There are no trailers on a boat. This is the logistical reality that Toby Stephens found himself confronting somewhere in the middle of shooting “The Season,” Hulu‘s new drama about the bad behavior of Hong Kong’s sailing elite – a show that, almost by design, offered its cast nowhere to hide.

“Normally when you’re filming, you can go back there, and at lunchtime you can have a little snoozy,” Stephens says, with the weary affection of a man who has made his peace with it. Instead, he meditated on deck. His castmates photographed him doing it. There was, apparently, a sitar soundtrack.

Six episodes. Fifty days. Humid, floating, relentless. And by all accounts, a genuinely wonderful time.

“Because we had such a fun cast,” says Karina Lam, who plays Fiona Hext, “all that just became so much easier.” Jessie Mei Li, who plays the American Cola despite being resolutely English, agrees. “You just have each other to get through it. And we had so many belly laughs with the crew.”

The warmth is real, but so is the craft that went into making “The Season” – a show that arrives on Hulu on June 17 with all six episodes at once, produced by PCCW Media and SK Global, shot almost entirely on real Hong Kong locations, and built around a cast that spent most of production at sea.

For Lam, the challenge was language. She has spent 25 years acting in Cantonese and Mandarin – launched her career in Hong Kong, built a parallel life as a singer in Taiwan, was born and raised in Canada – and describes herself as a hybrid in the most literal sense. “I dream in Chinese,” she says. English fluency and English acting, it turns out, are different muscles entirely. “There are certain things you can only express in Cantonese,” she says. The ambiguity of Chinese, the way meaning pools in the spaces between words, resists translation.

Mei Li had the opposite problem. Playing an American in a production staffed by Australians, Brits, a Chilean director and a Hispanic DP, her brain kept mutinying. “Because I like to assimilate when I’m talking to someone, I can’t help but copy them,” she says. The accent kept slipping. “There were just some times where my accent was coming up. I’ll be talking to Chris, and I then suddenly say something in a scene that just sounded Australian.”

Chris Pang, for his part, was wrestling with something thornier than phonetics. His character, Andrew Fung, is written to be obnoxious – cartoonishly, gleefully, exhaustingly so. The question was whether audiences would stick with him. “Andrew is unabashedly and unapologetically an asshole,” Pang says. “He just says the most outlandish, most horrible things. And it’s going to be a mission to find that balance, where you say these things but you still like this guy.” The goal, as he frames it: “an asshole, but one that you can’t help but love.” Director Marialy Rivas, he says, encouraged him to push further than he thought wise. He pushed too far, regularly. “Marialy would give me a take and just be like, just go all out, and I’d go way too far. Like, okay, we’re not using that.”

Stephens, playing Christopher Hext – patriarch, power broker, the kind of man who wears his wealth like armor – was after something quieter. The danger with characters like this, he says, is that they flatten into archetype. “Characters can come across as sort of one-dimensional, kind of evil rich people who are just sort of sociopathic.” What interested him was the gap between the performance of power and whatever lives underneath it. “They’re all masking. They’re all throwing up these things about, I’m rich, I’m powerful, I’ve got this status, but underneath it, they’re all human beings who are all terrified. They feel all of these other things.”

It is, perhaps, also a description of Hong Kong itself – a city that presents one face and contains multitudes. All four cast members return, unprompted, to the idea of the city as something more than backdrop. “Hong Kong seems like a character on its own,” Lam says. She has shot dozens of films here and found herself, through this production’s use of real locations and an outsider’s lens, seeing it differently. “I’ve shot so many Hong Kong produced films here, and it’s never been this way, in this kind of lens.”

Mei Li goes further. The show moves between worlds – the gleaming marina set of the ultra-wealthy and the more grounded lives of characters outside that orbit – and the city absorbs both. “It’s not just we filmed it in Hong Kong. It’s like, this show is about Hong Kong in so many ways.” Stephens, characteristically, cuts to it: “This show could only take place in Hong Kong.”

The series is created and showrun by Yalun Tu, with Marialy Rivas serving as lead director and executive producer. It is produced by PCCW Media in partnership with SK Global, the company behind “Crazy Rich Asians,” “Thai Cave Rescue” and “Delhi Crime.” International sales are handled by Fremantle with support from De Maio Entertainment. Beyond Hulu, the series will stream on Viu across Asia, the Middle East and South Africa, and on Now TV in Hong Kong.

As for what comes next: Stephens is returning to the U.K. for a period film about two nuns on the run during the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII – “Thelma and Louise in Tudor times,” he calls it – titled “The Reformation of Mother Agnes.” Pang has written a crime thriller, currently titled “Brother Gangster” (“I think it needs to change,” he says), with director Jane Woo attached to helm. Mei Li heads to the Soho Theatre in London this summer for “Tender,” a four-person comedy by Dave Harris – only her second time on stage. “It’s something a bit different,” she says. Lam is due to begin filming in September on a project with a Malaysian director, details undisclosed.

All four have moved on to other projects, other cities, other worlds. But Hong Kong has a way of pulling people back.

Iran’s decision to hold a July funeral for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a high-stakes bet that any emerging peace deal with the United States will hold, potentially creating a “target-rich” gathering of Tehran’s most isolated leaders, a counterterrorism expert warned Sunday.

The multi-day state funeral, announced by Iranian state media on June 13, is scheduled to begin in Tehran on July 4 and end with Khamenei’s burial in the holy city of Mashhad on July 9, Reuters reported.

According to Dr. Omar Mohammed, director of the Antisemitism Research Initiative at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, the timing serves as a deliberate message to America.

“A mass funeral is the most target-rich event this regime could stage, and now they would not risk one until they are confident it wouldn’t be hit,” Mohammed told Fox News Digital.

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“But it is the staging of this funeral that is the message, and the message is aimed at America as much as at Iranians.”

The announcement also coincided with a major diplomatic breakthrough, coming as President Donald Trump announced that a peace deal with Tehran is expected to be signed Sunday.

“The regime could sign a deal that lets it keep its leverage, then bury its leader as the victor who won it,” Mohammed said.

“Announcing the funeral Saturday as Pakistan said the final text of a deal was reached and signing is close, is their bet that the ceasefire holds into July.”

Khamenei was killed on Feb. 28 during the opening salvo of U.S. and Israeli airstrikes against Iran, ending a 36-year tenure leading the Islamic Republic. He was 86.

Experts say the regime is using the four-month delay since the February strikes to completely reframe the narrative of the conflict.

“Khamenei goes into the ground as a man America murdered, so the deal becomes a tactical pause — revenge deferred, not abandoned,” Mohammed observed. “The deeper logic is that you bury the leader as a victor, not a victim.”

“They can now stage the funeral as the war’s victory monument: the martyred Imam laid to rest as the man whose resistance forced America to terms,” Mohammed added.

“The four-month delay was not only security. It was waiting for a win to bury him.”

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT AYATOLLAH ALI KHAMENEI, SUPREME LEADER OF IRAN

Following three days of public ceremonies in Tehran, the procession will move to the clerical heartland of Qom on July 7 before concluding in Mashhad on July 9.

Analysts note the dates heavily leverage deep Shia religious iconography, falling directly within the holy mourning month of Muharram.

“This is also a staged passion play, not a schedule because the dates fall within Muharram, the Shia mourning month centered on Imam Hussein’s martyrdom at Karbala, and the burial on July 9 is timed to the eve of another Imam’s martyrdom,” Mohammed said.

“The body goes into the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad — the only one of the 12 Imams buried in Iran, and the holiest site in Iranian Shiism — giving the regime a permanent martyr’s shrine and mobilization site for years.”

Mohammed noted that scheduling the opening ceremonies on the 250th anniversary of America’s Independence Day carries deliberate geopolitical signaling.

“The regime had room to choose which Muharram days and, at a minimum, it’s a message they are happy to broadcast; very possibly it’s the point — while America marks 250 years, Iran opens the funeral of the leader America killed and calls it the beginning of its victory.”

LETHAL ELITE ‘BLACK-CLAD’ KILL SQUAD GUARDS IRAN’S NEW SUPREME LEADER MOJTABA KHAMENEI

The highly public, multi-city route presents a massive security vulnerability for Iran’s new leadership.

Khamenei’s son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, has remained entirely in hiding due to targeted security threats and reported injury since the war began.

“By every tradition, the son leads the prayers and stands at the grave; it is the act that consecrates the succession,” Mohammed noted.

“But Mojtaba has not appeared in public since the war began, runs the country by courier, and is a designated target — and a funeral is a pre-announced time and place. For a man whose every confirmed sighting is a coordinate, July 9 in Mashhad is the most dangerous appointment of his rule.”

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“The regime is boxed: It needs the son at the father’s grave to crown the dynasty, but putting him there exposes him as never before,” Mohammed concluded.

“If he appears, it’s his first sighting and a gamble; if he doesn’t, the dynasty is consecrated by an absence.”

ATLANTA (AP) — When Georgia lawmakers return to the Capitol this week for a special session, they are expected to try to clean up an election mess of their own making.

The election system used throughout the political battleground state relies on a QR code printed on ballots to tally the votes. Legislators passed a law two years ago barring the use of that barcode for the official vote count beyond July 1 of this year, but no replacement method of tabulating votes was ever implemented.

One of the instructions Republican Gov. Brian Kemp laid out for lawmakers when he called the special session is to “address issues created” by that law. Meanwhile, the secretary of state’s office and the State Election Board have further muddied the waters by issuing conflicting guidance for county election officials about how votes should be cast and counted.

If the issues are not resolved soon, there is likely to be confusion and possibly litigation over the state’s elections after July 1. A special election to fill a U.S. House seat is scheduled for that month.

How did we get here?

Georgia’s current election system was first used statewide during the 2020 primary. After the general election that year, when Republican President Donald Trump narrowly lost the state to Democrat Joe Biden, Trump and his supporters claimed without evidence that the machines had deleted or switched votes.

Trump’s backers continued to complain about the touchscreen voting machines, with some loyalists espousing wild conspiracy theories. Election integrity advocates also criticized the machines, saying they are vulnerable to hacking and that voters cannot be sure their selections are accurately reflected because people can’t read QR codes.

Republican lawmakers in 2024 tried to address those concerns by passing a law banning barcodes for the “official tabulation count” after July 1, 2026. But in the two years since, neither the secretary of state’s office nor the General Assembly has taken action to comply. Now, the deadline is fast approaching and a major midterm election looms.

Trump singled out those machines, which are used in at least some counties in more than a dozen states, in his first executive order on elections shortly after he took office for his second term in January 2025. That order has been blocked by multiple courts and is not being enforced.

The governor steps in

Last month, Kemp announced a special legislative session, scheduled to start Wednesday, to draw new congressional maps for the 2028 elections and to address the QR code issue.

It’s possible that lawmakers could extend the deadline in the law to allow the QR codes to be used for now and give themselves some breathing room to come up with a new system before elections in 2028. But in the waning hours of the regular legislative session earlier this year, they rejected a proposal that would have done that.

Even if lawmakers agree on a solution, it might be tough to implement before a special election to fill the remainder of the term of U.S. Rep. David Scott, who died in April. The special election is set for July 28, with early voting beginning July 6.

Secretary of state offers guidance to election offices

The secretary of state’s office last week issued guidance to election officials in the six counties included in that congressional district. The office says it’s preliminary and subject to change based on any developments from the special session.

The ballots will be run through the scanners, which will read the QR code to generate the election night vote count. Then, before county certification, electronic images created by the scanners for each ballot will be uploaded to a server, where optical character recognition software will be used to tally the votes using the human-readable text. The results of that second process will be the official tabulation count.

The secretary of state’s guidance expressly says counties must continue to use the current election system, including the touchscreen voting machines, and that there is nothing in the law that authorizes the use of hand-marked paper ballots for in-person voting.

Conflict with the election board

The State Election Board weighed in two days later with conflicting guidance. Board members argued the plan proposed by the secretary of state is not authorized by law.

The board passed a resolution instructing counties on what to do if the special legislative session does not result in an extension of the deadline for using QR codes. The resolution directs counties to use their emergency backup, which calls for hand-marked paper ballots with scanners used to count voters’ selections.

When asked about the conflicting guidance during the election board meeting, Elizabeth Young, a lawyer with the state attorney general’s office, said that while the guidance is not binding, “obviously it would cause confusion for elections superintendents if they are getting differing instructions from two agencies, both of which have some authority over what they’re doing.”

The election board has been controlled by a Trump-aligned majority and is often at odds with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who is a frequent Trump target.

Local election officials are in the middle

Henry County in Atlanta’s suburbs is one of the counties where voters will go to the polls for next month’s special election. Axiver Harris, interim elections director, said the county is aware of the conflicting guidance and is awaiting further clarification from the state.

“Given the uncertainty surrounding the guidance currently available, we believe it is wise to wait for further direction to ensure that any decisions made are consistent with state requirements and election administration best practices,” he wrote in an email.

Marcye Scott, who is running in the special election to serve the remainder of her late father’s term, said she is not sure most voters are even aware of the issue and is focusing her attention elsewhere.

“My goal is to get people to the polls, get my people to the polls and get them to vote for me,” she said.

But Carlos Moore, another of the six candidates running in the special election, said he is worried about legal challenges if a new method of vote-counting is implemented without enough time. He hopes lawmakers extend the deadline to allow the use of the QR codes for now.

“I would ask that legislators do the right thing, leave well enough alone for the special election,” he said. “Otherwise, it’s almost certain there will be challenges in court.”