By AARON MORRISON and JAYLEN GREEN, Associated Press

How Charlie Kirk is being memorialized — with many conservatives and white Christians, particularly evangelicals, emphasizing his faith and labeling him a martyr — has sparked debate among Black clergy, who are trying to square a heroic view of the 31-year-old with insulting statements about people of color that were key to his political activism.

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“How you die does not redeem how you lived,” the Rev. Howard-John Wesley, of Alexandria, Virginia, said in a sermon in the aftermath of Kirk’s killing that has amassed tens of thousands of views online.

The reactions to Kirk’s death marked a notable split-screen moment in America’s racial divide, playing out at the same time on Sunday across the country.

From the pulpits of Black churches, pastors used their sermons to denounce what they called hateful rhetoric from Kirk that runs counter to the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Gospel. In a packed football stadium in Arizona, tens of thousands of people celebrated Kirk in a religious-themed memorial as a martyr and inspirational and principled conservative hero.

Kirk’s killing on a college campus in Utah captured in a graphic video that went viral, as well as the aftermath of his death have become the latest fault line in politics and race in America under President Donald Trump.

Many Black pastors in the largest African American Christian denominations linked the veneration of Kirk — who used his platform to discuss matters of race in America, including statements that denigrated Black people, immigrants, women, Muslims and LGBTQ+ people — to the history of weaponizing faith to justify colonialism, enslavement and bigotry.

“Christianity told itself that Black people were inferior and therefore enslaved us,” said the Rev. Jacqui Lewis, pastor of Middle Collegiate Church in New York City, adding that powerful voices have long controlled the microphone and used it to reshape Christianity to serve power, exclusion and hate.

“We can call it Christian-esque, but it’s white nationalism wrapped in talk of Jesus,” Lewis said in an interview this week. “And it’s not Christian. It’s just not.”

Now, Lewis and others said, Black pastors must speak boldly, looking to their tradition of speaking out against those who promote racism.

“We’re criticizing the way the world is because that’s our job,” she said.

‘Not for the Jesus I know’

The presence of tens of thousands of followers who nearly filled a professional football stadium in Arizona for a memorial service Sunday attended by Trump, Vice President JD Vance and MAGA movement supporters is a testament to the massive influence that Kirk accumulated in conservative America.

“It was part memorial service, but another part of it was more like a political rally,” said the Rev. Joel Bowman, pastor of Temple of Faith Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. “The conflation of Christian symbolism and right-wing conservativism has really been a hallmark of the brand of Christian nationalism we have seen in the last eight, nine,10 years” since Trump has defined Republican politics.

Vice President JD Vance holds his fist up as he leaves the stage after speaking at a memorial for conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Sunday, Sept. 21, 2025, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher)

“It was part memorial service, but another part of it was more like a political rally,” said the Rev. Joel Bowman, pastor of Temple of Faith Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. “The conflation of Christian symbolism and right-wing conservativism has really been a hallmark of the brand of Christian nationalism we have seen in the last eight, nine,10 years” since Trump has defined Republican politics.

Many spoke of Kirk as a family man whose strong Christian faith, belief in the unfettered expression of ideas and ultraconservative values were part of his appeal.

“My friends, for Charlie, we must remember that he is a hero to the United States of America. And he is a martyr for the Christian faith,” Vance said.

The Rev. F. Bruce Williams, pastor of Bates Memorial Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, had rejected the martyrdom assertion well before Vance addressed Kirk’s mourners in Arizona.

While emphasizing that Kirk’s “life was tragically taken by violence,” Williams said in a sermon shared more than 40,000 times on Facebook, “what is also tragic is they’re trying to make him a martyr of the faith.”

“Now, he did violently die, but he did not die for the faith. Not the faith that I know. Not for the Jesus I know.”

“Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be assassinated,” agreed Wesley, pastor of Alfred Street Baptist Church, in his online sermon. “But I am overwhelmed seeing the flags of the United States of America at half-staff, calling this nation to honor and venerate a man who was an unapologetic racist and spent all of his life sowing seeds of division and hate into this land.”

Clergy decry comparisons with Martin Luther King Jr.

Kirk once called the landmark civil rights law granting equal rights to people of color “a mistake,” and described civil rights icon the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as “awful,” leading many Black church leaders to reject comparisons between Kirk’s killing and King’s 1968 assassination.

“How dare you compare him to Martin Luther King,” the Rev. Jamal Bryant, pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Seacrest, Georgia, said in a sermon posted to his Instagram account.

FILE – Jamal Bryant, senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, speaks during the March on Washington, Aug. 28, 2020, on the 57th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool, File)

“The only thing they got in common is both of ‘em was killed by a white man. After that, they got nothin’ else in common.”

The Rev. Freddy Haynes III, pastor of Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas, echoed Bryant in cautioning the Kirk-King comparison.

“Let me hasten to say, I’m anti-political violence. Kirk should still be alive.”

But, he added in a sermon posted to Instagram: “I don’t agree with anything Kirk said. What Kirk said was dangerous. What he said was racist. Rooted in white supremacy. Nasty and hate-filled. But he should still be alive.”

Some pastors emphasize Kirk’s faith and traditional values

Kirk’s conservatism does resonate with some Black pastors because they are themselves conservatives who subscribe to the evangelical political ideology that has been on the rise in the Trump era.

Patrick L. Wooden Sr., a pastor in Raleigh, North Carolina, celebrated Kirk for his promotion of conservative Christian values. He believes that liberal policies promoting diversity, equity and inclusion have left behind working class Black Americans in favor of other groups. He also agreed with Kirk’s statements against transgender individuals and others in the LGBTQ+ community.

FILE – Pastor Patrick Wooden Sr. is seen in the sanctuary of the Upper Room Church of God in Christ on Dec. 9, 2004, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File)

“I pray that our country has not degenerated to the point that if you cannot overcome someone’s point of view, someone’s stated position … I hope the response isn’t that you shoot them with a gun,” said Wooden, who pastors the Upper Room Church of God in Christ and is an ordained bishop in the predominantly African American Pentecostal denomination.

AP writers Luis Andres Henao in New York and Peter Smith in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, contributed.

As an actress, Scarlett Johansson has starred in films such as “Lost in Translation,” “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” and “Under the Skin.” She’s also appeared in 10 Marvel superhero movies as Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow.

Her films have earned more than $15 billion, making her the biggest moneymaker of any lead actor – ever. In 2019, she was nominated for two Academy Awards in the same year as best actress and best supporting actress for “Marriage Story” and “Jojo Rabbit”

But it’s watching Robert Redford direct “The Horse Whisperer” when she was his 13-year-old costar that led her to this new chapter in her career.

“Eleanor the Great” stars June Squibb as a feisty 94-year-old who returns to New York City from Florida after the death of her best friend Bessie, a Holocaust survivor. Living in Manhattan, Eleanor accidentally joins a group of Holocaust survivors at the neighborhood temple. When they ask about her story, she impulsively tells Bessie’s, setting in motion events that escape her control.

In a recent video call that also included Squibb, Johansson talked about how her experience as a teen on “The Horse Whisperer” led to her directing debut with “Eleanor the Great.”

“When I was a kid, I was working with Bob Redford, and just observing him on the set,” Johansson says. “Just seeing his command of the set, blocking scenes, working with Bob Richardson, our director of photography, Joe Reidy, our assistant director, and just watching him in action, on his feet, doing that work.

“Then he could switch over and have these very intimate conversations with me, where he would spend the time to recount all that had happened to my character up until that moment, and help me get to where I needed to go.

“I mean, the fact that he could bounce back and forth like that to me seemed like a really interesting job,” she says.

Still, she was just a teenager then, and the idea of directing movies seemed far off in the distance.

“I thought, Well, I’ll do this acting thing until I’m, whatever, a grown up, and then I’ll direct,” Johansson says, laughing. “Then as I got older, I would say in my mid-20s, I became more interested in getting better at the acting part of the job, and understanding it on a deeper level and challenging myself in different ways.”

She didn’t think about directing much in those years, she says, and when she did, it no longer seemed quite as magical as it had when she was working with Redford. The filmmaker died just six days after the conversation with Johansson and Squibb.

“At some point I thought, ‘Who would ever want a job like that?’” she says, laughing once more. “You’re fixing all the problems and answering all the questions, and it feels so tedious, you know. It just seemed  impossible to me, like a whole different brain.”

It wasn’t until after she founded her These Pictures production company in 2017 that the old spark reignited. When screenwriter Tory Kamen’s script for “Eleanor the Great” landed on her desk, with Squibb already attached to play the title role, Johansson took the leap.

June Squibb, left, and Erin Kellyman in “Eleanor the Great,” the directing debut of actress Scarlett Johansson. (Anne Joyce/Sony Pictures Classics/TNS)

Now it was time, Johansson decided, to find out what she could do behind the camera for the first time.

“Eleanor the Great” opens on Friday, Sept. 26. In an interview edited for length and clarity, Johansson and Squibb talked about what drew them to “Eleanor,” how the subject of the Holocaust was woven into a story that mixes drama with comedy, and the importance of making movies about older characters such like this.

Q: Tell me about the initial appeal of the screenplay when it reached you.

June Squibb: I read the script and knew immediately. Just a few pages, and I felt I really have to do this. I told them yes almost right away.

Q: What made it such a quick yes?

Squibb: It was well written, and it was written for film, which is a certain thing. And it just told me so much right away about this woman, and who she was, what she felt, and how the playing of it, the being her for so many weeks, would be. I felt, Yes, this is something for me to do.

Q: How about you, Scarlett? I read that you weren’t looking for a project to direct, but then this showed up.

Johansson: It did. I mean, June was attached to star in it, so I was really interested in what June Squibb was excited to star in. And it was pretty apparent. Echoing what June is saying, I could tell when I read it that it was a real showcase for June’s talent, because the character is this sort of impossible person.

But then we see her. She has these moments also of real introspective, intimate moments built into the structure of the script that allow the audience to have a better understanding of what’s going on internally for her, even without dialogue. So there are great moments there.

And, of course, once we are introduced to the Nina character [a college journalism student working on a story about Holocaust survivors], we see another side of Eleanor. That perhaps we were judging her in one way, and now there’s this other part of her. I thought that’ll be exciting to work with an actor of June’s caliber and help discover what could be a showcase performance for her.

Q: Eleanor is kind of feisty; she can be little sharp, and now she’s starting over at 94. How did you wrap yourself into the character, June?

Squibb: Well, I lived in New York, and I know New York fairly well. And I think in New York, you could do what you want to do. But at 94, how much do you want to do? [She laughs] Bessie’s death is what makes the change in her life. If she hadn’t died, I think they would have been continuing their lives in Florida, and I think she would have been happy with that.

You know, she lived in the Bronx rather than Manhattan, and I think there was probably a bit of, ‘Oh, this will be different. This might be fun. I can imagine that this is what Eleanor was thinking, because it’s a very different part of the city. I think she was probably very excited about it and yet very angry that she had to do it. It’s like her life; it was very mixed up, a lot of different emotions going through it.

Q: Angry because of her loss of Bessie?

Squibb: Yeah, for one thing. I mean, I think she’s angry about a lot of things in her life. That’s just her.

Q: Scarlett, you touched on this a moment ago, how the film has a lot of different tones in it – anger, loss and grief, but also funny moments. How do you balance all those?

Johansson: Part of it was working on the script and refining the script so that there were moments of both comic relief and then the balance of that, these really profound moments that could be quite surprising. You know, there’s a heaviness, of course, to the material, and so I think you have to balance it with levity.

I wanted it to feel that the movie had hopefulness to it as well, and that it could move through these different moments like stages of grieving – that there was movement in the film, and it doesn’t get stuck in one place for too long.

I think it’s just a sensitivity to the audience experience, or in my interpretation of that. Obviously, I made the film because I love it, but I really made it for the audience. I thought about them a lot.

Q: Another element is the role that the Holocaust plays in the story, which is a tricky topic to touch upon. Both of you share the Jewish faith, and I read that the Shoah Foundation was consulted and helped out.

Johansson: Yeah, I mean I don’t know that I could have made the film if I didn’t identify as Jewish. The Jewish identity, there’s a texture of it throughout the film. It’s just the humor of it and the spirit of it, too, not just the fact that it deals with the Holocaust story.

We were very lucky to have the Shoah Foundation [a non-profit based at the University of Southern California established by director Steven Spielberg to preserve the stories of Holocaust survivors and witnesses]. I sent them the script right away, partly because I just wanted their opinion about it, you know, see what they thought, and also to be able to refine the Bessie survivor story so that we were doing an accurate portrayal of what this woman could have experienced.

And then Rita Zohar, who plays Bessie, is also a survivor herself, which is extraordinary. That was just a crazy discovery. I mean, she’s an amazing actor and an accomplished actor, but it was just extraordinary that there was this even deeper layer of meaning to her portrayal.

Q: Some of the actors in the survivors group in the film were also actual Holocaust survivors?

Johannson: Yes, we were able to work with the survivors in the group that we identified through Shoah. Even Jessica Hecht [who plays Eleanor’s daughter] is very connected in the Jewish community in New York, and also that temple that we were using was very helpful in identifying people that could participate or wanted to participate.

If we didn’t have all of those elements that are really authentic, then there would be a shallowness to it, or it wouldn’t have the same nuance that I think the film does.

Q: June, what was it like working with Rita? And I’m guessing you might have met other survivors over time, too?

Squibb: I have, but I also was alive during World War II, and I remember we had Life and Look magazines and the pictures of the camps as they were found there. I just couldn’t believe it. I was about 10, I think, something like that, and I just feel that this cannot be forgotten.

And when Rita and I talked, we just sort of got like girls, you know; we didn’t have any deep conversations. I didn’t even know she was a survivor until Scarlett was saying it today. We weren’t talking about our characters at all. I just felt it’s important to tell the story, to have this alive in whatever way we did.

Johansson: Also, Rita, she’s a very private person, I think actually similar to the character. It’s true, talking with others about this. There’s almost a shame in sharing your story. Not wanting to go back there, not wanting to revisit this horror of your past is actually not uncommon of survivors who experienced unimaginable trauma like that.

You could feel she was so moved on the days that we were working with her. She had so much difficult work to do and you felt almost like it was a cathartic experience for her. I mean, she said it was.

Q: I’d like to ask you both about working as, or with, a director who is an actor.

Johansson: I don’t think I could have done this job 15 years ago. It’s all the experience that’s led me up to this point that made it possible. And also that I had the confidence to do it. It requires that confidence; otherwise, if the director’s not confident, everybody feels it on the set and it’s awful. [She laughs]

And I would never want to recreate that. So it was until I felt, ‘Oh, this is a story I can tell. This is a movie I can make. This is a cast I believe in.’ It came out of this particular project that ignited that.

Q: And for you, June? You’ve worked with lots of different directors in your career. What’s it like when the director is an actor?

Squibb: Well, it’s great because you feel that they know what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, and what you need timewise. Do you need to do it again or do you not? I just always felt that Scarlett was there and knew immediately what I needed and where I was going.

And you do not get that – I’ve worked with some wonderful directors, but they have no sense of what an actor does ever. I think it surprises them sometimes. So it was great, and I loved the experience of not being pushed, of just letting it happen, and that’s what it was.

Q: Scarlett, I read that you were very close to your grandmother, and June, this comes right after your starring role in “Thelma” last year. How do you see the importance of stories about and starring older people?

Squibb: I truly believe that the audience is now interested in aging. We’re an aging population and I think people want to know about it.

Johansson: I was very close to my grandmother, and certainly, there are a lot of things in this film (inspired by her); I observed so many. I think children also have such close relations with older people because the pace of life is kind of more similar in a way. You become an adult, and then you’re building your own life and having your own children. The pace can be very chaotic.

My grandmother, I remember spending so much time just observing her. I remember all the qualities of her body and her wardrobe and her habits. Her fragrance in her apartment and all the textures of her life so well because we spent so much time in each other’s company, just enjoying each other’s company the way that Erin and Eleanor do, you know.

We talked about all kinds of stuff. We talked about relationships, we talked about sex, we talked about our bodies, we talked about our family, we talked about our dreams and our worries and all of that stuff. She had a very full life, and her days were full of thought and awareness. I think this film celebrates that and highlights that.

I think Eleanor in this film, when you see her relationship with Erin, she talks about the person that she feels that is. And she says, ‘I’m the same way I was when I was 16 years old.’ I mean, my grandmother used to say things like that to me all the time.

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By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes are drifting on Wednesday as Wall Street takes a pause from what seemed like a relentless rally.

The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged in morning trading, coming off its first loss in four days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 45 points, or 0.1%, as of 10:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was basically flat. All three are near their all-time highs, which were set on Monday.

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It’s a slowdown following the blistering run for the U.S. stock market since it hit a low in April, fueled by hopes that President Donald Trump’s tariffs won’t derail global trade and that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates several times to boost the U.S. economy. The big rally, though, has raised concerns that stock prices have shot too high and become too expensive, particularly if the Fed does not deliver as many cuts to rates as traders expect.

Demonstrating the weight of high expectations, Micron Technology’s stock fell 1.8% even though it reported a better profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The maker of computer memory also gave a forecast for profit in the current quarter that blew past analysts’ expectations.

Typically, such a performance would send a stock higher. But Micron’s stock came into the day with an atypical, stunning gain of 97.7% for the year so far.

Freeport-McMoRan sank 10.6% for one of the market’s larger losses after the miner said it expects sales of copper to be 4% lower in the third quarter than it had earlier forecast. It also said sales of gold will likely be roughly 6% lower than earlier expected.

On the winning side of Wall Street was Lithium Americas. It soared 91.5% following reports that the U.S. government is considering taking an ownership stake in the Canadian company, which is developing a lithium project in Nevada with General Motors.

Lithium Americas, based in Vancouver, said it’s in talks with the U.S. Department of Energy and GM about drawing on a previously announced $2.26 billion loan from the government. The Energy Department is making “incremental requests” to add more conditions before Lithium Americas can make its first draw, among other things, the company said.

Under Trump, the U.S. government has already taken a 10% ownership stake in Intel, the struggling computer chip company.

Homebuilders also rose after a report said U.S. sales of new homes were stronger in August than economists had forecast and unexpectedly accelerated.

Lennar climbed 2%, PulteGroup rose 1.5% and D.R. Horton added 0.7%.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe and Asia. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 1.4%, and France’s CAC 40 fell 0.5% for two of the bigger moves.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged up to 4.13% from 4.12% late Tuesday.

AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Yuri Kageyama contributed.

My mother thought that breakfast should be loaded with protein, and pancakes were no exception. Not only do these flapjacks have protein-rich cottage cheese, but they also contain 6 eggs in the batter.

Initially, Mom tried to sneak in a little brewer’s yeast (a rich source of B vitamins) into the batter, an ingredient that made the mixture smell like sour socks. But my brothers and I complained so much that she eventually scrubbed the smelly stuff.

Mom’s Cottage Cheese Pancakes

Yield: About 30 (3 1/2-inch) pancakes

INGREDIENTS

1 cup cottage cheese

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

6 eggs

1/4 cup reduced-fat milk

1/4 cup vegetable oil

For greasing pan: nonstick spray or vegetable oil

DIRECTIONS

1. Place all the ingredients in blender (except nonstick spray or oil for greasing pan). Cover blender and whirl until well combined and smooth, for about 1 to 2 minutes.

2. Heat large nonstick skillet on medium heat. Spray with nonstick spray or heat about 2 teaspoons vegetable oil (tilting skillet to cover with oil). Using a 1/4-cup measure, add batter to hot skillet. Cook for about 2 minutes or until dry around the edges, bubbles start to break and golden brown on bottom. Turn and cook until bottom is golden brown.

Award-winning food writer Cathy Thomas has written three cookbooks, including “50 Best Plants on the Planet.” Follow her at CathyThomasCooks.com.

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