whirlwind tour synonym

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adjective as in very fast

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noun as in mass of rapidly rotating air

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Example sentences.

The holiday season is set to be a whirlwind, and there’s no time left to pivot, but Amazon is a good place to be at this time.

It’s a heart-wrenching choice not to spend the holidays with your loved ones, especially after this whirlwind of a year, but unfortunately in pandemic times, the safest thing to do is stay apart.

Alas, I live in Los Angeles, and even if I lived in New York, now doesn’t seem like the best time to be having a whirlwind love story with someone I’ve never met.

To eliminate it is to court the whirlwind of governance — to accept that your opponents may win elections, to risk their agenda passing into law.

At our center, which comprises nothing, like the hollowness in the middle of a whirlwind, we fall back into the world.

He talks about a whirlwind weekend-long affair with a man he met at a club in Berlin.

Well known for his inability to say no to worthy causes, Palmer has always been a whirlwind of good works.

After a whirlwind romance, Sarkozy quickly married Bruni in February 2008.

Later that month he was making his first whirlwind foreign trip to identify countries that might be willing to take detainees.

This year has been a whirlwind for Kate Bosworth—featuring a new movie, new design collaboration, and even a new husband.

They burst out of the mouth of the canyon, a smoke-wreathed whirlwind, heading for the protection of the river.

She took one look, then struck her horse a sharp blow and, like a whirlwind, came upon the scene.

With regard to the Whirlwind, perhaps it might correspond better to Dors picture; it has not turned out quite what I wanted.

Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as in a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.

Meanwhile the leading Apaches, not now more than fifty in number, were swept along by the same whirlwind of brute instinct.

Related Words

Words related to whirlwind are not direct synonyms, but are associated with the word whirlwind . Browse related words to learn more about word associations.

adjective as in extremely fast

• at full tilt
• dangerously fast
• precipitate

noun as in quick and busy activity

• hurly-burly

noun as in commotion, burst

• disturbance

noun as in violent windstorm

• tropical cyclone
• tropical storm

noun as in commotion, excitement

• pandemonium

Viewing 5 / 16 related words

On this page you'll find 31 synonyms, antonyms, and words related to whirlwind, such as: lightning, quick, rapid, rash, short, and swift.

From Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition Copyright © 2013 by the Philip Lief Group.

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Definition of whirlwind adjective from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

• a whirlwind romance
• a whirlwind tour of America

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Thesaurus Entries Near whirlwind

Cite this entry.

“Whirlwind.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/whirlwind. Accessed 11 May. 2024.

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Nglish: Translation of whirlwind for Spanish Speakers

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about whirlwind

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Meaning of whirlwind in English

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• bomb cyclone
• bombogenesis
• cyclogenesis
• electrical storm
• sheet lightning
• storm chasing
• storm cloud
• tempestuously
• thundersnow
• thunderstorm
• weather bomb

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

• absorbingly
• action-packed
• adventurous
• exhilarating
• eye-catchingly
• fascinating
• prepossessing
• provocative
• provocatively
• up/down your alley idiom
• with bells on idiom

whirlwind | American Dictionary

Whirlwind noun [c] ( storm ), whirlwind adjective [not gradable] ( happening quickly ), examples of whirlwind, translations of whirlwind.

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a unit for measuring the loudness of sound

Varied and diverse (Talking about differences, Part 1)

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• English    Noun Adjective
• whirlwind (STORM)
• whirlwind (HAPPENING QUICKLY)
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[ hwurl -wind , wurl - ]

The sails were carried up to the mastheads by the force of the whirlwind.

a fiery whirlwind of shrapnel.

a staff of three do-nothings and one whirlwind; a whirlwind of activity at the stock exchange.

a whirlwind visit to New York.

Synonyms: impulsive , hasty , breakneck , headlong

verb (used without object)

You can't just whirlwind in and out of their lives and expect them to be OK with that.

/ ˈwɜːlˌwɪnd /

• a column of air whirling around and towards a more or less vertical axis of low pressure, which moves along the land or ocean surface
• a motion or course resembling this, esp in rapidity

a whirlwind romance

• an impetuously active person

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Word history and origins.

Origin of whirlwind 1

Idioms and Phrases

• (sow the wind and) reap the whirlwind , to suffer the penalties for one's misdeeds. Hosea 8:7.

Example Sentences

The holiday season is set to be a whirlwind, and there’s no time left to pivot, but Amazon is a good place to be at this time.

It’s a heart-wrenching choice not to spend the holidays with your loved ones, especially after this whirlwind of a year, but unfortunately in pandemic times, the safest thing to do is stay apart.

Alas, I live in Los Angeles, and even if I lived in New York, now doesn’t seem like the best time to be having a whirlwind love story with someone I’ve never met.

To eliminate it is to court the whirlwind of governance — to accept that your opponents may win elections, to risk their agenda passing into law.

At our center, which comprises nothing, like the hollowness in the middle of a whirlwind, we fall back into the world.

He talks about a whirlwind weekend-long affair with a man he met at a club in Berlin.

Well known for his inability to say no to worthy causes, Palmer has always been a whirlwind of good works.

After a whirlwind romance, Sarkozy quickly married Bruni in February 2008.

Later that month he was making his first whirlwind foreign trip to identify countries that might be willing to take detainees.

This year has been a whirlwind for Kate Bosworth—featuring a new movie, new design collaboration, and even a new husband.

They burst out of the mouth of the canyon, a smoke-wreathed whirlwind, heading for the protection of the river.

She took one look, then struck her horse a sharp blow and, like a whirlwind, came upon the scene.

With regard to the Whirlwind, perhaps it might correspond better to Dors picture; it has not turned out quite what I wanted.

Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as in a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.

Meanwhile the leading Apaches, not now more than fifty in number, were swept along by the same whirlwind of brute instinct.

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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How Lainey Wilson Is Making Country Cool Again

With her thoughtful songwriting, farmer's-daughter grit and self-branding savvy, it may seem like she shot to stardom overnight — but the long road here is what's keeping her grounded.

By Melinda Newman

Melinda Newman

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When Lainey Wilson played ­Australia for the first time in March, she made sure to meet the country ’s animal ambassadors: She held a koala; she pet a kangaroo. But it wasn’t all furry fun.

“I got crapped on by a bird twice,” Wilson says in her thick Louisiana drawl, shaking her head in bemused disbelief. “In the exact same spot. I heard it was good fortune, so I was like, ‘Go ahead. Do what you got to do, bird.’ ”

Lainey Wilson: Photos From the Billboard Cover Shoot

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When “Save Me,” her urgent duet with Jelly Roll, reached No. 1 on Billboard ’s Country Airplay chart in December, only six weeks had passed since her solo hit, the coming-of-age tale “Watermelon Moonshine,” had summited the list — the shortest stint between No. 1s for a female artist in the chart’s 34-year history. “Watermelon Moonshine” appeared on Wilson’s most recent album, 2022’s Bell Bottom Country (Broken Bow Records/BMG), which took home both the Academy of Country Music (ACM) and Country Music Association Awards for album of the year, as well as the Grammy for best country album — only the ninth record ever to complete that trifecta. And at November’s CMA Awards, Wilson became the first woman to win entertainer of the year since Taylor Swift in 2011 and the first artist since Garth Brooks in 1991 to win best new artist one year and entertainer of the year the next.

At times, the rush has been overwhelming. “I do feel like the 10 years of nothing happening slightly prepared me, but I don’t think you can ever really fully prepare yourself for everything coming at once, and you’re just trying to hold on for dear life,” Wilson says.

One line in particular from Wilson’s acceptance speech for female artist of the year at the ACM Awards last May encapsulates her personal credo: “If you’re going to be a dreamer, you better be a doer.” And Wilson is nothing if not a doer. On this late-March morning, she has flown 14 hours on a commercial flight from Sydney to Los Angeles, landing at LAX at 7:30 a.m. and coming straight to Pasadena for this interview and its associated all-day photo shoot, even showering on location instead of first stopping at her hotel.

Getting a caffeine jolt from an iced brown sugar oatmeal shaken espresso from Starbucks, she sits on a bench in the lush backyard as birds chirp. Clad in a cozy, loose-fitting sweatsuit, Wilson pulls her knees up against her chest to shield against the slight morning chill. She’s not wearing any makeup, her long blonde hair sticking out from under a ball cap, her bare feet still sunburned from sitting in a Sydney park.

Wilson’s relaxed vibe contrasts markedly with the electric buzz she says she’s still feeling from the reception she received in Australia. “All I could think about was little 9-year-old Lainey just wanting to write music about my life and how in the world could somebody on the other end of the world relate to it,” she reflects. “It just goes to show you that we’re all a lot more alike than you think.”

Growing up in tiny Baskin, La. (population 200), 9 was a big age for Wilson. It was when she wrote her first song, “Lucky Me,” while at a sleepover with a friend; when she got her first horse; when she went to the Grand Ole Opry for the first time, where she saw Bill Anderson, Crystal Gayle, Phil Vassar and Little Jimmy Dickens. “My daddy actually still has the ticket stub,” she says. “He put it in the lockbox.” And it was when she first knew that one day she would perform on that stage. “My sister was asleep on the church pew like she could care less,” she says. “I remember eating popcorn and thinking, ‘Oh, I’m going to do this.’ ”

By 2011, Wilson had moved to Nashville, where her career as a singer-songwriter started germinating. But with a traditional sound out of step with the pop-dominated country in vogue, she had to survive years of setbacks before reaping her first rewards. She hit a low point in 2014: On her third year living in a camper trailer, career stagnant, the man she was dating impregnated another woman, and Wilson’s producer, who was letting her live in his studio parking lot, died. “It was a lot of dark moments in my life,” she recalls, “and I just felt not worthy.”

(Years later, she would draw on that challenging time when she collaborated with Jelly Roll on “Save Me” and its desperate yearning-for-salvation theme. “I love Lainey’s ability to be vulnerable, and I wondered if that would translate on the song,” Jelly Roll says. “Lainey has such an authentic voice [that] I felt if she could connect with the song, then she could share these lyrics from a woman’s point of view.”)

Still, even amid those struggles, there were bright spots, like when her pal Luke Combs cut a song they co-wrote for an EP he released before he got signed. (Wilson, who considers herself first and foremost a songwriter, has also co-written songs cut by Chrissy Metz, Flatland Cavalry and Thompson Square, among others.) While working on her songwriting, she also started developing a signature country-hippie look, with bell bottoms and a wide-brimmed hat, and her sound, which combined traditional country with a slight rock edge. Around 2017 — the year she inked her Sony Music Publishing deal and a year before she signed with Broken Bow — she began tagging her social media content with #bellbottomcountry. “I just felt like during that time people were having a hard time getting it — everything from the way that I dress to the way that I sound,” Wilson says. So she came up with her own clear explanation: “country with a flare.”

In an era when women still struggle to get airplay on terrestrial country radio, that has been no small feat. As her popularity has grown, Wilson has flexed different facets of her artistry — and scored radio hits — by both releasing solo songs and featuring on duets with male artists. After “Things a Man Oughta Know” became her first Country Airplay No. 1 in September 2021, she featured on Cole Swindell’s “Never Say Never,” which reached No. 1 in April 2022. The following April, her “Heart Like a Truck” peaked at No. 2, as did “wait in the truck,” her collaboration with HARDY the same month. She then returned to the top spot with “Watermelon Moonshine” and “Save Me” in October and December, respectively.

“Honestly, there was not a grand strategy of alternating singles with collabs,” Loba says. “Quite simply, it has been those acts reaching out to Lainey with great songs she connected with, and the timing has fortunately worked out well.”

As Wilson’s career gained momentum, Loba says that — in addition to making sure her music was where it needed to be — her team focused on stressing Wilson’s authenticity, which was on ample display in her charming, gracious Grammy acceptance speech earlier this year. “She’s not copying anyone else,” Loba says. “At the end of the day, everyone can see her heart and is cheering for her.”

Long-awaited success hasn’t diminished Wilson’s ambition — when asked if she wants to headline stadiums in five years, she answers three — but she is temporarily pulling back on the throttle just a little.

“As this career grows, I feel like there’s a lot of other jobs that come along with it,” Wilson says. Her expanding list of brand partnerships includes Wrangler, American Greetings, Stanley, Tractor Supply and Coors — and she even appeared on the fifth and most recent season of Yellowstone in late 2022. (Wilson doesn’t know what her future on the show holds, but she would like to return if her schedule allows.) This summer, Wilson will open a three-story bar, Bell Bottoms Up, in Nashville’s entertainment district in partnership with TC Restaurant Group.

“She won’t say no, so we have to for her,” Loba says. “Since we signed her, she has not left a moment unscheduled. Every time I see her, the only question I [usually] have is ‘How are you?’ We both come from farm families. We’re not taught how to rest in farm families. From management to agency to label to publicist, I think we’re getting better at creating that space for her.”

“Last year was a hard year,” Wilson says. “It was the best year, and I don’t know if we’ll ever have a year like that again. But everybody was tired by the end of it — not just me, but my whole crew. Everything we’ve said we would do, we did it. And then bigger opportunities would come, and you can’t pass them up either.”

Wilson says she would “love to collaborate with Victoria Monét,” especially after seeing her perform at Clive Davis’ pre-Grammy party in February. “She just turned it on,” Wilson continues. “At the Grammys, her [victory] speeches were from the heart. I was like, ‘I want to be her friend.’ ” And she hopes to work with new pal Lana Del Rey, though she hasn’t written for Del Rey’s country album that’s due later this year.

As the demands on her time increase, Wilson is leaning into time-honored practices to help her cope. In Australia, she started waking up an hour early to pray, journal and meditate. “I do sound a little hippie-dippy, but it works for me,” she says. “Just kind of starting my day with an attitude of gratitude.”

She vows to do the same when her WME-booked Country’s Cool Again tour starts May 31 in Nashville. “I have no choice because it has made me feel so good and grounded,” she says. When following that routine, “the shows have gone better. I feel more levelheaded. I got to treat myself like an athlete.”

Over the last two years, one word seems to keep coming up around Wilson.

“Whether I’m running into somebody and they’re saying, ‘Man, your life has been a whirlwind,’ or whether the word’s coming out of my mouth, or I open a book and see the word ‘whirlwind,’ it just seems to be surrounding me,” she says. “Whirlwinds cause turbulence that cause chaos. But at the end of the day, you figure out how to come back to the center.” Which is why it’s also the title of her third full-length Broken Bow album, out Aug. 23 .

She describes Whirlwind as “the Western sister of Bell Bottom Country ,” and lyrically more “introspective” than previous efforts: “I feel like it’s got a little bit more character [and] cinematic storytelling.” Wilson teamed again with producer Jay Joyce (who produced Bell Bottom Country and its predecessor, 2021’s Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin’ ), but in a sign of her increasing clout, her road band plays on Whirlwind instead of the cast of studio musicians who typically appear on country albums. “We’ve played close to 400 shows in the past two-and-a-half years. I knew they could do it,” Wilson explains. “I felt like that’s where the magic was going to come from this time.”

“It’s important for me to be proud of where I come from and the way that I was raised, but not dwell on it too much — because who really cares? Let’s take that and move forward with it,” she says. “That’s just how I like to view life. You just got to keep trucking along.”

While she has nothing against a light-­hearted ditty — and has written a few herself, including “Hold My Halo” and “Straight Up Sideways”— as a songwriter, Wilson prioritizes depth. “I think about the songs that made me fall in love with country music and made a difference in my life,” she says, citing Brooks’ “The Thunder Rolls,” Keith Whitley’s “When You Say Nothing at All,” Reba McEntire’s “Fancy” and Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss’ “Whiskey Lullaby.” “I just think, ‘I’ve got to do that.’ Of course, there’s nothing wrong with a beer-drinking song, but even with that, I think you can dive a little deeper and get people to think a little bit.”

Listeners relate to the authenticity of Wilson’s writing, says her musical hero, Dolly Parton. “Even though Lainey is breathtakingly beautiful to look at, her true beauty comes from deep down where songs are born and written,” Parton tells Billboard . “People feel her heart and soul in what she writes because she knows what they know, feels what they feel and has the gift to present it in words. God bless her. He has and he will.”

“Lainey goes, ‘I hate bullies. I’m going to go to his school and do show and tell and sing some songs and say what an amazing little guy he is… I can make a difference,’ ” Loba recalls. “She has just won [best country album], and the night after, she’s sitting there concerned about my nephew.”

Wilson is a people-pleaser by nature. Say something she agrees with and she looks straight at you, nods and says emphatically, “100%.” The effect is powerful — and that natural empathy has helped her connect with both fans and fellow artists. “Lainey is someone you can get in the foxhole with and get raw and real,” Jelly Roll says. “She is also a very grounded person, so if I’m ever overwhelmed, I know I can call her.”

Wilson attributes that down-to-earth sensibility to her upbringing, though she admits she has had to work to maintain it as her star has risen: “I have fought tooth and nail to make sure that I am doing the things that make me feel like me, [like] calling my family at home, checking to see how the farm’s going and see if Daddy has planted his crops, [checking in] on my nephews, hanging out with my boyfriend on the porch and those kinds of things.”

She went public with her relationship with former pro football player Devlin “Duck” Hodges at the 2023 ACM Awards, but otherwise vociferously protects the privacy of herself and those around her. In her personal life, too, Wilson has looked to Parton — who has spoken about the importance of keeping some things to yourself when you’re sharing so much else with the world — as a guide.

“I think that was probably [about] her husband,” Wilson says. “When it comes to mine and Duck’s relationship, there’s going to be some things that we can’t escape and people are going to say and do whatever, but me and him are on the same page about the less we put out there, the less that we’re going to have to deal with people making anything up and saying anything. We want to keep that as sacred as we possibly can between me and him, and so far, it has worked for us.”

Parton has faith in Wilson’s ability to navigate fame’s tricky waters. “In this business, as in any other, you have to sacrifice and compromise to get things done,” she says. “But I believe Lainey, like myself, will never sacrifice her principles and values for a dollar bill.”

Another icon, Brooks, has also encouraged Wilson. After winning CMA entertainer of the year, she anticipated naysayers who believed her ascent had happened too quickly and that even her own doubts would creep in, but Brooks helped silence that inner critic. “He said, ‘I feel like you’ve got the keys to country music and you’re going to be driving it for a while.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, Lord. I hope I don’t wreck this thing,’ ” she jokes. “But when somebody like him says that to you, it does make you feel like, ‘OK, yeah, that imposter syndrome can just go kick rocks.’ ”

With that mindset, it’s easy to believe Wilson can do anything — and to understand why, at the end of the day, she sees herself as a cowgirl: rough and ready, and hanging on to the rollicking ride she’s on. “Being a cowgirl is digging in. Getting up, dusting your jeans off and not being scared to get your hands dirty,” she says. “I’m from a long line of cowgirls.”

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Chinese President Xi’s trip to Europe: ‘Charm offensive’ or canny bid to divide the West?

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Fine brandy, a Tour de France jersey and old grudges against NATO: On his first European tour in five years, Chinese President Xi Jinping is engaging in a diplomatic dance that is seen by some as a concerted Chinese bid to stress-test the transatlantic alliance.

With Washington watching warily from the sidelines, Xi’s whirlwind visit this week has taken him to France, Serbia and Hungary, with a very different tone and agenda at each stop, but with some overarching goals in common.

Taken as a whole, the Chinese leader’s European trip is seen as both a charm offensive and a hard-nosed display of realpolitik on matters such as trade and the war in Ukraine — at the expense of a united Western front on both.

During the visit, Xi has nodded to traditional European centers of power such as France and the European Union — but also laid heavy emphasis on deepening ties with autocratic allies on the continent’s fringe.

In the peaks of the cloud-shrouded Pyrenees, Xi accepted a jersey from France’s famed bicycle race and joined President Emmanuel Macron in calling for a truce in all global hostilities during the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

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April 26, 2024

In Serbia’s capital, Xi’s arrival coincided with the 25th anniversary of NATO’s mistargeted bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade — an episode that still stirs anti-Western fury among Serbian nationalists.

And in Hungary, cementing a Chinese economic footprint within the European Union, Xi offered warm praise for Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the illiberal leader who has been a thorn in the side of European allies in the more than two years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine .

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Some analysts saw Xi’s trip as meant to drive home the message that China will seek to counter U.S. influence wherever it can, and pointedly remind even close American allies to consider whether their own interests run counter to those of Washington.

“There’s lot of press commentary that the Chinese are engaged in a ‘charm offensive,’ ” Evan Medeiros, the former China director at the National Security Council, said in a video interview with Foreign Policy magazine.

While that may be so, he said, the three stops on the tour were specifically chosen in service of “advancing Chinese interests in ways meant to undermine the priorities of both the European Union and NATO.”

Other analysts also described the visit as a simultaneous act of wooing the West and seeking to divide it.

“It embodies Beijing’s skillful navigation of the delicate balance between aggressively advancing its economic imperatives and preserving amicable diplomatic relations, possibly even bolstering its sway in certain quarters of the continent,” political economist Sona Muzikarova, a political economist, wrote in a commentary for the Atlantic Council.

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April 21, 2024

Xi’s visit came as Europe and the United States are presenting a largely united front in support for Ukraine . But there are some cracks, and China showed signs it might seek to exploit them.

Weeks before Russia launched its war in Ukraine, Beijing and Moscow declared themselves in a “no limits” relationship — widely seen as in effect greenlighting Russia’s February 2022 invasion . But since then, China has portrayed itself as a neutral party in the Ukraine war .

That has been met with skepticism in Western quarters, but during Xi’s stop in France, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, made a point of praising China for playing “an important role in de-escalating Russia’s irresponsible nuclear threats” in connection with the fighting in Ukraine .

But despite that gesture of conciliation, Von der Leyen and Macron made no visible headway in persuading Xi to use his influence with Russian President Vladimir Putin to bring an end to the conflict.

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May 6, 2024

Instead, Xi pushed back hard against assertions, primarily by the United States, that China has helped prop up Moscow’s war effort.

With Macron at his side, the Chinese leader declared that his government was “not at the origin of this crisis, nor a party to it, nor a participant.” And he said the Ukraine war should not be used as a pretext to “cast blame, smear a third country and incite a new Cold War.”

At the same time, Xi expressed broad support for peace, endorsing Macron’s call for an “Olympics truce” — a hiatus to hostilities in Ukraine and elsewhere during the Summer Games. But such a halt to fighting appeared unlikely to take hold in Ukraine any time soon.

As summer approaches, Russia has been aggressively moving to try to pierce Ukraine’s defense along the front lines and has launched a near-nightly onslaught of missile and drone attacks meant to smash the country’s power grid .

Like most of Xi’s diplomatic forays, this one is centered heavily on trade. Most countries have their own specific bilateral interests in dealings with China and use high-level meetings to try to advance them.

Macron brought up some particularly French concerns, including China’s threat of tariffs on cognacs. As a symbolic sweetener for his insistence, the French president’s gift offerings to Xi included an Armagnac from France’s southwest, one of the liqueurs at risk of the damaging Chinese sanctions. And in an equally symbolic move, the Chinese side said that for now, the brandies would have a reprieve.

Larger trade issues, though, are proving considerably more contentious.

China is upset about a European Union investigation, launched last year, of Chinese subsidies for its domestically produced electric vehicles for export. The EU considers the subsidies a threat to Europe’s auto industry, but some German carmakers have publicly objected to the investigation, fearing it could launch a trade war and harm joint ventures.

Macron and Von der Leyen teamed up during Xi‘s visit to argue the EU’s case on Chinese practices deemed predatory, but the talks did not include officials from Germany, Europe’s largest economy.

Muzikarova, the Atlantic Council political economist, said intra-EU trade disagreements gave China an opportunity to “deploy its signature ‘divide and conquer’ strategy,” noting that EU member Hungary “has been especially useful to this end.”

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In Budapest, the last stop on Xi’s European tour, the Chinese finalized a number of agreements with Orban that will significantly deepen economic ties, even while the EU has taken a more protectionist stance.

“We live in a multi-polar world order, and one of the main columns of this new world order is China,” the Hungarian leader declared after hosting Xi at his capital’s Buda Castle.

As Orban has found himself increasingly on the outs with other European leaders — over Ukraine, his government’s antidemocratic moves and Hungary’s warmth toward Russia — Xi lavished praise on the Hungarian prime minister.

Orban, a darling of U.S. conservatives aligned with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, has worked to block NATO expansion and EU aid to Ukraine. In March, he made a pilgrimage to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and declared that the former president, if reelected, could instantly halt the war by cutting off Ukraine assistance.

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In an ode that appeared in the pro-government outlet Magyar Nemzet on the eve of his visit, the Chinese leader praised Hungary’s “independent” foreign policy — comments seen as encouraging Hungary to continue defying the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the EU.

Serbia, for its part, used Xi’s visit to highlight its quarter-century-old grievance against NATO over the destruction of the Chinese Embassy in a U.S. airstrike, which came as the alliance moved against Serbia during the Kosovo war. Xi arrived in Belgrade on Tuesday night, coinciding with the bombing anniversary.

The two countries, which announced during the visit they are implementing a free-trade agreement beginning in the summer, also offered mutual support over the sensitive issue of territorial claims rejected by most of the rest of the world. Serbia backs China’s stance that Taiwan is not a sovereign country but a breakaway province, while Beijing supports the Belgrade government’s claim to Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia in 2008.

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Opinion: Three reasons China would be happier with Trump than Biden

March 13, 2024

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Laura King is a Washington, D.C.-based reporter for the Los Angeles Times. A member of the Foreign/National staff, she primarily covers foreign affairs. She previously served as bureau chief in Jerusalem, Kabul and Cairo.

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At Trump’s Trial, a Decade’s Worth of Celebrity Sleaze Is Exhumed

Donald J. Trump’s lawyers tried to paint Keith Davidson, the man who helped broker a hush-money payment for Stormy Daniels, as a specialist in extracting money from the famous.

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By Alan Feuer and Jonah E. Bromwich

• May 2, 2024

An attempt to shake down the actor Charlie Sheen. Rumors that the Hollywood star Lindsay Lohan was in rehab. A lawsuit by Hulk Hogan, the former pro wrestler, against the gossip website Gawker for publishing a tape of him having sex.

Testimony on Thursday at former President Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan dove deeply into the celebrity-obsessed digital media environment of the past fifteen years or so that helped fuel Mr. Trump’s rise to political prominence.

The lurid tales were introduced to the jury largely through the witness Keith Davidson, a Los Angeles lawyer who specialized in getting money for clients who had dirt on famous people. In his testimony, particularly as he was cross-examined, Mr. Davidson and a defense lawyer, Emil Bove, together led the jurors on a whirlwind tour of several gossipy and tawdry deals he had a hand in.

Mr. Davidson had already spent a day and a half on the stand talking about how he had helped to broker deals for Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, and the porn star Stormy Daniels, whose story of having had sex with Mr. Trump was hushed by his former personal lawyer Michael D. Cohen. Prosecutors say that the former president’s efforts to continue to keep the story hidden were criminal.

Mr. Bove questioned Mr. Davidson fiercely about several former clients and the arrangements they had reached with celebrities. Mr. Bove suggested that Mr. Davidson had tried to “extract” money from the boldface names his clients knew — a word that Mr. Davidson seemed to take offense at.

The purpose of Mr. Bove’s interrogation appeared to be to suggest to the jury that Ms. McDougal and Ms. Daniels may have sought to extract their own payments from Mr. Trump. But making that point required Mr. Bove to drag Mr. Davidson through some old patches of mud.

And so the jury heard about a “sex-tape broker” whom Mr. Davidson worked with while handling a video that featured a client, the reality TV star Tila Tequila.

The jurors also heard — at least a little — about how Mr. Davidson helped another client try to wrest a $2 million payment out of Mr. Sheen after she had claimed that “tortious activity,” as Mr. Davidson put it, had been committed.

“So you extracted sums of money from Charlie Sheen?” Mr. Bove asked.

“There was no extraction,” Mr. Davidson said.

Mr. Bove tried again: “You got Mr. Sheen to pay?”

Mr. Davidson refused to answer this time.

“That settlement would be confidential and I wouldn’t discuss it here,” he said.

Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump.  More about Alan Feuer

Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state criminal courts in Manhattan. More about Jonah E. Bromwich

Our Coverage of the Trump Hush-Money Trial

News and Analysis

Ahead of Michael Cohen’s testimony on Monday, Justice Juan M. Merchan told prosecutors to keep Mr. Cohen from speaking about the case .

Several witnesses have mentioned Keith Schiller , Donald Trump’s bodyguard, during their testimony. Where is he?

Custodial witnesses, who have discussed FedEx labels, Sharpies and stapling protocol, have made for little spectacle in the trial. But they’ve provided basic information  about the documents at the heart of the case.

More on Trump’s Legal Troubles

Key Inquiries: Trump faces several investigations  at both the state and the federal levels, into matters related to his business and political careers.

Case Tracker:  Keep track of the developments in the criminal cases  involving the former president.

What if Trump Is Convicted?: Could he go to prison ? And will any of the proceedings hinder Trump’s presidential campaign? Here is what we know , and what we don’t know .

Trump on Trial Newsletter: Sign up here  to get the latest news and analysis  on the cases in New York, Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C.