams,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “You don't know how often you're going to be in this position.”
Indeed, the championship window for teams doesn't seem to be staying open as long as it did in the past.
Boston was a huge favorite to win its second straight title; the Celtics didn't get out of Round 2, in part because they couldn't hold onto big leads and in part because Jayson Tatum ruptured his right Achilles tendon in that series with the Knicks.
“Upset or not, whatever it is, we beat a great team,” Knicks guard Jalen Brunson said. “They obviously lost a huge piece ... but they're still a great team.”
Damian Lillard tore an Achilles tendon in Round 1, ending Milwaukee's hopes. Cleveland, the top seed in the East, bowed out in Round 2 against Indiana after a slew of Cavs were dealing with health issues. Stephen Curry strained his hamstring; that was all it took to doom Golden State's chances in Round 2 against Minnesota.
“He's our sun,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said. “This is a solar system. He's our sun.”
And now, the NBA solar system is about to see new star holding the trophy.
There is nobody left in these playoffs who has been an NBA Finals MVP. Not even close.
In fact, there are only seven players left — Indiana's Pascal Siakam, Aaron Nesmith and Thomas Bryant; Knicks teammates P.J. Tucker, Cam Payne and Mikal Bridges; and Oklahoma City's Alex Caruso — who have appeared in a Finals game. And most of those appearances didn't add up to much; Siakam is the only player left in these playoffs with more than 100 Finals points.
So, who will the next Finals MVP be? Maybe Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the Canadian guard and likely MVP from the Thunder? The “Mr. Clutch” award winner, Brunson from the Knicks? Anthony Edwards, the presumed next face of the league from the Timberwolves? Tyrese Haliburton, the dazzling guard and Olympic gold medalist who keeps getting overlooked by everyone outside of Indiana?
None of them would be surprise choices.
“Our ultimate goal isn't just the Western Conference finals,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “You've got to go through there to get there.”
If the NBA's final four was its own league this season, taking just the head-to-head results between those four clubs would suggest the Thunder are the clear favorite.
Oklahoma City went 6-2 against the other three conference finalists, while New York and Indiana both went 3-4 and Minnesota went 3-5.
The Thunder swept the Pacers and Knicks, and the Pacers swept the Timberwolves.
As far as the head-to-heads going into the conference finals, Oklahoma City and Minnesota split four meetings — with the Timberwolves outscoring the Thunder 475-472 — while the Knicks went 2-1 against Indiana, with all three games decided by at least 11 points.
“You can feel good about it, feel however you want to feel about it,” Haliburton said of getting to this point. “But at the end of the day, we're not done. We know we all have a bigger goal at mind. Our goal wasn't just to get to the Eastern Conference finals and be done. Our goal is to win a championship.”
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American Olympic rugby star Alev Kelter will face a judicial hearing and potentially lengthy suspension after being sent off in a women's rugby test on Saturday for stamping on the head of an opponent.
Team USA was playing against Australia, who went on to celebrate a 27-19 victory in Saturday's contest.
Upon a video review, referees issued a red card around the 79th minute of action in the Pacific Four Series test. Officials determined Kelter forcefully stamped on the head of Australian center Georgie Friedrichs.
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Alev Kelter of the USA leaves the field after receiving a red card during the Pacific Four Series International Match between the Australia Wallaroos and USA at GIO Stadium on May 17, 2025 in Canberra, Australia. (Mark Nolan/Getty Images)
Microphones picked up a referee saying, "Twelve, blue (Kelter), is going to receive a permanent red card because this is thuggery, it is deliberate and it is very dangerous foul play.
"She's clearly stamped on the head of the Australian player. That's reckless, that's dangerous and she's going off."
US RUGBY SEVENS STAR ILONA MAHER ADMITS BRONZE MEDAL IS 'WEARING A LITTLE BIT'
Friedrichs appeared to avoid any major injuries in the incident. Team USA coach Sione Fukofuka later apologized to the Australian players.
United States forward Alev Kelter, #5, runs against Great Britain in a women's quarterfinal rugby match during the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games at Stade de France on July 29, 2024. (Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports)
Foul play in rugby that involves contact with the head is treated with extreme seriousness. Rugby, like many contact sports, has changed its rules in an effort to limit the danger of concussion and other head injuries.
United States forward Alev Kelter, #5, and United States forward Ilona Maher, #2, celebrate after defeating Great Britain in a women's quarterfinal rugby match during the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games at Stade de France on July 29, 2024. (Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports)
Kelter is a three-time US Olympic representative in rugby sevens and won a bronze medal in Paris last year. She previously played ice hockey and soccer for the University of Wisconsin.
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In rugby, judicial hearings over foul play usually take place within 48 hours of a match.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Chantz Martin is a sports writer for Fox News Digital.
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Law enforcement officers are throwing their support behind President Donald Trump's plan to end taxes on overtime.
FIRST ON FOX: Police officers are rallying behind a provision in President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" to end taxing overtime work, which they say would have a favorable ripple effect on officer retention and morale.
"No tax on overtime, it would be a huge advantage to law enforcement across the country," one officer said in a White House video shared with Fox News Digital.
Another added, "We work sometimes 100 plus hours a pay period. It's a lot of time taken away from the family. So that would be pretty special."
Republican lawmakers are in the midst of hashing out the details of the sweeping legislation that would fund Trump's agenda through the budget reconciliation process. The legislation jumped its latest hurdle to move along to passage late Sunday evening, when lawmakers on the House Budget Committee voted to advance the bill.
Trump has called on Republicans to swiftly pass the legislation, touting that it will lower taxes and provide larger paychecks for Americans, while also securing the border. Trump specifically directed congressional Republicans to permanently extend his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and implement new policies eliminating taxes on tips, overtime pay and retirees' Social Security.
'FAILURE'S NOT AN OPTION': TRUMP BUDGET BILL WILL BE 'BIG' HELP FOR SENIORS, TOP HOUSE TAX-WRITER SAYS
National Police Week is celebrated each May. (White House)
Trump touted from the campaign trail that not taxing overtime pay would serve as "more of an incentive to work," and bolster retention of employees who receive overtime pay as their paychecks would not be whittled down by taxes.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Monday press conference that not taxing tips would lead to an average tax cut of $2,000 per individual, which Leavitt said will be a boon "for our nurses, our police officers and all those who work overtime to make ends meet across our country."
"Put simply, President Trump's one big, beautiful bill will be a boon for working class America," she said. "This one big, beautiful bill is also pro-family, it will increase the child tax credit to $2,500 per child, establish optional savings account for newborn babies with a $1,000 credit added and strengthen paid family leave. This bill also delivers historic tax relief to America's seniors by allowing middle and low income Social Security recipients to deduct an additional $4,000 in payments from their taxable income."
Officers in the White House video touted that eliminating taxes on overtime would serve as an extra dose of "appreciation" to law enforcement.
Police departments nationwide saw morale and staffing crater in 2020 and the following years as left-wing cities answered calls from activists to defund the police following the death of George Floyd while in police custody on Memorial Day 2020. Many liberal cities soon walked back budget plans slashing police department funding as crime waves washed over the nation, stretching from sky-high murder rates to teenagers repeatedly carrying out carjackings.
WH STUDY WARNS 9 MILLION AMERICANS COULD LOSE HEALTH INSURANCE IN 'MAJOR' RECESSION IF TRUMP BUDGET BILL FAILS
Police officers endorsed President Donald Trump's plan to end taxes on overtime.
"If there was no tax on overtime … we'd be working about as hard as we currently do, but we would have that appreciation that goes along with it," one officer in the video said.
VANCE SEARS US LEADERS TURNING POLICE INTO 'ENEMIES'
Police officers have endorsed President Donald Trump to end taxes on tips as the president's "big, beautiful bill" legislation works its way toward passage. (White House)
‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH': GOP SENATOR UNLEASHES BILL WITH SEVERE CONSEQUENCES FOR HARMING POLICE
The police officers continued that removing taxation on overtime would likely lead to senior officers sticking around in the job longer to help train the next generation of law enforcement, while also giving younger officers extra cash in their pockets to raise their young families on an officer's salary.
National Police Week and Law Enforcement Appreciation month remember officers killed in the line of duty. (White House)
"To have something like this in play would just help senior officers, perhaps stay a little bit longer to help be that guidance for that department, that community, to help teach those policy and procedures that we know of and to help with the retention," one police officer said.
POLICE GROUP SLAMS GOFUNDME FOR OHIO FATHER ACCUSED OF KILLING DEPUTY LARRY HENDERSON
A female officer added, "That would really benefit those, especially younger cops that have younger kids and a lot of families. I think that would mean a tremendous amount."
Vice President JD Vance doubled down during an event celebrating law enforcement that the Trump administration fully supports police. (White House)
May is Law Enforcement Appreciation month, with a mid-May National Police Week celebration and the White House illuminating its exterior in blue colors Thursday evening in honor of police officers who were killed or injured while in the line of duty.
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"So know from the president on down, this administration stands behind you guys," Vice President JD Vance said during a law enforcement breakfast Wednesday at the vice president's residence. "We love you guys. We know that you're out there doing a good job for us. And I think that moral leadership matters just as much as the public policy. But from this administration, you're, of course, getting it both."
Fox News Digital's Elizabeth Elkind and Diana Stancy contributed to this report.
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President Donald Trump is calling for “a major investigation” into former Vice President Kamala Harris's presidential campaign over allegations that she paid off celebrities such as Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce, and Bono to endorse her for president.
“HOW MUCH DID KAMALA HARRIS PAY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN FOR HIS POOR PERFORMANCE DURING HER CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT?” Trump posted on Truth Social. “WHY DID HE ACCEPT THAT MONEY IF HE IS SUCH A FAN OF HERS? ISN'T THAT A MAJOR AND ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION? WHAT ABOUT BEYONCÉ? … AND HOW MUCH WENT TO OPRAH, AND BONO???”
Springsteen's production company, Thrill Hill, was paid about $75,000 for “travel and production” by the Harris campaign for his October performance at one of her rallies. Beyonce's production company was paid $165,000, and Oprah Winfrey's production company was paid $1 million to cover the cost of Harris's town hall with the media personality.
“I am going to call for a major investigation into this matter,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Candidates aren't allowed to pay for ENDORSEMENTS, which is what Kamala did, under the guise of paying for entertainment. In addition, this was a very expensive and desperate effort to artificially build up her sparse crowds. IT'S NOT LEGAL! For these unpatriotic ‘entertainers,' this was just a CORRUPT & UNLAWFUL way to capitalize on a broken system. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!”
He later accused Harris of paying Beyonce $11 million for the endorsement, though that number has not been found on any Federal Election Commission reports and is unsubstantiated.
HOW KAMALA HARRIS PLOWED THROUGH $1 BILLION
Between Oct. 17 and Election Day, Nov. 5, the Harris campaign paid entertainers nearly $900,000, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis.
Trump's post comes as Harris is mulling a bid in California's governor race. An April poll shows that 31% of California voters would back Harris, and 49% of Democrats would support her.
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Tyler Saltsman, founder and CEO of EdgeRunner AI, warned that creating artificial general intelligence could "destroy the world as we know it."
The widespread blackouts that recently brought parts of Spain and Portugal to a standstill triggered global speculation: was it an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack?
Though authorities later ruled out an EMP, the incident reignited urgent questions about America's vulnerability to similar large-scale disruptions and whether the U.S. is prepared for a modern-day "black sky" event.
According to cybersecurity expert and former Army Cyber Institute board member Bryson Bort, the United States remains dangerously exposed to a range of threats: not just EMPs, but increasingly sophisticated cyber and artificial intelligence (AI) attacks.
"There are a lot of other problems that are higher probability," Bort told Fox News Digital. "The EMP thing is a little bit of a distraction – but that doesn't mean it's not a threat."
HOW CHINA'S CYBERESPIONAGE HAS CHANGED
Stranded passengers sleep in a train station following a huge outage that hit Spain and Portugal, in Madrid on April 29, 2025. (REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura)
An EMP is a sudden burst of electromagnetic energy capable of disabling electronic devices across vast areas. It can be natural – from a solar flare – or man-made, triggered by a high-altitude nuclear detonation.
Unlike cyberattacks that target software, an EMP disables physical systems: from car engines and cellphone towers to hospital generators and water pumps. A major attack could throw society back to the pre-electric age, with devastating consequences.
Former CIA Director James Woolsey once called EMPs "one of the greatest national vulnerabilities," and some estimates suggest an EMP could result in the deaths of up to 90% of Americans within a year due to the collapse of infrastructure.
"The very first thing you've got to lose is your water supply," said Dr. William Forstchen, a longtime EMP researcher. "Within days, nursing homes, hospitals, law enforcement – they're all in deep trouble."
While the Trump administration issued an executive order directing federal agencies to prepare for such an event, Bort said implementation has been inconsistent and fragmented.
"We are not prepared for this at all," he warned.
Forstchen expressed optimism that the administration's "Golden Dome" project, a proposed ground-and space-based defense system, could intercept EMP threats – but the project remains years from completion.
NUCLEAR EMP ATTACK MOVES TO BIG SCREEN AS AUTHOR REFLECTS ON 'INVISIBLE LIFELINE'
While EMP attacks remain the stuff of both national security nightmares and Hollywood scripts, experts say cyberattacks are far more probable and potentially just as destructive. (Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson)
While EMP attacks remain the stuff of both national security nightmares and Hollywood scripts, experts say cyberattacks are far more probable and still highly destructive.
"We know that the Chinese have been in the American civilian critical infrastructure since 2010," Bort said. "They haven't done anything yet, but they are absolutely in there and setting up to do something at some point."
This week, Reuters reported that U.S. officials found communication modules embedded in Chinese-made power inverters – devices used to connect solar panels and wind turbines to the grid.
Bort pointed to "Jack Voltaic," a multi-year cyber warfare simulation by the Army Cyber Institute, designed to test military-civilian coordination in response to attacks on critical infrastructure.
"What we found is there's a great interdependence," he said. "You can't even have an electric grid if you don't have water – because you can't cool it."
Bort said cyberattacks are often the product of long-term reconnaissance, with hackers quietly positioning themselves inside systems for months or years.
"A cyberattack is not something where Putin says, ‘Hey, hit Detroit tomorrow,'" he explained. "It's already set in place. When the political situation calls for it, that's when the trigger gets pulled."
China, led by President Xi Jinping, has already embedded itself within the U.S. power grid. (Szilard Koszticsak/MTI via AP)
Another, less understood, threat to America's infrastructure is the rise of AI. In particular, the race toward artificial general intelligence (AGI), or AI systems with human-level cognitive abilities.
Tyler Saltzman, a military technologist working on AI systems capable of operating in disconnected environments like an EMP aftermath, warned that AI – if used maliciously – could bring the grid down entirely. "Our infrastructure is very fragile," Saltzman said. "All you need to do is take down our power grid, and we're in complete chaos."
Saltzman expressed deep concern about efforts to create AGI – systems he says could eventually surpass human control.
"Once AGI comes online, it could easily take down our power grid, infiltrate our financial systems, destroy our economy," he said. "If it sees how violent humans are to each other, why would it serve us?"
In 2023, a Chinese surveillance balloon drifted over U.S. territory for days before it was shot down by the military. While believed to be for spying, defense officials note that a high-altitude balloon could be used for electronic warfare – including an EMP.
The Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from EMP Attacks has long warned about balloon-based delivery. Others argue a missile would be more effective, since it would be harder to intercept.
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Whether the next major threat comes from above or from a keyboard, experts agree: the U.S. is not ready.
"We're still thinking about wars with tanks," Bort said. "Meanwhile, the real fight is already happening inside our infrastructure."
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What happens when the federal government will no longer respond to a local health crisis?
by Dylan Scott
For many months now, the city of Milwaukee has been grappling with a lead poisoning crisis that has forced at least four schools to temporarily close and dozens more to undergo rigorous inspections.
It began on January 13, when Milwaukee first notified parents at one grade three to five school that a child had tested positive for high levels of lead in their blood. Local health officials determined the lead exposure did not occur at the child's home, which left their school as the obvious culprit.
City investigators found chipped lead paint and lead-laden dust throughout the school building; press and government reports indicate that the school district has struggled to keep up with paint maintenance requests, due to a lack of funding and manpower. Local officials soon realized they had a big problem on their hands, as the vast majority of the city's school buildings (roughly 125 out of 150) were built before 1978, when lead paint was banned.
Lead, a dangerous neurotoxin that can lead to development problems in children after prolonged exposure, has now been detected in at least nine public schools, and at least four students have tested positive for high lead levels in their blood. So far, no children have been hospitalized for acute lead poisoning, which can be life-threatening, but the affected kids continue to be monitored. Several buildings have been temporarily closed so workers can do a deep clean. Milwaukee has been inspecting all of its public schools for lead, with the goal of completing the review by September.
Normally, cities navigating such a crisis could depend on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for federal support. When the lead poisoning was first detected in January, at the tail end of the Biden administration, city health officials were immediately in contact with the CDC environmental health team, which included several of the country's top lead poisoning experts, Milwaukee health commissioner Mike Totoraitis told me. A group of federal experts were planning a trip to the city at the end of April.
But not anymore. In early April, the Trump administration denied Milwaukee's request for support because there was no longer anybody on the government's payroll who could provide the lead poisoning expertise the city needs.
On April 1, the lead exposure team within the CDC's National Center for Environmental Health was laid off as part of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s massive restructuring of the federal health department. The planned trip was canceled, and no federal officials have stepped foot in Milwaukee since to aid in the response.
“We were talking to [the federal experts] multiple times each week,” Totoraitis said, “before they were let go.”
Milwaukee has pushed ahead with its own inspection and free blood testing clinics. The city reported on May 13 that it had replaced 10,000 lead water service lines, in an attempt to remove another possible source of exposure for local children. But they still have 55,000 more left to go, and local officials have said they would need state or federal funding to finish the job. (It is estimated to cost the city about $630 million.)
Ordinarily, Totoraitis said, the CDC experts would serve as the city's subject matter experts, guiding them through their epidemiological investigations. Federal officials are especially adept at the detective work that can determine whether a child was exposed at home or at the school. Milwaukee officials had recent experience with lead exposures in homes but not in schools; they were relying on federal expertise to interpret lead dust levels that were found during the school inspections. Without them, they've been left to navigate a novel and dangerous health threat on their own.
“They were there for that sole purpose of having some of the best subject matter expertise on lead poisoning, and it's gone now,” Totoraitis said. “Now we don't have any experts at the CDC to reach out to.”
In this uncertain new era for public health, Milwaukee's experience may become all too common: a city left to fend for itself amid an emergency. What in the past might have been a national scandal could become all too routine.
When I spoke with Totoraitis, he was already contemplating the next public health problem he would have to deal with. “If we have a new emerging health issue, that I don't have internal expertise on and neither does the state, we don't have anyone to call now,” Totoraitis said. “That's a scary endeavor.”
He can't be sure what kind of help he will be able to get from the federal government as the restructuring at the US Department of Health and Human Services continues. The department just rehired hundreds of health workers focused on workplace safety, but other teams, including the lead team, have not been brought back.
The turmoil makes it harder for local officials to keep track of which federal experts are still on staff, where they are located, and who has actually been let go. But the message is clear: President Donald Trump and his senior deputies want state and local governments to take on more of these responsibilities — without a helping hand from the feds.
The US public health system has been set up so that the state and local health departments are the front line, monitoring emerging problems and providing personnel in a crisis. The federal government supplies insights that state and local officials probably don't have on their own. That is what Totoraitis was depending on; Milwaukee was inexperienced with lead exposures in large public buildings before this year's emergency. (One of the laid-off CDC scientists has since sought to volunteer to help Milwaukee, as Stat recently reported; the person told me they were hoping to help with community engagement, which federal officials would usually assist with.)
Health crises happen all the time. Right now, there is a small tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas; a Florida town experienced the unexpected spread of hepatitis last December. A dozen people have been hospitalized in a listeria outbreak. And the US is currently facing its largest outbreak of measles in decades, with more than 1,000 people sickened. At one point, local officials said that the federal government had cut off funding for the outbreak response as part of a massive clawback of federal funds at the end of March, although the CDC has since sent additional workers to West Texas where the outbreak originated.
There used to be little doubt the federal government would step up in these scenarios. But Totoraitis warns that Milwaukee's experience of the past few months, left to fend for itself in an emergency, could soon be repeated elsewhere.
“Let's say next year this time, St. Louis is in a similar situation — they could call us, but we don't have the bandwidth to consistently support them,” Totoraitis said. “This unfortunately is a great example of how quickly changes in the federal government can affect local government.”
Kids are being poisoned by lead. Trump is letting it happen.
Kennedy, Trump, and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency gleefully cut 10,000 jobs from US health agencies this spring. The cost of those losses will be felt every time a city is confronted with an unexpected health threat. Today, in Milwaukee, families are facing the fear and uncertainty of lead exposure — and they know federal help isn't coming. As one Milwaukee mom told ABC News recently: “It really sends the message of, ‘You don't matter.'”
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The competing visions for good child care, explained.
by Rachel Cohen
America's lack of affordable child care has brought a long-simmering question to a boil: What exactly makes child care “good”?
Everyone wants quality care for kids, and the need for child care or preschool to be considered “high quality” has been embraced by researchers, providers, parents, and policymakers for years. But with rising costs and uneven availability, parents, providers, and policymakers find themselves increasingly divided over whether “quality” should be measured by caregivers' credentials or by toddlers' happiness, by structured learning outcomes, or by parent preference.
Progressives generally champion credentialed and well-paid teachers, academic standards, and standardized ratings as essential for aiding children's development. Conservatives counter that such requirements inflate costs while devaluing the nurturing care that parents and community caregivers provide.
The answer to the question of what “quality” means shapes everything from household budgets to workforce participation to children's school readiness — yet there is no clear consensus on what exactly that entails or how to measure it.
“People know it when they see it, but it's hard to define,” said Josh McCabe, director of social policy at the Niskanen Center think tank.
As regulations shift with political winds, the question has become more salient: Who defines quality, and at what cost to kids, families, and society?
States have sought ways to measure, improve, and communicate the components of quality to parents and providers alike. Their solution: developing rating systems that attempt to boil aspects of child care settings down into simple metrics, much like hotel or restaurant reviews.
Over the past two decades, such Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) have become the primary method for assessing child care quality. These systems, which vary significantly across states, award ratings based on multiple dimensions, including teacher qualifications (such as holding a child development associate credential or a degree in early childhood education); learning environments (including safe teacher-to-child ratios, classroom cleanliness, and availability of age-appropriate books and toys); administrative practices (like documented emergency procedures and business management systems), and the caliber of child-adult interactions (measured through classroom observations).
By 2020, nearly all states had implemented some form of QRIS, though participation remains voluntary in many areas. These systems vary widely — some use star ratings (one to five stars), others use tiers or categories. States prioritize different elements: Some emphasize school readiness, others focus on health and safety, cultural responsiveness, or infant and toddler care. Financial incentives also differ, with states offering a variety of supports, technical assistance, and bonuses for higher scores.
The evidence is mixed, though, on whether these ratings actually predict better outcomes for children. “If we're looking at what supports children's well-being and development, it's the quality of the interactions, the relations with the caregiver,” Steven Barnett, senior director of the National Institute for Early Education Research, told me. Yet these critical interactions carry relatively little weight in some QRIS systems, overshadowed by structural features that are easier to quantify and less costly to implement.
The QRIS ratings nonetheless drive real behavior. “The scoring matters in that providers and parents react to it,” McCabe said. “But like the US News and World Report rankings, I don't know if it actually makes them better colleges or students.”
A 2019 Department of Education study found that children who attended higher-rated programs according to QRIS did not have better developmental outcomes than those attending lower-rated ones. This echoed earlier research that found that the overall QRIS ratings were less predictive of child learning than a single measure of teacher-child interactions.
“Quality, in some sense, can take many different forms, and perhaps it should, because child care and early learning is not one-size-fits-all.”
Further research found “little evidence” that adopting QRIS in Head Start improved quality when measured against the Head Start Program Performance Standards — the quality benchmarks the federal preschool programs must meet. QRIS showed no significant boost to teacher qualifications or teacher-child interactions. More troublingly, research found that QRIS adoption actually increased annual teacher turnover — potentially undermining the very stability that quality programs need.
These rating systems can also create a troubling cycle, said Hailey Gibbs, associate director of early childhood policy at the Center for American Progress. Lower-rated programs receive fewer resources, making it even harder for them to improve. Gibbs notes there's “valid criticism” that QRIS systems often lack cultural sensitivity and tend to disregard the perspectives of enrolled families when adjudicating which programs are good or bad.
This fundamental tension — between standardized measurement and the complex, relationship-based reality of quality care — remains at the heart of ongoing debates about how best to ensure positive outcomes for America's youngest children. As sociologist Zach Griffen notes of performance measurement across other sectors like health care and K-12 schooling, quality assessment tools can be “wildly successful in policy research at the same time as they fall apart in real-world applications.”
While the QRIS measure of “quality” might be contentious, the stakes are high because quality itself does seem to really affect kids' life trajectories. Back in 2000, the National Academies of Sciences published a 600-page report concluding that both nurturing parenting and caregiving relationships were essential for early childhood development, and that well-designed programs could help improve the lives of kids growing up in poverty in particular.
Another landmark federal study tracked more than 1,300 children from infancy through adolescence. Emerging from the contentious “day care wars” of the 1980s over whether maternal employment and non-parental care harmed children, the researchers found that “higher-quality” care predicted better cognitive and language development. The study highlighted responsive adult-child relationships as the most critical quality factor, with elements like staff ratios and group sizes also playing important roles.
These early studies established a foundation for understanding quality, but even today early childhood experts describe different visions. Ruth Friedman, who directed the Office of Child Care during the Biden administration, defines quality as care that ensures safety, engaging activities, and “nurturing, consistent, and well-compensated caregivers who support development across multiple domains — including language, early math and science, social-emotional, and physical growth,” she told me.
Some advocates stress that trained caregivers are essential for building the kind of stable, high-quality workforce that children need. “All teachers need to have a foundational knowledge of child development…[with] formal education and training in early childhood education,” the Center for American Progress wrote in a “Quality 101” report published in 2017.
Other experts say the growing demand for professional training devalues the kind of care offered by parents, grandparents, and other informal community leaders. “What we realize [matters] is the quality of the relationship and [that isn't] typically things you can measure in a simple way, like a child-adult ratio,” said Jenet Erickson, a professor of religious education at Brigham Young University and a researcher of maternal and child well-being. “It's just not as simple as having trained caregivers. … We need more flexibility in who can provide care, so families can say, ‘We really like this neighborhood grandmother because of the way she relates to our children, and we're less concerned about whether or not she got a degree in human development.'”
There is perhaps more agreement, however, on what constitutes unacceptably poor care. Gibbs identified warning signs that cross cultural boundaries: “disorganized or unsafe spaces…young children wandering aimlessly.” These align with the National Academies' findings about the lowest-quality settings: caregivers ignoring children's bids for attention, few appropriate toys, and children spending time “unengaged with adults, other children, or materials.”
Finding the balance between acceptable care and parent preferences can be tricky, especially when public funding is involved and lawmakers pursue multiple policy objectives at once, like promoting child development, supporting moms in the workforce, advancing educational equity, and even broader social concerns like reducing crime or increasing GDP.
The Center for American Progress has grown somewhat less prescriptive about quality since it published its “Quality 101” report in 2017. “Quality, in some sense, can take many different forms, and perhaps it should, because child care and early learning is not one-size-fits-all,” Gibbs told me, noting that some home-based child care options “are extremely high quality” yet nevertheless are sometimes “viewed as second tier to school-like center-based care” when it comes to state ratings.
The landscape of child care quality measurement appears poised for significant shifts. The Build Back Better Act, proposed during the Biden administration, represented perhaps the most ambitious federal effort to date to elevate child care quality standards nationwide.
States would have been required to develop tiered QRIS frameworks aligned with the federal Head Start preschool standards, and mandate child care provider participation in QRIS to receive federal money. Most significantly, payment rates would have been directly linked to quality ratings — so child care programs achieving higher QRIS scores would have received higher reimbursement rates.
However, with the transition to a new administration, a fundamentally different approach is emerging, as states move to reduce restrictions conservatives see as driving up costs without improving outcomes or access.
This regulatory rollback fits within a broader conservative vision reshaping child care — one that prioritizes less expensive home-based programs over professionally staffed centers, de-emphasizes academic credentials and curricula, and often encourages more mothers to stay home to raise their children. As Idaho Rep. Rod Furniss argued when promoting his deregulation bill, “perhaps the most important” small business is the home day care, “where moms can stay home and supplement the household income and watch a few kids.”
This approach also aligns with principles outlined in the American Enterprise Institute's 2024 “Three Principles for Conservative Early-Childhood Policy,” which advocated for subsidizing “lower-cost” options while keeping “children connected to their families.”
Conservatives specifically warn against what they call the “Bill de Blasio model” — folding early childhood education into the credentialing, unionization, and compensation structure of K-12 teachers. This approach, which many progressive advocates view as essential for stable and quality care, is viewed by many on the right as a recipe for unsustainable costs.
As control shifts in Washington, the very definitions of quality that have guided policy for decades may soon change. But the core questions remain unresolved: What matters most in determining quality and how do we capture it? How should we balance measurable outcomes with family preferences? What trade-offs between quality, affordability, and access are Americans prepared to make? And ultimately, what kind of care do American children deserve?
This work was supported by a grant from the Bainum Family Foundation. Vox Media had full discretion over the content of this reporting.
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FOX Weather correspondent Katie Byrne joins 'America Reports' live from Indianapolis Motor Speedway as severe weather risks loom over several states in the region.
A rookie driver celebrated an unlikely pole victory for the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday.
While Team Penske was disqualified before the final two rounds of qualifying, Robert Shwartzman won the pole.
The 25-year-old was driving for PREMA Racing and became the first Indy 500 rookie to qualify for the pole since 1983. Shwartzman, who has dual nationality in Israel and Russia, initially raced under the Russian flag. He currently competes under the Israeli flag, which makes the Tel Aviv native the first driver from Israel to make "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing."
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PREMA Racing driver Robert Shwartzman celebrates winning the pole for the Indy 500 during Fast Six qualifying at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May 18, 2025. (Grace Hollars / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
Until Shwartzman's win, Teo Fabi was the last rookie to qualify for the Indy 500 pole. Coincidentally, he was an Italian — just like Prema, which was also founded in 1983. Prema is established in Europe and races in the Formula 2 series. It made its IndyCar debut this season.
Prema is the first team making its debut in the Indy 500 to land on the pole since Mayer Motor Racing put Tom Sneva there in 1984.
KYLE LARSON SHRUGS OFF FRIDAY CRASH, QUALIFIES 21ST FOR INDY 500
The event also marked Shwartzman's racing debut on an oval. He said the victory felt like a dream.
"Honestly it feels like I'm dreaming. I just had it in my dreams when I was going how would it feel to do such a good job in quali," he said. "It's the Indy 500. It's the main race of the year. Honestly it feels unbelievable."
PREMA Racing driver Robert Shwartzman, #83, reacts after setting a pole-winning time on Sunday, May 18, 2025 during Fast Six qualifying for the 109th running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. (Gary Mook/For IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
Shwartzman had been pursuing a career in Formula 1 and was part of the Ferrari development program as well as its reserve driver from 2021 until the end of last season. Prema then nabbed him for its two-car team.
PREMA Racing driver Robert Shwartzman, #83, reacts after setting a pole-winning time on Sunday, May 18, 2025 during Fast Six qualifying for the 109th running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. (Bob Goshert/For IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
The pole was first wide open for the taking when Team Penske was disqualified from qualifying for an illegal modification on the cars of two-time defending Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden and Will Power. Then, Scott McLaughlin destroyed his car in a Sunday morning crash during practice.
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The three Penske drivers all started on the front row last year, but will be 10th, 11th and 12th in the fourth row together next weekend.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Chantz Martin is a sports writer for Fox News Digital.
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It was at this very tournament a year ago, Scottie Scheffler made national headlines following his arrest.
A year later, the World No. 1 won his first PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, trading in a mugshot and a jail cell for the famous Wanamaker Trophy.
He finished Sunday's final round at 11-under par, five strokes ahead of Bryson DeChambeau, Davis Riley and Harris English.
Despite bogeying on the final hole, Scheffler celebrated by spiking his hat on the ground, embracing his caddie, Ted Scott, and then quickly found his wife, Meredith, and son in the crowd.
It is the 28-year-old Scheffler's third career major win with the first two coming at the Masters in 2022 and 2024.
Scheffler told CNN he felt “a little on the ropes” on the front nine.
“This golf course will keep you on your toes,” Scheffler said. “It was weird because at 7, 8, 9, I felt like I hit really good tee shots. And I looked up and it was 30 yards left where I was looking which was a bit unsual. Making the turn, I kind of squared my shoulders up and I hit a really good tee ball at 10, a really good tee ball at 11. After that, I did a really good job at executing on a lot of fairways, a lot of greens. Played a really good nine holes when I really needed too.”
Scheffler added that it was ‘really hard to put into words” when asked by CNN's Patrick Snell to reflect on his journey from his first major win, to becoming father and now winning his third major.
You know (Meredith) and I were talking this morning, we still feel like we're in high school. I feel like we're in high school yesterday. We just started dating and all of a sudden you know life out here is pretty cool right now,” Scheffler said.
“This is a lot of fun. But at the end of the day life at home for us is pretty much the same. You know we have a pretty good little life and we have great friends at home and I'm looking forward to getting home and celebrating with them.”
Scheffler also joins Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus as the only players to win three career majors and 15 PGA Tour titles.
The 2025 season did not start off too kindly for Scheffler.
A self-described “stupid” Christmas day injury resulted in surgery on his hand, forcing him to delay the start of his season.
Scheffler would make his season debut in late January at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in Northern California. He would then go winless until two weeks ago, when he took home a victory at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson at TPC Craig Ranch in McKinney, Texas.
Scheffler joined Seve Ballesteros as the only golfers in the past 100 years to win each of his first three majors by more than three strokes.
But it wasn't an easy round for world's best.
Scheffler came into the fourth and final round with a three-stroke lead but after three bogeys in the front nine, his lead quickly disappeared.
LIV Golf star Jon Rahm surged ahead of him, with the Spaniard looking to win his third major.
However, the 2021 US Open and 2023 Masters winner, completely faltered in the back nine especially on Quail Hollow's infamous Green Mile where he bogeyed once and double-bogeyed twice to fall to 2-over par on the day and a tie for 8th place.
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The lurking menace of golf's Green Mile
As Rahm fell, Scheffler arose past his early struggles, sinking back-to-back birdies on holes 14 and 15 to reclaim the lead and never looked back.
The 30-year-old, former Arizona State Sun Devil Rahm, said this was a position he has never been in when asked how he would “heal” from this.
“I think it's the first time I've been in position to win a major that close and haven't done it. The only times I think I've been in the lead in a major on a Sunday, I've been able to close it out, and this is a very different situation,” Rahm told reporters after the round.
“So I don't know exactly. But if it's ever a time, that's what family's for is the best. Luckily I'm going to get home maybe on time to get the kids to bed or not, I'm not sure. To them, whatever I did today, win or lose, they don't care. So that's always a good perspective. … But I just need to get over it, get over myself. It's not the end of the world. It's not like I'm a doctor or a first responder, where somebody if they have a bad day, truly bad things happen. I'll get over it. I'll move on.”
Following the win Sunday, Scheffler quipped he had a few “jokes” that he would keep to himself about his experience last year with the arrest.
Despite being pressured to say them, Scheffler said it was “not a good idea” but expanded on why it was “sweet” to be sitting with the trophy a year later.
“Last year sometimes, it still doesn't almost feel real. It really doesn't. It's just one of those deals that I really don't know how to describe it. But I can tell you it's very sweet sitting here with the trophy this year,” Scheffler added.
Last year, Scheffler was arrested trying to drive around the scene of a fatal crash ahead of his tee time at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky.
He had been charged with felony second-degree assault on a police officer and the lesser charges of third-degree criminal mischief, reckless driving and disregarding signals from officers directing traffic, Jefferson County court records showed. The charges were later dismissed.
In what Scheffler called a “severe miscommunication in a chaotic situation,” adding he held “no ill will” toward the detective who arrested him, he ultimately finished eight shots behind the winner, Xander Schauffele, for a share of eighth place.
Scheffler can begin his quest for a fourth career major win next month at the US Open at the Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, Pennsylvania.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
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A group of Florida International University students protest against cuts in federal funding and an agreement by campus police to partner with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, on the FIU campus on a day of protests around the country in support of higher education, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Miami. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)
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After the government terminated his legal status in the U.S., one student abruptly lost his laboratory job in Houston and, fearing detention, he returned to his home country in south Asia on a one-way ticket.
The Trump administration later reversed course in its expansive crackdown on international students, but there was a major obstacle. The student cannot return because his American visa was revoked.
Without it, he's “stranded,” said the student, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
As the government begins reinstating students' records, many face a daunting and complicated path toward rebuilding their lives. For those who left, there is no guarantee they can return. Others have faced challenges reenrolling in school and returning to jobs.
Mental anguish from their ordeals linger, as do feelings of vulnerability. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has expanded the grounds for terminating a student's legal status, leaving many to fear they could be targeted again.
A total of more than 4,700 international students had their permission to study in the U.S. canceled this spring, with little notice or explanation. In court hearings, Department of Homeland Security officials said they ran the names of student visa holders through an FBI-run database that contains the names of suspects and people who have been arrested, even if they were never charged with a crime or had charges dropped.
At a court hearing last week in Oakland, California, lawyers for international students sought a nationwide injunction they said would protect their clients and others across the country.
But government attorneys said that wasn't necessary because ICE was mailing status reactivation letters to affected students. It likely will take two weeks for all students to receive their letter, which can then be shared with universities and employers, assistant U.S. attorney Elizabeth Kurlan said.
The plaintiffs' lawyers said the letter is meaningless, arguing ICE's new policy suggests student records can be terminated on a whim. There's also no evidence ICE has asked the State Department to restore revoked visas, the plaintiffs' attorneys said.
The man in Houston left within about a week of learning his legal status had been terminated. Around that time, he also received an email that the visa he used to enter the U.S. had been revoked. He believes his termination stemmed from a 2021 fraud case that was dismissed.
Over nearly a decade he had built a life in the U.S., where he was enrolled in “optional practical training,” which allows foreign students to stay and work for up to three years on their student visas. In his home country, he is now looking for work and living with his mother.
The wait time for a U.S. visa interview is at least a year, he said.
Even if he got another visa, returning would be complicated because of his financial situation. He had a car loan and credit cards in the U.S. that he can't afford to pay after losing his job, and his credit score has since dropped, he said.
“Revoking a visa or revoking a SEVIS status does not just affect the educational side of things, it affects the whole life,” said the student, who has struggled with feelings of loneliness and also grief over his father's recent death.
SEVIS is the Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems database that tracks international students' compliance with their visa status.
Students who left the country may not have known their rights or had the resources to hire a lawyer, said Ben Loveman, an immigration attorney. They now will have a harder time being reinstated, he said.
“There were huge consequences,” Loveman said.
For a Nepali programmer in Texas who had his status terminated, the ordeal brought up a mistake he thought he had left in the past.
The programmer, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear or retaliation, was arrested four years ago for drunken driving. He said he took responsibility for his actions, performing community service hours, serving probation and paying fines. The judge told him the records could be sealed after two years, but the case appears to explain why he was targeted by immigration authorities.
“I followed everything,” he said. “If they're going to take it all, at least give me due process.”
His status has since been restored, and the programmer, who is on an OPT program, has gone back to his job. But the episode hasn't faded from his mind.
If the right opportunity emerged in another country like New Zealand or Canada, he said he would take it and leave.
A student at Iowa State University who also requested anonymity out of concern about being targeted, said he is looking for options to leave the U.S., after what he describes as a “dark period.”
The Ph.D. student said his status termination pushed him to a mental breaking point. He had a plane ticket back home to Bangladesh reserved. He hardly left his apartment, and when he did, he felt he was being followed.
He attributes his termination to pending charges against him for marijuana possession, but he said he hadn't been convicted.
After his status reinstatement, he restarted a teaching assistant job he had lost. Then, he had to catch up on grading almost three weeks of assignments for dozens of students.
While he's relieved to get back to school, he's confident about his decision to leave by the end of the year — either for home or Europe. The degree is not worth the risk of another status termination, he said.
“How much should I suffer to continue here?” he said.
——
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• Two people were killed and more than a dozen others were injured after a Mexican Navy training ship struck the bottom of the Brooklyn Bridge, according to New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
• The ship, called Cuauhtémoc, was carrying 277 people when it “lost power” and struck the bridge, Adams said. It was on a global goodwill tour and en route to Iceland at the time of the incident Saturday night, officials said.
• The ship was moving in the “wrong direction,” a senior city official with knowledge of the investigation told CNN, pointing in part to the current of the East River.
• City officials earlier said “mechanical issues” may have caused the ship to strike the bridge, though the cause of the collision remains under investigation.
Our live coverage of the collision has ended. Get the latest here.
In Xalapa, Veracruz, the home of América Yamilet Sánchez has become a place of mourning, with flowers and the soft glow of candles surrounding her portrait.
Family and friends gathered on Sunday to honor the 21-year-old naval cadet, one of two people killed when the Mexican Navy training ship Cuauhtémoc struck the Brooklyn Bridge. The incident has left her loved ones demanding answers.
“It's impossible for something so serious to not be thoroughly investigated,” Gael de la Cruz, a relative of Sánchez, told Reuters. “What happened there is illogical. There must be someone responsible.”
Sánchez's mother, Rocio Hernandez, told Reuters that she is in communication with US authorities regarding the repatriation of her daughter's body.
“The US coroner already told me that yes, everything is ready … and I'm waiting for that,” she said.
The local city council of San Mateo del Mar, in Oaxaca, Mexico, has identified the second victim of Saturday's training ship crash at the Brooklyn Bridge as Adal Jair Maldonado Marcos.
In a Facebook post, the city council said they lamented the passing of the sailor and expressed their “heartfelt condolences to his family and other loved ones.”
Maldonado Marcos is the second victim identified by Mexican Authorities from Saturday's crash. Earlier, the governor of the Mexican State of Veracruz identified the first of the victims as cadet América Yamilet Sánchez.
“All my love, support and solidarity to her family,” she said in the post while wishing the injured a “speedy recovery.”
The team of investigators on the ground in New York City with the National Transportation Safety Board, “is comprised of experts in nautical operations, marine and bridge engineering and survival factors,” the agency said in post on X Sunday evening.
“The NTSB team is assembling in New York City to conduct a safety investigation into the Mexican Navy training ship, Cuauhtémoc,” the post said.
The agency is expected to hold a news conference Monday at 3 p.m. ET, the post added.
The governor of Veracruz Mexico has identified one of the victims of Saturday's training ship crash as cadet América Yamilet Sánchez.
In a social media post, Gov. Rocío Nahle said she “deeply” laments the passing of Sánchez, of Veracruz.
“All my love, support and solidarity to her family,” she said in the post.
She also wished the injured a “speedy recovery.”
Family members have built an altar for Sánchez with flowers and photos in her hometown of Xalapa, Veracruz.
A senior city official familiar with the investigation tells CNN most crew members of the Mexican sailing ship will depart tonight for a flight back to Mexico.
The Cuauhtémoc's sailors are expected to be bussed from the site around 6 p.m. for a flight at 11 p.m., the official told CNN.
The city will provide a convoy of public buses to escort the crew to John F. Kennedy International Airport, the official said.
A handful of crew members will remain aboard the ship, the official said.
Officials are also waiting for Mexican Navy authorities to arrive at the site so they can join the investigation.
Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board arrived at the scene Sunday an agency spokesperson said. The investigators are on the scene as of 4:56 p.m. ET.
A cadet and a sailor died after a Mexican Navy training ship hit the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday night, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters on Sunday.
Sheinbaum said the injured cadets are “getting better,” and that Mexico's Naval Secretariat would issue a statement on the matter later on, according to a video of her comments published by El Universal newspaper.
The president referred to the collision as “an accident,” and said Mexican and American authorities are still investigating.
A 50-yard “safety zone” has been established around the area where the damaged Mexican Navy training ship is docked after it crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge, the US Coast Guard said in a news release Sunday.
Other ships sailing around Pier 36 on the East River have been asked to “proceed at slow speed” as the NYPD provides 24/7 patrols in the safety zone, the news release detailed.
A safety zone was also established from the Brooklyn Bridge to the Manhattan Bridge after the crash Saturday night, and commercial traffic in the area was suspended, Coast Guard officials said.
The Cuauhtémoc experienced damage to all three of its masts in the caught-on-video crash, the Coast Guard confirmed.
Two crewmembers died in the incident, and the Coast Guard extended its condolences to their loved ones.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday that investigators must determine if budget cuts and program cancellations by the Trump Administration's Department of Government Efficiency contributed in any way to the Mexican Navy training ship crashing into the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday night.
“I have the general sense of a DOGE dysfunction in parts of the Coast Guard,” Schumer said at a news conference on the federal budget. “We know that there has been meddling by the Trump administration into the Coast Guard staffing, and now we need to know how this meddling might have impacted the events of last night, from a command, communication and local coordination level.”
CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.
Schumer suggested that if understaffing was an issue at the Coast Guard's Vessel Traffic Services, which monitors vessel movements on water similar to the FAA's control towers for aircraft, it might have contributed to the failure to prevent the accident.
“After being fully briefed on last night's Brooklyn Bridge accident, one thing is very clear,” Schumer said. “There are many more questions than answers as to how the accident occurred and whether it could have been prevented.”
While investigators look into the crash of a Mexican Navy training ship into the Brooklyn Bridge, local authorities are focused on moving the ship so it can be repaired.
“The (National Transportation Safety Board), the Coast Guard, the government of Mexico are now working on finding a way forward with the investigation, but that's still in the early stages of that,” Zach Iscol, the New York City Emergency Management commissioner, told CNN.
“And so right now over the next couple of days, our main focus is moving the ship safely to another location where it can begin repairs and then get it back on its way.”
The ship is currently docked at Pier 36, where it was towed overnight after striking the bridge. Many members of the crew spent Saturday night on the ship, while the injured were cared for at hospitals.
While there is some damage to the underside of the bridge, it is not structural and transportation inspectors have determined the bridge is safe, Iscol said.
The Mexican Navy secretary pledged his support to the families of those killed and injured when one of its training ships crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge.
“I deeply regret what happened during the maneuver of the Training Ship Cuauhtémoc,” Secretary Raymundo Pedro Morales Ángeles said on X Sunday. “My commitment to the well-being of the naval personnel and their families is absolute.”
Two crew members died after falling from the ship's masts, authorities said.
“From the first moment, the protocols for medical care, institutional support, and direct support for the wounded and their loved ones were activated,” he said, adding the naval command is in contact with each affected family.
Morales Ángeles also ensured that investigations into the incident will be “promptly followed up with total transparency and responsibility.”
He thanked Mexican and US authorities for their support.
“I value and appreciate the displays of solidarity expressed by the governments and navies of friendly nations,” he added.
Crew members were seen leaving the Cuauhtémoc on Sunday morning after staying onboard overnight.
The ship was docked at Pier 36 after it hit the Brooklyn bridge on Saturday evening, leaving at least two people dead and injuring more than a dozen others.
“A lot of the crew members remained on the ship last night,” Zach Iscol, commissioner for the New York City office of emergency management, told CNN. “A number of them have been in the hospital and remain in the hospitals, and then we have the two who lost their lives.”
After the Cuauhtémoc hit the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday evening, FDNY officials called for “all hands” to help with the incident.
“It looks like it hit the Brooklyn Bridge, and it drifted under the Manhattan Bridge,” one FDNY official can be heard saying in dispatch audio.
Officials with the FDNY Brooklyn can be heard discussing the incident in dispatch audio from Broadcastify.
“It looks like a sailboat was going under the Brooklyn Bridge, hit something over there with the mast broken off and is drifting under the Manhattan Bridge with people on the boat,” one official said.
Units from FDNY Manhattan received an “all hands” call to assist with the injured.
“Your box is gonna go to an all-hands; they have multiple serious patients coming to your location and we're gonna go to all hands,” one official said.
Listen to a portion of the audio here:
Authorities are looking into exactly how a Mexican Navy training ship on a goodwill tour struck the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday night, killing two crew members who fell from the ship's masts and leaving about 20 others injured.
The National Transportation Safety Board is sending a go-team to the site of the crash to investigate, the agency said Sunday, with their arrival expected late afternoon. The ship's voyage data recorder may reveal critical information about the crash.
The ship, the Cuauhtémoc, was carrying 277 people en route to Iceland when it lost power and struck the bridge, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said.
The ship was moving in the wrong direction when it hit the bridge, a senior city official with knowledge of the investigation told CNN. Cuauhtémoc's captain said he lost steering of the vessel after the rudder stopped working, according to the senior official.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Mexican authorities are supporting the injured and monitoring the situation.
The Mexican Navy training ship that struck the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday was moving in the “wrong direction,” a senior city official with knowledge of the investigation told CNN.
The Cuauhtémoc had been docked at Pier 17 in Manhattan, just down the river below the Brooklyn Bridge. As it made its way out of the harbor, it was supposed to make a stop at a Bay Ridge fueling dock before heading out to sea on its way to Iceland, the official said.
“It was the current that took it under the bridge,” the person said. “It wasn't supposed to be headed in that direction.”
Officials from different city agencies are meeting Sunday morning to determine the next steps in the response and the investigation.
According to the senior official, Cuauhtémoc's captain has told investigators he lost steering of the vessel after the rudder stooped working.
“They had some sort of mechanical issue, they lost power so without being able to use the rudder, they could not steer,” the official said, cautioning all information is preliminary and subject to change.
The city is also investigating the role of a tug boat that can be seen in video appearing to lead the Cuauhtémoc through the river.
The senior official said city divers are expected to go into the water today to inspect the Cuauhtémoc's rudder to determine if the ship can be moved.
The Cuauhtémoc's crew spent the night on the ship, the senior official said. Now, city officials are working to get them off the ship and home to Mexico, the person said.
The city's Office of the Medical Examiner is also working to repatriate the bodies of the two victims, the senior official said.
The National Transportation Safety Board is sending a “go-team” team to New York, where a Mexican Navy training ship struck the Brooklyn Bridge, according to a post Sunday by the agency's X account.
The team is expected to arrive late Sunday afternoon.
The Cuauhtémoc is docked now at Pier 36, where the Mexican Navy training ship was towed overnight after striking the Brooklyn Bridge.
The ship's three masts are visibly damaged, with the splintered tip of one mast hanging at an angle, its sail twisted around it.
Early Sunday morning, a group of seven crew members dressed in sailors' uniforms boarded the ship. There has otherwise been minimal visible activity onboard so far.
Onlookers have been walking the pier throughout the morning, trying to get a glimpse of the damaged ship, but the area is blocked off to the public, and a police patrol boat has been watching over the ship.
Cuauhtémoc's collision with the Brooklyn Bridge comes just 16 months after a massive cargo ship plowed into Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, 2024.
The incident caused the 1.6-mile structure to crumble, plunging cars and people into the frigid water below. The Singaporean-flagged container vessel, named Dali, lost power, veered off course, and smashed into the bridge, killing six construction workers.
The Cuauhtémoc is not the first ship to hit the Brooklyn Bridge.
In 1921, the schooner Edward J. Lawrence hit the bridge while being towed beneath it. In 1935, a German freighter, Tirpitz, struck a steel girder on the bridge, bending three of the ship's four masts. In 1986, a freighter from South Korea grazed the bottom of the bridge, The New York Times reported.
The voyage data recorder from the Mexican Navy training ship that crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday will provide crucial information about what went wrong, one transportation expert told CNN.
The data recorder will likely provide investigators with information about both the ship's mechanics, including any “control input” and when power may have been lost, said Mary Schiavo, CNN transportation analyst and former US Department of Transportation inspector general. It may also provide information about the river itself, such as the water's depth and its currents.
Investigators may already have that information and be in the process of reviewing it, Schiavo said. They will also need to examine whether communication was lost at any point, she added.
Mexico will be involved in the National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the incident, Schiavo said, noting the US agency is used to performing large-scale, international investigations.
The Cuauhtémoc departed Acapulco on the Pacific coast of Mexico on the morning of April 4, according to a news release from the Mexican Secretariat of the Navy.
The mission was “exalting the seafaring spirit, strengthening naval education, and carrying the Mexican people's message of peace and goodwill to the seas and ports of the world,” according to the release.
Plans for the voyage included calling on 22 ports in 15 countries in 254 days. The crew was scheduled to spend 170 days sailing and 84 days in port, according to the Mexican Navy.
Stops included various Caribbean destinations such as Kingston, Jamaica, and Havana, Cuba, as well as Mexican ports, New York, and cities in the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Iceland, the news release said.
The trip boasted the highest number of women in the crew, with 64 women and 213 men among the 277 members.
The navy said Cuauhtémoc has traveled the oceans and seas of the world for 42 years, with more than 43 generations of “Captains, Officers, Cadets, and Sailor personnel” on board.
The Mexican Navy ship had been docked at the South Street Seaport Museum for five days of public viewing prior to it hitting the Brooklyn Bridge, according to the museum's website.
A spokesperson for the New York City-area Sail4th 250 events told CNN that the ship “welcomed dignitaries and media” as part of its New York stop on its global tour.
The sailing ship was expected to join the parade of international tall ships to celebrate America's 250 anniversary on July 4, 2026, the spokesperson said, in what the event is calling “the largest-ever flotilla of tall ships from around the world.”
The Cuauhtémoc ship is a steel-hulled three-masted barque that's around 300 feet long and 160 feet tall, according to a 2024 press release from one of its training cruises.
Government documents show the Brooklyn Bridge has a navigational clearance of 127 feet.
Video shot by bystanders on Saturday showed the Cuauhtémoc's masts hitting the underside of the bridge and breaking as the vessel passed underneath, with pieces falling down toward the deck.
Two people have died and two remain in critical condition, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said. Everyone is believed to be accounted for, officials said.
The Cuauhtémoc sailing ship was used for training by the Heroic Naval Military School, an elite military academy in Mexico, according to last year's press release.
Mexico has referred to the ship as a diplomatic symbol of its country abroad.
The ship, as of last year, had visited 212 ports in 64 countries with 756,085 nautical miles sailed, the latter equivalent to making 35 trips around the world, the release said.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum sent her condolences to families of the two crew members killed when a Mexican Navy sailing ship struck the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of two crew members of the Cuauhtémoc Training Ship, who lost their lives in the unfortunate accident in New York Harbor. Our sympathy and support go out to their families,” Sheinbaum said in a post on X early Sunday.
Sheinbaum said the Mexican Navy is supporting those injured in the incident, and that the Mexican ambassador to the United States and Mexican Consulate General were supporting the navy.
“We are monitoring the situation, and the Secretary of the Navy will continue to provide updates,” she added.
Mexico's US ambassador was at the scene alongside New York officials late Saturday after the Cuauhtémoc struck the Brooklyn Bridge. The ship had been in New York as part of a global goodwill tour and was departing for Iceland at the time of the incident.
The Mexican Navy training ship that struck the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday was moved to a nearby pier to allow passengers to disembark, according to a law enforcement official.
About 250 people were still on the Cuauhtémoc after its masts struck the underside of the bridge, the official said.
The ship has since been moved to New York's Pier 36.
Remember: The tall ship was departing from Pier 17 and heading out to open sea en route to Iceland when it struck the underside of the bridge, officials earlier said.
Video of the Mexican Navy training ship shortly after it struck the Brooklyn Bridge shows people hanging from at least one of its masts.
At least one person is seen clinging from a rope on the top-most rung of one mast, while several others on the top two rungs can be seen crawling to the center part of the mast. A few individuals can be seen climbing a ladder to reach those stuck.
On tall ships like the Cuauhtémoc, it is a ceremonial tradition for sailors to climb the masts and rigging when departing or arriving into harbor.
At least two people were killed in the incident, according to New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The two individuals fell from one of the ship's masts, a law enforcement official told CNN. They were pronounced dead after being taken to a nearby hospital, the official said.
Officials said that nobody has been declared missing.
Flavio Moreira was walking with his family along the Brooklyn promenade when the Mexican sailing ship struck the Brooklyn Bridge.
Moreira said the area was busy with people enjoying the warm Saturday evening. At first, he enjoyed seeing the Cuauhtémoc tall sailing ship in the East River, he said.
“But it just kept coming closer and closer to us, and at some point, I was like, I don't think that's right,” Moreira told CNN's Ben Hunte.
Moreira said there was “a bit of commotion” when the ship's masts hit the bridge but “also a lot of people started recording like me because it was just such a surreal experience.”
From the shore, Moreira said he could see people on the boat struggling after the collision.
“We could see some people being kind of dragged. There was some, I believe it was some of the staff, they were on the top of the boat. And they were swinging around, back and forth as soon as the ship hit the bridge,” he said.
“The ship was just so close to us, so we could see all those people really struggling to just like holding onto something to… don't fall from the boat,” he added.
Correction: A previous version of this post misspelled Ben Hunte's last name.
More than 100 fire and emergency medical service (EMS) personnel responded to the scene where a Mexican Navy sailing ship struck the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday night, according to the New York City Fire Department.
The NYFD said in an email to CNN it received the call that a ship had struck the bridge around 8:39 p.m. on Saturday.
“Once the marine units arrived on scene, we knew, initially, we knew immediately that we had a serious incident with a boat striking the bridge,” Chief of Training Michael Meyers said in a FDNY post on X.
Dual command posts were set up on the Brooklyn and Manhattan sides of the river and marine units were assisting in the emergency response, Meyers said.
In its email to CNN, the department said personnel from 25 units was deployed, including 106 fire and EMS workers.
“The police, fire and EMS did a tremendous job of working together to get everyone off of that ship safe,” said Meyers.
The cause of the collision remains under investigation.
At least two people were killed and about 20 injured when a Mexican Navy training ship carrying 277 passengers struck the underside of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York Saturday night, officials said.
Dramatic video shows the Cuauhtémoc's masts hitting the underside of the bridge and breaking as the vessel passes underneath, with pieces falling down toward the deck.
Here's what we know:
What happened: The incident occurred around 8:20 p.m. local time as the captain was departing from New York's Pier 17. The ship's masts struck the bridge, breaking on impact and sending debris falling onto the vessel's deck. New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the ship “lost power” and struck the bridge. City officials earlier said “mechanical issues” may have caused the incident, but cautioned all information so far is preliminary. The National Transportation Safety Board is conducting an investigation.
Casualties: Mayor Adams said at least two people were killed in the incident. The two individuals who died fell from one of the ship's masts, a law enforcement official told CNN. Nineteen people were injured, with two seriously, Adams said. The Mexican Navy said a total of 22 people were injured, 19 of whom were taken to hospitals.
The bridge: There was no visible damage to the Brooklyn Bridge, which was left structurally intact by the incident. Traffic was temporarily closed in both directions for about 40 minutes, but was later reopened. Inspections remain ongoing.
The ship: The Cuauhtémoc is a training sailing ship of the Mexican Navy and a diplomatic symbol of Mexico abroad. Known as the “Ambassador and Knight of the Seas,” the ship was in New York as part of a global goodwill tour and was en route to Iceland at the time of the incident. The Cuauhtémoc was built in Spain in 1981 and acquired by the Mexican Navy to train cadets and officers. It regularly takes part in major regattas around the world. It had been docked at the South Street Seaport in New York since Tuesday.
At least two people were killed when the Mexican Navy sailing ship Cuauhtémoc struck the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday night, according to New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
“At this time, of the 277 on board, 19 sustained injuries, 2 of which remain in critical condition, and 2 more have sadly passed away from their injuries,” Adams wrote on X.
The two individuals who died fell from one of the ship's masts, a law enforcement official told CNN. They were pronounced dead after being taken to a nearby hospital, the official said.
The ship has since been moved to New York's Pier 36, the official added.
City officials earlier said “mechanical issues” may have caused the ship to strike the bridge, but cautioned all information so far is preliminary.
The cause of the collision remains under investigation.
Videos posted on social media show the moment the mast of a Mexican Navy training ship struck the underside of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York Saturday evening.
The ship, bedecked with white lights and flying a large Mexican flag, can be seen sailing closer to the edge of Brooklyn Bridge Park when its mast strikes the bottom of the bridge, snapping at parts and falling onto the deck below.
Crewmembers of the ship, Cuauhtémoc, can be seen clinging on to the mast after the incident. Bystanders on the dock can be heard screaming and seen in the videos running away from the scene.
There appears to be no damage to the bridge.
The Mexican Navy training ship that struck the underside of the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday evening likely suffered a “mechanical issue” that forced the captain to lose power, police said in a news conference.
“The captain that was maneuvering the ship lost, I guess, power of the ship,” Chief Wilson Aramboles of the NYPD Special Operations Bureau told reporters Saturday evening.
Aramboles added that there were “some mechanical issues” that “probably” caused the ship, Cuauhtémoc, to strike the bridge.
Officials warned that the information provided is preliminary and subject to change. The National Transportation Safety Board is conducting an investigation into what happened.
The Cuauhtémoc was leaving New York and heading out to sea en route to Iceland when it struck the underside of the bridge.
Aramboles said a number of sailors were on top of the ship's masts and were injured in the incident.
New York City's famous Brooklyn Bridge was closed for about 40 minutes following the ship accident, according to a post on X from NYC's official emergency notification system.
“The bridge is open at this time after our preliminary inspection,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said during a news conference Saturday evening.
All lanes had previously been closed, the agency said on X at 10:06 p.m. ET.
By 10:48 p.m. ET, the bridge has reopened, the agency said on X while letting people know to expect delays.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said 19 people were injured after a Mexican Navy training ship carrying 277 passengers struck the underside of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Four people have “serious” injuries, Adams said, adding “all passengers were safely removed.”
The Mexican Navy said a total of 22 people were injured, 19 of whom were taken to hospitals.
Adams said that city officials are working closely with Mexican officials on response efforts.
A Mexican Navy training ship struck the bottom of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York Saturday night, according to police and the Mexican Navy.
The sailboat hit the bridge around 8:26 p.m. and multiple people are being “aided,” a New York Police Department spokesperson told CNN.
A total of 19 people were injured, including four people with “serious” injuries, New York City Mayor Eric Adams told reporters from the scene.
“During the departure maneuver of the Cuauhtémoc Sailboat in New York, an incident occurred with the Brooklyn Bridge that caused damage to the Training Ship, temporarily preventing the continuation of the training cruise,” the Mexican Navy said in a post in Spanish on X.
“The status of the personnel and material is under review by naval and local authorities, who are providing support,” the post added.
New York emergency officials said they're responding to an incident at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. “The situation is developing and details are not confirmed at this time,” NYC Emergency Management said on X.
This post has been updated with additional information.
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Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., urges her Republican colleagues to vote for President Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful' bill and weighs in on leaked audio of former President Joe Biden's interview with a special counsel on 'Fox Report.'
President Donald Trump's "one big, beautiful bill" survived a key hurdle in the House of Representatives on Sunday night, putting it one step closer to a chamber-wide vote later this week.
It comes after a rebellion by four House conservatives upended plans to advance the bill on Friday morning.
Lawmakers on the House Budget Committee were summoned back to Washington for a 10 p.m. meeting to vote again on the bill. It passed the panel in a nearly party-line vote, 17 to 16, with four Republicans voting "present."
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., made a surprise appearance in the committee room shortly before the vote began, telling reporters there would likely be "minor modifications" to the final bill before disappearing into a back room with the four GOP holdouts who sunk the bill on Friday morning.
ANTI-ABORTION PROVIDER MEASURE IN TRUMP'S 'BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL' COULD SPARK HOUSE GOP REBELLION
Trump is pictured in front of the US Capitol Building on Friday, January 17, 2025. (Fox News Digital/Trump-Vance Transition Team)
Johnson later signaled confidence in another set of remarks to reporters just as the vote began, "I think what is about to happen here is that every member, every Republican member, will give a vote that allows us to proceed forward, and we count that as a big win tonight."
The speaker said he expects to have "productive discussions" with various factions of the House GOP, adding, "I am absolutely convinced we're going to get this in final form and pass it in accordance with our original deadline."
Four conservative House Freedom Caucus members on the committee blocked the bill from advancing on Friday, with the fiscal hawks seeking assurances that stricter crackdowns on Medicaid and green energy subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) would be in the final bill before a House-wide vote.
The four conservatives voted "present" in an effort to move discussions forward on Sunday night after getting those assurances from House GOP leaders.
Advancing the legislation through the House Budget Committee is a largely procedural move. Lawmakers have signaled that some changes will be introduced as amendments in the House Rules Committee, the final gatekeeper before a House-wide vote, sometime early this week.
Notably, two of the Budget Committee fiscal hawks who demanded further changes – Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Ralph Norman, R-S.C. – also sit on the House Rules Committee.
"Tonight, after a great deal of work and engagement over the weekend, the Budget Committee advanced a reconciliation bill that lays the foundation for much needed tax relief, border security, and important spending reductions and reforms. Importantly the bill now will move Medicaid work requirements forward and reduces the availability of future subsidies under the green new scam," Roy said in a statement after the vote.
Norman, meanwhile, told Fox News Digital that the four conservatives got those assurances from House GOP leaders in writing.
The House Budget Committee passed a framework earlier this year with "instructions" for various other committees to enact Trump policies under their jurisdictions.
Following House and Senate-wide votes on their frameworks, House committees began crafting those policies, which have now been put back together into the massive bill the House Budget Committee advanced on Sunday night.
BROWN UNIVERSITY IN GOP CROSSHAIRS AFTER STUDENT'S DOGE-LIKE EMAIL KICKS OFF FRENZY
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, is seen outside the U.S. Capitol after the last votes before the August recess on Thursday, July 25, 2024 (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Republicans are working to pass Trump's agenda via the budget reconciliation process, which allows the party controlling both Congress and the White House to pass vast pieces of legislation while completely sidelining the minority – in this case, Democrats.
It does so by lowering the Senate's threshold for passage from 60 votes to 51, lining up with the House's own simple majority. The legislation must adhere to a specific set of rules, however, including only items related to federal spending, tax, and the national debt.
Trump is having Republicans use the legislation to enact his campaign promises on tax cuts, immigration, energy, defense, and raising the debt limit.
And while quelling Friday's GOP mutiny is a victory for House Republican leaders, lawmakers will still have to sit through high-stakes negotiations on any changes made to the bill before the House Rules Committee considers it.
Conservatives are opposed to aspects of the legislation's crackdown on Medicaid, which Republicans have said they are only trimming for waste, fraud, and abuse. But Medicaid work requirements for able-bodied people are not set to kick in until 2029, and conservatives have argued that it was a large window of time for those changes to be undone, among other concerns.
They're also pushing for a more aggressive effort to repeal green energy tax subsidies passed in the former Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
The respective pushes have pitted them against moderates wary of significant Medicaid cuts, and Republican lawmakers whose districts have businesses that have benefited from the tax relief.
Meanwhile, moderates in high-cost-of-living areas have also pushed for larger state and local tax (SALT) deduction caps, which red state Republicans have largely dismissed as subsidies to high-tax blue states.
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The Republicans in those seats, however, have argued that it's an existential issue for their districts, where GOP victories were critical to winning and holding the House majority.
But even after it passes the House, Republicans there likely won't be done with the "big, beautiful bill" – Republican senators have already signaled they are likely going to make changes to the bill.
Johnson said on Fox News Sunday that House and Senate leaders were "in close coordination" on the final product, adding, "we hope that they don't make many modifications to it."
Any changes will have to go through the House again; identical bills must pass both chambers before getting signed into law by Trump.
Republican leaders have said they hope to get a bill on the president's desk by Fourth of July.
Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital leading coverage of the House of Representatives. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.
Follow on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to elizabeth.elkind@fox.com
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Colin Cowherd reacts to Rory McIlroy winning the Masters in a playoff thriller and completing the career Grand Slam.
Rory McIlroy completed his career Grand Slam last month. The reigning Masters champion recently arrived in Charlotte for the second major of the 2025 season, the PGA Championship.
McIlroy ended the tournament in a three-way tie for 47th place, finishing the major at 3-over. Sunday, the final day of the tournament, also marked McIlroy's fourth consecutive day of declining to speak with members of the media assembled at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte.
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Rory McIlroy reacts to his putt on the fourth hole during the first round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at Quail Hollow. (Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images)
Speculation swirled that the Northern Irishman avoided making any public statements to the press in light of the situation with his driver leading up to the tournament. The United States Golf Association (USGA) ruled that McIlroy's driver was non-conforming. The ruling forced McIlroy to make a switch.
McIlroy's name was linked to the failed the test and eventually became public knowledge, likely via a leak. USGA policy prevents the organization from disclosing the name of any player who receives a failed test.
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER WINS FIRST CAREER PGA CHAMPIONSHIP
McIlroy was ultimately just one of multiple competitors who was forced to make an equipment change for the PGA Championship.
Xander Schauffele, who won last year's PGA Championship, hinted that Scottie Scheffler also had to make a change.
Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele (IMAGN)
"I think Scott is winning the tournament, and I think he switched to his backup, too," Schauffele told Golfweek. "See, you don't even know, because he's so good. We can deal with it because the (equipment) reps are so good now."
Scheffler and McIlroy are endorsed by TaylorMade. As of Sunday evening, the brand had not released a public statement about the golfer's drivers.
May 18, 2025; Charlotte, North Carolina: Rory McIlroy watches his shot on the 15th hole during the final round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at Quail Hollow. (Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images)
Schauffele said that testing every competitor's clubs helps "protect the integrity of the field."
"I think they should test everyone's driver," he said. "It's not right to just test 50 guys. It just doesn't make sense if you're in it for the spirit (of the game). The whole point is to protect the integrity of the field. If you don't test everyone across the board, I don't think you're protecting the whole field."
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Amid the controversy, the PGA of America released a statement.
"We can confirm that the USGA was invited to do club testing at the PGA Championship, at the PGA of America's request," the statement read in part. "That testing program is consistent with the same level of support that the USGA provides to the PGA Tour and other championships, as part of their regular programs for driver testing. The standard process is for about a third of the field to be randomly tested under the program. That was the case at Quail Hollow this week. Finding driver heads that have crept over the line of conformance is not an unusual occurrence, especially for clubs that are hit thousands of times over a long period of time."
Scheffler went on to win the PGA Championship on Sunday to earn the third major victory of his career.
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Chantz Martin is a sports writer for Fox News Digital.
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Former President Barack Obama extended his well wishes to former President Joe Biden on Sunday evening.
Biden's office announced earlier in the day that the 46th president had received a serious prostate cancer diagnosis. Biden was Obama's vice president from 2009 to 2017.
Michelle and I are thinking of the entire Biden family. Nobody has done more to find breakthrough treatments for cancer in all its forms than Joe, and I am certain he will fight this challenge with his trademark resolve and grace. We pray for a fast and full recovery.
“Michelle and I are thinking of the entire Biden family,” Obama said in a post on X. “Nobody has done more to find breakthrough treatments for cancer in all its forms than Joe, and I am certain he will fight this challenge with his trademark resolve and grace. We pray for a fast and full recovery.”
During his last year in office, in his final State of the Union address in January 2016, Obama launched the Cancer Moonshot Initiative. Before the speech, Biden had been working on several initiatives with Congress to increase resources for the National Institutes of Health to try to end cancer. During the 2016 speech, Obama tasked then-Vice President Biden with an initiative to find a cure for cancer.
“Last year, Vice President Biden said that with a new moonshot, America can cure cancer,” Obama said at the time. “Tonight, I'm announcing a new national effort to get it done. And because he's gone to the mat for all of us, on so many issues over the past 40 years, I'm putting Joe in charge of Mission Control. For the loved ones we've all lost, for the family we can still save, let's make America the country that cures cancer once and for all.”
Biden commenced his “Moonshot” initiative with a press conference at the University of Pennsylvania's Abramson Cancer Center, one of the world's leading cancer research facilities. Biden applauded the program's efforts and highlighted the progress that had already been made, including the breakthroughs and work at the Abramson Cancer Center.
“You're on the cusp of some breakthroughs,” Biden said then. “In my terms, not your medical terms, we are at an inflection point in the fight against cancer.”
By October 2016, Biden was leading the Cancer Moonshot Task Force and increasing the funding for cancer research at the NIH.
In 2022, while president, Biden brought back the “Cancer Moonshot” to continue working to cure cancer. The initiative focused on cutting “the cancer death rate by at least half by 2047, preventing more than four million cancer deaths, and to improve the experience of people living with and surviving cancer.” It included forming the nation's first-ever Cancer Cabinet.
Biden made pursuing a cure for cancer an important part of his work, particularly after his son, Beau Biden, died from brain cancer in January 2015.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
At least 19 people were killed after weekend storms moved through Kentucky–including a devastating tornado that damaged hundreds of homes, tossed vehicles and left many people homeless. (AP video: Carolyn Kaster)
Severe storms killed at least 18 people in Kentucky with 10 more hospitalized in critical condition, authorities said. Gov. Andy Beshear said the death toll could still rise. (AP video: Dylan Lovan & Carolyn Kaster)
A piano rests atop what is left of the destroyed Sunshine Hill Baptist Church, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
A path of destroyed homes is seen, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
An American Flag is posted near destroyed homes, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Family friend Melvin Brock, right, finds a photo as he sifts through what is left of Wilson's destroyed home, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Edwina Wilson holds a photo she found in what is left of her destroyed home, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Macey Coffey carries salvageable items from what isleft of Edwina Wilson's destroyed home, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Edwina Wilson stands in what is left of her destroyed home, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
A resident holds her grandson's tory train as she looks for salvageable items of her daughter's destroyed home, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
LONDON, Ky. (AP) — Residents in Kentucky and Missouri sifted through damage in tornado-stricken neighborhoods, still on edge Sunday for more severe weather ahead after storms that killed more than two dozen people as they swept through parts of the Midwest and South.
Kentucky was hardest hit as a devastating tornado damaged hundreds of homes, tossed vehicles about and left many homeless. At least 19 people were killed, most of them in southeastern Laurel County.
Meteorologists predicted a fresh “multi-day” mix of dangerous weather conditions across the nation's midsection with heavy rains, thunderstorms and potential tornadoes, according to the National Weather Service.
Edwina Wilson stands in what is left of her destroyed home, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
The weather service confirmed a “large and extremely dangerous” tornado Sunday afternoon near Mingus, Texas, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) west of Fort Worth. Significant damage but no immediate casualties were reported in Palo Pinto County, which includes Mingus, a sheriff's office dispatcher said.
Forecasters warned of hail the size of tennis balls in that area, and damaging hail elsewhere in parts of Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska.
Jeff Wyatt's home of 17 years was destroyed along with much of his neighborhood in London, Kentucky. Wyatt, his wife and two of their children scarcely made it to safety in a hallway while the roof and family room were ripped away. On Sunday, the family returned to the wrecked home to collect photos, baby blankets and other keepsakes.
A path of destroyed homes is seen, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Family friend Melvin Brock, right, finds a photo as he sifts through what is left of Wilson's destroyed home, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Edwina Wilson holds a photo she found in what is left of her destroyed home, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
“It happened so fast,” said Wyatt, 54. “If we would have been there 10 seconds longer, we would have been gone with the family room.”
Survivors and their supporters picked through the debris in London on Sunday, wary about new forecasts. Severe storms were possible for Kentucky on Monday and even more so on Tuesday, the weather service said.
Zach Wilson, whose parents' home was destroyed, said he was “terrified” another storm would ruin the remaining salvageable items scattered across their property — or even worse, destroy another community.
“If I had to tell anybody it would be to listen to every word that the National Weather Service kicks out and take every warning seriously,” Wilson said.
The Kentucky storms emerged from a weather system Friday that killed seven in Missouri and two in northern Virginia, authorities said. The system also spawned tornadoes in Wisconsin, brought punishing heat to Texas and temporarily enveloped parts of Illinois — including Chicago — in a pall of dust on an otherwise sunny day.
The weather service said parts of Missouri and Kansas could see severe thunderstorms, golf ball-sized hail and wind gusts up to 60 mph (97 kph) into Monday.
In London, Kentucky, Ryan VanNorstran huddled with his brother's large dogs in a first-floor closet as the storm hit his brother's home Friday in a neighborhood along Keavy Road where much of the destruction in the community of nearly 8,000 people was centered. VanNorstran was house-sitting.
An American Flag is posted near destroyed homes, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Macey Coffey carries salvageable items from what isleft of Edwina Wilson's destroyed home, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
He said he felt the house shake as he got into a closet. Then, a door from another house crashed through a window. All the windows blew out of the house and his car was destroyed. Chunks of wood had punched through several parts of the roof but the house avoided catastrophic damage. When he stepped outside, he heard screaming.
“I guess in the moment, I kind of realized there was nothing I could do. I'd never really felt that kind of power from just nature,” he said.
Damage assessments were underway Sunday as the state readied its request for federal disaster assistance, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said.
The governor announced a 19th storm victim, a woman from Russell County. Of 10 people hospitalized for weather-related injuries, three remained in critical condition.
“A lot of Kentuckians are hurting right now,” Beshear said on X, touting fundraising efforts to help with funerals and rebuilding. “If you're able to help, please do.”
He said parts of two dozen state roads were closed, and some could take days to reopen.
About 1,200 tornadoes strike the U.S. annually, and they have been reported in all 50 states. Researchers found in 2018 that deadly tornadoes were occurring less frequently in the traditional “Tornado Alley” of Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas and more frequently in parts of the more densely populated and tree-filled mid-South.
In St. Louis, Mayor Cara Spencer said five people died, 38 were injured and more than 5,000 homes were affected.
“The devastation is truly heartbreaking,” she said.
A tornado struck in Scott County, about 130 miles (210 kilometers) south of St. Louis, killing two people, injuring several others and destroying several homes, Sheriff Derick Wheetley wrote on social media.
The storms hit after the Trump administration massively cut staffing of National Weather Service offices, with outside experts worrying about how it would affect warnings in disasters such as tornadoes.
The office in Jackson, Kentucky, which was responsible for the area around London, Kentucky, had a March 2025 vacancy rate of 25%; the Louisville, Kentucky, weather service staff was down 29%; and the St. Louis office was down 16%, according to calculations by weather service employees obtained by The Associated Press. The Louisville office also was without a permanent boss — the meteorologist in charge — as of March, according to the staffing data.
Experts said any vacancy rate above 20% is a critical problem.
A piano rests atop what is left of the destroyed Sunshine Hill Baptist Church, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
___
See more photos from the severe storms in the South and Midwest here.
___
Associated Press writers Sophia Tareen in Chicago and Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, contributed to this report.
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District Attorney-elect Hochman joined 'Fox & Friends' after the win, saying voters favored his 'down the middle' approach over Gascón's 'extreme pro-criminal policies.'
Tough-on-crime Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman is doubling down on targeting criminals who cross into the county, saying they will be held "fully accountable for their illegal actions."
Hochman, a Republican-turned-Independent, defeated incumbent progressive prosecutor George Gascón by a 20-point margin. Gascón was considered by many voters to be soft on crime.
"I am standing at the border between LA County and San Bernardino County where criminals used to enjoy crossing in the LA direction, thinking that little to no consequences would occur if they stole, robbed and engaged in criminal conduct," Hochman shared in a video posted on his X account on Sunday.
"Times have changed! The fun is over. A new DA was elected. And criminals in LA County will now be prosecuted and held fully accountable for their illegal actions," he continued."
MENENDEZ BROTHERS' RESENTENCING MOVES FORWARD AS DA CALLS OUT 'DECEIT, 'NARCISSISTIC TENDENCIES' IN PRISON
Hochman, a former federal prosecutor and lifelong Los Angeles resident, campaigned as a "hard middle" candidate, rejecting both mass incarceration and the "public safety failure" of Gascón's liberal policies, which Hochman said led to increased crime and a lack of consequences for juvenile offenders.
MENENDEZ BROTHERS: LOS ANGELES DA NATHAN HOCHMAN ASKS TO WITHDRAW PREDECESSOR'S MOTION TO FREE KILLERS
Los Angeles District Attorney, Nathan Hochman speaks to the media outside court in Van Nuys, California, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
He also previously served as the president of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission and accused Gascón of "catastrophic incompetence" on the campaign trail and vowed to restore order and common sense.
While in office, Gascón survived two recall attempts as voters voiced concern over his policies. He also co-authored the infamous Proposition 47, a 2014 voter-approved measure that downgraded most thefts from felonies to misdemeanors if the amount stolen were under $950, and reclassified some felony drug offenses as misdemeanors.
Despite political differences between voters, public safety is a crossover issue, said Hochman.
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"I spoke to ultra-left liberals, independents and conservative Republicans. And it turns out that even though they don't agree on much, they do agree that making sure that the district attorney prioritizes their safety and implements policies that will hold criminals accountable for their actions in a smart and proportional manner really matters," he said.
Editor's note: The headline has been updated to note Hochman was referring to criminals in California, rather than migrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.
Stepheny Price is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business. She covers topics including missing persons, homicides, national crime cases, illegal immigration, and more. Story tips and ideas can be sent to stepheny.price@fox.com
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CBS News Chief Executive Officer Wendy McMahon announced Monday she is stepping down, the latest twist in a growing battle of wills between the company's news division and Paramount Global controlling shareholder Shari Redstone.
Paramount Global co-CEO George Cheeks had a discussion with McMahon Saturday and asked for her resignation, according to people familiar with the matter. McMahon agreed to step down, and the Paramount Global board held a meeting Sunday at which members were made aware of the decision, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.
Spokespeople for McMahon, Paramount Global and CBS News declined to comment.
"The past few months have been challenging. It's become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward. It's time for me to move on and for this organization to move forward with new leadership," McMahon wrote in her resignation letter to employees.
In recent weeks, Paramount Global's board had put increasing pressure on Cheeks and McMahon to know specific details about "60 Minutes" programming ahead of its air date in a divergence from how the show operated in the past, according to people familiar with the matter. Veteran "60 Minutes" executive producer Bill Owens resigned last month, citing Paramount Global's increased scrutiny on his journalistic independence.
"Our parent company Paramount is trying to complete a merger," said Scott Pelley, a "60 Minutes" correspondent, on-air at the end of an episode last month after Owens resigned. "The Trump administration must approve it. Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways. None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he had lost the independence that honest journalism requires."
"60 Minutes" aired its final episode of the season on Sunday. It won't have live episodes again until September. McMahon felt she had to fight to even get "60 Minutes" to air at all in recent weeks, given the board's preference that certain stories not run, according to people familiar with her thinking.
McMahon was appointed CEO in August 2023.
There have also been several points of tension between McMahon and Redstone in recent months, including CBS's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a potential "60 Minutes" settlement with the Trump administration over the editing of an October interview with then-presidential candidate and former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. Privately, Redstone has criticized McMahon for "fairness and balance" issues, according to people familiar with Redstone's thinking.
Redstone has also been unhappy with McMahon's leadership and the performance of CBS News from a business perspective, according to people familiar with Redstone's thinking.
Paramount Global is trying to get government approval to merge with Skydance Media, run by David Ellison. The deal would pay Redstone more than $1.5 billion for her controlling share in the company. She would not have a role at the merged entity going forward.
That merger is being held up by the Federal Communications Commission as negotiations between Paramount Global and the government continue over the "60 Minutes" interview.
Another point of contention between the federal agency and the company is corporate diversity initiatives, The Wall Street Journal reported last month. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has publicly urged media companies to curb diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
In February, Paramount said it would end its DEI policies, citing an executive order by President Donald Trump that banned the practices.
In October, she publicly criticized McMahon's decision to reprimand CBS News morning anchor Tony Dokoupil over an interview with author Ta-Nehisi Coates. CBS News said Dokoupil had violated editorial standards when the host pushed Coates on why he didn't include more of Israel's perspective on Palestine during the interview. Redstone said CBS News made a "bad mistake."
"I think Tony did a great job with that interview," Redstone said in October during a panel at Advertising Week New York.
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The stars are out at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.
This year's event kicked off on Tuesday with an opening ceremony and the premiere of the French film "Leave One Day." The festival will continue until May 24, providing nearly two weeks of French street style and red-carpet fashion.
So far, some celebrities have turned heads in bold ensembles, while others have missed the mark with their looks.
From Bella Hadid to Halle Berry, here are the best and worst looks we've seen.
She arrived for "The Phoenician Scheme" screening on Sunday in a uniquely shaped Schiaparelli set.
The model's structured top had a beaded, off-the-shoulder neckpiece that covered her chest and a high-low peplum waistband. Her pants, on the other hand, were oversize and wide.
Though her statement blouse had potential, Consani's pants were a little too big and needed tailoring. A form-fitting skirt might have looked better with the top piece.
The actor could have looked classic with a traditional tuxedo for the red-carpet event, or he could have attempted a more daring style.
Instead, he tried to do both at the same time.
He wore a sharp Saint Laurent tux with his trousers tucked into thigh-high leather boots — a style the fashion house first revealed in its January runway show.
The shoes were distracting and felt out of place with his otherwise basic look.
For the "Die, My Love" screening, Hargitay chose an off-the-shoulder gown crafted with black satin and sparkling hot-pink fabric.
The color combination was sharp, the gown's straight silhouette fit the actor perfectly, and her elbow-length gloves made the outfit even more elegant.
His brown ensemble included a button-up shirt, a wrap blazer, straight-leg trousers, and a bow tie, all cut with raw hems.
While the rough style might have worked for a different event, it looked too casual at Cannes. His black loafers were also too harsh against the lighter outfit.
She walked the "Eddington" red carpet in a strapless, sparkling creation from the French fashion house.
Its silver top was covered in sparkles and wrapped with a black bow, while its floor-length skirt had Dior's classic Junon petals.
Portman accessorized the look perfectly with a bun hairstyle and a thick diamond necklace.
Also on the "Eddington" red carpet, Jolie wore a strapless Brunello Cucinelli design. It had a thick floor-length skirt, a fitted bodice, and all-over sparkles that highlighted its rope texture.
Though the actor looked pretty, her gown's ivory color matched her skin tone too closely and washed her out. The same dress in a pink or lilac shade could have worked better.
The Chinese actor wore the strapless dress on the "Dossier 137" red carpet. Its structured bodice was decorated with beaded appliques, and its cups were shaped with flower petals.
To accessorize the glamorous look, she added a sparkling diamond choker, matching earrings, a thick bracelet, and vibrant red lipstick.
She attended the "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning" red carpet on Wednesday in a black Saint Laurent gown.
Though her sleeveless dress was classic, it was also overly simple. Statement jewels could have easily enhanced the look.
She also draped a dark leather jacket around her arms, which was much more casual than the rest of her outfit.
She wore a crystal-covered dress that looked like it was molded to her body with its form-fitting design.
Its strapless, snake-print bodice was corseted with a deep plunge down the middle, and its floor-length skirt was pink and embellished with countless sparkles.
The Thai actor completed her look with a large diamond necklace crafted in the shape of leaves.
Elie Saab designed the model's off-the-shoulder gown. It had a deep V-neckline, see-through stripes, and all-over sparkles in blue and purple.
Some of those details might have worked on their own. But together, especially with the gown's mermaid shape, its accents made it look more theatrical than glamorous.
Cruise attended a promotional event for "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning" at Cannes on Wednesday.
In doing so, he became one of the best-dressed men at the festival so far this year.
He wore a fitted, textured knit polo and matching trousers with sharp pleats. The outfit was understated and vibrant on its own, while his brown dress shoes and dark sunglasses gave it an edge.
When Berry walked onto the Cannes red carpet, she wore a shapeless Jacquemus gown with a black-and-white stripe print.
She later told reporters that she'd originally planned to wear an "amazing dress" from Gaurav Gupta, but had to find a new look when Cannes announced a new dress code that prohibits voluminous gowns with long trains the day before the festival began.
Unfortunately for Berry, the bold dress she chose was so flowy and oversize that it seemed to wear her, when it should have been the other way around.
Nicolas Jebran designed her halter gown. The form-fitting piece had knotted fabric at the hip, a floor-length skirt with a short train, and a hip-high slit that revealed her sparkling pumps.
The gown was also adorned with a sparkling silver piece that covered one shoulder and was embedded with turquoise stones.
The ensemble was elegant and fit Fontana perfectly.
Saint Laurent designed her sleeveless black dress with some interesting details. Its straps crisscrossed across her back to create cutouts and a deep plunge on the side of her chest.
However, the front of the gown was overly simple. It had an asymmetrical neckline that looked mishapen, and a thigh-high slit that was cut too far to the side.
Even her massive emerald earrings from Chopard weren't enough to make the ensemble memorable.
Her Tamara Ralph gown was strapless and covered in square metallic pieces that sparkled in the light as she walked.
It also had velvet panels at the waist that gave the dress some shape and matched its glamorous train.
Not only was the dress tailored perfectly to Longoria, but the actor also accessorized strongly. She wore a statement necklace, rings, and earrings from Pasquale Bruni.
The model arrived wearing a black Armani Privé gown with all-over white polka dots. It had a strapless neckline, off-the-shoulder puffed sleeves, and a full skirt.
On its own, the dress was fun, frilly, and perfect for Cannes.
But Shayk wore her hair styled in a dramatic shape — a bun atop a strip of pin-straight hair — that distracted from her outfit.
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Chip Wars:
Tensions over Huawei's next-generation of chips underscore how fragile trade talks remain between the US and China.
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The Chinese government accused the Trump administration of undermining recent trade talks in Geneva with its warning that using Huawei Technologies Co.'s artificial-intelligence chips “anywhere in the world” would violate US export controls.
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Regeneron Pharmaceuticals on Monday announced it will acquire "substantially all" of 23andMe's assets for $256 million.
The drugmaker participated in a bankruptcy auction for 23andMe, a once high-flying genetic testing company that filed for for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March. Regeneron is buying 23andMe's Personal Genome Service, Total Health and Research Services business lines, according to a release.
"We believe we can help 23andMe deliver and build upon its mission to help people learn about their own DNA and how to improve their personal health, while furthering Regeneron's efforts to improve the health and wellness of many," Dr. George Yancopoulos, Regeneron's president, said in a statement.
Regeneron will not buy the company's telehealth subsidiary, Lemonaid Health, which 23andMe had acquired for around $400 million in 2021. Lemonaid Health will be shut down, but Regeneron has offered to employ all staffers of the acquired business units, according to the release.
The deal is still subject to approval by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. Pending approval, it's expected to close in the third quarter of this year, according to the release.
23andMe rocketed into the mainstream because of its at-home DNA testing kits that gave customers insight into their family histories and genetic profiles. The five-time CNBC Disruptor 50 company went public in 2021 via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company. At its peak, 23andMe was valued at around $6 billion.
The company struggled to generate recurring revenue and stand up viable research and therapeutics businesses after going public, and it's been plagued by privacy concerns since hackers accessed the information of nearly 7 million customers in 2023.
In its bankruptcy proceedings, 23andMe required all bidders to comply with its privacy policies, and a court-appointed, independent "Consumer Privacy Ombudsman" will assess the deal, the companies said.
Several lawmakers and officials, including the Federal Trade Commission, had expressed concerns about the safety of consumers' genetic data through 23andMe's sale process. The privacy ombudsman will present a report on the acquisition to the court by June 10.
"We are pleased to have reached a transaction that maximizes the value of the business and enables the mission of 23andMe to live on, while maintaining critical protections around customer privacy, choice and consent with respect to their genetic data," Mark Jensen, 23andMe's board chair, said in a statement.
WATCH: Inside the fall of 23andMe
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Best Buy stock could be poised to add to its rally in response to cooling trade tensions between the U.S. and China, according to UBS.
"Some uncertainty lingers, but favorable tariff developments and sales momentum should support shares," analyst Michael Lasser wrote in a Friday note. "While BBY's stock has rallied a bit in response to temporarily lowered tariffs on Chinese imports, we still see a risk-reward that's tilted to the upside."
Shares are down more than 15% in 2025, but have advanced roughly 8% so far in May. Stock in the retailer surged 6% last Monday following news that the U.S. and China agreed to temporarily lower tariffs on each other from their highest levels.
Even if the current tariff level of 30% on China remains in place, that is still a workable situation Best Buy can effectively navigate, Lasser added.
"A ~30% tariff on Chinese imports and a lower rate for certain CE products should create a much more manageable backdrop for the retailer," the analyst said. "Even if temporary, it should put the co. in a better position to control inventory flow and pricing of its products over the next few months."
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It can become such a reflex that it's easy to miss that you're even saying the word: "Sorry, quick question," or, "I'm sorry for the long email."
Apologizing has its place: when you've actually done something wrong. But too many professionals find themselves saying "sorry" in situations that don't require an apology.
As a keynote speaker, author, and LinkedIn Learning Instructor focused on presence and communication, I've helped thousands of professionals show up with credibility and confidence. And over-apologizing is one of the most common habits that undermines both.
Apologies are meaningful when they're warranted and our tendency to say "sorry" stems from good intentions: to be polite, respectful, and agreeable.
But when it becomes your default — even when you've done nothing wrong — it can quietly signal that you lack confidence, authority, or conviction. It doesn't just soften your message, it can make others perceive you as weak. Because if you're saying "sorry" for taking up space in a meeting, sending a follow-up email, or asking a question, you're not being polite. You're preemptively discrediting yourself.
Once you start noticing it, you'll see it everywhere:
Often, "sorry" is acting as a placeholder for something else: nervousness, hesitation, or a fear of being judged. These feelings can also show up as other "minimizing language," or phrases that undermine your message when speaking. You might sprinkle in a lot of "just"s or say, "I might be wrong, but..."
DON'T MISS: 8 online classes to help you boost your confidence and earn more money—30% off Memorial Day sale
Over time, a pattern of over-apologizing and using minimizing language sends a subtle but clear message:
Whether consciously or not, people pick up on these cues. It might prevent them from taking your ideas seriously and make them more likely to interrupt or overlook you. It can also cause you to clam up preemptively, conditioning you to expect rejection or pushback before you've even said anything.
You don't need to eliminate "sorry" from your vocabulary entirely. But you do need to know when to swap it for something stronger. Here are my best tips:
This is one of my favorite swaps:
These subtle yet powerful changes keep the tone positive and help you appear more confident. It shows you value the other person's time too without shrinking your own presence.
Don't start your contribution with "sorry" unless you've genuinely made a mistake. If you're sharing an idea, checking in, or asking a question, there's nothing to apologize for!
Don't apologize in advance for disagreeing or sharing an idea. It makes your input easier to dismiss before it's even heard.
Like any communication shift, it takes practice to break this habit. But small, intentional steps make a big difference.
And at the end of the day, remember this: You deserve to take up space just as much as the next person.
Lorraine K. Lee is an award-winning keynote speaker and CEO of RISE Learning Solutions. She's also the best-selling author of "Unforgettable Presence: Get Seen, Gain Influence, and Catapult Your Career," which was named a must-read by the Next Big Idea Club. She teaches popular courses with LinkedIn Learning and Stanford Continuing Studies. Past clients include Zoom, Cisco, LinkedIn, ASICS, McKinsey & Company, and many others.
Want to be smarter, richer and more confident? Take one (or more!) of Smarter by CNBC Make It's expert-led online classes, which aim to teach you the critical skills you need to succeed that aren't taught in school. Topics include earning passive income online, mastering communication and public speaking skills, acing your job interview, and practical strategies to grow your wealth. Use coupon code MEMORIAL for a discount of 30% off the regular course prices (plus tax). Offer valid May 19, 2025, through June 2, 2025.
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White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett outside the White House in April.
Photographer: Will Oliver/EPA/Bloomberg
White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett criticized Moody's Ratings over its decision to lower the US credit rating, calling the move backward-looking and saying the Trump administration is committed to lowering federal spending.
“Make no mistake, the US debt is the safest bet on Earth. There's no country that I'd rather have than the United States and so Moody's can do what it wants to,” Hassett said in an interview Monday morning on Fox Business Network.
In this article
Bath & Body Works has a new chief executive officer, its second in less than three years.
The personal care, home and beauty retailer has named Daniel Heaf as its new CEO, effectively immediately, succeeding Gina Boswell. Heaf was most recently Nike's chief strategy and transformation officer until his role was eliminated by the sneaker giant's new CEO, Elliott Hill.
Boswell joined Bath & Body Works as CEO in December 2022 from consumer products giant Unilever. In March, Bath & Body Works disclosed Boswell would undergo surgery and take a leave of absence lasting a period of "several weeks."
Heaf will be introduced to the company at headquarters Monday and met with top executives Sunday, fresh off the plane. Heaf moved to Columbus, Ohio — near the company's headquarters — just this weekend, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic details.
Boswell led Bath & Body Works in the post-pandemic era, returning the company known for its scented soaps and lotions to profitable revenue growth. The retailer is uniquely positioned in today's trading environment as the vast majority of its supply chain is in North America, reducing its exposure to President Donald Trump's broad tariffs.
Still, the retailer is looking for "acceleration," according to the person familiar, specifically aiming to resonate more with tweens and capture even more men. The company also wants to expand its international reach.
Before his role as chief transformation and strategy officer at Nike, Heaf was the former head of Nike Direct where he oversaw 45,000 employees and 9,000 stores in 41 countries. He also previously led Burberry's digital transformation.
In connection with the new CEO announcement, Bath & Body Works on Monday preannounced first-quarter results. Both revenue and profit surpassed the company's estimates.
Revenue grew 3% year over year to $1.42 billion. Earnings per share of 49 cents topped the year-ago 38 cents and exceeded Bath and Body Works' guidance. The retailer is reaffirming its previous full-year guidance assuming a 10% tariff on goods from China, but excluding any other tariff changes.
Chinese imports are currently subject to 30% tariffs.
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Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich warned that the tariffs from President Donald Trump's economic policy agenda could signal the end of American influence in the world.
In a recent episode of "The Bottom Line," Reich, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said when global investors, including Americans, started pulling their money out of Treasury bills and away from U.S. dollars after the tariffs were announced, America's standing in the world may have wavered.
The U.S. dollar and Treasury bills are the safest places in the world to hold money, Reich said. If that changes, the U.S. would "lose power and we would also lose a lot of wealth in this country," he said.
"Having the dollar be the reserve currency helps all of us Americans here because we get, in a sense, a free ride," Reich said. "We get the benefits of the rest of the global economy investing in us." He questioned why the Trump administration would want to create policies that end this American hegemony sooner than might have otherwise happened.
Reich also said the tariffs are hardest on Americans with lower incomes.
"Every consumer, effectively, is poorer," he said. "It is a regressive tax in the sense that consumers who have lower incomes ... have to pay a larger portion of their incomes in the form of this tariff tax."
Watch the video to hear more from Robert Reich about the future of manufacturing in America, immigration, and what companies can do to protect their bottom lines.
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Welcome back! In case you missed it, our new newsletter, Tech Memo, written by the great Alistair Barr, launched on Friday. Check out the first edition here. And if you aren't already, subscribe here.
In today's big story, we're looking at Big Tech's obsession with cutting out middle managers and flattening their orgs.
What's on deck
Markets: When companies like Facebook and Zillow IPO, they turn to this man
Tech: How one of the hottest coding startups almost died.
Business: Gen Z is turning to blue-collar jobs.
But first, no longer stuck in the middle.
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Technology can quickly become outdated, but it's a job title in tech that's an endangered species: the middle manager.
Big Tech is flattening its ranks to thin out layers of management in a bid to reduce bureaucracy, writes Emma Cosgrove, Tim Paradis, Eugene Kim, and Ashley Stewart.
Middle managers have had to keep their heads on a swivel for a while. At the end of last year, BI's workplace expert Aki Ito detailed Corporate America falling out of love with the role.
But the tech industry has taken the trend into overdrive, as is often the case. From Microsoft to Intel and Amazon, companies are shedding managers to make themselves as quick and lean as possible.
The biggest immediate impact of flattening orgs is managers overseeing more workers. Some argue that will limit micromanagement. Others say you'll burn out the managers who are left behind.
Big Tech is willing to take its chances, though.
As Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said last fall: "I hate bureaucracy."
"The goal again is to allow us to have higher ownership and to move more quickly," Jassy added.
Big Tech's middle-management purge speaks to a larger trend: Let the stars shine and get rid of anyone else.
Part of tech companies' efficiency push is to identify top performers and weed out underachievers.
With that approach, you could argue there is less of a need for managers. No weak links in the chain means managers don't have to do as much hand-holding. Get out of the way and let your top performers do what they do best.
This isn't a foolproof strategy, though. Someone being extremely capable at their job doesn't always correlate with them being an easy employee to manage. In fact, sometimes the opposite can be true.
But what other options do these tech giants have? The pressure from startups like OpenAI and Anthropic is undeniable. Their smaller size also gives them a massive leg up to move quickly.
And when it comes to AI, speed is the name of the game. Meanwhile, middle managers seem to only be slowing companies down.
1. Trump's "Big, beautiful bill" could cause some big chaos. Market pros say the president's tax bill would add $4 trillion to the US deficit, stoking mayhem in the bond market. That means another Trump vs. bond market showdown could be headed our way.
2. Bankers tell startups wanting to go public: "Go, go, go." Startups like Hinge Health put their IPO plans on hold when Trump introduced sweeping tariffs. Now that the stock market has recovered, bankers are telling companies to go public while they still can.
3. This "hick from Ohio" is a big deal for IPOs. Pat Healy could be the forefather of getting stock exchanges to compete for the right to get a company to list with them. From free Davos advertising to NFL star appearances, here's how Healy lands companies major marketing perks.
1. "Appstinence" is a virtue. Raised in the age of the smartphone, a growing cohort of people, mostly millennials and Gen Zers, are opting for dumb tech instead. As the evidence of our collective phone addiction adds up, even tech lovers are embracing the digital detox movement.
2. How Silicon Valley's favorite startup came back from the edge of disaster. StackBlitz was at death's door when Anthropic released its AI model Sonnet 3.5 in 2024. That led StackBlitz to create Bolt.new, a product that could write code based on prompts written in English — and the company's gold mine. BI's Alistair Barr has the full story.
3. Is AI coming for teachers? Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn thinks so. On a recent podcast appearance, he told venture capitalist Sarah Guo that schools will still be necessary in an AI-driven future — but mostly just for childcare. He thinks AI will do the actual teaching.
1. Gen Z is dyeing white collars blue. The cost of college is skyrocketing, and the white-collar job market is unstable. That's led many young people to turn to trades instead, which can offer six-figure salaries and have a high demand for workers.
2. Selling a merger to Trump? MAGA-ify it. Cable giant Charter is merging with Cox, posing a bigger rival for Comcast. The merger still needs the green light from the Trump administration, and it seems like Charter is leaning into pro-American rhetoric to get it, BI's Peter Kafka writes.
3. LA investor Jessica Mah is in a legal battle with DGV investor Justin Caldbeck and two ex-employees. In a lawsuit, Mah has accused Caldbeck of sexually harassing her, which he denies. The lawsuits against Mah, meanwhile, accuse her of misusing company funds, harassment, and age discrimination, BI's Rob Price reports.
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After a bout of panic buying, more consumers are prepared to rein in their spending and live with less, recent studies show. Even President Donald Trump suggested that Americans should be comfortable with fewer things.
"[Americans] don't need to have 250 pencils," Trump said on NBC News' "Meet the Press." "They can have five."
According to a study by Intuit Credit Karma, 83% of consumers said that if their financial situation worsens in the coming months, they will strongly consider cutting back on their non-essential purchases.
Over half of adults, or 54%, said they'll spend less on travel, dining or live entertainment this year, compared to last year, a new report by Bankrate also found. The site polled nearly 2,500 people in April.
"Moving forward, people may not be able to absorb these higher prices," said Ted Rossman, Bankrate's senior industry analyst. "It sort of feels like something has to give."
More from Personal Finance:How to save on your grocery billAfter UK, China trade deals, tariff rate still highest since 1934Stagflation is a looming economic risk
While many Americans are concerned about the effect of on-again, off-again tariff policies, few have changed their spending habits yet. Up until now, that is what has helped the U.S. avoid a recession.
Because it represents a significant portion of Gross Domestic Product and fuels economic growth, consumer spending is considered the backbone of the economy.
"Consumers are still spending despite widespread pessimism fueled by rising tariffs," said Jack Kleinhenz, chief economist of the National Retail Federation. "While tariffs may have weighed on spending decisions, growth is coming at a moderate pace and consumer spending remains steady, reflecting a resilient economy."
However, now the economy is "at a pivot point," according to Kleinhenz.
"Hiring, unemployment, spending and inflation data continue in the right direction, but at a slower pace," Kleinhenz said in a recent statement. "Everyone is worried, and a lot of people have recession on their minds."
Trump's tariffs jump started a wave of declining sentiment, which plays a big part in determining how much consumers are willing to spend.
"Any time there is this much uncertainty, people tend to get a little more cautious," said Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree.
The Conference Boards' expectations index, which measures consumers' short-term outlook, plunged to its lowest level since 2011. The University of Michigan's consumer survey also showed sentiment sank to the lowest reading since June 2022 and the second lowest in the survey's history going back to 1952.
"The cumulative effects of inflation and high interest rates have been straining households, contributing to record levels of credit card debt and causing consumer sentiment to plummet," Rossman said.
Tack on the Trump administration's resumption of collection efforts on defaulted federal student loans and many Americans, who are already under pressure, will suddenly have less money in their pockets.
As it stands, roughly half — 47% — of U.S. adults would not consider themselves financially prepared for a sudden job loss or lack of income, according to recent data from TD Bank's financial preparedness report, which polled more than 5,000 people earlier this year.
Another 44% of Americans said they think about their financial preparedness every single day.
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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made a slew of announcements and revealed new products on Monday that are aimed at keeping the company at the center of artificial intelligence development and computing.
One of the most notable announcements was its new "NVLink Fusion" program, which will allow customers and partners to use non-Nvidia central processing units and graphics processing units together with Nvidia's products and its NVLink.
Until now, NVLink was closed to chips made by Nvidia. NVLink is a technology developed by Nvidia to connect and exchange data between its GPUs and CPUs.
"NV link fusion is so that you can build semi-custom AI infrastructure, not just semi-custom chips," Huang said at Computex 2025 in Taiwan, Asia's biggest electronics conference.
According to Huang, NVLink Fusion allows for AI infrastructures to combine Nvidia processors with different CPUs and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). "In any case, you have the benefit of using the NV link infrastructure and the NV link ecosystem."
Nvidia announced Monday that AI chipmaking partners for NVLink Fusion already include MediaTek, Marvell, Alchip, Astera Labs, Synopsys and Cadence. Under NVLink Fusion, Nvidia customers like Fujitsu and Qualcomm Technologies will also be able to connect their own third-party CPUs with Nvidia's GPUs in AI data centers, it added.
Ray Wang, a Washington-based semiconductor and technology analyst, told CNBC that the NVLink represents Nvidia's plans to capture a share of data centers based on ASICs, which have traditionally been seen as Nvidia competitors.
While Nvidia holds a dominant position in GPUs used for general AI training, many competitors see room for expansion in chips designed for more specific applications. Some of Nvidia's largest competitors in AI computing — which are also some of its biggest customers — include cloud providers such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon, all of which are building their own custom processors.
NVLink Fusion "consolidates NVIDIA as the center of next-generation AI factories—even when those systems aren't built entirely with NVIDIA chips," Wang said, noting that it opens opportunities for Nvidia to serve customers who aren't building fully Nvidia-based systems, but are looking to integrate some of its GPUs.
"If widely adopted, NVLink Fusion could broaden NVIDIA's industry footprint by fostering deeper collaboration with custom CPU developers and ASIC designers in building the AI infrastructure of the future," Wang said.
However, NVLink Fusion does risk lowering demand for Nvidia's CPU by allowing Nvidia customers to use alternatives, according to Rolf Bulk, an equity research analyst at New Street Research.
Nevertheless, "at the system level, the added flexibility improves the competitiveness of Nvidia's GPU-based solutions versus alternative emerging architectures, helping Nvidia to maintain its position at the center of AI computing," he said.
Nvidia's competitors Broadcom, AMD, and Intel are so far absent from the NVLink Fusion ecosystem.
Huang opened his keynote speech with an update on Nvidia's next-generation of Grace Blackwell systems for AI workloads. The company's "GB300," to be released in the third quarter of this year, will offer higher overall system performance, he said.
On Monday, Nvidia also announced the new NVIDIA DGX Cloud Lepton, an AI platform with a compute marketplace that Nvidia said will connect the world's AI developers with tens of thousands of GPUs from a global network of cloud providers.
"DGX Cloud Lepton helps address the critical challenge of securing reliable, high-performance GPU resources by unifying access to cloud AI services and GPU capacity across the NVIDIA compute ecosystem," the company said in a press release.
In his speech, Huang also announced plans for a new office in Taiwan, where it will also be building an AI supercomputer project with Taiwan's Foxconn, officially known as Hon Hai Technology Group, the world's largest electronics manufacturer.
"We are delighted to partner with Foxconn and Taiwan to help build Taiwan's AI infrastructure, and to support TSMC and other leading companies to advance innovation in the age of AI and robotics," Huang said.
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Some ambitious Gen Z professionals are leading the return-to-office trend, eager to climb the corporate ladder, learn from their older peers and upend stereotypes about their generation.
Born between 1997 and 2012, many members of Gen Z started their first jobs in the midst of the pandemic. As remote and hybrid work became the new norm, the youngest generation at work were often scapegoated for the rise in empty offices, facing a flurry of criticism for being lazy and shirking in-person work.
Recently, JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon complained that while he has been working seven days a week since the pandemic, "the zoomers don't show up." Zoomers refers to Gen Z. Meanwhile, British businessman Lord Alan Sugar, 78, urged young workers to get back into the office saying they "just want to sit at home."
However, contrary to those accusations, young workers up to the age of 24 are coming to the office an average of three days a week, higher than all other age groups, per a recent global study of 12,000 employees by real estate firm JLL.
Additionally, Gen Z report craving more in-person interaction, with 91% of Gen Z desiring a balance between virtual and in-person opportunities to connect with colleagues and grow professionally, per a survey of nearly 2,000 U.S. adults by events company Freeman.
Although young workers enjoy the benefits of remote work and flexibility, they view the office as "a launchpad for their careers," Dan Schawbel, a managing partner at research firm Workplace Intelligence said.
CNBC Make It interviewed three Gen Zers about how being in the office is helping them get ahead.
Gen Z have been said to have made several corporate faux pas in recent years from channeling the "office siren" aesthetic to using TikTok slang like "ick," due to their inexperience. The office provides an environment for young workers to get to grips with corporate norms from communication skills to dress codes.
Trust specialist, Sophia Thibault, said the pandemic hit in the middle of her first year in college affecting her ability to socialize. So when her first job at MRHFM law firm required her to be in the office five days a week, she welcomed the opportunity.
"At first it was a little annoying having to be in office every single day, but I think it helped me really transition into the workforce," the 24-year-old said.
Being around colleagues 40 hours a week helped develop Thibault's ability to interact with a diverse group of people and pick up habits like corporate lingo, buzzwords, and the dress code by observing others — much of which can't be learned "behind a computer screen," she said.
"Overall, my friends who I graduated with, like being in office because we have no idea really how to be a professional adult," she said.
Max Ranzato, a 28-year-old associate lawyer based in New York, agreed with Thibault's view and recalled getting his first job out of college as a life science recruiter which shifted from full-time in the office to remote work after a year, because of the pandemic. Ranzato said remote work stalled his learning as his manager wasn't there anymore to give him advice.
"Once it switched to remote, you lost all of the fun and perk of being a recruiter and then it just went to cold-calling people all day alone, not talking to anyone, not eating lunch with anybody, not really making friends," he said. "I definitely think working from home is very lonely."
But for Gen Z, working in an office isn't just about filling the gaps in their corporate knowledge, it's also about getting ahead.
"I want to be highly successful," said Ranzato, who now works at a law practice and commutes 90 minutes from Queens to New Jersey four days a week just to be in the office.
"So I walk to the subway, take the subway to Penn Station to get the train, take a train to Newark, New Jersey, and then I Uber to the office," he explained. "It sounds very intense, but I don't mind it."
Ranzato, who estimates his commute costs between $600 - $800 monthly, says it's worth it because as an ambitious lawyer hoping to make partner one day, he feels that his "learning grows exponentially while being in the office."
In the office, Ranzato interacts with partners every day, observing their behavior and communication style in meetings and asking the questions he needs. "I just want to be paid well and be surrounded by the people that are going to guide my future. How can I learn when I'm not here with them?"
His Gen Z friends who are accountants or engineers feel the same way and hope to be recognized by higher-ups. "They want money. They want to level up. They want to do what their bosses are doing," he said.
Schawbel explained that the office environment accelerates career progression via "immersion," which is harder to replicate through a screen.
Thibault said in her former job at law firm MRHFM, she and her Gen Z colleagues were always in the office, and were extremely motivated. "We were on top of our work...and everyone in the office knew if you needed somebody to work on something, 'give it to the three girls, they'll get it done.'"
Molly Gilbride, a 25-year-old media relations specialist in Seattle, said she's "confused" when Gen Z are accused of being lazy and shirking the office because in a prior role, Gen Z were the core group of workers coming into the office.
"I think we value flexibility and the choice to be in the office, but that's not to say we don't like going into the office because it's too much work," she said.
Even Gen Z workers who love being in the office, appreciate one or two work-from-home days a week, signaling an evolution of the traditional 9-5.
"The future is overwhelmingly leaning toward hybrid," Schawbel said. "It's about the best of both worlds."
Gilbride's current company allowed her to transition to a remote job due to personal issues, but she misses being in the office because it added a bit of "diversity" to her week.
"The flexibility of remote work is fantastic and it's what I needed in my life at this moment in time, but I am trying my best to get back to a place where I can be hybrid because I love going to the office."
Ranzato also enjoys his work-from-home Fridays because the "freedom" allows him to do the dishes, cook lunch, or fold clothes. With billable hours, he can make up his hours throughout the week, customizing the structure to fit his life.
TikTok content creator Gigi Robinson believes "hybrid is the future." The New York-based 26-year-old doesn't work a full-time job because she lives with multiple chronic illnesses and regularly commutes hours for treatments during the working week.
Robinson was studying at the University of Southern California when the pandemic hit and studying became strictly remote. "Serendipitously, Covid happened, and all of a sudden, the accessibility tools that I was once begging for: Can I Zoom into class? Can I do remote hand in? were accessible to everybody. And I was like, 'well, why was this so hard before?'"
Robinson, who now runs a fully remote internship program at one of her companies, believes that remote work offers accessibility for people like herself.
Remote Gen Z workers are not just slacking off, Thibault pointed out. She spoke of her surprise when an older colleague once mentioned that he sits by his pool when working from home.
"When I'm working from home, I'm not sitting in my pool...I wouldn't be swimming in my pool during work hours and I wouldn't blatantly be telling co-workers that," she said.
"I feel like Gen Z, we want to prove ourselves, this is our first chance to work and be professionals and we are very money-motivated and motivated by feedback, new positions… so that is what is driving us to work harder [and] be in the office. But also when we're at home, we're working hard as well."
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Jamie Dimon isn't a fan of bitcoin, but he plans to start offering it to clients of JPMorgan Chase nonetheless.
"We are going to allow you to buy it," Dimon said at the bank's annual presentation for investors on Monday. "We're not going to custody it. We're going to put it in statements for clients."
"I don't think you should smoke. But I defend your right to smoke," he said in explaining his position.
The bitcoin comments came as the JPMorgan CEO, often considered Wall Street's elder statesman, took the stage to answer questions from investors and research analysts. In the roughly 40-minute session, he touched on a range of topics, from the economy to what he expects from Trump's regulators.
Dimon sounded a dour note on the economy, saying he thinks the risk of stagflation is "two times" higher than many think, and making dire predictions on credit as an investment class.
"I think the worst one for a bank and for most companies is stagflation," he continued, warning: "I think the odds of that are probably two times what the market thinks."
He also said the bank had lost some commercial opportunities as a result of Trump's trade war. "We've lost business because of that," he said in response to an analyst's question.
He sounded upbeat, however, when it came to the president's regulatory agenda.
"I think that the Secretary of Treasury, the president of the United States, the new head of the OCC, the new head of the CFPB, Michelle Bowman at Federal Reserve, and the SEC have all made it clear that they want to fix some of the things they think are broken," he said. "I think they'll accomplish some of that. Some will take longer than others, but they all want to do it."
He called on regulators to consider lightening regulations for publicly traded companies, which he said have been halved since the 1990s, from 8,000 to 4,000.
"We're driving companies out of the public marketplace because of expensive reporting, litigation, cookie-cutter approaches to boards, compensation, and litigation," he said.
"I would love to be a private company," he added.
Dimon also raised questions about the rapid expansion of investments in credit, including through funds raised to make nonbank loans, or private credit.
"I don't like making forecasts," Dimon said, "but I am not a buyer of credit today. I think credit today is a bad risk," he said, adding, "I think that people who haven't been through major downturns are missing the point about what can happen in credit."
As interest rates rise and economic conditions soften, the risk of credit defaults rises, sometimes leaving borrowers strapped for cash and lenders struggling to recoup capital.
Earlier in the day, Marianne Lake, JPMorgan's CEO of consumer and community banking, said the firm was "closely monitoring the whole ecosystem" of lending but not giving up in spite of warning signs.
"The environment is very challenging for home lending and auto," she said, adding, "but we remain committed."
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by RYAN MINNAUGH | The National News Desk
TOPICS:
(TNND) — JPMorgan Chase, one of the world's largest banks, has announced it will allow its clients to buy cryptocurrency, marking a significant step for digital currency as it gains traction in mainstream banking.
However, the bank's Chief Executive Officer, Jamie Dimon, remains skeptical about the move.
"We are going to allow you to buy it, we're not going to custody it. We're going to put it in statements for clients," Dimon said during the bank's annual investors day conference.
This development follows a similar move by Morgan Stanley, which began allowing advisors to pitch certain bitcoin exchange-traded funds to select clients in August. Despite the shift, Dimon maintains his personal reservations about bitcoin, citing concerns over issues such as money laundering and unclear ownership.
"I don't think you should smoke, but I defend your right to smoke," Dimon said. "I defend your right to buy bitcoin."
While banks now have the ability to custody cryptocurrency, they still face restrictions on working directly with crypto firms without explicit approval from the Federal Reserve.
Now
57
Tue
59
Wed
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by RYAN MINNAUGH | The National News Desk
TOPICS:
(TNND) — JPMorgan Chase, one of the world's largest banks, has announced it will allow its clients to buy cryptocurrency, marking a significant step for digital currency as it gains traction in mainstream banking.
However, the bank's Chief Executive Officer, Jamie Dimon, remains skeptical about the move.
"We are going to allow you to buy it, we're not going to custody it. We're going to put it in statements for clients," Dimon said during the bank's annual investors day conference.
This development follows a similar move by Morgan Stanley, which began allowing advisors to pitch certain bitcoin exchange-traded funds to select clients in August. Despite the shift, Dimon maintains his personal reservations about bitcoin, citing concerns over issues such as money laundering and unclear ownership.
"I don't think you should smoke, but I defend your right to smoke," Dimon said. "I defend your right to buy bitcoin."
While banks now have the ability to custody cryptocurrency, they still face restrictions on working directly with crypto firms without explicit approval from the Federal Reserve.
Oops, something went wrong
Interchain Labs announced it is collaborating with a consortium of major banks and the Colombian government to pilot the country's first central-bank digital currency (CBDC) on the Cosmos network, using IBC Eureka as its primary transfer protocol.
The initiative seeks to modernize cross-border settlements by leveraging the efficiency of programmable money without compromising institutional security.
A CBDC is a digital form of a country's sovereign money, issued and regulated by its central bank. it carries the same legal status as cash while enabling programmable features typically found in digital payments. Unlike decentralized cryptocurrencies, a CBDC represents an electronic liability of the central bank and is backed by the full faith and credit of the issuing authority.
“When you're the Colombian government, there is no way you're trusting anyone except for yourself,” said Maghnus Mareneck, chief executive officer of Interchain Labs. “To you, crypto is so scary. Imagine you're a president and you suffer a hack — you're going to take the blame. So having technology they can understand and change is the most important thing in terms of the security assumptions.”
Mareneck noted that this mirrors the strategy of real-world asset issuers such as Ondo Finance — which has onboarded investors including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and BlackRock — in building dedicated Cosmos chains. These issuers configure their own validator parameters so transfers occur only under preapproved conditions.
“IBC Eureka only rests upon the trust assumptions of your blockchain,” Mareneck noted. “If your blockchain has validators that are all institutions you trust, then you don't have to trust anyone else except the people that you're sending assets to.”
The pilot allows Colombia's central bank and partner banks to define and modify their list of trusted validators, effectively creating a permissioned CBDC rail atop a public network. By starting with a controlled set of participants — and adding new ones only as confidence grows — the project aims to demonstrate that programmable money can deliver faster, more transparent settlements without sacrificing institutional security.
Clients of JPMorgan Chase (JPM) will soon have the option to buy bitcoin BTC$104,964.85, according to CEO Jamie Dimon, who spoke at the bank's annual Investor Day on Monday, signaling a shift in how the firm approaches the asset.
“We are going to allow you to buy it,” Dimon told shareholders, though he added the bank has no plans to hold the asset in custody.
Dimon, long known for his skepticism of cryptocurrency, doubled down in his closing remarks, saying he's still “not a fan” of bitcoin, mainly because of its use for illegal activities, including sex trafficking and money laundering
He also pushed back on the industry's hype around blockchain technology, arguing it's less important than it's made out to be — even as JPMorgan continues building in the space.
“We have been talking about blockchain for 12 to 15 years," he said. "We spend too much on it. It doesn't matter as much as you all think."
The bank's own blockchain platform, Kinexys, recently ran a test transaction on a public blockchain for the first time, settling tokenized U.S. Treasuries on Ondo Chain's testnet.
Helene is a New York-based markets reporter at CoinDesk, covering the latest news from Wall Street, the rise of the spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds and updates on crypto markets. She is a graduate of New York University's business and economic reporting program and has appeared on CBS News, YahooFinance and Nasdaq TradeTalks. She holds BTC and ETH.
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JPMorgan Chase is finally allowing clients to buy bitcoin. But CEO Jamie Dimon is still a skeptic.
"We are going to allow you to buy it," Dimon said at the bank's annual investor day on Monday. "We're not going to custody it. We're going to put it in statements for clients."
The decision marks a notable step for the largest U.S. bank, particularly due to Dimon's history of criticizing the digital currency and the crypto market broadly, and is the latest sign of bitcoin's entry into mainstream investing. Since August, Morgan Stanley has allowed its financial advisors to pitch some spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds to qualifying clients.
Dimon made it clear that his personal view of bitcoin remains unchanged, highlighting issues like money laundering and the lack of clarity surrounding ownership, along with "the sex trafficking, the terrorism."
"I don't think you should smoke, but I defend your right to smoke," Dimon said. "I defend your right to buy bitcoin."
The bank is looking at offering clients access to bitcoin ETFs, according to a person briefed on its plans. Until now, the company has limited its crypto exposure primarily to futures-based products, not direct ownership of bitcoin.
When crypto valuations were soaring in 2021, Dimon dismissed bitcoin as "worthless." He told lawmakers during a Senate hearing in late 2023 that he's "always been deeply opposed to crypto, bitcoin, etc.," and that, "The only true use case for it is criminals, drug traffickers … money laundering, tax avoidance." He said at the hearing that, "If I was the government, I'd close it down."
At the 2024 World Economic Forum in Davos, Dimon said, "Bitcoin does nothing. I call it the pet rock." He added that, "This is the last time I'm talking about the with CNBC, so help me God."
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Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick told CNBC at this year's event in Davos that the investment bank is exploring ways to deepen its involvement in cryptocurrency markets, navigating the regulatory landscape under the pro-crypto administration of President Donald Trump.
Since President Trump took office in January, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have rescinded their anti-crypto guidance, with the Federal Reserve partially following suit. A notice issued by the Fed in Jan. 2023 continues to restrict banks from certain crypto-related activities. While banks can now custody crypto, thanks to the repeal of an accounting rule called SAB 121, they still face certain limitations on working directly with digital asset firms.
WATCH: Dimon says his tenure is 'up to the board'
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JPMorgan Chase is finally allowing clients to buy bitcoin. But CEO Jamie Dimon is still a skeptic.
"We are going to allow you to buy it," Dimon said at the bank's annual investor day on Monday. "We're not going to custody it. We're going to put it in statements for clients."
The decision marks a notable step for the largest U.S. bank, particularly due to Dimon's history of criticizing the digital currency and the crypto market broadly, and is the latest sign of bitcoin's entry into mainstream investing. Since August, Morgan Stanley has allowed its financial advisors to pitch some spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds to qualifying clients.
Dimon made it clear that his personal view of bitcoin remains unchanged, highlighting issues like money laundering and the lack of clarity surrounding ownership, along with "the sex trafficking, the terrorism."
"I don't think you should smoke, but I defend your right to smoke," Dimon said. "I defend your right to buy bitcoin."
The bank is looking at offering clients access to bitcoin ETFs, according to a person briefed on its plans. Until now, the company has limited its crypto exposure primarily to futures-based products, not direct ownership of bitcoin.
When crypto valuations were soaring in 2021, Dimon dismissed bitcoin as "worthless." He told lawmakers during a Senate hearing in late 2023 that he's "always been deeply opposed to crypto, bitcoin, etc.," and that, "The only true use case for it is criminals, drug traffickers … money laundering, tax avoidance." He said at the hearing that, "If I was the government, I'd close it down."
At the 2024 World Economic Forum in Davos, Dimon said, "Bitcoin does nothing. I call it the pet rock." He added that, "This is the last time I'm talking about the with CNBC, so help me God."
This self-driving car technology stock could pop by more than 400%, say three analysts
Looking for alternatives to Nvidia? Futurum CEO names 3 he's bullish on for 2024
Bernstein tech analyst's best idea for 2024 is to short Tesla
Morgan Stanley picks 'alpha' opportunities in China tech - giving one 52% upside
Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick told CNBC at this year's event in Davos that the investment bank is exploring ways to deepen its involvement in cryptocurrency markets, navigating the regulatory landscape under the pro-crypto administration of President Donald Trump.
Since President Trump took office in January, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have rescinded their anti-crypto guidance, with the Federal Reserve partially following suit. A notice issued by the Fed in Jan. 2023 continues to restrict banks from certain crypto-related activities. While banks can now custody crypto, thanks to the repeal of an accounting rule called SAB 121, they still face certain limitations on working directly with digital asset firms.
WATCH: Dimon says his tenure is 'up to the board'
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Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox
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Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes, and Market Data
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May 19, 2025 12:20 ET
| Source:
Bitcoin Solaris
Bitcoin Solaris
TALLINN, Estonia, May 19, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Bitcoin Solaris (BTC-S) presale is gaining massive traction, having already raised over $1,000,000 in just a few weeks, with more than 8,900 unique participants joining the movement. With a launch date set for July 31, 2025, the limited-time presale is generating unprecedented momentum in the crypto space.
Bitcoin Solaris has captured the attention of early adopters with its real-world utility, mobile mining capabilities, and inclusive community model. The project's upcoming Solaris Nova App, currently in beta, allows users to mine BTC-S from any device—mobile, desktop, or browser—making blockchain participation more accessible than ever.
Key Features Fueling the Frenzy:
In a rapidly evolving market, Bitcoin Solaris stands out by blending security, scalability, and user-friendly design. With its energy-efficient consensus algorithm, built-in wallet, and DeFi-ready Helios Layer, BTC-S offers users a seamless experience from setup to earning.
A Presale with Power
This short-duration presale has become one of the fastest-moving events in crypto this year. With only 90 days to run, the BTC-S team expects strong demand in the final weeks.
Community-Driven Rewards
Bitcoin Solaris has also introduced a Double Rewards Referral Program designed to fuel viral growth:
This strategy has triggered an explosion of organic promotion across social platforms, helping spread awareness and accelerate adoption.
Influencer Attention Builds
Crypto influencers are also taking notice. CryptoChester, known for his detailed crypto reviews, recently featured Bitcoin Solaris as one of the most promising presales of 2025, further amplifying interest across his growing community.
Built for the Real World
Bitcoin Solaris offers a practical approach to blockchain participation:
Final Call to Early Adopters
With the presale heating up and time running out, Bitcoin Solaris presents a rare opportunity to join a high-potential project in its earliest phase.
Website: https://www.bitcoinsolaris.com/Telegram: https://t.me/BitcoinsolarisX (Twitter): https://x.com/BitcoinSolaris
Media Contact: Xander Levineinfo@bitcoinsolaris.com
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TALLINN, Estonia, May 19, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bitcoin Solaris today announced the launch of the private beta for its Nova App, a next-generation mobile mining platform that allows users to...
TALLINN, Estonia, May 18, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bitcoin Solaris is officially unveiling its advanced hybrid consensus architecture, purpose-built to support fast, decentralized applications...
Dogecoin's recent price movement shows a classic battle between bears and bulls, with the meme cryptocurrency finding stability after a significant downtrend.
The coin experienced a 9.7% drop from $0.237 to $0.214 before buyers stepped in at key support levels. This buying pressure has created what analysts describe as a "panic zone retest" around the $0.215 mark, which has so far held firm against selling pressure.
Market structure indicates DOGE is currently navigating a falling wedge pattern, typically considered a bullish reversal formation when broken to the upside.
The Ichimoku cloud on short-term charts shows price lodged in equilibrium territory, with multiple technical indicators converging to create tight reference levels between $0.212 and $0.225.
For traders, the immediate focus remains on whether DOGE can break above the descending trendline resistance near $0.219-$0.220. A decisive move above this level could target the $0.235-$0.244 range, while failure to hold current support might see prices retreat toward $0.20 or even $0.185 in the near term.
Technical Analysis Highlights
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A closely followed crypto analyst is predicting Ethereum's (ETH) path to all-time highs, as well as updating his outlook on two other big altcoins.
Trader Michaël van de Poppe tells his 786,500 followers on the social media platform X that he's expecting ETH to start making a run to $4,800 with anything below the $2,400 level a bargain for bulls.
“Anything sub $2,400 on ETH is, after this big move upwards, a steal before we'll start to run of towards the ATH's (all-time highs) for Ethereum.”
At time of writing, ETH is trading at $2,387, nearing Van de Poppe's high time frame support area.
The trader is also keeping an eye on decentralized blockchain oracle service Chainlink (LINK). According to Van de Poppe, LINK is most likely a solid play looking ahead, with the $14 level being a potential entry point for bulls.
“It would be great if LINK holds this first level of support.
If buying pressure comes in here, that's a sign of continuation.
What is the next level?
Around $14.
All in all, I think that we'll start up a new cycle and LINK is a good one to monitor.”
LINK is trading for $15.01 at time of writing.
Lastly, the analyst is keeping tabs on Sei (SEI), a layer-one blockchain focused on speed and efficiency. Van de Poppe believes the Solana (SOL) challenger is close to igniting a new leg up.
“SEI flipped the level at $0.19 and continued to run upwards, almost to the level that we wanted it to touch at $0.29.
Standard pullback since, and I think that we'll be ending the correction relatively soon.”
SEI is worth $0.22 at time of writing.
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Michael Saylor's Strategy bagged another 7,390 Bitcoin last week as prices rallied above $100,000 and also got hit with a class-action lawsuit, according to the company's latest SEC filing.
Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, the top corporate Bitcoin holder, acquired nearly $765 million of Bitcoin last week. The purchase came as the company faced a class-action lawsuit.
According to a May 19 announcement, Strategy acquired 7,390 BTC for about $764.9 million at an average price just under $103,500. Strategy reported a Bitcoin yield of 16.3% year-to-date. Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor made his usual hint at the purchase in a May 18 X post.
According to a May 19 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company was also the recipient of a class-action lawsuit. The suit accuses Strategy officials of having failed to represent the nature of Bitcoin investments accurately.
As of May 18, Strategy holds 576,230 BTC acquired for around $40.2 billion at an average price of $69,726 per coin. At current prices, the company's total holdings are valued at more than $59.2 billion, representing an unrealized gain of $19.2 billion, or 47%.
According to CoinMarketCap data, Bitcoin traded at around $102,615 at the time of writing, up 20.3% over the last month.
Related: Jim Chanos takes opposing bets on Bitcoin and Strategy
In a recent SEC filing, the firm wrote that “a purported class-action lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia” against the company's executives. Strategy chairman Michael Saylor, president and CEO Phong Le and executive vice president and chief financial officer Andrew Kang are all defendants in the suit.
Strategy officials are accused of “violations of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, and Section 20(a) of the Exchange Act.” The filing states:
0xngmi, a pseudonymous developer at decentralized finance data platform DefiLlama, wrote in a May 19 X post that he believes the lawsuit has no basis. He explained that the suit “seems to be people complaining that [Strategy] understated how much money it could lose if BTC went down.” Still, he argued that the risks were not understated:
Related: Strategy will beat all public equities with Bitcoin, analyst says
Strategy's Bitcoin treasury strategy has inspired other companies to follow in its footsteps. Last week, shares of luxury watchmaker Top Win surged more than 60% in premarket trading after the company said it would adopt a Bitcoin accumulation strategy and had changed its name to AsiaStrategy.
AsiaStrategy said that to implement its plan it is partnering with Sora Ventures, which previously partnered with Metaplanet in 2024 to create Japan's first corporate Bitcoin treasury. Metaplanet now holds more Bitcoin than El Salvador. Also last week, a Bahrain-based listed catering company with a $24.2 million market cap adopted a Bitcoin treasury strategy in partnership with investment firm 10X Capital.
Magazine: Rise of MicroStrategy clones, Asia dominates crypto adoption: Asia Express 2024 review
BounceBit, a crypto infrastructure provider using features from both centralized (CeFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi), has executed a bitcoin (BTC) derivatives trading strategy using BlackRock's yield-generating tokenized money market fund, BUIDL, to enhance returns.
The strategy, to be rolled out to institutions and retail users, consisted of two main components: a bitcoin basis trade, involving a long position in the spot market while shorting futures, and a short position in BTC put options, both collateralized by BUIDL tokens.
The basis trade, also known as cash and carry arbitrage, alone generated an annualized yield of 4.7%, with put option writing contributing an additional 15%. Combined with the 4.25% return from BUIDL used as collateral, the total yield exceeded 24%.
Integrating BUIDL as collateral helped generate a higher return than strategies collateralized by stablecoins, which do not generate any return.
"This strategy allows investors to capture both Treasury Bill yields and funding rate arbitrage returns," Jack Lu, founder and CEO of BounceBit said in a press release exclusively shared with CoinDesk.
"BounceBit bridges the gap between Western real-world asset issuers and Asian crypto trading infrastructure, providing new options for yield generation," Lu said.
BounceBit is the native BTC restaking chain secured by staking both bitcoin and BounceBit tokens. The network allows BTC holders to earn yields through native validator staking, DeFi ecosystem and a CeFi-like mechanism powered by Ceffu and Mainnet Digital. As of writing, cryptocurrencies worth over $500 million were locked on BounceBit.
BounceBit plans to roll out the BUIDL-collateralised strategy to institutional and retail users soon. "The successful pilot is a proof of concept to our new product line BB Prime, which will be available to both retail and institutional users," BounceBit's spokesperson told CoinDesk.
"This strategy underpins BB Prime as a new class of CeDeFi applications built on top of RWAs which are traditionally troubled by a lack of utilities beyond just holding for t-bill yield, hindering mass adoption," the spokesperson added.
BUIDL, launched in March 2024 by Securitize and BlackRock, is a tokenized investment fund operating on multiple blockchains, including Ethereum, Aptos and Polygon. The token, currently boasting a market cap of $2.88 billion, is backed by short-term U.S. government bonds, boasting a stable value pegged at one dollar per token.
Omkar Godbole is a Co-Managing Editor on CoinDesk's Markets team based in Mumbai, holds a masters degree in Finance and a Chartered Market Technician (CMT) member. Omkar previously worked at FXStreet, writing research on currency markets and as fundamental analyst at currency and commodities desk at Mumbai-based brokerage houses. Omkar holds small amounts of bitcoin, ether, BitTorrent, tron and dot.
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Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed a new design to reduce the hardware burden for running a network node, framing it as a step toward a fully decentralized network that doesn't require sophisticated infrastructure to help maintain.
In a blog post published on Sunday, Buterin introduced the concept of “partially stateless nodes,” allowing users to store only a subset of Ethereum's data, rather than the entire blockchain that clocks in at over 1.3 terabytes (TB).
The proposed goal is to allow everyday users, not just institutions, to run nodes on personal devices. A node is an electronic device that connects to a blockchain network to help verify transactions and keep a copy of the ledger.
Currently, operating a full Ethereum node requires significant disk space, often over 1 TB, making it impractical for most users. While third-party services offer access to blockchain data, they come with privacy and censorship trade-offs, Buterin noted.
Instead, his new model suggests letting each node store only the data most relevant to the user, while verifying other parts of the chain on demand using cryptography.
The “local-first” approach mirrors a library system: you keep the books you use often, and borrow the rest when needed.
“This type of node would give the benefits of direct local access to the state that a user needs to care about, as well as maximal full privacy of access to that state,” Buterin wrote.
The system would also allow users to configure what data their node stores, like common smart contracts, tokens, or specific apps, using a simple onchain setting. Users wouldn't need to store Merkle proofs (the complex cryptographic trees that secure blockchain state), as only raw data suffices.
The proposal builds on the ongoing implementation of EIP-4444, which aims to limit node history storage to 36 days, with older data distributed across the network using erasure coding — ensuring the chain remains permanent without burdening any single operator.
The proposal is still in its early stages, but it could shape the next phase of the network's decentralization roadmap.
Shaurya is the Co-Leader of the CoinDesk tokens and data team in Asia with a focus on crypto derivatives, DeFi, market microstructure, and protocol analysis.Shaurya holds over $1,000 in BTC, ETH, SOL, AVAX, SUSHI, CRV, NEAR, YFI, YFII, SHIB, DOGE, USDT, USDC, BNB, MANA, MLN, LINK, XMR, ALGO, VET, CAKE, AAVE, COMP, ROOK, TRX, SNX, RUNE, FTM, ZIL, KSM, ENJ, CKB, JOE, GHST, PERP, BTRFLY, OHM, BANANA, ROME, BURGER, SPIRIT, and ORCA.He provides over $1,000 to liquidity pools on Compound, Curve, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, BurgerSwap, Orca, AnySwap, SpiritSwap, Rook Protocol, Yearn Finance, Synthetix, Harvest, Redacted Cartel, OlympusDAO, Rome, Trader Joe, and SUN.
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A potential inverse head-and-shoulders pattern suggests Bitcoin could retest $91,000 before any meaningful bullish breakout resumes.
Key takeaways:
Bitcoin dropped over 4.5% on May 19, confirming a bearish divergence and threatening a break below $100,000.
Analysts highlight $97,000–$98,500 as key support that the bulls must hold.
A potential inverse head-and-shoulders pattern points to a retest of $91,000 before any bullish continuation.
Bitcoin (BTC) is down over 4.5% from its intraday high on May 19, falling to around $102,000 in its worst daily drop in over a month.
BTC's drop accompanied downside moves elsewhere in the risk market, prompted by Moody's latest downgrade of the US government due to a rising budget deficit and the lack of a credible fiscal consolidation plan.
The decline confirms a bearish divergence and, combined with other technical factors, raises the risk of a BTC price breakdown below $100,000, a key support level.
Bitcoin's price action showed technical weakness ahead of its May 19 sell-off.
On May 19, BTC pushed to a new local high above $107,000, but its relative strength index (RSI) printed a lower high, confirming a classic bearish divergence.
This discrepancy between price and momentum is often a precursor to a trend reversal, and in this case, it played out with a swift 4.5% intraday decline. Analyst Bluntz warned traders to “be careful with [placing] longs.”
Swissblock analysts observed that Bitcoin “grabbed liquidity” above the $104,000–$106,000 resistance range but failed to sustain a breakout.
The rejection pushed the price back into a prior volume-heavy zone, with immediate support between $101,500 and $102,500 now under pressure.
Swissblock identifies the $97,000–$98,500 range as a key downside target based on historical onchain volume and trading activity if the $101,500-102,500 area fails to hold.
On the three-day chart, Bitcoin is forming the right shoulder of a potential inverse-head-and-shoulders pattern.
While typically bullish in the long term, this setup implies a short-term retest of the 50-period exponential moving average (50-period EMA; the red wave) near $91,000.
The chances of such a drop have increased since BTC failed to close above the critical $107,000 neckline level, the same zone that triggered bearish reversals in December 2024 and January 2025.
Related: Metaplanet scoops 1,004 Bitcoin in 2nd-biggest buy ever
A rebound from the $91,000 zone toward the neckline at around $107,000 could increase Bitcoin's odds of rising toward $150,000.
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.
Buterin warns of the risks of centralized RPC providers and proposes a new node design to ensure trustless, censorship-resistant access to Ethereum as the network scales.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin unveiled a proposal to preserve trustless, censorship-resistant access to Ethereum, even as the network scales.
On May 19, Buterin shared a post outlining how to make Ethereum's layer-1 scaling “more friendly” to users running local nodes for personal use. The Ethereum co-founder highlighted the importance of independent users running nodes, saying that a market dominated by a few Remote Procedure Call (RPC) providers risks censorship.
RPC providers let wallets, users and apps interact with the blockchain without running their own nodes. Crypto wallets are usually connected to an RPC provider behind the scenes. Buterin said there are risks to this setup.
“A market structure dominated by a few RPC providers is one that will face strong pressure to deplatform or censor users. Many RPC providers already exclude entire countries,” Buterin wrote.
In addition to censorship, Buterin argued that reasons like expensive fully-trustless cryptographic solutions and metadata privacy show that there's value in ensuring greater ease for those running a personal node.
In the proposal, Buterin's solution relies on a novel type of node called “partially stateless nodes.” They are designed to help users maintain privacy-preserving access to blockchain data without the heavy resource demands of running a full node.
As Ethereum scales and the gas limit increases, running a full node requires more storage and bandwidth. Buterin said partially stateless nodes address the issue by allowing users to verify the blockchain and serve local data, but only store a subset of the Ethereum state, based on the user's needs.
Related: Ethereum Foundation unveils security initiative to supplant legacy systems
The nodes would operate by validating blocks statelessly. This means they don't require the storage of the full Merkle proofs or the entire blockchain history. They can selectively keep certain parts of the state up to date.
This means that users could configure their nodes only to save data related to their accounts, the decentralized finance (DeFi) applications and their commonly used tokens like stablecoins and Ether (ETH).
The rest of the data will be left out, and queries beyond the stored subset will fail or be routed through an RPC solution.
Magazine: Danger signs for Bitcoin as retail abandons it to institutions: Sky Wee
Bitcoin liquidation maps help track whale moves, predict price swings and stay safe from forced liquidations in volatile crypto markets.
Understanding a Bitcoin liquidation map is imperative in dealing with the inherent volatility of the crypto market. The visual tool showcases probable liquidation levels, indicating where large orders may cause cascading price changes.
This post explores how to interpret a Bitcoin liquidation map, allowing you to trade smarter in the volatile world of cryptocurrency.
In cryptocurrency trading, liquidation happens when an exchange forcefully closes a trader's leveraged position due to insufficient margin to pay losses. This usually occurs when the market moves sharply against the position.
Long liquidations occur when prices fall, affecting traders who bet on an uptrend. Short liquidations happen when prices unexpectedly rise, impacting those who bet on a decline.
Did you know? In crypto, a single liquidation cascade can wipe out millions in minutes, triggered not by hacking but by traders using too much leverage at the wrong time.
A Bitcoin liquidation map is a visual heatmap indicating price levels where large liquidations are expected to occur. These maps assist traders in identifying zones where leveraged positions may be closed forcibly if prices fluctuate sharply.
Tools like CoinGlass provide real-time Bitcoin (BTC) liquidation maps, valuable resources for risk-aware traders.
With the liquidation map, you can
Use breakout trading strategies for profitable scalping opportunities.
Set stop-loss levels based on key liquidation zones for better risk management.
Target high-liquidity areas to secure profits efficiently.
Enter large trades near liquidity clusters to minimize slippage and enhance execution.
Analyze the gradient of liquidation intensity to anticipate potential price movements..
The X-axis of the liquidation chart represents the bid price, while the Y-axis denotes the relative strength of liquidation activity. Each column on the graphic illustrates a liquidation cluster's relative significance compared to other clusters.
The chart demonstrates how the market will respond if the price reaches certain thresholds. Taller liquidation bars indicate a higher potential impact. The various hues are solely for visual clarity, allowing users to distinguish between distinct liquidation zones.
Here are the main components of a liquidation map:
Heat zones: Indicate where most positions could be eliminated if the price reaches specific levels.
Liquidity pools: Collections of stop-loss and liquidation orders that can cause rapid price movements.
Open interest levels: Demonstrate where large amounts of leveraged positions are concentrated.
Price imbalances or gaps: Disclose areas without support or resistance, allowing prices to move swiftly.
Did you know? Crypto liquidations often follow the herd; when too many traders place similar bets, liquidation maps light up and whales use them as price targets.
A Bitcoin liquidation map provides insights into probable price movements and risk zones by visually representing places where leveraged positions will likely be closed.
Here is how to use a liquidation map in Bitcoin trading:
Identify high-risk zones: Identify places with dense liquidation clusters to avoid overleveraging. These areas come across as magnets, attracting price changes that might cause a series of liquidations.
Time entry and exit: Liquidation clusters help find the optimal entry and exit points. Entering and exiting trades before a cluster becomes risky helps you lock in profits before reversals.
Combine with technical indicators: Enhance your research by combining liquidation maps with tools such as support/resistance levels and relative strength index (RSI). This sets out a comprehensive view of market conditions.
Avoid herd mentality: Exercise caution in places with high leverage concentrations. Such zones may be traps constructed by larger players to induce liquidations and profit from the resulting volatility.
Monitor whale activity: Large traders frequently target liquidation zones to turn price moves to their advantage. Observing these patterns can provide insights about prospective market movements.
Anticipate reversals: Markets frequently experience reversals following large liquidation events. Recognizing these trends can aid in positioning for possible rebounds.
Implement robust risk management: Use stop-loss orders and handle leverage carefully. Liquidation maps can help you determine where to put these orders to minimize exposure.
Using a Bitcoin liquidation map can enhance trading decisions, but misinterpretation can lead to costly errors. Here are common mistakes you need to avoid:
Blindly trading toward liquidity zones: If you are trading toward liquidity zones without thinking, expect reversals.
Misreading map colors or scale: Making a mistake in judging map colors or scale can skew your risk assessment.
Over-relying on liquidation data without context: Maps are valuable tools, not an assurance that what they reflect will happen.
Ignoring macro news or sentiment analysis: External events often override technical signals. A sudden event may make all predictions fall flat.
Always combine liquidation maps with broader technical analysis. Smart trading requires context, not just colorful charts.
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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Bitcoin needs to break through $110,000 and rally toward the $150,000–$200,000 range on rising trading volume for the alt season to begin, said BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes in a recent interview with Fortune Crypto.
“I think that happens sometime in the summer or early third quarter, and then the rotation starts into various altcoins,” Hayes noted, when asked what level Bitcoin needs to reach to trigger an altcoin rally.
Alt season describes the market phase where altcoins outperform Bitcoin, historically occurring after BTC rallies when traders shift capital from BTC into altcoins seeking greater upside.
Bitcoin has led the market in recent weeks, but altcoins have been slower to respond.
According to Hayes, unlike the explosive altcoin rally of 2021, where nearly every token surged regardless of fundamentals, the next cycle will likely be more selective.
He believes a new narrative will drive attention and speculative trading in specific assets, but warns that many “dino coins” are unlikely to recover.
“A lot of those coins have high FDV, low float, no customers, no revenue, just some CEX listings, that went down 95%, I don't really see why those should do well in the next cycle,” he added.
Hayes, who now manages the Maelstrom fund after receiving a pardon from President Donald Trump earlier this year, expects Bitcoin to climb toward $200,000 in its next surge and reach $250,000 by the end of the year.
He projects Bitcoin will hit $1 million by 2028, just as Trump's term is set to conclude.
Bitcoin logged its highest weekly close on May 18, finishing above $106,000 and extending its winning streak to six consecutive weeks. The rally has been fueled by persistent inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs and steady corporate demand.
On Sunday, Bitcoin briefly touched $107,000 before pulling back. At the time of writing, it was trading near $103,000, around 6% below its all-time high of $109,500, set in January.
Hayes maintains a large position in gold, he revealed during the interview, with around 20% of his portfolio allocated to the asset.
His holdings include physical gold stored in a vault as well as substantial investments in gold mining equities, which he believes remain undervalued despite the metal's rising prices.
On Ethereum versus Solana, Hayes favors Ethereum's prospects. The analyst believes that Ethereum's underlying fundamentals and ecosystem strength make it a better bet than Solana in the near future, despite its recent price struggles and the criticism it faces.
“I think that Ethereum could outperform Solana in this next sort of 18-24 months bull run,” he said.
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Bitcoin once again shakes the market. By crossing the $105,000 mark, the iconic crypto returns to levels it hadn't reached since January. This surge, accompanied by a rise in the main altcoins, reignites speculation: a simple technical rebound or the start of a new bullish cycle? In a rapidly changing geopolitical context and as investors regain their appetite for risk, signals multiply… but their interpretation remains uncertain.
Bitcoin surpassed the symbolic threshold of $105,000 this Sunday, a first since January 2025. An important psychological barrier, which brings the queen of cryptos to less than 3% of its all-time high ($108,786), reached on the day of Donald Trump's inauguration. This renewed strength – +2% over 24 hours and +25% over one month – seems to be part of a cautious optimism, favored by the easing of the American trade war.
But beware, the current euphoria might mask a more nuanced reality. Because while the trend is upwards, it is also accompanied by a troubling phenomenon: Bitcoin's dominance in the crypto ecosystem is decreasing.
In other words, its market share is eroding as altcoins like Ethereum, XRP, or Dogecoin gain ground. For some analysts, however, this dynamic does not signal the arrival of a sustainable altcoin season. It rather reflects a temporary appetite for risk assets in an still fragile context.
Short position liquidations, which exceeded $128 million in a single day, demonstrate a harsh market for pessimists. Contrarian traders have learned the hard way: betting against this bullish trend can be very costly.
While BTC attracts the spotlight, attention also shifts to other players. XRP climbs nearly 4%, nearing $2.43, while Ethereum advances 3.5% to $2,563. As for Dogecoin, it leads with an impressive 8% rise, reaching $0.232.
This renewed interest in altcoins is explained by several factors. First, the classic ripple effect: when Bitcoin goes up, investors turn to the “smaller” tokens seeking higher yields. Next, increased confidence in the crypto sector as a whole, fueled by a calmer geopolitical context, notably Trump's retreat on some economic fronts.
But this euphoria could well be short-lived. Macroeconomic uncertainties, lingering geopolitical tensions, and possible volatility resurgence could bring investors back to Bitcoin, the crypto market's safe haven. In other words, if strong winds blow, altcoins could sink again.
Granted, Bitcoin's dominance is eroding. But believing this heralds a lasting reshuffling of the cards would be premature. Historically, altcoin season phases occur only after a sustained accumulation phase and Bitcoin stabilization. Yet, we are still in the midst of speculative frenzy.
Seasoned investors know: when adrenaline rises, crowd movements can create illusions. A rapid rise does not guarantee solid consolidation. If the economic or political climate were to tighten, the market could quickly turn defensive, refocusing flows on Bitcoin and leaving other cryptos behind.
Bitcoin flirts with its all-time high, and the whole crypto market seems carried by a wind of optimism. But signals remain mixed. Between rising altcoins and underlying tensions, the time calls less for celebration than for strategic vigilance.
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Fascinated by Bitcoin since 2017, Evariste has continuously researched the subject. While his initial interest was in trading, he now actively seeks to understand all advances centered on cryptocurrencies. As an editor, he strives to consistently deliver high-quality work that reflects the state of the sector as a whole.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.
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An experimental drug developed at Duke University School of Medicine could offer powerful pain relief without the dangerous side effects of opioids.
The drug, called SBI-810, is part of a new generation of compounds designed to target a receptor on the nerves and spinal cord. While opioids flood multiple cellular pathways indiscriminately, SBI-810, a non-opioid treatment, takes a more focused approach, activating only a specific pain-relief pathway that avoids the euphoric "high" linked to addiction.
In tests in mice, SBI-810 worked well on its own and, when used in combination, made opioids more effective at lower doses, according to the study published May 19 in Cell.
"What makes this compound exciting is that it is both analgesic and non-opioid," said senior study author Ru-Rong Ji, PhD, an anesthesiology and neurobiology researcher who directs the Duke Anesthesiology Center for Translational Pain Medicine.
Even more encouraging: it prevented common side effects like constipation and buildup of tolerance, which often forces patients to need stronger and more frequent doses of opioids over time.
SBI-810 is in early development, but Duke researchers are aiming for human trials soon and they've locked in multiple patents for the discovery.
There's an urgent need for pain relief alternatives. Drug overdose deaths are declining, but more than 80,000 Americans still die each year most often from opioids. Meanwhile, chronic pain affects one-third of the U.S. population.
Researchers said the drug could be a safer option for treating both short-term and chronic pain for those recovering from surgery or living with diabetic nerve pain.
SBI-810 is designed to target the brain receptor neurotensin receptor 1. Using a method known as biased agonism, it switches on a specific signal -- β-arrestin-2 -- linked to pain relief, while avoiding other signals that can cause side effects or addiction.
"The receptor is expressed on sensory neurons and the brain and spinal cord," Ji said. "It's a promising target for treating acute and chronic pain."
SBI-810 effectively relieved pain from surgical incisions, bone fractures, and nerve injuries better than some existing painkillers. When injected in mice, it reduced signs of spontaneous discomfort, such as guarding and facial grimacing.
Duke scientists compared SBI-810 to oliceridine, a newer type of opioid used in hospitals, and found SBI-810 worked better in some situations, with fewer signs of distress.
Unlike opioids like morphine, SBI-810 didn't cause tolerance after repeated use. It also outperformed gabapentin, a common drug for nerve pain, and didn't cause sedation or memory problems, which are often seen with gabapentin.
Researchers said the compound's dual action -- on both the peripheral and central nervous systems -- could offer a new kind of balance in pain medicine: powerful enough to work, yet specific enough to avoid harm.
The study was supported by the NIH and the Department of Defense.
Additional Duke authors include first authors Ran Guo and Ouyang Chen; Sangsu Bang, Sharat Chandra, Yize Li, Gang Chen, Rou-Gang Xie, Wei He, Jing Xu, Richard Zhou, Shaoyong Song, Ivan Spasojevic, Marc G. Caron, William C. Wetsel and Lawrence S. Barak.??
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The F-47's illustrated features might have been intended as red herrings—or had their proportions exaggerated—all along. That's no accident.
When the Air Force made a long anticipated announcement in March that it had finally selected Boeing to produce its secretive, new sixth-generation fighter jet known as the F-47, it also released two murky “graphical artist renderings” purporting to show a partial frontal view of the aircraft, which will combine next-gen stealth, sensor fusion, and long-range strike capabilities. “Its adaptability and modular design ensure seamless integration with emerging technologies, positioning it as a dominant platform for decades to come,” the U.S. Air Force said in a press release accompanying the images.
But some of the design elements shocked aviation analysts, particularly the additional pair of small fixed wings by the nose, known as canards. In various configurations, canards can enhance lift, horizontal stabilization, and vertical axis pitch control. But they can also contribute to drag and often degrade stealth due to the radar reflectivity of the forewings—a huge no-no for what is expected to become the most advanced aircraft in the world.
While some analysts closely analyzed discernible features in the images, like the canards, others suggested the renderings likely do not reflect finalized production designs. Further, they say, the renderings may even be U.S. propaganda intended to deceive foreign intelligence. Such measures are hardly unprecedented, as the service has obscured or misleadingly altered the initial imagery of all but one of its prior stealth aircraft.
In fact, by mid-April, Air Force officials told Air & Space Forces Magazine the images don't “accurately portray the aircraft,” should be “taken with a large grain of salt,” “aren't giving anything away,” and “maybe” bear a “resemblance” to the final aircraft. Reportedly, Boeing artists “deliberately distorted” the F-47's features, and the service made additional alterations to hide design secrets.
Another of those eyebrow-raising features includes a depiction of wings with an up-swept angle, known as a dihedral. This imparts greater lateral stability against rolls, at the expense of maneuverability, while downward-swept anhedral wings are less stable but more roll-conducive. Civilian aircraft typically favor stabilizing dihedrals, while jet fighters often sport flat or anhedral wings.
Perhaps the combination of canards and anhedral wings helps stabilize and steer a potentially tailless airframe. Going tailless reduces weight and drag, and is greatly beneficial to stealth—but renders the aircraft unstable, complicated to steer, and highly reliant on intervention from a flight control computers. While the U.S. has built tailless stealth bombers, maneuvering limitations have discouraged tailless fighters. But flight control technologies have evolved to make such a design more possible, while the demand for maximum maneuverability may have decreased.
Indeed, the F-47 art's dihedral wings and shovel nose evoke an Area 51 black project aircraft developed by Boeing's Phantom Works division in the 1990s named the Bird of Prey due to its similarities to a Klingon spaceship from Star Trek. Designed to push the limits of stealth technology, the tailless Bird of Prey proved stable enough to pilot without computer assistance, and its innovations were subsequently integrated into Boeing's tailless X-45 stealth combat drone prototype.
Despite this possible Boeing lineage for anhedral wings, and rationales favoring canards, the recent Air Force interview raises the possibility that these illustrated features might have been intended as red herrings—or had their proportions exaggerated—all along. It's probably more informative to think about technologies guaranteed to feature in the F-47 should it complete development.
That includes next-generation adaptive-cycle turbofan engines, for which two rival designs are being competed by Pratt & Whitney and General Electric; they feature a revolutionary capability to change the amount of air bypassing the engine's compressor midflight. Ordinarily, a high ratio of air bypassing a turbofan's compressor maximizes fuel efficiency, while a low ratio improves high-speed performance. Modern jet fighters invariably opt for the latter at the expense of the former's benefits.
But with adaptive cycle engines, you can have your cake and eat it, too. An F-47 could use high-bypass mode to efficiently transit the battlespace and lurk in waiting, then transition to low bypass mode when a combat situation demands maximum performance, including Mach 2+ speeds (twice the speed of sound).
Fuel-efficiency is especially key to realizing the F-47's concept as a long-range stealth fighter better suited to traversing the long distances of the Pacific theater and penetrating deep inside hostile airspace to battle enemy aircraft or escort friendlies as compared to the F-22 or F-35. It also makes it possible to base F-47s a safer distance away from China's numerous short-range ballistic missiles.
The F-47's engines will also be designed to generate much more electricity while compensating for the generated heat, likely by redirecting air flows for internal cooling. This will enable more powerful radar and computer processors which could improve ability to detect targets at great distances, or with very small radar cross-sections.
Tellingly, the renderings betray no hint of the F-47's engine inlets, which must be artfully sculpted to prevent radar from reflecting off the fan blades within.
Unless China produces its sixth-gen fighter first, the F-47 may also become the first fighter designed from the ground-up to control jet-powered buddy drones called Loyal Wingmen. Admittedly, drone-control hardware could be packed into an external pod adaptable to older aircraft, but the F-47's systems will be stealthily conformal, and its open-architecture computer will support drone command capabilities more effectively.
Because F-47s may be heavily outnumbered in many combat scenarios, and can only carry so many missiles internally, drones will allow each F-47 to bring additional pieces to the air combat chessboard. Compared to the faster and more valuable F-47 “queen,” the less costly drones under its control could serve as pawns or bishops, providing extra missile shots, drawing away enemy attacks, and scanning or jamming from additional angles.
Currently, the Air Force is evaluating the competing General Atomics YFQ-42 and Anduril YFQ-44 drones to serve as missile carriers, while a more expensive Increment 2 Loyal Wingman is being solicited.
While there's still little certainty as to the F-47's true design geometry, we have a pretty good idea what the Air Force wants this jet to do and how it might go about accomplishing that. For now, Boeing and the Pentagon face the considerable challenges of completing the mysterious fighter's development, which will lead to an actual unveiling. Until then, we must accept that the Air Force is not above teasing the public with less-than-faithful artwork of its secret aircraft.
Sébastien Roblin has written on the technical, historical, and political aspects of international security and conflict for publications including 19FortyFive, The National Interest, MSNBC, Forbes.com, Inside Unmanned Systems and War is Boring. He holds a Master's degree from Georgetown University and served with the Peace Corps in China. You can follow his articles on Twitter.
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The Po Plain in northern Italy is a critical agricultural region and one of the largest water users in the European Union. Recent dry conditions have put future water resource availability into question. This study examines spatio-temporal variations in groundwater storage observed by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites and more than 1,000 groundwater wells from 2002 to 2022. We find that the rate of groundwater storage decline more than doubled from 2015 to 2022 as compared to the 2002–2022 rate. We also show that seasonal and long-term groundwater availability is strongly influenced by irrigation activities. Groundwater storage in irrigated areas is highly correlated to snow accumulation in the Alps and shows more stability as compared to non-irrigated areas, which experience dramatic declines during drought years. This indicates that inefficient irrigation practice, using water largely supplied by snowmelt, recharges underground aquifers and helps maintain high water tables, making aquifers underlying irrigated farmland resilient to the negative consequences of drought. These findings can help guide climate-driven adaptations to irrigation systems that account for the impact on groundwater recharge.
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GRACE JPL mascon solutions can be downloaded from https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/TELLUS_GRAC-GRFO_MASCON_CRI_GRID_RL06.1_V3. GLDAS models VIC, Noah and CLSM can be downloaded from https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets?keywords=GLDAS. GLEAM4 can be downloaded via SFTP at https://www.gleam.eu. ERA5-Land can be downloaded from https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/10.24381/cds.68d2bb30?tab=form. SPEI can be downloaded from https://spei.csic.es/map/. Monthly Po River discharge data provided by D. Zanchetin are available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7225699 (ref. 63). Monthly precipitation is available from NASA's IMERG project at https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets/GPM_3IMERGM_07/summary?keywords=%22IMERG%20final%22. SWE is provided by the Meteorological Reanalysis Italian Dataset at https://merida.rse-web.it. Monthly seasonal mean groundwater levels and trends for 1,024 groundwater wells across the northern Italian plains are available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14013762 (ref. 66).
All data were processed in MATLAB. Wavelet software was provided by C. Torrence and G. Compo and is available at http://atoc.colorado.edu/research/wavelets/.
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We thank the following monitoring agencies: Agenzia Regionale per la Protezione dell'Ambiente (ARPA) Lombardia, L'Agenzia regionale per la prevenzione, l'ambiente e l'energia dell'Emilia Romagna (ARPAE), Agenzia Regionale per la Prevenzione e Protezione Ambientale del Veneto (ARPAV) and Agenzia Regionale per la Protezione Ambientale (ARPA) Piemonte for providing the in situ groundwater observation well time series and lake-level change time series. NASA grants 80NSSC20K1240 and 80NSSC22K1831 and the Hellman Fellows Fund supported G.C. and M.G., European Space Agency (ESA) grant 4000136272/21/I-EF supported C.M. and the Historically Black Colleges and Universities-Berkeley Environmental Scholars for Change Program supported D.W.
Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
Grace Carlson, Andrew Wilder, Destinee Whitaker & Manuela Girotto
Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection, National Research Council CNR, Perugia, Italy
Christian Massari
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy
Marco Rotiroti & Tullia Bonomi
Water Research Institute, National Research Council CNR, Montelibretti, Italy
Elisabetta Preziosi
Spelman College, Atlanta, GA, USA
Destinee Whitaker
West Atlanta Watershed Alliance, Atlanta, GA, USA
Destinee Whitaker
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G.C., M.G. and C.M. conceived and designed the experiments. G.C. performed the experiments. G.C., M.G., C.M., M.R., T.B., E.P. and D.W. analysed the data. G.C., M.G., C.M., M.R., T.B. and A.W. contributed materials and analysis tools. G.C. led the writing of the paper with all authors making contributions to the writing and editing process.
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Grace Carlson.
The authors declare no competing interests.
Nature Water thanks Jenna Dohman, David Ketchum and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
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The High Plain and Low Plain (dark blue and orange, respectively) correspond to ∆GWS time series in Fig. 5a. Lombardia irrigated and Lombardia not irrigated (yellow and purple, respectively) correspond to the time series in Fig. 5b. Veneto and Piemonte (green and purple, respectively) correspond to the time series in Fig. 5c and Emilia Romagna (red) correspnds to the time series in Fig. 5d.
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Carlson, G., Massari, C., Rotiroti, M. et al. Intensive irrigation buffers groundwater declines in key European breadbasket.
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The apicomplexan mitochondrial electron transport chain is essential for parasite survival and displays a divergent subunit composition. Here we report cryo-electron microscopy structures of an apicomplexan III2–IV supercomplex and of the drug target complex III2. The supercomplex structure reveals how clade-specific subunits form an apicomplexan-conserved III2–IV interface with a unique, kinked architecture, suggesting that supercomplexes evolved independently in different eukaryotic lineages. A knockout resulting in supercomplex disassembly challenges the proposed role of III2–IV in electron transfer efficiency as suggested for mammals. Nevertheless, knockout analysis indicates that III2–IV is critical for parasite fitness. The complexes from the model parasite Toxoplasma gondii were inhibited with the antimalarial atovaquone, revealing interactions underpinning species specificity. They were also inhibited with endochin-like quinolone (ELQ)-300, an inhibitor in late-stage preclinical development. Notably, in the apicomplexan binding site, ELQ-300 is flipped compared with related compounds in the mammalian enzyme. On the basis of the binding modes and parasite-specific interactions discovered, we designed more potent ELQs with subnanomolar activity against T. gondii. Our findings reveal critical evolutionary differences in the role of supercomplexes in mitochondrial biology and provide insight into cytochrome b inhibition, informing future drug discovery.
The mitochondrial electron transport chain (mETC) is essential for nearly all organisms from the divergent domain of eukaryotes, yet our knowledge of how it works is primarily informed by studies in yeast and mammals. The occurrence of respiratory supercomplexes has been known for decades1 and recently, insight from structural studies exposed the interactions that mediate their formation. However, whether supercomplex formation is functionally relevant for electron transfer or whether this reoccurring arrangement confers a different advantage, such as increased complex stability, is still a subject of ongoing investigations2,3,4,5,6. This study provides an evolutionary perspective on the currently proposed supercomplex functions through the structural and functional characterization of a protozoan parasite supercomplex. Apicomplexans are parasites that belong to the myzozoan clade of eukaryotes. These parasites were recently shown to have expanded mETC complexes with numerous clade-specific subunits7,8; however, their role remains unknown. Likewise, in the apicomplexan mETC, complex III2 (CIII) is the primary target for antiparasitic drugs. However, the molecular basis for this sensitivity is not fully understood owing to the lack of a parasite CIII structure. We address both of these questions through structural analyses and genetic studies.
The Toxoplasma gondii respiratory supercomplex was purified from the rapidly proliferating tachyzoite stage. Using single-particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), we determined the structure of the III2–IV supercomplex in the presence of atovaquone and endochin-like quinolone (ELQ)-300 (10 µM each) at 2.8 Å resolution, allowing atomic model construction (Fig. 1a,b, Table 1 and Extended Data Fig. 1). The 960 kDa supercomplex consists of 37 subunits and contains the conserved reaction centers and cofactors (Supplementary Table 1). In total, 13 subunits are apicomplexan conserved, of which 2 are found in CIII (TgQCR12 and 13). Unlike previously predicted8,9, the complex contains a newly assigned homolog of QCR10, which could only be identified via structural similarity. Complex IV (CIV) is greatly augmented, containing 11 apicomplexan-conserved subunits and substantial clade-specific subunit extensions (Fig. 1c and Supplementary Table 1), giving it a molecular mass of 405 kDa, much larger than the 207 kDa mammalian homolog10. For the 11 apicomplexan-conserved subunits of T. gondii CIV (ApiCox7, 10, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24 and 30), we extend an existing nomenclature indicating the approximate molecular weight11 (Methods and Supplementary Table 1). The increased molecular masses of CIII and CIV are in line with the larger complex II and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) synthase assemblies found in Apicomplexa12,13. These findings confirm that the apicomplexan oxidative phosphorylation complexes display augmented subunit compositions, raising questions about the role of new subunits and extensions, as well as their evolution. An overall reduced protein hydrophobicity resulting from a splitting of structural elements into several subunits may enable mitochondrial protein targeting following gene transfer from the mitochondrial genome to the nuclear genome13,14. In our structure, T. gondii Cox2 is split into three proteins, each providing canonical helices but displaying reduced overall hydrophobicity compared with canonical Cox2 (Extended Data Fig. 2), providing support that this mechanism enabled the marked mitochondrial genome reduction in apicomplexans to just three protein-coding genes.
a, The side view (left) and top view (right) of the III2–IV composite map containing 13 clade-specific subunits. The transmembrane region of CIV is kinked by 21° with respect to CIII. b, An atomic model of III2–IV. c, Conserved and clade-specific structural elements.
Supernumerary subunits may also mediate higher-order oxidative phosphorylation assemblies that suit clade-specific mitochondrial functions and contribute to membrane curvature induction. Our T. gondii III2–IV structure reveals an unusual supercomplex architecture, in which the transmembrane region of CIV is tilted against the membrane plane of CIII by ~20° (Fig. 1a and Extended Data Fig. 3). This finding is further supported by the positions of lipid-binding sites within the curved membrane region (Extended Data Fig. 3a,b). By contrast, the transmembrane region of the mammalian and yeast supercomplex homologs are flat (Extended Data Fig. 3c). The kink is probably induced by the presence of clade-specific subunits TgQCR12 in CIII and ApiCox7 in CIV, which act as spacers in the transmembrane and matrix regions and would clash in a flat architecture, as present in the mammalian supercomplex (Extended Data Fig. 3d). Recently, kinked interfaces have been observed between complexes I and III2 in ciliate and plant supercomplexes15,16 and the ciliate I–II–III2–IV2 structure was shown to contribute to membrane curvature induction. In T. gondii, pentagonal pyramid arrays of ATP synthase generate a distinct bulbous cristae morphology that is characteristic for mitochondria of apicomplexan parasites13. Using electron cryo-tomography and subtomogram averaging, we identified the III2–IV supercomplex in situ and revealed its localization in the curved, lateral regions of the cristae membranes (Fig. 2a–c). Therefore, the newly observed kinked III2–IV architecture, mediated by clade-specific subunits, probably reflects the curvature of the lateral cristae regions. This architecture differs markedly from the lamellar cristae found in mammals, where respiratory supercomplexes reside in the flat membrane regions17 (Fig. 2d,e).
a, A slice of an electron cryo-tomogram of mitochondrial membranes from T. gondii. ATP synthase (yellow) and supercomplexes (red) are indicated. b, The subtomogram average map (gray) is consistent with a III2–IV1 arrangement. The individually fitted CIII dimer (blue) and CIV monomer structures (yellow) are from S. cerevisiae (PDB 6T15). c, A three-dimensional close-up of a showing apical ATP synthase and lateral supercomplex. The apices of the mitochondrial membranes (blue) are occupied by ATP synthase pyramids (yellow, described in ref. 13), with supercomplexes (red) in the flatter lateral regions. Both structures were obtained by subtomogram averaging. d, The arrangement of ATP synthase and supercomplexes in cristae of mammals and T. gondii. The rim of flat cristae in mammals are in line with ATP synthase rows (PDB 7ajb), whereas the apices of bulbous T. gondii cristae are shaped by ATP synthase pyramids (PDB 6TML). Mammalian supercomplexes (PDB 7o37) are found in the lateral, flat membrane regions, whereas the kinked III2–IV T. gondii supercomplex (this study) is accommodated by the curved, lateral regions. The matrix is shown in yellow. The cristae lumen and intermembrane space are shown in blue. e, A schematic highlighting the resulting cristae morphologies, adapted from ref. 43. f, Overlay of supercomplex structures aligned on CIV highlights different architectures, as revealed by differing positions of CIII from mammals (Mus musculus, PDB 7o37 mature supercomplex), yeast (S. cerevisiae, PDB 6giq) and plant (Vigna radiata, PDB 7jrp). The mammalian and T. gondii CIII homologs bind to opposite sides of CIV. g, Comparison of the T. gondii (this study) and M. musculus III2–IV (PDB 7o37) showing the rotation of CIV relative to CIII, thereby placing different CIV subunits (COX6B and COX7c) at the interface with QCR6, or at the distal end of the supercomplex. h, Open-book view of the III2–IV interface with lumenal contacts with respective subunits highlighted by spheres. i, Top view of the III2–IV interface.
The T. gondii CIV is unusual in its augmented subunit composition and orientation within the supercomplex. The largest clade-specific subunit, ApiCox13, contains a CDGSH-type iron–zinc finger domain on the matrix side, with some residues contributing to cardiolipin binding (Extended Data Fig. 4). As this protein fold is known to have evolved varying metal binding capacities (Zn2+ or Fe2S2)18, we performed sequence alignments and structure prediction of ApiCox13 homologs. This analysis indicated that Fe2S2 sites are well conserved in Apicomplexa, while homologs from marine species in related phyla instead contain tetrahedrally coordinated zinc (Extended Data Fig. 4). These findings are in line with the observed essentiality of Fe2S2 binding capability for CIV integrity and parasite survival in T. gondii19.
The architecture of the T. gondii supercomplex is unique among all previously described respiratory supercomplexes and this is mediated by a series of clade-specific subunits and extensions. When compared with the mature mammalian supercomplex III2–IV, the T. gondii CIV is found in a similar position relative to CIII, but rotated by ~180° (Extended Data Fig. 5a), therefore interacting with a different set of subunits. This leads to a unique relative positioning of T. gondii complexes III and IV, compared with mammalian, yeast and plant supercomplexes20,21,22 (Fig. 2f and Extended Data Fig. 5a), indicating that non-opisthokont lineages may represent most of respiratory supercomplex diversity. Whereas the mammalian assembly factor SCAF1 ties CIV to CIII in proximity to QCR6, TgQCR6 is facing toward NDUFA4 and the clade-conserved subunits, ApiCox10 and 15, located on the opposite side of CIV, thus generating a unique interface and III2–IV supercomplex architecture (Fig. 2g and Extended Data Fig. 5b). Furthermore, owing to the kinked architecture of the T. gondii supercomplex, CIV is associated to CIII only via the conserved TgQCR6, forming lumenal interactions with the four CIV subunits COX6B, ApiCox10, NDUFA4 and ApiCox15 (spheres in Fig. 2h). The interaction with ApiCox10 is mediated via an apicomplexan-conserved N-terminal extension (residues 2–23) of TgQCR6, which forms hydrophobic interactions with a helix hairpin (H3–H4) of ApiCox10 (Extended Data Fig. 5c). ApiCox15 contains a single TM-helix and a 38-residue lumenal region that contacts the TgQCR6 helix hairpin. Finally, unlike its mammalian homolog, the apicomplexan NDUFA4 C-terminus contains a structured horizontal helix that interacts with the TgQCR6 hairpin (Fig. 2g,h,i) on the lumenal side. The clade-specific interacting subunits and phylum-specific protein extensions are conserved in the malaria-causing Plasmodium falciparum (Extended Data Fig. 5d,e) and other apicomplexans, indicating that the newly described III2–IV interface and unusual supercomplex architecture are probably conserved in apicomplexan parasites.
Given the observed interactions of the clade-specific ApiCox10 and ApiCox15 with TgQCR6 at the supercomplex interface, we hypothesized that deletion of either of those proteins would result in supercomplex disassembly, allowing us to address the role of supercomplex formation. We attempted to generate ApiCox10 and ApiCox15 individual knockouts (KOs) using a clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)–Cas9 system. Five independent transfections and a screen of 50 clones failed to isolate an ApiCox15-KO mutant suggesting that this gene is refractory for full deletion. On the other hand, we were able to generate an ApiCox10-KO in two separate background lines, one where the CIV subunit Cox2a is endogenously tagged with a C-terminal hemagglutinin (HA) tag, and another where the CIII subunit QCR2 is endogenously HA tagged8. Additionally, we generated a complemented line where a Ty-tagged ApiCox10 is reintroduced (Extended Data Fig. 6a–g). Native gel electrophoresis analysis demonstrated the loss of III2–IV supercomplexes in both ApiCox10-KO lines (Fig. 3a–c), and this was further confirmed via proteomics analysis of Cox2a-HA immunoprecipitation (Extended Data Fig. 6h and Supplementary Data 1). Importantly, the individual CIV and CIII2 remain intact (Fig. 3d–f) and the Ty-tagged ApiCox10 complementation restored the supercomplex (Extended Data Fig. 6i), confirming the unique interface architecture of the apicomplexan III2–IV supercomplex and its dependence on a clade-specific subunit for its assembly.
a, Native PAGE analysis of Rieske-HA (CIII2 tagged line), Cox2a-HA (CIV tagged line) and ApiCox10-KO in the Cox2a-HA background (ApiCox10-KO/Cox2a-HA). Total lysates were treated with digitonin and separated by BN–PAGE, followed by immunoblot analysis with anti-HA antibodies, as well as anti-TOM40 as a loading control. Positions of complexes are indicated. b, Native PAGE analysis of QCR2-HA (CIII2 tagged line) and ApiCox10-KO in the QCR2-HA background (ApiCox10-KO/QCR2-HA) treated with digitonin, as in a. Samples were also separated by SDS–PAGE and immunoblot analysis with anti-TOM40 antibodies performed as a loading control. c, Native PAGE analysis of Cox2a-HA ApiCox10-KO/Cox2a-HA treated with digitonin, followed by cytochrome c DAB staining to visualize CIV activity. d–f, Native PAGE analysis of the lines in a (d), b (e) and c (f) extracted using β-DDM. g, Measurement of mitochondrial membrane potential using JC-1 dye via flow cytometry analysis. (i): T. gondii stained with the dye JC-1 indicated that both lines possess a mitochondrial membrane potential that is sensitive to the ionophore valinomycin. The population to the right of the dotted gray line is JC-1 positive. (ii): quantification of mitochondrial membrane potential by population that is positive for JC-1 staining. Graphs show mean ± s.d., from eight independent experiments. One-way ANOVA followed by Tukey's multiple pairwise comparisons was performed, and P values from relevant pairs are displayed. ****P < 0.0001. h, Extracellular flux analysis of (i) basal mitochondrial OCR, (ii) maximal mitochondrial OCR and (iii) ECAR of parental and ApiCox10-KO parasites. Graphs show mean ± s.d. from six independent experiments. P value was determined from a two-tailed unpaired Student's t-test. i, A mixed culture growth competition assay of ApiCox10-KO or parental mNEON fluorescent parasites with tdTomato parasites. Relative abundance (compared with passage 0) of ApiCox10-KO or parental parasites after six passages. Points are mean of four independent experiments, error bars are s.d. P value was determined using a two-tailed one-sample t-test comparing values to passage 0, ** P = 0.0011. NS, not significant.
Source data.
The supercomplex structure raises the question of whether the observed kinked architecture contributes to the induction of membrane curvature or whether it has evolved to allow accommodation in the unique bulbous mitochondrial cristae found in apicomplexans. Analysis of mitochondria in electron microscopy thin sections of the ApiCox10-KO line pointed to unchanged cristae morphology and density, in support of the latter scenario (Extended Data Fig. 6j–l). Likewise, ApiCox10-KO had no impact on the mitochondrial redox state (Extended Data Fig. 6m). Furthermore, examination of the mitochondrial membrane potential and oxygen consumption rate (OCR) in extracellular ApiCox10-KO, as proxy measurements for respiratory activity in tachyzoites, revealed no alteration compared to the parental line (Fig. 3g,h and Extended Data Fig. 7). This finding is in stark contrast to Saccharomyces cerevisiae, where supercomplex disruption impairs electron transfer efficiency in a cytochrome c level-dependent manner4. Interestingly, analysis of the surface charges on the T. gondii supercomplex shows a continuous negatively charged patch on the lumen region (Extended Data Fig. 6n), which is conserved in the yeast supercomplex, where it has been suggested to facilitate intracomplex cytochrome c transfer by two-dimensional (2D) diffusion23. Together, our findings suggest that cytochrome c diffusion does not limit respiration in T. gondii tachyzoites.
Finally, we tested whether the inability to form respiratory supercomplexes inflicts a fitness cost on the parasite. Analysis of parasite replication revealed a potential delay in reaching eight parasites per vacuole (Extended Data Fig. 6o). We thus created an ApiCox10-KO in a fluorescent background line and performed a growth competition assay. ApiCox10-KO parasites grown in the same culture as wild-type parasites were consistently outcompeted, indicating decreased fitness (Fig. 3i and Extended Data Figs. 6p and 7). Overall, parasites that are unable to form supercomplexes have no observable defects in respiratory activity, but display a fitness penalty, indicating that supercomplexes play an important fitness-conferring role in mitochondrial function that is not directly related to primary catalytic function. The finding that clade-specific subunits, which mediate supercomplex formation are important for competitive fitness may indicate that they convey increased stability or aid localization of the kinked supercomplexes to the uniquely shaped cristae (as opposed to the inner boundary membrane) to enable efficient formation of a membrane potential. The fitness defects associated with loss of supercomplexes in a tachyzoite competition assay suggest that supercomplex functions may become more relevant and observable in vivo or in different stages of the T. gondii life cycle.
CIII (cytochrome bc1 complex) plays a crucial role in electron transfer and proton pumping. The pumping of protons into the cristae lumen occurs via the Q-cycle, which involves sequential ubiquinol oxidation and ubiquinone reduction. Both reactions occur in specific quinone binding sites within the cytochrome b (Cyt-b) subunit, called Qo (oxidation) and Qi (reduction), which are essential for catalytic activity. Atovaquone is a Food and Drug Administration-approved antimalarial drug that competitively inhibits the Cyt-b Qo site and is also effective against toxoplasmosis24 (EC50 of 138 nM (ref. 25)). However, resistance to atovaquone has led to the development of novel inhibitors, such as ELQs, which target the Qi site25. The basis of selectivity of inhibition at either site is not fully understood.
The current understanding of species-specific Qo site inhibition by atovaquone is deduced from homology models of CIII structures of other species26, but experimental structures from apicomplexans have not been determined. Moreover, ELQ-300 is a Qi site inhibitor undergoing late-stage preclinical testing as a new antimalarial drug in the Medicines for Malaria portfolio, which is effective against blood, liver and mosquito-stage malaria, and also displays efficacy against T. gondii and other apicomplexan pathogens27,28. When used in combination therapy with atovaquone, ELQ-300 is highly synergistic in a murine malaria model29. However, the atovaquone/ELQ-300-bound structure of CIII has not been reported, and the structural basis for parasite-specific Cyt-b inhibition is not known.
We determined the structure of the T. gondii III2–IV supercomplex in the presence of atovaquone and ELQ-300 (10 µM each) at 2.8 Å resolution. The cryo-EM map shows both ELQ-300 (Qi) and atovaquone (Qo) bound, allowing insight into the binding mode of the two inhibitors (Fig. 4a,b and Extended Data Fig. 8). As our mitochondria preparations of the obligate intracellular parasite T. gondii also contained substantial amounts of mitochondria from the host cells (‘Vero' cells from the African green monkey, Cholorocebus sabaeus), the final cryo-EM sample contained a mixture of mitochondrial complexes from both species, which we classified computationally (Extended Data Fig. 1). From the same cryo-EM dataset, we thus also determined the structure of CIII within the co-purified Cholorocebus sabaeus I–III2–IV respirasome at 2.8 Å resolution (with atovaquone bound in Qi and Qo sites, see below), allowing direct comparison of architecture and inhibitor binding between parasite and host (Extended Data Table 1 and Extended Data Fig. 1). In our structure, TgCyt-b displays the conserved fold including eight transmembrane helices (A–H) and conserved redox centers (Extended Data Fig. 8). Notably, helices F, G and H are substantially remodeled. In opisthokonts (which includes yeast and mammals), helix F is curved and contains a 310 helix that introduces a bend in the transmembrane segment and is followed by a conserved proline residue (P305 in humans and C. sabaeus) that acts as a helix breaker. This conserved proline residue is missing in apicomplexan Cyt-b homologs, resulting in a straight α-helical helix F. Likewise, the T. gondii FG-loop (N306–W324, human 309–315) is remodeled, followed by a shortened hairpin of helices G and H. These features affect the positioning of residues that interact with the chlorophenyl moiety of atovaquone.
a, View of the Qo site of T. gondii occupied by atovaquone, which prevents electron transfer to heme bL and Fe2S2 in the lumenal domain of the Rieske subunit, which occupies the b-state. Residues responsible for apicomplexan-specific atovaquone sensitivity are shown in red. b, A ligand diagram of atovaquone interactions in the T. gondii Qo site. c, View of the Qo site of C. sabaeus occupied with atovaquone. d, A schematic of atovaquone interactions in the C. sabaeus Qo site.
The binding pocket for the hydroxynaphthoquinone group of the inhibitor is conserved between C. sabaeus and T. gondii, with our structure revealing interactions with residues F128, Y131, P265, M138 and I263 (Fig. 4), of which the latter two were previously found mutated in atovaquone-resistant T. gondii lines30. The difference in Qo site affinity arises from a group of parasite-specific residues (I124, Y272 and F289) that interact with the chlorophenyl moiety of atovaquone. Among these, Y272 (T. gondii numbering) on the EF-helix is occupied by an alanine in higher primates (A277 in humans and C. sabaeus). In the inhibited Cyt-b structure from S. cerevisiae, the chlorophenyl and cyclohexane rings of atovaquone are modeled in a near parallel configuration26. Our structure reveals that in T. gondii, the two moieties are instead oriented orthogonally, leading to a pi-stacking interaction of the chlorophenyl group with Y272 (Fig. 4). The aromatic character of this residue is also conserved in Plasmodium species causing malaria in humans (F267). Indeed, the single mutations F267V and F267I convey atovaquone resistance in P. falciparum and P. yoelii, respectively31,32, indicating that aromatic interactions, rather than unspecific hydrophobic contacts, are required for atovaquone binding. Our structure reveals that Y272 acts to position the chlorophenyl group of atovaquone to convey parasite-specific ligand interactions.
The remodeled TgCyt-b structure affects the binding of atovaquone in the Qo site. Owing to the curved helix F structure, in the S. cerevisiae Cyt-b, the I299 sidechain is partially inserted between the respective aromatic residue (F278) and the chlorophenyl group, preventing a stacking interaction as observed in our T. gondii structure (Extended Data Fig. 8e). This may explain the potential difference in sensitivity between yeast26,33 and P. falciparum27,34.
Notably, the binding of atovaquone to the Qo site generates an induced fit. Comparison to our T. gondii structure with unoccupied Qo site (see below), revealed that the EF loop and cd1 helix undergo movements to widen the pocket. In this process, I263 on the EF loop, which would result in a clash with atovaquone in the unoccupied state, moves by 2 Å to accommodate the ligand (Supplementary Movie 1).
While the atovaquone EC50 value is in the low nanomolar range for both P. falciparum and T. gondii cytochrome bc135,36, the EC50 for the mammalian homolog is more than 100 times higher27 (EC50 T. gondii of 138 nM, 38 µM human foreskin fibroblasts (HFF)25). Remarkably, we also found atovaquone bound not only in the Qo site, but also the Qi site of the C. sabaeus Cyt-b, which is part of the I–III2–IV supercomplex. Our structure indicates that in the dual-site inhibited mammalian Cyt-b, the atovaquone molecules of the Qi and Qo sites probably adopt two different tautomers to enable the formation of hydrogen bond networks in the two quinone binding sites (Extended Data Fig. 8 and Supplementary Discussion). This observed dual atovaquone inhibition of the mammalian complex (Qi + Qo) indicates that ELQ-300 binds the mammalian Qi site very weakly or not at all. Thus, by co-determining the structures of both the mammalian and T. gondii CIII in the presence of equimolar atovaquone/ELQ-300 concentrations (10 µM) from the same heterogeneous sample and revealing their different drug binding, we provide structural evidence for the high parasite selectivity of ELQ-300 as a Qi-site inhibitor27.
To reveal its binding mechanism at high resolution, we affinity-purified the T. gondii CIII embedded in amphipols via the 3xFLAG-tagged Rieske subunit (Extended Data Fig. 9a–e), inhibited by ELQ-300 only, and determined its cryo-EM structure to 1.8 Å resolution (Extended Data Fig. 1 and Extended Data Table 1). Surprisingly, the C2-symmetric CIII structure contains two bound ELQ-300 molecules per Cyt-b monomer, one at the Qi site and, unexpectedly, another in the central cavity of the Qo channel (Fig. 5a–d). In the Qi pocket, ELQ-300 displays an unexpected binding mode, which is well supported by our cryo-EM density (Fig. 5b and Extended Data Fig. 9f–h). The 4-(1H)-quinolone group is pinned by hydrogen bonds with H197 and D223, interacting with ketone and amino groups of the ligand at N–O distances of 3.0 Å, respectively (Fig. 5a and Extended Data Fig. 9f–g). The ketone group of ELQ-300 also interacts with the heme bH propionate group via an ordered water (Fig. 5a,e). This binding mode differs markedly from the orientation of other 3-diaryl 4-(1H)-quinolones in the Qi site of the bovine enzyme, which was found to be rotated 180° (ref. 37) (Extended Data Fig. 9l–m). Owing to the fixed orientation of the quinolone group in our T. gondii structure, the diarylether group in position-2 extends toward helix D (on the matrix side), which is markedly different from the binding pose observed in the bovine homolog, in which quinolones with both 2- or 3-diaryl-groups extend in the opposite direction, toward helix A (in the lumen side; Fig. 5c,e and Extended Data Fig. 9k–p). This finding is similar to the binding mode of atovaquone in the Qi site observed in our C. sabaeus structure, in which the chlorophenyl-cyclohexyl group also points toward helix A, indicating a similar binding mode to that seen for other inhibitors of the mammalian Qi site26,29,30. In our T. gondii structure, the orientation of the first aryl group is determined by the adjacent I193 on helix D, leading to a 63° angle between the aryl and quinolone planes. The peripheral trifluoro-methoxy-phenoxy group displays flexibility and adopts two distinct conformations (Fig. 5a). Conformer A makes contacts along helix D with I189, V190 and I193, whereas through a rotation around the ether bond, conformer B extends toward helix a to interact with a set of hydrophobic residues (Extended Data Fig. 9i). The hydrophobic character of the Qi site entrance is probably enhanced by the specific recruitment of an adjacent cardiolipin molecule (Extended Data Fig. 9j).
a, View of ELQ-300 bound in the Qi site of T. gondii, showing both conformer A and B. b, A close-up view of conformer B of ELQ-300 bound in the Qi site. Parasite-specific aqueous pocket denoted by gray-dashed line. c, TgCyt-b with heme and ELQ-300 binding sites. Helices A–H are connected by loops including AB, CD and EF, with interspersed horizontal helices a, ab, cd1, cd2 and ef. The overlapping atovaquone site (Qo) is shown in transparent orange. The dashed line shows the close-up region depicted in a. d, The structure formula of ELQ-300. e, Ligand diagram of ELQ-300 in the Qi site highlighting hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic interactions. f, Name, formula and EC50 values (nM) of the ELQs that were tested.
One conspicuous residue that may contribute to determining the binding mode of ELQ-300 is F34 from helix A, which interacts with the methyl group in the 2-position (Fig. 5a,e). This residue is conserved in P. falciparum, but not in human (S35) and it is thus possible that its bulky character contributes to dictating the orientation of the 3-aryl quinolones in apicomplexan parasites by restricting the entrance of the Qi site. Thus, our structure reveals an unexpected binding mode of the ELQ-300 in the apicomplexan Qi site, which differs markedly from previously determined structures of the inhibited mammalian CIII and provides an accurate molecular model for developing antimalarial inhibitors.
Our data also reveal the structural basis for the observed parasite selectivity of ELQ-300 for the Qi site35,38,39. In the deepest part of the T. gondii Qi pocket, L26 interacts with the chloro and methoxy groups of the quinolone (Extended Data Fig. 9q). This finding corroborates the observation that an I22L mutation of the respective residue in P. falciparum (clone D1) causes a 24-fold reduction in sensitivity to ELQ-300 (ref. 40). L26 further contacts the chlorine substituent at the van der Waals distance (Extended Data Fig. 9r), suggesting it is important for ligand positioning within the Qi site. This finding agrees with previous evidence showing that the size of the atomic radius of the 6-position substituent, fluorine (ELQ-316) or hydrogen (ELQ-298), is inversely correlated to potency against T. gondii25,28. Furthermore, our structure indicates that species-specific affinity may not be solely owing to steric hindrance introduced by L26, but due to additional contacts of the 3′-methyl group of the P. falciparum I22 sidechain with the 7-methoxy group of ELQ-300 (Extended Data Fig. 9q). The methoxy-substituent at the 7-position is known to limit Qi site affinity in the mammalian host25,41.
On the basis of the above observation, the EC50 of various ELQs decreases together with the atomic radius in position 6 (Br > Cl > F > H). We concluded that this may be owing to a deeper penetration of the inhibitor into the Qi site, allowing a stronger interaction with the substituent at the position 7 (Extended Data Fig. 9r). The EC50 of ELQ-340, ELQ-300, ELQ-316 and ELQ-298 were 238 nM (95% confidence interval (CI) 215, 261), 63.9 nM (95% CI 53–74.9), 3.2 nM (95% CI 2.7–3.6) and 1.1 nM (95% CI 0.5–1.7), respectively (Extended Data Table 1). Indeed, an analysis of the apicomplexan Qi site revealed that a parasite-specific aqueous pocket around the 7-methoxy-substituent is generated by replacement of mammalian residues Y224 and K227 with M219 and T222 in T. gondii, respectively. Moreover, a T222P substitution resulted in resistance to 7-methoxy ELQs36. To test this hypothesis, we synthesized and tested ELQs with a longer 7-ethoxy substituent in combination with chlorine (ELQ-804), fluorine (ELQ-807) and hydrogen (ELQ-627) at position 6 (Fig. 5d,f and Extended Data Table 1). As predicted, the extended 7-ethoxy substituent increased potency compared with the analogous 7-methoxy-substituent. ELQ-804, ELQ-807 and ELQ-627 were fourfold, threefold and tenfold more potent than their respective 7-methoxy analogs. We propose that the most potent compound, ELQ-627, possesses the greatest potential for extending into the pocket owing to the smallest 6-position substituent, hydrogen, paired with the 7-position ethoxy group. The EC50 values of each 7-methoxy compound compared with its 7-ethoxy analog was statistically different (P < 0.0001). The EC50 of ELQ-627 was 0.12 nM, which was 27-fold more potent than ELQ-316, a lead preclinical candidate for toxoplasmosis that is highly effective and well-tolerated in mouse models of acute and latent toxoplasmosis compared with clinically used drugs and advanced preclinical compounds42. The discovery and validation of a unique binding pocket in the T. gondii Cyt-b Qi site provides a readily exploitable feature of the apicomplexan target for structure-guided drug design. The cryo-EM structure of the apicomplexan CIII will advance the development of pathogen-specific, highly potent Cyt-b inhibitors to treat devastating apicomplexan diseases.
T. gondii tachyzoites were cultured in HFF, sourced from American Type Culture Collection (SCRC-1041). HFFs and parasites were cultured in Dulbecco's modified Eagle medium, containing 4.5 g l−1 glucose, supplemented with 10% (v/v) fetal bovine serum (FBS), 4 mM L-glutamine and penicillin or streptomycin antibiotics and grown at 37 °C with 5% CO2.
To generate the Rieske-3xFLAG line (C-terminal triple FLAG epitope tagging), a gRNA targeting the stop codon of TGGT1_320220 was identified using ChopChop44 and cloned into a U6 promoter and Cas9–green fluorescent protein expressing vector (Tub-Cas9YFP-pU6-ccdB-tracrRNA)45 using the BsaI restriction site. The CAT selection cassette and triple FLAG epitope were amplified by PCR from a pLIC.TEV.3xFLAG.CATΔpacI plasmid46. The gRNA–CAS9 vector–PCR product mixture was transfected into the TATi∆ku80 (ref. 47) line by electroporation and cassette integration was selected with chloramphenicol. Positive clones were isolated by serial dilution and confirmed by PCR analysis.
For the ApiCox knockout line, a gRNA targeting the stop codon of TGGT1_316255 was identified via ChopChop44 and cloned as above into Tub-Cas9YFP-pU6-ccdB-tracrRNA. A dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) resistance cassette was amplified using the pDT7S4 plasmid as template47 and using primers containing 50 bp of sequence homology to regions upstream and downstream of the TGGT1_316255 open reading frame. The gRNA–Cas9 vector–PCR product mixture was transfected into the either a Cox2a-HA, QCR2-HA8 or mNEON::Δku80 (ref. 48) parental line by electroporation and cassette integration was selected with pyrimethamine. Positive clones were isolated by serial dilution and confirmed by PCR analysis. For the complementation of the knockout cell line, cDNA was cloned into a pTUB8mycGFPMyoATy expression vector via EcoRI and NsiI restriction sites49, plasmid electroporated and selected with mycophenolic acid (25 mg ml−1) and xanthine (50 mg ml−1).
Replication assay: parental or ApiCox10-KO parasites were inoculated into HFF cells grown on a glass coverslip and left to invade and replicate for 24 h. Parasites were detected via immunofluorescence using the GAP45 antibody [1:1,000]50. The number of vacuoles containing 1, 2, 4 or 8+ parasites were counted for more than 250 vacuoles per replicate. Four independent experiments were performed.
Competition assay: parental or ApiCox10-KO parasites in the mNEON::Δku80 background48 were counted, resuspended in fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) buffer (25 mM HEPES, 5 mM EDTA and 1% w/v FBS) and mixed in a ≈1:1 ratio with wild-type tdTomato::Δku80 parasites and the mixed population inoculated in cell culture. These mixed populations were passaged six times. At each passage a portion of the population was analyzed using BD FACS Celesta (BD Biosciences). Data were analyzed using the FlowJo v10.8.1 software (BD biosciences).
Growth inhibition for ELQ EC50: T. gondii proliferation inhibition with ELQs was measured in a 96-well assay using an RH T. gondii strain expressing beta-galactosidase cultured in HFF. Compounds dissolved in dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) were diluted serially across the plate in four replicate rows by fourfold dilutions with a control column receiving no compounds. Then, 4,000 T. gondii tachyzoites were added to each well. After 3 days of incubation (37 °C, 5% CO2), the media were replaced with a solution of chlorophenol red-β-d-galactopyranoside and NP-40. The absorbance of each well was measured at 575 nm in a Molecular Devices SpectraMax 190 plate reader. Each compound was tested in at least three independent experiments. Absorbance was plotted against the base-10log of compound concentration and fitted to a four-parameter model of the Hill equation to estimate the EC50 for each compound. The 95% CIs of the mean, two-tailed unpaired t-tests and EC50 values were calculated using GraphPad Prism v8.4.3 software.
For native polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) analysis, parasites were filtered through a 3.0-µm polycarbonate filter, washed with ice cold phosphate buffered saline (PBS) and resuspended in native PAGE sample buffer (Thermo Fisher) supplemented with 1% n-dodecyl β-D-maltoside (β-DDM) or 1% digitonin. After 30 min incubation at 4 °C, samples were centrifuged at 18,000g for 30 min at 4 °C and the supernatant mixed with Coomassie G250 to a final concentration of 0.25% w/v. Samples were separated on a native PAGE 4–16% (for monomer detection) or a 3–12% (for supercomplex detection) Bis-Tris gel. NativeMark and a bovine mitochondrial membrane preparation was used as a molecular weight marker. SDS–PAGE, immunoblot analysis and DAB staining were performed as described previously8,46. The following primary antibodies were used: anti-HA (Roche, clone 3F10) (1:500), anti-TOM40 (1:2,000)51, anti-MYS (1:2,000)52, anti-Ty53 (1:800), anti-CDPK1 (1:10,000)54 and anti-FLAG (Thermo Fisher, clone FG4R) (1:2,000). SDS–PAGE immunoblots were then labeled with secondary fluorescent antibodies (LI-COR: anti-mouse IRDye 800CW, anti-rabbit IRDye 680RD and anti-rat IRDye 800CW, all 1:10,000) and imaged with an Odyssey CLx. Native PAGE immunoblots were labeled with secondary horseradish peroxidase-conjugated antibodies (anti-rat, immunoglobulin G H&L horseradish peroxidase, abcam, 1:5,000; anti-rabbit, immunoglobulin G H&L horseradish peroxidase conjugate, Promega, 1:10,000) and chemiluminescence detection using Pierce ECL western blotting substrate and either an X-ray film or an iBright FL1000 imager (Invitrogen).
OCR and extracellular acidification rate (ECAR) were measured using a Seahorse XF HS Mini Analyzer v3.0.0.41 (Agilent Technologies) as described previously55. Each of the six independent experiments was performed with parental and ApiCox10-KO parasites with two technical replicates.
Parasites were filtered through a 3.0 µm polycarbonate filter and incubated with 1.5 µM JC-1 (5,5′,6,6′-tetrachloro-1,1′,3,3′-tetraethylbenzimidazolocarbocyanine iodide, Thermo Fisher Scientific, stock 1.5 mM in DMSO) for 15 min at 37 °C. Treatment with 10 μM valinomycin was used as a depolarizing control. Cells were pelleted and resuspended in 1–2 ml FACS buffer (25 mM HEPES, 5 mM EDTA and 1% w/v FBS) before analysis using a BD FACS Celesta analyzer and data acquisition using FACSDiva software v9 (BD Biosciences). Unstained controls were used to define gates for analysis. In total, 50,000 events per treatment were collected, and data were analyzed using FlowJo v10.8.1 software (BD Biosciences).
Parasites were inoculated on fresh HFFs on glass coverslips. After 1 day, cells were fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde. Cells were permeabilized and blocked with a solution of 2% bovine serum albumin and 0.2% triton X-100 in PBS before incubation with primary antibodies (anti-Ty53, anti-MYS52 and anti-TOM40 (ref. 51)), 1:1,000, followed by secondary antibodies (Alexa Fluor Goat anti-Mouse 488 Invitrogen A-11001, 1:1,000 and Alexa Fluor Goat anti-Rabbit 594 Invitrogen A-11012, 1:1,000). Coverslips were mounted on slides with Fluoromount-G mounting media containing 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (Southern Biotech, 0100–20). Slides were visualized on a DeltaVision Core microscope (Applied Precision) using the 100× objective and z-stacking. Images were deconvolved using SoftWoRx v5.5 software and processed using FIJI software v1.5.2 (ref. 56).
Parental and ApiCox10-KO parasites were allowed to invade HFF and form vacuoles. Cells were then fixed with fixation buffer (2.5% (v/v) glutaraldehyde, 4% (w/v) paraformaldehyde, in 0.1 M cacodylate buffer, pH 7.2), washed in 0.1 M cacodylate buffer, pH 7.2 and post-fixed in 1% (w/v) OsO4, 1.25% (w/v) K4[Fe(CN)6] for 1 h on ice. After several washes in the same buffer, the samples were en bloc stained with 0.5% (w/v) uranyl acetate in water for 30 min. Thereafter, samples were washed with water, dehydrated in ascending acetone series and resin embedded. Ultrathin sections (~50 nm thick) were collected and imaged on a JEOL 1200 Transmission electron microscope (JEOL) operated at 80 kV. Images were analyzed in FIJI software and the number of cristae per unit mitochondrial area was calculated. Cristae density: parental: 62.57 ± 19.19 cristae µm−2, mean, s.d., n = 100. ApiCox10-KO: 58.55 ± 17.97 cristae µm−2; mean, s.d., n = 100. Mitochondrial area: parental: 0.09739 ± 0.09649 µm2, mean, s.d. n = 100. ApiCox10-KO: 0.09441 ± 0.06876 µm2, mean, s.d., n = 100.
MitoSOX staining to assess oxidative stress in the mitochondria was performed as described previously48 with minor modifications. Briefly, parasites were grown in the presence or absence of 2 mM ferric ammonium chloride, shown to increase mitochondrial oxidative stress, for 6 h, before parasites were filtered through a 3.0 µm polycarbonate filter and incubated with 1 µM MitoSOX (Thermo Fisher, M36008) for 30 min at 37 °C. Cells were pelleted and resuspended in 2 ml FACS buffer (25 mM HEPES, 5 mM EDTA and 1% w/v FBS) before analysis using BD FACS Celesta analyzer and data acquisition using FACSDiva software v9 (BD Biosciences). Parasites were gated on forward and side scatter and on green fluorescence before the red fluorescent signal was analyzed. In total, 100,000 events per treatment were collected and data were analyzed using the FlowJo v10.8.1 software (BD biosciences).
Immunoprecipitations for identification by mass spectrometry were performed as described previously55 with minor modifications. Cox2a-HA and ApiCox10-KO/Cox2a-HA parasites were lysed in a lysis buffer containing 1% digitonin. Elutions containing equal amount of protein were sent for mass spectrometry analysis. Four independent experiments were performed. Proteins detected in at least three out of the four experiments are displayed in a volcano plot. Data analysis to generate a volcano plot was performed using Perseus v1.6.12.0; samples were compared using a two-sided t-test, the false discovery rate was set to 0.01 and the significance threshold was set to 2.
Immunoprecipitation of Rieske-TEV-3xFLAG parasites was performed using anti-FLAG M2 affinity agarose gel (Merck). Parasites (≈1 × 1010) were incubated in 4 ml buffer (150 mM NaCl, 2 mM EDTA, 50 mM Tris–HCl pH 7.4) containing 2% β-DDM for 2 h at 4 °C before centrifugation at 18,000g for 30 min at 4 °C. The supernatant was incubated with FLAG affinity gel overnight at 4 °C. Then the affinity gel was washed three times with buffer containing 0.05% β-DDM before elution with a FLAG peptide solution (150 µg ml−1) for 1 h at 4 °C. The eluate was concentrated to ≈50 µl in a vivaspin 500 filter (100 kDa molecular weight cutoff) and subjected to gel filtration on a Superose 6 Increase 3.2/300 column (GE Healthcare) in 150 mM NaCl, 2 mM EDTA, 50 mM Tris–HCl pH 7.4 and 0.05% β-DDM to separate it from aggregates and FLAG peptide. CIII-containing fractions were pooled and incubated with amphipol A8-35 (Anatrace) in a molar ratio of 1:5 for 4 h at 4 °C, followed by the addition of Bio-Beads SM-2 Resin (Bio-Rad) in a molar ratio of 1:20 for 16 h at 4 °C to remove detergent. The sample was concentrated and gel filtrated as before, followed by a final spin-column concentration to 0.94 mg ml−1. ELQ-300 (in DMSO) was added to a final concentration of 10 µM before sample vitrification.
Parasite culturing and mitochondria purification was performed as previously described13. Briefly, T. gondii RH tachyzoites were grown in Vero cells in Dulbecco's modified Eagle medium supplemented with 10% (v/v) FBS, 4 mM of l-glutamine and penicillin or streptomycin antibiotics at 37 °C with 5% (v/v) CO2. For each mitochondrial preparation ≈100 T150 flasks were collected at >80% host-cell lysis and passed through 23G needles to fully lyse any remaining host cells. Parasites were pelleted by centrifugation at 1,500g for 10 min at 4 °C, washed in PBS and then resuspended in buffer containing 210 mM of mannitol, 70 mM of sucrose, 50 mM of HEPES–KOH pH 7.4, 1 mM of EGTA, 5 mM of EDTA, 10 mM of KCl and 1 mM of dithiothreitol (DTT) to 5 × 108 cells ml−1. Parasites were lysed by successive rounds of nitrogen cavitation (2,500 PSI, 15 min incubation on ice) until >95% lysis (confirmed by light microscopy). After each round, the lysate was centrifuged at 1,500g for 15 min at 4 °C, the supernatant was collected and the pellet resuspended in the same volume for further lysis. The final combined lysate was centrifuged as before to remove unbroken cells and the supernatant was centrifuged at 16,000g for 30 min at 4 °C. The resulting crude mitochondrial pellet was further purified on a discontinuous sucrose gradient in 20 mM of HEPES–KOH pH 7.4, 2 mM of EDTA, 15%/23%/32%/60% (w/v) sucrose by centrifugation (103,745g, 1 h, 4 °C) in an SW41 rotor (Beckman Coulter) and enriched mitochondria were collected from the 32–60% (w/v) interface.
Enriched mitochondria were lysed in a total volume of 34 ml buffer containing 25 mM HEPES–KOH pH 7.5, 25 mM KCl, 15 mM MgOAc2, 2% (w/v) digitonin, 2 mM DTT and one tablet of EDTA-free protease inhibitor cocktail for 2 h at 4 °C and the lysate was cleared by centrifugation at 30,000g for 20 min at 4 °C. The supernatant was layered on a sucrose cushion in buffer of 1 M sucrose, 25 mM HEPES–KOH pH 7.5, 25 mM KCl, 15 mM MgOAc2, 2% digitonin and 2 mM DTT, and centrifuged at 230,759g for 4 h at 4 °C in a Ti70 rotor (Beckman Coulter). The resulting pellet was resuspended in 200 µl 25 mM HEPES–KOH pH 7.5, 25 mM KCl, 15 mM MgOAc2, 2 mM DTT and 0.1% digitonin, and gel filtrated over a Superose 6 Increase 3.2/300 column (GE Healthcare). Fractions corresponding to the respiratory chain supercomplex were pooled and concentrated to 25 µl in a vivaspin 500 filter (100 kDa molecular weight cutoff). Atovaquone and ELQ-300 (in DMSO) were added in a 100-fold dilution to a final concentration of 10 µM before sample vitrification.
Next, 3 µl of sample (~0.2–0.5 mg ml−1) were applied to glow-discharged Quantifoil R2/2 Cu grids with a 2-nm-thin carbon support layer and vitrified by plunge-freezing into liquid ethane after blotting for 3 s. Cryo-EM was performed on a Titan Krios operated at 300 kV at a magnification of 165 kx (0.83 Å per pixel) with a K3 quantum camera (slit width 20 eV) at an exposure rate of 17 electrons pixel−1 s−1 with a 1.75 s exposure fractionated into 40 frames using EPU 1.12 software (Thermo Fisher Scientific).
Initial rounds of 2D classification were performed to generate classes for reference-based particle picking, which was performed in RELION4, resulting in 2,658,324 picked particles. To address sample heterogeneity, the resulting classes of a subsequent 2D classification (cryoSPARC4.6) were manually grouped and subjected to ab initio model generation (cryoSPARC), which resulted in six different 3D references, corresponding to the T. gondii ATP synthase dimer and supercomplex, the C. sabaeus ATP synthase and I–III2–IV supercomplex, and mitochondrial large ribosomal subunit, as well as an unidentified C7-symmetric complex (Supplementary Fig. 1d). These six maps were used as input to heterogeneous refinements, resulting in the particle distribution shown in Supplementary Fig. 1, with 432 k and 637 k particles for T. gondii and C. sabaeus, respectively. Subsequent masked refinements of the T. gondii supercomplex yielded maps of the CIII and CIV subcomplexes at 2.79 and 3.16 Å, respectively.
Data collection of the ELQ-300-inhibited T. gondii complex-III dataset was performed on a Titan Krios, as described above, resulting in 46,370 movies. Image processing was performed in cryoSPARC. Templates for particle picking were generated by initial rounds of 2D classification. 12,822,652 particles were picked and cleaned by 2D classification resulting in 4,451,128 particles. To reduce map anisotropy and increase interpretability, the number of top views was reduced, resulting in a final number of 2,056,878 particles. Non-uniform refinement resulted in a 1.9 Å structure which was improved to 1.83 Å by cryo-EM density modification in PHENIX 1.21 (ref. 57).
All final maps were generated from contrast transfer function (CTF)-refined particles. All resolution estimates are according to Fourier shell correlations (FSC) that were calculated from independently refined half-maps using the 0.143 criterion with correction for the effect of the applied masks (Extended Data Fig. 1).
An initial atomic model of the T. gondii III2–IV supercomplex was assembled by fitting the known conserved subunits, as predicted by AlphaFold2 (ref. 58) into the cryo-EM maps. Newly identified subunits were built de novo and identified by BLAST searches following manual modeling in Coot 0.96 (ref. 59). At the modeled N-terminus of the T. gondii Cyt-b, we identified cryo-EM density preceding residue Met10, which is consistent with a Phe9. While this observation is not explained by the mRNA sequence, it is consistent with the high-resolution cryo-EM map.
For atomic model building of the C. sabaeus CIII, a homology model of the murine CIII (Protein Data Bank (PDB) 7o37) was generated using the SWISS-MODEL webserver, followed by rebuilding and inhibitor fitting in Coot and structure refinement in PHENIX 1.19. Homology modeling of the P. falciparum QCR6 homolog was performed in SWISS-MODEL. For the mapping of Cyt-c binding sites, PDB 3CX5 (ref. 60) and 5IY5 (ref. 61) were fitted to the T. gondii complexes III2 and IV, respectively, to reveal cytochrome binding sites.
Prediction of membrane positions was performed using the OREMPRO webserver62. Structure-based multiple sequence alignment of QCR6 was performed in Chimera-1.14 (ref. 63). Images of the structures were generated with ChimeraX 1.6.1 (ref. 64).
For CIII subunits, TGGT1_214250, previously named apicomplexan-specific QCR11 (ref. 8), was reassigned as a homolog of conserved subunit QCR10 and thus renamed TgQCR10. The newly identified TGGT1_312940 was named TgQCR13 to avoid changing the already named TgQCR12. For CIV subunits, we followed a previously established ‘ApiCox' nomenclature11. However, structural similarity showed that previously named ApicCox23, 25, 35 and 14 correspond to conserved subunits Cox4, 6A, 6C and 7a, respectively. We also reassigned TGGT1_306670 as NDUFA4. Furthermore, we newly identified the conserved subunit Cox2c and Cox7c directly from the cryo-EM density. We also reassigned the previously detected subunit TGGT1_257160 as conserved Cox8a and, following the established nomenclature, novel clade-conserved subunits ApiCox22, 20, 5, 10 and 7.
Further information on research design is available in the Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary linked to this article.
The atomic coordinates were deposited in the PDB under accession numbers 9I4X (T. gondii complex III with ELQ-300/ATQ), 9I4Y (T. gondii CIV), 9H8T (C. sabaeus CIII with ATQ), and 9G9T (T. gondii CIII with ELQ-300). The cryo-EM maps have been deposited in the Electron Microscopy Data Bank (EMDB) under the respective accession numbers: EMD-52621 (T. gondii complex III with ELQ-300/ATQ), EMD-52622 (T. gondii CIV), EMD-51939 (C. sabaeus CIII with ATQ), and EMD-51157 (T. gondii CIII with ELQ-300). The atomic coordinates that were used in this study are: PDB 7O3C (murine III2–IV supercomplex), 5IY5 (cytochrome c) and 3CX5 (complex III with bound cytochrome c). Full versions of all gels are provided in the source file. The mass spectrometry proteomics data have been deposited to the ProteomeXchange Consortium via the PRIDE partner repository with the dataset identifier PXD053932. Supplementary Information is available. It includes Supplementary Methods (parasite cell culture and genetic manipulation; mitochondrial isolation; purification of respiratory supercomplexes; electron cryo-microscopy and data processing; atomic model building, homology modeling and analysis; data visualization and multiple sequence alignment; growth analysis; blue native (BN) and SDS–PAGE and immunoblot analysis; analysis of respiratory rate; compound synthesis); Supplementary Tables 1 and 2, Supplementary Discussion and Supplementary Notes. Source data are provided with this paper.
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We acknowledge the Scottish Center for Macromolecular Imaging (SCMI) for access to cryo-EM instrumentation, funded by the MRC (MC_PC_17135) and SFC (H17007). We thank the Swedish National cryo-EM facility at SciLifeLab (funded by the KAW, EPS and Kempe foundations), for instrument access and assistance with data acquisition. We thank the Infrastructure Team–Information Services (University of Glasgow) for computational support. We thank the Cellular Analysis Facility from MVLS SRF for their support and assistance for the flow cytometry work. We thank C. Ettles for assistance with parasitology work. We thank L. Lemgruber of the Cellular Analysis Facility from MVLS SRF for his support and assistance in in the transmission electron microscopy work. We would like to acknowledge S. Kosto of the FingerPrints Proteomics Facility at the University of Dundee, which is supported by the ‘Wellcome Trust Technology Platform' award (097945/B/11/Z). The Wellcome Centre for Integrative Parasitology is supported by core funding from the Wellcome Trust (104111). We thank the OHSU Medicinal Chemistry Core (research resource ID: SCR_019048). This work was supported by Wellcome Investigator Award (217173_Z_19_Z) (to L.S.); by a FutureScope Fellowship by the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Parasitology (to A. Mühleip); and Sir Henry Wellcome Fellowship (to A.E.M., grant number 221681/Z/20/Z). S.S. was supported by Swiss National Science Foundation Early Postdoc Mobility Fellowship (grant no. 200158). A. Meir was supported by MRC grants MC_UU_00034/1 and MC_UU_12014/7. J.S.D. received funding for this work from the US Department of Veterans Affairs Biomedical Laboratory Research VA Merit Review award BX004522. M.K.R. receives funding from the US Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Research and Development Program Award number BX003312. M.K.R. is a recipient of a VA Research Career Scientist Award (14S-RCS001). Research reported in this publication was supported by the US National Institutes of Health under award numbers R01AI100569 and R01AI141412 and by the US Department of Defense Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program (PR181134). The National Science Foundation provided instrument funding for the BioAnalytical Mass Spectrometry Facility at Portland State University (NSF, MRI 1828573), which was used to generate HRMS analytical measurements. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the paper.
Open Access funding provided by University of Helsinki (including Helsinki University Central Hospital).
School of Infection and Immunity, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
Andrew E. MacLean, Shikha Shikha, Mariana Ferreira Silva, Amit Meir, Lilach Sheiner & Alexander Mühleip
Glasgow Centre for Parasitology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
Andrew E. MacLean, Shikha Shikha, Mariana Ferreira Silva, Lilach Sheiner & Alexander Mühleip
VA Portland Health Care System, Portland, OR, USA
Max J. Gramelspacher, Aaron Nilsen, Katherine M. Liebman, Sovitj Pou, Rolf W. Winter, Michael K. Riscoe & J. Stone Doggett
Medicinal Chemistry Core, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, USA
Aaron Nilsen
Centre for Virus Research, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
Amit Meir
Department of Microbiology and Molecular Immunology, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, USA
Michael K. Riscoe
School of Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, USA
J. Stone Doggett
Institute of Biotechnology, Helsinki Institute of Life Science HiLIFE, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Alexander Mühleip
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A. Mühleip, A.E.M. and L. S. designed the project. A.E.M. and S.S. performed cell culturing for sample preparation; A.E.M., S.S. and M.F.S. performed genetic manipulation of parasites. A. Mühleip and A.E.M. performed isolation of mitochondria and protein purification. A. Meir and A.E.M. performed immunoprecipitation. A. Meir performed protein purification and optimization for cryo-EM studies. A. Mühleip performed cryo-EM sample preparation, data collection, data processing, atomic model building and analysis. A.E.M. performed cell biological, biochemical and microscopy assays. M.J.G. and J.S.D. performed EC50 experiments and analysis. J.S.D., A.N., K.M.L., S.P., R.W.W. and M.K.R. contributed to conceptualization, synthesis and characterization of compounds. All authors contributed to figure and table preparation and/or to the writing of the methods. A. Mühleip and L.S. wrote the paper with contributions from A.E.M. and J.S.D.
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Lilach Sheiner or Alexander Mühleip.
The authors declare no competing interests.
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology thanks Leonid Sazanov, Rita Tewari, Janet Vonck and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Dimitris Typas was the primary editor on this article and managed its editorial process and peer review in collaboration with the rest of the editorial team.
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(a) Representative micrograph with T. gondii and C. sabaeus supercomplex particles indicated in blue and orange, respectively. (b) Representative 2D classes of the T. gondii supercomplex. (c) Representative 2D classes of C. sabaeus supercomplex. (d) Data processing scheme, highlighting the reference-based 3D classification to separate T. gondii and C. sabaeus ATP synthase (purple, light green), mitochondrial large subunit (yellow) and putative mitochondrial chaperonin (teal) from T. gondii and C. sabaeus supercomplexes (blue and orange). (e) Fourier Shell Correlation (FSC) curves. (f) Representative micrograph with T. gondii complex III from IP. (g) Representative 2D classes of the T. gondii complex III. (h) Data processing scheme for complex III.
(a) Summary of homology search outcomes for the new subunits. (b) Comparison of Cox2 structure in human CIV and in Toxoplasma where Cox2 is split in three. (c) Heat map indicating the mean hydrophobicity (calculated by grand average of hydropathy (KD)65 or according to Wimley-White (WW)66 or the Moon-Fleming (MF)67 of Cox2 homologs in divergent organisms.
Source data
(a) Bound lipids of the III2-IV supercomplex with cardiolipins shown in red, phosphatidylcholine in blue and phosphatidylethanolamine in green. Lipid positions indicate a bend membrane region (dashed lines). (b) T. gondii supercomplex structure with estimated membrane plane regions showing a rotational offset between the two subcomplexes CIII and CIV. (c) Comparison of the kinked T. gondii supercomplex architecture the flat assembly of the murine III2-IV supercomplex (PDB 7O3C). (d) Steric hindrance between TgQCR12 and ApiCox7 and between ApiCox10 and TgQCR9 prevents a flat assembly of the III2-IV supercomplex.
(a) T. gondii CIV structure (b) TgApiCox13 with bound lipids (CDL, cardiolipin; PE, phosphatidylethanolamine) (c) ApiCox13 from T. gondii (left, this study), predicted homolog structures from Perkinsus marinus and Plasmodium falciparum. Of the two Fe2S2 clusters in T. gondii, one is conserved in P. falciparum, whereas P. marinus seem to utilize zinc. Insets show Fe2S2 coordination sites. (d) Phylogenetic tree with conservation of Fe2S2 and zinc (e) Multi-sequence alignment with residues involved in Fe2S2 or zinc binding shown in yellow and orange respectively. (f) Cofacors of the T. gondii respiratory supercomplex. The Zn2+ of the MPP-beta subunits and the Fe2S2 iron-sulfur clusters in TgApiCox13 that are not part of the electron transfer pathway are indicated with respective subunit names.
Source data
(a) Overlay of supercomplex structures aligned on CIV highlights different architectures (luminal view), as revealed by differing positions of CIII from mammals (M. musculus, PDB 7o37 mature supercomplex), yeast (S. cerevisiae, PDB 6giq) and plant (V. radiata, 7jrp). The mammalian and T. gondii CIII homologs bind to opposite sides of CIV. (b) TgQCR6 (hinge protein) interaction with four contact sites on CIV highlighted. (c) T. gondii III2-IV interface (this study) of TgQCR6 with ApiCox10 involving contacts via an apicomplexan-conserved N-terminal extension. (d-e) Structural overlay (D) and structure-based multiple sequence alignment (E) of the murine, P. falciparum and T. gondii QCR6 homologs showing a conserved hairpin structure. The N-terminal QCR6 extension that interacts with ApiCox10 is also found in P. falciparum. The mammalian N-terminus is cleaved as part of a mitochondrial targeting sequence.
(a) Schematic of the strategy used to C-terminally HA-epitope tag the Cox2a protein. The expected size of integration PCRs are shown. (b) PCR to test integration of HA-epitope tag and CAT selection cassette into the endogenous locus, as outlined in (A). (c) Immunoblot analysis of whole cell lysate extracted from Cox2a-HA and parental parasites. Samples were separated by SDS-PAGE, blotted, and detected using anti-HA and anti-TOM40 as a loading control. (d) Schematic of the strategy used to replace the coding sequence of ApiCox10 with a DHFR selection cassette. The expected size of integration PCRs are shown. (e) PCR to test integration of the DHFR selection cassette into the endogenous locus, in Cox2a-HA, QCR2-HA and mNEON::Δku80 parental background, as outlined in (D). (f) Immunoblot analysis of ApiCox10-KO and complementation line (cApiCox10-Ty) parasites, detected using anti-Ty and anti-TOM40. (g) Immunofluorescence assay of ApiCox10-KO and cApiCox10-Ty parasites, labeled with anti-Ty and anti-TOM40. Scale bar is 5 μM. (h) Volcano plot of proteomic data from Cox2a-HA vs ApiCox10/Cox2a-HA immunoprecipitations, showing the -log10 P values and the log2 fold changes of proteins detected by mass spectrometry in 3 or more replicates, from 4 independent experiments. P values were calculated using a two-tailed t-test. Horizontal dotted gray line denotes P= 0.05 and P = 0.01. Vertical dotted line denotes 5x enrichment. Complex III subunits are labeled in red and complex IV subunits are labeled in the blue. (i) Native-PAGE and immunoblot analysis of Cox2a-HA, ApiCox10-KO/ Cox2a-HA and the complemented cApiCox10-Ty lines. Total lysate was treated with digitonin and separated by BN-PAGE, followed by immunoblot analysis. Positions of complexes are indicated. (j) Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) of parasites to visualize mitochondrial cristae. Scale bar is 200 nm. (k,l) Quantification of number of cristae cross sections per mitochondrial surface area (K) and mitochondrial area (L) in parental and ApiCox10-KO parasites from TEM. Data points from 100 mitochondrial profiles, with mean shown ( ± s.d. in K). P value from a two-tailed unpaired t-test. (m) MitoSOX labeling to detect mitochondrial ROS at steady state or upon treatment with ferric ammonium chloride (FAC) in ApiCox10 knockout and parental parasites in mNEON background via flow cytometry analysis. Left: red fluorescence of T. gondii, in the absence or presence of ferric ammonium chloride (FAC), stained with MitoSOX. Population to the right of the dotted gray line are MitoSOX positive. Right: Quantification of population that is positive for MitoSOX signal. Graphs show mean ± s.d., from 4 independent experiments One-way ANOVA followed by Turkey's multiple pairwise comparisons was performed, and P value from relevant pairs displayed. ns, no significant difference; ** P < 0.01 (parental vs parental + FAC P = 0.0037; KO vs KO + FAC P = 0.0015). (n) Surface electrostatics of the III2-IV (calculated with the Adaptive Poisson-Boltzmann Solver, APBS4) reveals a negative lumenal patch. Cytochrome-c binding sites were inferred from overlays of PDBs 5iy5 and 3cx5. (o) Quantification of number of parasites per vacuole for parental and ApiCox10-KO parasites. Error bars are mean ±s.d. from 4 independent experiments, for which over 250 vacuoles were counted for each replicate. The P value determined by multiple two-tailed t-tests with a Holm-Sidak correction applied. (p) Mixed culture growth competition assay of ApiCox10-KO or parental mNEON fluorescent parasites with tdTomato parasites. Relative abundance (compared to passage 0) of ApiCox10-KO parasites across 6 passages. Points are mean ± s.d., from 4 independent experiments, P value determined from a one-way ANOVA, corrected for multiple comparisons (Dunnett) (ns, no significant difference; P3 P = 0.0242; P4 P = 0.0022; P5 P = 0.0004; P6 P < 0.0001).
Source data
(a) Example gating strategy for to isolate parasites for flow cytometry analysis for Fig. 3g,i and Extended Data Fig. 6M,P. Gates were drawn as indicated manually using FlowJo software, using forward and side scatter plots (SSC-A vs FSC-A) to gate on the parasite population and separate it from host cell debris. Single cells were then selected (FSC-A vs FSC-H). Parasites were then analyzed for fluorescence. (b) Flow cytometry fluorescence analysis (i) analysis of red fluorescence for JC-1 assay to determine mitochondrial membrane potential in Fig. 3g (left) (ii) analysis of green and red fluorescence for JC-1 assay to determine mitochondrial membrane potential in Fig. 3g (right). Comparison of parasites showing red and green or green only fluorescence was made, with positions of quadrants determined by unstained and valinomycin controls. (iii) analysis of green and red fluorescent parasites for growth competition assay in Fig. 3i and Extended Data Fig. 6P. Green and red parasite quadrants determined by analyzing mNEON::Δku80 and tdTomato::Δku80 parental parasites separately (iv) analysis of red fluorescence for MitoSOX assay to determine mitochondrial ROS generation in Extended Data Fig. 6M.
(a) T. gondii supercomplex structure with heme molecules and inhibitors (ELQ-300 and atovaquone (ATQ)) (b) Cryo-EM map (left) and model (right) of the C. sabaeus CIII. (c) Schematic of the C. sabaeus CIII with heme groups and two ATQ copies (orange) per monomer shown. Inset depicts close-up view of the Qi site occupied with atovaquone. (d) Overlay of Cyt-b structures from T. gondii, C. sabaeus (both this study) and S. cerevisiae with the module of helices F-H highlighted. (e) Comparison of helices F,G,H. The T. gondii helices F and H are straight and lack the conserved proline residues (red) found in the opisthokont homologs. (f) Overlay of the atovaquone-inhibited Cyt-b structures from T. gondii and C. sabaeus showing that the kink in the mammalian helix F causes it to extend further into the Qo site. Two affected residues interacting with ATQ are shown. (g) Multiple sequence alignment showing the absence of conserved proline residues (red) in helices F and H. Tg, Toxoplasma gondii; Pf, Plasmodium falciparum; Pm, Plasmodium malariae, Pk, Plasmodium knowlesi; Pv, Plasmodium vivax; Po, Plasmodium ovale; Hs, Homo sapiens; Cs, Chlorocebus sabaeus; Sc, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. (h) T. gondii Qo site with ATQ and surrounding conserved residues (map in blue). (i) Comparison of atovaquone bound Qo sites in T. gondii (left) and S. cerevisiae (right; PDB 4pd4). (j) Ligand diagram of atovaquone in the C. sabaeus Qi site.
(a) Schematic of the strategy used to C-terminally triple FLAG-epitope tag the Rieske protein. The expected size of integration PCRs are shown. (b) PCR to test integration of FLAG-epitope tag and CAT selection cassette into the endogenous locus, as outlined in (A). (c) Immunoblot analysis of whole cell lysate extracted from Rieske-3xFLAG and parental parasites. Samples were separated by SDS-PAGE, blotted, and detected using anti-FLAG and anti-MYS as a loading control. (d) Immunoblot analysis of fractions from FLAG immunoprecipitation. Equal cell equivalents of input, unbound (UB) and elute fractions were separated by SDS-PAGE and either stained with instant blue or blotted, and detected using anti-FLAG and anti-TOM40. (e) Purified complex III after one round of gel filtration: 5 µg of protein separated by SDS-PAGE and stained with instant blue. (f-j) Cryo-EM densities (transparent blue) for residues surrounding the Qi site showing the ELQ front view (F), back view (G), closeup on the cytochrome-b N-terminus (H) and conformers A and B of ELQ (I), closeup of a cardiolipin molecule (J). (k) In T. gondii (this study) the carbonyl and amino groups interact with H197 and D223, respectively. (l-m) In X-ray structures of the B. taurus homolog, the orientation of the 3-aryl quinolones is rotated by 180 degrees, leading to a different position of the diaryl-rest when compared to the parasite structure (L: PDB ID 5NMI, ref. 68; M: 6ZFS). Shown are inhibitors MJM170 (L) and WDH-1U-4 (M). (n-p) By comparison, owing to a flipped quinolone orientation 2-aryl-quinolones bind with the diaryl-like group facing in the same direction as in other structures of the bovine enzyme (N: PDB ID 7R3V; O: 5OKD; P: 6HAW), shown are inhibitors CK-2-67 (N), SCR0911 (O) and WDH2G7 (P). (q-r) Species-specific mutations in the apicomplexan Qi site explain susceptibility to ELQ-300. (q) ELQ-300 bound in the T. gondii cytochrome-b (this study, cryo-EM density in transparent blue) with overlaid a predicted model of the P. falciparum homolog (AlphaFold2). The apparent favorable interaction of the P. falciparum I22 with the methoxy group is indicated. (r) Van der Waals atomic radii of the 3-position chlorine and L26 shown in comparison with the smaller fluorine atom found in ELQ-316.
Source data
Supplementary Methods, Discussion, Notes and References.
Mass spectometry data from Cox2a-HA and ApiCox10-KO/Cox2a-HA immunoprecipitations. log2FC and log10 P-value data used to generate Extended Data Fig. 7h. Complex III and IV subunits detected.
T. gondii supercomplex subunits and C. sabaeus complex III subunits.
Table of primer sequences
Supplementary Video 1.
Uncropped gel images (pdf) and original data values (xlsx).
Subunit homology search E values and hydrophobicity calculations.
Uniprot entries.
Raw blots and gels (pdf) and raw images and data values (xlsx).
Uncropped blots and gels.
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MacLean, A.E., Shikha, S., Ferreira Silva, M. et al. Structure, assembly and inhibition of the Toxoplasma gondii respiratory chain supercomplex.
Nat Struct Mol Biol (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41594-025-01531-7
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Liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) phenomenon plays a vital role in multiple cell biology processes, providing a mechanism to concentrate biomolecules and promote cellular reactions locally. Despite its significance in biology, there is a lack of conventional techniques suitable for studying biphasic samples in their biologically relevant form. Here, we present a label-free and non-invasive approach to characterize biomolecular condensates termed LLPS REstricted DIFusion of INvisible speciEs (REDIFINE). Relying on diffusion NMR measurements, REDIFINE exploits the exchange dynamics between molecules in the condensed and dispersed phases to determine not only diffusion constants and the fractions in both phases but also the average radius of the condensed droplets and the exchange rate between the phases. Observing proteins, RNAs, water, as well as small molecules, and even assessing the concentrations of biomolecules in both phases, REDIFINE analysis allows a rapid biophysical characterization of multicomponent condensates which is important to understand their functional roles. In comparing multiple systems, REDIFINE reveals that folded RNA-binding proteins form smaller and more dynamic droplets compared to the disordered ones.
Cells organize complex biochemical reactions in space and time by forming compartments1,2,3. Besides the organelles enclosed by membranes, proteins and nucleic acids can phase separate into membraneless liquid-like compartments such as the prominent nucleolus, nuclear speckles, processing bodies, or stress granules4,5,6. These cellular structures, formed through the process of liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), have been described as coacervates7,8 and are optically resolvable as micron-sized structures. Given their involvement in RNA metabolism, many of these biomolecular condensates are enriched in proteins that contain RNA-binding domains (RBDs) and LLPS-prone intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs)9,10,11.
Numerous RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) undergo LLPS under physiological conditions, either in the presence or absence of RNA. One of the examples of RBPs that recently attracted a lot of attention in the scientific community during the COVID-19 pandemic, SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid (Nu), binds the RNA and engages in multivalent homo- and heterotypic interactions leading to LLPS12,13. It is hypothesized that its phase separation with RNA is essential for genome RNA packaging and the formation of viral ribonucleoprotein (vRNP)14,15. Another RBP protein, Polypyrimidine tract-binding protein 1 (PTBP1), can form condensates with RNA, driving the production of the compartments in the nucleus to promote gene silencing16,17. Moreover, LLPS is associated with several diseases, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia, where stress may induce yet another RNA-binding protein FUS (FUsed in Sarcoma)18,19 to form granules that mature into solid aggregates. Disease-associated mutations accelerate this liquid-to-solid transition20. Besides FUS, a mammalian DEAD-box helicase (DDX4) can also undergo LLPS by itself (by self-association of the disordered N terminus)21, forming condensed droplets that can act as a molecular filter concentrating single-stranded DNA but excluding double-stranded DNA22. The domain schemes of these proteins are shown in Supplementary Fig. 1.
Despite the evidence of the functional importance of phase-separation for these proteins, a wide spectrum of questions about the biophysical properties of these biomolecular condensates and their relation to (patho)physiology in biological systems remain unanswered23,24, due to a lack of suitable experimental procedures that are not invasive and that can probe the biomolecules in their relevant form25,26,27. Although multicolor labeling can provide a plethora of information about the condensates, the fluorescent tags often affect protein conformation and dynamics, which can influence their phase separation, introducing potential bias in the conclusions28,29,30,31,32,33,34.
In this work, we examined several biomolecular condensates (protein and protein-RNA complexes) using LLPS REDIFINE, an approach that utilizes the restricted diffusion of biomolecules inside the droplets and chemical exchange as an NMR lens to probe the physical properties of the condensates. Without the need for specific labels, we could comprehensively characterize the biomolecular condensates formed by wild-type FUS, DDX4, Nu, and PTBP1 proteins and correlate the extracted information to their biophysical characteristics.
For our first application of LLPS REDIFINE, we examined the biphasic sample of the N-terminal domain (NTD) of the human FUS protein, which we studied earlier19. It comprises the low complexity QGSY-rich segment and the first arginine-glycine repeat (RGG1)19. FUS NTD domain is completely unstructured (Supplementary Fig. 1) and is considered to be essential for the phase separation of FUS protein35. FUS NTD droplets were stabilized in vitro using an agarose hydrogel, which allows prolonged spectroscopical analysis (Supplementary Fig. 2)19. Previously, we have shown that the large diffusion difference between FUS NTD in dilute and condensed phases can be used to quantify their respective populations19. However, the choice of longer diffusion times, Δ, could impair this quantification due to the presence of protein exchange between the two phases. With this in mind, we performed multiple diffusion measurements on FUS NTD biphasic sample stabilized in agarose, where we varied the gradient strength as well as the diffusion time Δ (Fig. 1a). As expected, the decay of protein signal is more pronounced at the longer diffusion times. Figure 1b illustrates that indeed, the population of the condensed phase that would be extrapolated from the plateau19 becomes lower with increasing Δ. Furthermore, when the signal decays are plotted as the logarithmic value of normalized signal with respect to the global diffusion parameter q2 as defined in the theoretical section of the Methods, the diffusion constants can be calculated directly from the slope of the resulting lines (Supplementary Note 1). We observed that the apparent diffusion constants of both the slow- and fast-diffusing proteins are also strongly influenced by the diffusion time Δ (Fig. 1b). This implies that these experimental decay curves cannot be simply explained by two independent protein populations and that only by taking into account exchange between the populations one could interpret these curves.
a A series of 1D proton spectra showing signal decay with increasing gradient strength in diffusion NMR experiment acquired on fresh FUS NTD sample using different diffusion times. Resonance highlighted in green contains an overlapping signals of tyrosine aromatic protons from both protein in dilute and condensed phase dispersed in agarose. b Decay of the integral of tyrosine signals plotted as \(I/{I}_{0}=f(g)\) and \({{\mathrm{ln}}}(I/{I}_{0})=f({q}^{2})\) illustrating the influence of diffusion time on droplet fraction and diffusion coefficients. c LLPS REDIFINE model and the ensuing fitting of the FUS NTD diffusion data set. Following parameters are determined: Ddil = 8.0 ± 0.2 × 10−11 and Dcond = 8.9 ± 0.7 × 10−13 m2/s, νcond = 0.753 ± 0.002, Rdrop = 1.21 ± 0.03 μm, p = 0.405 ± 0.007 μm/s and kcd = 1.00 ± 0.03 s−1 is derived from Rdrop and p. d Spider chart summarizes the properties of FUS NTD condensate and represents its REDIFINE fingerprint. 10 ms gradient length was used in (a, b). The final value for minimization function \(\chi\) indicating the goodness of the fit is shown in (c). The uncertainties for each parameter are calculated using covariance matrix and report on the ambiguity of determined values. e FRAP experiment performed on FUS NTD spiked with 1% Atto488-labeled FUS NTD in 0.5% agarose. Scale bar is 5 μm. Data are presented as mean values +/− the standard deviation from the measurements on 4 different droplets. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
We therefore introduced the model outlined in the theoretical section of the Methods and in Notes 2 and 3 of Supplementary Information to interpret these decay curves. Our model considers a population of protein \({\nu }_{{cond}}\) inside the condensed droplets and \({\nu }_{{dil}}\) in the dilute phase in equilibrium that can exchange between each other, given by \({\nu }_{{cond}}{k}_{{cd}}={\nu }_{{dil}}{k}_{{dc}}\) where \({k}_{{cd}}\) and \({k}_{{dc}}\) are the forward and reverse exchange rates, respectively. The average size of the droplets is described by the radius \({R}_{{drop}}\) and the protein inside experiences a restricted diffusion with the apparent diffusion constant \({D}_{{cond}}^{{app}}\) that is dependent on the droplet size, the gradient strength g, and diffusion time Δ (compared to the isotropic \({D}_{{dil}}\) in the pure dilute phase)36,37. The droplet-bulk interface is characterized by a permeability for a molecule to move between the phases, and it is defined as the permeability factor p. The exchange rate from condensed to dilute phase \({{{\rm{k}}}}_{{{\rm{cd}}}}\) is expressed as \({k}_{{cd}}=\frac{3p}{{R}_{{drop}}}\) where \(\frac{3}{{R}_{{drop}}}\) the surface-to-volume ratio of a sphere38. As the \({D}_{{cond}}^{{app}}\) is too slow to be measured by conventional NMR probes due to technical limitations, our method exploits the chemical exchange between the two phases to relay the information about slow restricted diffusion onto more easily observable NMR signals of the dilute phase. Hence the name LLPS REstricted DIFusion of INvisible speciEs (REDIFINE).
The framework of REDIFINE model is illustrated in Supplementary Note 2. We ran extensive simulations to show how various parameters including \({R}_{{drop}}\), permeability and \({\nu }_{{cond}}\) affect diffusion curves. Not surprisingly, the choice of diffusion time Δ influences the extent of the modulation in diffusion curves caused by different condensate parameters (Supplementary Note 2). Using REDIFINE simulation, we could fully reproduce the acquired data for FUS NTD. As the chemical exchange is not a priori known, our simulations also revealed that in order to unambiguously determine condensate parameters by REDIFINE, multiple experiments with several diffusion times Δ, are required (Supplementary Note 2). To test this, we subjected FUS NTD sample prepared in agarose to LLPS REDIFINE, integrating signals stemming from the aromatic protons of tyrosines (Fig. 1a), which were assigned based on their characteristic chemical shift. REDIFINE provided excellent global fitting to the curves (Fig. 1c). In just 2 h of experimental recording followed by REDIFINE fitting, key FUS LLPS properties could be determined including FUS diffusion constants in both phases (8.0 × 10−11 and 8.9 × 10−13 m2/s for the dilute and the condensed phases, respectively), the fraction of the protein in the droplets (νcond of 0.75 at 600 μM FUS NTD) and the droplets average radius (1.2 μm) as well as their permeability (0.4 μm/s) from which we can derive the exchange rate from condensed to dilute phase (kcd = 1 s−1). These parameters of the biphasic sample obtained with REDIFINE can be illustrated by the spider chart shown in Fig. 1d, which represents a fingerprint for FUS NTD LLPS. We can also define a global exchange rate that accounts for the partitioning between phases \({k}_{{ex}}={\nu }_{{cond}}{k}_{{cd}}={\nu }_{{dil}}{k}_{{dc}}\), which can be somewhat comparable to the rates obtained in fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP)39,40 experiments. This results in a \({k}_{{ex}}\) rate of 0.75 s−1, corresponding to a half-life time (\({t}_{1/2}\)) of 0.9 s according to the equation \({t}_{1/2}=\frac{{\mathrm{ln}}2}{{k}_{{ex}}}\). This result is very consistent with the FRAP data acquired on the FUS QGSY-rich region41 (recovery \({t}_{1/2} \sim 1{{\rm{s}}}\)) and yet with another unstructured protein, α-Synuclein42 (recovery \({t}_{1/2} \sim 3{{\rm{s}}}\)). LLPS REDIFINE droplet size is also in very good agreement with the values determined by a thorough analysis of fluorescent images taken for FUS NTD in agarose19, which further indicated that FUS NTD droplet size does not depend on initial protein concentration. We prepared two additional FUS NTD samples at a concentration of 200 μM and measured REDIFINE three times for each sample. Supplementary Note 4 summarizes these measurements and confirms very consistent fitting parameters throughout the technical and biological replicates.
As an independent control, we prepared a fresh sample of FUS NTD in 0.5% agarose and visualized it under the microscope (Supplementary Fig. 2a). FUS NTD droplets stabilized in agarose indeed have a very uniform size of circa 1 μm in radius, validating the REDIFINE methodology. To test droplet dynamics, we performed FRAP experiments by adding 1% FUS NTD which was labeled with Atto488 dye (Supplementary Fig. 2b). We chose the small dye Atto488 over a fusion protein to minimize the effect of the labeling on the phase separation of FUS NTD. Figure 1e shows the fluorescence recovery upon bleaching of the FUS NTD droplet, indicating liquid-like condensate properties. Due to the low bleaching efficiency of Atto488 dye, the full laser power was required to reach a significant reduction in fluorescence. The FRAP recovery that we obtained (9 ± 4 s−1) was slower than the REDIFINE exchange rate and the literature values. We attribute this discrepancy to the local heating effects caused by the high-power irradiation, as the bleached droplet slightly changed shape over time (Fig. 1e). This could also be a reason for the lower recovery levels that we achieved, as high irradiation power can cause degradation and/or enhanced oligomerization of FUS NTD.
Next, we extended REDIFINE to the full-length FUS, which, despite the presence of two folded RNA binding domains, is still mostly unstructured (with only 8.9 % of the sequence adopting a stable structure). Akin to FUS NTD, full-length FUS spontaneously forms droplets by itself. At a concentration of 200 μM, the large majority of full-length FUS is found inside the condensed phase based on an almost non-decaying signal in NMR diffusion experiment19 (Fig. 2a). Supplementary Fig. 3a shows the LLPS REDIFINE fitting for this FUS biphasic sample. From REDIFINE, we indeed found that 90% of the protein is inside the droplets (νcond = 0.9, translating to 1.6 mg of protein) and consequently very low population of FUS outside which is primarily why the diffusion constant of the protein in the dilute phase could not be accurately determined. Furthermore, in this biphasic condensate of FUS full-length, we could quite surprisingly spectroscopically observe a small population of slowly diffusing water with a shifted frequency implying different interactions in the condensed phase. This population corresponds to structured water43,44,45 found in the droplets, and as the water decay curve showed a complex biexponential shape (Fig. 2b), we could apply LLPS REDIFINE to the water signal as well. Supplementary Fig. 3b presents an excellent fit of the water LLPS REDIFINE data, confirming a droplet radius of around 1 μm consistent with the radius obtained independently using the FUS FL signal decay. REDIFINE revealed also that there is around 3% of water trapped in the droplets (accounting for a volume of 4 μl of water). Similar results are detected for FUS NTD, though with slightly lower water content in the droplets (Supplementary Note 5). Due to such a small population of water in the droplets, the uncertainty for the diffusion coefficient in the condensed phase is large, but still revealed that water is diffusing two to three orders of magnitude slower than in the dispersed phase and within the same range as the FUS protein. FUS condensate parameters of the protein and the water are summarized in Fig. 2c, d. As expected, they both report the same size, however the interface permeability for water is 3-fold larger than for the protein. Knowing the initial amounts of protein and water, and accounting for protein and water fractions in the condensed phase result in a FUS concentration of 6.8 mM in the droplets and correspondingly 20 μM in the dilute phase (340−fold less) as illustrated in Fig. 2d. Although these correspond to the concentrations of a macromolecule in a biphasic LLPS sample in equilibrium, our result is in agreement with previously reported concentrations for the FUS protein in a single condensed phase after physical separation of the two phases41.
a A series of 1D proton spectra showing full-length FUS signal with increasing gradient strength in NMR diffusion experiment. Non-decaying signal implies a very high population of slow-diffusing FUS in the droplet. b Similarly, a series of 1D proton spectra showing the water signal from the same FUS sample. Note that based on different chemical shifts, there is a distinct population of bound water in the droplets. Water diffusion also exhibits biexponential behavior. c Summary of LLPS REDIFINE data set acquired on both protein and water signal, providing multicomponent characterization of FUS FL condensate. d LLPS REDIFINE allows us to “visualize” the FUS FL condensates, providing average droplet size, interface permeabilities, and concentrations in corresponding phases. Scale bar is 10 μm. e Fluorescent images acquired on FUS FL sample using different fluorescent tags. Analysis of droplet sizes could be performed in the case of GFP and mCherry tags, while the addition of 1% of Atto488-labeled protein causes aggregation. Scale bar is 5 μm. f FRAP recovery time course for GFP and mCherry tags. Data are presented as mean values +/− the standard deviation from the measurements on 4 different droplets. Experiments in (a) are acquired using 75 ms diffusion encoding time and 10 ms gradient length while in (b) for water 70 ms and 2 ms respectively. The uncertainties for each parameter in (c) are calculated using a covariance matrix and report on the ambiguity of determined values. The representative images are from three independent experiments. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
Again, to independently compare our measurements with other methods, we added 1% of Atto488 labeled protein to visualize condensates by fluorescent microscopy. This labeling unfortunately caused the whole sample of FUS FL protein to aggregate (Fig. 2e) possibly due to the presence of 15 lysine residues in FL protein where the dye can be potentially bound affecting the net charge and leading to cumulative effects of increased hydrophobic interactions. On the contrary, by spiking FUS FL with 1% GFP- and mCherry-tagged fusion protein, we could observe liquid-like FUS FL droplets. The size distribution analysis of the fluorescent images showed that the droplet radius average was very slightly below 1 μm with the mCherry droplets being smaller than the GFP-tagged ones. FRAP experiment showed similar recovery for both GFP- and mCherry-tagged protein (Fig. 2f) while the aggregated sample with Atto488 label never recovered. Akin to the FUS NTD, the FRAP recovery rates are by the same amount slower compared to REDIFINE chemical exchange. Impaired bleaching recovery correlated with an observation that FRAP rates closely depend on the size of the droplet that was bleached (Supplementary Fig. 4a) might be explained by the disproportionate partitioning of the tagged protein between the phases46. Faster FRAP recovery detected after partial bleaching of larger droplets compared to the small ones can be rationalized by the steep reduction in exchange efficiency when the fraction of protein in the dilute phase is below 10% (Supplementary Fig. 4a, b). As the exchange process between phases depends on droplet size and populations in each phase, REDIFINE provides much more comprehensive analysis of the condensates than FRAP. In addition, the example of FUS FL further shows evidence that even a small amount of fluorescent tag can affect phase separation and even introduce bias in the fluorescent measurement raising the demand for the development of label-free methodologies.
Still puzzled by the difference between REDIFINE and FRAP, we analyzed another intrinsically disordered N-terminal domain from DDX4 protein (SSP = 0.052, Supplementary Figs. 1 and 5a). Diffusion constant in the condensed phase of around 7 × 10−13 m2/s that we determined with REDIFINE perfectly matched with the value obtained on a monophasic dense phase of DDX4 using very elegant NMR experiments that exploit methyl triple-quantum states for diffusion encoding47. Besides the protein-specific diffusion and population parameters, we could observe that the average droplet size (Rdrop = 1.05 μm) and global chemical exchange rate (kex = 0.61 s−1) of DDX4 condensates is very similar to FUS indicating a potentially common mechanism of condensate formation for unstructured proteins. On this sample, we also measured an independent NMR experiment that could be adapted to LLPS systems to measure directly the rate of chemical exchange between phases. Filter-Exchange NMR Spectroscopy (FEXSY)48,49,50 can filter out the signal stemming from the dilute phase and consequently measure the rate of signal recovery as a result of chemical exchange from the condensed phase. The fitting of FEXSY datasets confirmed the same exchange rate and protein fraction in the condensed phase as determined by LLPS REDIFINE (Supplementary Fig. 5b). To further test this, we compared REDIFINE and FEXSY on another biphasic sample of FUS FL incubated for two months at room temperature (Supplementary Fig. 5c, d). Again, the chemical exchange determined by REDIFINE and FEXSY closely matched. Note that due to its lower sensitivity, FEXSY experiments took 5-fold longer to acquire compared to LLPS REDIFINE but could not report on interface permeabilities, droplet size, and reliably on diffusion coefficients.
Besides previously discussed systems, many proteins can undergo LLPS only in the presence of binding molecules, forming bi- or multimolecular condensates3. A well-known example is the SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid protein that binds negatively charged RNA, which in turn induces condensate formation. Nu readily phase-separates with substoichiometric quantities of structured viral RNA fragments such as the stem-loop-2 s2m RNA (Supplementary Fig. 6a, b)51. DOSY decay curves acquired on free Nu can be easily fitted to a single exponential decay indicative of a single dispersed phase (Supplementary Fig. 7a). With RNA present, phase separation occurs, and decay curves experience a steep decrease of the signal with no significant plateau compared to FUS samples. The data could not anymore be quantitatively explained by a single exponential function, however fitting with LLPS REDIFINE (Supplementary Fig. 7b, c), allowed delineating the exchange-averaged diffusion information about the Nu condensates. \({D}_{{cond}}\) is circa two orders of magnitude slower than \({D}_{{dil}}\), and around 27% of the protein resides in the droplets. The average exchange rate is determined to be 4.8 s−1 which is faster than for fully unstructured proteins, explaining the steeper diffusion decay at higher gradient strengths. The size of the droplets determined by REDIFINE is around 0.8 μm, which is confirmed by fluorescence microscopy (Supplementary Fig. 7d, e). Yet, using this complex, we could not detect the RNA and therefore could not probe the exchange and the diffusion of the RNA in the condensed phase.
As Nucleocapsid protein can promiscuously interact and form droplets even with short single-stranded RNAs, we then examined a Nu condensate bound to the 6-mer poly-A RNA (A6). Maximum turbidity is reached at 6 equivalents of this single-stranded RNA (Supplementary Figs. 6a, b and 8a). Unlike s2m, the NMR RNA signals are now detectable allowing us to apply LLPS REDIFINE to both the protein and RNA signals (Fig. 3a). This is equivalent to multicolor fluorescent labeling, however without any specific dye as every type of polymer possesses a distinct the NMR signature. Figure 3a illustrates the aliphatic peaks of the protein and aromatic resonances of the A6 RNA that we used for observing the decay and fitting with REDIFINE. Reassuringly, both protein and RNA (Supplementary Fig. 8b and Fig. 3b) data sets independently report the same average droplet size but more surprisingly we obtained a significantly different permeability for the interphase exchange. We could see that A6 RNA exchanges almost eight-fold faster than the Nucleocapsid protein, probably due to being smaller and in large excess. Although having a better fit (χ = 0.23 vs 0.70), the uncertainty of the RNA's \({D}_{{cond}}\) is large (Supplementary Fig. 8b) due to fast chemical exchange averaging. From the equal fractions of protein and RNA in the droplet (~0.3), it can be implied that the condensate contains 6 equivalents of A6 for one Nu protein in both phases, which is the ratio needed to reach maximum turbidity (Supplementary Fig. 6b).
a Nucleocapsid:A6 condensates prepared at 1:6 protein:RNA ratio. Both protein and RNA peaks are visible in NMR spectrum and are analyzed separately by LLPS REDIFINE. Spectra are acquired using 75 ms diffusion time and a gradient length of 10 ms for protein and 3.5 ms for RNA. b LLPS REDIFINE results obtained from both Nucleocapsid and RNA side. c Overlay of condensate properties obtained on condensates formed by Nucleocapsid protein and structured s2m RNA and by another structured protein, PTBP1 in the presence of 3 × UCUCU RNA. The uncertainties for each parameter are calculated using covariance matrix and report on the ambiguity of determined values. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
In contrast to the Nucleocapsid that promiscuously binds the RNA, we also investigated the multidomain PTBP1 protein that forms a specific complex of high affinity with an RNA containing several UCUCU motifs. With 0.1 equivalent of 3 × UCUCU RNA (Supplementary Figs. 6a, b, and 8c), PTBP1 readily phase separates, and at room temperature, around 50% of PTBP1 is found in droplets (consistent with independent spectrophotometric measurements). Surprisingly, we found that PTBP1 is exchanging very quickly between the condensed and dilute phases (90 s−1, see Supplementary Fig. 8d). These rates are very high on the diffusion time-scale (tens to hundreds of milliseconds) and REDIFINE could not determine unambiguously the diffusion coefficients and the droplet size. However, at 278 K the droplets are still present in the sample and the \({k}_{{cd}}\) rate is significantly reduced (around three-fold) allowing REDIFINE to provide information about the droplet size and permeability as well as the diffusion of PTBP1 in the condensed phase (Supplementary Fig. 8e, and Fig. 3c). The observed reduction in the exchange is consistent with the Arrhenius temperature dependence of kinetic rates. For comparison, Nu:s2m results from Supplementary Fig. 7 are also presented in Fig. 3c, showing a very similar REDIFINE fingerprint to Nu:A6 condensate and even to PTBP1:3 × UCUCU in terms of diffusion constant, size, and fraction of proteins, despite being different in terms of droplet permeability and exchange. This suggests that RNA-induced condensates have similar droplet properties. Altogether, we showed here that LLPS REDIFINE allows the biophysical characterization of multicomponent biological condensates such as protein-RNA condensates (Supplementary Table 1), and the method could be easily extended to multiprotein or drug-protein condensates.
After examining more than 15 different condensate samples involving several different proteins and RNAs (Supplementary Table 1), we indeed observed an intriguing trend in the droplet properties among different systems. The condensates of unstructured proteins generally tend to form larger droplets and experience slower interphase exchange (i.e., FUS, DDX4). Proteins with structured domains that require the addition of RNA to phase separate exchange faster and usually form smaller droplets (i.e., Nu, PTBP1). This is illustrated in Fig. 4a by a 2D plot showing an inverse correlation between the condensed-to-dilute exchange rate and the droplet size. Interestingly, the FUS biphasic sample in the presence of RNA (green dot) contains droplets that are more dynamic and closer to the region defined by structured protein condensates which phase separated in the presence of RNA (Supplementary Fig. 9). The effect of protein structural properties on droplet dynamics may find its origin by the positive correlation between the global chemical exchange rate and the ratio between the protein secondary structure prediction factor (SSP) and the protein net charge Z (Fig. 4b). The fastest exchange is observed for PTBP1 that has the largest SSP/Z ratio while the fully unstructured FUS NTD and DDX4 LCD domains have the slowest rate and smallest SSP/Z ratio (Fig. 4b). A possible explanation for this relationship is proposed in Fig. 4c that highlights the smaller potential for multivalent interactions in structured RBPs compared to fully unstructured proteins to form condensates.
a A correlation plot of chemical exchange vs. the average radius of the droplets showing that disordered proteins make larger droplets that exchange slower to the dilute phase compared to RNA-binding structured proteins. The latter cover much broader space with much more heterogeneous interphase chemical exchange. Addition of RNA to one of the FUS samples shifted the position in the plot closer to RBPs suggesting that the RNA makes droplets more dynamic (green dot). b A plot of average global exchange rate determined by LLPS REDIFINE with respect to the ratio between protein secondary structure prediction factor SSP and protein net charge Z. An obvious correlation could be deduced. Values presented for FUS NTD, FUS and Nu condensates are the averages with standard deviation of the results from multiple (n > 3) different samples containing these proteins while for DDX4 and PTBP1 are the fitting uncertainties. c A potential explanation for such behavior. RBDs are mostly folded proteins that protect their hydrophobic parts with their fold and can engage in far less polyvalent binding interactions compared to IDPs. Therefore, IDPs have larger affinity to be in the condensed, interaction-reach phase. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
The concept of restricted diffusion in biomolecular condensates occurs as a result of the droplets' interfacial tension52. Polyvalent interactions in the condensed phase prevent molecules from diffusing to the dilute phase, manifesting as complex diffusion. Interestingly, even dispersed molecular complexes experience restricted diffusion. Being in dynamic equilibrium with the complex, constituent molecules move in solution as they are constantly being dragged by these intermolecular interactions, which makes their diffusion coefficient a function of interaction affinity and kinetics. Diffusion NMR experiments are sensitive to detect this apparent restricted diffusion only when diffusion coefficients of free molecules and complex are significantly different and in an intermediate exchange regime (10−1000 ms). Fortuitously, this is often the case with protein-RNA complexes prone to phase separation, resulting in complex, exchange-averaged diffusion detectable by the NMR experiment.
Considering this, we extended our model with a multi-pool exchanging system in a dilute phase. This is illustrated in Fig. 5a; if the diffusion coefficient of the complex is significantly different from that of the free species, then REDIFINE could, in principle, determine the binding kinetic parameters such as the off-rate \({k}_{{off}}\) and the population of the complex. This can be used to further calculate the dissociation constant \({K}_{d}\) and the on-rate \({k}_{{on}}\) (“Methods”). We applied the methodology to soluble PTBP1 complex with one equivalent of 3 x UCUCU RNA (Fig. 5b). Using this extended model, we obtained a population for the complex of 0.945 ± 0.006 and a \({k}_{{off}}\) of 1.41 ± 0.02 s−1. Based on the previous experience with this system, we presumed a 1:1 binding stoichiometry and could determine a \({K}_{d}\) of 500 ±100 nM. This value is in very good agreement with the independent electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) performed for the same complex with a measured \({K}_{d}\) of 490 ± 20 nM (Fig. 5c). The additional advantage of our methodology is that it involves a single protein–RNA sample for an acquisition/processing time of only 2 h and importantly does not require titration.
a REDIFINE with dispersed complexes. If biomolecules coexist in solution in multiple exchanging states with different diffusion coefficient (protein/RNA and a complex), then PGSTE curve contains exchange averaged information of all the states present in solution. If exchange happens to be in intermediate regime, REDIFINE approach can be used to calculate \({K}_{d}\) and \({k}_{{on}}\) rate based on fitted \({k}_{{off}}\) and the complex population parameters. b Fitting of REDIFINE data for PTBP1 : 3 × UCUCU. \({K}_{d}\) of 500 ± 100 nM is determined. Values of the parameters are the average values of two independent measurements and two independent processing (different integration regions) with the standard error. c Native gel showing the 3 × UCUCU RNA shift upon binding to PTBP1 protein and ensuing fitting of the protein-RNA complex band formation. \({K}_{d}\) of 490 ± 20 nM is determined which is in agreement with the REDIFINE. The \({K}_{d}\) value is the mean of three independent EMSA experiments with standard error. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
Here we presented a methodology that can be used to study liquid–liquid phase separation and complex biophysical systems in general. REDIFINE approach allowed us to gain detailed insights into the physical properties of biphasic condensates by examining them in vitro in their biologically relevant form. By determining diffusion coefficients in dilute and condensed phases co-existing in equilibrium, partition coefficients, average droplet size, surface permeability, and chemical exchange, REDIFINE provides a fingerprint for biomolecular condensates, akin to fluorescent microscopy LLPS assays, FRAP, and microrheology combined25, though acquired in a single NMR experiment and without requiring any specific detection labels. As NMR spectroscopy provides distinct molecular fingerprints, LLPS REDIFINE can be applied to any species present in the condensates, given that they are observable by NMR, i.e., in multicomponent condensates. Although we primarily focused on monitoring proteins (FUS, DDX4, PTBP1, and SARS-CoV-2 Nu), we could also observe the properties of RNA and water within the condensates. This multicomponent characterization, often not accessible by other techniques, can be extended to ions such as phosphate, chloride, and sodium53 that often influence phase separation behavior, but also multiprotein and drug-protein condensates.
Applying LLPS REDIFINE on various protein condensates, we observed an unexpected trend in droplet properties. We could see an inverse correlation between the droplet size and the chemical exchange between the condensed and dilute phases for our samples. This might be explained by the fact that smaller droplets have a larger surface-to-volume ratio promoting more efficient exchange processes54. Moreover, RBPs containing structured domains tend to form smaller and more dynamic droplets compared to mostly unstructured proteins. We hypothesize that this is due to the much smaller valency of structured RBP homotypic interactions compared to IDPs. This is also why structured proteins need an anionic RNA to significantly increase the polyvalency of interactions in order to enable phase separation, while IDPs can engage in interactions with other protein molecules and phase-separate on their own. Once in the droplets without tertiary structure protecting their hydrophobic or other interaction-prone groups, IDPs have a higher affinity to remain in the high-valency droplet environment compared to the dilute phase. This would explain consistently slower exchange rates among IDPs.
LLPS REDIFINE requires for NMR analysis only one sample of unlabeled biomolecules stabilized in agarose hydrogel. We performed an extensive analysis to show that the loose mesh of 0.5% agarose does not affect the structure and behavior of the large biomolecules of interest (Supplementary Note 6). A minimum of 100-150 μM protein in 130 μl sample volume is needed for analysis, although even lower protein concentrations can be used since NMR experiments can be acquired with more extensive signal-averaging. As the spectral resolution is not essential, LLPS REDIFINE is in theory also applicable at low-field benchtop machines with gradient capabilities.
Currently, LLPS REDIFINE is based on a model that considers droplets of uniform size. Consequently, it provides information about the average droplet radius that best fits the experimental data. Although agarose-mimicking cytoskeleton prevents droplet fusion, in general, the droplets in the biphasic sample are somewhat heterogeneous in size. Although not encountered in this study, very heterogeneous size distributions can affect the fitting. Principally, if the distribution shape is assumed (normal or log-normal) LLPS REDIFINE could provide also a standard deviation of the distribution besides the average radius55,56,57,58 and this is currently being investigated. It should be mentioned that very fast exchange could also constrain the applicability of REDIFINE, which is, in principle, limited to the kinetic processes occurring on a millisecond to second time scale. Other limitations are discussed in the Supplementary Information. Furthermore, while the model currently accounts only for the surface-to-volume ratio of the droplets, it is also possible to include different liquid droplet shapes, other than spheres. This could be ellipsoids and cylinders for example38, which could be applicable in the case of aggregated condensates and also for in cell (bacterial and eukaryotic) studies, which are currently being explored.
Biphasic condensates exhibit complex diffusion behavior that manifests as a deviation from mono-exponential trend and resembles the so-called kurtosis effect59 utilized traditionally in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). This kurtosis effect, defined with a parameter K, represents a deviation from gaussian diffusion (Supplementary Note 7) and implies a physically-restricted molecular motion36. Diffusion kurtosis imaging of water has proven to be very sensitive to the tissue type and is conventionally used to assess structural abnormalities in the brain associated with neuropathologies. It is illustrated in Supplementary Note 7 that molecular diffusion in all biomolecular condensates experiences a kurtosis effect to a different extent. Following this link, we anticipate that REDIFINE methodology can be eventually utilized for in cell NMR microimaging60 to spatially characterize various membraneless assemblies.
Additionally, this methodology exhibits a broad range of applications, such as for soluble biomolecular complexes, as it can provide thermodynamic and kinetic information of protein-RNA binding in the intermediate to fast exchange regime. As the diffusion coefficient of a small molecule becomes significantly slower upon binding to a large biomolecule, we anticipate that our approach can be exploited in drug screening campaigns as ligand-observed experiments.
Altogether, LLPS REDIFINE provides a label-free approach to study droplet properties in a biphasic environment for protein-only condensates but also for homogenous multicomponent condensates composed of protein and RNA. Application to multiprotein and protein-drugs condensates is underway. Considering the importance of the surface of biological condensates for droplet maturation and reaction kinetics61,62,63,64,65, the exchange parameters obtained by LLPS REDIFINE will be crucial to understand the role of condensates in biology and disease.
Since the early development of the pulsed gradient spin echo (PGSE) technique by Stejskal and Tanner in 196566, diffusion measurement experiments have been extensively used in the field of NMR and MRI67,68,69. In the conventional diffusion experiment, a normalized signal of a studied analyte is mapped as a function of the gradient amplitude applied in the experiment. The application of gradients can impart a specific phase to molecules depending on their position in the NMR tube, and their translational diffusion will lead to the mixing of different phases, ultimately resulting in decay of the signal. The attenuation of the observable normalized signal depends on the experimental parameters and diffusion rates (Supplementary Note 1) and follows a simple mono-exponential decay66 according to the formula
where parameter \(b={\gamma }^{2}{g}^{2}{\delta }^{2}\cdot \Delta\) \({{\rm{\gamma }}}\) is the nuclear gyromagnetic ratio, \(g\) and \(\delta\) the strength and duration of the gradient coming from the NMR probe, \(\Delta\) diffusion time, and finally \(D\) a diffusion coefficient. It is often sensible to write this equation as
where \(q=\gamma g\delta\) it excludes diffusion time and depends only on the pulse gradient parameters. The decay of the signal with respect to \(\Delta\) or \(\delta\) provides a quantitative measure of the displacements, and therefore, the diffusion rates of the nuclear spins along the applied gradient field can be calculated (Supplementary Note 1). Usually, \(\delta\) it is kept constant, but should be adjusted according to the molecular weight of the analyte. When this dependence is visualized on a semi-logarithmic plot as
Then, a slope of the line simply represents the diffusion coefficient (Supplementary Note 1).
Laying the foundations of LLPS REDIFINE (REstricted DIFusion of INvisible speciEs) methodology, the model considers a biphasic sample containing a relative population of protein νcond in condensed and νdil in dilute phase. For simplicity, we considered a mono-component condensate formed solely by one type of biomolecule (i.e., FUS condensates). Since the chance for hindered diffusion outside the droplets is very low due to the relative volumes of condensed and dilute phase, we consider free diffusion of biomolecules in the dilute phase described with the diffusion coefficient \({{{\rm{D}}}}_{{{\rm{dil}}}}\). Diffusion of molecules inside the condensed droplets is restricted by the interfacial tension caused by the very different interaction affinity within the two phases. Related NMR diffusion measurements were first applied in the 2000s to characterize emulsion systems based on restricted diffusion55,56,57,58. In biomolecular condensates, the polyvalent interactions inside the condensed phase prevent the molecules from diffusing freely to the dilute phase. This defines certain permeability38,70 of droplet interface described with permeability factor \({{\rm{p}}}\). Restricted diffusion will depend on the size of the droplets, and we assume perfect spherical geometry for the condensed droplets defined by the average radius \({{{\rm{R}}}}_{{{\rm{drop}}}}\). For the sake of simplicity, if we use \({{\rm{q}}}={{\rm{\gamma }}}{{\rm{g}}}{{\rm{\delta }}}\), the restricted diffusion36,37,38,70,71,72,73 can be expressed as:
For the fitting purposes, we propagated the summation up to the first 2000 terms.
To describe the chemical exchange between the condensed and dilute phase, we used the exchange rate \({{{\rm{k}}}}_{{{\rm{cd}}}}\) that is dependent on the droplet surface-to-volume ratio and interface permeability. As the surface-to-volume ratio for the spheres is equal \(\frac{3}{{R}_{{drop}}}\), then the chemical exchange rate38 is given by:
We can use the McConnell differential equations to describe the chemical exchange between the two phases. If the decay of magnetization \({{\rm{M}}}\) due to the gradients of PGSE experiment can be expressed in the differential form as:
Then the evolution of the biphasic system in exchange can be shown as:
where \({k}_{{dc}}=\frac{{\nu }_{{cond}}{k}_{{cd}}}{{\nu }_{{dil}}}\) and \({\nu }_{{cond}}+{\nu }_{{dil}}=1\) as the system is at equilibrium during rather short measurement time. We can also define a global chemical exchange as a rate more comparable with the rates obtainable by FRAP experiments.
The system of differential equations in Eq. (7). can be solved analytically, and the total magnetization at given time \({{t}}=\Delta\), and gradient strength and length \({{\rm{g}}}\) and \({{\rm{\delta }}}\), respectively, is given by:
Solution for \(S\left({q}^{2},\varDelta \right)\) has been used to fit the experimental data. There are 5 independent physical parameters that describe the model system: \({D}_{{dil}}\), \({D}_{{cond}}\), \({\nu }_{{cond}}\), \({R}_{{drop}}\), and average permeability \(p\). The diffusion decay curves for various \(\Delta\) have been fit globally at the same time. Fitting was performed using fminsearch, a nonlinear programming solver in MATLAB, that finds the minimum of multivariable function. The function to be minimized was defined according to the least squares regression as the Euclidian norm of the difference between the experimental data points and model predictions.
The uncertainties of fitted values were calculated using the covariance matrix of parameters. Covariance matrix reports on the correlations between all the parameters and therefore reflects on the ambiguities about their fitted values. In other words, large uncertainty reports that the parameter is not well correlated with the other parameters and therefore cannot be determined with certainty by the multiparametric fitting procedure. For example, this is the case with diffusion coefficient \({D}_{{cond}}\) in case of low population of the condensed phase (<0.2) or fast chemical exchange (>30 s−1).
The model to calculate binding affinity in soluble complexes considers a two-pool system with different isotropic diffusion coefficients (as in a dispersed sample) that can exchange with each other. There are 4 independent parameters that describe the model system: \({D}_{{dil\_free}}\), \({D}_{{dil\_complex}}\), \({\nu }_{{complex}}\), and \({k}_{{off}}\). Based on known initial concentrations of the reactants, the population in the bound state (\({\nu }_{{complex}}\)), and a priori determined binding stoichiometry, one can calculate the equilibrium concentrations of the species in a free state. Having all the equilibrium concentrations, a dissociation constant can be determined as
Based on the \({k}_{{off}}\) and \({K}_{d}\), one can also calculate the \({k}_{{on}}\) rate of complex association:
Full-length Nucleocapsid construct was cloned into a pESPRIT vector between the AatII and NotI cleavage sites with His6-tag and TEV protease cleavage sites at the N terminus (GenScript Biotech, The Netherlands). All Nucleocapsid protein constructs were expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) overnight at 18 °C after induction at an optical density of 0.6 with 0.6 mM IPTG. Cells were harvested by centrifuging at 3,750 x g and resuspended in buffer containing 20 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.0 and 1 M NaCl. The cells were lysed by cell cracking and the lysate centrifuged again at 17,000 × g at 4 °C. The supernatant was subjected to standard Ni-NTA purification. Proteins were eluted with 20 mM Tris, pH 8, 500 mM NaCl, and 300 mM imidazole. Samples were then dialyzed against 20 mM Tris, pH 8, 300 mM NaCl, and 5 mM 2-mercaptoethanol at 4 °C overnight. Following TEV cleavage and removal of the excess N-terminal tag and TEV by Ni-NTA affinity, samples were concentrated and exchanged to 20 mM sodium phosphate, pH 6.0, 50 mM NaCl (NMR buffer). For certain protein preparations, when purity was not satisfactory, it was additionally subjected to size exclusion chromatography (SEC; Superdex 75/200) into the NMR buffer.
The coding sequence of PTBP1 was cloned in pET28a (Novagen). All plasmids were sequenced and transformed into BL21-Codon Plus (DE3)-RIL cells (Agilent Technologies) for protein expression. Protein purification of PTBP1 was performed as described previously74. The NMR samples of PTBP1 were prepared in 10 mM sodium phosphate buffer with 20 mM NaCl at pH 6.5.
Full-length FUS sequence was cloned into a pET24b vector by XhoI and BamHI restriction digestion and ligation that enables the translation of a TEV-cleavable GB1-His6-tagged protein. RNA-binding mutants were generated by classical site-directed mutagenesis. FUS protein constructs were expressed in Escherichia coli BL21(DE3) overnight at 20 °C after induction at an optical density of 0.6 with 0.1 mM isopropyl-β-d-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG). Cells were harvested by centrifugation at 5,000 ×g and were directly resuspended in Suspension Buffer (50 mM HEPES, pH 7.5, 150 mM NaCl, protease inhibitors). Two times 12 min sonication on ice for 7 cycles with pulse-pause intervals at power level 70% was used to lyse the cells. The cell lysate was centrifuged at 15,000 × g at 4 °C, and the resulting cell pellet was homogenized on ice (15 mL, Dounce Homogenizer) in Buffer A (8 M urea, 50 mM HEPES, pH 7.5, 500 mM NaCl). The homogenized protein solution was centrifuged again at 15,000 × g at 4 °C for 25 min. The supernatant was collected and subjected to Ni-NTA purification. The Ni-NTA (Qiagen) column was equilibrated with Buffer A. After loading the filtered protein solution onto the column, the column was washed with 2 column volumes of Buffer A and 4 column volumes of Buffer A1 (1 M urea, 50 mM HEPES, pH 7.5, 150 mM NaCl). Protein was eluted by Elution Buffer (1 M urea, 50 mM HEPES, pH 7.5, 150 mM NaCl, 250 mM imidazole). TEV protease and 5 mM 2-mercaptoethanol were added into the eluted protein solution followed by a dialysis in Buffer B (1 M urea, 50 mM HEPES, pH 7.5, 150 mM NaCl, 250 mM imidazole, 5 mM ME) overnight, prior to a second dialysis in Buffer C (6 M urea, 50 mM HEPES, pH 7.5, 150 mM NaCl). A second Ni-NTA purification was performed by applying the protein solution on a Ni-NTA column equilibrated in Buffer C. Six column volumes of Buffer C were used for washing. The flow-through of protein solution and washes were collected together and concentrated via centrifugation using 15 mL Amicon UltraCentrifugal Filter Units (Millipore) with a molecular weight cut-off of 30 kDa. After dilution of high-concentration urea to form the droplet sample, the final buffer contained 5 mM phosphate and 5 mM HEPES at pH 7, 1 mM TCEP, 600 mM urea, and 15 mM NaCl.
N-terminus disordered domain of DDX4, DDX4(1−233), and FUS NTD low-complexity domains were expressed and purified as previously described19. The final buffer used in LLPS REDIFINE was 30 mM HEPES with 200 mM KCl at pH 7.5 with a residual urea concentration of 0.6 M. For reasons unrelated to the present study FUS NTD (600 μM sample in Fig. 1) was 15N/13C labeled.
S2m (5′-GGUUCACCGAGGCCACGCGGAGUACGAUCGAGUGUACAGUGAACC-3′), 3 × UCUCU (5′-GGGAGAUCUCUAAAAAUCUCUAAAAAUCUCUAAAAA-3′), and SL34 (5′-GGGAUCCGAUUUCCCCAAAUGUGGGAAACUCGACUGCAUAAUUUGUGGUAGUGGGGGACUGCGUUCGCGCUUUCCCCUG-3′) RNAs were produced by in vitro run-off transcription with T7 RNA polymerase (purified in-house) from two complementary DNA primers containing a T7 promoter or in the case of SL34 based on previously reported plasmids75. Magnesium concentration was optimized for in vitro transcription reactions with both commercially available unlabeled NTPs (Applichem). The RNAs were purified by anion exchange chromatography in denaturing conditions. The purified RNA was precipitated by butanol extraction to eliminate urea and salts. Lyophilized RNA was re-suspended in water or respective buffers. A6 RNA oligo was purchased from Dharmacon.
The turbidity (light scattering at 600 nm) of the samples was measured using a UV-Vis spectrophotometer (ND-1000 Spectrophotometer, NanoDrop). For Nu, a defined volume of protein and RNA stock solutions was diluted in Nucleocapsid NMR buffer (20 mM sodium phosphate, pH 6.0, 50 mM NaCl) to yield a 60 µM of protein and varying RNA concentrations in a total reaction volume of 20 µL. The RNA is added in the last step to initiate the phase separation, and the measurements are performed after 1 min of incubation in two technical replicates. In total, three biological replicates were acquired using the same procedure for Nu:s2m and two biological replicates (each with 2 technical replicates) for Nu:A6. A similar procedure was used for PTBP1 and SL34 (3 biological replicates) prepared at 100 µM protein concentration in PTBP1 buffer (10 mM sodium phosphate, pH 6.5, 20 mM NaCl) in a total reaction volume of 10 µL. For measurements of FUS, 20 µM protein samples were prepared in FUS Turbidity Buffer (5 mM potassium phosphate, pH 6.0, 100 mM KCl, 2 µM ZnCl2, 1 mM TCEP) and measured in three replicates with varying concentrations of RNA.
All biphasic samples examined in this study with LLPS REDIFINE method were prepared in 0.5% final mass concentration of agarose in order to stabilize liquid droplets as previously described19. For structured protein, low-melting agarose is used while for unstructured proteins we used a regular agarose. Corresponding protein buffers were first boiled with agarose powder to solubilize it, and then kept warm to remain liquid. Agarose buffers used to prepare FUS and DDX4 samples were still liquid at 55 °C, while the low-melting agarose buffer is in liquid state even at 36 °C. It is crucial to use low-melting agarose with folded proteins in order not to denature them by the addition of very hot agarose stock buffer. To form a biphasic sample stabilized by agarose hydrogel, protein (and RNA) stocks were mixed with respective warm agarose buffer in a 1.5-ml Eppendorf and quickly transferred to the NMR tube. Agarose gelation occurs shortly after transferring to the NMR tube, and the sample is ready for analysis. Note that the final samples of FUS and DDX4 also contain residual urea19.
FUS NTD (100 μΜ), full-length FUS (150 μΜ), Nucleocapsid:A6 (110:660 μΜ), and PTBP1:3 × UCUCU (150:15 μΜ) samples were prepared in 0.5% agarose hydrogel to ensure the same conditions as in REDIFINE experiments and imaged using bright-field microscopy. FUS NTD, FL FUS and Nucleocapsid protein were labeled post-translationally with Atto488 dye (Jena Bioscience) on primary amino groups as per the manufacturer's protocol. Unbound dye was removed from the labeled protein by overnight dialysis against fresh protein buffer. GFP- and mCherry-labeled FL FUS were expressed as fusion proteins and expressed as described above for FUS FL. S2m RNA was 3'end labeled with pCp-Cy5 (Jena Bioscience) using T4 RNA ligase (NEB). Enzymes and unbound dye were removed by phenol-chloroform extraction and ethanol precipitation. Unlabeled FUS NTD and FUS FL were spiked 100:1 with Atto488 and GFP/mCherry-labeled protein. Unlabeled Nucleocapsid and s2m RNA were spiked 20:1 with Atto488 Nucleocapsid or Cy5-s2m, respectively. All samples except for Nucleocapsid:s2m were prepared in corresponding buffers containing 0.5% agarose. FUS NTD, FUS FL, Nucleocapsid:s2m and PTBP1:3xUCUCU samples were imaged on a Nikon Spinning Disk SoRa microscope using a 100 × 1.45 CFI Plan Apo Oil objective, while Nucleocapsid:A6 image was acquired using a Sony α6400 APS-C DSLM camera body mounted to an Olympus CKX41 inverted microscope with a 40× objective. FRAP experiments were performed using a standard procedure76. Ensuing recovery rates are reported as a multiple droplets average (>4) with standard deviation.
Purified RNA 3 × UCUCU (10 pmol) was first 5'-end dephosphorylated by 5 units of Antarctic phosphatase (NEB, 5 U/µL) in Antarctic phosphatase buffer (NEB, 50 mM Bis-Tris-Propane-HCl, 1 mM MgCl2, 0.1 mM ZnCl2) in a total reaction volume of 10 µL. The reaction was incubated at 37 °C for 30 min, and the enzyme was heat-inactivated at 80 °C for 2 min Dephosphorylated RNA (1.8 pmol) was then 5′-end labeled with 2 pmol of ATP [γ32P] (10 uCi/uL, 5000 Ci/mmol, Hartmann Analytic GmbH) using 10 units of T4 polynucleotide kinase (NEB, 10 U/µL) in T4 polynucleotide kinase buffer (NEB, 70 mM Tris-HCl, 10 mM MgCl2, 5 mM DTT) in a total reaction volume of 10 µL. The reaction was incubated at 37 °C for 1 h, and then the enzyme was heat-inactivated at 95 °C for 5 min. The labeled RNA was purified using an Illustra MicroSpin G-25 column (GE Healthcare) and diluted to 7.2 fmol/µL. Different protein-RNA samples containing 7.2 fmol 3 × UCUCU and an increasing amount of PTBP1 full-length (final concentration from 0 to 1.5 µM) were prepared in D buffer (20 mM HEPES, pH 8.0, 100 mM KCl, 1.5 mM MgCl2, 10% glycerol, 0.5 mM DTT). The RNA-protein complexes were run on a native 10% TBE gel in TBE running buffer (40 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.3, 45 mM boric acid, 1 mM EDTA) at 100 V for 1 h. The gel was soaked in fixing solution 1 (10% acetic acid, 20% methanol, 5% glycerol) for 15 min and in fixing solution 2 (20% methanol, 5% glycerol) for another 15 min. The gel was subsequently dried using a drying device (Hoefer Slab Gel Dryer GD2000) at 80 °C under vacuum for 1 h. The gel was screened overnight in a phosphor cassette and imaged using Typhoon FLA 9000 (GE Healthcare).
All NMR experiments were recorded with a 3-mm NMR sample tube at 298 K (unless otherwise specified) on 600 MHz and 700 MHz Avance NEO spectrometers equipped with TCI cryo-probes and on a 500 MHz Avance NEO with QCI cryo-probe. In total 700 MHz cryoprobe was equipped with xyz-gradient system, while the 500 and 600 MHz probes had only z-axis gradients. All experiments were run and processed using TopSpin 4 software (Bruker).
LLPS REDIFINE data sets were measured using a conventional 2D Stimulated-Echo experiment using bipolar gradients (stebpgp1s19) to which a pseudo 3rd dimension was added to vary the diffusion encoding time (Supplementary Note 3). Watergate3919 was used as a preferred water suppression scheme. Alternatively, we also tested the LED experiment using bipolar gradients (ledbpgppr2s) and water suppression using presaturation, and, besides lower signal-to-noise (SNR), the same LLPS REDIFINE results were obtained. LLPS REDIFINE of the water molecule in the FUS condensate (Fig. 2) was acquired without water presaturation using ledbpgp2s pulse sequence.
All diffusion experiments were run in 16 increments of gradient strength (g), ranging from 2 to 95%. On Bruker spectrometers, this is defined in percentage of the maximum gradient amplitude of the system, and it is specific for each NMR probe. Typically, most probes can deliver a maximum output of around 53.5 G/cm at 100% gradient amplitude. LLPS REDIFINE needs to contain at least 16 gradient amplitude points defining the diffusion decay for a good fitting. 16−32 scans of signal averaging to acquire sufficient SNR per every gradient strength were required on our NMR systems, and condensate samples were prepared at 100−150 µM protein concentration (except FUS NTD at 600 µM). Depending on the protein/RNA size, diffusion gradient length (δ) can range from 2 to 10 ms. In this study, we used δ of 9 or 10 ms for the protein detection, 3.5 ms for the A6 RNA, and 2 ms for water, and always smoothed rectangular-shaped gradients SMSQ10.100. All experiments were run using an AU program “dosy” available in the TopSpin that also calculates the gradient ramp and feeds it to the spectrometer.
It is described that the LLPS REDIFINE data set contains multiple diffusion curves acquired for different diffusion encoding times. To provide the most accurate multiparametric fitting, a minimum of six diffusion curves have to be acquired spanning as wide as possible diffusion encoding time. The maximum diffusion time that can be applied is constrained by the longitudinal T1 relaxation of the target molecule, leading to the signal decay, and for RBDs it is around 700 ms, while for unstructured proteins it can be up to 1000 ms. In case of slow chemical exchange, long diffusion times are absolutely crucial to resolve the fitting parameters. As chemical exchange is not a priori known, acquisition of sufficient diffusion curves spanning the region between the short and the maximum diffusion time is acquired for precise parameter determination by LLPS REDIFINE. In this work, we acquired from 6 to 11 curves in total that were used for fitting. The reason for acquiring fewer diffusion decay curves can be the need to acquire the data faster due to the instability of the sample and/or limited experimental time. Also, samples containing similar fractions of protein in the condensed phase and dilute phase can be characterized well with only 6 curves, while more curves are required otherwise. Further aspects of the REDIFINE methodology, including prospects and limitations, are discussed in Note 8 of the Supplementary Information.
Another parameter worth mentioning is the d1 recovery delay that we used between 1.5 and 5 s. To acquire the full LLPS REDIFINE data set, the course depends on all aforementioned parameters, but in this study, it usually took 1−2 h.
The presented differential equations defining the model behind LLPS REDIFINE are incorporated within a home-written MATLAB code. Differential equations are first solved and their analytical solution is used for all the simulations (Supplementary Note 2) and all the fitting. The experimental data were first processed in TopSpin (Fourier transformation, apodization, baseline correction) and then fed to the MATLAB code, which used the least squares regression to minimize the difference between the experimental data and the analytical model function. Five independent parameters were fit: Ddil, Dcond, νcond, average Rdrop, and p, while kcd is derived as explained in Eq. (5). Because of using analytical solutions for the differential equations presented in Eq. (7), the multiparametric fitting procedure was very fast and lasted only a couple of seconds on a regular laptop. The uncertainties of fitted values were calculated using the covariance matrix of parameters. The code containing the model functions and fitting procedures is provided as Source data.
Further information on research design is available in the Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary linked to this article.
Unless otherwise stated, all data supporting the results of this study can be found in the article, supplementary, and source data files. All raw NMR data presented in this work have been deposited to Zenodo repository https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15228787. Source data are provided with this paper.
The Matlab codes used for simulations and fitting have been deposited in the same Zenodo repository https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15228787.
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The authors acknowledge Prof. Lucio Frydman, Prof. Thomas Michaels and Dr. Fred F. Damberger for useful discussions. The authors also thank Drs. Uwe Schmitt, Tarun Chadha, and Agnieszka Ilnicka from ETH IT Services for constructive advice that helped speed up the fitting procedure in Matlab. This work was supported by Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) grants 310030-215555 (F.H.-T.A.), 4078P0_198253 (F.H.-T.A.), CRSII5_205922 (F.H.-T.A.), 205321_204920 (F.H.-T.A.), and NCCR RNA & Disease grant 51NF40-182880 (F.H.-T.A.).
These authors contributed equally: Yaning Han, Nina C. Kathe, Yinan Ni.
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Mihajlo Novakovic, Yaning Han, Nina C. Kathe, Yinan Ni, Leonidas Emmanouilidis & Frédéric H.-T. Allain
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M.N. and L.E. devised the project; M.N. designed the theoretical model and the experimental procedure; M.N. performed the simulations and experiments, as well as process the data; M.N., L.E. and F.H.-T.A. analyzed the data; M.N., Y.H., Y.N., N.K., and L.E. prepared protein and RNA samples. Y.N. performed EMSA assays. M.N., N.K., and L.E. performed microscopy imaging. M.N. wrote the first draft of the manuscript. M.N., L.E. and F.H.-T.A. reviewed and edited the manuscript. F.H.-T.A. provided supervision and acquired funding. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Novakovic, M., Han, Y., Kathe, N.C. et al. LLPS REDIFINE allows the biophysical characterization of multicomponent condensates without tags or labels.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger, on top of a giant dinosaur, massive gun in hand, shooting Nazis. It was footage that launched a thousand blog posts across the internet. Leaked footage, in fact, from a movie called Kung Fury 2 which, despite being filmed in 2019 and also featuring Michael Fassbender as a cocky, over-the-top supercop, has never been released. But that's not because audiences aren't ready for all that Arnold awesomeness. It's because of money. Isn't it always?
In a new interview with Variety, Kung Fury 2 star, writer, and director David Sandberg details multiple lawsuits that continue to plague the film, now over five years later. Those center mainly on Creasun Entertainment USA, the U.S. branch of a Chinese film company called Creasun Media. In 2019, Creasun signed on to help finance two-thirds of Kung Fury 2, including about $10 million in visual effects work from the company Double Negative. Production went fine, but then something changed. “Once we started getting to VFX, things started to really slow down, and things became a bit weird,” Sandberg said. “And then it turned out that our Chinese financier had basically stopped all payments.”
A lawsuit was filed and, after about a year and a half, a settlement was reached in which Creasun was going to pay what it owed. But, apparently, that still didn't happen. So Creasun was sued again, but it didn't stop there. Creasun filed countersuits accusing producers of stealing money from the production. Sandberg says that isn't true, and Variety reports some of the other producers on the film tried to buy Creasun out. It declined.
“They just kind of stonewalled every single attempt to solve the issue,” he said. “And it was just really heartbreaking for me as an artist who's worked on this for years. And there are so many people who have poured their hearts into this, and I feel super terrible for them.”
And so the slow legal process continues, ensuring that despite principal photography being complete, as well as an edit of the movie, between $5 and $10 million of visual effects remain unfinished. In fact, the footage that leaked earlier this month had temporary effects, which were never supposed to be seen by the public. “It's a fantastic movie and I'm so bummed that I can't show it,” Sandberg said. “But I haven't given up on it. One day, for sure, it will get released. But we just have to power through it. But it's incredible. Fassbender is incredible. Arnold is incredible. We had such a wonderful experience on set and everyone felt the love behind it. So it's just a shame that it would end up this way. But it's not over. It will get out there eventually.”
Read more from Sandberg, including some teases of the movie he's been making as the Kung Fury 2 legal battle continues to play out, over at Variety.
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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Genetic testing company 23andMe isn't going away, despite declaring bankruptcy. The company and nearly all of its assets, including its biobank of customer genetic samples, have been purchased by American biotechnology company Regeneron Pharmaceuticals for a cool $256 million, the highest bid submitted in the once-hot startup's bankruptcy auction.
The purchase, announced Monday, will place 23andMe's brand as well as its Personal Genome Service (PGS), Total Health, and Research Services under the control of New York-based Regeneron. It'll also continue to operate the company's consumer-facing genome services without interruption, meaning you can still buy those DNA-testing kits off the shelves of big-box retailers to learn about your family history and health.
Of all of the potential landing spots for 23andMe—and, more importantly, the data of more than 15 million people who have submitted genetic samples to the company—Regeneron is one of the softer options available. There was legitimate concern that the company's biobank could have been scooped up by unscrupulous actors. The bankruptcy sale saw California's Attorney General urge citizens to request that 23andMe delete their data and prompted a probe from lawmakers concerned about how the company handled the sensitive information it collected.
Your mileage may vary on just how much you trust Regeneron, a company that sequences exomes to find novel drug targets, with consumer data, but it's (probably) better than having 23andMe land in the hands of some private equity ghouls. Regeneron is best known in the public consciousness for its experimental “antibody cocktail” developed in response to the covid-19 pandemic—the treatment that Donald Trump took when he tested positive in October 2020.
Things have been dicey for 23andMe for a while now, so perhaps the new parent company will provide some stability. The company went public in 2021 and was at one point valued at $6 billion before a series of high-profile failures dragged its value almost to $0. The company tried to capitalize on its trove of DNA data to develop drugs but only ever got two to the point of human testing. It tried to launch a subscription service with personalized health reports and lifestyle advice but failed to hit even half of its goal for sign-ups, per the Wall Street Journal.
Then came the data breach. In 2023, the company experienced a breach that it initially said affected about 14,000 people. The real figure turned out to be closer to 6.9 million, who had their names, birth years, relationship labels, family names, and locations exposed. People who opted into the DNA Relatives feature, which allows people to identify and connect with genetic relatives, had their Family Tree profiles accessed. The situation did serious damage to the company's reputation, which isn't great when your business is reliant on people trusting you with their most personal data
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23andMe is potentially selling more than just your genetic data—the personal survey info it collected is just as much a privacy problem.
The creator said he is worried about the changing political climate circling the globe.
There's only so much you can learn from a consumer DNA test, and most people simply don't need one.
“Our foundation was the trust and respect of our customers, and they were always the guiding light on how we made decisions,” the company's former CEO said after years of eroding public trust.
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The courts have decided against DOGE and the US government in their legal battle to take full control of the United States Institute of Peace, including a headquarters building with an estimated value of $500 million.
In a memorandum opinion, US district court judge Beryl Howell ruled in favor of the former institute board and staff who had sued to be reinstalled at the agency after DOGE affiliates forcibly removed them in March. She also gave a strong rebuke to the defendants in the case, who include the US DOGE Service, President Donald Trump, secretary of defense Pete Hegseth, and several other government representatives and agencies.
“The purported removal of members of the Board of Directors of the United States Institute of Peace (“USIP”) … was unlawful,” Howell wrote in the order, “and therefore null, void, and without legal effect.”
The order states that the USIP board members who had been forced out must be reinstated. It goes on to declare any actions taken by the agency since their removal—including the headquarters transfer—null and void. It further bars the defendants from “maintaining, retaining, gaining, or exercising any access or control over the Institute's offices, facilities, computer systems, or any other records, files, or resources.”
The ruling caps off one of the most dramatic chapters in DOGE's government takeover so far. It's also one of the fullest repudiations yet of DOGE overreach. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The fight over the USIP began with a February 19 executive order that declared the agency “unnecessary” and effectively called for its elimination. In response, the USIP told DOGE representatives that it operated independent of the executive branch. It didn't work. On March 14, the Trump administration fired the 10 voting board members of the USIP. That same day, according to court filings, DOGE representatives—accompanied by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation—tried to enter USIP headquarters but were turned away.
In court documents, lawyers for the USIP detail a rapid escalation of attempts to access the agency's property. On Sunday, March 16, two FBI agents visited a senior USIP security employee at home, demanding information on how to get into the headquarters building. That same day, DOGE allegedly coordinated with Inter-Con, USIP's contract security firm, to enter the building; USIP officials found out and immediately suspended Inter-Con's contract. It wasn't enough to stop them.
The following day, according to court documents, four Inter-Con employees showed up at USIP headquarters. When their badges didn't work at the front door, one of their colleagues showed up with a physical key and gained access. USIP personnel then called the DC Metropolitan Police, claiming unlawful entry. MPD officers eventually arrived—and helped DOGE and other Trump administration officials take control of the building.
From there, the takeover was swift. That Friday, March 21, six USIP staffers received termination notices. Court documents show that DOGE representative Nate Cavanaugh was put in charge of the agency the following Tuesday, March 25, and instructed to transfer USIP's assets—including the headquarters building—to the DOGE-controlled General Services Administration at no cost. On Friday, March 28, “virtually all” of the remaining USIP employees were terminated as well. The next day, Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought signed off on the asset transfer—before the courts had a chance to rule on a motion from USIP attorneys to stop it.
For all the fireworks surrounding the USIP takeover, the legal question at its center has been fairly straightforward: Can the executive branch control an independent nonprofit?
The answer has proven to be complicated. While USIP operates independently, it was established and funded by Congress. Lawyers for the fired USIP board and staff members have repeatedly argued that the agency “does not perform any executive functions,” which they claim exempts it from executive branch authority. The government claims that USIP's taxpayer-funded mission “to extend the United States' soft power internationally,” along with the fact that the president of the United States selects its board of directors, means the executive branch has every right to replace the board at will.
In previous rulings in this case, Howell had left the door open to either interpretation. On March 19, she denied the USIP's motion for a temporary restraining order that would have kept the original USIP board in place, saying it was “too difficult to determine” if USIP was likely to win the case on the merits, given its unique structure. In an April 1 ruling allowing the transfer of USIP headquarters to the GSA—in fact, it had already been transferred the previous weekend—Howell again stressed that “ambiguity persists.”
The summary judgement order leaves no such room for interpretation. “The president's efforts here to take over an organization … contrary to statute established by Congress and by acts of force and threat using local and federal law enforcement officers,” Howell wrote, "represented a gross usurpation of power.”
The defendants have 30 days to file a notice of appeal; George Foote, longtime outside counsel for USIP, says he expects them to. “We are confident we will prevail on appeal, too,” says Foote in a comment to WIRED.
In the meantime, there's the question of how to revert USIP assets back to the agency. “The headquarters have been, or are in the process of being, leased to the Department of Labor,” according to court documents. Not only that but the USIP's $25 million endowment—comprising private donations and appropriations—was transferred along with the building. The plaintiffs have no idea where that money went.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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When you finish watching season two of Andor, the natural next move is to dive right into Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the movie that introduced Diego Luna's Cassian Andor to the galaxy far, far away. But he's not actually the lead character in the 2016 film—that distinction goes to Felicity Jones' Jyn Erso, daughter of reluctant Death Star architect Galen Erso. And while Andor leads right into Rogue One, and the two stories share many of the same characters, Andor creator Tony Gilroy made the call that Jyn wouldn't be among them.
In fact, he never even considered that Jyn would show up in the Andor finale, according to a new interview with Entertainment Weekly.
“I tried to sketch some versions along the way of what we would do,” Gilroy explained. “Episode 12 is very unique … we are not trying to hype anything in 12. We always knew it was going to be not a low energy, but a different kind of episode.”
Gilroy did briefly consider bringing more Rogue One characters in—Danny Mays' Tivic the informant, for instance, who's killed by Andor early in Rogue One, and maybe even Mads Mikkelsen's Galen Erso—before thinking better of it.
“In the end, I realized if people didn't absolutely have to be there, they shouldn't,” Gilroy reasoned. “And it would've been lame to bring Jyn back as a cameo. That would've been really disrespectful in a way. I'd rather honor Rogue and keep it straight.”
He's also well aware that Rogue One fans are now re-evaluating their view of Jyn and Cassian's relationship. With Andor fleshing out the relationship between Bix (Adria Arjona) and the doomed rebel, including their baby glimpsed at the end of the Disney+ series, it seems highly likely Andor wasn't falling for Jyn while they plotted to steal the Death Star plans after all.
“People who thought that was the love of his life are going to have to reorient their thinking,” Gilroy joked.
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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Twenty years later, 'Revenge of the Sith' wouldn't have its legacy without the two 'Clone Wars' building on and improving the prequels.
'Encanto', 'Turning Red', 'Coco' and 'A Goofy Movie' step into the spotlight in the party's festivities.
The 'Star Wars' series has brought the tale of Cassian Andor to its end, and given us plenty of incredible moments along the way.
The final arc of the 'Star Wars' series gave us the endings we needed—and knew where to leave some stories open.
Ahead of Star Wars: Visions' return, Qubic CEO Justin Leach explains how it helped facilitate the union of anime and lightsabers to shape volume three.
The Lucasfilm president played a huge role in getting the highly acclaimed Star Wars show off the ground.
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President Donald Trump is expected to sign the Take It Down Act today, a bipartisan law that enacts stricter penalties for distributing nonconsensual explicit images, including deepfakes and revenge porn.
The bill criminalizes the publication of such images, whether they're authentic or AI-generated. Whoever publishes the photos or videos can face criminal penalties, including fines, imprisonment, and restitution.
Under the new law, social media companies and online platforms must remove such material within 48 hours of notice from the victim. The platforms also have to take steps to delete duplicate content.
Many states have already banned sexually explicit deepfakes and revenge porn, but this will be the first time federal regulators step in to impose restrictions on internet companies.
First Lady Melania Trump lobbied for the bill, which was sponsored by Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). Cruz said he was inspired to act after hearing that Snapchat refused for nearly a year to remove an AI-generated deepfake of a 14-year-old girl.
Free speech advocates and digital rights groups have raised concerns, saying the law is too broad and could lead to censorship of legitimate images, like legal pornography, as well as government critics.
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All four SKUs feature USB Type-C connectivity, too.
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Asus has brought the joy of wood grain to its graphics card lineup. The PC and components giant has just taken the wraps off its first RTX 50 graphics cards to swell the ranks of the ProArt family, and they all feature “a classy brown wood grain design.” Moreover, this first quartet of RTX 50 ProArt cards is the firm's “first to offer USB Type-C support for enhanced versatility for creative workflows.” Two of the models also sport an M.2 slot, which will please some users, as long as Asus's price premium isn't too ambitious.
The most desirable model among the new Asus ProArt GeForce RTX 5080 models is the OC Edition with M.2 SSD slot. We'd probably rank the non-overclocked M.2 slot packing card next, followed by the ProArt GeForce RTX 5080 OC, and then the ‘vanilla' but still wood effect finished and USB Type-C port packing model.
Regular readers will be well aware of the key attractions of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080, and if not, please check out our extensive review and consider its place among the best graphics cards on the market in mid-2025. Asus has two new ProArt cards, which will offer ‘reference' specs, and two with an overclock applied to the GPU. We can't drill down on those figures, though, as Asus hasn't added the specs to the product pages at the time of writing.
Probably the more important differentiation here is with the cooler, M.2 slot, and USB Type-C connectivity, though. The Asus ProArt design looks a lot like a reskinned Prime card, but here it has ProArt motifs and the headlining wood grain effect along the top. Like you've installed a log in your GPU slot.
Asus's cooling system is listed as “2.5 slot small form factor size,” but it isn't low-profile or similar. The triple spinner design is taller than the PCI bracket and probably approaches 300mm in length. Asus says the cooler features a MaxContact design with vapor chamber, and there's a phase-change GPU pad between the cooler and the GPU to help keep this card cool, calm, and collected.
Moving along to the other special features here, all four new ProArt RTX 5080 models also feature USB Type-C support, which is great for a growing number of monitors and devices.
If you choose one of the models with an M.2 slot, you can benefit from up to PCIe Gen5 speeds. Moreover, the ample cooling of the graphics card should also cover the needs of any toasty SSD you might equip.
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Some retro tech enthusiasts may be quite pleased to see the return of wood-effect finishes to tech. Whether it comes in the form of actual wood construction or parts, wood veneers, or even just wood-effect plastics – the look and feel can bring back fond memories of old tech and gadgetry like TV, Hi-Fi, and even games console systems.
With Asus introducing these ProArt designs, and knowing there are already numerous wood-finish cases around, the dreams of an all-wood finished PC are getting nearer. Wood finish keyboards and mice have been a thing for quite some time, and we also know there are wood finish CPU air coolers from DeepCool at Computex. A wood completist might still long for wood-finish motherboards, RAM, and storage. Finally, a wood-bezel monitor shouldn't be a big challenge to DIY-frame, if no firm steps forward with some lignin-lover options.
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Pharmaceutical maker Regeneron announced Monday it will buy genetic testing company 23andMe for $256 million following a bankruptcy auction.
Regeneron said it will acquire 23andMe's genomics service and its bank of 15 million customers' personal and genetic data as part of the deal. The pharma giant said it plans to use the 23andMe customer data to help drug discovery, and that it will “prioritize the privacy, security, and ethical use of 23andMe's customer data.”
23andMe filed for bankruptcy protection in March after a data breach exposed the private and genetic data of 7 million customers throughout 2023. The company's stock price also plummeted to near-zero amid waning consumer interest in the company's DNA testing kits. 23andMe's founder and chief executive Anne Wojcicki resigned following the company's collapse.
After its filing, a federal bankruptcy court was appointed to oversee the sale of 23andMe's assets, sparking concerns that the stores of customer data could be sold to adversarial nations or unethical buyers.
Regeneron said in its statement that as the named buyer in the bankruptcy auction, it “intends to ensure compliance” with 23andMe's privacy policies and laws regarding customer data.
The bankruptcy court is set to consider Regeneron's acquisition on June 17. Regeneron said it will not acquire 23andMe's Lemonaid Health business.
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Amazon is clearing out stock, and if you have been looking to grab a portable charger that is actually reliable, there is no other time like right now. The INIU 10000mAh Portable Charger is sleek, slim, fast, and designed specially to keep your devices powered in style. You will not find a better deal.
Right now, this everyday essential item is going for just $15, down from its regular price of $21. That's a 27% discount, which is an amazing deal for a power bank this well-rated and practical. A deal this good won't last long; you need to go grab yours while it's still in stock.
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Don't let the size of this item fool you. This pocket-friendly slim power bank delivers a powerful 3A high-speed charging to either your phone, your earbuds, or your tablet without breaking a single sweat. With both USB-A and USB-C ports, it adapts to whatever cable you've got lying around the house, and it is always ready when you are. And now, also thanks to INIU's SmartCharge technology, your devices are always ready to get exactly the power they need. Nothing more, nothing less. So you waste no time, and spend no additional expense.
Whether you're training, taking a walk, mid-flight, at a festival, or just running errands without access to a wall outlet, this charger's 10,000mAh capacity is more than enough to keep your day going without a single interruption. It can power up most phones at least twice from 0% to 100%, and it can still have a little left in the tank to juice up your headset or any additional item.
Beyond just function, this charger was clearly built and designed with real-life people and real-life activities in mind, it's not just performance, it also offers comfort. The soft-touch body is grippy and smooth, easy to slide into your back pocket or bag, and resistant to scuffs. It even includes a built-in flashlight, which might seem to be an unnecessary additional perk, but it proves that this power bank was crafted with the idea of doing more than just sitting in your pocket
For just $15, the INIU 10000mAh Portable Charger is one of those gadgets you didn't know you needed, until you realize you never want to continue to be without it. With this price and this level of quality, it's the kind of everyday tech that is a must-have. Run to Amazon now before it runs out of stock.
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Amazon has done it again. If you're currently in the market looking for an advanced, modern, and powerful lightweight vacuum, this deal is too good to simply pass up. The Shark Pet Cordless Stick Vacuum with XL Dust Cup combines cordless freedom, with serious suction, and a smart design. All at a price that is just too hard to beat.
Right now, you can grab it for just $149.99, down from its original price of $259.99. That is a massive 42% discount.
See at Amazon
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Whether it is for a quick tidy up of a room or an entire full-house refresh, the Shark Pet Cordless Stick Vacuum with XL Dust Cup is built to handle it all. This vacuum doesn't just look good, it also performs incredibly well. Designed with pet owners in mind, it tackles everything from hair and dirt to debris and more with such ease you won't believe it. From carpets to hardwood floors, the suction power adjusts seamlessly to all surfaces, so you don't have to bend over or be on your knees putting extra work. It's lightweight and cordless, giving you the flexibility to move around your home without being tied to a wall.
Shark Pet Cordless Stick Vacuum with XL Dust Cup also easily transforms into a handheld vacuum, making it ideal for cleaning stairs, car interiors, and tight corners. With up to 40 minutes of runtime on a single charge, you can cover your entire space without constantly stopping to recharge. But if you do, a quick 2-minute charge can give you the freedom to complete an extra room. The XL dust cup means fewer trips to the trash can, and the CleanTouch feature lets you empty it without getting your hands dirty. It simply does it all.
One of its most useful and unique features that separates it from its competitors is the LED headlights. These lights illuminate hidden dust and debris on your floors, so you never miss a single spot. Whether you're vacuuming in daylight or in dim corners when the sun is down, you'll be surprised at what it picks up. And when you're done, the freestanding design makes it easy to store and move on.
With its powerful performance, pet-friendly design, and smart features, this vacuum is more than just a household tool, it's an impactful upgrade for your day-to-day activities. And right now, you can get it for nearly half the price.
At only $149.99, the Shark Pet Cordless Stick Vacuum with XL Dust Cup is a limited-time steal. Run to Amazon now, before this deal goes away.
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He made the comments arriving at Computex
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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says that there is no evidence of AI chip diversion to countries where the sale of said chips is prohibited, in response to questions at Computex 2025. Huang told Bloomberg that there is no evidence of diversions when it comes to its Grace Blackwell chips. Furthermore, he added that Nvidia's customers are well aware of the restrictions and that they are careful about it when selling to third parties.
“Governments understand that diversion is not allowed, and there's no evidence of any AI chip diversion — recognize our data center GPUs are massive; these are massive systems,” Huang said during the surprise questioning. “The Grace Blackwell system is nearly two tons, and so you're not going to be shipping — you're not going to be putting that in your pocket or your backpack anytime soon. And so, these systems are fairly easy to keep track of... but the important thing is that the countries and the companies that we sell to recognize that diversion is not allowed, and everybody would like to continue to buy Nvidia technology, and so they very well monitor themselves very carefully and they're quite careful about that.”
However, this doesn't seem to be the reality. After all, we've already heard of several instances of Nvidia AI GPUs getting past Washington's sanctions and getting into the hands of Chinese businesses. We've even seen one businessman showing off his smuggled H200 GPUs on X. Even as late as March 2025, there have been reports of Chinese entities using corporations registered in neighboring countries like Malaysia, Vietnam, and Taiwan to order these advanced chips and then reroute them to China.
Singapore has already started cracking down on this practice, and the U.S. has also asked Malaysian authorities to keep an eye on this black market and shut it down. However, Malaysian imports of advanced GPUs still surged by over 3,400% in early this year, raising alarm bells.
Huang also said that these servers are massive, weighing several tons, so tracking them shouldn't be difficult. But the company has also said that these AI chips are impossible to find after they're sold. That's why the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that would require companies to enable geo-tracking on high-end gaming and AI GPUs. Furthermore, weight and size are no issues when it comes to smuggling. After all, if stolen cars and SUVs can be smuggled across borders, then GPU servers are fair game as well, especially with the amount of money involved.
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If you've been thinking about dipping your toes into the smart home world, one good place to start is with an Amazon Echo device. It's easy to use, and you can put it just about anywhere in your house. It's a solid speaker and a smart home hub, and it's pretty unobtrusive, too. And if you want to go ahead and lock one in for yourself, Amazon is selling one at a great price right now. You won't want to miss out on this one, especially since it's available for only $25.
In fact, you can get the newest version of the Echo Pop for just $25, down from its usual price of $40. That's $15 off and a discount of 38%.
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The 4th Gen Echo is a smaller, sphere-shaped device that you can put just about anywhere and it won't look or feel too out of place. It's an effective speaker with a 3-inch woofer and dual front-firing tweeters, which means it actually offers sound that can fill a room if you want that type of music. And it can push out clear, crisp voice calls if you use it to communicate.
But it's much more than that. In fact, you can use it to set up and keep track of all your smart home devices. That includes cameras, bridges, and more. You can use the Echo to bring them all together in a central location, which should make it a lot easier to set routines, get updates, control lights, and more.
Alexa can help with a lot of that too, like weather updates, voice-controlled routines, news briefings, shopping lists, alarms, and more. There's even a built-in temperature sensor and motion detection, which you can use to trigger automations based on whether someone's in the room. And if you're worried about privacy, there's a physical button that cuts power to the microphones. You're in control of when it's listening.
For just $25, this is a device that punches above its weight class in a big way. You'd probably find yourself spending a lot more on similarly functioning tech elsewhere, but Echo speakers are cheaper for a reason. And this one is affordable in a way right now that means you can get a couple and place them around your house, or give them as gifts. Whatever the case may be, don't miss out on this deal and head to Amazon to scoop one up.
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Arc Pro arrives for inference workstations.
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Intel has announced its Arc Pro B-series of graphics cards at Computex 2025 in Taipei, Taiwan, with a heavy focus on AI workstation inference performance boosted by segment-leading amounts of VRAM. The Intel Arc Pro B50, a compact card that's designed for graphics workstations, has 16GB of VRAM and will retail for $299, while the larger Intel Arc Pro B60 for AI inference workstations slots in with a copious 24GB of VRAM. While the B60 is designed for powerful 'Project Battlematrix' AI workstations sold as full systems ranging from $5,000 to $10,000, it will carry a roughly $500 per-unit price tag.
Intel has focused on leveraging the third-party GPU ecosystem to develop its Arc Pro cards, in contrast to its competitors, who tend to release their own-branded cards for the professional segment. That includes partners like Maxsun, which has developed a dual-GPU card based on the B60 GPU. Other partners include ASRock, Sparkle, GUNNR, Senao, Lanner, and Onix.
Both the B50 and B60 GPUs are now being sampled to Intel partners, as evidenced by a robust display of partner cards and full systems on display, and will arrive on the market in the third quarter of 2025. Intel will initially launch the cards with a reduced software featureset, but will add support for features like SRIOV, VDI, and manageability software in the fourth quarter of the year.
The Intel Arc Pro B50 has a compact dual-slot design for slim and small-form-factor graphics workstations. It has a 70W total board power (TBP) rating and does not have external power connectors. The GPU wields 16 Xe cores and 128 XMX engines that deliver up to 170 peak TOPS, all fed by 16GB of VRAM that delivers 224 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The card also sports a PCIe 5.0 x8 interface, which Intel credits with speeding transfers from system memory, ultimately delivering 10 to 20% more performance in some scenarios.
The B50's 16GB of memory outweighs its primary competitors in this segment, which typically come armed with 6 or 8GB of memory. The card also has certified drivers that Intel claims deliver up to 2.6X more performance than the baseline gaming drivers.
Intel shared a slew of benchmarks against the competing Nvidia RTX A1000 8GB and the previous-gen A50 6GB, but as with all vendor-provided benchmarks, take them with a grain of salt (we included the test notes at the end of the article). In graphics workloads, Intel claims up to a 3.4X advantage over its previous-gen A50, and solid gains across the board against the RTX A1000. It sports similar advantages in a spate of AI inference benchmarks.
The Intel Arc Pro B60 has 20 Xe cores and 160 XMX engines fed by 24GB of memory that delivers 456 GB/s of bandwidth. The card delivers 197 peak TOPS and fits into a 120 to 200W TBP envelope. This card also comes with a PCIe 5.0 x8 interface.
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Intel supports multiple B60 GPUs on a single board, as evidenced by Maxsun's GPU, with software support in Linux for splitting workloads across both GPUs (each GPU interfaces with the host on its own bifurcated PCIe 5.0 x8 connection).
Intel's benchmarks again highlighted the advantages of the B60's 24GB of memory vs the competing RTX 200 Ada 16GB and RTX 5060Ti 16GB GPUs, claiming this can impart gains of up to 2.7X over the competition in various AI models. Intel also highlighted the advantages of higher memory capacity in model size, context, and concurrency scaling.
The Intel Arc Pro B60 will primarily come in pre-built inference workstations ranging from $5,000 to $10,000, dubbed Project Battlematrix. The goal is to combine hardware and software to create one cohesive workstation solution. However, the per-unit cost will be in the range of $500 per GPU, depending on the specific model.
Project Battlematrix workstations, powered by Xeon processors, will come with up to eight GPUs, 192GB of total VRAM, and support up to 70B+ parameter models.
Intel is working to deliver a validated full-stack containerized Linux solution that includes everything needed to deploy a system, including drivers, libraries, tools, and frameworks, that's all performance optimized, allowing customers to hit the ground running with a simple install process. Intel will roll out the new containers in phases as its initiative matures.
Intel also shared a roadmap of the coming major milestones. The company is currently in the enablement phase, with ISV certification and the first container deployments coming in Q3, eventually progressing to SRIOV, VDI, and manageability software deployment in Q4.
Intel's partners had multiple Project Battlematrix systems up and running live workloads in the showroom, highlighting that development is already well underway.
One demo included a system running the full 675B parameter Deepseek model entirely on a single eight-GPU system, with 256 experts running on the CPU and the most frequently used experts running on the GPU.
Other demos included running and finding bugs in code, an open enterprise platform for building RAGs quickly, and a RAG orchestration demo, among others.
As noted above, the Intel Arc Pro B50 and Intel Arc Pro B60 will arrive on the market in the third quarter of 2025.
Paul Alcorn is the Managing Editor: News and Emerging Tech for Tom's Hardware US. He also writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage, and enterprise hardware.
Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.
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A group of participants from several U.S. agencies took part in a first-of-its-kind exercise that tested their preparedness for a severe solar storm, revealing major cracks in scientists' ability to forecast space weather—which could put crucial systems at risk.
The Space Weather Operations, Research, and Mitigation (SWORM) task force, an inter-agency group that includes the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), organized a space weather exercise aimed at better understanding the U.S. government's preparedness for an impending solar storm. The results were recently published in a report, which highlighted significant limitations in space weather forecasting.
The exercise was held from May 8 to 9, 2024, at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, and at a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) site in Denver, Colorado. The space weather scenario was organized into four modules involving a series of solar events that resulted in adverse effects on our systems on Earth and in space. The effects included radio communication blackout, loss of GPS functionality, power outages, intense radiation exposure for astronauts and satellites, and an inability to track and communicate with orbiting satellites.
One of the modules took place in the future, asking participants to imagine a hypothetical scenario taking place over eight days in January and February 2028. In the scenario, NOAA tracks an active region on the solar surface that rotates to a position where it is pointed toward Earth. To make matters more complicated, a crew of two astronauts is en route to the Moon aboard the Orion spacecraft while another two-person crew is already on the lunar surface as part of the Artemis missions. The exercise asked participants to consider whether their agency or organization has policies or protocols in place in case of a major space weather event.
Coincidentally, the largest geomagnetic storm in more than 20 years took place around the same time as the exercise. On May 10, 2024, a G5, or extreme, geomagnetic storm, hit Earth as a result of large expulsions of plasma from the Sun's corona (also known as coronal mass ejections). The G5 storm caused some deleterious effects on Earth's power grid and some spectacular auroras seen across much of the globe. The storm also increased atmospheric density in low Earth orbit by up to an order of magnitude, which in turn caused atmospheric drag that affected satellites.
Space weather forecasters monitor the Sun's activity and incoming coronal mass ejections, but these storms are hard to predict. “We never know what's actually going to be, what the CME is composed of, and what to make of it until it gets just 1 million miles from Earth, where it's only 15 to 45 minutes away,” Shawn Dahl, service coordinator for the Space Weather Prediction Center, told Gizmodo in an earlier interview. “That's when we can see what the CME is composed of. How strong is it magnetically? What's the speed of its movement? Is it going to connect with Earth?”
Participants found that the most challenging aspect to space weather forecasting is the inability to predict how the coronal mass ejection will affect Earth. Scientists are able to know the true impact of a coronal mass ejection about 30 minutes before it hits—that's when the magnetic field orientation of the cloud of particles becomes apparent.
The report suggests investing in next-generation space weather satellites and developing and deploying more sensors to monitor space weather drivers. It also recommends that U.S. agencies collaborate with international partners and the private sector.
“Ongoing preparedness efforts for a space weather event are crucial because an extreme event has the potential to severely impact our nation's critical infrastructure and threaten our national security,” the report read. “Just as we prepare for earthquakes, hurricanes and cyberattacks, our nation must take action before a major space weather event occurs.”
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The molecular cloud is brimming with material that could birth baby stars.
Solar Orbiter pieced together 200 ultraviolet images to show our star's million-degree atmosphere in all its glory.
The first images from a nascent NASA mission showcased the spacecraft's ability to take deep-field images of the night sky.
An uncommon double solar eruption has sent two coronal mass ejections towards Earth, which are expected to arrive Wednesday.
The rare event revealed never-before-seen behaviors of a planetary atmosphere.
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Panther Lake comes screaming to market in early 2026.
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Intel demoed working Panther Lake Core Ultra 300 silicon for laptops, its first chips based on its crucial 18A process node, here at Computex 2025 in Taipei, Taiwan. Unlike the first public demoes at CES 2025 that merely showed the chips powered on, Intel put Panther Lake its paces in real-time rendering and AI applications, showing that the silicon is healthy and on-track for retail availability in early 2026. Intel also shared more information about its performance and power consumtpion expectations for the new chips.
As you can see in the image above, Intel also had a Panther Lake chip on display, enabling us to see how the CPU, GPU, I/O tile, and SoC tile are arranged on the package. These chips are thought to come with Cougar Cove P-cores and Darkmont E-cores (you can see the unconfirmed leaked specifications of some of the chip models here).
Intel says the Panther Lake chips blend the power efficiency of Lunar Lake with the performance of Arrow Lake-H, noting that while the chips will be in production in the second half of 2025, presumably launched at CES, full retail availability will not come until early 2026. Intel did tease that the chips will come with the next-gen integrated graphics with XMX graphics, but aside from saying the iGPU performance will be closer to Lunar Lake than Arrow Lake, the company didn't elaborate. These iGPUs are thought to be based on the Xe3 architecture.
Intel ran its Panther Lake benchmarks on two Reference Validation Platforms (RVP) that you can see in the above album. These platforms are used to validate the design and emulate real-world conditions. Both RVPs were equipped with a heatsink and fan, so they were presumably operating without thermal constraints.
Intel demoed one system running the newly-resurrected Clippy as a large language model to demonstrate that the chips are running AI workloads. The presenter used the system to write game code in Python code. Intel didn't share performance metrics from the benchmark.
Intel also demoed a system running Da Vinci to edit and manipulate video using local AI processing to process the video, enabling fast manipulation of the video clip, such as changing backgrounds, clothing colors, and adding flying text to the clip.
Intel also displayed a running developer kit that 300+ developers with ISVs are using to enable software support for the coming chips. Intel demoed the system being used for image editing with auto-coloring and upscaling features, powered, of course, by AI. As you can see in the album, the developer system is quite compact. Intel also had a host of laptops on display from its OEM partners.
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Intel's Panther Lake appears to be on track for its launch schedule, which bodes well for the company's immensely important 18A process node. Intel teased that the next steps are to release concrete speeds and feeds along with more information about the various chip models. We expect those to come trickling our over the next several months.
Paul Alcorn is the Managing Editor: News and Emerging Tech for Tom's Hardware US. He also writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage, and enterprise hardware.
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It makes me feel like Windows has entered its true enshittification era.
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But I do think MS is trying to mess up Win 10 though to make people downgrade to 11.
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Nvidia opens up NVLink to external chipmakers.
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Nvidia made a slew of announcements at Computex 2025 here in Taipei, Taiwan, focused on its data center and enterprise AI initiatives, including its new NVLink Fusion program that allows customers and partners to use the company's key NVLink technology for their own custom rack-scale designs. The program enables system architects to leverage non-Nvidia CPUs or accelerators in tandem with Nvidia's products in its rack-scale architectures, thus opening up new possibilities.
Nvidia has amassed a number of partners for the initiative, including Qualcomm and Fujitsu, who will integrate the technology into their CPUs. NVLink Fusion will also extend to custom AI accelerators, so Nvidia has roped in several silicon partners into the NVLink Fusion ecosystem, including Marvell and Mediatek, along with chip software design companies Synopsys and Cadence.
NVLink has served as one of the key technologies that assured Nvidia's dominance in AI workloads, as communication speeds between GPUs and CPUs in an AI server are one of the largest barriers to scalability, and thus peak performance and power efficiency.
Nvidia's NVLink is a proprietary interconnect for direct GPU-to-GPU and CPU-to-GPU communication that delivers far more bandwidth and superior latency than the standard PCIe interface, up to a 14X bandwidth advantage, even though it leverages the tried-and-true PCIe electrical interface.
Nvidia has increased NVLink's performance over the course of several product generations, but the addition of custom NVLink Switch silicon allowed the company to extend NVLink from within a single server node to rack-scale architectures that enable massive clusters of GPUs to chew through AI workloads in tandem. Nvidia's NVLink advantage has thus served as a core advantage that its competitors, such as AMD and Broadcom, have failed to match.
However, NVLink is a proprietary interface, and aside from the company's early work with IBM, Nvidia has largely kept this technology captive to products utilizing its own silicon. In 2022, Nvidia made its C2C (Chip-to-Chip) technology, an inter-die/inter-chip interconnect, available for other companies to use in their own silicon to facilitate communication with Nvidia GPUs by leveraging industry-standard Arm AMBA CHI and CXL protocols. However, the broader NVLink Fusion program is much broader, addressing larger scale-out and scale-up applications in rack-scale architectures using NVLink connections.
NVLink Fusion changes that paradigm, allowing Fujitsu and Qualcomm to utilize the interface with their own CPUs, thus unlocking new options. The NVLink functionality is integrated into a chiplet located next to the compute package. Nvidia has also roped in custom silicon accelerators, like ASICs, from designers MediaTek, Marvell, and Alchip, enabling support for other types of custom AI accelerators to work in tandem with Nvidia's Grace CPUs. Astera Labs has also joined the ecosystem, presumably to provide specialized NVLink Fusion interconnectivity silicon. Chipmaking software providers Cadence and Synopsys have also joined the initiative to provide a robust set of design tools and IP.
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Qualcomm recently confirmed that it is bringing its own custom server CPU to market, and while details remain vague, the company's partnership with the NVLink ecosystem will allow its new CPUs to ride the wave of Nvidia's rapidly expanding AI ecosystem.
Fujitsu has also been working on bringing its mammoth 144-core Monaka CPUs, which feature 3D-stacked CPU cores over memory, to market. “Fujitsu's next-generation processor, FUJITSU-MONAKA, is a 2-nanometer, Arm-based CPU aiming to achieve extreme power efficiency. Directly connecting our technologies to NVIDIA's architecture marks a monumental step forward in our vision to drive the evolution of AI through world-leading computing technology — paving the way for a new class of scalable, sovereign and sustainable AI systems,” said Vivek Mahajan, CTO at Fujitsu.
Nvidia is also releasing new Nvidia Mission Control software to unify operations and orchestration, optimizing system-level validation and workload management, a key capability that speeds time to market.
Nvidia rivals Broadcom, AMD, and Intel are notably absent from the NVLink Fusion ecosystem. These companies, and many more, are members of the Ultra Accelerator Link (UALink) consortium, which aims to provide an open industry-standard interconnect to rival NVLink, thus democratizing rack-scale interconnect technologies.
Meanwhile, Nvidia's partners are forging ahead with chip design services and products the company says are available now.
Paul Alcorn is the Managing Editor: News and Emerging Tech for Tom's Hardware US. He also writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage, and enterprise hardware.
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Does "simulation" unequivocally follow "computational"?
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As a sniff test: if a simulation is good enough, then from inside it you can't determine real or simulated. If not, then maybe 'glitches' could be detected, or a kind of jailbreak is possible.But even if: why would the fundamental mechanics of our universe not look/behave like a computation? And "behaves like" != "is".
But even if: why would the fundamental mechanics of our universe not look/behave like a computation? And "behaves like" != "is".
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Using the gene scissors CRISPR and stem cells, researchers at Stockholm University and the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) at King's College London have managed to identify a common denominator for different gene mutations that all cause the neurological disease ALS. The research shows that ALS-linked dysfunction occurs in the energy factories of nerve cells, the mitochondria, before the cells show other signs of disease, which was not previously known. The study was recently published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.
"We show that the nerve cells, termed motor neurons, that will eventually die in ALS have problems soon after they are formed. We saw the earliest sign of problems in the cell's energy factories, the mitochondria, and also in how they are transported out into the nerve cells' long processes where there is a great need for them and the energy they produce," says Dr. Eva Hedlund at Stockholm University, head of the study together with Dr Marc-David Ruepp at the UK Dementia Research Institute at King's College London.
The research team was able to establish that these problems were common to all ALS-caused mutations, which will be important for future treatments of the disease.
This means that there are common factors that could be targeted with drugs, regardless of the cause of the disease."
Dr. Eva Hedlund at Stockholm University
The researchers used the gene scissors CRISPR/Cas9 to introduce various ALS-causing mutations into human stem cells, called iPS cells. From these, motor neurons, the nerve cells that are lost in in ALS, and interneurons, nerve cells that are relatively resistant to the disease, were produced. These were then analyzed with single-cell RNA sequencing, a method that enables identification of all messenger molecules (mRNA) in each individual cell and with that understand how a particular cell works, how it talks to its neighbors and if it starts to have problems.
"In the data we obtained, we identified a common disease signature across all ALS-causing mutations, which was unique to motor neurons and thus did not arise in resistant neurons," says Dr Christoph Schweingruber, first author of the study.
This happened very early and was completely independent of whether the disease-causing mutated proteins (FUS, or TDP-43) were in the wrong place in the cell or not.
"Until now, it has been believed that it is the change where the proteins are within the cells, called mislocalization, that occurs first," says Dr Marc-David Ruepp.
In ALS, it is often said that some problems are caused by a loss of function in a protein that is mutated, while other problems arise due to the opposite, namely the emergence of a new toxic function that has been obtained through the mutation, called "gain-of-function", but according to Eva Hedlund, it has not always been easy to clarify how it really works and much is still unknown.
"By making various CRISPR mutations in the ALS-causing FUS-gene, we have now been able to show for the first time that most errors arising are caused by a new toxic property of the protein, not by a loss of function," says Dr Christoph Schweingruber.
A third discovery was that the transport of mitochondria out into the axons, the extensions of the nerve cells where most mitochondria in nerve cells are needed, was radically affected in the ALS lines. This happened independently of whether the disease-causing proteins were in the wrong place in the cell or not.
"A fact that poses a problem because there is a great need for these energy factories in the extensions of the nerve cells. Without them the nerve cells do not have enough energy to communicate properly with other cells," says Dr Eva Hedlund.
The new discoveries open up for early treatment methods, something that for the research team is a continuous work in progress.
"We are trying to understand how these early errors occur in the sensitive motor neurons in ALS, and how it affects energy levels in the cells and their communication and necessary contacts with muscle fibers. We believe that these are important keys to the understanding of why the synapses between motor neurons and muscles is broken in ALS and also to identify new targets for therapies," says Dr. Eva Hedlund.
Stockholm University
Schweingruber, C., et al. (2025). Single-cell RNA-sequencing reveals early mitochondrial dysfunction unique to motor neurons shared across FUS- and TARDBP-ALS. Nature Communications. doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-59679-1.
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Announcing a new article publication for Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications journal. Cardiac dysfunction is a prevalent and serious complication after cardiac arrest (CA), yet limited therapeutic interventions are available. Cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS), a critical mediator of innate immune responses, has recently been identified as a potential contributor to cardiac dysfunction. This study was aimed at investigating the role of cGAS in post-CA cardiac dysfunction.
In vivo, in rats with ventricular fibrillation (VF)-induced CA, a selective cGAS inhibitor (RU.521) was used to specifically inhibit cGAS activity, thereby blocking its downstream signaling pathway. In vitro, hypoxia and reoxygenation (H/R) were used to stimulate H9C2 cardiomyocytes, and a specific siRNA targeting cGAS was applied to knock down cGAS expression.
Analysis revealed significant upregulation of cGAS protein expression and activation of the cGAS-STING pathway in both myocardial tissues of rats that achieved ROSC and H/R-stimulated H9C2 cells. Pharmacological inhibition of cGAS with RU.521 effectively ameliorated cardiac function and maintained hemodynamic stability in ROSC rats. Genetic knockdown of cGAS enhanced the resistance of H9C2 cells to H/R-induced cell injury. Mechanistically, cGAS inhibition effectively attenuated CA-induced mitochondrial injury while concurrently suppressing oxidative stress and apoptosis.
These findings highlight a strong association between cGAS upregulation and cardiac dysfunction after CA. Targeting cGAS might provide a promising therapeutic strategy for improving cardiac function in patients with CA.
Compuscript Ltd
Wang, R., et al. (2025). Inhibition of Cyclic GMP-AMP Synthase Ameliorates Cardiac Dysfunction in Rats After Cardiac Arrest. Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications. doi.org/10.15212/cvia.2025.0010.
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A wearable pulse oximeter and connected software platform show promise for monitoring obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and other sleep-related breathing diseases, according to research presented at the ATS 2025 International Conference.
The device (pulse oximeter), which is cleared for medical use, was designed for comfort and ease of use; a clinical trial found high rates of utilization by patients. It could be used to track patient response to OSA treatment over time.
Investigators in our clinical research trials report how useful longitudinal data are to observe night-to-night variability and the response to treatment of OSA. One sleep specialist even reported that it may be better to collect one or two channels of data over 25 nights than 25 channels over one night, which is considered the gold standard with in-lab polysomnography."
Ketan Mehta, MS, head of product and engineering for Connected Wearables at Apnimed
Wearable sensors like the Oura ring and Apple Watch that measure biometrics during sleep are widely used by consumers, but are not cleared for medical use. At the same time, other medical devices used in sleep studies gather clinically relevant data, but are too cumbersome and costly to use for frequent monitoring. This tool could potentially expand patient access to care through pulmonologists to manage routine sleep apnea in their patients, instead of having to refer them out to a sleep specialist, he added. The device provides a bridge between these two extremes, he said.
Worn as a ring, the device offers several key differences from other consumer wearables. Notably, it uses transmittance-based photoplethysmography, which has been shown to be more suitable for the proximal phalanx region, provide better signal-to-noise ratio, and is more effective in low perfusion situations. It also engages in continuous data collection, rather than spot checks, he added.
The device connects to an app that users can access from their smartphone, giving patients access to a subset of the same data as their health care providers.
"These data empower both parties to be informed, and they're able to have more meaningful conversations. This offers the opportunity for shared decision making between patient and provider using digital medicine," Mr. Mehta said.
The device was used in several different clinical settings including to monitor patient response to a pharmacologic treatment program for OSA. During the monitoring study, patients were asked to wear the device for 9 nights over a 47-day period. However, many patients voluntarily wore their devices more often, with 85 percent of patients using beyond the recommended nights. One patient used the device almost nightly for 44 days, the researchers noted.
In addition to clinical use, the device and connected software could be applied to research in conditions like COPD, ILD, and other conditions that involve sleep-related breathing diseases and require monitoring of oxygenation, noted Mr. Mehta. The device is FDA cleared for medical use; the connected software requires similar clearance before it can be deployed outside of clinical trial settings
Researchers hope to continue gathering data to further validate use of the device and connected software and better understand the patient and clinician experiences, the team said.
American Thoracic Society
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People who sit or remain sedentary for more than 14 hours a day, on average, may have a higher risk of a cardiovascular event or death in the year after treatment at a hospital for symptoms of a heart attack such as chest pain, according to new research published today in the American Heart Association's peer-reviewed scientific journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.
Previous research from the study authors found that people who had experienced a heart attack were spending up to 12 to 13 hours each day being sedentary, defined as any awake activity that involved little-to-no physical movement. In this study, the researchers used a wrist accelerometer to track the amount of time each participant spent moving or being sedentary for a median of 30 days after discharge from a hospital's emergency department.
Wrist accelerometers measure the acceleration of motion in three directions - forwards and backwards, side-to-side, and up and down. These measurements allowed the researchers to infer the intensity of a participant's physical activity, and they provide more accurate measurements of the participants' time spent moving, rather than asking participants to remember. Some examples of moderate intensity physical activities are brisk walking, water aerobics, dancing, playing doubles tennis or gardening, and examples of vigorous-intensity activities are running, lap swimming, heavy yardwork such as continuous digging or hoeing, playing singles tennis or jumping rope.
"Current treatment guidelines after a cardiac event focus mainly on encouraging patients to exercise regularly," said study lead author Keith Diaz, Ph.D., the Florence Irving Associate Professor of Behavioral Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, a certified exercise physiologist and a volunteer member of the American Heart Association's Physical Activity Science Committee. "In our study, we explored whether sedentary time itself may contribute to cardiovascular risk."
Researchers followed more than 600 adults, ages 21 to 96, treated for a heart attack or chest pain in the emergency department at a single hospital system in New York City. Participants wore a wrist accelerometer for a median of 30 consecutive days after hospital discharge to measure the amount of time they spent sitting or being inactive each day. Additional cardiac events and deaths were evaluated one year after hospital discharge via phone surveys with patients, electronic health records and the Social Security Death Index. The study was focused on understanding the risk of sedentary behavior and identifying modifiable risk factors that may improve long-term outcomes in this high-risk group.
The analysis found:
We were surprised that replacing sedentary time with sleep also lowered risk. Sleep is a restorative behavior that helps the body and mind recover, which is especially important after a serious health event like a heart attack. Our study indicates that one doesn't have to start running marathons after a cardiovascular event to see benefits. Sitting less and moving or sleeping a little more can make a real difference. More physical activity and more sleep are healthier than sitting, so we hope these findings support health professionals to move toward a more holistic, flexible and individualized approach for physical activity in patients after a heart attack or chest pain."
Keith Diaz, Ph.D., the Florence Irving Associate Professor of Behavioral Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center
Physical activity and sleep are both key components of the American Heart Association's Life's Essential 8, a list of health behaviors and factors that support optimal cardiovascular health. Poor sleep is a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease, which claims more lives each year in the U.S. than all forms of cancer and chronic lower respiratory disease combined, according to the American Heart Association's 2025 Statistical Update. In addition to sleep duration, a recent scientific statement from the Association highlighted the importance of sleep continuity, sleep timing, sleep satisfaction, sleep regularity, sleep-related daytime functioning and sleep architecture in cardiometabolic health.
The study had several limitations, including that the definition of sedentary behavior was based only on the intensity level of physical movement, meaning that the study may have overestimated the time participants spent in sedentary behavior. Additionally, there was no information about participants' income and characteristics of the neighborhoods where they live, which limits the study's ability to account for social and environmental factors including participants' risk of one-year cardiac events and deaths. Also, hospital discharge information about whether patients were sent home, referred to rehabilitation or referred to other care centers such as skilled nursing facilities were not collected. This limited the study's ability to fully assess whether the patients' settings had an impact on their recovery.
"This study provides further support for a 'sit less, move more' strategy and – important for patients recently hospitalized for acute coronary syndrome who may have barriers to more intense exercise – found that increasing light-intensity activities by 30 minutes a day was related to dramatic reductions in the risk of a cardiac event within the next year," said Bethany Barone Gibbs, Ph.D., FAHA, a professor and chair of the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at the School of Public Health at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia, and immediate past chair of the American Heart Association's Physical Activity Committee.
"This study found that replacing sedentary time with light intensity activities, like tidying up the house or strolling at a slow pace, was nearly as beneficial as moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activities, like biking or doing aerobics. In addition, replacing just 30 minutes of sedentary behavior with any intensity of physical activity more than halved the risk of having a cardiac event over the one-year follow-up," she said. "These findings suggest sitting less and doing anything else – like taking a walk, cooking, playing with your dog or gardening – will help you stay healthier."
Study details, background and design:
American Heart Association
Diaz, K. M., et al. (2025) Sedentary Behavior and Cardiac Events and Mortality After Hospitalization for Acute Coronary Syndrome Symptoms: A Prospective Study. Circulation. doi.org/10.1161/CIRCOUTCOMES.124.011644.
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During his first administration, President Donald Trump's top health officials gave North Carolina permission to use Medicaid money for social services not traditionally covered by health insurance. It was a first-in-the-nation experiment to funnel health care money into housing, nutrition, and other social services.
Some poor and disabled Medicaid patients became eligible for benefits, including security deposits and first month's rent for housing, rides to medical appointments, wheelchair ramps, and even prescriptions for fresh fruits and vegetables.
Such experimental initiatives to improve the health of vulnerable Americans while saving taxpayers on costly medical procedures and expensive emergency room care are booming nationally. Without homes or healthy food, people risk getting sicker, becoming homeless, and experiencing even more trouble controlling chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.
Former President Joe Biden encouraged states to go big on new benefits, and the availability of social services exploded in states red and blue. Since North Carolina's launch, at least 24 other states have followed by expanding social service benefits covered by Medicaid, the health care program for low-income and disabled Americans — a national shift that's turning a system focused on sick care into one that prioritizes prevention. And though Trump was pivotal to the expansion, he's now reversing course regardless of whether evidence shows it works.
In Trump's second term, his administration is throwing participating states from California to Arkansas into disarray, arguing that social services should not be paid for by government health insurance. Officials at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which grants states permission to experiment, have rescinded its previous broad directive, arguing that the Biden administration went too far.
"This administration believes that the health-related social needs guidance distracted the Medicaid program from its core mission: providing excellent health outcomes for vulnerable Americans," CMS spokesperson Catherine Howden said in a statement.
"This decision prevents the draining of resources from Medicaid for potentially duplicative services that are already provided by other well-established federal programs, including those that have historically focused on food insecurity and affordable housing," Howden added, referring to food stamps and low-income housing vouchers provided through other government agencies.
Trump, however, has also proposed axing funding for low-income housing and food programs administered by agencies including the departments of Housing and Urban Development and Agriculture — on top of Republican proposals for broader Medicaid cuts.
The pullback has led to chaos and confusion in states that have expanded their Medicaid programs, with both liberal and conservative leaders worried that the shift will upend multibillion-dollar investments already underway. Social problems such as homelessness and food insecurity can cause — or worsen — physical and behavioral health conditions, leading to sky-high health care spending. Medical care delivered in hospitals and clinics, for instance, accounts for only roughly 15% of a person's overall health, while a staggering 85% is influenced by social factors such as access to healthy food and shelter for sleep, said Anthony Iton, a policy expert on social determinants of health.
Health care experts warn the disinvestment will come at a price.
"It will just lead to more death, more suffering, and higher health care costs," said Margot Kushel, a primary care doctor in San Francisco and a leading researcher on homelessness and health care.
The Trump administration announced in a March 4 memo that it was rescinding Biden-era guidance dramatically expanding experimental benefits known as health-related social needs. Federal waivers are required for states to use Medicaid funds for most nontraditional social services outside of hospitals and clinics.
Last month, the administration told states that these services, which can also include high-speed internet and storage units, should not be part of Medicaid.
Future waiver requests allowing Medicaid to provide social services — a liberal philosophy — will be considered on a "case-by-case basis," the administration said. Rather, it has signaled a conservative shift toward requiring most Medicaid beneficiaries to prove that they're working or trying to find jobs, which puts an estimated 36 million Americans at risk of losing their health coverage.
"What they're arguing is Medicaid has been expanded far beyond basic health care and it needs to be cut back to provide only basic coverage to those most desperately in need," said Mark Peterson, a health policy expert at UCLA. "They're making the case, which is not widely shared by specialists in the health care field, that it's not the job of taxpayers and Medicaid to pay for all this stuff outside the traditional heath care system."
Although states have not received formal guidance to end their social experiments, Peterson and other health policy researchers expect the administration not to renew waivers, which typically run in five-year intervals. Worse, legal experts say programs underway could be halted early.
Evidence supporting social investments by Medicaid is still nascent. An expansion in Massachusetts that provided food benefits reduced ER visits and hospitalizations, for instance. But often, it's a mixed bag.
California is going the biggest, investing $12 billion over five years to provide a slew of new services, from intensive case management to help people with severe behavioral health conditions to housing and food assistance through a pair of federal waivers. The most popular benefits provided by health insurers are those that help homeless people on Medicaid by placing them in apartments or securing beds in recovery homes, covering up to $5,000 for security deposits, and preventing eviction.
Since the CalAIM program launched in 2022, it has served only a small fraction of the state's nearly 15 million Medicaid beneficiaries, with roughly 577,000 referrals for benefits. Yet it has improved and even saved the lives of some of those lucky enough to get help, including Eric Jones, a 65-year-old Los Angeles resident.
"When I got diabetes, I didn't know what to do and I had a hard time getting to my medical appointments," said Jones, who lost his housing this year when his mom died but received services through his Medi-Cal insurer, L.A. Care. "My case manager got me rides to my appointments and also helped me get into an apartment."
California is considering making some of its social services permanent after the CalAIM waivers expire at the end of 2026. Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration is adding more housing services, including up to six months of free rent under a third waiver approved by the Biden administration. Medi-Cal officials contended early evidence shows CalAIM has led to better care coordination and fewer hospital and ER visits.
"We are fully committed," said Susan Philip, a deputy director for the state Department of Health Care Services, which administers the program. "We have invested so much."
Health insurers, which deliver Medicaid coverage and receive greater funding to cover these additional benefits, say they're worried the Trump administration will end or curtail the programs. "If we do things the same old way, we're just going to generate the same old results — people getting sicker and health care costs continuing to rise," said Charles Bacchi, president and CEO of the California Association of Health Plans, which represents insurers.
Industry leaders say the expansion is already changing lives.
"We believe wholeheartedly that housing is health, food is health, so seeing these programs disappear would be devastating," said Kelly Bruno-Nelson, executive director of Medi-Cal for CalOptima Health, a health insurance provider in Orange County.
Oregon is also providing low-income Medicaid patients with a range of new services, including home-delivered healthy meals and rental payment assistance. Residents can even qualify for air conditioners, heaters, air filters, power generators, and mini fridges. State Medicaid officials say they remain committed to providing the benefits but worry about federal cuts.
"Climate change and housing instability are huge indicators of poor health," said Josh Balloch, vice president of health policy and communications at AllCare Health, a Medicaid insurer in Oregon. "We hope to prove to the federal government that this is a good return on their investment."
But even as the Trump administration curtails waivers, it is retaining discretion to provide social services in Medicaid, just on a smaller scale. Supporters say it's fair to scrutinize where to draw the line on taxpayer spending, arguing that there isn't always a direct health connection.
"We're seeing these things increase, with the free rent, and we're seeing some states pay for free internet, paying for furniture," said Kody Kinsley, who previously served as North Carolina's top health official. "We know there's evidence for food and housing, but with all of these new benefits, we need to look closely at the evidence and the linkage to what actually drives health."
Current North Carolina officials say they're confident the new social services Medicaid provides in their state have resulted in better health and lower overall spending on expensive and acute care. Medicaid recipients there can even use the program to buy farm-fresh produce.
While it's too soon to know whether these experiments have been effective elsewhere in the United States, early evidence in North Carolina shows promise: The state had saved $1,020 per participant a year into its experiment — operating in mostly rural counties — by reducing ER trips and hospitalizations.
State health officials also touted the economic benefits of driving business to family farms, home improvement contractors, and community-based organizations providing housing and social services.
"I welcome the challenge of demonstrating the effectiveness of our programs. It's making for healthier people and healthier budgets," said Jay Ludlam, deputy secretary for North Carolina's Medicaid program. "Family farms that were on the verge of collapse after Hurricane Helene are now benefiting from a steady income while they also serve their community."
This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.
This article was reprinted from khn.org, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF - the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.
KFF Health News
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Waist-to-height ratio predicts heart failure incidence, according to research presented today at Heart Failure 2025, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).
Obesity affects a substantial proportion of patients with heart failure (HF) and it has been reported that the risk of HF increases as body mass index (BMI) increases. Study presenter, Dr. Amra Jujic from Lund University, Malmö, Sweden, explained why the current analysis was carried out: "BMI is the most common measure of obesity, but it is influenced by factors such as sex and ethnicity, and does not take into account the distribution of body fat. Waist-to-height ratio (WtHR) is considered a more robust measure of central adiposity, the harmful deposition of fat around visceral organs. In addition, whereas BMI is associated with paradoxically good HF outcomes with high BMI, this is not seen with WtHR. We conducted this analysis to investigate the relationship between WtHR and the development of HF."
The study population consisted of 1,792 participants from the Malmö Preventive Project. Participants were aged 45–73 years at baseline and were selected so that approximately one-third had normal blood glucose levels, one-third had impaired fasting glucose and one-third had diabetes. All participants were followed prospectively for incident HF.
The study population had a mean age of 67 years and 29% were women. The median WtHR was 0.57 (interquartile range, 0.52–0.61).
During the median follow-up of 12.6 years, 132 HF events occurred. Higher WtHR was associated with a significantly increased risk of incident HF (hazard ratio [HR] per one standard deviation increase 1.34; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.12–1.61; p=0.001), independent of confounders. When WtHR was categorised into quartiles, individuals with the highest values of WtHR (median of 0.65) had a significantly higher risk of HF compared with individuals in the other three quartiles (HR 2.71; 95% CI 1.64–4.48; p<0.001).
The median WtHR in our analysis was considerably higher than 0.5, the cut-off for increased cardiometabolic risk. Having a waist measurement that is less than half your height is ideal."
Dr. John Molvin, Study Co-Author, Lund University and Malmö University Hospital, Sweden
He concluded: "We found that WtHR was a significant predictor of incident HF and our results suggest that WtHR may be a better metric than BMI to identify patients with HF who could benefit from therapies for obesity. Our next step is to investigate whether WtHR predicts incident HF and also other cardiometabolic disorders in a larger cohort."
European Society of Cardiology
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Surgeons from Keck Medicine of USC and UCLA Health have performed the world's first-in-human bladder transplant. The surgery was successfully completed at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center on May 4, 2025, in a joint effort by Inderbir Gill, MD, founding executive director of USC Urology, and Nima Nassiri, MD, urologic transplant surgeon and director of the UCLA Vascularized Composite Bladder Allograft Transplant Program.
This surgery is a historic moment in medicine and stands to impact how we manage carefully selected patients with highly symptomatic 'terminal' bladders that are no longer functioning. Transplantation is a lifesaving and life-enhancing treatment option for many conditions affecting major organs, and now the bladder can be added to the list."
Inderbir Gill, MD, Chair and Distinguished Professor of Urology and Shirley and Donald Skinner Chair in Urologic Cancer Surgery with the Keck School of Medicine of USC
"This first attempt at bladder transplantation has been over four years in the making," Nassiri said. "For the appropriately selected patient, it is exciting to be able to offer a new potential option."
Nassiri, formerly a urology resident with the Keck School and now assistant professor of urology and kidney transplantation at UCLA, and Gill worked together for several years at the Keck School to develop the new surgical technique, design a clinical trial and secure the necessary regulatory approvals.
Numerous pre-clinical procedures were performed both at Keck Medical Center of USC and OneLegacy, Southern California's organ procurement organization, to prepare for this first-in-human bladder transplant.
The patient had been dialysis-dependent for seven years. He lost the majority of his bladder during surgery to resect cancer over five years ago, leaving the remainder of his bladder too small and compromised to function appropriately. Both of his kidneys were subsequently removed due to renal cancer.
To address these deficits, Drs. Gill and Nassiri performed a combined kidney and bladder transplant, allowing the patient to immediately stop dialysis and produce urine for the first time in seven years. First the kidney, then the bladder, were transplanted. The new kidney was then connected to the new bladder. The entire procedure took approximately eight hours.
"The kidney immediately made a large volume of urine, and the patient's kidney function improved immediately," Nassiri added. "There was no need for any dialysis after surgery, and the urine drained properly into the new bladder."
"Despite the complexity of the case, everything went according to plan and the surgery was successful," said Gill. "The patient is doing well, and we are satisfied with his clinical progress to date."
The recovery of the kidney and bladder from the donor was performed at OneLegacy's Transplant Recovery Center in Azusa, Calif. All parts of the procedure, including surgery and post-surgical monitoring during the transplantation, were aligned with the highest current clinical and research standards.
Millions of people around the globe experience some degree of bladder disease and dysfunction. Some develop terminal bladders that are either non-functioning and/or cause constant pain, repeated infections and other complications. Current treatment for severe terminal cases of bladder dysfunction or a bladder that has been removed due to various conditions includes replacement or augmentation of the urinary reservoir. These surgeries use a portion of a patient's intestine to create a new bladder or a pathway for the urine to exit the body.
"While these surgeries can be effective, they come with many short-and long-term risks that compromise a patient's health such as recurrent infections, compromised kidney function and digestive issues," said Gill.
"A bladder transplant, on the other hand, delivers a more 'normal' urinary reservoir and may circumvent some of the challenges associated with using the intestine," said Nassiri.
The biggest risks of organ transplant are the body's potential rejection of the organ and side-effects caused by the mandatory immunosuppressive drugs given to prevent organ rejection.
"Because of the need for long-term immunosuppression, the best current candidates are those with a pre-existing organ transplant or those who need a combined kidney and bladder transplant," said Nassiri.
As a first-in-human attempt, there are naturally many unknowns associated with the procedure, such as how well the transplanted bladder will function immediately and over time, and how much immunosuppression will ultimately be needed.
"Despite the unknowns, our goal is to understand if bladder transplantation can help patients with severely compromised bladders lead healthier lives," said Gill.
Bladder transplants have not been done previously, in part because of the complicated vascular structure of the pelvic area and the technical complexity of the procedure. As part of the research and development stage, Gill and Nassiri successfully completed numerous practice transplantation surgeries at Keck Medical Center of USC, including the first-ever robotic bladder retrievals and successful robotic transplantations in five recently deceased donors with cardiac function maintained on ventilator support.
Several non-robotic trial runs of bladder recovery were performed at OneLegacy by Gill and Nassiri, allowing them to perfect the technique while working alongside multidisciplinary surgical teams.
The bladder transplant was done as part of a UCLA clinical trial. Gill and Nassiri hope to perform more bladder transplants together in the near future.
Under Gill's leadership, USC Urology has rapidly established itself as a pioneer and world leader in the most advanced robotic urologic oncologic surgeries for kidney, bladder, prostate, testicular and penile cancers, and has achieved important milestones leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence to optimize patient outcomes.
UCLA Urology has long been at the frontier of urologic transplantation, with pioneering research in kidney transplantation and, now, bladder transplantation.
Keck Medicine of USC
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Rising temperatures increase the severity of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), according to a large new study published at the ATS 2025 International Conference. The study also found that, under the most likely climate change scenarios, the societal burden of OSA is expected to double in most countries over the next 75 years.
In addition to highlighting the critical importance of limiting global warming, the findings also emphasize the immediate need for strategies to alleviate the health and economic impacts of OSA as it becomes more common and severe, researchers said.
This study really highlights the societal burden associated with the increase in OSA prevalence due to rising temperatures."
Bastien Lechat, PhD, senior research fellow at FHMRI: Sleep Health at Flinders University
Previous cross-sectional studies identified a link between ambient temperature and OSA severity. However, this is the first to explain and describe that connection in detail.
For the study, researchers analyzed a consumer database of more than 116,000 worldwide users of an under-mattress sensor validated to estimate OSA severity. The dataset included around 500 repeat measurements per user. Researchers then analyzed this data against 24-hour ambient temperatures extracted from climate models.
Overall, higher temperatures were associated with a 45 percent increased likelihood of a sleeper experiencing OSA on a given night. However, these findings varied by region, with people in European countries seeing higher rates of OSA when temperatures rise than those in Australia and the United States.
"We were surprised by the magnitude of the association between ambient temperature and OSA severity," Dr. Lechat said.
Researchers then sought to estimate how burdensome the increase in OSA prevalence due to rising temperature is to society in terms of wellbeing and economic loss. They conducted modeling including disability-adjusted-life-years, productivity losses, and health economics to estimate the OSA burden under several climate scenarios.
They found that any scenario that involved temperatures rising 2 degrees Celsius or higher would result in a 1.5-fold to 3-fold increase to the OSA burden by the year 2100. They estimated that climate change has already increased the OSA burden by 50 percent to 100 percent since the year 2000.
In addition to providing further evidence of the major threat of climate change to human health and wellbeing, Dr. Lechat said the study highlighted the importance of developing effective interventions to diagnose and manage OSA.
"The high prevalence undiagnosed and untreated OSA amplifies the effect of global warming on the societal burden associated with OSA," he said. "Higher rates of diagnosis and treatment is likely to reduce the health and productivity burden due to rising temperature and increased OSA prevalence."
Next, the team plans to develop intervention studies looking at strategies to mitigate the effects of temperature on OSA. They also hope to study the physiological mechanisms linking OSA severity to temperature.
American Thoracic Society
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Despite national guidelines, most American teen girls chase weight loss, often at the expense of healthier habits. New research shows that intent to slim down doesn't always align with health, underscoring the urgent need for supportive interventions.
Study: Lifestyle Behaviors Associated with Weight Loss Intent in Adolescent Girls: Findings from the US 2021 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Image Credit: Antonio Guillem / Shutterstock
In a recent study published in the journal Nutrients, researchers at Worcester State University, USA, investigated the lifestyle behaviors associated with weight loss intent in adolescent girls using nationally representative data.
Obesity affects over 22% of adolescents aged 12 to 19 in the United States (US), with long-term risks such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Girls, more than boys, often experience body dissatisfaction, which can drive weight loss attempts. Social media, peer pressure, and family environments significantly influence young girls' perceptions of ideal body weight. Despite existing physical activity and dietary guidelines, adherence remains low among adolescents, especially girls. Simultaneously, behaviors like skipping breakfast, insufficient sleep, vaping, and alcohol use are rising. A better understanding of these lifestyle patterns is critical. Further research is needed to clarify causal relationships.
The present study used data from the 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, a cross-sectional survey administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to assess health behaviors in US high school students. Researchers extracted data from 4,362 female students in grades 9 through 12 who responded to the question about weight loss intent. Participants were classified into two groups: those trying to lose weight and those not trying.
Variables included dietary habits (e.g., breakfast, fruit, and vegetable intake), physical activity (e.g., strength training, aerobic activity), screen time, sleep duration, alcohol use, and vaping. The Body Mass Index (BMI) percentile was calculated using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention growth charts based on self-reported weight and height. Based on the discrepancy between actual BMI and self-view, weight perception was categorized as accurate, underestimated, or overestimated.
Logistic regression analysis was performed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 29, adjusting for grade level, race/ethnicity, BMI percentile, and other covariates. Models were stratified by body image perception to examine subgroup differences. The model demonstrated good discrimination between groups, with an area under the curve value of 0.78.
Among the adolescent girls surveyed, the weighted estimate was 55.5% reported trying to lose weight. Girls who intended to lose weight had a higher average BMI percentile (75.4) compared to those not trying to lose weight (50.1). However, 43.4% of girls in the normal weight category also reported a desire to lose weight, indicating widespread body image dissatisfaction. Additionally, among girls with a normal BMI, 16% were trying to gain weight, reflecting further complexity in body image concerns. Notably, the highest overall intent to lose weight was observed among Hispanic girls (66.3%) and multiple Hispanic descent (59.9%). Among normal-weight girls, weight loss intent was particularly prevalent among white (47.5%) and Asian (45.7%) girls.
Proportion of adolescent girls reporting weight loss intent by BMI percentile categories (Normal Weight, Overweight, Obese) in the 2021 YRBS Survey: BMI, Body Mass Index. Normal weight BMI% < 85, overweight BMI% 85–<95, obese BMI% ≥ 95.
Lifestyle behaviors varied significantly between groups. Girls trying to lose weight were more likely to engage in muscle-strengthening activities (odds ratio [OR] 1.30; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.07-1.57) and report more than three hours of daily screen time (OR 1.27; 95% CI 1.02-1.58). They were also more likely to have consumed alcohol (OR 1.61; 95% CI 1.32-1.98) and used electronic vapor products (OR 1.22; 95% CI 1.01-1.47) in the previous month.
Conversely, healthier habits were less common in this group. They were significantly less likely to eat breakfast daily (OR 0.52; 95% CI 0.40-0.69), get at least 8 hours of sleep per night (OR 0.72; 95% CI 0.59-0.89), or consume ‘other vegetables' (excluding salads, carrots, and potatoes) (OR 0.78; 95% CI 0.67-0.90). There was no significant difference in the frequency of consuming fruits, milk, or soda.
While muscle-strengthening exercises were more common among girls intending to lose weight (but not overall aerobic or total physical activity), there was no difference in meeting the national recommendation for 60 minutes of physical activity daily. The link between weight loss intent and muscle-building activity may reflect an attempt to lose weight rather than focusing on overall health.
Importantly, the study discusses the possibility of a bidirectional relationship between screen time and weight loss intent. Girls trying to lose weight slept less and used screens more, both of which can contribute to weight gain and mental health challenges. Extended screen time is known to influence self-esteem and body dissatisfaction, especially among adolescent girls, reinforcing a cycle of negative self-image and unhealthy behaviors.
The desire to lose weight was most common among obese girls (87.8%), but was notably high among girls in the normal weight range as well. These findings suggest that weight loss intent is not always aligned with actual weight status and may reflect unrealistic body standards.
To summarize, this study shows that adolescent girls trying to lose weight often engage in unhealthy behaviors such as skipping breakfast, inadequate sleep, excessive screen time, alcohol use, and vaping. These habits may not support long-term weight management or overall well-being. Moreover, a significant portion of girls with a normal BMI still express weight loss intent, highlighting concerns about distorted body image. Notably, the cross-sectional design means causality cannot be determined, but the associations suggest important targets for intervention. Interventions should focus on promoting healthy behaviors over weight fixation, integrating strategies like sleep hygiene, reducing screen exposure, addressing unrealistic body standards, and improving body image perceptions. Tailored, school-based programs and parental guidance can play key roles in supporting adolescent girls' health goals.
Posted in: Child Health News | Medical Research News | Women's Health News
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Growing emphasis on self-reliance and trade barriers could impair the ability of people to consume healthy and sustainable diets around the world. Research teams from the University of Göttingen and the University of Edinburgh investigated the extent to which 186 countries can feed their own populations solely through domestic production. The study was published in the journal Nature Food.
The researchers evaluated seven food groups that are part of the World Wildlife Fund's Livewell diet. Only one in seven countries achieve self-sufficiency in five or more essential food groups – most within Europe and South America. This lack of self-sufficiency was especially true in the Caribbean, West Africa, and the Gulf states. Six countries, primarily in the Middle East, do not produce enough of a single food group for their own needs.
Notably, only Guyana achieved complete self-sufficiency in all seven food groups, while China and Vietnam nearly reach this by achieving six. Significant discrepancies exist regarding self-sufficiency in meat and dairy products. For example, while several European countries produce far in excess of their needs, domestic production in African countries is very low. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, for instance, produces only about 15% of its requirements for meat. The analysis uncovers shortfalls in nutrient-dense plant protein worldwide: fewer than half of the countries achieve their domestic needs for legumes (for instance, beans and peas), or nuts and seeds, while only a quarter do so for vegetables.
The study additionally highlights that some countries have low production and simultaneously rely almost exclusively on a single trading partner for more than half of their imports, compounding their vulnerability. This pattern is especially pronounced in smaller countries, including island states. Similarly, many Central American and Caribbean countries depend on the United States for the bulk of their imports of starchy staples – for instance, wheat and maize – and several European and Central Asian countries rely on a single partner for legumes, nuts and seeds.
International food trade and cooperation is essential for healthy and sustainable diets. However, heavy reliance on imports from single countries can leave nations vulnerable. Building resilient food supply chains is imperative for ensuring public health."
Jonas Stehl, PhD researcher, University of Göttingen and first author of the study
This research was financially supported by the European Centre for Advanced Studies (ECAS).
University of Göttingen
Stehl, J., et al. (2025). Gap between national food production and food-based dietary guidance highlights lack of national self-sufficiency. Nature Food. doi.org/10.1038/s43016-025-01173-4.
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Advances in medical technology over the last 30 years have made it easier to detect and treat diabetes, leading to significant health improvements in people with the disease. Despite this, workforce participation among people with diabetes has not improved over time, finds new USC Schaeffer Center research in JAMA Health Forum.
Historically, workforce participation rates have been much lower among people with diabetes due to factors like health complications, time needed to manage the disease and workplace barriers. But the surprising failure of substantial health gains to drive economic progress in this population - a phenomenon that researchers call the "diabetes paradox" - suggests that rising diabetes prevalence poses a growing threat to the labor market and strain on government disability programs.
Given the major health improvements in the diabetes population, we would have expected to see more people in the workforce. Instead, there is a large and growing population of people with diabetes who are having challenges with labor market performance that should be addressed."
Jack Chapel, study author, scholar at the Schaeffer Center and research assistant professor at the USC Price School of Public Policy
Researchers analyzed 20 years of National Health Interview Survey data (1998-2018) on nearly 250,000 Americans ages 40-64. This age range includes a person's peak earning years and coincides with a period when most diabetes diagnoses occur - about 1 in 7 Americans ages 45-64 have diagnosed diabetes, according to federal data.
However, compared to peers without diabetes, they were consistently 21-24 percentage points less likely to be in the labor force and 12-13 percentage points more likely to claim disability benefits. Even after adjusting for demographic differences, these gaps were large and persistent: 8-11 percentage points and 4-6 percentage points, respectively.
The study findings suggest expanded access to powerful new anti-obesity medications, which could prevent or delay diabetes, could have positive effects on the labor market. And for those with diabetes, health improvements alone may not be enough to help them return to the workforce.
The diabetes paradox may be partly explained by shifts in who is diagnosed, disparities in access to medical advances and the changing nature of work, researchers said.
There may be some good news buried in the findings. If more people with worse economic prospects - due to reasons unrelated to health - are diagnosed with diabetes, it seems likely that overall economic outcomes for this group would have declined.
"The fact that economic outcomes have remained stable might mean things are actually improving beneath the surface," said study author Matthew Kahn, a senior scholar at the Schaeffer Center and Provost Professor of Economics and Spatial Sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. "My hunch is that the expansion of health care access to the poor and the proactive steps taken by those diagnosed with pre-diabetes has meant that the new cohort of people diagnosed with diabetes is more economically vulnerable than in previous decades, complicating comparison over time."
To better understand labor trends among people with diabetes and identify opportunities to improve workforce participation, researchers said more clinical trials for diabetes prevention and management therapies should assess economic outcomes like employment.
Other authors are Dana Goldman and Bryan Tysinger of the USC Schaeffer Center. Please see the study for author disclosures.
University of Southern California
Chapel, J. M., et al. (2025). Long-Term Health Improvements and Economic Performance Among Individuals With Diabetes. JAMA Health Forum. doi.org/10.1001/jamahealthforum.2025.0756.
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Colorectal cancer (CRC) remains one of the most prevalent and deadly cancers worldwide, with rising incidence linked to dietary and lifestyle changes. Despite advances in surgery and chemotherapy, drug resistance and tumor recurrence pose marked challenges. The epidermal growth factor receptor/mitogen-activated protein kinase (EGFR/MAPK) signaling pathway, frequently hyperactivated in CRC, drives tumor growth, but its downstream effectors-particularly noncoding RNAs-are not fully understood.
A research team from Sun Yat-sen University Sixth Affiliated Hospital has made a groundbreaking discovery in colorectal cancer (CRC) research, identifying a long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) named ESSENCE (EGF Signal Sensing CAD's Effect; ENST00000415336) as a critical regulator of tumor progression. The study reveals that ESSENCE stabilizes a key metabolic enzyme, CAD (carbamoyl-phosphate synthetase 2, aspartate transcarbamylase, and dihydroorotase), to promote cancer growth and suppress ferroptosis. The findings also propose a novel combination therapy targeting ESSENCE-high tumors, offering new hope for precision treatment.
Led by Dr. Xiangqi Meng and Dr. Mong-Hong Lee, the team identified ESSENCE as a top lncRNA upregulated by EGFR/MAPK signaling. ESSENCE expression correlates with poor prognosis in CRC patients and is transcriptionally activated by the EGF-induced transcription factor EGR1. Mechanistically, ESSENCE binds to CAD, a multifunctional enzyme critical for pyrimidine synthesis, and blocks its degradation by the E3 ligase KEAP1. This stabilization fuels cancer cell proliferation and ferroptosis defense.
To explore the potential of targeting the ESSENCE–CAD–ferroptosis axis in restraining CRC development, the research team established patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models. Combining the MEK inhibitor selumetinib and the ferroptosis inducer sulfasalazine synergistically suppressed tumor growth in ESSENCE-high PDX models, while ESSENCE-low tumors showed minimal response. These findings support the clinical potential of patient stratification based on ESSENCE expression levels to optimize combination therapy selection.
The study demonstrates that ESSENCE serves not only as a prognostic biomarker but also as a directly targetable molecular driver in colorectal cancer. However, whether ESSENCE plays a similar oncogenic role in other malignancies beyond colorectal cancer remains to be explored. Additionally, the proposed combination therapy requires further preclinical validation before clinical translation.
Future study will focus on developing targeted therapies against the newly identified ESSENCE-CAD signaling axis, which may expand treatment strategies for a broader range of cancers. This study highlights the growing importance of lncRNAs in precision oncology and underscores the need for innovative approaches to combat treatment resistance.
Research
Xie, X., et al. (2025). EGF-upregulated lncRNA ESSENCE promotes colorectal cancer growth through stabilizing CAD and ferroptosis defence. Research. doi.org/10.34133/research.0649.
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Real Madrid's Rodrygo is considering leaving Los Blancos this summer and the Brazilian reportedly already has 'one foot out' of the Spanish giants.
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Juventus are expecting to regain the services of four players who will return from their respective loan spells to take part in the FIFA Club World Cup.
The Bianconeri will be one of two Serie A representatives in the first expanded edition of the global tournament which will take place in the United States between June 14 and July 13.
But on the back of an exhausting campaign plagued by a plethora of injuries, the club will be desperate for additional depth.
While an early transfer window will allow the clubs the opportunity to sign new players, it's hard to imagine Juventus pulling off too many operations in the first ten days of June.
But according to Tuttosport, the Old Lady will be able to rely on four returning players to boost the numbers.
The first is Filip Kostic who is currently on loan at Fenerbahce. But despite being tipped to finalise a permanent transfer, Jose Mourinho's club no longer wants to exercise the option to buy the winger who will now return to Turin.
The second name on the list is Daniele Rugani who is on a dry loan at Ajax. Nevertheless, the Dutch giants don't have the option to buy the 30-year-old defender, nor do they necessarily want to following the departure of his main sponsor Francesco Farioli. The Italian manager announced he's leaving the club on Monday.
The Turin-based newspaper also mentions Tiago Djalo and Facundo Gonzalez, two defenders who couldn't carve out starting roles at Porto and Feyenoord, respectively.
In addition to these four returnees, the source expects Tudor to bolster his World Cup squad by adding Juventus Next Gen players.
Riccardo Turicchia, Javier Gil, Nicolò Cudrig, Luca Amaradio and Alessandro Pietrelli are the favourites to earn call-ups.
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International Football
On Monday, Concacaf released the preliminary rosters for each nation participating in this summer's Gold Cup. Teams were allowed to list up to 60 players who would become eligible for the final 26-man squads, which must be finalized by no later than June 4.
Historically, the Gold Cup has often seen the U.S. men's national team field a rotated squad, mixing a few “A-team” mainstays into an otherwise more youthful or prospective roster as a coach vets a wider portion of their player pool. With so few remaining competitive windows between now and the 2026 World Cup, however, Mauricio Pochettino's longlist includes more of the veteran core that established itself ahead of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
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Here are the notables regarding who could participate in this summer's regional championship — as well as a few who are already deemed unavailable.
The Gold Cup will be one of two major men's international tournaments being played across the U.S. this summer. The other, the FIFA Club World Cup, is newly expanded to include 32 teams from around the world, including some with USMNT regulars who will now miss the Gold Cup altogether. FIFA has given priority to clubs over countries for those participating in the Club World Cup.
Weston McKennie and Tim Weah retained first-choice status as the U.S. transitioned from Gregg Berhalter to Pochettino, but both are omitted given Juventus' participation in the CWC. Borussia Dortmund's involvement also rules out Giovanni Reyna, although it's unclear if the 22-year-old midfielder will still be part of the German club's plans come this summer.
The Seattle Sounders and Inter Miami guarantee that MLS will have at least two participating clubs. This also keeps a handful of regular members of the USMNT pool unavailable, including a few 2022 World Cup veterans (Jordan Morris, Cristian Roldan and Jesus Ferreira) as well as a few more recent additions (Benjamin Cremaschi, Drake Callender and Jackson Ragen).
The play-in match between Los Angeles FC and Club América could also impact two players listed on the preliminary list. Timothy Tillman is a regular midfielder for LAFC, while Alejandro Zendejas is among Liga MX's most in-form attackers over the past 12 months. Tillman (the elder brother of PSV star Malik Tillman) is already a longshot with so many central midfielders in contention, but Zendejas' club form may tempt Pochettino and his backroom as they survey options in attack.
There are some genuine areas of depth in the USMNT pool, as highlighted in the list. Some, like striker and central midfield, offer numerous players who could start at the international level.
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Concerningly, center back and goalkeeper are among the thinnest groups, a point exposed during the Nations League window in March.
In goal, Matt Turner may yet remain first-choice despite seldom featuring on a loan spell with FA Cup-winning Crystal Palace. Zack Steffen, Patrick Schulte, Matt Freese and Chris Brady all start regularly for their MLS clubs. Steffen and Schulte issued mixed performances in their recent international starts, while Freese's cross-claiming is below league average for goalkeepers and Brady is often overworked by a porous Chicago Fire defense.
If Pochettino wants to kick the tires on an untested up-and-comer, he could select Diego Kochen. The 19-year-old started regularly for Barcelona B in 2024-25, while occasionally making the senior club's bench in La Liga and the Champions League. Born in Miami, Kochen has represented the U.S. through the U-19 level and may be the program's top prospect in goal.
That status looks even more secure given the omission of Gabriel Slonina, who was left off of Pochettino's 60-man list. The 21-year-old joined Chelsea in 2022 and his commitment to the USMNT over Poland came to great fanfare, but he struggled during a loan spell with League One side Barnsley this season and must rebuild his stock.
Pochettino selected just nine center backs, a relatively small number considering the bloated nature of this longlist. Many have already been vetted at this level, including all five regulars in Qatar: Tim Ream, Mark McKenzie, Chris Richards, Cameron Carter-Vickers and Walker Zimmerman — though it's worth noting that Zimmerman hasn't played for Nashville SC since suffering a concussion on April 5.
Auston Trusty and Miles Robinson have both established themselves as first-choice options for their clubs and offer viable alternatives to the holdovers. The final pair are among MLS's best defenders in the 2025 season: Tristan Blackmon of the Vancouver Whitecaps, and George Campbell of CF Montréal.
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Blackmon and Campbell are two of several players in MLS who have played their way into the pool with regular club involvement. That first-choice status goes a long way as a new coach quickly tries to survey his options ahead of a World Cup, and thrust Patrick Agyemang, Diego Luna and Brian White onto Pochettino's Nations League squad. All three remain in contention to crack the Gold Cup roster.
Also among the notables is Alex Freeman, the 20-year-old right back who has dazzled in his rookie season with Orlando City. At 6-foot-2, Freeman is a true two-way full back who arrives right after a lack of depth behind Sergiño Dest (who is available after missing the Copa América with a torn ACL) was exposed in his year-long absence. Max Arfsten and Sean Zawadzki previously earned call-ups thanks to their work with the Columbus Crew, and are among the 60 players available for the Gold Cup. Sebastian Berhalter and Jack McGlynn are two young midfielders who are vital parts of their MLS teams' engine rooms, and could be viable box-to-box options in McKennie's absence. Berhalter's inclusion, given he's the son of Pochettino's predecessor, carries some added significance.
Other notables from the domestic league include Luca De La Torre, restored amidst his loan to San Diego FC, versatile Emeka Eneli of Real Salt Lake, and dynamic attacking midfielder Quinn Sullivan of the East-leading Philadelphia Union.
A day after finishing off a stunning late surge to defend their Eredivisie title, PSV's American quartet learned of their summer status.
As expected, Tillman and Dest are up for selection, as Tillman tries to carve out an attacking midfield starting role under Pochettino while Dest returns from injury. Joining them is Richy Ledezma. The 24-year-old earned his only USMNT cap to date in 2020, but returns after spending much of the season playing right back for PSV. Concacaf lists Ledezma as a midfielder on this list, and his selection comes after some speculation if he'd make a one-time switch to represent Mexico. Whether he makes the final squad remains to be seen, but it's notable that he is not included on Mexico's preliminary squad.
Rounding out the group is the expected absence of Ricardo Pepi, whose season ended in late January with a knee injury against Liverpool. His omission opens the door for other strikers to make their cases, as Pepi was arguably the pool's most in-form forward up until his season's premature end.
The full 60-man preliminary list, assigned to position groups as listed by Concacaf:
Goalkeepers: Chris Brady (Chicago Fire); Matt Freese (New York City FC); Diego Kochen (FC Barcelona); Patrick Schulte (Columbus Crew); Zack Steffen (Colorado Rapids); Matt Turner (Nottingham Forest)
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Defenders: Tristan Blackmon (Vancouver Whitecaps); George Campbell (CF Montréal); Cameron Carter-Vickers (Celtic); Sergiño Dest (PSV); Marlon Fossey (Standard Liege); Alex Freeman (Orlando City); Nathan Harriel (Philadelphia Union); DeJuan Jones (San Jose Earthquakes); Kristoffer Lund (Palermo); Mark McKenzie (Toulouse); Shaq Moore (Nashville SC); Tim Ream (Charlotte FC); Chris Richards (Crystal Palace); Antonee Robinson (Fulham); Miles Robinson (FC Cincinnati); Joe Scally (Borussia Mönchengladbach); John Tolkin (Holstein Kiel); Auston Trusty (Celtic); Caleb Wiley (Chelsea); Walker Zimmerman (Nashville SC)
Midfielders: Brenden Aaronson (Leeds United); Paxten Aaronsen (Eintracht Frankfurt); Tyler Adams (AFC Bournemouth); Max Arfsten (Columbus Crew); Sebastian Berhalter (Vancouver Whitecaps); Gianluca Busio (Venezia); Johnny Cardoso (Real Betis); Caden Clark (CF Montréal), Luca De La Torre (San Diego FC); Maximilian Dietz (Greuther Fürth); Emeka Eneli (Real Salt Lake); Brian Gutierrez (Chicago Fire); Richy Ledezma (PSV); Diego Luna (Real Salt Lake); Jack McGlynn (Houston Dynamo); Djordje Mihailovic (Colorado Rapids); Matko Miljevic (Huracan); Aidan Morris (Middlesbrough); Yunus Musah (AC Milan); Tanner Tessmann (Lyon); Timothy Tillman (Los Angeles FC); Sean Zawadzki (Columbus Crew)
Forwards: Patrick Agyemang (Charlotte FC); Folarin Balogun (AS Monaco); Damion Downs (FC Köln); Christian Pulisic (AC Milan); Josh Sargent (Norwich City); Quinn Sullivan (Philadelphia Union); Malik Tillman (PSV); Brandon Vazquez (Austin FC); Brian White (Vancouver Whitecaps); Haji Wright (Coventry City); Griffin Yow (Westerlo); Alex Zendejas (Club América)
(Top photo: Kevin Jairaj/USA TODAY Sports)
Jeff Rueter is a senior soccer writer for The Athletic who covers the game in North America, Europe, and beyond. No matter how often he hears the Number 10 role is "dying," he'll always leave a light on for the next great playmaker. Follow Jeff on Twitter @jeffrueter
Here's the latest information on how to watch the expanded tournament across North American markets next year
2025 marks the start of a brave new frontier for the FIFA Club World Cup as - for the first time - an expanded tournament will bring together almost three-dozen of the biggest and best teams from across six continents to compete for the ultimate prize.
Having been touted for several generations, the new-look format for arguably what is the biggest prize in club football will invite a host of teams from multiple nations to contest for the glory in the United States, one year before the United 2026 FIFA World Cup.
From UEFA Champions League heavyweights Real Madrid, Manchester City and Bayern Munich to South American giants Boca Juniors and Palmeiras, and the return of Lionel Messi with Inter Miami, there are plenty of big names to follow along with.
But just how will you be able to watch it all unfold? Who will show the tournament in full? And which cable, satellite and streaming providers will be your best bet to see some of the greatest players in the world?
Here, GOAL offers you the answers on how to watch and stream the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup in the United States.
The U.S. men's national team's 60-player provisional roster for the 2025 CONCACAF Gold Cup has been revealed.
Christian Pulisic, Sergino Dest, and Malik Tillman headlined Mauricio Pochettino's roster, which was released by CONCACAF on Monday.
Haji Wright, Josh Sargent, and Antonee Robinson were also named to the roster while Ricardo Pepi and Ethan Horvath were not named for respective reasons. Weston McKennie, Tim Weah, and Gio Reyna were not named to the squad due to their upcoming involvement at the FIFA Club World Cup.
Dual-national forward Damion Downs, who earned promotion at club level with Cologne, was also included. Two current MLS standouts; Alex Freeman and Sebastian Berhalter, were named to the senior roster for the first time.
The USMNT will face Turkey in Switzerland on June 7 and 10 respectively in a pair of home friendlies. Gold Cup group stage play begins for the Americans on June 15 against Trinidad & Tobago.
Saudi Arabia and Haiti will also oppose the USMNT during the group stage.
The Gold Cup will mark the USMNT's final competitive tournament before hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup next summer.
Here is a closer look at the full 60-player provisional roster:
Goalkeepers: Chris Brady, Matt Freese, Diego Kochen, Patrick Schulte, Zack Steffen, Matt Turner.
Defenders: Tristian Blackmon, George Campbell, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Sergino Dest, Marlon Fossey, Alex Freeman, Nathan Harriel, DeJuan Jones, Kristoffer Hansen, Mark McKenzie, Shaq Moore, Tim Ream, Chris Richards, Antonee Robinson, Miles Robinson, Joe Scally, John Tolkin, Auston Trusty, Caleb Wiley, Walker Zimmerman.
Midfielders: Brenden Aaronson, Paxten Aaronson, Tyler Adams, Max Arfsten, Sebastian Berhalter, Gianluca Busio, Johnny Cardoso, Caden Clark, Luca De La Torre, Maximilian Dietz, Eneka Eneli, Richie Ledezma, Diego Luna, Jack McGlynn, Djordje Mihailovic, Matko Miljevic, Aidan Morris, Yunus Musah, Tanner Tessmann, Timothy Tillman, Sean Zawadzki.
Forwards: Patrick Agyemang, Folarin Balogun, Damion Downs, Brian Gutierrez, Christian Pulisic, Josh Sargent, Quinn Sullivan, Malik Tillman, Haji Wright, Brian White, Brandon Vazquez, Alex Zendejas, Griffin Yow.
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Real Madrid midfielder Federico Valverde spoke about the win over Sevilla and highlighted the ambitions for the upcoming FIFA Club World Cup.
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Weston McKennie, Tim Weah and Gio Reyna absent due to Club World Cup commitments, team will be trimmed to 26
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The board at La Liga giants Real Madrid are giving serious consideration to activating the buyback clause in Nico Paz's contract, with a view to the upcoming Club World Cup.
That's according to Spanish outlet COPE, who have on Monday provided an insight into the latest developments behind the scenes in the country's capital.
Youngster Paz for his part departed the Santiago Bernabéu on a permanent basis last summer, linking up with Cesc Fàbregas' Como in Italy.
And since, the Argentine has set about establishing himself as one of the standout midfielders in Serie A.
All told, across the season to date, Paz has racked up 34 appearances in Italy's top-flight, chipping in with six goals and a head-turning nine assists along the way.
And such exploits, it would appear, have not gone at all unnoticed amongst those in a position of power at his former club.
Real Madrid, for their part, boast a buyback clause on Paz this summer.
And as per the aforementioned COPE, Los Blancos – in the midst of a search for reinforcements in the middle of the park – now look increasingly likely to activate as much over the weeks ahead:
‘Nico Paz's arrival could come ahead of the Club World Cup. The player was supposed to be recalled by Real Madrid for 2026/27, but it seems plans for the midfielder's return have been brought forward.'
Conor Laird – GSFN
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Nerazzurri captain Lautaro Martinez says that Inter Milan “will give everything” to win the Club World Cup this summer.
Speaking to the FIFA official social media channel, via FCInterNews, the Argentina gave his thoughts ahead of the tournament.
Next month, Inter Milan will play in the expanded Club World Cup.
In the meantime, the Nerazzurri will wrap up their Serie A campaign. Then, there will be the Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain on the 31st of May.
The Club World Cup will be something entirely new for the Nerazzurri.
For the first time ever, FIFA will hold the competition in the summer.
Moreover, the football governing body has expanded the format of the tournament.
Now, the Club World Cup will feature a total of 32 teams. Inter will be one of two Italian clubs at in the United States for the tournament, along with Juventus.
Inter Milan captain Lautaro Martinez said that “I'm really fired up for the idea of participating in the Club World Cup.”
“I think it will be a fantastic experience,” he went on.
“It reminds me a lot of the World Cup.”
Martinez predicted that “it will be incredible.”
“Because it will be the first time that this competition is played with this format.”
“So I'm excited, and very curious to see how it all ends up,” the Inter captain added.
Meanwhile, Lautaro Martinez predicted that facing Mexican club Monterrey in Los Angeles will be “fantastic.”
“It's going to have a wonderful atmosphere,” he said. “And certainly a hostile one.”
“Because it's a big stadium. So there are going to be a lot of fans in the stands.”
“Mexico isn't far from Los Angeles,” the Inter captain noted. “So it will be fantastic.”
“I like playing in matches like this. The more fans there are in the stadium, the more hostile the atmosphere is.”
“But I think that's good,” Martinez said. “Because it pushes you to give your best.”
“So I hope it goes well for us, of course. But as I always say, the most important thing is that we enjoy ourselves and give our all for Inter.”
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Nerazzurri captain Lautaro Martinez says that Inter Milan “will give everything” to win the Club World Cup this summer.
Speaking to the FIFA official social media channel, via FCInterNews, the Argentina gave his thoughts ahead of the tournament.
Next month, Inter Milan will play in the expanded Club World Cup.
In the meantime, the Nerazzurri will wrap up their Serie A campaign. Then, there will be the Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain on the 31st of May.
The Club World Cup will be something entirely new for the Nerazzurri.
For the first time ever, FIFA will hold the competition in the summer.
Moreover, the football governing body has expanded the format of the tournament.
Now, the Club World Cup will feature a total of 32 teams. Inter will be one of two Italian clubs at in the United States for the tournament, along with Juventus.
Inter Milan captain Lautaro Martinez said that “I'm really fired up for the idea of participating in the Club World Cup.”
“I think it will be a fantastic experience,” he went on.
“It reminds me a lot of the World Cup.”
Martinez predicted that “it will be incredible.”
“Because it will be the first time that this competition is played with this format.”
“So I'm excited, and very curious to see how it all ends up,” the Inter captain added.
Meanwhile, Lautaro Martinez predicted that facing Mexican club Monterrey in Los Angeles will be “fantastic.”
“It's going to have a wonderful atmosphere,” he said. “And certainly a hostile one.”
“Because it's a big stadium. So there are going to be a lot of fans in the stands.”
“Mexico isn't far from Los Angeles,” the Inter captain noted. “So it will be fantastic.”
“I like playing in matches like this. The more fans there are in the stadium, the more hostile the atmosphere is.”
“But I think that's good,” Martinez said. “Because it pushes you to give your best.”
“So I hope it goes well for us, of course. But as I always say, the most important thing is that we enjoy ourselves and give our all for Inter.”
Cristiano Ronaldo's Al-Nassr contract is set to expire on June 30, and there is still no announcement over his future. Reports in Saudi Arabia suggest he will decide over the coming days, with the SPL season ending on May 26.
The Portuguese international side has not qualified for the AFC Champions League next season, which could mean Ronaldo could rethink his future with the Knights of Najd.
MORE: Real Madrid Legend Cristiano Ronaldo Receives Offer Ahead of Club World Cup [Report]
Reports have suggested several teams participating in the FIFA Club World Cup this summer are interested in bringing the 40-year-old in before the competition. According to MaisFutebol, one of those will face Real Madrid in the group stage, the Saudi side, Al-Hilal.
It will likely be Xabi Alonso as head coach as Real Madrid kick off the tournament against Al-Za'eem on June 18. It would be a media dream for Ronaldo to line up against his former club, something he has never done before.
Ronaldo has been linked with various destinations after his contract expires, but has also said he is happy in Saudi Arabia, with his family settled since moving in 2023. However, the lack of trophies could be frustrating, as his goal is always to win.
Al-Nassr are said to have an offer on the table for the forward, who still feels he has more playing years ahead. However, will we see him in the US for the Club World Cup?
The Latest Real Madrid News:
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Jordan Merritt is a freelance soccer writer who covers Real Madrid CF On SI. He is an obsessive soccer fan and an Arsenal supporter.
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Napoli midfielder Scott McTominay found himself mobbed by fans after Antonio Conte's side moved a step closer to winning the Scudetto.
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Gary Lineker will leave the BBC, the broadcaster has announced.
His final show will be next Sunday's Match of the Day and he will not present the broadcaster's coverage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Lineker will bring an early end to his BBC tenure via mutual agreement, days after he apologised for sharing a post which led to accusations of anti-semitism.
The broadcaster has now confirmed his exit date in a statement on Monday.
It has also been reported that the former England striker, who is paid around £1.35m, will not receive a payoff from the BBC.
Gary Lineker said: “Football has been at the heart of my life for as long as I can remember – both on the pitch and in the studio.
“I care deeply about the game, and about the work I've done with the BBC over many years. As I've said, I would never consciously repost anything antisemitic – it goes against everything I stand for.
“However, I recognise the error and upset that I caused, and reiterate how sorry I am. Stepping back now feels like the responsible course of action.”
Lineker came under fire for re-sharing a pro-Gaza video which likened supporters of Israel to rats.
The image of rats has historically been used as part of anti-semitic propaganda, including in Nazi Germany during the 1930s.
The post was soon deleted but not before it was widely viewed and sparked calls for the BBC to part ways with Lineker.
The 64-year-old issued an apology the following day and said: “On Instagram I re-posted material which I have since learned contained offensive references.
“I very much regret these references. I would never knowingly share anything anti-semitic. It goes against everything I believe in.
“The post was removed as soon as I became aware of the issue.
“Whilst I strongly believe in the importance of speaking out on humanitarian issues, including the tragedy unfolding in Gaza, I also know that how we do so matters.
"I take full responsibility for this mistake. That image does not reflect my views.”
It was announced last October Lineker would depart flagship show Match of the Day at the end of the 2024/25 season.
The former England international had presented the highlights show since 1999.
In the announcement, it was revealed Lineker would remain part of the BBC's football coverage for a further 18 months before cutting all ties with the broadcaster.
He had agreed a contract extension to stay on and present next season's FA Cup coverage along with the 2026 World Cup.
But that will be no longer be the case.
Tim Davie, BBC Director-General, said: “Gary has acknowledged the mistake he made. Accordingly, we have agreed he will step back from further presenting after this season.
“Gary has been a defining voice in football coverage for the BBC for over two decades. His passion and knowledge have shaped our sports journalism and earned him the respect of sports fans across the UK and beyond. We want to thank him for the contribution he has made.”
Lineker's future at the BBC was a hot topic earlier in the season given his contract was due to expire at the end of the 2024/25 campaign.
The 64-year-old also commanded a salary more than £1.3million-a-year at the BBC, the broadcaster's highest declared salary for a presenter.
Lineker had previously come under fire for his social media usage.
In March last year, Lineker was briefly suspended from hosting Match of the Day after a Twitter post about the British government's asylum policy prompted a row about BBC presenters expressing political views on social media.
Lineker's fellow presenters and pundits, including Alan Shearer and Ian Wright, refused to appear on the show in solidarity with Lineker and it was reduced to a 20-minute highlights package, which contained no hosts, pundits or commentary.
The ex-Everton, Leicester, Barcelona and Tottenham star was reinstated to the programme just over a week later.
The 64-year-old replaced Des Lynam in the MOTD role in 1999 after moving into punditry and presenting following his playing career.
He headed up the BBC's coverage of the FA Cup final on Saturday, which saw Crystal Palace beat Manchester City 1-0.
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HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Blighted buildings will be torn down, shuttles will take visitors nonstop from the airport to the Galleria and the airport will have a designated area added just to help process foreign guests in town for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
And while right now, Carlos Carrillo said his 4 a.m. drive to work on the North Freeway near Parker Road is practically pitch black at times, the city said he can expect to see some light soon.
"I counted because I went all the way over there to the Beltway. I think there's about 80 lights and at least 80 percent of them are out," Carrilo told 13 Investigates.
The changes are all a part of the City of Houston's plans to make improvements to the city ahead of the seven Super Bowl-size World Cup games next summer that are expected to draw in millions of people from across the world.
13 Investigates wanted to know more about the projects Houston Public Works is prioritizing ahead of the games, so we requested their emails.
One resident reached out to the Mayor's office about "an abundance of the tall freeway light towers" that are "inoperative" on Interstate 610 and U.S. Highway 59.
"The area between I-10 and 59 on loop 610 thru the Galleria, 75% were not working. I first called TxDOT and they referred me to the city because it (is) their responsibility," the resident said in a Jan. 3, 2025, email to the Mayor's office. "I know the Mayor campaigned on public safety and I feel like this is an issue for the traveling public and the first responders working accident scenes."
That email was forwarded to a spokesperson for the Houston Public Works Department and they discussed who could best answer the resident's concerns about the ownership of the freeway lights.
"We are aware of these issues. The major challenges we currently face are wire theft, aging infrastructure, difficulty hiring qualified personnel, unreported damage by unknown contractors and knocked down electrical services," a maintenance manager at Houston Public Works said in internal emails. "The freeway lighting is a major project we are working on, as we are trying to get them all repaired and burning by the 2026 World Cup games."
When 13 Investigates asked the city about maintaining tower lighting on interstates, they sent us a similar response, citing the challenges with wire theft and aging infrastructure.
"Houston Public Works is committed to maintaining the mast lighting along freeways and highways within Houston city limits," a Public Works spokesperson said in a statement. "Repair work includes coordinating with TxDOT on when they can assist with closing down traffic lanes for our crews to make these repairs while working around their construction schedule. Freeway lighting is a major project as the city prepares for the 2026 World Cup games. We encourage the community to report any freeway lights that are out to 311 so our team can track and add the location to the list for repairs."
SEE ALSO: '2024 is a critical year': Houston World Cup committee begins plans ahead of hosting in 2026
The city is also working to tear down what it calls "blighted" and "dangerous" buildings ahead of the World Cup, including the old Greyhound station at 2121 Main Street and an old hotel at 801 St. Joseph's Parkway.
"The administration wants to take action against two properties in advance of the World Cup in 2026," an attorney with the City of Houston's Legal Department said in a Nov. 27, 2024, email to the Department of Neighborhoods and Houston Permitting Center.
The city sent out inspectors to both properties so they can "consider (their) options and perhaps reach out to the owners to take down the buildings."
The city also said there are "several other properties the city administration would like inspected."
13 Investigates: Fixing Houston's dangerous buildings is a 'long and drawn-out process'
13 Investigates has reported on the city's dangerous buildings list in the past and the long drawn out process to get these eyesores taken down.
"It's just decaying. It's catching bats, gnats, rats, roaches, insects and diseases," David Valdez said as he waited at a bus stop near the St. Joseph's Parkway property. "You look at the graffiti and then you look at all the woodwork over here boarded up on the windows and you can tell it's abandoned."
The city is also working to clean up graffiti, perform landscaping, restripe roads and fix sidewalks ahead of the World Cup games. They're also planning to build a park on the east side of downtown near where a month-long fan fest party will be hosted next summer.
A recent study from the University of Houston's Hobby School of Public Affairs found that bad road conditions are actually residents' top concern for the city.
In a Jan. 24, 2025, email to the Houston Public Works Director, the department's communications director asks "Can you shed light on what HPW is doing '500 days to the World Cup' for potholes? Is anything changing from our side? Are we looking at things different? The Mayor's Office is asking for talking points and this is the first I'm hearing of this."
The Public Works Director responds saying their message needs to be in alignment with what the Mayor previously told the contractors association.
"Our message really ought to be the fact that we're getting Houston ready to be Houston every day. The World Cup is a special event, but our emphasis needs to be on fixing our problems today for everyone to enjoy all the time," the Public Works director said.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire only took office in January 2024, and Houston was announced as a host city in 2022, but we wanted to why these city infrastructure projects can be deemed "high priority and aggressive" for the World Cup but not always year-round.
The Mayor's office declined an interview about preparations leading into the World Cup. But, during a city council meeting in January, Whitmire doubled down on the need to make changes for residents.
"I go to meetings on a regular basis about how we have to improve 'this' or 'that' for the World Cup, and I interrupt them to say, 'No, we need to get it ready for Houstonians and if we get it ready for Houstonians and Harris County residents on a daily basis, we will be ready for FIFA,'" Whitmire said.
Chase Murphy, who has lived in Houston the last eight years, said the city needs to make sure it cares more about its local community.
"We shouldn't have to wait for large events like the World Cup coming. This is a melting pot. Hundreds of people move here every day and so we want to make sure that our city has a good reputation outside of all the external people coming from Europe and all other countries coming to our town," Murphy said.
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HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — After years of fear and uncertainty, members of the Afghan women's soccer team made history Sunday night by returning to the pitch in Houston for their first team practice on American soil.
The players feared for their lives and fled Afghanistan in 2021 after the Taliban took over their home country. Under the Taliban's authoritarian rule, Afghan women and girls have suffered tremendously. The government took away their right to education, employment and participation in sports.
According to FIFA, Sodaba Khinjani was part of a group of more than 150 Afghan refugees connected to women's sport in Afghanistan who FIFA helped evacuate from Kabul. Khinjani was a member of the women's soccer team.
“To say goodbye to my family, to say goodbye to Afghanistan, and to leave Kabul, it wasn't easy. It was the most difficult decision that I ever made in my life, because imagine you just leave your everything and you want to go to another country and you want to start from zero, so it's a big risk,” Khinjani said.
But Khinjani said the idea of staying in Afghanistan, especially as a female athlete, was terrifying, because the Taliban were persecuting women involved in sports.
“When we were in Afghanistan, they just killed two women from sports. They just cut their head, and it was like a big shock for us,” Khinjani said. “We were afraid of that, that maybe they will enter through our house, and they will rape us and they will marry us by force, this was our biggest fear.”
Khinjani said she was a criminal in the eyes of the Taliban.
“The only thing our crime was, first to be a woman in Afghanistan, and the second thing, second crime, was to be in a sport,” Khinjani said.
After moving around a bit, Khinjani and some of her teammates finally settled in Houston in June 2023. Nearly two years later, they held their first team practice at Bayland Park in southwest Houston Sunday night. But for those women, it was not just a soccer practice. It was a return to a game they love and a life they left behind.
“We just missed this happiness, this excitement and this enjoyment. And now I am really, really happy,” Khinjani said.
She added that seeing her teammates run, dribble and kick – after enduring the hardships they have – is a true testament to their tenacity and resilience.
“All of them are superwomen in my eyes,” Khinjani said. “They deserve to have a good life, the free life. They deserve to be free.”
Brand-new soccer cleats and the practice field at Bayland Park are thanks to Harris County Precinct 4. Commissioner Lesley Briones said she and her team wanted to do whatever they could to support the women.
“This soccer field will be their new home here in the U.S., and then we also, through our Precinct4Forward, our nonprofit arm, made a donation so they could get their cleats,” Briones said. “We're going to not only welcome them and support them and make sure they're safe, but make sure they're celebrated, and as we prepare to host the World Cup in 2026 and part of FIFA's platform is to make sure we're advocating for human rights across the globe, here is an example of what we're doing locally to support that critical mission.”
As the players start anew, they are hoping to be able to compete on the world stage.
“We are here, and we're going to make Afghan women national team soccer again,” Khinjani said.
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Open's Arthur Ashe Stadium will get an overhaul as part of an $800 million project announced Monday that the U.S. Tennis Association is touting as the “largest single investment” in the history of its Grand Slam tournament.
FILE- Fans enter Arthur Ashe Stadium during the second round of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, file)
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Open's Arthur Ashe Stadium will get an overhaul as part of an $800 million project announced Monday that the U.S. Tennis Association is touting as the “largest single investment” in the history of its Grand Slam tournament.
The USTA said it is funding the improvements at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, with no help from the city government.
According to a class-action antitrust lawsuit filed in federal court in New York in March by a players' group co-founded by Novak Djokovic, the four major tennis tournaments — the U.S. Open, Wimbledon, French Open and Australian Open — “generated over $1.5 billion collectively in 2024, while only paying between (10% to 20%) of revenue to players.”
Separately, in April, Djokovic, Jannik Sinner, Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff were among 20 leading tennis players who signed a letter sent to the heads of the Grand Slam tournaments seeking more prize money and a greater say in what they called “decisions that directly impact us.”
The USTA said there will not be interruption to scheduled play or fan access for the next two editions of the U.S. Open. Play in the main draw this year begins on Aug. 24 — shifting to a Sunday start for the first time in the Open era, which began in 1968, and adding a 15th day of competition.
The USTA's work, which is expected to be done in time for the 2027 U.S. Open, includes constructing a $250 million player performance center.
The new player area will be next to the practice courts and include additional courts, locker rooms and lounges.
Ashe's courtside-level seating capacity will increase from 3,000 to 5,000, while some seats in other sections will be removed, leaving the arena's total similar to what it is now — around 23,000 to 24,000, the biggest in Grand Slam tennis. The stadium, which first opened in 1997 and has had a retractable roof since 2016, also will get a new “grand entrance,” two new luxury suite levels, more club and restaurant areas, larger and updated concourses and restrooms, and more escalators and elevators.
___
AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
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The U.S. Open's Arthur Ashe Stadium will get an overhaul as part of an $800 million project announced Monday that the U.S. Tennis Association is touting as the “largest single investment” in the history of its Grand Slam tournament.
The USTA said it is funding the improvements at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, with no help from the city government.
According to a class-action antitrust lawsuit filed in federal court in New York in March by a players' group co-founded by Novak Djokovic, the four major tennis tournaments — the U.S. Open, Wimbledon, French Open and Australian Open — “generated over $1.5 billion collectively in 2024, while only paying between (10% to 20%) of revenue to players.”
Separately, in April, Djokovic, Jannik Sinner, Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff were among 20 leading tennis players who signed a letter sent to the heads of the Grand Slam tournaments seeking more prize money and a greater say in what they called “decisions that directly impact us.”
The USTA said there will not be interruption to scheduled play or fan access for the next two editions of the U.S. Open. Play in the main draw this year begins on Aug. 24 — shifting to a Sunday start for the first time in the Open era, which began in 1968, and adding a 15th day of competition.
The USTA's work, which is expected to be done in time for the 2027 U.S. Open, includes constructing a $250 million player performance center.
The new player area will be next to the practice courts and include additional courts, locker rooms and lounges.
Ashe's courtside-level seating capacity will increase from 3,000 to 5,000, while some seats in other sections will be removed, leaving the arena's total similar to what it is now — around 23,000 to 24,000, the biggest in Grand Slam tennis. The stadium, which first opened in 1997 and has had a retractable roof since 2016, also will get a new “grand entrance,” two new luxury suite levels, more club and restaurant areas, larger and updated concourses and restrooms, and more escalators and elevators.
___
AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
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Tennis
More than 1 million fans streamed through the gates of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center during the 2024 U.S. Open, making it the largest annual sporting event in the country.
Its central venue, Arthur Ashe Stadium — the biggest in tennis with almost 24,000 seats — is a 30-year-old concrete edifice with narrow corridors and limited bathrooms and dining facilities. It was built at a time when everyone, the four biggest tennis tournaments in the world included, expected a lot less from their arenas.
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Over the next three years, Ashe, as it is commonly known, will undergo a massive, $800 million facelift that every fan, player and United States Tennis Association (USTA) partner should feel in a big way. The project is privately funded, though the USTA has in the past received access to tax-exempt bonds and a special taxation deal with New York City that is common among local sports operations. The 2024 U.S. Open brought in almost $560 million in operating revenue, according to the USTA's financial report for that year.
It's the latest move in an ongoing tennis arms race. The runners are the four organizations that run the four Grand Slams: the Australian, French and U.S. Opens and Wimbledon. They all want to keep up with each other at a minimum and to outpace each other wherever they can, in a bid to be the best of the best.
Tennis Australia in 2022 added a new stadium, the Kia Arena, to Melbourne Park, the site of the Australian Open; it has spent over $1 billion Australian dollars ($645 million USD) on upgrades in recent years.
The All England Club, which stages Wimbledon, is in a legal battle with local residents over the building of 39 new tennis courts, one of them a stadium court, so that it can add capacity and hold its qualifying competition there, rather than roughly five miles away. The London event is now the only major in tennis that does not hold qualifying on site, which is the newest and most lucrative frontier in this arms race. On-site qualifying means an additional week of ticket sales, income from on-site concessions and even some sponsorship revenue.
Roland Garros, site of the French Open in Paris, recently added a roof on its second court as well as an additional 5,000-seat stadium. It found room for some new facilities in a set of old stone buildings nearby.
“This project enables us to maintain the greatest stage in tennis,” Lew Sherr, the chief executive and executive director of the USTA said of his organization's move, a statement that his fellow Grand Slam leaders would likely query.
At the U.S. Open, the players may experience the changes most dramatically. Beginning in 2027, they will get to indulge in a new $250 million performance center. The four-story structure will include vastly expanded locker rooms, warm-up areas and dining facilities. They are currently wedged into two bits of Ashe: the catacombs underground, and an area of the second floor of a building attached to the stadium's west side.
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The front of Ashe will get the arena version of a fancy new doorway, in the form of a giant, Daniel Libeskind-designed steel medallion hanging off its south end. It will overlook the fountain plaza where those millions of fans mill during the tournament, as well as the giant globe further south, an enduring symbol of the 1964 World's Fair.
For the fancy people who shell out thousands of dollars for tickets with high-end hospitality, the renovation will bring a renovated courtside seating area. Two new areas of luxury suites and additional dining and club areas will accompany 2,000 more seats, taking the number of the priciest seats in the stadium from 3,000 to 5,000. It's a good deal for the tournament's coffers: like many premium sports events, the U.S. Open experiences some of its highest demand for its most expensive tickets, including those courtside seats that cost more than $1,000 each per session.
That expansion will pull some inventory from what is known as the loge level, which includes tickets in the mid-range price point of roughly $200 to $600 each.
For everyone who buys the regular tickets all the way upstairs, the benefits will include wider promenades and additional facilities, as well as better access than the crowded escalators and elevators currently available.
Accomplishing all this during the next two-and-a-half years without any interruption to staging a three-week tournament will take some juggling. The entire Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is just 46.5 acres, and doesn't have much extra space to stage a major construction project.
The USTA went through this the last decade when it rebuilt Louis Armstrong Stadium, built the new Grand Stand court, and added Court 17, a kind of theater-in-the-round of a tennis stadium that seats 2,800.
The first year of construction will involve mostly “behind-the-scenes” and structural work, especially for the new performance center. That's more complicated than it sounds, since the complex sits on a swamp and buildings requires extra reinforcement to mitigate sinking.
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Next year, workers will pursue the renovation of the lower section of Arthur Ashe Stadium and build out the performance center; in 2027, they will complete that building. They will construct the new restaurants and lounges, expand the promenades and create the new entrance and sculpture on the south side of Ashe.
The plan is to complete all that ahead of the 2027 tournament. By then, this Grand Slam arms race will surely have found a new frontier.
(Top photo of Coco Gauff serving inside Arthur Ashe Stadium: Jamie Squire / Getty Images)
Matthew Futterman is an award-winning veteran sports journalist and the author of two books, “Running to the Edge: A Band of Misfits and the Guru Who Unlocked the Secrets of Speed” and “Players: How Sports Became a Business.”Before coming to The Athletic in 2023, he worked for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Star-Ledger of New Jersey and The Philadelphia Inquirer. He is currently writing a book about tennis, "The Cruelest Game: Agony, Ecstasy and Near Death Experiences on the Pro Tennis Tour," to be published by Doubleday in 2026. Follow Matthew on Twitter @mattfutterman
Playing her first Grand Slam qualifying event in six years, Bianca Andreescu was in no mood to hang around. The former US Open champion raced into the second round of Roland Garros qualifying, whitewashing China's Yao Xinxin 6-0, 6-0 in just 57 minutes.
The result was the first 6-0, 6-0 win of Andreescu's professional career. The last time she won a match 6-0, 6-0 at any level was in Junior Billie Jean King Cup in 2016 over Watsachol Sawatdee. Previously, she had notched two 6-0, 6-1 wins in professional events: over Ari Matsumoto in the first round of the 2018 Gifu ITF W25, and over Garbiñe Muguruza in the 2019 Indian Wells quarterfinals.
Andreescu last contested the preliminary rounds of a major at the 2019 Australian Open, where she qualified and reached the second round. She would end that season in the Top 5 as the reigning champion of Indian Wells, Toronto and the US Open, but has struggled with injury and illness since. This is just the fifth tournament of Andreescu's season following an appendectomy in February, and she is currently ranked No. 102. Last week, she reached the fourth round of Rome, notching two Top 20 wins over Donna Vekic and Elena Rybakina en route.
Andreescu has contested Roland Garros qualifying twice previously, falling to Tereza Smitkova in the 2017 first round and Richel Hogenkamp in the 2018 third round. Her best main-draw performances at the tournament to date are third-round finishes in 2023 and 2024.
There was a gulf in experience between Andreescu and Yao, the 21-year-old who notched her first tour-level win in Jiujiang last October and who was playing the first Grand Slam qualifying event of her career. The Canadian did not face game point in the first set, repeatedly exposing Yao's movement on clay with a series of drop shots. No. 261-ranked Yao improved in the second set, but could not take advantage of three points to hold serve.
"I felt really good coming here," said Andreescu afterwards. "It's the French open -- no matter what match you play in whatever draw, it's a very important match. I was very pleased with my attitude today."
Andreescu, the No. 17 seed in the qualifying draw, will next face former No. 56 Nao Hibino, who defeated Andrea Lazaro Garcia 7-6(4), 6-4. Elsewhere, Andreescu's Canadian compatriot and the partner with whom she won the 2017 Australian Open and Roland Garros girls' doubles titles, Carson Branstine, notched her first career major qualifying win 6-4, 6-2 over Whitney Osuigwe.
Two of Day 1's longest matches were won by local wild cards who thrilled the Parisian crowd in a pair of rollercoaster epics. Margaux Rouvroy -- who previously upset Sofia Kenin in the 2023 qualifying first round -- needed 3 hours and 40 minutes to defeat Japan's Haruka Kaji 6-7(7), 7-5, 7-6[3], sinking to her knees after triumphing in a gruelling clay-court battle.
The No. 248-ranked Frenchwoman lost the first set after holding one set point in the tiebreak, was two points from defeat trailing 5-4 in the second set and held her first two match points at 5-4 in the decider before outlasting Kaji in the super-tiebreak.
Earlier, Carole Monnet had pulled off an unlikely comeback against Croatia's No. 11 seed Petra Martic. The 23-year-old trailed Martic by a set and 3-1, but reeled in the former quarterfinalist 2-6, 7-5, 7-5 in 2 hours and 35 minutes.
There was better fortune for Croatia in the second-longest match of Day 1, Jana Fett's 6-2, 4-6, 7-6[10] defeat of Priscilla Hon in 2 hours and 45 minutes. Fett came back from 3-0 down in the third set, and saved one match point in the super-tiebreak.
A post shared by Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros)
The happy couple shared the news Monday that Ludovico will be a big brother.ByBaseline StaffPublished May 19, 2025 copy_link
Published May 19, 2025
© 2025 Mateo Villalba
It's been quite the spring for Lorenzo Musetti.Having never made an ATP Masters 1000 semifinal prior to this year, the 23-year-old reached the last four at all three clay 1000s—highlighted by a runner-up effort in Monte Carlo.But that's not all.Read More: Musetti is taking his responsibility as a dad to heart
Having never made an ATP Masters 1000 semifinal prior to this year, the 23-year-old reached the last four at all three clay 1000s—highlighted by a runner-up effort in Monte Carlo.But that's not all.Read More: Musetti is taking his responsibility as a dad to heart
But that's not all.Read More: Musetti is taking his responsibility as a dad to heart
Read More: Musetti is taking his responsibility as a dad to heart
A post shared by Lorenzo Musetti (@lore_musetti)
On Monday, Musetti revealed some thrilling off-court news in an Instagram collab with partner Veronica Confalonieri.“The family is growing,” he wrote with a #4 to accompany a photo sharing that the happy couple are expecting their second child together.Last March, the two welcomed a boy, Ludovico. Musetti would reveal towards the end of the season with TENNIS.com that he was “really scared of holding him” at first but quickly grew into the new parental role.“The birth of my son gave me a lot of responsibility on the Lorenzo player, not just of the figure of the father,” he said.
“The family is growing,” he wrote with a #4 to accompany a photo sharing that the happy couple are expecting their second child together.Last March, the two welcomed a boy, Ludovico. Musetti would reveal towards the end of the season with TENNIS.com that he was “really scared of holding him” at first but quickly grew into the new parental role.“The birth of my son gave me a lot of responsibility on the Lorenzo player, not just of the figure of the father,” he said.
Last March, the two welcomed a boy, Ludovico. Musetti would reveal towards the end of the season with TENNIS.com that he was “really scared of holding him” at first but quickly grew into the new parental role.“The birth of my son gave me a lot of responsibility on the Lorenzo player, not just of the figure of the father,” he said.
“The birth of my son gave me a lot of responsibility on the Lorenzo player, not just of the figure of the father,” he said.
A post shared by Tennis (@tennischannel)
Ludovico recently stole the show on Tennis Channel when his dad was interviewed by Prakash Amritraj in Rome.“He wants the mic,” a beaming Musetti said as the one-year-old was brought on set.The Carrara native jumped one spot to a career-high No. 8 in Monday's ATP rankings, a move that sees Musetti round out the 5-8 seeding group at Roland Garros.
“He wants the mic,” a beaming Musetti said as the one-year-old was brought on set.The Carrara native jumped one spot to a career-high No. 8 in Monday's ATP rankings, a move that sees Musetti round out the 5-8 seeding group at Roland Garros.
The Carrara native jumped one spot to a career-high No. 8 in Monday's ATP rankings, a move that sees Musetti round out the 5-8 seeding group at Roland Garros.
There are many questions about some top ATP players ahead of the 2025 edition of Roland Garros.
One player who is clear of questions is Carlos Alcaraz, having won the Italian Open title to add to his Monte Carlo Masters from last month.
This came after Alcaraz beat Sinner in the final, who has just played his first tournament since winning the Australian Open after three months out of action.
Despite Sinner and Alcaraz both impressing in Rome, some of their rivals are not heading into the second major of the year in strong form.
There have been some surprising results over the clay court season so far, with some top players not performing at their expected level.
Novak Djokovic
One of those is record 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic, who is also a three-time Roland Garros winner.
Despite being one of the most decorated players in the history of the ATP Tour, Djokovic is struggling for form so far in 2025.
This is particularly relevant on clay courts, with Djokovic winless after opening losses in Monte Carlo and Madrid.
Djokovic elected to skip the Italian Open after these disappointing results, but has now entered the Geneva Open in a bid to find some match wins ahead of Roland Garros.
Alexander Zverev
One of the players that should be one of the favourites for Roland Garros is Alexander Zverev, but it has not been the preparation that he would have liked.
Zverev did win the Munich title, but has only managed to reach one quarter-final at the three clay court Masters 1000 tournaments.
As a result, Zverev will be the world number three for Roland Garros this year, where he was one set away from winning the title against Alcaraz in the 2024 final.
Zverev even decided to play the South American clay court swing for the first time in his career, but that was also very unsuccessful for the German.
As he looks to find some confidence ahead of the major tournament that he probably has the best chance of winning, Zverev has gone against his word and received a late wildcard for the Hamburg Open.
Stefanos Tsitsipas
Zverev is not the only former Roland Garros finalist who is heading into the clay court major out of form.
While Stefanos Tsitsipas is no longer the same player that led the 2021 Roland Garros final by two sets, he is still one of the most naturally suited players to clay.
However, he has been unable to find much momentum at recent clay court tournaments, including the Monte Carlo Masters where he is a three-time champion.
All four of his clay court defeats come against two players in Lorenzo Musetti and Arthur Fils, two players that he will for sure be hoping to avoid when the Roland Garros draw comes around.
With Roland Garros likely to fuel some extra energy and particularly motivation for the likes of Djokovic, Zverev and Tsitsipas, it will be intriguing to see who can perform at the Parisian major.
The Geneva Open will be a big indicator to see how Djokovic performs at Roland Garros, especially following the announcement of his split from coach Andy Murray.
While it may be a great confidence booster for Djokovic and Zverev to get some clay court wins in ahead of Roland Garros, playing the week before a major tournament can also be detrimental.
🚨𝙒𝙄𝙇𝘿 𝘾𝘼𝙍𝘿𝐍𝐎𝐕𝐀𝐊 𝐃𝐉𝐎𝐊𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐂 🇷🇸Will play at the Gonet Geneva Open 2025 🤩🔥📷 @mutuamadridopen#gonetgenevaopen #atpgva #atp #novakdjokovic #djokovic #tennistv #atptour #geneva #geneve #suisse #switzerland #genevaevent #tennis #welovetennis #tennislove pic.twitter.com/3c8ZryCRtq
Zverev most probably has the best chance to perform at Roland Garros this year, but his ranking dropping to world number three is certainly significant.
This confirms that he will be set to play either Sinner or Alcaraz in the semi-finals, but he does actually have the advantage in the head-to-head against both of them.
Tsitsipas feels the most susceptible to an early exit out of these three, while Djokovic will be hoping to find inspiration on his return to the grounds where he won Olympic gold last year.
The 2025 edition of Roland Garros begins on Sunday May 25.
There are many questions about some top ATP players ahead of the 2025 edition of Roland Garros.
One player who is clear of questions is Carlos Alcaraz, having won the Italian Open title to add to his Monte Carlo Masters from last month.
This came after Alcaraz beat Sinner in the final, who has just played his first tournament since winning the Australian Open after three months out of action.
Despite Sinner and Alcaraz both impressing in Rome, some of their rivals are not heading into the second major of the year in strong form.
There have been some surprising results over the clay court season so far, with some top players not performing at their expected level.
Novak Djokovic
One of those is record 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic, who is also a three-time Roland Garros winner.
Despite being one of the most decorated players in the history of the ATP Tour, Djokovic is struggling for form so far in 2025.
This is particularly relevant on clay courts, with Djokovic winless after opening losses in Monte Carlo and Madrid.
Djokovic elected to skip the Italian Open after these disappointing results, but has now entered the Geneva Open in a bid to find some match wins ahead of Roland Garros.
Alexander Zverev
One of the players that should be one of the favourites for Roland Garros is Alexander Zverev, but it has not been the preparation that he would have liked.
Zverev did win the Munich title, but has only managed to reach one quarter-final at the three clay court Masters 1000 tournaments.
As a result, Zverev will be the world number three for Roland Garros this year, where he was one set away from winning the title against Alcaraz in the 2024 final.
Zverev even decided to play the South American clay court swing for the first time in his career, but that was also very unsuccessful for the German.
As he looks to find some confidence ahead of the major tournament that he probably has the best chance of winning, Zverev has gone against his word and received a late wildcard for the Hamburg Open.
Stefanos Tsitsipas
Zverev is not the only former Roland Garros finalist who is heading into the clay court major out of form.
While Stefanos Tsitsipas is no longer the same player that led the 2021 Roland Garros final by two sets, he is still one of the most naturally suited players to clay.
However, he has been unable to find much momentum at recent clay court tournaments, including the Monte Carlo Masters where he is a three-time champion.
All four of his clay court defeats come against two players in Lorenzo Musetti and Arthur Fils, two players that he will for sure be hoping to avoid when the Roland Garros draw comes around.
With Roland Garros likely to fuel some extra energy and particularly motivation for the likes of Djokovic, Zverev and Tsitsipas, it will be intriguing to see who can perform at the Parisian major.
The Geneva Open will be a big indicator to see how Djokovic performs at Roland Garros, especially following the announcement of his split from coach Andy Murray.
While it may be a great confidence booster for Djokovic and Zverev to get some clay court wins in ahead of Roland Garros, playing the week before a major tournament can also be detrimental.
🚨𝙒𝙄𝙇𝘿 𝘾𝘼𝙍𝘿𝐍𝐎𝐕𝐀𝐊 𝐃𝐉𝐎𝐊𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐂 🇷🇸Will play at the Gonet Geneva Open 2025 🤩🔥📷 @mutuamadridopen#gonetgenevaopen #atpgva #atp #novakdjokovic #djokovic #tennistv #atptour #geneva #geneve #suisse #switzerland #genevaevent #tennis #welovetennis #tennislove pic.twitter.com/3c8ZryCRtq
Zverev most probably has the best chance to perform at Roland Garros this year, but his ranking dropping to world number three is certainly significant.
This confirms that he will be set to play either Sinner or Alcaraz in the semi-finals, but he does actually have the advantage in the head-to-head against both of them.
Tsitsipas feels the most susceptible to an early exit out of these three, while Djokovic will be hoping to find inspiration on his return to the grounds where he won Olympic gold last year.
The 2025 edition of Roland Garros begins on Sunday May 25.
Imerys with members of the CHSW team presenting a cheque for £802.29
Cornwall College Camborne student chef Phoebe Mortimer came first in the Student Pastry Chef of the Year competition 2025. Here Phoebe is pictured alongside Head Judges Martin Chiffers and Franciane Tartari
Fancy five days of tennis, spa and gourmet food this summer?
Tennis fans looking for something a bit special during Wimbledon fortnight are being invited to Budock Vean Hotel near Falmouth for a luxury five-night break by the Helford River.
Running from Sunday 29th June to Friday 4th July, the exclusive experience is limited to just eight guests, with small-group coaching led by LTA-qualified coach Will Richards, who brings over 10 years of coaching experience and two decades as a competitive player in Cornwall.
Guests will receive 10 hours of professional coaching over five sessions, held across the hotel's private tennis courts. The schedule starts with welcome drinks on arrival night, followed by a mix of morning and afternoon sessions across the week:
Tennis Schedule:
Sunday 29th June• Welcome drinks before dinner
Monday 30th June & Tuesday 1st July• 9:30am – 11:00am: Tennis coaching• 4:00pm: Afternoon coaching session
Wednesday 2nd July & Thursday 3rd July• Two afternoon coaching sessions
Off court, guests can enjoy Wimbledon match screenings, fine dining and access to the hotel's extensive leisure facilities, including:
Unlimited golf on the James Braid designed course
Use of the indoor pool, Finnish sauna, and Natural Health Spa
Complimentary spa membership and 10% off pre-booked treatments
Optional water-based activities like kayaking and paddleboarding are available via Koru Kayaking, launching from the hotel's private foreshore.
The break includes breakfast and three-course dinner each day, showcasing modern British cuisine made with Cornish produce. Guests also have time to explore the surrounding area, including Trebah and Glendurgan gardens, coast path walks and a trio of nearby pubs like the Ferryboat Inn, The Red Lion in Mawnan Smith, and Shipwrights Arms across the river in Helford village.
Prices start at £2840 based on two adults sharing.
To book or find out more, visit the official page at budockvean.co.uk/activity-breaks/tennis-break.
More about the hotel: www.budockvean.co.uk
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Tennis
Welcome back to the Monday Tennis Briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories from the past week on court.
This week, fan behavior was a key topic at the Italian Open, preparations for the French Open escalated — in esports — and American college tennis changed things up regarding the U.S. Open.
If you'd like to follow our fantastic tennis coverage, click here.
While Carlos Alcaraz danced through the second set of the Italian Open final against Jannik Sinner, he did so in near total quiet. As it had done throughout the tournament, the crowd at the Foro Italico in Rome made its feelings known — this time with silence, rather than rancor.
During her quarterfinal defeat against Zheng Qinwen, world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka told a fan to “shut the f— up” after they yelled out at her. In the previous round, world No. 22 Clara Tauson confronted a crowd member who heckled her after she served a double fault against Mirra Andreeva, asking, “Who are you?” before imploring the chair umpire to intervene.
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Jakub Menšík, the world No. 19, engaged in a similar confrontation during his match against Fábián Marozsán, while in her last-eight meeting with home favorite Jasmine Paolini, world No. 10 Diana Shnaider riled the baying Italian faithful after they cheered her getting broken.
Not all tennis atmospheres are created equal, and partisan support can quickly devolve into unwarranted abuse, especially when the spectators delivering it are not in support of a particular player but of whatever outcome makes them money on sports betting. For Shnaider and Alcaraz, one met with roars and one with not even a smattering of applause, they can put things down to playing a home hope. While it's possible that Andreeva and Marozsán both have a secret coterie of Roman ultras, it's the kind of needling that Menšík and Tauson experienced that presents the sport with a problem.
Elite players have documented how abuse during matches bleeds onto social media. Nearly every player will have a story of logging onto Instagram or X to floods of abusive messages after a defeat, not from their fans nor their opponent's followers but from people who simply decided that they might win them a bet and ended up not getting a pay-off.
Fans not being ejected — or at least disciplined — when they engage in abuse on a match court only encourages them to continue, but umpires and security staff are rarely able to distinguish between partisan support, which the sport should embrace over silence, and the kind of directed heckling that needs discouraging.
Tauson at least got a measure of revenge. Straight after that double fault, she smashed an ace down the T and gestured mockingly to the same fan behind her for some noise.
James Hansen
The French Open's main draw begins Sunday, May 25, but for esports devotees, the action begins in earnest a day before, when the annual Roland Garros eSeries takes place at the same venue, in the Musée du Tennis' auditorium.
Eight players, whittled down from more than 500,000 original applicants, will battle it out on a bespoke French Open version of the mobile game Tennis Clash for a €5,000 (£4,210; $5,636) prize pot, which is shared between the winner and the runner-up.
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The mere mention of esports is enough to make many tennis purists recoil in disgust, but it's something that all four of the sport's Grand Slams have adopted. This is the eighth edition of the Roland Garros event, while Wimbledon held its first esports competition in 2024. The Australian Open has a whole gaming division, while the U.S. Open last year introduced an interactive gaming zone at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center.
This year's French Open event will see the eight players competing as individuals, but split into two teams. One will be captained by former Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli, the other by former world No. 6 and home favorite Gilles Simon.
A keen gamer, Simon actually competed in the event himself last year, and picked up a couple of victories. He always travelled with his PlayStation during his career, including for France's Davis Cup ties, and it was a mutual interest he shared with former U.S. Open champion Daniil Medvedev, who he coached until February and with whom he still games online.
Simon, 40, is well aware of the scepticism towards esports from many tennis fans, but believes that events such as the Roland Garros eSeries can serve a valuable purpose.
“If some of the guys that are playing Tennis Clash play good and are then coming to the stadium, or they want to finally pick up a racket and start to play, then it's a win,” he said in a recent video interview. He added that the Grand Slams should be looking to attract as diverse a crowd as possible, and that esports gives the tournaments an even more compelling package of events.
The lack of a good tennis video game has long been lamented as a missed opportunity for the sport in providing a gateway for young people.
In 2024, there were 200 spectators on site for the esports event, but there were over 200,000 more who watched via live-streaming platform Twitch. Tennis has also lagged behind other sports in using such outlets to broaden its fandom: elite soccer players and Formula One drivers are some of the most-viewed celebrities on Twitch, some of them becoming megastars in online gaming before breaking through in their respective sports.
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For tennis, having access to these communities is key to its growth.
Charlie Eccleshare
A good while before college sports in the United States officially changed its rules to allow student-athletes to earn gobs of cash, university-level tennis there had its own version of prize money.
Traditionally, American winners of the NCAA title received a wild-card entry into the main draw of the U.S. Open. If those champions had turned professional after winning the collegiate championship, which many of them do, they got to keep the first-round payment, which last year reached $100,000.
This year, everything has changed.
The NCAA decided that it was too much for players to participate in both its team and individual championships consecutively. It moved the individual championships to November. But that put nine months of separation between the NCAA tournament and the following year's U.S. Open. The United States Tennis Association (USTA), which organizes the latter, decided that was too long. Also, who doesn't like a little more competition?
Instead of going directly to the U.S. Open, Michael Zheng of Columbia University in New York City and DJ Bennett of Auburn University, Al., won automatic qualification into a four-person playoff. Zheng won the men's individual championship; Bennett qualifies as a losing finalist.
It will be held between June 16 and 18, with a committee selecting the three other participants on both the men's and women's side.
The winners get into the U.S. Open main draw. The runners-up get a wild card into qualifying. There will be men's and women's doubles playoffs as well.
“Michael Zheng and I knew at the beginning of the NCAA Individual Championships in November that — given that the event was in the fall — the wild card would be determined by a playoff,” said Howard Endelman, head coach at Columbia.
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Congratulations, you're the NCAA champ! Now just win two more matches and you get into the U.S. Open.
In this week's team championships, held at the Hurd Tennis Center in Waco, Tex., Wake Forest University took the men's title, while the University of Georgia took the women's. Wake Forest defeated Texas Christian University, while Georgia beat Texas A&M.
Matt Futterman
🎾 ATP:
🏆Alcaraz (3) def. Sinner (1) 7-6(5), 6-1 to win the Italian Open (1,000) in Rome. It is the Spaniard's 19th ATP Tour title.
🎾 WTA:
🏆Paolini (6) def. Coco Gauff (4) 6-4, 6-2 to win the Italian Open (1,000) in Rome. She became the first Italian winner at the tournament in 40 years.
🏆 Katie Boulter (2) def. Chloe Paquet 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 to win the Trophée Clarins (WTA 125) in Paris. It is Boulter's first WTA clay-court title.
📈 Gauff ascends one spot from No. 3 to No. 2 after her run at the Italian Open.
📈 Alcaraz moves up one place from No. 3 to No. 2 after winning the Italian Open, ensuring he and Sinner can only meet in the final of the French Open.
📈 Peyton Stearns enters the top 30 for the first time, after rising 15 spots from No. 42 to No. 27.
📉 Iga Świątek falls three places from No. 2 to No. 5, meaning she could face one of the top four players in the world in the French Open quarterfinals.
📉 Alex Michelsen drops one place from No. 32 to No. 33, relinquishing a seeding at the French Open.
📉 Nicolas Jarry tumbles 96 spots from No. 53 to No. 149 after losing his ranking points for reaching the 2024 Italian Open final.
🎾 ATP
📍Hamburg, Germany: Hamburg Open (500) featuring Alexander Zverev, Frances Tiafoe, Andrey Rublev, Francisco Cerundolo.
📍Geneva: Geneva Open (250) featuring Novak Djokovic, Taylor Fritz, Tomáš Macháč, Learner Tien.
📺 UK: Sky Sports; U.S.: Tennis Channel 💻 Tennis TV
🎾 WTA
📍Strasbourg, France: Internationaux de Strasbourg (500) featuring Elena Rybakina, Jessica Pegula, Emma Raducanu, Barbora Krejčíková.
📺 UK: Sky Sports; U.S.: Tennis Channel
Tell us what you noticed this week in the comments below as the men's and women's tours continue.
(Top photo: Dan Isitene / Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)
Roland Garros is fast approaching, with the second major of the season set to begin on the 25th of May.
On the women's tour, two more tournaments are up for grabs before the French Open begins, with a WTA 500 in Strasbourg and a 250 in Rabat presenting one final opportunity for players to sharpen their clay-court games.
With the conclusion of the Italian Open, where world number four Jasmine Paolini emerged victorious, it's still unclear who the favourite is going into Roland Garros.
Four-time champion Iga Swiatek will be the popular pick amongst fans, but the Pole has struggled during the clay swing so far, having crashed out in the third round in Rome.
Swiatek isn't the only one finding consistency hard to come by on the dirt, however, with three other big names on the WTA Tour looking to find a clay resurgence in Paris.
Despite winning her opening tournament of the clay season, world number three Jessica Pegula hasn't been able to get it going in April and May.
Since clinching the Charleston Open title, Pegula has suffered three consecutive early exits at clay-court tournaments.
The American lost in the quarter-final of the Stuttgart Open to Ekaterina Alexandrova, getting bagelled in the first set, with the final score finishing 6-0, 6-4.
Pegula then went out in the third round of two consecutive WTA 1000 events, with defeats at the Madrid Open and Italian Open.
Having not appeared at Roland Garros since 2023, she will be looking to improve on her best campaign in the French capital; a quarter-final finish in 2022.
Pegula's compatriot, Madison Keys, has also had tough times on clay as of late.
The Australian Open champion has failed to build on her triumph in Melbourne, where she clinched a maiden Grand Slam title.
Keys made the semi-final at Indian Wells, but fell to Alexandra Eala in the third round of the Miami Open.
She began her clay season, like Pegula, at the Charleston Open, where in the Round of 16 Keys lost to Anna Kalinskaya 6-2, 6-4.
Following a promising start to the Madrid Open, she ultimately fell to Swiatek in the quarter-final over three sets.
Keys' campaign in the Eternal City was cut short in round three, where she suffered a defeat at the hands of fellow American Peyton Stearns.
The world number seven has failed to make it past the third round of Roland Garros since 2019, when she reached the quarter-final.
Since her back-to-back tournament victories in Dubai and Indian Wells, Mirra Andreeva has taken a slight dip in form.
Her clay season kicked off in Stuttgart, where, after her sister, Erika Andreeva, retired due to injury in their first-round clash, the world number six lost in the second round to unseeded Ekaterina Alexandrova.
She made the quarter-final at both the Madrid Open and the Italian Open, but fell both times to Coco Gauff, unable to find an answer for the former US Open champion.
Still just 18 years old, Andreeva remains a future star on the WTA Tour, and will enter her third French Open, having already made a semi-final in Paris last year.
The Russian took the tennis world by storm at the second major of 2024, where she enjoyed an impressive run to the semi-final, overcoming world number one Aryna Sabalenka en route.
Emma Raducanu has a strong chance of being seeded for Wimbledon in what would be a huge boost to her hopes at SW19. The British star has enjoyed a soaring rise up the rankings in recent months.
Raducanu has made an excellent comeback from two years of hell with injuries and form issues. Her performances at the upcoming Strasbourg International and then the French Open could put her in a good place ahead of Wimbledon, which takes place across June and July. Reaching the fourth round at the Italian Open last week is set to see Raducanu rank as the world No. 42 when the updated WTA leaderboard is released.
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The 22-year-old is now only 276 ranking points away from world No. 32 Peyton Stearns. Ranking inside the top 32 would land Raducanu a seeded spot at Wimbledon, protecting her from the more challenging opponents in the early rounds of the tournament.
Strasbourg offers 500 points to the winner, while a positive run at the French Open will also be an excellent opportunity to build points ahead of the grass-court season. She will also have British rival Katie Boulter in her sights, with the 28-year-old now only four places ahead. Boulter won a WTA 125 event in Paris yesterday.
Asked if she felt the pressure of being the British No. 1, Boulter responded: “I don't feel any pressure at all. I'm very comfortable in my seat, and I know that every single person has a different journey.
“My journey is not going to be compared to anyone else's. I'm proud of that. I've been the British No.1 for two years, it's been a fair while now. It's something which I'm quite used to.”
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After being beaten by Coco Gauff at the Italian Open, Raducanu was set the target of ranking 32nd in the world by former British No. 1 Tim Henman.
He told Sky Sports: “Her game is moving in the right direction. I think she's around 42 in the live rankings. A number in the back of my mind is 32 pre-Wimbledon. Can she get to be seeded and have that protection in the early rounds on grass?"
Raducanu was ranked as high as No. 10 in the world in the aftermath of her US Open triumph in 2021. Injuries and inconsistency prompted her to tumble. She is now restoring her best form ahead of a busy summer.
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In the latest edition of Second Serve, our weekly snapshot of the tours, BBC tennis reporter Jonathan Jurejko discusses the rivalry between Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz.
There are a number of factors which turn an exciting rivalry into an epic, enduring duel that transcends the sport.
The core talent. The blend of personalities. The gripping encounters on the biggest stages.
The tussle between Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz - ranked one and two in the men's game - has all those components.
It also has arguably the most important ingredient: each player being pushed to a greater height by the other.
Their rivalry resumed in the final of the Italian Open, marking a fitting end to the men's singles at a tournament where Sinner returned from a three-month ban for failing two doping tests.
Spain's Alcaraz, benefiting from more matches in the tank, ruined the perfect homecoming for Italy's Sinner to record his seventh victory in their 11 meetings.
Sinner, 23, has been the ATP's dominant player for the past 18 months, winning 85 of his 92 matches and claiming nine titles.
But Alcaraz is the one dominating their head-to-head record.
Alcaraz has won four Grand Slam titles (2022 US Open, 2023 & 2024 Wimbledon, 2024 French Open), while Sinner has claimed three majors (2024 & 2025 Australian Open, 2024 US Open)
Alcaraz understands he has to go to a different place to get the better of Sinner, who was on a 26-match winning streak going into the Rome final.
The 22-year-old Spaniard, a gifted and sometimes flashy shot-maker, can lose focus on court and pick the wrong shot.
But there was none of that in a disciplined performance against Sinner.
"If I don't play at my best it's going to be impossible to beat him," Alcaraz said afterwards.
"That's why I'm more focused when I'm playing against him, or I feel a little bit different when I'm going to face him."
It was a final many in the sport wanted, one everybody was excited about.
And it was another tantalising reminder of how the Alcaraz and Sinner rivalry - which the ATP Tour has long pinned its hopes on filling the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic void - could be a blockbuster for years to come.
"I'm not going to say I'm feeling like when Rafa and Roger are playing," Alcaraz added.
"But I'm feeling like it is a different energy when we are facing each other than other players."
Roll on Roland Garros - where the smart money would go on the top two seeds meeting again in the French Open men's final.
While it was never going to be a long-term arrangement, the timing of Andy Murray's stint coaching Novak Djokovic coming to an end before the French Open - and Wimbledon - surprised many.
Italian fans have waited 40 years to celebrate a home singles victory in Rome. A jubilant Jasmine Paolini ended that run on Saturday.
At the start of the clay-court swing we discussed how Iga Swiatek had a mountain of ranking points to defend - and it could not have gone much worse for the four-time French Open champion.
Swiatek has slipped to fifth in the WTA rankings and will be seeded outside of the top four at Roland Garros.
The means she could face any of the top four seeds - Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula or Jasmine Paolini - as early as the quarter-finals.
In the ATP rankings, Alcaraz made the most significant move, while Italy's Lorenzo Musetti - who lost to the Spaniard in the semi-finals - climbed another place into a new career-high of eighth.
Czech powerhouse Jakub Mensik - the highest ranked teenager in the top 100 - has cracked the top 20 for the first time after reaching the Rome last 16.
Just call her 'Clay-tie'.
Katie Boulter gave herself a new nickname after claiming a WTA 125 title on the red dirt.
Clay is a surface where the 28-year-old still has very limited experience and has struggled to adapt her aggressive baseline game at the top level.
Winning the Paris tournament on the tier below the main WTA Tour will boost Boulter's confidence before the French Open, where she is still to win a main-draw match.
Victory means Boulter has moved up to 38th in the rankings, putting a little more light between the British number one and her nearest rivals Emma Raducanu and Sonay Kartal.
Raducanu has climbed to 43rd after her run to the Rome last 16, where Gauff showed the gulf that remains between the Briton and the world's leading players.
On the men's side, Jack Draper demonstrated again how he is becoming a force on clay by reaching the quarter-finals in the Italian capital.
There was also strong British involvement in the latter stages of the men's doubles.
All-British pair Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski, along with Australian Open champion Henry Patten and his Finnish partner Harri Heliovaara, were beaten in their respective semi-finals.
Bonjour Paris! Most of the leading players will take the week off from competition and head to Roland Garros before the main draw begins on Sunday.
But those who feel they need a bit more match practice have options to play tournaments.
Novak Djokovic has taken a wildcard for the ATP 250 event in Geneva, Alexander Zverev has headed to the ATP 500 in Hamburg, while Jessica Pegula and Raducanu are in the WTA 500 tournament in Strasbourg.
For those not ranked higher enough to earn direct entry into the French Open, the qualifying events begin on Monday.
British players Billy Harris and Dan Evans face each other in the first round, while Jan Choinski, Harriet Dart, Francesca Jones and Heather Watson - also aim to win three matches and make the main draw.
Second Serve will take a break over the French Open before returning on Monday, 9 June.
In the meantime, got any burning tennis questions you'd like us to answer?
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Zachary Svajda was also among Monday's early winners in Paris.ByTENNIS.comPublished May 19, 2025 copy_link
Published May 19, 2025
© 2025 Robert Prange
At the Internazionali BNL d'Italia, Bianca Andreescu served notice when she advanced to the round of 16 with wins over Olympic silver medalist Donna Vekic and 2023 Rome champion Elena Rybakina.On Monday, the former major title holder made her latest statement with an emphatic start in Roland Garros qualifying.Read More: New racquet, sober lifestyle kickstarts latest Andreescu comeback
On Monday, the former major title holder made her latest statement with an emphatic start in Roland Garros qualifying.Read More: New racquet, sober lifestyle kickstarts latest Andreescu comeback
Read More: New racquet, sober lifestyle kickstarts latest Andreescu comeback
Andreescu swept past Yao Xinxin, 6-0, 6-0, In just 57 minutes. Seeded No. 17 in the qualies draw, the Canadian won 68 percent of her return points to break six times from 10 opportunities. Andreescu is defending third-round points here for the second year running.Her countrywoman Marina Stakusic was also among the early winners. The 20-year-old beat Lauren Davis, 6-4, 6-4.
Her countrywoman Marina Stakusic was also among the early winners. The 20-year-old beat Lauren Davis, 6-4, 6-4.
On the men's side, Bernard Tomic picked up his first qualifying win at a major since 2021 Wimbledon. Now 32, the four-time ATP champion completed a 7-6 (2), 6-3 victory over Coleman Wong. Tomic, ranked No. 236, is bidding to reach the main draw here for the first time in six years.Ethan Quinn awaits in the next stage. The No. 11 qualifying seed fended off Estonia's Mark Lajal, 7-5, 7-5, after erasing a 0-4 start and being within two points of a decider at 4-5, 30-30 in the second set.Zachary Svajda joined Quinn in the win column with his 7-5, 6-3 dismissal of Beibit Zhukayev.
Ethan Quinn awaits in the next stage. The No. 11 qualifying seed fended off Estonia's Mark Lajal, 7-5, 7-5, after erasing a 0-4 start and being within two points of a decider at 4-5, 30-30 in the second set.Zachary Svajda joined Quinn in the win column with his 7-5, 6-3 dismissal of Beibit Zhukayev.
Zachary Svajda joined Quinn in the win column with his 7-5, 6-3 dismissal of Beibit Zhukayev.
Zachary Svajda was also among Monday's early winners in Paris.ByTENNIS.comPublished May 19, 2025 copy_link
Published May 19, 2025
© 2025 Robert Prange
At the Internazionali BNL d'Italia, Bianca Andreescu served notice when she advanced to the round of 16 with wins over Olympic silver medalist Donna Vekic and 2023 Rome champion Elena Rybakina.On Monday, the former major title holder made her latest statement with an emphatic start in Roland Garros qualifying.Read More: New racquet, sober lifestyle kickstarts latest Andreescu comeback
On Monday, the former major title holder made her latest statement with an emphatic start in Roland Garros qualifying.Read More: New racquet, sober lifestyle kickstarts latest Andreescu comeback
Read More: New racquet, sober lifestyle kickstarts latest Andreescu comeback
Andreescu swept past Yao Xinxin, 6-0, 6-0, In just 57 minutes. Seeded No. 17 in the qualies draw, the Canadian won 68 percent of her return points to break six times from 10 opportunities. Andreescu is defending third-round points here for the second year running.Her countrywoman Marina Stakusic was also among the early winners. The 20-year-old beat Lauren Davis, 6-4, 6-4.
Her countrywoman Marina Stakusic was also among the early winners. The 20-year-old beat Lauren Davis, 6-4, 6-4.
On the men's side, Bernard Tomic picked up his first qualifying win at a major since 2021 Wimbledon. Now 32, the four-time ATP champion completed a 7-6 (2), 6-3 victory over Coleman Wong. Tomic, ranked No. 236, is bidding to reach the main draw here for the first time in six years.Ethan Quinn awaits in the next stage. The No. 11 qualifying seed fended off Estonia's Mark Lajal, 7-5, 7-5, after erasing a 0-4 start and being within two points of a decider at 4-5, 30-30 in the second set.Zachary Svajda joined Quinn in the win column with his 7-5, 6-3 dismissal of Beibit Zhukayev.
Ethan Quinn awaits in the next stage. The No. 11 qualifying seed fended off Estonia's Mark Lajal, 7-5, 7-5, after erasing a 0-4 start and being within two points of a decider at 4-5, 30-30 in the second set.Zachary Svajda joined Quinn in the win column with his 7-5, 6-3 dismissal of Beibit Zhukayev.
Zachary Svajda joined Quinn in the win column with his 7-5, 6-3 dismissal of Beibit Zhukayev.
Shortly after the conclusion of the 2024 U.S. Open, the USTA began what it projects will be $800 million of self-funded renovations to the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. The phased project, to be completed by the 2027 U.S. Open, represents the largest single investment the organization has made into the home of its revenue-rich Grand Slam.
“When I came into this role [in 2022], one of the first things I asked the team that leads the U.S. Open is: ‘What are the next significant opportunities for growth?'” said USTA CEO and Executive Director Lew Sherr, who was chief revenue officer from 2010-22. “Venue upgrades, from a fan experience standpoint, was one of the things that came out of that.”
More than two years of plotting those upgrades followed. Now, for the first time, senior leaders from the USTA and Rossetti — the architect of this project, the last significant round of upgrades between 2014-18 and Arthur Ashe Stadium's original build in the 1990s — laid out the full scope of their plans exclusively to Sports Business Journal. Through an extensive renovation of Ashe and the construction of a multistory player performance center next door, the fan experience and athlete accommodations will be transformed at the Flushing, N.Y., site.
About 70% of the funds — or $550 million — allocated to the project will be spent rebuilding the interior of Ashe, according to USTA Chief Operating Officer Daniel Zausner. The last round of renovations equipped the stadium with a retractable roof, but did little to modernize the fan experience, which the USTA acknowledges is presently ill-equipped to handle the crush of general tournament-goers and demand for premium hospitality. Last year, the event broke one million visitors across Fan Week and main draw play for the first time.
“When Ashe was built, the thought process was, ‘Fans would watch tennis in Ashe, and then they would go out to the grounds to eat and shop and all of that,'” Sherr said. “The reality is, for many of our fans, there's an expectation that the Ashe experience will be similar to any other arena.”
The USTA will increase the stadium's concourse square footage by 40% on the promenade level and eliminate its food-cart program to reduce concourse congestion. Ashe's mezzanine-level suites, meanwhile, will be rebuilt, and a second row of suites will be added above that. This will reduce the loge level's footprint by 3,500 seats (another measure executives say will lessen congestion) while adding suite and courtside inventory. The USTA will also add a few hundred upper promenade seats that were previously not sold.
Timeline: 2024-2027
Cost:
$800 million
Architects: Rossetti, Daniel Libeskind (entrance redesign), Garrett Singer (new club/restaurant spaces)
Construction: AECOM Tishman
Structural engineer: WSP Group
Construction: AECOM Tishman
Mechanical engineer: ME Engineers
The concourse space will enable the USTA to add 17 points of sale, two retail locations and 55 bathroom stalls at the promenade level, as well as a new deck and bar overlooking the south plaza, which will be open to the public. (Twelve points of sale, one retail location and 15 bathroom stalls will be added at the club level.)
The USTA will add three elevators (two at the south entry, one at the east) and two escalators (specific to promenade entry at the south gate) to aid with ingress and egress.
Thanks in large part to its New York market, the U.S. Open hosts some of American sports' most premium clientele and corporate sponsors. The renovation will add between 700-800 suite seats and about 2,000 “courtside” seats at Ashe, plus rebuild the entire inventory of each (about 2,600 suite seats and 5,000 courtside seats).
“We've had an excess amount of demand for the courtside area for the last decade that we can't satisfy,” said USTA Chief Commercial Officer Kirsten Corio, adding that the organization's revenue attributed to experiential hospitality has jumped by triple-digit percentage points over the past two years. “Combined with the No. 1 complaint of our loge and promenade subscribers being that they never have an opportunity to move down to the courtside, this [renovation] will open up more opportunity for both that demand and for the subscriber who is interested in upgrading to the lower bowl.”
In all, the seating capacity of Ashe will remain about the same after the renovations (about 24,000), but the mix will change. Pricing for the new inventory is being determined.
Moving the player facilities from the underbelly of Ashe to their own building on the west side of the campus will free up space for eight club areas inside the stadium, representing an inventory increase and strides in convenience, as all club amenities will reside under one roof. Presently, some offerings include courtside seats at Ashe and luxury dining space at the campus' indoor tennis facility in the east plaza.
“Adjacency is critical,” said Rossetti President and CEO Matt Rossetti, the lead architect on this round of renovations and work done to the grounds between 2010 and 2018. “One of the ideas that [Zausner] came up with was, ‘Hey, we could use this idea of taking care of the players and premium at the same time. Pulling player facilities out of the [Ashe] base opens all this additional space that we need and we could use for premium.'”
The USTA held focus groups with subscribers, hospitality clients and sponsors, beginning in 2020, to inform the strategy behind upgrading premium experiences. Elevate, a USTA partner since 2020, aided in the research and will be doubling the size of its sales team dedicated to the U.S. Open to accommodate the additional inventory. The USTA also last week announced the hire of Laura Lefton, former NFL vice president of club business development, as managing director of ticket sales and premium experience, a new role that reports to Corio and reflects the organization's enhanced focus on premium.
“What we heard [was] a lot more corporate hospitality demand, a lot more experiential demand — meaning, they want to get closer to the players, they want opportunities for meet-and-greets, to host corporate events,” Corio said. “These new spaces are purpose-built to meet those needs and to surprise and delight in a way that we just can't today.”
Aesthetic changes to Ashe will be noticeable from the outside as well, primarily on the south facade. There, the USTA plans to erect a curved gateway encasing the new deck bar, which is designed to complement the Unisphere sculpture just outside the campus' south entrance.
The remaining $250 million dedicated to the project will be directed toward the construction of a multistory player performance center to the west of Ashe and north of the campus' outdoor practice courts. The bottom two floors of the building will expand the parking garage currently on the plot from 200 to 350 spots, while the top two stories will encompass 150,000 square feet of player amenities. The space will be a far cry from the current setup in the basement of Ashe, which Sherr said players have called cramped.
“The three dimensions that always come up in the athletes' feedback for us [are] larger fitness [areas], indoor/outdoor training opportunities and player-only areas,” said Stacey Allaster, USTA chief executive of professional tennis and U.S. Open tournament director, citing the organization's annual player survey. “That has been the compass for the design.”
In this vein, the third floor will be reserved for players and include a private café, locker rooms, indoor/outdoor fitness areas (the latter with turf and court surfaces and a running track) and a sensory room for relaxation.
The fourth floor is slightly more public-facing — as it will also accommodate credentialed visitors — and include a dining hall, lounge spaces, outdoor terrace, coach locker rooms and media areas, such as the U.S. Open interview room and a broadcast studio.
Among athletes, their support staffs and families, the USTA accommodates around 2,800 people in its player facilities each U.S. Open.
This project is expected to be staggered in such a way that the two-level parking structure will be finished by the 2025 U.S. Open; new courtside seats and hospitality areas in Ashe will open in 2026 (although the suites and club spaces will be unfinished); and the full renovation will be completed by 2027.
By that time, Sherr said, the USTA will have invested about $2 billion in the tennis center since 2014, between the $800 million committed to these renovations, $700 million poured into the last major round and improvements in between. The previous project also was entirely self-funded.
“There's a lot of positive momentum behind the mission side of the organization and the U.S. Open,” he said. “So, we're in a position to capitalize on that.”
Indeed, in 2024, operating revenue associated with the U.S. Open reached nearly $560 million, about a threefold jump from the 2020 edition held without fans, and comprising about 90% of the USTA‘s $624 million in overall revenue. Sherr said the USTA‘s spending on the “mission” side of the organization — i.e., court renovations, section support, etc. — is up 20% as well.
“We are not tapping out or maxing out on our ability to fund the growth of this event,” Sherr said of the U.S. Open. “We feel we're in a good place.”
Paolini and Gauff, two former finalists in Paris, made plenty of noise across Madrid and Rome themselves.ByJoel DruckerPublished May 19, 2025 copy_link
Published May 19, 2025
Following consecutive WTA 1000 clay-court tournaments, the Mutua Madrid Open and Internazionali BNL d'Italia, comes five storylines ahead of Roland Garros. Here's what we're taking away going into Paris:1. Aryna Sabalenka: Keen to Make a StatementExcellent yet frustrating are two words that describe world number one Aryna Sabalenka's 2025 campaign. There have been title runs on three continents—Australia (Brisbane), North America (Miami), Europe (Madrid). But there have also been tough losses in finals—the Australian Open, Indian Wells, Stuttgart. Add it all up, though, and Sabalenka remains the player to beat. Sabalenka's career reveals the power of self-awareness and the attendant capacity for change. The younger Sabalenka made a lot of noise with everything from her strong groundstrokes to highly expressive demeanor. In recent years, the latter has calmed down considerably, Sabalenka constantly revealing increasing maturity.As she said in Rome, “Some of the finals I lost were really heartbreaking and were really tough to kind of like accept. At the same time I understand that sometimes you just have to learn and sometimes you're not that good on court, you just have to accept, learn from that loss, and come back stronger. What I'm actually proud of that I was able to come back in those finals and I was able to change things and see if the lesson was learned, try to bring better tennis in the next final.” With those kinds of comments and her exceptionally forceful arsenal, Sabalenka has much in place for a good run at Roland Garros.
Excellent yet frustrating are two words that describe world number one Aryna Sabalenka's 2025 campaign. There have been title runs on three continents—Australia (Brisbane), North America (Miami), Europe (Madrid). But there have also been tough losses in finals—the Australian Open, Indian Wells, Stuttgart. Add it all up, though, and Sabalenka remains the player to beat. Sabalenka's career reveals the power of self-awareness and the attendant capacity for change. The younger Sabalenka made a lot of noise with everything from her strong groundstrokes to highly expressive demeanor. In recent years, the latter has calmed down considerably, Sabalenka constantly revealing increasing maturity.As she said in Rome, “Some of the finals I lost were really heartbreaking and were really tough to kind of like accept. At the same time I understand that sometimes you just have to learn and sometimes you're not that good on court, you just have to accept, learn from that loss, and come back stronger. What I'm actually proud of that I was able to come back in those finals and I was able to change things and see if the lesson was learned, try to bring better tennis in the next final.” With those kinds of comments and her exceptionally forceful arsenal, Sabalenka has much in place for a good run at Roland Garros.
As she said in Rome, “Some of the finals I lost were really heartbreaking and were really tough to kind of like accept. At the same time I understand that sometimes you just have to learn and sometimes you're not that good on court, you just have to accept, learn from that loss, and come back stronger. What I'm actually proud of that I was able to come back in those finals and I was able to change things and see if the lesson was learned, try to bring better tennis in the next final.” With those kinds of comments and her exceptionally forceful arsenal, Sabalenka has much in place for a good run at Roland Garros.
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Billie Jean King has many great sayings. “Pressure is a privilege” is the title of a popular book authored by King. “Champions adjust” is also very familiar. Here's one lesser known, but highly relevant King quote worth applying to Coco Gauff: “Persistence is a talent.” To watch Gauff go about her business is to witness that principle applied thoroughly and impressively. It doesn't matter how many instructors and coaches I've spoken to who have their own take on how to fix her forehand. What dare we say about someone who double-faulted 15 times in a gritty semifinal victory?What matters most is that Gauff reached the finals in Madrid and Rome. In Madrid, Gauff's notable victories included Belinda Bencic, Mirray Andreeva, and Iga Swiatek, the latter in commanding fashion, 6-1, 6-1. In her last four matches in Rome, Gauff handily defeated Emma Raducanu, beat Andreeva to take a 4-0 lead in their rivalry, persisted for nearly four hours to squeak past Zheng Qinwen in a third-set tiebreaker, but then, in the finals versus Jasmine Paolini, was unable to effectively assert herself, losing 6-4, 6-2.Speaking after the Rome final, Gauff said, “Definitely proud of the two results, but also disappointed. It's a bittersweet feeling. Jasmine played great tennis today. Unfortunately I felt like I didn't bring my best, which I knew I needed today.” Still, back-to-back finals, along with a runner-up showing at Roland Garros three years ago, should give Gauff plenty of confidence this year in Paris.
What matters most is that Gauff reached the finals in Madrid and Rome. In Madrid, Gauff's notable victories included Belinda Bencic, Mirray Andreeva, and Iga Swiatek, the latter in commanding fashion, 6-1, 6-1. In her last four matches in Rome, Gauff handily defeated Emma Raducanu, beat Andreeva to take a 4-0 lead in their rivalry, persisted for nearly four hours to squeak past Zheng Qinwen in a third-set tiebreaker, but then, in the finals versus Jasmine Paolini, was unable to effectively assert herself, losing 6-4, 6-2.Speaking after the Rome final, Gauff said, “Definitely proud of the two results, but also disappointed. It's a bittersweet feeling. Jasmine played great tennis today. Unfortunately I felt like I didn't bring my best, which I knew I needed today.” Still, back-to-back finals, along with a runner-up showing at Roland Garros three years ago, should give Gauff plenty of confidence this year in Paris.
Speaking after the Rome final, Gauff said, “Definitely proud of the two results, but also disappointed. It's a bittersweet feeling. Jasmine played great tennis today. Unfortunately I felt like I didn't bring my best, which I knew I needed today.” Still, back-to-back finals, along with a runner-up showing at Roland Garros three years ago, should give Gauff plenty of confidence this year in Paris.
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A sharp sense of urgency and has been the key to Iga Swiatek winning five Grand Slam singles titles. But over the last 11 months, those very qualities appear to have rebelled. Over the course of this year's clay court season, Swiatek has been beaten badly by Jelena Ostapenko, Gauff and Danielle Collins. All are great players, but to see Swiatek competing in such a distraught way is jarring. Most notable is her lack of comfort in the transition area of the court, a weakness that compels her to overhit groundstrokes. Nor have I ever been a fan of her truncated and stiff service motion—a motion I believe under pressure makes the serve's direction both obvious and hittable. And so the downward cascade continues. One hopes Swiatek can give a much better account of herself in her quest to win a fourth straight Roland Garros title.Four radical suggestions: Purge the entire coaching team. Hire a trusted friend to handle logistical matters related to equipment and practice. Return to the starting court that every player has and rediscover that ten-year-old who simply loved hitting tennis balls. Play doubles again with the eternally optimistic Bethanie Mattek-Sands (they reached the Roland Garros final in ‘21). And though Swiatek now appears likely to be seeded fifth in Paris, triggering all sorts of dialogue about theoretically treacherous matchups, I'll pose the question I always ask when seeding is discussed: Do you think such champions as Rod Laver, Pete Sampras, Chrissie Evert, or Martina Navratilova ever gave a rip what they were seeded?
Four radical suggestions: Purge the entire coaching team. Hire a trusted friend to handle logistical matters related to equipment and practice. Return to the starting court that every player has and rediscover that ten-year-old who simply loved hitting tennis balls. Play doubles again with the eternally optimistic Bethanie Mattek-Sands (they reached the Roland Garros final in ‘21). And though Swiatek now appears likely to be seeded fifth in Paris, triggering all sorts of dialogue about theoretically treacherous matchups, I'll pose the question I always ask when seeding is discussed: Do you think such champions as Rod Laver, Pete Sampras, Chrissie Evert, or Martina Navratilova ever gave a rip what they were seeded?
Spotted at Roland-Garros 🔍 Four-time singles champion Iga Swiatek 💪#RolandGarros pic.twitter.com/crbmhMVrue
A year ago, following 17 appearances at the majors, Jasmine Paolini had only once reached the round of 16. Then came an incredible June and July, Paolini going all the way to the finals at both Roland Garros and Wimbledon. Holding on to a spot in the Top 10 is not easy for a newcomer. Following that Wimbledon effort, Paolini went ten months without reaching a final. Then came Rome, where she played excellent tennis to get past six formidable opponents: Lulu Sun, Ons Jabeur, Jelena Ostapenko, Diana Shnaider (rallying from a set and 4-0 down), Peyton Stearns and Gauff in the final to earn the joint-biggest title of her career. When playing her best tennis, Paolini reminds me of an upbeat Simona Halep. “Yeah, it's pure joy,” she said following the final. “It's a dream to win in Rome, of course, I don't know for every maybe kid that's playing in Italy. It's amazing. I'm really happy about it.” Once Roland Garros gets underway, it will be intriguing—better yet, fun—to see how this happy warrior builds off her Rome run.
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It's been pleasing to see past US Open champions Emma Raducanu ('21), Bianca Andreescu ('19) and Naomi Osaka ('18 and '20) take a few steps forward this spring. Raducanu was ranked outside the Top 60 as '25 began. In Rome, she won three matches and has now made her way into the Top 50. Will her growth as a competitor and healthy athlete continue? After adding Tennis Channel commentator Mark Petchey to her team, will the Raducanu coaching carousel at least slow down?Andreescu played great tennis in Rome, earning wins over Donna Vekic and Elena Rybakina. Long plagued with injuries, Andreescu has altered her training regimen and should, at least theoretically, be in a place to play her brand of exceptionally versatile tennis.And Osaka, in her quest to improve her clay court skills, took a page from the Andre Agassi playbook by entering a lower-tiered event in Saint-Molo. Winning that title, Osaka subsequently won three matches in Rome—and also while in Rome shared new insights about what it would take for her to succeed on clay. “For me, I feel like I didn't know this before,” she said, “and I think I talked about it a little bit last year, but I feel like clay is very strength-reliant. I realized that going into the corners, just like pushing off, you need a lot of muscles to do that. I never realized that before. It's something that I prioritized this year and I think it's working.”
Andreescu played great tennis in Rome, earning wins over Donna Vekic and Elena Rybakina. Long plagued with injuries, Andreescu has altered her training regimen and should, at least theoretically, be in a place to play her brand of exceptionally versatile tennis.And Osaka, in her quest to improve her clay court skills, took a page from the Andre Agassi playbook by entering a lower-tiered event in Saint-Molo. Winning that title, Osaka subsequently won three matches in Rome—and also while in Rome shared new insights about what it would take for her to succeed on clay. “For me, I feel like I didn't know this before,” she said, “and I think I talked about it a little bit last year, but I feel like clay is very strength-reliant. I realized that going into the corners, just like pushing off, you need a lot of muscles to do that. I never realized that before. It's something that I prioritized this year and I think it's working.”
And Osaka, in her quest to improve her clay court skills, took a page from the Andre Agassi playbook by entering a lower-tiered event in Saint-Molo. Winning that title, Osaka subsequently won three matches in Rome—and also while in Rome shared new insights about what it would take for her to succeed on clay. “For me, I feel like I didn't know this before,” she said, “and I think I talked about it a little bit last year, but I feel like clay is very strength-reliant. I realized that going into the corners, just like pushing off, you need a lot of muscles to do that. I never realized that before. It's something that I prioritized this year and I think it's working.”
Rome❤️🔥 pic.twitter.com/Ysvfn1WhEy
Plus, how are former Roland Garros finalists Casper Ruud and Alexander Zverev one week out of a Paris return?ByJoel DruckerPublished May 19, 2025 copy_link
Published May 19, 2025
Following consecutive ATP Masters 1000 clay-court tournaments, the Mutua Madrid Open and Internazionali BNL d'Italia, comes five storylines ahead of Roland Garros. Here's what we're taking away going into Paris:1. Per Usual, Two at the TopThe seemingly monolithic structure of an individual sport such as tennis has invariably lent itself to two or possibly three dominant players in many a given era. Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall. Margaret Court and Billie Jean King. Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe. Connors, McEnroe, Ivan Lendl. Martina Navratilova Chrissie Evert, Tracy Austin. Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker. Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi. Serena and Venus Williams. And, of course, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic.Though it was barely over a year ago that Jannik Sinner joined Carlos Alcaraz as a Grand Slam winner, there is no question that these two are the pace horses of contemporary men's tennis. Back in action following a three-month suspension, Sinner in Rome picked up where he left off, showing scarcely a sign of rust to reach the finals before he was beaten by Alcaraz.“After three months coming here making this result means a lot to me,” said Sinner. “For sure it's a good lesson then for Paris.”
The seemingly monolithic structure of an individual sport such as tennis has invariably lent itself to two or possibly three dominant players in many a given era. Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall. Margaret Court and Billie Jean King. Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe. Connors, McEnroe, Ivan Lendl. Martina Navratilova Chrissie Evert, Tracy Austin. Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker. Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi. Serena and Venus Williams. And, of course, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic.Though it was barely over a year ago that Jannik Sinner joined Carlos Alcaraz as a Grand Slam winner, there is no question that these two are the pace horses of contemporary men's tennis. Back in action following a three-month suspension, Sinner in Rome picked up where he left off, showing scarcely a sign of rust to reach the finals before he was beaten by Alcaraz.“After three months coming here making this result means a lot to me,” said Sinner. “For sure it's a good lesson then for Paris.”
Though it was barely over a year ago that Jannik Sinner joined Carlos Alcaraz as a Grand Slam winner, there is no question that these two are the pace horses of contemporary men's tennis. Back in action following a three-month suspension, Sinner in Rome picked up where he left off, showing scarcely a sign of rust to reach the finals before he was beaten by Alcaraz.“After three months coming here making this result means a lot to me,” said Sinner. “For sure it's a good lesson then for Paris.”
“After three months coming here making this result means a lot to me,” said Sinner. “For sure it's a good lesson then for Paris.”
Sinner's ability to generate pace and depth from just about anywhere on the court is incredible. Added to that is his tremendous tranquility, a powerful form of detachment that greatly helps Sinner excel. It all adds up to a clinical brilliance, similar in many ways to Djokovic's playing style.Alcaraz's approach to point construction and crowd interaction is completely different. While Sinner mostly keeps his blinders on akin to such greats as Borg and Lendl, Alcaraz wants to bring the audience into the action, more in the spirit of Connors and Nadal. Alcaraz's sheer enjoyment for the sport and joyful opportunity to interact with his rivals is rare and endearing.“I love watching him play,” Alcaraz said about Jack Draper prior to their quarterfinal match in Rome. “It's going to be a beautiful match to watch.” Note that Draper had beaten Alcaraz the most recent time they'd played one another—and there was Alcaraz, prior to the battle more enthused than vengeful.Patiently blending speeds, spins, short and deep shots, along with intermittent forward movement, Alcaraz's victory over Sinner, at least this time, proved the case for breadth over depth. In the first set, the Spaniard fought off two set points, eventually took it in a tiebreaker, then snapped open the second set, 6-1, to end Sinner's 26-match winning streak. This was the fourth straight time Alcaraz had beaten Sinner (victory number three was the bookend start to Sinner's streak). The Spaniard now leads their rivalry 7-4.Said Alcaraz, “[This was] probably one of the best matches I played so far in terms of level, maintain all the level during the whole match. . . [versus Jannik] I have to be ready and I have to think clear every time that I'm going to play the point or a game, the things that I have to do if I miss just to keep it going in the same way. And yeah, at the beginning I knew what I have to do, and I maintained that kind of strategy during the whole match.”With all these achievements in mind, two words I'd like to see eliminated regarding Alcaraz's playing style: high risk. When someone of any age—much less Alcaraz's 22—has won four majors and seven Masters 1000 titles, such a notion is absurd. Those spectacular shots Alcaraz hits that construct and conclude many a rally? They are not leased. They are owned.
Alcaraz's approach to point construction and crowd interaction is completely different. While Sinner mostly keeps his blinders on akin to such greats as Borg and Lendl, Alcaraz wants to bring the audience into the action, more in the spirit of Connors and Nadal. Alcaraz's sheer enjoyment for the sport and joyful opportunity to interact with his rivals is rare and endearing.“I love watching him play,” Alcaraz said about Jack Draper prior to their quarterfinal match in Rome. “It's going to be a beautiful match to watch.” Note that Draper had beaten Alcaraz the most recent time they'd played one another—and there was Alcaraz, prior to the battle more enthused than vengeful.Patiently blending speeds, spins, short and deep shots, along with intermittent forward movement, Alcaraz's victory over Sinner, at least this time, proved the case for breadth over depth. In the first set, the Spaniard fought off two set points, eventually took it in a tiebreaker, then snapped open the second set, 6-1, to end Sinner's 26-match winning streak. This was the fourth straight time Alcaraz had beaten Sinner (victory number three was the bookend start to Sinner's streak). The Spaniard now leads their rivalry 7-4.Said Alcaraz, “[This was] probably one of the best matches I played so far in terms of level, maintain all the level during the whole match. . . [versus Jannik] I have to be ready and I have to think clear every time that I'm going to play the point or a game, the things that I have to do if I miss just to keep it going in the same way. And yeah, at the beginning I knew what I have to do, and I maintained that kind of strategy during the whole match.”With all these achievements in mind, two words I'd like to see eliminated regarding Alcaraz's playing style: high risk. When someone of any age—much less Alcaraz's 22—has won four majors and seven Masters 1000 titles, such a notion is absurd. Those spectacular shots Alcaraz hits that construct and conclude many a rally? They are not leased. They are owned.
“I love watching him play,” Alcaraz said about Jack Draper prior to their quarterfinal match in Rome. “It's going to be a beautiful match to watch.” Note that Draper had beaten Alcaraz the most recent time they'd played one another—and there was Alcaraz, prior to the battle more enthused than vengeful.Patiently blending speeds, spins, short and deep shots, along with intermittent forward movement, Alcaraz's victory over Sinner, at least this time, proved the case for breadth over depth. In the first set, the Spaniard fought off two set points, eventually took it in a tiebreaker, then snapped open the second set, 6-1, to end Sinner's 26-match winning streak. This was the fourth straight time Alcaraz had beaten Sinner (victory number three was the bookend start to Sinner's streak). The Spaniard now leads their rivalry 7-4.Said Alcaraz, “[This was] probably one of the best matches I played so far in terms of level, maintain all the level during the whole match. . . [versus Jannik] I have to be ready and I have to think clear every time that I'm going to play the point or a game, the things that I have to do if I miss just to keep it going in the same way. And yeah, at the beginning I knew what I have to do, and I maintained that kind of strategy during the whole match.”With all these achievements in mind, two words I'd like to see eliminated regarding Alcaraz's playing style: high risk. When someone of any age—much less Alcaraz's 22—has won four majors and seven Masters 1000 titles, such a notion is absurd. Those spectacular shots Alcaraz hits that construct and conclude many a rally? They are not leased. They are owned.
Patiently blending speeds, spins, short and deep shots, along with intermittent forward movement, Alcaraz's victory over Sinner, at least this time, proved the case for breadth over depth. In the first set, the Spaniard fought off two set points, eventually took it in a tiebreaker, then snapped open the second set, 6-1, to end Sinner's 26-match winning streak. This was the fourth straight time Alcaraz had beaten Sinner (victory number three was the bookend start to Sinner's streak). The Spaniard now leads their rivalry 7-4.Said Alcaraz, “[This was] probably one of the best matches I played so far in terms of level, maintain all the level during the whole match. . . [versus Jannik] I have to be ready and I have to think clear every time that I'm going to play the point or a game, the things that I have to do if I miss just to keep it going in the same way. And yeah, at the beginning I knew what I have to do, and I maintained that kind of strategy during the whole match.”With all these achievements in mind, two words I'd like to see eliminated regarding Alcaraz's playing style: high risk. When someone of any age—much less Alcaraz's 22—has won four majors and seven Masters 1000 titles, such a notion is absurd. Those spectacular shots Alcaraz hits that construct and conclude many a rally? They are not leased. They are owned.
Said Alcaraz, “[This was] probably one of the best matches I played so far in terms of level, maintain all the level during the whole match. . . [versus Jannik] I have to be ready and I have to think clear every time that I'm going to play the point or a game, the things that I have to do if I miss just to keep it going in the same way. And yeah, at the beginning I knew what I have to do, and I maintained that kind of strategy during the whole match.”With all these achievements in mind, two words I'd like to see eliminated regarding Alcaraz's playing style: high risk. When someone of any age—much less Alcaraz's 22—has won four majors and seven Masters 1000 titles, such a notion is absurd. Those spectacular shots Alcaraz hits that construct and conclude many a rally? They are not leased. They are owned.
With all these achievements in mind, two words I'd like to see eliminated regarding Alcaraz's playing style: high risk. When someone of any age—much less Alcaraz's 22—has won four majors and seven Masters 1000 titles, such a notion is absurd. Those spectacular shots Alcaraz hits that construct and conclude many a rally? They are not leased. They are owned.
Alcaraz beat Sinner in a chess-like ♟️ two sets to win Rome 🇮🇹, then he offered the Italian a very public welcome back."I didn't do a roller-coaster," the Spaniard said, calling it "the best match tactically" he's ever played.From @SteveTignor ⤵️https://t.co/hSROEK2JoH
Coming into Roland Garros this year, which three-time Grand Slam finalist would you rather be, Casper Ruud or Alexander Zverev?Ruud will arrive at Roland Garros having won Madrid and reached the quarters in Rome—where he won but one game versus Sinner. Still, Madrid marked Ruud's first Tennis Masters 1000 title. Zverev won an ATP 500 event in Munich, lost in the round of 16 of Madrid to Francisco Cerundolo and was beaten in the quarters of Rome by Lorenzo Musetti.And yet while Zverev's resume boasts more accomplishments—including seven Tennis Masters 1000 titles and a 4-2 edge over Ruud—when it comes to matters of conduct and the poise it often takes to sustain an excellent career and perhaps even win a major, Ruud has a distinct edge.In an imagined tennis laboratory, located in an ITF-approved region, might it be possible for Ruud to take receipt of Zverev's backhand and Zverev obtain Ruud's manners?For now, though, these longstanding top tenners head to Roland Garros armed with their own blend of style, confidence, and the strong desire to capture the one big prize that has eluded each of them.But as the likes of David Ferrer, David Nalbandian, Todd Martin, Brian Gottfried, Cliff Richey, Tom Okker, and Dennis Ralston have shown, many shapes, sizes, styles, and plot twists define the journey of the best man to have never won a singles major. Honorable Mention in the 2025 version of this category goes to two-time Slam finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Ruud will arrive at Roland Garros having won Madrid and reached the quarters in Rome—where he won but one game versus Sinner. Still, Madrid marked Ruud's first Tennis Masters 1000 title. Zverev won an ATP 500 event in Munich, lost in the round of 16 of Madrid to Francisco Cerundolo and was beaten in the quarters of Rome by Lorenzo Musetti.And yet while Zverev's resume boasts more accomplishments—including seven Tennis Masters 1000 titles and a 4-2 edge over Ruud—when it comes to matters of conduct and the poise it often takes to sustain an excellent career and perhaps even win a major, Ruud has a distinct edge.In an imagined tennis laboratory, located in an ITF-approved region, might it be possible for Ruud to take receipt of Zverev's backhand and Zverev obtain Ruud's manners?For now, though, these longstanding top tenners head to Roland Garros armed with their own blend of style, confidence, and the strong desire to capture the one big prize that has eluded each of them.But as the likes of David Ferrer, David Nalbandian, Todd Martin, Brian Gottfried, Cliff Richey, Tom Okker, and Dennis Ralston have shown, many shapes, sizes, styles, and plot twists define the journey of the best man to have never won a singles major. Honorable Mention in the 2025 version of this category goes to two-time Slam finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas.
And yet while Zverev's resume boasts more accomplishments—including seven Tennis Masters 1000 titles and a 4-2 edge over Ruud—when it comes to matters of conduct and the poise it often takes to sustain an excellent career and perhaps even win a major, Ruud has a distinct edge.In an imagined tennis laboratory, located in an ITF-approved region, might it be possible for Ruud to take receipt of Zverev's backhand and Zverev obtain Ruud's manners?For now, though, these longstanding top tenners head to Roland Garros armed with their own blend of style, confidence, and the strong desire to capture the one big prize that has eluded each of them.But as the likes of David Ferrer, David Nalbandian, Todd Martin, Brian Gottfried, Cliff Richey, Tom Okker, and Dennis Ralston have shown, many shapes, sizes, styles, and plot twists define the journey of the best man to have never won a singles major. Honorable Mention in the 2025 version of this category goes to two-time Slam finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas.
In an imagined tennis laboratory, located in an ITF-approved region, might it be possible for Ruud to take receipt of Zverev's backhand and Zverev obtain Ruud's manners?For now, though, these longstanding top tenners head to Roland Garros armed with their own blend of style, confidence, and the strong desire to capture the one big prize that has eluded each of them.But as the likes of David Ferrer, David Nalbandian, Todd Martin, Brian Gottfried, Cliff Richey, Tom Okker, and Dennis Ralston have shown, many shapes, sizes, styles, and plot twists define the journey of the best man to have never won a singles major. Honorable Mention in the 2025 version of this category goes to two-time Slam finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas.
For now, though, these longstanding top tenners head to Roland Garros armed with their own blend of style, confidence, and the strong desire to capture the one big prize that has eluded each of them.But as the likes of David Ferrer, David Nalbandian, Todd Martin, Brian Gottfried, Cliff Richey, Tom Okker, and Dennis Ralston have shown, many shapes, sizes, styles, and plot twists define the journey of the best man to have never won a singles major. Honorable Mention in the 2025 version of this category goes to two-time Slam finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas.
But as the likes of David Ferrer, David Nalbandian, Todd Martin, Brian Gottfried, Cliff Richey, Tom Okker, and Dennis Ralston have shown, many shapes, sizes, styles, and plot twists define the journey of the best man to have never won a singles major. Honorable Mention in the 2025 version of this category goes to two-time Slam finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas.
It's all about the right perspective for the 2025 Madrid champion, Casper Ruud ❤️ #MMOPEN pic.twitter.com/GJ1MRH7tbR
The current state of Novak Djokovic is in large part a litmus test. If you don't like your job, you wonder why someone who's done so much and is worth millions continues to grind away, particularly amid recent occurrences.In the last five tournaments he's played this year, Djokovic has lost his opening match four times (the only exception was a run to the finals in Miami). Included in that are a pair of instant exits at clay court events in Monte Carlo to 32nd-ranked Alejandro Tabilo and in Madrid to No. 33 Matteo Arnaldi. Djokovic subsequently withdrew from Rome and, for the second year in a row, took a wild card into Geneva.He also announced the end of his working relationship with Andy Murray. Per several recent news stories, Djokovic appears ready to start working with his fellow Serbian, Viktor Troicki.But if you like your job, you grasp Djokovic's desire to squeeze every last drop out of a game he's loved since childhood.“Kind of new reality for me,” said Djokovic following the loss to Arnaldi. “I have to say. You know, trying to win a match or two, not really thinking about getting far in the tournament.”“It's a completely different feeling from what I had in 20-plus years of professional tennis, so it's kind of a challenge for me mentally to really face these kind of sensations on the court, going out early now regularly in the tournaments. But, you know, that's, I guess, the circle of life and the career, eventually it was going to happen. Now I'm trying to, you know, use this as a driving force for the future. Obviously Grand Slams, I was saying many times, are the most important tournaments for me. Which doesn't mean that I don't want to win here, of course I wanted to, but, you know, Grand Slams is where I really want to play the best tennis. I'm not sure if I'll be able to do that in Roland Garros, but I'll do my best.”
In the last five tournaments he's played this year, Djokovic has lost his opening match four times (the only exception was a run to the finals in Miami). Included in that are a pair of instant exits at clay court events in Monte Carlo to 32nd-ranked Alejandro Tabilo and in Madrid to No. 33 Matteo Arnaldi. Djokovic subsequently withdrew from Rome and, for the second year in a row, took a wild card into Geneva.He also announced the end of his working relationship with Andy Murray. Per several recent news stories, Djokovic appears ready to start working with his fellow Serbian, Viktor Troicki.But if you like your job, you grasp Djokovic's desire to squeeze every last drop out of a game he's loved since childhood.“Kind of new reality for me,” said Djokovic following the loss to Arnaldi. “I have to say. You know, trying to win a match or two, not really thinking about getting far in the tournament.”“It's a completely different feeling from what I had in 20-plus years of professional tennis, so it's kind of a challenge for me mentally to really face these kind of sensations on the court, going out early now regularly in the tournaments. But, you know, that's, I guess, the circle of life and the career, eventually it was going to happen. Now I'm trying to, you know, use this as a driving force for the future. Obviously Grand Slams, I was saying many times, are the most important tournaments for me. Which doesn't mean that I don't want to win here, of course I wanted to, but, you know, Grand Slams is where I really want to play the best tennis. I'm not sure if I'll be able to do that in Roland Garros, but I'll do my best.”
He also announced the end of his working relationship with Andy Murray. Per several recent news stories, Djokovic appears ready to start working with his fellow Serbian, Viktor Troicki.But if you like your job, you grasp Djokovic's desire to squeeze every last drop out of a game he's loved since childhood.“Kind of new reality for me,” said Djokovic following the loss to Arnaldi. “I have to say. You know, trying to win a match or two, not really thinking about getting far in the tournament.”“It's a completely different feeling from what I had in 20-plus years of professional tennis, so it's kind of a challenge for me mentally to really face these kind of sensations on the court, going out early now regularly in the tournaments. But, you know, that's, I guess, the circle of life and the career, eventually it was going to happen. Now I'm trying to, you know, use this as a driving force for the future. Obviously Grand Slams, I was saying many times, are the most important tournaments for me. Which doesn't mean that I don't want to win here, of course I wanted to, but, you know, Grand Slams is where I really want to play the best tennis. I'm not sure if I'll be able to do that in Roland Garros, but I'll do my best.”
But if you like your job, you grasp Djokovic's desire to squeeze every last drop out of a game he's loved since childhood.“Kind of new reality for me,” said Djokovic following the loss to Arnaldi. “I have to say. You know, trying to win a match or two, not really thinking about getting far in the tournament.”“It's a completely different feeling from what I had in 20-plus years of professional tennis, so it's kind of a challenge for me mentally to really face these kind of sensations on the court, going out early now regularly in the tournaments. But, you know, that's, I guess, the circle of life and the career, eventually it was going to happen. Now I'm trying to, you know, use this as a driving force for the future. Obviously Grand Slams, I was saying many times, are the most important tournaments for me. Which doesn't mean that I don't want to win here, of course I wanted to, but, you know, Grand Slams is where I really want to play the best tennis. I'm not sure if I'll be able to do that in Roland Garros, but I'll do my best.”
“Kind of new reality for me,” said Djokovic following the loss to Arnaldi. “I have to say. You know, trying to win a match or two, not really thinking about getting far in the tournament.”“It's a completely different feeling from what I had in 20-plus years of professional tennis, so it's kind of a challenge for me mentally to really face these kind of sensations on the court, going out early now regularly in the tournaments. But, you know, that's, I guess, the circle of life and the career, eventually it was going to happen. Now I'm trying to, you know, use this as a driving force for the future. Obviously Grand Slams, I was saying many times, are the most important tournaments for me. Which doesn't mean that I don't want to win here, of course I wanted to, but, you know, Grand Slams is where I really want to play the best tennis. I'm not sure if I'll be able to do that in Roland Garros, but I'll do my best.”
“It's a completely different feeling from what I had in 20-plus years of professional tennis, so it's kind of a challenge for me mentally to really face these kind of sensations on the court, going out early now regularly in the tournaments. But, you know, that's, I guess, the circle of life and the career, eventually it was going to happen. Now I'm trying to, you know, use this as a driving force for the future. Obviously Grand Slams, I was saying many times, are the most important tournaments for me. Which doesn't mean that I don't want to win here, of course I wanted to, but, you know, Grand Slams is where I really want to play the best tennis. I'm not sure if I'll be able to do that in Roland Garros, but I'll do my best.”
Novak might not be playing Rome but he's still serving looks 🙂↕️Djokovic and Venus Williams starred in Lacoste's new "Play With Icons" campaign: https://t.co/iT6OqXznZR
We now you bring you what may well be the longest running question in tennis history: Why can't American men win more on clay?Save for the 1989-1999 period when Michael Chang, Jim Courier and Andre Agassi collectively reached eight Roland Garros finals and won four titles there (Courier twice), we can just about always count on a dry red season of European clay court results for American men.In Madrid, four American men—Taylor Fritz, Brandon Nakashima, Tommy Paul, Frances Tiafoe—reached the round of 16. All lost. In Rome, only Paul got that far, eventually advancing to the semis for the second straight year before losing to Sinner by the topsy-turvy score of 1-6, 6-0, 6-3.Concurrently, just as they had once examined the clay court hotbed of Spain, USTA officials have been studying Italy to learn lessons about player development. One answer, of course, is to build more clay courts and provide more clay court training from a young age. But since when have fast-moving Americans—be it at work or play, as children or adults—had what it takes to build and subsequently master the nuances of a surface that demands exceptional patience and frequent maintenance?For at least when it comes to tennis, our nation's tennis sensibilities learn more towards the mass and monetizable utilitarian than the carefully cultivated craftsmanship clay demands. No question, America's cadre of highly skilled men will fight the good fight at Roland Garros and make every effort possible versus many a dirt-trained warrior. There will definitely be some impressive moments. Still, as has been the case for years, the bigger message will be: Onward to Wimbledon.
Save for the 1989-1999 period when Michael Chang, Jim Courier and Andre Agassi collectively reached eight Roland Garros finals and won four titles there (Courier twice), we can just about always count on a dry red season of European clay court results for American men.In Madrid, four American men—Taylor Fritz, Brandon Nakashima, Tommy Paul, Frances Tiafoe—reached the round of 16. All lost. In Rome, only Paul got that far, eventually advancing to the semis for the second straight year before losing to Sinner by the topsy-turvy score of 1-6, 6-0, 6-3.Concurrently, just as they had once examined the clay court hotbed of Spain, USTA officials have been studying Italy to learn lessons about player development. One answer, of course, is to build more clay courts and provide more clay court training from a young age. But since when have fast-moving Americans—be it at work or play, as children or adults—had what it takes to build and subsequently master the nuances of a surface that demands exceptional patience and frequent maintenance?For at least when it comes to tennis, our nation's tennis sensibilities learn more towards the mass and monetizable utilitarian than the carefully cultivated craftsmanship clay demands. No question, America's cadre of highly skilled men will fight the good fight at Roland Garros and make every effort possible versus many a dirt-trained warrior. There will definitely be some impressive moments. Still, as has been the case for years, the bigger message will be: Onward to Wimbledon.
In Madrid, four American men—Taylor Fritz, Brandon Nakashima, Tommy Paul, Frances Tiafoe—reached the round of 16. All lost. In Rome, only Paul got that far, eventually advancing to the semis for the second straight year before losing to Sinner by the topsy-turvy score of 1-6, 6-0, 6-3.Concurrently, just as they had once examined the clay court hotbed of Spain, USTA officials have been studying Italy to learn lessons about player development. One answer, of course, is to build more clay courts and provide more clay court training from a young age. But since when have fast-moving Americans—be it at work or play, as children or adults—had what it takes to build and subsequently master the nuances of a surface that demands exceptional patience and frequent maintenance?For at least when it comes to tennis, our nation's tennis sensibilities learn more towards the mass and monetizable utilitarian than the carefully cultivated craftsmanship clay demands. No question, America's cadre of highly skilled men will fight the good fight at Roland Garros and make every effort possible versus many a dirt-trained warrior. There will definitely be some impressive moments. Still, as has been the case for years, the bigger message will be: Onward to Wimbledon.
Concurrently, just as they had once examined the clay court hotbed of Spain, USTA officials have been studying Italy to learn lessons about player development. One answer, of course, is to build more clay courts and provide more clay court training from a young age. But since when have fast-moving Americans—be it at work or play, as children or adults—had what it takes to build and subsequently master the nuances of a surface that demands exceptional patience and frequent maintenance?For at least when it comes to tennis, our nation's tennis sensibilities learn more towards the mass and monetizable utilitarian than the carefully cultivated craftsmanship clay demands. No question, America's cadre of highly skilled men will fight the good fight at Roland Garros and make every effort possible versus many a dirt-trained warrior. There will definitely be some impressive moments. Still, as has been the case for years, the bigger message will be: Onward to Wimbledon.
For at least when it comes to tennis, our nation's tennis sensibilities learn more towards the mass and monetizable utilitarian than the carefully cultivated craftsmanship clay demands. No question, America's cadre of highly skilled men will fight the good fight at Roland Garros and make every effort possible versus many a dirt-trained warrior. There will definitely be some impressive moments. Still, as has been the case for years, the bigger message will be: Onward to Wimbledon.
“I've been grinding to get my truck back.”After his quarterfinal win, Tommy Paul revealed that his truck was repossessed earlier this week 🤯 https://t.co/XJHDNVWgTM
When it was over and the ecstatic crowd at La Caja Magic jumped to its collective feet in applause, Aryna Sabalenka did not fall to the crushed red clay beneath her, didn't scream or pump her fists or even openly exult. She merely raised her arms in a perfect V -- for victory.
And then, blowing kisses to the camera, strolled to her changeover chair, fished a camera out of her bag, crossed the court and snapped a picture of her team. After that thoroughly professional 6-3, 7-6 (3) victory over Coco Gauff on Saturday, Sabalenka is now a three-time Mutua Madrid Open champion. That equals the record total of Petra Kvitova and, not insignificantly, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic as well.
Winning is never guaranteed, but in Sabalenka's mind, this was expected. Her will manifested itself in the moments that mattered. Sabalenka's earned that confidence because -- by an uncommonly wide margin -- she is the best player in the sport.
On Monday, the World No. 1 will become only the third woman to amass more than 11,000 ranking points and is nearly 4,000 ahead of No. 2 Iga Swiatek in the PIF WTA Rankings. That gap is likely to grow. With Swiatek defending titles in Rome and Paris, she'll also be defending 3,000 points across the next month. And because Sabalenka missed Wimbledon last year, this year's result will be a ranking points windfall.
Sabalenka is more than 1,600 points clear of No. 2 Madison Keys in the PIF Race to the WTA Finals in Riyadh. She's the only player with three titles so far -- Brisbane, Miami and Madrid -- and has collected back-to-back WTA 1000 titles on vastly different surfaces. Her 31 match-wins are also the most among Hologic WTA Tour players.
This was Gauff's 10th match against Sabalenka in six years. How has her game evolved?
“I feel like she just got a lot better in everything,” Gauff said. “I think she just probably is more confident, so that's why the consistent results are happening.”
Examine the timeline and you'll find that the catalyst for all of this, oddly enough, was a loss.
Back in January, Sabalenka was going for her third consecutive Australian Open but Keys was simply too good in the final. For Sabalenka, who started the year 11-0, it was a devastating loss. She left the Middle East in something of a funk, having lost an unheard of three of four matches.
But then, she rallied and reached four straight finals -- Indian Wells, Miami, Stuttgart and Madrid -- winning two of them. Sabalenka's won 19 of her past 21 and even with the slow surfaces in Rome and Paris looming, she's going to like her chances.
A few hours after the win in Madrid, Sabalenka fielded some questions from wtatennis.com:
Looking back, how did losing that Australian Open final motivate you to produce the best start of your career heading into Rome?
Sabalenka: Yeah, honestly, that final was the toughest one. I really struggled to accept that match, tough loss. And I think, February I was kind of trying to figure my way. Then I got really hungry and angry -- angry in a good way and I think at the end, the Australian Open final pushed me to work even harder. Kind of explains to me that you have to really work hard in finals and you have to earn your victories. It was a good push for me.
Your last two matches, four of six sets went to seven games -- you won them all … how proud are you of the fact you competed so well in the most important moments?
Sabalenka: I'm super happy that I was able to bring the level in those key moments. Super happy with the level I played this week and hopefully I can keep going the way everything is going.
Your defense doesn't get a lot of attention, but … against Coco how important was it to stay in some of those long points?
Sabalenka: It's very important to not only be an attacking player, but in those key moments to be a good defender and dig really deep in there, try to steal a few points. It definitely brings more confidence in your game.
Only four women in 40 years won their first six matches against Top 10 players in straight sets – their names are Martina Navratilova (1986), Steffi Graf (1994, 1995 and 1996), Serena Williams (2014) -- and Aryna Sabalenka … what do you think of that?
Sabalenka: I … don't know. I mean, they are legends. They achieved so much, these players I look up to. Me, being in the same line with them … it just sounds crazy and I couldn't be more proud.
Of all the ups and downs you've experienced, how good do you feel about your game right now?
Sabalenka: I definitely feel really good about my game. But I think the key for me was that I was always looking for something to improve. And now, still, I want to get better.
Three Madrid titles … the way you're playing, in your mind, can you win in Rome or Paris for the first time?
Sabalenka: [Laughing]. I mean, in my mind, in my dreams, yes I can. But sometimes the reality is different. I will definitely go out there and compete and fight and see if my dream will be the same in real life.
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F1 NATION: Verstappen's masterclass, positives for Piastri and pressure at Ferrari – it's our Emilia-Romagna GP review
Stella admits McLaren were ‘a little surprised' by Red Bull's pace following Verstappen's Imola triumph
Alonso laments ‘pure bad luck' for Aston Martin in Imola despite upgrades being ‘a step forward'
‘We don't seem to execute well on Sundays' – Sainz ‘unhappy' with Imola P8 as Williams were ‘quicker than Mercedes and Ferrari'
Colapinto concedes ‘I'm not quite there yet' as he assesses ‘difficult' first race for Alpine
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has heaped praise on Max Verstappen for his “decisive” and “win it or bin it” pass on Oscar Piastri at the start of Sunday's Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix.
Piastri pipped Verstappen to pole position during Qualifying at Imola but their positions were dramatically swapped under braking for Turn 1 – the reigning four-time World Champion sweeping around the outside at the Tamburello chicane.
READ MORE: Verstappen talks through bold Piastri pass that ‘unleashed' Red Bull's pace in statement Imola victory drive
From there, Verstappen built a comfortable lead and managed Virtual Safety Car and full Safety Car periods to take the chequered flag first – scoring his and Red Bull's second win of the season in the team's 400th Grand Prix.
2025 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix: Verstappen takes the lead on the race start with stunning move on Piastri
Reflecting on the start, and how Verstappen set up the drive to victory, Horner said: “I think maybe Oscar was more focused on [George] Russell. He left the slightest of gaps and Max just sent it – it was kind of win it or bin it. Again, he's just so good in that situation where he just sees a gap and it's so decisive for him.
“Thereafter, we just had the pace to pull out a gap. We had the margin on tyre deg that we could see we were in a bit better shape than the McLarens. Then obviously the VSC came out, that was at an opportune time, circa mid-race, and then the Safety Car came out, which was another essentially free pit stop for the first couple of guys.
READ MORE: Tsunoda takes positives from Imola recovery drive but admits he won't try to be a ‘hero' in next Qualifying sessions
“But at all times, Max had the pace. He was able to respond, it never felt that we were under pressure from behind, so a great performance. Overall, a very positive 400th Grand Prix.”
Given McLaren's supreme start to the season, which saw them win five of the opening six races, Horner expressed his satisfaction – and encouragement – over the progress Red Bull appear to have made at recent events.
Verstappen never looked back after his decisive first-lap pass on Piastri
While Red Bull are still a whopping 148 points behind leaders McLaren in the Teams' Championship, Verstappen is only 22 points adrift of Piastri in the race for the Drivers' title.
“We've managed to put some performance on the car and get the car into a better window,” added Horner, following updates in Miami and at Imola. “As soon as you take away the sliding, you're able to manage the temperature a lot better. That was really encouraging.
READ MORE: 5 Winners and 5 Losers from Emilia-Romagna – Who impressed at Imola?
“I mean, the McLarens on Friday again looked very, very fast on the long runs, but to have the pace that we did in the race today… it's the first time I can remember in a long time we've had the pace to really pull away and out-deg the McLarens. It's very encouraging and a great result for the effort that's gone in behind the scenes.”
He added: “I think generally we're getting a better grip [on the car] and a better understanding. I think the technical team have been working very hard on it. It's been a very positive weekend. I think we're gaining… we're building a bit of momentum, which is important at this stage in the championship.”
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HIGHLIGHTS: Relive Verstappen's breathtaking first-lap overtake on Piastri en route to stellar Imola victory
Verstappen storms to victory in thrilling Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix ahead of Norris and Piastri
Norris warns that Verstappen's Imola win 'shows how quickly things can change'
Hamilton hails ‘really great feeling' of fightback to P4 at Imola as Leclerc reflects on ‘frustrating day'
F1 EXPLAINS: What happens inside an F1 garage during a race - with Haas
F2: Dunne takes second Feature Race win of 2025 at Imola
Verstappen talks through bold Piastri pass that ‘unleashed' Red Bull's pace in statement Imola victory drive
Stella admits McLaren were ‘a little surprised' by Red Bull's pace following Verstappen's Imola triumph
FACTS AND STATS: Verstappen's Imola record and Hamilton's best Ferrari result to date
Norris warns that Verstappen's Imola win 'shows how quickly things can change'
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News
Stella admits McLaren were ‘a little surprised' by Red Bull's pace following Verstappen's Imola triumph
Horner hails Verstappen after ‘win it or bin it' Turn 1 move on Piastri at Imola
‘We don't seem to execute well on Sundays' – Sainz ‘unhappy' with Imola P8 as Williams were ‘quicker than Mercedes and Ferrari'
Colapinto concedes ‘I'm not quite there yet' as he assesses ‘difficult' first race for Alpine
5 Winners and 5 Losers from Emilia-Romagna – Who impressed at Imola?
Fernando Alonso was left to rue ‘pure bad luck' in Imola after tumbling down the order from his fifth-placed start to finish the race in 11th, despite his Aston Martin upgrades making the car look competitive for the first time this season.
Those upgrades combined with the tactical astuteness to save an extra set of medium tyres for Qualifying saw both Aston Martins make Q3 for the first time this season. Alonso started fifth, and ran there in the early stages of the race.
READ MORE: Piastri concedes he 'braked too early' in battle with Verstappen at Imola race start
With Lance Stroll a few places behind, the team looked on for a double score – but after pitting early, their race unravelled when many got a cheap pit stop under the subsequent Virtual Safety Car.
Worse was to come, the late Safety Car gifting the opportunity for half the field to fit fresh tyres again, at a point when Aston martin had no realistic compounds left to use. That left the Spaniard to make a balanced judgement of how his day unfolded.
Alonso was able to fight near the front of the field at Imola
“It was just unlucky," Alonso said. "The car was super today, we followed the McLaren and [George] Russell at the beginning of the race, which was definitely a good surprise for us to be that competitive at the front of the field.
“And then I think we were okay to secure P6, P7 with both the cars and then the Virtual Safety Car gave the opportunity to everyone to stop and exit in front of us and our race was over. So extremely unlucky, the car was competitive, I had a good fight.
READ MORE: Albon left with mixed feelings over P5 finish in Imola after ‘licking my lips' at potential Williams podium
“Even at the end I overtook three or four cars in nine laps. It's something we are not used to this year, so definitely a step forward.”
Alonso on P11 finish: ‘The final result is just extreme bad luck'
The pace at the end of the race was especially impressive, given at that time Alonso was on old medium tyres. He rose to 11th, agonisingly close to a points finish that has eluded him so far this season.
The good news is that the Aston Martin upgrade package seems to have worked, making the team look more competitive than at any point this season, even with Alonso's team mate Stroll finishing back in 15th. He was unable to clear the traffic he dropped into after his first pit stop, but wants more data before making his own mind up about how potent the upgrade package was.
READ MORE: 5 Winners and 5 Losers from Emilia-Romagna – Who impressed at Imola?
“We'll see next week at a different kind of track, so we'll see if we can continue the form,” he concluded.
Aston Martin remain in seventh in the Teams' Standings, four points ahead of Racing Bulls.
Don't miss your chance to experience the world's most famous street circuit...
HIGHLIGHTS: Relive Verstappen's breathtaking first-lap overtake on Piastri en route to stellar Imola victory
Verstappen storms to victory in thrilling Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix ahead of Norris and Piastri
Norris warns that Verstappen's Imola win 'shows how quickly things can change'
Hamilton hails ‘really great feeling' of fightback to P4 at Imola as Leclerc reflects on ‘frustrating day'
F1 EXPLAINS: What happens inside an F1 garage during a race - with Haas
Hamilton hails ‘really great feeling' of fightback to P4 at Imola as Leclerc reflects on ‘frustrating day'
AS IT HAPPENED: Verstappen wins eventful Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix ahead of Norris and Piastri
Tsunoda takes positives from Imola recovery drive but admits he won't try to be a ‘hero' in next Qualifying sessions
Norris warns that Verstappen's Imola win 'shows how quickly things can change'
Alpine chief Briatore opens up on decision to drop Doohan for Colapinto as he clarifies ‘five races' stance
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Stella admits McLaren were ‘a little surprised' by Red Bull's pace following Verstappen's Imola triumph
Horner hails Verstappen after ‘win it or bin it' Turn 1 move on Piastri at Imola
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‘We don't seem to execute well on Sundays' – Sainz ‘unhappy' with Imola P8 as Williams were ‘quicker than Mercedes and Ferrari'
5 Winners and 5 Losers from Emilia-Romagna – Who impressed at Imola?
Franco Colapinto admitted he was "not quite there yet" after a challenging first weekend back in F1 with Alpine, as the Argentinian finished 16th in the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix following a hefty Qualifying crash.
While Alpine failed to score for a third straight race – with Pierre Gasly only able to finish 13th despite a 10th-placed starting spot – there were some positives to take, namely Colapinto gaining vital experience and the one-lap potential of the car.
READ MORE: Verstappen talks through bold Piastri pass that ‘unleashed' Red Bull's pace in statement Imola victory drive
Colapinto's Grand Prix build up was far from ideal after his heavy crash in Qualifying brought out the red flags on Saturday. Then, on Sunday, his inexperience showed at the start of the race as a tentative first few corners saw him lose places from his P16 start, a trip through the gravel not helping matters a few laps later.
The 21-year-old ran a long first stint, but Lady Luck was not on his side either as he pitted just before the Virtual Safety Car period triggered by Esteban Ocon's retirement.
Colapinto on his first race with Alpine: ‘Not the result we wanted by a lot of learnings'
“We had good pace at the start of the race compared to the others,” Colapinto explained following the Grand Prix. “I made the C5 – the medium – last very long, so we were on a one-stop and that VSC came just a few laps after I made my stop.
“It kind of just put me in a very difficult situation with already eight laps on the tyres and struggling a bit to keep up with the pace of the guys boxing for new tyres under the VSC. It was okay, it was more experience and good to learn a bit more the car.
“I think better tracks are coming for us, especially Monaco. It is a place which requires very high confidence. I'm not quite there yet, I'm still learning more and more each time I am in the car so I'll build it up and I'm looking forward to it next weekend.”
HIGHLIGHTS: Relive Verstappen's breathtaking first-lap overtake on Piastri en route to stellar Imola victory
Colapinto did not race at Monaco in F1 last season, his stint for Williams coming in the second half of the season, so it will be another new experience for the youngster next weekend as he continues to bed in at Alpine.
However, he can take further confidence from Gasly's one-lap pace and the potential in the car with Qualifying of extra importance in Monte Carlo.
‘I battled hard… too hard' – Gasly talks us through his fight with Leclerc at Imola
Gasly's Qualifying in Imola certainly stood out, with a top-10 start, and he should have been in the mix for points in the race. But a rash moment battling Charles Leclerc at the start saw the Frenchman skate off through the gravel, dropping down the order as a result.
“First of all not happy with my race as I made that mistake which should not really happen,” Gasly said as he reflected on his Imola outing.
"I battled hard, I tried too hard and I thought I would be able to stick around the outside leaving some room for Charles on the inside but unfortunately when I turned in, I had no grip and couldn't make the corner.
READ MORE: Piastri concedes he 'braked too early' in battle with Verstappen at Imola race start
“That for sure made us drop four positions I think initially. Then we revert or, let me say, we decided to go on a two-stop. It was looking decent, I think we would have been fighting the one-stopper at the end of the race. The late Safety Car gave them a free pit stop, so luck wasn't really on our side.”
Gasly did state that the car had “good pace” over one lap, as he already turned his sights to Monaco next weekend, with the races coming thick and fast in the second triple-header of the season.
“Next week we know it is all about the quali, mainly about the quali and that's where we can hopefully capitalise on the strong quali this weekend,” he concluded.
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HIGHLIGHTS: Relive Verstappen's breathtaking first-lap overtake on Piastri en route to stellar Imola victory
Verstappen storms to victory in thrilling Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix ahead of Norris and Piastri
Norris warns that Verstappen's Imola win 'shows how quickly things can change'
Hamilton hails ‘really great feeling' of fightback to P4 at Imola as Leclerc reflects on ‘frustrating day'
F1 EXPLAINS: What happens inside an F1 garage during a race - with Haas
Alpine chief Briatore opens up on decision to drop Doohan for Colapinto as he clarifies ‘five races' stance
Norris warns that Verstappen's Imola win 'shows how quickly things can change'
MONDAY MORNING DEBRIEF: How Pirelli's attempts to bring strategic variation at Imola worked – but not in the way envisaged
Piastri concedes he 'braked too early' in battle with Verstappen at Imola race start
What the teams said – Race day in Emilia-Romagna
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Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli was forced to pull off the track midway through his very first home Grand Prix at Imola when his car developed a mechanical problem.
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Antonelli explains ‘throttle issue' saw his forced to retire from his first home Grand Prix
Radio Rewind: 2025 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix
Race Highlights: 2025 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix
2025 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix: Verstappen crosses the line to take his second victory of the season
2025 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix: Verstappen takes the lead on the race start with stunning move on Piastri
Qualifying Highlights: 2025 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix
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Titled like a sequel, plotted like a remake, and shot with enough of its own singular verve to ensure that most people never think of it as either of those things, Spike Lee's deliriously entertaining — if jarringly upbeat — “Highest 2 Lowest” modernizes the post-war anxieties of Akira Kurosawa's “High and Low” for the age of parasocial relationships.
Formerly a hyper-capitalistic shoe magnate embodied by the wolfish Toshiro Mifune, Kingo Gondo has been reborn as record executive David King (Denzel Washington, in what might be his most towering screen performance since “Training Day”). Likewise, the glass mansion his progenitor owned atop the hills of Yokohama has been swapped out for a penthouse apartment at the Olympia building in Dumbo — soon to become a minor tourist attraction if this refreshing late summer treat is seen widely enough during the two-week theatrical run that will precede its disappearance into the annals of Apple TV+.
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Beyond that, however, the basic chords of the song remain the same as they were back in 1963, even if Lee includes a bit more screaming directly into the camera about how much Boston's sports teams suck than I remember there being in Kurosawa's take. Once again, our protagonist is forced into a compromising position on the eve of a critical business deal when a downtrodden kidnapper mistakes his driver's son for his own kid, Trey (Aubrey Joseph). And once again, all the money in the world can't save him from paying a price for his greed.
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The world is a very different place than it was 60 years ago, but some things never change; when people lose hope, they still turn against the people who gave it to them. Only now, the cash-strapped kidnapper doesn't have to physically look up at the rich man's castle in order to be taunted by his fortune (although Lee makes sure to include a scene where the criminal does that anyway). In the version of the story that screenwriter William Alan Fox has reworked for 2025, the bad guy may not be able to spy his idol and nemesis from his own apartment in Forest Hills, but he feels like David is personally mocking him every time he looks at his phone.
Even at a time of immense economic stratification, technology has the power to make people's dream lives seem close enough to reach out and grab for themselves, and that closeness is especially palpable for a young Black rapper (A$AP Rocky, just as good here as he is in recent Sundance highlight “If I Had Legs I'd Kick You”), who sees so much of himself in the multi-millionaire CEO of Stackin' Hits records. He feels like they know each other already, and that the real crime is that they don't.
The truth, however, is that David King — or King David, as he's been crowned by the New York media — is no longer as secure in his throne as he was during the pre-Spotify golden age of 2000s hip-hop. Pushing 70 in a young man's game, the hitmaker with “the best ears in the business” has been on the brink of irrelevance for the last few years, and his dwindling market share has only led him further astray from his famously impeccable taste. Despite promising his wife Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera, giving beneficent Queen Macbeth) that he'd sell his empire and saunter off into the sunset, David's wounded pride inspires a desperate bid to buy out his partner and recover full ownership of the label, and he'll need every cent he's got in order to pull it off. Needless to say, the best ears in the business may not be able to save David from listening to the worst voices in his head after a kidnapper demands a $17.5 million ransom for the safe return of his chauffeur's son.
Only so much can be gained from comparing Lee's movie against the much tenser and more severe Kurosawa masterpiece that inspired it (and was itself based on the Evan Hunter novel “King's Ransom”), but the relationship between David and his driver is one of the few areas where “Highest 2 Lowest” clearly comes out on top. If Washington owns every minute of this film, riveting as he grasps for a righteousness that his money can't seem to buy him, Jeffrey Wright's heartsick performance as David's best friend and closest employee is the friction that gives purchase to his character's inner conflict.
Paul grew up with David, but life took him in another direction, and he's been living in the King's penthouse ever since he got out of jail. “It's just fucking money!” Trey might insist, but the financial dependence at the core of his dad's universe is so obvious that all of David's conversations with Paul are silently choked with the fear of acknowledging it, but when David waffles over paying the ransom for Paul's son (a ransom he was more than ready to pay when he thought his own son had been nabbed), the unspoken truth at the center of their friendship begins to rip the two men apart. Such is the price they pay for trying to pretend — as so many people do — that money is somehow able to exist without a moral dimension.
The tension between David and Paul keeps “Highest 2 Lowest” upright even when the movie around it threatens to go slack. Lee doesn't share Kurosawa's patience for long, talky, single-location sequences, and his attempts at Ice Spicing up this relatively low-event movie can be more trouble than they're worth, even if Ice Spice herself is acquitted on all charges for her two seconds of screen time.
Hard cuts, double takes, and strange cameos are par for the course with Spike, but those affectations tend to distract from the primacy of this film's performances. Elsewhere, and everywhere, Howard Drossin's wildly intrusive orchestral score smothers every moment in a wall of sound that burrows into your head like hold music and refuses to discriminate between moods. That garishness also seeps into Matthew Libatique's digital cinematography, but there it works to the advantage of this movie's heated sense of panic (not “Do the Right Thing” or “Summer of Sam” hot, but sweltering enough to feel David lose his cool).
Then again, there isn't exactly a lot to see. While it would be absurd to suggest that Lee's reimagination doesn't have its own vivid sense of place (a famous sequence, now set aboard the 6 train as it travels from Borough Hall to the Bronx, flattens New York City into a unified socioeconomic class of Yankees fans), the film's general disinterest in replicating the verticality of Kurosawa's version takes away from a third act plunge into the kidnapper's environment.
But Lee is so much more interesting for what he brings to a project than for what he takes away from it, and “Highest 2 Lowest” is naturally at its best when it deviates from its source material. The film's wholehearted embrace of Black culture is baked into David's desire to protect Stackin' Hits from buyers who might dilute the brand of its history, but it's also suffused into the various changes that Lee's version makes to the story's third act, which pivots away from the darkness of Japan's post-war heroin epidemic and towards the aspirational aspects of hip-hop. No spoilers, but at a certain point in the movie Denzel Washington is forced to rap for his life. It shouldn't work, and it definitely almost doesn't, but director and star alike commit to the bit with the same intensity that they've always committed to each other, and somehow they make it sing.
That's one of several risks Lee takes in service of making “Highest 2 Lowest” significantly more fun and hopeful than any iteration of this story has ever been before — risks which are all in the service of showcasing, to quote the press notes, “the transcendent power of music and the loving bonds of a close-knit African American family.” If this story of economic despair and its malcontents doesn't seem like it was ever intended to be a vehicle for those messages, Lee doesn't seem to have gotten the memo, as he eschews the morally ambiguous despair of Kurosawa's ending in favor of a kumbaya for the richest family in town. King David may not be the same bottom-line obsessed despot at the end of this film that he was at the start, and it's hard to swallow the last scene's glib conclusion that a little humility is enough to make everything right.
And so Lee's reinterpretation strains to leave us on a high instead of a low, as befits the finale of an update so compellingly eager to flip the script on one of Kurosawa's most cynical films. It is just fucking money, at the end of the day. But then again, what isn't?
“Highest 2 Lowest” premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. A24 will release it in theaters on Friday, August 22, and it will be available to stream on Apple TV starting Friday, September 5.
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By Pete Hammond
Awards Columnist/Chief Film Critic
Yet again a filmmaker has gone to the throne of Japanese giant Akira Kurosawa for inspiration. Among the lauded director's films Hollywood has turned into English-language adaptations are Seven Samurai, which became The Magnificent Seven twice (including once with Denzel Washington); Rashomon, which became Paul Newman's The Outrage; Ikiru, remade a few years ago as Living; Yojimbo, which led to an uncredited inspiration for A Fistful of Dollars; and 1958's Hidden Fortress, unquestionably an inspiration for George Lucas and Star Wars.
Now chalk up another one with Spike Lee‘s new take on Kurosawa's 1963 drama High and Low, in which Toshiro Mifune played a shoemaker executive who is torn between paying the ransom to his chauffeur's son's kidnapper after the criminal nabbed him by mistake instead of the executive's son, who was safe. It becomes a moral dilemma, especially as the exec really needs the money himself to save his business. What would you do, it asks?
And that is exactly the setup for Lee's thrilling and entertaining new drama Highest 2 Lowest, which has been reset to the contemporary music industry with Washington as David King aka “King David,” a hugely successful music mogul who finds his Stackin' Hits Records is about to be taken over and now has plans to start a new label and return to the top of the charts. When his son Trey (Aubrey Joseph) and godson Kyle (Elijah Wright in a film debut) and son of his best friend and driver Paul (Jeffrey Wright) are mistaken for each other by the inept kidnapper, that criminal demands David pay the $17.5 million ransom anyway or Kyle dies. Again, what would you do?
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RELATED: Denzel Washington Gets Surprise Honorary Palme d'Or At Cannes Ahead Of ‘Highest 2 Lowest' Premiere
The riveting answer to what David will do is played out in this tense cat-and-mouse game. Should he refuse, he is told social media will just destroy him anyway for the heartless act of turning his back on his friend Paul and his son who are definitely living on a wildly different class level than the Kings do. But David is torn. He is convinced that a return to the top of the heap is imminent and all he needs is the money. Why give it up for someone else's child?
His wife Pam (IIfenesh Hadera) is distraught at first, thinking the guy had their son, but now has definite ideas of her own about how to proceed. There's also a trio of NYPD detectives on the case (Dean Winters, LaChanze, John Douglas Thompson). The tension mounts as they try to lure the kidnapper, who slyly barks his demands and tries to one-up David in some phone encounters. Will they be able to trace the calls? Can they find him? Who is he?
RELATED: Spike Lee's Denzel Washington Pic ‘Highest 2 Lowest' Scores Six-Minute Ovation At Cannes Premiere
Well, it turns out to be a guy whose life's dream was to be discovered by King David and handed a contract for Stackin' Hits as the next great rapper. His name in Yung Felon, and he is played in a sensational supporting turn by A$AP Rocky, whose romantic partner Marisol (Isis “Ice Spice” Gaston) might hold the key to finding him.
RELATED: Denzel Washington's Career In Pictures: ‘Glory' To ‘Gladiator II'
The first film shot in Lee's native NYC in more than a decade is one of his best. It has been in various forms of development over 30 years for the likes of David Mamet, Chris Rock and others, and now Washington helped get Lee on board with it for a new take from screenwriter Alan Fox, who adapts material from Ed McBain's book King's Ransom and the original Kurosawa movie. The premise fits like a glove with the music industry, and Washington is smooth as silk, delivering one of his best recent performances as a man caught in an impossible moral quandary. With his fifth collaboration with Lee (Malcolm X, He Got Game, Inside Man, Mo Better Blues), he really finds his groove on this one to be sure.
His initial showdown in the recording studio through the music producer's glass window as Yung Felon is putting down a track is worth the price of admission, with Washington turning the encounter into a bravura rap that becomes one of the actor's finest screen moments. A$AP Rocky, who was seen in the film Monsters, proves he can go toe-to-toe with Washington and shows he has dramatic chops to shine here. Wright as always is superb, as is Hadera.
RELATED: Denzel Washington, Robert Pattinson & Daisy Edgar-Jones Set For Netflix Heist Pic ‘Here Comes The Flood' From Fernando Meirelles
As is the case with most Lee joints, this one has a superb, soaring musical score from Howard Drossin that really feels NYC to its core. Matthew Libatique's sharp cinematography also shows off New York City to its full potential here.
The film had its world premiere Monday night Out of Competition at the Cannes Film Festival, where Lee debuted his masterpiece Do the Right Thing 36 years ago today.
Producers are Todd Black and Jason Michael Berman.
Title: Highest 2 LowestFestival: Cannes (Out of Competition)Distributors: A24 Films and Apple Original FilmsRelease date: August 22, 2025Director: Spike LeeScreenwriter: Alan FoxCast: Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright, IIfenesh Hadera, Aubrey Joseph, A$AP Rocky, Dean Winters, La Chanze, John Douglas Thompson, Isis “Ice Spice” Gaston, Michael Potts, Rick Fox, Elijah WrightRating: RRunning time: 2 hr 14 min
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There's a sequence early into “Splitsville,” premiering out of competition in Cannes, that makes you realize just why the team of Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin wanted to make this movie. The writers and actors best known for their indie hit “The Climb” have returned with a flashier cast for this new endeavor, but maybe they weren't seeking bigger profile projects with glamorous movie stars. Maybe they just wanted to beat each other to a pulp.
What results is one of the funniest fight scenes in recent memory. It starts with slapping and then turns to wrestling, followed by increasing levels of destruction as the two lay waste to a gorgeous Hamptons home, breaking tables and bashing in the walls. Covino, who also serves as director, and Marvin let their bodies flail around for maximum hilarity, and each new phase of their brawl includes another surprising, uproarious micro set piece. (Think of it like Chekhov's fish tank.) If “Splitsville” was just this it would be worth the price of admission.
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But Covino and Marvin have constructed around it a reliably funny rom-com about the notion of open relationships. It's shaggy in places and favors one side of its story above the other, but ultimately makes for a delightful time.
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Even before we get to the aforementioned fight, “Splitsville” quickly establishes its absurdist tone in the opening. Gym teacher Carey (Marvin) and his wife, life coach Ashley (Adria Arjona), are on the way to the beach house owned by their richer friends Julie (Dakota Johnson) and Paul (Michael Angelo Covino), Carey's childhood best friend.
But even though Carey and Ashley duet (poorly) to Stevie Nicks and Kenny Loggins' “Whenever I Call You Friend,” something is amiss. Ashley wants Carey to be more sexually adventurous. He wants a baby. And then an in-transit hand job goes awry when a car in front of them crashes, resulting in at least one death. That's enough to put life in perspective for Ashley. She wants a divorce.
Carey is despondent and gets out of the car, walking all the way to Julie and Paul's through swampy water as the titles play over Dabney Morris and David Wingo's jaunty score. At their place, tending to Carey's emotional wounds and checking him for ticks, Julie and Paul reveal their secret to happiness: They have an open marriage. It's quickly clear, however, that they aren't quite as chill about extramarital affairs as they would seem. The next day Paul, a real estate guy, is off in the city and Julie bemoans his absence in her life. Carey and Julie have sex. Paul, upon learning of their coitus, does not take it well. Hence: The slapping melee.
From there Marvin and Covino spin out their premise to more ridiculous heights as Carey returns to the city to find that Ashley has started taking a series of increasingly needy lovers which he systematically befriends. (At one point, he shows them “Lorenzo's Oil” for movie night. A perfect joke.) Meanwhile, Paul finds himself in a work crisis that puts the lifestyle of Julie and their rebellious son Russ (Simon Webster) in jeopardy, leading Julie back to the dopey sweetness of Carey.
Marvin plays Carey as a charming loser with whom you can't help but fall in love in a performance that's so endearing you have no trouble believing that two of the most beautiful women on the planet would be into him, even when he's pathetic and annoying. (Also the fact that his character has a huge dick which we see on screen multiple times helps support this.) Covino on the other hand plays Paul with a dash of loathsome rich guy energy, that feels like the polar opposite of Carey's mild nature.
As for the women, Johnson gets the better role as Julie, who likes the existence she has created with Paul but is unsatisfied with Paul himself. She channels her frustration into wryly sardonic line deliveries. Arjona on the other hand has more outright comedic scenes as Ashley, who tries on increasingly wacky new personalities as she dates new people. But her narrative is also shortchanged. Perhaps because the story immediately turns to Carey after she announces she wants out, we are never really given time to understand her desires. It's harder to be on her side, especially considering that Carey does seem like a nice guy and a good lay from Julie's perspective.
Even when beats feel underwritten, Marvin and Covino's script is so consistently funny it doesn't really matter. A “Vanilla Sky” bit made me howl, and the appearance of Nicholas Braun as a mentalist results in a screamer. On top of that, Covino, working with cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra stages the action with a propulsivity and creativity that makes the domestic problems feel cinematically alive.
“Splitsville” probably won't greatly advance the conversation around open relationships and their viability, but I'm not sure that's the intention. In fact, I think those who believe in the concept might scoff at the film. Still, the filmmakers have created an utterly endearing tale of four people trying to negotiate their own desires in the silliest ways possible with unexpected chaos around every turn.
“Splitsville” world premiered in the Cannes Premiere section at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Neon will release it in theaters in the U.S. on August 22.
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Billboard's intrepid reporter goes deep on who performed, who partied, what they ate and drank, and what they wore (or didn't wear) in Alabama.
By
Meaghan Garvey
Hunched over a paper plate piled with oysters and snow crab legs, I realized I hadn't worn a shirt now in two days. The sun was setting on day two of the first-ever Sand in My Boots festival, hosted on the beach of Gulf Shores, Alabama—part of the stretch of Florida/Alabama Gulf Coast sometimes referred to as the “Redneck Riviera.” Since 2010, this weekend in May has been reserved for the Hangout Music Festival, a more generalized three-day beach bash whose previous headliners included Travis Scott, The Weeknd and Lana Del Rey. But this time was something different: a complete takeover curated by Morgan Wallen, the 32-year-old country superstar whose 37-track fourth album, I'm The Problem, dropped on the fest's opening day.
Borrowing its name from the opening song on Wallen's first blockbuster (2021's Dangerous: The Double Album, the first album credited to an individual artist or group in history to spend at least 100 weeks in the top 10 of the Billboard 200), Sand in My Boots arrives as the high-water mark of the artist-curated festival. You could call the lineup that Wallen hand-picked “country-oriented,” though its details might surprise an old-school genre purist. Just past the three-day fest's headliners (the newly roots-y Post Malone, country stalwarts Brooks & Dunn and Wallen himself) are an array of acts which suggest that, at a moment when country music's bigger than it's been in decades, its once strict boundaries are more porous than ever. Among rising country stars like Bailey Zimmerman and Ella Langley are a slew of rappers—some newer (like BigXthaPlug), some veterans (2 Chainz and Memphis icons Three 6 Mafia), though nearly all of them are Southern. Then there's a handful of indie rock bands (The War on Drugs, Wild Nothing, Future Islands) which might seem comically random, were it not for the fact that Wallen's been a champion of them for years.
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“When the idea of Sand in My Boots started becoming a reality, it was extremely important to me to build a festival of artists that I enjoy and listen to regularly,” Wallen told Billboard by email last week. “We didn't come up with this idea trying to fill a gap, but I believe that is what we have done. We created a festival that was centered around my country culture and that just so happens to include a variety of sounds.” Whatever you want to call the Sand in My Boots vibe, all 40,000 tickets sold out in less than two hours last October. (Three-day G.A. passes started at $549, while VIP packages ranged upwards of $5,000, and private luxury cabanas by the main stage were even steeper.)
I'd arrived in Alabama's gulf coast on Thursday afternoon, whispering “Get me to God's country!” to the alarmingly small plane that would take me from Houston to Mobile, followed by a 2.5-hour drive to Gulf Shores. And Gulf Shores is, indeed, God's country, if on the fourth day, God invented Zyn, the fifth day, Michelob Ultra, and on the sixth day, he declared, “Let there be scantily clad women walking barefoot in the street!” (Just across from the fest's shuttle depot is a historic landmark: the world's smallest Hooters restaurant.) Sand in My Boots' two stages sit at either end of a pristine stretch of white sand beachfront along a body of water whose name no one can seem to agree on: while the festival's website offers the opportunity to “cool off in the Gulf of Mexico between sets,” several dozen t-shirts and trucker hats I spy on attendees throughout the weekend proudly proclaim “GULF OF AMERICA SINCE 2025.”
Though I'm a fan of country music, both old-school and new, I also happen to be a Midwestern woman whose wardrobe is mostly black. This means that not only did I stick out like a sore thumb among the sea of body glitter, mesh cover-ups, star-spangled bikinis, ruffled mini-skirts, Hawaiian shirts, baseball jerseys, abundant camouflage, and yes, cowboy boots, I also cultivated the worst sunburn of my life within roughly 40 minutes of my arrival on day one. (“The sun reflects off the sand and makes it even worse!” explained a shirtless man in a mustache and a trucker hat that read “COUNTRY MUSIC TITTIES & BEER,” wincing at the two-tone paint job of my tan lines.)
Nevertheless, White Claw in hand, I set out to investigate the beachfront offerings between the stages, where a foam party was going off behind the Monster Energy Beach Club. Farther along, a man with a mustache and a microphone stood outside a makeshift chapel labeled “Love Somebody Lane,” soliciting passerbys: “Anybody wanna get married? It's free!” (It's more of a photo opp than a legally binding matter, he explained when I asked further: “Hell, we don't even ask for their last names!”) All the festival grounds' offerings are loosely Morgan Wallen-themed, from the 7 Summers Sandbar to the Up Down Cap n' Gown (where you can collect a gift, should you have chosen Sand in My Boots over your graduation ceremony) to the booths hawking a zero sugar ice tea brand “crafted by Morgan Wallen,” to the “Field & Stream 1871 Club” pop-up, where you can subscribe to the magazine Wallen bought with Eric Church last year.
Just after twilight on night one, a throng of girls in t-shirts printed “MORGY HARDY POSTY” were buzzing around the sandy margins of the main stage, where Hardy was preparing to perform. You either know the Mississippi native from his solo material, which often draws from rock and nu-metal despite its outlaw themes, or from the endless stream of hits he's co-written for other artists under his full name, Michael Hardy. (You'll find his name throughout the credits of Wallen's discography, from 2017's “Up Down” to I'm the Problem.) Emerging onstage barefoot in camo shorts and a Death Row Records t-shirt, Hardy's set epitomized the omnivorous sound of country today: thrashed out with a full rock band, songs like “Truck Bed” and “Psycho” felt more like mosh-pit fodder. Thematically, there was less ambiguity: “I believe America is the greatest country in the world,” he bellowed as an introduction to 2019's “God's Country.” “And if you don't agree, go get a f–kin' beer!”
On the other end of the beach, T-Pain's set was starting; the 40-year-old former Auto-Tune maverick has been slowly but steadily embraced by country fans since his 2023 cover of “Tennessee Whiskey.” (In fact, as he shared with me last year, the Florida native lived in Nashville in the mid-2010s, ghostwriting songs for Luke Bryan, Toby Keith and Florida Georgia Line.) But having seen his set extensively, I re-upped my cocktail (a vodka/lemonade/iced tea concoction named after the golfer John Daly) and settled in for the headlining set from Post Malone, who made his official jump to country with last year's F-1 Trillion, fulfilling the promise of a 2015 tweet: “WHEN I TURN 30 IM BECOMING A COUNTRY/FOLK SINGER.” A cynic might read the pivot as opportunistic, but so far, I've been charmed by Posty's country crossover: he's got the voice, demeanor and goodwill to fit seamlessly into the Nashville scene, where face tattoos are no longer frowned upon, thanks to Jelly Roll.
I might add that Post didn't look half-bad in his boot-cut jeans and cut-off Cowboys jersey, strutting and shimmying down the runway through the crowd as he performed slightly rootsier versions of old hits (“White Iverson,” “Circles”) and twangier album cuts like “Wrong Ones” and “M-E-X-I-C-O.” “I came here tonight to play some sh-tty music and party a little bit while we do it!” he crowed, sitting down at one point to pull off his cowboy boots and pace the stage barefoot. Mostly, the 29-year-old just seemed happy to be there, hyping up his nine-piece band and thanking the audience profusely between every song. Beside me in the sand along stage left, a sunburnt six-year-old girl mouthed every word of “Losers” from her perch on her dad's shoulders: “Last callers, last chancers, 9-to-5ers, truckers, dancers…”
My day-old sunburn was feeling borderline psychedelic on Saturday afternoon, but the idea of putting a shirt over my bikini just seemed wrong, particularly on a perfectly balmy 80 degree day. So I slathered on some sunscreen, chugged some water (plus a mysterious blue cocktail billed as “Electric Lemonade”) and made my way past rows of booths selling “Cowboy Nachos,” “Boot-Scootin' Smoothies,” and discounted cans of Zyn (Sand in My Boots' preferred nicotine delivery unit) towards the Dangerous Stage, where all of the day's rappers were performing. First up was BigXthaPlug, the 27-year-old Dallas native with a booming voice and offensive lineman build who's spent the past few years putting Texas rap back on the map. I was initially unsure how songs like “Mmhmm” and “Levels” would go over with an early afternoon crowd rocking t-shirts that read “SLAMMIN' BUSCH & POUNDIN' TUSH” and “EVERYTHING I LOVE IS ILLEGAL, OFFENSIVE, OR BRUNETTE” (plus one fellow who'd fashioned the box of a Twisted Tea 12-pack into a hat). But far more people than I expected rapped along to every word, not to mention lost their minds as X stripped off his shirt to the sounds of “All The Way (Don't Let Me Down Easy),” his collab with Bailey Zimmerman that debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 last month.
“Ooohh, I wanna see Three 6 Mafia!” shrieked a woman in stars-and-stripes booty shorts and a MAGA trucker hat to her husband, who was costumed in Hulk Hogan wrestling attire. It is almost unthinkable the extent to which the Memphis rap group have parlayed their hellish beats and eldritch lyrics into a wildly influential 35-year career, which has brought 48-year-old DJ Paul and 50-year-old Juicy J here to incite a beachfront riot. “Can we do a mosh pit?!” coaxed Juicy J to the stabs of 1997's “Hit A Mothaf-cka.” “I ain't never seen a mosh pit in the sand before,” noted DJ Paul above the fray, beginning a chant: “When I say ‘WEAK ASS,' y'all say ‘BITCH!'” “We got anybody in here from jail? DUI last night, straight from jail?” he continued with a grin. “Anybody from the hospital? Anybody from rehab?”
Across the beach, I caught the tail end of the set from Riley Green, the 36-year-old Alabama native whose baseball player-esque good looks and horny new single, “Worst Way,” have combined to make him the festival's unofficial heartthrob. (“SAVE A HORSE, RIDE RILEY GREEN” read one passing tank top.) Green's the Platonic ideal of an archetype my buddy has coined a term to describe: the GCB, short for Glam Country Boy, a type of guy you know well if you live in certain parts of the South or the Midwest. The GCB listens to country and a little bit of rap, wears a thin gold chain and often a mustache, possibly played minor league baseball; but his defining feature is the half-mullet my friend described as “that salad in the back.” (I tried to keep a tally of the festival's GCB count, but the task was too exhaustive, and I quit after an hour.) Soon Green is joined by Ella Langley—another Alabama local who tore up the stage earlier that afternoon with nostalgic songs like “Weren't for the Wind” and “Better Be Tough”—for their pair of duets, “You Look Like You Love Me” and “Don't Mind If I Do.” But I had an appointment with “Super VIP” catering that I was not going to miss.
At the risk of sounding like a tremendously spoiled douchebag, the dining room for the ritziest tier of VIP attendees was the most elaborate I've witnessed in all my days as a reporter. Saturday night, the dinner buffet included a dozen salads, charcuterie, beef short ribs, porchetta, blackened cod and a tower of crab legs piled higher than me—and that's before you hit the oyster bar. (It's air-conditioned, don't fret.) And that's how I found myself sunburnt and shirtless, cracking open crab legs as if I were Rick Ross. “Life on the Redneck Riviera ain't too bad,” I thought, washing down another oyster with a tequila soda.
I'd answered my own question as to whether the crowd would be too young to appreciate the evening's headliner, Brooks & Dunn—what did kids these days know about “Boot Scootin' Boogie”? But Sand in My Boots' crowd skewed a bit older than your average music festival, and though a few youngsters streamed towards the exit as the Nashville duo (formed in 1988) took the stage, most of the crowd knew every word to 20-something-year-old songs like “Ain't Nothing ‘bout You” and “Red Dirt Road.” On the shuttle back to my hotel (there's no parking on the premises, but a steady stream of buses ran from the grounds all day), a pair of sun-dazed women arrive at an inspired idea: “Girl, should we get Waffle House?” “Ohhhh, f–k me up!”
The seagulls have grown bold on day three of the festival, flying so low above the food court as to incur screams from shirtless men in Busch Light cowboy hats. As for me, I figured “when in Rome” and joined the line for the Zyn pop-up, where those 21 and up can purchase packs of the Swedish nicotine pouches favored by cowboys for the low price of $1. “Our menthol flavor has a eucalyptus aftertaste,” a gorgeous saleswoman informed me. Just ahead of me in line was a couple who'd flown in from Calgary, Alberta, the man cowboy hatted and mustached and the woman dressed to the nines in red thigh-high cowboy boots. “You guys like country music in Canada?” I asked them, to which they replied, “Oh, yah!”
All the lineup's indie rock bands have been relegated to the Dangerous Stage for the festival's last day, so I headed across the beach, passing the outdoor showers where a half-dozen partygoers were quite literally washing the sand off their cowboy boots. I'd been interested to see the crowd for The War on Drugs, the Philly-based seven-piece band whose t-shirts Wallen has been known to rock. Numbers-wise, the crowd paled in comparison to the hip-hop acts who played the previous day, to the point where I could clearly make out Ernest covering Hank Williams Jr.'s “Family Tradition” from the main stage. Still, I could see a through-line between the band's synthy heartland rock and a handful of my favorite Wallen songs—2023's “One Thing at a Time,” or the recent “Genesis.”
After another absurdly lavish dinner (peel-and-eat shrimp, crab legs, oysters, Lyonnaise salad, chicken piccata) I post up at the main stage, where 25-year-old Bailey Zimmerman is bouncing around in jean shorts before a band whose members all looked vaguely like Skrillex, reminding the crowd: “God is good all the time!” Until 2019, the Southern Illinois native had never sung outside of drunk karaoke; he worked on a gas pipeline, then gained some fame on TikTok for his videos tricking out his GMC truck. When his first-ever song, 2020's “Never Comin' Home,” racked up a million TikTok views overnight, he quit his job the next day. Now, between hits like “Fall in Love” and “Religiously,” he coaxed the crowd to scream “I love you!” to his mom backstage.
But like most everybody else, I'm here for Morgan Wallen, whose set tonight will close the festival. So far he had refrained from popping out for duets with collaborators on the lineup (Post Malone, Hardy, Ernest), and I was curious how much his setlist would reflect the brand-new album, whose mood was decidedly more introspective and subdued than previous blockbusters like Dangerous and One Thing at a Time. As for the crowd that had gathered around stage left, morale was high; a group of girls who'd traveled from Kentucky generously passed around a couple boxed wines and a joint. Then the lights went down, the beach erupted with screams, and video showed Wallen in white shorts and a white long-sleeve, jogging out from backstage to the sounds of “Broadway Girls,” his 2022 collaboration with Lil Durk.
Wallen kept the banter brief, taking a moment to acknowledge the years it had taken for Sand in My Boots to come together, then launched into a pair of songs from One Thing at a Time before transitioning to a handful of I'm the Problem singles (the title track, plus “Love Somebody”) and a few new songs he'd yet to play live before: “Kick Myself,” “Don't We,” “I'm A Little Crazy.” “I wanted to find the most classy way to talk a little sh-t,” he introduced the latter. (“I'm a little crazy, but the world's insane,” goes the chorus.) As stage presence goes, I've certainly seen more dynamic performers; occasionally he'd pick up an acoustic guitar, more as a shield than anything. But his raspy Tennessee drawl sounded surprisingly great live, particularly on “Cover Me Up,” a Jason Isbell song he's been covering for years, and on the festival's namesake track, a ballad about a one-night stand on the beach: “Somethin' bout the way she kissed me tells me she'd love Eastern Tennessee/But all I brought back with me was some sand in my boots.”
Wallen finished with a suite of early hits: “More Than My Hometown” and “Whiskey Glasses,” followed by an encore of the inescapable “Last Night” and his 2016 debut single “The Way I Talk.” Then the festival figurehead was off into the night, and so was I—back on the east-bound shuttle bus, where the driver allowed a group of drunk girls to blast Soulja Boy and Flo-Rida over the Bluetooth speakers. I didn't have boots to speak of, so all I brought back with me was a raging sunburn and a couple packs of Zyn.
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Billboard is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2025 Billboard Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
By Matt Grobar
Senior Film Reporter
EXCLUSIVE: Zoey Luna (The Craft: Legacy) and Aya Cash (The Boys) have wrapped on Slay, a horror dramedy marking the scripted feature directorial debut of Kyra Elise Gardner and the feature writing debut of actor Jimmi Simpson.
Following seven high school seniors whose weekend of backstabbing turns literal, the film also stars Shawnee Smith, Sean Giambrone, Maliina Weismann, Beck Nolan, Reise Alexander, River Alexander, Talia Jackson and Ruby McCollister.
Producers include Gardner, Simpson, Harrison Rothman, Scott Foley and Bradley Sloan.
“I wrote Slay about that moment in adolescence where you realize your friends know how to hurt you better than anyone else,” Simpson told Deadline. “Slay lives right there— but with sick music, jokes and stabbings.”
Watch on Deadline
Said Gardner: “I think horror, at its best, reveals what we can't say out loud to each other. This movie let me explore that, not with cruelty but with character— through girls trying to be women and boys trying not to be afraid. And it's always fun for me when fake blood is involved.”
Previously seen in the films Dear Evan Hansen and The Craft: Legacy, as well as FX's Pose, Luna is repped by Park Noack Agency.
Just recently signing on to star in the coming-of-age dramedy Adult Children, Cash's other upcoming projects include Rachel Israel's comedy The Floaters, Michael Russell Gunn's Cold War drama Reykjavik, and Prime Video's Vought Rising, where she reprises her role as Stormfront from hit comic book series The Boys. Best known for starring on FX's You're the Worst, she's also recently been seen starring in Max's The Franchise and Fox's Welcome to Flatch. She is repped by UTA, Industry Entertainment and Paul Hastings.
Most recently, Gardner wrote, directed and produced Living with Chucky, a doc released by Cinedigm on the Chucky horror franchise.
Currently, Simpson can be seen reprising his role in the USS Callister sequel episode of Black Mirror for Netflix. He's in production on Season 2 of Apple's Dark Matter and is repped by CAA, Cognition, and Hansen, Jacobson, Teller.
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By
Nikki McCann Ramirez
El Salvador's National Civil Police have arrested Ruth Eleonora López, a renowned human rights and anti-corruption attorney who has become one of the nation's most prominent critics of President Nayib Bukele's regime.
According to representatives from Cristosal, the human rights group where López serves as Chief Legal Officer for Anti-Corruption; members of López's family; and reports in Salvadoran media, López was taken from her home late Sunday night. In the time since her arrest, she has reportedly been refused access to her attorneys, and has not been able to contact members of her family. The arrest also came on the heels of a particularly tumultuous week for the Bukele government, which is facing growing public backlash amid a spate of repressive actions against civil society and Salvadorans alike.
On Monday, Amnesty International and a coalition of U.S. and international human rights groups condemned the arrest, and called on Salvadoran authorities to immediately release Ruth López,” and “guarantee her physical safety and due process rights.
“We also urge U.S. policymakers and the diplomatic community at large to urge President Bukele to cease all attacks against human rights defenders,” the group wrote.
Noah Bullock, head of Cristosal, told Rolling Stone on Monday that López had been arrested late on Sunday. Bullock's account of the arrest was relayed to him by López's partner, who was present as she was detained, but did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Rolling Stone. Bullock says police told López' “that they had a complaint about her car having been in an accident, and that they wanted to verify the owner and things like that, and then Ruth needed to come out.”
Police “tricked” her into coming out of the house, Bullock says, “and then once she was there they took out a pretty simple order from the attorney general to arrest her.” Lopez, who was in pajama shorts, then requested to be allowed to change.
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“She asked if she could put her pants on at least, and they wouldn't let her go back into the house and forced her to put pants on on the street in front of all of her neighbors.” According to a video of the arrest obtained by El Diario de Hoy, López told officers to “have decency,” because one day the sort of impunity they enjoyed “will end.”
Within minutes of the arrest, the Salvadoran attorney general's Office posted a tweet with a photo of López handcuffed between two officers, writing that she had been charged with embezzlement stemming from her time working in the office of Eugenio Chicas, a former magistrate and ex-president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal of El Salvador, who has been incarcerated since February on similar charges. The attorney general wrote that López had “collaborated in the theft of funds from the state coffers.” Chicas — with López's legal assistance — successfully sued Bukele in a 2017 defamation case.
López denied the charges during her arrest after an officer said he would “explain” her situation to her. “Here, the only reason for my arrest is that I'm a human rights defender and I work for an NGO that's inconvenient for the government; that's the only problem,” she says in the video. “There's nothing to explain — about embezzlement, corruption — when I'm the one investigating corruption here.”
Upon learning of the arrest, Cristosal dispatched “a lawyer, a criminal lawyer, to go and present himself as her representative, verify where she is and that she's in good condition,” Bullock says. “He arrived at that place, and they said that she wasn't there, and the place looked desolate. It didn't look like anybody was really there, and the police were really hostile with him.” Bullock adds that the attorney waited a while, before returning to the precinct, announcing himself as López's representative and asking to see her, only to be told she was not there. López's partner was later told he could deliver medication for López at another detention center, but has not had direct contact with her.
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Cristosal has since denounced López's arrest, and subsequent isolation from her attorneys and family, as a temporary forced disappearance. In a statement issued early Monday morning, the organization wrote that López is “likely the victim of a short-term enforced disappearance, which constitutes a serious human rights violation under international law.”
“The authorities' refusal to disclose her location or to allow access to her legal representatives is a blatant violation of due process, the right to legal defense, and international standards of judicial protection,” the organization wrote, adding a demand that the Salvadoran government immediately disclose the location of her detention, grant her access to her legal representation, and give “effective guarantees for her physical, psychological, and legal integrity.”
López, who last year was named one of the BBC's 100 most influential women, has a long history of exposing wrongdoing by the Bukele government and publicly defending the civil and humanitarian rights of those crushed under El Salvador's regime of exemption. Last year López helped lead an investigation that determined that Bukele's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) mega-prison was polluting the water supply of local communities by illegally dumping sewage from the prison. In 2022, López, through Cristosal, led a complaint against the Bukele government for the alleged use of government funds to install spyware in the communication devices of journalists and human rights activists.
Just last month, López confronted police officers who attempted to interrupt a Cristosal press conference with Kerry Kennedy, the niece of former President John F. Kennedy, who traveled to the country to meet with clients unlawfully deported from the U.S. to CECOT. According to a statement from Cristosal about the encounter, two National Civil Police (PNC) officers entered the organization's facilities during a press conference and began recording the organizations offices, as well as the vehicles of media, staff, and others present at the event. The officers claimed they had “come to verify a ‘supposed pro-Venezuelan demonstration and a press conference.'”
Bullock tells Rolling Stone that while Cristosal has become used to police presence at their events and harassment by law enforcement, López's arrest comes during an acute increase in the government's repressive attitude towards non profits and human rights organizations. “They haven't been able to control the narrative, and now they're cracking down,” Bullock says, noting that last week Bukele announced he would be implementing a hefty tax on foreign donations to nonprofits operating in El Salvador, many of whom are critical of the government's autocratic policies.
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In an April Rolling Stone interview on the conditions of El Salvador's prisons, and the lack of due process and respect for human rights within the nation's prison system, López warned that the checks and balances placed on the powers of functional democracies exist for the protection of the population. When they are eroded, “the population ends up suffering those consequences.”
With Lopez now in detention, one of the most critical voices in defense of Salvadoran civil society has been cut off from the world. “We're hoping that they treat her fairly while she's in prison,” Bullock says of López's detention, “I think it's probably unlikely.”
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Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2025 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.
By Matt Grobar
Senior Film Reporter
Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things) and Tucker Pillsbury (aka Role Model) are set to star alongside Natalie Portman in Good Sex, writer-director Lena Dunham's new romantic comedy for Netflix.
The film centers on pragmatic couples' therapist Ally, who after spending a decade in a failed relationship, is turning 40 and reluctantly dipping her toe back into the New York dating scene. But she gets more than she bargained for when she meets two men — one in his twenties and one in his fifties — who show her there is no set formula for good sex.
Portman and Sophie Mas are producing for MountainA, alongside Dunham and Michael Cohen for Good Thing Going Productions. Tim Bevan and Michael Sledd are exec producing, along with Michaela Celella for MountainA.
Good Sex is one of two rom-com projects Dunham has coming to Netflix, the other being series Too Much, starring Will Sharpe and Megan Stalter, which is slated to premiere on the service on July 10.
Watch on Deadline
Coming off of Bong Joon Ho's Mickey 17 and an Oscar nomination for his work in Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things, Ruffalo stars opposite Cooper Raiff and Lili Reinhart in Raff's independently produced TV series Hal & Harper, which premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival. His new HBO miniseries Task, a crime drama from Mare of Easttown‘s Brad Ingelsby, is set to premiere in September. Upcoming, he'll also be seen in Amazon MGM's Crime 101 and Lionsgate's Now You See Me: Now You Don't. He is repped by UTA, Lighthouse Management & Media, and attorney Keith A. Klevan.
Pillsbury is a singer-songwriter better known by stage name Role Model, who has put out the albums Rx and Kansas Anymore. He is repped by Paradigm, Wasserman Music, and Myman Greenspan Fox.
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Oscar Restrepo (Ubeimar Rios) is a bum. Call him a lush, a louse, a putz, a schmuck, a sad-sack, and a dumb-SOB and all would apply. He can take them, and then some. He is, after all, a man of words — poor Oscar's a poet, and woe unto all those who know him.
But good news for all those that take in “A Poet” (“Un Poeta”), director Simón Mesa Soto's immensely appealing and often caustic character study-turned-social-satire premiering out of Cannes' Un Certain Regard sidebar. Put together with impressive efficiency — the film only started shooting in January — this art-world send-up explores the many fears and frustrations the acclaimed director felt in the decade since making the 2014 short film Palme d'Or winner “Leidi,” channeling them into a darkly-funny burlesque that speaks of verse while playing like a Dan Clowes comic brought to manic life.
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Oscar's a poet, alright, and not much else. He isn't much of a father to the high-schooler Daniela (Allison Correa), who obviously lives under a different roof; he isn't much of a caregiver to his own aging mama (Margarita Soto), who still supports her failure-to-launch with an allowance and a pair of car-keys; and he isn't even much of an author. Oh he was, of course — winning a number of literary prizes as a precocious youth that now hang on his mantle, alongside a photo of José Asunción Silva, quietly taunting a middle-ager riven with writer's block. It's no wonder why he drinks.
And when he gets in the cups, what else can he shout about but “poeeeeesíííííaa,” stumbling along the back-allies of Medellín and slurring his words, but leaving no doubt as to the passion that animates him. Director Simón Mesa Soto shares in that fervor, mining his main character for pathos, not ridicule, framing Oscar as a true-blue romantic — a kind of holy fool susceptible to even the most obvious of scams but only because this staunch aesthete has devoted all of his attention to verse. And if Oscar's perhaps more guilelessly dogmatic about art-above-all, he's hardly alone in a country that puts writers like José Asunción Silva and Gabriel García Márquez on its currency.
Problem is, Oscar doesn't have too many of those pesos. Recognizing that more prosaic reality — while looking to at least buy his way towards his daughter's good graces — our poet soon accepts a teaching gig at a local high-school. There, he meets Yurlady (Rebeca Andrade) — a lower, lower-class student with a natural aptitude for… well, take a guess. Any number of discrete films could build from that premise, and “A Poet” tries quite a few on for size, playing with elements from the inspirational teacher school and the late-coming-age redemption drama before setting into a more sardonic register once the teacher tries to make his student a star.
The duo are both aesthetes in a world of opportunists, including but not limited to the 14-year-old's family, who can recognize a meal-ticket when they see one, and to Medellín's literary elite, who see the very same but for much greater sums. If the 39-year-old Soto — who works as a teacher in between films — sees in Oscar a version of his own path that didn't run through Cannes, the director pours just as much of his own experience into Yurlady — a promising talent from a background that lends itself to easy clichés. If she could just prove she's ‘serious' by filling her verse with laments about poverty and race, she might even win over a few deep-pocketed European backers. I wonder where Soto came up with that idea.
Split into four chapters and filmed on grainy, 16mm stock that leaves a mask of schmutz around the corners of the frame, “A Poet” loops around questions of art and commerce in an endearingly loopy tone. The film's bawdy sense of humor plays off a non-professional star — himself a full-time teacher from a nearby school — that looks like he was drawn by Robert Crumb and acts the part just as well. While outcast valentines like Owen Kline's “Funny Pages” and acrid satires like Radu Jude's “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn” might serve as stylistic and thematic comparisons, Simón Mesa Soto really owns his own voice, mixing high-art with bad taste to piece apart the mechanisms of a mess-up.
Few leave unscathed as the handheld camera whip-pans and fast-zooms between cringe-comedy and genuine pathos and back again — especially once the hapless prof paves his own road to hell with his good intentions. Well, more like self-serving intentions; Oscar might only want to see his young mentee celebrated for her work, though at no point does Yurlady indicate a similar ambition. That we do really feel for Oscar when he inevitably screws himself up and out of a feel-good movie reflects Soto's tonal dexterity. The Colombian filmmaker certainly offers a welcome F-U to World Cinema good manners, but he's not just taking the piss with his tale of a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and no king.
“A Poet” premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
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The song is now among the 15 longest-leading hits of all time.
By
Gary Trust
Kendrick Lamar and SZA's “Luther” logs a lucky 13th total and consecutive week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart. The single is one of just 15 to have led for at least that long dating to the survey's Aug. 4, 1958, start.
“Luther,” whose title is a tribute late R&B legend Luther Vandross, who is sampled on it, became Lamar's sixth Hot 100 No. 1 and SZA's third.
Elsewhere, Teddy Swims' “Lose Control,” at No. 7, adds a 91st week on the on the Hot 100 overall – tying Glass Animals' “Heat Waves” for the longest run on the chart all-time.
Plus, Doechii's “Anxiety,” at No. 10 on the Hot 100, ascends to No. 1 on the all-format Radio Songs chart as the week's most-heard airplay hit.
Browse the full rundown of this week's top 10 below.
The Hot 100 blends all-genre U.S. streaming (official audio and official video), radio airplay and sales data, the lattermost metric reflecting purchases of physical singles and digital tracks from full-service digital music retailers; digital singles sales from direct-to-consumer (D2C) sites are excluded from chart calculations. All charts (dated May 24, 2025) will update on Billboard.com tomorrow, May 20. For all chart news, you can follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
“Luther,” on pgLang/Interscope/ICLG, tallied 63.4 million radio airplay audience impressions (down 3% week-over-week), 18.3 million official streams (down 5%) and 2,000 sold (down 13%) in the U.S. May 9-15.
The track slips to No. 2 after six weeks atop Radio Songs and holds at No. 2 following seven weeks atop Streaming Songs.
“Luther” concurrently claims a 21st week at No. 1 on both the multimetric Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Hot Rap Songs charts. It ties SZA's “Kill Bill” (in 2022-23) for the third-longest command on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs (dating to October 1958, when it became the genre's singular ranking) – and is a week from potentially tying Lamar's “Not Like Us” (22 weeks, 2024-25) for the longest. On Hot Rap Songs, “Luther” solely has the second-longest reign, after “Not Like Us” (26 weeks).
“Luther” ties for the third-most time spent at No. 1 on the Hot 100 among duets by co-billed lead acts. (Among such songs by soloists with no featured artists, it matches Brandy and Monica's “The Boy Is Mine” for the longest No. 1 run.)
Here's a recap of the longest-leading Hot 100 No. 1 duets by co-billed lead artists (not counting acts that have regularly recorded as duos):
Teddy Swims' “Lose Control,” which ruled the Hot 100 for a week in March 2024, and became the year's No. 1 song, keeps at No. 7 – as it posts a record-tying 91st week on the chart overall. It equals the run of Glass Animals' “Heat Waves,” which ran up 91 weeks in 2021-22.
Here's a rundown of the longest-charting titles in the Hot 100's history (* denotes title currently charting):
“Lose Control” has also amassed a record 62 weeks in the Hot 100's top 10. (Songs have generally logged longer runs on the chart, and at No. 1 and in the top 10, since the survey adopted electronically-tracked Luminate data in November 1991.)
Doechii's “Anxiety,” down a spot to No. 10 from its No. 9 Hot 100 high, lifts 2-1 on Radio Songs (65 million, up 7%). The track becomes her first leader on the list, after she hit a previous No. 5 peak with her first entry, “What It Is (Block Boy),” featuring Kodak Black, in November 2023.
Notably, “Anxiety” interpolates Gotye's “Somebody That I Used To Know” (featuring Kimbra), which ruled Radio Songs for six weeks in 2012. It's not the chart's first No. 1 to have reworked a prior leader; Latto's 2023 No. 1 “Big Energy,” via a remix, samples Mariah Carey's “Fantasy,” from 1995 (with both stemming from Tom Tom Club's “Genius of Love”), while Ed Sheeran's “Shape of You,” from 2017, gives partial writing credit to three authors of TLC's 1999 No. 1 “No Scrubs.” (“Somebody That I Used To Know” itself samples Luiz Bonfá's “Seville,” from 1967.)
Meanwhile, “Anxiety” leads Radio Songs in just its eighth week on the chart. It wraps the fastest run to No. 1 since Post Malone's “I Had Some Help,” featuring Morgan Wallen, led in its eighth frame last July.
Alex Warren's “Ordinary” holds at its No. 2 Hot 100 high. It tops Streaming Songs (21.7 million streams, up 1%) and Digital Song Sales (7,000 sold, up 16%) for a fourth week each, while boasting a 26% surge to 30.9 million in radio audience.
Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars' “Die With a Smile” repeats at No. 3, following five nonconsecutive weeks atop the Hot 100 beginning in January.
Shaboozey's “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” is steady at No. 4 on the Hot 100, following its record-tying 19 weeks at No. 1 beginning last July. It notches a 45th week in the top five – extending its record for the most weeks ever spent in the tier. Plus, it adds a 45th week at No. 1 on the multimetric Hot Country Songs chart; it's second only to Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line's “Meant To Be,” which ruled for 50 weeks in 2017-18.
Drake's “Nokia” keeps at No. 5 on the Hot 100, Morgan Wallen's “I'm the Problem” jumps 10-6 and Benson Boone's “Beautiful Things” holds at No. 8, with all three songs having hit No. 2, while Chappell Roan's “Pink Pony Club” falls 6-9, after peaking at No. 4.
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Tom Cruise is looking to do the impossible: Act for almost a century. The former teen star turned Hollywood icon (turned mega action producer turned stuntman) told The Hollywood Reporter that he has no plans to retire…ever.
“I will never stop. I will never stop doing action, I will never stop doing drama, comedy films — I'm excited,” Cruise said when asked about his former statement that like Harrison Ford, he will keep acting into his 80s. Cruise also had one amendment: “I actually said I'm going to make movies into my 80s; actually, I'm going to make them into my 100s.”
The “Mission: Impossible – the Final Reckoning” star added that filmmaking is constantly a learning process. “There's been so many levels of reward with the filmmakers that I've collaborated with, the crews, the people, the cultures that we've worked in. Everything that I've learned and continue to learn about storytelling, about life, about leadership, about character and every aspect of filmmaking,” Cruise said. “It's been exceptional, it really is exceptional. I feel very fortunate to be able to make the films that I make and I love it. I love just making movies.”
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Just don't expect Cruise to be hanging off a biplane again in his 100s: The actor confirmed that “Mission: Impossible – the Final Reckoning” is in fact his final appearance as franchise lead Ethan Hunt. “It's the final! It's not called ‘final' for nothing,” he said.
He is, however, reprising his role for a third “Top Gun” and also plans on collaborating with Michael B. Jordan on a feature. “I'm a huge fan of Michael B. Jordan, that film ‘Sinners' is amazing,” Cruise told ET. “We're going to make a movie together.”
Cruise continued that he is looking to foster the next generation of actors, as evidenced by his mentorship of Glen Powell and more rising talents. “I think there are so many other talented actors out there that I want to see crush it,” he said. Cruise further pointed to other blockbusters set for this summer, including “Ballerina” starring Ana de Armas and “F1” with Brad Pitt.
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By Jesse Whittock, Andreas Wiseman
EXCLUSIVE: Chad Stahelski‘s 87Eleven Entertainment and Capstone Studios are lining the first film in planned action thriller franchise, Sentinel.
J. Houston Yang is directing based on a story he wrote and a screenplay from Joe Barnathan and Marcus Rinehart, with Capstone and WME Independent launching sales at the Cannes Market. Production's slated for the fall.
John Wick director Stahelski is producing alongside 87Eleven colleagues Alex Young and Jason Spitz, and Christian Mercuri from Capstone and Marc Goldberg. David Haring and Roman Viaris of Capstone Studios serve as executive producers.
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The film is based on a short Yang wrote and directed. He is a filmmaker, editor and action designer who worked as a trailer editor and pitch consultant in Hollywood for over a decade.
Watch on Deadline
Sentinel will follow a blue-collar mechanic who finds himself on the run in an unforgiving wilderness hunted by a killer, a ruthless drone gone rogue, after he witnesses the assassination of his boss. With only an unlikely companion at his side, he has to survive a brutal night and uncover the truth.
“We are excited to partner with Capstone Studios to create this new, near-future action franchise,” stated Stahelski and Young of 87Eleven in a statement. “The franchise focuses on elements of the future that have every potential to scare humanity. Houston's fresh take on our overall concept will intrigue international audiences and leave them craving more.”
87Eleven's current slate includes development on Amazon MGM pic Highlander with Henry Cavill; Lionsgate's Karoshi from writer-director Takashi Doscher starring Cynthia Erivo, Teo Yoo and Isabel May, which goes into production next month; and the untitled John Wick spin-off directed by Donnie Yen among others. On the TV front, it is developing Project Nemesis and Scot Harvarth, both at Sony Pictures Television, and John Wick: Under the High Table.
For Capstone, Sentinel comes after it launched worldwide sales on Marriage Material, starring Emma Roberts and Matt Rife, in Cannes.
Yang repped by WME and Redefine Entertainment. Barnathan and Rinehart are repped by Kaplan Perrone Entertainment.
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By
Nikki McCann Ramirez
News that former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an aggressive prostate cancer came as a surprise on Sunday, adding fuel to conversation about the state of the former president's health in the waning months of his presidency. While well wishes, speculation, and clamor for more details abound, some of the MAGA right's most prominent voices are chomping at the bit to turn Biden's diagnoses into a political side show.
“What I want to know is how did Dr. Jill Biden miss stage five metastatic cancer or is this yet another coverup???” Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of President Donald Trump, wrote on X, pinning the post to the top of his account.
Trump Jr. has long mocked the former first lady — who holds a PhD, not a medical degree — for describing herself as a doctor. His post on Sunday was met with a wave of comments explaining to him that Jill Biden is not a medical doctor. Trump Jr. responded on Monday. “I sometimes forget that part of the mental disorder of leftism is an inability to understand sarcasm,” he wrote. “So for the confused libs out there, I'm well aware that Jill Biden is a fake doctor, not a real one.”
MAGA Youtuber Benny Johnson, who boasts millions of followers across his various social media accounts, claimed that the diagnosis was “the Most Dangerous Cover-up in the History of the Presidency.”
Johnson — who is not a doctor — claimed that “advanced prostate cancer takes +10 years to develop to the stage where Biden's diagnosis is,” and that “simple blood test or prostate exam will give you near 100% accurate results.”
“They knew. They lied. They hid it. For power. People need to be held accountable for this. Evil,” Johnson added.
Right-wing commentator Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire called for an investigation. “We need congress to actually do something finally,” he wrote on X. “Full investigation. Pull every Biden staffer and official into a hearing. Put them under oath. Jill Biden too. His doctors. Everyone. Who was involved in this cover up? How deep did it go? And most importantly: who was actually running the country for the past four years? We must know.”
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End Wokeness, a prominent MAGA X account with 3.6 million followers, joined Trump Jr. in mocking the diagnosis: “‘We just found stage 4 cancer' is the new ‘he just has a stutter.'”
It wasn't just MAGA influencers who responded with speculation and conspiracy theory.
Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) said on Monday on Fox Business that he wishes Biden well, but that he doesn't believe he just found out about the cancer diagnosis last week, and that he suspects Biden and his team covering it up is part of a “scheme.”
Ed Martin, the former interim U.S. attorney for D.C. who Trump recently installed as the Justice Department's new pardon attorney, wrote on Sunday: “The integrity of the American Pardon system requires that we examine the Biden pardons and who did what. We will get the bottom of it. Count on us.”
Vice President J.D. Vance also pivoted after wishing Biden well: “Whether the right time to have this conversation is now or some time in the future, we really do need to be honest about whether the former president was capable of doing the job,” he said on Monday.
“I blame the people around him,” Vance said, wondering: “Why didn't the American people have a better sense of his health picture?”
The diagnosis comes as Biden's mental acuity has been under scrutiny ahead of the release of a book examining the former president's decline and its impact on the 2024 election cycle. The book — Original Sin, by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson — paints a damning picture of Biden's mental decline and the measures his team took to cover it up.
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MAGA commentators are now alleging the cancer diagnosis was also kept under wraps, but even Fox News acknowledged that the sudden detection of late stage and aggressive cancers was common even in patients who had regular screenings. Dr. Nicole Saphier, a contributor at the network, told the hosts of America's Newsroom that “it is not uncommon” that patients present with metastatic cancer even when we're screening for that, and that “some prostate cancers aren't associated with a rise in [Prostate-specific antigen levels] and he “could have had a false negative.”
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Still, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist Biden put on his Covid-19 advisory board, told MSNBC that Biden has likely had the cancer “for many years” and that he's “surprised” it wasn't diagnosed earlier. He added that though “a lot of people recommend not doing a prostate-specific antigen after 70,” Biden is a public figure and it's “a little surprising” he didn't do it. “I looked back at the records and there's no evidence that when he got his health status and the medical records were released, that he had a prostate specific antigen,” Emanuel said.
The public uncertainty around the diagnosis and its severity haven't stopped the MAGA right from mocking the former president while clamoring for congressional investigations into the timeline of events and alleging a nefarious cover up. President Donald Trump, at least, was able to restrain himself. “Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden's recent medical diagnosis,” he wrote on Truth Social. “We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.”
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Diiv are back with a new song, “Return of Youth.” The track's accompanying music video was filmed after the fires in Altadena, California, that destroyed hundreds of businesses and homes, including one belonging to Diiv frontman Zachary Cole Smith. You can see the video below.
Smith, his pregnant wife, and two-year-old son safely evacuated their Altadena house before it was lost in January's deadly wildfires, but Smith's friend launched a GoFundMe on the artist's behalf to help recoup the loss of their house, musical instruments, car, and more belongings. With all that's happened since then, including what's captured in this new video, Smith shared a long statement tied to “Return of Youth”:
hi
diiv has a new song out today, “return of youth”. sorry for the long statement
‘frog' was an album that focused our gaze outward at the world around us. it captured a series of snapshots of our condition, in confusion and disgust and awe.
the writing period for this album was part of a beautiful time in my life, as we prepared and waited for our first child to be born. that beauty was cut with a profound existential dilemma: how can we bring a child into this world?
the common thread running through the fragmented world of the album was hope. we've talked about it a bit. real hope, false hope, something to give your life meaning. its an individual journey. i found it in parenthood, but you can find it anywhere you want.
“return of youth” was written before our son was born, a projection, zooming in until the larger existential dilemmas were out of frame. where “fender on the freeway” found peace in the patterns of a gigantic macro, this one finds it in a mundane and simple micro. i imagined seeing myself through the eyes of my child, a rebirth of sorts, laced with fear and insecurity, discovering beauty and serenity together in the simplest places.
at the very beginning of the year my family and i lost our home and everything we owned to the wildfires in altadena, ca. we had been preparing for the birth of our second son. we were living in the beautiful world at home that i had imagined in this song, and at once that world was gone.
when we re-approached this song to finally release it, i couldn't help but hear the song differently in the aftermath. what makes a home? can you ever escape the outside world? is hope just a delusion? is anyone actually prepared to be a parent? how CAN you bring a child into this world?
i found again the big questions were irrelevant. you just keep on living i guess. life happens on life's terms.
anyway, make of the song and the video whatever you want, it's just a snapshot, albeit a more personal one this time.
enjoy.
Cole
“Return of Youth” arrives almost one year to the day since Diiv released Frog in Boiling Water. They recently shared a remix of the Frog in Boiling Water song “Everyone Out” by Mount Kimbie, too. The shoegaze band will head out on a European tour this summer in support of the LP, with shows in Los Angeles and Australia also slated to take place beforehand.
Read about Diiv's Deceiver in “The Best Rock Albums of 2019.”
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The president called for an "investigation" into their endorsements of Kamala Harris in 2024.
By
Hannah Dailey
President Donald Trump has accused Beyoncé, Bruce Springsteen and more stars of participating in an “illegal election scam” run by Kamala Harris‘ campaign during the 2024 election, with the billionaire calling for a “major investigation” into their allegedly “corrupt” endorsements of the former VP.
In two Truth Social posts from the early hours of Monday (May 19), Trump first accused the Boss — whom the POTUS also called “highly overrated” and “dumb as a rock” just a few days prior — of illegally accepting an undisclosed payment to appear at one of Harris' rallies last year before lumping the “Texas Hold ‘Em” singer, as well as Oprah Winfrey and U2's Bono, into the alleged scheme. “HOW MUCH DID KAMALA HARRIS PAY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN FOR HIS POOR PERFORMANCE DURING HER CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT?” Trump began. “WHY DID HE ACCEPT THAT MONEY IF HE IS SUCH A FAN OF HERS?”
“ISN'T THAT A MAJOR AND ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION? WHAT ABOUT BEYONCÉ? …AND HOW MUCH WENT TO OPRAH, AND BONO???” he continued early Monday morning. “I am going to call for a major investigation into this matter. Candidates aren't allowed to pay for ENDORSEMENTS, which is what Kamala did, under the guise of paying for entertainment. In addition, this was a very expensive and desperate effort to artificially build up her sparse crowds.”
“IT'S NOT LEGAL!” Trump added. “For these unpatriotic ‘entertainers,' this was just a CORRUPT & UNLAWFUL way to capitalize on a broken system.”
In a follow-up post about seven hours later, Trump doubled down on his claims. “According to news reports, Beyoncé was paid $11,000,000 to walk onto a stage, quickly ENDORSE KAMALA, and walk off to loud booing for never having performed, NOT EVEN ONE SONG!” he wrote. “Remember, the Democrats and Kamala illegally paid her millions of Dollars for doing nothing other than giving Kamala a full throated ENDORSEMENT. THIS IS AN ILLEGAL ELECTION SCAM AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL! IT IS AN ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION! BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, OPRAH, BONO AND, PERHAPS, MANY OTHERS, HAVE A LOT OF EXPLAINING TO DO!!!”
When that 11-million figure first surfaced last year and made the rounds on social media, fact check organizations found no evidence to support the claim. Billboard has reached out to reps for Beyoncé, Springsteen and Bono for comment.
The president's remarks come about three days after he first targeted the “Born in the U.S.A.” rocker shortly after Springsteen slammed Trump's “corrupt, incompetent and treasonous” administration during a concert in Manchester. Trump called the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer a “pushy, obnoxious JERK” who “ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT” on Friday (May 16). That same day, Trump also wrote that Taylor Swift is “no longer ‘HOT'” following her September endorsement of Harris and his subsequent “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT” post.
Springsteen was vocal in his support of Harris throughout the 2024 election, performing at rallies in Pennsylvania and Georgia as well as appearing in an advertisement supporting the Democratic politician's campaign. Beyoncé also appeared at a Harris rally in Houston, delivering a speech in which she asserted: “I'm not here as a celebrity. I'm not here as a politician. I'm here as a mother. A mother who cares, deeply, about the world my children and all of our children live in.”
An Irish citizen, Bono did not endorse a candidate in the 2024 U.S. election or participate in any campaign events.
The E Street band leader and Destiny's Child alum were just two of many stars who backed Harris during the 2024 election, with Megan Thee Stallion, Bad Bunny, Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Cardi B, Eminem and more throwing their support behind the former prosecutor's campaign. Finance records do not show that any of them were paid for their endorsements — something Harris would have needed to disclose if that were the case — and Harris' campaign has denied in the past that it ever paid artists to perform at events. “We have never paid any artist and performer,” senior spokesperson Adrienne Elrod stated to Deadline when rumors to the contrary first surfaced last year. “We have never paid a fee to that person.”
Beyoncé's camp has also denied that she accepted payment for her endorsement of Harris, as has the 35-time Grammy winner's mother, Tina Knowles. “The lie is that Beyonce was paid 10 million dollars to speak at a rally in Houston for Vice President Kamala Harris,” Knowles wrote on Instagram in November. “When In Fact : Beyonce did not receive a penny for speaking at a Presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harrris's Rally in Houston. In fact she actually paid for her own flights for her and her team, and total Glam . They are not only lying and disrespecting Beyonce's name but they are trying to further discredit the power of our vice president! When does the lies and rumors stop?”
There is record of Harris paying Bey's production company, Parkwood Production Media LLC, $165,000 after the Texas event; that payment would be in accordance with federal law, which prohibits corporations from giving directly to a candidate's campaign and mandates that campaigns reimburse the costs of large event production, according to The Hill.
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Billboard is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2025 Billboard Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
By Lynette Rice
Senior TV Writer
EXCLUSIVE: HBO‘s limited series The Penguin has revealed its game plan for the upcoming Emmy race.
Colin Farrell will vie for Best Actor for playing Oswald “Oz' Cobb while Cristin Milioti will enter the contest for Best Actress after her memorable turn as Sofia Falcone.
The limited series created by Lauren LeFranc will enter the Outstanding Limited Series category, while LeFranc will also compete in writing.
Two other actors from the limited series will enter the Emmy race, as well. Rhenzy Feliz, who played Oz's devoted right hand Victor, will enter the Supporting Actor category, while Deirdre O' Connell, who played Oz's mom Francis, will go for Supporting Actress.
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Craig Zobel, Helen Shaver, Kevin Bray and Jennifer Getzinger will vie for directing episodes 101 (“After Hours”), 104 (“Cent'anni”), 107 (“Top Hat”) and 108 (“A Great or Little Thing”), respectively.
Watch on Deadline
Cindy Tolen and Suzanne Ryan will compete in casting. DPs Darran Tiernan, Jonathan Freeman, David Franco, and Zoë White will be entered for Outstanding Cinematography for episodes 101, 105 (“Homecoming”), 107 and 108, respectively.
Editors Andy Keir, Meg Reticker and Henk Van Eeghen will enter the Picture Editing race.
HBO will also submit in Production Design for a Narrative Contemporary Program, Contemporary Hairstyling, Contemporary Makeup, Prosthetic Makeup, Music Composition, Music Supervision, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Special Visual Effects, Stunt Coordination, Stunt Performance and Title Design.
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By Lynette Rice
Senior TV Writer
EXCLUSIVE: HBO‘s limited series The Penguin has revealed its game plan for the upcoming Emmy race.
Colin Farrell will vie for Best Actor for playing Oswald “Oz' Cobb while Cristin Milioti will enter the contest for Best Actress after her memorable turn as Sofia Falcone.
The limited series created by Lauren LeFranc will enter the Outstanding Limited Series category, while LeFranc will also compete in writing.
Two other actors from the limited series will enter the Emmy race, as well. Rhenzy Feliz, who played Oz's devoted right hand Victor, will enter the Supporting Actor category, while Deirdre O' Connell, who played Oz's mom Francis, will go for Supporting Actress.
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Craig Zobel, Helen Shaver, Kevin Bray and Jennifer Getzinger will vie for directing episodes 101 (“After Hours”), 104 (“Cent'anni”), 107 (“Top Hat”) and 108 (“A Great or Little Thing”), respectively.
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Cindy Tolen and Suzanne Ryan will compete in casting. DPs Darran Tiernan, Jonathan Freeman, David Franco, and Zoë White will be entered for Outstanding Cinematography for episodes 101, 105 (“Homecoming”), 107 and 108, respectively.
Editors Andy Keir, Meg Reticker and Henk Van Eeghen will enter the Picture Editing race.
HBO will also submit in Production Design for a Narrative Contemporary Program, Contemporary Hairstyling, Contemporary Makeup, Prosthetic Makeup, Music Composition, Music Supervision, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Special Visual Effects, Stunt Coordination, Stunt Performance and Title Design.
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By Matthew Carey
Documentary Editor, Awards
The late actress Jayne Mansfield became a regular at the Cannes Film Festival in the 1950s and ‘60s, sometimes photographed on the Croisette with her husband, Mickey Hargitay, and on at least one occasion accompanied by her pet pooch.
Decades after her death in a tragic car crash, Mansfield again enjoys a place of honor at the festival, thanks to her daughter, Mariska Hargitay. The star known for her role as Det. Olivia Benson on Law & Order: SVU, makes her directorial debut with the documentary My Mom Jayne, which just premiered in the Cannes Classics section of the festival.
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“Obviously I've grown up with images of my mother. There were certainly a lot taken,” Hargitay said as she stopped by Deadline's Cannes Studio. “But the photos of her in Cannes in particular were always so meaningful to me because of how free and happy and in love she was with my father. And so those photos were always kind of seared in this emotional place in my heart. To be here, to bring her back here and to tell her story was quite beautiful.”
Hargitay was only three when her mother was killed in the accident in Louisiana. Mariska and her older brothers Zoltan and Mickey Jr. were in the backseat at the time and all three were injured. As the film reveals, paramedics left the scene without realizing Mariska was trapped inside the vehicle; they only returned after Zoltan asked them about the whereabouts of his sister.
The Hollywood studio system forced the shapely Mansfield into the role of a blond bombshell – dyeing her hair to help achieve the desired effect. Underneath the glamour girl image lurked a woman of substance; Mansfield was a polyglot, classical pianist and violinist, and took the craft of acting seriously.
“Seeing all this artistry and seeing that she never was able to do the kinds of films or make the kind of art that she wanted to was so intriguing,” Hargitay noted. “I wanted to know that story and again, get to know the person. I just longed and ached to know the real person and what made her tick and what made her afraid and what was her pain and her joy and all of that.”
My Mom Jayne, which premieres June 27 on HBO and HBO Max, contains startling revelations about the identity of Hargitay's biological father – details the actress-director has never shared before. We won't spoil those here.
Later in the summer, Hargitay will return to work on the 27th season of SVU. As Deadline reported exclusively, she will be rejoined by her friend, actress Kelli Giddish, who is coming back to the show in the role of Det. Amanda Rollins.
“She is a formidable actress and an incredibly creative partner and has been such a joy and huge part of the fabric of SVU,” Hargitay told us. “I love her, and I love acting with her and co-creating with her, and it feels like home with her. So, I am ecstatic about her return.”
Watch the full conversation in the video above.
Title: My Mom Jayne
Festival: Cannes (Cannes Classics section)
Panelist: Mariska Hargitay (director)
Distributor: HBO
Running time: 1 hr 46 min.
The Deadline Studio at Cannes is sponsored by SCAD, Cast & Crew and Final Draft.
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By
Jon Blistein
Follow all our Sean Combs trial coverage
Dawn Richard testified she “frequently” saw Sean Combs beat his longtime ex-girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, while on the stand for her second day of testimony at Combs' sex trafficking trial.
“He would punch her, choke her, drag her, slap her in the mouth,” Richard said. “I saw him kick her, punch her in the stomach.”
Richard added that Combs would get violent with Ventura for a variety of reasons, whether it was a response to Ventura “speaking up for herself,” or just a “random” outburst. “We didn't even know where it came from,” Richard said.
Richard entered Combs' orbit as a breakout talent from his MTV reality series Making the Band. She later joined the Bad Boy girl group Danity Kane, and was also part of the R&B trio Diddy-Dirty Money with Combs and Kalenna Harper.
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One instance of alleged abuse Richard testified to witnessing took place at Combs' home in New York City in 2009, with Harper also present. Richard said Combs “punched [Ventura] in the face” during an argument, leaving Ventura's face so swollen she had to wear sunglasses and make-up to hide the injury.
The jury was then shown a photo of Ventura, Richard, and Harper in public, with all three women wearing sunglasses. Richard said she and Harper wore the sunglasses “to have solidarity, to be a friend, to be a support system for someone who needed it.”
Another alleged attack occurred at a restaurant where several record label personnel were also present. Combs and Ventura had been arguing quietly, according to Richard, when Combs punched Ventura in the stomach. In the car home afterward, Richard continued, Ventura told Combs the public incident had “embarrassed” her. In response, Richard said, Combs allegedly “grabbed [Ventura] by the neck and popped her, slapped her in the mouth.” Combs' security personnel were present, but did not do anything, Richard said, and the ride continued in silence.
Richard went on to say that she encouraged Ventura to leave Combs after witnessing these alleged instances of abuse. Richard described Ventura as “torn,” during these conversations, adding, “She would listen but you could see, I could see the fear…” (her statement was cut off by an objection from the defense, which the judge sustained).
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But when Combs heard about these conversations, Richard continued, the mogul told her to stop “or else we would pay for it.” Richard added: “I made a decision that it would be best for the safety of myself to not interfere, because I don't think that she was really ready to do anything.”
Richard began her testimony last Friday, May 16, taking the stand after Ventura finished her own lengthy and emotional testimony. During her time on the stand, she corroborated and bolstered Ventura's claims that Combs brutally beat her throughout their relationship.
During her testimony last week, Richard alleged that she saw Combs attack Ventura with the same skillet Ventura was using to cook him eggs. “It didn't seem that it hit her fully,” Richard said. “She went into the fetal position … I was scared for her.”
When Combs' defense lawyer, Nicole Westmoreland, took over for cross-examination, she focused on this incident, suggesting Richard's account had changed over time. She first cited a demand letter Richard's lawyers sent Combs last year, which claimed that Richard heard the skillet hit the wall, but didn't see the alleged altercation. They mentioned two interviews Richard gave to prosecutors, one in which Richard claimed Combs struck Ventura with the pan, and another in which she said Combs threw the eggs at Ventura.
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When asked about these changes, Richard responded, “I said the best that I could recall.”
Westmoreland also asked Richard about her claim on the stand that, the day after the alleged skillet attack, Combs told her, “If you say anything, there will be consequences. People end up missing.” Westmoreland said Richard told prosecutors in an interview that Combs said “this was a love thing,” and not, “people go missing.” When pressed on this, Richard said, “I didn't remember it,” adding that she did remember “everything I am telling you now.”
On the re-direct, the prosecution attempted to reaffirm Richard's testimony by asking if she'd given much thought to these incidents in the years since she allegedly saw them. “No, it was a hard time, a bad time for me,” Richard said. “It did not all come back immediately … the environment was traumatizing, so I tried to erase those things from my memory.”
Richard went on to say that memories came back to her the more she spoke to investigators, and that she tried to recall them “as best and accurate as I can.”
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While on the stand, though, Richard did not touch on her own allegations against Combs. Last year, she filed a civil suit against the mogul, accusing him of violent outbursts and sexual abuse, claiming he groped her on numerous occasions occasions, threatened her life, and trapped her in a locked car for two hours as a form of punishment. Richard's civil suit remains ongoing.
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By Nellie Andreeva
Co-Editor-in-Chief, TV
Sesame Street has a new streaming home. Netflix has picked up the children's series, which will make its debut on the streamer later this year with an all-new, reimagined 56th season — plus 90 hours of previous episodes — available to audiences worldwide.
Netflix is coming on board after HBO Max opted not to renew its Sesame Street streaming deal at the end of last year.
The new episodes, which will now center on one 11-minute story, will be available same day-and-date in the U.S. on PBS stations and PBS KIDS digital platforms, keeping U.S. kids' free access to early learning for free.
In addition to format changes, the new season will feature the return of fan-favorite segments like Elmo's World and Cookie Monster's Foodie Truck.
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Sesame Workshop is the global nonprofit behind Sesame Street, with Sal Perez and Kay Wilson Stallings serving as executive producers; Emmy, Humanitas, and NAACP Award nominee Halcyon Person (Karma's World, Dee & Friends in Oz) joins as head writer.
Netflix will also be able to develop video games for both Sesame Street and Sesame Street Mecha Builders.
While HBO Max shifted focus away from kids and family programming a couple of years ago, it represents 15% of Netflix's total viewing with shows such as CoComelon.
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By
Larisha Paul
Wes Anderson‘s films are painstakingly detailed to capture his signature style. Donald Trump‘s plan to impose a supposed 100 percent tariff on American films produced outside of the U.S., on the other hand, is not particularly detailed or well thought out. During a press conference for The Phoenician Scheme at Cannes Film Festival, Anderson poked some holes in the president's logic — or lack thereof.
“The tariff is interesting because I've never heard of a 100 percent tariff before,” Anderson said. “I'm not an expert in that area of economics, but I feel that means he's saying he's going to take all the money. And then what do we get? So it's complicated to me. Can you hold up the movie in customs? It doesn't ship that way.”
Earlier in the press conference, Anderson joked that the tariff announcement was a free promo for The Phoenician Scheme, which was filmed in Germany and will be released in U.S. theaters on May 30. “I thought you said he was giving us a plug or something,” he said. “Did Trump see it?”
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Trump announced earlier this month that he is authorizing the Department of Commerce and the United States Trade Representative to start the process to impose a 100 percent tariff on American films that are produced in “foreign lands,” also known as runaway productions. He claimed filming movies outside of the U.S. posed “a national security threat” and that doing so is causing the movie industry to die “a very fast death.”
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Per Variety, the U.S. domestic box office brought in $8.7 billion in 2024, which saw the release of films that were delayed, either in completion or in release, by the double Hollywood strikes in 2023. So far, 2025 has seen successful releases with Sinners, Thunderbolts, Captain America: Brave New World, A Minecraft Movie, and Final Destination Bloodlines.
The Phoenician Scheme will receive a wide release on June 6. It marks Anderson's first film since 2023's Asteroid City. The film stars Benicio del Toro, Michael Cera, Mia Threapleton, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Jeffrey Wright, Riz Ahmed, Scarlett Johansson, Mathieu Amalric, Rupert Friend, and Hope Davis.
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By
Nikki McCann Ramirez
President Donald Trump has demanded an investigation into Bruce Springsteen and other artists who supported former Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign, after the singer has repeatedly told crowds at his concerts that the president is an “unfit” man running “a rogue government.”
The president — who is scheduled to hold a high-stakes phone call with Russia's Vladimir Putin today — wrote on Truth Social early the same morning that he was “going to call for a major investigation” into what compensation Springsteen received from the 2024 Harris campaign.
“HOW MUCH DID KAMALA HARRIS PAY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN FOR HIS POOR PERFORMANCE DURING HER CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT? WHY DID HE ACCEPT THAT MONEY IF HE IS SUCH A FAN OF HERS? ISN'T THAT A MAJOR AND ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION?” Trump wrote.
The president, who had previously used Springsteen's music at his rallies despite objections from the artist, went on to accuse the Harris campaign of paying for endorsements from artists like Springsteen, Beyoncé, and Bono, under the guise of providing entertainment at her rallies. “IT'S NOT LEGAL! For these unpatriotic ‘entertainers,' this was just a CORRUPT & UNLAWFUL way to capitalize on a broken system. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!”
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Artists like Beyoncé, Eminem, Oprah, and others have denied right-wing claims that they were offered millions to endorse Harris.
Trump has been locked in a public back and forth with Springsteen over the artist's criticism of his regime. After the “Born in the USA” rocker told concertgoers in Europe that the United States is currently in the hands of a “corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration,” Trump responded last week with a bizarre warning for Springsteen: “This dried out ‘prune' of a rocker (his skin is atrophied!) ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country, that's just ‘standard fare.' Then we'll all see how it goes for him!”
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Springsteen, unfettered, responded to the thinly veiled threats by telling fans in Manchester, England, over the weekend: “In America, my home, they're persecuting people for their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. That's happening now.”
It's apparently happening to Springsteen, who now might be placed under investigation for the transgression of supporting the political candidate of his choice and exercising his constitutionally protected right to criticize his government.
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It's hard these days to create an original film from scratch, tougher still to launch a first film in the Cannes Selection. Three actors have achieved that feat this year, all playing in Un Certain Regard, where the spotlight tends to be less harsh: Scarlett Johansson's “Eleanor the Great,” starring American veteran June Squibb; Kristen Stewart's “The Chronology of Water,” starring British actress Imogen Poots; and from the U.K., Harris Dickinson‘s “Urchin,” which will propel Frank Dillane (son of British actor Stephen Dillane) into Best Actor Oscar contention if a distributor does right by it. All the key North American distributors attended the debut on Saturday after good word leaked out of early New York screenings. Yes, it played well.
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“The applause was lovely,” said Dickinson, sitting with Dillane on the roof of the J.W. Marriott Hotel with stunning views of the Gulf of Napoule. “We soaked it all in. We had all of our crew. We felt the love in the room. That's a good feeling, to have given so much to somebody.”
Dickinson, who has yet to crack 30, has been a rising star ever since he broke out in Eliza Hittman's New York indie “Beach Rats” in 2017, followed by Ruben Östlund's “Triangle of Sadness,” which won the Palme d'Or en route to a Best Picture nomination. The actor has written and directed countless shorts, which gave financiers confidence to back his riveting portrait of a struggling London addict (Dillane) who is by turns charming, manipulative, desperate, angry, violent, loving, joyful, childlike, and needy.
It still took six years for “Urchin” to get to Cannes. Dickinson started writing the script after working in Walthamstow on an outreach project “that was focusing on furniture reissue with people that were unhoused,” he said. “It was a way for them to make money. And it was also a commune where they could have a safe haven. There were welfare checks, and people close to me struggled with cyclical behavior. I've always tried to be compassionate around that and tried to understand why and how people have ended up in certain positions.”
Dickinson auditioned many actors but offered the role to Dillane early on. “I'd seen him in ‘Fear of the Walking Dead' years before,” said Dickinson. “I was intrigued about him as a performer. But then we didn't cross paths, or we never met each other. The script for me was one thing. I knew that it needed an actor to come in and elevate it and change it and turn it upside down as well. Because there's only so much a script takes you, right? And that's what he did. He was doing tai chi and breathing exercises whilst he was doing the scene: ‘This is very strange, and it's perfect for the character.'”
It took a couple of years to get made once Dillane was on board. “Frank attached before we had full finance, which is rare for an actor to do,” said Dickinson. “We were lucky that Frank believed in the project enough to just say, ‘Yeah, I'm game.' And we already were prepping, even though we didn't know we were going to make it.”
As soon as he read the script, Dillane was eager to jump on board. “I remember I called you because I got the part,” Dillane said to Dickinson, “because I just wanted to say ‘yes' straight away. I didn't want there to be any lag, to go through the agents. You were in Berlin, so I was recording ‘Yes, I'll do it.' The script lent itself to almost anything. It was a real opportunity to carve out our own narrative, because it was ambiguous as to what the arc was, and it seemed like the arcs completed in each scene. It was almost like Mike had no throughline, and I found that exciting as an actor, to do each scene separate from the next one. He almost lived and breathed now. He was born again, and then he dies again, and then he goes there, and he's born again. And I loved that about Harris's script, because it was completely unconventional.”
In one heartbreaking scene, after seven months sober, Mike takes some ketamine with his girlfriend and her parents and is dancing and having a joyous time. He feels like he's part of the family, everybody's happy and good, and then he takes too much, and he can't contain it. He doesn't know where to stop.
Dillane had played an addict during “Fear the Walking Dead.” “When a character is on drugs at different times,” said Dillane, “I always tend to research the spiritual element of the drug. From researching ‘Fear the Walking Dead,' the idea about heroin that got me was the idea that your cells are living and dying constantly, so you're constantly dying and being reborn. That stuck with me a bit with this, the idea of physically continuing to be born and dying.”
The movie works because Dillane makes you care about this deeply flawed yet innocent character. “People that have gone to the brink of behavior,” said Dickinson, “the brink of morality, or brink of themselves, often are also joyous and naïve, because it helps them forget. It's like an optimism that is in the moment for today.”
“He is innocent,” said Dillane. “That was the core of it. In order for us to be with him and to empathize with him, we have to just forgive him. And the reason we forgive him is he's a child, he's innocent, he's an orphan. He's not a bad person, just an open window. Harris kept distilling this thing of hope within me. We talked a lot about dignity in Harris. And that allowed the authenticity. So when he's making a friend, this friend that he's making is so important to him. When he relapses, it's like family, ‘Finally, my people, oh, this is OK. Now, this is what we do. Everyone's just cool.' Some of us, we can't do that. Unfortunately, Mike is one of those. It's like an open window. Once you open it, you can't close it again.”
Of course, Mike Leigh and “Naked” came to mind while prepping the film, but also “Career Girls” and “High Hopes,” said Dickinson, “there's no misses with Mike Leigh. I love his use of humor. He's so good at humanizing the mundane as well. It's important, because there's comedy in the simplicity of things sometimes, he does that so well.”
Another reason why Dillane wanted to work with Dickinson was that he admired his short films. “This was a big reason I did it,” said Dillane. Dickinson had been shooting shorts, including a series of skateboard videos, since he was 10 or 11. “I made loads of short films,” he said. “And then I made a more professional short film with BBC that led to the theatrical film. It was quite a rudimentary short, but it was a way for us to try and prove a little bit.”
As production loomed, Dickinson lost one of his actors in a key role playing a friend of Mike's and reluctantly took on the role himself. “We auditioned people,” said Dickinson. “We got some tapes in, but I got a bit protective over that role because this is a member of the community. This is someone who is struggling, a vulnerable individual. Frank had months and months of research and time spent with advisors to understand this world and these issues. I couldn't just expect an actor to pop in a week before and get that kind of person, whereas I'd been doing that work.”
It may have been the right decision, but it wasn't easy, said Dickinson. “It was hard to direct myself and also be in a scene with someone you're directing, because I started to lose track of the background and what things were happening. And you get even more neurotic; acting is neurotic.”
The film deploys long lens cinematography to capture Dillane on crowded streets. “We always knew we wanted to enter into Mike's world in a pragmatic and simplistic way, unromantic and not trying to do trickery around life on the streets,” said Dickinson. “We wanted to be observational and simplistic, and that was also to avoid any romanticism around it, but also just to ground it in that community. That was always important to us, and the story that we enter into as well. We believe it and we understand it, and we get a real sense of it. And then we allow ourselves to introduce surrealism, a slightly different language. We earned that.”
Next up: Dillane is going home to London to do some auditions. (His stock is going to rise considerably after “Urchin.”) And Dickinson is following up “Babygirl” and “Blitz” as John Lennon in Sam Mendes' series of four Beatles films. Dickinson swears he'll have time to do other things as well. “I wrote this script whilst I was working,” he said, “I didn't take time out to write the script. I was always writing. I write when I'm on a plane. I'll be able to write and direct still. I'll have to finish the films first.”
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The tribute follows Donald Trump calling Bruce Springsteen "highly overrated" and "dumb as a rock."
By
Jessica Lynch
Eddie Vedder paid tribute to Bruce Springsteen during Pearl Jam's concert in Pittsburgh on Friday night (May 17), performing a solo acoustic rendition of “My City of Ruins” in what appeared to be a quiet but powerful response to Donald Trump's recent public criticism of Springsteen.
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Vedder did not reference Trump directly and did not mention Springsteen by name before performing the song. But the choice was likely intentional, as Springsteen has been performing the 2002 track during his tour alongside fiery speeches condemning what he describes as attacks on civil liberties by Trump and his allies.
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During the kickoff of his European tour on May 14, Springsteen told the audience, “In my home, the America I love, the America I've written about, and has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration.”
Trump responded on Truth Social on May 16, calling Springsteen “highly overrated,” “dumb as a rock,” and “a dried out prune of a rocker.” He also threatened to bar the musician from returning to the U.S. after his tour, writing, “Springsteen ought to keep his mouth shut until he gets back into the country. Then we'll all see how it goes for him.”
Springsteen did not back down. “Things are happening right now that are altering the very nature of our country's democracy, and they're too important to ignore,” the rocker said to the crowd in a three-minute speech on Manchester's Co-op Live stage on Saturday, as heard in a video posted by the L.A. Times.
“In my home, they're persecuting people for their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. That's happening now,” Springsteen said, echoing what he'd spoken about at his May 14 show. “In America, the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world's poorest children to sickness and death. That's happening now. In my country, they're taking sadistic pleasure in the pain they inflict on loyal American workers.”
Springsteen continued, “They are removing residents off American streets without due process of law and deploying them to foreign detention centers as prisoners. That's happening now…They have no concern or idea of what it means to be deeply American.”
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By
David Fear
In 2018, Shia LaBeouf was feeling heartbroken, adrift, in a state of what he called “spiritual sickness.” So the actor did what a lot of us were doing back then when we found ourselves in serious need of help: He went on Twitter. In the video that LaBeouf posted on the platform (now known as X), he declared that he had an idea. There was a space in South Central Los Angeles called the Slauson Rec Center. He was going to be there on Saturday morning, and the next Saturday, and the Saturday after that. Whoever wanted to join him was welcome to show up. It would kinda sorta be structured as a “class,” though don't expect acting lessons. LaBeouf was really looking for collaborators for some to-be-determined project. Previous industry experience was not required. Participants just needed to have “a story that needs telling.” And they had to be devoted to the truth. Being 100 percent truthful is a big deal to LaBeouf. Remember that thought.
One of the people who answered the call was a 21-year-old from Texas named Leo Lewis O'Neil. A relatively recent transplant to the City of Angels, he'd been having a rough time since he arrived. The thought of not only meeting a movie star but getting in on the ground floor of some bold new creative endeavor that LaBeouf was willing into motion felt too good to pass up. Plus the center was five minutes from where he lived. The first Saturday was more of a happening than a class, to be honest. But there was an unpredictable, live-wire energy to the exercises and exchanges that was undeniable.
A budding filmmaker, O'Neil had brought along a camera out of habit. LaBeouf had been happy to let him film everything. The next Saturday, he asked LaBeouf if he could be the official archivist of what would soon be known as the Slauson Rec Theater Company. The actor said yes.
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Years later, long after the chairs had all been thrown, and the jet-engine-level screaming had died down, and the tears had dried, and what had been a beacon of hope for a handful of artists-in-training was dashed on the rocks of one man's inability to hold his inner demons at bay, O'Neil asked LaBeouf another question. Could he turn the footage he'd been sitting on into a documentary regarding what went wrong? It'd have to be 100 percent truthful, LaBeouf replied. But the actor once again said yes. Thank god he did. Otherwise, we would not have what is one of the most damning, unfiltered, take-no-prisoners portrait of a celebrity losing his shit ever recorded for posterity.
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Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday night, Slauson Rec captures the good, the bad, and the ugly of the company's two-years-and-change existence. But to suggest that the end result is a three-way tie would be a lie; the “ugly” wins by a mile here. Documenting how LaBeouf's growing impatience with the group eventually led to biblical rage spirals, physical assaults, and some truly Grade-A asshole behavior, it paints a truly terrifying picture of its subject. Even if O'Neil signals this is a work of love for his old mentor, LaBeouf still comes off like a monster. Those who care to bask in the Shia-denfreude of seeing more evidence of his nastiness presented to the public will be in heaven. The rest of us are simply forced to watch between our fingers as the celebrity-driven car wrecks keep getting exponentially worse.
All that sound and fury and Category 5 temper tantrums come later, naturally. Slauson Rec treats those glorious early days, filled with endless promise and all-access star adjacency, in a way that mirrors the students' own swooning. LaBeouf has given these dreamers not just a safe place to fail, but a “laboratory” where they can indulge their imagination alongside someone with the juice to make moves. He offers encouragement, excitement, and the sense that they're all an equal part of his mission to make “as many creative churches as possible.” O'Neil also singles out a few of Shia's apostles, notably Zeke, a Hispanic twentysomething with the modest goal of becoming “one of the greatest actors of all time,” and an earnest, horse-loving young woman named Sarah. They might seem like random choices to put the spotlight on. Spoiler: They are not.
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Yet the overall focus is on the utopian community orbiting around the intense figurehead. Not even handwringing over the way their presence affects the South Central community around them — are they being inclusive enough? Socially responsible enough? — and losing their original space slows them down. When they begin workshopping 10 minutes of a larger piece LaBeouf calls “The New Human” to show the public, the vibe is one part “Let's put on a show” enthusiasm and one part Kool-Aid-sipping cult. The positive reception they get to what feels like a modern-dance reinterpretation of The Human Centipede is enough make them think that their fearless leader's goal of changing the world is just around the corner.
Cut to: March 2020. The pandemic saps some of the company's momentum, and Zoom meetings tend to devolve into power plays among competing politburos, with LaBeouf exercising veto power. Everyone's frustrated. No one wants to give up. The solution to their stasis is a drama set in a Covid testing set that will combine theater, improvisation, and cinema. Called 5711 Avalon, it will be performed in a parking lot and is destined to become, in LaBeouf's words, “a Cirque du Soleil-sized epic.” By this point, O'Neil has already shown us what happens when the group's guru gets pissed, courtesy of a scene in which he raises his voice over what he feels is unsatisfactory focus and storms off. Once they start rehearsing in the outdoor space, Shia's short fuse has become even shorter. One day, the players' rendition of this slowly evolving work is the second coming of Death of a Salesman. The next day, it's total “dog shit.” Cryptic, contradictory notes are given, and when they're not followed to the letter, things get volatile. You can sense the storm on the horizon moving closer, closer, closer.…
And when it arrives, its gale-force winds designed to destroy everything in its path, good luck. Slauson Rec doesn't sugarcoat or soft-peddle the scenes in which LaBeouf unleashes torrents of high-volume verbal abuse, or shirtlessly skulks around a set in which no actor or folding chair is safe, or seriously hulks out over an actor he feels is giving him “attitude.” It simply presents them as you stare on, slack-jawed in disbelief. There is no other way to describe LaBeouf attacking the smaller, younger Zeke or backing another actor up against a wall, his forearm on the guy's throat, than “assaults.” The threat of violence hangs over every single scene as the rehearsals start to tick into the 70-days-in-a-row mark, punctured only by moments of actual violence. Sarah, the most devoted of Shia's disciples, refuses to see her sick mom at the hospital because she's afraid missing a rehearsal will get her fired. LaBeouf waits until she goes to her mom's funeral. Then, having run her scenes with another actor he deems worthy in her absence, he fires her.
These are the cringeworthy, can't-look-away moments, and there are many, that people will talk about when they talk about Slauson Rec. And trust us when we say they are genuinely hard to stomach. You feel embarrassment for LaBeouf, who is clearly (and self-admittedly) turning his inner monologue of self-loathing into outer tirades of abuse on those who simply want to please him. He's the first to tell you he's his own worst enemy — but listen, my frogs, why did you let a scorpion like me climb onto your backs? You feel empathy for those stuck in this cycle along with him. You feel your own rage as you clock that his celebrity is, in the eyes of many helping to facilitate this ongoing experiment, allowing him a free pass to be ghastly. (Sarah actually calls this out. It doesn't help her.) The idea that genius forgives all, and the favoring of “honesty” above all means never having to admit you're just an asshole at heart, is rigorously tested here. None of this shit is excusable. It's a portrait of an artist as an authoritarian megalomaniac.
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When O'Neil caps off this two-and-a-half-hour labor of love with a coda, which takes place two years after the final performance of 5711 Avalon and the dissolution of the group, he does manage to capture two extraordinary moments of honesty. He's arrived at LaBeouf's house, and is recording a sort of postmortem interview. The star says that he's signing off on this because it's “the ultimate virtue signal.” Look how cool I look for being cool with this, he says, letting his self-knowingness wrestle it out with his self-hatred and self-regard. That's the first bit. The second comes when LaBeouf admits that he owes everybody apologies, some more than others. He's not sure he can make amends, but he wants to try. And you can suddenly hear crying happening behind the camera. O'Neil lets the shot go on for an uncomfortably long time, his sobs audible and LaBeouf silently choking up onscreen.
You realize that Slauson Rec is about a lot of things, from the perils of good intentions to the way fame doesn't exterminate your flaws so much as exacerbate them. But in the end, it's really an extraordinary act of grasping for closure. And it was hard not to think that, standing in the audience as a crowd of people at the world's most prestigious film festival gave him a standing ovation, O'Neil might have felt more than a little sense of closure at that point too. LaBeouf was there as well, sporting a mustache that was a cross between 1970s cop and 1870s gunfighter. But he kept ceding the spotlight to the filmmaker, knowing that this was O'Neil's night. This doc will ultimately be the legacy of the whole Slauson Rec experiment. The star had set out to change the world. Instead, he stood back and watched as another person's life changed right in front of his eyes.
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"This is the greatest show I've ever had in my f–king life," Jelly Roll told the eager crowd.
By
Gary Graff
Jelly Roll brought the big surprise to Post Malone's Big Ass Stadium Tour stop Sunday night at Detroit's Ford Field.
Having already paid homage to one Motor City hometown hero, Bob Seger, with a bit of his “Old Time Rock and Roll” during his direct support set to Malone, Jelly Roll did the same for Eminem by starting the rapper's Academy Award-winning “Lose Yourself;” the football stadium erupted when Slim Shady himself joined the proceedings for the second verse on through the end of the song.
Sporting a military-style hooded jacket and baseball cap, Eminem joined Jelly Roll in loping down a ramp that led to the middle of the stadium floor, mugging for each other and for the video camera.
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“Detroit, what up?! Make some noise for Jelly Roll!” Eminem shouted to the crowd of over 46,000 at the end of the song. “Long time, no see. I love y'all. Peace!” As he exited, Jelly Roll declared, “If you can't tell, that was a childhood dream come f–king true, Detroit. This is the greatest show I've ever had in my f–king life.”
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He noted that Eminem's music “helped me through the darkest moments of my life” and also shouted out Eminem's manager Paul Rosenberg, who he said “believed in me” early in the tattooed Tennessee star's career.
Jelly Roll incorporated Eminem's backwards E logo and a sign for Mom's Spaghetti, the rapper's take-out restaurant just a few blocks from the stadium, into his visual presentation on Sunday.
The surprise duet came just under 11 months after Eminem and Jelly Roll first joined forces on stage for “Sing For the Moment” at the nationally televised Michigan Central Open concert – curated by Eminem and Rosenberg – last June 6 in Detroit, accompanied by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Jelly Roll also appears on “Somebody Save Me,” the closing track from Eminem's Billboard 200-topping 2024 album The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce).
It was Eminem's first on stage appearance since last Dec. 12, when he headlined at the Soundstorm Festival in Ryadh, Saudi Arabia. He also made a guest appearance at Ford Field with Ed Sheeran on July 15, 2023, performing “Lose Yourself” and “Stan” to an equally effusive hometown crowd.
On Sunday, meanwhile, Jelly Roll joined Malone for their regularly scheduled performance of “Losers” from the latter's latest album, F-1 Trillion. Malone also brought out Houston rapper BigXthaPlug for a performance of his 2022 hit “Texas.”
Sunday's show was the eighth stop of the Big Ass Stadium Tour, which next plays Tuesday in Minneapolis and runs through Sept. 14 in Lisbon, Portugal.
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Neil Druckmann breaks down that devastating porch scene in season two's sixth episode.
By
James Hibberd
Writer-at-Large
Note: This episode contains spoilers for The Last of Us season two episode six.
Pedro Pascal‘s return to HBO's The Last of Us in a flashback-filled episode packed an emotional wallop, filling in several blanks in Joel and Ellie's (Bella Ramsey) tumultuous relationship. Starting with a look at Joel's abused childhood, a series of sequences followed, set during Ellie's birthdays — since the duo settled in Jackson — and showing what went down on the porch the night before Joel's murder.
The scenes throw all sorts of complex lighting into previous events, but perhaps most simply, they remind the audience of Joel's extraordinary level of caring for Ellie — showing that the two had started down the road of reconciliation before Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) changed their fates forever.
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Below, Neil Druckmann — who co-wrote the PlayStation game The Last of Us Part II and serves as a showrunner on The Last of Us, directing this week's episode — discusses some of the hour's pivotal moments and tangled moral and emotional quagmires.
This might be one of those rare episodes of TV where people cry repeatedly through the hour, not just in one key moment.
Well, I'm glad it worked for you. Just to see Pedro and Bella one more time; to see their happiest they've ever been, maybe the saddest they've been with each other, and the angriest they've ever been. And it was such a joy to explore all those nuances along the way.
I'm extremely proud of how it turned out, and I was really nervous. That porch scene, especially, means so much to myself, to my co-writers on this episode, Craig [Mazin] and Haley [Gross], and to everyone that worked on the game and the show. But specifically, when I was working on this episode, I had two people on the front of my mind, which were Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker, who originally played these characters in the game. They gave such brilliant performances for very similar scenes that I wanted to honor what they've done, because they helped create those characters.
I just re-watched the game version of scene (watch it below). For this, I was particularly caught by Ellie asking Joel those questions that had been on her mind for so long, and the choice to just have Joel just be silent and nod.
In the game, Ellie asked those questions at a different point. Here we took several flashback scenes and collapsed them into the one on the porch. So Ellie has to understand what Joel has done, get angry at him, and then move towards forgiveness — all within one scene. I thought Bella gave a beautiful performance. I can't imagine how difficult that would be.And I remember the day of shooting, I pulled Pedro and Bella aside and mentioned how important the scene is and how powerful it can be, and how important it is for their characters. Specifically, “This is your last conversation with each other. You've been withholding all this stuff, all these questions, so hold nothing back.” If you watch Bella's Ellie this season, she wears more of a mask than Ashley's Ellie in the game. Here, the masks are fully off. And now Joel knows that she knows, and the last gift he can give her is to give her the truth. And since they were “yes or no” questions, it felt like he wouldn't even need to say it, he could just nod or shake his head.
One thing that fascinates to me about this season is the structure, which is obviously taken from the game, as well, where you lose Joel, and then have these flashbacks and each one changes how you view their relationship and his death, though they're much more spaced out.
Yeah, let me talk to you about our thought process. You're right that in the game, these scenes are spaced out, sometimes hours apart. If we spaced out these scenes and planted them throughout the season, I believe they wouldn't land as powerfully because they're short moments and work better when they're next to each other and you can just see the comparison — it's like their relationship is slowly deteriorating. If we put one in an episode, and then you have to wait a week to see the next, you have to remember what the last one was, and then wait another week again. I think the show would start feeling like it has a template — “What's the Joel flashback this week?”Also it was important that the audience, like the characters, miss Joel. So we would kill him early in the season, we decided not to show him back until close to the end of the season. Then it became a question of where should it land. It felt appropriate to land after Ellie has just committed the darkest, most violent act she's ever committed in her life — torturing an unarmed woman to try to get information about where Joel's killer is hiding. There's a contrast of “look how far this character has come.” They're almost unrecognizable in that scene. Here's our reminder of who they were, and what they're fighting for — the memory of this person.
That makes a lot of sense. I did wonder if there was a part of you that would have been tempted to hold the porch moment to the series finale, and also wondered if the pragmatic issue of not having Pascal signed beyond season two might have factored into that.
No, but let's assume we could shoot it and hold it and reveal it later. Craig brought this up to me and I bought into it immediately: He [pointed out] that when you buy the game, you have the entire story. You could play for the whole thing in two days. We have to take into account that the story is being delivered week by week, season by season, with more story coming potentially years later. There would be a high risk of the porch scene not landing if he held onto it.
When I was looking at the porch scene, one of the comments read: “Ellie's vengeance wasn't just about killing the people who took Joel from her, but about taking revenge on them for taking away her chance at forgiving him.” Is that true, do you think?
I agree with that interpretation, because we get to see that Joel hurt Ellie maybe the worst way possible — by taking the choice away from her to honor the people that died on her journey to be delivered to the Fireflies. Ellie's so angry, and she means it when she says, “I don't know if I could ever forgive you for that, but I would like to try.” She wanted to move towards that forgiveness, because I think she understood that — as much as Joel hurt her — his motivation was unconditional love, and she shares that unconditional love for him. Now she can never get the chance.
Oddly enough, the simplistic reaction I had to watching the scene was relief — “Oh, they weren't in quite as bad of a place, relationship wise, when he died as we thought.” There is something oddly reassuring about that.
It's bittersweet because he was finally honest with her and they confessed their love to each other on in that scene, but they never moved back to when we saw them at their happiest at that Space Museum.
Speaking of which, the rocket ship scene was one of my favorite cutscenes from the game. What did that scene mean to you?
I've always liked that Ellie is fascinated with our world, that things we take for granted are like fantasy to her. And by the way, that quality of Ellie came from Ashley Johnson. She loved the idea of wanting to be an astronaut. So I wrote that to make Ellie more like her and now it has remained all the way through for another actor to reinterpret it. To me, it speaks to how children can just tap into their imagination and picture they are somewhere else. Ellie wants something that she could never have in this world, and Joel kind of gives it to her.
Joel is so amazing in this episode as the World's Greatest Apocalypse Dad that it also caused me to feel some annoyance at Ellie — like, “How can you not appreciate this man more than you do?” Though I also understand that she's at an age where you naturally pull away from your parents and if there aren't things to be correctly mad about, you'll find reasons anyway. And, obviously, he was not perfect.
There are several big lies my parents have told to me that only now, in my forties, I'm able to forgive and move past because I see their motivations were in the right place. And now, as a dad myself, I had this feeling of like, “I know how to raise my kids better than my parents. I'm always going to be completely honest.” And there was a moment in time where I was too honest with my daughter when she was too young and it was about something violent and dark, and she was traumatized by it. It speaks to the complexity of being a parent and how difficult it is — even when you're doing the right thing, you might be causing your kids to hate you. That's the choice of the job.
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Jason Ning will serve as showrunner on the series, which the studio will shop to potential buyers.
By
Rick Porter
Television Business Editor
The studio behind SWAT — and the show's lead actor — are taking another shot at keeping the franchise going.
Sony Pictures Television has greenlit a spinoff of the crime procedural titled SWAT Exiles. Like the recently ended CBS series, Exiles will star Shemar Moore, reprising his role as Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson as he works with a team of young recruits. Sony will also distribute the series worldwide and will shop it to potential buyers in the near future.
The studio made the announcement Sunday evening at its annual L.A. Screenings event.
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“We are thrilled to usher this beloved franchise into a new era with SWAT Exiles,” said Sony Pictures TV chairman Keith Le Goy said in a statement. “We believe in championing powerful storytelling and in our teams' exceptional ability to create and deliver these stories to audiences around the world. This belief is embedded in our DNA and central to every decision we make.”
Jason Ning (The Brothers Sun, Mrs. Davis) will be the showrunner on the spinoff as part of a recently renewed overall deal with Sony (Ning is also working on the studio's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon series, which is in development for Amazon's Prime Video, with Ron Moore). Ning will executive produce SWAT Exiles with SWAT EPs Shemar Moore, Neal H. Moritz and Pavun Shetty of Original Film, and James Scura.
“I couldn't be more thrilled to partner with Sony to bring SWAT Exiles to life,” said Ning. “It's an incredible honor to carry forward the legacy of a show that fans around the world have come to love. Working with Shemar Moore, who defines what it means to be a leading man, and introducing a new generation of characters into this world is a dream.”
Sony has ordered 10 episodes of Exiles, with development going on now. The studio hopes to begin production in the summer in Los Angeles, noting that the spinoff will keep about 200 members of SWAT's L.A.-based crew employed.
“My eight seasons on SWAT have been epic and memorable. We entertained the world, defied the odds, came back from the dead twice, and continued to woo fans and families worldwide,” said Moore. “I am excited for this next generation and iteration of SWAT with Sony. [Sony Pictures TV Studios president] Katherine Pope, Neal H. Moritz, Jason Ning and I will keep the franchise, thrill ride action, heartfelt drama and storytelling of SWAT alive.”
“We couldn't be more excited to bring the next chapter of SWAT to life — both for our incredibly dedicated fans of the original franchise and for a new generation of viewers,” added Pope. “We're grateful to our incredible partners Neal H. Moritz, Pavun Shetty, Jason Ning and Shemar Moore for embarking on this journey with us. This team's commitment to the global fan base, to our beloved crew and to our city runs deep.”
The spinoff announcement comes just two days after SWAT concluded after eight seasons on CBS. The network initially canceled the series after its sixth season in 2023, then reversed course and renewed SWAT for what was billed as a seventh and final season. CBS then changed its mind again and ordered an eighth season before canceling the show for a second time in March. Seasons one through seven of SWAT stream on Netflix, while the just-finished eighth season is on CBS' sibling streamer Paramount+.
Here is Sony's description of SWAT Exiles: “After a high-profile mission goes sideways, Daniel ‘Hondo' Harrelson is pulled out of forced retirement to lead a last-chance, experimental SWAT unit made up of untested, unpredictable young recruits. Hondo must bridge a generational divide, navigate clashing personalities, and turn a squad of outsiders into a team capable of protecting the city and saving the program that made him who he is.”
After CBS announced SWAT's cancellation in March, Moore said in an Instagram video that he wasn't ready to say goodbye to the show — and called out potential new homes for the series: “Hey, Netflix, how you doing?” Moore said. “Netflix, if you're interested in a show that is in autopilot that the world is watching, we'd love to come play. NBC, Fox, ABC, hey, you want to come flirt with me? You're invited to the barbecue. Pick your favorite restaurant. I will pay the bill.”
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By
Alan Sepinwall
This post contains spoilers for this week's episode of The Last of Us, now streaming on Max.
The Last of Us co-creator Neil Druckmann was behind the camera to direct the penultimate episode of the postapocalyptic drama's second season, and it was an imposing assignment. Within the span of an hour, Druckmann had to chronicle five years in the lives of Joel and Ellie, squeeze in a flashback to Joel's teenage years, and create fully fleshed-out versions of Joel's father and Gail's husband Eugene in the span of a couple of scenes. He had to direct Pedro Pascal after his former leading man had been off on another project after Joel was killed in the season's second episode.
And as the chief creative force behind the two Last of Us video games, he felt had to be even more careful than usual about giving fans of the game the moments they've been expecting to see in live-action for years.
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Last week, Druckmann spoke with Rolling Stone about getting to direct Pascal with Bella Ramsey one more time, working with guest stars Tony Dalton and Joe Pantoliano, and whether watching Pascal and Ramsey together ever gave him any doubts about killing Joel.
Logistically, was this filmed around the same time as the season's first two episodes?No. We shot out Pedro for Episode Two, then he went to work on a different project.
So even the New Year's Eve party scenes weren't filmed at the same time that Craig Mazin was shooting his version for the season premiere? We had to restage the entire thing. I jokingly told people this must have been what it felt like for Robert Zemeckis having to shoot Back to the Future II. Luckily, I had two monitors. One monitor had what Craig shot on episode one, and the other monitor had what I was shooting live. I was able to cut in certain footage from that episode, but we had to reshoot the whole thing, including the Seth argument with Ellie and Dina from Joel's point of view.
This was a very emotional episode, and it's also likely the last episode with a lot of Pedro and Bella together. What was it like getting to direct them in this? It's such a joy. They're so talented. They now understand these characters so much. I'm in such a unique position, because I've lived with these characters and these scenes for so long, and to get to revisit them in these scenes that mean so much to fans, but also to me personally… I was very nervous. I wanted to make sure I did it justice for not only the show, but just The Last of Us as a whole, and what the gamers are going to expect from these sequences coming off the game. In the moment, I was so pleasantly surprised by what they were putting in front of the camera. There's certain moments in live-action where you have happy accidents, like you can't plan for something. When they're in the space capsule, and Joel is asking Ellie how he did, and then you see he has this just beautiful smile on his face, and he turns, and you see the glint of a tear in his wrinkles. You don't see him cry; just that. We couldn't plan for that, and the fact that we caught it, I'm like, it's just… you just catch these beautiful moments that are just there, and then they're gone. That is the beauty of live-action.
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So Pedro had been away for a while, and then he came back to play Joel one more time. Was he more emotional than usual filming this?Yes, although in the day-to-day, you wouldn't feel it. But definitely, as we were getting closer to the end, you could feel this parting of the ways coming. And then the last day, specifically, it got really emotional when we finished the last shot and we hung out for a while and just hugged it out and chatted and reminisced.
When you were making the first season of the show, and watching the magic that Pedro and Bella were making together, was there ever a moment where you reconsidered the Abby storyline? Where you thought that this kind of chemistry doesn't come along every day, and maybe you should hang onto it?No. I knew because of their chemistry, because of what they brought, how painful this would be. And it needed to be painful to tell this story. If they didn't have chemistry, I would have been worried about how we tell this story. So for me, it was more of a question of, that story can be complete, that story can live on its own. That's how we made the first game. But we put in certain changes and tweaks prepping for the next story if we got the chance to tell it. And luckily, the show was successful to such a degree that HBO was, with open arms, excited to have us continue to tell the story.
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I suppose the compromise version would have been to save Abby for another season or two, and in the interim just give us more Joel and Ellie adventures during the five-year gap. Was that discussed? Yes, because we discuss everything. We even discussed what if we didn't kill Joel, just to interrogate it. Because everything should be on the table. Everything should be interrogated to make sure we're making the best choices for this version of the story. We even discussed, could we tell this other story, could we prolong this moment? But the more we discussed it, the more it just felt wrong. It felt like we would only be doing it for business reasons, to maintain this feeling that people have for longer. But there wasn't a story there to motivate it. The inciting incident, the origin of this story is Joel's death. Any inciting incident, you have to get to it as soon as possible. What motivates this entire journey that Ellie goes on starts with Joel.
Do you remember what was discussed about the version where you didn't kill Joel?I don't, because that was a very short conversation that didn't have any impact on us. Because we knew we were exploring something that, you know, we're not going to get much out of this, and we didn't.
I haven't played the games, but friends who have, told me that the porch scene, where Ellie tells Joel that she wants to try to forgive him, doesn't appear until the end of the second game. Why did you move it up to this point? The reason we moved it, and the reason it wasn't a big, difficult choice for me, is when we were making the game, we knew we wanted that scene. That scene was written. We didn't know where that scene should go, and for a long time, it was at a very different place than the end of the game. And [it went there] only when we were finishing production of the game. It's hard because I don't want to talk about why we moved it to the end, because then I get into where the show ultimately goes. But it felt appropriate for it to go there. And the way the game is delivered is, you buy the game, and then you have the whole story, and you decide how you want to experience it. The game is roughly between 20 to 30 hours, depending on how you play it. You decide, do I want to play an hour a day or an hour a week, or do I want to go through 30 hours without any sleep? People have done all those different versions, but the story is all there for you. With the show the way it's delivered, it's one-hour-ish chunks every week, and [we knew] we're not going to finish the story this season, then there's a gap, potentially a multiyear gap before we continue. Therefore, there are certain setups that are paid off that we felt in our conversation of how this story would be delivered, would be too long of a wait that potentially won't land as well as when they're contrasted here with these events. And it will become clear when you watch episode seven and see where the show goes, of why we couldn't wait that long to have the porch scene show up.
Earlier, you talked about having a responsibility to the people who knew and loved the game to deliver these moments that they know so well. How have you figured out how to balance that with trying to please the people like me who have not played the game and are just experiencing this as a television show?In my conversations with Craig, we talk a lot about where the show goes. What is this show about? What is the soul of this story that, to me, must remain the same? If we lose that, then we've gone too far. Because it's an adaptation, it's a different medium, there are going to be changes. Just fundamentally. It's a highly collaborative art, both on the game side and the show side. So the best way I can honor both is to just do the best version possible of the story, and to make sure that our destinations are the same. The meandering, how we get there, different choices, those can vary. I know people will pick those apart and some people will be OK with it. Some people won't. That's just the nature of the beast that is part of the package. When you do something so popular and it's viewed by millions of people online, you're gonna get every reaction under the sun, especially when it's an adaptation of something people love so much. But I also know to do a good job, we have to make certain changes. It's just fundamental to what we do. I just have to protect its soul all the way through.
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Finally, we should talk about the episode's two notable guest stars. Let's start with Tony Dalton.The most charming and intimidating man on TV. It's kind of a difficult role. It's very short and very poignant. He has to come in and be so intimidating that you have to think that this guy might snap and hit his son. But also he has to have so much empathy, and maybe you even have sympathy for him, that this guy with the tools in front of him does the best he can to raise his kid, and he's insecure that he might be getting it wrong. But the hope is that he's doing better than his father, who beat the shit out of him. It was important to get this idea of not only generational trauma, but generational hope and repair. Because that gets into the porch scene. And that's a message that Joel leaves with Ellie. When we wrote that scene, Tony Dalton was my first choice. I immediately pictured him in that role, and I remember jumping on a Zoom call with him and Craig and describing this scene to him — I was very nervous that he would say no — and he was just on board. He's like, “That sounds awesome. When do we start?”
And Joey Pants [Joe Pantoliano]? In just a couple of minutes, he makes me cry. It speaks to the brilliance of Joey Pants. And it's so interesting, because when we cast him, I don't think we gave him enough credit for how versatile he is. The scenes originally had more humor in them, because we could see Joey having this gallows humor. When he's looking at the lake, there was a line initially where he says, “I don't need a Bob Ross painting. I need Gail.” On paper, that's funny, and we could see Joe doing it. But he took the performance somewhere else. There's an innocence and a purity to it. And he just gave this beautiful performance, and it was just a joy to see. But when you're watching the episode, you're seeing one version of that performance. There were so many other beautiful choices that he was giving us, and it was actually hard to choose that one.
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[Editor's Note: The following review contains spoilers for “The Last of Us” Season 2, Episode 6. For previous coverage, check out last week's review.]
“The Last of Us” Episode 6 is built around a dead man, so it's only fitting that so much of it is shaped by ghosts. Ghosts, after all, are just echoes of the past; reminders of what should not or could not be forgotten, because of how much those memories mean, or because they still have something to teach.
“I just really wanted to wear short-sleeves again,” Ellie (Bella Ramsey) says to Joel (Pedro Pascal). It's 2023, and a nearly 15-year-old Ellie comes home with her arm wrapped in gauze after burning it with a hot pan. The implication, of course, is that she did it on purpose. Ellie already has a scar on her arm from when an infected bit her, which proved her immunity, but she has to hide that scar from everyone — hence the perpetual long sleeves — and it's exhausting. Her immunity is a secret that's difficult to bear, and anything Ellie can do to lighten the load — even if it's just being able to wear lighter clothes on warm days — is worth a few hours of pain.
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“I really wanted to wear short sleeves again,” Ellie says to Dina (Isabela Merced). It's 2029, and Ellie wakes up next to the woman she loves, who's asking about her arm. The night before, an infected bit Ellie — again. Looking closely in the morning light, Dina can see more than just the freshest wound. There's a burn under her tattoo. “You did it to yourself?” Dina asks, to which Ellie echoes the reasoning she gave to Joel, years ago. The tattoo, the burn, the bites — they connect Ellie's past and present; they connect her loved ones, too: Joel and Dina.
“If I were ever to lose you, I'd surely lose myself,” Joel sings to Ellie. It's 2023, and Joel has just given Ellie a guitar for her 15th birthday. He got her a cake, too, but while Seth (Robert John Burke) did the baking, Joel put the guitar together himself. He sourced the parts, carved the pieces, and tuned it up just for Ellie. She doesn't know how to play — yet — so she asks him to sing something for her, and he chooses Pearl Jam's “Future Days.”
The song frames Episode 6 well. We get to see the days Joel cherished most — the ones he spent with Ellie, the “days of you and me” — knowing he won't get as many of them as he would've liked. But it's those opening lyrics that haunt Ellie six years later, in Episode 5, when she picks up a different guitar in a Seattle theater and sits down to sing. “If I were ever to lose you,” she starts, but she can't go on. Is it the memory of Joel that stops her, or is it the lyrics themselves?
“If I were ever to lose you, I'd surely lose myself.” That forecast held true for Joel, as it applied to his daughters. He lost who he was for a long time after losing Sarah (Nico Parker), and the memory of that loss is what drove him to “save” Ellie for himself. Now, Ellie is on the same path. Her “you” is Joel, and now she's lost him. But will she lose herself, just as he did? The memory that makes her stop singing, the ghost in the auditorium with her, maybe it can also turn her heart toward mercy again.
Episode 6 reframes many-a-scene from throughout Season 2. Joel and Ellie's trip to the museum lends heartbreaking meaning to her appreciation of astronauts, like the doomed Apollo 1 explorers she mentions to Dina in Episode 4 when they first enter Seattle. On the flipside, Ellie's angry message to Joel after he knocked Seth over on New Year's Eve — “I don't need your help” — is given shattering significance to Joel, who was just told by his sister-in-law, Maria (Rutina Wesley), that “families help each other.” If Ellie doesn't want Joel's help, is she really still his family?
Directed by series co-creator (and video game architect) Neil Druckmann and written by Druckmann, Halley Gross, and Craig Mazin, the episode also adds key context to how Joel and Ellie ended up in a cold war to start Season 2, like the fight they have when Kat (Noah Lamanna) gives Ellie her moth tattoo. (Side note: Kat and Ellie's tender familiarity when Joel walks in on them in Episode 6 stands in stark contrast to their icy remove in the premiere, when they're out on patrol.) Joel tries to understand its meaning but that matters less to Ellie than his initial repudiation of her sexuality. (“It wasn't a fucking experiment,” she says.) Plus, Joel being Joel, he still misses the point. The moths, as Gail later informs him, are more about death than rebirth: Ellie can't get past her failed attempt to die for a cause; to give her life, her immunity, a “greater purpose.”
Two years later — after moving out of the house and into the garage — Ellie is working up the nerve to tackle her issue with Joel head-on. She's prepared a list of questions to ask him about what really happened in Salt Lake City. But then Eugene (Joe Pantoliano) gets bit, and Joel kills him. It's not the death that gets to Ellie, although one gets the sense she was friendly with Eugene; it's the lie. Another lie. “You swore,” she seethes at Joel, after coldly, selfishly exposing the truth of her husband's death to Gail. He'd promised to walk Eugene back to Jackson and let him see his wife one more time. Instead, he walked him to a lake and shot him. He lied to Eugene, and he lied to Ellie.
“You looked me in the eyes and it was the same face,” Ellie says. “The same fucking look.” It's nine months later, on New Year's Eve. Ellie is finally ready to confront Joel. His ghost has caught up to him. Ellie sees it — she sees it in Joel's face, when he promises to take Eugene back to Gail, just as she saw it five years prior, when he promised he was telling the truth about Salt Lake City. Now, he has no choice but to address it.
“Making a cure would've killed you,” Joel says. “Then I was supposed to die,” Ellie wails. “That was my purpose. My life would've fucking mattered. You took that from me. You took that from everyone.”
Joel is simultaneously crushed by the weight of his betrayal yet resolved enough to keep shouldering the burden. He says he would do it again. He's willing to pay the price, and after spending just a few days with Ellie over the five years he got with her, it's easy to see why he would risk everything just to have that time with her.
“[It's] because you're selfish,” Ellie says.
“[It's] because I love you,” Joel replies.
In “The Last of Us,” those two feelings aren't mutually exclusive but inescapably linked. Love is selfish. Put another way, as Mazin did in an interview, “Love is immoral. It's immoral because it doesn't follow rules. […] Love is the problem.” That belief reverberates throughout the series, whether it's in Joel's actions in Salt Lake City, Kathleen's (Melanie Lynskey) actions in Kansas City, Abby's (Kaitlyn Dever) actions outside of Jackson, or Ellie's actions thus far in Seattle.
But the opposite is also true. Love can be the solution. Frank (Murray Bartlett) and Bill (Nick Offerman) proved as much by turning a dystopia into a utopia (especially Frank, whose love transcended Bill by extending to others). Ellie's love for Riley (Storm Reid) was pure and good, too. Her love for Joel saved him from the love he lost with Sarah, and it saved him again that night, when she told him, “I don't think I can forgive you for this. But I would like to try.”
Mercy. Sweet mercy. If Abby hadn't caught up to Joel the next day, who knows what his life would've become? What he could've done, who he could've been, now that he'd been forgiven? Ellie's implicit forgiveness is so powerful because it upends expectations; what feels at first like the definitive nail in a heartbreaking split instead reverses course to become a staggering gesture of compassion. In just a few seconds, our hearts are broken and healed.
Love can be the problem or the solution, and never is that clearer than in Episode 6's loudest echo, which is first heard from Joel's dad (played by the great Tony Dalton). It's 1983, and Joel is protecting his little brother, Tommy, from a beating they know one of them has to endure. Joel and Tommy are afraid of their father, but the aging sheriff doesn't see himself that way. “OK, yeah I've hit you. And I've hit Tommy,” he says. “But never like [my father hit me]. Not even close. Maybe I go too far. […] But I'm doing a little better than my father did. And when it's your turn, I hope you do a little better than me.”
It's 2028, New Year's Eve, and Joel is trying to explain himself to his daughter, just like his dad once tried to explain himself to Joel. “I love you,” Joel says, “in a way you can't understand. Maybe you never will. But if that day should come, if you should ever have one of your own, well then, I hope you do a little better than me.”
It's 2029. Ellie is in Seattle, and that day has come. Can she find the mercy she was once ready to show Joel, or did she lose that part of herself when she lost him? Episode 6 proves she hasn't forgotten who she was; she remembers the moments that mattered with Joel, and those ghosts still have lessons to share with Ellie. They're trying to bring back the person she once was and, maybe, can be again.
“The Last of Us” releases new episodes Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max. The Season 2 finale will premiere May 25.
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The actress says her biological dad is Italian singer Nelson Sardelli, not Mickey Hargitay — something she discovered when she was in her 20s.
By
Kimberly Nordyke
Managing Editor, Digital
Mariska Hargitay has revealed a long-held family secret: the truth about her biological father.
The actress, whose mother was Jayne Mansfield, had believed for years that her father was Mickey Hargitay, the Hungarian bodybuilding champion who became an actor. He married Mansfield in 1956.
When Mariska was only 3, she and her mother were involved in a tragic car accident that killed Mansfield instantly. Mickey raised their three children after Mansfield died.
“He was my everything, my idol. He loved me so much, and I knew it,” she told Vanity Fair. “I also knew something else — I just didn't know what I knew.”
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In fact, she didn't know the truth until she was in her 20s. During a brief time in 1963-64, Mansfield filed for divorce from Mickey and began dating Italian entertainer Nelson Sardelli. However, Mickey and Mansfield reconciled months before Mariska's birth.
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Mariska had always believed something felt different between her and her siblings (Jayne Marie, Zoltan and Mickey Jr.), and when she was in her 20s, she saw a photo of Sardelli that confirmed her feelings. She says she knew right away that he was her biological father. When she asked Mickey, he denied it, and they never spoke of it again.
When she was 30, Mariska traveled to Atlantic City to see Sardelli perform. After she introduced herself, she said, he became emotional and told her, “I've been waiting 30 years for this moment.”
“I went full Olivia Benson on him,” she said of her reaction. “I was like, ‘I don't want anything, I don't need anything from you…. I have a dad.' There was something about loyalty. I wanted to be loyal to Mickey.” (Mickey died in 2006.)
She added that she struggled with “knowing I'm living a lie my entire life.”
Mariska ultimately became close with Sardelli and his daughters. She also realized that her mom went back to Mickey because she felt that being with him would be better for her daughter.
“I grew up where I was supposed to, and I do know that everyone made the best choice for me,” she said. “I'm Mickey Hargitay's daughter — that is not a lie.”
The Law & Order: SVU star also opens up about this revelation in her new documentary My Mom Jayne, which premiered Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival and debuts June 27 on HBO/HBO Max.
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The 'Mission: Impossible' franchise may be coming to an end, but at 'The Final Reckoning' premiere in New York, Cruise promised he will "never stop doing action."
By
Kirsten Chuba
Events Editor
After debuting last week at Cannes, Mission: Impossible – the Final Reckoning is continuing its journey around the world, premiering in New York on Sunday night.
The eighth film in the Mission: Impossible franchise, The Final Reckoning is being billed as the last go-around for Tom Cruise‘s Ethan Hunt; Cruise confirmed as such on the red carpet, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “It's the final! It's not called ‘final' for nothing.”
Two years ago, Cruise was quoted as saying he was inspired by 80-year-old Harrison Ford's career and wanted to keep making Mission: Impossible films until he was Ford's age. When THR asked about the quote and if he'd changed his mind — since he's currently 62 — Cruise noted, “I actually said I'm going to make movies into my 80s; actually, I'm going to make them into my 100s.”
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“I will never stop. I will never stop doing action, I will never stop doing drama, comedy films — I'm excited,” he added.
At the #MissionImpossible—The Final Reckoning premiere, Tom Cruise reveals he will keep making movies into his 100s pic.twitter.com/dZdzfEKnAf
Looking back on nearly 30 years of the Mission: Impossible franchise — which launched in 1996 — Cruise mused how he can't pick out a most rewarding aspect of the experience because “there's been so many levels of reward with the filmmakers that I've collaborated with, the crews, the people, the cultures that we've worked in. Everything that I've learned and continue to learn about storytelling, about life, about leadership, about character and every aspect of filmmaking. It's been exceptional, it really is exceptional. I feel very fortunate to be able to make the films that I make and I love it. I love just making movies.”
Tom Cruise makes a big revelation at the #MissionImpossible—The Final Reckoning premiere 'It's not called final for nothing' pic.twitter.com/y2iIWmSQz1
And as for any traditions he sticks to before taking on the film's massive stunts, the star joked, “There's a lot of pre-stunt rituals that keep me alive — it depends on what I'm doing and the amount of preparation I have to do. A lot of thought goes into it, and they are very complex and very interesting.”
The Final Reckoning also stars Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Pom Klementieff, Greg Tarzan Davis, Angela Bassett, Esai Morales, Henry Czerny, Charles Parnell, Holt McCallany, Nick Offerman, Tramell Tillman and Katy O'Brian. Christopher McQuarrie is back in the director's chair for his fourth Mission: Impossible film, and at the premiere described his collaboration with Cruise, calling him, “The most giving, most game — he's down for anything. Whether or not he understands something, he's fully willing to jump into something, whether he feels it or not. He's a great teacher and a great student.”
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning hits theaters Friday.
Neha Joy contributed to this report.
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On Saturday, Feb. 22, the Painted Lady Bed and Brewery hosted a ghostology class with paranormal expert Cody Polston. The class delved deep into the science and history of ghost hunting, then allowed attendees to experiment with various equipment and go on ghost hunts of their own on the Painted Lady Grounds.
Cody Polston, an author and paranormal expert, has been investigating ghost sightings since 1985 with his group the Southwest Ghost Hunters association. The presentation covered the science and history of ghost hunting, the traits of compelling evidence of ghosts as well as the various kinds of ghosts.
As Polston explained, ghostology has a long history. Ghostology has its roots in spiritualism, he said, which is the belief that when you die, you become a spirit with supernatural powers, including communication beyond the grave.
“It really kicked off during the Civil War. The reason is, you have lots of people dying, and the families don't have closure. So, they're going to spiritualists to have seances and contact their loved ones,” said Polston.
Early spiritualism had issues, however, with people lying about contacting the dead in order to make a profit. The desire to lessen fraudulent practices within spiritualism led to a desire to study ghosts scientifically, which inspired the creation of the Ghost Club in 1862, as Polston explained. Members of the Ghost Club included Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of Sherlock Holmes and Charles Dickens.
Polston covered the most famous and compelling evidence of ghosts, such as the case of the Morton House, wherein multiple witnesses all purported seeing the same spirit at the same time, and the “Patience Worth” ghost case, wherein a medium of allegedly averaged intelligence named Pearl Lenore Curranproduced high volumes of quality novel and poetry. Curran alleged that the works were created by a spirit named Patience Worth, who was communicating through Curran. The works also referenced places and events Curran would have had no way of knowing.
Polston said that the Ghost Club would later become the Society for Psychical Research. A rift quickly formed between spiritualists and the SPR.
“The big problem is: How are you going to coexist? One is a belief system like a religion and the other is a science. Science and religion don't mix.”
The basics of the science of ghost hunting begins with the witnesses. In order for members of the SPR to take a ghost encounter seriously enough to investigate, they had to be awake and of sound mind. Preferably, there would be more than one witness. Polston explained that modern ghost-hunters use similar criteria.
Polston explained various theories of what ghosts are, including the theory of “Veridical Hallucinations” – collective, non-drug induced hallucinations.
“It's some kind of energy. What it's doing is piping that energy into your brain, making you perceive it.”
Polston explained that the Veridical Hallucination theory explains some questions skeptics have about ghost encounters.
“Big question: Why do ghosts wear clothes? If I die, is my shirt going to become a ghost shirt? How do ghosts have swords? Canes? Those things don't have life energy,” Polston asked the audience to consider, before elaborating. “The perception of it is in your head… [ghosts] can appear anyway they want.”
He continued, saying that as time passed, ghost-hunting and the SPR began to morph into the field of parapsychology especially as the Veridical Hallucination theory gained popularity.
“Our science guys are already convinced that it's happening in the brain. Thus, parapsychology is born.”
According to Polston, parapsychology used to be a respected field. Some top universities still offer programs in parapsychology, such as Duke and the University of Virginia.
In his discussion of parapsychology, Polston discussed the “God Helmet”, an experiment done by Stanley Koren and Michael Persinger, wherein scientists stimulate the brain with electro-magnetic waves, causing the participant to have paranormal experiences. Though many scientific journals have disregarded the experiment due to failures to replicate it, the experiment has remained in the mind of ghost hunters, according to Polston, especially as it relates to using electromagnetic field detectors as a ghost hunting tool.
Polston tied in another theory about the brain, ghosts, and electromagnetic fields – the CEMI Field theory by Johnjoe McFadden.
Polston summarized McFadden's works: “He said that our consciousness is an electro-magnetic field surrounding our brain. Where ghost hunting comes into play is if that could somehow survive death, you could have an electro-magnetic field floating around and that is what's sending out the signal causing me to perceive it.”
EMF readers, Polston explained, pick up these fields , or “ghosts” making them valuable tools for investigators.
Polston took special care to emphasize the importances of skepticism when it comes to the supernatural. He explained that the skeptic method was important to paranormal research, as a science, because the more one tries and fails to explain a phenomenon “normally” the more credible a paranormal explanation becomes.
“When you see people being skeptical, understand they're not bad guys. They're not disbelievers. They're actually trying to use science to figure things out. But, we also have pseudo-skeptics. Pseudo-skeptics are just people who don't believe. They say they're skeptical, but they're not,” said Polston. “A skeptic means you're open-minded.”
After the class, attendees were provided with EMF readers and app recommendations and allowed to explore the property looking for supernatural activity while listening to stories of ghost encounters on the property.
One student, Elvira Benavidez said that the talk was unique and informative and appreciated the ghost hunt that concluded the class, “It went well with the night. I liked it, it was entertaining.”
Addison Fulton is the culture editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on X @dailylobo
12:48 EDT 19 May 2025, updated
13:36 EDT 19 May 2025
By
CHRIS MELORE, ASSISTANT SCIENCE EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
A UFO slammed into a US fighter jet over Arizona, cracking the canopy protecting the pilot, and forcing the $63 million plane to land, new reports have revealed.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the F-16 Viper fighter jet was hit by an 'orange-white UAS' - which stands for uncrewed aerial system, better known as a drone - on January 19, 2023.
Within a day of this collision, there were three more unidentified aircraft sightings over the Air Force's Barry Goldwater Range, where the fighter was damaged, the documents stated.
Barry Goldwater Range is an expanse of desert along the Arizona-Mexico border where the military practices air-to-air and air-to-ground combat.
The FAA's report of the F-16 collision revealed that the fighter was flying in restricted airspace near Gila Bend, Arizona, when it was hit by the object in the rear of the canopy, the glass bubble which protects the pilot.
No injuries were reported. The Air Force did not reveal how much damage the jet suffered, but the plane was grounded for repairs.
These new details come as a stunning report from the Department of Defense's All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) shows there have been hundreds of UFO reports made in recent years and Arizona is becoming the nation's new UFO hotspot.
AARO serves as a centralized department which looks into all things related to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) sightings and reports which could impact national security or air safety.
The F-16 collision is just one of 22 incidents involving Air Force fighter pilots seeing or crashing into strange objects between October 2022 and June 2023, according to azfamily.com.
Most of the encounters took place within 100 miles of Luke Air Force Base, where many of the F-16 fighter jets using Barry Goldwater Range launch from.
Although the FAA said there's no evidence that the collision involved something extraterrestrial, it's one of several recent UFO incidents that have plagued US airspace over Arizona.
In fact, some of these strange sightings involved swarms of up to eight mysterious objects flying over Air Force training bases along the US border with Mexico.
Between 2016 and 2020, military pilots reported seeing unidentified drone-like objects over the state eight times.
The new FAA details come as another government report shows that there were 757 sightings of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) worldwide reported between May 2023 and June 2024 alone - and only 49 of these cases have been solved.
When incidents like the F-16 collision occur, the pilot files a report, which the FAA investigates using radar and other data. If the incident involves a UFO, it's sent to AARO for further investigation.
At least 410 of these 757 new UAP reports from around the world occurred over the US, with the vast majority being sent in by the FAA between May 1, 2023 and June 1, 2024.
However, many more of these encounters took place over restricted military airspace, and the AARO report did not reveal where exactly these sightings occurred.
Despite the secrecy, UFO whistleblowers are revealing that many are taking place in Arizona. That includes Luis Elizondo, a former government intelligence officer who investigated these cases before leaving the Pentagon.
'A lot of people reporting a lot of things out of Arizona, particularly on the border,' Elizondo disclosed.
Bob Thompson, who spent 14 years with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), also recently shared never-before-seen videos of UFOs spotted over Arizona.
'I've seen orbs that were off in the distance. I've seen crafts that were cigar-shaped, I've seen triangles,' the whistleblower told NewsNation.
Thompson added that over 100 CBP agents have confessed to him that they have seen strange and unidentified objects flying along the US border.
These sightings included US border agents witnessing terrifying 'portals' opening into the sky.
'I got told that they witnessed a portal opening up in the sky and there were pictures of it on a camera that I was able to see,' Thompson revealed.
Although hundreds of these strange sightings sent to AARO are still marked as open investigations, many in the government are blaming Mexico - not aliens.
Specifically, there's a growing belief that the surge in unidentified drone sightings is due to drug cartels launching high-tech spy missions into the US.
'We're seeing drones… used as scouting patrols, to watch Border Patrol,' NewsNation's border report Ali Bradley explained.
Unlike drones which the US government believed were launched by China, these new drones are harder to detect and also larger so they can potentially carry bigger packages of drugs across the border.
Trump Administration border czar Tom Homan has added that many of these sightings are likely high-tech drones spying on US military bases in Arizona.
Bradley noted that one of the cartels' top goals is to infiltrate US military facilities, so they can stay one step ahead of patrols enforcing illegal immigration and drug trafficking.
Of the 49 AARO investigations that have been closed, the UFOs were determined to be airplanes, balloons, birds, drones, and satellites that were mistaken as alien aircraft.
AARO has recommended that another 243 cases be closed for the same reasons.
By
Tomás Mier
Ariana Grande is keeping the Eternal Sunshine era alive. On Monday, she dropped a new video for “Supernatural,” repurposing a sci-fi scene from her Brighter Days Ahead short film for the visual.
The Christian Breslauer and Ariana Grande-directed video sees Grande, dressed in a silk cream dress, walking through the debris of a city on fire. The pop star sings the lyrics as she looks at the aftermath of a disaster.
“This love's possessin' me, but I don't mind at all/It's like supernatural,” Grande sings. “It's takin' over me, don't wanna fight the fall/It's like supernatural.” Toward the end of the video, Grande walks toward a UFO-like beaming light. As she approaches it, Grande begins to levitate.
“Supernatural” is the fourth single off of Eternal Sunshine, which received a deluxe edition (and the accompanying short film) in March. “Letting go is harder work than it seems, even when Grande's turning her pain into music,” read a Rolling Stone review of the deluxe album and film. “But that's what makes these songs — like the rest of Eternal Sunshine — reach so deep.”
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Grande led the album with “Yes, And?” in January 2024 and “We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)” in March of that year. Following the LP's release, she dropped a video starring Penn Badgley for “The Boy Is Mine” in June last year.
In mid-April, the singer released a behind-the-scenes video of Brighter Days Ahead, her short film inspired by the 2004 indie classic Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. “When we are young, sometimes we want to erase certain things or rewrite certain things that seem painful to us in the moment, but when we grow older, we would do anything to relive those moments,” Grande said in the clip.
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May 19 (UPI) -- Pop icon Ariana Grande released a music video Monday for "Supernatural," a song featured on her Eternal Sunshine album.
The video shows the Wicked actress walking through a city apparently ravaged by aliens, with wrecked cars and fires burning in various places. Grande sings as she takes in the scene, wearing a cream-colored silky dress.
"This love's possessing me, but I don't mind at all," she sings. "It's taking over me. Don't wanna fight the fall."
She approaches an alien space craft and is beamed up to the ship as the song concludes.
Grande released Eternal Sunshine on March 8. She followed up with Brighter Days, a deluxe version of Eternal Sunshine featuring six new songs, on March 28.
The Pokémon TCG has unveiled new Japanese Frillish and Jellicent ex cards, with infuriatingly good item lock powers - and more besides.
Alex Evans
Published: May 19, 2025
The latest crop of card reveals from Pokémon White Flare is in, with a new Frillish and Jellicent ex that could well shoot right to the top of the meta thanks to great stats, tasty energy synergy with the infamous Gardevoir ex, and extreme item locking abilities that'll leave poor Budew back where it started: just a cute little guy.
As revealed via fansite Pokébeach on Sunday, the new Frillish and Jellicent are coming in White Flare – one half of Black Bolt and White Flare, the Pokémon TCG's first ever English 'dual set', due out on June 18. For full details, check our complete list of all Pokemon sets.
And these two psychic-type jellyfish Pokémon have already sent the fandom spinning, with good reason: the new Jellicent ex is an absolute powerhouse. One of the highest HP Pokémon ex around, combined with a relatively do-able 160 damage attack, is a powerful cocktail, but that's not even the best part: Jellicent is packing the best item-locking ability we've yet seen.
With thanks to Pokébeach for the Japanese English translation, here are the stats:
Jellicent ex – Psychic – HP270
Stage 1 – Evolves from Frillish
Ability: Sea Curse
As long as this Pokémon is in the Active Spot, your opponent can't play any Item cards or attach any Pokémon Tool cards from their hand.
[P][C] Power Press: 80+ damage. If this Pokémon has at least 2 extra Energy attached (in addition to this attack's cost), this attack does 80 more damage.
Weakness: Darkness (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-30)
Retreat: 3
Loading up four energy for the Power Press attack might seem like a bottleneck, but that's where the Gardevoir ex synergy comes in, because – contrary to all watery appearances – these jellies use psychic energy. Use Gardy's ability to hoover up lost psychic energies to power Jellicent, and you'll be giving your opponent very dangerous hugs, very quickly.
That Sea Curse ability is the clincher, though. Shutting down both items and Pokémon tools passively, without being tied to an attack or energy cost, is way beyond any other item lockers around, and a fantastic foil to many of the most powerful strategies in the game currently. Your opponent's best chance is to gust it back to the bench – which they'll find much harder to do without using any items!
With precious few ability-locking cards in the meta just now, this evil jellyfish is going to shut down a lot of opponents' decks with ease. Buffing it to a mighty 370HP with a Hero's Cape, safe in the knowledge that your opponent can't tool up in response, is a fiendish control play that'd make even Magic: The Gathering Blue deck players jealous.
Frillish – Psychic – HP80
Basic Pokémon
[P] Sea Shadows: 20 damage. During your opponent's next turn, they can't play any Item cards from their hand.
Weakness: Darkness (x2)
Resistance: Fighting (-30)
Retreat: 3
The new Frillish isn't just a means to an end, either – it's a solid 80HP Basic Pokémon and a decent item locker in its own right! It's essentially the Budew everyone's been afraid of, but stronger, and in Psychic rather than Grass.
The pay-off is in the eye-watering 3-energy retreat cost, of course, where Budew can hop back to the bench for free. But it's still likely to replace Budew in Gardevoir decks, simply for the ease of psychic energy use – effectively streamlining an already popular deck that didn't need much help.
Expect to see a lot of this little duo when Black Bolt and White Flare drop next month – Jellicent ex might look like a butt wearing a crown, but it's going to rule a lot of tabletops, mark our words. If a Special Illustration Rare version gets revealed, expect it to become one of the most expensive rare Pokémon cards of the dual set.
What do you think? Have we overhyped this big, nasty, psychic butt jellyfish and its Budew-beating younger sibling? Are there some sick plays we missed? Let us know in the Wargamer Discord community – we can aways use some more hype about the newest Pokemon set.
By the way, credit for the inspired main photo of our demonic new Jellicent ex overlord goes to Master Trainer Daz Skubich, over at our lovely mobile and portable gaming sister site Pocket Tactics!
Alex Evans Alex is the gaming omnivore, clumsy escapist, and award-winning nerd who's captained the good ship Wargamer from its 2021 relaunch to now.
He has a degree in Politics and a Master's in International Journalism, but failed his cycling proficiency test twice. He speaks (mostly) fluent German, believes all things are political, and is tragically, hopelessly in love with Warhammer 40k.
When not pressing buttons at Wargamer HQ, you can often find him impatiently painting miniatures; half-finishing strategy board games against himself; or drinking lager in the bath with a Horus Heresy audiobook playing. <
Previously Chief Germanist for Green Man Gaming. DnD alignment: Lawful Good. He/Him.
Disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in a New York prison in 2019, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino reaffirmed Sunday, countering conspiracy theories that have lingered since Epstein died while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
“As someone who has worked as a public defender, as a prosecutor who's been in that prison system, who's been in the Metropolitan Detention Center, who's been in segregated housing, you know a suicide when you see one, and that's what that was,” Patel told Fox News's Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures,” adding that those who believe something nefarious happened “have a right to their opinion.”
“I have seen the whole file. He killed himself,” Bongino added in their joint interview at the FBI's Hoover Building.
Their blunt answers represent a turn in the long-debated Epstein case. The phrase “Epstein didn't kill himself” became a meme after he died, and Republicans in Congress have fueled speculation about the subject through the years.
Multiple members of the Trump administration vowed to provide more insight into the Epstein case and his death after Trump's return to the White House, as questions have persisted over Epstein's alleged sex trafficking of minors and who else may have been involved.
President Trump, who knew Epstein, signed an executive order in January directing a review of classified records that are of public interest, including documents related to investigations of Epstein and political assassinations. A bipartisan congressional panel also has been tasked with going over the documents.
Attorney General Pam Bondi vowed to release the “Epstein files” of interest, particularly flight logs and any form of “client list” that may exist, though a flashy unveiling of the initial tranche of records fell flat in March.
Epstein, who owned a Caribbean island, private jet and several mansions, frequently hobnobbed with powerful and wealthy individuals, even after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to solicitation charges. Photos have shown him with Trump, former President Clinton, England's Prince Andrew and a slew of other celebrities.
Epstein's former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, his alleged co-conspirator in the sex trafficking scheme, was convicted in 2021 on multiple charges, including sex trafficking, conspiracy and transportation of a minor for illegal sexual activity. She is currently serving 20 years in prison.
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By Jason Hall
May 19, 2025
An unidentified flying object that struck and damaged a U.S. military fighter jet was among several mysterious objects found near Air Force training ranges in Arizona, according to multiple reports.
The UFO hit the clear bubble "canopy" located above the head of a pilot flying an F-16 Viper jet, which caused damaged to the plane and left it temporarily grounded during an incident in January 2023, according to Federal Aviation Administration documents first obtained by the War Zone. The object was described as "an orange-white UAS" or "uncrewed aerial system," a term that often describes drones, according to the FAA documents.
Three additional UAS encounters were flagged the following day, according to the outlet.
“What I can tell you is that there has been a lot of activity, a lot of people reporting a lot of things out of Arizona, particularly on the [Mexico] border," former Pentagon investigator Luis Elizondo told News Nation earlier this month.
The FAA issued a statement to the New York Post claiming that it “documents Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) sightings whenever a pilot reports one to an air traffic control facility."
“If supporting information such as radar data corroborates the report, the FAA shares it with the UAP Task Force," the statement added. "The Department of Defense All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office serves as the centralized clearing house for UAP reporting impacting national security or safety.”
The U.S. government filed 757 related reports between May 2023 and June 2024, which includes 708 aerial incidents, and only 49 were marked as being "cased closed," according to the latest Department of Defense All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office report. The small unidentified objects found in Arizona tend to fly in groups of up to eight during incidents at high altitudes in or near military air combat training sites and have reoccurred since January 2020.
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By Ashley Fike
An unidentified flying object literally crashed into a U.S. fighter jet during a training mission over Arizona—and it seems our real lives are getting closer to an X-Files plot than we'd probably like. It's real, and it's just one of dozens of increasingly bizarre midair incidents that military pilots have been reporting over restricted airspace in the Southwest.
The collision happened in January when an F-16 Viper jet struck what officials later described as an “orange-white uncrewed aerial system,” or UAS. The FAA confirmed the object hit the plane's canopy mid-flight. That's the transparent bubble that protects the pilot's face. No word yet on how damaged it was, but if it sounds wild, just know this: it was one of four separate drone encounters reported that day.
And that's only scratching the surface.
Since 2020, military pilots flying training routes over Arizona have reported dozens of encounters with strange objects. Some were logged as drones. Others defied easy explanation—metallic spheres moving in groups, eight “silver UAS” flying in tight formation at 20,000 feet, and one suspiciously fast object tearing through the sky at Mach 0.75, or about 500 mph, at 33,000 feet. For context, your average off-the-shelf drone barely clears 500 feet and maxes out at around 45 knots.
On March 25, 2021, two F-35 pilots near Casa Grande described a “large white UAS” hovering motionless at 24,000 feet—something they said resembled either a small plane or a really big drone. Another F-35 crew spotted a glowing blue-green object while cruising at 36,000 feet. At that altitude, you're usually sharing airspace with commercial jets. Not UFOs.
“These reports are coming in constantly,” former Pentagon UAP investigator Luis Elizondo told NewsNation, pointing to the Arizona-Mexico border as a repeat offender. Some officials suspect advanced cartel surveillance drones. Others think it's something more mysterious. Either way, the technology doesn't match what's publicly known.
“Maybe they've got tech we're not used to seeing in the drone space,” said former CBP official Ron Vitiello. He cited cartel money and its tendency to innovate fast “to keep selling their poison.”
From May 2023 to June 2024, the U.S. government logged 757 sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena. Just 49 have been marked “case closed.”
With more objects appearing in restricted airspace—and one now confirmed to have struck a fighter jet—the question is no longer if something is out there but who's behind it and how close these encounters are going to get.
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By Ashley Fike
By Ashley Fike
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By Ashley Fike
An unidentified flying object literally crashed into a U.S. fighter jet during a training mission over Arizona—and it seems our real lives are getting closer to an X-Files plot than we'd probably like. It's real, and it's just one of dozens of increasingly bizarre midair incidents that military pilots have been reporting over restricted airspace in the Southwest.
The collision happened in January when an F-16 Viper jet struck what officials later described as an “orange-white uncrewed aerial system,” or UAS. The FAA confirmed the object hit the plane's canopy mid-flight. That's the transparent bubble that protects the pilot's face. No word yet on how damaged it was, but if it sounds wild, just know this: it was one of four separate drone encounters reported that day.
And that's only scratching the surface.
Since 2020, military pilots flying training routes over Arizona have reported dozens of encounters with strange objects. Some were logged as drones. Others defied easy explanation—metallic spheres moving in groups, eight “silver UAS” flying in tight formation at 20,000 feet, and one suspiciously fast object tearing through the sky at Mach 0.75, or about 500 mph, at 33,000 feet. For context, your average off-the-shelf drone barely clears 500 feet and maxes out at around 45 knots.
On March 25, 2021, two F-35 pilots near Casa Grande described a “large white UAS” hovering motionless at 24,000 feet—something they said resembled either a small plane or a really big drone. Another F-35 crew spotted a glowing blue-green object while cruising at 36,000 feet. At that altitude, you're usually sharing airspace with commercial jets. Not UFOs.
“These reports are coming in constantly,” former Pentagon UAP investigator Luis Elizondo told NewsNation, pointing to the Arizona-Mexico border as a repeat offender. Some officials suspect advanced cartel surveillance drones. Others think it's something more mysterious. Either way, the technology doesn't match what's publicly known.
“Maybe they've got tech we're not used to seeing in the drone space,” said former CBP official Ron Vitiello. He cited cartel money and its tendency to innovate fast “to keep selling their poison.”
From May 2023 to June 2024, the U.S. government logged 757 sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena. Just 49 have been marked “case closed.”
With more objects appearing in restricted airspace—and one now confirmed to have struck a fighter jet—the question is no longer if something is out there but who's behind it and how close these encounters are going to get.
By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive electronic communications from VICE Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertisements and sponsored content.
By Brent Koepp
By Luis Prada
By Ashley Fike
By Ashley Fike
By Matt Jancer
By Brent Koepp
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By Luis Prada
By Jake Uitti
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A NASA veteran's multi-year survey of over 1,300 Sun-like stars has discovered several mysterious fast pulses of light that defy traditional cosmological explanations.
Part of a new SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) approach that scans the cosmos for signs of technologically advanced non-human intelligences employing light pulses instead of radio signals to communicate, called ‘optical SETI', the detections could unveil previously misunderstood natural phenomena or may represent actual extraterrestrial communications.
Since the 1960s, SETI scientists like Frank Drake, the author of the Drake Equation used to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations, have scanned the cosmos for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence in the form of radio signals, including scanning the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanet system. Some tantalizing possibilities have emerged, including the infamous “WOW” signal discovered in 1977, although that detection was most likely resolved as a natural occurrence in 2024. As a result, none of these efforts have detected definitive evidence of non-human radio communication.
More recently, scientists have proposed innovative new methods to look for extraterrestrials communicating with one another. Examples include scanning for alien communications using gravitational waves, looking for galactic-level radio communications by alien supercivilizations, and hunting for light pulses caused by extraterrestrials communicating with lasers called optical SETI.
In a recently published study, veteran NASA scientist Richard H. Stanton detailed a multi-year optical SETI effort aimed specifically at Sun-like stars that revealed some unusual results. According to Stanton, whose impressive resume includes NASA's Voyager missions and working as the Engineering Manager of the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission, several potential explanations exist for his unexpected findings, including the possibility of extraterrestrial communication.
Since retiring, Stanton has been using the 76.2-cm (30-inch) telescope at the Shay Meadow Observatory in Big Bear, California, to look for signs of extraterrestrials trying to communicate, or as a propulsion system to power light sail spacecraft. Unlike other optical SETI projects that hunt for light signals in varying spectra, Stanton's study employed a multi-channel photometer that he designed and the immense patience of a NASA veteran to study the light from stars for these signals.
“My approach is to stare at a single star for roughly 1 hour using photon counting to sample the star's light at what is considered a very high time-resolution for astronomy (100 microsecond samples),” Stanton explained. “The resulting time series are then searched for pulses and optical tones.”
“I'm not sure if anyone else is doing this with a significant time commitment,” he added.
Stanton said that patience finally paid off on May 14, 2023, when his equipment detected an unexpected “signal” while observing the Sun-like star HD 89389. During his one-hour survey, the scientists spotted two fast, identical pulses of light separated by 4.4 seconds. After double-checking previous surveys of the F-type star in the constellation Ursa Major, Stanton confirmed the pulses of light had not been previously detected.
“I am not aware of any discovery of similar pulses,” he writes.
To eliminate potentially false signals, the NASA veteran compared his readings against signals produced by sources known to occasionally confuse astronomical instruments. After some detailed analysis, he was able to rule out lightning, meteors, airplanes, satellites, system noise, and other atmospheric phenomena as the source of the light pulses.
Next, Stanton looked for similar “overlooked” detections in previous historical observation data. As hoped, he found a nearly identical pair of light pulses detected on September 30th, 2019, around the Sun-like star HD 217014. Roughly the same size, age, and mass as our sun, the star is also the site of the first exoplanet detected by humans in 1995.
Stanton discussed another event that occurred on January 18th of this year, after the paper was submitted for publication. According to the scientist, all three events occurred in pairs, with all pairs of pulses of light separated by between 1.2 and 4.4 seconds. Stanton says that in over 1,500 hours of searching, “no single pulse resembling these has ever been detected.”
A deeper analysis of the 2023 detection also revealed an interesting pattern that Stanton found difficult to explain with natural phenomena. When the pulses of light were detected, the star got brighter, fainter, and brighter again before returning to its previous ambient light level, “all in about 0.2 seconds.” Stanton says this variation is much too strong to be caused by the typical false signal culprits, such as random noise or atmospheric turbulence.
“How do you make a star, over a million kilometers across, partially disappear in a tenth of a second?” he asks. “The source of this variation can't be as far away as the star itself.”
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A follow-up analysis of photography data captured during the event confirmed that nothing else was detected moving near the star at the time of the detection. Separately, when Stanton took a closer look at the fine structure found within the star's light between pulses, he found a repeating pattern at exactly the 4.4-second mark of the second pulse that seemingly defies conventional explanations.
“No one knows how to explain this behavior,” he writes.
In the study's conclusion, the NASA veteran discusses several potential explanations for the light pulses and the problems associated with each.
For example, the 2019 detection was originally written off as a false signal caused by birds, a determination Stanton was able to refute with new data and analysis. The scientist suggests that a shockwave in Earth's atmosphere could also explain the detections. However, he calls that possibility unlikely, “since shockwaves would have had to occur with perfect timing to coincide with all three optical pulses.”
Stanton also discusses other possible explanations, including starlight diffraction by a distant object in the solar system, partial eclipses caused by satellites or asteroids, edge refraction, and gravitational waves. Still, Stanton says that none of these explanations are satisfying “at this point” and suggests that more study of all three known events is required to further limit the possibilities.
“We don't know what kind of object could produce these pulses or how far away it is. We don't know if the two-pulse signal is produced by something passing between us and the star or if it is generated by something that modulates the star's light without moving across the field. Until we learn more, we can't even say whether or not extraterrestrials are involved!”
Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.
Kelli Saam is an anchor for Action News Now and rejoined the
team in 2021.
Kelli Saam is an anchor for Action News Now and rejoined the
team in 2021.
Steven Kojola disappeared in July 2018
TRINITY COUNTY, Calif. - Authorities are still searching for Steven Kojola, a Mountain View resident who vanished during a camping trip to Trinity County in 2018. Kojola, known for his love of the outdoors, was last seen on July 27, 2018.
Kojola's car was discovered in a remote area of Southern Trinity County. Authorities believe he was camping in the area when he disappeared.
Numerous search and rescue missions have been conducted. These efforts have uncovered an old camp of Kojola's and several of his belongings.
The missing man is described as 6 feet tall, weighing 171 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. He was 70 years old at the time of his disappearance and would be 77 today.
Anyone with information is urged to contact the Trinity County Sheriff's Department at 530-623-2611.
*AI assisted with the formatting of this story. Click here to see how Action News Now uses AI.
Kelli Saam is an anchor for Action News Now and rejoined the
team in 2021.
Kelli Saam is an anchor for Action News Now and rejoined the
team in 2021.
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Donald Trump Jr. referred to a non-existent stage five cancer diagnosis in his comments about Joe Biden
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Donald Trump Jr. has taken aim at Joe Biden's wife for failing to miss the signs of her husband's prostate cancer.
The US president's son shared a conspiratorial message claiming that the White House must have known about Biden's diagnosis while he was in office.
“What I want to know is how did Dr. Jill Biden miss stage five metastatic cancer or is this yet another coverup???” Trump Jr. said in a sarcastic jab at former First Lady Jill Biden.
There is no such thing as stage five cancer. The post appears to be a swipe at Dr. Jill Biden, who has a doctoral degree in education.
Hours earlier, Trump Jr. shared a screenshot calling for respect for the Biden family after the diagnosis. He added, " 100 percent agree.”
Trump Jr. wasn't alone in spreading theories without proof.
Dr. Ronny Jackson, a Republican congressman and Donald Trump's former physician, tweeted his belief that Biden's doctor during his tenure in the White House was “more concerned about assisting with the political cover up than providing world class medical care.”
Meanwhie, right-wing influencers the Hodgetwins, tweeted: “Less than a year ago Biden's doctors stated Biden was healthy. Currently Biden has prostate cancer with metastasis to the bone. With the best doctors money can buy there's no way they didn't know. The Democrats and the media all lied and coverup it up!”
In a statement released by the former president's office on Sunday, it was announced that Biden was diagnosed a week prior after experiencing “increasing urinary symptoms”.
“Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms,” the statement read.
“On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterised by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone.
“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive, which allows for effective management. The president and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”
Trump, who has often ridiculed Biden following rumours of his ill-health while in office, wrote that he was “saddened” to hear about the diagnosis.
He wrote: “Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden's recent medical diagnosis.
“We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.”
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A Chinese woman was allegedly forced to take off her heavy makeup after facial recognition scanners at an airport failed to confirm her identity.
A short clip showing a young woman using wet wipes to clean her face of makeup while being scolded by airport staff went viral on Chinese social media last week, sparking all sorts of humorous comments. According to the boarding pass shown in the video next to the woman's ID, the video was shot in September of last year, at Shanghai Airport, but only recently attracted attention online. During the short clip, the woman holding the camera (presumably an airport official), scolds the young girl, telling her that she needs to wipe off all the makeup until she looks like the picture on her identification document.
“Wipe everything off until you look like your passport photo. Why would you do your makeup like that? You are asking for trouble,” the voice behind the camera says.
It's unclear whether the woman eventually passed the airport's facial recognition scan, but her ordeal did inspire humorous comments on social media.
“It's not like she was able to walk around with a filter on in real life, right?” one person asked.
Others took pity on the young woman, saying that she already looked embarrassed enough, and there was no woman for the airport official to nag her about the makeup, while others wondered whether the makeup should be an issue for modern facial recognition scanners.
“No matter how thick the makeup is, the face shouldn't be unrecognizable, right? Isn't it time to upgrade the equipment?” one person wondered.
We reported a similar incident a while back, when several Chinese women had problems entering the country after flying to South Korea for facial plastic surgery, which changed their look so much that they became unrecognizable.
This breakthrough in battery power could bring wearable tech, implanted medical devices, and humanoid robots to life.
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Scientists say they've created a battery that can stretch and bend without losing power. The discovery paves the way for wearable technology, smart medical devices, and robots with human-like movements.
"The texture is a bit like toothpaste," senior author Aiman Rahmanudin, an assistant professor at Linköping University in Sweden, said in a statement. "The material can, for instance, be used in a 3D printer to shape the battery as you please. This opens up for a new type of technology."
Traditional batteries face a tradeoff between size/flexibility and power. The scientists at Linköping University's Laboratory of Organic Electronics solved that problem by using materials that can hold and conduct negative and positive charges to power devices regardless of their energy demands. The findings were published April 11 in the journal Science Advances.
"Batteries are the largest component of all electronics," Rahmanudin said. "Today they are solid and quite bulky. But with a soft and conformable battery, there are no design limitations. It can be integrated into electronics in a completely different way and adapted to the user."
Related: Amazingly simple discovery extends Li-ion battery lifespan by 50% — meaning you don't have to replace your gadgets as often
To produce their design, the researchers reimagined the active ingredients, d the connective portions and the terminals that make up a battery. The active ingredients of cathodes (positive charges) and anodes (negative charges) are made of modified lignin, an organic material. The connections or positive and negative terminals of the battery are still metallic but they're made of nanographite and silver nanowires that are small enough to remain flexible with the rest of the battery.
The result is a battery that behaves somewhat like a water balloon — retaining its overall shape and holding a large amount of material while remaining flexible, the scientists said in the study.
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"The study from Linköping University demonstrates a groundbreaking approach to battery design," Pragathi Darapaneni, a senior product development engineer at Schaeffler Asia, told Live Science in an email. "By utilizing fluid electrodes, the researchers have created a battery that maintains functionality while being deformable. This could lead to significant advancements in the design of wearable and implantable devices."
Potential applications of this discovery include insulin pumps, pacemakers and hearing aids, along with e-textiles containing electronics in clothing that conform to the user's body, and soft robotics that enable robots to bend and flex smoothly.
—MIT scientists build hair-size batteries that can power cell-sized robots
—'Springy' solid-state battery is twice the width of a white blood cell and could drastically increase EV range
—Future wearable devices could draw power through your body using background 6G cellphone signals
The researchers said in the study that they've based their soft battery on conductive plastics (conjugated polymers) and lignin, a byproduct of the paper production. The battery can be recharged and discharged over 500 times and still maintain its performance. It can also be stretched to double the length and still work just as well."
While the researchers state the battery isn't perfect, since the concept is proven at 0.9 volts and most batteries charge at minimum 1.5 volts, they are looking for chemical compounds to expand the voltage capabilities.
"While promising, fluid batteries must be evaluated for potential risks, ensuring that the materials used are non-toxic and safe for prolonged contact with human skin," Darapeni wrote about the study.
Lisa D Sparks is a freelance journalist for Live Science and an experienced editor and marketing professional with a background in journalism, content marketing, strategic development, project management, and process automation. She specializes in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and electric vehicles (EVs) and battery technology, while she also holds expertise in the trends including semiconductors and data centers.
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An unidentified flying object struck a US Air Force F-16 fighter jet during a training mission over Arizona last year, damaging the aircraft and prompting concerns about a surge in mysterious aerial activity near American military sites, the New York Post reported.
According to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) documents, first reported by The War Zone, the incident occurred in January 2023 when an "orange-white" uncrewed aerial system (UAS) collided mid-air with the canopy of a $63 million F-16 Viper, forcing it to be grounded. The term UAS typically refers to drones, though the object remains unidentified.
The incident is one of several unexplained aerial encounters reported near US Air Force training zones in Arizona since 2020. A day after the fighter jet incident, three more UAS encounters were flagged in the same region, highlighting the frequency and unusual nature of these sightings.
Former Pentagon investigator Luis Elizondo told News Nation that reports of unidentified aerial activity have spiked near Arizona's southern border.
"There's been a lot of activity, a lot of people reporting a lot of things," he said.
The FAA confirmed that it logs sightings of "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" (UAP) when pilots report them to air traffic control. If corroborated with radar or other evidence, the data is shared with the US Department of Defence's All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office - the agency handling such national security cases.
Between May 2023 and June 2024, the office received 757 such reports, with only 49 cases marked "closed" so far.
Many of the objects spotted near Arizona's military ranges appear in small swarms, sometimes in groups of eight, flying at high altitudes. Some US officials, including former Customs and Border Protection advisor Ron Vitiello, suspect these could be advanced drones operated by foreign cartels for smuggling or surveillance.
"There's a possibility they're using cutting-edge technology we're not familiar with," Vitiello said, noting that cartel-funded drone systems have been used to smuggle drugs weighing up to 10 kilograms across the US-Mexico border.
"These groups have the resources to innovate constantly. That's part of their business model," he added.
The incidents come amid heightened scrutiny over aerial intrusions, following high-profile events like the Chinese spy balloon sighting in 2023.
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