Google Maps still shows a prosperous image of Pacific Place, a business center on the busy Valley boulevard in a suburb east of Los Angeles, California. But that picture no longer matches reality. The windows of a mental health clinic and a real estate agency have been boarded up to protect the premises from vandalism. One by one, shops pulled down their shutters until the mall was almost deserted. Several businesses belonging to an enigmatic figure also closed: Guojun Xuan, a wealthy Chinese immigrant who is at the center of a chilling case involving the alleged mistreatment of 21 children at his Arcadia mansion.
How many days of work does it take to earn enough to buy a basic food basket of 10 items? If we ask that question in Ireland, the answer is just 1.2 hours of work. The picture changes dramatically in the Central African Republic, where a worker needs about 30 days to purchase the same basic basket. In Finland, a person can pay for a week’s groceries with only 1.7 hours of work, compared with the 20.4 days required for someone living in Malawi.
Seasoned in defending rural communities and smallholder farmers, Sofía Monsalve, 56, was appointed United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food in May. In exchange for throwing herself into an unpaid position, the Colombian political scientist says she enjoys complete independence. “I have the freedom to call things by their name,” she tells EL PAÍS in Turin during Terra Madre, the gathering of the international sustainable food network Slow Food.
On March 7, 2024, Cynthia Conforto’s cellphone exploded with calls. On the eve of International Women’s Day events, a sports journalist’s accusation of sexual assault against four Vélez Sarsfield players disrupted plans for 8M. Conforto had been in charge of the club’s Gender Department for only a few months; Vélez is one of the 30 clubs in Argentina’s professional league. The alleged incidents took place during a team training camp in Tucumán, about 750 miles from Buenos Aires.
“This is a very disturb¬ ing movie, made by some pretty disturbed people.” That was how Chris Carlo, owner of one of the first theaters to screen Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer in 1990, described John McNaughton’s feature debut. Made four years earlier, the film had become a cult classic before it ever reached a movie theater. Carlo programmed it for midnight screenings where audience members often walked out, unable to endure its violence.
Although they lost almost all their savings in Bernie Madoff’s multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, the marriage of Kevin Bacon, 68, and Kyra Sedgwick, 61, who have been together for 38 years, survived with their New York apartment and their farm in Connecticut intact. It was there that the pandemic lockdown found them, and there that they hatched a film together, with the help of their two children, who came from the West Coast: Travis, a composer drafted into acting by the demands of the script, and Sosie, who has already established herself as a film and television actress.
In a remarkably forceful address, Felipe VI of Spain on Tuesday asserted Ceuta’s ‘sovereignty’ and ‘territorial integrity,’ two and a half months after more than 80,000 people crossed illegally from Morocco in an unprecedented mass incursion into the Spanish exclave city in northern Africa.
On the eve of the opening of his exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao on October 8, Steve McQueen met with the museum guides who will introduce his work to visitors and school groups, so they could understand his intentions firsthand.
Artificial intelligence is also making its way into the world of books. EL PAÍS examined the use of AI in a sample of 119 popular books published in 2025 and 2026, analyzing titles that appeared on the bestseller lists at Amazon.es and the Spanish bookstore chain Casa del Libro, as well as the winners of a major literary prize.
The coronavirus arrived in Bolivia amid uncertainty and panic that gave rise to racism. There are reports in which Indigenous people say they were denied medical care because healthcare workers were afraid of becoming infected. They were labeled sources of contagion for failing to comply with lockdown measures, since their livelihoods depended on in-person activities. Yet during the same period, another narrative emerged within Indigenous communities: that the Andean body was resistant to the virus because of the hardiness developed from living at high altitudes.
On the night of March 20, 2024, unusually humid and mild in London, three people in their twenties pulled up at an industrial estate in the east of the city in a cherry-red Kia Picanto. They went inside, set fire to a warehouse, and filmed the blaze on a cellphone. The video of the flames consuming the premises ended up in the hands of another 20-year-old, Dylan Earl, who was reached via the Telegram messaging app by the Russian paramilitary organization Wagner, linked to the Kremlin, which had in turn recruited others to do the dirty work. One of the burned units contained humanitarian aid and Starlink satellite equipment destined for Ukraine. According to the British investigation, the three young men who lit the fuse did not know they were actually working for Russia.
Fifty years later, Carrie White is returning to American high schools. Prime Video’s new series revisits the bullied teenager who became one of horror’s defining figures, first in Stephen King’s novel and later in Brian De Palma’s 1976 adaptation. But there is one image that remains impossible to escape: Sissy Spacek, drenched in blood, staring directly into the camera after unleashing her telekinetic powers. For several generations, the role has been synonymous with Spacek. Now, as a new actress takes on Carrie, we look back at what became of the 76-year-old performer who brought to life some of the most memorable characters of 1970s and 1980s cinema.
Spacek was 26 when Brian De Palma cast her as a high school student in 'Carrie.' The film changed her career forever, earned her first Oscar nomination and secured her a place in the cultural imagination that remains remarkably intact 50 years after its release. The actress says that teenagers still approach her today to show off tattoos of the outcast heroine. Incidentally, unlike Carrie, Spacek was her high school’s prom queen.
Born Mary Elizabeth in a small rural town in Texas, Spacek acquired the nickname “Sissy” from her two older brothers, a name by which she would eventually become known around the world. Following the death of one of them, she left home one summer for New York with an actor cousin in an attempt to escape the family tragedy. She abandoned plans to attend college and, under the stage name Rainbo, tried to make it as a folk singer in late-1960s Manhattan. It didn’t work out. Her record label dropped her, and Spacek decided to enroll in acting school instead.
Terrence Malick’s cult classic 'Badlands' marked Spacek’s first leading role in a feature film and became her breakthrough. She played a teenage girl who runs away with a rebellious young man she has just met, played by Martin Sheen, and becomes a fugitive after her father rejects the relationship. The film won the Golden Shell at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, and Spacek, who had been studying acting for only a matter of months, emerged as an unlikely Hollywood star: an anti-diva whose red hair, freckles, diminutive stature and youthful appearance set her apart from the era’s conventional screen icons.
The film also changed her life in another way: it was on the set that she met the love of her life, production designer Jack Fisk. After first crossing paths in 1972, the two married a couple of years later and have now been together for half a century, making them one of Hollywood’s longest-lasting couples. They have two daughters, Schuyler and Madison, and both remain active in the industry. Fisk's recent production design credits include 'Marty Supreme,' 'The Revenant' and 'Killers of the Flower Moon.'
Spacek became one of the defining stars of the New Hollywood era, a movement heavily influenced by the French New Wave and Italian neorealism. Beginning in 1977, the Texas-born actress received five Oscar nominations in less than a decade. Among her most memorable performances from that era are 'Missing,' directed by Costa-Gavras; 'The River,' opposite Mel Gibson; and 'Crimes of the Heart,' alongside Jessica Lange and Diane Keaton.
Spacek won her first and only Oscar in 1981 for 'Coal Miner’s Daughter,' the biopic of country singer Loretta Lynn. Lynn had risen from humble beginnings in rural Kentucky, marrying at 13 and becoming a mother of four before the age of 20. In a twist of fate, when Spacek was trying to launch a music career years earlier, a record label turned her down because her voice sounded too much like that of another artist on its roster: Loretta Lynn. That very similarity would later help earn her an Academy Award. Spacek performed all of the songs in the film herself and even received a Grammy nomination for her work.
The greatest tragedy of Spacek’s life came when she was just 17. Her brother Robert, only a few months older than she was, died of leukemia. Spacek was just beginning to work at the time and, despite the devastation, managed to turn that trauma into a source of strength throughout her career.
Spacek and Fisk married in Santa Monica in a ceremony so private that their dog was their only witness, and so informal that both wore jeans. The actress credits the longevity of their relationship to the constant collaboration between them.
At the height of their fame, Spacek and Fisk left Hollywood behind and moved to a farm in rural Virginia, determined to raise their daughters away from red carpets and the glare of the spotlight. There, they raised horses and grew their own vegetables, while Spacek returned to acting only for roles that truly resonated with her. In 2001, she earned a sixth Oscar nomination for her performance in 'In the Bedroom.'
Their daughters have followed their parents into the film industry as well. Schuyler Fisk became an actress and, while she never came close to matching her mother’s level of fame, she has enjoyed a steady career in American television and film. Madison, meanwhile, learned the ropes from her father and has worked in the art department on a number of feature films, following in his footsteps as a production designer.
One of the best-known stories from 1970s Hollywood is how Spacek landed the role of Carrie. As close friends, George Lucas and Brian De Palma held joint auditions for their next projects, 'Star Wars' and 'Carrie,' respectively. Spacek auditioned for Lucas’s film, while Carrie Fisher also took part in casting sessions connected to the horror movie. In the end, the roles found their way to the actresses who would make them iconic: Fisher as Princess Leia and Spacek as Carrie White.
Spacek’s performance left such a deep mark on popular culture that screenwriter and producer Mike Flanagan, who is once again adapting 'Carrie' for Prime Video, has said it was the biggest hurdle in casting the role anew. According to Flanagan, most of the 1,400 actresses who auditioned for the series arrived trying to imitate Spacek’s iconic performance. The part ultimately went to Summer H. Howell, whose reinterpretation of Carrie has drawn widespread praise from critics.
Although she was never associated with method acting in the way her contemporary Robert De Niro was, Spacek’s approach to her craft also relied on total immersion in her characters. For '’night, Mother,' in which she played a daughter struggling with suicidal thoughts, she would spend weeks inhabiting a deeply depressed emotional state until filming wrapped. It was none other than Jack Lemmon who warned her that if she remained so committed to despair, she might end up being consumed by it herself.
Jennifer Lawrence, Jessica Chastain and Emma Stone — whom Spacek once advised never to hide her freckles on screen again — are among the younger generation of stars who have publicly expressed their admiration for the 76-year-old actress. Stone, who also worked with Spacek on 'The Help,' has reunited with the veteran actress for 'The Catch,' the new film directed by Stone’s husband, Dave McCary.
At 76, Spacek appears to have settled on a definition of happiness far less ambitious than the one Hollywood usually sells. In a 2022 interview with 'Esquire,' when asked how she managed to remain so upbeat, she said happiness is overrated and that we need to be content and simply be.
When motherhood came calling, Spacek had little doubt about what should take priority. She even turned down the role that would eventually go to Debra Winger in 'Terms of Endearment' because she did not want to be separated from her daughter Schuyler, who was only a few months old.
White Nights, a short novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky first published in 1848, is the latest literary discovery of Generation Z. TikTok users seem to be talking about little else.
The Japanese apparel group Fast Retailing, owner of the Uniqlo chain, continues to grow at a rapid pace and could finish 2026 as the world’s second-largest fashion retailer. On Thursday, the company reported record annual results, with double-digit increases in both revenue and profit.
International health authorities are on alert over a possible case of plague that may not even exist. The death of a laboratory worker at a plague research facility in Russia’s Irkutsk region on October 2 sparked concerns, and the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday offered technical assistance to the Russian government while requesting additional information needed to assess any potential risk.
The African Union (AU) on Wednesday launched a continental credit rating agency aimed at providing risk assessments that it says will be more credible and realistic than those produced by the major international rating agencies. The goal is to lower Africa’s borrowing costs and support the continent’s development and industrialization. To that end, the African Credit Rating Agency (AfCRA), which will be headquartered in Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius, will operate as a private and independent entity, with no ownership stake held by the AU or any government.
When Republican Greg Abbott was re-elected governor of Texas in 2022, his margin over opponent Beto O’Rourke was nearly 11 percentage points. Less than a month before the midterm elections, however, polls no longer show him with a comfortable lead. Survey averages put Democratic candidate Gina Hinojosa just over two points behind and rapidly closing the gap, raising alarm among Democrats over the need to boost campaign funding in the final stretch.
Sometimes people count their chickens before they hatch. That’s what happened to the regional premier of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, in June 2022 during one of her trips to Miami, where she posed beside a large bear sculpture that she said would end up on a public roundabout in the southern Florida city. Meant to represent Madrid, the large, candy-like bear has instead been parked in the hallway of a well-known Miami restaurant, where it serves as a decorative item.
What happens when happiness ceases to be a desire and, instead, becomes an obligation? This is a question that Carl Cederström has been posing for years. The sociologist teaches at Stockholm Business School and is the author of several critical essays on workplace culture and the happiness industry. His popular book The Wellness Syndrome (2015) is a sharp and engaging work, co-authored with André Spicer, dean of Bayes Business School in London.
There was a time when moderation was a virtue and the middle ground, wisdom. Hyperbole was no more than a literary or rhetorical device. But not anymore. We live at the extremes. Raising everything to its highest possible level is the zeitgeist fate has handed us, and it comes with a suffix that colonizes the internet: maxxing. A highly versatile suffix: placed after the right word it means that, whatever you do, you are giving it your all.
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