Lester Holt Makes 1st Public Remarks Since Announcing Departure From NBC Nightly News
Within the past week, Lester Holt delivered his first public remarks since announcing that he would be stepping down from the NBC Nightly News after a decade-long run. The outgoing anchor accepted the University of Kansas' William Allen White National Citation Award on Thursday and gave the keynote speech at the Long Island University's George Polk Awards on April 4.
Both occasions saw Holt reflecting on his upcoming departure from behind the Nightly News desk, which is scheduled to take place at the beginning of the summer. He will transition to a full-time role on Dateline NBC, where he's been a principal anchor since 2011.
'I look forward to several more years as a working journalist,' Holt remarked while accepting the William Allen White honor.
'What I know is that journalism is still a noble profession,' he continued. 'But one of tremendous responsibility. There is no room for arrogance if we are to succeed in our mission. There is however room for compassion.'
In his April 4 address to the audience at the George Polk Awards, Holt praised the 'talented' Dateline team that includes new addition Blayne Alexander, as well as Andrea Canning, Josh Mankiewicz, Keith Morrison, and Dennis Murphy.
'In a career spanning 45 years, I have answered the bell for the big story far more times than I will ever be able to count,' he said. 'I have traveled much of the country and much of the world. Interviewing people of great power as well as people who are powerless. The job has been an all-access pass like no other for which I am profoundly grateful.'
Holt will be succeeded by Tom Llamas, who currently anchors Top Story on NBC News Now. In a sign of the times for the larger industry shift from linear to digital, Llamas will continue to host his streaming show in addition to his Nightly News duties.
Holt addressed the future of journalism in his remarks at the University of Kansas, saying the profession was currently in a 'fight for its life.'
'A world without a healthy press is a world where the important questions are not asked or answered,' he noted. 'Where the powerful operate unchallenged.'
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USA Today
4 hours ago
- USA Today
Kate Spade cofounder remembers designer's struggle with fame, final phone call
Kate Spade cofounder remembers designer's struggle with fame, final phone call The name 'Kate Spade' refers to both the iconic fashion brand and its founder, but there was much more to the story than one woman. Elyce Arons is also at the heart of Kate Spade's history, and she's telling her side in a new memoir remembering her late friend. 'We Might Just Make It After All: My Best Friendship with Kate Spade' is out now from Simon & Schuster. Arons and Spade met as freshmen at the University of Kansas, later transferring to Arizona State University together, where Spade would meet her husband, Andy Spade (brother of comedian David Spade). The trio cofounded the iconic affordable luxury handbag company together. Arons and Spade were inseparable for much of their adult lives until Spade died in 2018. In her memoir, Arons includes a letter in which Spade calls her 'the first person in my life to really show me how it feels to be truly loved.' Kate Spade was 'miserable' being a public figure Arons' memoir chronicles the humble early days of Kate Spade, starting with Spade's 'aha! moment' after she couldn't find the right handbag for a fashion shoot at her magazine editor job. She and Andy laid the foundations for a new company, then convinced Arons to move back to New York City and join them. Their fledgling company developed out of Spade's New York apartment, and they partnered with local textiles manufacturers who thought they 'were kind of crazy,' Arons writes. When their operation grew too large for Spade's apartment, they moved to an office and sourced dozens of discarded desks they found on the sidewalk. None of the early partners were eager to be the brand's public face, but because Spade – known in her personal life as Katy – had the name on the label, the task went to her. 'Katy never wanted to be the public face of anything. On the contrary, she was apprehensive of fame. But by creating the brand's aesthetic, she was the designer,' Arons writes. "Despite her shyness, Katy had charisma, authenticity, the look, and the X factor that made her the front person and face of the brand. Her name was on the label. We were happy with it for the most part. The only caveat was our worry for her sake about how reluctant she was to carry our torch.' Though Arons writes that Spade 'persevered and did become an expert at being the company face and voice,' she still struggled with public recognition. She was naturally 'slightly introverted' and was uncomfortable with celebrity. She also often had to travel as the face of the company, going on tour to represent new accessory lines and products. Arons describes this as a 'miserable' experience for Spade. When they launched their first perfume, Spade toured alone, eventually confronting Arons in a phone call that she felt 'abandoned' by her team. 'I know it's not your fault that you're not here, but I feel abandoned by you. You guys got me into this. You should be doing this tour with me,' Spade said, according to Arons. Elyce Arons' last conversation with Kate Spade: 'Inconceivable' Years after selling their company, Arons and Spade started shoe and purse company Frances Valentine together. Their sales were strong and it looked to Arons like 'lightning just might strike twice.' Spade died a year later. 'I talked often with Katy about her struggle with depression, which I knew she had been dealing with those last few years. She was actively seeking help with specialists, and we understood the goal was to mitigate the times Katy was carrying that deep sadness which she couldn't seem to shake and had weighed heavily on her in recent years,' Arons writes. 'Most of the time she was herself, and we spent our days together as usual working or socializing. We had discussed the suicides of celebrities in the past and she had said definitively to me, 'I would never, ever do that.'' Still, Arons says she didn't know how deep Spade's depression was. She writes that Spade's death 'left us with many questions.' She had spoken with Spade just the day before about Spade's summer travel plans when Spade said she had to answer a call from her dad and would call Arons back later. That it would be their last conversation was "inconceivable" to Arons. 'Losing my best friend for life – the woman who shared my sense of humor, who'd been my constant companion at school, at work, at dinners, on the phone, in my house, on vacations – was like losing your face in a mirror,' Arons writes. 'It was disconcerting, disturbing and very lonely.' Kate Spade and husband Andy lived apart but 'loved each other' At the time of her death, Spade and her husband had been living apart but just 'needed a break' and 'never even discussed divorce,' Andy told People in a statement after her death. In 'We Might Just Make it After All,' Arons writes that the pair 'loved each other to the ends of the earth.' She also lambasts those who wrote 'surface-y, ready-made explanations' for Spade's death, like marriage or company problems. 'A highly sensitive person, she felt things more deeply than most,' Arons writes. 'But I know for sure she was not so upset about how many pairs of shoes we sold that she would take her own life. We all have dark moments and periods. In one of those moments, she lost hope.' Celeb memoirs to binge this summer: Aging, marriage, Beyoncé and more This article discusses suicide and suicidal ideation. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@
Forbes
7 hours ago
- Forbes
Elyce Arons Opens Up About Her Best Friend, Business Partner And ‘Chosen Family' Kate Spade: ‘She's One In A Million'
Elyce Arons and Kate Spade To the world, she was the chic designer Kate Spade. To Elyce Arons, she was Katy Brosnahan, who she met when both were students at the University of Kansas. In full transparency, KU is also my alma mater, and Arons and I immediately bond over GSP/Corbin, the all-female dorms that she and a young Brosnahan lived in during their first year in college. (I lived in co-ed Ellsworth, but visited friends and sorority sisters across campus there all the time.) Brosnahan was a Kappa; Arons a Chi O. Arons asks me what sorority I was in when we catch up via Zoom. 'Alpha Gam,' I tell her, feeling as though, after reading her new memoir, I've known her for years. After all, Arons—speaking to me in front of several design samples for her latest company, Frances Valentine—may be in New York City now and me in Florida, but we're, at our core, just two girls from Kansas. (Only one of us has won the Kansan of the Year Award in 2025, though, and, spoiler alert—it ain't me.) Arons' memoir about her friendship and business partnership with Spade, We Might Just Make It After All: My Best Friendship with Kate Spade, comes out June 17, just days after the seventh anniversary of Spade's death in 2018. 'I didn't plan for it to come out in a particular time,' Arons says. 'It just happened.' The book jacket for "We Might Just Make It After All: My Best Friendship with Kate Spade" by Elyce ... More Arons. 'I really thought about writing the book because so many folks have written about her death and how she died and not focused on the life she lived and who she really was—because she was a very private person,' Arons says, alluding to Spade's death by suicide. (Another area Arons and I bond over, though this one unfortunate—I, too, lost someone close to me in the exact same manner Spade died. It's a club neither Arons nor myself want to be in, or focus on, for that matter.) 'A lot of people didn't get to know her intimately. But I hope to give a peek into this funny, gracious, wonderful, charismatic person I knew so well—because she's one in a million. She really was. And I felt lucky that she was my friend.' It's taken time for Arons to be in an emotional place to put pen to paper on her decades-long friendship with Spade. 'After we lost her, it was a really difficult period,' she says. 'And I'm a little worried that I'm starting to forget things now, and I wanted to put 'em all down on paper.' Elyce Arons says she wanted to capture her decades-long friendship with Kate Spade not only for ... More others to enjoy, but to preserve her memories of their special bond. 'If I don't do it now, when am I going to do it?' she adds. 'My brain's not going to be any fresher two years from now or five years from now than it is today.' She had the help of calendars she'd kept all the way back to the 1980s, and spiral notebooks and the memories of friends. 'It is very cathartic walking back that far and looking at that—all those things,' she says. And so she did. The book's title is a play off of The Mary Tyler Moore theme song—Arons smiles as she suffers through my rendition of it, singing 'we're gonna make it after allllll'—and both Spade and Arons were gigantic fans of Moore's. Just three weeks before Arons and I spoke, she was introduced to Dr. Robert Levine, Moore's husband, who invited Arons to come out to the farm they once shared and see Moore's clothes in her closet, which remain there after her death in 2017. It was amazing, Arons tells me; she even tried on some of Moore's clothes. When I ask Arons what Spade—who we call Katy throughout the conversation—would have thought of this, it's a reminder of all that Spade is missing, and all that's missing that she's no longer here. 'She would've loved it,' Arons says. For what it's worth, I say, that serendipitous moment feels like what I'm calling a 'Katy wink.' The first word that comes to mind when Arons thinks of Spade? 'So funny,' she tells me. 'She remained funny her whole life.' Elyce Arons and Kate Spade 'We were very unlikely to be friends, and something just clicked right at the beginning,' Arons says. 'We liked a lot of the same things, and we found the same things really funny, and we were constantly playing pranks on each other. So a lot of people would be like, 'You guys are sick. I can't believe you do that to each other.'' They also bonded at KU over vintage shopping, and both eventually transferred to Arizona State University and, after college, ended up in New York City. Through it all, 'she totally remained the same person,' Arons says. 'And one of the things about her, she was one of the most gracious people you'd ever want to meet. She wanted to make everybody feel comfortable all the time. If somebody spilled something in her house, she was like, 'Oh, don't worry.' She never allowed anyone to feel bad or out of place anywhere. And it was a gift of hers.' Another gift, it turned out, was business. Back in the day, the two women talked about opening a vintage store together. They even talked about opening a travel agency together. But, Arons says, they had no money to do either. Arons always wanted to live in New York City, but her best friend 'could have stayed in Arizona, she could have moved to California, she could have gone to Chicago—and all of those things were on the table,' Arons tells me of Brosnahan's life immediately post-college. 'So it was lucky for me that when she came back through from her Europe trip that she only had $5 in her pocket, because it forced her to come to my apartment and then end up staying.' Eventually work took Arons out of New York City, but an idea from Katy to start a handbag line (after seeing the lack of chic American-designed bags on the marketplace while she was working at Mademoiselle) brought Arons back to the Big Apple. It was Andy Spade, by now Kate's partner, who encouraged her to start the company. When they asked Arons to join them, she had no idea how she could quit her job and uproot based on an idea alone. 'But I also really believed in Katy's idea, and believe me, at the beginning, I said, 'Handbags—what do we know about handbags?'' Arons says. 'And she said, 'Well, I know what's not available that I really want.'' She found the white space: a bag that wasn't outrageously expensive yet was also not insultingly cheap; a bag somewhere in the middle 'that is chic and that works for everybody—and it just doesn't exist out there right now,' Arons recalls Spade telling her. So Arons said yes and, along with Kate and Andy and Pamela Bell, co-founded a company that came to define a generation. And while it wasn't always easy—and that can't be overstated—the brand Kate Spade found success because it was 'something different, something unique in the market, and doing it really well and not sacrificing on quality,' Arons says. 'I think it's having the right product at the right time, and I think being an authentic person or people really matters.' The two women worked together on both Kate Spade and, later, Frances Valentine. Spade and Arons weren't just best friends, but they were sisters—and an entirely other layer was added becoming business partners. While Spade's name was on the bags, Arons was as involved in the brand as anybody. When they hired a team—which grew to about 350 at their corporate office and about 20 retail stores—'I mean, you had to be talented, but probably the most important thing was you had to be polite,' Arons says. 'And we really stuck to it, because you're at work all day long. You're sitting next to people and you should have fun with them. You should enjoy each other's company and you should be respected. And the people we brought in, I have to say, it really makes a difference. We had a blast. We'd have parties for our team all the time, and the bigger we got, the bigger the parties got. It was so much fun. I loved those days. I ran into one of our former senior managers who had come as a younger man and kind of risen in the ranks while he was there. And he looked at me and he said, 'None of us ever knew what we had until we left.'' If you're thinking that Spade and Arons' friendship and business partnership was perfect—think again. 'I've never fought harder or more with any person in my life than with her,' Arons tells me. Their friendship was 'one that you're never going to lose, no matter what you say, no matter the venom that comes out of your mouth and the anger that you have at that one moment. I'm not a person who can stay mad. Katy could stay mad. And that was one difference between us, because I would feel guilty and horrible two seconds after I hang up the phone. The guilt just overtakes me. And so I'd always walk by [and say], 'I'm so sorry,' but she, on the other hand, would just not answer my calls. And then it was torment for me for hours until she called me back.' More than being friends, 'I'd probably say we were sisters more than anything else,' adding that they were 'chosen family.' 'It was such a close friendship that I think a lot of people in life don't get to experience what I got to experience, and I'm so grateful,' Arons says. Elyce Arons After the brand's formation in 1993, in those early days they exclusively sold handbags, but eventually expanded to sell clothing, jewelry, shoes, eyewear, fragrances, stationary and more. By 2006, Spade sold the remainder of her shares in the business to Neiman Marcus Group, who in turn sold the label that year to Liz Claiborne Inc. for $124 million. (The company was later purchased by Coach, Inc. in May 2017.) Both Spade and Arons' identities were tied up 'with this business that we had created for so long, and then all of a sudden, nothing,' Arons tells me. While both Spade and Arons were focused at the time on raising kids, 'We both really missed fashion, and we missed creating things and we missed working,' Arons says. 'I had never not worked a day in my life.' Elyce Arons met Katy Brosnahan, as she was then known, as freshmen at the University of Kansas. Eventually, in 2016, they launched a new collection of luxury handbags and footwear under the brand name Frances Valentine. Being out of the business for those years in between stepping away from Kate Spade and launching Frances Valentine saw a huge shift in the industry for Spade and Arons—e-commerce took over from retail and influencers took over from editors and 'the whole landscape had shifted,' Arons says. 'You don't realize how things changed so quickly.' Social media barely existed when Spade and Arons left Kate Spade. 'So when we started, there were so many things we had to learn,' Arons says. 'But we were doing well, things were just starting to happen. And that's when we lost Katy.' 'I didn't really know whether we should move forward or not,' Arons says about running Frances Valentine in the aftermath of Spade's death. 'But I thought about it. I talked to the team and, really for her legacy's sake and for her family and for the team that we had built there, and I thought Katy would want us to do it. So we kept the company going.' Elyce Arons still runs Frances Valentine, which she founded with Spade. The company is now 26 employees strong at the corporate office in addition to its retail stores, so it has 'a little bit over 100 total,' Arons tells me. She is co-founder, CEO 'and janitor,' she laughs, adding that she felt like after Spade's death 'I had to stay really strong, because I not only had to run the company alone when I was used to having someone side-by-side with me who I really trusted, [but] I had to recruit investors and bring more money into the company at the same time and design everything without her,' she says. 'And one of those things alone would've been enough. But having to do all of those things—and thank God we've got such an amazing team of people here, we all banded together and got things done—but I think the thing that I've learned the most is really to appreciate and value the relationships you have with people. And don't take any of 'em for granted.' Elyce Arons is telling her story seven years after Kate Spade's sudden passing. In We Might Just Make It After All, Arons details the morning she got the news that Spade had died. Spade's assistant called her 'and told me to make sure I was sitting down,' Arons writes. 'Then he told me that Katy had taken her own life. I didn't believe him at first. When he finally got through to me, I let out a cry of distress from a grief so deep that I barely remember what happened next.' Arons details in the book a live, on-camera interview where she was asked 'If you could ask Kate one question, what would it be?' Arons' sense of humor shines as she writes, 'As I was sitting there with the live cameras trained on me, the question that popped into my head was: 'Where's my pink skirt?' She'd borrowed it months ago. Of course I didn't say that on live television. My answer was 'I would have asked her, 'Why?'' Many moons ago, Spade wrote Arons a letter about their rock solid bond as friends turned sisters. She sobbed when she initially read it, and when she reads it now, she still sobs. Of their friendship of 35 years—so beautifully detailed in the book—'I've been really lucky.' Of her life—even the rough spots like losing Spade nearly eight years ago to the day—she adds, 'I've had all these different chapters that are completely different. I mean, I was a single woman having cocktails and partying and smoking cigarettes. And then the next chapter I was a mom on the school board playing tennis and taking cooking classes. I had multitudes. I've had a magical life, and it's all been amazing.'
Politico
11 hours ago
- Politico
Sleepless in Boston: Governors and Canadian Premiers Share Their Pain
BOSTON — As the leaders of the world's largest economies convened Monday in Alberta for their first summit-cum-intervention with President Donald Trump over his tariff addiction, a group of American governors and Canadian premiers were across the continent tallying the fallout from Trump's preemptive trade war in dollars and cents. Premiers from five of Canada's 10 provinces and five Northeastern governors gathered in the Massachusetts state house, which was flying the flags of both nations, for a private and then public conversation strategizing about what they can control and lamenting what they cannot — namely 'a tweet in the middle of the night,' as one premier put it. It was a largely amiable, at times awkward and bizarre-if-fitting culmination of the Trump Decade: Who else could hurl America into a fight with our friendly neighbor to the north, eh? Nobody was amused under the golden dome on Beacon Hill, though. 'It was a sobering discussion this morning,' Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat, said of their private meeting before addressing the cameras. While Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney was doing his eggshell walk with Trump deep in the Canadian Rockies, the prime minister's provincial counterparts gathered with the governors a floor above a convening of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors and just down the hall from a t-shirt clad summer tour group hearing of Kennedys, Curleys, Cabots and Lodges. All the political talent this state has ever produced could not together solve a problem like Donald J. Trump, though. Yet with state and provincial revenue numbers at risk, it's these officials paying a price for America's war of economic aggression. Healey, who with fellow Democrat and Maine Gov. Janet Mills came up with the idea for the session, unspooled the cold facts of Canada's de facto travel boycott: 'Our tourism numbers are down, anywhere between 20 and 60 percent, in all of our states.' With summer here, those are ominous figures in a region that's hugely dependent on seasonal hospitality: namely June to September. Ontario's Doug Ford said that, while he'd prefer Canadians would come spend their tourist dollars in his province, he wouldn't urge his countrymen and women to stay away from a nation with which they are so intertwined. Then New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt spoke up, more in sorrow than anger: 'I can't tell Canadians to come visit the U.S. right now.' Holt said she'd tell her constituents 'to go and see my neighbors in Nova Scotia, I'm going to tell them to spend some time at home because the relationship has been challenged by leadership and we need to get back to normal.' Growing less Canada Nice by the second, Holt said that the American economy needed to feel some pain. 'We need a certain person to hear that this is hurting jobs for Americans,' she said, alluding to Trump. The American voter should speak out, she said. The American governors, at least those here, tried to empathize. The conversation veered from high-fiber discussions about their shared reliance on hydropower and natural gas to more of a family therapy session, where the guilty party tells the aggrieved that they have every right to be upset. 'It's not the tariffs that are affecting them so much as the hurt pride, and boy, I understand that,' said Mills, adding: 'We want the Canadian people to know that we cherish our relationships.' As if to prove her point, the governor said she would do a little Canadian tourism herself this summer and planned to explore the Atlantic provinces. In her to-the-point Maine style, Mills said she had posted fresh, bilingual welcome signs in English and French at all 13 of Maine's border crossings with Canada — and then held up a miniature likeness of one she had brought with her and placed next to her name placard. Trump's name was scarcely invoked even as he hovered above the conversation, which featured all Democratic governors and Vermont's Phil Scott, a Republican who voted for Kamala Harris. 'We need each other to survive in the future,' said Scott. Such warm words were appreciated, and returned, by the Canadians. Yet as much as representatives of the two nations are allies, they're also friendly rivals. Privately, one of the governors told me that the Canadians were happy to be reaping the benefit of Trump's global unpopularity as more tourists and students were coming to Canada rather than the U.S. Even in the public forum, Holt, addressing the flow of STEM personnel and innovation, said that Canada would 'borrow your talent for a while' before the U.S. gets 'back to normal' and the two countries can become best friends again. For now, it was unclear what concrete actions all parties were willing to take to defrost the tensions. The governors are largely at the mercy of Trump's preferences, absent a lasting court intervention, and the premiers, who enjoy broader powers than American governors, showed no appetite to unilaterally disarm. Former Bank of America executive Anne Finucane, who moderated the public discussion, introduced Nova Scotia's premier by recalling how Bostonians helped save Halifax after a fire tore through the Canadian city over a century ago, an event marked each year when Halifax, in gratitude, sends down a Christmas tree to Boston. Finucane then said directly to Tim Houston, the premier: 'We need you to keep putting our products on your shelves.' Houston responded by saying Halifax has not forgotten Boston's kindness in their hour of need. But before long, Houston, who is thought to have national political ambitions, said that when Canadians hear 'talk of the 51st state stuff we're pretty ticked off, it makes us really upset.' He cited energy as a place where the states and provinces can work together, but never addressed putting American products back on Nova Scotia shelves. Tariffs on Canada, warned Ford, are 'nothing more than a tax on Americans.' He was preaching to the choir. The governors vented exasperation toward Washington, but there was a sense that, while it's their state budgets that will see red, there's only so much they can do. Leaders from both countries expressed hope that the G7 could produce some sort of trade accord or at least make progress toward an agreement. There were, however, soundings about leaving Washington and Ottawa aside and attempting discrete state-and-province relationships. 'It's time to start healing and having our own individual relationships between our states and the various provinces to secure our energy future regardless of what happens in Washington,' said New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. 'We have to operate as independent actors in this space and think of ourselves.' Healey was blunt about Canadians looking elsewhere for reliable partners. 'For the first time, we know that our friends to the north, some of them, are exploring partnerships with other countries that never would have been contemplated or been necessitated without President Trump's actions,' she said. And she wasn't the only person here to say out loud who would benefit from the unlikely and inane Great North American Trade War of 2025. 'China,' Healey added, 'is the one winning in all this.'
