Trump orders pay to TSA workers as Congress hits standstill
March 27 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced Friday that Transportation Security Administration employees will begin receiving paychecks as the department’s shutdown continues.
There was movement on Capitol Hill toward ending the shutdown and partially funding DHS on Friday. After the Senate unanimously voted to pass a bill that would fund the department, aside from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. House rejected the bill outright.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said the House will pursue its own bill that would fully fund the department for 60 days. Johnson said the Senate’s bill would not move forward because it did not include funding for ICE.
President Donald Trump was also critical of the Senate-passed bill, saying it “wasn’t appropriate.” He signed an executive order to direct payment toward the more than 60,000 TSA employees.
“Today, at the direction of President Trump and the Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, TSA has immediately begun the process of paying its workforce,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement to UPI. “TSA officers should begin seeing paychecks as early as Monday, March 30.”
Alan Fyall, associate dean of the University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management, told UPI that news of TSA receiving pay is welcome, though for some it may be too late.
“If they’re going to get paid, that’s excellent,” Fyall said. “I’m sure there are quite a few who have left and probably won’t return.”
As of Friday, TSA agents were on their second pay period without receiving a paycheck.
On Wednesday, Ha Nguyen McNeill, deputy administrator of the TSA, told the House Homeland Security Committee that more than 480 workers have resigned and workers have missed $1 billion in pay.
“Most people in lower to middle salaries, if you miss two paychecks, that’s a problem,” Fyall said. “That’s not unique to TSA agents. As they would say, ‘do the math.'”
This is the second time the government has at least partially shut down, affecting the pay of TSA workers, in the past six months. The TSA has been shut down for more than 85 days this fiscal year.
“Many of our workforce have missed bill payments, received eviction notices, had their cars repossessed and utilities shut off,” McNeill told the House committee. “Some are sleeping in their cars, selling their blood and plasma and taking on second jobs to make ends meet.”
When the shutdown ends, Diego Bufquin, professor of practice at the Freeman School of Business at Tulane, told UPI he expects relief to come to TSA workers and travelers quickly, though the end of spring break adds to the long lines.
“We’re not going to have this resolved by this weekend,” Bufquin said. “Lines are going to be very long this weekend. There will be lots of complaints from passengers for sure.
“The thing is that the job market right now is not looking fantastic either,” Bufquin said. “I don’t think those TSA agents who are now considering switching jobs are in a good spot to easily find jobs in other sectors, given the current job market.”
Fyall said that the air travel industry as a whole is “resilient,” though the repeated government shutdowns will cause some travelers to change their habits, opting for direct flights when possible.
“If it’s a one-off, everybody complains but life gets back to normal pretty quickly,” Fyall said. “One of the things about the long queues is you might be waiting 3 or 4 hours, but that tells you that they’re doing their job properly. You want to get on your plane and be secure.”

Guns in the streets as US, Israel intensify month-long attacks across Iran | US-Israel war on Iran News
Tehran, Iran – Heavily armed state forces continue to control Iran’s streets, despite the United States and Israel launching more strikes and preparing for a potential ground attack, as the nearly one-month war proceeds with no clear end point on the horizon
Checkpoints, roadblocks and patrols, some manned by masked forces wielding assault rifles and machine guns mounted on pick-up trucks, have become a common sight in Tehran.
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Many of the checkpoints, operated by the paramilitary Basij force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), police or plainclothes forces, have been targeted by deadly drone strikes over the past two weeks. They are, therefore, often on the move, or positioned on highways, in tunnels, and under bridges.
“I counted 40 cars moving through my neighbourhood late last night while honking, flashing their blinkers, waving flags and escorting a pick-up truck that had massive speakers fitted at the back and somebody shouting religious slogans from inside,” a resident of western Tehran told Al Jazeera on Friday, asking to remain anonymous for security reasons.
He said local residents have been invited from the loudspeakers on multiple occasions to join gatherings at the neighbourhood’s mosque to denounce the US and Israel and express support for the theocratic establishment that has been in power since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.
Such state-backed gatherings are taking place in numerous mosques, as well as city squares and streets. But they come as the US and Israel urge Iranians to stay in their homes and wait for a “clear signal” to take to the streets and overthrow the Islamic Republic.
For their part, Iranian state television and other state-affiliated media outlets have encouraged supporters to maintain control on the streets, and have been increasingly releasing footage of armed pro-state people, including women, carrying guns.
Rahim Nadali, the IRGC’s deputy for cultural affairs in Tehran, claimed on state television on Wednesday night that people of all ages have expressed readiness to join intelligence and security patrols and checkpoints.
“We have brought the age limit [down] to over 12 years. So now, children aged 12 or 13 years are going to participate in this space,” he said.
‘Sinking feeling in your gut’
A series of new air raids landed across Iran on Friday afternoon, hitting a civilian nuclear site, as well as power posts and production lines for steel and other industrial factories, according to Iranian authorities.
Washington has also deployed thousands more soldiers to the region while signalling that an attempt to occupy one or more islands on Iran’s southern shores may be imminent.
Iranian officials have promised to retaliate strongly if that happens, including by striking critical infrastructure across the region.
Javad Mogoei, a prominent IRGC-linked media personality, released a video from the island of Qeshm earlier this week, suggesting that the IRGC could launch missiles and drones at Iranian islands if they were occupied by the US.
Despite that potential for even further escalation, and while numerous areas in Tehran have been struck by bombs dropped from Israeli and US warplanes, the city continues to function as people try to practise a semblance of a normal life.
Some people visit friends and loved ones indoors, while others go on daytime walks to hold a routine or work out at gyms that are open for limited hours.
“It looks like the war will last for weeks, if not months, so we can’t afford to get drowned in all the anxieties and fears that come with it,” said another resident of the capital, who had sought safety in one of Iran’s northern provinces earlier in the war, but returned last week.
“But you still can’t help but get that sinking feeling in your gut for a moment, not knowing whether you will be next when you hear the jets flying over,” he said.
Another resident, a woman who lives in the more affluent northern areas of Tehran where multiple senior officials have been assassinated in residential buildings since the start of the war, said she finds herself worried.
“My mind sometimes automatically goes back to the concern that some official might be living in an adjacent alley or a nearby home, and my family could become collateral,” she said, adding that she has only been outside her home three times over the past month to buy essentials or visit immediate family.
Iranian authorities have said nearly 2,000 people have been killed since February 28 by US and Israeli attacks, and a large number of residential units, hospitals, schools and civilian vehicles have been affected.
Economy under strain
More businesses are expected to reopen when the country’s official working week starts on Saturday, following the holidays for Nowruz, the Persian New Year.
But the internet has been completely blocked to the civilian population for nearly a month, the longest recorded shutdown in Iran. The internet shutdown has tormented the country’s more than 90 million population and further squeezed an economy plagued by an inflation rate of about 70 percent.
State media released footage of President Masoud Pezeshkian personally visiting a hypermarket in Tehran on Friday to make sure that all essential goods are available to the population, and ensure that vendors refrain from jacking up prices or engaging in hoarding.
The government also continues to hand out a small cash subsidy, which it began doing after nationwide protests initially driven by the country’s economic situation in January.
The United Nations and international human rights groups say many thousands of protesters were killed by state forces, mostly on the nights of January 8 and 9, amid another total internet shutdown, but the Iranian government blames “terrorists” and “rioters” backed by the US and Israel for the unrest.
Iranian authorities have warned that anyone who takes to the streets to protest the establishment during the ongoing war will be treated as an “enemy”. They have also announced multiple war and protest-related executions, many hundreds of arrests over security charges, and confiscation of assets belonging to Iranians found to be dissidents inside or outside the country.
Iran’s judiciary announced asset seizures on Thursday for Ali Sharifi Zarchi, a former professor of bioinformatics and artificial intelligence at Iran’s top institution of higher education, the Sharif University of Technology.
He was found by authorities to have “transformed into an anti-Iran element and supporter of the Zionist regime”, in reference to Israel, due to his tweets and interviews in recent months in opposition to the Islamic Republic while based outside the country.
“The modest belongings you confiscated were the result of 25 years of teaching adolescents and young people, and of striving for Iran. They are a small sacrifice for even a single smile from the families of the children and youths whom you unjustly massacred” during nationwide protests in January 2026, late 2022 and early 2023, and November 2019, Sharifi Zarchi said in a post on X in response.
The L.A. Phil premieres Gerald Barry’s wacky ‘Salome’
Gerald Barry is today’s rare opera composer with a draught-dry wit. Is there such a thing as a soaking wet wit, the opposite of the parched variety, because he has that, too. He is Irish. He has some Beckett in him. And a helping of Oscar Wilde.
At the behest of British composer Thomas Adès, the Los Angeles Philharmonic has given, over the past 20 years, the U.S. or world premieres of four Barry operas in its Green Umbrella new music series, all conducted by Adès. The first, “The Triumph of Beauty and Deceit,” seemed to take zaniness to outlandish operatic extremes, which led to the orchestra commissioning the next three. “The Importance of Being Ernest” and “Alice’s Adventures Underground,” in 2011 and 2016 respectively, proved each funnier and more outrageous musical spectacle than the last.
On Tuesday night, the L.A. Phil New Music Group and a cast of extraordinary singers gave the U.S. premiere of “Salome” at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Here we go again.
The description by the composer (who is also his librettist) can hardly be bettered. He has cut Wilde’s play by about half. And, in that half, explored another less knowable side of the moon represented by Richard Strauss’ well-known “Salome,” which helped usher in 20th-century operatic modernism. Barry says his “Salome” is “an opera of voyeurism, the moon, French, God, punishment of sin, misunderstanding, sex, the metronome, suicide, hysteria, hunger, blood, typing, speaking correctly, sterility, ‘The Blue Danube,’ fever, art, Wilde, dreaming, beheading, Frankenstein, kissing.”
No nudity, though, and no dance. Salome is a typist. Her dance of the seven veils is sexy typing.
Barry begins where Wilde begins and Strauss (who follows the original play closely) with a pair of soldiers in Herod’s court peering at the moon, one moonstruck by the beauty of Herod’s daughter Salome. Salome has other ideas. She’s taken, perversely, with John the Baptist, imprisoned in a cistern and prophesying doom for the decadent, Godless heathens, Salome in particular. All of this readily registers on Barry’s Dada-absurdity meter.
Even so, Barry has an oracular outlook. He goes in for proclamatory melody, each note an event, when punched out by brass and lower string like hammering spikes in the ground. Harmonies can be raw. There is a Stravinskyan quality, but nothing is ever predictable.
The orchestral introduction to “Salome” is like that. But it gets screwy fast. Other than Salome, the characters are not named, rather treated as types. John the Baptist is The Prisoner. Herod and Herodias are The King and The Queen. All have some Alice in a different wonderland about them.
The Prisoner could be straight out of a Godard film. He speaks only French (Wilde’s play was first published in French in 1893). He speaks more than he sings and finds outrage everywhere he looks. The surtitles intentionally refrain from translating much of what he says, leaving the audience to rely on his loony spoken tone and loony tunes to carry meaning. His way of impatiently rebuffing Salome’s inappropriate advances is to give her singing lessons.
That’s the last thing she needs. Her part, like that of Alice in Barry’s previous opera, is enlivened by delightfully squeaky high notes in unexpected places. She’s Barbie with exceptional smarts and grotesque sexual fantasies. Soprano Alison Scherzer, who has starred in Barry’s other operas and in Adès’ “Powder Her Face,” is spectacular.
Everyone is odd. The half-crazed King, magnificently sung by the ever-disruptive Timur, lusts after Salome by speaking and singing at different speeds he selects on a metronome, as he entices her to type for him. When she first refuses, the King has everyone sing “The Blue Danube,” because that’s what you do when Salome won’t sexy type for you.
Sara Hershkowitz’s wildly contemptuous Queen adds further soprano glory. The baritone, Vincent Casagrande, a marvelously cantankerous Prisoner, tells us only sick people dream, and of course everyone on stage automatically enters a dream state.
The shock of Wilde’s play, amplified in Strauss’ opera, is the sheer horror of Salome demanding as a reward for her striptease the decapitated head of the prophet, whose bloody lips she desires to kiss. In this case, her typing, which is accompanied by the two soldiers (Justin Hopkins and Karl Huml) on their own typewriters, leads to a dismemberment Frankenstein-style. The ghoulish ending is not unhappy.
Barry’s score remains as uncanny as his sense of drama. He plays with our senses of normality. He frequently uses the instrumentalists in the chamber orchestra like theatrical characters. The ensemble contradicts the singers but also eggs them on. Adès, who has his own unpredictably whimsical side, conducts as though he had written the score himself and shares his pleasure with every delightful effect.
The premiere of “Salome,” intended for 2021 in Disney, was disrupted by the pandemic. The first performance, then, became a staging in Magdeburg, Germany, last year. Barry said Tuesday in the pre-concert Upbeat Live that he is often happier with concert performances, like at this Green Umbrella. He has good reason.
The magic of this “Salome” is its transcendence of silliness into acceptance. When presented without theatrical aspect but as a private process of the imagination, it becomes a lavishly lovable antidote to our too often accepting the world’s absurdity only as dooms-scrollable tragedy.
Vance holds first meeting of a new anti-fraud task force targeting benefit programs
WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance on Friday held the inaugural meeting of a new anti-fraud task force he’s leading as the Trump administration seeks to show it’s cracking down on potential misuse of social programs.
Vance, speaking Friday before the task force held a closed-door meeting, said that the federal government for decades had not taken the issue of fraud seriously and that it needed to be tackled with “a whole-government approach.”
“This is not just the theft of the American people’s money,” Vance said. “It is also the theft of critical services that the American people rely on.”
President Trump, a Republican, has made a crackdown on fraud part of his chief domestic focus as voters have said they’re concerned about affordability ahead of November’s midterm elections. That effort comes after allegations of fraud involving day-care centers run by Somali residents in Minneapolis prompted a massive immigration crackdown in the Midwestern city, resulting in widespread protests.
Vance cited some of the Minnesota allegations on Friday. Last month, he held a news conference to announce a temporary halt of some Medicaid funding until the state took actions that federal officials said would address their concerns.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat who faced Vance as a vice presidential candidate in 2024, has called it a “campaign of retribution” and said the Trump administration was “weaponizing the entirety of the federal government to punish blue states like Minnesota.”
The task force is also the most visible assignment to date that Trump has given to Vance, who is seen as a potential 2028 presidential candidate.
Vance and the task force, which includes about half the president’s Cabinet, the leader of a new Justice Department division focused on prosecuting fraud and Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson, are set to meet regularly to look at rooting out potential fraud and waste in federal benefit programs.
Ferguson, who is vice chair of the task force, cast the issue of fraud as a dire crisis facing the country and said it “shreds the social trust on which these programs and our entire nation depend.”
“This fraud crisis is thus existential,” he said. “If we fail to address it, the fabric of our nation will swiftly unravel.”
Joining the task force was Colin McDonald, a top aide to the Justice Department’s second in command. He was recently confirmed as the assistant attorney general overseeing the new division at the department focused on prosecuting fraud.
The Justice Department has long prosecuted fraud nationally through its Criminal Division, but the Trump administration says the new division is needed to crack down on rampant fraud.
Price writes for the Associated Press.
UCLA’s Cori Close says Bruins’ success has taken a toll on her
SACRAMENTO — Cori Close’s candid remarks about the growing challenges of coaching in modern college athletics sparked a reaction nationwide among her peers.
On Thursday, the UCLA women’s basketball coach was asked about the rapid changes shaping college sports ahead of her Bruins’ Sweet 16 matchup against Minnesota on Friday night. The No. 1-seeded Bruins (33-1) entered the Sweet 16 round considered a strong Final Four contender, powered by one of the deepest starting lineups in the nation.
“I’ve never been as tired as I’ve been in the last two years, and it’s made me think how much longer I can do this,” Close said. “And I’m just being transparent with you about that. There are so many things that are harder, and we keep losing incredible people on the men’s and the women’s side.”
UCLA has dominated throughout the season, entering the Sweet 16 on a 27-game winning streak that dates to late November. Three starters — Lauren Betts, Charlisse Leger-Walker and Gianna Kneepkens — began their college careers elsewhere before transferring into the program.
“How do we now figure out this transfer portal? Let’s not complain about it,” Close said. “Let’s have solutions about what’s right and what adjustments need to be made. … I’m a huge advocate for NIL. It should have happened 20 years ago. And we need boundaries. We need infrastructure. We need competitive equity. We need transparency.”
In contrast, Louisville coach Jeff Walz offered a more critical perspective when addressing the same topic during a NCAA news conference in Fort Worth, Texas.
UCLA guard Kiki Rice points across the court while talking with Bruins coach Cori Close during an NCAA tournament win over California Baptist at Pauley Pavilion on March 21.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
“I’m friends with Cori,” Walz said. “My favorite line, I would tell her, if you don’t like your job, find a new job. I mean, I’m listening this morning at 4:20 as the workers outside my window at the hotel in the street are working. I mean, you choose your profession. If you don’t like it, find a new profession.”
No. 3-seeded Louisville will face No. 2 Michigan on Saturday after falling short against Duke in the ACC championship game.
Close, who has spent 33 years in coaching, including 15 at UCLA, has navigated an evolving landscape shaped by name, image and likeness compensation policies and the transfer portal, just like everyone else. Last season, she earned national coach of the year and led the Bruins to the program’s first Final Four. UCLA has now reached at least the Sweet 16 during four consecutive seasons and eight times during Close’s tenure in Westwood.
This year, the Bruins swept through Big Ten play undefeated and once again secured a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.
“I mean, of course, it’s a lot of work, but we chose to do it and we get compensated for it,” Walz said. “I don’t think anybody is going to feel too sorry for us that you might be tired. I’m tired, too, but who is not?”
Several longtime coaches have stepped away from the game in recent years, amid, though not always directly attributed to, the sport’s ongoing transformation. Hall of Fame Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer retired in 2025, while Georgia Tech’s Nell Fortner, Iowa’s Lisa Bluder and Harvard’s Kathy Delaney-Smith stepped down during the past three seasons.
“It’s ever-changing, and that’s the frustrating part, because you can never get a grasp on any of it,” Kentucky coach Kenny Brooks said. “You think that you have it. Then all of a sudden, it’s like somebody pulls a rug out and says, ‘No, we’re changing it,’ and now it’s going to be this way now. We want to get out ahead of everything, but we can’t. We always seem like we’re one step behind because there are so many changes.”
Ultimately, Close’s message centered on the need for structural support in a rapidly shifting environment.
“If there’s one thing I would ask of our governing bodies and the NCAA and our administrations is please develop infrastructure and boundaries that create an opportunity to have sustained excellence and sustainable pace,” she said. “Otherwise, we are going to continue to lose some of our best coaches, and I do not think our game can afford to do that.”
I got my new UK passport in under 2 weeks without fast track – here’s how
If you are planning a holiday abroad, you will want to double check your passport is valid
Sophie Buchan Money and Lifestyle Writer
21:04, 27 Mar 2026

If you’re looking to save money, it’s worth knowing that it’s £12.50 cheaper to apply for a passport online than by post(Image: Getty)
If you’re planning a trip overseas soon, it’s crucial to ensure your passport is valid for travel. This means, depending on your destination, you might need to renew it earlier than anticipated.
For example, if you’re jetting off to Spain, the Foreign Office warns travellers that the country adheres to Schengen area rules. This means your passport must have a ‘date of issue’ less than 10 years before the date you arrive.
If you renewed your passport before October 1, 2018, it may have a date of issue that is more than 10 years ago. The rules also mean that you should have an ‘expiry date’ at least three months after the day you plan to leave the Schengen area – the expiry date does not need to be within 10 years of the date of issue.
In other places, like Cyprus, you need to have “at least one blank page for stamping”. So if you need to get a new passport, here’s what you need to know before you’re set to travel abroad.
How long did it take me to get my new blue UK passport?
I submitted an application for a new passport on July 13 last year and posted my old passport, as directed, on July 14. The Passport Office received my old one on July 15 – this step is necessary as you cannot possess two passports.
I received my next update on July 23, informing me that my passport application had been approved. This was followed by an email on July 24 letting me know my new passport had been printed.
The next day, I received my blue passport with a new photo I had taken myself at home. So it took me less than two weeks to get my new travel document – and I didn’t pay for fast track.
So I was pleasantly surprised at how swift and straightforward the entire process was. You can check how long it will take to get a passport before you apply.
And if you need a passport urgently, you can opt for their Online Premium or 1 week Fast Track services. They warn: “Do not book travel until you have a valid passport – your new passport will not have the same number as your old one.”
How to apply for a new UK passport?
You can submit an application via the GOV.UK website. It caters for various needs, whether you need to apply for, renew, replace or update your passport, and you can also pay for it online.
How much does a UK passport cost?
If you’re looking to save money, it’s worth knowing that it’s £12.50 cheaper to apply for a passport online than by post. It’s worth noting that prices increase on April 8, 2026.
Apply Online
- Adult (16 and over) standard 34-page passport – £94.50
- Adult (16 and over) 54-page frequent traveller passport – £107.50
- Child (under 16) standard 34-page passport – £61.50
- Child (under 16) 54-page frequent traveller passport – £74.50
- Passport for people born on or before 2 September 1929 – Free
Apply by paper form
- Adult (16 and over) standard 34-page passport – £107
- Adult (16 and over) 54-page frequent traveller passport – £120
- Child (under 16) standard 34-page passport – £74
- Child (under 16) 54-page frequent traveller passport -£87
- Passport for people born on or before 2 September 1929 – Free
Can I get my passport quicker?
If you’re due to travel abroad soon and are concerned it won’t arrive in time, you can opt for a premium service. Again, prices rise on April 8.
- When you’ll get your passport: Usually within 3 weeks (delivered securely to your home)
- Cost: £94.50 (or £107.50 for a 54-page frequent traveller passport)
- Needs an appointment: No
- When you’ll get your passport: Delivered by courier to your home 1 week after the appointment
- Cost: £178 (or £191 for a 54-page frequent traveller passport)
- Needs an appointment: Yes
- When you’ll get your passport: Collect it 4 hours after your appointment
- Cost: £222 (or £235 for a 54-page frequent traveller passport)
- Needs an appointment: Yes
How can I get a free passport?
If you were born on or before September 2, 1929, you can get or renew a British passport for free if you’re a British national. You can also utilise the Post Office Check and Send service for free and receive free secure delivery.
You must pay a fee if you need a passport urgently or want a frequent traveller passport, which provides 54 pages instead of 34.
Kash Patel’s personal email hacked by Iran-affiliated group
March 27 (UPI) — Iran-linked hackers broke into FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email account, multiple news outlets reported Friday.
The hackers published photos and emails from the account from before Patel became FBI director, CNN, CNBC and CBS News reported. CNN said a source familiar with the breach confirmed the authenticity of the photos.
The emails the group stole from Patel date from around 2011 to 2022. They include personal, business and travel communication.
The hacking group, Handala Hack Team, said on their website that Patel “will now find his name among the list of successfully hacked victims.”
The photos published include Patel sniffing and smoking cigars, riding in an antique convertible, and making a face while taking a picture of himself in the mirror with a large bottle of rum. There are family photos and details of Patel searching for an apartment.
The group calls it a breach of “impenetrable” FBI systems, but the FBI was not breached.
“This isn’t an FBI compromise — it’s someone’s personal junk drawer,” cybersecurity researcher Ron Fabela told CNN.
“The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information, and we have taken all necessary steps to mitigate potential risks associated with this activity,” a statement from the FBI said. “Consistent with President Trump’s Cyber Strategy for America, the FBI will continue to pursue the actors responsible, support victims, and share actionable intelligence in defense of networks.”
It also said the information taken, “is historical in nature and involves no government information.”
The FBI also said that the State Department has offered a $10 million reward for information that leads to the identification of the Handala Hack Team.
The hackers have said they hacked the account to retaliate for a missile strike on an Iranian school, CNN reported.
Handala claimed Thursday to have published the personal data of dozens of Lockheed Martin employees stationed in the Middle East. The company said in a statement it was aware of the reports and had policies and procedures in place “to mitigate cyber threats to our business.”
Gil Messing, chief of staff at Israeli cybersecurity company Check Point, told CNBC that the move against Patel was part of Iran’s strategy to embarrass U.S. officials and “make them feel vulnerable.”
On March 19, the FBI took down two websites used by Handala after it hacked the medical company Stryker on March 11. The two sites were: one that had information about its hacks and the other used to dox people it alleges work with the Israeli military. The website it used to post Patel’s information was registered the same day the other sites came down.

How important are the Gulf economies to the world? | US-Israel war on Iran News
Impact of US-Israeli war on Iran poses serious risks beyond energy sector.
The US-Israeli war on Iran is hitting Gulf Arab nations hard – but with a wider impact in today’s interlinked world.
As well as global oil and gas supplies, Gulf states play a critical role in many economies.
So how are they connected – and what could be at risk?
Presenter: James Bays
Guests:
Nikolay Kozjharnov – Research associate professor in energy security at the Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University
Cornelia Meyer – Macroeconomist and oil and gas specialist
Torbjorn Soltvedt – Associate director at global risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft
Published On 27 Mar 202627 Mar 2026
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‘Dead Lover’ review: A wildly creative feminist plunge into goth territory
“I want to lick your stink … I want to taste your foulness … I want to shower in your rot … I want to feast in your fetid funk.”
Have more romantic sweet nothings ever graced the screen? Scripted by Grace Glowicki and Ben Petrie (partners in life and in filmmaking), these words of seduction are music to the ears of a lonely Gravedigger (Glowicki), who has been formulating a perfume to cover up her corpse-like stench. What she discovers is that the right one will love her exactly the way she smells, learning that she’s not so pheromonally challenged after all.
Glowicki’s sophomore feature “Dead Lover,” sometimes presented in “Stink-O-Vision,” is one of those entirely singular freakouts that we can thank Telefilm Canada for subsidizing (see also: the Cronenberg family oeuvre, Matt Johnson’s current “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” and many more).
She co-writes, directs and stars in this highly stylized, wonderfully DIY handmade project, beautifully designed with gruesomely gothic sets by production designer Becca Morrin and art director Ashley Devereux. The blend of intentional artifice paired with deep emotion calls to mind other Canadian auteurs like Guy Maddin and Matthew Rankin (“The Twentieth Century”), but Glowicki’s film also exists within another lineage: the feminist Frankenstein film.
The film opens with a quote from Mary Shelley: “There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand.” Her 1818 novel “Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus” has always been a feminist text (despite Guillermo del Toro’s more bro-ey adaptation), grappling with the terrifying power of creating life — and how close that is to death. Feminist filmmakers have drawn out these inherent themes from the book, the most recent and loudest example being Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!” But “Dead Lover” hews closer to Laura Moss’ modern medical take, “birth/rebirth,” and even more closely to Zelda Williams’ cute, poppy “Lisa Frankenstein,” in which a young seamstress stitches up a reanimated boyfriend.
Our Gravedigger speaks to us, and to the moon, about her heart’s desire in charming cockney rhyming slang. Her hopes are rather simple and conventional: one true lifelong love and a family. After much rejection, she finally finds her Lover (Petrie) in the cemetery, saving him from a ferocious beast while he mourns his late opera-singer sister (Leah Doz). After the pair consummate their fragrant lust, the Gravedigger is ready to settle down right away.
In order to make her dreams come true, Lover travels to Europe for fertility treatments, where he drowns on a ship, the only thing left of him a finger, delivered to her by fishermen. Our enterprising Gravedigger, a true woman of science, engineers a lizard elixir and regenerates the finger into a long tentacle that eventually demands a body. What better choice than his own sister? But when her wild new Creature (Doz) comes to life, all hell breaks loose, summoning the sister’s jealous, grief-stricken Widower (Lowen Morrow) into an unfortunate love triangle (or square?).
Glowicki is a terrific filmmaker, marshaling her tiny troupe to execute this unique project. Petrie, Doz and Morrow play multiple roles, including a gossipy Greek chorus and the band of merry fisherman (truly an astonishing array of Canadian accent work on display). Her commitment to her singular vision never wavers, but as an actor, Glowicki is truly astonishing. Caked in Halloween makeup and lit with an array of colored gels, Glowicki summons something primal, pure and deeply moving about the lengths one will go to for love, a screech from the depths of her gut.
With a dream-pop soundtrack by U.S. Girls that would be at home in an episode of “Twin Peaks,” “Dead Lover,” in all its stinky, sexy, queer and grotesque glory, is one of the grossest and loveliest films about love I’ve ever seen. This one’s for the horny, hopeless goth inside all of us.
‘Dead Lover’
Not rated
Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes
Playing: Opens Friday, March 27 at Laemmle Glendale
A 14-year-old running for governor is the first teen to get on Vermont’s general election ballot
STOWE, Vt. — Looking back, gubernatorial candidate Dean Roy says his political ambitions started in the eighth grade. And by that he means last year.
After working as a legislative page at the Vermont Statehouse, the 14-year-old freshman at Stowe High School now has his sights set on the corner office. In November, he’ll be the first candidate for governor under age 18 to appear on the state’s general election ballot.
“I don’t expect necessarily to win,” he said. “What I do expect is to start the movement, and get more young people to come in behind me and say, ‘Yeah, we also want to make change.’”
Another eighth-grader, Ethan Sonneborn, sought the Democratic nomination for governor in 2018 but finished last in a four-way primary. Roy secured his spot in the general election by creating his own third party, the Freedom and Unity party. Both were able to run because the state constitution sets no minimum age for gubernatorial candidates, requiring only that candidates have resided in the state for four years.
“I know it sounds crazy, a 14-year-old running for governor, but honestly, look at the people in charge right now,” Roy said in a post on his campaign’s Instagram page. “They’ve been doing this forever and things still aren’t working.”
Nearly all other states set minimum age requirements for governor, often 30 years old. In Kansas, lawmakers added a requirement that gubernatorial candidates be at least 25 years old in 2018 after six teenagers ran for office.
Peter Teachout, a professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School, has a different take than Roy on Vermont’s constitution. He points to a section in the document referring to what qualifies someone to be “entitled to the privileges of a voter,” and that is that they must be 18 years of age. Even under Roy’s interpretation, Teachout doesn’t predict a win for the teenager.
“In theory, a 4-year-old could run for governor. Should we be worried about it? No,” he said. “Vermonters can be a little cantankerous and provocative just for the fun of it, but it is not something they are likely to support in this context.”
But Roy’s former history teacher, James Carpenter, said he thinks it’s great that Roy is giving it his all. Though most 14-year-olds aren’t concerned with property taxes or healthcare, Carpenter describes Roy as an “old soul” with endless curiosity.
“It just really shows what type of kid Dean is. He’s very earnest in what he’s doing. There’s no gimmick behind this,” he said. “I think he blends that youthful optimism with some pragmatism that few kids have.”
Roy, who said he doesn’t identify with either major party, said housing is the most important issue facing the state. He’s also thought about how he’d juggle school with a full-time job as governor, saying he’d consider online classes and would do his homework at night after work.
The current governor, Republican Phil Scott, applauds Roy’s interest in politics and public service but questions whether someone so young is ready for the responsibilities that come with running a state.
“He believes it’s important for our youth to get involved,” said Press Secretary Amanda Wheeler. “But the governor also believes that a teenager may not be best suited to serve in that role given the lack of experience and lived perspectives youth have at that point in their lives.”
Roy disagrees that age has anything to do with whether a candidate is fit to run for office.
“What I’m aiming for is that these career politicians look at me and they say, ‘Oh my God, he actually has a chance to disrupt things,’” he said. “If I can get people to think that I am a threat to them, then I know that’s been a success. Because what I want is to show them that the youth have a voice. We’re gonna make change. The future is now.”
Swinhart writes for the Associated Press. AP reporter Holly Ramer contributed to this report from Concord, N.H.
Mary Rand: 1964 Olympic gold winner dies at age of 86
Mary Rand, the first British woman to win an Olympic gold medal in athletics, has died at the age of 86.
Rand secured the long jump title at the Tokyo Games in 1964, also winning silver in the inaugural women’s pentathlon and bronze in the 4x100m relay.
That meant she also became the first British woman to win gold, silver and bronze at a single Olympic Games.
In the long jump, Rand broke the British and Olympic records with her first leap of 6.59m and then smashed the world record on her fifth attempt with an effort of 6.76m.
“Mary was the most gifted athlete I ever saw,” said Ann Packer, who won 800m gold at the 1964 Olympics days after Rand’s triumph and was her room-mate in Tokyo.
“She was as good as athletes get. There has never been anything like her since – and I don’t believe there ever will.”
Rand, whose first husband was British rower Sydney Rand, also won long jump gold at the 1966 Commonwealth Games in Jamaica.
However, injury denied her the chance to defend her Olympic title in 1968 and she retired at the age of 28 the same year.
Born in Wells, Somerset, she was only 17 when she set her first British record in the pentathlon, and she won 12 national titles across long jump, high jump, sprint hurdles and pentathlon during her illustrious career.
Rand was voted the BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1964 and was awarded an MBE in the 1965 New Year Honours List.
JD Vance takes aim at Minnesota, Somalis ahead of anti-fraud task force meeting
March 27 (UPI) — U.S. Vice President JD Vance took aim at Minnesota and Somali immigrants on Friday ahead of the first meeting of the Trump administration’s anti-fraud task force.
While the meeting itself was behind closed doors, Vance gave brief remarks to reporters, touting the aims of the task force. He specifically took to task a scam in Minnesota involving a Medicaid program meant to aid children on the autism spectrum.
In September, the Trump administration announced charges against one person in a $14 million fraud scheme involving the autism program, and six additional defendants were charged in December.
“I think that the autism scam that we’ve seen in the Somalian parts of Minnesota really illustrates well what’s been going on across whole layers of our government,” Vance said.
“Now, what we’ve seen is Somali fraudsters at an industrial scale taking advantage of that program to the tune of millions and millions of dollars.”
In February, the Trump administration announced it was pausing more than $250 million in Medicaid payments to Minnesota over the alleged fraud.
President Donald Trump announced the formation of the panel during his State of the Union address earlier this year. He, too, took aim at at Minnesota and immigration in his announcement of the task force, which he said will help balance the federal judge “overnight.”
“The Somali pirates who ransacked Minnesota remind us that there are large parts of the world where bribery, corruption and lawlessness are the norm, not the exception,” Trump said.
“Importing these cultures through unrestricted immigration and open borders brings us problems right here to the USA. And it is the American people who pay the price in higher medical bills, car insurance rates, rent, taxes and, perhaps most importantly, crime.”
Gov. Tim Walz has lashed out at the Trump administration for targeting Minnesota, saying the withholding of funds “has nothing to do with fraud.”
“This is a campaign of retribution. Trump is weaponizing the entirety of the federal government to punish blue states like Minnesota,” he said in a statement.
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and other officials from the executive branch joined Vance for the inaugural meeting of the White House Task Force on Eliminating Fraud.

Off-duty London police officer filmed ‘intimidating’ Al Jazeera journalists | Freedom of the Press
An off-duty Metropolitan Police officer was among a group filmed confronting Al Jazeera journalists reporting on a suspected arson attack in north London, the force has confirmed. The incident is raising questions about press freedom.
Published On 27 Mar 202627 Mar 2026
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Who is in the cast of Jo Nesbo’s Detective Hole?
Need to know
Netflix’s gripping new crime drama Jo Nesbo’s Detective Hole follows troubled detective Harry Hole hunting a serial killer in Oslo.

Jo Nesbø’s Detective Hole is now streaming on Netflix(Image: Netflix)
Everything you need to know about the cast of Jo Nesbo’s Detective Hole on Netflix
- Netflix has released new crime thriller Jo Nesbo’s Detective Hole this week. The nine-episode series follows troubled detective Harry Hole as he hunts a serial killer in Oslo. The show draws inspiration from bestselling Norwegian author Jo Nesbo’s novels, particularly The Devil’s Star.
- The Netflix cast is led by Norwegian star Tobias Santelmann, who portrays protagonist Harry Hole. The actor is best known for his roles in The Last Kingdom, Kon-Tiki, and Exit. Meanwhile, Swedish-American actor Joel Kinnaman stars as detective Tom Waaler after appearing in Apple TV+’s For All Mankind, Hanna, Altered Carbon The Killing and Suicide Squad.
- Norwegian star Pia Tjelta portrays Harry’s girlfriend Rakel Fauke and counts credits in State of Happiness, Cold Lunch, Blindsone, Cold Lunch, Next Summer and Norsemen. Swedish actress Ellen Helinder also stars as officer Beate Lønn and has appeared in Exit alongside her co-star Santelmann, as well as Beck, Studenternas undergång and Veronika.
- Other cast members include Anders Baasmo, Maxime Baune Bochud, Kåre Conradi, Simon J. Berger, Prison Break’s Peter Stormare, Fridtjov Såheim, Eili Harboe, Atle Antonsen, Manish Sharma, Jesper Christensen, Kristoffer Joner, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Linn Skåber, Jonas Strand Gravli, Sonny Lindberg, Agnes Kittelsen, Nader Khademi, Agot Sendstad, Maja Christiansen, Frank Kjosås, Kelly Gale, Oddgeir Thune, Ravdeep Singh Bajwa, Henrik Mestad, Ingar Helge Gimle, Henriette Steenstrup, Helge Jordal, Eirik Hallert, Anders Danielsen Lie, Ane Dahl Torp and Dagny.
- Netflix describes Jo Nesbo’s Detective Hole as “a whodunnit serial killer mystery led by famed anti-hero Harry Hole” that operates as “a nuanced character drama about two police officers operating on opposite sides of the law.” The drama sees Harry clash with corrupt colleague Tom Waaler (Joel Kinnaman) whilst trying to solve murders. The streaming giant promises viewers will see how “Harry must do all he can to catch a serial killer and bring Waaler to justice before it is too late.”
READ THE FULL STORY: Jo Nesbo’s Detective Hole release date, cast, trailer and plot as it lands on Netflix
Georgia’s Fulton County and Trump administration square off in court over seized 2020 ballots
ATLANTA — Attorneys for Georgia’s Fulton County and President Trump’s administration squared off in court Friday over the county’s demand that the FBI return seized ballots and other materials from the 2020 election.
Abbe Lowell, an attorney representing Fulton County, noted that the January raid was “unusual” because it involved an old election and allegations that have already been investigated in the years since Trump, a Republican, lost the county and the state to Joe Biden, a Democrat.
Lowell contended that the Trump administration seized the materials because it grew impatient with litigation the Justice Department filed to obtain them last year. “There’s abundant law that the left hand of the department needs to know what the right hand is doing,” Lowell told U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee.
Michael Weisbuch, representing the federal government, replied that the separate civil litigation wasn’t “relevant in any respect.” He said the administration has already provided Fulton County with digital copies of everything taken and needs to retain physical copies to carry out its own investigation.
Boulee wrote in a scheduling order that the hearing was needed after the two sides failed to reach an agreement in court-ordered mediation.
Trump’s actions alarm Democrats and election officials
The Jan. 28 seizure from a warehouse near Atlanta targeted the elections hub in Georgia’s most populous county, which is heavily Democratic and includes most of Atlanta. Fulton County has been at the center of unfounded claims by Trump and his allies that widespread election fraud cost him reelection.
The FBI’s move was among several actions by the Trump administration that have alarmed Democrats and many election officials who are concerned it’s using law enforcement to pursue the president’s personal grievances and is planning ways to interfere in this year’s midterm elections. The FBI also used a subpoena earlier this month to obtain records related to an audit of the 2020 presidential election in Maricopa County in Arizona, another battleground state Trump lost that year.
At the same time, the Justice Department is fighting numerous states in court for access to voter data that includes sensitive personal information. Election officials, including some Republicans, have said handing over the information would violate state and federal privacy laws.
Justice Department says it’s investigating 2020 ‘irregularities’
Lawyers for Fulton County argued in a court filing that the seizure of its documents was “improper and unjustified” and demonstrates “callous disregard” for the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure. The Justice Department seeks to “set a precedent that would grant the federal government unchecked power to interfere with the local administration of elections,” it wrote.
Justice Department attorneys argued that preparing a detailed affidavit and presenting it to a judge “is the exact opposite of ‘callous disregard’” for those constitutional rights. “Their goal to disrupt an ongoing federal criminal investigation is clear,” they wrote of Fulton County officials.
The Justice Department said it is investigating “irregularities that occurred during the 2020 presidential election in the County” and identified two laws that might have been violated. One requires election records to be maintained for 22 months, while the other prohibits procuring, casting or tabulating false, fictitious or fraudulent ballots.
The filing said the FBI is looking into whether Fulton County properly retained ballot images; whether some ballots were scanned and counted multiple times; whether unfolded, unmailed ballots were counted as mail-in absentee ballots; and potential irregularities concerning tabulator tapes from the scanners used to count ballots.
Fulton County’s lawyers wrote that the “deficiencies” or “defects” in the county’s handling of the 2020 election cited in the affidavit are the kinds of human errors that commonly occur without any intentional wrongdoing and cannot establish probable cause.
Election tech expert cites problems in the affidavit
To support their claims, Fulton County officials submitted a sworn declaration from Ryan Macias, an election technology and security expert who advised the county during the 2020 election. He said the affidavit contains “a multitude of false or misleading statements and omissions” and offered explanations for the alleged “deficiencies.”
Investigations by the Georgia secretary of state and independent reviews contradict the core allegations of the affidavit, which is “rife with statements from witnesses lacking credibility, with extraordinary and undisclosed biases,” Fulton’s lawyers argued.
Georgia’s votes in the 2020 presidential race were counted three times, including once by hand, and each count affirmed Biden’s win.
Federal government lawyers rejected the idea that the FBI agent who wrote the affidavit “intentionally or recklessly misled” the judge, writing that “the supposed misrepresentations and omissions flagged by Petitioners are illusory and/or immaterial.” They also asserted that a lapse of the statute of limitations on the potential crimes does not negate probable cause.
The Justice Department also noted that a federal magistrate judge reviewed the FBI affidavit and signed off on the search warrant. Fulton County sought to have the FBI agent who wrote the affidavit testify at Friday’s hearing, but the Justice Department objected and the judge sided with the federal government.
Brumback writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
High school softball top 20 rankings for the Southland
A look at the top 20 high school softball teams in the Southland; as ranked by CalHiSports.com for The Times.
Rk. School; Record; Last ranking
1. Murrieta Mesa; 16-0; 1
2. Fullerton; 11-1; 4
3. Norco; 9-2; 3
4. JSerra 14-2; 2
5. La Mirada 12-2; 6
6. Oaks Christian; 12-1; 5
7. Orange Lutheran 5-3; 7
8. Etiwanda; 14-1; 11
9. Riverside King; 10-2; 20
10. Chino Hills; 13-4; NR
11. Chaminade; 10-1; NR
12. Sherman Oaks Notre Dame; 11-3; 8
13. El Modena; 7-4; 19
14. La Habra; 12-3; 18
15. Temescal Canyon; 8-4; 12
16. Long Beach Poly; 5-0; 16
17. Los Altos; 7-5; NR
18. Garden Grove Pacifica; 10-5; 9
19. Westlake; 10-2; NR
20. Anaheim Canyon; 8-4,10
I stayed at the family-focused hotel right by one of England’s most famous grand homes
NEWLY reopened in the UK last year, The Hide Hotel is one for the families who love the great outdoors.
Here is everything you need to know
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Where is The Hide Hotel?
Right up in the hills on the edge of Chatsworth Estate in Chesterfield lies this The Hide Hotel.
You’ll most likely need a car to get there although there is a bus stop outside that connects to Chatsworth and Bakewell.
What is the hotel like?
The thick stone-walled hotel is complete with dog and boot washing facilities, a roaring log fire in its restaurant and a tasty local pint for walkers to reward themselves with after a ramble in the Peaks.
The views across the moorland are breathtaking, and while the building is 200 years old, it was given a complete refurb last year, so all the furnishings look shiny and new.
What are the rooms like?
All neutral tones with cosy throws strewn over the beds, rooms at The Hide Hotel are comfortable and inviting.
You can choose from double, triple, quad, or like us a bunk room, where a family of four could happily stay in the king size beds and very cute cabins.
Rooms cost from £79 per night including breakfast. See here.
What is there to eat and drink at the hotel?
There’s a great restaurant focusing on big plates of ribs, brisket, burgers and more.
They also offer a terrific range of stone baked pizzas and the cooked breakfasts are worth waking up for.
For something more refined, The Beeley Inn, also owned by the Chatsworth Estate, is well worth a visit.
Here we enjoyed whipped goats cheese with balsamic beetroot, and local lamb saddle with hispi cabbage.
What else is there to do there?
There’s a footpath out of the back door that leads directly to Chatsworth House (albeit via a 9km walk), where guests can book multi-entry tickets for their stay.
The Hide is also right at the entrance to The Peak District National Park which has amazing rambles for all abilities.
You’ll find a handy walking guide in every bedroom, and the staff are super knowledgeable and inspired us to climb the nearby snow topped Mam Tor, an unforgettable experience.
Is the hotel family friendly?
Yes, there are four-person rooms with bunk beds and king beds, so perfect for families, although kids re an extra £15 a night.
They also have everything else from high chairs to cots, and a play area in the restaurant with toys and games.
The hotel team are also on hand to recommend family-friendly activities.
is it accessible?
The hotel has accessible rooms, with wide entry bathrooms as well.
Russian oil tanker skips Cuba, docks in Venezuela; 2nd tanker in limbo

People walk past rubbish accumulating in the streets of Havana on Wednesday. The Caribbean nation has been experiencing a severe energy crisis with the island nation virtually out of fuel. Photo by Ernesto Mastrascusa/EPA
March 27 (UPI) — A tanker carrying Russian fuel initially headed to Cuba ended up docking in Venezuela after weeks of deviations, while a second oil-carrying vessel remains without a clear destination in the Caribbean amid the island nation’s energy crisis.
The vessel Sea Horse, sailing under the Hong Kong flag, had been closely tracked by maritime analysts since it departed from the eastern Mediterranean carrying between 190,000 and 200,000 barrels of Russian diesel initially destined for Cuba.
During its voyage, the tanker repeatedly changed its declared destination. It went from being listed as en route to Havana to indicating “Caribbean Sea” and later Trinidad and Tobago in a pattern that reflected growing uncertainty about its final destination.
Ultimately, the Sea Horse arrived at Puerto Cabello, in Venezuela, on Wednesday morning after nearly 50 days in transit.
The diversion occurred in a context of increasing pressure from the United States to restrict fuel supplies to Cuba, which is facing a severe energy crisis with recurring blackouts and oil shortages.
The case of the Sea Horse is not isolated. Maritime tracking data show that other vessels have altered their routes or avoided declaring final destinations in recent weeks, amid sanctions that explicitly exclude Cuba from relaxed sanctions for Russian oil trade.
The second vessel, the Russian tanker Anatoly Kolodkin, maintains its uncertainty.
The ship, which is carrying roughly 730,000 barrels of crude, continues in the Caribbean Atlantic without a publicly confirmed final destination.
The maritime tracking website VesselFinder shows the destination of the Anatoly Kolodkin as “Atlantic for order,” a designation used in the industry to indicate that the vessel is sailing without a publicly confirmed final destination.
On Tuesday, maritime intelligence analyst Michelle Wiese Bockmann told Politico that the vessel could arrive in Cuba in “two or three days,” although its trajectory remains without clear confirmation.
The most recent AIS tracking data indicate that the vessel is about 487 miles from Turks and Caicos, with an estimated arrival Monday. However, its current vectors do not point directly toward Cuba, reinforcing uncertainty about true destination.
ACTUALIZACIÓN
⚓️ ANATOLY KOLODKIN (IMO: 9610808)
Tanquero ruso cuyo destino ha sido presentado por el Departamento de Exteriores de Rusia como “ayuda humanitaria”.Distancia más próxima: 487 millas de Turcos y Caicos.
Cálculo de ruta: 941 millas | ETA: 30 de marzo.
Vectores… pic.twitter.com/G4dPOPcMkt— Falcon (@FlconEYES) March 27, 2026
The behavior of the Kolodkin raises questions in a highly monitored environment.
“There are details that just don’t add up,” said Evan Ellis, a professor at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute.
“Given the U.S. naval and air assets in the area, the Russian tanker has to know it won’t get in undetected. The question is whether this is some kind of cat-and-mouse game, or if shifting expectations, possibly tied to developments in Cuba, have changed whether it believes it can enter unopposed,” he said.
“Maybe the deliberate attempt was meant to apply pressure, and then once it got a reaction, it was backing off,” he added.
For Ellis, the key point remains outside the public radar.
“The biggest story is what’s going on behind the scenes that we don’t know about,” he said.
The eventual arrival of the Kolodkin also could force a decision from Washington. Analysts cited by the Miami Herald say the options range from diplomatic pressure to a possible interception by the U.S. Navy or U.S. Coast Guard.
“At the end of the day, what we really have to watch for is what actually happens,” said Jorge Piñón, a senior research collaborator at the University of Texas Energy Institute.
Cuba imports about 60% of its energy and depends on external supplies to sustain its electrical system, making each shipment a critical factor within a scenario of growing geopolitical tension.
US diplomat Marco Rubio denounces settler violence, tolls in Hormuz strait | Donald Trump News
United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has offered wide-ranging remarks upon his departure from the latest Group of Seven (G7) ministers’ meeting in France, denouncing Iran’s continued chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz as well as settler violence in the occupied West Bank.
Standing on an airport tarmac on Friday, Rubio fielded questions from journalists about reports that Iran plans to implement a tolling system in the strait, a vital waterway for the world’s oil supply.
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Rubio used the topic to double down on pressure for countries to participate in securing the Strait of Hormuz, a demand US President Donald Trump has repeatedly made.
“One of the immediate challenges we’re going to face is in Iran, when they decide that they want to set up a tolling system in the Strait of Hormuz,” Rubio said.
“Not only is this illegal, it’s unacceptable. It’s dangerous for the world, and it’s important that the world have a plan to confront it. The United States is prepared to be a part of that plan. We don’t have to lead that plan, but we are happy to be a part of it.”
He called on the G7 members — among them, Japan, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and the European Union — as well as countries in Asia to “contribute greatly to that effort”.
Rubio calls toll plan ‘unacceptable’
The Strait of Hormuz is a key artery for the global transport of oil and natural gas, and prior to the start of the US and Israel’s war against Iran on February 28, an average of 20 million barrels of oil per day passed through the waterway.
That amounted to roughly 20 percent of the world’s liquid petroleum supply.
But since the outbreak of war, Iran has pledged to close the Strait of Hormuz, which borders its shores. The threat of attacks has ground most of the local tanker traffic to a standstill, though a few vessels, some linked to Iran or China, have been allowed to pass through.
Media reports suggest that Iran is setting up a “tollbooth system” that would require passing ships to put in a request through Iran’s armed forces, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). There would also be a fee to secure passage.
“ They want to make it permanent. That’s unacceptable. The whole world should be outraged by it,” Rubio said on Friday.
He added that he conveyed a warning about the polling scheme to his colleagues at the G7.
“All we’ve said is, ‘You guys need to do something about it. We’ll help you, but you guys are going to need to be ready to do something about it,’” Rubio said.
“Because when this conflict and when this operation ends, if the Iranians decide, ‘Well, now we control the Strait of Hormuz and you can only go through here if you pay us and if we allow you to, that’s not only is it illegal under international law and maritime law. It’s unacceptable, and that can’t be allowed to exist.”
The Trump administration, however, has struggled to rally allies and world powers to join the US in its offensive against Iran.
Legal experts have criticised the initial strikes against Iran as an unprovoked act of aggression, though the Trump administration has cited a range of rationales for launching the attack, including the prospect that Iran may develop a nuclear weapon.
Many of the US allies in Europe have maintained that they would limit their involvement to defensive actions. Trump, meanwhile, has accused members of the NATO alliance of being “cowards”, adding in a social media post, “We will REMEMBER.”
In a statement following the G7 meeting, member countries reiterated their stance that there should be an “immediate cessation of attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure”.
They also underscored the “absolute necessity to permanently restore safe and toll-free freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz”. But the statement fell short of pledging any resources or aid to the US and Israeli war effort.
Achieving goals ‘without any ground troops’?
It is unclear when the war might end. On Saturday, it reaches its one-month anniversary, having stretched for four weeks.
Rubio on Friday echoed Trump’s assessment that the war was going as planned and that the US was achieving its objectives, including to destroy Iran’s navy, missile stockpiles and uranium enrichment programme.
“ We are ahead of schedule on most of them, and we can achieve them without any ground troops, without any,” he said, addressing an oft-raised concern about the prospect of US troops being deployed to Iran.
Rubio also briefly addressed the increasing levels of Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Footage has shown settlers this month torching Palestinian homes and vehicles, as well as assaulting residents.
On March 19, the United Nations estimated that more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since Israel began its genocidal war in Gaza in October 2023. The international body underscored that a quarter of the victims were youths.
“ Well, we’re concerned about that, and we’ve expressed it. And I think there’s concern in the Israeli government about it, as well,” Rubio responded, adding that it was a “topic we follow very closely”.
He suggested that the Israeli government may take action to stop the violence, though critics argue that Israel has largely turned a blind eye to settler violence.
“Maybe they’re settlers, maybe they’re just street thugs, but they’ve attacked security forces, Israelis, as well. So, I think you’ll see the government going to do something about it,” Rubio said.
Upon taking office for a second term in January 2025, President Trump also moved to cancel sanctions against Israeli settlers accused of grave abuses in the West Bank.
A ‘holy grail for movie nerds’ revived, plus the best movies in L.A.
Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.
In another busy week for new releases, the horror-comedy “Forbidden Fruits” is among the standouts. Having just premiered at SXSW, it is the feature debut for director Meredith Alloway, who co-wrote the screenplay with Lily Houghton, adapting Houghton’s play. Diablo Cody is a producer on the film, and the movie shares a sensibility with her beloved “Jennifer’s Body.”
Set at a Texas shopping mall, the plot follows a group of female employees at a boutique who are secretly a coven of witches after hours. They bring a new employee into their fold. Lili Reinhart, Lola Tung, Victoria Pedretti and Alexandra Shipp star.
Alexandra Shipp, from left, Victoria Pedretti, Lili Reinhart and Lola Tung in the movie “Forbidden Fruits.”
(Sabrina Lantos / Independent Film Co. / Shudder)
Though Katie Walsh gave the film a mixed review, declaring it “essentially the fast fashion of girly pop horror,” the film casts a spell when it is working.
Pedretti in particular is a standout, and Malia Mendez spoke to her about the role. “It asks a lot of people to try to step into a world like this one,” Pedretti said of the film’s knowing, campy style. “And as nerve-racking as it may be to take that big swing, you gotta take the big swing.”
Also opening in L.A. this week is Sofia Coppola’s “Marc by Sofia.” The director’s first documentary, it’s more a snapshot than a definitive portrait of the life and career of her longtime friend, fashion designer Marc Jacobs, as he prepares for his spring 2024 collection. While not as in-depth or revealing as one would hope, the film has a warmth and charm all its own. And anyone feeling nostalgic for ’90s New York after watching the recent TV series “Love Story” will get a buzz from this too.
Larry Karaszewski on ‘Last Summer’
Richard Thomas, left, Barbara Hershey and Bruce Davison in the movie “Last Summer.”
(Warner Archive)
The American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre on Sunday will host the world premiere of a new restoration of the theatrical version of 1969’s “Last Summer,” directed by Frank Perry from a screenplay by Eleanor Perry. Actors Barbara Hershey and Bruce Davison will be there for a Q&A moderated by screenwriter Larry Karaszewski.
“This is one of the holy grails for movie nerds,” says Karaszewski in a recent phone interview. The restoration happened in no small part thanks to his persistent and vocal fandom of the film. Best known for his work with writing partner Scott Alexander (including “Dolemite Is My Name” and “Ed Wood”) and currently a governor in the academy’s writer’s branch, Karaszewski is also a pillar of the repertory scene around Los Angeles, frequently moderating Q&As and an avid moviegoer.
Richard Thomas, left, Barbara Hershey and Bruce Davison in the movie “Last Summer.”
(Warner Archive)
“Last Summer” follows three teenagers (Hershey, Davison and Richard Thomas) whiling away the summer at the beach on New York’s Fire Island. As a certain psychosexual energy escalates among them, winding each other up, they turn their attention to a younger girl (Catherine Burns) and torment her in increasingly sadistic ways.
For her performance, Burns was nominated for an Oscar for supporting actress, while Hershey briefly changed her last name to Seagull after a bird was accidentally injured on set.
In his original July 1969 review, The Times’ Charles Champlin called “Last Summer” “a compelling and disturbing movie, with moments of quite extraordinary power and poignance.”
“This was a movie that people who saw it were just fascinated by,” says Karaszewski. “Even though it came out in ’69, it feels like an important ’70s-style movie, a really rough youth film that used the new freedom that cinema had at that time. But you couldn’t see it.”
Director Frank Perry and screenwriter Eleanor Perry during production of “Last Summer.”
(Warner Archive)
Over time, the rights to the movie changed hands, elements went missing and it became a rarity. Due to an intense rape scene, the movie was also briefly released to some theaters with an X-rating, though Karaszewski says the differences to the R-rated version are minimal — a matter of a few frames and a single word. Released on VHS, “Last Summer” has never been on DVD or Blu-ray. (The Warner Archive label will release a disc of the new restoration later this year.) An edited TV version of the film has circulated, and the last few times “Last Summer” has shown in Los Angeles, it has been from a print discovered at an archive in Australia.
Karaszewski has long had a fascination with the film, one that was only fueled by its inaccessibility.
“It became famous as just, ‘Oh, that’s the movie Larry champions, that’s the movie that Larry won’t stop talking about,’ ” he says. Karaszewski jokes that he won’t know what to do with himself now that his longtime obsession with seeing the film revived has been fulfilled.
“I’ve been championing it so long,” he says. “It could have been just like, ‘Oh, Larry’s a little crazy. He loves this movie.’ And that would’ve been fine too. I’m a person that feels like every movie should have its day in the spotlight.”
The complete Akira Kurosawa in 35mm
An image from Akira Kurosawa’s “Ran.”
(Rialto Pictures)
On Saturday, the Academy Museum launches “Darkness and Humanity: The Complete Akira Kurosawa,” a comprehensive retrospective of the Japanese filmmaker’s 30 existing features, all of which will screen in 35mm. The series opens with two of Kurosawa’s best-known films, “Seven Samurai” and “Rashomon.” Other highlights include “Throne of Blood,” “Ikiru,” “Hidden Fortress,” “Stray Dog,” “High and Low,” “Dreams” and “Ran.” This is a rare opportunity to take in the true breadth of Kurosawa’s work.
Writing about the filmmaker in 2009 to commemorate the centennial of his birth, Dennis Lim said, “The wonder of Akira Kurosawa’s 50-year career is that it was at once remarkably varied and satisfyingly coherent …. But the constant in his films was the principle of heroism, not as a vaporous ideal but a way of life, an awareness of individual agency and personal responsibility in a world that does not always reward or even allow heroic behavior.”
Toshiro Mifune in Akira Kurosawa’s “Yojimbo.”
(Janus Films)
Kurosawa’s influence on other filmmakers around the world has been widely acknowledged. Upon the news of Kurosawa’s death, Steven Spielberg proclaimed him “the visual Shakespeare of our time” and added, “I am deeply saddened by Kurosawa’s death. But what encourages me is that he … is the only director who right until the end of his life continued to make films that were recognized as, or will be recognized as, classics.”
In 1985, while in Los Angeles for a screening of his film “Ran,” Kurosawa described his own work by saying, “I just make up stories and film them. When I am lucky, the stories have a lifelike quality that makes them appealing to people and the film is successful.”
Points of interest
‘To Sleep With Anger’ in 35mm
Actor Danny Glover and director Charles Burnett during production of “To Sleep With Anger.”
(Samuel Goldwyn Company / Photofest)
To celebrate the release of Ashley Clark’s new book “The World of Black Film: A Journey Through Cinematic Blackness in 100 Films,” the UCLA Film and Television Archive will screen Charles Burnett’s 1990 drama “To Sleep With Anger” in 35mm at the Billy Wilder Theater on Sunday. Clark will be there for a book signing, and Burnett will join him for a Q&A.
Recently included as part of The Times’ ranked list of the 101 best Los Angeles movies, “Anger” stars Danny Glover in a galvanizing performance as Harry, an old friend from the South who arrives for an unexpected visit to a family in South Central L.A., upending their lives.
In his book, Clark describes the film as “a singular work with a distinct yet tantalizingly hard-to-pin-down performance from Danny Glover, who, as the inscrutable Harry, flickers between menace and charm, using all of his six-foot-four-inch stature to dominate the frame.”
In a 1990 Times story by David Wallace, Burnett spoke about how the film was meant to evoke a sense of Black cultural history, saying, “I didn’t appreciate the [storytelling] tradition until it disappeared. I had a sense of who I was because of that experience. … This film was an attempt to go back and deal with the past. To tell a story about a story.”
Added Glover: “I think there is a little of Harry in all of us. We’re constantly in conflict between the good side and the other. Harry’s involvement with the dark side is not that uncommon.”
Clark will also appear at the Academy Museum on Monday for the world premiere of Ngozi Onwurah’s restored 1995 film “Welcome II the Terrordome.”
‘Thank You for Smoking’
Aaron Eckhart in the movie “Thank You for Smoking.”
(Dale Robinette / Fox Searchlight Pictures)
On Saturday, Vidiots will host a 20th anniversary screening of Jason Reitman’s debut feature “Thank You for Smoking” in 35mm, with the filmmaker in attendance for a Q&A. Adapted by Reitman from a novel by Christopher Buckley, the film is media satire that follows the misadventures of a lobbyist (Aaron Eckhart) for Big Tobacco. The cast also includes Katie Holmes, Robert Duvall, William H. Macy and Sam Elliott.
In his original review, Kenneth Turan called the movie “that rare film that actually has a sense of humor,” before adding, “Reitman’s script and direction retain the novel’s rhythms and black comic sensibility while at the same time eliminating and/or rearranging large chunks of its plot. He’s also figured out a way to make the story more conventionally audience-friendly without losing the extraordinary bite that made the book so successful.”
I recall an afternoon spent on the Fox lot talking to Reitman and Buckley together for a piece I wrote in 2006. The political climate that the film examines, one of extreme partisanship, has only heightened in the years since.
“The compliment the book always got,” said Reitman at the time, “which I thought was wonderful, was Democrats always thought it was theirs and Republicans always thought it was theirs. Like all good satire, the book was a mirror. … It doesn’t feel like it’s coming from one way or the other. It’s ridiculing both, and hopefully the film does the same thing.”
Clashing with Chavismo’s Prêt-à-Porter Protesters Outside Maduro’s NYC Hearing
Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores appeared this Thursday at the US Southern District Court in lower Manhattan for the second hearing since their extraction in January, this time to argue that the US government’s refusal to let Venezuela foot their legal bill amounts to a constitutional violation. Judge Alvin Hellerstein said he wouldn’t dismiss the case, but no decision was taken over the issue of Maduro’s lawyer fees.
Outside, in the street, New York was doing what New York does, moving fast and with indifference, while dozens of people brought twenty-five years worth of receipts to show to a multitude of pro-Maduro advocates and those leaving the courthouse. This is what I saw.
On the way to 500 Pearl Street, I passed two men wearing matching grey Nike tech sets, the now infamous outfit that Maduro was wearing in the first image after his extraction. They weren’t there for the protest, surprisingly, but your brain does what it does.
I got there around 10 am with a Venezuelan flag, a phone and a jacket that I quickly regretted bringing. Even the maracuchos were struggling with the heat after a while. By the time I arrived, the scene outside the courthouse had long organized itself into two blocs. On one side: baseball jerseys, suits, delivery backpacks, seven and eight-starred flags, and handmade signs. Hanging from a tree like a piñata that had made bad life choices, a Maduro life-size figure in a prison uniform courtesy of artist Jorge Torrealba. A Spanish man held up a sign with the faces of Maduro, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Pedro Sánchez below the word Criminales. A woman from Catatumbo, Zulia held a sign that read Libertad para Fernando Loaiza, the democratically elected mayor of her local government who was detained last March by Maduro security forces and still remains in prison without trial.
On the other side of the barricade, mass produced laminated signs asking for the release of Maduro and Flores and chants delivered with little conviction. The early birds reported that the crowd arrived around 8 am. Although I found no public call from the expected culprits (The People’s Forum, Codepink, and other usual suspects) they assembled around 20 people from different socialist groups, holding our flag with the slightly uncertain grip of someone who had picked it up that morning. Their chants were about US imperialism, sovereignty, and international law. All real things. All also, somehow, beside the point.
The pro-Maduro crowd chanted back: “Free them all.” For a second I thought we were agreeing on the immediate and unconditional release of Venezuelan political prisoners.
When Venezuelan citizens addressed the crowd in Spanish, there was mostly no reaction. Some of them got out a word or two, with the confidence of a born-and-raised Venezuelan yet the persuasiveness of a no sabo kid. When we spoke their language, American English, they either ignored us, flipped us off, or played dumb.
The Venezuelan ensemble erupted into “A mí no me pagaron, yo vine porque quise” (I didn’t get paid, I came because I wanted to) with the exasperated tone of a people who have been chanting this phrase for decades. In the background, a t-shirt with an all caps text stood out: I’M VENEZUELAN. NO PROPAGANDA.
Our Gloria al Bravo Pueblo was sung at least six times, drowning out the chants of the US protesters without fail every single time. Tambores weren’t lacking, either. The chant that carried the morning was ¿Quiénes somos? Venezuela. ¿Qué queremos? Libertad. ¿Qué queremos? Justicia. Over and over.
Maduro expected in court at any minute for a pre-trial hearing.
It’s the first time he has made a public appearance since his last hearing shortly after his capture.
Supporters and opponents have gathered outside the federal courthousepic.twitter.com/O5gOnhVKHm
— Cody Weddle (@coweddle) March 26, 2026
Ironically, the pro-Maduro crowd chanted back: “Free them all.” For a second I thought we were agreeing on the immediate and unconditional release of the 503 political prisoners that Delcy Rodríguez and Diosdado Cabello still refuse to let out. There’s a particular kind of cognitive dissonance that works like a splinter. I started drifting toward the ones within hearing range.
There was a pride flag next to a Free Maduro sign. I asked about Yendri Velázquez, LGBTQ+ activist shot alongside Luis Peche in a targeted attack in Colombia, both of them driven into exile by the regime they exposed. They too await justice to be served. I asked them about the socialist Gran Polo Patriótico bloc that has spent years with the government’s full blessing refusing to address abortion rights or same-sex marriage in the National Assembly. By 2025, Pride in Caracas had been stripped of its activist organizations, and groups that chose to march did so “as discreetly as possible” because of Maduro & Co.’s post-28J crackdown.
Almost everyone was wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh, which made the next question unavoidable. In 2017, then-Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez expressed Venezuela’s desire to restore full ties with Israel. The following year, Maduro welcomed Jerusalem’s Sephardic chief rabbi to Miraflores tweeting about it warmly and awarding him with the Libertadoras y Libertadores medal. Venezuela never stopped trading with Israel either, not even after Chávez cut diplomatic relations. Anti-Zionism is a costume worn for the cameras and removed at Miraflores. A useful one the international left has used to dismiss criticisms against Maduro in the name of anti-imperialism.
The man who spent decades making sure others couldn’t speak now needs a translator to follow the room.
The international left has a type when it comes to diasporas: the refugee, the grieving exile, the cautionary tale of imperialism. Step out of those lines and you become brainwashed, biased, or on somebody’s payroll. We’re victims or foe. Noble savages or CIA plants. The crowd outside the courthouse on Thursday didn’t fit any of those categories, and didn’t try to. They are the people who have spent years being told their grief is too close to be credible and their knowledge too lived-in to count as such.
Around noon, the pro-Maduro contingent quickly cleared out. Clocked out, if you will. The hearing ended at one, giving me just enough time to gather some impressions before heading uptown for my afternoon class.
Those who had been inside began filtering out into the streets and the gathering. Among them was Jorge Torrealba, wearing a colorful outfit and holding a stack of papers. A crowd formed around him immediately. He shuffled through his sketches of the hearing as questions came from every direction: What did he look like? ¿Cómo lo viste? When is the next hearing? Did he say anything?
He looked skinnier, Torrealba said. And quiet. That tracked. Unlike the January arraignment, when Maduro delivered a several-minutes-long speech professing his innocence from the defense table, he said nothing in court on Thursday. Neither did anyone in the audience. He sat in his grey prison uniform with headphones on, jotting notes, occasionally leaning over to whisper to his lawyer through an interpreter.
The man who spent decades making sure others couldn’t speak now needs a translator to follow the room. We didn’t need one to tell each other—and the world—what it costs to have been right for twenty-five years and to finally not have to whisper it.
UCLA star Lauren Betts rewards fans who helped change her life
Lauren Betts arrived at UCLA unsure she could continue playing college basketball.
After a turbulent freshman season at Stanford almost took her out of the game entirely, she joined rising stars Gabriela Jaquez and Kiki Rice in Westwood.
Betts blossomed in three seasons as a Bruin, but none of her games were as special as the final one she played at Pauley Pavilion. During a second-round NCAA tournament win over Oklahoma State on Monday that at times was closer than many expected, Betts dropped a career-high 35 points and nine rebounds to lead UCLA to the Sweet 16.
“This community, the minute that I transferred over here, has just welcomed me with open arms,” Betts said. “The fans have just been so supportive of me through my entire journey, through my mental challenges, through just basketball, everything. I feel like I’ve grown so much, and they have really taken care of me here.
“It’s not even about basketball to me at this point. Like the people, like Coach Cori [Close] said, that we’ve been able to affect and just the difference that we’ve made, I think has been huge. And so for me, like, just to see all the people waving at us at the end of the game was really special.”
Suicide prevention and crisis counseling resources
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, seek help from a professional and call 9-8-8. The United States’ first nationwide three-digit mental health crisis hotline 988 will connect callers with trained mental health counselors. Text “HOME” to 741741 in the U.S. and Canada to reach the Crisis Text Line.
Betts wrote about her journey to joy on March 9 in The Players Tribune, the second time she has spoken or written in detail about her battle with depression and thoughts of taking her own life. She has become well known for not being afraid to be honest about her mental health challenges and being an advocate for those in need of support. It has endeared her to the UCLA community that’s embraced her, along with her teammates.
She wrote that her transparency about suicidal thoughts and an ensuing hospital stay midway through her sophomore season, first with her UCLA teammates, felt like a release from all the anxiety and self doubt that hounded her as she tried to live up to expectations at Stanford and UCLA.
“I want people to know that I’m doing better,” Betts wrote. “But I also want to be very realistic. My mental health isn’t perfect. It’s an ongoing project.”
UCLA center Lauren Betts, left, and teammate Charlisse Leger-Walker laugh together on the bench during Monday’s NCAA tournament game against Oklahoma State.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
Her teammates are in awe of her efforts to be the best person she can on and off the floor.
“She makes everyone better not just because of the basketball player she is, but the leader she is,” said Gianna Kneepkens, a graduate student who transferred from Utah to UCLA. “She challenges us, she pushes us, she just wants what’s best for the team. When people are getting tripled, she’s not worried about, ‘Oh, like, can I get the points?’ She’s seeing who is open so that we can score. So I just have had such a great time playing with Lauren and she’s one of the biggest reasons I came here.”
During the Oklahoma State win, UCLA led from wire to wire. But the Cowgirls outscored the Bruins in the second half and the Bruins’ shooting fizzled out during a tense third quarter. Betts, however, didn’t falter.
Her 35 points came in just 34 minutes. She was 15 of 19 from the field and nearly reached a double-double with nine rebounds.
Betts had long established herself as one of the best players in the country, but she doesn’t lead the nation in scoring, in part, because UCLA is a balanced team with many scoring options. Her performance against Oklahoma State was a reminder that she is still the Bruins’ most formidable player and remains the heart of the program’s push to win a national championship.
“That [scoring is] always in her bag,” Jaquez said. “Maybe some nights she passes more, but that’s just what makes her so special. She’s going to win 99% of her matchups.”
UCLA’s offense runs through its star center even with some of the best shooters in the country. Their starting lineup spaces the floor, with former Washington State leading scorer Charlisse Leger-Walker as a fifth option.
“She puts a lot of pressure on herself a lot of the time and always blames herself when she shouldn’t be and no one else is thinking that way,” Leger-Walker said of Betts. “And I think over this past year, she’s really been working on trying to not do that so she can be the best she can for this team. We obviously need her to be confident, just being able to trust herself, because that is what is going to make our team so much better.”
UCLA center Lauren Betts shoots the ball during the Bruins’ NCAA tournament win over Oklahoma State at Pauley Pavilion on Monday.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
There are games that often belong to someone else. Jaquez has turned in big games this season and Rice was the Big Ten tournament most outstanding player. The Bruins have featured six different leading scorers across all games this season.
But it still always comes back to Betts, who has been UCLA’s top scorer a team high 14 times.
“Lauren is one of those players that is always so dominant,” Leger-Walker said after the win over Oklahoma State. “I didn’t even know until she came out that she had 30-something [points.] I was like, ‘Yeah, what the heck?’ That’s just her, you know, she’s a bucket. And she’s gonna always be dominant in that fashion and she is just such an impact player for this team.”
Betts’ 27 minutes, 17.1 points and 8.7 rebounds per game are slightly down from last season. Her 3.2 assists per game are slightly up. Her role, like many other UCLA players, has evolved to fit the star-studded lineup.
In the same way Leger-Walker went from a three-point sniper to a point guard or Rice went from a distributor to a shooter and Jaquez from a hoop driver to a three-level scorer, Betts transformed from a post-up only scorer to the conductor of the Bruins’ office in the middle of the floor.
“She anchors us on both ends, down in the paint, especially defensively,” Rice said. “Her ability to switch out on guards and play on the perimeter and help us out is really, really big. And obviously offensively, she’s such a big offensive player.”
If the Bruins do win a national title, it’ll be on the back of their star. Sure, UCLA is a team full of them, but Betts is still, as Jaquez describes her, “that girl.”
For one last run, Betts can be that for a community and team where she’s found not just acceptance, but true celebration.
“I think she’s found a really deep purpose,” Close said. “And when you can use your pain for great purpose and other centeredness to have an incredible legacy in the lives of others, that’s an incredible gift. But it’s a gift that she’s worked really, really hard for.”




















