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IOL News
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- IOL News
Teatime goes viral: The dream TikTok tour bus
Friends pose for a photograph with the Tea Around Town bus in Washington. Image: Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post GROWING up with five brothers, Ballina Koroilavesau enjoyed a good teatime - on her own. 'I had tea parties with me, myself and I with my toys,' said the 39-year-old Maryland resident. But on a recent sunny day, she was practically squealing with delight as she made her way down the aisle of one of the more unusual tea offerings in D.C. Tea Around Town is a double-decker tour bus decked out in plentiful flowers, shades of pink and pops of gold. Fancy hats known as fascinators are optional but often opted for, along with gloves. Instrumental versions of pop songs fill the air. It feels like 'Bridgerton' on wheels. I was sitting in my own pink-and-white-striped booth admiring the serving stand full of finger foods when Koroilavesau walked by. She was with her soon-to-be daughter-in-law and a friend to celebrate the upcoming wedding. 'Look at all the pastries,' she said. 'I'm so excited!' Guests take in the sights along the Tea Around Town bus tour in Washington. Image: Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad loading I had spotted the company's buses in downtown D.C. - they are hard to miss - and wondered about this tea-themed experience. So I booked tickets while my mom was visiting from Florida. On the day of our tour, we looked for floral patterns to find our fellow passengers. There was a mother and daughter in Amazon-purchased fascinators. A pair of sisters who attend tea regularly were stunning in purple. The bride-to-be found her dress at a thrift store. Ryan Prescott, a spokesperson for TopView Sightseeing, which runs the tours, said passengers have seized the opportunity to dress up. 'You're around people that are doing the same, so it's a camaraderie,' he said. Bite-sized feast We arrived on the bus with an appetite, and it was a good thing; our table settings included three tiers of sandwiches, appetizers, scones and sweets. We paid $129 each for the 'luxe' package, which came with caviar, shrimp, a lobster roll and smoked salmon bite along with more standard finger sandwiches and snacks. A 'spring delight mocktail' tasted like sparkling juice with a spear of blackberries. Seeing the D.C. sights The tour is advertised as 90 minutes, with 75 of those actually on the road. Most unexpected, to us, was that the soundtrack suddenly switched to jazz and our tour guide started singing on several occasions. It turns out that's a standard part of the tour - and most people tend to be surprised by it. Between live songs, tunes like 'Despacito' and 'Toxic' played. Prescott said the company is trying to attract locals who want something special to do while also appealing to tourists who want a new way to see the city. Social media moment My take on the tea itself: the drink was secondary to the decor, the food and the mood. 'It's beyond the tea,' Prescott said when I spoke to him a few days later. 'It's a social media moment, it's an opportunity for sightseeing.' Indeed, many of the passengers I spoke to had first seen the bus on TikTok or Instagram. London boasts multiple tea bus tours. Hong Kong has a dim sum bus tour. Beyoncé made news when she was pictured on a Tea Around Town bus in New York with her family in 2023. Stars of the latest season of 'RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars' held an event on one of the buses this year. Tea-bus takeaways The $129 (R2284) price tag felt steep for several swigs of tea, even in a flowery tumbler with earnest explanations, and small bites to eat along with sights you can see for free. But the experience was more than just a bus ride with treats - and one I would probably pay for again, though maybe without the caviar. What I enjoyed most was laughing with my mom, toasting with our teas and comparing notes on our nibbles. We delighted in the unexpected musical performances and picturesque surroundings. And we loved complimenting fellow passengers on their outfits and congratulating the ones who were celebrating special occasions. 'I feel so spoiled,' my mom said. To me, that was priceless.
Yomiuri Shimbun
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Yomiuri Shimbun
He's Throwing Worldpride in Trump's Backyard. Who's with Him?
Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post 'This is not the time to retreat,' Bos says. Ryan Bos has a huge party to pull off – or several parties, spanning weeks and involving road closures all over Washington, more than a hundred contracts, 25,200 reusable drink cups, a 1,000-foot long rainbow flag and Shakira. Bos is the executive director of Capital Pride Alliance, which this year is in charge of planning and executing the festivities around WorldPride, which run through early June. It's a huge feat of logistics, and that's before you consider the politics: This year, the LGBTQ+ celebration is being held in the backyard of a government that has targeted transgender rights and made major cuts to HIV prevention programs. At the Kennedy Center, President Donald Trump has promised 'NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA'; the alliance relocated some events from the arts institution to other venues 'to ensure our entire LGBTQ+ community will be welcome.' Some corporate allies have withdrawn their financial support or asked not to be explicitly associated with the celebration. The party is still very much on. But it's not clear how many people, welcome or not, will ultimately decide to take part. On a rainy Tuesday in mid-May, Bos sat, arms folded, in a glass-paned conference room on the second floor of an office building in Logan Circle, tapping his brown dress shoes and hearing from his team. 'The 'Queer Eye' guys are out,' a staffer said at one point. 'They were not able to line up their schedules.' Maps denoting public restrooms needed printing. Someone had to inform the celebrities that their private security couldn't carry weapons in Washington. And, no, they wouldn't be getting rain insurance. And then there was this: 'All of the existing parade signage that we have that says 'presented by Marriott International' or 'Marriott Bonvoy' is not usable,' another staffer informed the group, 'because Marriott, although not taking their sponsorship down and still wanting to use the Bonvoy logo, no longer wants to have it say 'presented by' – at least in this climate.' (Marriott did not respond to The Washington Post's requests for comment.) The June 7 parade – a hallmark of every Pride – was less than a month away. 'So,' the staffer added, 'that leads us to the questions of which signs we need to reprint and redo.' Bos is throwing a parade; corporate America is walking a tightrope. In February, the consulting giant Booz Allen Hamilton, which has millions in contracts with the federal government, canceled its sponsorship of the celebration. Deloitte, Comcast and Darcars chose not to donate as they had in years past, Bos said. (Booz Allen told Politico that its withdrawal from the event doesn't mean 'any pullback of support to this community.' Its media department did not reply to emails from The Post last week. Deloitte and Comcast also did not respond to emails from The Post. Darcars declined to comment.) Bos says the organizers expect to get about $6 million in corporate money, about half of what they hoped for. A handful of other corporate sponsors are still contributing, Bos said, but covertly. As in, they don't want to be named or have their logos displayed. 'It's somewhat counter to Pride,' Bos said in his office after the staff meeting. 'You know, we appreciate their financial contribution. Pride is about standing up and affirming and being visible.' He hadn't seemed fazed by the news about the Marriott signage. At least the hotel franchise hadn't pulled its funding. And it is still listed on the WorldPride website as a 'Proud Presidential' partner – its biggest corporate sponsor. 'My concern,' Bos added later, 'are those that, in essence, have gone in the closet.' There's still enough money in the coffers for the organizers to have put together a full program with some big draws. Among the marquee events is a concert by Shakira on May 31 at Nationals Park, preceded by 30 minutes of programming about Pride. On June 6, Jennifer Lopez is set to take the stage at RFK Stadium for a ticketed music festival; Troye Sivan will do the same on June 7. The rainbow-festooned parade floats will wend their way down 14th Street toward the Capitol starting at 2 p.m. that day, and a Doechii concert on Pennsylvania Avenue will follow on June 8. Bos said he didn't know yet whether uniformed police officers would be marching in the parade – a subject of contention at other Pride festivals in recent years – but he said it would be part of the discussion with law enforcement, adding that, as a community, 'I think we have to keep an open mind about this conversation.' Celebrations planned by certain subcommunities are already underway, including trans pride, Latinx pride, Black pride, API pride for Asians and Pacific Islanders, 'silver pride' for older people, and (a new addition) military pride. Other events include a human rights conference and a protest rally. But some queer people may not have much of a desire to make themselves visible here, now. In October, the D.C. mayor's office said it expected up to 3 million visitors. In March, a Capital Pride Alliance official estimated that 1.5 million would come. Earlier this month, Bos said he has 'no clue' how many people to expect. 'I'm hopeful that we're still going to surpass the million mark,' he said. The alliance purchased hotel blocks, but as of last week, 'the hotel bookings aren't where we expected them to be,' Bos said. Nat Wallace, board member of the Toronto Purple Fins Gender Free Swim Club, was planning a trip for about a dozen of his club members to participate in an LGBTQ aquatics championship that coincided with WorldPride. But after the inauguration, Wallace and his teammates grew worried that some people could be detained at the border or turned away if their documents didn't match their gender identity. Although the U.S. government says that a visitor's gender and beliefs about sexuality don't render them inadmissible, Wallace, who's trans, was skeptical. The team ultimately decided to skip the competition – and ditch the rest of the celebration, too. 'It's a concern – whether or not WorldPride as an organization can really consider the [United] States as a country that's safe to host these events,' he says. The Human Rights Campaign has fielded hundreds of questions from prospective visitors, said Brandon Wolf, the organization's national press secretary. Wolf, a survivor of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, was at a fundraising dinner in South Florida a couple of months ago, where guests asked him about where to party but also about how to stay safe if they went to pro-LGBTQ+ demonstrations in Washington. Wolf says he has reassured people that organizers are working closely with local D.C. police, 'which, as we know, is different than federal agents,' but also that 'you've got to look at your own circumstance.' Beyond the Beltway, in states where local governments are also enacting policies targeting LGBTQ+ people, 'the vibe is a turn-towards-my-nearest-neighbor type of care,' says Zooey Zephyr, a Democratic state legislator in Montana. She's heard about LGBTQ+ groups in Montana organizing Pride events there, or working with local clinics to make sure LGBTQ+ people have health care, but not as much about WorldPride. 'I don't think that will be the primary driver for our community.' (Zephyr might attend the WorldPride rally, but she will otherwise be preoccupied with a fellowship at Harvard.) So will this still be fun? 'I think we make everything fun,' Wolf says. 'That's just who we are, right?' Bos says he understands that people need to evaluate their own risks when deciding to attend WorldPride, but 'this is not the time to retreat.' He's been making events work, or trying to, for much of his life. When Bos was growing up in Indiana, his parents helped plan a big 'ethnic music festival' every year, and he and his brother volunteered to help out. ('It was an Oktoberfest,' he says.) He moved to the Baltimore area after college to work in education, and years later got involved with efforts to bring the Gay Games – an international sporting competition – to Washington, but those efforts ultimately failed. 'A lot of the undertone there was this misperception of D.C.,' Bos says, 'just not realizing we're more than the federal city, we're more than the Mall, or more than the Capitol, the White House.' In 2021, InterPride – the global umbrella group of Pride organizers – first awarded the 2025 host designation to Taiwan, but that reportedly fell apart over a different kind of political tension: how to refer to the place where it was being held. Washington had been the runner-up, and the Capital Pride Alliance leaped at the chance to prove it could pull it off. Bos and his colleagues argued that D.C. knew how to put on big events and that it was more than a seat of government, even as they acknowledged the 2024 election might affect the atmosphere. 'It was clear that even then, they knew that the election could go either way,' Bos said. 'There was a sense of importance of how having WorldPride in the United States of America, in its nation's capital – sort of that message that it could send.' When the election went Trump's way, Bos went into a state of denial and fear. 'I couldn't watch news for probably four to five months,' he said. After the inauguration, the executive orders – on transgender people, on DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) – felt like 'gut punch after gut punch.' Showing up at Pride matters more this year, Bos said, to show LGBTQ+ people who are not out that 'there are people fighting, especially when you see these corporations all retreating their support. For me, it feels like things are just crumbling around – like, the room, the walls are caving in on you.'
Washington Post
04-04-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
Winter All-Met 2025
Sports Winter All-Met 2025 April 4, 2025 | 1:22 AM GMT Here's a behind the scenes look at the Winter 2024-2025 All-Met photoshoot. Held at The Post's newsroom, it featured nine players of the year, as well as first team players for boys' and girls' basketball. Photos by Marvin Joseph with photo editing by Toni Sandys. See the complete list of selections at the link in bio. And for more on the All-Met process, tune int to the All-Met Honors television special at 4 p.m. Sunday on Monumental Sports Network.
Washington Post
21-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Uzo Aduba on creating a White House murder mystery
Actress Uzo Aduba portrays an eccentric detective in the Netflix show, :The Residence." (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post) White House reporter Cleve Wootson interviews Uzo Aduba today on 'Post Reports' about the new Netflix show 'The Residence,' and the real dynamics the fictional show reveals. Read Sonia Rao's story about 'The Residence.' She says it's 'Clue,' set on Pennsylvania Avenue, with a Shondaland touch. You can also read our TV critic Lili Loofbourow's review. Today's show was produced and mixed by Ted Muldoon. It was edited by Maggie Penman. Subscribe to The Washington Post here.
Washington Post
11-02-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Rep. Sarah McBride on what Democrats can still get done
Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Delaware) in her office in the Longworth House Office Building. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post) Sarah McBride was elected to the House of Representatives in 2024, representing Delaware's lone congressional district — and becoming the first openly transgender member of Congress. She's become a target for her conservative colleagues — but she's also determined to work with Republicans. She joins Martine Powers to talk about how she makes that work and what she thinks Democrats can do now. Rep. Sarah McBride is part of 'Post Next 50,' The Post's project profiling 50 people shaping our society in 2025. The full list can be found here. Today's show was produced by Emma Talkoff. It was edited by Maggie Penman and mixed by Sam Bair. Thank you to Lucas Trevor. Subscribe to The Washington Post here.
