Category: News

It looks like Mae Whitman is venturing into parenthood with a partner.

Months after announcing she welcomed her first baby, Miles, now 6 months, the father of the Parenthood alum’s son has been revealed to be Carlos Valdes. 

In fact, Lauren Graham—who starred as Mae’s onscreen mother in Parenthood from 2010 to 2015—shared that the Duff actress and her little one are currently living on the East Coast to support Carlos’ latest career endeavor. 

“They’re in New York now,” Lauren explained during a March 10 appearance on Dax Shephard‘s Armchair Expert podcast. “Carlos, her baby daddy, is on Broadway in Hadestown, which I feel happy to plug because he’s fantastic in it, Carlos Valdes.”

Noting that she thinks Carlos—who played Mae’s love interest in the 2023 series Up Here—is “really great,” Lauren went on to explain that the family of three’s current locale is only temporary.

“They’re in New York for the next while and then she got this job in Ireland,” the Gilmore Girls alum continued. “So she’s in Ireland with the baby.”

Mother of Plaza de Mayo Aída Bogo de Sarti died on Saturday at the age of 94. She fought for decades to find answers on the disappearance of her daughter Beatriz Sarti, who was kidnapped by the last military dictatorship in 1977, at 22.

The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Founding Line published a short communiqué on Instagram on Sunday to announce her passing.

“A mark of her passion is our documentation center, which she dedicated so many hours each week while she had good health,” the communiqué said.  The organization said Bogo died on International Women’s Day, “which she honored with her tireless activity” in the Casa Nuestros Hijos, where Bogo was in charge of organizing their archive.

“Rest peacefully. Dear Aída, we will continue working on the archive and we won’t be disheartened, just like you, not even under the worst life circumstances in our homeland. We won’t forget you.”

Former Human Rights Secretary Horacio Pietragalla — son of a disappeared militant — described Bogo as a “tireless fighter” in an Instagram post. “With the white handkerchief as a banner, we say goodbye to Aída, mother of the people,” wrote the Buenos Aires City branch of HIJOS — an organization made up of children of dictatorship victims.

¡Hasta siempre Aída Bogo de Sarti!

Integrante de Madres de Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora. Su hija Beatriz Cristina Sarti fue detenida-desaparecida el 17/5/1977 con 22 años. Militaba en el ERP. Su cuerpo sigue desaparecido

Nuestro abrazo a la familia y a las compañeras de Madres pic.twitter.com/azuvACbFEU

— H.I.J.O.S. Capital (@hijos_capital) March 10, 2025

Like most Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, Bogo was a seamstress dedicated to family life and raising her two daughters, Beatriz and Claudia, in their house in Remedios de Escalada, Lanús.

That all changed on May 17, 1977, when Beatriz was kidnapped along with her boyfriend Ángel Arias from their home in Monte Chingolo, a nearby neighborhood. The dictatorship’s authorities had already searched the Sarti household three times looking for Beatriz before the kidnapping, but she wasn’t living there anymore.

“We never heard from them again. We don’t even know if they took them alive or dead,” Bogo told the website Educación y Memoria (Education and Memory) in an interview a few years ago. “All we know is that they took them away.”

​Beatriz was a militant against the dictatorship and belonged to the People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP, by its Spanish initials). After her forced disappearance, Bogo joined the group of women who were searching for their children that would later become Mothers of Plaza de Mayo.

“Any mother that experienced the same thing would have gone out to the street,” she said in that interview. “The proof is in the fact that it happened again afterwards — and I say this with pride — with the mothers that experienced different things […] and went out to form organizations. And I think that we are exemplary because we stood up to the dictatorship thousands of times.”

Pay Dirt is Slate’s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here. (It’s anonymous!)

Dear Pay Dirt,

My parents have spent their careers in noble professions that do not pay well. My dad is a social worker and my mom teaches kindergarten. They have lived a modest lifestyle sprinkled with treats I feel they deserve, like an annual vacation to New Mexico and enjoying some good wine. Recently, they experienced a few financial setbacks, neither of which was their fault. But now they can’t retire when they’d originally planned. My problem is with my fiancé.

His father was an insurance executive who stopped working at 55. My fiancé has said to me more than once that it’s a shame my parents “lived beyond their means,” which is why they can’t retire now, while his parents “budgeted and saved,” which is why they could retire. I have repeatedly tried pointing to the math: His parents aren’t thriftier, his dad just made $350,000 a year. My parents could have skipped every vacation of their married lives, and it wouldn’t have saved them as much as my father-in-law received in one average annual Christmas bonus. I am truly alarmed by my fiancé’s unwillingness to acknowledge his family’s fortune. How should I address this next time it comes up? We’ve known each other for a decade and this money talk is coming out of left field.

—They Weren’t Thrifty, Just Rich

Dear Just Rich,

Let’s start with the obvious: Your parents are technically upper middle class (with, I’m guessing, an income of around $100,000 per year), but life is expensive. They provided for their family and seemed OK with living modestly within their means. Unfortunately, financial setbacks happen, and retirement is no longer a guarantee for many families. It sounds like your family recognizes the reality of their situation. At some point, they’ll be able to retire, even if it takes a few more years to get there.

Now, let’s turn to your fiancé, whose boneheadedness is deeply concerning. Instead of explaining (again!) the math, start asking questions: Why is he comparing your families? Does he look down on people who can’t retire at 55? What happens if you and he face financial setbacks during your marriage? What are his financial goals? How does he define rich? Does he believe in saving every penny so he can enjoy an early retirement? If only one of you works, how does he view the balance of power in your relationship? Who gets to make financial decisions in your marriage? After you get through all that, you can express how sad his comments about your family make you feel. Then, listen.

This will be a difficult conversation, but I imagine you’ll learn something that will either validate your feelings about marrying this person or make you break up. Because at the end of the day, what he seems to be lacking is compassion for those less fortunate, perhaps shaped by his life of privilege. You were raised in a family that valued helping others. Unless you can find a way to align these critical values, you may want to rethink your engagement.

Dear Pay Dirt,

My mother is 65 years old and has been a widow for two and a half years. She has never had a lot of money, and has only worked odd jobs through the years due to a disability that is just enough to make it difficult to work, but not quite enough to claim disability. When her husband passed away, she was left with very little—just their house and the promise of some portion of his Social Security when she turned 65. The house isn’t paid off but is probably worth about $400,000; I believe she still owes about $100,000 and has an $800 a month mortgage payment. Still, the house is very old and sort of nickel-and-diming her at this point.

Now that she’s 65, she gets about $2,000 a month from her husband’s Social Security. Her 89-year-old mother also lives with her, and between my mom’s Social Security and my grandma’s retirement, they get by OK. My mom is very worried about when my grandma passes, and how she will be able to afford to live on just her Social Security (she’ll likely only get a small inheritance of maybe $20,000). She wants to sell her house and buy a mobile home in a mobile home park. She’s convinced that’s the only way she can support herself. But I’m worried that she doesn’t understand the value of equity, if she keeps her current home, to help support her long term; and that she only sees the short-term gain in her savings account if she sells it, buys a cheap mobile home, pays rent in the mobile home park, while pocketing $150,000 to $200,000. Based on her health and genetics, I’m hopeful she can be around for another 25-plus years. I don’t expect her to be able to support herself that whole time, and my brothers and I will be able to support her to some extent, but isn’t it better for her to continue to grow equity in a home with a low mortgage than to buy a mobile home that will never gain much equity?

—Long-Term Home Equity or Cash Now?

Dear Long-Term Home Equity or Cash Now,

I think your mother understands her situation perfectly. There’s nothing fabulous about having a lot of home equity if you can’t put food on the table or pay your electric bill.

Home equity is not liquid. If you never need to tap into it, home equity will continue to grow with every mortgage payment. When you die, your home can be passed down to the next generation with a significant tax benefit—a stepped-up basis. Your heirs inherit the property at its current market value, so if you sell it just after inheriting it, you won’t pay any long-term or short-term capital gains tax. But your mom is going to need cash to live on after her mother passes away. As she is living in the house as her primary residence, she will keep profits up to $250,000 tax-free when she sells. Let’s assume the house is worth $400,000 and she paid $200,000 for it. If she sold it today (and if you’re right about her remaining mortgage balance), she’d clear $300,000, which after expenses of sale would be around $280,000. If she puts that in the bank, and it earns 4 percent, she’d get another $11,200 annually in addition to her $24,000 Social Security payment. Not a lot to live on, so I understand her concern.

The big question is how much she actually needs to live on. Her biggest expenses going forward will likely be housing and health insurance. Those alone could eat up her $35,000 in income. Can she live with you or your siblings after her mother passes? Or can you and your brothers pitch in enough so that she can live independently?

Buying a mobile home seems like a good option on the surface, but it isn’t. You’re just buying a less expensive home, one that comes with a monthly rent payment that will rise every year. It will lock up her equity the same way her house does today. If she’s choosing between staying in the house with her $800 per month payment or buying a mobile home, then she should stay in her house. The nearly $10,000 per year she spends will be relatively affordable for her. But eventually, there will be maintenance and upkeep annually, with extraordinary expenses like replacing the hot water heater, a large appliance, or even the roof.

The best thing you can do right now is work with your mom on her budget. Find out how much money she has and work with her to draft a short-term and long-term solution that will make her feel comfortable that her resources will last for the rest of her life.

—Ilyce

Classic Prudie

I am married to a very smart, very calm man. We get along well, I’m a stay-at-home mom at the moment, and we have a lovely toddler. I, like a lot of moms, feel like a lot of my efforts are unseen, and it resulted in a fight the other night. It was nothing particularly toxic, but when he left for a meeting, he left his computer on…

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Ancient Egypt, one of the world’s oldest civilizations, is full of mysteries. From eerie Egyptian curses that make even the biggest skeptics feel uneasy to a bust that may or may not depict the famous Queen Cleopatra VII, new finds constantly keep researchers guessing.

King Tutankhamun, colloquially known as King Tut, is one of Egypt’s most famous and extensively studied pharaohs due to his well-preserved tomb. However, his life and death are surrounded by a fair share of hearsay.

In the early 20th century, King Tut’s tomb sparked rumors of a potentially real and deadly curse, but one of the biggest mysteries stems from the identity of his missing pharoah father.

After years of research, scientists have discovered who King Tut’s father was, but many questions remain. Here’s what researchers know so far and what they’re still trying to find out.

Who Was King Tut’s Father?

Researchers finally found concrete evidence of his father’s identity

​​For years, the identity of King Tut’s father was one of Ancient Egypt’s biggest mysteries. Some believed he was the son of the 18th Dynasty pharaoh, Smenkhkare, while others thought he may have come from a different lineage altogether. In 2008, researchers finally uncovered a compelling piece of evidence.

The missing piece of a broken limestone block in el Ashmunein, a village located along the Nile River about 150 miles south of Cairo, helped researchers uncover the true identity of Tutankhamun’s father.

Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, who discovered the piece, deciphered a crucial inscription from the block that ultimately connected King Tut to Smenkhkare’s brother, King Akhenaten, an 18th Dynasty pharaoh known for establishing Ancient Egypt’s first monotheistic cult.

Hawass stated, “The block shows the young Tutankhamun and his wife, Ankhesenamun, seated together. The text identifies Tutankhamun as the ‘king’s son of his body, Tutankhaten,’ and his wife as the ‘king’s daughter of his body, Ankhesenaten.’”

This text suggests that King Tut and his wife, Ankhesenamun, were both children of Akhenaten and possible half-siblings. Researchers believed this theory, as historical records confirm that Ankhesenamun was the daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti.

The Discovery Of The KV55 Coffin

Several clues point to King Tutankhamun’s father as the tomb’s occupant

In 1907, years before King Tut’s tomb was found, archaeologist Edward Ayrton uncovered an uninscribed tomb in the Valley of the Kings, where many pharaoh mummies were hidden. This tomb, which Ayrton named KV55, still puzzles researchers due to its contents and the uncertainty surrounding who was laid to rest there.

As archaeologists entered the tomb, they discovered a coffin made for a royal woman. Researchers today believe the tomb was made initially for Akhenaten’s secondary wife, Kiya, based on canopic jars depicting her found inside.

However, the coffin in KV55 was subsequently altered to hold a male royal family member. Some think it could be King Tut’s missing father.

Is King Tut’s Missing Father The Occupant Of KV55?

Researchers have searched for additional clues for decades

Initial examinations of the skeletal remains found in KV55 suggested that they belonged to a young male who died in his early 20s. However, this age range is too young to have been the remains of Akhenaten, who ruled for 17 years.

The next development occurred in the 1960s when a researcher named Ronald Harrison reported finding skeletal similarities between the KV55 remains and King Tutankhamun.

DNA Analysis of KV55

Then, upon a reexamination in 2010, Egyptologist Zahi Hawass estimated that the remains belonged to a male who died between 35 and 45 years old. Hawass and his team also conducted a DNA analysis that further solidified the familial ties between King Tut, King Akhenaten, and his father, King Amenhotep III.

Further DNA testing in 2015 examined ten royal mummies, including the mummy of Amenhotep III and the suspected remains of Akhenaten in the KV55 tomb. As expected, the results showed genetic similarities between King Tut and the KV55 mummy, confirming a familial relationship. However, while evidence suggests a father-son connection, the exact identity of the KV55 mummy is still debated.

Some researchers still believe the remains in KV55 could belong to Akhenaten’s brother, Smenkhkare, who ruled Egypt for only about three years. However, another theory implies that Smenkhkare wasn’t a separate person, but was actually Nefertiti taking on a male identity to rule in tandem with her husband, Akhenaten.

If this theory is true, the KV55 mummy may not be King Tut’s father but Nefertiti herself. This would also insinuate that Nefertiti was King Tut’s biological mother, making his wife, Ankhesenamun, his full sibling.

With so many conflicting theories, researchers have yet to confirm the actual location of King Tut’s missing father, which remains one of the greatest mysteries of Ancient Egypt to this day.

Test Valley Crematorium, part of Westerleigh Group, is inviting people to visit on Sunday, March 30, to reflect on relatives they have lost.

Visitors will be able to collect daffodils between 9am and 5pm, which they can either place on the memorial of a loved one within the crematorium’s grounds, or take home with them.

READ MORE: New chair appointed for NHS trust delivering services to 1.9 million people

Robert Metcalf, manager of the crematorium, said: “Visitors will also be able to bring Mother’s Day cards, letters or personal messages to the crematorium and deposit them in our Letters to Heaven memorial post box.

“We know, from feedback we’ve had since the memorial post box was installed, that the bereaved can take great comfort from posting messages to loved ones, and it helps them maintain a feeling of connection with them.”

The crematorium, near Romsey, is open to anyone wishing to remember their loved ones during the Mother’s Day period, regardless of whether there is a memorial to their mother or mother figure in the crematorium grounds, or where their funeral took place.

Robert added: “Mother’s Day is one of those annual occasions when a loss can be felt more and we want to ensure people know that they are very welcome to take comfort in paying tribute to their loved ones at our crematorium.

“It can equally be a particularly difficult time for mothers who are bereaved of a child, and they are also extremely welcome to visit us.”

SEE MORE: Twilight funeral services now available at Hampshire crematorium

The crematorium also noted that special days like Mother’s Day can prompt people to consider purchasing a memorial in honour of someone they have lost.

Westerleigh Group is running a special offer between March 3 and April 30.

Families who buy a new granite ‘made in the UK’ memorial or EverWith personal jewellery from the crematorium, can get free personalisation, up to the value of £500.

This can include hand-designed artwork transferred directly onto the memorial, such as portraits, club crests, animals, hobbies, places of interest, a picture of a loved one transferred onto a plaque which is then placed on the memorial or engraving of names or images on selected EverWith jewellery items.

Anyone interested in taking up this offer should visit the crematorium’s website or call and speak to a member of the team there for more information.

Unlike parents in many other high-income countries, American parents are largely on their own until their kids are old enough for kindergarten when it comes to childcare and schooling. But over the past two decades or so, municipalities around the country have started rolling out public pre-kindergarten that is available to all children, usually at age three or four, regardless of income level—what has become known as universal pre-kindergarten (UPK). ‌

Typically, advocates make the case for UPK with two arguments: it’s good for kids, and it’s good for parents. Yale SOM’s Seth Zimmerman, an economist who studies education and public policy, says that the benefits of UPK to children are fairly well established: studies of UPK programs have found positive effects on kids’ test scores during UPK. These benefits tend to fade during middle school, but reemerge later on in kids’ academic careers, around when they reach high school. ‌

It makes sense that the programs would also have meaningful benefits for parents, Zimmerman says. Childcare in America is expensive, and programs like UPK can ease the financial burden. But there is little compelling evidence demonstrating how, exactly, such programs affect parents. Evaluating how UPK benefits parents, such as by allowing them to work longer hours or saving them money that would otherwise be spent on privately procured childcare, “might really change the way we view UPK as a policy,” he says.‌

In a new study, Zimmerman, John Eric Humphries and Christopher Neilson of Yale, and Xiaoyang Ye of Brown University investigate this question, and find that once benefits to parents are included, UPK offers a massive bang for the buck. In the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS), according to the study, every dollar spent on UPK yields $10.04 in benefits to parents. Taking parental earnings into account in a cost-benefit analysis, Zimmerman says, “reduces the cost of the program by 90%”—a meaningful finding when considering how to allocate limited government resources. ‌

The relationship between universal pre-K programs and parents’ work and earnings patterns has been understudied until now because of the challenge of linking data on UPK enrollment with labor market data. But Zimmerman and Neilson had longstanding relationships with NHPS; they worked with the school system, Connecticut’s labor department, and Yale to link this data together so they could analyze it. This process took roughly four years, but it eventually yielded a dataset of 16,485 matched applications in a data set that spanned nearly 20 years. ‌

The UPK program run by NHPS offers six and a half hours per day of free full-time care for three- and four-year-olds. Most programs also offer additional hours, for no or little charge, that extend the school day from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. That free childcare is enormously oversubscribed: between 2003 and 2020, there were only 1.5 to 4 slots available for every 10 applicants to pre-kindergarten for three-year-olds (PK3), and even fewer slots in the program for four-year-olds (PK4) because many students continue from PK3 to PK4. ‌

To deal with that excess demand fairly, NHPS uses a lottery system to randomly assign spots to some parents and not others. Since the only difference between the lucky parents whose children did get a spot in UPK and those who didn’t was the random lottery assignment, the researchers could follow both parents and students over time, and compare outcomes between parents in both groups without worrying that the parent groups diverged on relevant factors such as education level and whether they lived in a high- or low-income neighborhood. In their sample, about one in four applicants scored a spot and enrolled their child in UPK.‌

The researchers found that landing a spot in UPK gave parents an additional 11.3 hours per week of childcare, which translated into earning nearly 22% more each year. The effect of getting into the program lasted not just for the short period of UPK enrollment, but for at least an additional six years after preschool ended, for a total average benefit of $8,799.87 per year in 2024 dollars. The authors explain this earnings bump as an effect of both being able to work more and a lower likelihood of a career disruption. The effect was consistent across the cohorts of parents whose kids were placed, irrespective of how the overall economy was faring, notes Zimmerman. Their data begins as the U.S. was experiencing the early 2000s recession and continues through the hot post-COVID labor market (some of the COVID period is not in the sample, given that schools were shuttered). “Since we have this really long time horizon, we see the whole spectrum of macroeconomic conditions from really good to really bad; you can think of this effect as an average of what happened to people across the last 20 years,” he says.‌

The UPK program had different effects on parents and children depending on where they fell in the income distribution. When the authors analyzed the impact of preschool by parental income, they found the effect for parents was particularly pronounced for the parents with earnings in the top and middle third of applicants. Because UPK serves a mostly low-income population, those in the highest-earning third of applications have incomes that are near the median of the overall New Haven population—the main beneficiaries are middle-class people. By contrast, he adds, effects for low-income parents are not as dramatic. “While UPK offers more hours than Head Start or other subsidized programs available to low-income parents, parents in these families may not have jobs where there is a path to career advancement from working additional hours.” ‌

For children, families in the middle third reaped the largest benefit from UPK, showing the biggest gain in test scores in kindergarten. Zimmerman says this could be because these middle-class parents don’t have access to means-tested subsidized programs geared toward low-income parents, yet they can’t easily afford the private options used by higher-income parents. “We call this phenomenon the childcare ‘donut hole’—the idea being that there is a gap in access at middle incomes,” he says.‌

The researchers complemented this analysis with a survey of parents that asked them about their alternative childcare options, the effect of UPK on their work patterns, and their earnings and education levels. They found that for the majority of parents, UPK was not an alternative to no childcare at all, but a substitute for other options. Those options ranged from heavily subsidized or free programs like Head Start to private options. That has implications for evaluating UPK’s cost, says Zimmerman. “When you’re thinking about what the real cost of this program is to the government, you want to be sure you take that into account, because many of these other things people will be doing, such as Head Start, are also funded by the government.” ‌

While evaluations of other policies targeted at children, such as expanding health insurance for children or spending more on schools, have found returns with larger magnitudes than UPK, there are few policies with such a dramatic impact on parents. Popular and longstanding policies intended to encourage work such as the Earned Income Tax Credit yield benefits that are closer to $1 for every $1 of government spending—a far cry from the $10 of benefits that simply comes from letting parents work more while their kids are young. ‌

Gypsy-Rose Blanchard and Ken Urker plan a special role for their baby girl Aurora in their future wedding.

In a recent chat with E! News, the couple was asked if they will include their newborn daughter in their future wedding.

Responding to the query, the pair said that Aurora, who was born on December 28, will be the “flower girl” on their wedding.

“She’ll be our little flower girl,” Urker told the outlet.

Then Blanchard chimed in suggesting that she could be “the ring bearer.”

But Urker noted that they have not decided when they will say the vows.

“We are moving in that direction,” Urker confessed. “We don’t have an exact date, but it definitely is at the forefront of our lives. It’s something that we all want as a family, and eventually, we’ll get there. So just stay tuned for that.”

In a previous interview with People, the Life After Lockup star gave insights about their baby daughter, who is almost 2 months old now,

“She just started smiling a little bit here and there,” she continued. “She definitely loves to cuddle. She’s a cuddle bug.”

Moreover, Blanchard shared at the time that the little one resembles her dad more.

“Honestly, I think Ken,” she said. “I looked at a picture of Ken when he was a baby, and they look a lot alike.”

Mae Whitman‘s Up Here costar Carlos Valdes is reportedly the father of her baby son, Miles.

The actress’ longtime friend and Parenthood costar Lauren Graham appeared on the Monday, March 10 episode of Dax Shepard’s podcast Armchair Expert where she revealed that the father of Whitman’s baby is Valdes. As Shepard, 50, and Graham, 57, talked about their mutual close friend Whitman, 36, the Gilmore Girls star noted that she’s a big fan of Valdes, 35.

“I’m envious of your relationship with Mae,” Shepard began. “Really?” Graham asked.

“First of all, it’s the sweetest relationship. It really is special,” the actor continued.

“It really is,” Graham replied, adding, “I still get a little thrill when she’ll text me back because it’s not a given. And she’s a mom now, and she’s working and she’s in Ireland.”

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The two went on to profess how much they love Whitman, with Shepard saying he wants to meet Whitman’s baby son Miles “so bad.”

“I’m trying to think the last time [I saw her],” Graham continued. “They’re in New York now. Carlos, her baby daddy, is on Broadway in Hadestown, which I feel happy to plug because he’s fantastic in it, Carlos Valdes.”

“He’s really great,” Graham says of her TV daughter’s partner. “And so they’re in New York for the next while and then she got this job in Ireland. So she’s in Ireland with the baby.”

A rep for Whitman and Valdes did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment on their relationship status.

Whitman and Valdes welcomed their first baby together, son Miles, back in August 2024. Whitman revealed at the time that she’d named her son after her best friend Miles Heizer, who costarred as her brother Drew Holt in Parenthood.

The pair previously played loved interests in the short-lived Hulu series Up Here.

Earlier this month, Valdes spoke to PEOPLE about starring in Hadestown and revealed that he’d also recently welcomed a baby.

“Not a lot of people know this, but I’m a dad, a relatively new dad,” he said. “And it’s my personal preference that I don’t share more beyond that, but being a Broadway dad… let me tell you, it’s not for the faint of heart! This life is pretty unforgiving when it comes to balancing it with parenting.”

Valdes noted he’d turned to fellow Hadestown alum Jordan Fisher for advice on balancing the play with being a parent. The To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You actor was Valdes’ predecessor in Hadestown and offered him some “invaluable” advice about how to approach the role of Orpheus.

“We had our little sentimental ‘passing of the torch’ conversation and one of the many things he imparted to me in that conversation was that as dads, we have a superpower in playing Orpheus because we can allow the fruits of that experience color our approach to this very childlike character in a very natural and informed way,” Valdes said. “And since I started in the show on Jan. 14, he could not be more correct.”

“I’ve really put a lot of my own personal experience as a dad, and as a fan of my child, into Orpheus’ own naiveté of looking at the world,” he added. “So I’m very grateful to Jordan for extending that wisdom.”

Another actor has joined the cast of Lanterns as the series becomes a family affair.

Nicole Ari Parker has joined the cast of Lanterns as Bernadette, John Stewarts’ mother. The official character description – via Variety – “Formidable and tenacious, Bernadette refuses to give up, no matter how insurmountable the odds. At her core, she’s a fiercely protective mother who has worked her entire life to ensure that she and her family will not be passed over.”

Bernadette is scheduled to be a recurring character in the series.

Lanterns has announced six roles so far: Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan, Aaron Pierre as John Stewart, Ulrich Thomsen as Sinestro, Kelly Macdonald as Sheriff Kerry, Garret Dillahunt as William Macon, and Poorna Jagannathan as Zoe.

Emmy-nominee Chris Mundy (HBO’s True Detective: Night Country, Ozark) will be the showrunner and an executive producer on the project. Emmy-winner Damon Lindelof (HBO’s Watchmen and The Leftovers) and Eisner Award winner Tom King (Mister Miracle, Supergirl) will co-write the new series with Mundy. Lindelof and King will also serve as executive producers.

The official logline of the series says, “The series follows new recruit John Stewart and Lantern legend Hal Jordan, two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland.”

Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO, HBO and Max Content, said in a statement at the time of the series’ announcement, “We are elated to be reuniting with both Chris Mundy and Damon Lindelof as they partner with Tom for this fresh take on DC’s Green Lantern. As part of James [Gunn] and Peter’s [Safran] vision for the DC Universe, this first new live-action series will mark an exciting new era.”

No firm release date has yet been announced for the release of Lanterns, but in a recent statement, DC Studios said it expects to release the series in ‘early 2026.’

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