At this rate, the total by the end of 2026 would continue a decrease in recent years. By Mr. Riedman’s tally, which he maintains in his K-12 School Shooting Database, there were 235 school shootings in 2025 and 336 in 2024.

Mr. Riedman uses this definition of a school shooting: “When a gun is fired, brandished with intent to harm, or a bullet hits school property for any reason, regardless of the number of victims, time or day of the week.”

The downward trend in his totals appears to be consistent with recent declining rates of crime and gun violence in the nation. But he has cautioned people about reading too much into one set of numbers, saying that definitions of school shootings are “messy” ways to describe gun violence at schools.

For instance, his data shows, school shootings are still much higher than the average of about 80 per year in the five years before the Covid-19 pandemic.

And what Mr. Riedman calls “near-misses” have been increasing at a significant rate, he said. Those include attempts at violence that stalled after a person had pointed a gun or fired initial shots, such as when a gun jams, or a shooting is foiled; in April, for instance, a principal in Oklahoma tackled a would-be shooter who had entered a high school and tried to shoot two students.

Mr. Riedman said that tracking those numbers and studying those cases help figure out how to stop school shootings, like the one that killed three pupils and a teacher in Bend, Ore., on Thursday.

“The concept of near-miss reporting is what has made commercial aviation so much safer because it’s those almost-crashes that you end up learning a tremendous amount from because they happen far more than real crashes,” he said.

Ron Avi Astor, a professor at U.C.L.A. who has been studying school safety for more than 30 years, said counting failed attempts is important, but what matters most about school shootings is the bigger picture of how “our culture sees it and is responding to it.”

He likened mass shootings to terrorism, adding that students are bombarded with news about them.

“When you ask kids in California, and in many other states, ‘Is your school safe?’ they’re going to say, ‘Yeah, my school is safe,’” Mr. Astor said. “And then you ask, ‘What’s your greatest fear?’ and they say, ‘Getting shot at school.’”

He added that fear ripples through communities because mass shootings receive widespread news coverage.

“The vast majority of violence day to day is going down,” he said. “But the perception of it going up is due to these mass shootings.”

Mr. Riedman, the data scientist, said he did find some encouraging news: Since 2018, almost 250 school attacks were averted when potential shooters were stopped by people like community members, relatives or classmates, who noticed a problem before the person moved ahead.

“People are educated about warning signs, and are taking actions based on them,” he said.

Shaila Dewan and Dana Goldstein contributed reporting.

The post School Shootings Have Dropped Lately, but Gun Violence Remains Above Pre-Covid Levels appeared first on New York Times.

The Yorkshire Ambulance Trust — a part of the National Health Service — launched a probe into two staffers who responded to emergency calls at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park after William Chapman, 24, scaled a fence on Oct. 10 and fatally leaped into the big cat enclosure, The Guardian reported.

There were reportedly “two instances” where Chapman’s medical information was accessed without a “legitimate reason,” ambulance officials admitted to heath trade publication HSJ.

The breach occurred shortly after reports of the tiger attacking him surfaced, prompting the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office to be notified, health officials said.

Chapman’s family later told officials that he “had a history of mental illness, a diagnosis of schizophrenia” and had been under psychiatric supervision.

The Yorkshire Ambulance Trust confirmed the potential breach and notified Chapman’s family about the investigation, according to the outlet.

A full investigation is expected to occur in March, according to Sky News. 

The troubled former actor shared a video of himself walking up to Altai, a 420-pound Siberian tiger, on Instagram shortly before the grisly mauling.

Chapman died at the scene, with his cause of death later reported as multiple traumatic injuries and animal interaction.

His grieving family said he suffered from severe mental health issues — reportedly schizophrenia — and was taking heavy medication at the time of the horrific attack.

Before the horror unfolded, he was spotted “pacing around with his headphones in” and “happily dancing” — even asking unsuspecting zoo visitors to take his picture with the beast in the background, eyewitnesses said.

It is not the first time National Health Service staff have been caught snooping.

In June, dozens improperly accessed records of a boy attacked by an alligator at a zoo, Sky News reported.

The post UK ambulance staff viewed medical records of ex-child actor fatally mauled by tiger without ‘legitimate reason’: report appeared first on New York Post.

• Kamala Harris says she’s loving reformer Pilates right now.
• The former vice president told Keke Palmer she loves how it works all the smaller muscles in her body.
• Harris said Pilates helps her feel empowered in her daily life.

First she was Brat, now she’s a Pilates girlie.

“You know what I’ve been doing though recently is Pilates,” former vice president Kamala Harris told actor Keke Palmer on an episode of the “Baby, This is Keke Palmer” podcast, posted October 15.

Harris said that, along with a walk with her husband Doug Emhoff, time to cook, and a family dinner, the workout would be part of her perfect Sunday. Harris, who is 61, has no biological children, but she helped co-parent Cole, 32, and Ella, 27, Emhoff’s kids from his previous marriage.

Harris said Pilates gives her “an overall feeling of well-being” and helps her feel empowered in her daily life.

“There’s so much about empowerment that is about knowing your strength and recognizing it,” she said. Through Pilates, which emphasizes the brain-body connection, she said she feels more connected to her physical strength.

“I’m just realizing that there are all of these muscles and areas that I have not been exercising,” Harris said.

Originally popular among dancers, models, and celebrities, Pilates has become the workout du jour. It was the most-booked workout on ClassPass globally last year, with bookings up 66% from 2024, beating both strength training and running. And luxury hotels, including some Ritz-Carlton and St Regis locations, have installed Pilates studios as a buzzy luxury amenity.

Harris is in good company — celebs including Jennifer Aniston, Miley Cyrus, and Hailey Bieber have all professed to love it, too.

The longevity boom might also be partially to thank for the spike in Pilates’ popularity.

The low-impact form of strength and mobility training uses controlled, precise movements to strengthen the core and the deep muscles that stabilize the joints. It can improve functional strength, posture, and balance — all things that keep a person mobile and independent as they age. A 2021 systematic review published in the journal Physiotherapy found that among the 1,650 participants age 60 or older, those who did Pilates had a significantly lower risk of falling, a serious risk factor for hip fracture, inactivity, and muscle loss.

Harris told Palmer, who qualified as a Pilates instructor earlier this year, that she prefers reformer, where exercises are done on a sliding carriage attached to weighted springs, to mat Pilates.

Harris didn’t say how many times a week she does Pilates, but based off her excitement talking about it, she could be on her way to full Pilates girlie status.

Someone get this woman a matching set and iced matcha latte stat.

Read the original article on Business Insider

The post Kamala Harris is a Pilates girlie appeared first on Business Insider.

The grounding came after passengers on the nearly 17-hour Qantas journey from Perth to Rome reported being bitten by the insects Oct. 9, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

“We sincerely apologize to customers for the cancellation of Saturday’s Rome-to-Perth service, which allowed our engineers and maintenance teams to carry out a deep clean of the aircraft after an issue [was] identified on a small number of economy seats,” Qantas Airways Limited told Fox News Digital.

Passenger Hailey Bagnall told the TV news program “9News Sydney” that bedbugs were “crawling over our belongings, our clothing, our Qantas blankets, and they were even crawling along the window.”

The aircraft involved in the incident was a Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Other travelers also recounted their experiences to “9News,” with one passenger claiming to be “woken by screaming,” while another noted that “the bugs just kept coming.” 

As they collected their bags, the passengers discovered the pests were inside their shoes and crawling on their clothing.

Travelers first alerted the flight crew about the bedbugs during the initial Sydney-to-Perth leg of the journey, according to “9News.”

The airline said that, before departing on the subsequent long-haul leg to Rome, staff took several preventative measures, including deep cleaning the cabin, removing seat coverings and soft furnishings, and cordoning off the impacted seats.

Qantas also noted that its aircraft are regularly cleaned to a high standard and undergo a precautionary disinfectant treatment every 50 days.

To alleviate the itchy bites, travelers on the flight were provided with antihistamines, though the crew eventually ran out of the medication, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

After the return flight, which had been due to depart from Rome to Perth Oct. 10, was canceled to complete the deep cleaning, affected passengers were provided with hotel accommodations and rebooked on alternative flights within 48 hours.

Benjamin Hottel, a Georgia-based entomologist with Orkin, previously told Fox News Digital that bedbugs are skilled at “hitchhiking” on personal belongings.

Measuring between 1 and 5 millimeters, the insects feed on human blood.

Health officials note, however, that while their bites cause itching and swelling, bedbugs are not known to spread disease and are not considered a public health hazard.

Hottel noted that travelers can unknowingly carry bedbugs onto planes, into hotels and eventually back home.

Hottel recommended inspecting luggage and clothing after trips and placing travel clothes in a dryer on high heat for about 30 to 45 minutes if exposure is suspected.

He said that can help eliminate the insects before they spread inside the home.

Kelly McGreal of Fox News Digital contributed reporting.

The post Bedbugs found in plane’s economy seats force Qantas airline to cancel flight appeared first on New York Post.

Officials said that they received thousands of names lacking critical identifying information like Social Security numbers, and that many of the names were paired with California addresses over which they had no jurisdiction.

“It was basically a data dump,” said Mike Sanchez, a spokesman for Los Angeles County’s registrar’s office.

The method by which the federal government transmitted the list — a thumb drive with a sticky note containing a password — also initially threatened the security of voter rolls, and made elections officials reluctant to use it, Mr. Sanchez said.

The government later sent a spreadsheet that was an unsubstantiated jumble, he said.

A Justice Department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, Bill Essayli, defended the government’s demands, saying that the names had been “confirmed from a review of federal databases.”

“The data has been provided to California, and they are free to check the work,” he posted on X on Friday. “But that suggests California is actually interested in complying with federal election laws.”

The complaints from California officials follow a lawsuit filed Thursday by the Trump administration seeking to temporarily pre-empt California, a heavily Democratic state, from counting mail ballots submitted by people it says may not be U.S. citizens, and are thus ineligible to vote in the midterm elections on Nov. 3. The suit names the top voting official in Los Angeles County as well.

The administration has conducted a series of escalating — and largely unsuccessful — legal fights with election officials across the country, aiming to demonstrate a pattern of large-scale illegal voting in U.S. elections. The federal government, by law, plays a limited role in U.S. elections, which state and local authorities supervise and handle.

But the Trump administration has pushed to assume far greater authority over the management of state voter rolls, basing its arguments on allegations of mass voting by noncitizens, despite evidence that it is very rare.

Reviews by election officials and criminal investigators have found small numbers of people voting illegally in each election cycle, but not at anything approaching an election-determining scale. And previous claims by the administration about large numbers of noncitizens voting in states like Nevada have collapsed when scrutinized.

The suit filed this week involves a court order being sought by the Justice Department to prevent the counting of votes by about 20,000 people identified by the Department of Homeland Security “until their citizenship status can be determined.” The roster is a minute fraction of the more than 23 million registered voters in the state, where voting is already underway.

The lawsuit was filed two days after prosecutors wrote to the California secretary of state, Shirley Weber, and Los Angeles County’s top election official, Dean Logan, demanding that they verify the citizenship of the people on the list within 48 hours or prevent their votes from being counted. California officials called that an impossible timeline.

Ms. Weber responded that the demands and deadline “threaten thousands of Californians’ right to vote,” that they were “based on unverifiable information” and that the federal government had offered no basis for suspecting that the people on the list were noncitizens and no methodology for its assumptions.

She added that the list, which is drawn from across the state, was not even sent to her office, but only to Los Angeles County, which has no jurisdiction over voters in the state’s 57 other counties.

In court filings, the Justice Department laid out how the Trump administration compiled the California list by comparing a public, commercially available version of the state’s voter roll to federal immigration records. They also state that the government used unnamed “third-party software” to help.

The filings describe a process that has led to mistakes in other states, in part because public voter rolls do not include Social Security numbers or similar unique identifiers.

Also, federal immigration records can be outdated and do not necessarily capture when immigrants become citizens. And a Homeland Security Department whistle-blower said criminal investigators had sometimes reviewed the cases of alleged noncitizen voters in as little as 12 minutes as part of a wider push.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson on Friday defended its methods, saying federal officials had used multiple data sources in addition to the public voter data they pulled to further verify the identity of registrants and eliminate false positives. The additional data included government data and “commercial third-party data,” according to the spokesperson. The spokesperson also denied that the agency had used third-party software, contradicting what the Justice Department said.

Rob Bonta, the California attorney general, said the state would not comply with the demands, but rather would respond in court. Gov. Gavin Newsom called the lawsuit “a sad, desperate attempt by Trump to use his politicized Justice Department to try to suppress California voters just three weeks before Election Day.”

In Los Angeles County, voting officials said they had started to examine an Excel spreadsheet federal prosecutors transmitted later with what appeared to be the same list of more than 20,000 names that was said to be on thumb drive.

Mr. Sanchez said the list was from all over the state, not just Los Angeles County, “and there was no sortation by county, city, ZIP code or source verification.”

That spreadsheet, he said, is being examined by county officials to determine how many people on it, if any, are registered voters in Los Angeles. The Justice Department, he added, “made no attempt to engage, other than dropping off the letter” less than 48 hours before the response deadline, and then filing the lawsuit a day after sending the spreadsheet.

“The message we’re trying to put out is, we don’t want this to be a distraction or deter people from voting,” Mr. Logan, the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder, said in an interview.

The government’s demands, he added, seem to be “largely performative, and a lot of legal questions remain up in the air that we believe will be best addressed through the litigation. Our focus is in conducting a fair, accurate and transparent election over the next 18 days.”

Devlin Barrett and Madeleine Ngo contributed reporting.

The post California Says D.O.J. System for Identifying Noncitizens Is Sloppy appeared first on New York Times.

Ms. Castagna, a Barnard student, had arrived about four hours early to snag a ticket last month for a sold-out 8:45 p.m. screening of “Edward Said: Between Worlds,” a documentary about the Palestinian American scholar and activist.

Mr. Said died in 2003, before Ms. Castagna, 21, was born. But his ideas on Palestinian self-determination have resonated with her recently, particularly as she helped organize the pro-Palestinian encampments at Columbia University.

“A lot of us do point to his words,” she said.

After the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks in Israel that killed about 1,200 people and the war in Gaza that killed roughly 68,000 Palestinians thrust the Israeli-Palestinian conflict back into the spotlight, Mr. Said’s words — which he shared through countless lectures, columns and books — have found new life.

The film, which made its U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival, comes after a cease-fire last year between Israel and Hamas, but tensions have not subsided. Israeli strikes have continued; public figures have been criticized for taking sides, or not; and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is under pressure ahead of an election this month.

The screening was a homecoming of sorts: Mr. Said was a fixture of the Upper West Side as a professor at Columbia University for nearly 40 years.

In the documentary, Mr. Said narrates his life story through video and audio clips pieced together by the Danish American filmmaker Maiken Baird and Sarah Mowaswes, one of its producers.

“Between Worlds” opens with grainy 8-millimeter home videos from 1930s Jerusalem. Viewers see archival news clips about the creation of Israel and the displacement of Palestinians, and Mr. Said moving from Cairo to Massachusetts and eventually New York. After the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, the film shows Mr. Said becoming politically active, writing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and working alongside organizers and leaders.

Ms. Baird, 60, was inspired to make the film after Oct. 7, 2023. “I just couldn’t help but think back on Edward Said, how much I had learned from him,” she said. Growing up, she was told about the Nazi occupation of Denmark and the creation of a Jewish state, but became curious about what had happened to the “native inhabitants of the land,” she said. Years later, she read Mr. Said’s 1979 book “The Question of Palestine.”

“Then it all came together,” she said.

Ms. Baird approached Mr. Said’s widow, Mariam C. Said, and daughter, Najla Said, who became a consulting producer on the movie. “It seemed like the perfect way to bring him back at the right time,” his daughter said.

Ms. Baird, whose father was friends with Mr. Said, grew up overhearing their conversations, which partly influenced her to study at Columbia in the 1980s, where she said Mr. Said was “the most popular professor.”

Off campus, things were more complicated. In 1989, an essay he wrote was criticized as promoting terrorism. In 2001, he faced backlash after he was photographed throwing stones toward an Israeli guardhouse in Lebanon. His office had been vandalized; death threats were common. One clip in “Between Worlds” shows that he faced opposition from Arabs who thought he was too moderate.

Ms. Mowaswes, 32, said in an email that “the sheer fact that he is a Palestinian born in Palestine is considered ‘controversial’ to some.”

Making an independent film is never easy, but “the issue with getting this kind of narrative funded in America is that you’re not going to get any institutional support,” Ms. Baird said. Most of the funding, she added, came from people who hoped to start nuanced dialogue about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On the night of the premiere, the theater was packed with some of Mr. Said’s old friends and colleagues. The Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, who founded the now destroyed Edward Said Public Library in Gaza, walked out holding back tears. He said it was “enraging” to see that the issues Mr. Said addressed “continue to unfold today.”

Victor Kovner, who met Mr. Said in the 1980s, said, “It was thrilling to see him.”

Mr. Kovner, 89, is a founder of J Street, an organization that supports Israel and “the security and freedom of both Israelis and Palestinians,” according to its website. Though he and his wife, Sarah Kovner, are in favor of a two-state solution, that did not get in the way of their friendship with Mr. Said.

“You could talk about it with him,” Ms. Kovner said. “You could disagree but not in a way that was disagreeable.”

Reflecting on the war in Gaza, Mr. Said’s widow said her husband “would have been appalled, because all of his writings are about humanism.” Yet others at the screening said he would have been heartened to see growing support for Palestinians.

Ms. Baird is hopeful that more audiences will be drawn to Mr. Said’s story.

“Even if they don’t like what they’re hearing,” she said, “they have to acknowledge his humanity and his truth.”

The post He Was a Top Voice on Palestinian Liberation. Filmgoers Are Listening. appeared first on New York Times.

Ms. Castagna, a Barnard student, had arrived about four hours early to snag a ticket last month for a sold-out 8:45 p.m. screening of “Edward Said: Between Worlds,” a documentary about the Palestinian American scholar and activist.

Mr. Said died in 2003, before Ms. Castagna, 21, was born. But his ideas on Palestinian self-determination have resonated with her recently, particularly as she helped organize the pro-Palestinian encampments at Columbia University.

“A lot of us do point to his words,” she said.

After the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks in Israel that killed about 1,200 people and the war in Gaza that killed roughly 68,000 Palestinians thrust the Israeli-Palestinian conflict back into the spotlight, Mr. Said’s words — which he shared through countless lectures, columns and books — have found new life.

The film, which made its U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival, comes after a cease-fire last year between Israel and Hamas, but tensions have not subsided. Israeli strikes have continued; public figures have been criticized for taking sides, or not; and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is under pressure ahead of an election this month.

The screening was a homecoming of sorts: Mr. Said was a fixture of the Upper West Side as a professor at Columbia University for nearly 40 years.

In the documentary, Mr. Said narrates his life story through video and audio clips pieced together by the Danish American filmmaker Maiken Baird and Sarah Mowaswes, one of its producers.

“Between Worlds” opens with grainy 8-millimeter home videos from 1930s Jerusalem. Viewers see archival news clips about the creation of Israel and the displacement of Palestinians, and Mr. Said moving from Cairo to Massachusetts and eventually New York. After the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, the film shows Mr. Said becoming politically active, writing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and working alongside organizers and leaders.

Ms. Baird, 60, was inspired to make the film after Oct. 7, 2023. “I just couldn’t help but think back on Edward Said, how much I had learned from him,” she said. Growing up, she was told about the Nazi occupation of Denmark and the creation of a Jewish state, but became curious about what had happened to the “native inhabitants of the land,” she said. Years later, she read Mr. Said’s 1979 book “The Question of Palestine.”

“Then it all came together,” she said.

Ms. Baird approached Mr. Said’s widow, Mariam C. Said, and daughter, Najla Said, who became a consulting producer on the movie. “It seemed like the perfect way to bring him back at the right time,” his daughter said.

Ms. Baird, whose father was friends with Mr. Said, grew up overhearing their conversations, which partly influenced her to study at Columbia in the 1980s, where she said Mr. Said was “the most popular professor.”

Off campus, things were more complicated. In 1989, an essay he wrote was criticized as promoting terrorism. In 2001, he faced backlash after he was photographed throwing stones toward an Israeli guardhouse in Lebanon. His office had been vandalized; death threats were common. One clip in “Between Worlds” shows that he faced opposition from Arabs who thought he was too moderate.

Ms. Mowaswes, 32, said in an email that “the sheer fact that he is a Palestinian born in Palestine is considered ‘controversial’ to some.”

Making an independent film is never easy, but “the issue with getting this kind of narrative funded in America is that you’re not going to get any institutional support,” Ms. Baird said. Most of the funding, she added, came from people who hoped to start nuanced dialogue about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On the night of the premiere, the theater was packed with some of Mr. Said’s old friends and colleagues. The Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, who founded the now destroyed Edward Said Public Library in Gaza, walked out holding back tears. He said it was “enraging” to see that the issues Mr. Said addressed “continue to unfold today.”

Victor Kovner, who met Mr. Said in the 1980s, said, “It was thrilling to see him.”

Mr. Kovner, 89, is a founder of J Street, an organization that supports Israel and “the security and freedom of both Israelis and Palestinians,” according to its website. Though he and his wife, Sarah Kovner, are in favor of a two-state solution, that did not get in the way of their friendship with Mr. Said.

“You could talk about it with him,” Ms. Kovner said. “You could disagree but not in a way that was disagreeable.”

Reflecting on the war in Gaza, Mr. Said’s widow said her husband “would have been appalled, because all of his writings are about humanism.” Yet others at the screening said he would have been heartened to see growing support for Palestinians.

Ms. Baird is hopeful that more audiences will be drawn to Mr. Said’s story.

“Even if they don’t like what they’re hearing,” she said, “they have to acknowledge his humanity and his truth.”

The post He Was a Top Voice on Palestinian Liberation. Filmgoers Are Listening. appeared first on New York Times.

As Omar faces a federal government probe related to potential immigration fraud as well as a separate investigation into her financial disclosures, Sahra Noor was scheduled for a book tour stop at the University of Minnesota Rochester on Thursday night.

Noor, who came to the United States as a refugee alongside Omar and other family members in the 1990s, was reportedly subpoenaed in relation to the immigration investigation into her sister.

She currently lives in Nairobi, Kenya, according to her LinkedIn page, but is on a worldwide book tour promoting her recently-released “Salt in the Snow: A Somali Immigrant Story.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Noor for comment but did not hear back at time of publication.

According to a flyer, which was posted on Facebook by Rochester-based bookstore Garden Party Books, the event was scheduled for Thursday night at 6:30 p.m. It was set to be held at the Intercultural Student Center at the University of Minnesota Rochester.

When Fox News Digital arrived for the event, the space was completely empty. Fox News Digital had previously RSVP’d for the event via a QR code on the flyer and did not receive any communication that the event had been canceled, rescheduled or relocated.

Garden Party Books told Fox News Digital the event was canceled due to a Noor “family emergency.” 

Noor’s absence from the book tour stop comes amid rumors that Omar fled the United States following the raid earlier this week.

While the congresswoman has not been seen in public since Monday’s raid, her husband snapped when asked outside the home on Wednesday whether he had a response to the rumors that she fled the country.

The flyer said that Garden Party Books, along with the University of Minnesota Bookstores and the Rochester Public Library, were “proud supporters” of the event.

It also described Noor as a “poet, storyteller and health system leader,” and said the book is a “story of migration, motherhood, grief and family.”

According to Noor’s website, her book was officially launched during an event in a Nairobi bookstore on Aug. 13, 2026. She appeared in early September at a festival in Cape Town, South Africa to promote her work.

Now, she is touring in the United States.

Noor held an Oct. 1 event in Minneapolis, and another five days later at the University of Minnesota. She hosted an event in St. Paul, Minnesota on Oct. 7.

Her next scheduled event is at the Somali Community Cultural Innovation Hub in Seattle on Oct. 23.

Federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the leading investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), executed a search warrant on Omar’s home starting at around 6:00 a.m. on Monday morning.

Fox News Digital first reported Monday that the raid stems from an investigation into whether Omar or her late father, Nur Mohamed, fraudulently filled out her citizenship paperwork decades ago.

The investigation, two sources noted, could lead to the congresswoman’s denaturalization.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Omar’s phone, passport and computers were seized in the raid.

Omar has described the search as an “outrageous abuse of power” and called it an “unprecedented escalation in the weaponization of federal law enforcement to target political enemies.”

The post Ilhan Omar’s sister skips book tour event amid week of chaos following raid on progressive’s DC home appeared first on New York Post.

Katy Padilla Stout, the Democrat nominee for Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, reported expenditures totaling $4,338.14 in five transactions in March and April, according to spending details cited in an August report by RedState and records attributed to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

The reported purchases included $675 for cookies for a campaign event, $1,289.22 at Total Wine and $2,373.92 at Las Guitarras Cocina Mexicana.

The expenditures have also become a line of attack for Republican Brandon Herrera, whose campaign website showcases the cookie purchase and accuses Stout of using donor funds to pay for the treats.

According to the spending details, the campaign reported a $675 payment dated March 30 with the stated purpose “COOKIES FOR EVENT.” Herrera’s website identifies the payee as Denise Gamboa Zelle and categorizes the expense as a campaign event expenditure.

Additional transactions included $1,089.08 at Total Wine on April 21 and $200.14 the following day, both described as “BEER AND WINE.”

The campaign also reported payments of $2,027.52 and $346.40 to Las Guitarras Cocina Mexicana on April 27 and April 28, respectively, according to the transaction details.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Stout said the disbursements “were for campaign and fundraising events which were attended by our supporters.”

“Sugar cookies, particularly Texas-shaped ones, hold a special place in Texan culture,” she said. “We bought ours at a local bakery because we believe in supporting small businesses.”

The filings establish that the campaign reported the expenditures but do not establish whether the purchases were improper, whether any were for personal use or how many people attended the associated events.

The spending has attracted criticism from Herrera’s campaign, which maintains an opposition website, The Real Katy Stout.

Under a section labeled “Cookie gate,” the site highlights the $675 expenditure and displays the reported purpose, “COOKIES FOR EVENT.”

The website also criticizes Stout’s positions on immigration, taxes and other issues.

The spending questions come as the two candidates compete for a congressional seat representing one of the country’s largest districts along the southern border. During Tuesday’s televised debate in San Antonio, Stout also drew attention for an unusual exchange involving Herrera’s online videos.

“He made millions of dollars after making jokes online, making fun of Nazis, making fun of all of these things that we know he does not need to be doing,” Stout said in a heated moment during the debate.

Herrera responded, “And here I thought making fun of Nazis was a good thing.”

Stout later apologized and clarified her criticism after closing remarks.

“I apologize, I did misspeak,” she said. “He chooses to goose-step on YouTube for clickbait and money so that he can promote that type of ideology. He chooses to shame women.”

The exchange was part of a debate hosted by WOAI/KABB, during which the congressional candidates also sparred over gun rights, immigration and the cost of living.

Stout told Fox News Digital “mocking Nazis is fine, and that is not what I objected to, nor is that what my opponent does.”

“I object to content that trivializes veteran suicide, rape, child murder, women’s bodies and the Holocaust, the type of content he churns out,” she added. “You can hear his disgusting commentary straight from his own mouth at HeReallySaidThat.com.

“Do I think he promotes Nazi imagery? Yes. In a video posted 5/24/22, he goose-steps to ‘Erika,’ and touts an MP-40 machine gun. In another video posted 6/23/20, he said ‘for the fatherland’ before firing a Nazi-made STG 44, calling it ‘like a religious experience.’ 

“Calling it a joke doesn’t change what it is: giving a platform to Nazi symbols and weaponry for clicks and money. In my view, the ‘I’m only joking’ defense is a familiar tactic among neo-Nazi and antisemitic content creators. His content has attracted bipartisan condemnation, including the Republican Jewish Coalition, which called my opponent ‘a goose-stepping extremist who pals around with online Nazis.’”

Stout, a former teacher and child welfare attorney, has emphasized affordability and corruption as central themes of her campaign.

Herrera, a firearms manufacturer and online personality who has adopted “Let’s Go Brandon” as his campaign slogan, has campaigned on border law enforcement, tax reductions and Second Amendment protections.

The two are vying to replace former Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales, who resigned earlier this year after acknowledging an affair with a staffer.

Texas’ 23rd Congressional District stretches from the San Antonio area toward El Paso and includes hundreds of miles of the US-Mexico border. Early voting begins Oct. 19, with Election Day scheduled for Nov. 3.

The campaign for Brandon Herrera did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

The post Texas Dem Katy Padilla Stout’s campaign spent $4K on cookies, beer, wine and food appeared first on New York Post.

“You are one of the people,” Cameron wrote over an image of Iron Man being welcomed by a Na’vi tribe from “Avatar.”

“Congratulations to Marvel and the #1 ‘Avengers: Endgame: Encore’ for bringing moviegoers to the cinemas!” Cameron wrote, signing the message off as Jim Cameron.

It’s the second time the “Titanic” filmmaker has passed the crown to “Avengers,” after he previously congratulated Marvel and “Endgame” for surpassing “Avatar” in July 2019. “Avatar” then usurped “Endgame” again with its 2021 re-release.

To date, the total international box office for “Avatar” is $2.924 billion, according to The Numbers. The Marvel feature, meanwhile, hit $2.9255 billion following its “Avengers: Endgame Encore” re-release on Sept. 25.

The weekend of its release saw the Disney/Marvel Studios’ project rise to the top spot on the box office charts on a weekend filled with new films that had given theaters plenty of great business but have left some of them, such as Paramount’s “Heart of the Beast” and Universal/DreamWorks’ “Forgotten Island,” facing an uncertain future despite strong reception.

“Endgame Encore,” which featured a modified ending and new post-credit scenes to set up the upcoming “Avengers: Doomsday” this winter, earned $11.2 million from 3,060 locations on its opening Friday.

Back in 2019, Cameron similarly congratulated Marvel, writing in a social media post, “Oel ngati kameie. I see you Marvel. Congratuations to ‘Avengers: Endgame’ on becoming the new box-office king.”

Marvel then posted in 2021 showing the “Avengers” title being wiped away by “Avatar.”

The post James Cameron Congratulates ‘Avengers: Endgame’ for Besting ‘Avatar’ as Biggest Movie Ever – Again appeared first on TheWrap.

Trump sued the BBC for $5 billion back in December, alleging a “false, deceptive and defamatory” edit of the “Panorama” documentary “Trump: A Second Chance?” The broadcaster apologized for the edit but denied that it defamed Trump. The president is seeking $5 billion for defamation and another $5 billion under Florida’s deceptive trade practices law.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué A. Lett wrote in a Friday order that the president repeatedly evaded court-ordered “meet and confer” obligations during the discovery phase of the lawsuit.

“The Court has admonished [Trump] for his lack of participation to no avail,” Lett wrote in a Friday order. “Going forward, the Court expects strict compliance with its order, the failure of which will lead to sanctions.”

The president was scheduled to sit for a deposition hearing Friday as he seeks damages from the BBC. Late last month, his lawyers canceled the session, citing “matters of national importance” and proposed pushing Trump’s testimony to January 2027.

He is currently traveling to support Republican candidates ahead of the midterm elections. Trump visited Georgia to support Senate candidate Mike Collins, who is running against incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff, and gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson. He is scheduled to travel to Mar-a-Lago on Friday evening.

The defamation lawsuit accused the BBC of editing a clip of Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021 speech in Washington, D.C. to appear as if the president was calling on his voters to “walk down to the Capitol” and “fight like hell” moments before the violent insurrection took place. The documentary aired Oct. 28, 2024 ahead of the November presidential election.

In March, the BBC filed a motion to dismiss Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit, defending the president couldn’t “plausibly claim that the documentary harmed his reputation” since he won the election after the documentary’s release. It also stated that the president couldn’t prove that the 12-second clip in the hour-long documentary was intended to create a false impression.

In August, the president dismissed the defamation claims he made against BBC Studios Distribution Limited and BBC Studios Productions Limited. Trump only dropped his claims against the commercial and production arms of the company, as his lawsuit against the broadcaster remains.

The BBC sought to subpoena Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner for testimony related to the events on Jan. 6, but those efforts have been squashed by the court.

Representatives for the BBC and Trump did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s requests for comment.

The post Judge Threatens Trump With Sanctions for Bailing on $10 Billion BBC Defamation Deposition appeared first on TheWrap.

Jacob Fleig, of Berlin Township, Camden County, was critically injured when he was cliff-jumping at the popular tourist destination on Oct. 5, according to the Daily Voice.

Fleig, an engineering student, has undergone multiple life-saving surgeries and remains in intensive care at a hospital in Italy, his brother Jimmy Dorner wrote in a GoFundMe campaign launched on Oct. 11.

Fleig is now a resident of Berlin, the Daily Voice reported. Loved ones didn’t reveal how Fleig was injured in the cliff-jump accident or how far he fell.

The family’s immediate goal is to bring Fleig back to the US for additional care, Dorner said.

Dorner described his brother as someone whose personality leaves a lasting impression on everyone he meets.

“Jacob is a light in every life he encounters. His joyous, humorous, and charismatic personality are the first things everyone notices about him,” he wrote.

“Jacob has persevered through many adversities in life and has always come out a stronger man,” Dorner continued.

“On behalf of my brother, I am asking for your support, generosity, and prayers; to help with medical bills, medical transport back to the US, and assistance with his care and recovery,” he added.

The campaign had raised more than $45,000 as of Friday evening.

A family friend asked for prayers for Fleig, his fiancée, Olivia, and his mom, Kim, in a Facebook post.

“I’ve known Jake since he was in my friend Kim‘s belly and Jake is now 22 years old. Keep Jake, Kim, fiancée Olivia and all family in prayer,” they wrote Oct. 12.

Fleig is currently studying electrical engineering at American Institute, where he enrolled in 2025, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He studied biochemistry at Rowan University from August 2022 to January 2023.

The Amalfi Coast draws thrill-seeking tourists who jump from rocky cliffs and bridges into the water below, despite the risk of serious injury.

In 2023, a woman at Fiordo di Furore, a scenic gorge on the coast, was hesitating over whether to jump when she suddenly slipped, tumbled down the rocks and plunged into the water.

Earlier this year, locals expressed outrage at tourists and cruise-ship passengers swarming the hotspot.

“For the Mayors and administrators of the Amalfi Coast, they like this mess; otherwise, they would have already issued orders to civilize this mass tourism,” said local resident Antonio Attianese.

The post NJ man, 22, fighting for his life after accident while vacationing with fiancée off Italy’s Amalfi Coast  appeared first on New York Post.

“It felt to me that there was an intimacy between this family, the Dashwoods, and the fact that we’re allowed to observe them in their own home when they’re not expecting visitors and all of that, I questioned whether everything would be quite so formal and rigid as it often is in Austen adaptations,” Oakley told TheWrap. “I spoke a lot about that with my heads of department, just trying to lean into this sort of intimacy and this sort of human aspect about the story. I wanted audiences to be able to feel like they could reach through the screen and touch the characters as opposed to kind of being kept at arm’s length.”

This sense of remove from period adaptations is a feeling Oakley has struggled with herself in the past. In her own take on “Sense & Sensibility,” Oakley sought to remove this barrier for the audience, portraying a timeless story of love and sisterhood.

“I think she really wanted to dissolve the barriers you can sometimes feel when you watch a period piece because it can be so ornate and the language is a lot more poetic,” Daisy Edgar-Jones told TheWrap. “Obviously we no longer wear bonnets and ride in carriages. But for me, the earthiness that she wanted to bring into the story and the themes of nature, and to see the Dashwoods a little undone — I mean, even our clothes were naturally dyed. My dress was dyed with Logwood and Marianne’s with elderberries. I mean, it just made the whole thing feel so a part of the Earth, I suppose because Austen’s themes are so about humanity and our human existence. For it to be a story about nature — human nature, to fall in love, to feel heartbreak and connect — and then nature around us, I thought, was really special.”

This earthiness permeates every inch of Oakley’s adaptation — the intricate costumes, the immaculate production design, the gorgeous nature photography. It helps the story feel tangible and immediate, heightening the emotions of the classic piece.

“I get afraid of saying this because this is not not an enjoyable family fun movie, but Georgia is like an arthouse filmmaker,” Esmé Creed-Miles told TheWrap. “I think that it feels, for me, like she’s a Terrence (Malick).”

Finding sense and sensibility

Oakley expressed surprise at being asked by Working Title to tackle “Sense & Sensibility” in 2024, helming a screenplay penned by Diana Reid. At that point, she had only directed one feature (“Blue Jean,” which she also wrote) and was working on a handful of other projects.

“It felt kind of like a bit of a curveball, honestly, at the time,” Oakley said. “But when I read Diana’s screenplay, I was immediately taken back to the feeling that I’d had when I first read the book, and I just fell in love with the witty dialogue of her script and the fact that she’d been able to really foreground the relationship between Elinor and Marianne, which spoke to the experience that I’d had as a young person reading this book. That got me really excited. I think there was something in the relationship between the two sisters and their dynamic that felt very relatable to me. I was just excited to see what might happen if I tried my hand at it.”

Those sisters, Elinor and Marianne, were played by Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles respectively. Edgar-Jones was an early add to the project, one Oakley had immense faith in following her performance in the critically acclaimed miniseries “Normal People.”

“Daisy has such a kind of powerful poise to her, and also an ability to kind of keep everything simmering below the surface. She’s one of those actors who communicates so much by doing — or seemingly doing — very little, so I knew she would be perfect as Elinor,” Oakley said. “But I was really concerned about finding the right relationship between those two sisters, and I knew that the whole film would kind of live or die by that dynamic and the believability of their relationship.”

This concern launched an extensive casting search for Marianne, one that eventually brought Oakley to Creed-Miles. During the audition process, the actress wowed Oakley with her ability to strip away some of the larger and, in some respects, sillier elements of the character to portray the emotional truth of Marianne’s arc.

“(She) just was unlike anyone else that I met for the role,” Oakley confessed. “I wanted Marianne to be someone that we can really root for and that we really understand why she makes the mistakes that she makes rather than just kind of writing it off as something a little bit naive or silly. So I was really moved by Esmé’s audition and wanted to get her together with Daisy.”

Of course, it helps that Edgar-Jones and Creed-Miles had worked together before, collaborating Bill Buckhurst’s film “Pond Life” when they were around their late teens. Oakley said this history helped open up an “intimacy and tenderness to their relationship that you just can’t fake.”

These characters each represent half of the film’s title. Elinor, never one to fall too quickly in love or give herself to fully over to emotion, becomes the embodiment of sensibility. Marianne, who forms deep attachments and declares, “If I were to fall, I would rather it be from a great height,” fully captures sense. It’s an idea central to both the original text and Oakley and Reid’s interpretation.

“I was really interested in how much, like in romantic relationships, they need each other. They need the aspects of each other’s personality that they don’t possess, and they feed off it. There’s a sort of parasitic relationship there of taking from the other and not even realizing that they’re doing it,” Oakley said. “I think that’s very common in lots of relationships.”

A timeless tale

Oakley may come from an indie background, but she still pulled out all the stops for some fancy balls.

“Sense & Sensibility” features two dance set pieces, each coming at crucial moments in Elinor and Marianne’s respective relationships. The first, a countryside dance the crew referred to as “The Hop,” was completed across only two filming days, while the latter, larger London ball took four. Oakley worked with choreographer Holly Blakey to ensure that, for as ostentatious and showy as these set pieces could be (so big, in fact, that Oakley sometimes struggled to reach her actors through the chaotic crowd of dancers), they still got across the central emotions necessary.

“We spoke a lot about how it was the only time when men and women were allowed to kind of touch each other and be kind of free with each other in a way that they just weren’t able to in the privacy of their homes even,” she said. “So that feeling of time kind of standing still is definitely a big part of the motivation for that choreography between Edward and Elinor, and also the fact that their dance is almost a farewell because they know that they can’t be together at that point, so there’s a sort of bittersweetness to it from the beginning.”

The concept of time is integral to both “Sense & Sensibility” and Oakley’s take on the material. From the very first scene (a change from the opening in the book), the filmmaker wanted audiences to understand how much the Dashwoods’ lives would simply be spent waiting for the days to pass and news to arrive.

“The time just sort of stretches out in front of them in ways that we can’t possibly imagine now, and so that whole element — of kind of like at the beginning of the story, she’s lying in a field waiting for a letter, but we have no idea how many days she’s been waiting in that same field,” Oakley said. “That all kind of serves this idea of something a little bit more wild. There’s like a languorous feeling to open it that I was trying to achieve.”

The filmmaker wanted to drive this feeling into her actors as well. Early in the story, the Dashwoods move from their family home in Sussex to a new residence in Devonshire — a four-day journey by carriage, Oakley figured. During rehearsals, Oakley had the idea of using carriages she’d gathered for test shoots to actually send her actors on a days-long carriage ride to instill the feeling of their journey (“For obvious reasons, we weren’t allowed to do that,” she remarked).

“Ultimately, the emotional journeys of the characters are relatable, and as a result, aspects like the travel and balls and things like that are still relatable. For instance, with the ball, the whole point is that they’re so desperate to go, they’ve dreamt of this moment, and then they get there and it’s not what they imagined and they feel alienated,” Oakley said. “I think everyone can relate to that feeling.”

The post ‘Sense & Sensibility’: How Georgia Oakley Made an Emotional, Earthy Austen Adaptation for the Yearners appeared first on TheWrap.

Bettany, who was caught in a text exchange with the former “Pirates of the Caribbean” star during Depp’s 2020 libel case against The Sun, spoke to The Times about his career Thursday following the premiere of “VisionQuest.” In the interview, Bettany sought to distance himself from Depp, claiming he had been misrepresented as a close acquaintance of his “The Tourist,” “Transcendence” and “Mortdecai” co-star.

“It was a very interesting time,” Bettany said. “I hadn’t spoken to Johnny in years when that happened, and I haven’t spoken to him since. I was being painted as this close friend of a guy I hadn’t spoken to in years and, honestly, amid all the s–t two celebrities threw at each other, that bit was the most odd.”

Bettany, who has had a relatively “controversy-light career,” as The Times noted, said he chose to say nothing at the time. In the years since the trial, he has spoken about the incident, telling The Independent that “it was an unpleasant feeling” to have his texts and emails from a 10-year period scoured over.

“I decided to say nothing because, I think, people know me,” Bettany told The Times on Thursday. “I’ve been married 23 years and, for what I do, I live an incredibly quiet life. Everybody kind of thought this is probably a nothing burger — and left it alone.” The texts were shared in court when Depp sued The Sun for libel over a story that called him a “wife-beater” (Depp lost the case, with the judge finding evidence of 12 episodes of domestic violence and ruling the story “substantially true”). In the exchange, Depp says, “Lets burn Amber,” to which Bettany replies, “Having thought it through I don’t think we should burn Amber- she’s delightful company and easy on the eye, plus I’m not sure she’s a witch. We could of course try the English course of action in these predicaments- we do a drowning test. Thoughts? N.B I have a pool.”

“Let’s drown her before we burn her!!!” Depp replied. “I will f–k her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she is dead…”

“My thoughts entirely!” Bettany responded. “Lets be CERTAIN before we pronounce her a witch.”

The post Paul Bettany Says He Was Misrepresented as Johnny Depp’s ‘Close Friend’ During Amber Heard Trial: ‘Haven’t Spoken to Him Since’ appeared first on TheWrap.

“Trust Me, I’m a Doctor” isn’t a biopic about Anna Nicole Smith, it’s a biopic about being in her orbit. Kal Penn stars as Dr. Sandeep Kapoor, who wrote Smith’s prescriptions, which were heavily scrutinized after her death. Smith was a celebrity, so, of course, there was a media blitz. Dr. Kapoor became tabloid fodder, his life was placed under a microscope and he was eventually put on trial along with several other people who, perhaps, could have prevented Smith’s tragic death.

As a biopic, it’s bog standard, ripped from the headlines material, with a smattering of fourth wall breaks to keep it punchy. “Trust Me” claims, in no uncertain terms, that Dr. Kapoor made mistakes but he wasn’t a bad guy. At one point, his father tells him, “You’re not a liar or a fraud, you’re a human being,” which is a nice thing to hear if you’re his son. The rest of us know human beings can also be liars and frauds. Quite a lot of them are.

Kal Penn plays Dr. Kapoor with a deer-in-the-headlights performance, befitting of a man shoved into the spotlight, adrift in a chaotic situation. It’s supposed to be a sympathetic portrayal, and it probably would have been if “Trust Me, I’m a Doctor” didn’t also include a scene where his lawyer, Ellyn Garofalo (Linda Hamilton), tells him a jury will go easy on him if he presents himself as a good doctor, as well as a befuddled idiot.

In a cleverer film, this would knowingly subvert the entire enterprise, and make us question everything we’re told. But Economou’s film also bends over backwards to introduce Dr. Kapoor while he’s saving an elderly woman’s life, and then follows that relationship until she’s on her deathbed, still thinking about his problems, and hoping he’s found innocent because he’s just so wonderful. It makes sense that “Trust Me, I’m a Doctor” is on the doctor’s side. It’s based on his autobiography after all. But it’s completely unconvincing. Maybe Dr. Kapoor didn’t do anything legally wrong, but this film doesn’t make him very sympathetic, which plays like an accident.

What really makes Economou’s film sour is that Smith, played by Abbie Cornish, is treated so very badly, and not just by her entourage. “Trust Me, I’m a Doctor” makes Smith out to be a compulsive temptress, if not an outright manipulator, whose substance abuse and erratic behavior destroyed everyone she ever knew. The film cares about her collaterally damaged hangers-on, even the ones who are clearly a-holes, but has upsettingly little interest in Smith herself, who’s more like the Maltese Falcon than a human being. Everyone wants her, and what they want from her reveals a lot about them, but she’s still just an object to be coveted, hoarded and exploited, even by the film itself.

Anna Nicole Smith famously modeled herself after Marilyn Monroe, adopting the actress’s iconic look and persona. Like Monroe, Smith died very young after being treated very badly, and like Monroe, she continued to be treated badly after her death. This film is the latest example. Smith’s life was certainly unusual, and aspects are worthy of criticism, but she was also a human being and nobody in “Trust Me, I’m a Doctor” seems to care about that. Not even the filmmakers. Her life was a convenience to everyone involved, her death was the opposite, and everything else about her is chalked up to her alluring mystique. So whenever “Trust Me” claims Dr. Kapoor was a real person with feelings who didn’t deserve to have his life torn to shreds by the media, it reads as hypocrisy and makes everyone involved look bad.

Everyone, that is, except Linda Hamilton, who makes a convincing case that she should star in her own legal drama, starting yesterday. Hamilton radiates confidence and composure, infusing Garofalo with the type of respectability that borders on star power. Of course, casting an actor with star power has that effect. “Trust Me, I’m a Doctor” is too generic a production, and too misguided in its approach, to have any serious awards prospects but hopefully Hamilton, at least, will turn some heads and top new shortlists for other, better projects. She may be best known for the “Terminator” movies and “Beauty and the Beast,” but she’s a multifaceted performer and this film proves — as if we needed more proof — that she’s overdue for a career resurgence.

“Trust Me, I’m a Doctor” is in theaters now.

The post ‘Trust Me, I’m a Doctor’ Review: Legal Drama About Anna Nicole Smith’s Physician Makes an Unconvincing Case appeared first on TheWrap.

That’s what Billy Evans, longtime partner of Theranos founder and convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes, had to say about Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s new documentary, “You Can See Everything.” Evans, who has yet to see the documentary about the days leading up to Holmes’ federal prison sentence for defrauding investors, spoke about the film and its viral trailer on the “All-In” podcast at the All-In Summit 2026, released online on Wednesday.

“She looks insane,” Evans admitted of Holmes in the teaser.

“You Can See Everything” caught film fans by storm when the movie — which hadn’t even been announced to the public yet — held a secret screening at Telluride Film Festival in early September. That same day, A24 revealed that the three-hour documentary would release in theaters just over a month away on Oct. 16, sharing the instantly iconic teaser where Holmes asks Fielder, “Why would I deceive you?”

“I haven’t seen it yet. I mean, I might think this is like the dumbest thing I’ve ever done,” Evans said. You can watch the full interview below.

Evans, a more unknown figure in comparison to the massively famous Holmes, figures into the documentary just as prominently as his partner. The pair invited Fielder to stay with them in Holmes’ final days before going to prison, giving the documentarian/prankster significant access to their personal lives. According to Evans, the purpose of this documentary — which Oppenheim revealed was pitched to A24 by Holmes and her partner — was to show audiences what she was like outside of the reporting they’d already seen.

“People would meet her, and they’d spend time with her, and they’d see her in a totally natural environment of going on a hike or helping a friend, and every single one of those people’s opinions of her would radically shift,” Evans said of his close friends and family.

A lot of eyes will be on Holmes in the coming weeks. “You Can See Everything” almost instantly became both a massive critical and commercial success, with the film tracking to have potentially the highest opening of any non-music documentary since the pandemic. Whether Holmes comes off in a positive or negative light is, at this point, up to audiences.

“Am I nervous? You know, I’ve been through so many intense, kind of surreal experiences that it takes quite a bit to raise my blood pressure, and this one is, there’s certainly concern,” Evans said. “But, you know, ultimately it’s our decision.”

The post Elizabeth Holmes’ Partner Thinks ‘She Looks Insane’ in ‘You Can See Everything’ Trailer appeared first on TheWrap.

Mom India L. Miller, 27, and stepfather Sean D. Scott, 45, called 911 around 1:10 a.m. and claimed their daughter, Maya Thomas, had been hit by a car while she was out walking the family dog in Paulsboro, NJ.com reported Thursday, according to the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office.

Responding officers found Thomas unresponsive inside the home with facial trauma and bruising on her body, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by the outlet.

Miller said her daughter had gone out to walk their dog when she “heard a loud sound, similar to tires screeching” and then found her by the shed and brought her inside, court documents said.

However, investigators said Thomas would have sustained different injuries if she had been hit by a car — and ultimately determined she was not hit by a vehicle, the outlet reported.

The girl was rushed to Cooper Hospital where she died around 6:45 p.m.

Hospital staff discovered injuries to her vaginal area, NJ.com reported Friday.

Thomas’ autopsy revealed several injuries — abrasions to her inner thigh, a ruptured colon, multiple broken ribs and her eyes were swollen shut.

Some of the injuries were in the healing phase, which indicated she had been abused over an extended period of time, according to the publication.

The little girl’s 4-year-old sibling, who shares a different father, told cops that Scott hit the girl in the face and that she was hit by a Paulsboro police car, the affidavit said.

Investigators discovered what appeared to be blood on the tile surrounding the tub in the family’s upstairs bathroom where wet and bloody children’s clothing were also found.

And blood was also found on a Swiffer mop and other cleaning supplies, authorities said.

The couple were each slapped with a slew of charges including murder, endangering and abuse/neglect of a child, filing a false police report and hindering prosecution, according to online records for the Salem County jail.

A spokesperson for the New Jersey’s Division of Child Protection and Permanency confirmed Friday that it’s investigating both physical and sexual abuse allegations.  

The department was first alerted about the alleged abuse on Tuesday after the county prosecutor’s office called the New Jersey Child Abuse Hotline.

Thomas was homeschooled “because they didn’t want anybody to see the bruises,” her maternal grandmother Lynn Miller told the outlet Thursday.

The Miller matriarch said she raised Thomas from the time she was 18 months until she was 7-years-old in Las Vegas, until the little girl moved with her mother to New Jersey to live with Scott.

Lynn Miller said her daughter cut off contact around two years ago, which prevented her from speaking regularly with her granddaughter.

“She was a happy, carefree girl,” the grieving grandmother said.

The sick couple are being held at the Salem County jail and are scheduled to appear before a state judge on Tuesday.

Thomas’ sibling, meanwhile, is in the care of child protection, the department spokesperson confirmed.

The Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office and the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency did not respond to The Posts’s requests for more information. 

The post NJ couple accused of killing 9-year-old daughter — now being probed for sexually abusing her: report appeared first on New York Post.

“President Trump is a kind, wonderful, gracious, thoughtful, enthusiastic and hardworking man,” she wrote on X Friday evening. “I wish more Americans appreciated him. No one will ever make America great the way he has and continues to.”

She added: “It was an honor to work for him.”

Zacharia, who was first announced as Karoline Leavitt’s replacement last week, expressed a similar sentiment in a statement to the Wall Street Journal. “I did everything in my power to effectuate a briefing in the limited time and information I had,” she told the outlet following her departure from the White House. “My goal was to serve President Trump and the American people to the best of my ability.”

Zacharia’s dismissal came hours after Trump had urged his new press secretary to “reconsider” the opportunity after a sordid first week at the podium, according to initial reporting from The New York Times. Fox News then separately confirmed with a senior White House official that the conservative political pundit was “transitioning out” of the role after holding her first press conference to much scrutiny on Tuesday.

It marks a record speed for a press secretary to exit the post after Trump’s first term saw Anthony Scaramucci fired after just 11 days in 2017.

Zacharia attempted to course correct her rocky first week on the job, appearing on Fox News’ “Hannity” Thursday evening, where she defended that she had “really stepped up” despite the fast onboarding process.

“I got a phone call last Wednesday. I flew out to D.C. on Thursday. I had a meeting on Friday, was offered the job. Flew home to California on Saturday. Flew back to Washington on Sunday. Was asked to start on Monday, Sean, which is Columbus Day,” she told host Sean Hannity at the time. “And so, it’s a federal holiday. And have a press briefing at 9:30 in the morning on Tuesday. So, what I feel is that I really stepped up to the plate to do the press conference, Sean, with very little prep time.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Zacharia stood by her decision to conclude her first press conference at the 14-minute mark. “And then, as I should’ve, I ended conference and I left,” she said. “Given the fact that I had been on the job less than, maybe, eight hours and had a briefing book in the morning, I feel like I really did my very best, Sean, to deliver for the American people that day.”

She also attempted to address the scrutiny surrounding her credentials. Zacharia – who has repeatedly been referred to as an “attorney” – shared that she had practiced international transactional law with appropriate credentials, but acknowledged that she did not pass the California bar exam.

“When I went to engage in media and give legal analysis … I wasn’t being paid for legal advice,” she defended. “I was giving a general review of the legal circumstances surrounding it.”

However, Zacharia’s “Hannity” appearance did little to right the ship, with the Wall Street Journal reporting Friday that the president told aides she “wasn’t talented” in the aftermath of that disastrous interview and others.

The post Katie Zacharia Has Nothing but Praise for Trump After Press Secretary Ousting appeared first on TheWrap.

The on-air moment arose after Jennings weighed in on Katie Zacharia’s dismissal from her White House press secretary post Friday.

“Well, everything that happens in the White House is up to the president, ultimately,” Jennings said during CNN’s Friday night broadcast of “The Source.” “It’s his prerogative on who to hire for this job or the cabinet or anybody else who reports directly to him. My advice to him would be just to get the most qualified person you can get, with the most experience. Somebody who can stand behind that podium with credibility – and not just carry your message, but also handle the incoming that is sure to come.”

He added: “If the Republicans don’t do well in the midterms, you all can imagine the sort of hostile environment they are going to face in Washington for the next couple of years.”

Per Jennings, the White House press secretary is going to be on camera every single day, so the new hire should be someone who can speak to the press with ease.

“That person is going to be right in the middle of it,” he said. “So, I think you want somebody with as much experience and, maybe, who has been around D.C. a little bit and has TV experience … and maybe a little management experience. Because that office does have a pretty big staff and it does require a little bit of management.”

Following this comment from Jennings, CNN’s Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter playfully pointed in his direction, with anchor Jim Sciutto joining in and asking: “Given that your name was on the shortlist prior, were you making a pitch for yourself just then?”

Jennings’ reply? “Oh, me? No,” he said with a laugh. “I wouldn’t negotiate my personnel prospects with you here on television, but I do have a view about how to staff a government position.”

Once more, Jennings called on the Trump administration to “find the most experienced, competent person that you can find because you deserve it.”

“You’re the president of the United States. You’re the most powerful person in the world,” he added. “You’re the leader of the free world. And everybody who speaks on your behalf has to speak with credibility and authority when they stand up behind that podium, because they are speaking to the whole world. And, the things you say at that podium, can move markets and move mountains.”

While Jennings may’ve denied angling for the White House post, he certainly made a compelling case Friday night. Watch his comments above.

Jennings’ name had been thrown about for the press secretary role before Zacharia’s appointment last week. His colleague Abby Phillip even alluded to his job snub while commenting on Zacharia’s disastrous first press briefing.

“Why can’t the president hire somebody who is qualified, who actually knows how to speak publicly, who can handle the job?” the “CNN Newsnight” host said on Tuesday. “It’s not like there are not people who can do that.”

She added: “Maybe one of them is sitting at the table today, I don’t know.”

As the cameras panned to Jennings, the conservative commentator responded by simply rolling his eyes.

The post Scott Jennings Put on the Spot by CNN Peers About Filling Vacant White House Press Secretary Role appeared first on TheWrap.

The two sandlots of democracy overlapped this week, as a series of steamy commercials aired ad nauseam during the Major League Baseball playoffs. Casual fans had much to say about sexualized ads featuring Sydney Sweeney promoting a gambling prediction market and Megan Fox endorsing a male enhancement product.

Then, on Wednesday, a player entered the fray.

“Can we please get the soft porn ads off playoff broadcasts,” Alex Call, a left fielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers who was not on the postseason roster, wrote on social media. (The Dodgers missed their chance at reaching another World Series after losing the National League Championship Series to the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday.)

“My son wants to watch baseball with Dada,” but, he warned, “half-naked women could come on screen anytime.”

His post was a reply to one by Taylor Murphy, an entrepreneur who wrote that the commercials risked alienating children from the sport: “Just show baseball in a way I can leave on in my house.”

“It’s actually infuriating,” a mother wrote in reply to Mr. Call. “I had to explain to my 10 year old son that they are trying to exploit his young brain.”

The morality of the commercials is in the eye of the remote holder, but how an advertisement makes it to air is — mostly — up to the networks.

Here is how a commercial is cleared for broadcast, how it’s approved and who has the authority to yank it from the airwaves.

Who approves an ad?

First, a network has to earn the right to air M.L.B.’s much-watched playoff series. At one point last year, the league’s postseason averaged nearly 4.5 million viewers, the most since 2017. And those eyeballs largely stay glued to their screens as commercials churn between innings or breaks in play.

This year, Fox Sports and TNT Sports share the rights to air certain postseason games on television. In 2018, Fox extended its contract with M.L.B. through 2028 for $5.1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the deal. Fox Sports and TNT Sports did not respond to requests for comment.

Reached on Friday afternoon, M.L.B. did not comment. Novig did not respond to a request for comment, and Ro, the company whose product was promoted by Ms. Fox, did not immediately respond to a request.

The networks determine the slots for the ads, which industry experts say can range in the hundreds of thousands, and earn money from the sales to advertisers and their creative agencies, and then pay M.L.B. a fixed fee.

“The lawyers that would review the slot would be on the agency side or the client side, and then it gets shipped off to the networks,” said Kevin McTigue, a professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management of Northwestern University.

Sports rights spending in the United States has increased over the last decade to more than $30 billion annually, according to a 2026 report by AlixPartners. Its research also found that Fox held an estimated 13 percent of the total market value of sports media rights in the United States. Under Warner Bros. Discovery — now owned by Skydance — TNT Sports and HBO Max accounted for 3 percent.

There are no-nos, and fine print.

Each network has its set of standards for what’s acceptable for a broadcast, but professional sports programming adds a wrinkle.

M.L.B. outlines its “Advertising Standards & Rules for Baseball Programming.” It lists limitations on what can be aired; for example, tobacco or e-cigarette products are prohibited from being advertised during games.

But here’s where it gets tricky: M.L.B. also stipulates that commercial content may not include “sexual enhancement products” or sports-betting advertisements.

“Huh?” you might think as Ms. Sweeney and Ms. Fox pop up for the umpteenth time between innings. That’s understandable, but look closer at the fine print.

Such content is prohibited unless “approved in advance in writing by M.L.B.” And a clause notes that there is room for an “approved sports betting operator.” Novig, the prediction market that Ms. Sweeney promotes, is “M.L.B. authorized,” according to its site.

Marc Edelman, a professor of sports law at the Zicklin School of Business of Baruch College in New York, said that he was more taken aback by the league’s changing position on gambling than how it is advertised. Given professional baseball’s checkered past with game betting, the relatively recent reversal has been stunning.

“A red flag is not the content of the advertising but the underlying product,” Professor Edelman said.

In the past, players were not even allowed to endorse casinos, Professor Edelman said.

“It’s a colossal reversal of position,” he said.

When a commercial gets pulled from its slot.

Ads are rarely taken down after they air, Professor McTigue said, as they are first vetted by network lawyers. So even when a commercial generates controversy, there are legal guardrails established before broadcast.

“Back in the day, the major news networks, you’d have to send it to them ahead of time so they could preclear it,” he said. “Then they would say, ‘OK, that’s fine.’ For cable, you didn’t have to do that.”

Fox Broadcasting’s commercial broadcasting guidelines state that, if needed, two copies of an ad must be delivered at least five business days ahead of the air time.

But the league has the final say, according to its regulations. It “reserves the right to, in its sole judgment, reject or instruct any Baseball Programming Partner to cease the use of any advertising,” according to the standards document.

What other advertising controversies have there been?

When the original Novig ad aired last month, critics panned it as overly sexual in an attempt to appeal to male viewers. The commercial also sparked backlash from female athletes.

Last month, the shoe and apparel brand Converse removed an advertisement that critics said was evocative of Ku Klux Klan imagery. The company apologized and said it would remove the ad everywhere it was shown.

In 2024, a British advertising watchdog group ruled that posters for the Calvin Klein fashion brand, which depicted the singer FKA twigs with part of her breast exposed, could not be shown in Britain. The singer then pointed in a social media post to “double standards” in what many saw as a reference to another Calvin Klein ad, which featured the actor Jeremy Allen White in his underwear and remained up.

“When you talk about what’s OK, it’s so interesting how it varies by year and by culture,” Professor McTigue said.

But the advertisers largely have in mind the customer base they’re trying to reach, he said, and how they respond to the ads.

“I think we’re seeing a little bit more where people are trying to push buttons to gain more eyeballs,” he added. If the companies “know that the target they’re going after is not going to find it offensive, and it’s just bothering other people, then it really doesn’t have a negative impact.”

The post Foul Play? Racy Baseball Postseason Ads Are Drawing Pushback. appeared first on New York Times.

The sentencing, which came a week after the men were found guilty, marked the end of a lengthy legal process over the killings of Australians Callum and Jake Robinson, and American Carter Redd Rhoad.

Their bodies were found in May 2024, and at least four people were arrested for their alleged involvement in the crime.

A judge in the coastal city of Ensenada, in Baja California state, ruled that Jesús Gerardo García, known as “el Kekas,” Irineo Francisco “N” and Ángel Jesús “N” would each serve 158 years and nine months in prison for murder, robbery with violence and vehicle theft with violence.

Antonio Otañez, president of the Baja California surfers’ association, welcomed the outcome, saying “justice has been served.”

But he acknowledged that the killings had caused a “major drop” in tourist visits, particularly by surfers, to the region known for its beautiful beaches.

Here is a look at the key facts and events in the case:

Surfing trip ends in tragedy

The Robinson brothers — Callum and Jake — and their American friend decided to travel to Mexico in late April 2024 to pursue one of their passions, surfing, at a beach in Punta San José, about 50 miles from the city of Ensenada in Baja California state.

Unaware of the risks they faced, the three friends decided to camp on the beach on the night of April 27, 2024.

Their attackers confronted them there, shot them dead in the early morning hours and then dumped their bodies into a well more than 50 feet deep. The bodies were found on May 3 after several days of searching.

The Baja California prosecutor’s office announced on May 5, 2024, that it had arrested García, known as “el Kekas,” identifying him as the suspected gunman in the killings of the three foreigners.

State authorities said García had a criminal history in Ensenada involving alleged drug dealing, unlawful entry into a home, domestic violence and vehicle theft.

García’s former partner, Ary Gisell Silva Raya, and two of his alleged accomplices, Irineo Francisco “N” and Ángel Jesús “N,” were also arrested in the case.

Silva Raya, whom authorities found in possession of a cellphone belonging to one of the victims, agreed to an abbreviated trial and in November was sentenced to 20 years in prison for aggravated robbery with violence and vehicle theft with violence.

The prosecution’s account and evidence

State prosecutor María Elena Andrade alleged that the attackers wanted to steal the tires from the foreigners’ pickup truck and that the victims resisted.

“The attackers pull out a gun they were carrying and kill the person who initially resisted the robbery, then turn on the other two,” she added.

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The “Reality Bites” and “The Lowdown” star stopped by “The Drew Barrymore Show” on Friday, where the two ’90s icons discussed how they never got a chance to meet until now.

“I don’t think I can remember a time in my life when I was not aware of you,” Hawke said, prompting Barrymore to reveal she felt the same way.

“What I can’t believe is that we never dated, you know?” he added. As the audience erupted into laughter and applause, Barrymore chimed in with, “Where were you?! Where were you, Ethan?”

Barrymore then alluded to Hawke’s heartthrob status in the ’90s, quipping, “What me and every other girl on the planet wouldn’t have given to date you. Where the hell were you?”

Here’s where Hawke confessed that, had the two industry veterans crossed paths sooner, it could’ve happened.

“There was many a night, when I would — it must have been circa the ’90s — I’d be going to a party, and I’d think, ‘Maybe Drew will be there,’” Hawke told Barrymore, who responded by throwing herself back on her talk show’s couch.

“Where were you?” she asked again before asking more follow-up questions. “Why didn’t you call me? We still had phones back then.”

Hawke’s answer? “You know, I like to play it cool,” he explained. “I wanted it to happen organically. I thought, you know, something magical would happen.”

Barrymore then playfully reprimanded Hawke for playing it cool, countering with, “And look what happened. Nothing!”

Watch the exchange below.

Though Hawke and Barrymore never became a romantic item, the two stars had plenty of high-profile relationships throughout the ’90s and onward. Barrymore was married three times, the first time to bar owner Jeremy Thomas in 1994, the second time to comedian Tom Green in 2001 and the third time to art consultant Will Kopelman in 2012. Barrymore and Kopelman, who divorced in 2016, share daughters Olive and Frankie together.

As for Hawke, he notably married actress Uma Thurman in 1998, but the couple split in 2005 after welcoming kids Maya and Levon. He remarried in 2008, wedding former nanny Ryan Shawhughes, who he shares daughters Clementine and Indiana with.

The post Ethan Hawke Makes ’90s Crush Confession to Drew Barrymore: ‘I Wanted It to Happen’ appeared first on TheWrap.

Wedged between the boys and the police was a tall man, dressed in a gray suit and lavender tie. He spread his arms wide, shielding the boys, and screamed, “Stop!”

That was Bally Bagayoko, the mayor of St.-Denis Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, one of Paris’s most populous and diverse suburbs, known for a basilica and the national stadium, as well as for high rates of poverty and crime.

Mr. Bagayoko has become a household name in France since students started to blockade their schools roughly a month ago, calling for better conditions — protests that were set to be amplified by nationwide rallies on Saturday.

Footage of Mr. Bagayoko at the protests has featured regularly in social media and television news programs, to both applause and condemnation. His supporters have called him Spiderman, a comic-book superhero who has become a symbol of youth protests across the world. Others, including right-wing politicians, have accused him of inciting violence and have called for him to be removed, particularly after he said that “violence at some point can be legitimate,” though “every time it can be avoided, that’s better.”

For Mr. Bagayoko, 53, the backlash is a sign that his political opponents see his far-left party as a threat in next year’s presidential election. His party leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon — buoyed by votes from cities, like Mr. Bagayoko’s, with higher numbers of immigrants — could make the runoff.

“They believe a victory could come from the working-class neighborhoods embodied by this atypical mayor,” Mr. Bagayoko said in an interview, speaking about himself in the third person. “So they have to smear him. They have to disqualify him.”

Critics say Mr. Bagayoko inflames division and should take the blame for acts of vandalism by protesters at school blockades that he has attended. Valérie Pécresse, the center-right head of the regional authority that contains St.-Denis, suggested that he should pay about $110,000 to repair a damaged gate at a school in his city.

“Let the mayor take responsibility for his actions,” Ms. Pécresse said on social media.

The criticism of Mr. Bagayoko started the night of his unexpected election in March.

He was part of a wave of new mayors of color elected in the sprawling suburbs north of Paris. Mr. Bagayoko’s victory attracted particular attention because St.-Denis Pierrefitte-sur-Seine is home to roughly 150,000 citizens, more than any other area on the edge of Paris.

Hours after his win, Mr. Bagayoko was interviewed live on national television. A clip of the interview was truncated and misleadingly described by far-right politicians and journalists. He said he was now the mayor of “la ville des rois,” or “the city of kings” — France’s former kings and queens are buried in the city’s basilica. But the incorrect descriptions said he had called it “la ville des noirs,” or “the city of Black people.”

Then, on national television, the founder of a far-right media outlet, Frontières, falsely claimed that drug dealers had pushed for Mr. Bagayoko’s election. “Whose pockets are you in, Mr. Mayor?” the founder asked.

The following week, CNews, a television channel known for broadcasting far-right views, discussed Mr. Bagayoko’s election and his proposal to ban the police from using rubber bullets. A guest on the channel, noting that humans were “part of the great ape family,” compared the mayor with a “hunter-gatherer” leader “whose role is to establish authority.”

The next day, a host on the channel described Mr. Bagayoko’s intention of asserting control over the police as “very tribal.” The Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into the channel for “public insult based on origin, ethnicity, nationality, race or religion,” an accusation that CNews rejected.

Throughout it all, Mr. Bagayoko remained calm and kept smiling. As a Black man, he said in an interview, “No one would have forgiven me for losing my temper on a TV set.”

The onslaught made clear to him, he added, that France has yet to truly accept that citizens of an African background, like Mr. Bagayoko, are full members of French society. Black French, often descended from immigrants from France’s former colonies, are underrepresented in positions of power.

“France still has a problem with its own children,” he said. “Because I am French.”

Unlike many Black leaders in France, Mr. Bagayoko has made the issue a focus. Since his election, he has organized two large rallies to denounce racism in France, and in August, he helped start an initiative to make the issue part of the debate in the coming presidential election.

Rokhaya Diallo, a journalist, filmmaker and prominent antiracism activist in France, said, “Tackling systemic racism in France is very taboo.”

“We don’t see many Black, proud politicians who are not afraid of naming racism,” she added.

Mr. Bagayoko is also facing two judicial investigations. The first concerns whether he, earlier in his career, was given a patronage job at the city’s transportation agency, an accusation he has denied.

The second concerns claims that he incited violence after his comments last month about the legitimacy of violence during protests.

Nonetheless, Mr. Bagayoko’s popularity — and social media following — has surged, with supporters comparing him with Zohran Mamdani, the left-wing mayor of New York.

“He’s our Mamdani. He represents the same hope for people,” said Maxime Beauchamps, 21, a communications student who joined those surrounding Mr. Bagayoko at a recent rally, thanking him and asking for selfies and hugs. The crowd at several points chanted: “Bally, président! Bally, président!”

Many said they saw him as a role model. “He shows us that just because we come from working-class neighborhoods or from ‘disadvantaged backgrounds,’ as they say in sociology, it doesn’t mean we can’t succeed,” said Aya Guetib, 17.

‘We Are Fully French’

Born in 1973, Mr. Bagayoko grew up in a housing project in St.-Denis. He was the second of eight children to parents from Mali, which was ruled by France for much of the 20th century.

Since their father worked long hours as a mechanic, Mr. Bagayoko and his older brother helped their mother raise their siblings in their crowded apartment, according to a younger brother, Yaya Bagayoko. He would go over his siblings’ homework and attend their school meetings, and he registered them for basketball camp in the summer so they were not hanging out in their neighborhood and getting into trouble, said Yaya, 50.

“Bally has always been the rock in the family,” Yaya added. “He can be super nice, but with us, he was pretty strict.”

Mr. Bagayoko earned a bachelor’s degree in geopolitics and a master’s in science and technology. His thesis, he said, was on the mind-set of people living in working-class suburbs like St.-Denis.

He played semiprofessional basketball, and coached children in the sport in St.-Denis.

In 2001, the Communist mayor of St.-Denis, Patrick Braouezec, recruited Mr. Bagayoko to his electoral slate. Mr. Bagayoko was elected to the City Council, swiftly becoming deputy mayor and remaining a fixture in city politics ever since.

Ms. Diallo, the filmmaker, said: “There is no way you can do anything in St.-Denis without knowing him. He’s part of the local fabric.”

In 2017, Mr. Bagayoko joined the far-left France Unbowed, attracted, he said, by the party’s criticism of police violence, racism and Islamophobia.

After his election to the mayoralty in March, he made youth-focused policy a key part of his mandate.

The city expanded a free school lunch program, offered free school supplies to elementary-school students and began a free bike program for 15-year-olds to make commuting to distant high schools easier.

After the protests started last month, he was among the first politicians to join student blockades, including at his own alma mater in St.-Denis.

While others criticize the students for vandalizing their schools, Mr. Bagayoko’s position is that the real violence is performed by the state.

It is a form of systemic violence, he contends, to offer a subpar education — missing teachers, overcrowded classrooms, decaying infrastructure — to children from already underprivileged backgrounds. That, he says, breaks a fundamental promise of the French Republic of equality for all citizens.

“We grew up with an ideal, which is to say that the Republic must be fair to everyone, and it isn’t,” he said.

He also accuses the police of using disproportionate force against student protesters, saying officers were more aggressive against those from working-class neighborhoods.

“There is a contempt directed at these kids from working-class neighborhoods,” he said.

Mr. Bagayoko expresses ambivalence about his role within the French state.

In his office, he has kept a portrait of President Emmanuel Macron on the floor, instead of on the wall, as it is in most public offices in France. He said this summer that booing the national anthem was understandable, when “France dishonors itself through its international actions,” including by not going far enough in its criticism of Israel. And when he wades into protests with students, he makes a point to not wear his three-colored sash — the symbol of elected officials in France. It makes him feel separated from people, he said.

But he has been clear to hold a French national flag when marching in protests, surrounded by young people who, like him, are the children of immigrants.

The message he is sending, he says, is, “We are fully French, regardless of what some people might think.”

Giulia Imbert contributed reporting.

The post The 53-Year-Old in a Suit Who’s the Face of France’s Youth Protests appeared first on New York Times.

But in Shinjuku Chuo Park, in a drenched suit, red tie and sneakers, Toru Utsumi, a management consultant and internet star, was dancing. Under darkening skies, he shimmied. He clicked his heels. Mimicking scenes from “Singin’ in the Rain,” he twirled and leaped into the air.

“The more I move,” he said, “the more my spirit rises, and I start feeling good.”

Nothing gets in the way of Mr. Utsumi, 60, Japan’s “dancing salaryman,” who has won more than a million fans on TikTok and Instagram with short, fancy-free videos that poke fun at the country’s buttoned-down corporate culture.

Mr. Utsumi dances exuberantly outside train stations, on rooftops, near castles, in cramped hotel rooms, on empty fields and at the beach. He grooves to Buena Vista Social Club in a beret and shorts, or bops to J-pop in a crisp collared shirt under neon lights. He cartwheels, does splits and performs butterfly jumps. And he’s organized, keeping a spreadsheet of more than 1,000 songs to avoid repeating himself.

In Japan, where many citizens prioritize public order and quiet streets, Mr. Utsumi is seen as something of a nuisance and rule breaker. He has been told he is too sloppy, too undisciplined, too gimmicky and too old to dance.

“I know I stand out,” he said. “That’s why it’s very difficult for an ordinary salaryman like me to dance like this.”

But Mr. Utsumi has built a fervent following abroad. His most devoted fans fly thousands of miles for the chance to dance alongside him. They consider him a living landmark on par with Shibuya Crossing or Tokyo Tower. (He has danced at both places.)

The faithful include the Italian lawyer Roberto Cimmino, 27, who danced with Mr. Utsumi on a recent afternoon outside Tokyo Station during a 17-day trip to Japan with his partner, Chiara Comuzzi, 24. As “Magnando” by the Italian artist Leone di Lernia blared on a portable speaker, the trio twisted their hips, jumped up and down and gave each other high-fives.

Mr. Cimmino said that Mr. Utsumi’s videos were an antidote to endless doom-scrolling about war, climate change and artificial intelligence.

“Just a little short video of him dancing or vibing can totally change your mood and make you smile,” he said. “He’s like a joy machine.”

As they parted, Mr. Cimmino had three words for Mr. Utsumi: “Keep on dancing!”

‘Completely Funky and Free’

Mr. Utsumi grew up in Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands, in what he described as “very unconventional circumstances.” His family moved around a lot because his father, a Lutheran minister, was assigned to different churches. He often felt isolated and apart from traditional Japanese society.

His fascination with dance began in kindergarten, when he would imitate the ballet dancers he saw in a hall connected to his family’s church. As a high school student in the 1980s, during Japan’s street-band boom, he danced the twist on the streets of Tokyo and played guitar in a heavy metal band.

Mr. Utsumi idolized Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. He liked the way Mr. Jagger moved his hips — “that kind of feel and atmosphere,” he said.

“I didn’t have talent early on,” he said, “but I had an interest.”

During the bubble-economy era of the late 1980s, when Japan’s nightlife was bustling, Mr. Utsumi was a fixture at disco halls and clubs. He fell in love with reggae, and he became known for what he described as a “quirky and eccentric” style.

By day, he worked as a copy machine salesperson, rising rapidly up the corporate ladder. But he struggled with the stress of overbearing bosses and underperforming subordinates. He eventually left sales and began working as an independent management consultant, hoping to teach more executives to lead with empathy and care.

In 2018, when he was 52, feeling a creative urge, he decided to take up dance more formally, enrolling in classes on the side. Japan’s social dance scene has exploded in recent years, especially among middle-aged and older residents looking for ways to stay active and make friends.

Sachiko Nagatomo, Mr. Utsumi’s teacher, said that he had a free-flowing, highly improvised style, and that he struggled to stick to the choreography. He has an ability, she said, to mesmerize people with his striking silhouettes and an intuitive sense of rhythm. She attributed his success to being “completely funky and free.”

“The moment he starts dancing,” she said, “he completely grabs the audience’s attention and locks them in.”

Mr. Utsumi began posting videos in 2023, drawing on genres like hip-hop, disco, rockabilly and soul. By forcing himself to post videos almost every day, he hoped to improve his dancing.

“Publicly declaring my goals also keeps me from slacking off,” he wrote in a blog.

Now, Mr. Utsumi is a bona fide social media star, appearing in commercials and short films. He dances on his off days — Tuesdays and Sundays — and between business trips and client meetings. His colleagues in the business world have accepted his alter ego, he said, saying, “That’s just Toru,” while many of his clients are unaware of his side hustle.

Despite his success, Mr. Utsumi said he still feels nervous about dancing in public. He makes a point of packing up quickly after he records his videos and retreating into the anonymous Tokyo crowds. He smiles at disapproving passers-by who sometimes ask if he has a permit.

“I don’t have a grand goal to change society or say, ‘Let’s all work hard together, men in our 60s,’” he said. “But if people see me having fun and decide to try something themselves, that’s enough.”

The post Rain or Shine, Japan’s ‘Dancing Salaryman’ Can’t Stop Grooving appeared first on New York Times.

Leo prayed silently for several minutes before a statue of the Virgin Mary, and then, as pilgrims to Lourdes have done for generations, he touched the grotto’s rock wall, drank water from its spring and lit a candle.

In light of the Vatican’s announcement this week that Leo has lung cancer, church experts are now asking whether he already knew that he was sick when he went to Lourdes nearly three weeks ago.

It’s something that the Vatican has so far not disclosed.

The question — and the lack of an answer — reflects both the level of global curiosity about Leo’s predicament and the Vatican’s reluctance to divulge key details about it.

Despite intense interest from the world’s news media, Matteo Bruni, the Vatican spokesman, has not said when the pope’s condition was discovered and what might have caused the cancer.

That lack of clarity has left the Vatican press corps to seize on every recent statement, utterance or appearance from Vatican officials — including from the pope himself — and read into it, even if there isn’t much to read.

The tension embodies a clash between Leo’s right to privacy as an individual and the Roman Catholic world’s need for information about its spiritual leader. A pope is not just an individual; he is also a head of state and the leader of 1.4 billion Catholics, and his health will affect his leadership and could bring a new urgency to his plans for the church.

In one telling example of the press’s quest for clarity, Italian media read a lot into Cardinal Pietro Parolin’s impromptu remarks to reporters Thursday evening, in which he said it was too early to predict what the future held for the pope.

“The question now is seeing when he will return, in what condition he’ll return, what the doctors say, and based on all those elements, the pope will then reshape his pontificate, if it’s necessary to reshape it,” Cardinal Parolin said, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

One paper’s headline: “Parolin’s worry.” Another’s: “Parolin’s alarm.”

The church has historically been tight-lipped, reflecting a prevailing culture of reticence.

The Vatican acknowledged that Pope John XXIII had cancer only four days before his death in 1963. There’s a library shelf’s worth of books with theories about the death of Pope John Paul I, 33 days after his election in 1978. (The New York Times did not even cover that papacy, as it coincided with an 88-day strike.) And though rumors that Pope John Paul II had Parkinson’s disease swirled for many years, it was only publicly acknowledged in 2003, when a cardinal made a slip during an interview with an Italian newspaper.

After Pope Francis was hospitalized in February 2025, details from the Vatican were so sparse that the rumor mill went into overdrive, with some surmising he was already dead. (He died just over two months later.)

This week, the fact that Pope Leo himself issued an announcement on Sunday that he would undergo surgery to remove a growth on his lung was portrayed as a positive attempt at transparency.

Speaking to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the top Catholic prelate in the United States military, welcomed the pope’s decision to “speak directly to the faithful, avoiding all the speculation and conjecture of the past.”

Cardinal Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, told reporters on Thursday that he had been happy that the pope had been so frank about his health, “so there are no hidden agendas, the kind of things journalists are always looking for,” he said. He used the Italian word “dietrologia,” the belief that there is always a conspiracy or hidden motive behind the scenes and that official versions are smoke screens.

Still, many questions remain.

Leo had announced on Sunday that he had a growth on his lung, but the Vatican did not confirm that it was cancerous until after his surgery on Tuesday. It has since emerged that his doctors most likely already knew that the tumor was malignant before the operation.

Mr. Bruni said Wednesday that Leo had undergone three tests before the procedure: a CT scan, a PET scan and a bronchoscopy. Doctors said that the type of bronchoscopy performed, which requires general anesthesia, would most likely have immediately revealed whether the tumor was malignant.

Leo’s brother, Louis Prevost, who has multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, said the pope had told him about the tumor before the surgery.

In an interview with Newsmax, a pro-Trump news channel, Mr. Prevost recalled: “When he told me, well, I said, ‘Is it life threatening?’ ‘No.’ ‘Does it seem serious?’ ‘No, they think it’s early enough. It’s small. It should be relatively easy surgery.’” Mr. Prevost added that he had “no reason to doubt” what he had been told about the pope’s condition “so far.”

Some Italian media have speculated that the pope was aware of his condition in mid-September, before he traveled to Lourdes.

A church historian, Alberto Melloni, said the Vatican’s communication strategy this week was an improvement on that of a Vatican spokesman, Joaquín Navarro-Valls, who served two decades ago during the papacy of Pope John Paul II.

The day after Pope John Paul II underwent a tracheotomy in 2005, Mr. Navarro-Valls told reporters that the pope had enjoyed a breakfast of 10 cookies and a yogurt. John Paul died not long after.

Another Vatican observer, Giovanni Maria Vian, a former director of the Vatican newspaper, said it was “revolutionary” that the Vatican’s statements on Leo’s health relayed information issued by his doctors, who were named.

“This is certainly thanks to Prevost,” he said, using the pope’s last name. “In my opinion, it stems from the fact that he’s American and has this very serious relationship with reality and with the truth of the facts.”

I asked Mr. Bruni, the current spokesman, if the pope’s trip to Lourdes should be seen under a new light, given his cancer diagnosis. Mr. Bruni suggested I read what the pope had said about the visit to Lourdes while speaking to journalists on his return flight to Italy.

“Perhaps reading those words can be of help to understand what he was going through,” Mr. Bruni said.

During the news conference, Leo described Lourdes as a place “where people are searching for something much deeper, and understanding that their lives, even in the midst of sickness or disability or pain of different kinds, has meaning.”

Was Mr. Bruni saying that the pope already knew he had cancer?

Who knows.

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