AFP USA

The Trump administration said Monday it will pay for the travel and give $1,000 to undocumented migrants who “self-deport” back to their home country.US President Donald Trump said some of the undocumented migrants who take advantage of the self-deportation scheme will be given a path to legally return to the United States.”We’re going to pay each one a certain amount of money, and we’re going to get them a beautiful flight back to where they came from,” Trump told reporters during an event at the White House.”We’re going to work with them so that maybe someday, with a little work, they can come back in if they’re good people, if they’re the kind of people that we want in our (country),” he said. “It will give them a path to coming back into the country.”Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, announcing the travel assistance and $1,000 stipend program, said “self-deportation is the best, safest and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest.”The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is “offering illegal aliens financial travel assistance and a stipend to return to their home country through the CBP Home App.”CBP Home refers to an app already created by the DHS through which people can deport themselves.DHS said the stipend of $1,000 will be paid after a person’s return to their home country has been confirmed through the app.”Self-deportation is a dignified way to leave the US and will allow illegal aliens to avoid being encountered by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),” the department said in the statement.DHS said that even with the payment of travel assistance and the stipend “it is projected that the use of CBP Home will decrease the costs of a deportation by around 70 percent.”It said that the average cost currently to arrest, detain, and remove an undocumented migrant is $17,121.DHS said an undocumented migrant from Honduras had already taken advantage of the program to return home.Trump pledged during his presidential campaign to carry out mass deportations and claimed during the White House event that there are as many as 21 million undocumented migrants in the United States.However the number of undocumented migrants stood at 11.0 million in 2022, according to Pew Research Center estimates based on data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

Jury selection was underway Monday in New York in the blockbuster federal sex trafficking trial of music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, who stands accused of years of harrowing abuse.Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty on all counts, insisting that any sex acts were consensual, but prosecutors say for years he coerced victims into drug-fueled sex parties using threats and violence.”Come on up, don’t be shy,” judge Arun Subramanian said as the first batch of prospective panelists entered.Jurors were given a supplementary 14-part questionnaire about their ability to fairly hear evidence from hip-hop artists, sex workers, and people involved in the use and distribution of drugs.They had already undertaken an exhaustive questionnaire on their ability to serve before arrival.Combs faces one charge of racketeering conspiracy, the federal statute known by its acronym RICO that was once primarily used to target the mafia but in recent years has been wielded in cases of sexual abuse, including against the fallen R&B star R. Kelly.It allows government attorneys to project a long view of criminal activity rather than prosecuting isolated sex crimes.If convicted, the one-time rap producer and global superstar, who is often credited for his role in ushering hip-hop into the mainstream, could spend the rest of his life in prison.Over the decades, Combs — who has gone by various stage names including Puff Daddy and P. Diddy — amassed enormous wealth for his work in music but also his ventures in the liquor industry.He was arrested by federal agents in New York in September 2024 and denied bail multiple times. Combs is being held at Brooklyn’s notorious Metropolitan Detention Center, a facility plagued by complaints of vermin and decay as well as violence.Combs has appeared in pre-trial hearings looking remarkably aged, his once jet-black, styled coif now overgrown and gray.The jury selection start date is notably the first Monday in May — which annually marks New York’s Met Gala, a glittering celebrity charity bash where Combs was once a red carpet mainstay.Just two years ago, he posed for the cameras at that event uptown — but on Monday, he will be downtown as the panel of citizens tasked with determining his fate face a barrage of questions from lawyers on both sides.- ‘Freak-offs’ -Core to the case is Combs’s relationship with his former girlfriend, the singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, who is expected to be a key trial witness.A disturbing surveillance video from 2016, which was widely broadcast by CNN last year, shows Combs physically assaulting Ventura at a hotel.On Monday one prospective juror was struck out for cause by the judge after describing the video as potentially “damning.”It is unclear how much of the CNN video will be shown to jurors as evidence — the footage’s quality has been a sticking point between the opposing legal teams — but Judge Subramanian has ruled that at least some of it will be admissible.Prosecutors say that encounter occurred following one of the “freak-offs” they argue were a feature of his pattern of abuse.The so-called “freak-offs” were coercive, drug-fueled sexual marathons including sex workers that were sometimes filmed, according to the indictment.- ‘Perfect storm’ -In 2023 Ventura filed a civil suit alleging Combs subjected her to more than a decade of coercion by physical force and drugs as well as a 2018 rape.It was quickly settled out of court, but a string of similarly lurid sexual assault claims against the Grammy winner from both women and men followed.Industry watchers are monitoring Combs’s case as a potential inflection point in the music world which, beyond the case of Kelly, has largely evaded the #MeToo reckoning that has rocked Hollywood.Caroline Heldman — co-founder of the Sound Off Coalition, which is focused on sexual violence in music — said Combs’s case is a flashpoint of a broader pattern of industry tolerance and cover-up of abuse.”In the music industry, I think it’s the perfect storm of what celebrity does to people and what power does to people. It gives them an empathy deficit where the rules don’t apply to them,” she said.Opening statements are tentatively scheduled for May 12. The proceedings will last an estimated eight to 10 weeks.

Oil prices slumped on Monday after OPEC+ countries announced a production hike despite oversupply concerns and growing fears that US President Donald Trump’s trade war could weaken demand.Stock markets were mostly down in holiday-thinned trading ahead of central bank decisions later in the week, while shares in film companies fell after Trump announced tariffs on movies made outside the United States.Saudi Arabia, Russia and six other members of the oil cartel announced over the weekend an output increase of 411,000 barrels a day for June, a month after a similar move had already caused prices to fall.The price of crude has also been sliding because of fears of a global economic slowdown on the back of Trump’s tariff onslaught.The OPEC+ move “confirms a stark turnaround away from the production cuts that have persisted since 2022″, said a Deutsche Bank research note.Oil prices fell almost four percent before paring back some losses. Brent, the international benchmark, briefly fell below $60 per barrel for the first time since 2020.Analysts were still trying to pinpoint the oil cartel’s motivation.”The weekend news wasn’t a shocker but the reasons behind the move remain uncertain,” said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote Bank.”The official communication says the group is bringing barrels back to the market because ‘fundamentals are healthy and inventories are low’,” Ozkardeskaya said.”Yet global growth expectations have been crumbling due to a heated trade war between the US and the rest of the world, and rising output only worsens oversupply concerns. So the real reason must be something else,” she added.She said some argued that the Saudis were “punishing” OPEC members who had not complied fully with the previous policy of cutting production.Other theories include that Trump has pressed for lower oil prices to hurt Russian finances and speed up the end of the Ukraine war, or that Riyadh wants to push out US shale businesses and increase its market share.”We don’t know for sure. The exact motive remains unclear,” Ozkardeskaya said.- Fed move -On stock markets, Wall Street’s three main indices slid lower at the opening bell.US stocks are coming off two strong weeks, with gains last Friday driven by strong jobs data and improving sentiment about US-China trade talks.Shares in Berkshire Hathaway fell more than five percent after influential billionaire investor Warren Buffett said Saturday he would retire from leading the firm which he built into a conglomerate worth more than $1 trillion.Shares in entertainment firms slid after Trump said Sunday he was ordering new tariffs on all films made outside the United States, claiming Hollywood was being “devastated” by a trend of US filmmakers and studios working abroad.Shares in Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery were down around three percent, while Lionsgate fell more than five percent.Shares in Paramount dropped more than two percent and Disney 1.5 percent.In Europe, Paris was down in afternoon deals while Frankfurt pushed higher.London was closed for a public holiday, as were Tokyo and Hong Kong in Asia.Investors are waiting for interest rate decisions this week, with the US Federal Reserve and Bank of England holding policy meetings on Wednesday and Thursday respectively.”Our US economists expect the Fed to keep rates steady and avoid explicit forward guidance about the policy path ahead,” Deutsche Bank analysts said.The dollar fell against other major currencies.But the Australian dollar gained against the US dollar after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s election victory on Saturday, while the S&P/ASX 200 fell almost one percent.- Key figures at around 1330 GMT -West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 1.7 percent at $57.29 per barrelBrent North Sea Crude: DOWN 1.5 percent at $60.37 per barrelNew York – Dow: DOWN 0.5 percent at 41,107.23 pointsNew York – S&P 500: DOWN 0.7 percent at 5,647.28New York – Nasdaq Composite: DOWN 0.8 percent at 17,832.95Paris – CAC 40: DOWN 0.6 percent at 7,726.57 Frankfurt – DAX: UP 0.8 percent at 23,273.07London – FTSE 100: closed for holidayTokyo – Nikkei 225: closed for holidayHong Kong – Hang Seng Index: closed for holiday Shanghai – Composite: closed for holidayEuro/dollar: UP at $1.1359 from $1.1299 on FridayPound/dollar: UP at $1.3329 from $1.3268Dollar/yen: DOWN at 143.67 yen from 144.97Euro/pound: UP at 85.21 pence from 85.14burs-rl/lth

American investor Warren Buffett, 94, will remain as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway’s board of directors once he steps down as chief executive at the end of this year, the conglomerate announced Monday.Following a vote at the Berkshire Hathaway board of directors over the weekend, Buffett will step down as chief executive of the world’s 8th-largest company by market capitalization on January 1, 2026, and hand over the reins to the group’s current vice-chairman, Greg Abel. The vote, which was proposed by Buffett, will bring to and end the revered investor’s more than half-a-century running the group, which he turned into a financial behemoth. “The time has arrived where Greg (Abel) should become the chief executive officer of the company at year end,” Buffett, 94, told an annual shareholder meeting in Omaha, the city in the Midwestern state of Nebraska where Berkshire is based. Abel, 62, had been nominated to succeed Buffett in 2021. The Board of Directors voted unanimously on Sunday to appoint him to his new position, according to a statement from the group published Monday.Berkshire Hathaway, a former small textile company, has grown over the years into a gigantic conglomerate under Buffett’s leadership, and is now worth over $1 trillion on Wall Street — a first for an American group outside the tech sector.Warren Buffett preferred to invest for the long term in stable companies whose accounts he had closely scrutinized, enabling him to build up the world’s fifth-largest fortune over the decades. Today, his conglomerate owns dozens of businesses, from Duracell batteries to US insurer Geico, and shares in carefully selected companies, from Coca-Cola to Bank of America. Shortly before financial markets opened on Wall Street, Berkshire Hathaway’s shares were down around 3.2 percent in pre-market.

All 133 Catholic cardinals who will vote for a new pope have arrived in Rome, the Vatican said on Monday, two days before they gather at a conclave to elect the next head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.Hailing from 70 countries across five continents, the group — summoned following the death of Pope Francis on April 21 — is the largest and the most international ever.At stake is the direction of the Catholic Church, a 2,000-year-old institution with huge global influence but which is battling to adapt to the modern world and recover its reputation after the scandal of widespread child sex abuse by priests.The 133 so-called “Princes of the Church” who will vote — all those aged under 80, minus two who are absent for health reasons — will gather on Wednesday afternoon under the frescoed splendour of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican.Voting once that day and four times a day thereafter until a pope is chosen, they will stay at the nearby Santa Marta guesthouse but are forbidden from contacting the outside world until they have made their choice.They will inform the waiting world of their progress by burning their ballots and sending up smoke — black if no candidate has reached the two-thirds majority of votes, or white if they have a winner.On Monday morning, technicians installed red curtains on the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica, where the new pontiff will make his first appearance.At issue is whether the new pontiff will follow the popular Argentine pontiff’s progressive line or whether the Holy See will pivot towards a more conservative traditionalist leader. Francis, an energetic reformer from Buenos Aires, ran the Church for 12 years and appointed 80 percent of the current cardinal electors.But experts caution they may not choose someone in his model, with many warning there could be surprises.Vatican affairs specialist Marco Politi told AFP that, given the unknowns, the conclave could be “the most spectacular in 50 years”.  – ‘Calm the waters’ -Cardinals met on Monday morning for the latest in a series of preparatory meetings, so-called general congregations, and will gather again in the afternoon.All cardinals are invited to these, not just those eligible to vote in the conclave, taking the opportunity to discuss the issues that will face Francis’s successor.”Nobody campaigns, for crying out loud. That would be extraordinarily stupid and indiscreet, and improper and counterproductive,” said Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York.”But you just want to get to know folks, and it works well,” he said on his own podcast.Among the pilgrims and sightseers who gathered in the square on Monday, opinions varied widely about who could or should take over.”Maybe more of Pope Francis than Pope Benedict,” said German visitor Aurelius Lie, 36.”As long as he’s not too conservative (and) influenced by modern political leaders — (Giorgia) Meloni, (Donald) Trump,” he said, referring to the Italian prime minister and the US president.”Maybe the Church will be thinking: ‘We need a tough pope now to deal with these people.’ But their terms will end in a couple of years.”But Canadian priest Justin Pulikunnel did not hide his frustration at the direction Francis tried to take the Church, saying he personally sought a return to a more traditional leadership.”Well, I hope and I pray that the new pope will kind of be a source of unity in the Church and kind of calm the waters down after almost a dozen years of destabilisation and ambiguity,” he said on Sunday.- ‘Changing world’ -The conclave begins on Wednesday afternoon and could continue for days, weeks or even months — although both Francis and Benedict XVI — who was pope from 2005 until his resignation in 2013 — were elected within two days.Italy’s Pietro Parolin, who was secretary of state under Francis, is one of the favourites, as is Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.Among the so-called “papabili” are also Luis Antonio Tagle from the Philippines and Hungarian conservative Peter Erdo.But many more names have been discussed, and just like when Francis — then an Argentinian known as Jorge Bergoglio — was picked in 2013, a surprise candidate could emerge.Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako of Iraq told reporters before Monday’s meetings that he wanted “a pastor, a father who preserves the unity of the Church and the integrity of the faith but who also knows the challenges of today”.”The world is always changing. Every day there is news. The pope must read the signs of the times to have the right answer and not be closeted in his palace.”burs-ar/ams/sbk

US President Donald Trump said Sunday he had directed officials to rebuild and reopen Alcatraz prison, the notorious federal jail based on a small island in California that closed six decades ago.”REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ!” the Republican wrote on his Truth Social platform. “Today, I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders,” he said.Alcatraz closed in 1963 due to high operating costs after being open for just 29 years, according to the US Bureau of Prisons, and now serves as a tourist attraction.Located two kilometers (1.25 miles) off the coast of San Francisco and with a capacity of just 336 prisoners, it held several well-known criminals, including Prohibition-era mob boss Al Capone, and saw many fantastical escape attempts by inmates.Trump has made cracking down on crime — particularly those committed by migrants — a key element of his second term in the White House.”When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” Trump wrote Sunday.”No longer will we tolerate these Serial Offenders who spread filth, bloodshed, and mayhem on our streets,” he said.- ‘Not a serious’ proposal – The island fortress entered American cultural lore after a 1962 escape by three inmates, notably Frank Morris, which became an inspiration for the film “Escape from Alcatraz” starring Clint Eastwood.It was closed on March 21, 1963, soon after the escape, because it was three times more expensive to operate than any other federal prison, according to the Bureau of Prisons. The major expenses were caused by the physical isolation of the island, with food, supplies, fuel and even drinking water having to be brought to the island every week.Besides the operating costs, an estimated $3 million-$5 million more was needed just for maintenance and restoration work, the Bureau of Prisons said.It reopened to the public in 1973 as a tourist site, bringing in more than one million visitors each year. “It is now a very popular national park and major tourist attraction,” said former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who represents San Francisco.”The President’s proposal is not a serious one,” she said on social media platform X. Trump has vowed to crack down on crime, particularly by migrants, and has invoked the 1798 Enemies Act — previously used only during wartime — to deport those his administration say are criminals and gang members. His administration has paid El Salvador millions of dollars to lock up scores of migrants it deported there, with Trump also repeatedly saying he would be open to sending US citizens convicted of violent crimes to the Central American country.UN experts said last week that the United States appears to be intentionally denying due process rights to more than 250 Venezuelans and Salvadorans who were deported.

Jury selection begins Monday in New York in the blockbuster federal sex trafficking trial of music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, who stands accused of years of harrowing abuse.Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty on all counts, insisting that any sex acts were consensual — but prosecutors say for years he coerced victims into drug-fueled sex parties using threats and violence.At a recent hearing, his attorney Marc Agnifilo offered a preview of his team’s defense by describing the artist’s free-wheeling “swinger” lifestyle.The prosecution said it had offered Combs a plea deal — the specifics were not disclosed — but that he had rejected it.Combs faces one charge of racketeering conspiracy, the federal statute known by its acronym RICO that was once primarily used to target the mafia but in recent years has been wielded in cases of sexual abuse, including against the fallen R&B star R. Kelly.It allows government attorneys to project a long view of criminal activity rather than prosecuting isolated sex crimes.If convicted, the one-time rap producer and global superstar, who is often credited for his role in ushering hip-hop into the mainstream, could spend the rest of his life in prison.Over the decades, Combs — who has gone by various stage names including Puff Daddy and P. Diddy — amassed enormous wealth for his work in music but also his ventures in the liquor industry.He was arrested by federal agents in New York in September 2024 and denied bail multiple times. Combs is being held at Brooklyn’s notorious Metropolitan Detention Center, a facility plagued by complaints of vermin and decay as well as violence.High-profile inmates there have included Kelly, Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell and Sam Bankman-Fried, the cryptocurrency entrepreneur convicted of fraud.Combs has appeared in pre-trial hearings looking remarkably aged, his once jet-black, styled coif now overgrown and gray.The jury selection start date is notably the first Monday in May — which annually marks New York’s Met Gala, a glittering celebrity charity bash where Combs was once a red carpet mainstay.Just two years ago, he posed for the cameras at that event uptown — but on Monday, he will be downtown in federal court, as the panel of citizens tasked with determining his fate face a barrage of questions from lawyers on both sides.Jury selection is expected to wrap up in about a week, with opening statements tentatively scheduled for May 12.The proceedings are estimated to last eight to 10 weeks.- ‘Freak-offs’ -Core to the case is Combs’s relationship with his former girlfriend, the singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, who is expected to be a key trial witness.A disturbing surveillance video from 2016, which was aired by CNN last year, shows Combs physically assaulting Ventura at a hotel.Prosecutors say the encounter occurred following one of the “freak-offs” they argue were a feature of his pattern of abuse.The so-called “freak-offs” were coercive, drug-fueled sexual marathons including sex workers that were sometimes filmed, according to the indictment.It is unclear how much of the CNN video will be shown to jurors as evidence in court — the footage’s quality has been a sticking point between the opposing legal teams — but Judge Arun Subramanian has ruled that at least some of it will be admissible.The floodgates opened after Ventura filed a civil suit alleging Combs subjected her to more than a decade of coercion by physical force and drugs as well as a 2018 rape.That 2023 suit was quickly settled out of court, but a string of similarly lurid sexual assault claims against the Grammy winner from both women and men followed.- ‘Perfect storm’ -Industry watchers are monitoring Combs’s case as a potential inflection point in the music world which, beyond the case of Kelly, has largely evaded the #MeToo reckoning that has rocked Hollywood.Caroline Heldman — co-founder of the Sound Off Coalition, which is focused on sexual violence in music — said Combs’s case is a flashpoint of a broader pattern of industry tolerance and cover-up of abuse.”In the music industry, I think it’s the perfect storm of what celebrity does to people and what power does to people. It gives them an empathy deficit where the rules don’t apply to them,” she said.When it comes to Combs’s case, she told AFP she’s “optimistic that justice will be served.””I hope that this inspires other survivors to come forward.”

US President Donald Trump said Sunday he was ordering new tariffs on all films made outside the United States, claiming Hollywood was being “devastated” by a trend of US filmmakers and studios working abroad.The announcement comes as the White House is coming under mounting criticism over its aggressive trade policies that have seen Trump impose sweeping tariffs on countries around the globe.”I am authorizing the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.”WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick reposted Trump’s missive, saying “We’re on it.”No details were provided on how the tariff would be implemented.Trump’s post comes after China, which has taken the brunt of the US president’s combative trade policies with 145 percent tariffs on many goods, said last month it would reduce the number of US films it imported.”The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death. Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States,” Trump wrote Sunday.”Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated,” he added, claiming that production being drawn to other countries was a “National Security threat.”The implications for the movie industry — or how exactly the tariffs would be enacted — were not immediately clear.There was also no mention in Trump’s post of whether television series, an increasingly popular and profitable sector of production for the screen, would be affected.- US not in top five -Hollywood is a major sector of the United States’ economy, generating more than 2.3 million jobs and $279 billion in sales in 2022, according to the latest data from the Motion Picture Association.But in the wake of the Hollywood strikes and the Covid pandemic impacts — which changed how Americans consumed movies, opting to watch at home instead of in theaters — the industry is still struggling to regain its momentum, industry insiders say.According to a January report by production tracking service ProdPro, the United States is a top filming hub with $14.5 billion in production spend — though that amount is a 26 percent drop compared to two years earlier.However a survey of studio executives revealed that their top five preferred production locations for 2025 and 2026 were all outside of the United States, due to competitive tax incentive schemes on offer. First was Toronto, followed by Britain, Vancouver, Central Europe and then Australia. California came in at sixth place.Ahead of his inauguration in January, Trump appointed longstanding supporters Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson and Jon Voight as special envoys to Hollywood.He said they would make the entertainment industry “STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE” in a post on Truth Social. Trump and the Republicans have traditionally received scant support from the entertainment industry, and a galaxy of stars from Taylor Swift to George Clooney backed Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. 

The historic Mount Tambora volcanic eruption spewed so much ash and debris that it triggered a “year without summer” and the apocalypse seemed nigh — an apt parallel to our own chaotic existence, says the eclectic musician Rufus Wainwright.The artist’s ambitious modern-day requiem, which draws inspiration from the 19th-century catastrophe as well as the Requiem Mass, will premiere stateside on Sunday in Los Angeles, with narration by the actor and activist Jane Fonda.The Canadian-American Wainwright composed “Dream Requiem” as the globe was picking up the pieces after the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, and turned to Lord Byron’s poem “Darkness” which is centered on the fear and disarray that followed the 1815 Mount Tambora eruption.The artist, best known for his distinct theatrical pop, has focused more on opera in recent years and said the poem is all the more prescient given the looming threat of climate cataclysm, as well as our tumultuous contemporary politics.”In this day and age, it’s a similar kind of intense sense of doom,” Wainwright told AFP in an interview ahead of the Los Angeles show.”I think we’re a little less misguided than they were back then, but who knows what the future holds?”Wainwright’s global premiere of “Dream Requiem” was at the Auditorium de Radio France in Paris last summer, with Meryl Streep narrating and featuring soprano Anna Prohaska.A recording of the work is available from Warner Classics.Wainwright said Fonda’s participation in the upcoming performance with the Los Angeles Master Chorale lends additional intensity to the piece, given her long history of activism and her special emphasis in recent years on climate change.”She’s one of the great heroines,” he said of the storied 87-year-old film star. “Certainly with what America has been through in the last couple of months, I think it’ll be very powerful.”And that the show’s US premiere comes mere months after deadly wildfires ravaged parts of Los Angeles adds yet another layer, he said.- ‘Glimmer of life’ -Wainwright has written two classical operas, set Shakespearean sonnets to song and produced a tribute concert to Judy Garland in addition to releasing a string of pop albums.He has a particular penchant for Giuseppe Verdi: “When I was 13, I listened to Verdi’s Requiem from top to tail, and it was like I’d been infected by a virus,” he said.Musical settings of the Catholic Requiem Mass are themselves known as requiems; Verdi’s tells of the death-fearing living who seek deliverance.”I’ve always been more at ease, you know, communicating dread and foreboding,” the 51-year-old Wainwright said.But it’s not all gloom, he added: “A few weeks after I premiered it, and I had some distance from it, I realized, oh no, there is hope. There is sort of this little glimmer of life.””Redemption and forgiveness” go hand in hand with the dread, and “I like to maintain some modicum of hope,” Wainwright said. “Hopefully this is sort of like a resurrection, shall we say, of both that feeling of dread — but also that need to face the music and deal with the problem at hand.”

US President Donald Trump said Sunday he had directed officials to rebuild and reopen Alcatraz prison, the notorious federal jail based on a small island in California that shuttered six decades ago.The jail will house “America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, adding that the institution will be “substantially enlarged.”Alcatraz closed in 1963 due to high operating costs after being open for just 29 years, according to the US Bureau of Prisons, and now serves as a tourist attraction.Located two kilometers (1.25 miles) off the coast of San Francisco and with a capacity of just 336 prisoners, it held several well-known criminals, including Prohibition-era mob boss Al Capone, and saw many fantastical escape attempts by inmates.Trump has made cracking down on crimes — particularly those committed by migrants — a key element of his second term in the White House.”When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” Trump wrote Sunday.”No longer will we tolerate these Serial Offenders who spread filth, bloodshed, and mayhem on our streets,” he said.