By J.M. HIRSCH, Associated Press

MIAMI (AP) — For nearly 10 years running, Lesley VanNess never missed the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, a beachfront bacchanal of celebrities, booze and bites that tens of thousands of attendees pay hundreds to thousands of dollars to join.

It was about access, the chance to nosh and gab with the likes of Rachael Ray and Bobby Flay, people she otherwise could experience only via the hands-in-pans purview of the Food Network.

“I’d get the Food Network Magazine and there would be advertisements for it. I’m like, ‘0h my god! You could go to that? Go to these great events and meet these celebrity chefs?’,” said VanNess, a 44-year-old former restaurant owner from Iowa. “I’m in!”

That was during the food festival heyday, a decade-long stretch starting around 2010 when copycat events popped up everywhere, creating a circuit-like scene for A-list chefs (and ample wannabes).

Then came social media, a force that melted barriers between fans and food celebs. People like VanNess realized that instead of crowding into football field-size tents to chance a chat with Flay, they could just DM him.

Or better yet, they could tune in to online #instafood chatter to perhaps discover the next Ray or Flay, a whole new level of social cred unlocked.

VanNess hasn’t been back to South Beach since at least 2020. “I’d rather see them on social media or go to their restaurant,” she said.

What chefs and foodies want

Last weekend, the South Beach Wine & Food Festival turned 25, cementing it as one of the elders of the festival scene, along with its sister event, the New York City Wine & Food Festival, and the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, Colorado. By all accounts, all three are going strong. But many smaller festivals have disappeared, victims of the pandemic, slumping ticket sales, soaring food and labor costs, and chef disinterest.

So, are food festivals still relevant?

“South Beach and New York, they fill a niche and I can see them going on forever. But food events and food festivals are going in a whole other direction,” said Mike Thelin, one of the founders of the now shuttered Oregon festival Feast Portland.

Festivals’ success long hinged on the need of chefs, wineries, mixologists, food producers, and what only now are known as food influencers to reach a wider audience. In 2026, that’s an antiquated notion.

“In 2010, they wanted to get on the map,” Thelin said. “They don’t need that anymore.”

Seeking that local connection

That doesn’t mean festivals are dead. There’s a recalibration happening, he explained. What many call “white tent affairs,” a not-so-subtle nod to South Beach’s events that stretch along the sands of the Atlantic, are fading.

“If I’m going to a certain region, I want to know what makes that region special,” Thelin said. “I don’t want to go into a giant white tent that’s devoid of geography and drink a bunch of wines from California if I’m in Washington or Tennessee.”

Taking their place? A host of small, hyper-focused events grounded in people and place. Events like AAPI Food & Wine, a 3-year-old Oregon and New York City-based festival that highlights the work of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

“The foodie scene has changed so much,” said Lois Cho, one of the founders of that event, which draws about 1,000 attendees a year. “People didn’t realize wine and black bean noodles and izakaya and all these different Thai dishes — they had no idea they paired. Creating a different narrative and community where you can connect with people, those are the types of events we’ll see now.”

Social media, she said, unlocked so many overlooked voices.

“And a lot of people haven’t caught on because it’s been a lot of cookie-cutter events for the last 20 years,” she said.

It’s been a similar story for the Southbound Food Festival, which celebrates the culinary scene of Birmingham, Alabama. Started in 2022 and stretching over a week every fall, the event pulls support not just from chefs, but also the region’s art and music scenes.

“There’s less appeal today with these TV chefs. Great chefs are everywhere,” said Nancy Hopkins, one of the event’s founders. “People come to celebrate and uplift Birmingham.”

The OG festivals still draw crowds

Still, as Thelin said, the South Beach Wine & Food Festival and it’s New York sibling aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, white tents, Food Network faces and all. Tickets to nearly all of South Beach’s 110 events, which featured 500-plus chefs and food personalities, sold out this year. In its quarter century, the festival has raised more than $45 million for the Florida International University Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism Management.

Lee Schrager, the force behind the two festivals, said the South Beach blueprint remains relevant today.

“There’s something very different about DM’ing Bobby Flay than going to an intimate dinner at a table of 10 that he’s doing that’s sold out in three days,” Schrager said. “Social media has made everyone available, but can you touch and feel it?”

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The first South Beach event, attended by only 10 chefs, was little more than a wine tasting. This year, more than 30,000 people attended. Martha Stewart hosted a luncheon at Joe’s Stone Crab, Italian celebrity butcher Dario Cecchini tossed slabs of beef into an eager dinner crowd, and Ray reprised her Burger Bash, where everything from Kool-Aid pickles to foie gras adorned smashed wagyu patties on potato buns.

Schrager acknowledged that most smaller festivals can’t operate the way his do, including hosting events he knows will sell tickets even if they ultimately lose money. He said he sold $7 million in tickets this year and brought in $6 million in sponsorships — and netted just a little over $1 million.

“It’s a good number in the festival world, but it’s not a great return if you’re running a profit business,” he said.

Ray, who has participated in nearly every South Beach and New York festival, continues to show up. It’s about loyalty to Schrager, who took her seriously when much of the food world didn’t. But it’s also about in-person access to fans.

“I love talking to people, being with people, having people climb all over you, hang on you, give you a compliment,” she said. “I love being in the real-life experience.”

J.M. Hirsch is a food and travel journalist, and the former food editor for The Associated Press.

In the wake of receiving the news that he was most likely going to have to undergo elbow surgery, Pablo López went through a list of those he felt he had let down: himself, the Twins, his family. If all that wasn’t enough, he added his country to the list.

López was committed to pitch for Venezuela in the upcoming World Baseball Classic before he injured his right elbow early during spring training. Among the many things that suddenly had been ripped away from him, there was that, too.

“It just adds another element that I’m just navigating internally, of feeling disappointed, frustrated and powerless at the time,” López said in the days before undergoing Tommy John surgery on Wednesday.

While many of the Twins who had originally planned to compete in the World Baseball Classic have pulled out — López, Taj Bradley (Mexico) and Liam Hendriks (Australia) — there are still four, and potentially five, in the Twins clubhouse who will be departing Fort Myers, Fla., soon to compete in the tournament.

For center fielder Byron Buxton, when the call came from Team USA manager Mark DeRosa in November, there wasn’t much convincing needed.

“He’s like ‘You in?’ and I was like ‘Let’s go,’ ” Buxton said.

Buxton said he had a chance to go to the tournament when he was younger but “stuff didn’t line up.” The tournament takes place every three years, and this time around, Buxton is fully healthy — and coming off the most productive year of his career.

He wasn’t going to miss out again.

“(It) means a lot to be able to put your country’s jersey on and represent,” Buxton said. “That’s an honor. … To be able to have an opportunity, to be able to put that jersey on, finally, is something special.”

Buxton is supposed to be joined by teammate Joe Ryan, who also represented the United States at the Olympics in 2021 in Tokyo, but as of Friday morning, the Twins still had not said whether that would happen. Ryan has some lower back inflammation that flared up before he was supposed to pitch in his first spring training game.

The tournament is set for March 5-17 and Team USA is meeting to train in Arizona first before starting pool play in Houston.

The U.S. will compete in the same pool as Italy, for which Twins non-roster invite Dan Alvatilla will compete. Altavilla said he tried to play in the tournament in 2017 but the restrictions for who could play were tighter at that point. He was hurt the last time around, but this time he was eager for the opportunity.

Altavilla has eligibility through his great-grandfather, who was born in Italy. Proving his eligibility meant hunting through family history, and he enjoyed getting to see his great-grandfather’s birth certificate and paperwork from Ellis Island.

“This is my chance to represent my family, my great-grandfather being born over there,” Altavilla said. “I think it was just a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”

Fellow non-roster invite Matt Bowman is competing for Team Israel. He gained his eligibility through his wife, Eve. Bowman spent parts of the last two seasons in Baltimore, where he was teammates with Dean Kremer, who was born in the United States to Israeli parents. Kremer was the one who realized Bowman qualified and that got the ball rolling.

“The WBC is an interesting tournament,” Bowman said. “The opportunities to play in the WBC are somewhat limited, so I jumped at the opportunity to try a new baseball experience.”

The last Twin going, Gio Urshela, is a WBC veteran, having played for Colombia in both 2017 and 2023. Though he’s in camp as a non-roster invite competing for a spot on the major league team, Urshela wasn’t going to pass up the chance to go to the tournament.

“I’m really excited,” he said. “Representing my country is always something that makes me proud.”

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Today is Saturday, Feb. 28, the 59th day of 2026. There are 306 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Feb. 28, 2013, Benedict XVI became the first pope in 600 years to resign, ending an eight-year pontificate. (Benedict was succeeded the following month by Pope Francis.)

Also on this date:

In 1844, a massive 12-inch gun aboard the USS Princeton exploded as the ship was sailing on the Potomac River, killing Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur, Navy Secretary Thomas W. Gilmer and several others; President John Tyler, who also was aboard the ship, was uninjured.

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Federal prosecutors won’t appeal ruling barring death penalty in Luigi Mangione case

In 1953, Francis H.C. Crick announced that he and fellow scientist James D. Watson had discovered the double-helix structure of DNA.

In 1975, 43 people were killed in London’s Underground when a train failed to stop at Moorgate station, smashing into the end of a tunnel.

In 1983, the final episode of the television series “M*A*S*H” aired; nearly 106 million viewers saw the finale, which remains the most-watched episode of any U.S. television series to date.

In 1986, Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was assassinated while walking on a Stockholm street with his wife; his assailant was never captured and remains unidentified.

In 1993, a gun battle erupted at a religious compound near Waco, Texas, when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents tried to arrest Branch Davidian leader David Koresh for stockpiling illegal weapons; four agents and six Davidians were killed as a 51-day standoff began. (On April 19 of that year, FBI agents stormed the compound with tear gas and armored vehicles, with dozens dead before the standoff was over).

In 2014, President Barack Obama delivered a blunt warning to Moscow about reports of military activity inside Ukraine by Russia and said “there will be costs” for any intervention.

In 2023, a passenger train collided head-on with a freight train more than 200 miles north of Athens, Greece, killing 57 people in that country’s deadliest rail disaster.

In 2024, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the longest-serving U.S. Senate leader in history, announced he would step down from the leadership role the following November. (Twelve months later, the octogenarian senator said his term ending in January 2027 would be his last).

Today’s birthdays:

Rock singer Sam the Sham (aka Domingo Samudio) is 89.
Actor-director-choreographer Tommy Tune is 87.
Hall of Fame auto racer Mario Andretti is 86.
Actor Mercedes Ruehl is 79.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman is 73.
Basketball Hall of Famer Adrian Dantley is 71.
Actor John Turturro is 69.
Actor Robert Sean Leonard is 57.
Musician Pat Monahan (Train) is 57.
Actor Tasha Smith is 55.
Hockey Hall of Famer Eric Lindros is 53.
Actor Ali Larter is 50.
Country musician Jason Aldean is 49.
NBA guard Luka Dončić is 27.

By JON GAMBRELL and KONSTANTIN TOROPIN

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Explosions rocked northern Israel on Saturday as the country worked to intercept incoming Iranian missiles after launching a nationwide attack with the U.S. on Iran.

The blasts echoed just after the Israeli military said it would be using its air defense systems to bring down the Iranian fire.

There was no immediate word on any damage or casualties from the ongoing attack.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. and Israel launched an attack Saturday on Iran, with the first apparent strike happening near the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iranian media reported strikes nationwide, and smoke could be seen rising from the capital.

President Donald Trump said in a video posted on social media that the U.S. had begun “major combat operations in Iran.” He claimed Iran has continued to develop its nuclear program and plans to develop missiles to reach U.S. and appealed to the Iranian people to “take over your government — it will be yours to take.”

Trump acknowledged that there could be American casualties following Iran strikes, saying “that often happens in war.”

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the 86-year-old Khamenei was in his offices at the time of the strike. He hasn’t been seen publicly in days as tensions with the United States have grown. The attack comes as the United States has assembled a vast fleet of fighter jets and warships in the region to try to pressure Iran into a deal over its nuclear program.

Iran has said it hasn’t enriched since June, but it has blocked international inspectors from visiting the sites America bombed during a 12-day war then. Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press have shown new activity at two of those sites, suggesting Iran is trying to assess and potentially recover material there.

Iran currently has a self-imposed limit on its ballistic missile program, limiting their range to 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles). That puts all the Mideast and some of eastern Europe in their range. There is no public evidence of Iran seeking to have intercontinental ballistic missiles, though Washington has criticized its space program as potentially allowing it to one day.

Roads to Khamenei’s compound in downtown Tehran had been shut down by authorities as other blasts rang out across the capital. Neighboring Iraq closed its airspace, according to the Ministry of Transport.

Targets in the Israeli campaign included Iran’s military, symbols of government and intelligence targets, according to an official briefed on the operation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic information on the attack.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz described the attack as being done “to remove threats.” He did not immediately elaborate.

Trump wanted a deal to constrain Iran’s nuclear program, and he sees an opportunity while the country is struggling at home with growing dissent following nationwide protests. Iran had hoped to avert a war, but maintains it has the right to enrich uranium and does not want to discuss other issues, like its long-range missile program or support for armed groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Israel issued a nationwide warning after Iran reportedly launches missiles. Iran had warned that American military personnel and bases spread across the region would be targets for any retaliation.

Several hospitals in Israel launched their emergency protocols, including moving patients and surgeries to underground facilities.

In Tehran, witnesses heard the first blast by Khamenei’s office. Iranian state television later reported on the explosion, without offering a cause.

Sirens sounded across Israel at the same time as it closed its airspace. The Israeli military said that it had issued a “proactive alert to prepare the public for the possibility of missiles being launched toward the state of Israel.”

More explosions struck Iran’s capital after Israel said it was attacking the country. Authorities have offered no casualty information from the strikes.

Meanwhile, Iran shut down its airspace and mobile phone services were cut.

The warning to pilots came out as explosions rang out across Tehran.

___

Toropin reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Melanie Lidman and Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.