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  • Washington Post cuts a third of its staff in a blow to a legendary brand

    Washington Post cuts a third of its staff in a blow to a legendary brand

    The Washington Post laid off one-third of its staff Wednesday, eliminating its sports section, several foreign bureaus, and its books coverage in a widespread purge that represented a brutal blow to journalism and one of its most legendary brands.

    The Post’s executive editor, Matt Murray, called the move painful but necessary to put the outlet on stronger footing and to weather changes in technology and user habits. “We can’t be everything to everyone,” Murray said in a note to staff members.

    He outlined the changes in a companywide online meeting, and staff members then began getting emails with one of two subject lines — telling them their role was or was not eliminated.

    Rumors of layoffs had circulated for weeks, ever since word leaked that sports reporters who had expected to travel to Italy for the Winter Olympics would not be going. But when official word came down, the size and scale of the cuts were shocking, affecting virtually every department in the newsroom.

    “It’s just devastating news for anyone who cares about journalism in America and, in fact, the world,” said Margaret Sullivan, a Columbia University journalism professor and former media columnist at the Post and the New York Times. “The Washington Post has been so important in so many ways, in news coverage, sports and cultural coverage.”

    Martin Baron, the Post’s first editor under its current owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos, condemned his former boss and called what has happened at the newspaper “a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction.”

    Journalists pleaded with Bezos for help

    Bezos, who has been silent in recent weeks amid pleas from Post journalists to step in and prevent the cutbacks, had no immediate comment.

    The newspaper has been bleeding subscribers in part due to decisions made by Bezos, including pulling back from an endorsement of Kamala Harris, a Democrat, during the 2024 presidential election against Donald Trump, a Republican, and directing a more conservative turn on liberal opinion pages.

    A private company, the Post does not reveal how many subscribers it has, but it is believed to be roughly 2 million. The Post would also not say how many people it has on staff, although the New York Times estimated that more than 300 journalists were let go.

    The Post’s troubles stand in contrast to its longtime competitor the New York Times, which has been thriving in recent years, in large part due to investments in ancillary products such as games and its Wirecutter product recommendations. The Times has doubled its staff over the past decade.

    Eliminating the sports section puts an end to a department that has hosted many well-known bylines through the years, among them John Feinstein, Michael Wilbon, Shirley Povich, Sally Jenkins, and Tony Kornheiser. The Times has also largely ended its sports section, but it has replaced the coverage by buying The Athletic and incorporating its work into the Times website.

    The Post’s Book World, a destination for book reviews, literary news and author interviews, has been a dedicated section in its Sunday paper.

    A half-century ago, the Post’s coverage of Watergate, led by intrepid reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, entered the history books. The Style section under longtime Executive Editor Ben Bradlee hosted some of the country’s best feature writing.

    All Mideast correspondents and editors laid off

    Word of specific cuts drifted out during the day, as when Cairo Bureau Chief Claire Parker announced on X that she had been laid off, along with all of the newspaper’s Middle East correspondents and editors. “Hard to understand the logic,” she wrote.

    Lizzie Johnson, who wrote last week about covering a war zone in Ukraine without power, heat, or running water, said she had been laid off, too.

    Anger and sadness spread across the journalism world.

    “The Post has survived for nearly 150 years, evolving from a hometown family newspaper into an indispensable national institution, and a pillar of the democratic system,” Ashley Parker, a former Post journalist, wrote in an essay in The Atlantic. But if the paper’s leadership continues its current path, “it may not survive much longer.”

    Fearing for the future, Parker was among the staff members who left the newspaper for other jobs in recent months.

    Atlanta paper also makes cuts

    Also on Wednesday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which stopped print editions and went all-digital at the end of last year, announced that it was cutting 50 positions, or roughly 15% of its staff. Half of the eliminated jobs were in the newsroom.

    Murray said the Post would concentrate on areas that demonstrate authority, distinctiveness and impact, and resonate with readers, including politics, national affairs, and security. Even during its recent troubles, the Post has been notably aggressive in coverage of Trump’s changes to the federal workforce.

    The company’s structure is rooted in a different era, when the Post was a dominant print product, Murray said in his note to the staff. In areas such as video, the outlet hasn’t kept up with consumer habits, he said.

    “Significantly, our daily story output has substantially fallen in the last five years,” he said. “And even as we produce much excellent work, we too often write from one perspective, for one slice of the audience.”

    While there are business areas that need to be addressed, Baron pointed a finger of blame at Bezos — for a “gutless” order to kill a presidential endorsement and for remaking an editorial page that stands out only for “moral infirmity” and “sickening” efforts to curry favor with Trump.

    “Loyal readers, livid as they saw owner Jeff Bezos betraying the values he was supposed to uphold, fled The Post,” Baron wrote. “In truth, they were driven away, by the hundreds of thousands.”

    Baron said he was grateful for Bezos’ support when he was editor, noting that the Amazon founder came under brutal pressure from Trump during the president’s first term.

    “He spoke forcefully and eloquently of a free press and The Post’s mission, demonstrating his commitment in concrete terms,” Baron wrote. “He often declared that The Post’s success would be among the proudest achievements of his life. I wish I detected the same spirit today. There is no sign of it.”

  • Chuck Negron, lead singer on ‘Joy to the World’ and other Three Dog Night hits, has died at 83

    Chuck Negron, lead singer on ‘Joy to the World’ and other Three Dog Night hits, has died at 83

    NEW YORK — Chuck Negron, a founding member of the soul-rock sensations Three Dog Night who sang lead on such hits as “One” and “Just an Old Fashioned Love Song“ and hollered the immortal opening line “Jeremiah was a bullfrog!” on the chart-topping “Joy to the World,” died Monday. He was 83.

    He died of complications from heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at his home in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles, according to publicist Zach Farnum.

    Mr. Negron and fellow vocalists Cory Wells and Danny Hutton were Los Angeles-based performers who began working together in the mid-1960s, originally called themselves Redwood and settled on Three Dog Night, Australian slang for frigid outback weather. Between 1969 and 1974, they were among the world’s most successful acts, with 18 top 20 singles and 12 albums certified gold for selling at least 500,000 copies.

    The group contributed little of its own material, but proved uniquely adept at interpreting others, reworking songs by such rising stars of the time as Randy Newman (“Mama Told Me Not to Come”), Paul Williams (“Just an Old-Fashioned Love Song”), and Laura Nyro (“Eli’s Coming”). No matter the originator, the sound was unmistakably Three Dog Night: The trio of stars worked themselves into a raved-up, free-for-all passion, as if each singer were attempting to vault in front of the others. “The Kings of Oversing,” the Village Voice would call them.

    Three Dog Night was so popular, and so in demand, it released four albums within 18 months. In December 1972, the band hosted and performed on the inaugural edition of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.

    “We were really on a roll and very prolific,” Mr. Negron told smashinginterviews.com in 2013. “We were in the zone so to speak and really putting it out there. Back then, I don’t think it hurt us. It started hurting a little after that when there was just too much product. We were going to towns too many times a year. I remember getting off a plane in Dallas and thinking, ‘Wait a second. Weren’t we just here?’ Just thinking, ‘Oh, God, how are we going to sell out?’”

    Well, hello Jeremiah

    Mr. Negron himself stood out for his drooping mustache, in contrast to his clean-shaven peers, and for his multioctave tenor. He helped transform “One,” a Harry Nilsson ballad, from a breakup song to a cry of helpless solitude. And he helped convince Wells and Hutton not to pass on what became their most famous song.

    “Joy to the World,” written by Hoyt Axton, shared the title and little else with the 18th century English hymn. Axton’s novelty anthem was a secular blessing — “Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me” — with carefree asides about women, rainbow-riding, and the friendship of a wine-guzzling bullfrog named Jeremiah. According to Mr. Negron, the other singers had twice turned down “Joy to the World” in his absence before Axton played him a demo.

    “When he started, I liked it immediately. I thought we could have some fun with it,” Mr. Negron told forbes.com in 2022. “We had some free time later, so we started jamming ‘Joy’ for fun. We didn’t have to be so cool all of the time, right? That opening line had to be screamed. Did that guy just say, ‘Jeremiah was a bullfrog’? I got up the scale to D, which is pretty high, and just screamed it out. When the band heard that, they went, ‘Holy crap, that’s great.‘”

    No one seemed to care what “Jeremiah was a bullfrog!” was supposed to mean; it became a catchphrase of the era. “Joy to the World” outsold all other songs in 1971, received two Grammy nominations and lived on through oldies radio stations and movie soundtracks, notably for The Big Chill and Forrest Gump. The song caught on so fast, and for so long, that Three Dog Night performed it at back-to-back Grammy ceremonies.

    Their other hits included “Black and White,” “Celebrate,” “Shambala,” and “Easy to Be Hard.” But by the mid-1970s, the band was burned out, feuding and self-destructing. They broke up in 1976, attempted the occasional reunion and settled in as an oldies act, with Hutton the only remaining original singer. Wells died in 2015, while Mr. Negron had dropped out for good in the mid-1980s, when his drug problems led to his being fired.

    Mr. Negron would call his memoir, published in 1998 and reissued 20 years later, Three Dog Nightmare. Chapter titles included “Making Millions and Stoned All the Time” and “Threw Up My Guts and Loved It.”

    After decades of estrangement between him and Hutton, the two men reconciled last year.

    Mr. Negron was married four times, most recently to his manager, Ami Albea Negron, and he is survived by five children His previous wives include Julie Densmore, former wife of drummer John Densmore of the Doors.

    Surviving a rock star’s life

    Born Charles Negron II in 1942, he was a New York City native who was still a toddler when his parents broke up: For a time, Negron lived in a foster home because his mother couldn’t afford to raise him and his twin sister, Nancy. He initially dreamed of playing basketball, but his life changed in adolescence when his best friend convinced him to try singing. He won a school talent show, and was soon singing professionally, at the Apollo and other venues around New York.

    After graduating from Hancock, a junior college in Santa Maria, Calif., Mr. Negron performed in clubs in Los Angeles and met Wells and Hutton, whose friends included Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. They nearly signed with the Beach Boys’ Brothers Records before Wilson’s band mates, worried that their leader was using up his talents elsewhere, intervened. Mr. Negron, Wells and Hutton ended up at ABC-Dunhill, and recruited a backing band, including Floyd Sneed on drums, Joe Schermie on bass and Jimmy Greenspoon on keyboards.

    In his post-Three Dog Night years, Mr. Negron released several solo albums, including Joy to the World and Long Road Back, a companion to his memoir, and otherwise dedicated himself to helping others struggling with substance abuse. Before cleaning up in the 1990s — Sept. 17, 1991 — he had been so addicted to heroin and other drugs that he nearly died numerous times, lost his family and all of his money and descended from a luxurious villa in Hollywood Hills to sleeping on a mattress in a vacant lot.

    “That’s what drugs do. I don’t care if it gives you a hit song. What does it matter?” he told smashinginterviews.com. “The point is not if it helps you create, the point is it kills you! Are you willing to die because you wanted to try drugs to try a new experience? That’s the question. I’m in a town here where there are many who ain’t the same and never will be.”

  • Disney parks chief Josh D’Amaro will succeed Bob Iger as CEO

    Disney parks chief Josh D’Amaro will succeed Bob Iger as CEO

    Disney has named its parks chief Josh D’Amaro to succeed Bob Iger as the entertainment giant’s top executive.

    D’Amaro will become the ninth CEO in the more than 100-year-old company’s history. He has overseen the company’s theme parks, cruises, and resorts since 2020. The so-called Experiences division has been a substantial moneymaker for Disney, with $36 billion in annual revenue in fiscal 2025 and 185,000 employees worldwide.

    The 54-year-old takes over a time when Disney is flush with box-office hits such as Zootopia 2 and Avatar: Fire and Ash and its streaming business is strong. At the same time, Disney has seen a decline in foreign visitors to its domestic theme parks. Tourism to the U.S. has fallen overall during an aggressive immigration crack down by the Trump administration, as well as clashes with almost all of country’s trading partners.

    The decision on the next chief executive at Disney comes almost four years after the company’s choice to replace Iger went disastrously, forcing Iger back into the job.

    Only two years after stepping down as CEO, Iger returned to Disney in 2022 after a period of clashes, missteps ,and a weakening financial performance under his hand-picked successor, Bob Chapek.

    Disney meticulously and methodically sought out its next CEO this time. The company created a succession planning committee in 2023, but the search began in earnest in 2024 when Disney enlisted James Gorman, who is currently Disney’s chairman and previously served as Morgan Stanley’s executive chairman, to lead the effort. That still gave it ample opportunity to vet candidates, as Iger agreed to a contract extension.

    Disney said that Iger will continue to serve as a senior adviser and board member until his retirement from the company at the end of the year.

    While external candidates were considered, it was widely expected that Disney would look internally for the next CEO. The advantage would be that Disney executives were already being mentored by Iger, and had extensive contact with the company’s 15 board members, of which Iger is a member.

    Disney is unique in that its top executive must oversee a sprawling entertainment company with branches reaching in every direction, while also serving as an unusually public figure.

    D’Amaro and Disney Entertainment co-chair Dana Walden quickly emerged as the front-runners for the top job.

    D’Amaro, who has been with Disney since 1998, has been leading the charge on Disney’s multiyear $60 billion investment into its cruise ships, resorts, and theme parks. He also oversees Walt Disney Imagineering, which is in charge of the design and development of the company’s theme parks, resorts, cruise ships, and immersive experiences worldwide. In addition, D’Amaro has been leading Disney’s licensing business, which includes its partnership with Epic Games.

    “Throughout this search process, Josh has demonstrated a strong vision for the company’s future and a deep understanding of the creative spirit that makes Disney unique in an ever-changing marketplace,” Gorman said in prepared remarks. “He has an outstanding record of business achievement, collaborating with some of the biggest names in entertainment to bring their stories to life in our parks, showcasing the power of combining Disney storytelling with cutting-edge technology.”

    In her most recent role as co-chair of Disney Entertainment, Walden has helped oversee Disney’s streaming business, along with its entertainment media, news, and content businesses. She joined Disney in 2019. Before that, Walden spent 25 years at 21st Century Fox and was CEO of Fox Television Group.

    Walden will now step into the newly created role of chief creative officer of the Walt Disney Co. She will report to D’Amaro.

    “I think if you think about what is the heart of the Disney company, it’s the creativity. It’s this amazing IP that’s been produced over decades, going back to Walt, and the storytelling that comes from that creativity. And I think Dana, working with Josh and ensuring that the best creativity permeates all of our businesses, is what we wanted,” Gorman said in an interview with CNBC.

    There had been speculation that Disney might go the route of naming co-CEOs, a move that has started to become more popular with companies. Oracle and Spotify are among those who named co-CEOs in 2025.

    D’Amaro and Walden’s appointments are effective on March 18.

  • Woodie King Jr., founder of powerhouse off-Broadway New Federal Theatre, has died at 88

    Woodie King Jr., founder of powerhouse off-Broadway New Federal Theatre, has died at 88

    NEW YORK — Woodie King Jr., an actor, director, and producer who founded the New Federal Theatre to give voice and employment to Black playwrights, actors, directors, designers, and young people entering the American theater, has died. He was 88.

    His off-Broadway theater company said Mr. King died Thursday at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City of complications from emergency heart surgery.

    Mr. King was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2012 and received the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre in 2020.

    “We have lost a giant,” said Emmy Award-winning actor and educator Erin Cherry on Instagram. “I am here because of Woodie King Jr. My very first introduction to the Black theater scene was the play ‘Knock Me a Kiss’ produced by New Federal Theatre. It changed my life. I’m forever grateful.”

    The New Federal Theatre produced such key works as Black Girl by J.E. Franklin, The Taking of Miss Janie by Ed Bullins — which jumped to Lincoln Center and won the Drama Critics Circle Award — and For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange, which landed on Broadway in 1976 and was nominated for the best new play Tony Award.

    The New Federal Theatre was a springboard for many playwrights, including Charles Fuller — later to win the Pulitzer Prize for A Soldier’s Play — who premiered two plays — In My Many Names and Days and The Candidate. David Henry Hwang premiered The Dance and the Railroad at the New Federal and would later win the Tony for M. Butterfly.

    Some performers who got early career boosts thanks to the company include Chadwick Boseman, Debbie Allen, Morgan Freeman, Phylicia Rashad, Denzel Washington, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Samuel L. Jackson, and Issa Rae.

    Mr. King was born in Alabama, raised in Detroit, and earned his bachelor’s degree from Lehman College and later his master’s from Brooklyn College. He served as the cultural director of Mobilization for Youth for five years, before founding New Federal Theatre in 1970.

    Mr. King is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Van Dyke, and his three children, Geoffrey King, Michael King, and Michelle King Huger, whom he shared with ex-wife Willie Mae Washington, as well as five grandchildren.

    Tyler Fauntleroy, an actor who has toured in Hamilton, took to Instagram to recall working at the New Federal in 2019 on a show called Looking for Leroy that would change his career. “His belief in me came at a time when my own was at an all-time low. What a champion he was for Black artists. It was an honor to witness. Thank you, sir and rest easy.”

  • X.J. Kennedy, 96, prize-winning poet and educator

    X.J. Kennedy, 96, prize-winning poet and educator

    NEW YORK — X.J. Kennedy, an award-winning poet, author, translator, and educator who schooled millions of students through The Bedford Reader and other textbooks and engaged voluntary readers with his children’s stories and intricate, witty verse, died Sunday at 96.

    Mr. Kennedy died of natural causes at his home in Peabody, Mass., according to his daughter, Kate Kennedy.

    Born Joseph Charles Kennedy, he chose the professional name X.J. Kennedy as a young man to avoid confusion with Joseph P. Kennedy, the former ambassador to Britain and father of President John F. Kennedy. Starting in the early 1960s, he turned out dozens of poetry and children’s books, contributed to the popular Bedford Reader and collaborated with the poet and onetime National Endowment for the Arts chair Dana Gioia on anthologies of poetry, drama, and fiction.

    “I write for three separate audiences: children, college students (who use textbooks), and that small band of people who still read poetry,” Mr. Kennedy once observed.

    The Bedford Reader, established in the early 1980s, is a widely used composition book for college students that has included everything from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech to the classic Shirley Jackson story “The Lottery.” Mr. Kennedy edited the Reader along with his wife, Dorothy; Jane E. Aaron and Ellen Kuhl Repetto. The goal, they stated, was “to show you how good writers write” and not to feel “glum if at first you find an immense gap” between yourself, and, say, E.B. White.

    Mr. Kennedy’s poems, some published in the New Yorker and the Atlantic, were rhyming vignettes on everyday and macabre matter such as bartending, aging, and the discovery of a severed arm. They were brief, often light-hearted in tone and dark and unsettling in content. In Innocent Times, Mr. Kennedy mocks the idea that the country was better off during the “Mad Man” era, looking back to when doctors “puffed their cigarettes” and “cheap thermometer and thermostat/leaked jets of mercury like poison darts.” The poem Fireflies shifts abruptly from the calm of a twilight lawn to the horrors of the war on terrorism.

    Complacently we watched them glow

    Like kindly lantern lights that sift

    Through palm fronds in Guantánamo

    On the torture squad’s night shift

    His awards included a Los Angeles Times book prize, the Poetry Society of America’s Robert Frost Medal for lifetime achievement, and the Jackson prize from Poets & Writers for an “American poet of exceptional talent who deserves wider recognition.” He taught English at the University of Michigan, the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina (now UNC-Greensboro), and Tufts University, among other schools. In the 1970s, he served as the Paris Review’s poetry editor.

    A native of Dover, N.J., he was an intrepid young man who wrote and published science fiction and helped found the Spectator Amateur Press Association, a leading science fiction fandom organization whose members have included Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, and Lenny Kaye. After attending Seton Hall and Columbia University, Mr. Kennedy served briefly in the Navy in the 1950s. At the University of Michigan, he worked for several years on a Ph.D. in the 1950s and 1960s and never finished his dissertation. But he did meet his future wife and professional collaborator, Dorothy Mintzlaff, who died in 2018. They had five children and six grandchildren.

    His first book, Nude Descending a Staircase: Poems, Songs, a Ballad, was published in 1961. His children’s books included One Winter Night in August and Other Nonsense Jingles and the novel The Owlstone Crown, while In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus is a compilation of poems from 1955 to 2007 that ends with a bon voyage for the text itself.

    Go, slothful book. Just go

    Fifty years slopping around the house in your sock-feet

    Sucking up to a looking-glass

    Rehearsing your face. Why

    Don’t you get a job?

  • Son of Norway’s crown princess arrested on new allegations ahead of his rape trial

    Son of Norway’s crown princess arrested on new allegations ahead of his rape trial

    OSLO, Norway — The eldest son of Norway’s crown princess has been arrested over new allegations, police said Monday, a day ahead of his trial on charges including rape in a case that has been an embarrassment to the royal family.

    Marius Borg Høiby was arrested on Sunday evening and is accused of assault, threats with a knife, and violation of a restraining order, police said in a statement. Norwegian media quoted police as saying the offenses allegedly took place over the weekend.

    On Monday, the Oslo district court granted their request to keep him in detention for up to four weeks on the grounds of a risk of reoffending.

    Defense lawyer Petar Sekulic told the Associated Press that the arrest followed an alleged “incident” involving another person on Sunday. He declined to give details, but said Høiby contests his detention and his legal team was considering an appeal as soon as he and the other person can provide statements to police.

    With his trial opening on Tuesday, police won’t be able to hear those statements any sooner than this weekend, when the proceedings take a scheduled break, Sekulic said.

    On Tuesday, Høiby faces an indictment including 38 counts at the Oslo court. They include rape, abuse in a close relationship against one former partner, acts of violence against another, and transporting 7.7 pounds of marijuana. Other charges include making death threats and traffic violations.

    Høiby has been under scrutiny since he was repeatedly arrested in 2024 on various allegations of wrongdoing. He was indicted in August, but had been free pending trial until Sunday.

    Høiby is the son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit from a previous relationship and stepson of the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Haakon. He has no royal title or official duties.

    The indictment centers on four alleged rapes between 2018 and November 2024; alleged violence and threats against a former partner between the summer of 2022 and the fall of 2023; and two alleged acts of violence against a subsequent partner, along with violations of a restraining order.

    Høiby’s defense team has said that he “denies all charges of sexual abuse, as well as the majority of the charges regarding violence.”

    Haakon said last week that he and Mette-Marit don’t plan to attend court and that the royal house doesn’t intend to comment during the proceedings, which are scheduled to last until March 19.

    He emphasized that Høiby isn’t part of the royal house and that, as a citizen of Norway, he has the same responsibilities and rights as all others. He said that he’s confident that all concerned will make the trial as orderly, proper, and fair as possible.

    While the royals are generally popular in Norway, the Høiby case has cast a shadow on their image. And the trial is opening just as his mother faces renewed scrutiny over her contacts with Jeffrey Epstein.

    Friday’s release of the latest batch of documents from the Epstein files shone an unflattering spotlight on Mette-Marit. They contained several hundred mentions of the crown princess, who already said in 2019 that she regretted having had contact with Epstein, Norwegian media reported.

    The newly released documents, which include email exchanges with Epstein, showed that Mette-Marit borrowed a property of Epstein’s in Palm Beach, Fla., for several days in early 2013, and the royal house confirmed that she did so through a mutual friend, broadcaster NRK reported.

    In a statement emailed by the royal house, Mette-Marit said that she “must take responsibility for not having investigated Epstein’s background more thoroughly, and for not realizing sooner what kind of person he was.”

    “I deeply regret this, and it is a responsibility I must bear. I showed poor judgment and regret having had any contact with Epstein at all,” she said. “It is simply embarrassing.”

    She expressed her “deep sympathy and solidarity” with the victims of Epstein’s abuse.

    Mette-Marit’s contacts with Epstein and the Høiby trial aren’t the only source of negative publicity for Norway’s royals. The business ventures of Haakon’s sister, Princess Märtha Louise, have drawn repeated criticism. In 2024, around the same time Høiby’s case was making news, she married an American self-professed shaman, Durek Verrett.

  • Kennedy Center will close for 2 years for renovations in July, Trump says, after performers backlash

    Kennedy Center will close for 2 years for renovations in July, Trump says, after performers backlash

    WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says he will move to close Washington’s Kennedy Center performing arts venue for two years starting in July for construction.

    Trump’s announcement on social media Sunday night follows a wave of cancellations since Trump ousted the previous leadership and added his name to the building.

    Trump announced his plan days after the premier of Melania, a documentary about the first lady, was shown at the storied venue. The proposal, he said, is subject to approval by the board of the Kennedy Center, which has been stocked with his hand-picked allies.

    Leading performing arts groups have pulled out of appearances, most recently composer Philip Glass, who announced his decision to withdraw his Symphony No. 15 “Lincoln” because he said the values of the center today are in “direct conflict” with the message of the piece.

    “This important decision, based on input from many Highly Respected Experts, will take a tired, broken, and dilapidated Center, one that has been in bad condition, both financially and structurally for many years, and turn it into a World Class Bastion of Arts, Music, and Entertainment,” Trump wrote in his post.

  • Demond Wilson, who played Lamont on ‘Sanford and Son,’ has died at 79

    Demond Wilson, who played Lamont on ‘Sanford and Son,’ has died at 79

    Demond Wilson, who found fame in the 1970s playing Lamont on Sanford and Son and went on to become a minister, has died. He was 79.

    Mark Goldman, a publicist for Mr. Wilson, confirmed to the Associated Press that he died following complications from cancer on Friday.

    “A devoted father, actor, author, and minister, Demond lived a life rooted in faith, service, and compassion. Through his work on screen, his writing, and his ministry, he sought to uplift others and leave a meaningful impact on the communities he served,” Goldman said in an emailed statement.

    Mr. Wilson was best known as the son of Redd Foxx’s comically cantankerous Fred Sanford character in a sitcom that was among the first to feature a mostly Black cast when it began airing in 1972.

    The thoughtful Lamont had to put up with his junkyard owner father’s schemes, bigotry, and insults — most famously, and repeatedly, “You big dummy!”

    The show was a hit for its six seasons on NBC but ended when ABC offered Foxx a variety show.

    Mr. Wilson was born in Valdosta, Ga., and grew up in the Harlem section of Manhattan, according to the biography on his website.

    He served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and was wounded there, and he returned to New York and acted on stage before heading to Hollywood.

    A guest appearance on All in the Family in 1971 led to his best-known role. Norman Lear produced both shows.

    Mr. Wilson told AP in 2022 that he got the role over comedian Richard Pryor.

    “I said, ‘C’mon, you can’t put a comedian with a comedian. You’ve got to have a straight man,’” he said he told the producers.

    After Sanford and Son ended, Mr. Wilson starred in the shorter-lived comedies Baby I’m Back and The New Odd Couple. He later appeared in four episodes of the show Girlfriends in the 2000s, along with a handful of movie roles.

    Though he returned to the screen at times, he told the Los Angeles Times in 1986 that the acting life was not for him: “It wasn’t challenging. And it was emotionally exhausting because I had to make it appear that I was excited about what I was doing.”

    Mr. Wilson became a minister in the 1980s.

    He is survived by his wife, Cicely Wilson, and their six children.

  • Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Iranian drama ‘It Was Just an Accident’ arrested in Tehran

    Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Iranian drama ‘It Was Just an Accident’ arrested in Tehran

    One of the Oscar-nominated screenwriters of the Iranian drama It Was Just an Accident has been arrested in Tehran just weeks before the Academy Awards.

    Representatives for the film on Sunday said that Mehdi Mahmoudian was arrested Saturday. No details on the charges against Mahmoudian were available. But his arrest came just days after Mahmoudian and 16 others signed a statement condemning Islamic Republic leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the regime’s violent crackdown on demonstrators.

    Two other signatories, Vida Rabbani and Abdullah Momeni, were also arrested.

    Jafar Panahi, the prize-winning director of It Was Just an Accident, issued a statement Sunday decrying his co-writer’s arrest.

    “Mehdi Mahmoudian is not just a human-rights activist and a prisoner of conscience; he is a witness, a listener, and a rare moral presence — a presence whose absence is immediately felt, both inside prison walls and beyond them,” Panahi said.

    Panahi was also a signatory on the Jan. 28 statement. It reads in part: “The mass and systematic killing of citizens who bravely took to the streets to bring an end to an illegitimate regime constitutes an organized state crime against humanity.”

    It Was Just an Accident is nominated for best screenplay and best international film at the March 15 Oscars. The film, made covertly in Iran, was France’s nominee for best international film.

    Panahi, one of the most acclaimed international filmmakers, has made films through various states of imprisonment, house arrest, and travel ban. It Was Just an Accident, a revenge drama and the Palme d’Or-winner at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, was inspired by Panahi’s most recent stint in prison. It was there that he met Mahmoudian. Panahi called him “a pillar” to other prisoners.

    It Was Just An Accident was written by Panahi, Mahmoudian, Nader Saeiver, and Shadhmer Rastin.

    Last fall, Panahi was again sentenced to a year in prison and given a two-year ban on leaving Iran after being convicted on charges of “propaganda activities against the system.” Panahi, who has been traveling internationally with the film, has said he will return to Iran despite the sentence.

    The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists New Agency, which relies on a network inside Iran to verify its information, says that more than 6,713 people have been killed and 49,500 people have been detained in the recent government crackdown. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the death toll and arrest figures, given that authorities have cut Iran’s internet off from the rest of the world.

    Panahi has repeatedly spoken out against the crackdown.

    “As we stand here, the state of Iran is gunning down protesters and a savage massacre continues blatantly on the streets of Iran,” Panahi said last month at the National Board of Review Awards in New York. “Today the real scene is not on screens but on the streets of Iran. The Islamic Republic has caused a bloodbath to delay its collapse.”

  • Journalist Don Lemon is charged with federal civil rights crimes in anti-ICE church protest

    Journalist Don Lemon is charged with federal civil rights crimes in anti-ICE church protest

    LOS ANGELES — Journalist Don Lemon was released from custody Friday after he was arrested and hit with federal civil rights charges over his coverage of an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a service at a Minnesota church.

    Lemon was arrested Thursday while across the country in Los Angeles, while another independent journalist and two protest participants were arrested in Minnesota. He struck a confident, defiant tone while speaking to reporters after a court appearance in California.

    “I have spent my entire career covering the news. I will not stop now,” Lemon said. “In fact there is no more important time than right now, this very moment, for a free and independent media that shines a light on the truth and holds those in power accountable.”

    3 people involved in a Minnesota church protest are arrested

    The arrests brought sharp criticism from news media advocates and civil rights activists including the Rev. Al Sharpton, who said the Trump administration is taking a “sledgehammer” to “the knees of the First Amendment.”

    The four were charged with conspiracy and interfering with the First Amendment rights of worshipers during the Jan. 18 protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul, where a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official is a pastor.

    In federal court in Los Angeles, Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Robbins argued for a $100,000 bond, telling a judge that Lemon “knowingly joined a mob that stormed into a church.” He was released, however, without having to post money and was granted permission to travel to France in June while the case is pending.

    Defense attorney Marilyn Bednarski said Lemon plans to plead not guilty and fight the charges.

    Lemon, who was fired from CNN in 2023 following a bumpy run as a morning host, has said he has no affiliation to the organization that went into the church and he was there as a solo journalist chronicling protesters.

    “Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done,” his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement. “The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable.”

    Attorney General Pam Bondi promoted the arrests on social media.

    “Make no mistake. Under President Trump’s leadership and this administration, you have the right to worship freely and safely,” Bondi said in a video posted online. “And if I haven’t been clear already, if you violate that sacred right, we are coming after you.”

    ‘Keep trying’

    Since he left CNN, Lemon has joined the legion of journalists who have gone into business for himself, posting regularly on YouTube. He hasn’t hidden his disdain for President Donald Trump. Yet during his online show from the church, he said repeatedly: “I’m not here as an activist. I’m here as a journalist.” He described the scene before him, and interviewed churchgoers and demonstrators.

    A magistrate judge last week rejected prosecutors’ initial bid to charge the veteran journalist. Shortly after, he predicted on his show that the administration would try again.

    “And guess what,” he said. “Here I am. Keep trying. That’s not going to stop me from being a journalist. That’s not going to diminish my voice. Go ahead, make me into the new Jimmy Kimmel, if you want. Just do it. Because I’m not going anywhere.”

    Georgia Fort livestreamed the moments before her arrest, telling viewers that agents were at her door and her First Amendment right as a journalist was being diminished.

    A judge released Fort, Trahern Crews, and Jamael Lundy on bond, rejecting the Justice Department’s attempt to keep them in custody. Not guilty pleas were entered. Fort’s supporters in the courtroom clapped and whooped.

    “It’s a sinister turn of events in this country,” Fort’s attorney, Kevin Riach, said in court.

    Discouraging scrutiny

    Jane Kirtley, a media law and ethics expert at the University of Minnesota, said the federal laws cited by the government were not intended to apply to reporters gathering news.

    The charges against Lemon and Fort, she said, are “pure intimidation and government overreach.”

    Some experts and activists said the charges were not only an attack on press freedoms but also a strike against Black Americans who count on Black journalists to bear witness to injustice and oppression.

    The National Association of Black Journalists said it was “outraged and deeply alarmed” by Lemon’s arrest. The group called it an effort to “criminalize and threaten press freedom under the guise of law enforcement.”

    Crews is a leader of Black Lives Matter Minnesota who has led many protests and actions for racial justice, particularly following George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis in 2020.

    After Trump administration officials said earlier this month that arrests would be coming in the church protest, Crews told the Associated Press there’s a “tradition” of Black activists and leaders being targeted or subjected to violence.

    “Just as being a Black person, you always have to have that in mind,” Crews said.

    Protesters charged previously

    A prominent civil rights attorney and two other people involved in the protest were arrested last week. Prosecutors have accused them of civil rights violations for disrupting the Cities Church service.

    The Justice Department launched an investigation after the group interrupted services by chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good,” referring to the 37-year-old mother of three who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis.

    Lundy, a candidate for state Senate, works for the office of Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and is married to a St. Paul City Council member. Lemon briefly interviewed him as they gathered with protesters preparing to drive to the church on Jan. 18.

    “I feel like it’s important that if you’re going to be representing people in office that you are out here with the people,” Lundy told Lemon, adding he believed in “direct action, certainly within the lines of the law.”

    Church leaders praise arrests in protest

    Cities Church belongs to the Southern Baptist Convention and lists one of its pastors as David Easterwood, who leads ICE’s St. Paul field office.

    “We are grateful that the Department of Justice acted swiftly to protect Cities Church so that we can continue to faithfully live out the church’s mission to worship Jesus and make him known,” lead pastor Jonathan Parnell said.