SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) "A Small Family Business" opened this week at the Garvin Theatre on the Santa Barbara City College campus.

The opening scenes had audience members laughing out loud. 

"A Small Family Business" is  directed by Katie Laris.

The social satire was written by prolific playwright Alan Ayckbourn.

It centers around a furniture company and corporate shenanigans.

Season ticket holders will recognize some familiar faces in the cast.

Anikka Abbott plays "Poppy."

"The best thing about this show is that every character has a huge arch from the beginning to the end so you get to seetheir deterioration throughout and it is unexpected the way it goes," said Abbott.

Paul Canter plays Poppy's husband Jack McCracken.

"It is hilarious and the arch of my character is so far, he starts with so much integrity that he has a long way to fall and that just makes all the funnier," said Canter.

The Theatre Group at the Santa Barbara City College is presenting the show.  

" A Small Family Business" has a matinee at 2 p.m. on Sunday and runs through March 21.

For ticket information visit https://www.theatregroupsbcc.com 

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By Jasmin Sykes and Kosta Gak, CNN

Kyiv (CNN) — Silhouettes move through dark alleys covered with snow and ice, towards the muffled beat coming from a concrete building in central Kyiv. Inside, a dim red light blurs the faces of a dancing crowd, their sweaty bodies pressed up against one another.

The red glow evokes the low-light torches used by soldiers on the front lines with Russia, hundreds of miles to the east, as they seek to avoid detection by the enemy. But for ravers at Closer, one of Kyiv’s most renowned nightclubs, partying is a way to forget the war – even if just for one night.

“It’s what helps to keep us sane,” Valeriia Shablii, 32, who attended a Closer event held to mark Maslenytsia – a Slavic festival that celebrates the beginning of spring – told CNN. “We say it’s like a war-life balance.”

The war has disrupted much of Ukraine’s cultural life. Many music venues have closed since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, and some artists have fled while others have joined the armed forces.

Yet Ukrainians are still coming together to party. Closer, which occupies a former ribbon factory, shut down when the war began but re-opened just eight months later, and has run music events almost every weekend since.

Under the constant threat of missile and drone strikes, and after a harsh winter made worse by repeated energy blackouts, dancing has become an emotional outlet for the turmoil of war, Shablii said.

“People are just really tired,” she said. “Coming here and spending some time with your friends… it’s uniting people.”

She says rave culture is alive, if changed, in Ukraine’s major cities and has emerged as a powerful form of resistance during four years of brutal war with Russia.

“It didn’t die,” she said. “We will rave on Putin’s grave.”

Raving and resistance in Ukraine

Even before the war, Ukraine’s electronic dance music scene had long been intertwined with notions of resistance.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Empire in the 1990s, a new era of independence encouraged an openness to Western cultural influences – in parallel with other now-famous European electronic music hotspots like Berlin.

Large-scale parties, squat raves and festivals sprang up across Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula, becoming spaces for freedom of expression and musical experimentation.

The emergence of rave culture in Ukraine culminated in the mid-2010s, with the formation of Kyiv’s cult Cxema parties – huge raves held in urban warehouses or under bridges – which would go on to achieve international recognition.

Events were about “creating a safe and democratic space” and “building a community” for disaffected young people suffering economic insecurity in the wake of the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution, when protesters ousted the then-president Viktor Yanukovych for what they saw as widespread corruption and abuse of power, Cxema’s founder Slava Lepsheiev to

Análisis de Will Ripley, CNN

El fin de semana pasado, los medios de comunicación estatales de Corea del Norte condenaron a Estados Unidos e Israel por lanzar una “guerra de agresión” contra Irán, pero no informaron sobre la muerte del ayatola Alí Jamenei, junto con decenas de miembros de la cúpula dirigente iraní.

Esa omisión no fue accidental. El sistema político de Corea del Norte está construido en torno a la autoridad casi mítica y la supuesta invulnerabilidad de su líder. Transmitir públicamente la eliminación violenta de otro líder supremo introduciría un precedente peligroso. Recordaría a los ciudadanos norcoreanos que incluso la figura más poderosa de un Estado altamente controlado puede ser rastreada, señalada como objetivo y eliminada. Esa no es una narrativa que Pyongyang tenga incentivo alguno para difundir dentro del país.

De hecho, el líder norcoreano Kim Jong Un podría estar preguntándose si ha llegado el momento de levantar el teléfono y llamar al presidente de Estados Unidos, Donald Trump. Mientras Estados Unidos e Israel continúan con su campaña militar que ha sumido a Medio Oriente en una crisis, Kim y su pequeño círculo de funcionarios del partido y del Ejército encargados de la seguridad nacional están sin duda analizando cada aspecto de la operación militar estadounidense. Y ciertamente están tomando nota de la capacidad de Trump para pasar rápidamente de la diplomacia al uso de la fuerza.

Se espera que Trump regrese a Asia a finales de este mes para una cumbre con el presidente de China, Xi Jinping. Aunque no hay información sobre planes de una reunión con Kim durante su visita a la región, Chad O’Carroll, fundador y director ejecutivo de Korea Risk Group, un grupo de investigación que sigue de cerca a Corea del Norte y editor de NK News, dice que no lo descartaría.

“(Si yo fuera Kim Jong Un) sentiría con fuerza que me conviene entablar algún tipo de conversaciones con Trump este año, aunque sean solo superficiales”, dijo O’Carroll.

O’Carroll afirma que esa lógica tiene más que ver con que Kim maneje la imprevisibilidad de Trump.

Seguramente Kim y su círculo más cercano tampoco habrán pasado por alto que, hace poco más de dos meses, fuerzas especiales de Estados Unidos capturaron de manera sorpresiva al presidente de Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro. En ese momento, Corea del Norte respondió rápidamente con el lanzamiento de un misil que algunos analistas especularon podría estar relacionado con el arresto de Maduro. No hemos visto una demostración teatral de fuerza similar inmediatamente después de los acontecimientos en Irán.

Después de que Estados Unidos invadiera Iraq en 2003 y el entonces presidente George W. Bush incluyera a Corea del Norte en el llamado “Eje del Mal”, el líder de entonces, Kim Jong Il, desapareció de la vista pública durante varias semanas. Cuando reapareció, la mayoría de sus apariciones públicas fueron en instalaciones de las Fuerzas Armadas.

“La impresión (en 2003) fue que había un miedo inicial”, dice Chad O’Carroll.

“La situación ahora, creo, es fundamentalmente diferente”, dijo O’Carroll. “Kim Jong Un ya ha hecho una aparición pública. Así que claramente no se está escondiendo”.

El Comando de la Guardia de Corea del Norte y los órganos de seguridad interna analizarán ahora cada detalle de la operación en Irán mientras intentan garantizar que Kim nunca comparta el destino de Jamenei.

Durante mucho tiempo, evaluaciones de inteligencia de Corea del Sur y de Estados Unidos han descrito a Corea del Norte como uno de los países con los sistemas de protección de líderes más elaborados del mundo, y Pyongyang ha pasado muchas décadas perfeccionando una protección en múltiples capas. En imágenes recientes de los medios de comunicación estatales sobre las apariciones públicas de Kim, se ve al personal de seguridad de pie muy cerca de él, algunos con distintivos maletines balísticos

By James Legge, CNN

(CNN) — Israel’s onslaught against Iran has entered a new phase, targeting energy resources in the country.

Meanwhile, Iran’s retaliatory strikes against US-friendly Gulf nations appear to be continuing, despite President Masoud Pezeshkian apologizing for previous attacks on the oil-rich kingdoms and suggesting they would end.

Conflicting statements and scattered messaging from Iranian officials underscore a possible divide within Tehran’s ruling establishment, amid reports that Tehran could choose its new supreme leader within the next 24 hours. The new figurehead would replace Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of nearly four decades who was killed in the war’s opening salvo.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said American ground troops could “possibly” be sent to Iran, but added there would have to be a “very good reason.”

Here’s what to know on day nine.

What are the main headlines?

• Iranian oil targeted: Israel has begun striking oil storage sites in Iran as part of the next phase of the war, an Israeli source told CNN. The Israeli military said it hit fuel sites in the capital Tehran on Saturday evening that distribute fuel “to various consumers, including military entities in Iran.”
• ‘Surprises prepared’: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a recorded statement that Israel and the US have achieved “almost complete control” over Iranian skies, and that there are “many more targets and surprises prepared.”
• Gulf attacks continue: Countries across the Persian Gulf reported airstrikes and interceptions heading into early Sunday morning. The various drone and missile attacks come despite Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian apologizing to Gulf nations for the past week’s attacks on US bases in the region, saying Iran would stop striking its neighbors unless it came under attack.

What’s happening in Iran and Lebanon?

• ‘Quagmire’: Iran’s top security official said Trump’s war against Iran is the result of his “international miscalculation,” in that Trump thought he could repeat the Venezuela model in Iran. In an interview broadcast on Iranian state TV, Ali Larijani said the US is now “stuck in the quagmire of its own miscalculations,” and that Trump had failed to achieve his aims through strikes on Iran.
• Mixed messages: Conflicting statements from Iranian officials underscore possible rifts within the leadership following Khamenei’s death. While Pezeshkian apologized for attacks in neighboring nations, in a later “explanation,” his office vowed to continue striking US targets in the region.
• Deadly