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There are spoilers ahead. You might want to solve today’s puzzle before reading further! Plot Twist

Constructor: Emily Biegas

Editor: Amanda Rafkin

What I Learned from Today’s Puzzle

• RTS (31A: Some NFL linemen) RTS here stands for right tackles. I kind of knew this, but since I’m aware of my lack of sports knowledge, I just waited and let the crossing answers fill this one in.
• EVIL (58A: CBS procedural involving demons) EVIL is a CBS TV series that aired from 2021-2024. The show revolves around three individuals – a forensic psychologist, a Catholic seminarian, and a technology contractor – who are hired by the Catholic Church to investigate supernatural happenings.
• NON (47D: ___pareil capers) I know what NONpareils are, the colorful sprinkles used to decorate baked goods. And I know what capers are, the edible flower buds of the caper bush (also known as Flinders rose), which are often pickled. But I had not encountered the combination of these two words. NONpareil capers are the smallest commercially available capers, and are considered the best in flavor and texture. The word “NONpareil” is French for “has no equal” or “not the same.”

Random Thoughts & Interesting Things

• HOPI (15A: Pueblo Revolt people) The HOPI are one of several indigenous groups of people known as Pueblo people because they lived in villages. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 is also known as Popé’s Rebellion. The Pueblo people revolted against the Spanish colonizers in Santa Fe de Nuevo México, an area larger than present-day New Mexico. The Pueblo Revolt succeeded in driving the Spanish out of the province, though the absence of the Spaniards only lasted 12 years. I have previously written about the HOPI tribal council designating August 10 as Pueblo Revolt Day.
• CELEBRATE (18A: Join friends for a special birthday dinner, say) This is such a fun, feel-good answer. It lifted my spirits as I filled it in. My husband and I have been invited to two 95th birthday parties this month, which feels quite amazing. Definitely a milestone to CELEBRATE!
• SMALL POTATOES (20A: Insignificant in the grand scheme of things) The use of the phrase “SMALL POTATOES” to refer to something of relative insignificance originated in the U.S. in the 1800s. When POTATOES were being harvested, the SMALL ones would get tossed aside. Thus, SMALL POTATOES came to describe something not as important.
• HAN SOLO (22A: Chewbacca swore a life debt to him) In the Star Wars universe, Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. Chewbacca swore a life debt to HAN SOLO (essentially swearing to stay by his side no matter what) after HAN saved Chewbacca from captivity by the Galactic Empire. I found a Screen Rant article that goes into more detail, if you’re interested.
• SALLY (27A: Novelist Rooney) SALLY Rooney is the author of four books to date: Conversations with Friends (2017), Normal People (2018), Beautiful World, Where Are You (2021), and Intermezzo (2024). Her first two books were adapted into TV miniseries. I am – for a rather obvious reason – always delighted to see SALLY Rooney make an appearance in the crossword.
• ANTS (39A: Myrmecologist’s subject) Myrmecologist is a big word you can put in your back pocket and bring out to impress (or annoy…) your friends when there’s a lull in the conversation.
• ORES (40A: Items that can be smelted in Stardew Valley) Stardew Valley is a role-playing video game first released in 2016. Players assume the role of a character taking over their grandfather’s farm in the titular Stardew Valley. Players can socialize with townspeople, grow crops, raise livestock, smelt ORES, and participate in activities such as cooking, crafting, and fishing.
• THOUGHT POLICE (52A: Antagonists in George Orwell’s “1984”) George Orwell’s cautionary tale 1984 (also seen as Nineteen Eighty-Four) was first published in 1949. In the novel, the THOUGHT POLICE are the secret POLICE who use omnipresent surveillance and criminal psychology to consistently monitor citizens in order to arrest those who have committed “THOUGHTcrime” (THOUGHTs unapproved by the authoritarian regime).
• PERENNIAL (55A: Plant that grows back each year) As the clue informs us, PERENNIALs grow back every year. This is in contrast to their counterparts, annuals, which need to be replanted every year. I tend to be a lazy gardener, so I am a big fan of PERENNIALs.
• ANTE (59A: Balatro level) Ah, this clue made me laugh! Balatro is a poker-themed game released in 2024. In keeping with the theme, the game’s levels are referred to as ANTEs. Last fall I was chatting with a group of friends and we were sharing various means of distraction. One of my friends said, “Need a distraction? Don’t have an overly addictive personality? Play Balatro!” I don’t play a lot of video games, and one of the reasons for that is that I do have a bit of an addictive personality when it comes to games. As such, I decided to skip downloading Balatro. A month later when our family got together for the holidays, my son said, “Oh, I have a game I’m going to put on your iPad!” Long story short, I have now played a “few” games of Balatro.
• NENE (60A: Hawaiian goose) The NENE, also referred to as a Hawaiian goose, is the state bird of Hawai’i. The NENE is endemic to the state, and is only found on the islands of Oahu, Maui, Kaua’i, Moloka’i, and Hawai’i.
• NACL (61A: Sodium chloride, chemically) Sodium chloride, or NACL (formatted as NaCl), is also known as salt.
• MARSHA (1D: Gay liberation activist Johnson) MARSHA P. Johnson was a self-identified drag queen, performer, and activist who was a prominent figure in the Stonewall Uprising of 1969. The “P” in MARSHA P. Johnson stood for “Pay It No Mind,” which was MARSHA’S response when people would ask questions about her gender. 
• ICE T (5D: Rapper who plays Sergeant Fin Tutuola on “Law & Order: SVU”) On Law & Order: SUV, Fin Tutuola (“Fin” is short for Odafin) is a sergeant with the New York Police Department’s Special Victims Unit (SVU). ICE T joined the show in its second season. The show began its 26th season in October of last year.
• PLASMA (21D: Fourth state of matter) Solid, liquid, gas, and PLASMA are the four states of matter. PLASMA is characterized by the presence of charged particles, such as ions and electrons, which makes it electrically conductive. PLASMA is present in the universe in stars, including the Sun. Lightning and neon lights generate PLASMA. Hooray for science in the crossword!
• LLOYD (28D: “Back to the Future” actor Christopher) I saw Back to the Future in the theater when it first came out, and I knew Christopher LLOYD portrayed eccentric scientist Doc Brown. What went through my head when I read this clue was, “Oh, it’s going to make me feel old to realize how long it’s been since Back to the Future came out!” The movie was released in 1985; that’s 40 years ago.
• ELECTRIC (36D: “___ Avenue” (1982 funk classic)  “ELECTRIC Avenue” is a 1982 song by Eddy Grant. ELECTRIC Avenue is in Brixton in South London, and is named for being the first market street to have ELECTRIC lighting. 
• ASTLEY (42D: Rick of music and memes) The last time we saw ASTLEY in the puzzle, it was clued as [Rick who you might get Rickrolled by]. That was on November 2, 2024.
• TAIPEI (43D: Taiwan’s capital) I always appreciate getting a bit of geography review from solving a crossword.
• GINS (53D: Gimlet options) Gimlets are cocktails made of GIN, lime juice, and sugar.
• EVA (56D: Peron of Argentina) EVA Perón was the first lady of Argentina from 1946-1952. The 1978 musical Evita tells the story of her life.
• Some other clues I especially enjoyed:
  • DECENT (46A: “Are you ___?” (“Is it safe for me to come in?”))
  • THREE-PEAT (7D: Type of winning streak)
  • PIE (10D: ___-in-the-sky (far-fetched))
  • PEN (55D: What’s mightier than the sword, in a saying)

Crossword Puzzle Theme Synopsis

• SMALL POTATOES (20A: Insignificant in the grand scheme of things)
• WE AIM TO PLEASE (35A: “Customer satisfaction is our goal”)
• THOUGHT POLICE (52A: Antagonists in George Orwell’s “1984”)

PLOT TWIST: Each theme answer contains an anagram of the word PLOT: SMALL POTATOES, WE AIM TO PLEASE, and THOUGHT POLICE.

Yesterday the word “shuffle” in the title hinted at a hidden anagram theme. Today, the word “TWIST” is the hint. Picking up on this hint, I looked at the letters around the word breaks in the theme answers, and found what I was looking for: L/POT, TO/PL, and T/POL – anagrams of the word “PLOT.” In addition to the fun theme, this puzzle was jam-packed with delightful answers, such that I had a hard time deciding what answers to highlight. Thank you, Emily, for this enjoyable puzzle.

For more on USA TODAY’s Crossword Puzzles

As Gal Gadot celebrated her latest Hollywood accolade on Tuesday, protesters came out to make their stances on the Israeli actress known amid a crumbling ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

The “Snow White” and “Wonder Woman” star, 39, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Tuesday afternoon, with the actress, her family, “Wonder Woman” director Patty Jenkins and “Fast & Furious” co-star Vin Diesel gathered next to the famous El Capitan Theatre to see her name cemented in the city’s history.

However, across the street from the tented ceremony, several dozen pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters were gathered with flags and signs in hand. Some read “standing with Israel,” while other poster boards had the faces of those who had been taken hostage or killed by Hamas following the militant group’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion.

Another poster had the words “Snow White supports genocide” over a photo of Gadot’s Evil Queen character, while a large sign read, “Viva Viva Palestina” (“Long Live Palestine”).

No arrests made during Hollywood Boulevard protests

One video of the incident captured by Katcy Stephan, a film reporter for Variety, showed a few people against a wall being handcuffed by police outside the Ovation Hollywood shopping mall.

A Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson told USA TODAY that while there were detainments, no arrests were made.

USA TODAY has reached out to Gadot’s representative and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which administers the Walk of Fame, for comment.

The ceremony took place hours after the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry announced that Israeli airstrikes in Gaza killed more than 400 people, two months after a ceasefire deal was brokered. The White House confirmed the Trump administration was “consulted by the Israelis” ahead of its attack. Israel said the aim of the assault was to exert pressure on Hamas to capitulate on issues such as the release of remaining hostages.

The strikes came early Tuesday amid stalled negotiations between the two sides to extend a truce that was already due to reach a decisive second stage for hostage releases and ending the war. In recent weeks, Israel has pushed — with U.S. support — Hamas to release significant numbers of hostages. Hamas has been unwilling to do that without assurances it would be allowed to stay in power in Gaza after the war.

Gal Gadot’s star ceremony was a rare outing with her husband, 4 daughters

After introductions from Diesel and Jenkins, an emotional Gadot took the stage to acknowledge the journey she took from Israel to Hollywood stardom.

“I’m just a girl from a town in Israel,” she said to raucous cheers. “And I could never have imagined such a moment. I never dreamt of becoming an actress, and I never knew that these things were possible.”

“If a girl from Rosh HaAyin can get a star (on) Hollywood Boulevard, anything is possible!” she later exclaimed.

Afterward, she posed on her newly minted star with husband Jaron Varsano and their daughters: 13-year-old Alma, 7-year-old Maya, 3-year-old Daniella and 1-year-old Ori.

“Whenever my success grew, I always got pregnant. I needed to ground myself,” she said during her acceptance speech. “That’s what I tell my agents: It’s either I’m making movies, or I’m making babies.”

Gal Gadot ‘could not be silent’ about Hamas hostages

Gadot, a former Miss Israel who was a combat fitness instructor in the Israel Defense Forces during her mandatory two years of service, shed light on her stance in an interview with Variety ahead of the Hollywood ceremony, saying her “conscience is clean” as she advocates for hostages of Hamas.

“On October 7th, when people were abducted from their homes, from their beds, men, women, children, elderly, Holocaust survivors, were going through the horrors of what happened that day, I could not be silent,” she told the outlet.

“I am all about humanity,” she said, describing herself as “a grandchild of a Holocaust survivor” and eighth-generation Israeli. Gadot added, “I am praying for better days for all. I want everybody to have good life and prosperity, and the ability to raise their children in a safe environment.”

An estimated 48,000 Palestinians have been killed since the October 2023 attack, per Gazan officials, with around 1,200 killed by Hamas during the invasion on southern Israel.

Contributing: Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY; Olivia Le Poidevin, Reuters

LOS ANGELES — The U.S. government released documents related to a court battle over Prince Harry’s 2020 visa application on Tuesday but redacted large portions, saying it had a duty to protect his privacy and there was no evidence he received special treatment.

A conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, had filed a Freedom of Information Act request, arguing the public had a right to know if the British royal disclosed the prior drug use that he detailed in his memoir, “Spare,” on his application.

More than 80 pages of court filings and transcripts were released on Tuesday with large sections covered in black.

Representatives for Harry and The Heritage Foundation did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Immigration officials said The Heritage Foundation had not established that the public interest outweighed the right to privacy for Harry, the Duke of Sussex.

“Plaintiffs allege that the records should be disclosed as public confidence in the government would suffer or to establish whether the Duke was granted preferential treatment. This speculation by plaintiffs does not point to any evidence of government misconduct,” wrote Jarrod Panter, an official in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Background: Prince Harry’s visa application to be released after Heritage Foundation probe

In his 2023 memoir, Harry said he had used cocaine and marijuana. Harry and his American wife, Duchess Meghan, dropped their royal duties in Britain and moved to the United States in 2020.

The Heritage Foundation is most recently known as the publisher and leader of Project 2025, a conservative federal policy guide mirroring many of President Donald Trump’s policies.

The group, which pushes for policies including mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, previously alleged the Duke of Sussex may have concealed past drug use that would have disqualified him from obtaining a U.S. visa, according to British outlets The Times and Sky News.

Contributing: Taijuan Moorman, USA TODAY

Massachusetts-based Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys says they were not suspended on X after frontman Ken Casey called out a fan for wearing “Make America Great Again” merchandise at a weekend show.

Casey, Dropkick Murphys founder and lead vocalist, had some choice words about MAGA hats after he spotted a fan wearing a white one at a sold-out show in Boston on Saturday night.

“The Chinese (expletive) red that they all wear, and I think it’s dyeing their brains. Ya got the black-on-black Elon Musk, true Nazi edition. And then my man here is getting ready for summer with a nice (expletive) white white one,” Casey says in a clip reposted to YouTube.

Casey went on to say that he admired the man’s “dedication,” asking the audience: “If you’re in a room full of people and you want to know who’s in a cult, how do you know who’s in a cult? They’ve been holding up a (expletive) hat the whole night to represent a president.”

“This is America, there’s no kings here,” Casey yelled to a cheering crowd.

Various media outlets reported that the Dropkick Murphys account was suspended on X following the interaction between Casey and the fan.

The Dropkick Murphy X account currently says it was suspended for violating X rules, but the band says they have been off X, formerly Twitter, since 2022. The exact details and the timing surrounding the band’s suspension were not immediately available.

“We broke up with him first. We quit Twitter in 2022 when he was only half a Nazi,” Casey said in Tuesday statement.

‘He would have suspended us by now,’ band says

Someone else, unaffiliated with the band, later took band’s X handle and pretended to be “our official account,” Casey said.

“So we filed a legal complaint to put a stop to that—which is why @dropkickmurphys shows as suspended,” Casey said. “Look, we pulled our account because we didn’t want to be part of that guy’s empire. But if we were still on there, I’m sure he would have suspended us by now.”

An X spokesperson confirmed to USA TODAY that the information shared by Dropkick Murphys on Tuesday afternoon was accurate.

Dropkick Murphys, who have been vocal about their disdain for President Donald Trump, also called out another fan sporting MAGA hat at a show in Clearwater, Florida on March 8, according to a fan video shared by the band.

“The reason we speak out, we don’t care if we lose fans because when history is said and done, we want it known that the Dropkick Murphys stood with the people,” Casey said in the video. “We stood with the workers. It’s all a (expletive) scam, guys.”

Casey also noted that the band “always sells proudly made in America merchandise only.” Official MAGA merchandise is American made, but unofficial vendors make them elsewhere, USA TODAY reported in 2020.

Contributing: Chris Jordan, Asbury Park Press part of the USA TODAY Network

Move over, “Challengers.” There’s a new steamy sports movie in town.

In a Vanity Fair profile published Tuesday, Gwyneth Paltrow shared new details about her first film in six years: “Marty Supreme,” a ping-pong comedy that pairs her with Timothée Chalamet. After Paltrow, 52, and Chalamet, 29, were spotted kissing on set, she teased that there’s more where that came from.

“I mean, we have a lot of sex in this movie,” she said. “There’s a lot — a lot.”

Indeed, when Vanity Fair asked the “Iron Man” actress if she is “in a lot of vulnerable positions with” the “Dune” actor, she simply replied, “Beyond.”

This will be Paltrow’s first movie since 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame” and her first on-screen role in a non-Marvel film since 2015’s “Mortdecai.”

The actress evidently had a bit of catching up to do on how the industry works now, as she told Vanity Fair she was unfamiliar with the role of an intimacy coordinator, which SAG-AFTRA says acts as a liaison between actors and production for nude and intimate scenes. Paltrow did not seem to feel this was necessary, and she recalled that she and Chalamet both told their intimacy coordinator to “step a little bit back” when filming.

“I don’t know how it is for kids who are starting out, but … if someone is like, ‘Okay, and then he’s going to put his hand here,’ I would feel, as an artist, very stifled by that,” she told Vanity Fair.

‘I really hate seeing myself’: Gwyneth Paltrow reveals the only movie she can watch herself in

Josh Safdie, one half of the Safdie brothers, directed “Marty Supreme,” which is being released by A24. Few details about the plot have been confirmed, but Paltrow told Vanity Fair she plays a woman “who is married to someone who is in the Ping-Pong mafia, as it were,” who becomes entangled with Chalamet’s character.

“They meet and she’s had a pretty tough life, and I think he breathes life back into her, but it’s kind of transactional for them both,” she explained.

Timothée Chalamet at 2025 Oscars: See photos of his red-carpet look

Paltrow described her co-star to Vanity Fair as “such a thinking man’s sex symbol,” adding that he is a “very polite” and “properly raised” man “who takes his work really seriously and is a fun partner.” But she revealed she has been so disconnected from Hollywood since she last acted, she had never seen a Chalamet movie.

“Marty Supreme” will follow a recent trend of films in which women end up romantically involved with much younger men, including “Babygirl” with Nicole Kidman and “The Idea of You” with Anne Hathaway.

The movie is set for release on Dec. 25, which could suggest the studio plans to position it as an awards contender for the 2026 Oscars. Tyler, the Creator and Fran Drescher also star in the film, which is one of two separate movies directed by the Safdie brothers arriving in 2025.

Josh Safdie’s brother Benny also has a film on the way, “The Smashing Machine,” starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

“The Sex Lives of College Girls” is dropping out after a few semesters.

The show, which follows a foursome of roommates as they navigate the ups and downs as they embark on their college careers, has been canceled after its third season. Warner Bros. Television, the studio behind the show, is trying to find a new home for the comedy series.

A brainchild of comedy writer and actress Mindy Kaling, “Sex Lives” enjoyed cult-like popularity when it was first released on HBO Max in 2021.

However, the third season, which began airing on the platform (now called Max) in November and wrapped in January, offered fans a bit of a different flavor.

Mindy Kaling on the pressures of TikTok for young comedians, where comedy is headed

Breakout star Reneé Rapp, who played the self-confident and oozingly sarcastic Leighton, departed just two episodes in and was replaced by a new suite-mate: Kacey, played by Gracie Lawrence.

Rapp previously announced the season would be her final one, writing in a post on X in 2023: “A lot of queer work gets belittled—but playing Leighton has changed my life. I love who I am 10x more than I did before knowing her. I hope she gave y’all a little bit of that too.”

The reception to her replacement was a bit wobbly, however, and some fans speculated that the final episode, which did not lean into a cliffhanger format mid-way through the ladies’ sophomore year, was a hint that the show’s future was uncertain.

Justin Noble, who co-runs the show alongside Kaling, previously insisted that wasn’t the case, however.

“No one told us to, like, wrap up the show or anything like that,” Noble said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published in January.

In the streaming era, cancellation has proved somewhat more fickle as a show that was one platform’s trash can become another’s treasure.

How did ‘Sex Lives’ Season 3 end?

As Season 3 wrapped, Bela (Amrit Kaur) had a bisexual awakening, Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet) faced legal action from Essex College, Whitney (Alyah Chanelle Scott) had successfully unionized against the university and Kacey found her voice as the lead of a play.

Noble told TheWrap in January that he felt there was “momentum” for Season 3 to inspire a Season 4 renewal.

“We have multiple new love interests that appear in these two episodes at the end of Season 3, we have the closing of some doors and different extracurriculars and school things, so there’s a lot of momentum heading into a Season 4, and lots of ways we can go,” he said.

Noble added: “So pending a phone call, Mindy and I and the writers will be at the ready to decide which way to go.”

Justin Noble holds out hope for ‘Sex Lives’ Season 4

On Tuesday, Noble took to Instagram to express sadness over the cancellation news.

“Unfortunately, Max has decided not to order a fourth season,” he confirmed. “We are currently in discussions with some new potential homes for the show, and it’s nice that there is so much interest.”

“As creatives we’re sort of taught to never compliment our own projects. Or even downplay it when other people do,” he wrote. “But here’s the thing: I think ‘The Sex Lives of College Girls’ is a pretty damn good TV show.

“I can’t help but mention that it feels like there are fewer and fewer comedy series every month − and we are living in an era where we need that comedy badly, so I really hope that turns around,” he continued later in the four-slide statement.

“I will always be proud of this show for being the thing that we weren’t seeing enough of: a hard comedy ensemble where ladies get the jokes,” Noble wrote, adding that he hopes there is still a future for the program somewhere.

In his January Hollywood Reporter interview, Noble discussed the possibility of a Season 4.

“I’m hoping the show goes on,” he said. “It’s always at the top of the Max (top 10 series) list, which is nice to see. And I think that’s, at the end of the day, what’s making decisions these days, it’s numbers and dollars spent.”

This story has been updated to add new information.

Contributing: KiMi Robinson, USA TODAY

“Matilda” actress Mara Wilson is mourning the loss of her childhood friend Michelle Trachtenberg.

In an emotional Vulture essay on the “Harriet the Spy” star published Tuesday, Wilson paid tribute to Trachtenberg, who was found dead last month in a New York City apartment building at 39.

Wilson, 37, wrote that she met Trachtenberg during the 1997 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards, where the Nick alum was “play-fighting” with “Jerry Maguire” star Jonathan Lipnicki.

“It stuck with me for a different reason: She was being nice to him,” Wilson wrote in the piece titled “My Cool Friend Michelle.” “Jonathan was five years younger than her, but she didn’t treat him like an annoyance. I knew so many older girls who were mean to younger kids, but she wasn’t, even when Jonathan was trying to slip an ice cube down the back of her shirt.”

‘Matilda’ star Mara Wilson empathizes with Britney Spears on being sexualized as a young star

The pair would see each other once again at the Audrey Hepburn Foundation’s Hollywood for Children charity film festival months later. She affectionately added: “That’s where I would find out it wasn’t just me: Everybody fell in love with Michelle Trachtenberg.”

Wilson, an outspoken advocate for child stars, wrote that their star-studded group of child actor friends included Trachtenberg’s “Harriet the Spy” co-star Vanessa Lee Chester, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Rider Strong, Mae Whitman, Raven-Symoné and the sibling trio of Tia Mowry, Tamera Mowry and Tahj Mowry, among others.

“Last month, when I found out Michelle died, I was packing for a work trip. I looked at my phone and felt my stomach drop. My hands were shaking and my knees went weak — I thought I might pass out. I sat in a chair, and started to sob,” Wilson wrote.

She continued: “This wasn’t supposed to happen. She was too young. She’d worked too hard. I always thought I would get the chance to see her again, to tell her how much I’d always looked up to her. To tell her the times we spent together as children were some of the best of my life.”

Mara Wilson says Michelle Trachtenberg was bullied about stardom

In her essay, Wilson recalled that Trachtenberg was bullied in school for being more famous than her classmates.

After seeing “less and less” of one another as they grew older, “something surprising happened” when Trachtenberg’s family moved to Burbank, California, and the pair attended the same middle school.

“Surely, I thought, she’d be one of the beloved girls in school. But that didn’t happen,” Wilson said, adding that other kids bullied the actress because “there was always a lot of resentment toward the kids who’d ‘made it.’”

Wilson said that shortly before Trachtenberg graduated in 1999, she pulled her aside for an emotional conversation, in which she asked Wilson if she was also targeted by their peers. “They never stop,” Trachtenberg reportedly told Wilson.

“I had never seen Michelle cry before. I’d never seen her anything other than perfectly composed and confident,” Wilson wrote. “It wasn’t just that she was being bullied; it was that there wasn’t any way she could get them not to hate her. So much of being a child actor is about making everyone happy. It felt cruelly ironic to be so hated when our raison d’être was getting people to like us.”

The Palace of Culture and Science casts a long, spiky shadow over Warsaw’s Plac Defilad (Parade Square). Europe’s biggest public square is brutalised by the vast mass of this “gift” from the Soviet Union, a hulking, syringe-spired skyscraper in Stalin’s favoured socialist realist style, completed in 1955. It was designed by Lev Rudnev who was also responsible for similar prominent towers including the looming main building of Moscow State University.

Its shadow seemed so present that for decades it haunted and stymied development of the square, which was designed for military parades and May 1 tank shows and, after the fall of communism, was filled with booths, kiosks and car parks as capitalism arrived in a hurry. 

Now, 70 years after the completion of the Soviet skyscraper, comes the next phase in the square’s life. A large white groundscraper has appeared on its eastern side, beginning to enclose the windy, uninviting public space.

This block houses the Museum of Modern Art, an impressive new institution and home to the city’s collection. It was designed by New York-based Thomas Phifer, a genial architect whose work is the culmination of a quarter-century of efforts to reimagine the site. First there was a mooted Frank Gehry blockbuster that came to nothing, then a competition-winning proposal from Swiss architect Christian Kerez. Badly mishandled by the city authorities, that commission ended acrimoniously in a legal dispute and the next competition was won by Phifer with his gleaming white concrete block. 

Architects like the idea of dialogue between buildings, between new and old. I’d have to say that here, in this charged space, there is not much dialogue at all — more of a confrontation. Perhaps there could never be; perhaps these are mutually exclusive languages; the vertical and the horizontal, the minimal modern and the maximal authoritarian. Between a banal commercial thoroughfare and that stonking symbol of Stalinism, the design might have been more nuanced, more of a conversation with history, language and material. Or perhaps the stark contrast is a deliberate moving on.

Either way it is bold and a little clumsy. The clean, white, toothpaste texture of the concrete appears more like a taut tarpaulin than a civic building. An arcade suggests a public nature but there is no real reason to wander along it and remarkably, for a building stuck right in the middle of a square and on a main road, the entrance isn’t immediately obvious. The unfindable entrance is a hoary cliche of modernist architecture but one that seems to weirdly abide.

The glass behind the facade appears blank and corporate but once you’re inside, the building begins to wrap itself around you. The biggest surprise appears in the form of an elaborate central stair. It looks like an MC Escher for the digital age, an impossible split stair squeezed through an AI grinder to produce something uncanny, almost kaleidoscopic, maybe a little headache and vertigo inducing. It is photogenic, striking and, for a building in 2025, oddly ableist. I know the less mobile can ascend in lifts but having the pivotal public experience of an interior as an epic stair seems a little undemocratic. Phifer talks about it “as a place for meeting, encountering people” but perhaps not all people?

If this all sounds a little like a lot of unreasonable quibbling, it stops here. There may be issues with the public spaces, both inside and out, but the galleries are outstanding. Arranged in a simple circuit over two large floors, they are easy to navigate, exquisitely lit and generous spaces of luminous clarity. 

Many contemporary museums confuse, leaving you with the impression that you might have missed a room along the way. Not this one. Phifer credits the museum director, Joanna Mytkowska, with steering the designers away from an idea of vague flexibility. Instead these are fixed and formal rooms, known quantities for the curators who have regular, serious galleries to fill. There are no leftover spaces here, no awkward corners, only well-proportioned, well-lit rooms. 

About two-thirds of the work here is Polish, with the rest establishing some contemporary global context and more than half of the work is by women. There are plenty of familiar names: Monika Sosnowska (more of her would have been good), Mirosław Bałka, Paweł Althamer, Magdalena Abakanowicz (a stunning red sculptural installation), Isa Genzken alongside many younger and less well-known artists. There is every medium imaginable, from amateur movies (Marysia Lewandowska) to suture stitches from Mexican morgues (Teresa Margolles) via craft, sound installations and the usual explorations of gender and sexuality through dressing up. The powerful socialist realist bronze “Friendship”, by sculptor Alina Szapocznikow, dominates the central stair space. It has stood in the Palace of Arts since its opening and the figures lost their arms when they were shoehorned out in 1992. Found in a garden, it was restored and returned. The art is not all brilliant but yet all somehow looks brilliant.

The top floor galleries are naturally top-lit, milky glass spanning deep concrete beams. Huge stainless steel doors impart a sense of permanence. There are occasional generous windows so that the city is always present; if there is a conversation it is finally established from the inside. The gallery sequences are broken up by a series of wood-enveloped “City Rooms”, spaces for looking back at the everyday life of Warsaw. With bespoke benches and huge pull wooden handles they feel like little temperate saunas, an occasional quiet relief from the intensity of the art. 

To one side of the museum stands a blind tower, a stubby San Gimignano effort perhaps in riposte to the stiletto atop the Soviet Palace. lt houses a neat little cinema with scalloped, illuminated walls. The occasional rumble of a subway train beneath gives a hint as to what seem rather arbitrary structural decisions that inform the facades; the building needed to accommodate the serpentine tracks beneath with pinpoint precision. It is this aspect, rather understated, which suggests the complex archaeology here; not so much a subterranean landscape of physical fragments and remains but a metaphorical subconscious, the memories of a city not only scarred but obliterated by war and marked by the relationship with Russia ever since. That (mostly) armless sculpture of embracing Polish and Soviet worker is totemic here.

The Soviet Union may have disappeared along with the tribunes, fur-hatted politicians and massively medalled generals, but the threat from the east now looks more real than it has for a generation. Yet this has also been a place of celebration, of football screens and enormous crowds for a Polish pope. Cities are all about adjacency, about layers of history and use, good and bad neighbours, new, old, shabby and shining. Plac Defilad, with its epic dimensions, will never be intimate or charming like Warsaw’s rebuilt old town, but its scale embodies a history that is grand, uncomfortable, ceremonial, sentimental and contested. I find it difficult to imagine that those acres of pristine white concrete will not become a canvas for graffiti of every sort but perhaps if they do it would be a perfect carapace for an art museum with an unforgiving shell but a wonderful inside. 

artmuseum.pl

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A cause of death has been released for drag artist and “RuPaul’s Drag Race UK” star The Vivienne, who died in January at age 32.

Chanel Williams, sister of the British drag queen born James Lee Williams, confirmed to the BBC on Monday that her sibling died from a drug-induced cardiac arrest. The heart abnormality occurred due to “the effects of taking ketamine.”

Chanel told the British outlet that the “Drag Race” alum’s family remains “completely devastated” by Williams’ recent death. The family also plans to team up with a substance-abuse organization to raise awareness of the dangers of ketamine.

Simon Jones, James Williams’ manager, confirmed the cause of death in a statement to People. USA TODAY has reached out to Jones for comment.

Williams’ “family and I feel it is important to say how James tragically died,” Jones wrote in an Instagram Story on Monday, according to the Los Angeles Times and Sky News.

Jones’ statement continued: “We hope that by releasing this information we can raise awareness about the dangers of ongoing ketamine usage and what it can do (to) your body. Ketamine usage is on the rise, particularly among young people, and I don’t think the full dangers of the drug are being discussed.”

The Vivienne dies: ‘Drag Race UK’ winner was 32

Jones previously confirmed Williams’ death in a Jan. 5 statement posted to Instagram. 

“Viv was a close friend, a client and someone I loved very much,” Jones wrote. “From the moment I met them in 2019 I knew we could create magic together, and I became their manager. Their talent was immense and the light they brought to every room was astonishing.”

A beloved member of both the drag and musical theater communities, Williams made history as the inaugural winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race UK,” a British spinoff of drag queen RuPaul Charles’ reality competition series “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”

What is ketamine?

In 2023, ketamine made headlines after “Friends” star Matthew Perry’s autopsy revealed “the acute effects of ketamine” were the leading cause in his death.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration describes ketamine as “a dissociative anesthetic that has some hallucinogenic effects.” It’s a schedule III controlled substance, meaning it has been determined to have “a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence.”

It is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for medical use in approved healthcare settings, with products that include as an “injectable, short-acting anesthetic,” as well as “a nasal spray for treatment resistant depression” (as esketamine). The FDA first approved ketamine as a short-acting anesthetic for use in humans and animals in 1970.

According to the DEA, “Ketamine has the potential for misuse, which may lead to moderate or low physical dependence or high psychological dependence.”

RuPaul mourned The Vivienne’s death

In a Jan. 6 statement shared on Instagram, Charles mourned Williams’ death with a photo of them together on the “Drag Race” stage.

“With a broken heart, I join the entire Drag Race universe in mourning the loss of The Vivienne — an incredibly talented queen and a lovely human being,” Charles wrote.

Charles’ “Drag Race” co-judge Michelle Visage paid tribute to the British drag artist in her own Instagram post, remembering Williams as “a beacon to so many.”

“You were always there, always laughing, always giving, always on point,” Visage wrote. “Your laughter, your wit, your talent, your drag. I loved all of it but I loved your friendship most of all.”