Oliver Tree’s mom has paid a moving tribute days after her son was killed in a helicopter crash — while sharing a throwback photo of the “Alien Boy” singer looking dramatically different.
“Our dear son Oliver, you made this world a better place,” Christine Begin Nickell wrote on Facebook Thursday, after Tree was killed in a helicopter crash in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“We are so proud of you. RIP,” she wrote along with three heart emojis, the middle one broken.
The proud mom shared the post along with a photo of the singer — best known for his quirky bowl-cut mullet hairstyle — as a fresh-faced youngster with a Justin Bieber-style haircut under a baseball cap, while holding a small dog.
The 32-year-old singer was one of six people killed Sunday when a Bell 206B JetRanger III helicopter collided with another aircraft about 300 feet above the Rio neighborhood of Recreio dos Bandeirantes.
Also killed were YouTube star Gaspar “Gaspi” Prim, 23, director and screenwriter Lucas Vignale, 29, music producer Lucas Brito Chaves, 21, and pilots Charles Marsillac and Alexandre Souza.
The crash sparked a fire at an electric vehicle dealership below, setting about 20 cars ablaze.
Tree’s girlfriend, fashion photographer Fiona Chernavskaya, also paid tribute this week while asking fans to stop speculating about their relationship.
“Right now im mourning my partner and best friend, anything else is unimportant. please have some respect,” she wrote on Instagram Wednesday.
“I don’t want to see gossip about other women that Oliver may have been seeing. We were monogamous,” she added.
The singer’s death also renewed attention on a recent interview in which he said he wouldn’t leave his family “a f–king penny” if he died.
“I don’t believe that any of the wealth, or the things that get made from it, is mine. So when I die, my will is set up that when I pass, my family, no one’s going to get a penny,” Tree said on the April 24 episode of “The Zach Sang Show.”
“If I have a wife or kids or anything, they’re not getting a f–king penny,” he added.
“I’ll get my kids through college. That’s the agreement. But there’s not going to be a silver spoon.”
“The idea is, when I die, all the money is going to go back to artists.”
Tree, who had more than 11 million monthly Spotify listeners, had completed four dates on his global “World’s First World Tour” before the fatal crash.

The Obama Foundation has unveiled a star-studded list of musical performers for the grand opening of the Obama Presidential Center, with names including Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen and Christina Aguilera.
The Obama library’s grand opening ceremony is being held on Thursday, June 18, the day before the presidential center opens to the public on Juneteenth for thousands of guests.
The full roster of performers includes Bruce Springsteen, Christina Aguilera, The Roots, Jennifer Hudson, John Legend, Stevie Wonder, Marc Anthony, American rapper Common and Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder.
U2’s Bono and The Edge, Nigerian singer Tems, and actress and producer Marsai Martin are also slated to perform.
The lineup is quite a contrast to the turnout for President Donald Trump’s series of events for the American Freedom 250 celebrations happening this summer, which mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
During Sunday night’s UFC cage fight spectacle at the White House, rumored invitees Adam Sandler, Guy Ritchie and Tom Brady did not show up.
Last month, several musicians pulled out of performances at the Great American State Fair after learning the event was sponsored by Freedom 250, a Trump-affiliated group.
Trump named nine artists slated to perform, including Grammy-nominated vocalist Martina McBride, dance music group C+C Music Factory, funk group The Commodores, “Ice Ice Baby” rapper Vanilla Ice and “Good Feeling” rapper Flo Rida.
At least six of the nine music acts, including Bret Michaels, Young MC, the Commodores, Morris Day and the Time, and Martina McBride, quickly pulled out as they distanced themselves from its politics.
The Obama Center — located on the South Side of Chicago — will open this week after a decade of planning, construction and setbacks.
In 2015, the former U.S. president announced his library would be built in Chicago, his home for more than two decades. Construction began in 2021, but it was slowed by legal problems.
With a price tag of $800 million, raised through private donations, it will be the most expensive presidential library ever erected. Sitting on a sprawling 20 acres, it is set to include an array of buildings, gardens and parkland.
Trump has previously derided the Obama Presidential Library as over budget, calling its construction a “disaster” and comparing it to a trash can. Earlier this month on his Truth Social account, the president shared an AI-generated image of the Obama Presidential Library deteriorating, surrounded by homeless encampments and with a large pile of garbage on top of the structure.
But Obama Foundation CEO Valerie Jarrett, who served as a senior adviser in the Obama administration, has since said that the center would welcome Trump to view the center for himself.
The center will offer a wide range of educational experiences for all ages. The campus will feature a museum with exhibits on the military and former first lady Michelle Obama’s fashion, alongside a branch of the Chicago Public Library, recording studios and classrooms for educational programming.
Currently, there are 16 presidential libraries and museums throughout the U.S., documenting presidents from Herbert Hoover to Joe Biden, according to the National Archives.
The ceremony itself is invite-only, but the Obama Foundation is hosting a free watch party at Midway Plaisance starting at 9 a.m CT. The opening ceremony will begin at 11 a.m. CT and will be streamed on the Obama Foundation’s YouTube and social media accounts.

Legendary musicians U2 and Bruce Springsteen are performing at the Obama Presidential Center opening ceremony — and they both hold significance as their music became a signature part of former President Barack Obama’s campaign.
When Obama first announced his presidential run in 2007, he walked out to U2’s “City of Blinding Lights,” and it would soon become a staple in his entrance music. U2 performed the now iconic song in front of the Lincoln Memorial during Obama’s 2009 inaugural concert.
“What a thrill for four Irish boys from the north side of Dublin to honor you sir, the next president of the United States, Barack Obama, for choosing this song to be part of the soundtrack of your campaign,” Bono said that day.
Springsteen was also a fixture on the campaign trail with Obama, performing to tens of thousands of admiring fans in one battleground state after another, and later at his first inaugural. The two wrote a book together, teamed up for a podcast and collaborated on a Netflix special.
“I’m the president, but he’s The Boss,” Obama once said at the Kennedy Center Honors.
Barack Obama wiped away a tear as the former first lady delivered a moving tribute to her husband’s grace, strength and stoicism.
But she also had a political message.
In many ways, Barack Obama’ presidency was defined before it even started by three forces — his historic status as the first Black president; the aftermath of 9/11 and its subsequent wars and legal tangles; and the detritus of the 2008 financial crisis.
But Obama aides have also argued his two terms are about much more and defend it against criticism of modern progressives that his change didn’t go far enough. Michelle Obama spoke of the US auto bailout, the mobilization against an Ebola epidemic in Africa, efforts to expand health care and the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
When she noted that the 44th president won a Nobel Peace Prize, listened to science, and condemned the slurs about his birthplace she was also making another clear political point — even if she never said the words Donald Trump.
Michelle Obama is praising her husband for his “stubborn optimism and courage,” but also offered thoughts on today’s political moment.
“Especially during these anxious and divided times, we must remember those values are not unique to my husband,” Obama said, adding: “Deep down in our hearts and souls, we know right from wrong.”
The former first lady did not mention anyone in the Trump administration by name, but pointedly called out immigration policies: “No one has the right to sit in judgment of who’s American enough.”
She warned against sliding down a “slippery slope” of decency, imploring Americans to remain engaged, saying: “We don’t have the luxury or time to be cynical or complacent.”
Former first lady Michelle Obama praised her husband for his resilience in the face of criticism, including conspiracy theories questioning whether he was born in the US – something promoted at one point by President Donald Trump.
“To do it all, as a first and the higher standard that comes with all that. The claims that a US senator and a constitutional law expert wasn’t qualified for the job. The lies about your birthright, your faith, your patriotism, the outrage when you stated the biological fact that if you had a son that he too would be Black,” she recounted.
“How absurd it is to imagine that you would do anything but make our family and this entire country proud,” she said.
Seeing the aging former presidents onstage — minus Donald Trump — is a poignant reminder of the passing of time.
America got to know these men when they were much younger. Joe Biden first ran for president in 1988. Bill Clinton was a youthful 46 when he became president and George W. Bush was a fit 54.
Obama served two terms, has been out of the White House for nearly a decade and is still only 64.
His win in 2008 was seen as the passing of the torch to a new generation. That’s not how it turned out. His two successors turned 80 in office and the Biden and Trump presidencies share one thing — growing questions about the incumbent ’s age and health.
This means generational change will likely be a powerful theme in the 2028 presidential campaign.
One of the most trivial, yet hard-to-forget, moments of the his presidency is not included in the Obama Presidential Center.
The day was August 28, 2014, when President Barack Obama wore a tan suit as he answered questions in the White House briefing room about Syria. It stirred a fashion furor and sparked an endless string of controversy, including from GOP Rep. Peter King of New York, who suggested the attire demonstrated a presidential “lack of seriousness.”
A dozen years later, the dustup sounds utterly quaint. Obama allies take great delight in raising it, suggesting with a laugh that it was the biggest scandal of their administration.
“I can’t tell you how many things were left on the cutting room floor,” Valerie Jarrett, chief executive officer of the Obama Foundation, told CNN. “Including that tan suit, which we weren’t able to include because he gave it away.”
Wait, he did what?
“I don’t know why,” Jarrett said, “but he gave away that tan suit.”
A few attendees are donning their own tan suits at the presidential center’s opening today, including former “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert and Marty Nesbitt, board chair of the Obama Foundation and the former president’s longtime friend, who delivered remarks.
As Nesbitt spoke, Obama shouted, “Love that tan suit!”
Angela Merkel arrived just before the ceremony started.
The former German chancellor, a no-nonsense technocrat, started out wary of Obama’s emotive political movement — and opposed him using the Brandenburg Gate to give a 2008 Berlin campaign speech.
But she later became one of Obama’s most trusted confidants on the world stage. The 44th president presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom — a gesture she saw as a validation of liberty after growing up behind the Iron Curtain.
Merkel took to referring to Lieber (dear) Barack. But the election of President Donald Trump in 2016 challenged what she perceived as US internationalist values.
Shortly before he left office, Obama traveled to Berlin and had dinner with Merkel in the storied Hotel Adlon. He successfully persuaded her to run for another term in 2017, seeing her as the de-facto leader of the West.
Merkel won that election, but the tide of populism and nationalism they both abhor outlasted both their political careers.
Former President George W. Bush came bearing gifts for former first lady Michelle Obama today: a tin of Altoids.
The two have enjoyed a playful friendship over the years as they’ve often been seated next to each other at high-profile events. As they attended the late Sen. John McCain’s funeral in 2018, Bush handed Obama an Altoid, a lighthearted moment that went viral.
“I get a little antsy, as I’m sure you know, and I was sitting next to Michelle. That’s who I sit next to at funerals,” Bush told his daughter Jenna Bush Hager in an interview this year. “And I was kind of teasing her and stuff, and I slipped her an Altoid. Not as a joke, but I thought she might want one.”
As the former presidents gathered for a private tour of the library, Bush reprised their Altoid moment, grinning as he gifted Obama a tin of the mints once again.
Hillary Clinton joins ceremony of Obama Presidential Center
0:15 • Source: CNN
Hillary Clinton joins ceremony of Obama Presidential Center
0:15
Hillary Clinton received enthusiastic applause as she was introduced on stage, standing alongside former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Joe Biden.
The former first lady, a daughter of Illinois, was raised in suburban Park Ridge.
She plays a particularly poignant role inside the Obama Presidential Center – not only as his rival in the 2008 race, but also as his secretary of state. The images of her long primary campaign are featured throughout the campaign section of the museum, along with their famous meeting in Unity, New Hampshire, where they came together for the first time after their divisive primary.
It was one of two losing presidential campaigns she found herself in, a note of history that will go unmentioned here today.
When the Obama library is opened today, the festivities will be celebrating something that is pretty rare in modern American politics: A politician that Americans have pretty consistently liked.
A new CNN poll Thursday shows Americans have a favorable view of Obama by a 57%-32% margin. Of the five living presidents, only one other – George W. Bush – was also in positive territory. But Bush was far less above water, at 42% favorable to 33% unfavorable.
Obama also led the pack when it came to which president Americans said they admired most, with 30% naming him, compared to 19% for Donald Trump, 9% for Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan and 6% for John F. Kennedy. (Such polls often favor more recent presidents.)
But what’s perhaps most notable about Obama is that he didn’t just get popular after he left office, which often happens; he’s long been personally popular.
Obama’s favorable rating between the 2016 election and his departure from office in January 2017 was between 59% and 63% in CNN polling.
By comparison, Joe Biden left office at 33%, Trump’s first term ended at 33%, and George W. Bush was at 35%.
And across more than 50 CNN polls testing Obama over the years, only three of them showed his unfavorable rating higher than his favorable rating. The biggest negative split was four points (47% favorable, 51% unfavorable).

Michael Chandler came up short against Mauricio Ruffy at UFC White House, suffering a dominating first-round knockout defeat to the young Brazilian prospect, but he’s not going to let that keep him down.
In a long video posted on social media, the former Bellator lightweight champion gave props to Ruffy and provided a health update after the stoppage loss, his fourth in the UFC.
“Obviously, the fight did not go my way, but I’m in good spirits,” Chandler said. “I’m happy. I’m healthy. I’m hard to kill. I’m impossible to kill. I’m impossible to defeat because I am so truly blessed.”
“Physically, I’m good,” he continued. “I’m a little banged up. I got punched in the ear and ripped it open. Hats off to Mauricio Ruffy. He was a tough puzzle to solve, to get going in there. He’s long, he’s fast, he’s accurate, he’s a good striker. He landed the shots that ended the fight, so here we are. But as I said, we’re happy, we’re healthy, we’re hard to kill.”
Chandler now holds a record of 2-6 under the UFC banner, a contrast to his victorious run under the Bellator banner with only five defeats in 23 bouts. On a four-fight skid that includes defeats to Paddy Pimblett, Charles Oliveira, and Dustin Poirier, “Iron” did not mention the possibility of retirement. Instead, he vows to recalibrate and “bounce back with more wisdom.”
“You have these moments in life where everyone’s watching how you’re respond and I promise you, just as I always have, I will continue to respond like a champion,” Chandler said. “It stinks, because I know I prepared. I promise you I prepared to the best of my ability. Left no stone unturned in the preparation. I can rest easy knowing that I did every single thing that I possibly could in this training camp. My head coach, my sensei Henry, had me prepared. Coach Tywon Claxton had me prepared on the ground. Coach Robbie Lawler, coach Corey Peacock in the strength and conditioning. We were prepared. We just fell short. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
“And at some point you just got out call a spade a spade and just gotta say, this is what it is. We lost. You’re gonna take your losses in life. And hopefully, for you, you don’t take too many losses. But it’s not about taking the losses; it’s how you respond to the losses. If you can see every loss like it was an opportunity that was missed and there’s a recalibration and a recoiling of the spring that you can bounce back from, bounce back better, bounce back in a different way, bounce back with more wisdom, bounce back with more experience, you can continue to chase down the man or the woman that you were destined to be, and that’s why we’re out here.”
Chandler thanked the fans for all their support and said he will “move forward” and chase greatness in “typical Chandler fashion.”
“It’s time to get back on the horse,” Chandler said. “It’s time to continue to move forward as I always do. Typical Chandler fashion. All we do is move forward. In the face of adversity, we move forward. We walk on. In the face of letdown, we walk on. In the face of opposition, we walk on. Things don’t go our way, we continue to walk on. Because we are the man in the arena. And we’d much rather be that person who fails while daring greatly than being the person who’s sitting on the sidelines of life talking about the man or the woman who failed while daring greatly.”
“I love you guys,” he added. “I truly, truly love you guys. And I thank you guys for your support. The best is yet to come. The best is yet to come. Trust me. Keep on watching. Keep on getting after it. Keep on trying to operate with integrity and being a good person. Because your best days and your blessed days are right ahead of you if you can continue to do that. I love you guys. God bless. I’ll see you at the top.”
Watch the full video below.

For more than two years now, Israel’s growing number of critics abroad have condemned it for what they allege is a reckless and indiscriminate war — with some charging genocide — that has seen tens of thousands killed in Gaza as well as expanding to Lebanon and several other fronts.
At the same time, some — mostly within Israel, particularly on the right — have leveled the opposite critique: Israel has been too timid, too deliberate when fighting terror groups sworn to its destruction. It needs to just finish the job.
On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump managed to make both of those arguments simultaneously.
“Israel is fighting Hezbollah too long, and too many people are being killed,” Trump said at the G7 conference of global leaders in France. “And you don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody. Because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses. And they’re not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you.”
Then, minutes later: “I’m not happy with the way Israel has handled themselves with Lebanon and with Hezbollah. They should have been able to do the job faster. It just goes on forever.”
Trump followed that up with another somewhat ambiguous statement about Israel and Lebanon on Wednesday, saying he did not want Israel’s fight against Hezbollah to end. “I want Israel to be able to protect themself, but I do want them to use good judgment,” he said.
One could imagine Israel’s top military strategists watching Trump from a secure room in Tel Aviv, smacking their foreheads and exclaiming: “Good judgment! Defeat our adversary quickly with minimal civilian casualties! Why didn’t we think of that?”
In fact, the US president did put forward a solution of his own to the Lebanon morass: pulling Israel out of the fight against Hezbollah and subcontracting it to Ahmed al-Sharaa, the Islamist president of Syria.
In typical Trumpian fashion, the idea is so far outside the box as to be intriguing, but unlikely to happen. What is clear from the US president’s latest stream of consciousness, however, is that Israel now finds itself in an impossible spot.
Most Israelis, polls show, recognize the need to disarm Hezbollah, an Iranian terror proxy that amassed an army on the border and has rained missiles on northern Israel throughout much of the past two and a half years. And analysts say the only way to do so is through a combination of military and diplomatic pressure — depleting the terror group on the ground while shoring up the Lebanese government in its stead.
But the signed memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran, which claims to speak for the US’s allies (i.e., Israel), declares an end to fighting in Lebanon, indicating the US no longer supports Israeli military action against Hezbollah. Trump made as much clear in his comments to the G7, describing the Lebanon conflict as a sideshow that should not distract from the talks with Iran.
‘What do we want to happen?’
Soon, Israel may be forced to choose: Either keep up the military pressure and lose Trump’s diplomatic support, or stay on his good side — but only by ending, or scaling back, the conflict that many see as the country’s most urgent fight.
“Trump is not in the business of these prolonged wars, forever wars,” Ksenia Svetlova, executive director of the Regional Organization for Peace, Economics and Security, told The Times of Israel.
“Trump’s goal is no war in Lebanon, and consequently no war with Iran, because Iran ties these two things together,” she added. “But the goal that is important to Israel — and to I think all of the Israelis, who understand that we cannot continue the way it is — this goal is not achieved.”
At present, Israel is proceeding on the diplomatic and military tracks simultaneously. Fighting in Lebanon continued on Wednesday, with one IDF soldier killed and 12 injured. And Israel has held several rounds of direct talks in Washington, DC, with Lebanese officials, which are reportedly close to yielding a deal.
But both Svetlova and Dan Naor, an expert in Middle Eastern studies at Ariel University whose research focuses on Lebanon, did not put much stock in those negotiations, as historic as they have been.
Svetlova called them “discussions for the sake of the discussions.” Naor said that the fact of the direct talks is a symbolic victory over Hezbollah, which staunchly opposes negotiations with Israel, but that they were unlikely to yield significant progress.
“The Lebanese and the Israelis are broadcasting on different frequencies,” Naor told The Times of Israel. “That is, the Lebanese are talking about a nonbelligerency agreement and not a peace agreement. And I don’t know how much that will work. Certainly not now.”
What Naor does suggest is that the military pressure be combined with diplomatic and financial support for Lebanon’s government from the US, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia in particular.
“If [the US] wants a Lebanese state without Hezbollah, they need Israeli military pressure to continue,” he said. “It has to come jointly. Because by itself, it won’t help, but it could be good if it comes along with collaborative efforts, external and internal.”
It’s unclear, however, how much those Arab states would be willing to play ball with a continued Israeli military offensive. In Svetlova’s read, Trump’s comments at the G7 were channeling the Saudi perspective, which wants to see the Lebanon fighting stop.
“There is pressure that he is feeling from Arab partners of his, specifically Saudi Arabia,” she said. “I think that the data about the high number of casualties, this is coming from the Saudis, who are very deeply involved in the attempts to achieve a permanent ceasefire in Lebanon.”
Also unlikely to get involved is Trump’s preferred candidate, Syria. While Syrian forces used to occupy Lebanon, and Hezbollah was a chief ally of the Bashar al-Assad regime that Sharaa’s forces deposed, the Syrian president is focused on rebuilding his country after more than a decade of civil war, along with securing domestic and international legitimacy. He has little reason to insert his military, which is weaker than Israel’s, in what could be a decades-long quagmire, and reports have said that the Syrian, Israeli and Lebanese leaderships are all opposed to this solution.
“I do not see Syria intervening in Lebanon,” Svetlova said. “Not today, not tomorrow, not after one year. It’s just not interested in that… And being a fragile state, and also dealing with tons of domestic issues, security, and so on, there is absolutely no way that Ahmed al-Sharaa is, can, or will be willing ever to do that.”
The best course of action, she said, is for Israel to first get its own house in order. Instead of just continuing to press the offensive, Svetlova said, Israel must come up with a plan to defeat Hezbollah diplomatically as well as militarily, and only then present that to Trump.
“Israel can, first of all, present its own strategy for Lebanon,” she said. “So what do we want to happen? How do we want it to happen? And again, I think that anybody who looks at the Lebanon scene understands that you cannot achieve this goal by military means only.”
And what if Trump tries to dictate terms? At a certain point, Naor said, Jerusalem needs to do what it thinks is best in combating one of its most powerful foes, even at the risk of angering a US president whose good graces may be fading.
“I don’t know if we need to take the American considerations into account,” he said. “There’s a clear Israeli consideration here, and this war can’t stop here. That is, the military pressure on Hezbollah can’t stop here.”
What happens if the US no longer supports that fight?
“I don’t know,” he said. “But to stop here is to go backward and lose much of what we’ve achieved.”