We have a curated list of the most noteworthy news from all across the globe. With any subscription plan, you get access to exclusive articles that let you stay ahead of the curve.
We have a curated list of the most noteworthy news from all across the globe. With any subscription plan, you get access to exclusive articles that let you stay ahead of the curve.
We have a curated list of the most noteworthy news from all across the globe. With any subscription plan, you get access to exclusive articles that let you stay ahead of the curve.
We have a curated list of the most noteworthy news from all across the globe. With any subscription plan, you get access to exclusive articles that let you stay ahead of the curve.
DEAR ABBY: My youngest son is tying the knot this spring, and they’ve opted for a child-free wedding reception. We have three grandchildren, aged between 3 and 7, and the wedding is taking place in the city where my son and his fiancée reside, which means we will be traveling. They want the kids to be part of the ceremony as flower girls and the ring bearer, but then they are excluded from the sit-down meal, reception, and dance. This means the parents need to arrange for babysitters.
Our grandchildren hold a special place in our hearts, and my husband and I are heartbroken that they won’t be included in the entire event. We consider them immediate family and have requested their inclusion, but despite our pleas, the bride and groom have stuck to their decision. What’s even more challenging for us is that while no children or even nursing babies are allowed, their dog will be part of the wedding party.
Recently, at the bride’s wedding shower, which I attended with my two other daughters-in-law, it was tough to muster enthusiasm about the upcoming nuptials. I have shed a few tears over this and can’t help but feel a bit resentful towards the couple. Do you have any advice on how to handle these feelings? — WEDDING WOES IN CANADA
DEAR WEDDING WOES: I’m sorry the wedding reception won’t be the joyful family gathering you envisioned. If it were your vow renewal, things would surely look different. However, this day belongs to the bride and groom, and they have crafted a celebration that reflects their wishes, including a reception without children. Demonstrate your love and respect for them by honoring their choices and leaving your grandchildren in the care of a babysitter.
DEAR ABBY: An acquaintance of mine has been posting pictures showcasing every phase of his lavish mansion’s construction, from the groundbreaking to digging the massive pool, right up to the finished house. I’ll admit, I feel envious. But isn’t it inconsiderate of him? Our friendship circle mostly comprises middle to upper-class families, and I find his posts uncomfortably insensitive. Am I out of line for feeling this way? — FLIPPING MAD IN TEXAS
DEAR FLIPPING MAD: I’m sorry your ego is bruised from looking at the photos your friend posted of creating his new home, but what he did isn’t rude. Perhaps if you start counting the blessings you have in your own life, you can combat the green-eyed monster you have been feeding. I wish you luck because there is nothing constructive about envy.
DEAR ABBY: Should I tell my two older grandchildren that my husband and I are divorcing? Although the divorce is in its early stages, our home is expected to be sold a year and a half from now. My daughter and grandchildren reside in that home. I’d like to know if this would be too early to let them know. Please give me your opinion. — MAKING A CHANGE IN FLORIDA
DEAR MAKING A CHANGE: Your daughter should be told (if she doesn’t already know) because she will need time to find another home for herself and her children. When to share the news of the divorce with her children should be her decision. A year and a half is plenty of time for everyone to prepare for the changes that are coming. I hope that the divorce will be amicable.
Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.
President Donald Trump has directed the Pentagon to lessen the scope of its planned joint military operations with South Korea.
On Sunday, mere hours ahead of the scheduled onset of these exercises, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to announce the policy adjustment.
He attributed the change in strategy partly to his “very good relationship with Kim Jong Un,” North Korea’s leader.
Trump also highlighted the interaction with South Korea when he sought their assistance in his strategy against Iran.
The president claimed that South Korea declined his request to aid in the denuclearization efforts in the Middle East, responding with a polite “no thanks!”
Trump wrote on Sunday night: ‘Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea.’
‘These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile to a Country that, as long as Donald J Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful.
‘Therefore, and based on the fact that it is too late to cancel, I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the Joint Military Exercises!’
President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that the United States will be scaling back its military exercises with South Korea, citing his ‘very good relationship with Kim Jong Un.’ The two world leaders are pictured in a photo Trump shared to his Truth Social page on Saturday
He noted in his Truth Social post that the South Korean president declined to help the United States in its war in Iran
The president added that he recently asked South Korea’s president to join the US in its efforts to denuclearize Iran, ‘and they said, “No thanks!”‘
Prior to the announcement, the US military had been set to begin 11 days of exercises with 18,000 South Korean soldiers in an effort to beef up the country’s readiness against North Korean threats.
Those exercises then began as planned on Monday despite the president’s last-minute announcement, the South Korean Defense Ministry has confirmed.
The president’s decision to scale back the efforts was sharply criticized by Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, a former Navy pilot.
‘North and South Korea are still technically at war,’ he noted. ‘Our ability to help defend our ally against the North Koreans is because our forces are well-trained and able to coordinate with the South Koreans.
‘Hollowing out these joint exercises is shortsighted and a mistake’ he wrote in a social media post just hours after the president’s own post.
Senator Andy Kim, who became the first ever Korean-American senator when he won his election in 2024, also criticized the move.
‘Our alliance with the Republic of Korea is critical for US security and prosperity – and I am concerned that President Trump’s post today suggests a disregard for this relationship.’
He then went on to argue that ‘Decisions about joint exercises need to be made jointly – and not announced unilaterally by social media.
‘I will continue to press this administration to strengthen our security, economic, trade and technology ties – which all benefit the American people and the broader Indo-Pacific region,’ wrote Kim, a Democrat.
‘South Korea is an essential partner in peace and security in a part of the world filled with risk,’ he then noted. ‘We should treat them that way instead of venting frustration on social media.’
Prior to the announcement, the US military had been set to begin 11 days of exercises with 18,000 South Korean soldiers
Colonel Ryan Donald, director of public affairs for Combined Forces Command, United Nations Command and US Forces Korea, told reporters that the exercises this year would simulate combat against North Korean troops. He is pictured with Colonel Jang Do-young public affairs director of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff
Join the discussion
Should a president prioritize friendly ties with adversaries over long-standing alliances?
Pentagon officials were also said to be taken aback by Trump’s announcement, according to The New York Times.
The US and South Korean militaries have held joint exercises for more than 70 years, since 1955. The US now even maintains its largest military installation overseas, Camp Humphreys, in South Korea, which is home to thousands of American service members, their families and Korean nationals.
Just last week, an official with the US and South Korean Combined Forces Command told reporters that the exercises this year would simulate combat against North Korean troops, who have gained crucial experience as they fight for Russia in its war against Ukraine.
Colonel Ryan Donald, director of public affairs for Combined Forces Command, United Nations Command and US Forces Korea, said in a news conference with members of the South Korean military last Monday that the exercises reflect the changing character of war, including the increased use of drones, electronic warfare and cyber operations.
‘DPRK soldiers have deployed and fought in Ukraine and they’ve taken those lessons they’ve learned there and brought them back to North Korea,’ he said, using an acronym for North Korea’s official name – the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
‘That changes the DPRK capability and our training accounts for that threat.’
The US and South Korean forces were expected to practice joint operations in complex scenarios, including a live-fire exercise to test joint precision targeting and maneuver, a wet gap crossing, and distribution of prepositioned military equipment.
Joint US-South Korean military exercises were scheduled to begin on Monday. Tourists sitting on a Seoul city tour bus were seen looking at anti-war protesters attending a rally to call for a halt to the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States, in front of the US Embassy in Seoul on Monday
Anti-war protesters prepare for a rally, calling for a halt to the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States
In an apparent response to the scheduled drills, North Korea has launched short-range ballistic missiles, which landed in the waters off North Korea´s east coast.
Kim on Friday also threatened unspecified stern steps against the US and South Korea, describing the drills as a ‘a rehearsal for an aggressive war’ that are triggering greater instability in the region.
The warning was typical of the harsh rhetoric that North Korea often deploys ahead of major US-South Korean military exercises. Experts say North Korea has often used its rivals’ drills as a pretext to ramp up testing activities to expand its weapons arsenals and promote public support for the reclusive North Korean leader.
He has been pushing hard to enlarge its nuclear and missile arsenals since Kim´s high-stakes diplomacy with Trump collapsed in 2019. Experts say Kim likely believes a bigger weapons arsenal would increase his chances for wresting more concessions from the US in future negotiations.
The US president had previously scaled back military operations in South Korea during his first term.
He told reporters in 2018 that the US ‘will be stopping the war games, which will save us a tremendous amount of money, unless and until we see the future negotiation is not going along like it should.’
Then, in March 2019, after a Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi failed to reach a nuclear agreement – the US and South Korea announced that the annual large-scale exercises would be re-configured into smaller exercises.
Since returning to office, Trump has expressed interest in continuing the nuclear discussions.
In an apparent response to the scheduled drills, North Korea has launched short-range ballistic missiles. – A man walks past a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a train station in Seoul on October
The move on Sunday to once again decrease the size of the military exercises is now the latest example of the president appearing to side against an ally in favor of a leader that previous administrations have cast as an adversary.
Trump and others in his administration have also railed against NATO allies over perceived lack of support for his war against Iran, even as they seek to confront an increasingly aggressive Russia in the Baltic region.
It is also a sharp turnaround from how his administration has viewed South Korea, an ally of the United States for more than 70 years.
In May, Hegseth praised the long-time ally for its ‘commitment to increase defense spending’ and its ‘leadership in assuming primary responsibility for the security of the Korean Peninsula’ during a meeting at the Pentagon.
‘It demonstrates alliance burden-sharing that all of America´s partners would do well to follow,’ the defense secretary added.
But on Saturday, just one day before Trump announced the plan to scale back the exercises, he posted a photo of himself standing next to Kim, writing that the two leaders get along great ‘despite the unfriendly look on this particular picture.’
The Daily Mail has reached out to the Pentagon and the South Korean Consulate for comment.
The entertainment world is mourning the loss of Hayden Panettiere, the beloved actress known for her roles in hit television shows like Heroes and Nashville. She passed away at the age of 36.
In a heartfelt statement shared with ABC News on Monday, Panettiere’s father, Skip, confirmed the tragic news of her death.
“We announce with deep sorrow the untimely passing of our cherished Hayden,” the statement began. “She was a remarkable light, a dynamic force who spread boundless love and happiness to those who knew her, as well as to her countless fans around the globe.”
The cause of her death remains undisclosed, and her publicist did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Associated Press (AP).
Approaching what would have been her 37th birthday this week, Panettiere launched her acting career at a young age, featuring in commercials and soap operas as a child actress.
Her role as a cheerleader with superpowers in Heroes propelled her to fame in 2006, with the series revolving around the mantra “Save the cheerleader, save the world.”
“I think Heroes is really hot because it’s just a really great combination of everything that people love — they love reality, they love sci-fi and things like X-Men where they get to dream of something bigger,” Panettiere told AP in 2008.
“And at the core of it are these human stories that people can relate to, very rugged. And it’s just grabbed everyone in every age group.”
She went on to win three Teen Choice Awards for that role and was a Grammy Award nominee for a children’s spoken word album recorded a few years after the release of the animated movie A Bug’s Life.
Panettiere later played a brash country upstart opposite Connie Britton on Nashville, which aired on US network ABC for four seasons before being cancelled and revived on CMT.
She did her own singing in the show, which scored some hits on country charts, spawned US tours and earned Panettiere two supporting actress Golden Globe nominations.
Panettiere had 11 songs recorded for Nashville appear on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs charts during the show’s run, including two featuring Britton.
Panettiere’s younger brother, Jansen, who was also an actor, died of a heart condition in 2023, at age 28.
She had been open about her struggles with alcohol addiction and depression, including after the birth of her daughter with Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko in 2014.
In an interview with podcaster Jay Shetty after her memoir came out in May, Panettiere talked about the custody arrangement for her 11-year-old daughter, who lives full-time with Klitschko in Ukraine.
News of the 2018 decision prompted headlines about Panettiere giving up custody of her daughter.
“I think there’s been this very common misconception that I just gave up my child,” she said. “That could not be farther from the truth.”
Panettiere said Klitschko suggested their daughter live with him full-time when the child was two, as Panettiere struggled with mental health challenges and addiction.
She said she was in a “horrible cycle for years of battling depression and anxiety and alcoholism and substance abuse” while “just trying to find my way back, my way out of the darkness”.
She entered rehab in 2015, while filming Nashville.
“I was the one who put myself in the first treatment centre. I was drowning,” she said in a 2023 interview with Women’s Health magazine.
On Shetty’s podcast, Panettiere recalled the explosion of her fame when she was cast on Heroes, including the first time she was tracked by the paparazzi. When she’d imagined the moment as a younger actress, she’d planned to look chic.
Instead, she said, “it was just sheer terror”.
Panettiere also appeared in two of the Scream movies, starred as the title character in the 2009 film I Love You Beth Cooper and played the young daughter of a football coach in Remember the Titans.
She had spoken positively about her experience filming Remember the Titans, saying she felt so similar to the character she played — Sheryl Yoast, the opinionated, American football-loving daughter of Will Patton’s coach Bill Yoast.
Readers struggling with their use of alcohol and other substances can contact the National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline on 1800 250 015 for free and confidential support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. More information is available via Lifeline.
Just weeks before her untimely passing at the age of 36, Hayden Panettiere shared a heartfelt Instagram post with a friend, joyfully celebrating “good times and good friends.”
Panettiere, cherished for her standout performances on NBC’s hit show Heroes and the musical drama Nashville, was hailed as “an incredible light and a force of nature” following the announcement of her passing over the weekend.
On Sunday, her representatives released a statement expressing their sorrow: “It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden.” The exact circumstances surrounding her death remain unclear.
In her final Instagram post, shared two weeks ago, she was pictured enjoying an evening alongside her friend, director, and photographer Randall Slavin.
Accompanying the black-and-white photograph was a simple yet poignant caption: “Good times and good friends @randallslavin ✨.”
After Panettiere’s death, Slavin paid tribute on his Instagram Stories, sharing the star’s post and writing, ‘Peace be with you, H.’
Her final post has now been flooded with comments from her celebrity friends and fans reacting to the sad news of her death.
Hayden Panettiere posed with a pal in her last Instagram post before her unexpected death at the age of 36 as she celebrated ‘good times and good friends’
Panettiere, known for her roles on the hit series Heroes and drama Nashville, was remembered as ‘an incredible light and a force of nature’ as her death was announced over the weekend
‘I love you. Don’t be gone. Don’t be gone. Please. Please,’ an anguished Selma Blair wrote under the picture.
‘I love you whale tail my friend,’ Blair wrote in another comment 11 minutes later.
Blair returned minutes later with another sorrowful comment. ‘I’m dying. Please be here,’ she wrote.
On Sunday her cause of death was not immediately clear. But law enforcement sources confirmed to TMZ that police responded to an incident involving the actress and an investigation is ongoing.
‘There’s an investigation ongoing,’ her representative added in a statement to NBC News. ‘We should know more tomorrow.’
Sources also told TMZ that Panettiere had been recently complaining of back pain and that she and her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Brian Hickerson, flew from Los Angeles to the south just one day before her tragic passing.
The Hollywood star earned multiple award nominations across her career, most notably while playing cheerleader Claire Bennet on Heroes and Juliette Barnes on Nashville.
Panettiere, who was set to turn 37 on Friday, also appeared in the Scream franchise as Kirby Reed, and lent her voice to the video games Until Dawn and Kingdom Hearts.
Panettiere is predeceased by her brother, Jansen, who passed away in February 2023 from ‘an enlarged heart’ at the age of 28.
After Panettiere’s death, Slavin paid tribute on his Instagram Stories, sharing the star’s post and writing, ‘Peace be with you, H’
‘I love you. Don’t be gone. Don’t be gone. Please. Please,’ an anguished Selma Blair wrote under the picture
Rosie O’Donnell was among the stars registering their heartbreak over news of Panettiere’s death
She played Juliette Barnes on the ABC show Nashville, releasing a number of her own songs (seen with co-star Connie Britton)
Panettiere leaves behind an 11-year-old daughter with ex, Wladimir Klitschko
She said that she felt like she ‘lost half of her soul’ following his death, and revealed that the stress of his loss resulted in her body ‘ballooning out’, which left her in a ‘really bad’ and ‘destructive’ place.
The tragic news of her death comes just months after her memoir, This is Me: A Reckoning, became a New York Times best-seller.
In the book, Panettiere described how she contended with fame and handled the difficulties in her life.
She had suffered from drug addiction, beginning when she was just 15 years old.
At the time, she claimed she started taking ‘happy pills’ in an effort to make her seem more ‘peppy’ during interviews.
Her addiction then became worse while she was battling postpartum depression following the birth of her daughter Kaya in 2014.
But Panettiere has been sober in recent years, she said in a 2022 interview, noting that ‘it’s an everyday battle’.
‘It’s an everyday choice, and I’m checking in with myself all the time,’ Panettiere told People at the time.
‘But I’m just so grateful to be part of this world again, and I will never take it for granted again.’
Panettiere has also told how she nearly died during childbirth, and later relinquished custody of her daughter to her ex, former heavyweight boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko, while struggling with postpartum depression in 2018.
Her daughter now lives in Europe.
Speaking of the decision, Panettiere said she ‘desperately’ needed help at the time and insisted that Kaya does not feel ‘abandoned’ while appearing in a recent episode of the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast.
‘The idea that anybody would think that I would just give away my child and be okay with it is heartbreaking. Couldn’t be further from the truth,’ Panettiere said.
‘I was struggling with mental health and anxiety and postpartum and having to act my way through it, and just feeling like I completely lost myself,’ she added.
Panettiere has also come out as bisexual while she promoted her new book.
‘It’s sad that I had to wait till I was 36 years old to share that part of me, but better late than never, right?’ the Nashville alum told Us Weekly in May.
‘I’ve chosen to share it with the world, I’m comfortable saying I’m bisexual. I’m comfortable to confidently say that, yes, I am bisexual. I said it!’
Despite having little privacy due to ‘paparazzi always outside waiting for me,’ Panettiere still managed to secretly date women, whom she preferred to men from ‘a very, very young age.’
‘[I was] much more into women,’ the two-time Golden Globe nominee said.
‘But, yeah, I have explored it, but I don’t think I ever had the courage, because I hadn’t shared this with anybody.
‘I didn’t really have the courage to throw myself fully, emotionally into it, because then if I did fall in love, that wasn’t something that I wanted to ever have to hide. I didn’t feel confident enough, and I was too afraid to really let that part of me explore that part of me.’
By the age of 19, Panettiere dissolved her business relationship with her manager mother.
Panettiere was born on August 21, 1989 in Palisades, New York.
She first started acting at just 11 months old, appearing in a commercial.
Her full-time acting career then began in 1994 when she played Sarah Roberts in the ABC soap opera One Life to Live until 1997. She then went on to play Lizzie Spaulding in the CBS soap opera Guiding Light from 1996 to 2000.
For her role on Pixar’s A Bug’s Life, she was nominated for a Young Artist Award and Grammy Award, making her the fifth-youngest nominee for a Grammy.
Her other credits include Remember the Titans, Ally McBeal, Racing Stripes, Ice Princess and I Love You, Beth Cooper.
But it was her role as a cheerleader with superpowers in Heroes that propelled her to fame in 2006, with the series revolving around the mantra: ‘Save the cheerleader, save the world’.
She won three Teen Choice Awards for the role.
Panettiere has also recorded a number of songs for the films and television programmes she was in, including My Hero is You for the Disney Channel film Tiger Cruise and I Fly for the Disney film Ice Princess, which she co-starred in with the late Michelle Trachtenberg.
Her first single not associated with an acting role, the reggae-infused Wake Up Call, was digitally released on August 5, 2008.
Clothing brand Candie’s announced it was premiering an ad campaign for the single in late July of that year, and provided additional promotion for the song with a television ad and a music video starring Sebastian Stan, who played Panettiere’s brother in The Architect.
Panettiere later played a brash country upstart opposite Connie Britton on Nashville, which aired on ABC for four seasons before being canceled and revived on CMT.
She did her own singing for the show, earning her some hits on the country charts as well as two supporting actress Golden Globe nominations.
In total, Panettiere had 11 songs recorded for Nashville appear on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs charts during the show’s run, including two featuring Britton.
Following the news of her death, actor Randall Slavin shared a photo of him with Panettiere, writing: ‘Peace be with you.’
She had shared the same photo just two weeks prior, with the caption, ‘Good times and good friends’.
Actress Selma Blair also wrote on Instagram: ‘I love you. Don’t be gone. Don’t be gone. Please,’ while Melissa Barrera posted to her Instagram story: ‘Rest in peace sweet Hayden.’
SAG-AFTRA added that it ‘mourns the sudden passing of Hayden Panettiere’.
Kelly Clarkson has made it clear that she has no intention of acquainting her children with a particular, infamous chapter of her career.
During the closing show of her Las Vegas residency on Saturday, the 44-year-old songstress shared with her audience that she has imposed a strict embargo on her kids, River Rose, 12, and Remington, 10, when it comes to viewing her 2003 musical comedy film, “From Justin to Kelly.”
“Well, it’s an Oscar-worthy number, and it’s called ‘From Justin to Kelly,’” Clarkson joked, as reported by a video obtained by Us Weekly. She then summed up her involvement with the movie in two telling words: “Contractually obligated.”
“Man, read the f—ing fine print, you know,” she humorously advised the crowd. “I had no clue that winning meant a mandatory movie. Not all of us aspire to be Meryl Streep; some of us just enjoy watching her, okay? I protested, ‘I don’t want to act in a movie,’ but the response was, ‘Yeah, but you won.’ And I thought, ‘Why does it feel like I’m losing? This doesn’t quite feel like a victory.'”
In this cinematic endeavor, Clarkson co-starred with Justin Guarini, the runner-up from the inaugural season of “American Idol.” The musical, which premiered on the big screen soon after Clarkson’s notable win, narrates the story of two young individuals who meet and fall in love during a carefree spring break.
More than two decades later, Clarkson made clear she isn’t looking back at the project through rose-colored glasses.
After a fan at the concert defended the film, Clarkson joked that the audience member was watching it with “loving eyes,” before offering her own decidedly less flattering assessment: “It’s s—.”
And her two children apparently won’t get the chance to judge her performance for themselves anytime soon.
“It is funny though, like, my kids, I’ve banned them from watching,” Clarkson admitted.
Despite her feelings about the film, the singer said the experience wasn’t entirely negative.
“The music part, that was fun,” she said. “See? You gotta find the positive, motherf—ers, you know? Turn that s— into lemonade … and cry yourself to sleep.”
“From Justin to Kelly” was released in 2003, one year after Clarkson’s victory on the first season of “American Idol.”
Selma Blair seemed utterly stunned as she processed the sudden and tragic passing of her dear friend, Hayden Panettiere, late on Sunday evening.
At age 54, Blair was among the first in the celebrity community to honor the late Nashville actress. She expressed her grief by commenting on Panettiere’s last Instagram post, shortly after the heartbreaking news broke that the 36-year-old star had passed away.
With her heart clearly aching, Blair wrote beneath a photo that Panettiere shared on July 27—her final upload to Instagram—pleading, “I love you. Don’t be gone. Don’t be gone. Please. Please.”
In another poignant message just 11 minutes later, Blair added, “I love you whale tail my friend,” showing the depth of their friendship.
It wasn’t long after that Blair returned with yet another heartfelt comment, reflecting her deep sorrow over losing a cherished friend.
‘I’m dying. Please be here,’ she wrote under Panettiere’s photo.
The Daily Mail has reached out to representatives for Blair and Panettiere to request comment but has not yet received a response.
Panettiere’s cause of death was not immediately clear, but enforcement sources have confirmed to TMZ that police responded to an incident involving the actress.
‘There’s an investigation ongoing,’ Panettiere’s publicist said in a statement to NBC News. ‘We should know more tomorrow.’
Following reports of Hayden Panettiere’s unexpected death at 36 over the weekend, stars flocked to pay tribute to the late Heroes star; Panettiere is pictured in 2016
Selma Blair, 54, sounded as if she was in shock as she posted an anguished comment on Panettiere’s final Instagram post from July 27; Blair is pictured in November 2025 in LA
‘I love you. Don’t be gone. Don’t be gone. Please. Please,’ an anguished Blair wrote under a photo Panettiere had shared on July 27. ‘I love you whale tail my friend,’ Blair wrote in another comment 11 minutes later
Blair had previously shared kind words after the Heroes star’s brother, Jansen Panettiere, died in 2023.
On an Instagram post dated to December 2022 on Jansen’s page, the Legally Blonde actress had written, ‘Fly with the angels.’
Panettiere’s brother died two months after his post, in February 2023. His unexpected death was later determined to be due to cardiomegaly, an enlarged heart, while aortic valve complications also played a role.
Representatives for the former child star announced on Sunday: ‘It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden.
‘She was an incredible light and a force of nature who brought immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her – and to the millions who watched her onscreen.’
Panettiere’s final Instagram post featured a jubilant black-and-white photo of the actress playfully sticking her tongue out for the camera while she was embraced by her friend, the director and podcaster Randall Slavin.
Slavin reposted the photo in his Instagram Stories on Sunday night as he paid tribute to his fallen friend.
‘Peace be with you, H,’ he wrote while adding an animated red heart.
Blair returned minutes later with another sorrowful comment
Rosie O’Donnell was among the stars registering their heartbreak over news of Panettiere’s death
Panettiere’s tragic death at 36 over the weekend was announced on Sunday night. She is pictured here at a gala in Hollywood in 2022
The tragic news comes just months after her memoir, This is Me, became a New York Times bestseller
Panettiere is remembered for her roles as Claire Bennet on the hit NBC series Heroes
Rosie O’Donnell was among the stars registering their heartbreak over news of Panettiere’s death.
‘Oh my god – heartbroken #hayden,’ the former talk show host wrote to accompany a beaming photo of the late actress.
O’Donnell had hosted Panettiere on her eponymous talk show back in 2000, when the child star had wowed O’Donnell by singing Britney Spears’s song Crazy a cappella.
Panettiere recently released a memoir
On Sunday, sources told TMZ that Panettiere had been recently complaining of back pain and that she and her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Brian Hickerson, flew from Los Angeles to the south just one day before her tragic passing.
The Hollywood star earned multiple award nominations across her career, most notably while playing cheerleader Claire Bennet on Heroes and Juliette Barnes on Nashville.
She also appeared in the Scream franchise as Kirby Reed, and lent her voice to the video games Until Dawn and Kingdom Hearts.
Panettiere is predeceased by her brother, Jensen, who passed away in February 2023 from ‘an enlarged heart’ aged 28.
She has said that she felt like she ‘lost half of her soul’ following his death, and revealed that the stress of his loss resulted in her body ‘ballooning out’, which left her in a ‘really bad’ and ‘destructive’ place.
Panettiere started out as a child star, with her first acting gig at just 11 months old
The actress’s younger brother, Jansen Panettiere, passed away in February 2023 from ‘an enlarged heart’. They’re seen together in 2011
Panettiere leaves behind an 11-year-old daughter with ex Wladimir Klitschko
The tragic news of her death comes just months after her memoir, This is Me: A Reckoning, became a New York Times bestseller.
In the book, Panettiere described how she contended with fame and handled the difficulties in her life.
She had suffered from drug addiction, beginning when she was just 15 years old.
At the time, she claimed she started taking ‘happy pills’ in an effort to make her seem more ‘peppy’ during interviews.
Her addiction then became worse as she was battling postpartum depression following the birth of her daughter Kaya in 2014.
But Panettiere has been sober in recent years, she said in a 2022 interview, noting that ‘it’s an everyday battle.’
‘It’s an everyday choice, and I’m checking in with myself all the time,’ Panettiere told People at the time.
‘But I’m just so grateful to be part of this world again, and I will never take it for granted again.’
Panettiere is seen crying following her brother’s celebration of life event in their hometown of Palisades, New York
Panettiere is pictured with her daughter, after telling how she almost died during childbirth
She has also told how she nearly died during childbirth, and later relinquished custody of her daughter to her ex, former heavyweight boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko, while struggling with postpartum depression in 2018.
Her daughter now lives in Europe.
Speaking of the decision, Panettiere said she ‘desperately’ needed help at the time and insisted that Kaya does not feel ‘abandoned’ while appearing in an episode of the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast.
‘The idea that anybody would think that I would just give away my child and be okay with it is heartbreaking. Couldn’t be further from the truth,’ Panettiere said.
‘I was struggling with mental health and anxiety and postpartum and having to act my way through it, and just feeling like I completely lost myself,’ she added.
Panettiere has also come out as bisexual as she promoted her new book.
‘It’s sad that I had to wait till I was 36 years old to share that part of me, but better late than never, right?’ the Nashville alum told Us Weekly in May.
‘I’ve chosen to share it with the world, I’m comfortable saying I’m bisexual. I’m comfortable to confidently say that, yes, I am bisexual. I said it!’
Despite having little privacy due to ‘paparazzi always outside waiting for me,’ Panettiere still managed to secretly date women, whom she preferred to men from ‘a very, very young age.’
Panettiere came out as bisexual as she promoted her new book
She played Juliette Barnes on the ABC show Nashville, releasing a number of her own songs
Panettiere is pictured with actor Adrian Pasdar on the set of Heroes
‘[I was] much more into women,’ the two-time Golden Globe nominee said.
‘But, yeah, I have explored it, but I don’t think I ever had the courage, because I hadn’t shared this with anybody.
‘I didn’t really have the courage to throw myself fully, emotionally into it, because then if I did fall in love, that wasn’t something that I wanted to ever have to hide. I didn’t feel confident enough, and I was too afraid to really let that part of me explore that part of me.’
Panettiere was born on August 21, 1989 in Palisades, New York.
She first started acting at just 11 months old when she appeared on screen in a commercial.
Her full-time acting career then began in 1994 when she played Sarah Roberts in the ABC soap opera One Life to Live until 1997. She then played Lizzie Spaulding in the CBS soap opera Guiding Light from 1996 to 2000.
For her role on Pixar’s A Bug’s Life, she was nominated for a Young Artist Award and Grammy Award, making her the fifth-youngest nominee for a Grammy.
Her other credits include Remember the Titans, Ally McBeal, Racing Stripes, Ice Princess and I Love You, Beth Cooper.
Panettiere also recorded a number of songs for the films and television programs she was in, including My Hero is You for the Disney Channel film Tiger Cruise and I Fly for the Disney film Ice Princess, which she co-starred in with the late Michelle Trachtenberg.
Her first single not associated with an acting role, the reggae-infused Wake Up Call, was digitally released on August 5, 2008.
Clothing brand Candie’s announced it was premiering an ad campaign for the single in late July of that year, and provided additional promotion for the song with a television ad and a music video starring Sebastian Stan, who played Panettiere’s brother in The Architect.
Panettiere later saw fame as one of the stars of Nashville, which ran from 2012 to 2018 and for which she was nominated for two Golden Globe awards.
Following the news of her death, actor Randall Slavin shared a photo of him with Panettiere, writing: ‘Peace be with you.’
Actress Selma Blair also wrote on Instagram: ‘I love you. Don’t be gone. Don’t be gone. Please.’
SAG-AFTRA added that it ‘mourns the sudden passing of Hayden Panettiere.’
Jalen Green, the 24-year-old NBA star, and his partner Draya Michele, a 41-year-old celebrity, have joyfully returned home after embarking on an enriching family journey across Asia.
This dynamic duo recently made a stop in Guangzhou, China, marking a pivotal leg of Green’s East Asia tour, which skillfully blended promotional duties with cultural immersion. Accompanying them were Draya’s children—sons Kniko and Jru, and daughter Lyght—making the trip a full family affair across these vibrant lands.
Green’s time in China was not just about leisure; he also handled some on-court business. The basketball prodigy faced Chen Zewen, a renowned Chinese streetball player, in a gripping 100-point one-on-one showdown. Green triumphed with a decisive 100-51 win at the renowned Nansha Gymnasium, showcasing his competitive spirit and skill.
After his impressive performance on the basketball stage, Green and his family indulged in the area’s rich cultural tapestries. They wandered through local attractions, enjoying the unique sights and savoring the diverse flavors that the region had to offer. Their adventurous palates led them to sample exotic dishes, including the daring delicacy of chicken feet.
Continuing their voyage, the family journeyed to Thailand, where their exploratory spirit persisted. They relished the country’s culinary delights, marveled at the picturesque landscapes, and spent tranquil moments by the water, savoring every bit of their Southeast Asian escapade.
Draya, who recently revealed that she had enrolled in culinary school, put her interest in food to good use by taking a cooking class while there. She later described it as a “10/10 experience.”
Having all three of her children along was another highlight for Draya. While sharing a video from Koh Yao Yai, she summed up how she felt about her kids.
“3 of the best things to ever happen to me,” she wrote.
Draya’s eldest son, Kniko, was born in 2002, while she welcomed Jru in 2016 with former NFL player Orlando Scandrick. Kniko attended Georgia State University, a milestone Draya proudly shared when he headed off to college.
Lyght, Draya’s youngest child and only daughter, is the first child she shares with Green. She was born on May 12, 2024, which fell on Mother’s Day that year.
The date held special meaning for Draya, whose father died on Mother’s Day in 2021. After Lyght’s arrival, she shared that the birth had given her family new memories to associate with a day that had previously been difficult for her.
@itsdrayamichele
Koh Yao Yai 2026 …. 3 of the best things to ever happen to me ❤️
♬ original sound – NDONGA PRO🖤🌹
Becoming a girl mom was also something Draya had wanted for years after raising two sons.
“I’ve always wanted a daughter and I really lost hope about it,” she previously told ESSENCE.
She added that having Lyght turned out to be “everything I imagined and more.”
Now two years old, Lyght has already enjoyed her share of adventures with her parents. This time around, her big brothers were there to experience the sights, food and fun alongside her.
A grim tale from Virginia has surfaced, capturing widespread attention after revelations of a fatal incident during what has been described as consensual yet perilous foreplay. A young woman of 19 has found herself embroiled in legal proceedings, facing charges of involuntary manslaughter following a tragic game of what authorities likened to “Russian roulette” with a firearm.
The details of the case became clearer over the weekend, as WAVY-TV reported that Ember McSpadden allegedly squeezed the trigger of a handgun three times. With each pull, she counted the ominous clicks until the gun discharged a bullet which struck 26-year-old Shane Brooks in the neck, an event adding layers of complexity to their relationship now under scrutiny.
Investigations have revealed that Brooks himself handed over the weapon—a partially loaded gun with only one cartridge—to McSpadden. The pair reportedly indulged in foreplay that strangely involved both guns and knives, raising serious questions about the nature and risks of their interactions.
In a court setting, a lead detective from Virginia Beach characterized their connection as a “friends with benefits” situation, 13News Now disclosed. This portrayal has sparked significant debate and further inquiry into their dynamics.
On a different note, Brooks’ family has asserted an emotional disconnect from these happenings, stating they were unaware of McSpadden and insisting that Shane and McSpadden were not romantically involved. The family’s statement adds a layer of poignancy and mystery as the investigation continues.
McSpadden allegedly told investigators that the cylinder would be spun and then checked to make sure it was not positioned on the live round.
But on the final pass, the lead detective testified, McSpadden clicked the trigger multiple times before a bullet fired into Brooks’ neck, according to 13News Now.
The fatal shooting unfolded in the early morning hours of March 5.
Virginia Beach emergency dispatchers received a report of a shooting around 1:09 a.m. in the 2600 block of Virginia Beach Boulevard, according to police.
Officers arrived to find Brooks suffering from a gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators found a total of seven guns in the room where Brooks died, including two revolvers on the bed, according to testimony reported by 13News Now.
One of the pistols was identified as the weapon used to shoot Brooks and had one cartridge case in the chamber, according to the station.
Virginia Beach police initially described Brooks’ death as the result of an “unintended firearm discharge.”
McSpadden, a Virginia Beach resident, was subsequently arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter.
The startling circumstances surrounding the shooting later emerged in court, where prosecutors presented testimony from a lead Virginia Beach detective and a forensic specialist.
McSpadden, who was out on bond, appeared at a preliminary hearing Friday, where a judge found sufficient evidence for the involuntary manslaughter charge to move forward to a grand jury.
Her attorney, Artisha Gregg, maintained that Brooks’ death was a tragic accident that McSpadden neither intended nor foresaw.
“This incident is a tragedy that my client deeply regrets, as evidenced by her emotional reaction during our hearing today,” Gregg said in a statement.
“As the evidence presented in court demonstrated, this was a tragic accident that my client had no intention or foresight would occur,” she added.
McSpadden faces a maximum prison term of 10 years if convicted.
Brooks’ family said hearing the details of his death laid out in court was difficult.
“There’s nothing we wouldn’t give to have him back,” his brother, Hunter Brooks, said. “We wouldn’t even care about going through this, if we could just have him back, even for a little bit longer.”
“And as that won’t happen, we obviously want to go through the court process and see a conviction at trial,” he added.
Brooks’ mother, Penny Brooks, was similarly unequivocal.
“We just want justice for Shane,” she said.
“We’d do anything to have him back, but, yeah, it’s just a lot to process being in there.”
Brooks was a lifelong Virginia Beach resident who graduated from Old Dominion University and served as a staff sergeant in the Virginia National Guard, according to his obituary.
He had roughly a decade of military service and completed a nine-month tour in Iraq, the obituary said.
Brooks was also remembered as a marathon runner, licensed pilot and outdoorsman. His family described him as “the glue that held our family together.”
Members of his running community organized a memorial run in his honor.
McSpadden’s next court appearance is scheduled for Oct. 21.
The Brooks family has raised $31,628 toward a $35,000 GoFundMe goal to help cover Shane’s funeral and memorial expenses following his sudden death.
Rumors are swirling that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are on the brink of moving in together. Delving into their astrological profiles may shed light on how they’ve navigated their long-distance relationship.
Published on
After approximately three years as a couple, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are contemplating the next big step: cohabitation. Despite being married, the couple’s demanding professional lives have necessitated living apart. While this arrangement might seem unconventional, their astrological signs might offer some clues into their unique decision.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are looking to move in together
The pair exchanged vows on July 3 and currently, Kelce is focused on his training camp with the Kansas City Chiefs, which sees them residing in Missouri at his home. However, sources indicate the couple envisions a future together in Montecito, California.
“They don’t want it to feel like it’s Travis’s house that Taylor moved into,” a source told The Daily Mail. “They want a place that’s theirs from day one. This is their fresh start.”
They hope to have a fresh start as a couple in their new home.
“They’re not building Taylor’s life or Travis’s life anymore,” the source said. “They’re building one life – together. They’ve done the long-distance thing, and it was hard. Now they’re married, Taylor’s going to be where Travis is. That’s home.”
A number of celebrities live in Montecito, which is located north of Los Angeles. Swift’s career doesn’t tie her to one specific city, and Kelce will likely retire soon.
“They want to wake up together, have dinner together and build a real home – not just squeeze in visits between schedules,” the source said. “I think Montecito might be a nice place to settle down. They love how private it is and secluded.”
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s astrology shows how long distance worked for them
Swift, who was born on Dec. 13, is a Sagittarius. Kelce, who was born on Oct. 5, is a Libra. This is an effortless and high-compatibility match. These signs share a strong connection and have many things in common. Both are social and intellectually curious, so they will enjoy getting to know each other.
Still, they have some differences. While Sagittarius tends to rush into things, Libra may take more time to dedicate themselves to a relationship. Once they do, though, they may struggle with co-dependency, which Saggitarius doesn’t like. As a result, these signs need to avoid rushing into things. Swift and Kelce have taken their time before moving in together, which may have helped their relationship.
Both signs are also indecisive, so it may have been difficult for the couple to land on a place to live.
In the ancient narratives handed down through generations, a legendary double-hulled canoe called Kaunitoni made a monumental journey from the west, ushering in the first leading chiefs of the iTaukei, the indigenous people of Fiji. Among them, as some versions recount, was the esteemed leader Lutunasobasoba.
The intrepid explorers undertook an extraordinary voyage, beginning in Thebes, ancient Egypt. Some accounts suggest their origins lay further west, moving through Israel, navigating down the Nile to the expansive Lake Tanganyika, and ultimately crossing the Indian Ocean to arrive at Vuda on the western coast of Viti Levu, Fiji’s largest island.
During this epic crossing, a significant event unfolded—a sacred box was lost overboard.
Legend holds that this mysterious box contained invaluable records of laws and genealogies of the people, vanishing along with the rest of the canoe’s precious cargo into the turbulent waters.
Over the past century, this captivating narrative has emerged as one of the most prominent versions of Fiji’s origins. It became a staple in mission and primary schools, resonating widely through radio broadcasts, and embedding itself into the ancestral understanding of countless generations of Fijians.
Only, much of it was invented in the 1890s — set down for the first time in a newspaper.
The colonial government’s Fijian-language paper, Na Mata, ran a competition at the time, inviting readers across the archipelago to send in the definitive account of where the Fijian people had come from, with the best to be printed.
The winning entry ran over 17 instalments, centring on a forgotten tribe. Within a few decades it had acquired the weight of history.
The shape of the belief
The story of the Kaunitoni is only one part of the overall narrative.
Behind the claimed migration sits a larger conviction, still widely held in some iTaukei communities and church groups: that Fijians descend from a Lost Tribe of Israel — one of 10 the Hebrew Bible describes as carried into exile and never heard from again.
The belief has no support in mainstream science or archaeology. Yet it has helped foster a distinctive affinity with Israel.
The particulars shift from place to place. On Mana Island, in the Yasawa group off western Viti Levu, the Ark of the Covenant — the gold-covered chest that, in the Book of Exodus, held the Ten Commandments — is said to lie buried.
In a village in Ba, in Viti Levu’s north-west, an elder once pointed to a rock and told Reverend Marika Baleidelabaci, a Fijian historian and Methodist minister, that Jesus had been born exactly there.
In the Navosa highlands, markings cut into a cave wall are read by some as ancient Hebrew — an interpretation, Baleidelabaci says, that came back with Fijian soldiers who had served in the Middle East and recognised the shapes.
“Nobody knows the origin of that writing,” he tells SBS News of the unverified petroglyphs.
They assumed that it must be Jewish.
Believers offer corroborations: circumcision is said to predate the missionaries; Fiji is read as an acronym for Father of Israel, Jewish Island; the tanoa, the carved bowl in which the yaqona (kava) drink is served, is claimed to take its name from a phrase meaning “built by Noah”.
Anthropologist Lynda Newland, writing in 2015, described the idea that certain iTaukei clans descend from a Lost Tribe as “very strong among some contemporary clans and church groups”. Her research traces the belief through the intersection of Christianity, Fijian traditions and ideas about ancestry.
Edwin Jones, who spent a year in the highland district of Nabobuco, found it had “gained currency” among Methodists of the interior — held there alongside their own belief that the ancestors emerged from the Nakauvadra hills.
Christians make up around two-thirds of Fiji’s population, and more than half of them are Methodist — a church whose preaching draws heavily on the Hebrew Bible. One former president of the Methodist Church in Fiji estimated 95 per cent of sermons were taken from the Old Testament.
Beyond Fiji, iterations of the same idea have taken root across Melanesia.
In western Papua New Guinea, the Gogodala have been reported to perform Hebrew prayers and incorporate biblical-Israelite ideas into religious practice.
On Malaita, the most populous island of Solomon Islands, the late Anglican visionary George Umai taught that his ancestors had fled Jerusalem in the first century and buried the Ark in the bush at Kwara’ae. There, Israeli flags still hang in village churches, a visible expression of the close ties some Pacific communities have developed with their perceived motherland.
Why the Pacific votes with Israel
In the past three years, that connection has become visible in foreign policy.
When the United Nations General Assembly voted in October 2023 on a ceasefire in Gaza, 14 countries opposed it. Six were Pacific Island states: Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Nauru, Tonga, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia — among the smallest nations on Earth and together accounting for nearly half of the votes against the resolution.
The resolution called for an immediate humanitarian truce but did not explicitly mention Hamas’ October 7 attacks, an omission several countries, including Fiji, cited in explaining their objections.
Fiji’s position is also shaped by domestic politics.
The country’s Jerusalem embassy, opened in September 2025, has its roots in a 2022 election that left parliament deadlocked and gave the nationalist Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA) the balance of power in coalition talks. SODELPA leader Viliame Gavoka had campaigned on a promise to establish an embassy in Jerusalem. Sitiveni Rabuka, who became prime minister after forming a coalition with SODELPA, agreed to the proposal, with Gavoka becoming his deputy.
Meanwhile, Papua New Guinea opened an embassy in Jerusalem in 2023, with Israel underwriting the running costs. Samoa announced its own in early 2026, and in July, Nauru became the latest Pacific country to announce plans to do so.
Jerusalem’s status remains sensitive and complex, as it is contested between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The Israelis claim it as their capital, and Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, is based there.
For Palestinians, it is their historical, religious and cultural capital, home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, considered the third holiest site in Islam, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the most sacred site in Christianity.
Israel has occupied East Jerusalem since 1967, annexing the area in 1980.
Israel has been expanding in the other direction too, opening an embassy in Fiji’s capital Suva in June — a regional hub intended to deepen ties with Fiji and across the wider Pacific.
But the political relationship has another layer. Behind the growth in political ties is decades of work by the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ), an evangelical Christian Zionist group founded in 1980 that has campaigned in Pacific churches for years, and whose Fiji branch its leadership has praised as a model for pro-Israel Christians worldwide. SBS News contacted the ICEJ for comment but received no response.
The attachment to the holy land is expressed in other ways too. Relative to its population, Fiji has sent more soldiers to UN peacekeeping missions than any other country in the world — many of which have been carried out in the Middle East. Believers of the Kaunitoni origin story also make regular pilgrimages to Israel.
In early October 2023, Fijian pilgrims stood in the Negev desert near the Gaza border, planting oak seedlings in the dry yellow dirt and watering them from a bottle of Fiji Water. They had travelled for Sukkot, the Jewish harvest festival, believing themselves to be returning to ancestral land.
Two days later, Hamas militants led the coordinated October 7 attack into southern Israel, leading to Israel’s invasion of the now-devastated enclave.
Brian Dunn is a church historian who emigrated to Fiji from Canada in mid-2023 and is now the head of history at Pasifika Communities University. He says many of those who have returned from peacekeeping tours describe them in unexpectedly personal terms.
“Some even looked at their tour of duty as a pilgrimage,” Dunn tells SBS News.
“I hadn’t really noticed until October 7 just how fully and completely it seems like the vast majority of Fijians were putting their support behind the nation state of Israel.”
How Fiji’s Kaunitoni origin story came to be
To understand how a newspaper entry came to shape Fiji’s origin story, we have to go back 40 years before it ran — to two Wesleyan missionaries, William Cross and David Cargill, who landed in 1835 on the island of Lakeba, in Fiji’s far east, carrying the Old Testament.
Fijians heard of a people chosen by God and organised into 12 tribes, each descended from a common ancestor — and Fijian society was built the same way, in clans tracing descent from a founding ancestor, each with its own plant or animal totem.
“They tried to assimilate themselves with the Jews,” Baleidelabaci says.
The idea took written form in the mission schools. In a 2003 doctoral thesis, the Fijian Methodist minister Tevita Baleiwaqa traces it to the seminary that trained Fiji’s first indigenous ministers, where students schooled in the Old Testament began reading their own past through biblical narratives.
Anthropologist Lynda Newland finds no trace of the Lost Tribes idea in Fiji before Cession in 1874 — when sovereignty was handed to Britain — and argues it surfaces a decade or two later — once Christianity and Victorian science had supplied “a grammar for it”.
That science was diffusionism: the belief that complex cultural practices could not have developed independently in different places, and must instead have spread from a common ancient source, often located somewhere in the biblical world.
Its method was wordplay. The missionary Jesse Carey, working under the amateur anthropologist Lorimer Fison, gathered resemblances between Fijian and African place names — among them a Vunda near Lake Tanganyika as well as the Vunda in Fiji — and concluded Fijians had come from Africa, and before that from Egypt.
“He homologised these names, though they have no relation whatsoever,” Dunn says.
The colonial administration had its own reason to want a single origin story. Fiji had never been one country, but a patchwork of chiefdoms with no paramount ruler — and Britain preferred to govern indirectly, through an existing hierarchy.
A shared ancestry was easier for colonial administrators to govern than a society of hundreds of clans.
Which brings the story back to the newspaper. In 1892 the editor of Na Mata announced a competition to select a definitive version of the people’s legendary history. No criteria for judging were ever published.
The winning entry ran in seventeen monthly instalments, and its author signed himself Denicagilaba — or Hurricane Clouds.
Three years later Basil Thomson, a colonial official who would go on to chair the Native Lands Commission — the body that decided which clan owned what — translated the story and published it in London.
The identity behind the pseudonym went unrecorded for 70 years. When the historian Peter France established it, on Thomson’s authority, Hurricane Clouds turned out to be Ilai Motonococoka — Thomson’s own clerk.
“It was like fan fiction,” Dunn says.
The ultimate agenda was to bring the land resources under control.
That interpretation is contested, but the story was produced at a time when the colonial government was formalising systems of land ownership and political authority.
Then the empire added a layer. Fiji was expected to pay for itself, and sugar was the crop to do it — but iTaukei land could not be sold, and iTaukei labour could not be easily commandeered for the plantations. So, Britain shipped in workers instead: more than 60,000 Indian indentured labourers arrived between 1879 and 1916, under contracts known as girmit.
To explain two peoples in one colony, missionaries turned to the story of twin brothers Jacob and Esau from the book of Genesis, casting Indo-Fijians as the younger brother Jacob and the iTaukei as Esau the hunter. In the story, the brothers share a lifelong rivalry that culminates in Jacob deceiving his father to gain a blessing intended for his older brother. Missionaries leant on the tale to share a hidden message: the older shall serve the younger.
The 1987 Fiji coups and the politics of identity
In April 1987, an election ended 17 years of rule by the iTaukei-led Alliance Party.
The winning coalition drew its support largely from Indo-Fijians, who by then made up roughly half the population; its prime minister, Timoci Bavadra, was an iTaukei commoner, but most of his cabinet was not.
Within a month, Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka — a Methodist lay preacher — walked into parliament with 10 masked soldiers and removed the government at gunpoint. When a negotiated settlement threatened to restore it in September, he seized power a second time and declared Fiji a republic.
Inside the Methodist Church, the country’s largest denomination, a parallel struggle over the church’s direction was under way.
For two decades its presidents had been moderates who preached ecumenism (unity among Christian denominations) and multiracialism; the church had elected an Indo-Fijian president as recently as 1977. Manasa Lasaro, its general secretary, moved against that tradition.
Baleidelabaci, who was in Fiji during those years, remembers the language exactly.
“He said the coup was the will of God to free the Fijians, the chosen people, from bondage and from heathen races,” he recalls.
“That refers to the Indians.”
Lasaro declared Fiji a holy land and its people a holy people, who demanded holy government for all. From the pulpit, Rabuka’s soldiers became Joshua, the general who seized Canaan, and the ministers Moses, who brought the people out of bondage.
“The Fijians at that time were only fighting for the rights of the iTaukei,” Baleidelabaci says.
“The dominance of iTaukei in Fiji.”
Underneath the scripture was a narrative the empire had helped build: one assembled to make Fiji legible to its administrators that had, a century later, been taken up by a nationalist movement — and turned against a population the same empire had brought to the colony.
The Fijian histories left out of the archive
When Dunn repeated the Kaunitoni story to elders in the highland village of Rewasau, deep in the interior and far from the coastal centres where the mission first took hold, they brushed it aside.
“That’s not our story,” they told him.
We didn’t come from anywhere. We’ve always been here.
Archaeological evidence points to human settlement around 3,000 years ago, associated with the Lapita people, whose distinctive pottery has been found across the Pacific — a very different account from the Kaunitoni story of migration from ancient Egypt.
Baleidelabaci, a Methodist minister himself, is collecting what the archive left out — accounts that survived in the far-flung villages, and nowhere else.
“When they arrived, they said that our stories of our origin were regarded as myths and legends,” he says.
“There’s a lot of things in my church that need to be reinvestigated. What we are doing now is still new to us.”
For Dunn, the correction has to come from the same place the stories do.
“The voice of the communities has really unsettled the text. Most of what actually happened never got written,” he says.
Just a tiny sliver made it into the archive — and the very act of writing it into an archive is a power move.
