Meet IndyStar Pulliam fellow Sam Habashy
Similarly, we're taking a break from our "Meet the Staff" feature for the summer to give you a chance to, yes, meet the interns. We also call them Pulliam fellows — in recognition of the family that used to own the newspaper and has continued to support journalism in Indianapolis — and past participants have gone on to rich careers at the Star and elsewhere in journalism.
Up this week is 2025 IndyStar intern Sam Habashy.
I am on the features beat!
I am a rising senior studying journalism and international studies at Northwestern University next door in Illinois!
The infinite impact of storytelling. You never know who or where your words will reach and when.
What drew me in was both the opportunity to learn from a dedicated team and connect with Indianapolis' growing Arab community. I was excited to bring in their perspective as part of the city's broader, diverse narrative. The IndyStar felt like the perfect place to contribute meaningfully to cultural storytelling while continuing to find and refine my voice in the industry.
I'm currently reading "Tuesdays with Morrie" by Mitch Albom. It's a short read, but incredibly powerful — one of those books that stays with you long after you put it down.
"This World is Not Conclusion" by Emily Dickinson. I return to that poem whenever I need a breath of fresh air.
Show up, be present, and be kind! A best friend passed this along to me after hearing it from her high school leadership teacher, and it's stuck with me ever since. I love how her teacher's words have continued to ripple outward, and now I get to share them with you — how cool!
"The Amazing Race," and I'd partner up with my older brother. It would be such a fun way to experience the world.
Bangkok, Thailand. My favorite dessert is mango sticky rice, so it's a dream of mine to try it right where it originated.
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New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Popular roller disco nixed at NYC park — and locals are wheely fuming
5 Dreamland Roller Disco will no longer be offered at Prospect Park's LeFrak Center at Lakeside. Dreamland Roller Disco A popular weekly summer roller-disco event in Brooklyn's Prospect Park has gotten the wheels pulled out from under it — and locals are in an uproar. The Dreamland Roller Disco — filled with DJs, dancers and drag queens — was scrapped earlier this month when organizer Lola Star refused to accept a 50% pay cut from the new operator of the LeFrak Center at Lakeside, according to a petition to 'save' the event. The center, where Roller Disco was held for 11 years during the summer, underwent a massive $74 million renovation and opened again this past weekend — without the disco on its calendar. 'It was like a three-ring circus — it was a vibe and energy that I honestly have not seen anywhere else,' longtime Dreamland attendee and skate guard Billy Tyler Smith, 60, told The Post, referring to Roller Disco. 5 Roller Disco fans have flocked to the event for 11 years. Dreamland Roller Disco 'They were my other family.' Scott Lindeman, who had been skating at Dreamland events with his wife since 2015, said, 'It blows my mind that they would throw something away like that. 'People are going to lose out on one of the greatest social events that occurred every Friday night.'' 5 Locals have launched a petition to try to save the event. Dreamland Roller Disco The petition to try to save the event has amassed more than 1,200 supporters so far. Star claimed to The Post that the rink's lowball offer was an act of retaliation because she previously called out safety issues at the venue such as understaffing, hazardous debris and a 'significant decline' in security. 'When it would rain, they wouldn't want to cancel the event because they didn't want to lose money, but water from the rain would blow onto the rink and be slippery,'' she said. In a statement to The Post about the nixed Dreamland event season, the Prospect Park Alliance, a nonprofit that works with the city to help maintain the famed green space, said it is looking to 'work with a range of producers on a rotating schedule of Roller Disco events.' 5 'The thing that I love about Dreamland is the community that Lola has created over the years,' a fan said of operator Lola Star. Dreamland Roller Disco The alliance claimed it 'attempted to engage in good faith with Lola Star to bring back the Dreamland Disco, but at every step she has made this untenable.' Star retorted that she was ignored after an in-person meeting in July in which new rink operator Ekstein Development Group 'demanded to see our financial history — despite our proven success — and said their accounting department would decide if and how Dreamland would be allowed to return to our home for 11 years.' Star said she is already in search of a new home, visiting potential spaces for the larger-than-life event series. 5 Fans flock to the colorful event. Dreamland Roller Disco Smith said of Star's opponents, 'It's classic 'penny wise, pound foolish' business practices. 'New York City cannot lose Lola. … She's majorly responsible for the popularity of roller skating and its slow resurgence.'
San Francisco Chronicle
19 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
For two Palestinian artists, making S.F. theater is resistance
Hend Ayoub and Hanna Eady's plays might not seem to have much in common. Ayoub's 'Home? A Palestinian Woman's Pursuit of Life, Liberty & Happiness' is an autobiographical solo show about becoming an actor in a world where you're always too Arab, too Israeli or just simply too foreign. Eady and Edward Mast's 'The Return' is a mysterious two-hander set in an auto body shop in which an Israeli Jewish customer keeps peppering a Palestinian mechanic with intrusive questions most of us wouldn't ask strangers. But when two Palestinian Israeli artists make theater in San Francisco in the same month, as mass starvation threatens Gaza, perhaps it's inevitable that commonalities emerge. San Francisco Playhouse's 'Home?' runs through Aug. 16, at Z Below, and Golden Thread Productions and Art2Action Inc.'s 'The Return' begins performances Aug. 7 at the Garret at ACT's Toni Rembe Theater. In advance of both runs, the Chronicle spoke to Ayoub and Eady about their relationship to the news, their homeland and their art. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Eady: Where we are in the north, in the Galilee — Gaza is in the south — we could hear the ground rumbling and the air force 24 hours a day in the skies. When they started the war against Iran, a siren would go, and you have to find a bomb shelter. Most people in Palestinian villages don't have bomb shelters, and we'd just sit and say, 'Well, let's hope it's not going to land on my house.' Q: Hend, 'home' is a loaded term for you, since it's the title of your play, but when's the last time you were back in your native Haifa? Ayoub: A few months ago. Actually, I was in shelters as well — not this time, a few months before, when Hezbollah was still in play. Over there, there are apps (where) you get the sirens. You just hear that sound, and you just start running. For me, I felt better being there with my family instead of being here worrying about them. More Information 'Home? A Palestinian Woman's Pursuit of Life, Liberty & Happiness': Written and performed by Hend Ayoub. Directed by Carey Perloff. Through Aug. 16. $40. Z Below, 470 Florida St., S.F. 415-677-9596. 'The Return': Written by Hanna Eady and Edward Mast. Directed by Eady. Performances start Aug. 7. Through Aug. 24. $20-$130. The Garret at ACT's Toni Rembe Theater, 415 Geary St., S.F. 415-626-4061. Ayoub: To me, the news was very different after Oct. 7 happened. In the beginning, I was watching the news and just crying for the Israelis because I was in shock. Like, how could they do this? But then when Gaza happened, and it shifted, and you see the number of deaths, and you're crying for Palestinians in Gaza, but you're not seeing any of it on the news. It explains, I think, why Israelis don't care for the people in Gaza, because they don't see any of the images at all. Eady: I'm going to say the forbidden word: It's a genocide. And if you're not watching it and not seeing the images, it's still faraway land. Even if it's on the news, it's their news. And it might not be true, because they lie. Ayoub: When you're saying (Americans and Israelis) don't see images, they don't get exposed to other stories, other narratives, how are they going to know the other? In Israel, they don't know any Arabs. We don't even mix. Eady: You're back to back. Ayoub: Arabs go to Arab schools. Jews go to Jewish schools. All they see is awful coverage in TV and film, the way we're portrayed as the enemy, the villain, the terrorist. Eady: On Oct. 7, 2023, I was supposed to go to D.C. to work with Ari Roth, (the Jewish artistic director of Voices Festival Productions), on a play that I wrote before Oct. 7, called 'Almonds Blossom in Deir Yassin.' Deir Yassin is the site of the first massacre in 1948. (Roth) called. He said, 'What do you think? Should we do it?' I said, 'There is no better time.' If the war is going to stop us from creating and putting (on) this kind of important work, then we would never do theater. There's always a war. 'Deir Yassin' is a forbidden word to utter, but if we don't, then what? It's a wound that never healed. Q: Do you feel you have certain expectations placed on you as Palestinian artists about what kind of art you're allowed to or supposed to make? Ayoub: We have so many different Palestinians. You have the Palestinians who stayed on the land in 1948 and became Israeli citizens and didn't flee. You have the Palestinians that fled at gunpoint and stayed out when Israel closed the borders. You have Palestinians who you see here in America, the Palestinians who got stuck in Lebanon and Jordan refugee camps and in the West Bank and Gaza. Because we have so many stories and perspectives, some might say, 'Why aren't you writing about what's happening in Gaza and the occupation?' For me, I'm just writing my personal story and my perspective as someone who was born and raised there. Eady: A lot of the stories were not told to us because there's so much shame. It's not a heroic story. We ran away. We didn't put (up) a good fight in 1948. My job, to tell the story, it's an obligation. It's part of who I am. I have to continue to bang at the door until my story is heard. Q: For the Arab characters in your plays, what is home? Eady: (In 'The Return'), for him (an unnamed character played by Nick Musleh) to free himself from the oppressive system and the racism, it's going to require a full expression of who he is. For a long time in the play, he's having a hard time to say, 'I'm a Palestinian.' We grew up brainwashed by the Israeli system to say we're Israelis. The word 'Palestine' was never uttered in my house. Ayoub: It wasn't allowed. Eady: In (my) play, home for him is really (that) first he has to say who he is and then be able to have enough courage, although he's going to be punished, to say 'I'm going home,' and his home (is) most likely a destroyed village. Home is to be able, not that they have to live in Palestine, but to have the right to come. Just like any Jewish American, they have this birthright. Some of them go; some of them don't. They choose. We don't. Ayoub: Home is something that most people, I think, take for granted because they were born in a place where they belong, where they're part of the whole. For us, we don't really belong anywhere. If we're talking specifically about people like us, Palestinian Israelis, home is taken away from you, even if you want to claim it. Even if you want to see yourself as Israeli, you can't, because you're reminded every time that you're not one of us: 'This is the land of the Jews, and you're not Jewish. You're a second-class citizen.' Home is like when you belong, you're embraced, you're welcomed, you don't have to whisper your language in Arabic.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Gilbert Arenas Reveals He Plans On Snitching To Avoid Arrest: "Got A Fine-A** Girl At Home"
Gilbert Arenas Reveals He Plans On Snitching To Avoid Arrest: "Got A Fine-A** Girl At Home" originally appeared on Fadeaway World. Gilbert Arenas is currently out on bail after being arrested for allegedly running an illegal gambling operation, and he has no intention of being behind bars again. Arenas hosted a live stream on Thursday, where he declared he plans to snitch to avoid being arrested again. "Good luck in court," Arenas said. "I'm pretty sure I ain't gonna be there when it's starting to go, cause, yeah, I'm snitching." Arenas was arrested on Wednesday alongside five other individuals. The 43-year-old revealed that one of the officers actually played against him in high school, and he joked that this was the best defense he'd ever played against him. Each of the six individuals has been charged with one count of conspiracy to operate an illegal gambling business and one count of operating an illegal gambling business. Arenas was also charged with making false statements to federal investigators. He pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released on a $50,000 bond. Arenas' trial is scheduled for Sept. 23, and he could face up to 15 years in prison if found guilty on all three charges. The three-time All-Star hopes to snitch his way out of this. 'Ain't nothing wrong with snitching, man," Arenas said. "It ain't nothing wrong with just telling, man. Ain't nothing wrong with telling, man. Especially when you got a fine-a** girl at home.' Arenas married French social media influencer Melli Monaco on Jan. 20, 2025. He isn't keen on being away from her for too long. Arenas has landed himself in hot water here for allegedly hosting illegal high-stakes poker games at his mansion in Encino, California. He has claimed he only rented out the house and took no part in whatever operation was conducted inside. Kwame Brown, Arenas' former teammate, still ripped him for his arrest, calling him a stupid motherf*****. It wasn't surprising to see that Brown didn't have his back, as these two certainly aren't the best of friends. Arenas mocked Brown for celebrating his arrest, and you can expect these two to keep firing shots at each other. This is the third time that Arenas has landed himself in serious trouble with the law. There was, of course, the infamous gun incident that eventually led to him serving two days in jail and 30 days in a halfway house in 2010. Then, in 2013, he was arrested by the LAPD for possession of illegal story was originally reported by Fadeaway World on Aug 2, 2025, where it first appeared.
