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Letters and photos from Beatles’ early days to go on show in Hamburg | The Beatles
A rare set of letters and photos from the early days of the Beatles, in which they write about feeling like stars for the first time, is to go on display in Hamburg.
The collection, from an influential period when the band lived in the German city, includes the only letter in existence with words from both Paul McCartney and John Lennon, which was written to the bassist’s brother, Mike McCartney.
The free exhibition, which runs from 8 to 25 May and is part of Hamburg’s annual port festival, Hafengeburtstag, revolves around the original five members of the band during a period that massively shaped their sound and look between 1960 and 62.
Mike McCartney, who donated some of the letters to the collection put together by the Liverpool city region combined authority and the Hamburg senate, said: “It’s fascinating, because they [give] you so many secrets about them as they are developing.”
“It was quite extraordinary, because our kid is just saying what’s happening there in a foreign land, over the water. And it was a very important stage in their development,” Mike told the Guardian.
The letters, also gathered from The Cavern Club and the Liverpool Beatles Museum, reveal the thoughts of Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, as well as those of the original bassist, Stuart Sutcliffe, who died shortly after the Hamburg period from a brain haemorrhage at the age of 21, and the original drummer, Pete Best, who was hired specifically for their first visit to Hamburg.
In a letter from Best to his mother, he recalls how he, Lennon and McCartney felt like stars boarding their plane, having been interviewed by a member of the press about them being voted Liverpool’s number one band.
Photographs taken by Best, who was instrumental in the band’s style – and was the first to have the band’s moptop hairstyle, given to him by his fiancee, Astrid Kirchherr – also feature in the exhibition. He decided to stay in Hamburg with Kirchherr while the other bandmates returned to Liverpool, and he was replaced by Ringo Starr.
Mike McCartney said the Beatles did shows “non-stop” during their time in Hamburg, famously performing for eight hours some evenings. “They were on all these pills to keep them going, uppers and downers,” he said. When Paul returned from Hamburg, he was noticeably thinner, Mike said, but it was clear the band had gone to the next level.
“The music when they then played around Liverpool – by god, could you hear the professionalism. The difference was that they had come out of Hamburg, done the hard work – I mean, more than hard work. It was like they were like chalk and cheese when they came back to Liverpool. And they were just out and out the top group in Liverpool, because they were so together, so united, so different.”
One letter from Paul to Mike, written in May 1962, gives an insight into Hamburg’s flourishing live music scene, with Paul revealing how they had been told that the American rock’n’roll legends Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis could soon be visiting the city, and how Paul hoped the Beatles could perform with Berry.
It also features a lengthy passage from Lennon, dictated to his bandmate, which starts with a whimsical poem about keeping your chin up and commiserates with Mike for not getting a job as a hairdresser, without knowing if he actually got it or not, and goes on for several pages, with characters such as Jesus and the F1 driver Stirling Moss all making an appearance.
Liverpool Combined Authority said it was potentially looking at bringing the exhibition home in the future, after a BBC six-part series being filmed in Hamburg looking at the Beatles’ early days.
Mike said he had not kept the letters for any particular reason initially, and that he “didn’t even realise their significance” until very recently. His wife had called him a hoarder for keeping these items for more than 60 years, he said. “But I’m glad that I did, to a certain extent. Because if I hadn’t hoarded, then you wouldn’t have these unique letters.”
Mike was also a musician, in the band the Scaffold, which has a box set of singles and albums available, and he was a photographer, taking pictures of the Beatles in their early days, which later were collected into the book Mike McCartney’s Early Liverpool.
He said he and his brother had moved on from using letters to communicate. “Now he does FaceTime, looking like a scruffy get,” Mike said. “He never shaves. I always say ‘you scruffy bugger’. We just talk about nothing … and everything.”
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Alleged WHCA shooter Cole Allen’s education history scrutinized as a leftist hotbed
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FIRST ON FOX: The educational background of the alleged White House Correspondents’ dinner Correspondents dinner shooter Cole Allen is generating renewed scrutiny from critics about the current state of academia and bias in the teaching profession, as well as questions about far-left politics and rhetoric on college campuses, including the specific institutions the alleged shooter attended.
Allen graduated from Cal State University Dominguez Hills in May 2025 with a Master’s Degree in computer science, according to his LinkedIn page. He spent a few years at the Carson, California, institution that multiple university employees who spoke to Fox News Digital said is rife with far-left ideology and antipathy toward countering views to that.
“I was not shocked,” a CSU Dominguez employee, granted anonymity to protect against retribution, told Fox News Digital about the news that Allen was a former student at the university. “Campus policy treats ICE like it is an invading army. There is constant talk of ‘the community under threat.’”
“I hope no one here approves of violence, but continually talking about the government as a threat to the community isn’t healthy.”
UNEARTHED VIDEO REVEALS COLE ALLEN AS QUIET INVENTOR YEARS BEFORE ALLEGED BID TO ASSASSINATE TRUMP
A photo of Cole Allen in a graduation gown and cap from 2025. (Cole Allen/LinkedIn)
Some professors and administrators at CSUDH emphasize race and division in their teaching, and while they may not be the majority, they are highly visible and appear to be well supported, another employee said.
For example, the employee explained that the university maintains three separate ethnic studies departments, Chicana/o studies, Africana studies and Asian Pacific studies, even though these programs have relatively few majors and graduates. Despite the university facing a serious financial crisis, there are no plans to consolidate them into a single department, which could reduce costs.
“Faculty who spearheaded the push for an ‘ethnic studies’ requirement in the CSU were almost uniformly rewarded with deanships and administrative positions throughout the CSU,” the employee said.
Additionally, the Chicana/o Studies Department publicly supported Gaza on Nov. 3, 2023, weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, but did not face any official consequences or requests to apologize, the employee said.
“Conservative and independent professors and lecturers can expect scorn and insult when they try and actually voice their viewpoints, if not outright censure,” one of the employees told Fox News Digital.
“Conservative students can realistically expect retaliation from faculty for disagreeing with said faculty member’s political views. I’ve heard a member dismiss a rather good student as being libertarian, ‘And, therefore, he can’t be that smart.’”
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Law enforcement personnel detain Cole Tomas Allen, a suspect in the shooting incident at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, D.C., on April 25, 2026. (Donald J Trump via Truth Social/Handout via Reuters)
One of the employees suggested that “regular folks from 20 years ago likely “keep their mouths shut” in order to not be branded a “right-wing bigot.”
“If you aren’t ‘anti-racist’ you are part of the problem to many of the most vocal people here. Certainly I’m not comfortable letting my views be fully known and I’m a lifelong Democrat.”
One of the most prominent voices on campus during Allen’s tenure was the school’s president, who often talked about race and labeled the Trump administration as racist.
“We need to be cognizant of how our minds and spirits, minds and spirits, have been contaminated by the residuals of racism and white supremacy,” Thomas A. Parham, former president at Cal State University Dominguez Hills, said during a webinar last fall titled, “Liberation Psychology: Unlocking the Shackles of Conceptual Incarceration,” first reported by Gateway Pundit.
Parham served as the president of CSU Dominguez Hills from March 2018 through this past December, when he stepped down after the school’s Academic Senate passed a resolution of “no confidence” over his leadership during his tenure.
Parham said during the webinar that it was his goal to “disrupt” and “dislodge” individuals who feel “comfortable” with the “way things are” when it comes to race.
“I want to dislodge them from that comfortable category of intellectual, emotional, and behavioral apathy that has been stuck in the way things are and then acting in the way that happens,’ Parham explained in the webinar, which was hosted by the American Psychological Association (APA) Leadership Development Institute.
“If I need to adjust or disrupt that fragility in order to do that, that is the only thing that is going to instigate change. If I make them too comfortable, then all they do is receive information and passively go about doing it as if everything they’re doing is okay. So, I have to be one that’s unapologetic about being able to confront the fragility.”
Parham also offered criticism of Trump in the webinar, saying, “When you can brag about grabbing women by the privates, that is sexual assault that would wind everybody else up in jail. And 53% of the women still vote for you. Mostly White. You know this is something more than just a political issue.”
At another point in the webinar, Parham claimed the Trump administration doesn’t like minorities, saying, “Everybody knew this current federal administration was not liking Black folk, was not liking Latino folk, and was not down with immigrants. Everybody knew that.”
One of the CSU Dominguez employees told Fox News Digital, “That’s Parham.”
“He centered race in everything, but only in a Black-White binary despite campus being 2/3s Latino,” the employee said. “He was defiant about not following DOE/admin rules on DEI and always made it feel like if you weren’t far-left, you didn’t share the values of the ‘Toro Family.’ A lot of professors, especially the loudest voices on campus, are the same way. I’m sure a lot of professors aren’t pushing an agenda, but the dominant narrative on campus, including from administration, that the mission of the university is race-conscious, Leftist, and activist.”
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On April 17, 2025, a month before Allen graduated, CSUDH faculty and staff joined a press conference and rally as part of the National Day of Action for Higher Education. This was coordinated with other Southern California campuses to protest what organizers called the Trump administration’s “attacks on higher education.”
Dr. Rick Addante, a neuroscientist who spent years working in the Cal State University system and was present during Parham’s webinar, which he posted online, told Fox News Digital he was “shocked and appalled at the kind of vile hate and discrimination that he [Parham] was spewing,” and made the case that the political climate at CSU Dominguez was one that could easily radicalize an impressionable student.
Addante, who has been sounding the alarm on X over alleged liberal radicalization on college campuses over the last few years after being fired from Florida Tech after blowing the whistle on DEI, argues that the rhetoric found in the shooter’s manifesto is indistinguishable from the official “ideological breeding ground” established by Parham. He believes the shooter was “indoctrinated” by an institutional culture that explicitly targets the Trump administration and its supporters.
“When you look at that, and you ask yourself, why is this person willing to run through a gauntlet of Secret Service people to attack the entire line of succession of the United States government and the President of the United States, where do his ideas, where do his thoughts and this drive come from?” Addante said. “Well, to me, you can draw a straight line connecting the two dots because this is clearly what he was indoctrinated with.”
“As far as I’m concerned, they should be yanking funding from all of these places and treating them like the madrasas for the terror breeding grounds that they are,” Addante added.
Beginning in March 2020, Allen’s LinkedIn profile says, he joined C2 Education, a tutoring company, enrolling at California State University, Dominguez Hills, in 2022 to pursue an MS in computer science, graduating in May 2025. That school also confirmed that a person by the same name graduated with a master’s degree that year.
A Dec. 30, 2024, Facebook post from C2 Education congratulated “Cole Allen of C2 Education Torrence on being honored as December teacher of the month.” A photo matching that of Allen was attached to the post.
According to law enforcement officials, Allen’s past includes descending into anti-Trump hate, attending at least one of the three “No Kings” protests organized over the past year by groups including Democratic-leaning nonprofits, like Indivisible, MoveOn and American Federation of Teachers, and a network of socialist organizations.
In the days following the high-profile shooting authorities say was carried out by Allen, social media users began pointing to his educational background and his leftist commentary on social media, while highlighting the allegations in recent years that the education system in the United States has been increasingly promoting and funding far-left ideologies.
“If you’re surprised that the wannabe Trump assassin is a teacher, you haven’t been paying attention,” political commentator Riley Gaines posted on X on Monday in response to a Fox News Digital report highlighting the over $1 billion teachers’ unions have sent to far left causes over the last decade.
“The elephant in the room is that a left wing teacher just tried to assassinate multiple members of the Trump administration after teachers unions spent more than $1 billion on left-wing causes,” Republican communicator Steve Guest posted on X in response to the same report.
In addition to attending CSU Dominguez, in September 2013, according to his online profile, Allen enrolled in the highly competitive California Institute of Technology, known as Caltech, to pursue a BS in mechanical engineering, graduating in 2017.
Caltech has had its own issues with perceptions of far-left curriculum and ideology, highlighted most notably by a National Association of Scholars report that concluded DEI, widely viewed by conservative critics as a key tenet of far-left ideology on college campuses, is not just administrative at Caltech, it’s inserted into scientific research culture itself.
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The report explains that “Caltech’s administration is thoroughly saturated with DEI’s broader ideological agenda” and that “DEI was established to operate at every level of campus work.”
DEI was also a top priority of Parham during his tenure at CSU Dominguez, according to his own words in an exit interview where he took a shot at the Trump administration’s efforts to rein back race-based hiring and curriculum.
“We are acutely aware of the federal government’s hostility toward anything that looks like it wants to be diverse,” Parham said. “Not a surprise to us, but we try to delicately dance, not to skirt the law, but really to be in tune with the law as it is written, and separate out what is someone’s opinion and perspective about what they like and don’t like, versus technically what is legal.”
In the same interview, Parham expressed his reverence for anti-colonialist writer and activist Frantz Fanon, a French political philosopher who died in 1961, who was labeled the “Patron Saint of Political Violence” by The Atlantic in 2024.
“They become mantras and symbols of possibility. When I see Fannie Lou Hamer talking about — I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired — it sometimes creates the mood and the ambiance that allows me to kind of move forward,” Parham said when asked about the “black intellectuals” that are “meaningful in his life.” “When I see Fanon, which is kind of my daily mantra, say that Each generation, out of relative obscurity, must reach out and seek to fulfill its legacy or betray it — I go to work every day and go to bed every night deciding, have I fulfilled or betrayed the legacy that I’ve been blessed to inherit by my ancestors and my elders?”
In his farewell email to the university, obtained by Fox News Digital, Parham said he hoped his “lasting legacy” was his “commitment” to DEI measures.
CSUDH’s interim president, Mary Ann Villarreal, appears to have made racial “equity” a key part of her resume as well, joining the university after serving as “vice president for institutional excellence at the American Association of Colleges and Universities, a global membership organization dedicated to advancing equity, innovation, and educational excellence,” according to her bio.
Before that, Villarreal served as the vice president for equity, diversity and inclusion.
MS NOW HOSTS CALL OUT ‘DISTURBING’ LEFT-WING THEORIES THAT WHCD SHOOTING WAS A ‘FALSE FLAG’
Sketch of Cole Allen during his first appearance at E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse in Washington, D.C., on April 27, 2026. Allen faces three counts, including attempting to assassinate the president, transporting a firearm across state lines, and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence. (Dana Verkouteren)
“I am excited to join CSUDH in advancing its vital mission of serving California students in all their diversity and promise,” Villarreal said after her appointment in a press release on the school website. “Dominguez Hills is a beacon of inclusivity and a vital anchor for its community.”
A spokesperson for CSU Dominguez pointed Fox News Digital to their previous statement on April 27 that said, “CSUDH reiterates its condemnation for the act of violence at the WHCA dinner. The university community is grateful for law enforcement’s swift response and greatly relieved that no one was seriously injured.”
In response to questions about the climate on campus, the spokesperson said, “CSUDH is committed to creating a safe, healthy environment in which our campus community can thrive and exchange ideas. Our mission is to provide a transformative educational experience that helps students in their academic and career journeys.”
The statement continued, “CSUDH upholds the tenets of the First Amendment: our staff, faculty, and students, each of whom has their own perspectives and life experiences, are free to engage in dialogue and debate. No one is discouraged from speaking their mind, and the university cannot and will not intervene in individual expression unless it violates the law. CSUDH urges anyone experiencing retaliation or harassment to make a report so that the university can respond appropriately and provide any necessary supports.”
A Caltech spokesperson told Fox News Digital the shooting incident is “deeply troubling” and that “we unequivocally denounce all forms of political violence and extend our concern and support to all those impacted by this incident.”
“Caltech is firmly committed to—and solely focused on—advancing knowledge; promoting critical, data-driven inquiry; and providing the next generation of scientists and engineers with access to research and learning experiences that drive discovery, innovation, and technological advancement.”
The spokesperson also pointed to reporting on community members and classmates who have said Allen was actively involved with the Caltech Christian Fellowship club and fencing during his time at Caltech.
Nicole Neily, president of the education watchdog Defending Education, pointed to a 2024 report her organization released highlighting the “activist pipeline” on college campuses.
HOW UNIVERSITY INDOCTRINATION TURNED DEADLY, AND WHY ONE SCHOLAR SAYS IT’S ONLY GETTING WORSE
“Colleges of education have strayed far from their mission of providing best practices and tactics for teachers, instead focusing on leveraging pupils to combat a so-called ‘oppressor-oppressed matrix,’” Neily said.
“For far too long, teachers have viewed their role as ‘agents of social change’ rather than of educators – and the results of this sea change are obvious when looking at test scores. America’s students deserve to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic – not be enlisted as child soldiers in progressives’ war on our country’s values.”
Skeptic Research Center, a project of The Skeptics Society, released a study in 2025 suggesting a correlation between a high level of education and being more open to supporting political violence.
“Americans with the highest level of formal education were also the most supportive of political violence,” the study stated, adding, “[Thirty-six] percent of those with a graduate or professional degree agreed at least somewhat with the statement ‘If you are protesting something unjust, it is reasonable to damage property,’ while 40 percent agreed that ‘Violence is often necessary to create social change.’”
Addante told Fox News Digital that Saturday’s shooting should be a wakeup call to the threat of radical ideology on college campuses nationwide.
“Where did the manifesto come from? Where did the ideas that drove the manifesto and the actions and the threats, where did they come from? They didn’t come from Reddit, they didn’t come from social media,” Addante said.
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“They might have been exacerbated by Reddit and social media and Bluesky, and sure, blame them too. But we’re not going to solve anything by blaming BlueSky and Reddit. We’re going to solve things by addressing the root cause, which is actually the ideological breeding grounds and where he was trained to think this way by the actual employed people receiving federal funds who specifically spent five — four years, five years teaching him literally this. That is what we’re not doing as a country in focusing and that’s why it’s going to continue to happen over and over again because there are a thousand of these institutions around America.”
Fox News Digital’s Peter D’Abrosca and Asra Q. Nomani contributed to this report.
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Asylum seeker sent back to France in ‘one in, one out’ scheme to be returned to Syria | Immigration and asylum
An asylum seeker sent back to France under the controversial “one in, one out” scheme faces being returned to Syria after authorities in Paris ruled it was safe to do so, in what is believed to be the first case of its kind.
When the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, announced the “groundbreaking” deal in July 2025 to stop small boats crowded with asylum seekers from crossing the Channel – by forcibly returning one small-boat asylum seeker to France in exchange for bringing one in northern France legally to the UK – they emphasised that France was a safe country for returnees.
Now, in what is thought to be the first case of its kind, a 26-year-old Kurdish man from Syria, who arrived in the UK on a small boat and was sent back to France last November, has had the asylum claim he lodged in France rejected by the authorities. The rejection letter states that Syria will be safe for him.
One of the key issues in the previous British government’s failed plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was the risk of onward return from there to unsafe countries. Syria is not on the recently updated EU list of safe countries for asylum seekers to be returned to.
Despite this, the man’s refusal letter states: “The individual … has not presented any relevant arguments that would convince the office that his personal circumstances would pose a serious and individual threat to his life or person should he return to his country.”
The asylum interview in France to determine his future, seen by the Guardian, lasted one hour and 12 minutes followed by a further interview of 49 minutes. Much of the interview focused on asking him to prove he lived in the village he said he lived in.
The man fled Syria last year after the village chief told him the Kurdish militia in the area, the YPG, had his name on a list for forced conscription. “I didn’t want to go to war and kill people,” he said.
He fled with family members, including his mother and younger siblings. They used smugglers to cross the border from Syria to Turkey, where smugglers separated him from the rest of his family and forced him into a different lorry.
“I do not know what has happened to my family. I have not managed to make contact with them since the smugglers separated us,” he said.
“I am so stressed by everything that has happened to me that my hair has started falling out. I’m 26 and I am too young to be losing my hair. I don’t know what to do now. I followed the rules under ‘one in, one out’ and claimed asylum in France, but that has been rejected.
“I am the first asylum seeker returned to France to receive this rejection. If I return to the UK on a small boat, the Home Office will catch me and put me back in detention. If I go back to Syria, the YPG militia will get me. What should I do?”
Since September 2025, under the one in, one out system, and as of 24 April, 561 people have been removed to France after arriving in the UK on small boats, with 551 brought legally to the UK. Just days before these figures were released, 602 asylum seekers arrived on small boats on 18 April, raising questions about the deterrent value of the scheme.
The immigration solicitor Sonia Lenegan said: “This case is an example of the real risk involved in returning people to France. Most people who make the journey across the Channel are refugees, which means that the UK accepts that they face danger in their home country. In returning people to France, the UK is putting them at real risk of being returned to the country where they face persecution, in violation of the refugee convention.”
The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants this week launched a letter-writing campaign against the five airlines involved in one in, one out removals to France. So far more than 6,500 people have sent letters asking the airlines to stop taking part in the “inhumane and racist” deportations.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Under our returns agreement with France, we have deported more than 600 illegal migrants from British soil. This contributes to the nearly 60,000 illegal migrants who have been returned since July 2025, up 31% on the 19 months prior.”
Home Office sources said Syrian asylum seekers in the UK whose claims were rejected would face return if it was safe to do so and that the government was working with Syrian authorities to facilitate this. The sources added that no one would be returned to Syria if they were at risk of persecution or serious harm on return.
France’s interior ministry has been approached for comment.
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A behind-the-scenes look at the famed Churchill Downs on Kentucky Derby day
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. — On Saturday more than 150,000 spectators are expected to descend on the famed Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby, but the story of race day begins long before the crowd arrives.
For those behind the scenes, Derby Day on May 2 isn’t about crisp mint juleps and eye-catching hats — it’s the culmination of years of training, millions in investment and the final hours where it all comes together.
And spectators willing to spend a pretty penny for the elite experience could dole-out approximately $16,800 for a seat at a table above the track, while costs listed on the website for private turf suites start at $280,000.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for these horses,” Stan Bowling, lead tour guide at the Kentucky Derby Museum, told Fox News Digital. And some fans feel the same way.
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The Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs is referred to as the “fastest two minutes in sports.” This year the race falls on Saturday, May 2, 2026. (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
Only 3-year-old thoroughbreds can qualify for the race, with training that begins early and intensifies in the years leading up to the Kentucky Derby, affectionately dubbed the “fastest two minutes in sports.”
“A lot is riding on that two minutes and a little bit of change for all these owners, trainers and jockeys,” said Bowling, a Kentucky native who has attended the race 28 times. “There are no do-overs on this track.”
While the race itself is quick, the road to Churchill Downs is anything but. Along the way, horses earn points through qualifying races, while trainers manage every detail to ensure the thoroughbreds peak at precisely the right moment.
Qualifying horses arrive in early March to adjust to the track and settle into life at Churchill Downs, which hosts roughly 750 races each year. But no other race on that track carries the same weight of the Kentucky Derby — the 12th in a 14-race lineup that anchors the day’s events.
“Every morning, from mid-March through the end of the year, the horses are going to be out on the track training between 5:30 and 10 a.m.,” Bowling said as he steered a golf cart beneath the famed track toward what’s known as the backside.
He noted that by mid-March, approximately 1,400 horses arrive at the stalls.
A qualifying horse is seen during an early morning training session on the track at Churchill Downs. (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
It’s here, beyond the grandstands and away from the pageantry, that Churchill Downs takes on a different identity. The backside operates like a small, self-contained community, with 47 barns housing the horses and as many as 600 workers living and working on-site.
The grounds include a chapel and even a small school — part of a self-contained world that runs parallel to the spectacle just steps away.
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The backside stretches across rows of mostly nondescript stalls, punctuated by a few bearing the names of famed horses and their jockeys.
“Want to take a guess how much it costs to rent one of these stalls at the most famous racetrack in the world?” Bowling asked.
“$7.50.”
About 1,400 horses fill the stables across the sprawling grounds of Churchill Downs. (Amanda Macias/Fox News Digital)
That modest fee is just a starting point, a small figure compared to the millions that can go into preparing a single horse over the course of its training and care.
That level of investment is mirrored in the fan experience, where attending the Derby comes at a steep price.
“It’s an expensive ticket, I will grant you that, but for most people, coming to see the Kentucky Derby is a bucket list event,” Bowling said.
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Tickets range from about $160 for access to the 26-acre grassy infield — where the race is watched on large screens — to about $800 for one of the cheapest seats in the grandstand.
For grandstand ticket holders, food, alcohol and non-alcoholic drinks are included in the price, along with entry to races held on both Friday and Saturday.
“Among the 60,000 grandstand seats, those closer to the track and farther from the finish line tend to be the least expensive,” he added.
At the higher end, prices climb steeply.
A view of the Kentucky Derby grandstand at Churchill Downs, where seats can range from $1,000 to more than $16,000. (Amanda Macias/Fox News Digital)
“If you want to be in the Woodford Reserve Paddock Club for a very unique, elite experience, a table on the glass for six would cost you $16,800 a seat,” Darren Rogers of Churchill Downs told Fox News Digital.
“We have a number of different levels of packages to suit the experience guests are looking for, especially out-of-towners and bucket-list visitors.”
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Meanwhile, tickets on a typical non-Kentucky Derby race day can cost as little as $10.
But for many, the lofty price is worth paying for a fleeting moment — two minutes that carry years of work, millions of dollars and a lifetime of ambition.
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Supreme Court ruling on Voting Rights Act opens redistricting push
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Democratic lawmakers are defending redistricting efforts across the country, calling their efforts a necessary foil to similar Republican-led plans, while arguing vulnerable Republicans should have fought harder to prevent the “arms race” reshuffling district lines nationally.
“I feel like the system is fundamentally broken, but let’s be clear, Republicans began the redistricting arms race. And so, Democrats are left with no choice but to level the playing field for the sake of democracy,” Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., told Fox News Digital.
Lawmakers’ comments come as the Supreme Court handed down a decision on Wednesday, reshaping the framework of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and opening the door to the possibility of fresh redistricting efforts ahead of the 2026 midterms.
In its 6-3 decision delivered along ideological lines on Wednesday, the court struck down Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District, which was redrawn in 2024 to have a predominantly Black electorate. The court also ruled that states may not use race to either draw districts that disenfranchise voters or help minority communities support their preferred candidates.
SUPREME COURT ORDERS NEW ARGUMENTS IN PIVOTAL ELECTIONS CASE
The facade of the U.S. Supreme Court building is seen in Washington, D.C., in October 2024. (Valerie Plesch/picture alliance via Getty Images)
It’s unclear which states may re-evaluate their maps in light of the decision.
“This is a very nefarious thing that the Supreme Court has done, and it’s a very desperate thing that Republicans are doing to cling to unearned power,” Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., said.
Since President Donald Trump urged state lawmakers to expand the GOP’s 217-213 majority by eliminating five Democratic seats in Texas, states including California, Utah, Missouri, Louisiana, Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina have followed suit.
Most recently, the Florida legislature approved a plan to eliminate up to four Democratic districts.
DESANTIS LAUNCHES FLORIDA REDISTRICTING PUSH TO POTENTIALLY ADD MORE GOP HOUSE SEATS
Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon, a Democrat, attempted to disrupt final approval of a Gov. Ron DeSantis-backed redistricting bill by shouting on the House floor with a bullhorn. (Wilfredo Lee, File/AP Photo; Rep. Angie Nixon, official government website)
While most Democrats have laid blame for the avalanche of redistricting efforts on Trump, others believe a desire to use redistricting to carve out partisan advantages goes back much farther.
“I put this all on Democrats,” Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Texas, said.
“In 2003, when Tom DeLay was majority leader, and he said that he wanted to get rid of five Democrats in Texas, we didn’t respond. We let him slap us around, we let him come around and slap us, and we didn’t do anything about it,” Veasey said, referring to another mid-decade Republican redistricting effort that went unchallenged by Democrats in other states.
Veasey believes this time around, vulnerable Republicans in Democratic-leaning states invited their own demise by not voicing opposition to the Republican efforts in Texas.
“They didn’t say anything. The time to speak up, especially the Republican members from California, the time for them to speak was back then and they didn’t,” Veasey said.
BETO ENCOURAGES DEMOCRATS TO FIGHT ‘FIRE WITH FIRE’ IN TEXAS REDISTRICTING BATTLE
Rep. Marc Veasey speaks during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on July 23, 2025. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
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Rep. Christian Menefee, D-Texas, like many of his Democratic colleagues, lamented the redistricting struggle but argued that pretending that the situation didn’t exist was unrealistic.
“Look, in a perfect world, we would not have any political gerrymandering. We wouldn’t have folks trying to draw black and brown people out of their districts and then putting the partisan cover over the top. But because we don’t live in that world, we’ve got to fight fire with fire,” Menefee said.
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Trump is looking for opportunity in Iran war! Qatar-Kuwait-UAE offered weapons worth billions including defense systems
Amidst the temporary peace in West Asia, the news of American arms deal is in the headlines. The US administration has proposed arms sales worth more than US $ 8.6 billion to Israel, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, bypassing Congressional review. Quoting the US State Department, Xinhua said that these things include Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, Air and Missile Defense Replenishment Service and an Integrated Battle Command System.
donald trump He told MPs that the war against Iran has ended, so the deadline for seeking approval from Parliament for military action does not apply to them. The White House has sent a letter to the US Parliament in this regard. According to Politico, Trump said in a letter to Congress leaders, ‘There has been no firing between the US and Iran since April 7, 2026.’
He said, ‘The hostilities that started on 28 February 2026 have now ended.’ Xinhua News Agency quoted the report as saying that this step is an attempt to calm the debate whether Congress’s approval was necessary for this military action. Under the War Powers Resolution, enacted in 1973, the President has to end the action within 60 days after notifying Congress of the use of military force. They cannot continue military action without Congress’s approval.
Uncertainty regarding talks with Iranians
Trump said on Friday (May 1, 2026) that there remains uncertainty regarding talks with the Iranians. He warned that he was not satisfied with the current proposals, while keeping the options of both diplomacy and military action open. Before leaving Marine One, Trump told reporters, he wants to make a deal, but I am not satisfied with it, so we will see what happens. He described Iran’s leadership as scattered and unable to reach consensus. They all want to reach an agreement, but they are all entrenched, he said, adding that the leadership is very disorganized and plagued by internal differences.