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Paloma Esquivel named Metro’s education investigative reporter

https://www.latimes.com/about/pressreleases/story/2021-06-04/paloma-esquivel-named-metros-education-investigative-reporter

Sent on behalf of Deputy Managing Editor Shelby Grad: We’re pleased to announce that Paloma Esquivel is Metro’s new education investigative reporter. This is a new position that reflects the ongoing expansion of our education coverage and recognizes how the post-pandemic education world is going to require rigorous digging and accountability journalism. Paloma is already known around the newsroom as one of our more furious and skilled diggers. She was a key member of the team that won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for uncovering rampant corruption in Bell, a story that kept her in the city for months going through stacks of records and interviewing countless residents to uncover the scale of the wrongdoing. More recently, she has worked on investigations into serious problems at a well-known shelter for migrant children in L.A., sexual assaults at immigrant detention centers and the grim environmental and health burden of people who live near the Inland Empire’s booming logistics industry. For the last year, she has written a series of groundbreaking stories and exposed the deep inequities of remote learning and the toll it was taking on children in struggling communities. Paloma started at The Times in 2007 through the Metpro program. She covered Orange County and later served as Inland Empire bureau chief. There, she was one of the first reporters on scene at the mass shooting in San Bernardino and was a key member of the team that won the Pulitzer for that coverage. She will report to Deputy Metro Editor Stephanie Chavez.

Essential Politics: American views on 'culture' issues are complicated. Just look at the death penalty.

https://www.latimes.com/politics/newsletter/2021-06-04/death-penalty-support-in-us-hits-plateau-after-years-of-decline-essential-politics

This is the June 4, 2021, edition of the Essential Politics newsletter. Like what you’re reading? Sign up to get it in your inbox three times a week. A lot of American political debates involve values and personal beliefs, rather than economics. But while such cultural issues, as they are often labeled, can get lumped together as a single category, Americans’ attitudes toward them don’t move in lockstep. On some issues — attitudes toward LGBTQ relationships, for example — American attitudes have shifted profoundly over the last two decades. On other issues, such as abortion, the division of opinion has barely changed: About 6 in 10 Americans say the procedure should be legal in all or most cases, about 4 in 10 say it should be illegal in all or most cases, and the division in opinion is about the same now as it was in the mid-1990s. American feelings about the death penalty occupy a middle ground between those two poles: Support for executions dropped a lot from the mid-1990s until a few years ago, but since then has plateaued, as new data from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center shows. Get our Essential Politics newsletter The latest news, analysis and insights from our politics team. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. “While they often get talked about together, these issues are all very different,” and the differences often surface in unpredicted ways, said Carroll Doherty, Pew’s director of political research. Because cultural issues involve people’s personal values and beliefs, they’re often seen as intractable. But the record suggests something different: New facts and experiences can change people’s beliefs, but only up to a point. In March, Virginia abolished the death penalty. The move by the state that once led the nation in executions brought the number of jurisdictions to have ended capital punishment to 23 states plus the District of Columbia. Three other states — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums put in place by their governors. Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed California’s moratorium in 2019. The state has 703 prisoners on death row, according to the Department of Corrections — more by far than any other state — but hasn’t executed anyone in more than 15 years. Eleven of the state abolition decisions came in recent years, following a long slide in support for the death penalty that began in the mid-1990s. That was the second such drop. In the 1960s, evidence that Black Americans were disproportionately subject to capital punishment helped cause a sharp decline in support and set the stage for a 1972 Supreme Court ruling that struck down all then-existing death penalties. The high court in 1976 allowed executions to resume, under new rules, and backing for capital punishment steadily increased through the 1980s. It peaked in the mid-1990s, when roughly 8 in 10 Americans said they favored execution for people convicted of murder, according to polling by Pew and the Gallup organization. By 2019, backing for the death penalty had fallen to some 6 in 10 Americans. That’s about where it has remained since. In the most recent Pew survey, 60% of American adults said they supported the death penalty; 39% opposed it. Notably, that 60/40 split holds true when people are surveyed online. When people are surveyed by telephone with live interviewers, support for the death penalty is somewhat lower and opposition somewhat higher, according to Pew, which has tested both methods for several years. That suggests that some people who support the death penalty hesitate to say so to another person. Democrats seem especially likely to be in that group, Pew found. It’s an example of how polls can be skewed by what’s considered the accepted position in a person’s social circle. That sort of gap between phone and online surveys is not present on some other issues Pew has tested, such as abortion. That polling issue, however, doesn’t change the two-decade decline in support for executions. Scholars who have studied the shift cite several possible factors: The steep drop in homicides and other crimes that began in the early 1990s eroded support for a variety of get-tough measures. The reduction in the number of people being executed, especially in recent years, may have made the penalty seem less a normal part of public life. Growing racial diversity has reduced support for executions, which white people in the U.S. back more than Black or Latino Americans. Democrats, in particular, have turned against the death penalty in recent decades. Republican attitudes have not changed as much. In 1992, then-candidate Bill Clinton very publicly interrupted his presidential campaign to return to Arkansas to oversee the execution of a man convicted of killing a police officer. In 2020, Joe Biden promised to seek repeal of the federal death penalty. One of the biggest factors in the shift in attitudes involved a new fact in the public debate: Starting in the 1990s, DNA testing began to prove that wrongful convictions were real — and not uncommon. The wave of exonerations of people wrongly convicted of crimes included scores who had faced death sentences. The Death Penalty Information Center counts 185 cases of people sentenced to death who have been exonerated. Those exonerations have had an impact on how the public sees the death penalty. In 1991, only about 10% of death penalty opponents said that the risk of an innocent person being executed was a reason for their stand. By 2011, not only were a lot more people opposed to the death penalty, but more than 25% of opponents cited concern about the wrongfully convicted being killed as a reason, Pew found. Acknowledgement of that risk, however, doesn’t necessarily cause people to oppose the death penalty. In Pew’s latest survey, 78% of Americans said that there was “some risk that an innocent person will be put to death” — that’s twice as many as said they opposed the penalty. For many people, what outweighs the risk of wrongful executions is the belief that capital punishment is morally justified for murder. Most supporters of the death penalty don’t believe it is perfect — only 30% of supporters said they believe that “adequate safeguards” exist to “ensure that no innocent person will be put to death.” But 90% of supporters see it as morally just and don’t want to abolish it in all cases. People’s judgments about what is moral can be hard to change. That doesn’t mean they’re immovable, however, as the shift in attitudes toward gay and lesbian relationships shows. In 1996, only about 25% of Americans said they believed that same-sex marriages should be valid, according to Gallup’s polling. By 2004, when opponents of marriage equality made the issue part of that year’s political campaign, a majority remained opposed, but support had grown to around 40%. By 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled for marriage equality, a majority of Americans said same-sex unions should be legal. By now, two-thirds of Americans say so. Some of that shift involves generational change, but the flip in public attitudes happened so quickly only because tens of millions of older Americans changed their minds. That change in attitudes toward marriage equality went hand-in-hand with a shift in what Americans deemed to be moral. As recently as 2006, a majority of Americans told Gallup that gay and lesbian relations were “morally wrong.” By 2010, a clear majority felt the opposite. Last year, Americans rejected that view by 2 to 1, Gallup found. There are other issues, of course, on which opinions have not shifted and some, such as regulation of guns, on which already formidable partisan divides have grown even deeper and seemingly more stubborn in recent years. But at a time in American public life when it sometimes seems as if every issue has become a matter for trench warfare, both of these topics stand as reminders that even on some of the most deeply felt questions — literal matters of life and death — change is possible, and shifts in opinion do take place. Enjoying this newsletter? Consider subscribing to the Los Angeles Times Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. Become a subscriber. Biden may be the most pro-union president since Truman, according to labor leaders and outside analysts. Noah Bierman and I looked at whether his support can reverse labor’s long decline. When Congress returns from its Memorial Day recess, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) says the chamber will take up measures to set national standards for elections, which, at least for federal elections, would override state laws that limit voting. Republicans are expected to filibuster the proposals. The bills the Democrats support aim, in part, to overturn several Supreme Court rulings that, as David Savage wrote, have tilted election law in favor of the Republicans. Biden and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) continued on Wednesday to try to chip away at the impasse on infrastructure spending. The gap between the two sides remains very wide, however, as Eli Stokols reported, and patience has begun to wear thin at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Doyle McManus looked at the rewards for getting COVID-19 vaccinations that some states are offering. They may help get the U.S. to its vaccination goals, but lotteries alone probably won’t do the trick, he wrote. COVID-19 restrictions protected California’s economy, and it’s now poised for a “euphoric” rebound, according to the UCLA Anderson quarterly forecast. As Margot Roosevelt reported, California’s economy shrank less than the U.S. average during the pandemic year, and the UCLA forecasters expect the state to add jobs faster than the country as a whole. California, however, also had huge problems delivering unemployment benefits to those who lost their jobs. As Sarah Wire and Patrick McGreevy wrote, a new report by the U.S. Department of Labor’s inspector general chronicles missteps by a dozen state unemployment agencies around the country, including California, which left millions in the lurch. Meantime, state lawmakers considered requiring $7 billion in COVID-19 bonuses for healthcare workers. As Melody Gutierrez reported, hospitals, which estimate they would have to pay about $4 billion, strongly opposed the plan. On Thursday, the state Assembly decided to drop the idea. Lawmakers decided against new taxes on the sale of guns and ammunition to pay for programs to prevent gun violence, McGreevy reported. The measure fell short of the two-thirds vote it needed. Former Rep. Katie Hill, a Democrat from northern Los Angeles County, quit Congress in 2019 after nude photos of her circulated on the internet. She then sued a British tabloid and two conservative journalists for their parts in publishing the photos. Earlier this year, a judge threw out the suit on 1st Amendment grounds and, as Seema Mehta reported, the judge has now ordered Hill to pay roughly $220,000 in attorneys’ fees to the defendants. A spokesman said Hill plans to appeal. San Luis Obispo County delivered a sizable block of signatures on petitions to recall Newsom. Faith Pinho looked at how COVID restrictions helped fuel the recall drive in a decidedly purple region. He helped make Ronald Reagan president. Now Stu Spencer has had it with the Republican Party, Mark Barabak wrote. The veteran GOP strategist last year voted for Biden — the first Democrat he had ever voted for. Stay in touch Keep up with breaking news on our Politics page. And are you following us on Twitter at @latimespolitics?Did someone forward you this? Sign up here to get Essential Politics in your inbox.Until next time, send your comments, suggestions and news tips to politics@latimes.com.

One of the best hikes in America is a 14-mile slog through a gash in the Earth

https://www.latimes.com/travel/story/2021-06-04/utah-buckskin-gulch-one-of-the-best-hikes-us

Buckskin Gulch is a gnarly rip in the desert that cuts a ragged path along the Utah-Arizona border. At about 14 miles, it is the longest, deepest slot canyon in the U.S., maybe the world. The narrow labyrinth is strewn with obstacles — flooded passageways, quicksand, titanic boulders and rattlesnakes. It’s been called one of the best hikes in America.As a slot canyon aficionado, I had to see for myself. Slot canyons, formed by millions of years of water rushing over rock, are addictive. They draw you in, squeeze you between walls often just inches apart, then throw problems at you — water, mud, debris and the nagging threat of flash floods. Southern Utah has more than a thousand slots, the most anywhere. Some are easy, some are hard. Most are too short. Not Buckskin. I set out in late October when water levels in Buckskin were low and the forecast showed zero chance of rain. Even a quarter-inch can trigger a deadly flash flood that can blast you down the canyon. The sky was deep blue, the temperature a gorgeous 65 degrees. I met up with my friend and his wife in Page, Ariz., about 30 miles southeast of Buckskin, which lies within the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness Area, straddling Utah and Northern Arizona.We parked my car at the White House campground, and their car 15 miles away at Wire Pass, where we started the hike at 8 a.m. You can also begin at the Buckskin Gulch trailhead, but that entails several miles of underwhelming hiking before reaching the more spectacular, narrow parts of the canyon. The more popular Wire Pass, a short slot canyon, drops you into Buckskin after just 1.7 miles. Planning your weekend? Stay up to date on the best things to do, see and eat in L.A. Our hike would total about 21 miles — 14 through Buckskin Gulch and seven more up the Paria River to the White House campground where I parked. A long day. We quickly reached Wire Pass and descended its slender confines, emerging into a broad, sunny grotto of sand and cottonwoods. Ancient petroglyphs of bighorn sheep, snakes and mysterious human-like forms adorned the black walls. We hiked over the soft sand until we reached massive sandstone blocks guarding the dark passage into Buckskin. The walls rose 200 feet around us. Shadows lengthened. Thin shafts of sunlight cast an orange glow on the canyon floor. Ahead were Rodney and Stacey Shaw of Austin, Texas, gaping at the forbidding stone ramparts before them. “We plan to drive to the Grand Canyon later today so we can’t stay too long,” said Rodney, a Pentecostal pastor. We ran into them a mile later. “I thought you were leaving,” I said. “Every time we try to go, this place just sucks you in deeper,” he replied. I embraced that suck and pushed on. The scale was epic. We were ants in a brooding geological Oz. The serpentine walls narrowed to four feet across. The sunlight dimmed. Inky black alcoves appeared to the left and right. My mind conjured images from “`Lord of the Rings.” The gloomy mines of Moria, the tunnel of Shelob, the giant spider that skewered Frodo Baggins before neatly wrapping him in silk. Logs were suspended between the walls high above us, testimony to the power of flash floods. There were voices ahead. A man in the shadows hurled rocks into a trough of watery muck, each landing with a hollow `plop. Nathan Peters, a carpenter and helicopter pilot from Athens, Ga., was trying to bridge the “cesspool,” an obstacle known for its standing, putrid water. He and his 18-year-old daughter Shay were exploring the Southwest in their customized van. “Fortunately, I like to play in the mud,” he said. The water levels were low that day; sometimes they’re waist- or neck-high. While her dad labored on his bridge, Shay climbed the canyon wall, found a narrow ledge and inched her way over the trench below. She dropped down on the other side. Problem solved. We middle-agers weren’t so nimble. I stepped on a rock. Then another. The third gave way and I sunk knee-deep into the syrupy muck. Both shoes nearly came off as I climbed out. My friends met the same fate. We moved on, leaving Peters to finish his rock bridge. We eventually reached a low spot in the canyon called the Middle Route, where you can scramble 100 feet up and out in case of a flood — assuming you’re close to this spot when it hits. An hour or so later we faced the infamous “boulder jam,” a collection of massive rocks that seemed to block the way forward. We peered down a chute into an opening called the “Rabbit Hole.” Luckily, it was clear of debris. If it’s clogged you can climb down a set of “stairs” cut into the rock. A rope is sometimes in place to help you. The rope was there, but I brought my own just in case. We slid our packs through the hole, then eased down the 10-foot-chute using another fixed rope to control our descent. We ducked out and were in the clear. Now the canyon sunk even deeper. We rounded corner after dark corner, like trespassers creeping through the dank keep of some medieval fortress. Orange and black walls more than 400 feet high hemmed us in. Each had a pattern. Wavy black rock polished smooth by water. Undulating shark fins. Zebra stripes. Higher up, indentations and outcrops resembling human faces stared down at us. The stunning views just kept coming, yet I felt a creeping sense of claustrophobia. When would this canyon open up? Was that the wind or the roar of floodwaters? Could I scale this wall if I had to? What just darted past? Then Buckskin slowly widened. A dead raven lay at my feet. A bad omen? A live robin flitted by. A good omen? A ribbon of water flowed toward us. We were nearing the confluence of Buckskin Gulch and the Paria River, a silty, greenish tributary of the Colorado. The sun appeared. I felt a surge of happiness as we emerged from the darkness. A camping area lay ahead. We turned left and headed upriver through Paria Canyon. It was almost 5:30 p.m. I had hoped to finish before nightfall so we wouldn’t have to look for the trail exit in the dark. But I figured we could cover the last seven miles in a few hours. I didn’t realize we’d be walking mostly in the Paria, not along its banks. We crisscrossed the shallow river repeatedly, trying not to slip or get mired in the mud. I started counting river crossings — 19, 45, 75. It was dark now. We used flashlights and headlamps to guide us. The water was cold. Before leaving home, I had taken a photo of a YouTube video showing two rock formations near the exit for White House campground. I scanned the canyon walls for silhouettes of the rocks. Nothing. As a full moon and stars filled the sky, we were three little lights bobbing back and forth across a burbling desert river seeking the refuge of a battered Prius. Had we passed the exit? I climbed a hill for a better look. A red flash appeared. Brake lights! Highway 89 was up ahead. We moved up a sandy bank and spotted a tent, then my car. It was 9 p.m. We had hiked 21 miles and crossed the Paria River 123 times. We were tired, wet, filthy and exhilarated. So is this one of the best hikes in America? Absolutely. Buckskin began as a hike, became a slog and turned into an adventure. We spent the day creeping through a forbidding gash deep inside the Earth and the night struggling up a lonesome river in the middle of the desert. Physically, I’ve been on tougher treks. Mentally nothing compares. This one will stay with me for the rest of my life. If you goBuckskin Gulch lies about midway between Kanab, Utah, and Page, Ariz., in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness Area. The day-use fee is $6 per person for ages 12 and older and $6 per dog. There are self-pay stations at Wire Pass and White House trailheads. To do this as a day hike you must be mentally and physically prepared for constantly changing conditions. Walking for miles through water, mud and muck in a chilly, dark canyon can be daunting. When to go: The best times are late fall and spring when there’s little chance of rain. But prepare for knee-, waist- and even neck-deep water at certain times. It stinks and is often numbingly cold. For conditions and more information, go to the BLM’s Kanab Visitor Center at blm.gov/visit/kanab-visitor-center. Check the weather; Buckskin can become a death trap in a flash flood. Make sure there is no chance of rain anywhere in the region. Blue skies mean nothing; rain 50 miles away can trigger a flood. Car shuttle: Leave one car at the White House campground just off Highway 89 about 30 miles west of Page. You will turn left where you see the Paria Contact Station, then left again down a two-mile gravel road most cars can handle. Leave the second car at the Wire Pass trailhead. After leaving White House, go left onto Highway 89 for about 4.9 miles, then take a sharp left onto House Rock Valley Road for 8½ miles to the parking lot. This dirt road is passable in a standard vehicle if it hasn’t rained. You will see a road leading to the Buckskin Gulch trailhead as you head to Wire Pass. If you start there, you will add about three miles of rather unscenic hiking to your trip. Most people prefer Wire Pass, a narrow slot canyon, because it drops you into Buckskin after about 1.7 miles. There also are shuttle services in the surrounding areas that can provide transport between trailheads. What to bring: Bring water especially when it’s hot. I brought three liters and drank only one. But it was October. I also brought a flashlight (critical); a phone charger (necessary for all the photos you’ll take); walking poles (used them to judge water depth until one snapped); and a 40-foot rope four the boulder jam in case one isn’t in place (didn’t need it). I wore long pants, sweatshirt, hat and sneakers with wool socks. Spooky Gulch ESCALANTE, Utah — A day after doing the 21-mile Buckskin Gulch hike, my friends and I headed north to exploreother slot canyons, shorter but with their own peculiar attractions. Buckskin may be the longest, deepest slot canyon on Earth, but Peek-a-Boo and Spooky Gulch may be the skinniest, at only 8 to 10 inches across at points. Zebra Canyon, barely 300 feet long, is known for its stunning pink and white stripes. We traveled in separate cars, heading up Utah’s scenic Highway 12, passing stark red cliffs, crimson hoodoos and forests of twisted pinyon pines. Four hours later we reached the town of Escalante, where I stopped by the Escalante Interagency Visitor Center, run by the Bureau of Land Management, to inquire about conditions in the slots, which lay just outside the boundary of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. A ranger told me Spooky Gulch and Peek-a-Boo were clear. We had checked the weather forecast to make sure there was zero chance of rain to avoid possible flash floods. We drove a few miles farther up Highway 12 and took a right onto Hole-in-the-Rock Road, a very bumpy washboard that nearly rattled my low-slung Prius into scrap. It took me an hour (about 26 miles) to reach the trailhead. We walked along a high ledge overlooking a canyon where a small opening revealed the entrance to Peek-a-Boo slot. A returning hiker advised us to do Peek-a-Boo first, then follow the rock cairns to Spooky Gulch and loop back to the parking lot. Most people hike in this direction to avoid encountering someone in a narrow canyon where passing is extremely difficult, often impossible. It’s easy to maintain your distance in a canyon as long as you’re not passing anyone, and there were few people around this day. The only way into Peek-a-Boo from here was by climbing a sandstone wall about 20 feet high. We had already met a woman defeated by it. “My legs are too short,” she said ruefully as she shuffled past. We followed trail markers down the orange cliff sides to a muddy wash the color of minty green toothpaste. We missed the entrance, then backtracked to find it. Karen Hoangand Fabian Gallee of Orange Country wandered up as we surveyed the wall before us. They were exploring Bryce Canyon and other Utah parks and wanted to experience a few slot canyons. The wall was steep, but not as daunting up close as it was from afar. We found a few footholds that helped us get up and into the canyon entrance. The peach-colored walls immediately closed in. A few feet at first, then down to 12 inches or so. The sense of compression was intense. We wandered through the stone labyrinth for 25 minutes before emerging into the open desert. We followed rock cairns for a half-mile south to Spooky Gulch, where we were stopped by a roughly 10-foot drop just inside the canyon. We used a rope, already in place, to lower ourselves deeper into the slot. “I didn’t expect to be doing this today,” Hoang said, dangling above the canyon floor. The wavy walls, studded with orange sediment, swiftly closed to about 8 inches across. We moved sideways and continued downward. I regretted my decision to bring the backpack I now held over my head. I stifled feelings of claustrophobia as I scraped against the rock. I heard voices. Two men were heading in our direction. They were doing the canyons in reverse. There was no place to turn around. Luckily, the gallant duo volunteered to retreat. We continued to bang and bump our way forward. Spooky finally opened up. We followed the path to the top of the canyon and eventually to our cars. The trip totaled about 3½ miles and took maybe three hours. We stopped a lot for photos. We did three slot canyons in two days. Peek-a-Boo and Spooky Gulch were short, fun hikes through some of the skinniest slots in the country. Buckskin was in a league of its own. It was a true adventure.

Man killed by deputies in Minneapolis had fired gun, authorities say

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-04/unrest-erupts-after-man-dies-minneapolis-arrest-attempt

Authorities said Friday that a man wanted on a weapons violation fired a gun before deputies fatally shot him in Minneapolis, a city on edge since the murder of George Floyd by a police officer more than a year ago and the recent fatal police shooting of Daunte Wright in a nearby suburb. Family and friends identified the man killed Thursday as Winston Boogie Smith Jr., a 32-year-old father of three. Shelly Hopkins, who was in a longtime relationship with Smith, told the Associated Press that despite any mistakes Smith has made, he didn’t deserve to be killed. “I wasn’t there,” she said of Thursday’s shooting. “I don’t know exactly what happened. But I know him. And he didn’t deserve that. ... He had the best heart out of anybody I’ve ever met in my life.” Members of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Forces were trying to arrest Smith on a warrant for allegedly being a felon in possession of a gun, authorities said. The Marshals Service said in a statement Thursday that Smith, who was in a parked vehicle, didn’t comply with law enforcement and “produced a handgun resulting in task force members firing upon the subject.” The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said Friday that two sheriff’s deputies — one from Hennepin County and one from Ramsey County — fired their weapons, striking Smith. The state investigators also said evidence indicated Smith fired his gun, saying a handgun and a spent cartridge were found inside the car. World & Nation George Floyd’s killing at the hands of police transformed lives around the world, but nowhere as profoundly as in the city where it occurred. May 25, 2021 Smith died at the scene. State investigators said Smith’s passenger, a 27-year-old woman, was treated for injuries from glass debris. The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said the U.S. Marshals Service does not allow officers on its North Star Fugitive Task Force to use body cameras and there is no squad camera video of the shooting. But the Marshals Service said that while deputy marshals do not wear body cameras, the Department of Justice permits state, local and tribal task force officers to do so. Waylon Hughes, a close friend of Smith, told reporters that Smith loved music and writing comedy skits and posting them on social media. Hughes said he didn’t know Smith to carry a gun, and Hopkins also said she didn’t know that he had one. Family and friends demanded transparency and called for the release of all video from security and surveillance cameras in the area along with information about the officers involved. At an evening news conference outside the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, family members and activists said they don’t believe that no video of the incident exists. Minnesota Department of Public Safety spokesman Bruce Gordon said no surveillance video has been identified, but authorities are still investigating. “This man had a family, and he’s just like anybody else,” said Kidale Smith, Winston’s brother. People “always try to pin something on a man and try to identify him as a criminal, especially if he’s Black.” He also questioned the police account of what happened. “You’ve got seven unmarked cars and you shoot a man in his car. You don’t even give him a chance to get out. ... You’re the U.S. Marshals,” he said. “You’re supposed to be highly trained men, and you can’t handle a simple situation?” According to online court records, Winston Smith was wanted on suspicion of being a felon in possession of a firearm in 2019. The felony stems from a 2017 assault and robbery of Smith’s ex-girlfriend. Smith pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting first-degree aggravated robbery for attacking his ex-girlfriend while another woman took her purse. Smith was sentenced to two years in prison, but the prison sentence was stayed for three years, provided he didn’t break the law. With the felony conviction, Smith was barred from possessing a firearm. In December 2019, he was charged in Ramsey County with two counts of illegally possessing a firearm. According to the complaint, officers arrested Smith on a probation violation and found a handgun under the driver’s seat of the car he had been in earlier. World & Nation Crews remove concrete barriers and other items from a Minneapolis intersection that had become a memorial to Floyd. Activists fight to save the space. June 3, 2021 Smith was also charged with fleeing police in Hennepin County last year. According to the complaint in that case, officers in Bloomington began chasing Smith at a high speed, but stopped when he started driving the wrong way on a highway. Hopkins said Smith was a spiritual man who prayed before every meal. “The two biggest things he cared about in this world was making people happy and being there for his kids,” she said. Hopkins said she knew Smith had some court issues, but said police “tried to make a case against him that didn’t exist.” She said Smith had been harassed by police for years and had numerous cars impounded. She said he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder from his interactions with police. After Thursday’s shooting, some people vandalized buildings and stole from area businesses, police said. Nine people were arrested on possible charges including suspicion of rioting, assault, arson and damage to property. Graffiti reading “Mpls still hates cops” and “No trial for them” marked the building next to the parking ramp where Smith was shot. There has been tension between police and residents since the deaths of Floyd, a Black man who was killed last year after he was pinned to the ground by Minneapolis officers, and Wright, a Black motorist who was fatally shot in April by an officer in the nearby suburb of Brooklyn Center. Tensions in Minneapolis already had risen Thursday after crews removed concrete barriers that blocked traffic at a Minneapolis intersection that has become a memorial to Floyd. Crews cleared artwork, flowers and other items from 38th Street and Chicago Avenue where Floyd was killed, informally known as George Floyd Square, but community activists quickly put up makeshift barriers.

After the pandemic ends, streaming binge will continue, report says

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-06-04/study-uta-pandemic-consumer-habits-streaming

Before the pandemic, Wing Lam and his wife, Kelly, used to go out three nights a week. Now, it’s just one night. To entertain themselves, 59-year-old Lam, already a Netflix subscriber, paid for two additional streaming platforms — HBO Max and Disney+ — to watch new films this year. He has no plans to cancel them, even as theaters have reopened. “As long as we can get movies at home, at the comfort of your house without having someone breathing on you and telling me what to do — we might wait a little bit longer,” said Lam, a co-founder of Tustin-based Wahoo’s Fish Taco. Even as businesses reopen, many consumers such as Lam are sticking to new entertainment habits they developed during the pandemic. Among 1,000 U.S. consumers surveyed in April, 67% said they plan to continue to spend more time consuming entertainment than they did before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to report released Friday by United Talent Agency. Shelter-at-home efforts accelerated the pace of cable cord cutting and the migration of consumers to streaming platforms, with 56% of consumers surveyed saying they added at least one subscription streaming service. After the pandemic, 71% of those surveyed said they plan to use more than one subscription video streaming service, according to the UTA report. The findings challenge the notion that consumers wouldn’t pay for more than two streaming services in a crowded marketplace. Consumers have learned they have options and more control over their schedules — whether it’s reducing their commute by working remotely or relying on Amazon Prime to deliver paper towels instead of making that trip to the store. “We’re reconsidering the way we utilize our time,” said Joe Kessler, global head of UTA IQ, a research, analytics and digital strategy division of the agency. “We’ve developed efficiencies from the pandemic.” Kessler said those changes open up more opportunities for talent to reach their audiences. “The pandemic was all about disruption,” Kessler said. “In fact, one can conclude, as many have, that this was the most significant social and business disruption since World War II.” Company Town Netflix is forging ahead into the podcast space with new hires and entertaining pitches for audio productions. May 18, 2021 Consumers are more open to try out new formats or types of content, including documentaries, educational videos and foreign dramas such as the French thriller “Lupin,” the report noted. In addition to streaming services, consumers also spent a lot of time on social media during the pandemic, becoming more familiar with platforms such as Cameo that allow consumers to pay for personalized, exclusive content. Additionally, UTA’s report found that 20% of consumers surveyed said they would be more willing to pay for exclusive content from influencers and celebrities than they were before COVID-19. Company Town TikTok, a popular based social video app owned by China-based ByteDance, has seen explosive growth this year amid the coronavirus crisis. The company has plans to hire more people, including at its Culver City office. May 6, 2020 One in four consumers also believe fans will have more control over the content that influencers create after COVID-19, whether that’s picking the lineup for a live show or what gets made, the report said. Kessler said that he hopes the findings of the study will encourage more talent to experiment with new ways to reach fans. “We’ve got a ready-made universe of consumers who want it,” Kessler said, adding there is also a vibrant community of technology disruptors that is working on new forms of entertainment for their audience. “This is the time to experiment. This is the time to try new things.”

Here are pitfalls worth noting if you’re flying — after not flying for a while

https://www.latimes.com/travel/story/2021-06-04/covid-era-lax-travel-lot-e-parking-basic-economy-fall-flat

After a 14-month hiatus, I was scheduled to return to flying with back-to-back trips, one to Washington, D.C., one to Washington state, two airlines, two kinds of tickets, all with the same mission: hugging. The two questions before me: Could there be too much hugging of your family after two years apart? And what would I learn flying to Seattle and Washington Dulles on Delta and Alaska, respectively, from LAX? Answer to the first question: No. There is no such thing as too much hugging of people you love and have missed. Answer to the second: I learned plenty and also had the awful realization that travel muscle memory fades. Here are some pitfalls worth noting if you’re flying after not flying for a while. Some of the new rules of flying have been repeated so often that they cannot be a surprise: Wear a mask in the terminal and on the plane and expect limited in-flight food and beverage. Check and check. Here’s one I didn’t anticipate before my 7:45 a.m. departure to D.C.: That place you always parked may not be open. Check and nearly mate. I left home in plenty of time for my flight. Good thing because there was a surprise: Lot E, the economy lot at LAX, is closed, and there is no timeline for reopening. World & Nation The measures would be voluntary and meant to ease travelers’ compliance with other countries’ foreign entry requirements, administration officials said. May 28, 2021 The sign at Lot E told me I could park at the airport. A recording on the telephone number [(310) 893-4676] on the LAX parking website said the same thing; my bank account told me I could not. But the recording also reminded me I could park at nearby hotels and third-party lots. Time to renew my romance with the Parking Spot on Century Boulevard, which I jilted when Lot E opened in 2019. It welcomed me as it always had, but time was running short, so instead of parking on the less-expensive rooftop (which often says it’s full but usually isn’t, in my experience), I parked in its welcoming covered parking lot. My five days of parking cost $133, just $37 less than my round-trip main cabin fare to D.C. on Alaska. If/when Lot E reopens, I’m breaking up with Parking Spot. Again. (Note to Ben Affleck: Be careful about rekindling an old flame. Someone always gets burned.) You already know that about airfares, rental cars and hotels, but it’s also true for ride-sharing. My Uber to LAX for the Seattle trip cost $39.91, plus tip. But upon returning, the fare quoted for LAX to home was $63.71. I checked Lyft, and it was quoting $40. Had I known Lot E was closed, I would have used ride-share for my trip to D.C. Lesson learned. Again. Business The new facility at Los Angeles International Airport is named West Gates and billed as an extension of the Tom Bradley International Terminal. May 24, 2021 In a bid to mitigate the pandemic blow, airlines that offer the no-perk basic economy ticket loosened up. In the Before Times, an unused basic economy ticket was money down the drain. No credit, no refund. You couldn’t pay a change fee in hopes of recouping at least some of the ticket’s value. During the pandemic, airlines’ hard hearts softened, and you could change a basic ticket, avoid the fee and retain its value. Now it’s back to the bad old days. A basic ticket on most airlines has morphed into its old self — no changes and no financial relief. You are stuck, and your ardor may cool. Confession: I lucked out big time on my basic Delta ticket to Seattle. All the things that make basic economy dicey — bag fees and, sometimes, no carry-on, no seat selection until the 11th hour, boarding last so you must take the Penny Pincher Walk of Shame past the non-basic fliers — weren’t an issue on my trip. Get inspired to get away. Explore California, the West and beyond with the weekly Escapes newsletter. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. I flew Delta in the waning days of its empty middle-seat policy and scored an aisle seat in a three-across in which there were but two of us. I also didn’t have to board last because Delta was boarding back to front and my seat, 21C, was in the first group called. All of us were offered drinks and snacks (almonds and a mini Clif bar), and I finally got to see “News of the World” on the way out and “Soul” on the way back. Delta also offered to check my bag for free on my return to LAX, although I have no idea why. I happily accepted because I’m not tall or strong enough to hoist my bag into the overhead without help — that’s an ego bruiser — and my bag was waiting for me when I got to baggage claim. For $150 round trip, what’s not to love? Alas, I think my first trip in basic may also be my last because those stars may never align again. But it was fun while it lasted. Pre-pandemic, I would have said, “Yeah, like what?” One little pumpkin head wailed most of the way from Dulles to LAX. I can’t say I didn’t notice, but I can say I didn’t mind. Much. Maybe I’ve made peace with the notion that this baby was not on this flight just to make me miserable. Or maybe I was so fortified by all that hugging that this tearful tyke was nothing more than a blip on the scale. May it ever be so.

What's on TV Friday: 'The Blacklist' on NBC; 'Van Helsing' on Syfy and more

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2021-06-04/whats-on-tv-friday-the-blacklist-on-nbc-van-helsing-on-syfy-and-more

During the coronavirus crisis, the Los Angeles Times is making some temporary changes to our print sections. The prime-time TV grid is on hiatus in print but an expanded version is available in your daily Times eNewspaper. You can find a printable PDF online at: latimes.com/whats-on-tv. The Blacklist In this new episode, Liz, Red and Dembe (Megan Boone, James Spader and Hisham Tawfiq) work together to survive an attack from Townsend (Reg Rogers) as Cooper (Harry Lennix) tries to de-escalate the dangerous situation. 8 p.m. NBC Emergency Call Luke Wilson returns with new episodes of this suspenseful and uplifting documentary series that focuses on the critical first few minutes in an emergency after a 911 call is received. In the season premiere, teenage girls narrowly escape a possible kidnapper, a mother and her children get stuck on the roof while attempting to rescue their parrot, a woman goes into anaphylactic shock after getting stung by a bee and a hiker is injured. 8 p.m. ABC Love, Victor Victor (Michael Cimino), a new student at Creekwood High School, has recently come out and is facing challenges: He’s trying to adjust to a new city and is struggling with his sexual orientation in the premiere of this drama that originally streamed on Hulu. 8 p.m. Freeform Gabby Duran & the Unsittables Kylie Cantrall returns as the title teenage babysitter whose young charges are really extraterrestrials in disguise. The season premiere picks up the action right after the first season’s cliffhanger, which saw Gabby’s mom (Valery Ortiz) coming close to discovering Gabby’s secret. 8:45 p.m. Disney Dynasty Fallon (Elizabeth Gillies) tries to repair her public image and leaves Alexis (Elaine Hendrix) and Adam (Sam Underwood) to fend for themselves amid all her drama. Sam Adegoke, Michael Michele and Rafael de la Fuente also star in this new episode. 9 p.m. The CW 20/20 The couple at the center of the “Gone Girl” kidnapping case reveal new details. 9 p.m. ABC Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives (N) 9 p.m. Food Network American Masters Airing in connection with Pride Month, the new episode “Ballerina Boys” celebrates the 45-year history of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, the all-male troupe of “ballerinas” who have built a huge and diverse fan base with ballet parodies. (N) 9:30 p.m. KOCE The New York Times Presents: Who Gets to Be an Influencer The Collab Crib, a creator mansion in Atlanta, is home to a group of Black influencers who strive to shake things up. 10 p.m. FX Cellmate Secrets Angie Harmon narrates this new six-episode documentary series that revisits stories of headline-grabbing criminals with new insights and information from former friends, guards, cellmates and lovers. The premiere episode, “Casey Anthony,” profiles the woman charged and acquitted in the murder of her 2-year-old daughter. 10 p.m. Lifetime Van Helsing Axel, Ivory, Violet and Jack (Jonathan Scarfe, Jennifer Cheon Garcia, Keeya King and Nicole Muñoz) are on a mission to venture into the center of Dracula’s den in Washington, D.C. 10 p.m. Syfy College Baseball NCAA Tournament: Virginia Cavaliers versus South Carolina, 9 a.m. ESPN2 NBA Basketball Playoffs Teams TBA, 4 p.m. ESPN2 Baseball The Dodgers visit the Atlanta Braves, 4 p.m. SportsNetLA; the Seattle Mariners visit the Angels, 6:30 p.m. BSW NHL Hockey Playoffs The Montreal Canadiens visit the Winnipeg Jets, 4:30 p.m. USA; the Colorado Avalanche visit the Vegas Golden Knights, 7 p.m. NBCSP CBS This Morning (N) 7 a.m. KCBS Today Little Big Town performs. (N) 7 a.m. KNBC KTLA Morning News (N) 7 a.m. KTLA Good Morning America Bebe Rexha performs. (N) 7 a.m. KABC Good Day L.A. (N) 7 a.m. KTTV Live With Kelly and Ryan Jenna Elfman (“Fear the Walking Dead”); guest cohost Ali Wentworth. (N) 9 a.m. KABC The View Author Sinéad O’Connor; author Giada De Laurentiis. (N) 10 a.m. KABC The Wendy Williams Show Eva Marcille. (N) 11 a.m. KTTV The Talk Joan Allen; Michael Cimino; Jerry O’Connell; Jaime Camil. (N) 1 p.m. KCBS The Ellen DeGeneres Show Lisa Kudrow and Mae Martin (“Feel Good”); Thuso Mbedu (“The Underground Railroad”); Kym Douglas. (N) 3 p.m. KNBC Washington Week Democracy and voting rights in the U.S.; U.S.-Russian relations: Leigh Ann Caldwell, NBC; Astead Herndon, the New York Times; Annie Linskey, the Washington Post. Moderator Yamiche Alcindor. (N) 7 p.m. KOCE Real Time With Bill Maher Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.). Panel: Former Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio); author Chris Matthews (“This Country: My Life in Politics and History”). (N) 10 p.m. and 12:10 a.m. HBO The Issue Is...With Elex Michaelson (N) 10:30 p.m. and 1:30 a.m. KTTV Amanpour and Company (N) 11 p.m. KCET; 1 a.m. KLCS Jimmy Kimmel Live! DJ Khaled; Florence Pugh; Fousheé performs. (N) 11:35 p.m. KABC Nightline (N) 12:37 a.m. KABC A Little Late With Lilly Singh YouTuber Natalie Wynn. 1:36 a.m. KNBC Ford v Ferrari (2019) 8:15 a.m. HBO Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) 8:51 a.m. Bravo Black Hawk Down (2001) 9:15 a.m. AMC No Way Out (1987) 9:15 a.m. Showtime The Long Goodbye (1973) 10:50 a.m. Epix Pieces of April (2003) 11:05 a.m. TMC In the Line of Fire (1993) 11:15 a.m. Showtime 48 HRS. (1982) 11:45 a.m. IFC Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) 12:15 p.m. Bravo Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) 12:45 p.m. Epix Sister Kenny (1946) 1 p.m. TCM The Dead Zone (1983) 2:45 p.m. Epix Mission: Impossible — Fallout (2018) 3 p.m. FXX Night Must Fall (1937) 3 p.m. TCM Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) 3:14 p.m. Bravo Pretty in Pink (1986) 3:30 p.m. Freeform Boyz N the Hood (1991) 4 p.m. BET Green Book (2018) 4 p.m. FX Arbitrage (2012) 4 p.m. TMC Sense and Sensibility (1995) 5 p.m. TCM Love, Simon (2018) 5:30 p.m. Freeform The Dark Knight Rises (2012) 6:10 p.m. HBO Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) 6:42 p.m. Bravo The Martian (2015) 7 p.m. FX My Cousin Vinny (1992) 7 and 11:30 p.m. Paramount Ready Player One (2018) 7 p.m. TNT Roxanne (1987) 7:10 p.m. Encore Persuasion (1995) 7:30 p.m. TCM Arrival (2016) 8 p.m. Epix Moonlight (2016) 8 p.m. Showtime The Cabin in the Woods (2011) 8 p.m. Syfy Apollo 13 (1995) 9 p.m. Encore The Bank Job (2008) 9 p.m. Ovation Pride and Prejudice (1940) 9:30 p.m. TCM Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) 9:49 p.m. Bravo The Abyss (1989) 10 p.m. Epix There’s Something About Mary (1998) 10:08 p.m. Starz Magic (1978) 11:45 p.m. TCM Entertainment & Arts TV highlights for May 30-June 5 include the National Memorial Day Concert, specials about the Tulsa Race Massacre and the finale of “Mare of Easttown.” May 30, 2021 TV Grids for the entire week of May. 30 - June. 5 as PDF files you can download and print May 28, 2021 Television Movies on TV this week: May 30: ‘The Great Escape’ on TCM; ‘American Graffiti’ on Cinemax; ‘Forrest Gump’ on CMT and more May 28, 2021 Movies on TV for the entire week, May. 30 - June. 5 in interactive PDF format for easy downloading and printing May 28, 2021 Television Looking for what to watch on TV? Here are the television listings from the Los Angeles Times in printable PDF files. June 18, 2021

The Sports Report: Lakers' season comes crashing down

https://www.latimes.com/sports/newsletter/2021-06-04/sports-report-lakers-suns-nba-playoffs-clippers-dodgers-sports-report

Howdy, we’re your hosts, Austin Knoblauch and Iliana Limón Romero, filling in for Houston Mitchell, who’s on vacation (and probably wondering why he always writes the newsletter solo.) Let’s get right to the news. Dan Woike on the Lakers: Kobe Bryant wrote the words to Devin Booker on a pair of sneakers. Booker inked the words in Bryant’s handwriting on the inside of his arm. on Thursday night, it was Booker, and not LeBron James or Anthony Davis, that was able to live the motto. Go beyond the scoreboard Get the latest on L.A.'s teams in the daily Sports Report newsletter. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. “Be legendary.” Bryant knew. Now the Lakers do too. Booker scored 47, punctuated with a dunk, the Suns eliminating the Lakers in six games of the first-round playoff series with a 113-100 win at Staples Center. The Lakers season ended Thursday night, the team unable to stop the series’ most explosive player who quickly turned Game 6 into a blowout early and helped the Suns hold off the Lakers, who became the first defending champions to get eliminated in the first round on their home court since 1984. The Lakers finally found some fight in the second half, cutting what was once a 29-point Suns lead down to 10 in the fourth, the silent Staples Center crowd suddenly feeding off the energy their team was playing suddenly playing with. But the sense of urgency that Lakers veteran Markieff Morris said the team never could find showed up far too late, the early damage from Booker and the Suns too much to overcome. Bill Plaschke on the Lakers: It was the definition of disturbing, the epitome of embarrassing, the portrait of failure. Anthony Davis sitting on the bench with his face completely wrapped in a towel. LeBron James throwing the ball into the scorer’s table then helplessly turning up his palms. Frank Vogel shaking his fist and screaming. Profane chants from a crowd that, frankly, didn’t know what else to say. On a stunningly sordid Thursday night at Staples Center, the Lakers’ title defense lasted about as long as Davis. Davis was gone in the first quarter with a strained groin, and the Lakers were gone in the first round after a fractured season, wiped out by the Phoenix Suns 113-100 in Game 6 that gave the Suns a first-round series win 4-2. Yes, this really happened. No, it is no joke that the favorites to repeat as NBA champions ended up as a punch line. Nine months after they danced off a court in the middle of Florida with the franchise’s 17th championship, the Lakers trudged off a court in downtown Los Angeles with one of the franchise’s greatest debacles. “It’s gut-wrenching,” said Vogel. Broderick Turner on the Lakers: Dennis Schroder began his postgame videoconference talking about how he was going to “work my ass off” over the summer because he wanted to win a championship with the Lakers. He and the Lakers had just been sent packing from the NBA playoffs, their 113-100 defeat to the Phoenix Suns ending their quest to repeat as champions by losing the best-of-seven series 4-2. Schroder, who will be a free agent this summer, was asked late Thursday night if it was his intention to re-sign with the Lakers. “The Lakers, they didn’t do nothing to me. They been great,” Schroder said. “They got the top two players [LeBron James and Anthony Davis] in the league. Everybody in the locker room is great, so at the end of the day, like I said, I want to be here and win the championship. That’s not even a question.” Enjoying this newsletter? Consider subscribing to the Los Angeles Times Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. Become a subscriber. Andrew Greif on the Clippers: Otis Birdsong was on a business trip in Florida when he began watching Game 5 of the first-round matchup between the Clippers and Dallas on Wednesday night. Seeing the Clippers lose at home for the third time in the series, and only days after they’d drawn even with two road wins in Texas, went nothing like his prediction. “If I was a betting man, I would have bet a lot of money that they would win Game 5,” Birdsong said Thursday. “This series is crazy.” As surprised as Birdsong was, he should not have been. After all, he is one of about four dozen NBA players in the league’s 75-year history who knows what it feels like to be in the Clippers’ and Mavericks’ sneakers, amid a series defying one of the NBA’s most closely held beliefs: In the increased intensity of the playoffs, home is where the advantage lies. Before the road team won the first five games of this matchup, it had happened only twice before: in 1984, when a New Jersey Nets roster featuring Birdsong, a 6-foot-3 guard, stunned defending champion Philadelphia in a five-game, first-round series, and in the 1995 best-of-seven Western Conference finals in which Houston outlasted a top-seeded San Antonio team featuring the league’s most valuable player, David Robinson, and three future NBA coaches in Doc Rivers, Vinny Del Negro and Avery Johnson. For participants of both series, watching the Clippers and Mavericks alternate losing home-court advantage in a slugfest with plot twists produced by Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and Luka Doncic has brought back memories of their own places in the league’s more obscure playoff history. Thuc Nhi Nguyen on UCLA softball: A rising star on UCLA’s elite pitching staff went down in the biggest moment of the season, but the Bruins’ longtime ace was shining as bright as ever. With pitcher Megan Faraimo’s status for the Women’s College World Series in question because of an injured hand, Rachel Garcia pitched a shutout in Thursday’s opening round against No. 10 seed Florida State as the No. 2 Bruins came alive late for a 4-0 victory. UCLA (47-5) will face No. 3 seed Alabama in the second round Friday at 6:30 p.m. PDT. Garcia gave up five hits and two walks with 11 strikeouts, her seventh double-digit strikeout performance of the season. Ethan Sands on the Sparks: An eventful Thursday night game that started with a tribute to Seimone Augustus and fans returning to the Los Angeles Convention Center was rounded out with a dominant Sparks 98-63 win over the visiting Indiana Fever . The Sparks (3-3) rolled to the win, offsetting the absence of stars Chiney and Nneka Ogwumike sidelined by knee injuries. The team closed the first quarter with a 10-2 run and never took its foot off the pedal. At halftime, Kristi Toliver showcased why she’s one of the top scorers in the league, leading the way with 15 points on five-of-eight shooting and two of five from behind the arc. Bria Holmes was close behind with 10 points on four-of-six shooting and a perfect two for two from deep while tallying six total rebounds. And although Te’a Cooper picked up three fouls in the first half, she was the aggressor on offense and defense throughout the entire game. Twelve of her points came from inside the lane or from the free-throw line. All of her moves to the basket had a variation of an in-and-out cross or a hesitation cross. Victoria Hernandez on Vanessa Bryant: Nike has some explaining to do. Vanessa Bryant posted on Instagram early Thursday, upset that a pair of sneakers she worked on with the athletic wear giant in honor of her daughter Gianna were released to the public without her consent. The shoes were supposed to be called “Mambacita” after Gigi’s nickname and have “an exclusive black and white colorway on her daddy’s shoes,” the Nike Kobe 6 Protro. They have gold detailing, including Kobe and Gigi’s names on the back and her number 2 on the sides. Bryant explains that she wanted to sell the shoes with the proceeds going to the Mamba and Mambacita Sports Foundation and ultimately didn’t give the green light for the shoes to be sold after she didn’t re-sign her husband’s contract with Nike. “The MAMBACITA shoes are NOT approved for sale,” she said, adding that “The MAMBACITA shoes were not approved to be made in the first place.” Jorge Castillo on baseball rules: May 1 was the 101st anniversary of a remarkable if obscure baseball game rediscovered every year. On that date in 1920, Leon Cadore, a right-hander for the Brooklyn Robins, and Joe Oeschger of the Boston Braves tossed 26-inning complete games opposite each other. Cadore is estimated to have thrown 338 pitches. Oeschger tossed 316. The game ended in a 1-1 tie because of darkness after 3 hours and 50 minutes. The Dodgers — the Robins’ descendants — were in Milwaukee for the anniversary this year. Cadore’s name accordingly resurfaced during the television broadcast while the Dodgers and Brewers played a game that would’ve been unrecognizable to him. The Brewers beat the Dodgers that day, 6-5, in 11 innings at American Family Field. Starter Dustin May blew out his elbow in the second inning and the Dodgers used 10 pitchers. The Brewers countered with six. The Dodgers, left without a bench, used Clayton Kershaw as a pinch-hitter with the bases loaded in the 10th inning for the second time in a week. The game still lasted 4:48. It probably would’ve gone longer if a runner wasn’t placed at second base to start each extra inning. It’s a rule Major League Baseball — an institution slow to enforce change in recent decades — initially implemented in 2020 to expedite results during the pandemic-shortened 60-game regular season after trials in the minors. It was kept for the 2021 regular season — not the postseason — after widespread approval outweighed initial aversion. The rationale: The league wants to avoid marathon games for both baseball and entertainment purposes. Jeff Miller on the Angels: The Angels enjoyed a run of improved starting pitching during a recent surge that carried them into the opener of their latest homestand. Griffin Canning was unable to contribute to that run Thursday in the first of four games against Seattle. The right-hander couldn’t make it through the fourth inning on a night when the Angels blew an early two-run lead and lost 6-2. Canning was lifted after allowing a three-run homer to Jake Fraley, giving the Mariners a 4-2 edge. In nine of their previous 13 games, Angels starters had gone at least five innings and surrendered no more than three earned runs. The team entered Thursday having won six of nine. Canning gave up six hits total and walked two. Of his 80 pitches, 50 were strikes. He was replaced by Jose Suarez. Jorge Castillo on the Dodgers: The Dodgers added more reinforcements Thursday ahead of their six-game trip, activating outfielder AJ Pollock and right-hander Jimmy Nelson from the injured list. Relievers Alex Vesia and Edwin Uceta were optioned to triple-A Oklahoma City to make room on the roster. The 33-year-old Pollock was placed on the injured list May 15 after re-straining his left hamstring. He missed 17 games and appeared in four games on a rehabilitation assignment with single-A Rancho Cucamonga. He went two for nine with a home run in the stint. Pollock, who figures to platoon in left field with Matt Beaty, is batting .277 with four home runs and a .791 OPS in 32 games this season. Nelson has been on the injured list since May 23 with forearm and elbow soreness. The 31-year-old starter-turned-reliever has given up five runs in 18 2/3 innings across 16 appearances this season. Gary Klein on Rams punters: He is the longest-tenured Rams player. Punter Johnny Hekker started his career with the team as an undrafted free agent in 2012. The four-time Pro Bowl selection is the NFL’s highest-paid player at his position, carrying a salary-cap number of $4.9 million, according to overthecap.com. And for the first time in years, Hekker is competing for his job. Last season, Hekker averaged a career-low 45.6 yards per punt. In April, after the Rams signed former Buffalo Bills punter Corey Bojorquez, Rams coach Sean McVay and general manager Les Snead, when pressed, said there was not a punting competition. But Thursday, during a videoconference with reporters, Hekker, 31, said words spoken in news conferences were just that: words. He is approaching every organized-team activity workout on the field and in the weight room as a competition. “When push comes to shove, they have to make the best decisions for this roster,” Hekker said, “and there’s no running around the financial aspect of it. So, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to put together the best roster that you can. “And Corey is wildly talented. And so I think for me, to for a second not think of this as a competition and not prepare myself every day like it is a competition would be doing myself and this team a disservice.” FIRST ROUNDAll times Pacific WESTERN CONFERENCE No. 1 Utah vs. No. 8 Memphis Memphis 112, Utah 109Utah 141, Memphis 129 Utah 121, Memphis 111Utah 120, Memphis 113Utah 126, Memphis 110Utah wins series, 4-1 No. 2 Phoenix vs. No. 7 Lakers Phoenix 99, Lakers 90Lakers 109, Phoenix 102Lakers 109, Phoenix 95Phoenix 100, Lakers 92Phoenix 115, Lakers 85Phoenix 113, Lakers 100Phoenix wins series, 4-2 No. 3 Denver vs. No. 6 Portland Portland 123, Denver 109Denver 128, Portland 109Denver 120, Portland 115Portland 115, Denver 95Denver 147, Portland 140 (2OT)Denver 126, Portland 115Denver wins series, 4-2 No. 4 Clippers vs. No. 5 Dallas Dallas 113, Clippers 103Dallas 127, Clippers 121Clippers 118, Dallas 108Clippers 106, Dallas 81Dallas 105, Clippers 100Today: at Dallas, 6 p.m., ESPN*Sunday: at Clippers, 12:30 p.m., ABC EASTERN CONFERENCE No. 1 Philadelphia vs. No. 8 Washington Philadelphia 125, Washington 118Philadelphia 120, Washington 95Philadelphia 132, Washington 103Washington 122, Philadelphia 114Philadelphia 129, Washington 112Philadelphia wins series, 4-1 No. 2 Brooklyn vs. No. 7 Boston Brooklyn 104, Boston 93Brooklyn 130, Boston 108Boston 125, Brooklyn 119Brooklyn 141, Boston 126Brooklyn 123, Boston 109Brooklyn wins series, 4-1 No. 3 Milwaukee vs. No. 6 Miami Milwaukee 109, Miami 107Milwaukee 132, Miami 98Milwaukee 113, Miami 84Milwaukee 120, Miami 103Milwaukee wins series, 4-0 No. 4 New York vs. No. 5 Atlanta Atlanta 107, New York 105New York 101, Atlanta 92Atlanta 105, New York 94Atlanta 113, New York 96Atlanta 103, New York 89Atlanta wins series, 4-1 *-if necessary SECOND ROUNDAll times Pacific East Division New York Islanders vs. Boston Boston 5, New York 2New York 4, Boston 3 (OT)Thursday: at New York, 4:30 p.m., NBCSNSaturday: at New York, 4:15 p.m., NBCSN*Monday: at Boston, TBD, TBD*Wednesday at New York, TBD, TBD*Friday, June 11: at Boston, TBD, TBD Central Division Tampa Bay vs. Carolina Tampa Bay 2, Carolina 1Tampa Bay 2, Carolina 1Thursday: at Tampa Bay, 5 p.m., USASaturday: at Tampa Bay, USA*Tuesday: at Carolina, TBD, TBD*Thursday: at Tampa Bay, TBD, TBD*Saturday, June 12: at Carolina, TBD, TBD West Division Colorado vs. Vegas Colorado 7, Vegas 1Colorado 3, Vegas 2 (OT)Today: at Vegas, 7 p.m., NBCSNSunday: at Vegas, 5:30 p.m., NBCSN*Tuesday: at Colorado, TBD, TBD*Thursday: at Vegas, TBD, TBD*Saturday, June 12: at Colorado, TBD, TBD North Division Winnipeg vs. Montreal Montreal 5, Winnipeg 3Today: at Winnipeg, 4:30 p.m., USASunday: at Montreal, 3 p.m., NBCSNMonday: at Montreal, TBD, TBD*Wednesday: at Winnipeg, TBD, TBD*Friday, June 11: at Montreal, TBD, TBD*Sunday, June 13: at Winnipeg, TBD, TBD *-if necessary 1870 — Ed Brown becomes the first African-American jockey to win the Belmont Stakes, with Kingfisher. 1927 — The United States wins the first Ryder Cup golf tournament by beating Britain 9½-2½. 1932 — Faireno, ridden by Tommy Malley, wins the Belmont Stakes by 1½ lengths over Osculator. Burgoo King, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, doesn’t race. 1966 — Ameroid, ridden by Bill Boland, wins the Belmont Stakes by 2½ lengths over Buffle. Kauai King, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, finishes fourth. 1987 — Danny Harris defeats Edwin Moses in the 400 hurdles at a meet in Madrid, ending the longest winning streak in track and field. Moses, had won 122 consecutive races dating to Aug. 26, 1977. 1988 — West Germany’s Steffi Graf beats 17-year-old Natalia Zvereva of the Soviet Union in 32 minutes with a 6-0, 6-0 victory to win the French Open for the second straight year. 1990 — Penn State is voted into the Big Ten. The school becomes the 11th member of the league and first addition to the Midwest-based conference since Michigan State in 1949. 1994 — Haile Gebrselassie becomes the first Ethiopian to set a world track record with a time of 12:56.96 in the men’s 5,000 meters at Hengelo, Netherlands. 1998 — Harut Karapetyan of the LA Galaxy scores three goals in five minutes for the fastest hat trick in MLS history in an 8-1 rout of the Dallas Burn. The seven-goal margin sets an MLS record. 2005 — Justine Henin-Hardenne beats a rattled and fumbling Mary Pierce 6-1, 6-1 to win the French Open, capping a comeback from a blood virus with her fourth Grand Slam title and her second at Roland Garros. 2005 — Eddie Castro sets a North American record for most wins by a jockey in one day at one track, winning nine races on the 13-race card at Miami’s Calder Race Course. 2008 — The Detroit Red Wings win the Stanley Cup for the fourth time in 11 seasons with a 3-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 6 . 2009 — Randy Johnson earns his 300th win, becoming the 24th major league pitcher to reach the milestone by leading San Francisco to a 5-1 victory over the Washington Nationals in the first game of a doubleheader. 2011 — Li Na becomes the first Chinese — man or woman — to win a Grand Slam singles title. She beats Francesca Schiavone 6-4, 7-6 (0) in the French Open final for her fifth career title and first on clay. 2016 — Garbine Muguruza wins her first Grand Slam title by beating defending champion Serena Williams 7-5, 6-4 at the French Open, denying the American her record-equaling 22nd major trophy. After a lopsided loss to the Suns that ended the Lakers’ season and hopes of repeating as champions, LeBron James and Anthony Davis fielded questions from the media about the series, their health, the future of the team and more. Watch highlights here: Until next time... That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com, and follow me on Twitter at @latimeshouston. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

MLB's extra-inning rule is a hit with some, a whiff with others

https://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2021-06-04/mlb-extra-inning-rule-gets-support-disapproval

May 1 was the 101st anniversary of a remarkable if obscure baseball game rediscovered every year. On that date in 1920, Leon Cadore, a right-hander for the Brooklyn Robins, and Joe Oeschger of the Boston Braves tossed 26-inning complete games opposite each other. Cadore is estimated to have thrown 338 pitches. Oeschger tossed 316. The game ended in a 1-1 tie because of darkness after 3 hours and 50 minutes. The Dodgers — the Robins’ descendants — were in Milwaukee for the anniversary this year. Cadore’s name accordingly resurfaced during the television broadcast while the Dodgers and Brewers played a game that would’ve been unrecognizable to him. The Brewers beat the Dodgers that day, 6-5, in 11 innings at American Family Field. Starter Dustin May blew out his elbow in the second inning and the Dodgers used 10 pitchers. The Brewers countered with six. The Dodgers, left without a bench, used Clayton Kershaw as a pinch-hitter with the bases loaded in the 10th inning for the second time in a week. The game still lasted 4:48. It probably would’ve gone longer if a runner wasn’t placed at second base to start each extra inning. It’s a rule Major League Baseball — an institution slow to enforce change in recent decades — initially implemented in 2020 to expedite results during the pandemic-shortened 60-game regular season after trials in the minors. It was kept for the 2021 regular season — not the postseason — after widespread approval outweighed initial aversion. The rationale: The league wants to avoid marathon games for both baseball and entertainment purposes. Dodgers Starting pitcher Dustin May left in the second inning with an arm injury, and the Dodgers lost 6-5 to the host Milwaukee Brewers in 11 innings Saturday. May 1, 2021 On the baseball front, shorter games help reduce injuries when pitchers are throwing harder than ever while limiting the need for teams to hastily overhaul bullpens for fresh arms. As for entertainment, MLB has been spurred by the reality that most fans aren’t sticking around to watch regular-season games go 15 innings at the pace games are played today. “The current regular season extra innings rule has been enormously popular with our fans and with our Clubs, and has significantly reduced the length of extra-inning games,“ Morgan Sword, MLB‘s executive vice president of baseball operations, said in a statement. The rule isn’t a permanent solution — at least not yet. The league and players’ union are expected to discuss permanently adopting it when the current collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1. The league considered several ideas before choosing “the minor league rule,” including ending games in a push to make the next day’s game worth two wins, having a statistic serve as the tiebreaker after the ninth inning (most hits or fewest strikeouts are examples), taking one fielder off the field each inning, a home run derby, and sudden death to end the game after an extra half inning. In the sudden-death scenario, a situation would be created in which the team on offense has a roughly 50% chance of scoring (a runner at first with nobody out or runners at first and second with one out are possible examples). If the team on offense scores, it wins. If not, the team on defense wins. The league also contemplated enforcing the answer adopted by sports leagues around the world: the tie. Though an odd concept — even sacrilegious to some — for Major League Baseball, Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league and Korea’s KBO League, the highest level of baseball in those countries, have ties after 12 innings. Dodgers What happens if a player tests positive for COVID-19? Will there be a universal DH? How large are the rosters? Will there be exhibition games? Here are answers. June 24, 2020 Miami Marlins third base coach Trey Hillman spent five seasons as a manager in Japan and two in Korea. Hillman said he’s against the countries’ iteration because ties aren’t included in the standings. Theoretically, Hillman said, a team can win the first game, tie for the rest of the season and finish in first place with a 1.000 winning percentage. He said MLB would have to adopt a points system to give wins more value. “I remember just like it was yesterday, the feeling that I had being confused when our Japanese players were congratulating each other at the end of the 12th inning and we tied and I asked my pitching coach,” Hillman said. “I said, ‘What are they doing?’ He said, ‘A tie’s better than a loss.’ ” Players, executives and scouts offered opinions on the tie split along three groups: indifferent, pro, and against. “Just tradition,” one executive said. “That’s pretty much the only argument against it.” “I actually like the runner on second,” one scout said. “I would vote for that over ties. I think the runner on second adds some excitement. Much more exciting than just starting an inning clean.” “I’ve always said ties should be a thing,” Toronto Blue Jays and former Dodgers pitcher Ross Stripling said in a text. “Maybe play a normal 10th inning and then it’s a tie. There are 162 games. [I] find it hard to think it’d really affect standings that much.” Dodgers Ross Stripling was stunned when the Dodgers traded him to the Blue Jays. Now he’s rooting for his former teammates and thinking he could have made a difference. Oct. 14, 2020 In late April, the Pioneer League went another route, announcing it would settle ties this year not with extra innings, but with a home run derby. Each team designates a hitter to see five pitches. The game’s winner is determined by who hits more home runs. The teams pick another hitter to see five pitches if the round ends in a draw. In its announcement, the league explained the reason for the change is “to avoid excessive strain on our pitching staffs.” The home run derby isn’t unprecedented. The Futures Collegiate Baseball League, an eight-team New England summer league, introduced a variation of the home run derby to break ties in 2016. In the FCBL, up to three batters on each team are given three minutes and two timeouts to hit as many home runs as possible. Any member of the team, player or coach, can throw the pitches. The difference is that the Pioneer League is the first professional league and the first league with a direct relationship with MLB to venture into this territory. The league’s eight teams began their 92-game seasons May 22. Through Wednesday, one game had been decided by the home run derby. “I’m not a fan of it,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I get the fan interest to finish a game with a derby. It is what it is if that’s the rule. But I kind of like baseball determining the outcome of a game.” Dodgers Baseball purists scoffed at Justin Turner’s idea decide tie games by a home run derby. But it’s already popular in a New England collegiate summer league. April 9, 2020 Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner tweeted his approval of the Pioneer League’s decision within hours of the announcement. It wasn’t the first time he lobbied to use a home run derby as a tiebreaker. Last April, during the league’s shutdown, Turner pushed for MLB to implement the home run derby after the 10th inning as the league contemplated ways to curtail the toll on players in anticipation of a truncated schedule. MLB instead chose to start extra innings with a runner on second base. The change was initially met with resistance, as with most changes in baseball, but it grew on people within the sport, leading to its adoption in 2021. So far, the format hasn’t helped the Dodgers. They’re 1-7 in extra-inning games this season, including a nine-inning loss against the Chicago Cubs in the nightcap of a seven-inning doubleheader. At one point, they played five extra-inning games in a 11-game span and lost all five. It could’ve been worse. The longest went just 11 innings. Leon Cadore would’ve appreciated that.

Break out the biscuits for 'Ted Lasso'

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/awards/newsletter/2021-06-04/emmys-comedy-predictions-ted-lasso-the-envelope-glenns-edition

I’m taking a break from panning for gold (though, at this point, I’d settle for a chunk of agate), while wondering if there are going to be any local teams left in the NBA playoffs after this weekend. If not, I guess I’ll just have to console myself with those blueberries I have growing on my front porch. Does anyone have a good blueberry cocktail recipe to drown my sorrows? From the Oscars to the Emmys. Get the Envelope newsletter for exclusive awards season coverage, behind-the-scenes stories from the Envelope podcast and columnist Glenn Whipp’s must-read analysis. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Also, it’s June, which means Emmy nominations voting begins in a couple of weeks. I’m Glenn Whipp, awards columnist for the Los Angeles Times, host of the Envelope’s Friday newsletter. And if the Lakers are bounced this weekend, I’m going to need some awards-worthy comedies to get me through the next week or two. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of candidates. So let’s get to it. “Schitt’s Creek” made history last year, winning every comedy Emmy handed out during the prime-time broadcast. The drumbeat of acclaim eventually became so insistent that the show’s cocreator Dan Levy felt the need to apologize after winning his third Emmy of the evening. “The internet’s about to turn on me. I’m so sorry!” Levy said. That revolt didn’t happen, of course, because who didn’t love the gentle comedy of the silly and sweet “Schitt’s Creek”? It probably didn’t deserve every one of the Emmys it won last year, but the show consistently made us smile and that counted for a lot in 2020. And fortunately, just as we were waving goodbye to the Rose family, another aggressively nice comedy came along to warm our hearts. And although “Ted Lasso” likely won’t repeat the “Schitt’s Creek” lovefest at the Emmys — how could it? — the moving series figures to dominate this year’s ceremony. I broke down the comedy series Emmy race as well as the four acting categories in a recent column, while spending an inordinate amount of time deciding which “Cobra Kai” star might earn a nomination. (Why not both?) As I noted in the column, Jean Smart should have won an Emmy last year for “Watchmen.” But at least voters will have the opportunity to make things right as Smart figures to be nominated twice this year — for the comic notes she added to “Mare of Easttown” and for her starring role in “Hacks,” in which she plays Deborah Vance, an old-school stand-up Vegas comedian forced to pair with a young writing assistant (Hannah Einbinder). “I read it, and I just said, ‘This has it all. This could be so great,’” the 69-year-old actress told The Envelope. “It’s so funny, and it’s balanced with these dark moments. If I could pick out a dozen of my favorite parts I’ve ever done, onstage or in front of the camera, and put them in the body of one person, I feel like [Deborah] is an amalgam of a lot of my favorite things. “I was always a late bloomer, but this is ridiculous!” she added, laughing at her good fortune, which is our good fortune too as Smart makes every show she’s involved with better. (Except for maybe “Superintelligence,” but, hey, she made a convincing president.) Enjoying this newsletter? Consider subscribing to the Los Angeles Times Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. Become a subscriber. “People needed to laugh,” says Wanda Sykes, who stars in the new Netflix family series “The Upshaws.” “I know I needed it.” Sykes was one of several comedy standouts participating in The Envelope’s recent comedy roundtable, joining Robin Thede, Anna Konkle, Jane Krakowski, Kenan Thompson and Michiel Huisman. That’s a great lineup, right? And they didn’t disappoint, with Times television critic Lorraine Ali asking them serious questions about the business of being funny while shooting in the midst of a global pandemic. “It was strange to pretend that everything was sort of back to normal in front of the camera,” noted Huisman, a standout on “The Flight Attendant.” “But also kind of nice?” “I think that it saved us, especially the actors,” added Thede. “To be free and be these crazy characters and just to be with each other. And luckily with the nature of the show, everything is strange, so we can kind of use that. But I can’t imagine somebody shooting a serious drama during the height of the pandemic.” Feedback? I’d love to hear from you. Email me at glenn.whipp@latimes.com.Can’t get enough about awards season? Follow me at @glennwhipp on Twitter.

How much for a taste of history? At Augustine, vintage wine is worth at least a glass

https://www.latimes.com/food/story/2021-06-04/how-much-for-a-taste-of-history-at-augustine-vintage-wine-is-worth-at-least-a-glass

Among the many complications the last year has wrought upon L.A.’s bar and dining scene, there is one that is both new and somewhat unprecedented: the delayed celebration. Coronavirus shutdowns and public health fears resulted in the deferral of countless birthdays, anniversaries and other assorted joyful observances. But with the city’s dining rooms reopened (albeit with limits), and a full return to capacity service scheduled for June 15, Angelenos are making up for lost time. And for those looking to celebrate a special date with a bottle (or glass) of rare vintage wine, a visit to Augustine Wine Bar can feel like being in the company of a generous collector. Augustine was closed for almost a year save for a brief, frustrating reopening attempt last summer, and for now, entry to the Sherman Oaks hideaway requires reservation by phone, with limited walk-in seating available under the county’s statutes. The bar specializes in historic and pedigreed wine, with the evening’s selections written by hand on a chalkboard above the bar and to the right: a glass of 1985 Gainey Cabernet from Santa Barbara for $30, $40 for a 1979 Alessandra Giuseppe Barolo, a late-’90s Dehlinger Chardonnay from the Russian River Valley for $35. “A lot of restaurants have really deep vintage wine lists — if you go to some of the classic places in New York or Boston or New Orleans, you’ll find them,” Augustine co-founder David Gibbs said. “But the problem is you have to commit to a bottle. I couldn’t find a place doing it by the glass.” If you’re thinking a $40 glass of wine seems beyond the range for all but the most dedicated wine geeks, Gibbs points out that Augustine offers a range of options, including 6-ounce pours of contemporary California wines beginning at around $12. “People sometimes equate expensive with what’s best,” Gibbs said, but that’s not always the case. “Beyond the rare stuff, we offer other glasses of wine here that are amazing and will give you a great experience.” Gibbs, 55, caught the wine bug during the years he toured with the alternative rock band Gigolo Aunts, drinking Müller-Thurgau in Germany or Central Otago Pinot Noir in New Zealand. “We’d argue over everything, but the one thing we agreed on was wine,” he said. He moved to Los Angeles in the late ’90s to pursue gigs as a studio musician, working on film projects like 2001’s “Josie and the Pussycats” adaptation, as well as television shows including “Alias,” “Smallville” and “The O.C.” It was around this time he became a regular at Bar Covell, a Los Feliz wine bar with an influential legacy and die-hard clientele. He’d been thinking about a vintage wine bar model for years before he teamed up with Matthew Kaner and Dustin Lancaster from Bar Covell to open Augustine in 2015, inspired in part by Bern’s Steak House in Tampa, a restaurant with a six-figure inventory of bottles. Their vision for the Sherman Oaks wine bar included an expanded version of the Florida restaurant’s vintage-wine-by-the-glass approach (Kaner has now departed the bar’s ownership), paired with elevated wine bar food and an accessible, contemporary wine list alongside rare vintage offerings. Their gamble — a wine bar that serves pyrotechnic natural orange wines from Slovenia, throwback California Petite Sirahs and vintage by-the-glass wines from California, Burgundy and Piedmont — struggled for the first few months, but eventually its customer base expanded, starting first with what Gibbs describes as a neighborhood embrace before eventually becoming a destination for vintage wine seekers. On one pre-pandemic visit, Reid Antin, 26, a filmmaker pursuing his master’s in film production at USC, was sipping and sniffing his way through a glass of ’69 Serio & Battista Barolo. “Usually I drink beer,” he said. “But I’m obsessed with ‘Once Upon a Time … In Hollywood,’ and I’ve never had a wine from the year that film takes place.” The verdict? “It tastes like a beautiful, faded film print.” :: Gibbs is like a walking reference library of California wine: he knows who went organic and when, who sold to a conglomerate and why, and which vintage of Heitz Cellar’s Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet is worth the price. He sources his wine through a variety of means, some modern (like digital wine auctions and Craigslist searches) and others staunchly analog: estate sales, private collections, and long-simmering relationships that turn into cellar sales. He continued to acquire wine during lockdown. One adventure story started with a web listing for vintage Heitz Martha’s Vineyard, and it led Gibbs on a long path to Tijuana, where he encountered a private seller sitting on cases of Dom Pérignon Champagne from the 1960s left over from his father’s restaurant. The only catch was they were buried underground. “It was in this old brick and cinder block basement that had partially caved in,” Gibbs recalled. “We had to crawl through 20 feet of earth to get to these bottles, but there they were: cases of Dom from 1969, ’73 and ’75, still in their original wrappers and boxes.” He brought them all back home across the border, safely cooled in a bed of ice packs. “There’s really no place I won’t go to look for wine,” Gibbs said, but not all stories are created equal, nor are all wines equally rare. Gems of Gibbs’ collection at Augustine include a 1928 Chablis sourced from the estate of the film composer David Rose (Judy Garland’s first husband), a bottle of re-corked Bordeaux from 1892 and a 1940 California Cabernet personally opened and sampled by Robert and Peter Mondavi in 1946, before being partially rebottled. (Those bottles are so deeply rare and special, they’re unlikely to end up on the chalkboard menu anytime soon — curious guests at Augustine should inquire about additional bottle availability, especially if they have a particular year or producer in mind.) Today there is an undeniable cautious optimism to Augustine’s approach post-pandemic. “People have been so genuinely excited to be back,” he said, “not just because of the wine, but also because we’re social animals— we crave groups, and other humans to be around. And ultimately that’s what being a bar is all about.” “I’m so grateful that people have chosen to come back and support us,” Gibbs added. “We have people coming in now, saying they missed a 50th birthday or a 30th wedding anniversary, and asking do I have anything special to make up for it?” And he does — in fact, that’s rather the point. Whether you missed celebrating your 70th birthday or are toasting to one of those unlikely lockdown engagements, Gibbs has wine for you in his vast collection, no matter your birth year or price point. “There’s no formula for what we have open here, no rules,” Gibbs said, a shy grin on his face, as though the very notion brings him elemental pleasure. “Every bottle is waiting for the right person.” Now more than ever.

Column: In diverse Southern California, loquats are the real fruit MVPs

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-04/loquats-southern-california-nisperos-misbeliefs-nor-ashkhar

My wife and I sped through the streets of Santa Ana, weaving down side streets and around double-parked cars, in search of the magic house. The one with all the loquats. Late spring is when Southern California erupts with the small, fuzzy pastel-orange or -yellow fruit. Trees have groaned with their bounty for over a century in places as varied as Compton and Santa Monica, Santa Ana and Pasadena, East Los Angeles and Long Beach. They’re remnants of an era when loquats, not avocados or oranges, were a marquee crop, a sign that the region was a subtropical paradise. Today, they’re the happiest regional problem we have. Loquats seem to ripen all at once, which sparks a communal race against the clock that sees anyone who has a tree try to get as many as possible before the parrots gorge on them. People dust off their recipe books to tackle all the loquats. Jams. Preserves. Butter. Upside-down cake. Empanadas. Barbecue sauce. Liqueur. Or we just eat them fresh until we can’t stomach them anymore, and then beg neighbors to take away the rapidly browning fruit by the bucketful. That was the situation my wife and I found ourselves in as we cruised around. The previous day, she had knocked on the door of a stranger’s house whose loquat tree was particularly gigantic and asked if we could grab some. Now, she couldn’t remember where that home was — and all the other loquat trees in the barrio made the quest even harder. “That one’s not it — the fruits aren’t ready,” she said. Nor that one — too barren. Maybe that one, I offered? That was a pine. Finally, we found the house. The tree was at least 20 feet tall and had so many loquats that it glowed like a traffic cone. We set up our equipment: bags, clippers and a rickety ladder. Usually, my wife waits for friends and customers to unload crates of them at her store, a market and deli in downtown Santa Ana. But today, we picked with extra vigor. We were on a mission to defend the honor of the humble Eriobotrya japonica. Over the weekend, the popular website Atlas Obscura published a story about loquats with the headline “Los Angeles Is Covered in Delicious Fruit and No One Is Eating It.” The headline was later changed, but it was too late. Foodies and commoners alike in Southern California railed on social media against this insult to our culinary soul. Many took exception to the author’s assertion that the neighborhoods of Silver Lake and Los Feliz were the Eastside of L.A. (Boyle Heights has something to say about that.) Others rolled their eyes at this latest installment of a newly transplanted East Coaster making a grand pronouncement about the way we live that’s inevitably, laughably wrong. But the real outrage was the premise of the article itself: No one eats loquats? Says who? It’s one of the rare fruits in these modern times that we can’t buy year-round at Southern California supermarkets because of how quickly they spoil. So their appearance is a beloved annual ritual — it’s more accessible than the Tournament of Roses, tastier than a grunion run, less messy than jacarandas. But I was surprised at the level of love Southern California had for the loquat in the wake of the Atlas Obscura article. All of our disparate, divided communities seemingly united to trash the piece — even the “Eastside” hipsters who the reporter claimed had no idea about the fruit. On Twitter, followers and strangers alike regaled me with their loquat stories. Latinos were surprised to learn that was the English name for the fruits they knew as nísperos, mísperos or nísferos, depending on whether you’re Mexican or Central American. Asians shared photos of Nin Jiom cough syrup derived from loquat leaves. People with roots in New Orleans told me they called the fruits “misbeliefs,” a local mispronunciation of the Italian term for them, nespoli. And Armenians probably have the most evocative name for loquats of them all: nor ashkhar, which translates as “new world.” All of this was on my mind as my wife tossed loquats down to me as she reached higher and higher. Then it hit me: not just a stray fruit or five, but a realization. Loquats should be the lodestar of Southern California, the thing upon which we model our lives here. The loquat is an immigrant originally from China but one that spread to many other communities that embraced the fruit as their own. There’s diversity within loquats — the Vista White variety is particularly sweet, while the Golden Nugget type has a crisp tartness. The trees that produce them are hardy — not needing much maintenance or water to fruit well but doing even better with care. The all-at-once harvest creates instant community, because there’s no way just one person can tackle a loquat canning session. And that so many loquats still fall to the ground and rot shows how much Southern Californians take our good life for granted. Loquats are far better exemplars of how to live in Southern California than two other fruits that have long dominated the cultural life of the region: avocados and oranges. As delicious as they are, they’re simply not good neighbors. Both are notorious water guzzlers that need constant care and attention and wither if ignored. You rarely find them on public property the way you do loquats, and people don’t hand them out as freely. Avocados and oranges both have a dark side, too. Our voracious consumption of the former has inspired drug cartels to shake down growers in Mexico. Oranges, meanwhile, became a multimillion-dollar business here on the backs of exploited Mexican laborers like both of my grandfathers, then struck from the industry’s history. Loquats? The reason so many exist in working-class communities is that the workers who picked them took the large brown seeds back home to sprout their own trees. My wife and I left the Santa Ana house with a 99 Ranch Market bag full of loquats so ripe it seemed they would burst if you just looked at them. We dropped them off at her store, but I made sure to keep one for myself to enjoy in our frontyard. Biting into its mildly sweet flesh was like an early summer day: cooling, comforting, perfect. I spit out the seed, then went to check on our loquat seedling, which has grown a few new leaves these last couple of weeks. In a land where we chuck out yesterday’s treasures with little thought, loquats spring eternal.

Column: This L.A. company has a 'microbiome' test for your cat's teeth. Does it work?

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-06-04/column-cats-dna-dental-care

A Los Angeles company called Basepaws feels very strongly about good dental hygiene for cats — and it wants cat owners to feel the same. The company is rolling out a $70 “at-home, preventative dental test” that it says “analyzes more than 600 microbes in a cat’s mouth, looking for disease signatures before they become visible to the naked eye.” This first-of-its-kind test follows Basepaws’ $129 home DNA test for your cat’s genealogy, which was introduced several years ago. “Our pets can’t talk,” Anna Skaya, the company’s chief executive and founder, told me. “Genetic testing is one of the only things you can do to understand your pet better.” She’s right — up to a point. We have two rescue cats in our home, although one of them, as my Twitter friends know, thinks he’s a dog. Pets can’t talk, true. But they certainly communicate with their human servants. Dogs are better at this than cats, in my opinion. They’re more expressive and, I’d argue, more emotional. But cats also get their point across. When they’re feeling poorly, they frequently lose their appetite. They sulk around the house or disappear under the bed or into a closet. In other words, they make it plain something’s wrong. So the question to be asked about Basepaws’ at-home teeth test — which involves swabbing your cat’s mouth and sending in the swab for laboratory analysis — is whether you gain meaningful insights from all those microbes. Skaya, needless to say, says yes. “You probably don’t brush your cat’s teeth every day,” she said. I don’t know a single cat owner who does, myself included. If that makes me a bad person, so be it. “Genetic testing,” Skaya said, “is a door that will change the way you talk to your vet about your cat.” OK, I get that. If you have test results for a mouthful of microbes, you will indeed be in a position to ask your vet what this or that data point means. As Skaya says, “This keeps you ahead of any problems.” But that assumes the test actually produces worthwhile results. I reached out to a number of specialists in veterinary dentistry. I shared with them Basepaws’ news release announcing the dental test kit. Not one said they were convinced the product was worth the money. Santiago Peralta, an associate professor of dentistry and oral surgery at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, said Basepaws’ claims made “very little or no scientific or medical sense to me.” “The information suggests that the people behind the product do not comprehend the clinical or mechanistic features of periodontal disease, or of the other dental disorders that frequently affect cats and other species,” he told me. Jason Soukup, a clinical professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine, said Basepaws’ test “could be too heavily relied upon, very easily misinterpreted and lead to unsupported recommendations for care.” “I do not think there is enough data” to support the company’s claims, said Stephanie Goldschmidt, an assistant professor of veterinary medicine at the University of Minnesota. Basepaws’ Skaya countered that her company’s teeth test had been reviewed by veterinarians. It works as advertised, she said. Skaya shared with me a paper submitted to the Journal of Veterinary Dentistry that hadn’t yet been peer reviewed. “The field of oral microbiome research in companion animals has received little focus and it is still in its infancy,” the paper’s authors acknowledge. They admit they’re working with limited data. Even so, they conclude that the Basepaws test “has the potential to facilitate diagnosis of early stage dental diseases.” That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement. But it does at least raise the possibility there’s scientific merit to the swab-and-see approach to feline dental care. Nevertheless, a 2018 study in the journal Genetics in Medicine found that as much as 40% of findings in home DNA tests for humans indicating a risk of disease turned out to be false positives — which is to say, they were wrong. Also, be super careful when sticking your hands anywhere near a cat’s mouth. I spent a week in the hospital after a cat bit me, resulting in nearly $55,000 in medical bills. Kitty microbes, it turns out, can be toxic. And expensive. Yet I bravely tried the Basepaws teeth test on Jupiter, one of our cats, who was amenable to having the inside of his cheek swabbed only because I caught him during a power nap. I’ll post the results on Twitter in a few weeks. As for Basepaws’ home DNA test for delving into your cat’s genealogical history, take all such findings with a grain of salt. I’ve done DNA tests (not from Basepaws) on myself and my dog. Apparently I’m 11.3% Scandinavian, 7.8% Spanish or Portuguese, and 3.1% Italian — all of which was news to my parents, who are aware of no such ancestry. My rescue dog Teddy’s genetic cup is supposedly brimming with Saint Bernard DNA. Maybe if you squint, but I’m not so sure. Sheldon Krimsky, a professor in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University and author of a number of books on genetics, told me it was best to think of ancestry tests “more as a recreational activity.” That is, they may be more fun than fact. Like your horoscope in the newspaper. Also, and I’m not sure why exactly, I find it more interesting to look under the hood of a dog’s DNA than a cat’s. A dog, like a person, can be the sum of many parts. A cat is a cat. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. In any case, I think Skaya is probably right when she says “at-home products are a big part of the future of pet healthcare.” I’m just not sure we’re there yet.

U.S. added a modest 559,000 jobs in May, a sign of more hiring struggles

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-06-04/may-jobs-report-unemployment-coronavirus

Hiring in the United States picked up in May yet was slowed again by the struggles of many companies to find enough workers to keep up with the economy’s swift recovery from the pandemic recession. U.S. employers added 559,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said Friday, an improvement from April’s sluggish increase of 278,000. Yet the gain fell well short of employers’ need for workers. The unemployment rate fell to 5.8% from 6.1%. The speed of the rebound, fueled by substantial federal aid and rising vaccinations, has created a disconnect between businesses and the unemployed: While companies are rushing to add workers immediately, many of the unemployed are still holding back. Some of the jobless probably are seeking better positions than they had before the pandemic triggered widespread layoffs. Or they still lack affordable child care. Others still worry about contracting COVID-19 or have decided to retire early. And a temporary $300-a-week federal unemployment benefit, on top of regular state jobless aid, probably has led many unemployed Americans to take time to consider their options. That mismatch between employers and job seekers resulted in the sharp slowdown in hiring in April, when businesses added far fewer workers than economists had forecast and many fewer than had been hired in March. The disconnect eased somewhat in May. But economists say it probably will persist until early fall, when schools reopen, COVID-19 fades further and federal unemployment benefits end. “There is a gap between the economy and labor market,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at payroll processing firm ADP. May’s job gains, she said, are “more lackluster than one would expect given the strong state of economic growth.” Business Jobs will come back and the state’s economy will recover faster than the nation’s, a UCLA forecast says, led by consumer spending, tech jobs and home-building June 2, 2021 The May jobs report offered a number of signs that companies are trying harder to find workers. They’re offering more money, for one thing. Average hourly pay jumped for a second straight month, especially in the leisure and hospitality industry, which includes restaurants, bars, hotels and amusement parks. Hourly wages for all workers in that industry, except managers, were 6.4% higher in May compared with pre-pandemic levels — a substantial gain. And the number of unemployed who say their jobs are permanently lost declined in May by the most in five months. That’s an encouraging sign that companies are going beyond just recalling workers they had laid off in the pandemic. Yet many of those jobs are still low-paying and not appealing to many Americans — people such as Marcellus Rowe, who has been unemployed since he lost his $16-an-hour job at the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority in November 2019. Rowe, 29, says the only jobs he sees being advertised for someone like him pay scarcely more than $9 or $10 an hour for work in restaurants and small shops. That isn’t enough to cover his $1,000 monthly rent. “I’m going to continue to look for suitable work,” Rowe said. “I know it’s going to come eventually. What I cannot do is settle for an unsuitable job that pays low wages.” He’s been getting by on unemployment benefits, boosted by the $300-a-week federal supplement. But Georgia is eliminating the federal benefit June 26. Nearly half the states — all led by Republican governors — will cut off the extra aid starting this month. Many businesses have blamed the federal benefit for discouraging some of the jobless from taking work. “It’s really going to be a hardship,” Rowe said, noting that he already has dropped cable television service to save money. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said Friday that the complaints from businesses about the federal jobless aid is “a distraction” and noted that the number of people applying for unemployment aid is falling steadily. Eric Winograd, an economist at AllianceBernstein, an investment management firm, said there are still about 7 million people not searching for work — and so aren’t counted as unemployed — but who say in government surveys that they want a job. That’s about 50% higher than before the pandemic. “That is compelling evidence that there is a large pool of workers who will return to work when they feel that it is safe or when they are able to sort out child care,” Winograd said. For now, many large chains, including Amazon, Walmart, Costco and Chipotle, have raised starting pay to try to attract more applicants. And the average workweek remained elevated last week, which suggests that businesses, struggling to hire, are working their current staffs for longer hours. Some smaller companies have also boosted pay and taken other steps to fill jobs, but are still looking for more workers. National Church Residences, a provider of senior living centers based in Columbus, Ohio, with 340 locations around the country, steadily raised its minimum wage to $14.50 an hour over several years before the pandemic. Danielle Willis, senior vice president of human resources at the company, said those increases have helped attract staff. The company also provides healthcare and a 5% matching payment into a retirement plan for its full-time employees, including nurse aides, property managers and maintenance workers. Yet the 2,700-person company still has 300 positions open nationwide. Nationally last month, the bulk of the job growth was at hotels, restaurants and bars, which gained 220,000 positions. Retailers lost jobs for a second straight month. And despite a hot housing market, the construction industry shed 20,000 jobs, its second straight month of cuts, probably reflecting supply shortages and soaring costs for building materials. The economy expanded last quarter at a robust 6.4% annual rate, and economists envision growth in the current quarter reaching a sizzling pace of 9% or more. All that growth, driven by higher spending, has raised inflation fears. But for now, it has mainly propelled demand for labor. Though the economy still has 7.6 million fewer jobs than it did before the pandemic struck, job postings in late May were nearly 26% above pre-pandemic levels, according to employment website Indeed. Government data show that posted jobs have reached their highest level on record dating to 2000. Consumers are opening their wallets. In April, they increased their spending after a huge gain in March that was fueled by the distribution of $1,400 stimulus checks. With more Americans feeling comfortable about staying in hotels and visiting entertainment venues, spending on services jumped. Becky Frankiewicz, president of temporary staffing firm Manpower Group’s North American division, said many of the firm’s clients are raising pay and benefits to try to attract more applicants. Some of these companies, particularly in manufacturing and warehousing, also are trying other tactics, such as paying their workers weekly or even daily, rather than every two weeks. Manpower is also encouraging its clients to make job offers the same day as an interview rather than waiting. About 60% of Manpower’s temporary placements are leaving their jobs before a temporary assignment ends, Frankiewicz said, mostly because they are receiving better offers. “People have options,” she said. “Companies have to offer speed in cash, speed to hire and a lot of flexibility in how they work.” For now, though, there are signs that many of the unemployed remain cautious about seeking jobs. On Thursday, Tony Sarsam, chief executive of SpartanNash, a grocery distributor and retailer, said on a conference call with investors that the company took part last month in a job fair with 60 companies that had 500 jobs to fill. “Only four candidates showed up,” Sarsam said.

To keep job, Rams' Johnny Hekker knows his punting must be on the money

https://www.latimes.com/sports/rams/story/2021-06-04/rams-punter-johnny-hekker-competing-rams-job

He is the longest-tenured Rams player. Punter Johnny Hekker started his career with the team as an undrafted free agent in 2012. The four-time Pro Bowl selection is the NFL’s highest-paid player at his position, carrying a salary-cap number of $4.9 million, according to overthecap.com. And for the first time in years, Hekker is competing for his job. Last season, Hekker averaged a career-low 45.6 yards per punt. In April, after the Rams signed former Buffalo Bills punter Corey Bojorquez, Rams coach Sean McVay and general manager Les Snead, when pressed, said there was not a punting competition. But Thursday, during a videoconference with reporters, Hekker, 31, said words spoken in news conferences were just that: words. He is approaching every organized-team activity workout on the field and in the weight room as a competition. “When push comes to shove, they have to make the best decisions for this roster,” Hekker said, “and there’s no running around the financial aspect of it. So, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to put together the best roster that you can. Rams Rams receiver Cooper Kupp said he suffered a “de-gloving injury” last season, called a Morel-Lavalle’e lesion, in which skin and tissue separate from underlying tissue. June 3, 2021 “And Corey is wildly talented. And so I think for me, to for a second not think of this as a competition and not prepare myself every day like it is a competition would be doing myself and this team a disservice.” Bojorquez, 24, played at Lakewood Mayfair High, Cerritos College and New Mexico before signing with the New England Patriots in 2018. He spent the last three seasons with the Buffalo Bills, and last season averaged a career-best 50.8 yards per punt. Brandon Wright is another punter on the offseason roster. New special teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis is evaluating seven specialists, including kickers Matt Gay and Austin MacGinnis and long-snappers Matthew Orzech and Steven Wirtel. The large number of specialists reflects how NFL teams stocked up with players on the practice squad because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Orzech and Wirtel are competing to replace Jake McQuaide, the Rams’ long-snapper for 10 seasons. McQuaide signed with the Dallas Cowboys, reuniting with former Rams special teams coordinator John Fassel and kicker Greg Zuerlein. “I’m definitely starting to feel like the old guy,” Hekker said, “but I’m still having a ton of fun every day, showing up with enthusiasm and giving it all I got.” Rams Veteran offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth has had teammates visit his Westlake Village home to lift weights this offseason. June 1, 2021 Last season, after Fassel left to join Mike McCarthy’s Cowboys staff, Rams special teams were inconsistent under the direction of John Bonamego. In April, McVay hired DeCamillis and retained Bonamego as a senior assistant. Hekker acknowledged that his performance last season was below standard. “I definitely did not perform to the best of my abilities,” he said. “There were a few games that I really, I don’t know, just kind of got just maybe ahead of myself mentally. ... There were definitely some kicks out there that I would have liked to have seen go better for the team. ... When I don’t put our team in good positions that’s the stuff that really bugs me. “So, I think them going out and signing Corey is a great move. Corey is a great punter. ... A guy that has one of the strongest legs I’ve ever seen. ... Him and Brandon are both guys that are sound technically and they’re going to help keep me on my Ps and Qs.” Gay signed with the Rams last October after McVay could no longer tolerate misses by rookie Samuel Sloman and moved on from veteran Kai Forbath. Gay made 14 of 16 field-goal attempts. Gay said that Hekker, the holder for field-goal and extra-point attempts, was correct to approach every workout as a competition. “When people start hitting balls and the juices get flowing, that competitive side comes out,” Gay said. “Both of them, Johnny and Corey, have been hitting it really good. Super consistent. ... They’re both great punters, and it’s been fun to watch both of them just kind of hit the ball and goin’ at it.” Rams Quarterback Matthew Stafford is entering his 13th NFL season, but feels like a new start with the Rams. Teammates can first look at his talents. May 24, 2021 Hekker will continue to do so through next week’s minicamp and summer training camp as the Rams prepare for their Sept. 12 opener against the Chicago Bears at SoFi Stadium. “The second that you take something for granted of something for certainty in this league is the day you get surprised,” he said. “So I’m just enjoying every day and just doing my best to prepare and help this team however I can.”

Clippers look to make Game 6 history and keep season alive

https://www.latimes.com/sports/clippers/story/2021-06-04/clippers-mavericks-game-6-preview-historic-road-win

Otis Birdsong was on a business trip in Florida when he began watching Game 5 of the first-round matchup between the Clippers and Dallas on Wednesday night. Seeing the Clippers lose at home for the third time in the series, and only days after they’d drawn even with two road wins in Texas, went nothing like his prediction. “If I was a betting man, I would have bet a lot of money that they would win Game 5,” Birdsong said Thursday. “This series is crazy.” As surprised as Birdsong was, he should not have been. After all, he is one of about four dozen NBA players in the league’s 75-year history who knows what it feels like to be in the Clippers’ and Mavericks’ sneakers, amid a series defying one of the NBA’s most closely held beliefs: In the increased intensity of the playoffs, home is where the advantage lies. Before the road team won the first five games of this matchup, it had happened only twice before: in 1984, when a New Jersey Nets roster featuring Birdsong, a 6-foot-3 guard, stunned defending champion Philadelphia in a five-game, first-round series, and in the 1995 best-of-seven Western Conference finals in which Houston outlasted a top-seeded San Antonio team featuring the league’s most valuable player, David Robinson, and three future NBA coaches in Doc Rivers, Vinny Del Negro and Avery Johnson. For participants of both series, watching the Clippers and Mavericks alternate losing home-court advantage in a slugfest with plot twists produced by Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and Luka Doncic has brought back memories of their own places in the league’s more obscure playoff history. “It’s weird because you look at the Clippers and you look at the team like damn, they got a good team, what’s missing? Why are they not doing it?” said Robert Horry, the former Rockets forward. “The thing they did I think will be helpful is they shortened their rotation but all of a sudden, you got one of those phenomenal players like Luka to go off and have a good game, 40 points, you can’t let that happen. “You’ve got to figure a way to get the ball out of his hands and that’s one thing we did. We made sure we didn’t let David Robinson get off. Everybody else can step up, but you can’t let the star of the team get off.” Clippers The Clippers are on the cusp of elimination by the Mavericks, who took the series lead after Luka Doncic’s historic effort on the Clippers’ home turf. June 3, 2021 The former Nets and Rockets stars felt empowered by the rowdy road environment, not paralyzed, a feeling shared by the current Clippers and Mavericks. “I think we definitely enjoyed it,” Clippers guard Reggie Jackson said of the team’s mood after arriving in Dallas last week, trailing by two games. “Just going out there and trying to have a villain’s mentality, showing up to try to be a spoiler.” Unlike the Clippers, or the 1995 Rockets, who had won the previous season’s championship, the Nets arrived in Philadelphia for the series’ first game without serious title aspirations having finished the regular season 45-37. Free of expectations but believing they matched up well in part because of the presence of former 76ers center Darryl Dawkins, they played unburdened. “It was no pressure on us,” said Micheal Ray Richardson, who averaged more than 20 points during the series to lead the Nets. “We just played free and just had fun.” The 76ers won Game 3 in New Jersey, their rally beginning after the Nets’ mascot emerged near Philadelphia’s bench, sweeping a broom in premature celebration, then tied the series with an eight-point win in Game 4. The lost opportunity to put away Julius Erving, Moses Malone and Maurice Cheeks “was very frustrating,” Birdsong said, “because you expect to win at least one home game.” Yet the Nets remained loose, finding motivation when comments made by Erving before Game 5 that the 76ers would prevail easily were relayed to them. “When we got to Philly, when we had our practice the day before, we walked in the gym and said, ‘OK guys, we’re back home!’” Birdsong said. While celebrating after Game 5, Birdsong looked into Philadelphia’s thinning crowd and saw Erving’s then-wife, Turquoise, “in unbelief, shocked” in the stands. “It was dead silence after that final buzzer went off and we had won that game,” Birdsong said. “That was one of the greatest feelings I’ve ever experienced in the NBA.” The Nets boarded their bus and partied all the way to New Jersey before flying to Milwaukee — where the Nets won the second-round opener on the road. Eleven years later, by the time the sixth-seeded Rockets left San Antonio with a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference finals, they had already closed out a first-round win against Utah on the road and rallied from a 3-1 deficit with a Game 7 win in Phoenix. After two road wins in front of more than 33,000 Spurs fans inside the Alamodome, the Rockets “got comfortable” once back at home, Horry said, allowing the Spurs to draw even. “We just felt like, oh well,” Horry said. “We almost felt like we were going back home. We had been the road warrior team, and we were fine with that. It was hard to explain but we were just flat-out comfortable going on the road.” “You have to have no fear because it’s all about blocking out the noise. Think about it: When you’re at home, you have to think about your wife getting to the game, your kids getting to the game, your parents in town, there’s a lot of distractions when you play at home. But when you’re on the road, it’s just you and your teammates and you’re more focused.” Clippers The Clippers again failed to win a home game in the playoff series with the Mavericks, who won Game 5 at Staples Center behind Luka Doncic’s 42 points. June 2, 2021 The Rockets closed out the Spurs by finally doing what the Mavericks are hoping to match Friday — breaking the home-court curse and winning Game 6 in their own arena. To stave off a stunning first-round elimination, the Clippers must make history by claiming a sixth straight victory by a road team. Foreboding odds and unprecedented feats are nothing daunting for Clippers coach Tyronn Lue, whose 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers remain the only NBA champion to rally from a 3-1 Finals deficit. And Birdsong, himself a witness to the playoffs’ unpredictability, is not counting them out. “With Kawhi Leonard and his pedigree, there’s no way it’s over,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the Clippers went in there and won.”

Coroner's report: Extreme heat played role in Shane Thomas' accidental death

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-04/shane-thomas-death-coroner-report

The San Bernardino County Coroner’s Division has ruled the cause of death last August of Palisades High soccer player Shane Thomas as accidental after his body overheated. He was 17. “Hyperthermia due to elevated environmental temperature,” according to the autopsy report. Thomas was practicing at Ayala Park in Chino with his club team on the morning of Aug. 15, one of the hottest days of the summer. The temperature reached triple digits in the area. He was discovered missing after practice, and later found unresponsive and not breathing near the park’s batting cages. He was pronounced dead at Chino Valley Medical Center. The cause of death took months to be finalized because of a backlog of cases, according to a coroner’s spokeswoman.

Essential California: A growing enthusiasm for basic income programs

https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2021-06-04/basic-income-programs-essential-california

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Friday, June 4. I’m Jaclyn Cosgrove, here in Los Angeles with my colleague Maggie May. California appears to be leading the charge in experimenting with basic income programs for its residents. I recently explored how the L.A. County Board of Supervisors was considering a universal basic income pilot program that would provide monthly payments of at least $1,000 to 1,000 residents for three years, no strings attached. Supervisors Holly Mitchell and Sheila Kuehl proposed the program, arguing the most populous county in America must fundamentally shift how it tackles anti-poverty policy. The concept of universal basic income is fairly straightforward: provide regular payments to recipients without any requirement for how they spend the money or that they work. It has been around for decades. In the 1970s, one of the largest experiments — the Seattle-Denver Income Maintenance Experiment, or SIME-DIME — provided 4,800 low-income families in the two cities with cash payments. Reflecting on the program’s impact, Georgetown professor Karl Widerquist wrote in 2017 that much of the media and research attention around the program focused not on its goals but instead on a controversial, now debated, finding of a higher divorce rate among the control group. The Times story on the findings, published Dec. 13, 1978, started with an all caps heading: “MARRIAGES BREAK UP.” “The higher divorce rate in some studies examining SIME-DIME was widely presented as a negative effect, even though the only explanation for it [was] that the (negative income tax) must have relieved women from financial dependence on husbands,” Widerquiest said. “It is at the very least questionable to label one spouse staying with another solely because of financial dependence as a ‘good’ thing.” Fast forward to the 21st century, where women are seen as worthy regardless of their marital status, and the country is seeing the next wave of basic income programs. Stockton has one of the best-known. Launched in early 2019, the program gave 125 randomly selected residents $500 a month for two years. During that two years, participants had greater success finding full-time employment and were healthier, suffering from lower rates of anxiety and depression. Start your day right Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. That program’s success inspired former Stockton Mayor Michael D. Tubbs to launch the organization Mayors for Guaranteed Income. Several California mayors have joined the group, including L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, who in April proposed a $24-million program that would provide $1,000 a month to 2,000 Los Angeles families for a year. Compton Mayor Aja Brown is also a member and helping lead the charge for the Compton Pledge that plans to pay $300 to $600 a month to 800 low-income city residents for two years. In total, if each local program is funded, L.A. County will have 3,400 residents and families receiving some level of guaranteed income. So what’s next for L.A. County’s program? Mitchell and Kuehl’s motion passed, 4-1, and now mandates that the county chief executive’s office establish a plan in the coming months for the guaranteed income pilot program. It requires $36 million in funding, which the supervisors hope to get from federal money. Supervisor Kathryn Barger, the only Republican on the five-member board, voted against the measure. Barger said she was worried about giving money without restrictions or fraud protections in place to an undefined group of residents. “Our focus should be to provide care and resources that will help our entire foster youth population succeed before we expand social services to include a universal income,” Barger said. Barger’s comments echo how many conservatives her age feel. A recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center found a narrow majority of Americans, 54% of U.S. adults surveyed, who said they would oppose a federal universal basic income program. Younger adults and people with lower incomes were more supportive. Interestingly, even though the concept is generally not well-liked among conservatives, 41% of Republicans ages 18 to 34 favor it, “by far the highest share of any GOP age group,” according to Pew. It’ll be interesting to see how the conversation around universal basic income evolves in L.A. County and beyond as we attempt to rebuild our post-pandemic lives and economy. And now, here’s what’s happening across California: Note: Some of the sites we link to may limit the number of stories you can access without subscribing. Armed and drunk. A Times investigation found that, unlike law enforcement agencies across the country, the Los Angeles Police Department lacks an explicit policy that not only punishes armed off-duty officers who get intoxicated and into trouble but precludes them from carrying their weapons while intoxicated in the first place. This omission puts the LAPD at odds with other law enforcement agencies in the region and country. Los Angeles Times (This is story is exclusive to Times subscribers.) Leaving Los Angeles. An estimated 10% of people living in L.A. County plan to move away in the next year, a USC study finds. L.A. residents are less satisfied with their quality of life compared to people throughout California and the U.S., but perceive less crime, vandalism, and drug and alcohol use in their neighborhoods than two years ago, according to the second annual USC Dornsife-Union Bank LABarometer livability survey. ABC7 F. Lee Bailey dies at 87. He was once the most famous trial attorney in the country, known for his lightning-quick mind, relentless courtroom interrogations and insatiable self-promotion. In 1995, Bailey was part of the “dream team” of attorneys who successfully represented O.J. Simpson at his murder trial in Los Angeles, a television spectacle that was rabidly absorbed by viewers coast to coast. Los Angeles Times Lakers exit the playoffs. The Phoenix Suns eliminated the Lakers from the NBA playoffs after star Anthony Davis limped off the court midway through Game 6. Los Angeles Times Support our journalism Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times. A change to workplace masking mandates. A California safety board recommended relaxing workplace safety rules for people vaccinated against COVID-19, meaning that on June 15, employees will probably be able to take off their masks in a room if everyone there is vaccinated. Los Angeles Times A “euphoric” rebound. California’s strict public health measures during the pandemic protected its economy, setting the stage for an even faster recovery in the state than nationwide, UCLA economists reported. Los Angeles Times Dangerous misinformation. Myths about COVID-19 continue to proliferate in social media, concerning public health officials about how those mistruths are affecting vaccination rates. Los Angeles Times A court order to pay. Former Rep. Katie Hill, who briefly represented northern L.A. County in Congress, has been ordered to pay about $220,000 in attorneys’ fees to a British tabloid and two conservative journalists she sued in her unsuccessful revenge porn lawsuit. Hill accused them of violating the law by publishing intimate pictures without her consent. Los Angeles Times Fresno, free speech and LGBTQ Pride flags. In an ongoing saga over whether Fresno should fly a rainbow flag at its City Hall in acknowledgement of Pride month, Mayor Jerry Dyer proposed an alternative — installing several flagpoles at a park where the city could fly a variety of flags. Advocates and LGBTQ residents argued the idea felt “separate but not equal.” Fresno Bee $11-billion solution. A leading research organization is boldly putting a dollar amount on what it thinks it would take to whisk every unhoused person in the Bay Area off the streets: $11.8 billion. San Francisco Chronicle A botched plan. State regulators ordered Southern California Edison to significantly change how the utility cuts customers’ power in high fire risk zones on red flag alert days. The Public Utilities Commission said Edison did a poor job communicating with the public and didn’t provide adequate support to customers left in the dark. LAist Our wild neighbors. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal includes millions in funding to help the California Department of Fish and Wildlife better address the increasing encounters city dwellers are having with bears, cougars and coyotes. Sacramento Bee Abandoned eggs. Two drones illegally flown over the biggest nesting island for least terns in Huntington Beach’s Bolsa Chica wetlands spooked several thousand birds and prompted them to abandon their nests, leaving behind about 3,000 eggs. There will be no hatchlings this year on the sand-covered island, which is now littered with the egg shells. In more than 20 years, conservationists have never seen such a large-scale abandonment of eggs there. Orange County Register An overdue library item. A San Francisco man recently returned a Bob Dylan album to a library — 48 years overdue. Howard Simon noticed a copy of “Self Portrait,” which he had checked out from the University Heights Library in Ohio in 1973 and never returned. San Francisco Chronicle Waiting on that Nike apology. Vanessa Bryant posted on Instagram early Thursday, upset that a pair of sneakers she worked on with Nike in honor of her daughter Gianna were released to the public without her consent. Los Angeles Times Free online games Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and arcade games in our new game center at latimes.com/games. Los Angeles: sunny, 78. San Diego: partly cloudy, 69. San Francisco: cloudy, 62. San Jose: partly cloudy, 76. Fresno: sunny, 102. Sacramento: mostly sunny, 94. Today’s California memory comes from Katey O’Neill: My family lived in Playa del Rey in the early 1960s, when I was in high school. I learned to surf at Dockweiler Beach, just three blocks from our house. Our suburban neighborhood, which no longer exists, bordered the L.A. International Airport safety zone at the time. People who visited would always ask, “How can you stand that noise?”, when we would have to stop our conversations every two minutes as a jet flew low overhead. We got used to the noise. Sometime after my parents sold that home and I had gone off to college, LAX extended their safety zone. The house my family had lived in and the entire neighborhood were demolished. A few years later I took a jet from LAX that flew over that Playa del Rey neighborhood. I was amazed to look down from the jet and see only streets, sidewalks, and sand dunes. All the houses were gone. My old neighborhood had quickly reverted back to nature. If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. (Please keep your story to 100 words.) Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.

Calendar Feedback: This is not the time for luxury TV picks

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-06-04/calendar-feedback-sunday-june-6

When I saw your article [“Best 15 Shows to Watch Right Now,” May 30] I was hoping to find something new to enjoy. However, it quickly became apparent that all but four of the recommendations were on services you have to pay extra for: Disney+, HBO, HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix, Peacock, Paramount+, Starz. You get the picture. Did it ever occur to you that many viewers are financially strapped right now, worrying about paying for things like food and rent? The whole article seemed completely tone-deaf to me. Peggy Jo AbrahamSanta Monica Mary McNamara is correct when she points out that our governmental and societal policies do not support parents, especially mothers [“Moms Need Some Help in Return,” May 27]. When my American daughter and her dual-citizen husband lived in Canada, they were sent funds to pay for diapers, etc., for their Canadian-born children. Lowering our birth rate is a good and necessary thing. Even so, parents, mothers and fathers need flexibility and support in order to provide quality parenting while being good workers. Low-wage workers in particular need policies that allow them to attend school events or to stay home with a sick child without the fear of losing their job. Sarah E. AdamsRancho Palos Verdes :: Right on. Mary McNamara hit all the points. This country has its head under a baby blanket over the issue of family well-being. In our society, women and children are a low priority, and that makes me angry. It really makes me wonder about the “progress” women have made. My daughter can’t afford to step away from her career as I was able to. Fortunately, I can step in to help her. Many mothers don’t have that support. It is just so much harder for this generation. Daycare, healthcare, affordable housing, safe neighborhoods, quality schools and good parenting are not women’s issues. They belong to everyone. Until we embrace that ownership, our community is failing families and ultimately, the future of our nation. Roza BesserCalabasas :: Any economist can tell you that when women joined the workforce in major numbers in the ‘70s and ‘80s, capitalists jumped for joy. The labor pool nearly doubled, pushing wages down. Consumerism went up as every new gadget and product became a “necessity” and families “enjoyed” more “disposable income.” Meanwhile, moms are run ragged wearing all their hats. And dads are hustling too. There’s no law that says that one parent can’t stay at home and take care of the kids for a time. My wife and I managed to do it. We just didn’t have the latest car or any fancy vacations. We didn’t eat out much. We made our coffee at home. It’s the greatest news in a long time that the birth rate is falling. Never thought I would live to see the day. Like electric cars and buses and environmental activists winning board seats, it shows that perhaps there is a slim chance for humans. And the fact that having children is a choice instead of a presumption is also a good thing. Maybe all the drugs, counterculture, open-mindedness and alternate modes of living and thinking of the ‘60s is finally paying off. And not a moment too soon. Andrew TillesStudio City :: Why has an article, researched and written by a clearly intelligent and articulate and well-educated person regarding a significant matter of national concern, been relegated to the Calendar section of today’s newspaper? Is it because this person is a woman and a mother that her opinion has been somehow downgraded by some L.A. Times policy or the decision of some L.A. Times individual? Joseph MurphyVenice Regarding “Concerts are back, which means one thing: The return of L.A.’s one-and-only ‘Dancing Man’, by Randall Roberts [May 26]: I wish you had provided contact information for the Dancing Man so that I could call him before I purchase any concert tickets to make sure that I am sitting nowhere near him. Audience members like him are highly annoying and feel they are entitled to enjoy themselves at the expense of others. If he must dance, why can’t he go to the side or the back? Why must he impose himself on others? I hope at least the documentary filmmakers interviewed the people sitting behind this jerk. And no, there’s no nicer word for someone like him. Barbara LiebermanWest Hills Lorraine Ali’s commentary on the HBO movie “Oslo” complains about the imbalance of the movie by showing “only” the burning of the Israeli flag and the violence perpetrated by the Palestinians [“‘Oslo’ Revisits a Brief Flicker of Hope,” June 1]. Ali makes no mention of hundreds, indeed thousands, of rocket bombardments not against the Israeli military but targeting citizens. She complains about the “simplicity” of the factual context of “Oslo,” but never sees fit to mention Hamas, which is destroying the Palestinian people whom it purports to represent. Ali is entitled to her opinion, and your readers are entitled to exactly what Ali complains about, balanced reporting. Louis LipofskyBeverly Hills :: Lorraine Ali got it right. “Oslo” lacked all context. It was as subtle as a sledgehammer and as balanced as a congressional budget. John ZaveskyRiverside :: Instead of learning the history of the Mideast from Instagram, I strongly suggest Lorraine Ali start reading some history books. One more “woke,” biased, very offensive and grossly misinformed “review” like this one and the Los Angeles Times will definitely have fewer subscribers, including myself. Jerzy KromolowskiLos Angeles Regarding: “What’s on TV Friday: ‘Lavell Crawford: The Comedy Vaccine’ on Showtime; ‘Jeopardy!’ on ABC” [May 28]: “Jeopardy!” has a clear front-runner for its new permanent host: Buzzy Cohen, who guest-hosted the “Tournament of Champions.” Cohen — who won the 2017 Tournament of Champions — is likable, enthusiastic and keeps the show lively without overshadowing the contestants. While LeVar Burton and Mayim Bialik, among others, have yet to have their turns, Cohen has vaulted ahead of his guest-host predecessors. Stephen A. SilverSan Francisco Editor’s note: Bialik’s two-week run as “Jeopardy!” guest host began May 31. Regarding “Enter a Dreamscape of Van Gogh’s Famed Art” by Julia Barajas [Feb. 21]: The Los Angeles exhibit of “Immersive Van Gogh” has collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in advance sales through the end of the year and is still selling tickets. This exhibit was scheduled to open on May 27 but has canceled an unknown number of shows because they apparently have no venue. How about a warning added to your online story about the show? Or is it a scam? We don’t know because you aren’t reporting on it. Bob GossomChatsworth Regarding Ismail Muhammad’s article about Noah Purifoy, “No More Discards In L.A.” [May 28]: His greatness was, in part, that he saw beyond the circumstances of the here and now and to a potential for beauty. As for his move to the desert, he needed space to put up his vision and had a benefactor to give it to him. Amazing what he produced in those 15 years. Was he “discarded” by L.A., as the headline writer [of the question “What if L.A. didn’t throw people away?” for the digital version of the story] implies? Not so sure about that aspect. His vision was of greater things. Peter YatesCulver City

Imagine no Joshua trees in Joshua Tree National Park

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-04/joshua-trees-climate-change-desert-jim-cornett

If you have any questions about how the plants and animals of Southern California’s deserts are faring as the Earth gets hotter and drier, Jim Cornett is a good bet to have the answers. Roadrunners, palm trees, snakes, Joshua trees — Cornett has studied them all and written more than 40 books. But the 72-year-old ecologist, who fell in love with the desert as a schoolboy and is still on his honeymoon 60 years later, was stumped one day in April near the southern entrance to Joshua Tree National Park. It was just past noon when Cornett came upon a rat’s nest built into the base of an ocotillo, a spindly, long-stemmed plant with Kelly-green leaves and lipstick-red flowers that bloom in spring. This ocotillo was brown and dry, thanks to the drought, and it was sporting a nest the size of a small tumbleweed, fashioned from the brittle twigs of creosote bushes and other plants. “This is only the second time in my life that I’ve seen a wood rat’s nest in a living ocotillo,” said Cornett, who makes multiple visits each year to dozens of study sites to monitor the growth and health of ocotillo plants, Joshua trees and fan palms. “This was not here last year, and I’m shocked to see it.” Cornett, a husky, white-haired gent with contagious curiosity, bent down and studied the makeshift habitat, wondering aloud whether the occupant was home, either dead or alive. Cornett, who reads the desert as if it were a book, straightened up and scanned the surrounding landscape of dried vegetation, including the crunchy remains of last year’s wildflower bloom. In the distance, I saw what looked like a similar nest. We walked over, and, indeed, another rat appeared to have built a home into the base of an ocotillo. Cornett began threading a theory. “Wood rats are 100% dependent on moist food,” he said, “but there are no spring annuals, and no green growth of any kind here. Zero. The cactus are all dead here now because of the changing climate.” Wood rats used to build nests under the cactuses at this location, Cornett said, because they rely on the shade to survive extreme heat and make do without plentiful rainfall. They tend to avoid ocotillos, he said, because a good breeze jostles the stems and that could bring down a nest. But with so many other plants as dry as death, perhaps ocotillos were the next best option. Cornett was fascinated by what appeared to be the rodent’s desperate survival strategy, but doubtful that it would help. “He’s gonna fry this summer,” he said. “This is not going to work.” :: In late March, my wife and I were headed to the desert for a few days and wondered whether, with scant rainfall, there’d be any spring wildflowers to see. I checked the Desert Sun newspaper and saw a quote from Cornett: “Let me put it this way,” he said. “This is a disastrous year for wildflowers. I haven’t seen it this bad in memory.” He was right. On a five-mile hike near Lake Cahuilla in La Quinta, my wife and I saw bighorn sheep, but no wildflowers. In the last year, I’ve written about the ways in which extreme heat, drought and diminishing fog have affected California’s wine industry, redwood trees and marine habitats. I was curious about whether there were visible changes in the desert, so I called Cornett. And that’s how I ended up staring at rat nests in ocotillos. “Our desert areas in California are being rather dramatically changed in composition and appearance,” Cornett said, offering an assessment that casual visitors may have trouble grasping. The desert was dry before. It’s still dry. So what is changing, and why should we care? How about this: Joshua Tree National Park might one day not be the best place to see Joshua trees. Some will survive, Cornett predicts, but many will die. Cornett, in fact, is documenting this and other desert ecosystem transformations for a book, which has a working title of “The California Deserts: Then and Now.” The book will feature a collection of photographs Cornett has taken over time, demonstrating the decline of plant life by aiming his lens at the same locations over a decades-long span. The rat nests in the ocotillos are part of a much bigger saga, he said, in which the characters are insects, birds, rodents, lizards, snakes and other wildlife, along with plant species. Climate- related change has a cascading effect, Cornett said, using the ocotillo to illustrate his point. “The ocotillo is a critically important nectar-producing plant that is vital for migrating hummingbirds that come up from Mexico,” Cornett said. “There may be some species of hummingbirds that will either cease migrating or become extinct because of the slow demise of the ocotillo.” I asked Cornett whether such changes can be definitively tied to climate change. He paused for just a beat, sighed and said we’ve run out of other explanations. :: Cornett’s Palm Springs condo butts up against a section of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument, with rocky cliffs plunging into the ravine that cuts past his home. Over the years, the wildlife show has included a parade of bighorn sheep, bobcats, coyotes, mule deer, striped skunks, racoons, hawks, snakes, a mountain lion and a variety of birds. “That’s a hooded oriole, getting nectar from an aloe plant,” Cornett said when I asked him to ID an eye-popping, bright yellow bird with a contrasting fan of black neck and wing feathers. “It’s the first time I’ve seen him this year.” A gray-and-white-feathered northern mockingbird perched on a tree branch near the patio and stared down at Cornett as if waiting to be acknowledged. Cornett said he and the bird have gotten to know each other. But while some routines in this backyard menagerie endure, others have become less constant. Cornett said that several years ago, he hired someone to trim the tall grasses at the edge of his property. Over two days, the gardener found 19 rattlesnakes, which Cornett — who in 1999 published “Rattlesnakes!: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions” — personally captured and moved to the nearby ravine. “I haven’t seen a rattlesnake in three years,” Cornett said. He attributed their absence to a drier climate. When wildflowers were plentiful, they dropped seeds that were eaten by rodents, which were eaten by snakes. But ongoing drought has put pressure on that cycle. Annual rainfall totals illustrate how the naturally harsh desert environment is becoming even more stressed. Cornett, who meticulously studies weather data compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said less than 1 inch of rain has fallen at the Palm Springs airport since Nov. 1, well below averages of roughly 4.5 inches for the period over the last half-century, which were down from a 5.5-inch average before that. “We are getting about 20% less rain on average in the last two decades than we did prior to that,” said Cornett, who also noted that average desert temperatures have risen by just under 2 degrees since the middle of the last century. That might sound like a modest change to some people, Cornett said. But for fragile natural environments like those in California’s deserts, he said, the combination of hotter weather and less rainfall can be catastrophic. And something we all took for granted — the occasional glorious explosion of spring wildflowers — could become more rare. “The desert will always have years of super bloom and years when there’s nothing,” Cornet said. “The difference now is that drought is becoming more common, and the intervals between super blooms will be greater.” California The drought in the western United States is putting California’s reservoirs at dangerously low levels. In time, Cornett said, some plants and animals will adapt, but “we will see less of everything” as climate change puts new pressures on virtually all desert species. For centuries, change was barely noticeable, Cornett said. Today, the transformation is accelerated, and we are “watching life on Earth struggle to adapt.” :: Cornett is not the only researcher to document the alarming transformation of the desert. In 2005, climate scientist Kenneth Cole predicted that in some areas, Joshua trees — iconic symbols of Southwestern desert landscapes — would soon be in trouble because of climate change. In a 2011 study, Cole and colleagues projected “the future elimination” of the Joshua tree “throughout most of the southern portion of its current range.” The retired Northern Arizona University professor told me recently that he went from being somewhat skeptical about the perils of climate change in the 1980s to seeing the decline with his own eyes. “I’ve been despondent about the future of the globe since about 1990,” he said. “If we made an all-out effort, we could nip it in the bud, but I don’t see that happening…. It’s crushing. It is really crushing.” In 2011, professor Cameron Barrows, a researcher at UC Riverside’s Center for Conservation Biology, studied the decline of trees in Joshua Tree National Park and was part of a follow-up study eight years later. That team of researchers predicted “an almost complete elimination of the species from the park by the end of the century.” The good news, Barrows told me, is that Joshua trees “are more resilient” at higher elevations of the national park. But at lower elevations, he said, there is little or no “recruitment,” a term used to describe the growth of new trees seeded by mature trees. A healthy Joshua tree looks like a creation cooked up by Mother Nature after a few cocktails with Dr. Seuss. They can stand 40 feet or taller, punching the sky with goofy, gnarled fists. As many as 3 million people visit the national park annually to see them and the rest of the exotic plant life in the distinctive, rocky landscape. World & Nation A new study has calculated that more than one-third of global heat deaths can directly be attributed to human-caused climate change. One of 10 Joshua tree study sites Cornett has been monitoring since 1988 lies in an area at the center of Joshua Tree National Park called Queen Valley. In 1988, he tagged 40 trees at this location. Today, there are only four living trees. A fire about 20 years ago, ignited by a lightning strike, led to the eventual death of the others. And none of the four survivors look like they’re going to make it. When we visited, dry limbs drooped. Some barrel-shaped, dead leaf clusters dangled while others had fallen to ground as dry as death. In decades past, those clusters dropped seeds that sprouted after rains. “There’s no recruitment” now, Cornett said, scanning an area without a single sprout. A drier climate means more vulnerability to fires caused by lightning or vandalism. There’s no more devastating example than last year’s Dome fire at the Mojave National Preserve, an hour or so to the north. The fire, ignited by lightning, incinerated more than 1 million Joshua trees. At the Queen Valley site, Cornett examined the stems of the four surviving trees and discovered yet another assault on their health. “This is the first time I’ve seen signs of rodents attacking stems on this site,” he said, pointing out some gnawed branches. As with the ocotillo, the problem seemed to be that the plants usually found around the trees were dead or dying, leaving virtually no moisture for rodents. They appeared to have dug their teeth into Joshua trees in a last-ditch effort to survive. At the base of one tree, whose age Cornett put at about well over 100, he noticed another threat: A patch of bark had been scraped away. Cornett crouched, inspected, harrumphed. It looked like the work of a jackrabbit, he said, which must have been trying to get at the moisture in the stem. “To chew through bark like that,” he said, “that is one desperate jackrabbit.” Cornett studies Joshua trees for a couple of reasons. They’re a keystone species, meaning they are crucial to a habitat that includes reptiles, insects, birds and other wildlife. And they are known and appreciated by the public, so evidence of their gradual demise might make us all more inclined to consider the planet’s fragile state and do something about it. We can all play a role, Cornett said, by whom we vote into office. We can convert to greener energy sources, make the switch to electric vehicles and build smaller rather than larger homes, with conservation-minded design. It doesn’t help that in the sprawl of Palm Springs, air conditioners drone for months, and lush golf courses and farms pump water from dwindling sources and diminished aquifers. As we toured the park, Cornett took note of visitors photographing ocotillo plants and Joshua trees that had seen better days. The thorny, hardy creosote bushes are doing fine, he said, but he couldn’t imagine people would book hotels, dine at local restaurants and get out their cameras for a tour of Creosote Bush National Park. As these changes shake up the natural world, the broader economy may feel some of the pain. “I would argue right now that Joshua Tree National Park is not the best place to go to see Joshua trees,” Cornett said. But he knows a place that might be, and he promised to take me there. :: Jim Cornett moved around quite a bit as a child because his father, a city manager, took jobs in several cities, including Riverside. He and his siblings looked forward to the family’s birthday tradition, in which each of them would take a trip with Dad. “So he said, ‘Jimmy, where do you want to go?’ I thought Death Valley sounded so exciting. At 6, I had discovered something called dinosaurs, and I thought the closest thing to seeing a dinosaur would be desert reptiles.” On his 10th-birthday trip to the desert, Cornett caught a side-blotched lizard and a tarantula and took them home, “and it kind of snowballed from there.” Climate & Environment A forecast says it’ll likely be so hot in the next five years that there’s a 40% chance the globe will push past the limit set by the Paris climate accord. Cornett majored in political science at UCLA, then became a teacher in Twentynine Palms and later Palm Springs. In his 20s, he pitched a newspaper column on natural science that ran for 40 years in the Desert Sun. As a fledgling journalist, he figured he’d have more credibility with formal training in the sciences, so he went back to school for a biology degree at UC Riverside and later a master’s at Cal State San Bernardino. Cornett, a man with a busy calendar, has also led nature walks at the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens and ran his own desert ecology consulting business, even while writing columns and books. But for 30 years, his primary occupation was to run the natural science division of the Palm Springs Desert Museum, a job that took him to the great deserts of the world to better appreciate and understand California’s Sonoran and Mojave deserts. And he often took grateful colleagues along with him. “He shared his passionate love for nature with all of us in such a personal way that it changed our lives forever,” said Janice Lyle, who ran the Desert Museum while Cornett worked there. Lyle’s daughter became a park ranger in part because of Cornett’s inspiration. His enthusiasm, unlike the desert habitats he studies, has not diminished. “I get as excited today as I was when I was 6,” said Cornett, who tours the great deserts in a white Jeep with a “FANPALM” license plate. Yes, a Jeep, because he needs a four-wheel-drive vehicle for his research, Cornett said. But he wanted me to know that he insisted on the six-cylinder engine, rather than the eight-cylinder gas burner the salesman pitched him. At Indian Canyons on the Agua Caliente reservation near Palm Springs, Cornett pointed out a bush and said, “Now this is a mesquite.” The author of “Indian Uses of Desert Plants” told me the bean pods were a valuable source of protein for Cahuilla Indians. In the desert, fan palm oases are often found along earthquake faults, where crushed sediment pushes groundwater toward the surface. The palms at the center of the Indian Canyon oasis were healthy, but Cornett pointed out several others a couple of hundred yards down Andreas Creek that were as dry as scarecrows. For my last outing with Cornett, we met up in Lone Pine and then traveled east into Death Valley to Lee Flat, which sits at an elevation of 5,300 feet. Ahead of us, flocks of horned larks darted about, just above the ground, and Cornett said they were hunting for seeds from the wildflower blooms in years past. For now, human traffic is relatively light at Lee Flat, which has its benefits. As Cornett put it, vehicle and foot traffic have had their own negative impact on desert life. But it’s cooler at Lee Flat than in much of the desert, and though there’s minimal rainfall, the water is less apt to evaporate. The result is a spectacular forest of Joshua trees. Cornett trudged through the field in his dusty shin-high boots, revisiting marked trees he’s been monitoring for three decades. “They’re all healthy,” he pronounced with his easy smile, and all around the mature trees, youngsters were sprouting by the dozens. This is already perhaps the best place in California to see Joshua trees, Cornett said, and that’s worth celebrating. But it’s also important to recognize why that’s true. Joshua trees are still able to thrive at higher elevations because the changing climate hasn’t caused as much disruption to the ecosystem there. Yet. But climate change models make it clear that natural rhythms might one day be affected here too. Column One A showcase for compelling storytellingfrom the Los Angeles Times. “I was hoping that when I left the planet as a living and breathing human being, I would have left it in a better state than it was in when I was born,” Cornett said. “I can now say with certainty that upon my death, the Earth will be in more trouble than it was in when I was born.” At Lee Flat, under a thin veil of silky white clouds, Cornett pulled out a telescopic tool and gave it a twist, shooting a measuring stick up through some limbs and all the way to the top of a Joshua tree. “Thirty feet tall,” he said, relieved that by all available evidence, in this one corner of a changing planet, for now, the trees are OK.

Editorial: Adel Hagekhalil would be one good step forward for the MWD. Better transparency would be another

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-04/hagekhalil-mwd-transparency

Adel Hagekhalil is an inspired choice to be the next general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the agency that delivers the water ultimately used by half of the state’s population. He’s an engineer, a consensus builder and a champion of the movement to integrate management of different types of water — drinking water, wastewater, stormwater, environmental water — in order to reduce costs and use precious resources more efficiently. He may be exactly what the MWD needs at this point in its history, as it struggles to redefine itself as a supplier of liquid assets not just from distant mountains and rivers, but from recycled urban wastewater. But here’s the problem: Is Hagekhalil (currently head of the L.A. city Bureau of Street Services) actually the MWD board’s choice? As reported in The Times, the board selected Hagekhalil earlier this year in an extremely close vote, but nothing that this massive water wholesaling agency does is ever that simple or that final. The MWD is notorious for its labyrinthine governance rules and lack of transparency. In the instance at hand, board and staff members who would prefer a more traditional water manager and less innovative water policies are working hard to achieve a different outcome in a second vote, scheduled for next week. In a masterstroke of irony, some MWD insiders are arguing that the first vote — in which Hagekhalil reportedly achieved a razor-thin majority of 50.42% — is invalid precisely because the results were made known to the public. In other words, the board kept the outcome a secret, yet The Times reported it anyway, so some member of the board must have leaked the results, and therefore, under a disclosure exception in California’s open meeting law, the vote is invalid. Without getting too far down in the weeds of said law (the Ralph M. Brown Act of 1953, as amended), it’s time for the MWD to focus its attention on its ultimate constituents: the 20 million Californians who pay the bills to the cities and other water districts and agencies represented on the board. Until now, the agency has tended to see the public as its customers, and of course that’s correct — but the public is also really, if indirectly, both the MWD’s constituents and its owners. As taxpayers as well as ratepayers, they could be on the financial hook for the board’s decisions. That gives them a direct interest in MWD business beyond being simply consumers. They have a stake as Californians who want to see their natural environment protected, their water conserved and their costs under control. They also have a stake in the agency’s internal processes, including the treatment of women and people of color in the workforce who, as reported in another Times article, have complained of harassment and discrimination. Representation and voting power on the MWD board is weighted by the size of the city or agency member. The largest single member is the city of L.A., with five mayoral appointees. But the city’s power has been blunted in recent decades by an odd lack of accord among those appointees (they notoriously split 3 to 2 on whether to move ahead with a tunnel project to alter the flow southward of water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta) and by an acrimonious dispute with the next biggest faction, San Diego. But the L.A. members have been on the same page in recent votes, and they and San Diego do see eye-to-eye on a more modern water system that relies less on imports and more on developing local supplies through recycling and other innovations. They are joined by more progressive-oriented small water agencies, and together their thinking represents roughly half of the MWD board, meaning many close votes and lots of lobbying and pressure applied to, especially, the smaller agencies. If Hagekhalil’s selection is finalized, as it should be, he will have far more on his plate than water policy. He should make it a priority to improve the MWD’s relationship with the public and enhance its transparency. If he can pull that off, the more forward-looking water policies that conserve resources and public costs just might fall into place on their own.

Here's how to pick the best retirement account

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-06-04/how-pick-best-retirement-account

Dear Liz: Can you explain the difference between a Roth IRA and a Roth 401(k)? What are the benefits of a Roth 401(k)? My company offers it and I am considering beginning to make deferral contributions there while continuing my 401(k) contributions. Answer: Contributions to Roth IRAs and Roth 401(k)s are after tax, which means you don’t get an upfront tax deduction as you do with traditional IRA and 401(k) accounts. But the money grows tax deferred and can be tax free in retirement. You typically open and contribute to a Roth IRA at a brokerage, which gives you access to a wide range of investment options. Just like traditional 401(k) accounts, Roth 401(k)s are offered by an employer, usually with a limited number of investment choices. Roth 401(k)s allow people to contribute significantly more than they could to Roth or traditional IRAs. Roth 401(k)s also allow contributions by higher earners, who might be shut out of contributing to a Roth IRA. Roth IRA contributions are limited to $6,000 with a $1,000 catch-up contribution for people ages 50 and older. Your ability to contribute begins to phase out at certain income limits. This year, the phaseouts start at $125,000 of modified adjusted gross income for single filers and $198,000 for married couples filing jointly. Roth 401(k)s don’t have income limits and allow you to contribute as much as $19,500 ($26,000 for those age 50 and older). That is the combined limit for elective deferrals from your paycheck. If you’re under 50 and contributing $10,000 to the pretax portion of the 401(k), for example, you could contribute a maximum of $9,500 to the Roth option. Roth IRAs and Roth 401(k)s also have different rules for withdrawals. You can remove your contributions from a Roth IRA at any time without paying taxes or penalties. Withdrawals from a Roth 401(k) before age 59½ also can incur taxes and penalties, although you usually do have the option to take loans. Also, you’re not required to start taking withdrawals at age 72 from a Roth IRA, as you typically are with other retirement accounts, including Roth 401(k)s. You will have the option of rolling a Roth 401(k) into a Roth IRA, typically after you leave your job, so you can avoid minimum required distributions that way. Business CalSavers will offer a lot of workers in California an automatic way to save for retirement. The first deadline is Sept. 30. Here’s what employers and workers should know. Sept. 22, 2020 Dear Liz: My son suddenly passed away and his $1-million life insurance policy was awarded to me, his mother. I want the money to be divided equally between his two children for future use. They are 18 and 15 now. What financial vehicle should I use? The funds are in my money market account just waiting to be placed into something. Answer: Please use some of the money to pay for individualized counsel from advisors who are fiduciaries. Fiduciary means the advisor is required to put your best interests first. Most advisors are not fiduciaries but you can find financial planners who are through the National Assn. of Personal Financial Advisors, the XY Planning Network, the Garrett Planning Network and the Alliance of Comprehensive Planners. The vehicle or vehicles you use for the money will depend on your goals and how you want to distribute the funds over time. You’ll need good advice about how to invest, minimize taxes and incorporate the money into your own estate plan. Distributing money to your grandchildren can trigger the need to file gift tax returns, although you wouldn’t actually owe gift taxes until you’d given away millions of dollars. Your son may have chosen you as his beneficiary because he trusted you to do right by his children. Or he may not have updated his beneficiaries since applying for the policy. (More than a few ex-spouses have wound up with life insurance proceeds because the policy owner didn’t update the beneficiaries after the divorce.) It’s a good idea to check the beneficiaries on any life insurance once a year or after any major life change to make sure the money is still going where you want. Liz Weston, Certified Financial Planner, is a personal finance columnist for NerdWallet. Questions may be sent to her at 3940 Laurel Canyon, No. 238, Studio City, CA 91604, or by using the “Contact” form at asklizweston.com. Business It may be July before ACA exchanges reflect tax credits to make insurance free for those getting unemployment benefits in 2021. But there’s other help. May 26, 2021

The Times podcast: Phone trees, Laotian immigrants and COVID-19

https://www.latimes.com/podcasts/story/2021-06-04/the-times-podcast-laotians-phone-trees

Listen to this episode of The Times: Apple | Spotify | Stitcher | Google The Laotian community in California is not large enough to support newspapers or television news programs in Lao, leaving monolingual immigrants especially isolated. So these immigrants have created elaborate phone trees with designated leaders that can spread important information to thousands of people within an hour. In sprawling California suburbs, the phone trees are an attempt to re-create village networks from back home. And it’s a crucial service — one that’s especially important because there are not enough Lao speakers for government agencies to translate fliers, as is often done in Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean. For instance, some Laotians did not know a COVID-19 vaccine existed until they received a call from the phone tree. On today’s episode, our host is L.A. Times entertainment reporter Tracy Brown, and our guest is Times Metro reporter Anh Do. Host: L.A. Times entertainment reporter Tracy Brown Guest: L.A. Times Metro reporter Anh Do More reading: Elaborate phone tree links Laotian immigrants to COVID info, one another Column: Laotian Americans’ stories are obscured by history. That’s why we need ethnic studies San Diego’s Laotian community pushes for a place in California history books Listen to more episodes of The Times here

Column: Why is it still so hard for former prisoners to become firefighters in California?

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-04/why-is-it-hard-former-prisoners-become-firefighters-california

For the second time in two months, Da’Ton Harris showed up for court this week in San Bernardino County, hoping that a judge would have mercy and expunge his criminal record. He came carrying paperwork — proof that he had battled wildfires while in prison and proof that, in the years since his release, he has become a certified emergency medical responder and works for Cal Fire. His petition to the judge rests on a new law designed to help formerly incarcerated people become firefighters and, in the process, help replenish California’s depleted firefighting ranks just as we head into another potentially disastrous wildfire season. But in April, the judge delayed the proceedings to research the law, which he’d never heard of. This week, the judge sent Harris away because the state had yet to confirm his eligibility to take advantage of it. “They pretty much tried to deny me from jump,” he told me, exasperated. Indeed, in a state ravaged by drought, I find it mind-boggling that it’s still so difficult for people who gained experience battling wildfires while incarcerated to become fully certified firefighters. It seems like a win-win proposition that every judge should recognize: Men and women coming out of prison find meaningful jobs that put their skills to work, and California gains desperately needed trained firefighters. Let’s hope this is just temporary. It is the first year in which thousands of Californians have been able to petition to have their felony records expunged under Assembly Bill 2147, written by Assemblywoman Eloise Reyes (D-Grand Terrace). When Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law last year, many saw it as a solution to the long-running injustice of letting prisoners — most of them Black and Latino — do grunt work for slave wages in state fire camps, and then denying them firefighting jobs with proper pay and benefits upon their release. Months later, it’s clear that AB 2147 is a solution. It’s just not a particularly quick or straightforward one. Harris is just one example. For months, the Victorville resident has been working with Giovanni Pesce, an attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, in hopes of getting a judge to expunge his record, including the drug charge that led him to stints at multiple prison fire camps. Without Pesce, Harris is convinced his case would’ve already been thrown out. And indeed Reyes urges all petitioners to use an attorney. The Judicial Council of California hasn’t even provided judges yet with the proper forms for AB 2147 expungements. In the meantime, Harris is waiting on the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to confirm to the judge that he successfully completed fire camp. He is used to waiting, though — and not giving up. Get the latest from Erika D. Smith Commentary on people, politics and the quest for a more equitable California. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. It took him years, long stretches of which were spent away from his wife and children, and a lot of workarounds to build a resume impressive enough to land a job with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. And he did it, despite the fact that he lacks an emergency medical technician license, which he can’t qualify for unless his record is expunged. “I was going to every fire station, telling them my story, showing them my qualifications,” Harris told me. “And they laughed at me. They laughed, and they told me I wasn’t gonna never be a fireman.” Today, he’s also on staff with the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program, a nonprofit based in Pasadena that provides training and support for former prisoners who want to become career firefighters. That’s how Harris found Pesce. That’s also how Chris Tracy found Pesce after he was released from prison in August. He got out early, as part of the state’s safety precautions for COVID-19. While normally that would be welcome news, particularly for Tracy who has a young son back home in Escondido, the timing meant he missed joining an elite program designed for formerly incarcerated firefighters in Ventura County. Instead, Tracy has resorted to looking for work with private companies that hire firefighters to protect their property during wildfires. The pay is decent, but he’d rather work as a public servant. He’s preparing to go before a judge with a petition for expungement, but he’s worried that the way AB 2147 is written, it won’t allow the court to do away with his previous felonies for auto theft, leaving him unable to earn the EMT license necessary to be a fully certified firefighter with the state, and numerous counties and cities. “It’s a good bill,” Tracy said. “It’s meant well, but I think it’s written poorly because it’s not expansive enough for [all of] us to be able to get an EMT cert, which a lot of these fire stations are asking for. It kind of defeats the purpose.” Others have had more luck. Rudy Amaya, who spent years in prison on a variety of drug charges, was released in 2011 but only recently was able to find work as a firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service. He thinks that helped him win over the judge last month and get his record expunged. “The judge was even hyped about doing it because he said he had never seen anybody expunge their record to do what I done,” he told me. “He’s done it for people to go to other countries, but not for wildland firefighting. So he really commended me on what I’m doing.” It’s unclear just how many people have tried to expunge their records so far under AB 2147, and even less clear how many petitions have been approved or denied or are still tied up in the process. Reyes said her office is starting to collect that information as part of a broader assessment of what cleanup legislation she’ll need to introduce in the coming years. She sees AB 2147, which emerged as a compromise with the firefighters’ union, as an “initial phase.” “Clearly, it’s not going to be perfect in its implementation because the judges and the attorneys and even the advocates are just learning about it,” she said. “I think it’s important that we give grace in that regard.” But in the meantime, heading into wildfire season, there’s a shortage of firefighters and, after multiple emergency declarations from Newsom, the state is effectively in a drought. A group of state lawmakers has introduced a package of bills called the Blueprint for a Fire Safe California that’s designed to help, but it won’t come soon enough. Reyes is the first to admit that becoming a firefighter should be much easier for people who spent months and, in some cases, years doing the back-breaking work of clearing brush and digging fire lines. Thousands of mostly Black and Latino men have served their time but are essentially still being punished for their crimes. California After years of pushing, the California Legislature passed a bill to help former prisoners become full-time firefighters. The governor should sign it. Aug. 31, 2020 Harris is proud that he has been able to find ways to work as a firefighter despite a system that has kept so many hardworking aspiring firefighters out. He already works with Cal Fire, but he wants more: to work for a fire department closer to home in Victorville so he can be near his family, be a better public servant with the proper certifications and “get that real money.” He just needs a judge to cooperate. He’s due back in court in July. “Everything in life takes time,” Harris texted me.

Many CSU students see big upsides to online learning. Now, there is a push to expand it

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-04/covid-changes-csu-future-students-want-more-online-learning

In early December, California State University leaders made a bold announcement: All 23 campuses would reopen for in-person classes in fall 2021. But with registration underway for the new academic year, the return is looking anything but normal — and it has become clear the pandemic has altered the future of the nation’s largest four-year university system. Online options are here to stay. Throughout the system, in spring surveys, campus discussions and early registration trends, a new realization has emerged among students and staff. At CSU’s largely commuter campuses, many found valuable upsides to virtual learning: greater flexibility in their college-work-life balance, fewer expenses, the power to keep students in college. “What we learned during the pandemic is that virtual learning provides the opportunity for students to get an education while they’re trying to balance a number of different things in their lives, whether they’re parents or taking care of an elderly parent or working or living in a rural area,” CSU Chancellor Joseph Castro said this week. “What I believe, based on what I’ve heard from students and faculty and staff throughout the CSU, is that we will have more virtual offerings after the pandemic is over than we did before the pandemic.” Not all students may want to pursue virtual courses, and challenges remain to expand limited pre-pandemic offerings. But a greater blending of instruction could make a long-term difference for students, Castro said. “I very much want to see the CSU achieve this goal of higher graduation rates and eliminating equity gaps. And I think that we can do this by providing the flexibility. The access is so necessary for our students from all different backgrounds to succeed.” The changing environment at CSU reflects post-pandemic higher education trends nationally in which students are demanding more online options. And many CSU students bring distinct California challenges to their education, grappling with high housing costs and traffic-clogged commutes to campus while juggling multiple jobs. About 80% of the system’s 485,550 students receive some form of financial aid and roughly 50% of all undergraduates receive the Pell Grant, according to CSU. The most recent data from 2018 show that of those students on financial aid, more than 24,020 are student parents, according to a UC Davis study. Latino students account for the largest demographic, comprising more than 44% of the CSU student body. About 22% of the total student body is white, nearly 16% are Asian or Pacific Islander and roughly 4% of students are Black. California The nation’s largest four-year university system, among the first to announce an all-virtual instruction plan this fall, says it’s resuming primarily in-person classes and activities at CSU campuses in fall 2021. Dec. 9, 2020 Although mainly in-person learning is the overall goal, CSU leaders acknowledge they will need to determine the right proportion of online classes and ensure all students have the technology to access courses. The upcoming semester could offer a barometer for a hybrid model. Caught between the months-long lead time needed to plan course schedules and the state’s changing reopening directives, no campus is likely to return to a pre-pandemic normal, fully opened for in-person classes —except for the Cal State Maritime Academy. Officials describe fall 2021 as a “transitional semester.” Cal State Northridge is planning for about a 50% in-person class return, while Cal State Fullerton will see about a 65% to 75% return. San Diego State University plans to reopen in-person learning to about 85% to 90%, whereas Cal State Long Beach will resume in-person classes at about 45%. Up north, Chico State is planning for a 65% return. Some universities, including Cal State L.A., are still in flux and declined to release their in-person reopening percentages. Cal State Northridge Vice Provost Matthew Cahn said that while the knowledge is “imperfect,” anecdotal evidence and student forums have shown that about half the student body wants to return to campus in the fall, while about half wants to remain virtual. A similar sentiment was shared at Chico State. “We have this unique opportunity of moving forward, to take the good parts of this year and address the challenges,” said Michal Kurlaender of UC Davis’Policy Analysis for California Education. “If we just go back to business as usual, that would be a missed opportunity to not learn how to utilize lessons from this year and a half.” Students discovered upsides Pilar Caceres, 42, is a graduating senior at Cal State Long Beach and the mother of a 5-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl. Virtual instruction has been challenging at times in a full house, but the flexibility has given her time with her children. Broader access to a hybrid learning model would mean that students with weighty family responsibilities like Caceres — a double major in child development and family studies and family life education as well the commissioner for the campus’ Pregnant and Parenting Students Club — may no longer have to pit their priorities against each other or leave school behind. “I think if you have options, it will give you more control of your life,” she said. “If we have that flexibility, it will be easier for us to get the degree.” California Enrollment is at an all-time high for the California State University system. Why? Nov. 10, 2020 Before the pandemic, Roshelle Czar, 27, a student at Sacramento State majoring in women’s studies, said she had “hit my breaking point.” While supporting herself financially, she juggled two jobs to make high rent payments, all while carrying a full academic load. After campus shut down and all courses went virtual, Czar moved to Arizona, where she could forgo high rent to live with a friend. “If this global pandemic wouldn’t have happened, would I have ended up being a college dropout?” Czar said. “I was so drained out and exhausted by the challenges I kept facing.” She recognizes that virtual learning has its drawbacks, including often shaky Wi-Fi and lack of in-person interaction. But the benefits have outweighed them. She was able to become a certified domestic violence counselor this past year, an achievement that would have been difficult when she struggled to find any extra time in her day. She will graduate in the fall and is planning to finish her requirements from Arizona. Even students clamoring to return fully to campus life acknowledged that many of their peers deserve broader flexibility. “I think moving forward for the fall or even just the future, having some sort of dual modality is going to be important,” Maryana Khames, 20, a San Diego State University rising senior and board of trustees student representative. “We’re really excited to go back to in person just as students, but also having some sort of option of having virtual classes.” The virtual challenge ahead The emergency pivot to online learning presented deep hardships to many students — issues that must be solved to ensure that online options can benefit all who want them. It became apparent during the pandemic that technology, and proper access to it, was also a basic need among students, along with food and housing, said Alison Wrynn, CSU associate vice chancellor for academic programs, innovations and faculty development. A recent California Student Aid Commission-UC Davis report that surveyed tens of thousands of students on financial aid across the CSU, University of California and state’s community college systems in November 2020 revealed inequitable access to internet and laptops, with many students often working outside their homes to access free Wi-Fi. Roughly 62% of respondents said they did not have stable internet access and 44% said they could not access online course material. “Faculty were teaching in parking lots on campus; students were Zooming in parking lots of McDonald’s or wherever they could find good Wi-Fi,” said Gary Hytrek, a professor of geography at Cal State Long Beach and copresident of the California Faculty Assn. Long Beach chapter, who will be teaching about half his classes online in the upcoming semester. “I think it got easier as we became more familiar with the pitfalls. But there were still problems.” Face-to-face conversations also play out differently than those through a screen. George Floyd’s death, for example, was a topic that Cal State Fullerton criminal justice professor Monishia “Moe” Miller said she was not comfortable discussing virtually in the event that someone was triggered behind a darkened screen, unbeknownst to her. Despite the belief that online lessons are often not an equal substitute for in-person classes, she, like other professors, also understands the need for flexibility in the future — albeit with an overhaul. Campuses throughout the CSU system used federal funding this year to purchase mobile devices and hot spots to assist students’ technological needs, Castro said, and a new initiative is in the works for the fall to ensure that every student has access to a “quality device.” CSU hasn’t yet released preliminary enrollment figures for the fall, nor have campuses shared stats from delayed registrations. But early estimates show that some online classes have filled up faster than in-person courses, Wrynn said. Officials believe that may in part be due to COVID-19-related safety concerns. “There’s some courses that I think lend themselves, based on their pedagogy, well to online learning, and there’s others that don’t,” said Jody Cormack, vice provost of academic programs and dean of graduate studies at Cal State Long Beach. “It’s hard to say what would drive someone to want online learning. While we’re in the middle of a pandemic, I think we must assume it’s people’s concerns about health and safety. But there’s other things too,” she said, pointing out that some may be more comfortable learning at home while others who commute may benefit as well. “We won’t really understand what a lot of those needs are until we’re outside of the pandemic.”

Armed and drunk: Off-duty cops get into trouble drinking. LAPD rules fail to prevent it

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-04/lapd-policy-mum-armed-off-duty-officers-drinking-alcohol

Early one morning last month, off-duty Los Angeles Police Officer Nicolas Quintanilla-Borja allegedly threatened to kill his cousin and another man with a handgun in Inglewood before being arrested by local police, prosecutors said. Days later, LAPD Chief Michel Moore told the civilian Police Commission that the incident troubled him “a great deal,” in part because Quintanilla-Borja — a probationary officer with less than 18 months on the force — was allegedly “significantly” impaired by alcohol at the time. Moore said that he immediately assigned Quintanilla-Borja to home and removed his police powers, and that the LAPD is “taking additional actions” he could not discuss. Quintanilla-Borja, who could not be reached for comment, has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges, including assault with a semiautomatic weapon. Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón said Quintanilla-Borja would not get special treatment. “Wearing a badge does not give an officer the right to break laws,” he said. California Inglewood officers responded to a radio call about a family disturbance and arrested the 29-year-old after interviewing victims and witnesses at the scene. May 10, 2021 The LAPD has been struggling for years with how to deal with alcohol use by armed, off-duty officers, failing to develop clear policies despite a series of problems, The Times found. Other departments across the country have robust rules for carrying firearms while drinking alcohol or when intoxicated, but the LAPD’s rules remain vague even as serious cases pile up. In a 2019 incident that resurfaced in state court in April, an LAPD detective who’d been drinking with subordinates for hours in downtown bars allegedly shot a homeless man on skid row before being badly beaten himself. The officer claimed self-defense. In a 2020 case reviewed by the Police Commission in April, an LAPD officer who’d been drinking whiskey and beer while shooting targets with two fellow cops at a remote Apple Valley campsite imagined they were under attack and allegedly shot one of his friends. He later claimed the shooting was a result of his post-traumatic stress disorder, not the alcohol. The misuse of alcohol by officers has long been identified as a problem in law enforcement across the country. Police work can be stressful, officers have been found in studies to abuse alcohol at higher rates than the general public, and they are often armed, even when off duty, through special rights afforded to them as peace officers. In response to questions about the recent cases, the LAPD confirmed it “does not have a specific policy relating to the off-duty consumption of alcohol in conjunction with the carrying of a firearm,” but said other policies requiring officers to act appropriately are sufficient for holding them accountable. Capt. Stacy Spell, a department spokesman, said officers are made aware of policies that preclude their acting in “unbecoming” ways, including with alcohol, during recruit training, during roll call briefings and through “a larger alcohol awareness campaign that occurs each April.” Department leaders “have and will hold our personnel accountable should they misuse alcohol and cannot exercise reasonable care and/or control of a firearm,” Spell said. Still, the LAPD’s lack of an explicit policy — one that not only punishes armed off-duty officers who get intoxicated and into trouble, but precludes them from carrying their weapons while intoxicated in the first place — puts it at odds with other law enforcement agencies in the region and country. It also distinguishes the LAPD’s policy from a federal law allowing officers to carry weapons interstate, which says they must not be under the influence of alcohol while doing so, and with California’s concealed carry law for civilians, which bars licensees from consuming “any alcoholic beverage” while carrying a firearm. California A LAPD detective who avoided being fired for shooting a man on skid row after a night of drinking in 2019 is challenging the suspension he received. April 15, 2021 When asked about police officers carrying concealed weapons, the California attorney general’s office said that cops aren’t subject to the restrictions on civilian licensees, but that each of the state’s individual law enforcement agencies “likely has a departmental policy that addresses the consumption of alcohol.” That is true for some agencies, but not the LAPD. Off-duty sheriff’s deputies for Los Angeles and Orange counties are explicitly barred from carrying weapons while under the influence of alcohol. Officers in San Francisco, by policy, “shall not consume alcoholic beverages or be impaired” while armed, with the department defining “impaired” as having a diminished ability to perform one’s duties or a blood-alcohol content of more than 0.015%. Similar policies exist in big departments beyond California, as well. In the Houston Police Department, officers are restricted from carrying a firearm if they have any measurable amount of alcohol in their body. In the Chicago Police Department, off-duty officers can carry firearms but “are instructed to refrain from doing so when there is a likelihood that they will be consuming alcoholic beverages or medications that may impair their physical and/or mental abilities.” In the New York Police Department, off-duty officers “are to be unarmed at their own discretion when engaged in any activity of a nature whereby it would be advisable not to carry a firearm, especially those events at which alcoholic beverages are consumed.” In addition, every NYPD officer involved in an on- or off-duty shooting must submit to an alcohol test, and will be found in violation of policy if they have a blood-alcohol content above 0.08% — a rule implemented after undercover officers drank alcohol and then fatally shot a Queens man, on the morning of his wedding, during a confrontation outside a club. LAPD officers who shoot people, either on duty or off, are not automatically tested for alcohol, but can be if “cause exists” to believe they are under the influence of alcohol, the department said. Off-duty officers can be punished for acting in “unbecoming” ways while drinking alcohol, whether they are armed or not. The recommended punishment ranges from a simple reprimand to a suspension of up to 22 days and demotion for a first offense, and increases to possible termination for a second offense. The department’s penalty guide does not provide distinct recommendations based on whether the offending officer is armed, though it recommends the same penalties for on-duty officers caught drinking at work, when they would presumably be armed. Off-duty LAPD officers regularly consume alcohol while armed, often without any trouble. Other times, they run into serious problems. Quarterly misconduct reports from past years show that officers have been arrested for drunk driving, domestic violence and public intoxication. The reports don’t indicate whether each officer was armed, but some allegedly were. An off-duty officer who got arrested in 2013 after allegedly firing an LAPD- issued handgun and driving under the influence of alcohol received a 22-day suspension for the incident in 2015. Another officer received a five-day suspension for being drunk in public and failing to carry an LAPD- issued firearm “in a Department approved manner” — an apparent reference to holstering rules. In the 2019 skid row shooting, investigators determined Det. Michael Johnson’s blood-alcohol content was 0.329%, which is more than four times the legal limit to drive a car in California, after he was found badly beaten on the street. Johnson alleged that the homeless man he shot pulled a gun first and that he acted in self-defense, though he also said he could not remember certain aspects of the encounter. The homeless man alleged Johnson had been aggressive with a woman, grabbing her by the arm, before he interceded. Moore wanted to fire Johnson, but the detective was instead given a 55-day unpaid suspension. In April, Johnson filed a lawsuit in state court challenging that punishment as excessive. In a report to the Police Commission, Moore said an internal review board had expressed concern about Johnson’s “decision to consume large amounts of alcohol while being armed,” and found Johnson “should have known it was not a good decision” given his tenure as a supervisor. But Moore also noted that “there is no policy that designates an amount of alcohol that may be consumed while off duty.” Prosecutors said in April that they were still reviewing the case. In the 2020 campsite shooting, Officer Ismael Tamayo’s attorney argued in a San Bernardino County court that Tamayo had experienced a dissociative episode tied to post-traumatic stress disorder from his time serving in the military, and a judge placed Tamayo into a diversion program for defendants with mental disorders. But in their own review, LAPD investigators focused on Tamayo’s alcohol consumption, noting he still had a blood-alcohol content of 0.085% — above the state’s 0.08% driving limit — about nine hours after the shooting. In his report to the Police Commission, Moore expressed concerns about Tamayo’s decision to maintain a gun on his hip as he drank, and said a review board “emphasized that officers should abstain from consuming alcohol while maintaining control of firearms.” However, not everyone agrees that officers should be restricted in such a way. The union that represents rank-and-file LAPD officers, for example, said it opposed any such restrictions. Off-duty officers are afforded the right to carry firearms “so that they can protect themselves and the public if a dangerous situation arises,” and are already expected to do so responsibly and in compliance with department policies, the Los Angeles Police Protective League’s board of directors said. “The reality is, whether on or off duty, LAPD officers are held to our Department’s high standards of conduct that are among the most stringent in the nation.” Similar arguments were made by the union that represents L.A. County deputies before that department adopted its policy barring deputies from carrying firearms while drunk a decade ago. In 2006, a deputy and Marine Corps reservist named Chris Sullivan was charged with voluntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of his friend and fellow reservist Cesar Valdez after the pair went out drinking to celebrate Sullivan’s return home from a tour of duty in Iraq. Sullivan, whom investigators alleged had consumed at least 11 drinks, said he and Valdez had been horsing around and that his gun fired accidentally. He was later acquitted of the manslaughter charge. Still, the incident sparked a years-long debate around deputies drinking while armed, with then-Sheriff Lee Baca promising to implement a policy to prevent similar incidents. “Alcohol and guns don’t mix,” Baca said at the time. In 2010, against the union’s wishes, the Sheriff’s Department implemented a policy stating that armed off-duty officers “shall not consume any intoxicating substance to the point where the employee is unable to or does not exercise reasonable care and/or control of the firearm.” The policy says an officer with a blood-alcohol content of 0.08% or more is unable to do so by definition, but may rebut a claim that he violated the policy by showing he acted reasonably. The policy has not entirely stopped alcohol- and gun-related incidents involving deputies. Between 2011 and 2019, the Sheriff’s Department had 81 internal affairs cases in which a deputy was accused of alcohol and firearms violations, according to a county report. Still, officials say they believe the policy may have prevented other incidents. L.A. County Inspector General Max Huntsman said the issue of alcohol use by armed, off-duty law enforcement officers remains “deeply entrenched,” as many officers believe they need protection in case a criminal recognizes and confronts them on the street. However, he doesn’t think that warrants being drunk and armed, and believes departments should consider policies barring officers from carrying a firearm if they have a blood-alcohol content of 0.02% or higher. Doing so, he said, would send “a clear message” to officers and the public that “consuming alcohol while carrying a firearm is inherently dangerous and unacceptable.”

Today's Headlines: The legal divide over voting

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/newsletter/2021-06-04/voting-rights-supreme-court-todays-headlines

Why has the Supreme Court given Southern states the freedom to add voting restrictions? The Legal Divide Over Voting This year’s wave of new voting restrictions across the South may seem a response to the 2020 election. But as The Times’ veteran Supreme Court reporter David G. Savage writes, its origins stem in no small part from the high court, which over the last decade has reshaped election law to elevate the power of state lawmakers over the rights of their voters. The sum of the court’s rulings on elections could give the Republican Party a significant edge as it seeks to recapture control of Congress in 2022 and the White House in 2024. Start your day right Sign up for Essential California for the L.A. Times biggest news, features and recommendations in your inbox six days a week. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the Supreme Court threw out the part of the Voting Rights Act requiring states with histories of discriminating against Black voters to clear election rule changes with the U.S. Justice Department. Writing for a 5-4 majority in 2013, Roberts called the section outdated and said it did not fit with “current conditions.” So, how did we get here? The legal divide over voting and elections begins with a basic dispute over how to read the Constitution and American history. Struggling for Answers Members of California’s Burmese diaspora have protested across the state since Myanmar’s military regime seized control of the government on Feb. 1. The military detained Aung San Suu Kyi and other civilian leaders and made baseless claims that recent elections were riddled with fraud. Despite international condemnation and strikes that have brought the nation’s economy near collapse, the military has maintained a state of emergency and doubled down on its repressive tactics. For the small community in California, the coup has sparked fears that Burma’s decades-long striving toward limited democracy and individual freedom could be over. CSU’s New Normal In early December, California State University leaders made a bold announcement: All 23 campuses would reopen for in-person classes in fall 2021. But with registration underway for the new academic year, the return is looking anything but normal — and it has become clear the pandemic has altered the future of the nation’s largest four-year university system. Online options are here to stay. Throughout the system, in spring surveys, campus discussions and early registration trends, a new realization has emerged among students and staff. At CSU’s largely commuter campuses, many found valuable upsides to virtual learning: greater flexibility in their college-work-life balance, fewer expenses, the ability to keep students in college. More Top Coronavirus Headlines — A California safety board recommended relaxing workplace safety rules for people vaccinated against COVID-19, meaning that on June 15, employees will probably be able to take off their masks in a room if everyone there is vaccinated. — The White House unveiled President Biden’s plans to share COVID-19 vaccines with the world, including its intent to direct 75% of excess doses through the U.N.-backed COVAX global vaccine sharing program. — Researchers in South Africa are documenting an ominous development: the collision of the pandemic with HIV/AIDS, as they study potentially dangerous coronavirus mutations in a 36-year-old woman with uncontrolled HIV. — As the virus spreads in the Indian countryside, the lack of health infrastructure and government reporting is obscuring the true scope of the country’s massive second wave. For more, sign up for Coronavirus Today, a special edition of The Times’ Health and Science newsletter. Life’s like a box of chocolates. Indeed, you never know what you’re going to get. In June 1947, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office exhibited $40,000 worth of opium found concealed in a candy box. The stash was discovered during an investigation of a robbery and kidnapping ring. — Amateur geologists are scouring for ancient rocks, valuable minerals and world-famous gems. Want to join in? Let’s rock. — No yard, no problem. You can still grow your own garden, including fruits, vegetables and herbs, with just a balcony. — Here’s a look at 10 California visitor destinations that are reopening, as well as dozens of others that have already reopened — including, in the next week, downtown L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego’s Old Globe and Yosemite’s Wawona Hotel. — This week, a heat wave swept through California’s Central and Sacramento valleys, setting temperature records and prompting heat advisories, even as coastal regions remained temperate. — Tito Ortiz was hailed as Huntington Beach’s Donald Trump. But after he abruptly stepped down from the City Council, where does the city go now? — Despite concerns about fatal shootings in California, a bill to create new taxes on the sale of guns and ammunition to pay for gun-violence prevention programs failed to get the two-thirds vote needed for passage in the state Assembly. — A man has been arrested in connection with a series of vandalism incidents in West L.A., including at a Pico-Robertson synagogue last month. — F. Lee Bailey, who was at one time the most famous trial attorney in the country, defending clients including O.J. Simpson and Patty Hearst, has died at 87. Support our journalism Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times. — Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is under investigation by the Justice Department over political fundraising activity at his former business. — The Supreme Court limited the scope of the federal law against computer hacking, ruling it covers those who break into confidential files, but not people who misuse the information they were authorized to see. — Federal prosecutors are asking a judge for more time to prepare for the trial of four former police officers facing civil rights charges in the death of George Floyd, calling the case unusual and complex. — Buckingham Palace barred ethnic minorities from office jobs during the 1960s, the Guardian newspaper reported, citing documents in Britain’s National Archives. — United Airlines intends to bring back supersonic travel before the decade is over with a plane that is currently just an artist’s drawing — even the prototype hasn’t flown yet. — Liz Phair is totally good with being a Gen X feminist in a Gen Z world. Her wise and witty new album, “Soberish,” is her first studio LP in more than a decade. — Music manager Scooter Braun, known for discovering Justin Bieber and making enemies of Taylor Swift, is embroiled in a legal battle with a former business partner over failed plans for a $750-million fund. — With “In the Heights,” director Jon M. Chu disrupts the movie musical. Here’s how he did it. — Longtime “The Bachelor” host Chris Harrison, swept up in an ongoing racial controversy, reportedly will not host this season of “Bachelor in Paradise.” — AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. dizzied investors by losing 40% of its market value, then regaining more than half of that — and pocketing more than $587 million in fresh cash by exploiting the frenzy. — Chinese tech giant Tencent is significantly expanding its footprint in Los Angeles, opening an office in Playa Vista that could house 300 employees. — The Phoenix Suns eliminated the Lakers from the NBA playoffs after star Anthony Davis limped off the court midway through Game 6. — Angels pitcher Griffin Canning struggled as the Angels fell to the Seattle Mariners. Free online games Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and arcade games in our new game center at latimes.com/games. — Contrary to the ill-informed criticisms circulating, a new mathematics proposal for California schools would not take the rigor — or the emphasis on finding correct answers — out of math. It would almost certainly make math more interesting to many students, The Times’ editorial board writes. — When a cop takes a bribe to look up someone’s license plate number on a restricted-access law enforcement database, that’s corruption. But it’s not hacking, writes Jon Healey. — Some thoughts on Naomi Osaka: “Refusal isn’t beautiful in practice. Refusal is necessary.”(Refinery29) — Issues of equality and acceptance of transgender and nonbinary people — along with challenges to their rights — have become an important topic in the news. These issues can involve words, ideas and identities that are new to some. Here’s a guide to gender identity terms. (NPR) Whether you consider the Kardashians purveyors of a new kind of pop culture savvy or the poster family for the perils of fast fame in the 21st century, there’s no denying that the California family exemplifies the ascent of reality TV in American life. As their landmark show winds down after 20 seasons, the family looks back at making the pilot episode that launched their careers. Comments or ideas? Email us at headlines@latimes.com.

Prompting Nazi comparisons, Belarus slaps yellow tags on political prisoners

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-04/belarus-yellow-tags-identify-political-prisoners

While visiting her son in a Belarusian prison, Natallia Makavetskaya saw deep scars on his wrists left by tight handcuffs. She also noticed the yellow tag sewn onto his clothes. The tags mark those jailed for joining demonstrations against President Alexander Lukashenko and single them out for “particularly harsh prison conditions,” Makavetskaya said. “They have decided that my son is prone to extremism and treated him accordingly,” she told the Associated Press by telephone. Her son, Uladzislau Makavetsky, was convicted in December of threatening a police officer with a truncheon during a clash between protesters and police in his hometown of Vitebsk, and was sentenced to two years in prison. He denied the charges, saying he was only trying to protect an elderly man who had been beaten by police and was tossing away a truncheon dropped by one of the officers. Makavetsky told his mother that authorities at his penal colony near Brest, on the border with Poland, denied him any personal items or visitors for a time. During daily lineups, he was ordered to stand apart from other prisoners and say, “I’m prone to extremism.” Prisoners with yellow tags also get extensive regular searches. The 28-year-old woodcarver was one of more than 35,000 people arrested in Belarus in a harsh crackdown on protests that followed Lukashenko’s reelection to a sixth term in an August 2020 vote that was widely seen as rigged. Thousands were severely beaten by police. World & Nation Detainees swept up in protest against Belarus president describe harrowing jailhouse abuse. Major rights group deems some of it torture. Sept. 15, 2020 The wide-ranging repression was spotlighted again May 23, when a Ryanair flight traveling from Greece to Lithuania was diverted to Minsk, the Belarusian capital, where authorities arrested Roman Protasevich, a dissident journalist who was aboard. Protasevich has been shown in several videos on state TV since his arrest, most recently Thursday night, tearfully repenting for his activities and praising Lukashenko in remarks that the opposition said were clearly made under duress. Outraged European Union authorities denounced the flight’s diversion as air piracy and imposed more sanctions on Lukashenko’s regime. Belarusian human rights activists say authorities have toughened prison conditions in recent months for those who took part in protests. Many of them have been marked with the yellow tags, a practice denounced by human rights activists. “The tags’ yellow color draws direct associations with yellow Stars of David for Jews in Nazi Germany, and it’s hard to understand why the Belarusian authorities did it,” said Valiantsin Stefanovich of the Viasna human rights center. “In any case, these dangerous experiments lead to stigmatization of political prisoners by prison authorities and other inmates.” World & Nation A dissident journalist arrested after Belarus diverted his flight says in a video from prison that he was set up by an unidentified associate. June 3, 2021 Viasna says that at least 460 political prisoners are being held in Belarusian penitentiaries on protest-related criminal charges that carry prison terms from six months to several years. The Belarusian authorities have ignored criticism of harsh conditions for jailed protesters. Lukashenko has repeatedly cast protesters as pawns in what he describes as efforts by Western spy agencies to destabilize Belarus and forcibly change the government. Besides Makavetskaya, three other women told the AP that their sons had yellow tags sewn on their clothes when they visited them in April and May. One of them, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Valiantsina, for fear of official reprisal, said her son told her he was kept in handcuffs around the clock. The IT specialist from Minsk is serving his four-year sentence in a prison colony in the city of Novopolotsk. “My son whispered to me that he was being held for days in a stretched position in a punishment cell, his legs stretched far apart to cause intense pain without any trace left,” she told AP. World & Nation Thousands of Belarusians who have fled a brutal crackdown on dissent are shocked by the forced landing of a flight to arrest an opposition journalist. May 27, 2021 Another prisoner given a yellow tag was Katsiaryna Barysevich, a journalist with the Tut.by independent news portal, who was released last month after serving six months on charges of revealing personal data in her report about a protester’s death. “I wouldn’t say that I have been broken,” Barysevich told reporters after her release. “I have learned to look calmly at mad things.” Fellow Tut.by journalist Liubou Kaspiarovich, who spent 15 days in jail last month for covering a trial related to protests, said she and 14 others in her two-bed cell had to sleep on the concrete floor that was still wet with chlorine bleach. “They were waking us up several times during the night, ordering us to report the criminal law articles we were charged with, and each morning they poured a bucketful of chlorine on the floor,” Kaspiarovich told the AP. “And they put a homeless woman who had lice in our cell.” Breaking News Get breaking news, investigations, analysis and more signature journalism from the Los Angeles Times in your inbox. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Vitold Ashurok, who was among the first to draw attention to harsh conditions and yellow tags for political prisoners, died inside a prison in Shklov, where he was serving a five-year sentence for participating in protests. The authorities said Ashurok, 50, died of a heart attack May 21, although his death certificate didn’t list a cause of death. When relatives were given his body, which bore bruises and a bandage on his head, authorities released a video in which a man purported to be Ashurok was seen grasping his head and collapsing before officers enter. The opposition said the video was doctored. Viasna’s Stefanovich also questioned the official version of Ashurok’s death. “An absolutely healthy person suddenly dies in custody ... and they don’t name the cause of death, and [then] hand over his body with bandages,” he said. “What are people supposed to think?” World & Nation The Telegram messaging app has become an indispensable tool in coordinating the unprecedented mass demonstrations that have rocked Belarus. Aug. 21, 2020 His death brought an outpouring of anger. “He died in the struggle for freedom and a brighter future for Belarus,” U.S. Ambassador Julie Fisher said on Twitter, adding that Ashurok’s “wrongful imprisonment and senseless death demand accountability.” Another prisoner tried to slit his own throat with a pen in court Tuesday after authorities threatened his family with criminal charges. Stsiapan Latypau, 41, was hospitalized and put in a medically induced coma afterward. Human rights activists and relatives of those being held have urged the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit Belarusian prisons to inspect conditions for political prisoners. “They are cranking up repressions, and there is no way to find out the truth about what’s going on behind the walls of the Belarusian prisons that have inherited the worst Soviet traditions,” said Viasna’s Stefanovich.

Horse racing newsletter: Churchill Downs suspends Baffert for two years

https://www.latimes.com/sports/newsletter/2021-06-04/bob-baffert-churchill-downs-horse-racing

Hello, my name is John Cherwa and welcome back to our horse racing newsletter, as Jon White gives us his final Belmont Stakes rankings. Well, how about that for some news? The Belmont Stakes was completely overshadowed on Wednesday with word that Churchill Downs suspended Hall of Famer Bob Baffert for two years. The track made the announcement after the split sample on Medina Spirit also came back positive for betamethasone. I wrote a story for the web and print editions of The Times. Just click here. Rather than go over a lot of stuff you already know, we did this Q and A, which also ran on the web, that hopefully gives you a deeper perspective. Does this mean Baffert won’t have a Kentucky Derby runner for two years? That’s the intent of Churchill Downs, but a judge is likely to have the short-term answer when Baffert’s legal team no doubt asks for a temporary restraining order. The key there is the word “temporary.” A TRO is granted to mitigate any harm to an individual before a suit is filed, a jury is picked, a trial is held and a decision is made. Then it can be appealed. Will other tracks also honor the suspension? Right now, this only applies to tracks owned by Churchill Downs Inc., which, in addition to its signature name racetrack, includes Arlington Park near Chicago, which is being closed later this year, Fair Grounds in New Orleans, Turfway Park in Kentucky, and Presque Isle Downs, in northwest Pennsylvania. Any other tracks that would join would strictly be on a voluntary basis. Can’t his horses run under another trainer’s name from the same barn? The ruling specifically excludes horses from running for any employee of Bob Baffert Racing Stables. Normally, when a trainer gets suspended for a short period of time, the horses just run under the name of the chief assistant. It’s kind of a wink-wink arrangement. It’s unlikely Baffert would want to test this practice given the severity of the penalty and scrutiny on him. How can a track do this without due process? The tracks would claim it’s their business to do what they want with it. It’s a hyperbolized version of “No shoes, no shirt, no service.” It was somewhat tested two years ago when the Stronach Group (Santa Anita) barred Jerry Hollendorfer from running at any of its tracks after a series of fatalities. Other tracks, such as those in New York, chose to honor the ban. Others, such as Churchill Downs, did not. Hollendorfer took it to court and got a TRO to allow him to run at Del Mar. Tried the same thing in Los Angeles and Alameda counties and was not granted a TRO. Looking for consistency, you won’t find it. Can’t the California Horse Racing Board ban him? Definitely not without due process. You’ll notice that Baffert has not been banned by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission or the New York State Gaming Commission. The violation did not occur in California, so you can expect the CHRB to allow the Kentucky regulators to make a decision and issue a penalty that most assuredly will be less than what Churchill Downs has imposed. States are bound to reciprocate any penalty issued by another jurisdiction. In other words, the CHRB wants no part of this decision. Will he be allowed to run at Del Mar in a month? That’s a good question and one Del Mar would surely like to not have on its plate. But it will have to make a judgment. The track said it will “continue to gather information, including regulatory processes, related to the matter. … We will withhold any decisions about this matter until we have all such information.” As for Santa Anita, which only has three weeks left in its current meeting, it has decided to wait for the KHRC to conclude its investigation, a smart move with so little racing time left. Did the medication Medina Spirit tested positive for help him win the Kentucky Derby? There is no scientific evidence that betamethasone is a performance enhancer. It’s an anti-inflammatory that is legal, except you can’t test positive for it on race day. The reason for making it a violation is it could hinder veterinarians in their pre-race exams. If a horse has a problem, heat radiates from the affected area. If the problem is treated with an anti-inflammatory, there is no heat and a veterinarian might not discover that a horse might be unsound. One possible defense that Baffert’s attorneys will argue before the regulatory agencies is that the rule against betamethasone only applies to it in an injectable form, not an ointment, as Baffert says it was applied to Medina Spirit. Does this mean that Baffert is done as a trainer? There is no doubt that his main specialty is getting horses ready to join the Kentucky Derby trail. Medina Spirit was his record-setting seventh win. If he were to lose two years of that business, you would have to wait to see how many of his regular owners would come back at the conclusion of the suspension. In the end, Baffert’s role in this business will be decided by the owners, not the tracks or courts. Can Baffert win this case? That is the ultimate question and it will remain unanswered for likely a couple years. Enjoying this newsletter? Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times. Here we are with the final rankings for the Belmont Stakes. Jon White does them for us. He’s one of the foremost historians on horse racing as well as being the morning-line maker at Santa Anita and Del Mar. He even has done stints as a steward. He does it all. So, let’s get right to it with his last look at the Triple Crown races for the year. It’s brought to you courtesy of Xpressbet.com. Take it away, Jon. “Saturday’s 153rd running of the $1.5-million Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park is headed by champion Essential Quality and a quality Southern California-based trio of Preakness Stakes winner Rombauer, Santa Anita Derby winner Rock Your World and Louisiana Derby winner Hot Rod Charlie. “The 1½-mile event also has attracted a Todd Pletcher-trained threesome led by Florida Derby winner Known Agenda. In addition to Known Agenda, Pletcher sends out Bourbonic, who won the Wood Memorial in a 72-1 upset, and Overtook, a longshot Saturday who ran third in the recent Peter Pan Stakes. “Pletcher has won the Belmont three times: Rags to Riches in 2007, Palace Malice in 2013 and Tapwrit in 2017. “Completing the field for this year’s Belmont is the Japanese-based France Go de Ina. He is the biggest price on the Belmont Stakes morning line at 30-1 after being an also-ran in the Preakness. “Courtesy of Xpressbet, below is how I rank the eight 3-year-olds entered in Saturday’s Belmont: “1. Essential Quality. Post position 2. Morning-line favorite at odds of 2-1. Trainer Brad Cox. Jockey Luis Saez. “When Essential Quality was a 2-year-old, the first time he had a workout for Cox at Keeneland on June 16, the trainer told his assistant that the Kentucky-bred colt ‘was a Belmont horse,’ or words to that effect. All these months later, Essential Quality gets his chance to prove if that statement was prophetic. “Essential Quality was five for five going into the Kentucky Derby. He ended up fourth as the 5-2 favorite in the 1¼-mile classic, one length behind Medina Spirit, who won at odds of 12-1. Essential Quality had a wide trip, traveling 68 feet (approximately seven to eight lengths) farther than Medina Spirit, according to Trakus. Prior to that, when Essential Quality won the 1 1/8-mile Blue Grass Stakes by a neck at Keeneland, he traveled 29 feet farther than runner-up Highly Motivated. “The Belmont Stakes is known as ‘The Test of the Champion.’ That’s literally the case this year in that Essential Quality, the Eclipse Award-winning 2-year-old male champion of 2020, will be tested in a 1½-mile race Saturday. “Tapit is the sire of Essential Quality. Cox often has alluded to his belief that 1½ miles will suit Essential Quality because of his sire. “If Essential Quality gets the job done Saturday, it will be Tapit’s fourth Belmont victory as a sire, tying Lexington’s longstanding record. Lexington’s four Belmont winners were General Duke in 1868, Kingfisher in 1870, Harry Bassett in 1871 and Duke of Magenta in 1878. “Tapit’s three Belmont Stakes winners so far have been Tonalist in 2014, Creator in 2016 and Tapwrit in 2017. Tapit also has sired a pair of runners-up in this race: Frosted in 2015 and Tacitus in 2019. Two sons of Tapit have finished third in the Belmont: Lani in 2016 and Hofburg in 2018. “Essential Quality appears to have trained splendidly. He recorded sharp five-furlong workouts in :59 and change at Churchill Downs on May 22 and May 29 to suggest it’s all systems go for Saturday’s race. “2. Rock Your World. (Post 7, 9-2, John Sadler, Joel Rosario.) “Unraced at 2, Rock Your World won a pair of grass races at Santa Anita, then registered a front-running 4 1/4-length victory in the 1 1/8-mile Santa Anita Derby when racing on dirt for the first time. “Taking a three-for-three record into the Kentucky Derby, Rock Your World was sent away as the 9-2 second favorite. But Rock Your World’s race essentially was over about as quickly as you can say his name. With Rosario in the saddle, Rock Your World broke a step slowly, then got squeezed back. The incident was severe enough that Rosario temporarily had a foot slip out of the stirrup. “As a consequence of the rocky start, Rock Your World was much farther back early in the Kentucky Derby than he had ever been before. With an alert and clean break this time, look for the Kentucky-bred Candy Ride colt to set the pace. It’s possible that Rock Your World will be allowed to roll along comfortably on a solo lead through the early furlongs. If that does happen, Rock Your World is a big-time threat to do what he did in the Santa Anita Derby. “There is encouragement that Rock Your World can succeed at Saturday’s 1½-mile trip in that he’s a grandson of 2003 Belmont Stakes winner Empire Maker. “3. Hot Rod Charlie (Post 4, 7-2, Doug O’Neill, Flavien Prat.) “The feeling here is Hot Rod Charlie has an excellent chance to finish 1-2-3, just as the Kentucky-bred Oxbow colt has done in each of his five races since having blinkers added to his equipment. “Virtually ignored by bettors at last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, Hot Rod Charlie finished second at odds of 94-1, three-quarters of a length behind Essential Quality. “Hot Rod Charlie did defeat Essential Quality in the Kentucky Derby when edging him by a head for third. Hot Rod Charlie lost that race by one length at odds of 5-1. “Two days after the Kentucky Derby, O’Neill received a commitment from agent Brad Pegram that Prat would ride Hot Rod Charlie in the Belmont. Prat then won the Preakness aboard Rombauer in an 11-1 upset. Despite Rombauer’s Preakness victory, Pegram told O’Neill that they would be honoring their commitment to ride Hot Ride Charlie in the Belmont. “4. Rombauer. (Post 3, 3-1, Michael McCarthy, John Velazquez.) “When Prat elected to stick with Hot Rod Charlie, Velazquez found himself in the right spot at the right time to pick up the mount on Rombauer, a strong Belmont Stakes contender. “Rombauer was impressive in the Preakness. Sixth early, he generated a powerful closing kick to win going away by 3½ lengths. It was his best race yet by far. “Can Rombauer turn the tables on both Essential Quality and Hot Rod Charlie? Rombauer finished fifth behind that pair in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Essential Quality also defeated Rombauer by 5 3/4 lengths in the Blue Grass. “The concern here is Rombauer is being asked to come back in just three weeks and go 1½ miles after running such a big race in Baltimore. The Kentucky-bred Twirling Candy colt seems to be a candidate to regress off such an effort. “On the other hand, Rombauer just might be blossoming and, if that’s the case, another dynamite performance could be seen from him Saturday. “Rombauer is attempting to become the first horse to win the Preakness and Belmont without having started in the Kentucky Derby since Pillory in 1922. The Derby and Preakness were run on the same day (May 13) in 1922. “5. Known Agenda. (Post 6, 6-1, Todd Pletcher, Irad Ortiz Jr.) “Known Agenda appears to be Pletcher’s best chance to get a fourth Belmont Stakes victory. After winning just one of his first four starts, Known Agenda added blinkers for his next three starts. Known Agenda won a race by 11 lengths at Gulfstream Park on Feb 26, followed by a 2 3/4-length triumph in the Florida Derby. “Breaking from the inside rail in the Kentucky Derby, Known Agenda lacked early speed, never menaced and finished ninth at odds of 9-1. “Curlin is the sire of Known Agenda. Curlin finished second in the 2007 Belmont Stakes when he lost by only head to the filly Rags to Riches. “A victory Saturday by Known Agenda certainly is not out of the question. “6. Bourbonic. (Post 1, 15-1, Todd Pletcher, Kendrick Carmouche.) “Even though Bourbonic is going to be a longshot Saturday, his odds probably will be considerably shorter than in the Wood Memorial. He rallied from last to win the Wood by a head at 72-1. Bourbonic returned $146.50 for each $2 win wager. It was the highest win mutuel in the 96-year history of the Wood, breaking the record of $129.50 Manassa Mauler paid in 1959. “Bourbonic went on to finish 13th in the Kentucky Derby at odds of 30-1. “Preakness winner Bernardini is the sire of Bourbonic. Bernardini is a son of 1992 Belmont winner A.P. Indy and grandson of 1977 Belmont winner Seattle Slew. Bourbonic’s dam, Dancing Afleet, is a daughter of 2005 Belmont winner Afleet Alex. “7. Overtook. (Post 8, 20-1, Todd Pletcher, Manny Franco.) “Franco rode the 4-5 favorite in the 2020 Belmont, Tiz the Law, who won by 3 3/4 lengths. “What a difference a year makes. “This time Franco’s Belmont mount is Overtook, who will receive little respect from bettors, as evidenced by his morning-line price. “Overtook has won once in five career starts. He finished second in the Withers Stakes at Aqueduct on Feb. 6, then ran third in the Peter Pan at Belmont Park on May 8. “In an equipment change, Overtook adds blinkers Saturday. Overtook did race with blinkers in two of his three races as a 2-year-old, but he lost both times. In fact, the last time he raced with blinkers, he lost by 21 lengths in a Nov. 8 maiden race won by Known Agenda. “Overtook, like Known Agenda, is by 2007 Belmont runner-up Curlin. Overtook’s dam is a daughter of 1992 Belmont winner A.P. Indy and granddaughter of 1977 Belmont winner Seattle Slew. “8. France Go de Ina. (Post 5, 30-1, Hideyuki Mori, Ricardo Santana Jr.) “Based in Japan, France Go de Ina won two of three in that country last year. In his 2021 debut, France Go de Ina finished sixth in the UAE Derby. The Kentucky-bred son of Will Take Charge then ran seventh in the Preakness at odds of 24-1. “France Go de Ina is eligible to receive a $1-million bonus offered by the New York Racing Assn. to any Japanese-based horse who wins the Belmont. Let’s just say it will be shocking if NYRA has to cut that check.” Del Mar announced on Thursday that, after a year’s COVID sabbatical, Trevor Denman will be back to call the summer and fall meetings at the seaside track. Previously he called every summer meeting between 1984 and 2019, before missing last year. There was a bit of foreshadowing when Larry Collmus, who did an outstanding job as Denman’s temporary replacement, changed his Twitter page to remove the fact he was the Del Mar race caller. When contacted recently, Collmus said he expected a decision soon but didn’t know what it was as, no doubt, his nose was growing exponentially. Collmus, Denman, Dinerman, Mirahmadi, Wrona. (Note alphabetical order.) You tell me which region has it as good as we do. You can’t. All of which gives us a thin excuse to show you a cult classic, worst ever sports broadcast. Just watch here. If you don’t chuckle, you have no sense of humor. Remember, boom goes the dynamite. Santa Anita has an eight-race program beginning at 1 p.m. Half the races are on the turf (the odd-numbered ones) and there really is no feature. There are three races with a purse of $61,000, so we’ll just skip that item today. The news, though, continues to be the small fields. Four of the races have six pre-scratch starters, three have five and the last race, the conclusion of the pick six, has nine. Enough said. Here are the field sizes, in order: 5, 6, 6, 6, 5, 5, 6, 9. EIGHTH RACE: No. 2 Call Nine One One (10-1) Call Nine One One was in the stretch 12 days ago and made a nice late move to run third and on the gallop out pass the winner. Jockey upgrade today to Tyler Baze for a horse with the top last race speed and closing kick. I like this 10-1 value to end the Friday card. Sunday’s result: Desert Swarm broke slow, then rushed up to second and stalked into the turn before fading. Swarm obviously needed the race, but I am making a note for the next race. Ciaran Thornton is the handicapper for Californiapick4.com, which offers daily full card picks, longshots of the day, best bets of the day. A look at thoroughbred stakes worth $100,000 or more on Friday. All times PDT. 9:47 Belmont (3): $150,000 Tremont Stakes, 2-year-olds, 5 ½ furlongs. Favorite: Little Drama (1-2) 12:18 Belmont (7): Grade 2 $300,000 True North Stakes, 4 and up, 6 ½ furlongs. Favorite: Firenze Fire (2-1) 12:58 Belmont (8): Grade 3 $300,000 Bed o’ Roses takes, fillies and mares 4 and up, 7 furlongs. Favorite: Chub Wagon (9-5) 1:42 Belmont (9): Grade 2 $750,000 New York Stakes, fillies and mares 4 and up, 1 ¼ miles on turf. Favorite: Harvey’s Lil Goil (3-1) 2:38 Belmont (10): Grade 2 $400,000 Belmont Gold Cup Stakes, 4 and up, 2 miles on turf. Favorite: Baron Samedi (8-5) Los Alamitos is the only game in town at night. So, let’s turn things over to marketing and media guru Orlando Gutierrez. Orlando, the floor is yours. “The grandstand and Vessels Club will open at 8 a.m. on Saturday for simulcasting of racing action from around the country on Belmont Stakes Day. Burgart’s will open at 9 a.m. You can reserve an outdoor table in the Vessels Club at (714) 820-2681. “On Friday night, a pair of allowance events for 3-year-olds will headline the eight-race program. The first will have horses looking for their second victory. London Toby stands out after winning his 2021 debut in sparkling fashion on May 1. The gelding by Favorite Cartel led every step of the way on the way to a 1 ½-length victory in a fast 300-yard time of :15.36. “London Toby ran only twice during his freshman season, but he was impressive then as well. His career debut was a second-place finish to multiple Grade 1 stakes finalist Doc Lamb on Oct. 16. He returned with a second-place finish in a trial to the Grade 1 Golden State Million Futurity, only beaten by the eventual winner and AQHA champion 2-year-old gelding Apollitical Gold. Force For Good, who was third in a trial to the Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity, is another top contender. “The eighth race at 330 yards will see a group aiming for a third career win. Los Alamitos Oaks finalist Comaneci and El Primero Del Año Derby finalist Watch Over Bella are among the top contenders. First post on Friday is 6 p.m. “The last time Black Fryday and Victorio Jess JQM met in an allowance was May 2 and less than 2/100ths of a second separated them. The multiple stakes winner Black Fryday covered the 330 yards in :16.865, while Victorio Jess JQM came in at :16.880. Their rematch is set for Saturday in a $13,800 allowance at 330 yards. “Black Fryday has been a classy runner for a long time. The son of Favorite Cartel won the Governor’s Cup Derby and Southern California Derby in 2018 while scoring a total of seven wins for $351,278. After skipping the 2020 racing season, Black Fryday has returned with some strong effort, running fourth in a trial to the Grade 1 Brad McKinzie Los Alamitos Winter Championship before coming back with his allowance win last month. “Victorio Jess JQM has posted his share of terrific efforts as well. A three-time winner, he’s finished in the money six times earning over $32,000. Turning the tables on Black Fryday and winning would be an accomplishment to remember for Victorio Jess JQM. “The feature race on Sunday is a conditioned allowance event for winning juveniles. Cumbia, a filly by the underrated stallion Caritas, will head the field. The California-bred finished out of the money in her trial to the Robert Adair Kindergarten Futurity on April 15 before returning here with a tremendous 1¼-length win when posting the meet’s fastest time of :12.074 at 220 yards. The field will also feature Fly Light, a filly who won her debut on May 1. “Last Sunday’s trials to the Grade 1 $1,120,000 Ed Burke Million Futurity were dominated by trainer Jose Flores, who won five of the first six trials. Four of those winners advanced to the 350-yard final on Sunday, June 20. Eye On The Sky, who came in as the top name in the trials, was among the qualifiers for Flores along with Black Coffeee, Sweet Dasha Fire, and Chizum. “Golden Boi was the fastest qualifier after winning by a half-length. I had Golden Boi ranked No. 1 in my top 10 list of juveniles earlier this year, but then he ran a troubled fourth in an allowance. It was good to see him return to his earlier form when it mattered most. I ranked Eye On The Sky at the top spot in my latest top 10, so it’ll be a treat to see them meet for the first time in a million-dollar race later this month.” THIRD RACE: No. 1 Sizzling Indian (7-2) He just dead-heated with the heavy odds-on favorite in his first start for these connections while earning a solid figure that is very competitive against this cast of rivals. In that race 19 nights ago, this runner broke quickest of the six and dueled harshly with an outside speed rival for most of this affair before putting that entrant away, He then steadily matched strides with the perfect-tripped public choice. He should move forward Friday in his second start for these quality connections. A final thought I love getting new readers of this newsletter, and you certainly can’t beat the price. If you like it, tell someone. If you don’t like it, you’re probably not reading this.Either way, send this along to a friend, and just have them click here to sign up. Remember, it’s free, and all we need is your email address, nothing more.Any thoughts, you can reach me at john.cherwa@latimes.com. You can also feed my ego by following me on Twitter @jcherwa. Now the star of the show, Friday’s entries. Santa Anita Entries for Friday, June 4. Santa Anita, Santa Anita Park, Arcadia, California. 71st day of a 81-day meet. FIRST RACE. 1 1/8 Mile Turf. Purse: $35,000. Maiden Claiming. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Prices $50,000-$45,000. SECOND RACE. 1 Mile. Purse: $24,000. Claiming. Fillies and Mares. 3 to u year olds. Claiming Prices $16,000-$12,500. THIRD RACE. 1 Mile Turf. Purse: $61,000. Maiden Special Weight. Fillies and Mares. 3 year olds and up. State bred. FOURTH RACE. 5 Furlongs. Purse: $61,000. Maiden Special Weight. Fillies. 2 year olds. FIFTH RACE. 1 Mile Turf. Purse: $36,000. Claiming. Fillies and Mares. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Prices $25,000-$22,500. SIXTH RACE. 6 Furlongs. Purse: $61,000. Maiden Special Weight. Fillies and Mares. 3 year olds and up. SEVENTH RACE. 1 Mile Turf. Purse: $39,000. Starter Optional Claiming. Fillies and Mares. 4 year olds and up. Claiming Price $40,000. EIGHTH RACE. 6½ Furlongs. Purse: $22,000. Maiden Claiming. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Price $20,000.

Editorial: Beer, guns and money: COVID shot incentives are gimmicky, but that's OK

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-04/editorial-beer-guns-and-money-covid-shot-incentives-are-gimmicky-but-thats-ok

Jonathan Carlyle of Toledo, Ohio, had every intention of getting a COVID-19 shot — someday. The Amazon delivery driver was so busy that he kept putting it off. Then he learned that his state was launching a weekly lottery that would award $1 million to some lucky person just for getting vaccinated. “As soon as I heard that, I was like, ‘Yes, I need to go do this now,’” he said Thursday during a press conference with Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. Carlyle received the one-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID shot two days after learning about the incentive, and it was a good thing he didn’t wait. On Wednesday Carlyle found out he was the second winner of Ohio’s “Vax-a-Million” lottery. No one can say for sure how many Americans would be motivated to get a shot by the prospect of a big payday or some other financial inducement, as Carlyle was. More than a third of U.S. adults have yet to be vaccinated for COVID-19, and surveys have shown an array of reasons why people haven’t signed up for their shots. But several states, businesses and the federal government are betting there are more than a few people in Carlyle’s camp. In recent weeks, they have rolled out million-dollar lotteries, full-ride college scholarships and all manner of freebies such as beer, sports tickets and even guns to reach fence-sitters. California launched its own version last week, Vax for the Win, which will give away $116.5 million to vaccinated residents through $1.5-million payouts, smaller weekly jackpots and $50 gift cards. President Biden this week announced a monthlong push by his administration to boost vaccinations that includes touting a handful of business incentive programs, as well as expanded vaccination hours at pharmacies and free child care. If this sounds like desperation, that’s because it is. The pace of daily COVID-19 vaccinations has waned from earlier this year, down to 1.1 million a day from a high of 3.4 million. About 63% of the adults in the U.S. have received at least one COVID-19 shot, but experts say the U.S. needs as much as 80% of the population fully inoculated to reach “herd immunity,” the point at which enough people have protection that a virus can’t spread effectively. A certain number of people don’t plan to get a shot, no matter the inducement. Some can’t get inoculated for medical reasons and others won’t because they are misguided about the safety of the available vaccines. There’s not much that public health programs can do to change the minds of the latter group. But there are data suggesting that programs aimed at those who aren’t philosophically or politically opposed to the vaccine, but for whatever reason just haven’t gotten around to getting a shot, can be moved. The week after Ohio rolled out its lottery, its vaccination rate increased 28%. And in an ongoing UCLA COVID-19 health and politics study project, about one-third of unvaccinated respondents to a survey said that a cash payment would make them more likely to get a COVID shot. Some have criticized the lotteries as a waste of money that could be put to better use, such as helping businesses recover from a year of pandemic restrictions. But if the prizes do move the vaccination needle, what could be a better use of those dollars than saving lives (not to mention cutting healthcare costs) while protecting the county’s economy from a fresh outbreak? Besides, Biden is encouraging states to use some of the federal aid they received from March’s big COVID relief bill for incentives to get people vaccinated. Ideally, people wouldn’t need a cash carrot to do the right thing — protection from a deadly disease would be motivation enough. And though these gimmicks are no substitute for proven methods of increasing vaccination uptake, such as ensuring easy access to vaccine clinics and clear and consistent messaging, if a free Bud Light or lottery ticket helps to nudge some folks off the couch and into the vaccine clinic, then it’s worth trying. We could do without supplying the world with more firearms, however.

Plaschke: Is LeBron James too old, Anthony Davis too frail? Playoff failure suggests so

https://www.latimes.com/sports/lakers/story/2021-06-04/lakers-playoff-failure-lebron-james-age-anthony-davis-injury

It was the definition of disturbing, the epitome of embarrassing, the portrait of failure. Anthony Davis sitting on the bench with his face completely wrapped in a towel. LeBron James throwing the ball into the scorer’s table then helplessly turning up his palms. Frank Vogel shaking his fist and screaming. Profane chants from a crowd that, frankly, didn’t know what else to say. On a stunningly sordid Thursday night at Staples Center, the Lakers’ title defense lasted about as long as Davis. Five minutes. Davis was gone in the first quarter with a strained groin, and the Lakers were gone in the first round after a fractured season, wiped out by the Phoenix Suns 113-100 in Game 6 that gave the Suns a first-round series win 4-2. Yes, this really happened. No, it is no joke that the favorites to repeat as NBA champions ended up as a punch line. Nine months after they danced off a court in the middle of Florida with the franchise’s 17th championship, the Lakers trudged off a court in downtown Los Angeles with one of the franchise’s greatest debacles. “It’s gut-wrenching,” said Vogel. It’s mind blowing, so surreal that many of the 8,550 fans stuck around afterward to stare at the empty court as if hoping somehow the Lakers would come back out and keep playing. At that point, public address announcer Lawrence Tanter intoned, “Ladies and gentlemen, one more applause for the defending champs.” There was some applause. But there were also boos. They were not unwarranted. Lakers Anthony Davis starts for Lakers in Game 6, but lasts only 5 1/2 minutes in a season-ending loss to the Phoenix Suns, led by Devin Booker’s 47 points. June 3, 2021 The easy narrative is that the Lakers began the season wiped out from only a 71-day break after their championship — the shortest in league history — and then stumbled with injuries to Davis and James. The truth is more complicated, the reality more somber, the future terribly unsettled. These Lakers collapsed because they are built around one fragile star, one aging star, and a bunch of supporting pieces that never quite fit. These Lakers failed to defend their title because Davis can’t stay healthy, James can no longer carry the team alone, and the front office surrounded them with some massive mistakes. These Lakers vowed to come back strong next season and challenge for another championship, but how exactly is that going to happen? Is Davis going to get tougher? Is James going to get younger? Are Rob Pelinka and Kurt Rambis and Rich Paul going to make better decisions amid a crunching salary cap? These Lakers soared to the title only in a shortened season, and only with Davis and James playing at their peak. On Thursday night they officially flopped back to earth, and it’s possible they could remain grounded for the remaining two years of James’ contract and career unless they can find some magic somewhere. Lakers fans react to their season coming to an end with a loss to the Phoenix Suns on June 3, 2021, at Staples Center. It starts with Davis. He needs to build a body to match his $190-million contract. Whatever he’s been doing in the offseason, it’s not working. His training regimen is clearly lacking. His lanky frame is obviously not fit for a full NBA schedule. Maybe he needs new voices. Maybe the Lakers need more involvement. “Obviously the number one thing for us is getting AD healthy,” said James emphatically after Thursday’s finale. “That’s No. 1.” It’s troubling that Davis doesn’t seem to equally grasp the gravity of the situation. He acts as if he doesn’t know, or care, that the entire NBA is questioning his fitness and his toughness. “I don’t have to prove nothing to anyone,” Davis said. “I know what I go through, what I play through, and I don’t need to prove anything to anyone and I’m not going to prove anything to anyone.” With that attitude, he won’t. The second issue is the growing conflict between James and Father Time. James appears to be slowly losing the battle. In the final two blowouts by Phoenix, the Lakers collapsed the moment they realized Davis wasn’t going to play, almost as if they knew James could no longer carry them. The Lakers’ fourth-quarter comeback attempt Thursday essentially ended when, on consecutive possessions in the final three minutes, James had the ball swiped and then had his shot blocked. He had 29 points, nine rebounds and seven assists, but he only made two baskets when they were getting run out in the first quarter and again seemed incapable of inspiring greatness from others. This was the worst postseason of his career, his first opening-round loss in 15 postseasons, and one wonders, how much better will he be next season at age 37? He will have his first full summer in two years to rest, but the clock on his basketball longevity is ticking. “It’s been draining — mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally draining,” he said of the last two seasons, including those three months in the bubble. The Lakers future depends on how much of him, if any, can be restored. Then there’s the role players that surround Davis and James. Many of them were new. Few of them were effective. Last winter the Lakers’ front office was praised for greatly buffeting a championship team, but it turns out, they severely damaged it. Dennis Schroder proved to be inconsistent and a failure in the clutch. Montrezl Harrell couldn’t play defense so he couldn’t get on the court. Marc Gasol contributed almost nothing. Wesley Matthews supplied energy only in spurts. Then there were the two midseason decisions that spectacularly flopped. They decided to sign Andre Drummond and guess what? In the Thursday finale, he was the only active Laker who didn’t get off the bench. They decided not to include Talen Horton-Tucker in a trade to Toronto for Kyle Lowry and guess what? If they had made that deal, Lowry’s presence would have helped them withstand the injuries and they would probably still be playing. Throw in the continual disappointment that is once-budding superstar Kyle Kuzma and, even with the great Alex Caruso, the Lake Show has a problem chorus. Pelinka and Rambis and Paul need to be better. They need to take a more objective look at Paul’s clients. They need to figure out how to best fortify this team to counteract Davis’ fragility and James’ age. In the buzz before Thursday’s game, Tanter appeared on the video screen and announced, “We are the Lakers … we don’t fold … we rise up.” A couple of hours later they had folded. It is frightfully uncertain when they will rise up again. Sports The Lakers and Clippers open the NBA playoffs on May 22-23. Here’s a guide to the Los Angeles Times’ complete coverage. May 21, 2021

Op-Ed: The COVID-19 emergency is far from over for vulnerable renters

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-04/rent-relief-eviction-moratorium-pandemic-los-angeles

Since 2004, my family and I have rented one unit of a prewar duplex in Mid-City Los Angeles. It’s a building I adore, especially the accents and the details: the ziggurat motifs that top the doorways, the enclosed garden in the front. I also love the neighborhood. Over the last 17 years, I have walked and talked and let myself be known here. I have written about it as home territory. I have become part of a community. Now, however, we might have to leave. The building is for sale, and our landlady, who has lived above us for all the time we’ve been here, is moving out. It’s possible that whoever buys it will have plans for both units that don’t include us. I’m no rental naïf; I am familiar with the risks of non-ownership. Rentals — or so conventional wisdom insists — are by their nature temporary, right? And yet, this apartment is where my wife and I raised our children. It is where we celebrated and we struggled, where we suffered loss, made gains, survived and thrived. It is our home. And in a city where, according to a 2018 Zillow report, 64.1% of homes are rented, an awful lot of people must feel the same way we do. So many rent in Los Angeles because it costs too much to buy. Housing affordability, says the California Assn. of Realtors, is the lowest since mid-2018, a year when Curbed Los Angeles reported that 75% of Angelenos couldn’t afford monthly mortgage payments “without becoming cost-burdened.” Tenants, of course, have protections when buildings are sold. Our unit is rent-stabilized, which affords us certain options. So too, the duration of our tenancy. To force us out would cost any owner time and money. We are fully cognizant of our rights, rights the COVID-19 crisis has fortified. Under temporary emergency orders first issued in March 2020 by Mayor Eric Garcetti, no landlord can evict a tenant for COVID-19 related nonpayment of rent in Los Angeles. Nor can landlords enact a “no-fault eviction,” which includes a property owner taking over a unit for personal or family use, or otherwise removing it from the market. The local eviction moratorium — which is more far-reaching than similar state or federal mandates — remains in effect until June 30, and it can be extended monthly by the City Council. Even after the order expires, additional protections can slow the eviction clock. That such regulations have been essential during the long months of pandemic lockdowns should go without saying. But now, as my family contemplates the possibility that we may lose our home, the Garcetti order seems less like an emergency and more like a longer-term necessity. Our personal housing insecurity, in other words, has brought Los Angeles’ housing insecurities ever more sharply into focus. It’s no secret that Los Angeles is caught in a devastating homelessness crisis. More than 66,000 people in the metropolitan area are “unhoused,” according to the latest Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority data. In January, a study from the Economic Roundtable projected that the number could almost double by 2023. The situation will only grow more catastrophic if — when — the eviction moratorium is ended because so many people have been unable to keep up with their rent. Opinion Shelter and housing get people out of homelessness. But L.A. needs expansive programs to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place. March 23, 2021 Once the order is lifted, tenants will have up to 12 months to pay back rent in full. The city suggests a variety of payment options, but all are contingent on having the necessary income, which is hardly a given for the most economically vulnerable. California’s economy may rebound, but, as Susan Lund of the McKinsey Global Institute recently told the Washington Post, “there is a very real scenario in which a lot of the large-employment, low-wage jobs in retail and in food service just go away in the coming years.” In an attempt at mitigating the rent payback problem, Congress has allocated more than $46 billion for emergency tenant assistance, but very little of it has trickled down to those who need it. In California, which is among the states hit hardest by rent delinquency, only $20 million of rent relief has so far been approved — and $1 million paid out — of the $355 million in federal funds applied for by tenants and landlords, according to the New York Times. The problem, in part, is that rent relief isn’t something state and local governments are used to providing. Rules, applications and an apparatus for dispensing the money have to be established. And those in need have to be able to navigate the new bureaucracy. “It’s a really convoluted process,” Shanti Singh of the California renters’ rights coalition Tenants Together told Vox late last month. “People who are most impacted by economic hardship during COVID-19, they often don’t have extensive documentation of hardships or job losses.” June 30 is looming. I’m not arguing for free rent or an endless eviction moratorium. I understand that landlords have mortgages, property taxes and upkeep bills to pay. But if the state and other governmental entities are slow to distribute rent relief, then evictions should not begin. The emergency created by COVID-19 isn’t over. I hope my family will be able to stay in our community and our home. The state and the city should do everything they can to help the most at-risk among us do the same. David L. Ulin is a contributing writer to Opinion.

Facebook to end 'newsworthiness exemption' for politicians' posts, reports say

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-06-04/facebook-to-end-rule-exemptions-for-politicians-reports-say

Facebook plans to end a contentious policy championed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg that exempted politicians from certain moderation rules on its site, according to several news reports. The company’s rationale for that policy held that the speech of political leaders is inherently newsworthy and in the public interest even if it is offensive, bullying or otherwise controversial. The social media giant is currently mulling over what to do with the account of former President Trump, which it “indefinitely” suspended Jan. 6, leaving it in Facebook limbo with its owners unable to post. The change in policy was first reported Thursday by the tech site The Verge and later confirmed by the New York Times and the Washington Post. Facebook has had a general “newsworthiness exemption” since 2016. But it garnered attention in 2019 when Nick Clegg, vice president of global affairs and communications, announced that speech from politicians will be treated as “newsworthy content that should, as a general rule, be seen and heard.” The newsworthiness exemption, he explained in a blog post at the time, meant that if “someone makes a statement or shares a post which breaks our community standards we will still allow it on our platform if we believe the public interest in seeing it outweighs the risk of harm.” Technology and the Internet Frozen in time since the Jan. 6 insurrection, perhaps forever, Donald Trump’s Facebook page lives on as an internet destination for #MAGA fans and #Resistance types alike. This hasn’t given politicians unlimited license, however. When Facebook suspended Trump in January, it cited “the risk of further incitement of violence” following the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol as the reason. The company says it has never used the newsworthiness exemption for any of Trump’s posts. Facebook declined to comment.

Column: What's the matter with Kyrsten Sinema?

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-04/filibuster-kyrsten-sinema-arizona-joe-manchin-west-virginia-joe-biden

The original filibuster is a very Roman move. In the ancient world, Roman senators like Cato the Younger were notorious blowhards who thrived on delivering long speeches to prove their stamina and talent at oratory. The U.S. Senate is the only legislative body on the planet that still regularly lets itself be held hostage by Roman-style antics — or, these days, the threat of such antics. Our Washington senators only have to make it known they’re willing to bore their colleagues to death rather than allowing them to vote on a given measure. And everyone caves. The only thing that can end an individual filibuster is a vote of cloture. Unlike a vote on legislation, cloture requires a supermajority of senators — 60 of 100 — to pass, not a simple majority of 51. So even if 58 senators, representing 29 states, want legislation to get a hearing and a vote, they don’t count. The legislation gets tabled. This week, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) told an interviewer that the filibuster is the key to “comity” in the Senate. That’s rich. Comity — courtesy, from the Latin comitas, as Cato the Younger might have said — is the last thing filibusters are meant to promote. Rather, they’re a last-ditch delaying tactic by those who know they can’t win in a real vote. Filibustering politicians combine all the charm of kids singing with their fingers in their ears with the sportsmanship of a loser who flips a board game over and huffs off. In recent years, filibusters have served as nothing but a roadblock to keep popular legislation from getting a real hearing. For Sinema, though, backing the filibuster seems to have become a way to pretend to support legislation while resting assured that it will stall. On May 28, Sinema skipped a cloture vote that would have released from filibuster the bill establishing a bipartisan commission to study the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. She said she supported forming a commission; she urged Republicans to support it too. But, when it came down to it, she was out to lunch. Saying she had a “family matter,” Sinema played hooky. Such impressive cowardice. She didn’t even have to go on the record with a vote on whether to take up the question of the commission she claimed to support. What’s going on with Sinema? She comes from a a state with a big red streak, but it went for Biden. And she has to know she’s neglecting popular will. A Data for Progress survey in February showed that 61% of Arizona voters favor passing key legislation over preserving “traditional Senate procedures and rules like the filibuster.” Historically, the filibuster knows no party. Indeed, some of the most famous filibusters were staged by Southern Democrats — so-called Dixiecrats — who objected to civil rights and voting rights legislation in the last century and talked a lot of bills to death. But more recently it’s been Republicans trying to stonewall … on very similar issues. In fact, the old anti-voting-rights filibuster engine is revving up for another round of obstructionism against two popular elections bills that have already passed in the House: the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. The For the People Act would nullify many new and extreme voting restrictions, rein in campaign donations and expand ballot access. The Lewis Act would restore laws that prevent some states from changing their election rules willy-nilly. Both would almost certainly pass, albeit with some horse-trading, if they could get a real vote in the Senate. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has made it clear the GOP will use a filibuster to make sure that won’t happen. And Sinema — joining the other pro-filibuster Democrat, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia — is poised to help him. Manchin’s home state went for Trump. He can play ball with Republicans as much as he wants, and he’ll probably win points at home for it. But once again, you gotta wonder about Sinema. Sinema is a co-sponsor, for heaven’s sake, on both the voting rights bills. But her enthusiasm for the filibuster seems to come first. If Sinema occasionally puts a foot on the gas, you can still be sure she’s not letting up on the brake. Opinion A voting-rights exception to the filibuster is a middle ground. It would preserve the filibuster and make it easier to enact voting-rights legislation. Feb. 8, 2021 None of this is doing Sinema any favors in Arizona. According to a Civiqs poll, her approval rating among all Arizona voters has dropped 17 percentage points since February, when she took her stance in favor of the filibuster. If Sinema started behaving logically and changed her mind on the filibuster, the pressure would increase on Manchin too. Instead, she’s just added weight on a Democratic anchor holding down voting rights, the Jan. 6 commission and a whole lot more Democratic legislation she promised voters she’d support. President Biden explained the monkey wrench in his agenda on Wednesday: “I hear all the folks on TV saying, ‘Why doesn’t Biden get this done?’ Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House and a tie in the Senate. With two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends — but we’re not giving up.” Sinema has to know the filibuster is obsolete. All her talk about comity, critical steps and family matters doesn’t add up. It’s almost like she’s filibustering herself, and it’s time to call cloture on her. Sinema needs to get to work, help pass these big bills and stop pretending that equivocation is bipartisanship. @page88

Dennis Schroder ready to run it back with Lakers despite playoff exit

https://www.latimes.com/sports/lakers/story/2021-06-04/lakers-suns-game-6-dennis-schroder-return

Dennis Schroder began his postgame videoconference talking about how he was going to “work my ass off” over the summer because he wanted to win a championship with the Lakers. He and the Lakers had just been sent packing from the NBA playoffs, their 113-100 defeat to the Phoenix Suns ending their quest to repeat as champions by losing the best-of-seven series 4-2. Schroder, who will be a free agent this summer, was asked late Thursday night if it was his intention to re-sign with the Lakers. “The Lakers, they didn’t do nothing to me. They been great,” Schroder said. “They got the top two players [LeBron James and Anthony Davis] in the league. Everybody in the locker room is great, so at the end of the day, like I said, I want to be here and win the championship. That’s not even a question.” The Lakers offered Schroder a contract extension during the season for four years and $84 million, but the point guard turned that down. “It wasn’t about money, because everybody who knows me, it’s not about money either,” he said. “Of course, you want to be fair. But at the end of the day, not everything is about money — for me and my family. At the end of the day, if everything is good, we gonna come back and win a championship next year.” Schroder had an up-and-down playoff series for the Lakers. He averaged 14.3 points and 2.8 assists while shooting 40.3% from the field, 31.9% from three-point range. He didn’t score in Game 5, missing all nine of his shots. All of those numbers were down from his 15.4 points per game during the regular season, when he also averaged 5.8 assists and 43.7% shooting from the field, 33.5% from three-point range. But watching Davis trying to play in Game 6 with a groin injury that eventually forced him to stop during the first quarter impressed Schroder. “That’s the reason why I’m committed,” Schroder said. “And I’m saying like, next year we going to come back, everybody is going to be healthy and like I said, it’s going to be great.” Lakers Anthony Davis starts for Lakers in Game 6, but lasts only 5 1/2 minutes in a season-ending loss to the Phoenix Suns, led by Devin Booker’s 47 points. June 3, 2021 Schroder had his own issues to deal with. He twice was in the NBA’s health and safety protocols during the season. When he returned from the protocols the second time to play in the last two regular-season games, Schroder was trying to get his body back in shape. He had 20 points, three rebounds and three assists in Game 6 against the Suns. Lakers fans react to their season coming to an end with a loss to the Phoenix Suns on June 3, 2021, at Staples Center. Schroder still sounded like he wanted to run it back with the Lakers next season. “I mean, we got to go through the [b—] to get to the good [s—],” Schroder said. “That’s how I take it. I mean, we went through a lot of stuff this year. ... “We going to be back. I’m going to work my ass off to come back here to give everything because we owe them fans one and I want to win a championship. I’m going to work my ass off this summer to come back and be me.”

Letters to the Editor: UC Yreka? This is why UC's next campus needs to be in California's far north

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-04/uc-yreka-new-university

To the editor: Yes, the University of California system needs to enroll far more in-state students, and the answer is not to cut spots for nonresidents. (“The struggle for the soul of UC,” editorial, May 28) The number of UC campuses expanded steadily until the 1960s. However, since 1965, only one new campus has been added. We need all of our California State University campuses too, but there’s a gaping hole that should be filled. There are no UC campuses north of Davis and only two CSUs in the northern third of the state. Why not build a UC campus in Siskiyou County? High school seniors in the far north of the state deserve a chance to go to a UC close to home. A UC Yreka, perhaps, would bring many jobs to an economically disadvantaged part of California, and the faculty and staff might actually be able to afford homes there. California has the money now. Invest in students’ futures by building a new UC campus. Tessa Lucero, Canyon Country .. To the editor: You propose converting a CSU campus into a UC. Which CSUs would you propose for this conversion? These campuses have evolved in sync with their communities, and replacing a CSU with a UC is not a quick proposition. I’ve taught in both the CSU and UC systems. They both offer significant value to their students and communities. Perhaps we also need to look at other options, such as siting UC campuses in downtown urban areas, where commercial real estate may soon be more available due to changes in work patterns during the pandemic. Not all students wish to attend — or pay for — a campus with recreation facilities, student centers and the like. Also, is CSU-UC co-location an option on certain campuses? This could create interesting opportunities for research, sports, resources and program sharing. Finally, do all students who reach for UC or CSU really benefit from their college experience? Would some prefer to enroll in more career-oriented programs, if available? Let’s consider more carefully why students go to college and where before we make snap decisions. Laura Curran, Newport Beach

Letters to the Editor: What critical race theory is (Hint: Republicans are wrong)

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-04/republicans-critical-race-theory

To the editor: The new effort by Republicans to outlaw or otherwise restrict the teaching of critical race theory in public schools hearkens back to the Scopes Monkey Trial and the anti-evolution movement of the 1920s. A century later, some lawmakers are once again trying to legislate educational theory based on a limited understanding of what they are trying to restrict. The concepts listed in the article as being targeted by Republicans are not part of critical race theory. Critical theory is just that — a theory that outlines a method for examining history from multiple perspectives and not just the perspective of the dominant culture. For many, encountering new ideas is challenging and sometimes frightening. Furthermore, critical theory can address many ideas and perspectives, not just race. Critical theory does not proclaim white males are to blame for all the world’s ills. That is obviously false. However, it is true that any dominant culture needs to be critically examined, and societies can then work to improve laws in ways that reduce the negative effects of the ills so discovered. Gary Barton, Santa Ana .. To the editor: Republicans in the North Carolina Legislature claim that the concepts of critical race theory include “the belief that a person’s race or sex determines their moral character, that people bear responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex, and that they should feel guilty because of the two characteristics.” I researched critical race theory going back to the 1970s and found no such language. A co-founder of the movement described it as a “collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power.” So I am guessing the Tulsa Race Massacre will not be included in the Republicans’ history books, or it will just be remembered differently. A similar thing occurred after the Civil War when the United Daughters of the Confederacy demanded textbooks for public schools provide pro-Confederate versions of history and tell the story of the war from a southern point of view. More than 100 years later, we still don’t like to admit the truth. Kendall Wolf, Encino

Letters to the Editor: Will Taix restaurant be flattened by the 'affordable housing' lie?

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-04/taix-restaurant-affordable-housing

To the editor: Taix restaurant in Echo Park has been a joy to so many of us. But even such wonderful sites are fragile, and I respect the owners’ decision to sell the building and move the restaurant to a smaller location where the business can survive. (“Au revoir, Taix. Los Angeles shouldn’t value buildings over people,” editorial, June 2) But let’s be honest: The assertion that affordable housing is the core reason we need to say goodbye to Taix and other memorable sites is simply a lie. Affordable housing? For whom? Millionaires? The reality is that the rents in the new development will be beyond the income of those we think of as needing “affordable” housing. Oh, sure, there will be a percentage of units that fit the affordable category, but that percentage is always outrageously tiny. This is important because the phrase “need for affordable housing” has been used to destroy neighborhoods, not just historical sites, in the service of greed. It is simply manipulative deception to fill the already wealthy coffers of dishonest developers. The title of your editorial needs a bit of adjusting: “Au revoir, Taix. Los Angeles values buildings over people.” Dorothy Clark, Los Angeles .. To the editor: The so-called Taix building in Echo Park was not originally built by or for the Taix restaurant. Before Taix moved there from its beloved site in downtown L.A., where it was renowned for serving family-style meals, many of us who worked for the County of Los Angeles in the then-new Hall of Administration enjoyed delightful meals of whatever Taix was serving that day. The building to which Taix moved more than 40 years ago was previously Botwin’s Restaurant, where the mother of my friend worked as a waitress. It was there that I had my first hamburger — actually my first non-homemade sandwich of any kind. I do not know who built the Sunset Boulevard building, but certainly it was not the Taix family, who created a delightful French-type restaurant that was a far cry from the original family-style Taix in downtown Los Angeles. Phil Tamoush, Torrance .. To the editor: As New York Times columnist Frank Bruni wrote in a piece about restaurants for people over 50, “What you want from restaurants ... is a proxy for what you want from love and from life. ... Loud is no longer exciting; trendy is overrated.” Although Taix seldom overtly welcomed you, at least it was cozy and the food was reliable. Taix returning as a “smaller, more-cost-efficient space” is not enticing. Who wants to dine on black leather banquettes and in blinding white, high-volume walls? Pas moi, merci. Kay Tornborg, Los Angeles .. To the editor: Change is good, but the proposed building on the site of Taix is massive. It is way too big and way too tall for the neighborhood. Half the size would be appropriate. Echo Park is a village; it is not a “corridor.” We in Echo Park do not value profits over community, and neither should the planners at L.A. City Hall. Sarah Starr, Los Angeles

Biden administration tasks groups with picking which asylum-seekers to allow in

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-04/groups-pick-asylum-seekers-to-allow-into-us

The Biden administration has quietly tasked six humanitarian groups with recommending which migrants should be allowed to stay in the U.S. instead of being rapidly expelled from the country under federal pandemic-related powers that block people from seeking asylum. The groups will determine who is most vulnerable in Mexico, and their criteria has not been made public. It comes as large numbers of people are crossing the southern border and as the government faces intensifying pressure to lift the beefed-up public health powers instituted by former President Trump and kept in place by President Biden. Several members of the consortium spoke to the Associated Press about the criteria and provided details of the system that have not been previously reported. The U.S. is aiming to admit up to 250 asylum-seekers a day who are referred by the groups and is agreeing to use that system only until July 31. By then, the consortium hopes that Biden will have scrapped the extraordinary public health powers, though the administration has not committed to that. So far, a total of nearly 800 asylum-seekers have been let in since May 3, and members of the consortium say there is already more demand than they can meet. The groups have not been publicly identified except for the International Rescue Committee, a global relief organization. The others are London-based Save the Children; two U.S.-based organizations, HIAS and Kids in Need of Defense; and two Mexico-based organizations, Asylum Access and the Institute for Women in Migration, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not intended for public release. Asylum Access, which provides services to people seeking asylum in Mexico, characterized its role as minimal. Politics Even as Biden administration officials call Title 42 a ‘source of pain,’ they’re defending the Trump-era pandemic policy. May 19, 2021 The effort started in El Paso and is expanding to Nogales, Ariz. A similar but separate mechanism led by the American Civil Liberties Union began in late March and allows 35 families a day into the United States at places along the border. It has no end date. The twin tracks are described by participating organizations as an imperfect transition from so-called Title 42 authority, named for a section of an obscure 1944 public health law that Trump used in March 2020 to end the granting of asylum at the Mexican border. With COVID-19 vaccination rates rising, Biden is finding it increasingly difficult to justify the expulsions on public health grounds and faces demands to end it from the United Nations refugee agency and members of his own party and administration. “We are working to streamline a system for identifying and lawfully processing particularly vulnerable individuals who warrant humanitarian exceptions under the [Title 42] order,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said. “This humanitarian exception process involves close coordination with international and nongovernmental organizations in Mexico.” Critics of the new selection processes say too much power is vested in a small number of organizations and that the effort is shrouded in secrecy without a clear explanation of how the groups were chosen. Critics also say there are no assurances that the most vulnerable or deserving migrants will be chosen to seek asylum. Politics Biden sends Secretary of State Blinken to Central America to push officials on corruption in their countries and blocking immigration to the U.S. June 1, 2021 Some consortium members are concerned that going public may cause their offices in Mexico to be mobbed by asylum-seekers, overwhelming their tiny staffs and exposing them to potential threats and physical attacks from extortionists and other criminals. The consortium was formed after the U.S. government asked the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees’ office in Mexico for the names of organizations with deep experience and capacity in Mexico, said Sibylla Brodzinsky, a spokeswoman for the U.N. office. “We’ve had long relationships with them and they’re trusted partners,” she said. The groups say they are merely streamlining the process but that the vulnerable migrants’ cases can come from anywhere. News Alerts Get breaking news, investigations, analysis and more signature journalism from the Los Angeles Times in your inbox. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. In Nogales, the International Rescue Committee is connecting to migrants via social media and smartphones to find candidates. It plans to refer up to 600 people a month to U.S. officials, said Raymundo Tamayo, the group’s director in Mexico. Special consideration is being given to people who have been in Mexico a long time, are in need of acute medical attention or who have disabilities, are members of the LGBTQ community or are non-Spanish speakers, though each case is being weighed according to its individual circumstances, Tamayo said. ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said advocacy groups are in “a very difficult position because they need to essentially rank the desperation” of people, but he insisted it was temporary. The government, he said, “cannot farm out the asylum system.” Migration experts not involved in the process have questioned how the groups determine who is eligible. California While President Biden has taken steps to change Trump administration asylum policies, many are still in effect to keep asylum seekers out of the U.S. March 21, 2021 “It has been murky,” said Jessica Bolter, an analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute who believes the administration is trying to quietly be humane without encouraging more people to come, a balancing act she doubts will succeed. “Setting out clear and accurate information about how and who might get in might lead to fewer migrants making the trip, so there’s not this game of chance that kind of seems to be in place right now,” Bolter said. U.S. border authorities recorded the highest number of encounters with migrants in more than 20 years in April, though many were repeat crossers who had previously been expelled from the country. The number of children crossing the border alone also is hovering at all-time highs. Against that backdrop, some advocates are seeing the makings of the “humane” asylum system that Biden promised during his campaign. Details have been elusive, with administration officials saying they need time. World & Nation We spoke with migrants as they crossed the border with smugglers and turned themselves in March 22, 2021 Susana Coreas, who fled El Salvador, was among those identified as vulnerable and allowed into the United States last month. Coreas spent more than a year in Ciudad Juarez waiting to apply for asylum but was barred by the public health order. She and other transgender women refurbished an abandoned hotel to have a safe place to stay after they felt uncomfortable at a number of shelters in the rough Mexican city. But they continued to have problems. One woman had a knife pointed at her. Another had a gun pulled on her. “There was so much anxiety,” Coreas said. “I now feel at peace.”

Analysis: How the Supreme Court has tilted election law to favor the Republican Party

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-06-04/how-supreme-court-tilted-election-law-favor-gop

This year’s wave of new voting restrictions across the South may seem a response to the 2020 election, but its origins stem in no small part from the Supreme Court, which over the last decade has reshaped election law to elevate the power of state lawmakers over the rights of their voters. The sum of the court’s rulings on elections could give the Republican Party a significant edge as it seeks to recapture control of Congress in 2022 and the White House in 2024. Under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the Supreme Court threw out the part of the Voting Rights Act requiring states with histories of discriminating against Black voters to clear election rule changes with the U.S. Justice Department. Writing for a 5-4 majority in 2013, Roberts called the section outdated and said it did not fit with “current conditions.” The Constitution in the view of the Roberts court also allows lawmakers to draw gerrymandered districts to keep themselves in power, forbids limits on how much wealthy donors and incorporated groups can spend on campaigns and may even permit state lawmakers, not the voters, to decide who will be the president. It’s a view that proved helpful to Republican-leaning states in skirmishes ahead of last year’s election and cleared the way for the recent showdown over the Texas GOP’s sweeping efforts to enact voting restrictions. Politics Biden asks Vice President Kamala Harris to lead his administration’s efforts to protect voting rights as many states work to add restrictions. June 1, 2021 The court’s redistricting decisions alone could be enough to shift control in the U.S. House next year, according to Michael Li, a scholar at the Brennan Center. This will be the first cycle of redistricting in more than 50 years in which the Southern states may put their election maps into effect immediately. “The Supreme Court has given a green light to aggressive partisan gerrymandering,” he said. “It is almost certainly enough seats in those states alone for Republicans to win back the House.” Stanford Law professor Nathaniel Persily said he would be surprised if newly enacted voting restrictions are struck down. “The Supreme Court has not sent a signal they will protect the right to vote,” he said. During the civil rights era of the 1960s and for some time beyond, the Supreme Court spoke of voting as a fundamental right, one judges had a duty to protect. “The right to vote freely for the candidate of one’s choice is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government,” Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in 1964 in Reynolds vs. Sims. But the notion of a constitutional right to vote has faded, replaced by the court’s conviction that the power of state legislators trumps the rights of the voters. Harvard Law professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos, who teaches election law, said he wouldn’t speculate about the intent of the justices. “But across the right to vote, redistricting, the Voting Rights Act and campaign finance, the court’s decisions have benefited Republicans,” he said. “And partisan advantage explains these decisions better than rival hypotheses like originalism, precedent, or judicial nonintervention.” Last fall, the court’s conservatives repeatedly chastised judges who in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic sought to protect voters, for example, by extending deadlines for mailed-in ballots. A judge in the crucial state of Wisconsin said ballots postmarked by election day should be counted even if they arrived a few days late. The Supreme Court disagreed, 5-3, in an October vote. The Constitution gives state legislatures, not judges, the authority to set election rules, said Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh in Democratic National Committee vs. Wisconsin State Legislature. “Legislators can be held accountable by the people for the rules they write or fail to write,” they added. Yet Wisconsin may not be the best example of legislators “held accountable by the people.” The state assembly districts were drawn to favor Republicans so much that the GOP held 63 of 99 seats after the 2018 election, even though Democrats won a statewide majority and ousted Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Six months earlier, the Supreme Court had thrown out a lower court ruling striking down Wisconsin’s election districts as an extreme partisan gerrymander. Republicans did not invent gerrymandering. Democrats led the way in the past. But when Republicans won big in the 2010 midterm election, they drew election districts to lock in their party’s control. When challenged in court, the Supreme Court sided with the states over their voters. Roberts spoke for a 5-4 majority in 2019 to uphold North Carolina’s Republican legislators whose gerrymandered map all but assured Republicans would hold 10 of 13 seats in Congress, even if Democrats won more votes statewide. “To hold that legislators cannot take partisan interests into account when drawing district lines would essentially countermand the Framers’ decision to entrust districting to political entities,” he said in Rucho vs. Common Cause. How far would the Supreme Court go to uphold the power of the states over the wishes of their voters? That question may be answered in 2024. When it became clear President Trump had lost his reelection bid to Joe Biden, some conservative analysts and Republicans in Pennsylvania suggested the legislature could appoint its own slate of electors, defying the verdict of the voters. They cited Bush vs. Gore, the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling that ended a recount of paper card ballots in Florida, preserving George W. Bush’s narrow victory in 2000. “The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election,” the court said, adding that even then, the state could still take back the power to appoint the electors who ultimately choose the president. No state legislature chose last year to appoint its own slate to the electoral college, but if the presidential election is very close in 2024, there is a growing chance one or more will try. The legal divide over voting and elections begins with a basic dispute over how to read the Constitution and American history. As written in 1787, it gave voters a very limited role. Members of the House were to be chosen “by the people,” but state legislatures would choose their U.S. senators, appoint the electors who chose the President and set rules for elections. But the Constitution has been repeatedly amended to broaden and bolster voting rights, including protections against discrimination based on gender and race. The Warren court saw this evolution as putting the voters in charge of America’s democracy, but today’s conservative justices espouse “originalism” and focus on the words of the 18th century Constitution. “It’s a very different court now,” USC law professor Franita Tolson said, much more deferential to the states, but also, she added, “they are privileging the status quo of 1787 when the electorate was mostly white men and ignoring the more egalitarian Reconstruction Amendments.” The major ruling weakening the Voting Rights Act highlights the difference. Congress passed that law under the 15th Amendment, enacted after the Civil War to protect Black Americans from having their votes denied or their voting power diluted. In striking down a key part of the law, Roberts wrote that the framers of the Constitution intended the states to keep for themselves “the power to regulate elections.” Civil rights lawyers may still file suits under the Voting Rights Act and seek to prove that new restrictions discriminate against Black or Latino voters. But these cases are hard to win and may take years of litigation. Republican lawyers say the Democrats and their allies have been making exaggerated claims about “voter suppression.” They argue that elections require rules and enforcing those rules is not the same as denying anyone the right to vote. The Supreme Court in March considered an Arizona rule that calls for tossing out ballots cast in the wrong precincts. “Arizona has not denied anyone any voting opportunity of any kind,” said Washington lawyer Michael Carvin, representing the Arizona Republican Party. Going to the right precinct is the “usual burden of voting,” not an unfair rule that targets minority voters, he said. This fall, Roberts will surpass the 16-year tenure of Earl Warren. While Warren championed equal rights and voting, the Roberts court has repeatedly invoked its duty to protect the 1st Amendment rights of the wealthy and corporate groups to spend money on election campaigns. It struck down laws going back to 1947 that restricted campaign spending on the grounds they violate the right to “political speech.” “Political speech cannot be limited based on a speaker’s wealth,” the court said in the Citizens United decision in 2010, because “the 1st Amendment generally prohibits the suppression of political speech based on a speaker’s identity.” In that case, the “speakers” were corporations and incorporated groups. Unions won too because they had been restricted by the same laws. “There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders,” Roberts wrote four years later in the opening line of McCutcheon vs. FEC. The 5-4 decision in favor of the National Republican Committee erased the limits on total contributions to candidates. This time, though, Roberts seemed to take the opposite view about whether legislators could be held accountable by the people when overseeing election laws: “Those who govern should be the last people to help decide who should govern,” he wrote.

Hundreds show up for Tiananmen Square massacre vigil in Hong Kong despite ban

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-04/hong-kong-vigil-organizer-arrested-tiananmen-square-anniversary

Hundreds of people gathered near a Hong Kong park Friday despite a ban on an annual candlelight vigil remembering China’s deadly crackdown in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and despite the arrest of an organizer of previous vigils. Hong Kong police banned the vigil for a second straight year, citing coronavirus social-distancing restrictions, although there have been no local cases in the semi-autonomous Chinese city for more than six weeks. Police closed off large parts of Victoria Park — the venue of past vigils — in the city’s popular Causeway Bay shopping district and warned people not to participate in unauthorized assemblies, which carry a penalty of up to five years in jail. Despite the ban and a heavy police presence, hundreds of people still turned up Friday night to walk along the perimeter of the park. At 8 p.m., many turned on the flashlights on their smartphones while others lit candles in remembrance of those who lost their lives when China’s military put down student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. Hundreds, if not thousands, were killed in the crackdown. In past years, tens of thousands of people have gathered in Victoria Park to honor the dead. Last year, thousands defied the ban, lighting candles and singing songs. Police later charged more than 20 activists with participating in the event. A man who joined the hundreds near the park on Friday, giving only his surname, Wong, because of fears of punishment, said the Tiananmen Square crackdown is a memory shared by Hong Kongers, and he wanted to commemorate the students and citizens who were killed by China’s People’s Liberation Army. World & Nation Three decades later, China’s ruling Communist Party remains relentless in its efforts to erase the public memory of the 1989 pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests that ended in a deadly military crackdown. June 3, 2021 China’s ruling Communist Party has never allowed public events on the mainland marking the military’s attack on protesters and citizens. Security was increased in Tiananmen Square in central Beijing on Friday morning, with police checking pedestrians’ IDs and tour buses shuttling Chinese tourists as on any other day. Authorities have squelched all discussion of the events on the mainland, where the few remaining activists and victims’ advocates are put under increased police monitoring and taken away on involuntary “vacations” around the anniversary. Chinese officials contend that the country’s rapid economic development in the years since what they call the “political turmoil” of 1989 proves that decisions made at the time were correct. Along with the deaths of protesters and ordinary citizens, the events of 1989 caused considerable upset within the Communist Party, with the reformist general secretary, Zhao Ziyang, removed from office and placed under house arrest until his death in 2005. Efforts to suppress public memory of the Tiananmen events have lately turned to Hong Kong, where the June 4 Museum was closed this week just three days after opening, and police warned residents not to attend the vigil. World & Nation Hong Kong authorities have banned the annual Tiananmen Square massacre commemoration this year. But some are determined to remember — and resist. June 3, 2020 Earlier Friday, police arrested Chow Hang Tung, a vice chairwoman of the Hong Kong Alliance, which organized Hong Kong’s annual candlelight vigil, the group said. Although police did not identify Chow, they said they had arrested a 36-year-old woman from the Hong Kong Alliance as she was advertising and publicizing an unauthorized assembly via social media despite the police ban on the vigil. After the ban was issued, Chow urged people to commemorate the event privately by lighting a candle wherever they are. Two other key members of the alliance — Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho — are behind bars for taking part in protests in 2019. At the University of Hong Kong, students took part in the annual washing of the “Pillar of Shame” sculpture, which was erected to remember the victims of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. World & Nation Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong is sentenced to more jail time for participating in a commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. May 6, 2021 Charles Kwok, the president of the students’ union, said that the event was “legitimate and legal” and that they hoped to commemorate the people who sacrificed for freedom and democracy. “For HKU students, in cleaning the Pillar of Shame, we shall learn how our predecessors defended the freedom of expression before, and we shall not easily give up,” Kwok said. As Chinese authorities seek to curb remembrances, they also seem confident that the passage of time will erase memories of the 1989 crackdown. The government made no response to an appeal from Tiananmen Mothers, published on the Human Rights in China website, urging the party to release official records about the crackdown, provide compensation for those killed and injured, and hold those responsible to account. Start your day right Sign up for Essential California for the L.A. Times biggest news, features and recommendations in your inbox six days a week. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Tiananmen Mothers said 62 of its members have died since the group, which represents victims’ relatives, was founded in the late 1990s. It said that many young Chinese have “grown up in a false sense of ... enforced glorification of the government [and[ have no idea of or refuse to believe what happened on June 4, 1989, in the nation’s capital.” In self-governing Taiwan, activists who host an annual Tiananmen memorial that draws hundreds are moving mostly online as the island faces its worst coronavirus outbreak so far. The New School for Democracy, an NGO, is setting up a temporary memorial pavilion Friday afternoon where people in small groups can leave flowers and other mementoes in honor of the date. The U.S. State Department issued a statement of support for those advocating for victims and pursuing the truth about the events. “The courage of the brave individuals who stood shoulder-to-shoulder on June 4 reminds us that we must never stop seeking transparency on the events of that day, including a full accounting of all those killed, detained, or missing,” the statement said, adding that such demands were echoed in the struggle for political rights in Hong Kong. World & Nation Thousands of people are fleeing Hong Kong amid a crackdown by Beijing that prompted Britain to loosen visa rules for residents of its former colony. Feb. 1, 2021 Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin denounced the statement as interference in China’s internal affairs and said the U.S. should “first look at itself in a mirror and reflect on its own poor record in human rights.” “With such a poor human rights record backed by iron-clad evidence, in what position can the U.S. lecture others on human rights?” Wang said, referencing the 1921 massacre of Black residents in Tulsa, Okla., discrimination against minorities and U.S. actions in the Middle East.

Lakers eliminated by Suns after Anthony Davis limps off court

https://www.latimes.com/sports/lakers/story/2021-06-03/suns-lakers-eliminated-anthony-davis-injured-again

Kobe Bryant wrote the words to Devin Booker on a pair of sneakers. Booker inked the words in Bryant’s handwriting on the inside of his arm. And Thursday, it was Booker, and not LeBron James or Anthony Davis, that was able to love the motto. “Be legendary.” Bryant knew. Now the the Lakers do too. Booker scored 47, punctuated with a dunk, the Suns eliminating the Lakers in six games with a 113-100 win. The Lakers season ended Thursday night, the team unable to stop the series’ most explosive player who quickly turned Game 6 into a blowout early and helped the Suns hold off the Lakers, who became the first defending champs to get eliminated in the first round on their home floor since 1984. The Lakers finally found some fight in the second half, cutting what was once a 29-point Suns lead down to 10 in the fourth, the silent Staples Center crowd suddenly feeding off the energy their team was playing suddenly playing with. But the sense of urgency that Lakers veteran Markieff Morris said the team never could find showed up far too late, the early damage from Booker and the Suns enough. It wasn’t without a top-line effort from James, who was checking himself in and out of the game for quick breathers, at one point skipping a seat on the bench after checking out because it’d be faster just to stay sitting at the scorer’s table. He finished with 29 points in 41 minutes on 26 shots, the entirety of the Suns defense focused on keeping him away from the rim. It helped the Lakers get back to the fringes of contention, but as the clock ticked down late, Phoenix guard Chris Paul held the ball and pumped his other fist, his injured shoulder not enough to keep the Suns from advancing. Just like they couldn’t stop Booker, the Lakers couldn’t realize their vision for their team, the season finale a reminder of the problems they tried to fight all season and the ones they couldn’t find a way to correct. While injuries ravaged the Lakers throughout the regular season, the team vowed to be patient, to wait for them to be fully healthy heading into the playoffs. It happened, for a glimmer, as they built a 2-1 lead over the NBA’s second-best team. Lakers Lakers star Anthony Davis was cleared to play the must-win Game 6 against the Suns exited 5 1/2 minutes into the game after aggravating injured groin. June 3, 2021 But if last year’s NBA title run was one of destiny, the team persevering through Bryant’s death, an unprecedented pandemic and a taxing bubble, this year’s season was about paying the tab. Unable to build on-court chemistry, the Lakers crumbled under the most intense pressure they faced, getting blown out in their final two games of the season with Davis mostly sidelined. “It basically derailed our run,” coach Frank Vogel said of the team’s injuries. “We did everything we could to fight through that, but ultimately it wasn’t enough.” After sitting Game 5 because of a strained groin, Davis somehow got cleared to play Thursday. But within seconds, it was painfully clear. The wince was the first clue. Davis, the target of criticism over his durability and toughness, hobbled his way through the Lakers’ pregame layup line, barely able to push the ball up towards the basket. And after being introduced as a starter to a roar from the crowd, Davis walked into the players’ pregame huddle instead of leaping into it — breaking his typical pregame routine. He played only five minutes before he had to point to the bench to confirm what everyone watching could see — that he wasn’t healthy enough to play. He finished with one rebound and one assist while not attempting a shot. “He’s a warrior,” Vogel said. “…We knew it was going to be difficult for him to move.” The Lakers trailed by seven when he checked out. Booker made sure that number was going to grow like a well-watered plant. He hit six threes in the first quarter without a miss, the makes tying an NBA record for threes in a playoff quarter. They entered the second quarter down 22. Vogel’s pregame adjustment — to bench Andre Drummond for Marc Gasol (and Montrezl Harrell), was rendered inconsequential early once Davis left the game With Davis out, James was unable to carry the Lakers offense, the frustration from the empty possessions — missed shots and turnovers — wearing on him. It’s the first time in James’ NBA career he’s been eliminated from the playoffs in the first round. “We knew the type of team we could be when we were healthy,” Davis said. “…We just never could take advantage of our full team, the team we knew we could be.” As the Suns went into a timeout in the third quarter, James barked at Booker and Mikal Bridges before team officials separated them. But following the interaction, the Lakers found their fight, playing with an intensity and energy that they hadn’t had since late in Game 4. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who missed Game 4 and had to be taken out of Game 5 because of his injured knee, had his best offensive game of the series, chipping in 17 points in the first three quarters. And the Lakers run? It couldn’t be stopped for anything, even the NBA’s health and safety protocols. After on Phoenix turnover sent the ball into the stands, a fan threw it back to Morris, who asked “You vaccinated?” The fan took out his card; the refs still changed the ball. But the Lakers comeback ended much like the game started, with Jae Crowder hitting a three and putting a finger up to his lips to silence the Staples Center crowd that chanted his name when he bricked shots earlier in the series. As he danced his way back up the court, the Lakers were left to watch, another team set to celebrate this summer with their trophy. Lakers fans react to their season coming to an end with a loss to the Phoenix Suns on June 3, 2021, at Staples Center.

Griffin Canning struggles as Angels fall to Mariners

https://www.latimes.com/sports/angels/story/2021-06-03/griffin-canning-struggles-as-angels-fall-to-mariners

The Angels enjoyed a run of improved starting pitching during a recent surge that carried them into the opener of their latest homestand. Griffin Canning failed to contribute to that run Thursday in the first of four games against Seattle. After some brief success, the right-hander couldn’t make it through the fourth inning on a night when the Angels blew an early two-run lead and lost to Seattle 6-2. “It started out really good,” manager Joe Maddon said, specifically noting Canning’s velocity, rhythm and tempo. “It just dissipated pretty quickly.” With one out in the fourth, Canning was lifted after allowing a three-run homer to Jake Fraley, turning a 2-1 lead into a 4-2 deficit. In nine of their previous 13 games, Angels starters had gone at least five innings and surrendered no more than three earned runs. The team entered Thursday having won six of nine. Canning yielded six hits total and walked two. Of his 80 pitches, 50 were strikes. “I don’t know,” he said afterward. “Just got out of that rhythm I was in those first two innings.” Angels The Angels’ June schedule presents opportunities for the team to shake off adversity to turn things around. June 3, 2021 Following a 1-2-3 first, Canning gave up a leadoff double in the second but escaped with the game still scoreless. He then allowed a single run in the third before Fraley’s homer ended his night. “The fastball command kind of went awry,” Maddon said. “He was missing up in the zone again. I don’t think he had really one reliable pitch tonight where, last couple times out, he had everything going on.” Although he lasted only 3 1/3 innings, Canning has had two shorter starts this season — 2 1/3 innings in April against Houston and two innings last month against Minnesota. The Angels will now turn to Shohei Ohtani to attempt to get their pitching back in line. He’ll start Friday and, Maddon announced after the game, will also serve as the Angels’ designated hitter. In his previous pitching start last Friday in Oakland Ohtani did not bat. Earlier this week, he was limited to one pinch-hitting appearance during the Angels’ two-game series in San Francisco, where the designated hitter was not in use. Ohtani returned to his No. 2 spot in the order Thursday but struggled. He went hitless in four at-bats, striking out his first three times up. Entering Thursday, he was tied for fourth in the majors in extra-base hits (29), while he ranked fifth in home runs (15), sixth in slugging percentage (.597) and seventh in RBI (40). The Angels scored the game’s first two runs on solo homers by Justin Upton and Jared Walsh off Justus Sheffield in the second. Maddon decided to move Upton from the top of the batting order — where he had hit in each of his previous eight games —to the cleanup spot. The adjustment took one pitch to produce positive results. Leading off the second, Upton hit the opening offering from Sheffield 405 feet to right-center for his 11th home run. Maddon said the move with Upton was made specifically because of matchups in this game and added that he likes Upton at the top of the lineup. Sports Atlanta Braves outfielder Marcell Ozuna was arrested Saturday on suspicion of aggravated assault strangulation and misdemeanor family violence. May 29, 2021 “I’m not running away from it,” Maddon said. “It’s just based on our personnel right now…I was not just thinking about the beginning of the game but also thinking about the latter part of (Thursday’s) game.” Upton, who entered Thursday sixth among active players with 317 career home runs, batted .290 with an .859 OPS and scored six runs as the Angels’ leadoff hitter. They were 5-3 in those games. “He’s been wonderful,” Maddon said. “He’s been very vocal in meetings, setting a great example for everybody else. He’ll do whatever. He really well. That’s not hyperbole. He’ll do whatever.” After Juan Lagares struck out, Walsh followed with his homer, No. 13 on the year, to give the Angels a 2-0 lead that didn’t last long.

High school basketball: City boys’ and girls’ playoff results and updated pairings

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-03/high-school-basketball-city-boys-and-girls-playoffs-thursday-results

CITY BOYS’ BASKETBALL OPEN DIVISION Quarterfinals, Friday, 7 p.m. unless noted #8 El Camino Real at #1 Westchester #5 King/Drew at #4 Narbonne #6 Granada Hills at #3 Fairfax #7 Grant at #2 Birmingham, Saturday, 3 p.m. NOTES: Semifinals, June 9, 7 p.m. Championship, June 12, 7:30 p.m. at higher seed. DIVISION I First round, Thursday Sun Valley Poly 68, Carson 65 Los Angeles University 52, View Park 43 Taft 83, Van Nuys 35 Quarterfinals, Saturday #8 Sun Valley Poly at #1 Chatsworth #5 Palisades at #4 Gardena #6 Los Angeles University at #3 Crenshaw #7 Taft at #2 Venice NOTES: Semifinals, June 9, 7 p.m. Championship, June 11, 7 p.m. at higher seed. DIVISION II First round, Thursday Verdugo Hills 75, Garfield 58 South East 71, Wilmington Banning 31 Los Angeles Hamilton 65, South Gate 41 Los Angeles Roosevelt 72, Roybal 38 Granada Hills Kennedy 62, Cleveland 47 Los Angeles Marshall 62, Hollywood 52 Quarterfinals, Saturday, 7 p.m. #8 Verdugo Hills at #1 Arleta #5 South East at #4 Los Angeles Hamilton #6 Granada Hills Kennedy at #3 Los Angeles Roosevelt #7 Los Angeles Marshall at #2 San Pedro NOTES: Semifinals, June 9, 7 p.m. Championship, June 12, 3:30 p.m. at higher seed. DIVISION III First round, Thursday unless noted San Fernando 66, Hawkins 48 #12 Rancho Dominguez at #5 Central City Value, Friday, 4 p.m. Los Angeles CES 87, Canoga Park 20 North Hollywood 40, Lincoln 36 Monroe 55, Mendez 38 Los Angeles Wilson 50, Jefferson 38 Quarterfinals, Saturday, 7 p.m. #8 San Fernando at #1 Bell Central City Value/Rancho Dominguez winner at #4 Los Angeles CES #14 North Hollywood at #11 Monroe #7 Los Angeles Wilson at #2 Bravo NOTES: Semifinals, June 9, 7 p.m. Championship, June 11, 4 p.m. at higher seed. DIVISION IV First round, Thursday unless noted Maywood CES 41, Panorama 31 Larchmont 73, Sotomayor 52 (Wednesday) Huntington Park 58, Angelou 31 Los Angeles Kennedy 77, Animo Bunche 29 Harbor Teacher 90, Contreras 65 Quarterfinals, Saturday, 7 p.m. #8 Maywood CES at #1 Legacy #5 Larchmont at #4 Huntington Park #6 Los Angeles Kennedy at #3 Franklin #7 Harbor Teacher at #2 Marquez NOTES: Semifinals, June 9, 7 p.m. Championship, June 12, 12 p.m. at higher seed. CITY GIRLS’ BASKETBALL OPEN DIVISION Quarterfinals, Friday, 7 p.m. unless noted #1 Palisades 85, Garfield 41 (Thursday) #5 Crenshaw at #4 El Camino Real #6 Narbonne at #3 Los Angeles Hamilton #7 Westchester at #2 Birmingham, Saturday, noon NOTES: Semifinals, June 9, 7 p.m.. Championship, June 12, 7 p.m. at higher seed. DIVISION I Quarterfinals, Saturday, 7 p.m. #8 North Hollywood at #1 Los Angeles CES #5 Legacy at #4 Taft #6 Fairfax at #3 King/Drew #7 Venice at #2 Los Angeles Marshall NOTES: Semifinals, June 9, 7 p.m.. Championship, June 11, 7 p.m. at higher seed. DIVISION II First round, Thursday Bell 60, Hollywood 19 Los Angeles Roosevelt 47, Los Angeles University 41 Quarterfinals, Saturday, 7 p.m. #8 Bell at #1 San Pedro #5 Bravo at #4 Sun Valley Poly #6 Arleta at #3 South Gate #7 Los Angeles Roosevelt at #2 San Fernando NOTES: Semifinals, June 9, 7 p.m. Championship, June 12, 3:30 p.m. at higher seed. DIVISION III First round, Thursday Reseda 38, South East 20 Quarterfinals, Saturday, 7 p.m. #9 Reseda at #1 Los Angeles Wilson #5 Central City Value at #4 Marquez #6 Mendez at #3 Verdugo Hills #7 Los Angeles Kennedy at #2 Granada Hills Kennedy NOTES: Semifinals, June 9, 7 p.m.. Championship, June 11, 4 p.m. at higher seed. DIVISION IV Quarterfinals, Saturday, 7 p.m. #8 Hawkins at #1 Franklin #5 Maywood CES at #4 Huntington Park #6 North Valley Military at #3 Larchmont #7 Roybal at #2 Animo Bunche NOTES: Semifinals, June 9, 7 p.m.. Championship, June 12, 12 p.m. at higher seed.

Sparks rout Fever to earn first win at home this season

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-06-03/sparks-rout-fever-to-earn-first-win-at-home-this-season

An eventful Thursday night game that started with a tribute to Seimone Augustus and fans returning to the Los Angeles Convention Center was rounded out with a dominant Sparks 98-63 win over the visiting Indiana Fever . The Sparks (3-3) rolled to the win, offsetting the absence of stars Chiney and Nneka Ogwumike sidelined by knee injuries. The team closed the first quarter with a 10-2 run and never took its foot off the pedal. At halftime, Kristi Toliver showcased why she’s one of the top scorers in the league, leading the way with 15 points on five-of-eight shooting and two of five from behind the arc. Bria Holmes was close behind with 10 points on four-of-six shooting and a perfect two for two from deep while tallying six total rebounds. And although Te’a Cooper picked up three fouls in the first half, she was the aggressor on offense and defense throughout the entire game. Twelve of her points came from inside the lane or from the free-throw line. All of her moves to the basket had a variation of an in-and-out cross or a hesitation cross. The Fever’s offensive struggles helped pad the Sparks’ lead. They shot 34.3% from the field. The blunders for Indiana (1-9) on offense led to a disorganized defense that created lanes for the Sparks. It was Sparks’ first home win of the season. The team will host Chicago on Saturday at noon on ABC. Sports The Dallas Wings beat the L.A. Sparks 79-69, snapping a four-game losing streak. June 1, 2021

Rachel Garcia pitches UCLA to a shutout win over FSU in Women's College World Series

https://www.latimes.com/sports/ucla/story/2021-06-03/rachel-garcia-pitches-ucla-to-a-shutout-win-over-fsu-in-womens-college-world-series

A rising star on UCLA’s elite pitching staff went down in the biggest moment of the season, but the Bruins’ longtime ace was shining as bright as ever. With pitcher Megan Faraimo’s status for the Women’s College World Series in question because of an injured hand, Rachel Garcia pitched a shutout in Thursday’s opening round against No. 10 seed Florida State as the No. 2 Bruins came alive late for a 4-0 victory. UCLA (47-5) will face No. 3 seed Alabama in the second round Friday at 6:30 p.m. PDT. Garcia gave up five hits and two walks with 11 strikeouts, her seventh double-digit strikeout performance of the season. Faraimo, who had a 19-3 record and 1.10 ERA, is day-to-day and did not travel with the team. The redshirt sophomore who earned her first NFCA first-team All-American honor this year was poised for her first significant World Series experience this season. She already starred for the Bruins in the postseason by pitching a shutout in a must-win Game 2 of the super regional after UCLA dropped the first game of the series. UCLA Sports As senior two-way softball star Rachel Garcia leads UCLA into another Women’s College World Series, she draws inspiration from mentor Lisa Fernandez. June 3, 2021 Losing a significant piece of their pitching staff that ranks second nationally in ERA didn’t rattle the Bruins, who had no reservations about turning to their redshirt senior who previously carried them to the 2019 NCAA title. “As long as keep it within the team and take it one day at a time, one pitch at a time, one game at a time, we’re going to be just fine,” Garcia said. “Megan’s going to be with us in spirit.” Garcia allowed at least one base runner during each of the first four innings as the Seminoles put balls in play to test the UCLA defense. Catcher Alyssa Garcia backed her pitcher up by throwing Kaley Mudge out at second on a stolen base attempt in the first inning and second baseman Anna Vines added a diving stop in the third. Vines, the No. 9 hitter, then broke the scoreboard stalemate in the bottom of the fifth, chopping a single up the middle and beating the throw to first while Kinsley Washington scored from second by sliding home. Vines was making her World Series debut. The redshirt sophomore watched the Bruins win the 2019 championship from the bench as a freshman, but she never stepped on the field. With an announced attendance of 10,126 during the night session, Vines and the Bruins fed off the energy of the largest crowd they had seed in more than two years. “We talked about this all year. This was our goal,” said Vines, who was two-for-two with an RBI single. Because last season’s World Series was canceled amid the COVID-19 pandemic, about half of UCLA’s roster had never played on such a high-profile stage. Rookies made big impacts as all four of UCLA’s RBI came from players making their WCWS debuts. Sports UCLA is heading to Lubbock, Texa,s and UC Irvine will be in Palo Alto for the double-elimination regionals on Friday. UC Santa Barbara heads to Arizona. May 31, 2021 Delanie Wisz, a transfer from Loyola Marymount, hit an RBI double in the sixth inning to give the Bruins breathing room and redshirt freshman Maya Brady launched a two-run homer in the frame. Brady had struck out her first two at-bats, but recovered to hit her third home run in as many games and her 14th of the season, which ties her for the team lead. “Every single one of my hitters made an adjustment tonight so I’m really proud,” UCLA coach Kelly Inouye-Perez said. “I think that’s the strength of our team. … But for those new Bruins, we said this, we’re here to create memories and those are some pretty special memories for those girls being here for the first time in Oklahoma City.”

Biden offers tax deal to Republicans in infrastructure talks

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-06-03/biden-offers-tax-deal-to-republicans-in-infrastructure-talks

President Biden is trying to break a logjam with Republicans on how to pay for infrastructure improvements, proposing a 15% minimum tax on corporations and the possibility of revenue from increased IRS enforcement as a possible compromise. The offer was made Wednesday to Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia as part of bipartisan negotiations and did not reflect a change in Biden’s overall vision for funding his infrastructure package. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Biden had examined possible tax code changes from his plans that Republicans might support. The president concluded that a minimum corporate tax could provide some common ground. “He looked to see what could be a path forward with his Republican colleagues on this specific negotiation,” Psaki told reporters Thursday at a briefing. “This is a component of what he’s proposed for a pay-for that he’s lifting up as a question as to whether they could agree to that.” Biden has proposed increasing the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21% to help fund his plans for roads, bridges, electric vehicles and broadband internet, and that remains one of his preferred approaches. But the rate hike is a nonstarter with Republicans because it would undo the 2017 tax cuts signed into law by President Trump. Politics The White House will send 75% of excess U.S. COVID-19 vaccine doses to the U.N.-backed COVAX global sharing program. By floating an alternative — there is no minimum corporate tax now on profits — Biden was trying to give Republicans a way to back infrastructure without violating their own red line of keeping corporate tax rates at their current level. The Washington Post first reported the offer. On Thursday, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said he had spoken with Capito and was “still hoping” to reach a deal with the administration. But he prefers the GOP approach of a scaled-down package, paid for by tapping unspent COVID-19 relief funds, rather than taxes. “Let’s reach an agreement on infrastructure that’s smaller but still significant, and fully paid for,” he said in Paducah, Ky. Biden is essentially staking out the principle that profitable corporations should pay income taxes. Many companies can avoid taxes or minimize their bills through a series of credits, deductions and other ways of structuring their income and expenses. The president has insisted that the middle class should not bear the cost of greater infrastructure spending. Yet a chasm exists in negotiations because Republicans say corporate tax increases will hinder economic growth. The idea of imposing a minimum corporate tax is not new for Biden; he also proposed the idea during the presidential campaign last year, and that could turn off some Republicans. The center-right Tax Foundation has estimated that a minimum tax would subtract 0.21% from the U.S. gross domestic product in the long run. “He’s been pushing it since the primaries over a year ago,” said George Callas, a former tax counsel to House Republicans who is now managing director of government affairs for the law firm Steptoe. Callas said the minimum tax would mostly hit firms such as electric utilities and telecoms that make substantial capital investments, as well as companies that rely on paying their employees with stock. Politics Biden has put unions at the center of policy — as vehicles to rebuild middle-class jobs and address climate change and racial and gender inequity. At the same time, both Democrats and Republicans have eyed the revenue that could come from stepped-up Internal Revenue Service enforcement of unpaid taxes. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) has suggested it could amount to some $1 trillion, but others estimate the increase would be far lower. Biden is seeking roughly $1 trillion in infrastructure spending, down from an initial pitch of $2.3 trillion. Republicans, so far, have countered with only $257 billion in additional spending on infrastructure as part of a $928-billion package. The GOP’s new spending on infrastructure would be a fraction of what the president says is necessary to compete globally and boost economic growth. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Thursday while visiting Memphis, Tenn., that both sides in the infrastructure talks appeared to embrace “the principle that something on the order of $1 trillion around the transportation side of things was appropriate.” The negotiations — a daunting undertaking given the massive investment required for Biden’s top legislative priority — have been moving slowly, and time for a deal is running out. The administration has set a Monday deadline for seeing a clear direction and signs of progress. Biden and Capito are set to meet again on Friday, though it’s not clear whether the meeting will be in person.

High school softball: Southern Section playoff results and updated pairings

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-03/high-school-softball-southern-section-playoff-results-and-updated-pairings

SOUTHERN SECTION SOFTBALL DIVISION 1 First round, Thursday unless noted Norco 11, Aliso Niguel 0 Orange Lutheran 7, California 2 Los Alamitos 14, El Modena 3 La Mirada 9, Cypress 5 Crescenta Valley 5, Royal 0 (Wednesday) Murrieta Mesa 8, Valley View 0 (Tuesday) La Serna 13, Valencia 5 (Wednesday) Esperanza 7, Newbury Park 3 Garden Grove Pacifica 3, Marina 2 Vista Murrieta 4, Sonora 1 (Wednesday) Ayala 3, Santa Margarita 0 Eastvale Roosevelt 12, Dana Hills 1 Chino Hills 2, Corona Santiago 0 South Torrance 7, Saugus 4 (Wednesday) Mater Dei 6, Gahr 3 Huntington Beach 3, Great Oak 1 Second round, Saturday #1 Norco at Orange Lutheran La Mirada at Los Alamitos Crescenta Valley at Murrieta Mesa #4 Esperanza at La Serna #3 Garden Grove Pacifica at Vista Murrieta Ayala at Eastvale Roosevelt South Torrance at Chino Hills #2 Huntington Beach at Mater Dei DIVISION 2 First round, Thursday unless noted Camarillo 11, Long Beach Wilson 1 La Habra 13, El Dorado 1 Riverside Poly 17, Palm Desert 0 Rio Mesa 2, Santa Fe 0 San Dimas 8, Oaks Christian 6 Warren 9, Mission Viejo 1 (Wednesday) Glendora 4, Los Altos 1 Upland 5, Yucaipa 2 Westlake 12, Buena 0 South Hills 15, Lakewood 8 Grand Terrace 11, Torrance 9 Etiwanda 3, Beaumont 2 Downey 5, Chaminade 0 Diamond Ranch 2, Simi Valley 1 (Wednesday) St. Paul 2, Godinez 0 Villa Park 4, Diamond Bar 0 Second round, Saturday La Habra at #1 Camarillo Riverside Poly at Rio Mesa Warren at San Dimas #4 Upland at Glendora South Hills at #3 Westlake Grand Terrace at Etiwanda Downey at Diamond Ranch St. Paul at #2 Villa Park DIVISION 3 First round, Thursday unless noted Whittier Christian 1, St. Anthony 0 Highland 2, Santa Paula 0 Chino 2, Millikan 1 (8) Cerritos 9, Patriot 3 North Torrance 4, Irvine 0 Culver City 14, Grace Brethren 1 Sultana 8, La Quinta 5 Louisville 4, Bonita 3 Ramona 10, Mira Costa 0 Beckman 10, Mayfair 0 (Wednesday) Arcadia 13, Bishop Amat 4 Aquinas 10, South El Monte 0 (Wednesday) Quartz Hill 7, Dos Pueblos 2 Redondo 7, Tesoro 6 (Tuesday) Don Lugo 2, Hart 1 Charter Oak 3, Sierra Canyon 2 Second round, Saturday #1 Whittier Christian at Highland Cerritos at Chino North Torrance at Culver City #4 Louisville at Sultana #3 Ramona at Beckman Aquinas at Arcadia Quartz Hill at Redondo Charter Oak at Don Lugo DIVISION 4 First round, Thursday unless noted Sherman Oaks Notre Dame 9, Paraclete 0 Summit 10, Sierra Vista 0 (Wednesday) Temple City 5, Burbank Burroughs 4 Hemet 33, West Valley 2 Sunny Hills 10, Oak Hills 3 Santa Ana Calvary Chapel 5, Nordhoff 1 Newport Harbor 10, Garden Grove Santiago 0 Segerstrom 24, Banning 0 Arlington 8, Artesia 6 La Canada 10, Flintridge Sacred Heart 1 (Wednesday) Oxnard 3, Garey 0 Temescal Canyon 13, Laguna Hills 3 Citrus Valley 10, Silverado 1 Coachella Valley 8, Palm Springs 7 Long Beach Poly 5, Anaheim 0 Rosary 17, Loara 0 Second round, Saturday Summit at #1 Sherman Oaks Notre Dame Temple City at Hemet Santa Ana Calvary Chapel at Sunny Hills Newport Harbor at #4 Segerstrom #3 Arlington at La Canada Temescal Canyon at Oxnard Coachella Valley at Citrus Valley Long Beach Poly at #2 Rosary DIVISION 5 First round, Thursday unless noted Riverside North 11, Barstow 4 Colton 14, Jurupa Hills 1 Canyon Springs 9, San Jacinto 7 Santa Clara 1, El Monte 0 Burbank def. Coast Union, forfeit Fillmore 14, Norwalk 4 Heritage Christian 10, Bell Gardens 0 Schurr 15, San Marino 6 San Marcos 7, Mayfield 0 Carter 4, Fountain Valley 3 University Prep 15, Knight 5 Ontario Christian 6, Bishop Montgomery 5 Ocean View 15, Savanna 1 Apple Valley 21, Nuview Bridge 0 (Friday) Capistrano Valley 22, Westminster La Quinta 0 (Wednesday) Second round, Saturday Riverside North at #1 Western Christian Colton at Canyon Springs Santa Clara at Burbank #4 Heritage Christian at Fillmore #3 Schurr at San Marcos University Prep at Carter Ocean View at Ontario Christian #2 Capistrano Valley at Apple Valley DIVISION 6 First round, Thursday unless noted St. Bonaventure 10, Cantwell-Sacred Heart 0 Sacred Heart 3, Pioneer 2 Lancaster 6, Vasquez 3 (Wednesday) Twentynine Palms 11, Edgewood 5 Alhambra 17, Bishop Conaty-Loretto 0 Rancho Alamitos 14, Costa Mesa 4 Downey Calvary Chapel 14, Hawthorne 5 Arroyo 8, Arrowhead Christian 0 (Friday) Lompoc 10, St. Genevieve 3 Faith Baptist 13, United Christian 8 Bloomington 3, Eisenhower 0 Rio Hondo Prep 8, Nogales 0 (Wednesday) Azusa 5, Indio 4 Victor Valley 18, Beverly Hills 1 Monrovia 3, San Jacinto Valley Academy 1 Orange Vista 9, Gabrielino 3 Second round, Saturday #1 St. Bonaventure at Sacred Heart Twentynine Palms at Lancaster Alhambra at Rancho Alamitos #4 Arroyo at Downey Calvary Chapel #3 Lompoc at Faith Baptist Rio Hondo Prep 2, Bloomington 1 (Friday) Azusa at Victor Valley #2 Orange Vista at Monrovia DIVISION 7 First round, Thursday unless noted Academy of Careers & Exploration 12, Perris 3 Riverside Bethel Christian 26, Hesperia Christian 6 Magnolia 15, Leuzinger 4 Glenn 14, Shandon 0 Lakeside 20, Pomona 1 Orangewood Academy 10, Santa Ana 7 Riverside Prep 9, Anza Hamilton 0 Viewpoint 3, Lancaster Desert Christian 0 Burbank Providence 11, Academy for Academic Excellence 1 Second round, Saturday Lennox Academy at #1 Southlands Christian Academy of Careers & Exploration at St. Monica Riverside Bethel Christian at Alverno Magnolia at #4 Glenn Orangewood Academy at #3 Lakeside Viewpoint at Riverside Prep Cobalt at Da Vinci #2 Burbank Providence at Rim of the World NOTES: Quarterfinals, Tuesday; semifinals, June 10. Championships, June 18-19 at Barber Park (Irvine).

High school baseball: Southern Section playoff results and updated pairings

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-03/high-school-baseball-southern-section-playoffs-thursday-results

SOUTHERN SECTION BASEBALL DIVISION 1 First round, Thursday unless noted Chaminade at Capistrano Valley, Friday Yucaipa 15, Vista Murrieta 4 (Wednesday) Damien 2, South Hills 0 Huntington Beach 1, Santa Margarita 0 (8) Corona 13, Redondo 4 Sherman Oaks Notre Dame 4, Crescenta Valley 0 Ayala 3, Beckman 2 Orange Lutheran 11, Aliso Niguel 0 (Wednesday) Mira Costa 4, Foothill 3 La Mirada 3, West Ranch 0 St. Bonaventure at Bishop Amat, Friday King 7, Servite 2 Cypress 7, Temecula Valley 2 Arcadia 7, Dana Hills 5 (Wednesday) Harvard-Westlake 9, Temescal Canyon 0 Second round, Tuesday Capistrano Valley/Chaminade winner at #1 JSerra Damien at Yucaipa Huntington Beach at Corona Sherman Oaks Notre Dame at #4 Ayala Mira Costa at #3 Orange Lutheran La Mirada at Bishop Amat/St. Bonaventure winner King at Cypress #2 Harvard-Westlake at Arcadia DIVISION 2 First round, Friday, 3:15 p.m. Moorpark at #1 Thousand Oaks Marina at Mission Viejo Dos Pueblos at Maranatha Santa Fe at San Dimas Los Alamitos at Garden Grove Pacifica El Dorado at Paloma Valley Bonita at La Quinta, Friday Simi Valley at #4 Ocean View Yorba Linda at #3 Villa Park Alemany at Rio Mesa La Canada at Camarillo Northview at Corona del Mar Oak Hills at Quartz Hill Canyon Springs at Trabuco Hills Gahr at Long Beach Poly Summit at #2 Sierra Canyon DIVISION 3 First round, Thursday unless noted Lakewood 10, Los Osos 3 Calabasas 7, Pasadena Poly 0 Millikan 6, Mary Star 1 Redlands East Valley 9, Carter 3 Saugus at #4 Santa Barbara, Friday Chino Hills 6, Irvine 2 Fountain Valley 6, Don Lugo 5 Palos Verdes 7, West Torrance 5 Ontario Christian 10, La Salle 7 Arlington 8, Tahquitz 6 (Wednesday) Capistrano Valley Christian 9, Grand Terrace 0 Second round, Tuesday Cerritos at #1 Hart Lakewood at Calabasas Millikan at Torrance Santa Barbara/Saugus winner at Redlands East Valley #3 Chino Hills at Fountain Valley Palos Verdes at Sonora Ontario Christian at Arlington Capistrano Valley Christian at #2 Warren DIVISION 4 First round, Friday, 3:15 p.m. unless noted California at #1 Murrieta Mesa Woodcrest Christian at Xavier Prep Alhambra at Monrovia Village Christian at Grace Brethren Culver City at La Sierra Rancho Cucamonga at El Modena Valley View at Kaiser Downey at #4 Westlake #3 Royal at Nogales El Rancho at Montebello Charter Oak at Los Altos Fullerton at Woodbridge Corona Centennial at Loara Heritage 3, Segerstrom 1 (Thursday) Salesian at La Serna Oxnard at #2 Paraclete DIVISION 5 First round, Thursday unless noted Citrus Valley 16, St. Margaret’s 6 Highland 9, Santa Paula 8 San Marcos 6, Claremont 4 Sultana 22, Orange Vista 6 Laguna Hills 3, Citrus Hill 2 Walnut 7, Garey 0 St. Anthony 4, Oxford Academy 2 Crean Lutheran 13, Century 4 Malibu 5, Burbank Burroughs 2 Savanna 6, Indio 4 Schurr 10, Pomona 9 Cajon 12, Adelanto 8 Hemet 4, Serrano 1 Burbank 11, Sierra Vista 3 (Wednesday) Flintridge Prep 8, Ventura 6 Mayfair at #2 North Torrance, Friday Second round, Tuesday #1 Citrus Valley at Highland San Marcos at Sultana Walnut at Laguna Hills St. Anthony at #4 Crean Lutheran #3 Malibu at Savanna Cajon at Schurr Burbank at Hemet #2 North Torrance at Flintridge Prep OR Flintridge Prep at Mayfair DIVISION 6 First round, Friday, 3:15 p.m. unless noted Chaffey at #1 Aquinas Orange at Westminster La Quinta Knight at de Toledo Buena at Foothill Tech Elsinore 1, Bloomington 0 (10) (Thursday) Ontario at Excelsior South Pasadena at Jurupa Valley #4 Viewpoint vs. Trinity Classical at Master’s U. (Santa Clarita) University Prep at #3 Ramona Anaheim at Santa Ana Calvary Chapel West Valley at Pasadena Marshall Barstow at Cerritos Valley Christian Linfield Christian at Colton Carpinteria at Beverly Hills Santa Ana at Bishop Montgomery Rim of the World at #2 La Habra DIVISION 7 First round, Thursday, 3:15 p.m. unless noted Santa Clarita Christian vs. Wildomar Cornerstone Christian at Big League Dreams (Perris), Friday, 2 p.m. Los Amigos vs. Temecula Prep at Rancho Christian, Friday, 3:30 p.m. Pioneer vs. La Verne Lutheran at Bonita, Friday, 6:30 p.m. Indian Springs 9, Desert Hot Springs 4 (Wednesday) Arroyo Valley 22, Cobalt 0 Milken 6, Da Vinci 4 Lancaster Desert Christian 10, Villanova Prep 9 Tarbut V’Torah 9, Banning 4 Santa Monica Pacifica Christian 5, Coast Union 1 Lancaster at Ojai Valley, Friday, 2:30 p.m. Gabrielino 14, Academy for Careers & Exploration 0 Western Christian 5, Lennox Academy 1 Verbum Dei 5, Hawthorne 2 Santa Rosa Academy 8, Desert Mirage 1 #2 Vasquez 16, Mountain View 5 (Wednesday) Second round, Tuesday Wildomar Cornerstone Christian/Santa Clarita Christian winner at #1 Hesperia Christian Los Amigos/Temecula Prep vs. Pioneer/La Verne Lutheran Arroyo Valley at Indian Springs #4 Lancaster Desert Christian at Milken #3 Tarbut V’Torah at Santa Monica Pacifica Christian Gabrielino at Ojai Valley/Lancaster winner Verbum Dei at Western Christian Santa Rosa Academy at #2 Vasquez NOTES: Quarterfinals, June 11; semifinals, June 15. Championships, June 18 at Blair Field (Long Beach) and June 19 at Cal State Fullerton.

Santa Ana reverses decision that would have made it illegal to watch street races

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-03/street-racing-santa-ana

The Santa Ana City Council this week reversed its initial approval of an ordinance that would have imposed fines and jail time on people who watch street races. At a meeting last month, the council voted 4 to 3 in favor of the ordinance, which would have allowed police to target spectators who knowingly attend a street race within 200 feet of the event. Although a violation of the ordinance would have included a maximum of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, the city would have provided a written warning to any accused spectator. The ordinance was meant to deter people from attending street races, which have been a problem in Santa Ana and other parts of Orange County. Some contend that spectators encourage street racing by promoting the events on social media. The presence of spectators may also attract street racers looking for an audience. The meeting Tuesday was the second reading of the street racing ordinance. Final approval was required by the council before it went into law. Similar to the last meeting, some council members questioned whether targeting spectators is the right move and whether it would lead to innocent people being cited. The difference in this decision was Councilman Phil Bacerra’s vote against the ordinance he initially supported. At the latest meeting, Bacerra took umbrage with the written warning component after Police Chief David Valentin said it could be difficult for officers to confirm that a spectator received a written warning out in the field during a street race. At the previous meeting, Councilwoman Thai Viet Phan added the warning to the ordinance so that spectators would receive notice before any fine or infraction. “To me, the purpose of this ordinance was not to give our [police] more busy work and more hoops to have to jump through to enforce what should be common sense,” Bacerra said. “I don’t believe that our officers are going to come through a scene of a street racing incident and just apprehend everybody within sight. I don’t think they even have the capability to do that, let alone would they do that,” he said. “I was open to seeing where this ordinance could go, and I was optimistic because I have faith in my colleagues that possibly we could see the right language composed. But in reading this section, I can’t support this language as is.” Bacerra proposed an amended motion without the required written warning, but it failed. “I certainly understand and appreciate the intention of this — an effort to try to prevent and stop street racing,” Mayor Vicente Sarmiento said. “I don’t think there’s anybody who wants to condone that or support that. I just think this is a solution that’s looking for anybody to cite…. It’s kind of misdirected because it goes after people who aren’t really organizing or participating in it.” Brazil writes for Times Community News.

L.A. County mass COVID-19 vaccination sites to be replaced by smaller ones this month

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-03/l-a-county-covid-19-mass-vaccination-sites-closing

Amid a decline in demand for the COVID-19 vaccine, Los Angeles County will soon close four large-scale vaccination sites and replace them with smaller ones, officials said Thursday. On Monday, the county will close the Cal State Northridge site. People who received their first dose there have appointments to get their second dose at the nearby Balboa Sports Complex. The county will be offering free transportation services to residents who need a ride to the complex; to use the service, call the county Department of Public Health at (833) 540-0473. The vaccination sites at the Forum in Inglewood, Pomona Fairplex and the L.A. County Office of Education will close after June 13. Starting June 15, officials said, residents can instead go to vaccination sites at Ted Watkins Memorial Park in South L.A., the Commerce Senior Citizens Center or the Norwalk Arts & Sports Complex. State and local officials have recently begun offering incentives for people to receive vaccines. Last week, state officials announced the opportunity for 10 residents who have received at least one dose to win $1.5 million apiece, with the grand prize recipients chosen June 15. Those who have previously received their shots will be entered into the drawings automatically, and there is no need to register, according to state officials. L.A. County officials have also announced incentives for those who are vaccinated at county-run sites and other sites participating in a sweepstakes program. Starting Friday and until June 10, everyone 18 and older who receives their first vaccine or who brings a first-time vaccine recipient with them to their second dose appointment is eligible to win a pair of tickets to the L.A. Football Club soccer team or the L.A. Dodgers, health officials said. “It is clear that we need to double-down on efforts to make it as easy as possible to get a vaccine and build trust in COVID-19 vaccines,” Barbara Ferrer, director of the Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “Our job is to continue to be transparent and honest as we share information on vaccine safety and efficacy.”

Coronavirus Today: When outbreaks collide

https://www.latimes.com/science/newsletter/2021-06-03/hiv-aids-covid-south-africa-variants-coronavirus-today

Good evening. I’m Russ Mitchell, and it’s Thursday, June 3. Here’s what’s happening with the coronavirus in California and beyond. As if dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic weren’t bad enough, now scientists are becoming concerned about the possibility of a “syndemic.” That, unfortunately, is a real word for a situation where two epidemics intersect, possibly making both of them worse. COVID-19 is one of them, of course. The other is HIV/AIDS, which has claimed 32 million victims over the last four decades. People with weakened immune systems are known to be more vulnerable to COVID-19. But thanks to antiviral medications, people who are HIV-positive can have healthy immune systems. Indeed, over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been little evidence to suggest that people with HIV are more likely to become infected with the coronavirus — or that they’re more likely to develop a serious case of COVID-19 if they do become infected. But now researchers in South Africa have come across a patient whose HIV had not been well controlled with medication. The coronavirus seems to have had a field day with her, my colleague Melissa Healy reports. The patient, a 36-year-old woman who was diagnosed with HIV back in 2006, contracted the coronavirus in September. She spent nine days in the hospital and was treated with supplementary oxygen, but she never became seriously ill with COVID-19. Yet it took her immune system nearly eight months to shake her coronavirus infection. During that time, the virus underwent multiple genetic changes, some of them potentially dangerous. The geneticists and infectious-disease specialists who cared for the patient suspect her uncontrolled HIV paved the way for her long-lasting coronavirus infection, which in turn gave the coronavirus ample opportunity to acquire mutations that could result in yet another variant of concern. The researchers don’t know whether any of the mutations detected in the South African patient wound up spreading to other people. But they said it’s probably not a coincidence that so many troubling variants have emerged in places like South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, where more than 25% of adults have HIV. Indeed, her case underscores a difficult truth: Rich nations like the U.S. can blanket their citizens with COVID-19 vaccines, but they’ll still be vulnerable as long as the coronavirus is spreading in other places where a lack of vaccine has kept immunization rates low. That’s especially true in countries like South Africa, where HIV infections are common but often undetected. “This underscores the advantage that this virus has until we can put the brakes on it, and we have to put the brakes on it globally,” said Dr. Bruce Walker, founding director of the Ragon Institute, an immunology research center in Boston. California cases, deaths and vaccinations as of 6:17 p.m. Thursday: Track California’s coronavirus spread and vaccination efforts — including the latest numbers and how they break down — with our graphics. Going maskless at work? That may soon be possible for many vaccinated workers in California, after a state workplace safety board on Thursday evening recommended relaxing rules. The board-approved proposal would let workers in a room take off their masks if everyone there is fully vaccinated and does not have COVID-19 symptoms. Masks would still be required if anyone present is not fully vaccinated or if anyone’s vaccination status is unknown. Restaurant and retail workers and others who interact with members of the public will probably still need to mask up for now. And in general, workers must be allowed to wear masks if they choose to do so, even if it’s not required. The new rules are still subject to further review by the state Office of Administrative Law within 10 days. During the pandemic, even while we were all in masks, all kinds of new communities were formed. My colleague Howard Blume brings us the story of one that came together as exasperated parents began to push for school to reopen and is now transforming itself into a nonprofit organization with a longer-term mission: inject parent power into a system dominated by teacher unions, administrators, school boards and state officials. “Parent voices and student interests should never again be ignored or deprioritized as they have been during this year,” said Megan Bacigalupi, the founder and executive director of the group. The pandemic has shown that the interests of parents and teachers unions don’t always coincide, she said, and when they don’t, parents need need a way to make themselves heard. How powerful the group will become, and how representative it will prove to be, is of course yet to be determined. But parents will probably have a stronger voice in education politics than the powers that be have grown used to. Pop-up restaurants are facing some political headwinds, too. When restaurants were forced to close and cooks and waitstaff found themselves out of work, these nimble food purveyors materialized all over Los Angeles. They operated out of homes and trucks and connected to customers through social media — some with permits, some not. Now, with the state set for a full reopening June 15, the prospects for what writer Stephanie Breijo calls “some of the most exciting dining the area has seen in years” is uncertain. Many of the new businesses, serving fare as varied as cookies, cocktails and sambal goreng, plan to keep rolling; others will close as restaurant employees return to their regular jobs. County health officials showed little inclination to enforce laws against “underground” food operations at the height of the pandemic, but that could change. State law, meantime, could make things easier for small-scale food entrepreneurs. There are two classes of legal “cottage food” operators. Class A operators can sell from their homes and at temporary events and farmer’s markets. Class B operators can sell to restaurants, stores and food trucks. A bill that passed the Assembly last month would raise allowable revenue to $75,000 for Class A enterprises and $150,000 for those in Class B. A 2019 law allows for “microenterprise kitchen operations” to sell refrigerated foods, but issuing such permits is up to individual counties. Los Angeles County hasn’t gotten around to it yet, though officials said that might happen in 2022. Some microenterprises could go out of business by then. Brick-and-mortar restaurants and bars, meanwhile, just got a reprieve from Sacramento: In a boost for the struggling dining industry, the state is extending the ability of restaurants and bars to serve alcoholic drinks in outdoor dining areas, for delivery and to-go through the rest of the year, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday. He also said he’s hoping in the coming months to pursue state legislation that will make it easier for local governments to retain outdoor dining if they so choose as the pandemic recedes. The news out of Sacramento was less sunny for healthcare workers who helped steer the state through the pandemic. California Assembly members declined Thursday to vote on legislation that would have awarded them “hero pay,” effectively killing the effort for the year. The bill would have required hospitals, clinics and skilled nursing facilities to pay medical professionals $10,000, with smaller bonuses for those who work part time. The payments would have been made in four installments over the course of 2022 in hopes the cash would entice healthcare workers to remain in their jobs, said the bill’s main proponent, the Service Employees International Union California. Hospitals fiercely opposed it for its estimated $7-billion price tag. On a grander scale, the freedom to go to church will henceforth be considered equivalent to the freedom to shop at Costco, under a pair of legal settlements agreed to by the state of California this week. Lawyers who challenged the state’s coronavirus rules on behalf of churches will receive more than $2 million in fees from state coffers. The issue, which had reached the Supreme Court, stems from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to shut down church gatherings last year to slow the virus’ rapid spread. The settlement includes a permanent injunction in line with Supreme Court rulings that found restrictions on houses of worship cannot exceed those on retail businesses, attorney Paul Jonna said. See the latest on California’s coronavirus closures and reopenings, and the metrics that inform them, with our tracker. Consider subscribing to the Los Angeles Times Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. Become a subscriber. Just because millions of Americans can’t be bothered to get vaccinated doesn’t mean that COVID-19 vaccines should go to waste. President Biden said Thursday the U.S. will donate 75% of its unused vaccines to the United Nations’ global vaccine-sharing program — with no strings attached. “We’re not seeking to extract concessions, we’re not extorting, we’re not imposing conditions the way that other countries who are providing doses are doing; we’re doing none of those things,” U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan said. “These are doses that are being given, donated free and clear to these countries, for the sole purpose of improving the public health situation and helping end the pandemic.” Still, the U.S. “will retain a say” on where the vaccines go, he said. The U.N. program, known as COVAX, has shared 76 million doses with needy countries to date. Of the nearly 19 million U.S. doses immediately headed for COVAX, about 6 million will go to South and Central America, 7 million to Asia, and 5 million to Africa. The White House aims to share 80 million doses globally by the end of June, mostly through COVAX, but 25% of U.S. excess supply will be kept in reserve. The shelf life of those vaccines, though, must be closely monitored. Some state officials in recent days have indicated that a portion of their unused doses may expire by the end of the month. Vaccine expiration dates are based on a “potency assay” that can vary by vaccine. Some vaccines can last for two years or more if properly stored. The COVID-19 vaccines authorized in the U.S. — made by Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — can last for up to about six months from the time of manufacture, depending on how they’re stored. But because they are new, that amounts to a rough estimate. COVID-19 vaccines remain stable longer at lower temperatures, which may be a problem when they’re sent to areas that lack adequate refrigeration. The troubled Tokyo Olympics caught another blow this week when it was revealed that about 10,000 of its 80,000 unpaid volunteers won’t participate when the Games open July 23. Officials said they’re not sure why. “We have not confirmed the individuals’ reasons,” event organizers said in a prepared statement. Fear of getting sick with a deadly disease, maybe? Whatever their motivation for backing out, officials said the loss of volunteers would not affect operations of the Games, which had been postponed a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The International Olympic Committee said it expects 80% of athletes and Olympic Village residents to be vaccinated. But anti-event sentiment is widespread in Japan, where only 2% to 3% of the population is fully vaccinated. Public opinion polls show 50% to 80% say the Games should not open, depending on how the question is asked. The situation is bad in Japan, but it’s horrific in India, which is in the midst of its second COVID-19 surge. Just how bad is it? No one really knows, especially in the countryside, where two-thirds of Indians live — often in deep poverty. “It could be serious, very serious or disastrous,” said R. Ramakumar, a professor of development studies in Mumbai. The official COVID-19 death count in one of India’s poorest states, Uttar Pradesh, was 337,989 on Thursday, with 28 million infected. But a shortage of testing kits, a sorely inadequate health care infrastructure, and serious issues with government data collection and reporting mean the true figures could be up to five times higher, according to some experts. That matters, because undercounting cases now could result in a false sense of security and heighten the risks of a third wave in the months ahead. India’s cities are hit hard, too, of course. But in the impoverished countryside, many people lack smartphones to receive basic information or communicate with healthcare workers. No Twitter access means less chance distant government officials could learn that oxygen tanks or hospital beds in a particular area are unavailable or in short supply. Rural health system workers say it’s hard to provide even basic care without thermometers, devices to measure blood oxygen levels or other fundamental tools. Patients seeking hospital care are trading in personal items and taking out loans to pay for it. A woman in the state of Maharashtra said she and her husband spent their annual income for treatment at a private hospital. Many others are unable to afford any kind of care. It’s all a harrowing manifestation of India’s extreme levels of economic inequality. Today’s question comes from readers who want to know: Can COVID-19 vaccines actually spread the coronavirus? No. Social media is rife with false rumors, and the idea that COVID-19 vaccines can spread the coronavirus is one of them. Let’s be perfectly clear: There is no truth to this claim at all. So where did it come from? Some people are spreading this lie on social media along with entreaties to send them money, said Barbara Ferrer, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. “Don’t get played by these people,” she said. The COVID-19 vaccines available in the U.S. don’t contain any part of the virus — “live, dead, in parts or in whole,” Ferrer told The Times. “Because of this, people who get vaccinated do not become infected” with the coronavirus, she said. Possible vaccine side effects such as tiredness, headache, muscle pain and fever — which are generally mild and usually go away after a day or two — are not signs that you’ve been infected with the virus. They are a response to the immune system gearing up to produce the antibodies you need to fight off the actual coronavirus. “These side effects go away on their own, unlike COVID infection itself, which lasts often for a while and can cause very serious illness,” Ferrer said. Moreover, since the vaccines don’t contain any coronavirus, it’s impossible for the vaccine to make someone contagious. But misinformation can be contagious, so do yourself — and the rest of us — a favor by not spreading it. If false rumors and outright lies cause too many people to avoid vaccination, it will take longer for the economy and life in general to get back to something close to normal. We want to hear from you. Email us your coronavirus questions, and we’ll do our best to answer them. Wondering if your question’s already been answered? Check out our archive here. Resources Need a vaccine? Sign up for email updates, and make an appointment where you live: City of Los Angeles | Los Angeles County | Kern County | Orange County | Riverside County | San Bernardino County | San Diego County | San Luis Obispo County | Santa Barbara County | Ventura CountyNeed more vaccine help? Talk to your healthcare provider. Call the state’s COVID-19 hotline at (833) 422-4255. And consult our county-by-county guides to getting vaccinated.Practice social distancing using these tips, and wear a mask or two.Watch for symptoms such as fever, cough, shortness of breath, chills, shaking with chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat and loss of taste or smell. Here’s what to look for and when.Need to get tested? Here’s where you can in L.A. County and around California.Americans are hurting in many ways. We have advice for helping kids cope, resources for people experiencing domestic abuse and a newsletter to help you make ends meet.We’ve answered hundreds of readers’ questions. Explore them in our archive here.For our most up-to-date coverage, visit our homepage and our Health section, get our breaking news alerts, and follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

AMC takes traders on a wild ride and pockets $587 million in cash

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-06-03/amc-stock-sale-debt

AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. dizzied investors Thursday by losing 40% of its market value, then regaining more than half of that — and pocketing more than $587 million in fresh cash by exploiting the frenzy. The stock’s wild rally of 2021 initially collapsed Thursday when the company disclosed plans to sell more shares and use the money to cut its heavy debts. AMC went ahead with the sale anyway, ultimately collecting $587 million by midday, and any concern among investors that their holdings would be watered down faded after AMC said it completed the program. After briefly erasing all of their losses, the shares closed down 18% at $51.34. The decline continued in after-hours trading, with the stock falling as much as 11%. Company Town AMC’s Adam Aron loves quoting Winston Churchill in earnings calls. Now he’s embracing the company’s memestock identity. May 7, 2021 It’s just another remarkable turn of events for the movie theater chain, which was staring at potential bankruptcy only a few months ago in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and brutal competition from streaming services. Amid the mania for meme stocks, shareholders have brushed aside doubts about the wisdom of bidding up a company’s stock by about 3,000% when its survival was so recently in doubt, and they reserved extra contempt for Wall Street professionals. “As crazy as today’s action might seem, it’s a lot more normal than the action the stock has seen over the previous seven trading days,” said Matt Maley, chief strategist at Miller Tabak & Co. After all, he said, it’s not unusual to see a stock back off after such an outsized rally. “Nothing that has taken place over the past two weeks should be considered normal, until today,” he said. Analysts such as Chad Beynon at Macquarie aren’t backing off from predictions of a bigger plunge to come. “Based on what we’ve seen with other retail stocks, and given the paper profits from these retail investors, we would expect for shares to fade,” Beynon said. “Fundamentally, we still believe that AMC is worth $6.” Credit investors, by contrast, pushed bond prices higher because even at the newly depressed price, the share sale was making a sizable dent in AMC’s crushing pile of debt, which stands at about $5 billion. “It would be irresponsible for the board and management to not do a raise to secure the balance sheet at these levels,” said Greg Taylor, chief investment officer at Purpose Investments. CreditSights analysts Matt Zloto and Hunter Martin wrote that a successful offering “would be a massive first step in deleveraging the AMC capital structure.” The Thursday morning filing for the equity sale came just days after AMC collected $230.5 million by selling stock to Mudrick Capital Management. The investment firm then flipped those shares, selling for a profit as it told clients that AMC was overvalued. AMC warned investors flat out that they could see their stakes diluted and perhaps suffer heavy losses after the new offering, which was designed to be sold in the open market where retail traders thrive. Stocks sold in traditional offerings are purchased mostly by institutional investors. “I would have told them to cash out the last time this happened,” said Barry Schwartz, chief investment officer at Baskin Financial Services. “In the dot-com boom it continued until everyone lost all their money and took the whole stock market down with it.” Company Town Redditors have sent AMC’s stock on a wild ride since the GameStop saga exploded in January. March 10, 2021 The frenzied rally has pushed shares in the money-losing business to improbably high levels, giving the movie-theater company a market capitalization this week that was bigger than half of the listings in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index. “AMC to the Moon” posters have popped up at street corners and pool parties in the U.S. amid the reality-defying surge for AMC and other meme stocks. But among AMC’s army of retail investors, signs of fatigue emerged Thursday amid temptation to book some of the outsized profits, and the share sale touched a raw nerve that had triggered a stockholder rebellion earlier this year. AMC had sought to authorize 500 million new shares, but withdrew the plan in April amid objections from shareholders worried about getting diluted. Still, the company said at the time that it was likely to revisit the idea “at some point in the future.” Back then, the stock was selling for less than $12 a share. At current prices, a similar offering could wipe out the company’s entire debt load of about $5 billion several times over and reap additional billions of dollars to fund AMC’s turnaround. Now, AMC is making a renewed push. Late Thursday, the company filed a preliminary proxy seeking permission to sell 25 million shares in 2022. Chief Executive Adam Aron told shareholders in the statement that AMC may face challenges or “exciting opportunities” post-pandemic and needs “precious shares” to issue if such a situation arises. It also dismissed speculation of a stock split. AMC’s bonds were among the top gainers in the U.S. high-yield market Thursday, setting fresh highs. Its second-lien notes due 2026 rose 3.25 cents on the dollar, vaulting them over face value at 100.75 cents, according to Trace trading data. The company “had an unsustainable debt level and is chipping away by issuing equity,” Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities said in an email. “I think that’s smart to ensure that they remain healthy so they can thrive as things return to normal.”

Lakers' Anthony Davis exits Game 6 because of groin injury

https://www.latimes.com/sports/lakers/story/2021-06-03/anthony-davis-starts-lakers-suns-game-6

Anthony Davis and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope started for the Lakers on Thursday night against the Suns in a must-win Game 6 against the Phoenix Suns at Staples Center, but Davis aggravated his left groin injury and exited the game in the first quarter. Davis (strained groin) and Caldwell-Pope (bruised knee) had been questionable to play because of injuries but were cleared by the medical staff to play. Marc Gasol starts at center, KCP and Anthony Davis are in pic.twitter.com/FtUsdNWYSi Davis stayed behind the action after the Lakers took a rebound the other way. He noticeably limped to the bench, where he sat down as medical staff began to tend to him. Immediately after Davis left the game, the Suns stretched a nine-point lead to 27-10 late in the first quarter. Davis had one assist and one rebound in his limited action. The Lakers announced that Davis was questionable to return. He crumbles down by the bench, his head down between his arms. He tried. Made it 5 minutes and 25 seconds. The Lakers trail the best-of-seven series three games to two entering Game 6 tonight. A Lakers win would force Game 7 on Saturday in Phoenix. Marc Gasol got the start at center for the Lakers instead of Andre Drummond. LeBron James and point guard Dennis Schroder also started. Veteran point guard Chris Paul, who has been playing with an injured shoulder, joined the Suns’ usual starting lineup of Mikal Bridges and Jae Crowder at forward, Deandre Ayton at center and Devin Booker at guard.

Man arrested in connection with vandalism of West L.A. synagogue

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-03/la-me-vandalism-arrest-west-l-a-synagogue

A man has been arrested in connection with a series of vandalisms in West L.A., including at a Pico-Robertson synagogue last month. Jon Knight Prince was arrested Thursday on suspicion of committing 13 acts of vandalism on Westwood and Pico boulevards between May 26 and Wednesday, the Los Angeles Police Department said. He was booked on suspicion of felony vandalism and was being held on $325,000 bail. The department did not specify how many counts of vandalism Prince faced. It was not immediately clear who was representing him. Officials said Prince threw bricks, rocks or hard objects at the windows of buildings. LAPD spokesman Tony Im confirmed that one of the incidents involved the vandalism of Young Israel of Century City synagogue on Pico Boulevard. Security camera footage released to the media by the synagogue showed a man throwing a concrete slab at the building about 1 a.m. Friday . The synagogue’s shatterproof windows stopped the slab from breaking the glass. The man tried a second time to throw the concrete at the building, then rushed off. The vandal was also suspected of tossing concrete at Pat’s, a kosher steakhouse nearby, and shattering a window there. Im said he could not confirm whether Prince had been arrested in relation to that incident or whether officials were investigating the incident at the synagogue as a hate crime. The acts occurred during a national surge in antisemitic attacks amid the recent Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The city’s elected officials gathered last month to denounce an attack on diners outside a Westside sushi restaurant where people shouted slogans against Israel. Two men have been arrested on suspicion of assault in the attack, which occurred about 2½ miles from the synagogue. Times staff writer Matt Hamilton contributed to this report.

Bieber manager Scooter Braun in court battle over failed investment fund

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-06-03/scooter-braun-lawsuit-investment-fund-taylor-swift-bieber

Music manager Scooter Braun, known for discovering Justin Bieber and making enemies of Taylor Swift, is embroiled in a legal battle with a former business partner over failed plans for a $750-million fund. Peter Comisar, a Goldman Sachs partner and former Guggenheim Securities vice chairman, sued Braun, his company Ithaca Holdings and business partner David Bolno for fraud and breach of contract. The suit seeks more than $50 million in damages, according to a complaint filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Tuesday. The litigation stems from a dispute over Scope Capital Management, a now dormant Los Angeles investment firm that the pair would co-own to exploit “the convergence of media, commerce and consumer brands and celebrity association,” according to the lawsuit. Comisar, a veteran banker, alleged Braun tempted him away from his post at Guggenheim Securities in February 2017 with promises that he had deep-pocketed connections with moguls such as David Geffen who would invest in the fund. According to the complaint, Braun thought of Geffen as his godfather and said the famous music producer had been looking to invest $100 million with him. Nearly a year after Comisar joined the company, tensions erupted. Comisar alleged that Braun stopped funding his salary and reneged on financial commitments, including supporting up to $7 million a year in fund expenses. Comisar said he had brought a team of professionals from Guggenheim Securities with him and Braun would not pay bonuses due to them. Braun’s efforts to recruit investors such as Jimmy Iovine and Haim Saban were rejected, according to the complaint. The suit further alleges that Braun concealed raising funds from the private equity firm Carlyle Group to invest in another firm, Ithaca Holdings, which would compete with Scope Capital on investments in the entertainment industry. In April, Braun sold Ithaca Holdings for $1.05 billion to South Korea’s HYBE Co., which manages the K-pop group BTS. Braun, who is seeking to resolve the dispute through arbitration, said in a court petition this week that Comisar’s claim is “unlawful, extortionate, and opportunistic.” Music Scooter Braun flipped his ownership of Taylor Swift’s master recordings to private equity firm Shamrock Capital. Swift still plans to re-record her old songs. Nov. 16, 2020 Braun said he invested $5 million, including financing Comisar’s $3-million annual salary, investments he said has now lost. In his petition, Braun said Comisar failed to secure any investment and was at the same time running a consultancy. Braun said his financial commitment to the fund would end if Comisar did not secure at least $250 million from investors within the first year of operation. “Mr. Comisar has had a 30 year career operating under a code of honesty, the highest ethical standards, and unyielding commitment and support for his clients that has never before been questioned,” Comisar’s lawyer, Joel Kozberg, said in an emailed statement in response to the petition. “We are confident that the evidence will show Mr. Braun did commit the actions and egregious breaches of contractual agreements alleged in the lawsuit. “ Los Angeles attorney Larry Stein, who is representing Braun, said the integrity of his client was not for Kozberg to decide. “It is for others, the media and ultimately the courts,” Stein said. “I will not stoop in a public forum to say negative things about his client, I will allow the courts to make the decision.” Inside the business of entertainment The Wide Shot brings you news, analysis and insights on everything from streaming wars to production — and what it all means for the future. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

'Hero pay' bill for healthcare workers fizzles in California Legislature

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-03/effort-to-give-california-healthcare-worker-bonuses-fizzles-in-legislature

California Assembly members declined to vote on a bill that would have awarded “hero pay” to healthcare workers who helped steer the state through the pandemic, effectively killing the $7-billion effort for the year. Assembly Bill 650 by Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (D-Rolling Hills Estates) would have required hospitals, clinics and skilled nursing facilities to pay medical professionals $10,000, with smaller bonuses for those who work part time. The payments would have been made in four installments over the course of 2022 in hopes the cash would entice healthcare workers to remain in their jobs, said the bill’s main proponent, the Service Employees International Union California, a labor union whose membership includes healthcare workers. The bill was fiercely opposed by hospitals and other employers due to the estimated $7-billion price tag. Muratsuchi said the bill was a way to honor the front-line healthcare workers who went to work despite the threat that COVID-19 posed to themselves and their families. But after counting the votes Thursday, Muratsuchi said it was clear the bill did not have enough to pass. He said AB 650 won’t move forward this year, but that he would fight for hero pay in ongoing budget negotiations. “Last year, everyone was talking about thanking our front-line healthcare workers, and we all recognized on a daily basis watching the news how they were risking their lives and their loved ones lives by going into combat day in and day out,” Muratsuchi said. “So, I think there is wide recognition that our healthcare workers deserve hero pay.” Opponents of the bill said the high cost would come as hospitals are digging out of the financial hole left by the pandemic. “The bill was a massive, unfunded $7-billion increase that would have impacted both healthcare consumers and the entire healthcare system at a time when many providers are struggling to keep their doors open due to the strain of the pandemic,” said Molly Weedn, a spokeswoman for opponents, which included the California Medical Assn. and California Hospital Assn. With the bill done for the year, Muratsuchi said the focus now turns to a separate effort to award bonuses to essential workers. On Thursday, organized labor leaders called on the Legislature to dedicate $8 billion in bonuses for healthcare workers and essential employees who work as grocery clerks, fast food servers, janitors and transportation workers. Leaders of SEIU California, the California Labor Federation, California Teamsters Public Affairs Council and United Food & Commercial Workers Western States Council urged that the state pay for the bonuses with federal relief funds approved earlier this year by Congress and President Biden. The Legislature is required to send a budget to Gov. Gavin Newsom by June 15. Tia Orr, government relations director for SEIU California, said the pandemic gave society a new look at how critical essential workers are and noted that there was no shortage of appreciation and thank yous during the height of the crisis. “The question is not how much we talk about them, but how much we’re going to reward them for their extraordinary service and their sacrifice,” Orr said.

United Airlines wants to bring back supersonic travel. For now, its jet is just a concept

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-03/united-airlines-wants-to-bring-back-supersonic-travel-for-now-its-jet-is-just-a-concept

United Airlines aims to bring back supersonic travel before the decade is over with a plane that is currently just an artist’s drawing — even the prototype hasn’t flown yet. The airline said Thursday that it plans to buy 15 jets from Boom Supersonic with an option for 35 more once the start-up company designs a plane that flies faster than the speed of sound while meeting safety and environmental standards. United hopes to carry passengers on the plane in 2029. The airline said the plane will reduce flights between London and the New York area to just 3½ hours and make Tokyo only six hours from San Francisco. United declined to discuss financial terms, but Boom CEO Blake Scholl said the deal was worth $3 billion, or $200 million per plane with none of the discounting that is typical in the aircraft business. It has been nearly two decades since the last flight of the supersonic Concorde, which British Airways and Air France began using in 1976 to zip passengers in luxury across the Atlantic. The last one was retired in 2003, three years after an Air France Concorde crashed into a hotel shortly after takeoff from Paris, killing everyone on board and four people on the ground. Business The new facility at Los Angeles International Airport is named West Gates and billed as an extension of the Tom Bradley International Terminal. May 24, 2021 Several companies are working to come up with new supersonic jets that would be more economical on fuel — and create fewer climate-changing emissions — than the Concorde. Boom is working to develop an 88-seat plane it calls Overture, which it says will be the first supersonic airliner to fly on so-called sustainable fuel. Scholl said that a one-third-sized prototype will make its first test flight later this year or early in 2022. The Denver company said the plane will be capable of speeds up to 1.7 times the speed of sound, or about 1,300 mph. That is slower than the Concorde but more than twice as fast as many current airliners. The endorsement from United is a huge lift for Boom. Another supersonic contender, Aerion, said last month that it was running short of money to get its plane, the AS2, into production. Supersonic jets are often banned over populated areas because of the sonic booms they create. That eliminates many potential overland routes because the planes would have to fly at less efficient subsonic speeds. Chicago-based United believes that its coastal hubs in San Francisco and Newark, New Jersey, and its corporate-traveler clientele make it better suited than its rivals to offer supersonic service. Mike Leskinen, United’s vice president of corporate development and a former aerospace analyst, said United hopes to offer both premium and economy seating but that no final decisions have been made on cabin layout. United is sensitive about the high fares that helped doom the Concorde, and is trusting that the cost to operate the Boom plane will come down over time as it has for other jets. The Concorde was the pride of British and French aircraft companies, and it ushered in a new era of rapid travel over long distances. The plane had a distinctive delta-wing design that made it easily recognizable as it streaked overhead on its way to New York or Dulles Airport outside Washington. Despite its cachet, the plane never caught on widely. The sonic booms limited its routes over land, and its high costs and relatively small size compared with other jets made tickets too expensive for anyone other than the wealthy or well-connected. Business With travel demand increasing, Frontier Airlines announces new service from Burbank to Phoenix, Las Vegas and Denver starting July 15. May 13, 2021 Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst for Atmosphere Research, said the Boom jet appears targeted at business fliers, but corporations are trying to cut travel spending and might resist putting employees on supersonic flights if the fares are too high. Scholl said the Boom jet will be 75% cheaper to operate than the Concorde thanks to decades of advancements in engines and lighter fuselages. “This is going to be a ticket that’s affordable to way more people than supersonic ever has been before,” Scholl said. He predicted that the speed of supersonic flight will revolutionize air travel the way that jets replaced most large propeller-driven planes. Not everyone who follows aviation is convinced, noting that developing a new plane costs many billions of dollars. Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst at Teal Group, said he believes that if there were a profitable market for supersonic airliners, Boeing and Airbus would be building them. “It tells you that the enormous, established players don’t see it,” he said. “There is no reason they couldn’t do this. There is no secret sauce that Boom keeps in a safe somewhere.”

Tech shares lead stocks lower on Wall Street

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-03/tech-shares-lead-stocks-lower-on-wall-street

Technology companies helped drag stocks lower Thursday on Wall Street, knocking the S&P 500 into the red for the week. The benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 index dropped 0.4% and is now on track for a 0.3% loss for the week. Technology companies, whose pricey valuations make them more sensitive to inflation fears, were the biggest weight on the market. Microsoft fell 0.6% and Apple lost 1.2%. Retailers, hotel operators and a variety of other companies that rely on direct consumer spending also posted some of the biggest declines, as did communications companies. Etsy slid 5.4%, Tesla dropped 5.3%, Wynn Resorts fell 4.1% and Facebook lost 0.9%. Banks and healthcare companies rose. The selling came as investors weighed the latest economic reports showing that unemployment claims are falling but labor costs are rising. Traders were also looking ahead to the government’s latest monthly jobs report Friday, which could provide more clarity on the economic recovery and the potential for higher inflation. The S&P 500 fell 15.27 points to 4,192.85. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 23.34 points, or 0.1%, to 34,577.04. The tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 141.82 points, or 1%, to 13,614.51. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks gave up 18.59 points, or 0.8%, to 2,279.25. Bond yields rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.63% from 1.59% late Wednesday. Markets have been wobbly all week as investors closely watch the labor markets for more signs of economic growth and consider any information that could give more clues about rising inflation. Labor costs rose at a 1.7% rate in the first quarter, up from the initial estimate that costs had fallen 0.3%. That could stoke more fears that inflation might run hotter than expected. Rising inflation is expected as the economy recovers from the pandemic’s impact, but the key question for many on Wall Street is whether it will be temporary. “The main concern in the markets, rightfully so, is inflation,” said Cliff Hodge, chief investment officer for Cornerstone Wealth. “Data points are beginning to confirm the view that inflation is likely to be more sticky.” Wall Street will get more detailed data on the labor market Friday when the Labor Department releases its monthly jobs report. Economists are projecting that it will show employers added 650,000 jobs in May. Expectations of a strong increase in hiring have stoked worries about inflation and how the Fed may respond to it. The concern is that the global recovery could be hampered if governments and central banks have to withdraw stimulus to combat rising prices. Inflation worries are also butting up against the recovery seemingly shifting from a sharp rebound to a grind, which could mean more choppiness as the economy adjusts. “When the rubber meets the road with the realities of reopening, we think we could be in for a rocky period,” Hodge said. European and Asian markets closed mixed.

Roundup: Birmingham is one win away from declaring it is best soccer team in SoCal

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-03/birmingham-advances-to-regional-championship-soccer-game

It was last summer when Lake Balboa Birmingham soccer coach EB Madha made a phone call to England to find out if his program’s star player, David Diaz, planned to return home. Diaz was spending six months playing for a club team. “Don’t worry coach. I wouldn’t miss high school for anything,” Diaz told him. Birmingham (18-0-1) is one win from winning the Southern California Division I regional championship after a 4-2 semifinal victory over visiting Clovis on Thursday. Diaz, who has an innate ability to kick the ball to an open teammate, had another spectacular assist to leading goal scorer Enrique Pineda, who had two goals Thursday. OMG. Another marvelous assist by David Diaz to Enrique Pineda. Birmingham takes 3–1 lead over Clovis. pic.twitter.com/Ly0u0tO07O Anthony Miron and Diego Nava also scored for the Patriots, who will face Southern Section Division 1 champion Mira Costa in Saturday’s 1 p.m. final at Birmingham. Mira Costa defeated Servite 1-0 in the other semifinal. Thomas Southey scored the only goal. Anthony Miron of Birmingham scores. 1-0 over Clovis. Early first half. pic.twitter.com/yRB95OBv8H Salesian 5, West Torrance 0: Ernesto Vergara scored three goals to send Salesian into the Division 3 boys’ championship game. Harvard-Westlake 2, Villa Park 1: The Wolverines (18-0) qualified for the Division 1 girls’ regional final. They will play Garden Grove Pacifica on Saturday at home at 2 p.m. Huntington Beach 1, Santa Margarita 0: A bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the eighth gave the Oilers a hard-fought Division 1 victory. Caden Aoki threw all eight innings for Huntington Beach. Sophomore Jack Svinth held the Oilers to two hits in seven innings. Mira Costa 4, Foothill 3: A three-run sixth turned around the game for Mira Costa. Connor Meidroth had a two-run single to tie the score, then Ben Gneiser delivered the game-winning RBI single. Mira Costa advances to play on the road against No. 3-seeded Orange Lutheran. Thatcher Hurd picked up the victory with three innings of relief. La Mirada 3, West Ranch 0: Christian Gutierrez threw the shutout with seven strikeouts. Harvard-Westlake 9, Temescal Canyon 0: David Lozano and Toussaint Bythewood each contributed two-run singles, Jordan Kang had a two-run double and Christian Becerra struck out 10. Bythewood had three hits. King 7, Servite 2: John Stark hit two home runs and finished with five RBIs. Evan Yates also homered. Laguna Hills 3, Citrus Hill 2: Scotty Kato and Zach Ferranto each had two hits. Damien 2, South Hills 0: Alec Beck came through with the shutout. Sherman Oaks Notre Dame 4, Crescenta Valley 0: Jack Snyder and Zack Romero combined for a three-hit shutout. Corona 13, Redondo Union 4: The Panthers advance in Division 1 and will face Huntington Beach on Tuesday. Andrew Walters, Josh Springer and Danny Perez each had three hits. Ethan Schiefelbein, a freshman, improved to 8-0 on the mound. Ayala 3, Beckman 2: Ryan Moreno’s sacrifice fly drove in the winning run in the bottom of the seventh. Cole Koniarsky hit a home run and went four for four. Paul Murrow and Zack McAlister each had three hits for Beckman. Cypress 7, Temecula Valley 2: Christian Landeros and Christian Thompson each had two hits. Fountain Valley 6, Don Lugo 5: Keith Aguilar had three hits and two RBIs. Calabasas 7, Pasadena Poly 0: Brandon Pink threw five scoreless innings for the Coyotes. Chino Hills 2, Corona Santiago 0: Maria Luna threw the shutout. Villa Park 4, Diamond Bar 0: Sydney Somerndike came through with a no-hitter and 19 strikeouts in the Division 2 opener. Norco 11, Aliso Niguel 0: Stevie Hansen threw a no-hitter for top-seeded Norco. Orange Lutheran 7, California 2: Reagan Lennon finished with four RBIs. Pacifica 3, Marina 2: Pacifica got a walk-off victory in the 11th inning. Marina 76, Shalhevet 74: The Vikings eliminated top-seeded Shalhevet in a 3A semifinal.

California lawmakers balk at proposed gun tax to fund violence prevention programs

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-03/california-lawmakers-balk-at-proposed-gun-tax-to-fund-violence-prevention-programs

Despite concerns about a spate of fatal shootings in California, a bill to create new taxes on the sale of guns and ammunition to pay for gun-violence prevention programs failed to get the two-thirds vote needed for passage Thursday in the state Assembly. The bill by Assemblyman Marc Levine (D-San Rafael) fell eight votes short of the 54 needed for approval. It would have created a 10% excise tax on retailers for the sale of new handguns and an 11% tax for long guns and ammunition, and raised more than $100 million annually for a gun violence prevention program to mediate disputes in the community, including those involving gang members. Levine cited a string of mass shootings, including one May 26 at a San Jose light rail yard in which a gunman killed nine people before dying of a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound. “When our communities continue to be devastated by gun violence, I ask you: When will we take action to save the lives of our fellow Californians?” Levine asked his colleagues during the floor debate. “Gun violence will not end on its own. We must take responsible action to end the public health crisis that is gun violence in California and in the United States.” Although Thursday was the deadline for the bill to move out of the Assembly, Levine said he is not giving up on having his proposal considered this year, which would require a different legislative procedure. Assemblyman Mike Gipson (D-Carson) gave an emotional appeal for the tax, citing a shooting last year that injured his 32-year-old son and two others, and left one man dead. Gipson used an expletive to describe the drive-by shooter and said the crime shook him up. “To get that phone call, my world was turned upside down,” Gipson said. But supporters acknowledged that it was a tough vote for many legislators to support a tax increase. Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), who supported the bill, called the subjects of guns and taxes “radioactive” politically. Some moderate Democrats, including Assemblymen Adam Gray of Merced and Jim Cooper of Elk Grove, withheld a vote on the legislation, while Republicans voted en masse against the measure. Assemblyman Devon Mathis (R-Visalia) said he has sympathy for the families of shooting victims but noted that he believes the tax hike will not address the root causes of gun violence, including poverty and mental illness. Instead, he said it would burden law-abiding gun owners. “What this bill does is create a tax, which is going to drive up the cost,” Mathis said during the floor debate. “People who defend themselves with guns are less likely to be killed or injured in a crime, so with this bill are you taking away [that] ability by driving up the cost of ammunition?” The measure was also opposed by groups advocating for gun owners including the National Rifle Assn., which called the bill an unconstitutional attempt to limit the ability of citizens to buy firearms. They cited existing levies on guns, including an 11% federal excise tax on firearm and ammunition purchases to help fund conservation and wildlife efforts, a $31 fee for the “dealer record of sale” transaction and a $5 firearm safety and enforcement fee. Levine said the money from the new tax would go to a program proven to reduce gun violence in cities including Sacramento. He proposed the funds go to the California Violence Intervention and Prevention Grant Program, which already provides money from other state budget sources to cities and community-based organizations working to reduce shootings in high-crime areas, including those that are home to street gangs. Republicans questioned why other lawmakers are proposing to raise taxes for gun-violence programs when the governor says the state has a $75-billion budget surplus. “If this is important, for Pete’s sake, fund it,” said Assemblyman Kelly Seyarto (R-Murrieta). The state allocated $30 million for the California Violence Intervention and Prevention Grant Program in 2019. The taxes proposed by Levine would have raised another $118 million annually starting next year. Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed an additional $67 million in one-time general fund allocations in each of the next three fiscal years for the existing program in a budget currently under consideration by the Legislature. California residents purchased more than 1.3 million firearms last year, more than were bought in each of the three previous years.

Ransomware targeted by Justice Department as attacks flourish

https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2021-06-03/ransomware-targeted-by-justice-department-as-attacks-flourish

The Justice Department is vowing to systematically track and prosecute ransomware attacks, making the effort to counter the increasingly dangerous and disruptive online assaults on crucial services a top priority. The department will now require federal prosecutors across the country to notify senior officials of any significant new developments in ransomware investigations or when they learn of a new digital extortion attack, according to a directive issued Thursday by Deputy Atty. Gen. Lisa Monaco. “To ensure we can make necessary connections across national and global cases and investigations, and to allow us to develop a comprehensive picture of the national and economic security threats we face, we must enhance and centralize our internal tracking of investigations and prosecutions of ransomware groups and the infrastructure and networks that allow these threats to persist,” Monaco wrote. The move is one of the first major efforts by the Biden administration in response to the growing threat of attacks in which hackers disrupt services and demand that companies pay ransom to unfreeze data and computers. Victims have included Colonial Pipeline Co. and JBS, the world’s largest meat processor. U.S. officials have determined that criminal hacking groups behind the attacks were probably operating from Russia. President Biden will press his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, at their meeting this month to crack down on the groups, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday. The U.S. president’s message at the one-on-one meeting in Geneva on June 16 will be that “responsible states do not harbor ransomware criminals, and responsible countries must take decisive action against those ransomware networks,” Psaki said. Former Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Thursday that Biden’s message needs to be clear and definitive: “You continue to do this, you will pay a price. Period,” Panetta said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Balance of Power” program. “President Biden has to make very clear that there are lines here that the Russians cannot cross,” said Panetta, who also served as director of the CIA. “Putin only understands very strong talk.” Although Panetta didn’t specify what steps could be taken against Russia, he mentioned that the U.S. has developed capabilities to mount offensive cyber operations. The Russian government has denied knowing about or being involved in the ransomware attacks, a claim that Panetta said he didn’t believe. “These criminal organizations are operating under the cover of the Russian government, and they’re basically doing what the Russian government supports, which is to undermine the United States of America,” Panetta said. The new Justice Department directive comes after ransomware attacks have crippled operations of targets including schools, state governments, hospitals and infrastructure. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security conducted a 60-day “sprint” to tackle the attacks. Yet the U.S. has struggled to deter the criminals responsible. Brazilian company JBS has partly restarted beef production after a ransomware attack Sunday forced it to halt operations around the globe. And last month, the biggest pipeline operator in the U.S., Colonial Pipeline, shut down operations after it was hit with an attack that resulted in gasoline shortages and price increases. Beyond confronting Putin, the Biden administration also must develop a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy that involves working with the private sector and developing cutting-edge technologies, Panetta said. He added that it’s “dangerous” for companies to keep paying ransoms to hackers. “If they pay off these ransoms, what they do is they send a signal to these criminal organizations to continue to do what they’re doing,” he said. Bloomberg staff writers Justin Sink and Jennifer Epstein contributed to this report.

Justice Dept. investigates Postmaster General Louis DeJoy over political fundraising

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-06-03/justice-department-investigating-postmaster-louis-dejoy-over-fundraising

The Justice Department is investigating Postmaster General Louis DeJoy over political fundraising activity at his former business, a DeJoy spokesman said Thursday. Federal authorities in recent weeks have subpoenaed DeJoy and interviewed current and former employees of DeJoy and his business, the Washington Post reported. Mark Corallo, a DeJoy spokesman, confirmed an investigation in a statement to the Associated Press. “Mr. DeJoy has learned that the Department of Justice is investigating campaign contributions made by employees who worked for him when he was in the private sector. He has always been scrupulous in his adherence to the campaign contribution laws and has never knowingly violated them,” Corallo said. The agency declined to comment on news of the investigation. DeJoy, a wealthy former logistics executive, has been mired in controversy since taking over the Postal Service in the summer and putting in place policy changes that delayed mail before the 2020 election, when there was a crush of mail-in ballots. Business The basic flaw in discussions about the Postal Service is the idea that it’s a business. It’s anything but. March 24, 2021 Last year, DeJoy faced additional scrutiny after the newspaper reported that five people who worked for his former company, New Breed Logistics, said they were urged by aides of DeJoy or by DeJoy himself to write checks and attend political fundraisers at his North Carolina mansion. Two former employees told the newspaper that DeJoy would later give bigger bonuses to reimburse for the contributions. It’s not illegal to encourage employees to contribute to candidates. It is illegal to reimburse them as a way of avoiding federal campaign contribution limits. DeJoy has not been charged with a crime. Amid questioning before a congressional committee last year, he denied he had repaid executives for contributing to then-President Trump’s campaign. Campaign finance disclosures show that between 2000 and 2014, when New Breed was sold, more than 100 employees donated a total of more than $610,000 to Republican candidates supported by DeJoy and his family. He and his family have contributed more than $1 million to Republican politicians. A district attorney in Wake County, N.C., this year decided to not pursue a criminal investigation into the allegations, saying the matter was out of her office’s jurisdiction. Corallo said DeJoy will cooperate with the investigation. “Mr. DeJoy fully cooperated with and answered the questions posed by Congress regarding these matters. The same is true of the Postal Service inspector general’s inquiry, which after a thorough investigation gave Mr. DeJoy a clean bill of health on his disclosure and divestment issues. He expects nothing less in this latest matter and he intends to work with DOJ toward swiftly resolving it,” Corallo said.

Science chief wants next pandemic vaccine ready in 100 days

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-06-03/science-chief-wants-next-pandemic-vaccine-ready-in-100-days

The new White House science advisor wants to have a vaccine ready to fight the next pandemic in just about 100 days after recognizing a potential viral outbreak. In his first interview after being sworn in Wednesday, Eric Lander painted a rosy near-future where a renewed American emphasis on science not only makes the world better prepared for the next pandemic with plug-and-play vaccines, but also changes how medicine fights disease and treats patients, curbs climate change and further explores space. He even threw in a “Star Trek” reference. “This is a moment in so many ways, not just health, that we can rethink fundamental assumptions about what’s possible, and that’s true of climate and energy and many areas,” Lander said. Lander took his oath of office on a 500-year-old fragment of the Mishnah, an ancient Jewish text documenting oral traditions and laws. He is the first director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy to serve at the Cabinet level. Lander said President Biden’s elevation of the science post is a way to symbolize “that science should have a seat at the table.” On a more practical level, it allows him to have higher-level policy talks with the heads of different agencies. Lander is a mathematician and geneticist by training who was part of the human genome mapping project and directed the Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard. He said he is particularly focused not so much on this pandemic, but the lessons learned from this one to prepare for the next one. “It was amazing at one level that we were able to produce highly effective vaccines in less than a year, but from another point of view you’d say, ‘Boy, a year’s a long time,’” even though in the past it would take three years or four years, Lander said. “To really make a difference we want to get this done in 100 days. And so a lot of us have been talking about a 100-day target from the recognition from a virus with pandemic potential.” “It would mean that we would have had a vaccine in early April if that had happened this time, early April of 2020,” Lander said. “It makes you gulp for a second, but it’s totally feasible to do that.” Science & Medicine Radiologists have discovered a new side effect of COVID-19 vaccines: They make it more difficult to interpret mammogram results. May 12, 2021 Scientists were working on so-called all-purpose, ready-to-go platform technologies for vaccines long before the pandemic. They’re considered “plug-and-play.” Instead of using the germ itself to make a vaccine, they use messenger RNA and add the genetic code for the germ. That’s what happened with the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 shots. Beyond being optimistic about confronting future pandemics, Lander wonders about the implications for preventing cancer. “Maybe the same sort of experience about moving so much faster than we thought is applicable to cancer,” said Lander, who during the Obama administration was co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. A company already has been working on that. For that matter, the pandemic and telehealth brought the doctor to patients in some ways. Lander said he is reimagining “a world where we rearrange a lot of things” to get more patient-centered healthcare, including community health workers checking up every few weeks on people about their blood pressure, blood sugar and other chronic problems. Two of Lander’s predecessors endorsed his selection. Neal Lane, President Clinton’s science advisor, said Lander is “perfect” for the pandemic because of the need for a strategy and international agreements. President Obama’s science chief, John Holdren, called him “a Renaissance man.” Lander’s nomination had been delayed for months as senators sought more information about meetings he had with the late Jeffrey Epstein, a financier who was charged with sex trafficking before his apparent suicide. Lander said he only met with Epstein twice, in 2012, and never requested or received funds from Epstein or his foundation. At his confirmation hearing, Lander also apologized for a 2016 article he wrote that downplayed the work of two Nobel Prize-winning female scientists. Business Diablo Canyon is the state’s largest clean energy source. Will emissions rise after it closes? May 18, 2021 Lander said he sees climate change as “an incredibly serious threat to this planet in many, many ways.” Still, he said he was more optimistic now than he and others were a decade ago because “I see a path to doing something about it.” Lander pointed to a drop of about in 90% in solar and energy wind costs, making them now as cheap as fossil fuels that cause climate change. But he said what’s also needed is “an explosion of ideas” to improve battery life and provide carbon-free energy that is not weather-dependent. Those innovations need federal incentives that are part of Biden’s jobs package, he said. Reducing methane is key to fighting climate change, Lander added, but first improvements are needed in technology to determine where methane is leaking from. As for space, Lander said he was too new to comment on whether heading to the moon or Mars should be the goal. The Obama administration redirected NASA away from the Bush-era plan to send astronauts back to the moon in favor of visiting Mars or an asteroid. The Trump administration not only focused back on the moon but set a 2024 goal for a new lunar landing. Science & Medicine Nearly 50 years ago, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. A woman could follow in his footsteps in 2024. Here’s what we know about her. July 18, 2019 “Are we going to go to the moon and are we going to go to Mars and are we going to moons of Jupiter? Sure. The exact order I think is great to think about or great to talk about,” Lander said. He quoted “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home,” when Capt. James T. Kirk’s love interest asked if he was from outer space. He responded: “I’m from Iowa, I only work in outer space.” Adds Lander: “That was a fun line in ‘Star Trek IV,’ but folks in Iowa are really going to say that.” AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard contributed to this report.

SpaceX launches tiny creatures and solar panels to space station

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-03/spacex-launches-critters-solar-panels-space-station

SpaceX launched thousands of tiny sea creatures to the International Space Station on Thursday, along with a plaque-fighting toothpaste experiment and powerful solar panels. The 7,300-pound shipment — which also includes fresh lemons, onions, avocados and cherry tomatoes for the station’s seven astronauts — should arrive Saturday. SpaceX’s Falcon rocket blasted into the hazy afternoon sky from Kennedy Space Center. The first-stage booster was new for a change, landing on an offshore platform several minutes after liftoff so it can be recycled for a NASA astronaut flight this fall. The Dragon cargo capsule — also brand-new — is delivering the first of three sets of high-tech solar panels designed to bolster the space station’s aging power grid. Astronauts will conduct two spacewalks this month to help install the two rollout panels alongside solar wings that have been in continuous operation for 20 years. More power will be needed to accommodate the growing number of ticket-buying visitors, NASA’s space station program manager, Joel Montalbano, said Wednesday. The cargo includes samples of saliva and oral bacteria from dental patients that will be treated with toothpaste and mouthwash in an experiment aimed at keeping astronauts’ teeth and gums healthy in space. Business From their living rooms and pickup trucks, amateur radio operators reach out to the International Space Station, circling 240 miles above Earth. Dec. 23, 2020 “There’s no guarantee that the Earth methods will work in zero gravity,” researcher Jeffrey Ebersole of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said in a statement. Also headed to the orbiting lab: 20,000 tardigrades, better known as water bears, and 128 bobtail squid, as well as chile pepper plants and cotton seedlings. Tardigrades can survive in drastic environments on Earth and even in the vacuum of space. Launched frozen, these microscopic extremophiles will be thawed and revived aboard the space station. By identifying the genes behind the animals’ adaptability, scientists hope to better understand the stresses on the human body during long space stays. The baby bobtail squid are part of a study investigating the relationship between beneficial bacteria and their animal hosts. This is SpaceX’s 22nd station supply run for NASA. The space agency turned to private companies to transport cargo and astronauts after the shuttles’ retirement a decade ago.

California extends ability for restaurants to serve alcohol outdoors, for delivery and to-go

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-03/california-extends-ability-for-restaurants-to-serve-alcohol-outdoors-for-delivery-and-to-go

In a boost for the struggling dining industry, California is extending the ability of restaurants and bars to serve alcoholic drinks in outdoor dining areas, for delivery and to-go through the rest of the year, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday. Through Dec. 31, restaurants, bars, breweries and wineries can continue to serve alcoholic drinks in areas like sidewalks and parking lots, where businesses have set up tables during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, “if you do takeout food, you’ll be able to get the takeout cocktails,” Newsom said. The same applies to deliveries. “I’m very excited about this. And I think this is a good thing for our economic recovery. It’s also a good thing for public health — because we want to encourage more people to still be outside. This pandemic is not behind us,” Newsom said, reflecting on people who have yet to be vaccinated. “We want to encourage these outdoor seating opportunities, encourage healthy choices and obviously economic opportunities,” Newsom said at a press conference outside Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant in San Francisco. Before the pandemic, it was often difficult for restaurants to legally set up outdoor tables in areas like parking lots and curbside street lanes with a state alcohol permit, officials said. But during the worst moments of the COVID-19 pandemic, authorities took emergency action and relaxed rules to allow alcoholic beverage service outdoors and for takeout, a lifeline for businesses when indoor restaurant dining was prohibited. In a letter to local governments, Newsom also urged officials to allow temporary dining areas, expanded takeout and delivery options, and work with restaurant owners to operate in spaces not ordinarily consistent with local zoning laws. He pointed to Los Angeles’ “L.A. Al Fresco” and San Diego’s “Slow Streets Programs” as among models for other cities. Now, in places like L.A. and San Francisco, outdoor dining spaces have become part of the urban landscape. “They have opened all over the city, and they’ve made the city just a little bit brighter, and more fun,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said at the press conference. “People are out enjoying San Francisco like never before.” Newsom said he’s hoping in the coming months to pursue state legislation that will make it easier for local governments to retain outdoor dining if they so choose as the pandemic recedes.

Warner Bros. Discovery is Hollywood's newest media giant, but challenges loom

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-06-03/discovery-david-zaslav-warner-bros-hbo-jason-kilar

Two weeks after AT&T announced it was spinning off WarnerMedia to the much smaller Discovery, executives flocked to the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank for a glimpse of their future — and the man who would lead them there. Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav, the architect of his company’s audacious $45-billion takeover of WarnerMedia, sought during a Tuesday town hall meeting to reassure battle-weary troops that — unlike their current parent, AT&T — Discovery is all about creating programming that audiences crave. The hard-charging 61-year-old executive stressed his respect for the Turner networks, including CNN, as well as HBO and the Warner Bros. film and TV studio, which has churned out cultural touchstones for nearly a century. “We’re not coming in here thinking that we know all the answers,” Zaslav told the crowd of about 75 film and TV executives admitted into the studio’s Steven J. Ross Theater, according to a person who saw a video stream, which was watched by hundreds of other WarnerMedia workers around the country. “There’s a ton we don’t know,” Zaslav added, “and there’s certainly a whole bunch that you know that we don’t know.” Zaslav’s message was well received but also underscored the myriad challenges he will face if regulators approve Discovery’s effort to buy a company that is more than twice its size. New York-based Discovery, which owns such popular cable channels as Food Network, HGTV, Animal Planet and OWN, is scrambling to adapt as consumers ditch cable TV for streaming platforms. Discovery derives most of its revenue from cable TV channels. Even after the merger, an estimated 80% of Warner Bros. Discovery’s pre-tax earnings in 2024 will still be tied to its legacy cable channels, research firm MoffettNathanson said in a note. And Discovery must sit on the sidelines in a fast-changing media environment as the merger moves through the government’s review, which could take more than a year. Discovery has said it hopes to complete the takeover in mid-2022, but for now the companies will continue to operate as separate entities. The regulatory delay will give competitors Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Comcast and ViacomCBS more time to get traction for their streaming services, which could leave WarnerMedia’s HBO Max and Discovery+ at a disadvantage. “Both of these companies are at critical junctures in building their [streaming] products, and now they are going to be focused on other things,” Cowen & Co. media analyst Doug Creutz said. “David [Zaslav] would say, ‘Hey, we can walk and chew gum at the same time’ and, on the Discovery side, they probably can — but it’s a different matter on the AT&T side. Are they going to be able to roll out HBO Max and get it to the level of success they want when everyone is so distracted?” Creutz noted that after Rupert Murdoch announced he was selling much of his entertainment company, 21st Century Fox, to Disney, the existing Fox businesses suffered as executives wondered about their place in the new regime and the merger slogged through nearly a year of regulatory reviews. During the interim, Fox’s “film business basically collapsed,” Creutz said. Another key challenge, according to analysts, is trying to figure out how to position their respective streaming services — including an expected offering from CNN — to attract millions of customers in the U.S. and abroad. “The major challenge I see is going to be having a comprehensive offering — bringing together a platform that’s going to be competitive in streaming, and I don’t know that they necessarily have a lot of time to do that,” Tuna Amobi, an analyst with CFRA Research, said. “To be successful in this race, you have to have a very credible global strategy.” Since AT&T absorbed Time Warner for $85 billion in June 2018, there have been multiple management shake-ups, more than 2,000 layoffs and controversial moves that have tested the faith of Hollywood. AT&T pulled the plug on the beloved classic movie streaming site FilmStruck and then bet the company on HBO Max, a streaming service that got off to a rocky start a year ago due to a high price point ($14.99 a month) and a shortage of original programming. Morale plunged. This week, WarnerMedia introduced an HBO Max version with advertising and a lower price point ($9.99 a month) in an attempt to lure subscribers. The company also has been grappling with the fallout from its much-maligned decision to release all of Warner Bros.’ 2021 films on HBO Max the same day they arrive in theaters, which infuriated powerful producers and directors. Should regulators approve the deal, Zaslav will become the company’s fourth CEO in less than five years. WarnerMedia’s current chief executive, Jason Kilar, who joined the company just 13 months ago, is expected to depart after the merger is complete. When the two companies come together, it also will be burdened with an estimated $58 billion in debt. The bulk of that debt will come from the $43 billion payment that will go to AT&T as part of the deal. (AT&T shareholders, at launch, will have 71% of the shares of the new stand-alone company). Zaslav has said that he sees $3 billion in cost savings by 2024, which typically means more job losses, causing more anxiety for a workforce that has endured substantial layoffs under AT&T. “It’s got to be tough to work there right now,” Creutz said. Analysts also expect some inevitable cultural clashes between two very different companies. Discovery is a giant in unscripted television, while the strength of Warner Bros. and HBO has long been providing premium scripted TV shows and movies. When it comes to the cost of producing Warner Bros. movies and HBO shows, there might be some sticker shock, media veterans said. “David is a content guy — but he’s not a Hollywood guy,” Creutz said. “A lot of Discovery’s success has been running unscripted TV production very efficiently. Scripted content is, by nature, less efficient and more expensive. It’s not, “Hey we need another show about buying and selling houses, let’s flip the cookie-cutter out.’” Zaslav — who wore a business blazer and khakis — made a good impression during the Tuesday event, according to those in attendance. He talked at length about his bio: his Brooklyn roots, the moment he realized he had no desire to be a corporate attorney at a big-city firm, his segue to NBC and helping to launch CNBC, and building Discovery into a global company since becoming its CEO 14 years ago. “Warner Bros. has produced the best content over the last 98 years,” Zaslav told the crowd, according to the person who watched the town hall on video. Warner Bros., with its iconic logo, “is imprinted in all of us,” Zaslav added. One senior executive who attended the meeting said: “People respected the fact that he flew across the country to say ‘hi.’ Everyone felt better that he respected the history and legacy of Warner Bros. and the importance of high-quality content.” Still, there were some head-scratchers. When Zaslav listed the HBO shows he admired, most were produced more than a decade ago, including “The Pacific” (2010), “Band of Brothers” (2001), “Entourage” (2004) and “Sex and the City” (1998). He did give a shout-out to HBO’s current hit, starring Kate Winslet, “Mare of Easttown.” (And “The Pacific” replayed on HBO over the holiday weekend.) Zaslav’s quick-draw decision to announce the new corporate name, Warner Bros. Discovery, and a temporary logo may also have misfired. Views were mixed on the proposed name and logo. Several saw it as a classy move to put the Warner Bros. name first and bring back the “Bros.” part of the moniker, another nod to the studio’s roots. At least it was less clunky than WarnerMedia, some reasoned. Several people described the proposed logo as a little cheesy, comparing the yellow, blocky font to the title cards from vintage “Superman” movies and even the 1980s Steven Spielberg TV anthology series “Amazing Stories.” After the meeting, and amid ridicule on social media, Discovery executives stressed the logo is preliminary.

Liz Phair is totally good with being a Gen X feminist in a Gen Z world

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2021-06-03/liz-phair-is-totally-good-with-being-a-gen-x-feminist-in-a-gen-z-world

Before it was legal in California, Liz Phair never used to buy weed. “I’d always preferred it to drinking, but I wanted to be able to stand up in a court — courts terrify me — and be like, ‘I did not buy illegal drugs,’” the veteran indie-rock star says. “So at a party I’d be the one standing outside the bathroom: ‘What are you guys doing in there?’” Phair’s feelings changed along with the law in 2016. “All of a sudden I could just buy it whenever I wanted,” she says, which turned out to be quite a bit of the time. “My son had just gone off to college and I kind of went through a second puberty.” Today Phair, 54, has dialed back to the point where she estimates she’s high for about a fifth of her waking hours — a state that inspired the title of her wise and witty new album, “Soberish.” Her first studio LP in more than a decade, it’s all about finding the manageable (if sometimes awkward) sweet spot between too much and not enough, not just with drugs but with love, work, exercise, money. The songs ponder indecision and compromise; they capture relationships at critical moments of transition, as in “Spanish Doors,” about a couple facing divorce, and the jangly title track, where a woman downs a shot of liquid courage before a rendezvous at a fancy hotel: “Why do we keep dicking around? / Waited such a long time to be with you / Now I’m chickening out.” Sonically too, the music conjures an in-between state, with breezy pop melodies roughed up by strange textures and asymmetric structures that carry even the tidiest songs in unexpected directions. As proudly as the album wears Phair’s grown-up experiences, “Soberish” knowingly evokes her classic 1993 debut, “Exile in Guyville,” which made her an instant sensation (and helped open up a forbiddingly male-dominated indie scene) with its frank depiction of a 20-something’s sexual-emotional awakening. The unashamed desire in Phair’s songs shocked prudish listeners even as her deadpan vocal delivery challenged long-held ideas about how desire presents; more important, she wrote about sex as a kind of multidimensional phenomenon: a pleasure, a vice, a tool, an obligation. For the new album, Phair hired her first producer, Brad Wood, with whom she hadn’t worked since the late ’90s, back when they both lived in Chicago. “I wanted us to use our old sound — those basic building blocks,” says Phair, who slightly burnished her DIY style for 1994’s “Whip-Smart” and 1998’s “Whitechocolatespaceegg,” then went big and glossy on a series of polarizing records from the 2000s. Zooming from her home in Manhattan Beach, she’s wearing a sparkly silver top, her blond hair hanging loose over her shoulders; behind her, a couple of acoustic guitars lean against a sage-colored wall. Music Liz Phair was supposed to be on tour with Alanis Morissette right now. Instead, she’s interviewing the “Jagged Little Pill” star for The Times. July 29, 2020 Yet you wouldn’t call “Soberish” a throwback, in part because we’re living in something of a Liz Phair moment. Her influence as a singer and a songwriter — and as a guitarist with a fluid style that Wood compares to Keith Richards’ and Joni Mitchell’s — has never been more evident than in the work of Phoebe Bridgers, Snail Mail and other acclaimed young artists exploring intimacy in the age of the DM. And Phair is closely tuned into what’s going on among her inheritors. With Olivia Rodrigo — whose smash debut, “Sour,” builds upon the smarts and candor of “Guyville” even if 18-year-old Rodrigo wasn’t alive when it came out — “I felt an immediate kinship,” Phair says. “She’s a character I would get along with in real life.” Phair admires Taylor Swift too — the way she uses personal details to tell a larger story about women at a specific point in time. “I love when she talks about the house that she bought and the history that’s in that house,” she says of Swift’s song “The Last Great American Dynasty,” from 2020’s “Folklore” album. “I love the resonance of that.” Phair wasn’t hiding out exactly as her legend grew in the years after her last album, 2010’s “Funstyle.” She took gigs scoring television shows, including The CW’s “90210” reboot, in order to be around for her son, Nick, whose dad she’d split from before they moved separately to L.A. around 2000. “Everyone who knows us says we’ve done a really good job as co-parents,” she says. In 2017 she started work on an album with Ryan Adams, but the sessions quickly flamed out; later, Adams was accused by several women of sexual misconduct, which led Phair to scrap the unfinished songs they’d recorded together. She also wrote a memoir, “Horror Stories,” and put together an elaborate box set to mark “Guyville’s” 25th anniversary. The latter project is what sparked the idea of a creative reunion with Wood, who’d also ended up in L.A. and with whom Phair had stayed in touch socially. “My daughter used to love Legos, and Nick had the best Lego collection on earth,” the producer says. Wood admits his expectations were low when he and Phair got together two years ago. “I had my doubts that 2019 Liz and me were going to be able to conjure anything like 1992 Liz and me,” he says. But although Phair wanted access to that old sound, she didn’t want to use it in precisely the same way. “This was the summer of ‘Old Town Road,’ which was so exciting to me,” Phair says. “You’re telling me that a two-minute mashup of styles is the biggest song in America? This was our moment! No traditional arrangements. Everything’s gonna be completely off-kilter but so catchy that you don’t even notice how weird it is.” You can hear what she was after in a curio like “Soul Sucker,” which rides an almost hip-hop-ish beat, but also in “Hey Lou,” a crisp folk-rock number with a needling riff and a tricky tempo shift. In the latter, Phair steps outside herself to imagine the domestic life of what she called one of her favorite celebrity couples: Laurie Anderson and the late (and famously grumpy) Lou Reed. “No one knows what to think when you’re acting like an asshole,” she sings. “Spilling all the drinks, talking s— about Warhol.” Asked which half of that couple she identifies with, Phair says, “Oh, I’m always the Laurie. I tend to be attracted to men that I’m trying to accommodate somehow or another.” Has being aware of that tendency changed it? “I’m not even gonna try to change it — there’s no hope,” she says with a laugh. “I grew up in a certain time period, and I’ve accepted its limitations. I’m a feminist but I still want flowers, and I still want you to hold the door open. It’s conflicted, and that’s OK. I’m a product of the late 20th century; I’ll leave it to the next generation to re-carve the shape of their dreams.” Despite Phair’s proven cool-aunt status, it’s easy to wonder whether the contradictions that have always defined her work — on “Soberish” no less than on “Exile in Guyville” — might land less favorably among Gen Z-ers with more rigidly progressive politics. “I see that a little differently,” she says. “My age group, we took for granted certain solid facts about how this country operates. But this younger generation has seen behind the curtain, and they know nobody’s f— driving this. At all. So I have a lot of empathy for the idealized we-have-to-reform-society thing. “Do I actually think that any utopia works? I’m a Gen X-er — I don’t get with any attempt to make everything correct. But I look into Greta Thunberg’s eyes and I see the death stare that comes from the knowledge of a fact.” Music TikTok influencers like Bella Poarch and Addison Rae are following the Paris Hilton/Bhad Bhabie template and extending their brands by launching music careers. June 1, 2021 The singer says her views have been shaped by her close relationship with her son, who’s 24 and who spent much of the pandemic quarantined with her. “I have memories of me trying to weed the garden and he’s supposed to be helping me but he’s actually just standing there calling me a libertarian,” she says. “But the truth is he’s past the point where I’m teaching him. He’s teaching me in equal measure.” Still, after more than a year of quality mother-son time, Phair is ready to get out of the house, not least because her favorite activity when she’s high is cleaning her closets — and she’s cleaned all the ones she’s got. This fall she’s set to tour with a pair of fellow ’90s survivors in Alanis Morissette and Garbage. “And I’m getting ready to date again,” she says with a grin, “remembering what’s fun about it, what it was like to be in love in seventh grade. I’m reappreciating just two human beings finding each other and exploring each other.” Post-COVID, she reckons, “I think I’ll be more interested in what takes place between the two people instead of: Are their friends people I would like? What about their family? Could I hang with this lifestyle? I think it’s increased my attention span for another person. “But who knows?” she adds. “In six months I could be singing a different tune.”

Op-Ed: Naomi Osaka's withdrawal from the French Open was a stand for disability rights

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-03/osaka-tennis-mental-health-ada-depression-disabled

When Naomi Osaka exited the French Open this week, the tennis champion wasn’t just shielding herself; she was defending her rights as a disabled person. She may not have put it that way. But Osaka is a perfect example of how one can be both able-bodied and disabled. Under the Americans With Disabilities Act, emotional and psychiatric impairments such as depression and anxiety are disabilities. If you’re treated unfairly in a public place or employment situation because of these impairments, you have a valid discrimination suit. Of course, the French Open is not within the ADA’s jurisdiction. But if it were, the French Open, along with the Women’s Tennis Assn. and the International Tennis Federation, could be liable for failing to make a reasonable accommodation for Osaka’s emotional needs. Osaka announced last week that she would not participate in the French Open’s news conferences due to a “disregard for athletes’ mental health.” She then won her first round of the tournament and skipped the post-match press conference. She was fined $15,000 by Grand Slam tournament administrators. They also threatened her with expulsion from future matches if she continued to ignore media obligations.After her subsequent withdrawal from the French Open and announcement that she has suffered from depression, officials walked back their previous statement and gave vague offers of support and sympathy. But what Osaka deserves isn’t pity or even kindness. She needs a modification to make these events accessible for her, such as being allowed to compete without participating in post-match press conferences. As someone who is physically disabled, I know firsthand that when such a change is not granted it sends a chilling message to all members of the disability community. According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 264 million people globally have depression. In the U.S., roughly 26% of Americans 18 and over have diagnosable mental disorders, reports Johns Hopkins Medical Center. Accommodating Osaka’s depression and anxiety would not be a special privilege but a reasonable accommodation for an all too ordinary condition that more people should recognize. Press conferences are required of most professional athletes by the leagues to which they belong. The players are considered representatives of their sports, and more media attention to a specific league or team helps draw bigger audiences and sell more merchandise. But effectively forcing Osaka to drop out doesn’t do the tennis world’s bottom line any good either. To be sure, the ADA is a complicated document and it might be difficult for other governing bodies to adopt their own versions. Still, the landmark law, which was enacted in 1990, broadly defines disability as any “physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.” It applies to anyone who appears to be or is thought of as disabled. Specific diagnoses are irrelevant: It’s about an inability to accomplish tasks in traditional ways, as well as any stigmas related to being physically or mentally different. Its applicability to mental illnesses was established by the Supreme Court in 1999 in the case of Olmstead vs. L.C. That case involved two Georgia women who each had diagnoses of different mental health conditions and intellectual disabilities. They sued the state of Georgia to permit them to receive their periodic treatments in their home communities rather than having to live in state-run institutions to be treated. The case was heard by the Supreme Court, which ruled in their favor in 1999, establishing for legal purposes that mental illnesses are ADA-protected forms of disabilities. The Olmstead decision was about institutionalization, not tennis. But since then, there have been many other cases in which employees have gone to court to get their employers to make necessary modifications for their mental health needs. The ADA challenges both employers and employees to think about accommodations — ideally, they work together to come up with fair solutions. Disabled employees (or job candidates) must be clear about what they need to be able to perform the essential duties. They should put in specific requests, such as fatigue breaks, or telecommuting when possible or, as with Osaka, the right to wear headphones to “dull my social anxiety,” as she said on social media. For employers, the challenge is to specify the necessary requirements of the job. For example, if an administrative assistant can manage a calendar and input data as required, does it matter if they lack the dexterity to serve coffee? If Gilles Moretton, the president of the French Federation of Tennis, is sincere about being “committed to all athletes’ well-being and to continually improving every aspect of players’ experience in our Tournament, including with the Media,” the least he and the other leaders of the sports world could do is reconsider the essential tasks required of players. Is it truly necessary that Osaka participate in press conferences? Naomi Osaka and others like her should be accommodated not because they are “spoiled brats” with unreasonable needs but because they are human — and humans have disabilities. Sports L.A. Times columnists Helene Elliott, LZ Granderson, Dylan Hernández and Bill Plaschke discuss Naomi Osaka, the role of media, athletes’ mental health and more. June 2, 2021 Ben Mattlin is a writer in Los Angeles who covers disability issues and is the author of two books, including “In Sickness and in Health.”

Some people were just not buying 'Only You,' Spotify's attempt at flattery through data-mining

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2021-06-03/spotify-only-you-birth-chart

How special of a snowflake are you? This week Spotify rolled out a feature for mobile users called “Only You,” a collection of data based on your streaming activity over the past six months. In what’s essentially a mid-year remix of Spotify’s popular end-of-year “Wrapped” feature, “Only You” purports to show off the vast range of your musical taste, with splashy personalized graphics and playlists to match. Music TikTok influencers like Bella Poarch and Addison Rae are following the Paris Hilton/Bhad Bhabie template and extending their brands by launching music careers. June 1, 2021 Features include “Your Song Year,” which spotlights your favorite artists across different scenes and time periods; “Your Dream Dinner Party,” which whips up a playlist based on the three artists you’d supposedly most like to dine with; and “Your Artist Pair,” in which Spotify reveals the two most disparate artists on your recent plays. “Who else but you would play Sech after The Dismemberment Plan?” read one of my own personalized cards. Touché, Spotify — while I’m far from the only alt Latina on this planet, I cannot think of anyone I know who’d chase the sounds of cerebral D.C. indie rock with Panamanian reggaetón in one sitting. But on a platform that counts 356 million users, it can’t be completely outside the realm of possibility. spotify just sent me a message telling me that they’ve never seen anyone else listen to both rap and country on the same day. they said i’m really weird and possibly some kind of genius. they also said that no one else is interesting at all except for me Thanks spotify pic.twitter.com/MzwQmoEWCP While some users shared their “Only You” results with glee, skeptics abounded. “Spotify is genius at creating shareable bulls— that we all eat up. I respect it and don’t think I’ve seen something else as good at what it is,” wrote comedian Dave McNamee. Members of the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers, who are campaigning for Spotify to raise its artist royalty rates, used the social media trend as a launchpad for their activism. “#OnlyYou Spotify would reduce artist royalties the same year your stock price tripled,” tweeted Galaxie 500 drummer Damon Krukowski. The most buzzed-about feature is the “Audio Birth Chart,” which maps your personality through the artists you’ve recently listened to. The concept is loosely inspired by an astrological birth chart, which is a snapshot of where the planets were in the sky at the minute you were born. This map of the stars is said to reflect certain aspects of your character, as well as opportunities and challenges you may face on a daily, weekly or monthly basis until you shuffle off this mortal coil. Spotify’s “Audio Birth Chart,” however, has nothing to do with the planets, nor the time and date of your birth. It’s really just three artists culled from your listening habits over the past six months: Your “sun” artist is the artist you’ve listened to the most; your “moon” artist is the “most emotive” (as per Spotify) of the batch; and your “rising” artist is a recent discovery or an artist newly introduced to your library. (In astrology, your sun sign relates to your personality, your moon sign to how you experience your emotions, and your rising sign to how you interact with the outside world.) not doing that spotify astrology thing bc i know it’s just gonna be the d*sney music i play for my students. and i am NOT a randy newman rising Spotify has used astrology to market its streaming service before: In 2019, renowned astrologer Chani Nicholas curated official Spotify playlists to describe each of the 12 sun signs through song. Personalized algorithms may be Spotify’s bread and butter, but perhaps they should leave those of the cosmic variety to the astrologers.

Thousands join gay pride parade in conservative Jerusalem

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-03/thousands-join-gay-pride-parade-in-conservative-jerusalem

Thousands of people marched through Jerusalem on Thursday in the annual pride parade, celebrating LGBTQ rights in the conservative city amid heavy police security. Pride events in Jerusalem, which is home to a large ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, tend to be less raucous than those in more liberal Tel Aviv. A radical ultra-Orthodox Jew stabbed a 16-year-old girl to death at a pride event in 2015, an attack that was condemned across the political spectrum. Only a few dozen people turned out to protest the parade this year and were largely drowned out by the blaring music. “I think we are getting better and better,” said one of the marchers, Fabio Abulafiya, while acknowledging that more needed to be done. “It is very important to come to parades like this, not only to party ... but also to protest for our rights.” An alliance of far-right parties including openly homophobic candidates made a surprisingly strong showing in parliamentary elections in March and were set to be a key component in a new government led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But his efforts to form a majority coalition failed, in part because the far-right parties refused to join with a small Arab party that emerged as a kingmaker of sorts. A coalition opposed to Netanyahu is now on the verge of ending his record-setting 12 consecutive years in office. Jerusalem saw weeks of protests and clashes linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that triggered an 11-day war with militants in the Gaza Strip last month. The situation has been mostly calm since a cease-fire took effect May 21.

Feuding beekeepers are TikTok's latest viral sensation. Here's the buzz on their beef

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-06-03/tiktok-beekeepers-texasbeeworks-beef-twitter

Social media is buzzing over an unexpected TikTok feud between a California beekeeper and a Texas beekeeper that has shaken the beekeeping community and bee-yond. The so-called beekeeper beef, trending Thursday on Twitter, was sparked by viral videos posted by Texas beekeeper Erika Thompson (@texasbeeworks). Thompson, who boasts 6 million followers on TikTok, frequently documents her bee-removal expeditions in clips that have collectively amassed more than 70 million views on the platform. While a slew of amateurs — impressed by the care and ease with which Thompson appears to handle the insects — often swarm the comment sections of her posts with awe and praise, at least one beekeeper from Los Angeles has since challenged Thompson’s controversial methods. One brief clip, for example, shows Thompson calmly relocating a swarm of bees in need of a queen: “I started scooping bees off the umbrella and putting them into a hive,” Thompson narrates as she gently removes hundreds of bees from an umbrella with her bare hands. “When bees are in swarms like this, it means they’re looking for a new place to live,” she explains. “They tend to be very docile, since they don’t have any resources to defend. They don’t have a hive or baby bees to protect, but they should have a queen.” Opinion On June 10, 1879, Los Angeles lawmakers banned beekeeping within city limits. Oct. 14, 2015 Dressed casually in a pair of skinny jeans, a matching blouse and no visible protective gear, Thompson proceeds to repeat the process over and over, carefully inspecting each handful in search of a queen, but to no avail. “This colony would not survive without a queen, but luckily, I had an extra one on me I could give them,” she says before nonchalantly removing a spare queen bee from her denim shirt pocket — at which point TikTok all but lost its hive mind. “I waited a while longer for the bees to get in their new hive, then I loaded them into my truck and drove home,” Thompson says. “I put the bees in my apiary so they can continue the important work they do in a place that’s safer for them and for people, and it was another great day of saving the bees.” In her TikTok bio, Thompson bills herself as a “Professional Beekeeper Saving Bees in Austin, TX.” But what Thompson presents as informative, heroic rescue missions have been condemned by another prominent TikTok beekeeper, @lahoneybeerescue, who appears to work for the West Hollywood-based organization LA Honeybee Rescue. Food Six years ago, Tucson native and sommelier Noel Patterson began amateur beekeeping after receiving a hive as a gift from a skilled local apiarist. Nov. 6, 2017 In critical TikTok posts recently compiled and resurfaced by Twitter users, @lahoneybeerescue, whose name is not displayed on her profile, has accused Thompson of staging her beekeeping content and “setting a dangerous precedent” for interacting with potentially harmful insects. “What she is doing — opening up hives with her hair down, wearing dark clothes with exposed skin — is dangerous,” @lahoneybeerescue says in one of the clips. “I’m 100% OK with her showing how docile swarms are, but the fact is that she goes into removals without wearing any safety gear ... she’s not wearing thick pants or gaiters or work boots. She looks really pretty doing it, and that’s because it’s faked.” In the same clip, @lahoneybeerescue criticizes Thompson’s long, blond hairstyle, which cascades down her back in all of her beekeeping videos. By contrast, @lahoneybeerescue sports a buzzcut to protect herself from bee stings. “The reason I keep my hair short is so bees don’t get caught in it,” she explains. “If bees get caught in your hair, they sting. Every female beekeeper I know, they either cut their hair off or they put it up in a ponytail and scrape it into a bun so that bees don’t get tangled in their hair and sting them on the neck or face. I know what I know. “You guys can say I have a bad attitude all you want. You can come in the comments and b— at me and say that ... I shouldn’t be coming after other women, and I’m not supporting her or whatnot. No. I’m straight up calling her out and saying what you do is fake. @texasbeeworks, I see you. We all see you. All of us female removal specialists, we see you. We know you’re faking.” California L.A. backyard beekeeping picking up buzz Feb. 12, 2014 The sudden rift in the online beekeeping community quickly transcended TikTok, as Twitter users also became invested in the niche quarrel by doing what Twitter does best: passing judgment and picking sides. “me: okay today i’m going to be productive!! also me: spends an hour deeply immersed in tiktok beekeeper beef,” tweeted one person. “i hope to one day find a subculture//activity that i’m passionate enough about to beef with my peers over,” mused another. “god bless the beekeeper drama, no idea who’s right/wrong and don’t honestly care i just salute the passion.” Check out more takes on the beekeeper drama below. me: okay today i’m going to be productive!! also me: spends an hour deeply immersed in tiktok beekeeper beef Literally the only thing I care about on this site at this moment is beekeeper beef. I am FASCINATED that there exists space in the world for beekeeper/collector beef. Like, the possibilities are endless. Damn. Beekeeper beef might actually be the most niche thing I've seen on this website. If you told me, 20 years ago, that I would have strong opinions about a TikTok beekeeper beef, I’d say that sounds about right i claim to be grown and above drama and yet here i am knee deep in beekeeper beef I just witnessed beekeeper beef. Twitter is the gift that keeps on giving. i hope to one day find a subculture//activity that i'm passionate enough about to beef with my peers over. god bless the beekeeper drama, no idea who's right/wrong and don't honestly care i just salute the passion. beekeeper beef > beauty vlogger beef

Slowing down? Roger Federer says no as he advances at French Open

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-06-03/roger-federer-advances-french-open-sloane-stephens

Roger Federer disliked the implication he’s slowing down. When the 39-year-old Federer drew a time violation Thursday at the French Open for not playing fast enough, he protested to the chair umpire and to his opponent, Marin Cilic. The warning in the second set came after Cilic twice complained to the chair that Federer wasn’t getting ready to receive serve quickly enough. “Marin, am I playing too slow?” Federer said. “I understand the rule. I’m going from one corner to the next trying to get my towel. I’m not doing it on purpose.” Federer, a 13-time winner of the ATP’s annual sportsmanship award, pointed out that he has played little since the COVID-19 pandemic prompted changes in procedure between points, and players now fetch their own towels. Sports L.A. Times columnists Helene Elliott, LZ Granderson, Dylan Hernández and Bill Plaschke discuss Naomi Osaka, the role of media, athletes’ mental health and more. June 2, 2021 “It was a misunderstanding on many levels,” Federer said later. “First I didn’t understand what was going on. I did not know he was upset.” With a chuckle, Federer added, “I guess I’m new to the new tour. It got a little energy into the match, which I like.” The dispute delayed play for more than three minutes and seemed to unsettle Federer for the rest of the second set, but he regrouped and won, 6-2, 2-6, 7-6 (4), 6-2. The victory advanced Federer to the third round at Roland Garros, his first major tournament in 16 months. Federer showed in the third set that he harbored no lingering hard feelings toward Cilic, conceding a point he didn’t lose. On the first point of the pivotal tiebreaker, Cilic hit a serve near the line and Federer conceded it as an ace. The umpire climbed out of his seat and called the serve long, but Federer gave Cilic the point anyway. Replay showed the ball was long. Former U.S. Open champion Sloane Stephens beat a top-10 player for the first time in 2 1/2 years — and it was the same player as last time. Stephens returned well and used her defensive skills to defuse 10th-ranked Karolina Pliskova’s power for a 7-5, 6-1 victory. Stephens’ last top-10 win came against Pliskova in the WTA Finals in Singapore in late 2018. At No. 59, Stephens is ranked outside the top 50 for the first time since 2017, but she’s always dangerous on clay. She was the runner-up at the 2018 French Open and made the quarterfinals in 2019. No. 5-seeded Elena Svitolina says she and her fiancé, former top-10 player Gael Monfils, don’t argue about tennis — or anything else. “He always has to agree with me, you know,” a grinning Svitolina told the crowd during a post-match interview Thursday, “because I’m the boss in the house.” Svitolina was in a good mood after beating Ann Li 6-0, 6-4. Monfils later lost to Mikael Ymer, 6-0, 2-6, 6-4, 6-3. A three-dimensional painting of Rafael Nadal packaged with a digital token of the image in motion shows him playing in the 2014 French Open, which he won. The 3-D image is on multiple layers of plexiglass, and each of the 300 physical paintings from Sulzberg Sports Media & Fine Art is signed by Nadal. Proceeds from sales will benefit the Rafa Nadal Foundation.

Minneapolis' George Floyd Square barriers removed by city, quickly replaced by activists

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-03/george-floyd-square-barriers-removed-by-city-quickly-replaced-by-activists

Crews on Thursday removed the concrete barriers that blocked traffic at a Minneapolis intersection where a memorial to George Floyd was assembled after his death last year, but community activists quickly put up makeshift barriers and resumed chanting the name of the Black man whose killing galvanized the racial justice movement. It took the crews led by a community group known as Agape less than four hours to clear the barriers, artwork, flowers and other items from 38th Street and Chicago Avenue where Floyd was killed, informally known as George Floyd Square. City spokeswoman Sarah McKenzie said a fist sculpture, which stands several feet tall, will remain. The intersection had been closed to traffic since Floyd’s death in police custody on May 25, 2020, but some residents and businesses expressed frustration that it had been closed for so long. Traffic briefly flowed through the intersection Thursday morning after the concrete barriers were removed, but community members quickly erected new makeshift barriers. Dozens of people gathered near the intersection, singing, chanting Floyd’s name and giving speeches expressing frustration and urging people to continue organizing. Mayor Jacob Frey said a phased reopening of the intersection was necessary to promote healing, restore area businesses, and provide social and city services that have been lacking for a year. He said artwork from the memorial will be preserved, and that the city wants to ensure the location where Floyd died “never has tires run over it again.” “This intersection will forever be changed and we need to be investing in that transformation,” Frey said at a news conference. “This can be a critical location of gathering, not just for our city but the entire world.” City Council Vice President Andrea Jenkins said she has talked with residents and business owners who have struggled with the loss of revenue and sleep, and some who feel trapped in their homes. “It’s time for us to begin a process of rebuilding this community,” she said. Frey acknowledged the reopening would not happen all at once and declined to say when the intersection would fully reopen to traffic. The square sprang up organically in the days after Floyd’s death. As people gathered to express their grief and anger, community members set up makeshift barricades to block traffic, which the city eventually replaced with concrete ones. Frey and other city leaders pledged to reopen the intersection, but activist leaders said they wouldn’t step aside unless the city met their 24 demands. Among them: Recall the county prosecutor, fire the head of the state’s criminal investigative agency, and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on programs to create jobs, combat racism and support affordable housing. Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the removal of the memorial was an attack on Floyd’s legacy. “This space is a space that has now become a national memorial, a national memorial for victims of police violence all over this world,” Hussein said during a news conference. “We will not give up this space,” he said. “We will save it for George Floyd.” Violent crime at the intersection and the blocks immediately surrounding it rose dramatically in 2020, though crime also increased citywide. There were 19 nonfatal and fatal shootings in the area in 2020, including 14 from May 1 through Aug. 31. That’s compared with three shootings in all of 2019 and none during the summer months. Shots were fired in the area last week, just hours before an event to mark the anniversary of Floyd’s death. One person was injured. Steve Floyd, one of Agape’s founders, said he admires the demonstrators’ efforts to maintain the square but that they had to engage the city in that process “instead of letting them come in here with bulldozers.” “As far as controlling this and maintaining it, that’s a noble job. We don’t disrespect the protesters, everything can stay the same,” said Floyd, who isn’t related to George Floyd. “They can still do it. But we just let them in here to fix what we have and develop it.” Former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted in April of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for pressing his knee against Floyd’s neck for 9½ minutes as he pleaded for air. Chauvin has also been indicted on federal charges alleging he violated Floyd’s civil rights, as well as the civil rights of a 14-year-old he restrained in a 2017 arrest. The three other former Minneapolis officers involved in Floyd’s arrest and death were also charged with federal civil rights violations. They await trial in state court on aiding and abetting counts.

Dodgers activate AJ Pollock and Jimmy Nelson ahead of trip

https://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2021-06-03/dodgers-mlb-aj-pollock-jimmy-nelson-activitated-off-injured-list

The Dodgers added more reinforcements Thursday ahead of their six-game trip, activating outfielder AJ Pollock and right-hander Jimmy Nelson from the injured list. Relievers Alex Vesia and Edwin Uceta were optioned to triple-A Oklahoma City to make room on the roster. The 33-year-old Pollock was placed on the injured list May 15 after re-straining his left hamstring. He missed 17 games and appeared in four games on a rehabilitation assignment with single-A Rancho Cucamonga. He went two for nine with a home run in the stint. Pollock, who figures to platoon in left field with Matt Beaty, is batting .277 with four home runs and a .791 OPS in 32 games this season. Nelson has been on the injured list since May 23 with forearm and elbow soreness. The 31-year-old starter-turned-reliever has given up five runs in 18 2/3 innings across 16 appearances this season. Dodgers The Dodgers scored 11 runs in the first inning of a 14-3 rout of the St. Louis Cardinals to take two of three as they hit the road for a six-game road trip May 31, 2021 The additions come after Cody Bellinger and Zach McKinstry were reinstated from the injured list Saturday. Corey Seager, Brusdar Graterol, Tony Gonsolin, Scott Alexander and Garrett Cleavinger remain on the injured list. By optioning Vesia and Uceta, the Dodgers’ pitching staff was reduced to 13, giving them a more conventional five-man bench heading into their NLCS rematch against the Atlanta Braves this weekend.

Pride Month events with Lil Nas X and Dolly lead our list of weekend culture

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-06-03/things-to-do-in-la-orange-county-lgbt-gay-pride-lil-nas-x

LGBTQ Pride Month is in full swing with three days of in-person concerts at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum featuring dozens of musical acts including Adam Lambert. Other Pride-related happenings include two art walks on the Westside. Plus there is live opera and dance. Among the virtual offerings are a livestream Pride celebration with Demi Lovato and Lil Nas X, American Ballet Theatre in a performance streamed from the Music Center and Pacific Symphony’s take on Verdi’s “La Traviata.” “Outloud: Raising Voices Featuring Pride Live’s Stonewall Day”This three-day musical celebration features celebrity appearances in addition to the musical acts. Indie-pop duo Sofi Tukker headlines the first night, singer-songwriter Hayley Kiyoko the second, and Lambert on Sunday. The Coliseum, 3911 S. Figueroa St., Los Angeles. 4 p.m. Friday-Sunday. $30 and up; advance tickets required. weareoutloud.com Can’t make it in person? Concerts will be streamed live — for free — on Twitch. SaMo Pride’s Rainbow Road Art WalkThis monthlong, family-friendly offering features multimedia works and outdoor installations created by LGBTQ artists. The art is on view at these Santa Monica locations: Fig Restaurant (101 Wilshire Blvd.); the Third Street Promenade (1351 3rd Street Promenade); Santa Monica Place (395 Santa Monica Place); and the Santa Monica Pier (200 Santa Monica Pier). 10 a.m. Friday through June 30. Free. A map with a list of exhibits can be found at smpride.com “Pride Publics: Words and Actions”This multisite outdoor exhibit presented by the ONE Archives Foundation features 28 large-scale black-and-white portraits — by artists including Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors and the Tom of Finland Foundation’s Durk Dehner — saluting other LGBTQ trailblazers. On the east side of Robertson Boulevard, just south of Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood. Saturday through July 1. Free. onearchives.org “Still Standing” Rachel Bloom and Sherri Shepherd headline a new edition of this rooftop comedy showcase. NeueHouse Hollywood, 6121 W. Sunset Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Friday. $40 and up, advance purchase required; ages 21 and older. rsvp.neuehouse.com “Le 66”Mission Opera stages four outdoor performances of Offenbach’s one-act comic operetta. Santa Clarita United Methodist Church, 26640 Bouquet Canyon Rd., Santa Clarita. 6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday; also June 12-13. $15, $20; advance purchase required. missionopera.com Benita Bike’s DanceArtThe L.A.-based modern dance company wraps its 40th anniversary season with a live concert. Madrid Theatre, 21622 Sherman Way, Canoga Park. 5 p.m. Saturday (a film of the performance will be available online, June 10-13). $25; advance purchase required. danceart.org “Aria Dean: Suite!”The Gallery at REDCAT reopens with this solo exhibition by the multimedia artist whose work is also on view in Hammer Museum’s “Made in L.A.” biennial. Noon Saturday through Oct. 24. Free; advance timed-entry tickets required. redcat.org “Can’t Cancel Pride”Lil Nas X, Demi Lovato, Dolly Parton, Ricky Martin, Elton John and Pink are among the stars lending their time and talents to iHeartMedia’s virtual benefit for LGBTQ causes. 6 p.m. Friday. Free; donations accepted. cantcancelpride.com Music “Montero” hitmaker Lil Nas X took to Twitter to celebrate the beginning of Pride Month, marking two years since he publicly came out as gay. June 1, 2021 “La Traviata”Pacific Symphony presents a semi-staged version of Verdi’s tragic drama about a Parisian courtesan dying of consumption. With soprano Cecilia Violetta López. 7 p.m. Saturday. $25 for 28-day access. pacificsymphony.org American Ballet TheatreThe Music Center’s “Dance at Dusk” series continues with members of ABT performing contemporary works and classic repertory. Tickets for the five in-person performances are all but gone, but you can catch a livestream of the closing-night show — for free — at 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Register at musiccenter.org “Partch Ensemble: Premieres”The musical collective dedicated to preserving the works of Harry Partch performs new pieces by local composers written for the unique instruments the maverick American composer invented. The program also includes Partch’s 1952 piece “Castor & Pollux. A Dance for the Twin Rhythms of Gemini.” A Q&A follows. 8:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday. $8-$15. redcat.org “First Fridays Connected: Los Angeles at the Intersections”The closing entry in the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County’s virtual salon series features an exploration of murals around L.A, a performance by local singer-songwriter Sasami, a live DJ set by Kim Anh and more. 5 p.m. Friday. Free. Register at nhm.org Entertainment & Arts The Getty Center and the Broad museum are open! Here is our May guide to the most promising exhibitions across Southern California. May 29, 2021 “Close Quarters” Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s virtual season concludes with a program featuring Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. Los Angeles Master Chorale’s Grant Gershon serves as guest conductor. Pre-concert talk, 5:30 p.m. Friday; performance, 6:30 p.m.; available on-demand afterward. Free; donations accepted. laco.org, youtube.com, facebook.com “The Show Must Go On! Live at the Palace Theatre”Cast members from U.K. productions of “Wicked,” “Hamilton,” “Mamma Mia!,” “Dear Evan Hansen,” “Phantom of the Opera” and other hit musicals perform in this extravaganza direct from London’s West End. 11 a.m. Sunday; available on-demand for seven days after the live broadcast. Free. youtube.com Our recurring coronavirus-era arts and culture recommendations are posted every Thursday. Your essential guide to the arts in L.A. Get Carolina A. Miranda's weekly newsletter for what's happening, plus openings, critics' picks and more. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

Why and when do COVID-19 vaccines expire?

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-06-03/why-and-when-do-covid-19-vaccines-expire

How long do vaccines last? That’s now a critical question as the Biden administration prepares to send tens of millions of unused COVID-19 doses abroad to help curb the pandemic. Some state officials have said in recent days that they have unused doses that may expire by the end of the month, and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday that looming expiration dates were a factor as the administration works to get the doses sent out as quickly as possible. Politics The White House will send 75% of excess U.S. COVID-19 vaccine doses to the U.N.-backed COVAX global sharing program. June 3, 2021 Many drugs and vaccines can last for years if stored properly, but all can eventually start losing effectiveness, much like how food can degrade in a pantry. Vaccine providers keep an eye on the expiration dates that come with each batch to ensure they’re using up their supplies in time. Expiration dates for vaccines are determined based on data the manufacturer submits to regulators showing how long the shots stay at sufficient strength, said former Food and Drug Administration vaccine chief Norman Baylor. It’s called a “potency assay,” and it can vary by vaccine. Some vaccines, such as tetanus shots, typically last two years if properly stored. Science & Medicine With so many Americans becoming immunized, it’s natural to look ahead and wonder how long this protection will last. The answer: No one knows. April 21, 2021 Like many perishable items, COVID-19 vaccines remain stable longer at lower temperatures. The vaccines authorized in the U.S. — made by Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — can last for up to about six months from the time of manufacture, depending on how they’re stored. But the COVID-19 vaccines are new, and vaccine manufacturers have continued to test samples of batches in the months since the shots first rolled out, Baylor said. Depending on the results of those tests, the expiration dates could be extended. Once you reach full immunity, your risk of getting a moderate to severe case of COVID-19 is greatly reduced, and you’ll want to go places and see people. Here are some guidelines and resources. Only in public or around unvaccinated people, according to the CDC. If you’re around other fully vaccinated people in a private setting, go ahead and take your masks off. The CDC has relaxed its guidance for wearing masks outdoors. Yes, you can visit one other household with unvaccinated people, indoors and without masks even, as long as they and anyone they live with are at low risk of developing a severe case of COVID-19. Avoid mixing with more than one household at a time. Be sure to check and follow the rules in place for wherever you’re headed, but in general, yes. And you don’t have to quarantine when you return home. The CDC recommends that you do not. In California, stadiums and other large venues that are opening are doing so with limited capacity and physical distancing and other measures in place. Suggested reading for the vaccinated: For those who aren’t yet:

F. Lee Bailey, famed lawyer on O.J. Simpson 'dream team,' dies at 87

https://www.latimes.com/obituaries/story/2021-06-03/f-lee-bailey-dead

F. Lee Bailey was at one time the most famous trial attorney in the country, known for his lightning-quick mind, relentless courtroom interrogations and insatiable self-promotion. In trials that captivated the nation, he defended Dr. Sam Sheppard, whose story was reportedly the basis for “The Fugitive” TV series and film; Army Capt. Ernest Medina, accused of war crimes in Vietnam; confessed Boston Strangler Albert De Salvo; and newspaper heiress Patty Hearst. “They say this is the trial of the century,” Bailey told the Los Angeles Times in 1976 during the Hearst bank robbery trial, “but it is the fourth such one for me.” In fact, the biggest was still to come. In 1995, Bailey was part of the “dream team” of attorneys who successfully represented O.J. Simpson at his murder trial in Los Angeles, a television spectacle that was rabidly absorbed by viewers coast to coast. California The ex-football star expresses gratitude and returns to his Brentwood estate where friends and family celebrate. Relatives of the victims react with pain and grim silence to the jurors’ decision. Oct. 4, 1995 It was also Bailey’s last trial on a national stage. After that, when he was in a courtroom, it was most often as a defendant. Bailey, whose fame carried on even as his career flickered out, died Thursday in Atlanta at age 87, according to the Associated Press. A cause of death was not immediately given. The hard-charging attorney’s career was already faltering before the Simpson trial; afterward, it dropped off a cliff. He spent time in jail for defying a judge’s order, was hit with a multimillion-dollar tax judgment and filed for bankruptcy protection. The deepest blow came when he was forced to give up his license to practice law. Broke, Bailey moved to a small town in Maine where his most prominent role was serving as a judge in a Miss Maine contest. High-profile former friends, some of whom felt injured by his past actions, disavowed him. He lived quietly in an apartment above his girlfriend’s hair salon. But from early on Bailey made it clear that he expected to wage his battles in life as a solitary figure. He opened his 1971 bestselling book “The Defense Never Rests” with a story that took place in 1955 when he was a Marine pilot. He was flying solo in an F-86 Sabre jet off the coast of North Carolina when a red warning light flashed on in the cockpit, signaling an engine fire. Bailey yelled “Mayday” into the radio, cut power to avoid an explosion and carefully glided the jet back to the airport for a powerless landing. Later he learned that there was no engine fire — the warning light came on because of a short in the wiring. But no matter — it solidified his status as a lone warrior. “If I ran a school for criminal lawyers, I would teach them all to fly,” Bailey wrote. “The ones who survived would understand the meaning of ‘alone.’” Francis Lee Bailey Jr. was born June 10, 1933, in Waltham, Mass. His father had been in advertising but during the Depression found work with the government-sponsored WPA. His mother ran a nursery school. Bailey’s early ambition was to be a writer. But after a couple of years at Harvard, he dropped out and joined the Navy to train as a pilot. He also read the book “The Art of Advocacy,” by prominent trial attorney Lloyd Paul Stryker. “It interested me as nothing had before,” Bailey wrote. When he transferred to the Marines to get more jet pilot time, he requested secondary duty in the unit’s legal office, where he handled numerous military court cases. He was discharged in 1956, got his law degree from Boston University and then in 1961, only three months after being admitted to the bar, got his first major murder case. George Edgerly had been charged with killing his wife, whose body was found headless, giving rise to Boston newspapers calling it “The Torso Murder.” Bailey had gained expertise in polygraph “lie detector” machines and was initially asked to join the defense team only to cross-examine the polygraph operator who had questioned Edgerly. But the young lawyer was so effective at undercutting the witness that he was asked to stay on and even gave the closing argument. Edgerly was acquitted and Bailey got his first taste of fame. “The night had been a melange of television cameras and microphones,” he wrote in “The Defense Never Rests.” Cases poured in, including that of Ohio physician Sam Sheppard, who had been in prison for 10 years after being convicted of murdering his wife. Bailey got the decision overturned on retrial in 1966 on the grounds that the jury was exposed to highly prejudicial press reports during the initial, sensational trial that spotlighted a steamy affair the doctor was having. It made Sheppard a free man and Bailey a national celebrity. He appeared several times on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” in addition to “The Dick Cavett Show,” “The David Frost Show” and “What’s My Line” as the celebrity guest. He flew private jets to Hollywood parties, hosted his own television show and landed on the covers of Time and Newsweek In 1967 he was part of another sensational trial — of Albert DeSalvo, who had confessed to the Boston Strangler serial murders. Bailey tried a strategy aimed at getting his client committed to a mental health facility but lost that one. DeSalvo was sent to prison, where he himself was murdered in 1973. Bailey did succeed in winning an acquittal in the 1971 court-martial marshal of Army Capt. Ernest Medina, commanding officer of the unit that committed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, then considered the worst atrocity in U.S. military history. Medina later went on to work for a helicopter manufacturing company controlled by Bailey. The lawyer, indulging his love of aviation, flew around the country in his own jets to handle cases or make personal appearances. He was a partner in multiple law firms and wrote more than 15 books. “I squeeze more out of life than most people,” he said. But there were rumblings in the legal community that Bailey was taking liberties in his quest to boost himself. In 1970, a Massachusetts judge censured him for remarks he made on “The Tonight Show,” saying the lawyer “believes that he alone should decide if special circumstances exist to justify a departure from the established norms of conduct.” In 1971, Bailey was suspended from arguing cases in New Jersey for a year. His major troubles began in 1973, when he was indicted as an executive of a company headed by Glenn Turner, a motivational speaker who ran “Dare to Be Great” seminars and sold cosmetics in an operation prosecutors alleged was a Ponzi scheme. After a trial that ended with a hung jury in 1975, fraud charges against Bailey were dropped, but the matter reportedly put a severe crimp in his finances. The following year came the trial of Patty Hearst, granddaughter of newspaper czar William Randolph Hearst. Hearst had been kidnapped by the radical Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974 and, after months of being held captive, seemed to join the SLA cause, even arming herself and participating in a takeover-style armed bank robbery in San Francisco. Books “I had always assumed that the ’60s were the time that the country was really in crisis. Aug. 12, 2016 Her eventual trial was the kind of national news event that Bailey loved, but this time he lost again, and Hearst was sentenced to prison (her sentence was commuted in 1979 by Jimmy Carter and she was eventually pardoned by Bill Clinton). In her autobiography, Hearst placed much of the blame for her conviction on Bailey, saying he was incompetent. Bailey further damaged his reputation by hosting the 1983 syndicated TV show, “Lie Detector,” in which celebrities underwent polygraph tests. In one episode, he determined that Zsa Zsa Gabor was telling the truth when she said she didn’t marry for money. The 1995 Simpson trial was his shot at redemption. He was given the key task of cross-examining LAPD Det. Mark Fuhrman. Bailey tried to expose Fuhrman as a racist, but the witness remained stoic, insisting he had not used racial slurs, as accused. Bailey was roundly criticized for his courtroom tactics and blustering demeanor. After Bailey failed in his attempt to expose the detective, a documentary filmmaker produced tapes of Fuhrman using racial slurs again and again. It was a key point in the long trial, but most of the credit for the Simpson acquittal went to the lead attorney, the late Johnnie L. Cochran Jr.. Bailey’s ultimate fall from grace stemmed from his defense of drug trafficker Claude Duboc, who pleaded guilty in hopes of getting a light sentence. The lawyer had been given a share of Duboc’s stock holdings worth millions. But when a Florida judge ordered the shares be turned over to the government as part of Duboc’s punishment, Bailey refused, eventually admitting he had sold some of the stock and pocketed the proceeds. The judge sent him to prison in 1996 for six weeks for civil contempt of court. In 2001, Bailey was disbarred in Florida over the Duboc affair and other matters, with the state’s Supreme Court citing “multiple counts of egregious misconduct, including offering false testimony.” Massachusetts followed suit, effectively ending his ability to practice law. In 2009, he moved to Yarmouth, Maine, a small seaside village north of Portland , not far from where his family spent summers when he was a child. He lived there with his cosmetologist girlfriend in an apartment and opened a consulting business to advise clients planning to buy planes or yachts and co-authored a textbook on cross-examinations. Bailey said he had no interest in being a lawyer again. “Been there, done that,” he told the Portland Press Herald in 2010. “I much more enjoy what I am doing now.” But given the intoxicating heights he had reached as an attorney, it was little surprise that he wanted back into the profession. In 2012, at 78, he passed the Maine bar exam. The state’s board of examiners, however, denied him a license, and in April 2014 the Maine Supreme Judicial Court agreed, citing the “seriousness of the misconduct that resulted in his disbarment.” Defense attorney Alan Dershowitz said he firmly believed that his old friend was being made to suffer because of the Simpson acquittal. “Without a doubt,” he told Town and Country magazine in 2017. “I think it was a major factor in the vindictive way in which he’s been treated.” Bailey, though, remained pragmatic. “I don’t see any further remedies,” he told the Bangor Daily News. “This is the end of the road.” Bailey was married four times and divorced three. His fourth wife, Patricia, died in 1999. He had three children. Colker is a former Times staff writer

'Tracked for life': China relentless in erasing Tiananmen

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-03/tracked-for-life-china-relentless-in-erasing-tiananmen

The ruling Communist Party’s deadly 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests never ended for Fan Baolin, who served 17 years in prison and says he sneaked out of China last year to escape surveillance that included cameras trained on his apartment and pressure on his family to deter him from more activism. Fan, who took part in the demonstrations and later worked for the party’s vast security apparatus, was arrested in 1999 for giving activists abroad confidential documents about surveillance of Chinese pro-democracy exiles. Released in 2016, he became among those who still are watched by the party a generation later in an effort to erase public memory of the protests in the heart of Beijing. “Once you are on the Chinese government’s blacklist, you will be tracked for life,” Fan told the Associated Press ahead of Friday’s anniversary of the June 4, 1989, military attack on protesters. He spoke in another Asian country and asked that it not be identified while its government considers his request for asylum. Party leaders have imprisoned or driven activists into exile and largely succeeded in ensuring young people know little about June 4. Still, after more than three decades and three changes of leadership, they are relentless in trying to prevent any mention of the attack that killed hundreds and possibly thousands of people. Relatives of those who died are watched and, ahead of the anniversary, some are detained or forced to stay temporarily away from home to prevent them from doing anything that might draw attention. Public memorials on the mainland always have been prohibited. Vigils used to be held openly in Hong Kong and Macao, Chinese territories with fewer political controls, but authorities banned events this year. “They have only deepened repression,” said Yaqiu Wang of Human Rights Watch in a report this month. Following his release from prison, Fan lived in his hometown of Xi’an, in China’s west, under surveillance and restrictions. He said police discouraged him from leaving the city, tracked his mobile phone and listened to his calls. To protect his family, Fan said he had little contact with them and told them nothing about his activities. He said he worried they might be punished if he were accused of more wrongdoing. “They looked for my brother and sister,” he said. Authorities wanted “to make my family members persuade me, control me, not to participate any more in this sort of thing, not to know these people any longer.” As for other relatives, “I take initiative to keep my distance from them,” Fan said. “As they all know, my phone is monitored, so as soon as I call and as soon as they answer, they are frightened,” he said. “This is the atmosphere of fear created by the Communist Party’s domestic high-pressure policies now.” Fan said when he traveled to other cities in 2017 to see friends, police called every day to ask what he was doing. He said when he took a package vacation to Yunnan province in the southwest in 2018, police detained him and sent him back to Xi’an. Fan participated in the 1989 protests, joining thousands of students from across China in Tiananmen Square. But he left Beijing at the end of May, before the military attacked. His eyes fill with tears when he describes the event. Later, Fan studied law and worked as a legal consultant before joining the police in Shaanxi province in the west. He moved to a state security agency in 1994 and was assigned to watch the public and read their mail, looking for possible foreign ties. But he held onto hopes for a democratic China. Fan was convicted of “illegally providing state secrets abroad” for faxing security agency documents to a pro-democracy movement group in Los Angeles and “expressing sympathy and support,” according to a document Fan provided to the AP that he said was his sentencing report. It said he had promised to use his post to pass along intelligence reports about the group. That report gave no details of the documents Fan was accused of leaking. “I didn’t do it for money from Taiwan or the U.S. government,” Fan said. “I was on the side of the pro-democracy movement and provided intelligence to friends in the pro-democracy movement.” Fan’s case was disclosed to human rights groups in 2007 by a former fellow inmate, Zhao Changqing, according to the Dui Hua Foundation in San Francisco, which researches Chinese prisons. After that, Fan was listed as a political prisoner by Duihua and human rights groups. Fan said after his release, police took him out for meals ahead of politically sensitive dates — part of extensive efforts to keep track of him. “They would go back, list the details of our meeting and report regularly to higher levels the so-called dynamics of my thoughts in the sensitive period and in what activities we took part,” he said. Fan, who turns 57 next month, never married or had children. He said his parents died while he was in prison but he didn’t learn that until he was released, more than a decade later. Fan said video cameras were installed to watch the apartment his parents bought for him before their deaths. He said that made friends skittish about visiting. Today, Fan lives in a studio apartment with a roll-up bed and a fan for furniture while he waits for word on his asylum application. He has become a Christian and passes time by reading a Bible on his mobile phone. Fan said for his first two years out of prison, he rarely went outdoors because “the world was very strange.” Fan said when he visited Beijing on the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen protests in 2019, police called from Xi’an and ordered him to return home. Fan said he told no one after he decided to leave China. He discarded his mobile phone to prevent authorities from using it to track him. He made his way to the southern border and walked across. “I will not return to China,” he said. “This is a road of no return.”

Azusa police suffered a ransomware attack in 2018. The city kept it secret

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-03/azusa-ransomware-attack-2018-kept-secret

The recent ransomware attack that spilled thousands of sensitive Azusa Police Department files online was not the first time hackers demanding money had infiltrated the agency’s computer systems. In response to queries from The Times, city officials acknowledged this week that foreign hackers seized control of the police dispatch system and other data for more than a week in 2018. For the record: 2:46 p.m. June 13, 2021An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Chubb instead of Brit Insurance as the Azusa’s cybersecurity insurance carrier during a 2018 hack. The attack forced Azusa to rely on other departments for help with 911 operations and cost the city more than $50,000, but officials never informed citizens it occurred. “We did not make a public statement and did not have to file anything legally because we could confirm that no data was migrated out” of the police servers, said city manager Sergio Gonzalez. About a week into the 2018 hack, the city’s cybersecurity insurance carrierpaid $65,000 to the attackers to regain access to a server containing the dispatch system and arrest data, the most critical of about a dozen servers affected, Gonzalez said. Subsequently, a“breach coach” was able to locate digital keys online that allowed the city back into its other servers without paying additional ransom. Gonzalez said the process took “a few weeks.” Because of its insurance deductible, Azusa had to cover $50,000 for costs including computer forensic work. The hack was ultimately traced to an email attachment opened by a police employee. Though the sender appeared to be an official at a state agency, the email originated with the hackers, and the attachment unleashed a virus that allowed the hack. Employees were counseled extensively to be on guard for suspicious emails, but this spring, a different hacking group pierced the system again. “We looked at our software system, antiviral system [and got it] to what we thought was a better position,” Gonzalez said, “but these attacks have become a lot more sophisticated.” Ransomware attacks have surged this year around the globe. Law enforcement agencies in Illinois, Maine and Washington, D.C., have been hit alongside private-industry targets. The entry point appears to have been a link in an email that seemed innocuous, he said. In the most recent hack, the police were not locked out of their computers. Instead, the suspected assailants, a group known as DoppelPaymer, announced in early March that they had copied huge amounts of data and would release it on the so-called dark web if a ransom wasn’t paid. DoppelPaymer demanded 15.5 bitcoin, which was worth about $800,000 at the time, Gonzalez said. The city’s current insurer, Chubb, balked, citing recent warnings from the U.S. Department of Treasury about possible sanctions for ransomware payments to groups designated as “malicious cyber actors.” One group placed on the Treasury sanctions list in 2015, Russian-based Evil Corp., is believed to be connected to DoppelPaymer. When the ransom deadline passed, the hackers placed 7 gigabytes of Azusa data online. The materials included investigative files, including recordings of witness interviews, a gang database and arrest reports, as well as officer payroll data. As of Monday, the index page for the data had received more than 11,000 views. Azusa has urged anyone who has provided personal information to the Police Department to contact a special helpline — (855) 535-1860, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday — and to check with credit agencies to ensure they haven’t been targeted for identity theft.

Column: The lab-leak origin claim for COVID-19 is in the news, but it's still fact-free

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-06-03/lab-leak-covid-origin

A corollary to the scientific truism that “nature abhors a vacuum” is that nature tends to fill the void with any garbage near at hand. For example, consider the surge of interest in the claim that the coronavirus reached the outside world through a release — accidental or deliberate — from a virus laboratory in Wuhan, China. The “lab leak hypothesis,” as it’s known to virologists, is experiencing a heyday. Long dismissed by many experts, it’s now being taken more seriously as one of two general possibilities for COVID-19’s origin, along with the theory that the virus reached humans through contact with animal hosts. Follow the animals. That’s where we’re going to find the origin of COVID-19. — Tulane virologist Robert F. Garry In a May 14 letter in the magazine Science, 18 eminent experts urged that “a transparent, objective, data-driven” investigation be undertaken of both theories to achieve “greater clarity about the origins of this pandemic.” Their letter was directed to the World Health Organization, which in April labeled the laboratory origin of COVID-19 “extremely unlikely.” Further, President Biden on May 26 gave federal intelligence agencies 90 days to provide him “the most up-to-date analysis of the origins of COVID-19, including whether it emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident.” Get the latest from Michael Hiltzik Commentary on economics and more from a Pulitzer Prize winner. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. The new speculation about the origins of COVID-19 has caused some stock-taking by the press, which is accused of ridiculing the lab-leak theory in all its manifestations during 2020 merely because it was promoted by President Trump. That’s treated as another strike against the “liberal media” supposedly marching in lock-step to disdain conservatives. The mainstream press, wrote Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine, “took Donald Trump’s bait, answering the former president’s dissembling with false certainty of their own.” What’s missing from all this reexamination and soul-searching is a fundamental fact: There is no evidence — not a smidgen — for the claim that COVID-19 originated in a laboratory in China or anywhere else, or that the China lab ever had the virus in its inventory. There’s even less for the wildest version of the claim, which is that the virus was deliberately engineered. There never has been, and there isn’t now. No one disputes that a lab leak is possible. Viruses have escaped from laboratories in the past, on occasion leading to human infection. But “zoonotic” transfers — that is, from animals to humans — are a much more common and well-documented pathway. Business With the pandemic ebbing across the US, the debate over lockdowns continues -- but the evidence shows they worked. May 19, 2021 That’s why the virological community believes that it’s vastly more likely that COVID-19 spilled over from an animal host to humans. That was the conclusion reached in a seminal paper on COVID-19’s origins published in Nature in February 2020 by American, British and Australian virologists. “We do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible,” they wrote. “We cannot prove that SARS-CoV-2 [the COVID-19 virus] has a natural origin and we cannot prove that its emergence was not the result of a lab leak,” the lead author of the Nature paper, Kristian Andersen of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, told me by email. “However, while both scenarios are possible, they are not equally likely,” Andersen said. “Precedence, data, and other evidence strongly favor natural emergence as a highly likely scientific theory for the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, while the lab leak remains a speculative incomplete hypothesis with no credible evidence.” Coauthor Robert F. Garry of Tulane Medical School told several colleagues during a recent webcast: “Our conclusion that it didn’t leak from the lab is even stronger today than it was when we wrote the paper.” As the veteran pseudoscience debunker David Gorski sums up the contest between the lab-leak and zoonotic theories, “the likelihood of the two hypotheses is nowhere near close to equal.” What remains of the lab-leak theory is half-truths, misrepresentations, and tendentious conjecture. Consider one trigger of heightened speculation, a May 23 article in the Wall Street Journal reporting that three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is located in the community where the first major outbreak was identified, became sick enough in the fall of 2019 to seek hospital treatment. That was months before the start of the pandemic. Yet the report offered no evidence linking the patients’ illness to COVID-19 research at the Wuhan lab. The report said the researchers had “symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illness.” Well, yes: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises that the symptoms of COVID and seasonal flu resemble each other. There’s no evidence that the three researchers had contracted COVID-19 as opposed to flu or any other virus. Nor is there information about the clinical outcome of these three cases, which might tell us more. Virologists point out, moreover, that it would be unlikely for COVID to affect only three people seriously enough to warrant hospital care without infecting hundreds of others in the lab or their households. The other victims might have had milder symptoms, but an outbreak of that magnitude would have been difficult to keep under wraps. Business Florida Gov. DeSantis is running a victory lap over his COVID-19 response as the press plays along. March 19, 2021 As for the letter in Science, some of its 18 signatories have taken pains to emphasize that they are not endorsing the lab-leak theory; some are highly skeptical of the hypothesis. The organizer of the letter, David Relman of Stanford, told Nature’s Amy Maxmen, “I am not saying I believe the virus came from a laboratory.” Another signatory, Ralph S. Baric of the University of North Carolina, told the New Yorker, “The genetic sequence for SARS-CoV-2 really points to a natural-origin event from wildlife.” Their goal in signing the letter, they said, was not to point fingers at the Wuhan lab, but to urge WHO to devote more effort to determining the origin, whatever it might be, before expressing a categorical opinion. Biden’s directive to the intelligence agencies has been taken as a virtual endorsement of the laboratory origin claim. For example, the Financial Times headlined its report on the directive, “How Biden came around to the lab-leak theory.” Even a cursory reading of the directive shows that Biden didn’t “come around” to the lab-leak theory. His directive is resolutely neutral about COVID’s origin; it’s consistent with interest in a conclusion that the virus originated in a lab, but also with a desire to put that speculation to rest. Let’s take a look at the science underlying the search for COVID’s origins. One important fact is that we may never get a definitive answer. The animal source of the Ebola virus, which was first identified 45 years ago, is still unknown, Maxmen reported in Nature. Maxmen noted that it took researchers 14 years to trace the 2002-2004 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, to a virus that leapt from bats to humans. But the history of virological outbreaks points strongly toward a “zoonotic” transfer of the COVID-19 virus — that is, from animals to humans. “There is an extensive history of pathogen emergence by natural means: most novel viral pathogens that have caused epidemics or pandemics in the human population have emerged naturally from a wildlife reservoir,” Angela Rasmussen of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University wrote in January. Business Stanford’s relationship with the Hoover Institution has always been touchy. The COVID-19 pandemic has made it worse. Nov. 17, 2020 “The overwhelming conclusion is that this virus, too, found its way into a human host through a series of unhappy accidental encounters with animals,” Rasmussen observed. The virus that causes COVID-19, moreover, is known as an opportunistic virus that has little trouble passing among species — “pantropic,” in virological jargon. For a laboratory leak to have occurred secretly or inadvertently would require “a massive conspiracy and cover-up involving a lot of people, including some very accomplished scientists, not telling the truth about what they were working on or what they had,” Garry told me. The lab-leak theory gains from a superficial plausibility — especially to laypersons. The Wuhan lab had a collection of bat viruses, including some that appear to be similar to the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. But some virologists say they’re not similar enough to mutate into SARS-CoV-2, even through deliberate manipulation, Garry says. “That’s a point that’s not going to resonate very strongly with people who haven’t studied viruses for a long, long time.” The assertion that the press was too quick to disdain the lab-leak theory because it was touted by ideologically suspect sources — Trump and Sens. Tom Cotton and Rand Paul, among others — overlooks a few pertinent factors. World & Nation Nearly every day brings a new report of a federal agency told to shut down communications with the public or even members of Congress; tweets about important topics such as climate change removed from the public record; bans on talking to the press. Jan. 26, 2017 One is that these individuals were not merely ideologically suspect, but known promoters of falsehoods. It would have been unwise and imprudent to suddenly treat them as truth tellers, especially since their lies had often been targeted at China for political reasons. The idea that China had concealed its lab’s role in the pandemic dovetailed well with policies aimed at painting China as an untrustworthy economic and political actor. Trump administration officials such as David Asher, who conducted an inquiry on COVID-19’s origins for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have been pushing the report of the three sick Wuhan researchers. Asher is quoted in both the Wall Street Journal’s report and the Financial Times article on Biden’s directive, and has pushed the lab-leak theory on Fox News. Another reason for journalistic skepticism was that many professional virologists labeled the lab-leak theory as implausible from the first. This was because the theory presupposed a complex series of events coming together just so — secrecy, coordination, even deliberate malevolence, abetted by extreme sloppiness. Advocates of the lab-leak theory point to the location of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in the same community as the first known outbreak. But they overlook the magnitude of China’s trade in wildlife for food and traditional medicine, among other uses — including in and around Wuhan. As my colleague Alice Su reported last year, the breeding and sale of animals such as civet cats and pangolins, which are considered possible intermediary carriers of COVID-19 on its path from bats to humans, is a $73-billion industry in China. That makes it even larger than the beef industry in the United States, which is valued at nearly $70 billion. Regulation of Chinese breeders and traders is light and rife with corruption. Determining the origins of COVID-19 may not be important to address the current pandemic, which can only be done through public health stratagems. But it’s important for policies to deal with the next pandemics, since policies will be different for outbreaks that start with animal-human contacts and those originating in poor laboratory security. There’s an argument for getting more accountability out of China about its handling of the viral outbreak in its earliest stages. But there’s also an argument against pointing fingers at the Chinese regime or its scientific establishment without evidence: China’s cooperation will be crucial for world health in the future, and it’s less likely to happen if China feels it has been unjustly blamed for COVID-19. “The lab-leak hypothesis is taking the oxygen out of what’s really needing to be done, which is cooperating with China,” Garry told his colleagues on the recent webcast. “Follow the animals,” he said. “That’s where we’re going to find the origin of COVID-19.”

Review: ‘All Light, Everywhere’ brilliantly interrogates body cameras and the ethics of the surveillance age

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-06-03/review-all-light-everywhere-documentary-surveillance

The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local health officials. More than once during “All Light, Everywhere,” you may find yourself wondering exactly what you’re looking at. This is entirely appropriate, since one of the key points of this expansively brainy cinematic essay concerns the limitations of human vision, perception and understanding. You’ll puzzle over some of the images, many of them arrestingly shot (by Corey Hughes), gradually tease out their meanings and perhaps even synthesize them into a narrative. Curious metal gadgets pass through an automated assembly line. Throngs of people don protective glasses and gaze skyward on a hot day. A veiny, pulsing blob of light reveals itself as a closeup of an optic nerve — a disorienting, brain-tickling image that invites your eye to regard someone else’s. The eye on the screen belongs to the filmmaker, Theo Anthony, and his decision to turn the camera on himself at the outset immediately establishes an ethos of self-critique. He packs a lot into this documentary’s heady not-quite-two hours: a peek inside the nonlethal weapons and mass surveillance industries; a critical portrait of American policing, particularly in Anthony’s home city of Baltimore; a series of interlocking lessons in astronomy, criminal identification and avian flight patterns. But given Anthony’s central aim — to expose the fallibility of the moving image and its endless potential for manipulation — he sensibly begins with himself, a maker and manipulator of moving images, someone in whose hands the camera can be not just an instrument but a weapon. The connection between cameras and weapons is not made facetiously in a movie as rife with associative tangents as “Rat Film” (2016), the director’s equally nimble debut feature. One disquieting sub-thread surveys early inventions like Jules Janssen’s photographic revolver and Étienne-Jules Marey’s chronophotographic gun, the latter modeled on the Gatling gun and capable of “shooting” 12 images per second. These primitive, pioneering devices were meant to revolutionize scientific study, to help observe, deconstruct and quantify matters — distances between celestial bodies, patterns of bodily movement — that the human eye alone could not. But the data they produced were often wildly inconclusive, prone to varied interpretations and acquired from shifting, irreproducible perspectives. Back in the present day, where most of this documentary resides, the image-capture industries continue apace. And while the technologies they’ve produced are vastly more sophisticated than their 19th century forebears, Anthony argues, they are no less likely to sow confusion and imprecision. Invoking Frederick Douglass’ 1862 quote that “beneath the seen lies the immeasurable unseen,” he rephrases that insight within the specific context of the photographed image: “Every image has a frame,” he notes, “and every frame excludes a world beyond its edges.” His intent here is to explore how, whether in the name of public service or private enterprise, that exclusion is often exploited and weaponized. And so Anthony takes us inside a Baltimore Police Department meeting where officers are trained in the use of body cameras, lingering not on the body-cam footage (which is pointedly excluded) but on the officers’ often-revealing reactions to the directives they’re given. He also shows us where the cameras are made, taking us on an extended tour of Axon, the manufacturer of Tasers and other products regularly used in law enforcement. Our guide to the company’s Scottsdale, Ariz.-based facilities is one of Axon’s key principals, though as he drops one casually contradictory statement after another — extolling the company’s commitment to total transparency one minute and pointing out its top-secret R&D department the next — you start to wonder if he’s leading the filmmaker around or vice versa. One of the movie’s unspoken insights seems to be that the more a person or corporation harps on about objectivity and accountability, the less they can be trusted to evince any. That observation speaks directly to the debate around body cameras, which often have been held up as neutral observers, their footage entered into court evidence as an unassailable record of the truth. But Anthony handily demolishes that assumption, pointing out how a camera, equipped with a distorting wide-angle lens and mounted on an officer’s chest, creates its own skewed perspective and often promotes or rationalizes a police narrative. The officer’s point of view, which conveniently elides any trace of the officer’s own actions, is accorded an authority it doesn’t deserve. The Baltimore Police Department introduced its body-cam program in 2016, a year after the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man, from injuries sustained in police custody. Around the same time, the police secretly launched an aerial surveillance program, partnering with the chillingly named Persistent Surveillance Systems to produce live-updated Google Earth-style renderings of the city during a time of rising homicide rates. The disturbing implications of this technology, promoted as a means of minimizing crime and serving the community, are unpacked at length in a series of increasingly fraught discussions among Baltimore residents, most of them Black. They argue at spirited length about a technology that promises criminal deterrence on the one hand and (even more of) a police surveillance state on the other. In these tense encounters, Anthony’s camera holds fast on his speakers’ faces, one of which is strategically blurred in a way that urgently drives home his concerns about privacy and consent. The filmmaker doesn’t call attention to his own presence, though he does so frequently elsewhere, whether he’s cleverly debunking the special effects used in one scene, briefly stepping into the frame to set up a shot or, in a startling epilogue, pulling back to reveal the vestiges of a substantial narrative thread that was ultimately discarded. If perception has its limitations, this deeply sobering, stimulating film suggests, that may be another way of saying that it is fundamentally limitless. There is so much — too much — to see here, and no end of vantages from which to see it. ‘All Light, Everywhere’ Not ratedRunning time: 1 hour, 52 minutesPlaying: Opens June 4 at the Landmark, West Los Angeles

Opinion: Violating a website's terms of service is not a federal crime

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-03/scotus-van-buren-violating-tos-not-a-federal-crime

When a cop takes a bribe to look up someone’s license plate number on a restricted-access law enforcement database, that’s corruption. But it’s not hacking. Nor is it hacking when employees use their corporate accounts to download company data and share it with a competitor. Or when a woman cruelly cyberbullies a teen on a social network. All of those misdeeds have one or more legal remedies, but the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act isn’t among them. And on Thursday the U.S. Supreme Court finally made that clear, after prosecutors spent years stretching the act far beyond its proper boundaries. Technically, the court’s ruling applied only to the case of Nathan Van Buren, a former police sergeant in Georgia who got caught in an FBI sting operation. An informant offered Van Buren $5,000 to look up a license plate to help determine whether its owner was an undercover cop; after Van Buren used the computer in his patrol car to run the plate, federal prosecutors charged him with violating the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which targets anyone who “intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access” and uses that access to obtain information that’s not freely available. Van Buren clearly was authorized to log into and use the plate database; the Justice Department contended that he exceeded his authorized access because he wasn’t permitted to grab plate information for sale. But as the high court noted Thursday, that’s not what the act means by “access.” Writing for the 6-3 majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett explained that in the context of computing, “access” refers to entering a computer or the content it stores. “It is thus consistent with that meaning to equate ‘exceed[ing] authorized access’ with the act of entering a part of the system to which a computer user lacks access privileges,” she wrote, later adding, “In sum, an individual ‘exceeds authorized access’ when he accesses a computer with authorization but then obtains information located in particular areas of the computer — such as files, folders, or databases — that are off limits to him.” The Justice Department argued that Congress passed the CFAA to criminalize not just malicious computer hacking, but also behavior like Van Buren’s that violated a site’s terms of service. No question, the sergeant wasn’t authorized to collect license plate data for the purpose of selling the information and fattening his wallet. But if the CFAA extends beyond unauthorized access to unauthorized use, then suddenly a raft of actions that may or may not violate state laws become federal crimes. Imagine this: You log in to the L.A. Times’ website and find a picture of the Clippers’ Paul George that was available exclusively to subscribers. So you copy it and print it on dozens of t-shirts to sell outside Staples Center during the playoffs. That’s a copyright violation, which exposes you to a lawsuit with some hefty damages. But it also violates this site’s terms of service, which could be considered a federal crime under the Justice Department’s expansive view because you exceeded the uses we authorized. That’s just too broad a reading of the law. Happily, courts in many parts of the country have stopped prosecutors when they’ve overstepped that way — witness U.S. District Judge George Wu’s decision in 2009 to toss out the conviction of Lori Drew, a Missouri woman who cyberbullied a teenage girl who later committed suicide. Drew is nobody’s hero, but the CFAA wasn’t designed for egregious behavior like hers. But some courts had embraced the Justice Department’s aggressive use of the CFAA. And besides, simply being charged with a federal crime can be powerfully traumatic, even if the courts may ultimately vindicate you. It’s worth recalling the case of Aaron Swartz, an online activist who was charged with violating the CFAA because he downloaded thousands of copyrighted articles from an academic database — far more than he was authorized to use — with the intent of making them available for free. Swartz may or may not have been convicted, but we’ll never know; he committed suicide shortly before his trial. At any rate, Barrett’s opinion should help contain the CFAA within its intended boundaries. She was joined in the ruling by two other textualists on the court — Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — and the court’s three liberals, but not by three of their fellow conservatives: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. The two sides disagreed on what the law meant by “exceeds authorized access.” Writing for the dissenters, Thomas argued that “Van Buren never had a ‘right’ to use the computer to obtain the specific license plate information.” But that’s just another way of saying that the law governs what computer users do with the information they are authorized to access on a site, which eradicates the act’s boundaries. The majority rightly held that the law prohibits people from getting into computers or files that the computer owner hasn’t opened to them, not those who violate the terms the computer owner has imposed.

Nevada wildflower near mine should be protected, federal officials say

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-03/federal-agency-nevada-flower-near-mine-should-be-protected

An extremely rare wildflower that grows only in Nevada’s high desert where an Australian mining company wants to dig for lithium should be protected under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday. The agency outlined its intention to propose listing Tiehm’s buckwheat as a threatened or endangered species as part of its belated 12-month review of a listing petition that conservationists filed in 2019. A federal judge said last month that the finding was six months overdue and ordered the agency to render a decision within weeks. The conclusion announced Thursday that federal protection is warranted could jeopardize Ioneer Ltd.’s plans to build the mine halfway between Reno and Las Vegas. It also ups the ante in an early test of the Biden administration’s ability to make good on promises to protect public lands and their native species while at the same time pursuing an ambitious clean energy agenda that includes bolstering production of lithium needed for electric car batteries. Environmentalists say the delicate, 6-inch tall wildflower with yellow blooms is on the brink of extinction with fewer than 30,000 individual plants remaining. Ioneer acknowledges Tiehm’s buckwheat hasn’t been documented anywhere else in the world but insists it can coexist with the mine. Nevertheless, the looming listing presents the biggest regulatory hurdle to date for what would be only the second large-scale lithium mine operating in the United States. Under the court order, the service now has until Sept. 30 to submit a formal rule proposing protection of the plant as a threatened or endangered species. A 60-day public comment period will follow. The Center for Biological Diversity first petitioned for federal listing in October 2019 and weeks later filed suit against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to block construction of the mine at Rhyolite Ridge west of Tonopah in the Silver Peak Range about 20 miles east of the California line and 200 miles southeast of Reno — where Tesla Motors’ largest lithium battery factory is located. “Tiehm’s buckwheat shouldn’t be wiped off the face of the Earth by an open-pit mine,” Patrick Donnelly, the center’s Nevada director, said Thursday. “The service stepping in to save the plant from extinction is the right call.” Ioneer Managing Director Bernard Rowe said Thursday that the company expected the warranted finding and shares the Fish and Wildlife Service’s “commitment to protect and preserve Tiehm’s buckwheat in its habitat.” “This process will provide greater certainty around our schedule and diminishes the prospect of future litigation,” he said. “We remain confident that the science strongly supports the coexistence of our vital lithium operation and Tiehm’s buckwheat.” The tiny population of Tiehm’s buckwheat is found on 21 acres spread across 3 square miles at the mine site. Scientists say the plant plays an integral role in the desert ecosystem by stabilizing soils, dispersing seeds and creating a sort of oasis that provides rare food and moisture for bees and other pollinators. The service said a 2019 survey estimated the plant’s global population totaled 43,921 — all at the mine site. But it said in Thursday’s finding that an unprecedented rodent attack during severe drought last summer damaged or destroyed more than half the plants. It said that herbivory combined with the potential impact from the mining project would reduce the flower’s population by an estimated 70% to 88% — “or from 43,921 individuals to roughly 5,289-8,696 individuals.” Ioneer is proposing to salvage most of the remaining plants by transplanting them to another location, the service said. “However, we are uncertain whether the salvage operation will succeed because current research indicates that Tiehm’s buckwheat is a soil specialist, that adjacent unoccupied sites are not suitable for all early life-history stages, and there has been no testing and multiyear monitoring on the feasibility of successfully transplanting the species,” the agency said. Other threats to the plant include road-building, off-road travel, livestock grazing and climate change, the service said. Ioneer says the mine would create 400 to 500 construction jobs and 300 to 400 operational jobs, and is expected to produce 22,000 tons of lithium — enough to power hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles annually. Demand for lithium worldwide is expected to double by 2025. Much of the world’s lithium supply currently comes from Australia and South America, where Chinese firms are heavily invested. Boosting domestic production could potentially lower the price tag on a key component of President Biden’s $2-trillion climate plan: offering rebates to consumers to trade in gas-powered cars for electric vehicles. The only large-scale lithium mine currently operating in the U.S. is also in Nevada, about 10 miles from where Ioneer proposes its mine. The North Carolina-based Albemarle’s Silver Peak Mine has been in operation since the 1960s. A third lithium mine proposed in north-central Nevada near the Oregon line at the largest known lithium deposit in the U.S. also is facing legal challenges.

Searing heat wave sets records in California's inland areas, even as coasts stay cool

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-03/triple-digit-heat-wave-sweeps-california-inland-areas-records-broken

A heat wave swept through California’s Central Valley this week, setting temperature records and prompting heat advisories, even as coastal regions remained temperate. The thermometer spike from Fresno to Sacramento was spurred by a high-pressure area in the form of a warm dome of air that formed over the Pacific Ocean and pushed inland over the state, according to the National Weather Service. Triple-digit temperatures in the San Joaquin Valley for the last three days have prompted a heat advisory through at least 8 p.m. Thursday, according to Modesto Vasquez, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Hanford station. Two small fires broke out earlier this week in foothills north of Fresno, driven in part by the hot, dry conditions and regional drought, Vasquez said. The excessive heat is expected to continue through Saturday in several areas. On Thursday, Bakersfield has a projected high of 107; Hanford, 104; and Fresno, 103. Highs are expected to drop to around 100 degrees on Saturday. Triple digit heat is likely in much of the SJ VLY, lower foothills and Kern desert this afternoon. The hottest temps of103 will occur in the advisory area. In the warning area, thermometer readings will climb as high as 107 in the Bakersfield area to 110 in the Kern desert.#cawx pic.twitter.com/mByVvUJT12 Nights have also been unseasonably warm. Fresno recorded a record-high nighttime low of 75 degrees on Tuesday, exceeding by four degrees the previous record for the day, Vasquez said. “It was a warm night,” he said. Redding, nestled in the north end of the Sacramento Valley, saw a record-high of 109 on Memorial Day, smashing its record of 103 degrees for the date in 2016, according to Cory Mueller, meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Sacramento station. Sacramento hit 106 that day, tying its record set in 2001. Temperatures are expected to remain elevated through Saturday, in the mid-90s in the Sacramento area and around 100 in the northern parts of the valley. However, relief is on the way. The high pressure area will pass over the state over the next few days and continue east, weather officials said. A trough of low pressure is expected to follow, gradually driving down temperatures “pretty close to normal” by Monday in the Sacramento area, Mueller said. No precipitation is expected. “It’ll just bring some cooler temperatures, which I think most people will welcome,” he said. Vasquez said normal temperatures — in the upper 80s to low 90s — are also expected to return to the San Joaquin Valley by early next week as well. Current temp at Oxnard Airport: 59Current temp at Lancaster Airport: 99Isn't that nuts?! 🤯Very large temperature contrasts can occur this time of year with the marine layer, onshore flow, and high pressure aloft. Definitely one of our forecast challenges here! #CAwx #SoCal Coastal regions, including Los Angeles, were spared the temperatures spikes seen in the inland valleys and to the north. Temperatures are expected to remain at typical levels through next week. A strong onshore flow “is supplying us with much cooler air from the ocean,” said David Sweet, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Oxnard station. No rain is projected for the next seven days, and rainfall for the year remains at less than half of normal levels, he added.

Jay Belloli, Pasadena curator of early JPL space photography show, dies at 76

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-06-03/jay-belloli-pasadena-curator-jpl-space-photography-dies

Jay Belloli, a Pasadena writer and curator whose passion and expansive curiosity for contemporary art was intergalactic in scope, died peacefully at home May 21, according to his stepdaughter, Sabina E. Aran-Dinsmoor. He was 76. Belloli was best known as the director of gallery programs at Pasadena’s Armory Center for the Arts from 1990-2010. He was director of Caltech’s now-defunct Baxter Art Gallery from 1982-85, and he served as interim director at the Pasadena Museum of California Art in 2016-17. Among the exhibitions for which Belloli is remembered is “25 Years of Space Photography” at Baxter Art Gallery in 1985. It was organized in collaboration with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and showcased images obtained with robotic cameras in space. In the exhibition catalog essay, addressing the question of who the artist behind the lens was, Times art critic Christopher Knight wrote: “The singular and independent photographer is here replaced by the diverse and interdependent multitude of scientists and technicians whose coordinated commands, responses, and actions set into motion a complex chain of events that results in a photographic image.” Belloli also co-organized — with the ArtCenter College of Design’s Stephen Nowlin, the Norton Simon Museum’s Michelle Deziel and Southwest Chamber Music’s Jeff von der Schmidt — the 1999 exhibition “Radical P.A.S.T.: Contemporary Art in Pasadena, 1960-74,” which showcased some of the lesser-known contemporary artworks in the Norton Simon collection. It was on view at the Norton Simon as well as at the Armory and the ArtCenter, with a live music series by Southwest Chamber Music. “It was the talk of the town,” said Linda Centell, who worked with Belloli at the Armory from 1998-2002. “It brought together so many living artists, and it was a groundbreaking collaboration at the time. It opened the door for more people visiting Pasadena art institutions.” Because the institutional collaboration was so successful and “Radical P.A.S.T” was so popular, Centell said, Belloli co-organized a follow-up exhibition in 2001, “The Universe: A Convergence of Art, Music and Science” with the ArtCenter, the Norton Simon and Southwest Chamber Music as well as Caltech, the USC Pacific Asia Museum, One Colorado and the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Throughout his career, Belloli was particularly supportive of Southern California artists, especially emerging and lesser-known midcareer artists, many of whom he spotlighted in solo shows at the Armory. That included Tim Hawkinson, Jill Giegerich, Steven Galloway and Eileen Cowin. “Jay was a discerning curator yet generous with his time for artists,” Centell said. Aran-Dinsmoor said Belloli’s supportive spirit extended to his personal life as well. “He was extraordinarily generous and always extended himself to others to help in all situations,” she said. “We loved him so much and we miss him.” Belloli grew up in Palo Alto, the only child of Joseph and Florence Belloli. He graduated from Stanford University in 1966 and earned a master’s in art history from UC Berkeley, where he also studied poster-making. For more than two decades, he was an active member of All Saints Church in Pasadena, where he was a member of the Vestry and served on the church’s Foster Care Project. Entertainment & Arts Melanie Andrews is the artistic director of Inner City Shakespeare, a growing network for Black and Latino performers to make it in entertainment. May 19, 2021 “He was a visionary artist, a dear friend and a companion in joy,” All Saints wrote on Facebook. Belloli’s resume included work as a curator for the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. He worked with a panoply of contemporary artists, including Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Irwin, Larry Bell, Nancy Graves, Daniel Buren, John McLaughlin, Yoko Ono and Dan Flavin. Other notable exhibitions Belloli organized include 2017’s “Mars: Astronomy and Culture” at the ArtCenter, which featured historical drawings, photographs, books, movie posters and other imagery of the Red Planet; the 2014 retrospective “June Wayne: Paintings, Prints, and Tapestries” at the Pasadena Museum of California Art; and 2011’s “46 N. Los Robles: A History of the Pasadena Art Museum” at the USC Pacific Asia Museum, which was part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time initiative. “There was no one more prescient about the L.A. art scene and the connection between art and science than Jay Belloli,” said L.A. art dealer MB Abram, a friend of Belloli’s for more than a decade. “He was a giant, in terms of his accomplishments and his insights, who carried himself with unusual modesty — it was noticed and appreciated by everyone.” Belloli is survived by Aran-Dinsmoor and his grandson, William Dinsmoor. Entertainment & Arts The Getty Center and the Broad museum are open! Here is our May guide to the most promising exhibitions across Southern California. May 29, 2021

Key to Lakers forcing Game 7 vs. Suns: LeBron James' turnovers

https://www.latimes.com/sports/lakers/story/2021-06-03/lakers-vs-suns-game-6-lebron-james-turnovers-key

Allow yourself to imagine the ways the Lakers can pull this off, the ways they can extend their season to a Game 7 on Saturday night in Phoenix. Think about how that can happen with Anthony Davis, at best, limited by a groin injury and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope limping after Devin Booker at Staples Center on Thursday night. It can happen because the Lakers have LeBron James. That’s the path. Maybe because we have a vision of dominance so fresh in our minds after Dallas guard Luka Doncic’s single-handed win against the Clippers on Wednesday, it’s best to remind everyone that if James does the same, it’ll probably look a little different. If James dominates, it’ll be more than just in the scoring column — a place where he’s been moderately quiet in recent years. After scoring 30 or more three straight times to close out Portland in last season’s first round, he’s done that just five times in the subsequent 31 playoff games — and the Lakers lost James’ lone 40-point game in last year’s postseason. LeBron eclipsed 40 points just once this season — in Cleveland — and the Lakers actually went 5-5 in his 10 highest-scoring games this season. Lakers With the season on the line for the Lakers could again be without All-Star forward Anthony Davis and starting guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope vs. Suns. June 3, 2021 The better indicator, at least statistically, could be James’ turnovers. In the playoffs, when he’s kept them low, his teams have been even harder to beat. When James has turned the ball over six or more times in a playoff game, his teams are 22-30. When he has two or fewer turnovers, they’re 75-18. The Lakers won James’ one-turnover performance in Game 2. So what seems like the clearest way the Lakers can get a win? It’s not too complicated. The Lakers need James to play well, limit turnovers and be an aggressive scorer. They need supporting players to make some open shots and they need to defend Booker and center Deandre Ayton better. If the Lakers do most of those things, they should force a Game 7. If they don’t, their season ends Thursday night.

Things to do on National Trails Day, plus open-water stand-up paddling

https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/newsletter/2021-06-03/stand-up-padding-open-water-national-trails-day-the-wild

By Mary Forgione Welcome to The Wild! (View in web browser here.) Ever try crossing from Santa Catalina to Dana Point on a stand-up paddleboard? Don’t, unless you are with a pro. I ran into Terri Plunkett in Two Harbors on the western side of the island in mid-April. She and her team were preparing to do a relay-style 40-mile crossing. “I have done countless SUP events around the world but, hands-down, this was the most challenging event I ever participated in,” Terri emailed me afterward. Anthony Vela, a former L.A. County lifeguard, stand-up paddling coach and competitor, organized the event. Vela and his company, Performance Paddling, train intermediate and advanced paddlers. Sixteen students, ages 32 to 73, participated in the crossing. Anthony chatted with me about the logistics of open-water stand-up paddling. Here’s an edited version of our conversation. How fast can you go in open-water paddling? Depending on conditions, you can paddle between 4 and 5 mph. Our paddle was 40 miles. We did it as a relay with teams. If each team averaged 4 mph, that would take 10 hours. If each team averaged 4.5 mph, that would take us nine hours. We all finished under nine hours 30 minutes. The fastest team finished under nine hours. What does it take to put together a relay event? The first thing is safety. Each of our teams had their own escort boat. You could fall and hit your head or your ribs, or, God forbid, have a heart attack. We had four Zoom meetings and one in-person meeting to go over all the particulars leading up to the event. We also practiced on the water as well. How did you know what conditions were going to be like? We pick a date when options are best. The predominant winds [in mid-April] were in our favor, so we picked as late in the spring season as possible, before the winds start to change. You have to make sure water and air warm up a bit. One of our members has been wind-surfing a long time, so he went and researched all of the wind conditions on the selected date for the last five years. We had experts in the water and experts driving the boats as well. Is there a time of day that’s more favorable than others? Super early. The worst factor for stand-up paddling is wind. You’re standing, so you don’t have a lot of surface area for the wind to hit. If it gets windy, it’s bumpy, and the wind can counteract what you’re trying to do. We left at 7:03 a.m. The wind gets stronger later in the day. Do conditions ever become difficult? The conditions were so favorable for us; mostly, everyone was able to stand-up paddle the whole time. If it’s windy, you paddle on your knees, which is very, very hard on your body. [One participant] had a prosthetic arm and was 6 foot 8 inches tall — not so easy for him to continue if conditions became difficult. Each team did 20 to 30 minutes per person, then rested for an hour. Safety tip: If you’re out paddling and conditions are really bad and you can’t make progress on your knees, lay down on the board and just use your arms. For us, if it got to that point, we would just put the board on the boat and go. Can you get seasick while stand-up paddling? I don’t know anyone who has. The hard part is being on the boat, because it’s going so slowly. Most of the time, you are going 4 mph for 10 hours. Most everyone took some type of sea sickness pills. What about the shipping lanes? You’re in a heightened state of awareness when you’re in those lanes. That’s another thing our escort boats look for as well. If it’s foggy and you can’t see the escort boat, the plan is to have the boats with radar communicating by radio so there’s no possible threat of collision. We also monitor shipping lanes through a couple different apps. Is paddling harder in open water? You’re basically hula dancing. Your lower half is moving differently than your upper half. If you’ve seen those mountain bikes with the heavy shocks? Your lower body acts like a shock absorber. What did it cost? Roughly between $700 to $1,000 per person, including membership in Pacific Paddling and staying over on the island. 1. Love up a trail in honor of National Trails Day. National Trails Day, established in 1993, is dedicated to promoting and preserving trails. It’s always held on the first Saturday in June, which falls on June 5 this year. In non-pandemic times, organizations throughout the country offer volunteer opportunities such as cleanups and trail maintenance. This year, you can pick from virtual or in-person events. For example, you are invited to plant trees and shrubs at 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at Abalone Cove Reserve in Rancho Palos Verdes (register here). Or runners, hikers and cyclists can organize a DIY cleanup on trails in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (details here). If you are browsing for parks to visit, check out Find Your Park. Find more info on Trails Day at the American Hiking Society. 2. Pick up a copy of the new We Heart L.A. Parks coloring book. This coloring book is a sweet tribute to L.A.’s open spaces, some of which you may know little about. Kite-flying at Angels Gate Park in San Pedro, bird-watching at Augustus F. Hawkins Nature Park in Compton (named for the first Black congressman west of the Mississippi River elected to the House of Representatives) and art-trekking at the Bowtie Parcel in Glassell Park are all included, as well as “original art from 50 local contributors — ages 8 to 87, from park activists and established muralists to elementary and high school students.” You can find a copy ($19.99) at Skylight Books in Los Feliz, the Library Store in DTLA and other sites, or go to Narrated Objects to order. A portion of book’s profits go to the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust. 3. Take a bike ride with the L.A. Wheelmen. The L.A. Wheelmen have been riding the streets of L.A. since 1945. The group invites Angelenos to join them on weekly bike routes that offer long, medium and short rides. Sunday’s ride starts at 8:30 a.m. in Torrance on a flat route that could take you all the way to Knott’s Berry Farm (don’t worry, there’s a shorter 27-mile route). Here are the details on the South Bay Surprise itinerary. Where to take your dog on a nearby trail? Matt Pawlik answers the question beautifully with these 12 best dog-friendly urban hikes. “Los Angeles has no shortage of doggie-centric outdoor spaces, including the hipster hound haven that is Silver Lake Dog Park and Rosie’s Dog Beach, the beautiful stretch of coastline in Long Beach that allows for off-leash sand play,” Matt writes. But if you want to be on trails, these 12 hikes are “the best doggone adventures in town.” Read the full list here. For more places to go, check out the 50 best hikes in L.A. and the 40 best California outdoor experiences. Scrub jays are those large blue birds that flitter around urban and wild L.A. Some mistakenly call them bluebirds (you can find Western bluebirds in L.A., but they aren’t jays) or just blue jays. They’re smart enough to know how to cache nuts and save them for a rainy day meal. My colleague Scott Sandell wrote about a newfound appreciation for scrub jays after a pair turned up in his yard: “Though they’re not enshrined as the state bird, as the California quail is, or protected as an endangered species, as the California condor is, there’s something quintessentially Californian about these boisterous, screeching, blue-and-gray birds that can be seen in parks, yards and wooded areas along the western part of the Golden State, as well as the Pacific Northwest and Baja California.” Apparently, these birds are on the decline in California and Nevada for a number of reasons: “West Nile virus; habitat change and loss, as coastal areas are developed; and climate change,” according to Scott. Read the full story here — and look around for scrub jays. Swimming is the quintessential summer treat, particularly if it’s in someone else’s swank pool. Here’s a way to get your kicks without leaving home. Ten of the coolest hotel pools in Southern California offer day-use passes for locals or anyone who wants to notch a few laps or just hang. For example, $50 gets you a day at the pool at Huntington Beach’s Paséa Hotel & Spa. Check out the list of 10 cool pools, which includes prices and amenities. In Boiling Point, the L.A. Times’ environmental newsletter, my colleague Sammy Roth last week tackled a thorny issue about renewable energy: Are solar and wind farms ugly or beautiful? Hikers, bicyclists, runners and any trail users or nature lovers have seen landscapes cluttered with panels and turbines. But at least we aren’t seeing dirty coal-burning plants. Now, the Biden administration has unveiled plans for wind farms off California. What do you think? Check out opinions in Boiling Point, and sign up for the newsletter here. Earn your digital hiking cred with a new Trail Heads program that rewards you with badges for hikes you complete in Tuolumne County, which includes Yosemite National Park and nearby wilderness areas. Here’s how it works: Complete one hike, you get a Trail Scout Badge; complete 50, you get a Master Mountaineer Badge. Start by looking at the best trails in the area and how to get there at Visit Tuolumne County. Speaking of Yosemite, visitors will find changes this summer. First, you’ll need a day-use reservation before you enter the park, now through Sept. 30. Second, there’s a new traffic flow plan being tried in Yosemite Valley, so expect to find one-way routes and different ways to get to your destination. Third, for the second summer, in-park shuttles aren’t running because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Be prepared to walk or bicycle to your destination instead. Also, the Tioga Pass/eastern entrance to the park has opened for the season. Nearby Mammoth Lakes Basin also is open. Corrected: Last week in The Wild, I had said that the Banning Ranch oil field, a 384-acre site in Newport Beach slated to become a nature preserve, was purchased by the Trust for Public Land. Actually, the trust has an exclusive agreement to buy the land and has 12 months to raise the money to complete the sale. Here’s the story. Want something new to wear on the trail this summer? Add a white, sun-reflecting bucket hat with The Wild logo to your hiking wardrobe. You can pick up a branded water bottle too. Click here to order. Share anything that’s on your mind. The Wild is written for you and delivered to your inbox for free. Drop us a line at TheWild@latimes.com. Click to view the web version of this newsletter and share it with others, and sign up to have it sent weekly to your inbox. I’m Mary Forgione, and I write The Wild. I’ve been exploring trails and open spaces in Southern California for four decades.

'NCIS' finishes TV season on top; Lakers give TNT a bounce

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2021-06-03/tv-ratings-story-for-the-week-of-may-24-30-wed-june-2-2021

The CBS drama “NCIS” ended the 2020-21 official prime-time television season at the top of the prime-time ratings for the fifth consecutive week and ninth time overall and was the only scripted series program to top a week. The 18th season finale of the CBS action drama averaged 8.956 million viewers, the most for a prime-time program since the May 4 episode of “NCIS” averaged 9.679 million viewers, according to live-plus-same-day figures released Tuesday by Nielsen. In a week that mixed the final three days of the official season and the first four of the summer season, NBC had four of the week’s six highest-rated programs to end CBS’ four-week winning streak. NBC averaged 4.02 million viewers from its prime-time programming between May 24 and Sunday. CBS was second, averaging 3.57 million. The season finales of “9-1-1,” “The Masked Singer” and “9-1-1: Lone Star” enabled Fox to end a 17-week streak of fourth-place finishes among the broadcast networks, averaging 3.03 million viewers. ABC finished fourth, averaging 2.86 million. The CW again was fifth among the five major English-language broadcast networks, averaging 470,000 viewers. The back-to-back season finales of NBC’s “Chicago Fire” and “Chicago Med” were second and third for the week, averaging 7.263 million and 7.259 million. The season finale of “The Voice” was fifth for the week, averaging 6.733 million viewers. What NBC billed as “Part 1” of the finale the previous night was sixth for the week, averaging 6.552 million. Fox’s biggest draw was “9-1-1,” which averaged 6.346 million viewers, seventh for the week. A “9-1-1” episode was Fox’s most-watched program all 14 weeks it aired this season. “The Masked Singer” was 11th, averaging 5.51 million, and “9-1-1: Lone Star” was 12th, averaging 5.213 million. The top-ranked ABC program was “Station 19,” 14th for the week, averaging 4.588 million. The martial arts action-adventure series “Kung Fu” had The CW’s biggest audience for the sixth time in the seven weeks it has aired, averaging 823,000 viewers, 129th among broadcast programs. Its overall rank was not available. The week’s only premiere on the five major broadcast networks, the Fox dessert-making competition “Crime Scene Kitchen,” was 71st for the week and seventh in its Wednesday 9-10 p.m. time slot, averaging 2.353 million viewers following “The Masked Singer” finale. For the second consecutive week, a Lakers game was the top-rated cable program, with TNT’s broadcast of Game 2 of their first-round playoff series against the Phoenix Suns averaging 4.016 million viewers, 21st overall. TNT’s NBA playoff coverage enabled it to end Fox News Channel’s eight-week winning streak among cable networks. TNT averaged 2.412 million viewers, 72.1% more than its 1.391-million average the previous week when it finished third. Fox News Channel was second, averaging 1.906 million. MSNBC was third, averaging 1.307 million. The Netflix fantasy “Shadow and Bone” was the most streamed program according to Nielsen’s latest report, with viewers watching 1.192 billion minutes of the eight-episode series between April 26 and May 2, its first full week of release. Viewership was up 65.3% from the 721 million minutes watched during its first three days of release. “The Handmaid’s Tale” was second ahead of all three programs in the latest Top 10 that were not in the previous week’s. The other new entries in the latest Top 10 were the Amazon Prime Video action thriller film “Without Remorse,” fourth for the week with 760 million minutes watched in its first three days of release, and the Netflix computer-animated science fiction comedy film “The Mitchells vs. the Machines,” ninth for the week with 516 million minutes watched in its first three days of release.

Column: He helped make Ronald Reagan president. Now he's had it with the Republican Party

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-06-03/reagan-strategist-stu-spencer-trump-damage-republican-party

Recently, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library launched a lecture series titled “Time for Choosing,” a name consciously echoing the famous 1964 speech that launched Reagan’s political career and put him on a path to the White House. The concept — marquee names, history-rich backdrop — is a throwback to a time when politics involved ideas and philosophies and wasn’t just about riling “the base” or “owning” the opposition. The program also gives Republicans a chance to paint their visions while wrapping themselves in the mantle of one of the GOP’s most beloved and sainted figures. But the title is something of a misnomer. Many Republicans have already chosen: It’s Donald Trump’s party and will remain so until and unless someone pries it from his fisted fingers. Of those invited, the first to appear, former House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, is one of the few who have dared to openly suggest Republicans ditch the retread who not only cost them the White House but control of the House and Senate — a losing trifecta unmatched in a single term by any president since 1932. Ryan’s reward was a nasty-gram from Mar-a-Lago. Politics The Wisconsin Republican and onetime VP candidate, in a speech at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, describes conservatives as at ‘a crossroads.’ May 27, 2021 Stuart Spencer has already seen enough. In November, he voted for Joe Biden for president — the first Democrat he’s supported since Harry Truman in 1948. “I was in the Navy, on the way to invade Japan, when he stopped the war,” Spencer said, then laughed heartily. “I figured I owed him one.” Apart from Nancy Reagan, there may be no one more responsible for Reagan’s political success than Spencer, who spent decades as a campaign strategist helping steer the former B-movie actor and long shot to the California governorship and then two terms as president. Funny, profane and irrepressibly blunt, Spencer was more than a hired hand. He was someone Nancy Reagan and others turned to when Reagan needed prodding or a little straightening-out behind the scenes, and Spencer repaid that intimacy with a code of honor he’s kept ever since. He’s one of the few people close to Reagan who never cashed in by writing an insider account; tell-alls, Spencer said, aren’t his style. But he doesn’t hold back when it comes to Trump, whom Spencer denounced as “a demagogue and opportunist” utterly lacking in core values or convictions. “He sees an issue,” Spencer said, “and no matter what he believes, he goes where it gets him the most votes.” (In 2016, Spencer couldn’t bring himself to vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton, so he cast his ballot instead for Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor who ran as a Libertarian.) It’s impossible to know what someone else might think, so when Spencer was asked what Reagan would make of Trump, there was a long pause. “Oh, boy,” he said. The air conditioning whirred in the background; it was 95 degrees where he lives, in the desert outside Palm Springs, en route to a high temperature of 105. “He would be sick,” Spencer finally said, offering his best guess. “Not just the issues out there, but the personal things [Trump] has done. The way he treated women. All those people he robbed of money.” (As a developer, Trump was notorious for stiffing contractors.) “He couldn’t fathom that stuff,” Spencer said of Reagan. “[Trump’s] behavior would have upset him the most.” Spencer has been a Republican his entire professional life, ever since he began working in political campaigns in Los Angeles more than 60 years ago. The last few decades have seen him play the role of Cassandra, telling truths many in the party preferred not to hear. In 1997, in the roiling aftermath of Proposition 187, the ballot measure aimed at thwarting illegal immigration, Spencer wrote an open letter to fellow Republicans. “Our party has a sad (and politically self-defeating) history of alienating immigrant groups and new voters,” he said. “The GOP closed the door to the Irish and the Italian immigrants in Massachusetts and New York in the last century. We did the same to Poles and other Eastern Europeans in Chicago and other urban centers.” With the Latino share of the electorate growing rapidly, the choice was simple, Spencer wrote. The GOP could change, toning down its harsh rhetoric and becoming more welcoming to immigrants, or consign the California Republican Party to minority status. His advice was largely ignored, but proved prophetic. Politics Gavin Newsom was targeted for recall even before he took office. Do elections matter anymore? May 13, 2021 Now he sees the national party in need of a sharp course correction, away from Trump’s grievances and reckless assault on democracy and the truth. Away from unbending certitude, from seeing the world only in black-and-white with no gray, and from treating politics as a zero-sum, all-or-nothing proposition. “I’m a great believer in moderation,” Spencer said. “That doesn’t mean you can’t have strong ideas. But you need to understand there are two sides to every question. Whatever your philosophy, you apply it to the situation and take what you can get.” Negotiation. Pragmatism. Compromise. All of which Reagan, rooted in a firm set of beliefs, embraced once he took office. All of which are wildly out of fashion these days. “I just don’t feel good about it,” Spencer said of the direction the GOP has taken under Trump’s sway. “I feel like I wasted a lot of years.” “When you get to be my age” — he is 94 — “you hope things are getting better, not worse,” he went on. “But things have gotten a lot worse.” Another laugh, this one mirthless and dry as the desert air.

With ‘In the Heights,’ Jon M. Chu disrupts the movie musical. Here's how he did it

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-06-03/in-the-heights-jon-m-chu-movie-musicals

There’s a quieter moment in the opening of “In the Heights” when Usnavi, played by Anthony Ramos, shares his secret dream: He feels stuck to the bodega his parents left him, and longs to return to the Dominican Republic. He reveals this while staring out the store window at a crowd of dancers, visible to the viewer in the window’s reflection. This shot — combining footage of 75 performers on location in Washington Heights, and Ramos singing through a movie set’s glassless window — is a visual reference to one of Jon M. Chu’s favorite films, “Meet Me in St. Louis,” the 1944 movie in which Judy Garland belts a now-iconic Christmas carol from a window of the home she’s sad to leave. “In our version, Usnavi is looking out at the block, feeling trapped in this classic ‘Meet Me in St. Louis’ kind of frame, yearning to even breathe the air outside,” the director explains. “What’s reflected in that glass isn’t his community feeling sad for him or even ignoring him. Instead, they’re challenging him. They’re daring him to break through that window and dream bigger.” A later song sees two characters magically dancing on the side of a building — an ode to Fred Astaire’s ceiling routine in the 1951 movie “Royal Wedding.” And an exuberant set piece, with 90 dancers splashing in sync in the Highbridge Pool, echoes the kaleidoscopic water ballets of 1930s Busby Berkeley musicals. Chu’s Warner Bros. release, which officially debuts June 11 in theaters and on HBO Max with early screenings June 10, notably quotes these Golden Age moments with actors and characters of color. “In the Heights” is Chu’s first feature-length movie-musical — a four-quadrant live-action genre that, with rare exceptions, has been directed by a handful of white men over the past 20 years. It’s the exact type of project the “Crazy Rich Asians” director dreamed of when he first decided to make movies — and a pursuit on which he’d long given up. “It’s so strange. I never thought this odyssey would end up right back at the musical,” he says. “But I’m so down. I’ve been waiting a long time for this.” Movies Anthony Ramos leads a terrific ensemble in this vibrant ode to life in a Washington Heights barrio from director Jon M. Chu (‘Crazy Rich Asians’). May 21, 2021 It’s a balmy afternoon in May, and Chu, 41, is doing paradiddle tap steps down some stone stairs in his Calabasas backyard. Though he tried out piano, drums, saxophone and violin throughout his childhood, he only took to tap, and continued lessons for 12 years. He brushed up on his moves for his 2017 wedding reception — a surprise for his wife, Kristin Hodge, a graphic designer now pregnant with their third child. “Be careful, Dada!” shouts his 3-year-old daughter Willow, whose name Hodge still doesn’t believe derives from Ron Howard’s 1988 film. Chu himself got his name from the lead character of the 1980s series “Hart to Hart,” and his professional name follows the format of Broadway legend George M. Cohan, after he saw the movie ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ with his grandfather. “I started writing my name as ‘Jon M. Chu’ on my home movies, thinking it’d be so cool to see it on the big screen someday,” he tells me. We’re seated on the patio of the home he and his family moved into six months ago. The nearly 3-acre Calabasas lot will double as his “creative compound,” with ample room for a future editing studio and dance rehearsal space. The definition of “home” is up for debate throughout “In the Heights.” Aspiring designer Vanessa (Melissa Barrera) feels suffocated by the gentrifying Upper Manhattan neighborhood, while Stanford student Nina (Leslie Grace) craves the security of the close-knit community. When Chu saw the Tony-winning stage musical from Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes, he immediately identified with Usnavi. The daily rhythm of his bodega paralleled that of his father’s Chinese restaurant in Los Altos, Calif. Outside the restaurant, Chu unknowingly spent his childhood studying the storytelling power of music. His entire family gathered around the TV to watch classics like “Singin’ in the Rain,” Disney animated movies and even the latest Michael Jackson music video (“which was basically Fosse’s ‘A Snake in the Grass,’” he says). And his parents ritualistically brought him and his four older siblings to ballets, operas and musicals all over the Bay Area. “There’s a truthfulness of why music and dance exist in these stories in the first place,” says Chu. “It’s not because a melody is catchy but because just saying the words isn’t sufficient to communicate whatever that character wants to express.” Chu acted in school productions, and even played the Boy in San Jose Civic Light Opera’s “Pacific Overtures” in 1991. “There was one performance where I’m up there in the tree, singing the song, and I skip a verse,” he says. “The conductor is really angry, and the orchestra just keeps playing, but I’ve stopped singing because there’s nothing else for me to sing! An adult comes back onstage and makes up words to a Sondheim song to fill in the time. When I got offstage, I thought, ‘I’m never doing this again.’” He didn’t realize his fondness for the form until he started film school at USC in the early aughts. “For a screenwriting class, I started writing something called ‘The Last Great American Musical,’ about a high school that was putting on a show, so it was a musical of a musical,” he recalls passionately. “My teacher was like, ‘Musicals are dead — you’re supposed to write something you can actually sell once you graduate.’” Movies Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jon M. Chu, Olga Merediz and others break down ‘Paciencia y Fe,’ the immigrant ballet sure to give viewers a ‘big gasp moment.’ June 11, 2021 Instead, Chu doubled down with the tap-centric “Silent Beats” and the barbershop-quartet short “Gwai Lo” — two music-driven pieces about racial and cultural identity. “‘Gwai Lo’ means ‘white devil,’ it’s what they called me when I went to Hong Kong for the first time,” Chu says solemnly. “My class liked the film, but I was so self-conscious because I didn’t know how to define what an Asian American is. I didn’t submit it to festivals, I never really shared it with anybody. I buried it.” For his final project, Chu pivoted to whimsy with “When the Kids Are Away,” a jubilant, humorous and diversely cast 18-minute musical about housewives’ weekday routines. It kicks off with a burst of color akin to Dorothy’s “Wizard of Oz” arrival, and follows the busy women as they take genre-hopping dance breaks. The roots of “In the Heights” in this short are undeniable, says cinematographer Alice Brooks, who shot both projects: “When we were filming the [“Heights”] opening with all the dancers in the middle of 175th Street, it immediately reminded me of this finale, when I sat on top of a crane to get 30 dancers dancing in the middle of that street in South Pasadena.” The piece got the attention of Hollywood, which, thanks to the success of “Moulin Rouge” and “Chicago,” had deemed the movie musical undead. With the sudden support of Steven Spielberg, Chu quickly sold the “Romeo and Juliet” revamp “Moxie” and a contemporary “Bye Bye Birdie”: Instead of getting drafted to war, superstar Birdie could go to jail, but not before pulling off a buzzy publicity stunt of cohabiting with a devout fan. “The idea of fame was changing then — reality shows were just hitting, and everything was [all about celebrities like] Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan,” he says of what he called a “remixed musical” at the time. “We could’ve made it super comedic and fun, with everyone trying to find their true selves in this fallacy of a reality series slash PR campaign for this star.” Neither project materialized, and others fell apart. Though he finished film school with impressive attention, Chu didn’t direct anything for five years. “Then this script for a straight-to-DVD dance sequel arrives and you’re like, ‘Is this what I’ve come to?’” he says, shaking his head. “But it turned out to be the best thing that could’ve happened. It was some sort of intersection of destiny that started everything.” Movies Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes explain the reasons behind the musical’s biggest tweaks from the stage to the screen. June 10, 2021 “Step Up 2: The Streets” ended up being a surprise hit, but the real win was the bond Chu forged with the movie’s dancers. “Jon genuinely loves dance, which, in this industry, that’s rare,” says “Step Up 2” dancer and “In the Heights” choreographer Christopher Scott. “Even if you do love dance, Jon wants to understand every part of it: ‘Why don’t they want to be called break dancers? Oh, they’re breakers, B-girls — got it.’ He immediately gave that respect to the dancers, who went, ‘You’re one of us now.’” (It was “Step Up 2” choreographer Luis Salgado, also an original “In the Heights” cast member, who got Chu to first check out the stage show.) Though Chu himself is admittedly “terrible” at hip-hop dance, he regularly tagged along with the performers to their clubs and competitions. “When they danced, people stopped what they were doing and paid attention to them,” he says. “But they weren’t spinning on their heads to perform for you. They’re spinning on their heads so you could believe in magical things that you didn’t believe someone could do before they did it. They’re telling you a story about themselves and how beautiful the world can be.” Following the viral success of dance battle videos with Miley Cyrus, Adam Sandler, Amanda Bynes and Diana Ross, Chu teamed with choreographer Scott and cinematographer Brooks on the dance narrative series “The LXD.” The trio began fine-tuning their formula for capturing the discipline on camera. “The thing that the three of us love is telling a story through dance, and not just filming a big dance number for no reason,” says Brooks. “During rehearsal, we each shoot the dancers in different ways — moving around with a Steadicam, standing on a ladder for high-angle shots, laying on the ground for low-angle shots. Jon quickly edits some of the videos together and we go over what works, what we can frame better and how we can better showcase the characters’ expressions, because we never want to distract from that.” Miranda, who saw “Step Up 2” in theaters on opening weekend and followed “The LXD,” first met with Chu about “In the Heights” in 2016. (Chu praised “Hamilton” to Miranda, even though he hadn’t yet seen it, and kept up that lie for a year.) Miranda ultimately believed Chu to be right for “In the Heights” because “honestly, of all the directors we talked to, Latino and non-Latino, he had the lived experience that was closest to our characters.” Plus, “Jon knew how to shoot the s— out of a dance number.” Still, “In the Heights” — Chu’s feature movie musical debut, nearly 20 years after he was predicted to disrupt the genre — might not have happened if it weren’t for Chu’s circuitous journey. Even the highly technical choreography of the mountain fight in “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” and the building excitement of the hidden-card sequence of “Now You See Me 2” were constructive to the already critically acclaimed adaptation. “Those big action movies are basically giant spectacles, performances,” says Chu. “They work because there’s a piece of danger that allows you to just go with it, no matter how unrealistic it is. That tension needs to be in a musical too; it can’t just be a bunch of songs.” Chu intercuts the movie’s more fantastical sequences with seconds-long vignettes of life in Washington Heights, featuring a group of actors known as the movie’s “community chorus.” In the opening, for example, they sing along with Usnavi while they’re cooking breakfast, heading to work or getting their kids ready for school. It’s Chu’s way of saying that these residents, who live on this corner you may have never noticed, have their own dreams too. Entertainment & Arts Bodega coffee and raps about gentrification — we reflect on everything riding on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s cultural unicorn June 11, 2021 At first, these snippets were too expensive to film. “But I knew if we didn’t have these shots, the section wouldn’t be complete,” says Chu. An initial cut of the sequence with stock footage tested well but didn’t exactly click, which convinced the studio to expand the budget for these specific shots. “The people here work hard for their families and their community — they’re the magic of this place,” says Chu. Audiences first saw Chu’s cultural reverence in “Crazy Rich Asians,” the first studio film of its kind in 25 years. “He is no stranger to enormous cinematic pressure, especially when it comes to representation,” the film’s Ken Jeong says of Chu. “There’s an empathetic spirit to his visuals — every frame is warm and full of compassion, as well as stunning.” Coincidentally, Upper Manhattan is also the backdrop for “West Side Story,” Spielberg’s anticipated remake that was filmed during the same summer. “They had a catering truck in our shot — that’s how close we were,” Chu recalls with a laugh. (He invited Spielberg to visit his set; he never came, or reciprocated the invitation.) Nevertheless, Chu loves the fact that both “In the Heights” and “West Side Story,” two movie musicals with Latino characters, are being released in the same year. “The rivalry thing is fun — not that there’s a rivalry, he’s Steven Spielberg! — but it evokes the conversation of, why does there only have to be one? Why do you think there has to be a competition?” Now that he’s pulled off “In the Heights,” he’s breaking through and dreaming bigger: a screen adaptation of the hit musical “Wicked,” which has been in development since just after its Broadway opening in 2003. “I have sessions every day with [composer-lyricist] Stephen Schwartz and [book writer] Winnie Holzman as we’re breaking the script again,” Chu says, “going through every line, every word, to find our way in cinematically.” While he plans to highlight “Wicked’s” dominant themes of “being othered” and “female friendship, specifically,” he also sees the long-gestating project as an opportunity to meet the moment. “Right now, our definitions of history are changing — we’re in a very important moment about getting comfortable with being uncomfortable,” Chu explains. “‘Wicked’ is all about that: [Elphaba] revisiting the innocence of what we think the world is, and discovering that it’s more complicated than that. And what does living in a bubble mean for Glinda? People don’t just build a bubble for no reason, you build a bubble because you don’t want to deal with something. “Now that bubble is bursting all around us, which can be seen as a scary, scary thing,” he continues. “You can feel sorrow for the things that are going away, you can feel anger for the things that have happened, you can feel vengeance for the things you want justice for. Sometimes violence occurs — good or bad, it happens. “I think this movie has an opportunity to show the world that change — real, true change — is OK,” he says. “And getting through it with grace and forgiveness can make all the difference.” Regardless of what he’s working on, “In the Heights” will always be with him. The director’s newfound love for the New York neighborhood spurred Chu to ask Miranda and Hudes a big question. “I want to be able to say the word ‘heights’ every day of my life, and I want my son to hear that word every day of his life,” he told them. “Is it OK if I name him Heights?” They both cried with Chu and gave him their blessing. Jonathan Heights Chu was born in the middle of the movie’s shoot. “I love the way the people take care of each other,” Chu explains of the name. “And I love how they dream — they look out their windows and see past the horizon — and I want those same things for my son.” Movies Aug. 10, 2018

New trailer for Anthony Bourdain film reminds his stardom ‘was almost never about food’

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-06-03/roadrunner-movie-trailer-revisits-life-of-anthony-bourdain

In a trailer out Thursday for “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain,” the viewer sees a man whose life was simultaneously all about food and not about food at all. The story of celebrity chef-turned-travel documentarian Bourdain, who died by suicide in 2018 at 61, is billed as “an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at how an anonymous chef became a world-renowned cultural icon.” Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville, who helmed films including “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” “Roadrunner” reminds us of a Bourdain whose hair had not yet grayed, a chef who wrote “Kitchen Confidential.” The documentary captures Bourdain as he transitioned into a different role in which he wandered the world in shows like “No Reservations” and “Parts Unknown,” seeking tastes, thrills and revelations about life. Entertainment & Arts I ate Anthony Bourdain’s food before I ever met him. June 8, 2018 Bourdain’s voice in the trailer offers a hint of the tragedy to come: “You’re probably going to find out about it anyway, so here’s a little preemptive truth-telling,” he says. “There’s no happy ending.” “It was almost never about food. It was about Tony learning how to be a better person,” Momofuku restaurant group founder David Chang says in the trailer. Chang, who revealed his bipolar I diagnosis last year in his memoir, “Eat a Peach,” has previously expressed regret over Bourdain’s death. (“It wasn’t supposed to happen to him,” Chang told People last summer. “That was supposed to happen to me. He was supposed to hold it together for all of us.”) We see Bourdain trudging through snow as far as the eye can see, jumping off a tropical cliff, digging his toes into the never-ending sand of the Sahara Desert. World & Nation Globe-trotting chef, author and TV host Anthony Bourdain was worth $1.2 million when he died last month and left most of the estate to his 11-year-old daughter, according to court papers filed this week in New York. July 7, 2018 Then there are the other voices. “Reality was never going to live up to exactly how he pictured it.” “He was always rushing to get into the scene, rushing to get out of the scene, to go somewhere next even if he had nowhere to go.” “He was definitely searching for something.” And finally, again from Bourdain: “You might ask, how is this food-related? F— if I know.” “Roadrunner” hits theaters July 16.

California panel recommends ending mask rules for workers if every person in the room is vaccinated

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-03/cal-osha-workers-mask-covid-vaccine

A California safety board Thursday recommended relaxing workplace safety rules for people vaccinated against COVID-19, meaning that on June 15, employees will probably be able to take off their masks in a room if everyone there is vaccinated. As the pandemic continues to wane and more people are inoculated against COVID-19, confidence has grown among officials that face coverings and social distancing are no longer a must for fully vaccinated Californians — though they remain important for those who have yet to roll up their sleeves. That’s why the seven-member Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board, whose members are appointed by the governor, ultimately unanimously opted to push the rules forward, saying it was time to begin relaxing mask-wearing rules. “We have seen great improvements in a lot of workplaces and we’ve seen numbers go down,” said board member Laura Stock, who is also director of UC Berkeley’s Labor Occupational Health Program. Now, where “people are vaccinated, there are certain things that actually can be changed.” The new rules proposed by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal/OSHA, are still subject to review by the state Office of Administrative Law. But it’s expected the office will approve the rules, which can go into effect on June 15 — the same day as California is set to fully reopen its economy. The rules would allow workers in a room to take off their masks if every person there is fully vaccinated and does not have COVID-19 symptoms. Masks would still be required if anyone in the room is not fully vaccinated. Someone is considered fully vaccinated 14 days after receiving a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines or the single shot of Johnson & Johnson. Workplaces would need to have workers’ vaccine records on file to comply with Cal/OSHA regulations. But workers in places such as retail stores and restaurants, as well as others who interact with members of the public, will still need to mask up. Workers in some other settings, such as hospitals, will not be affected by the rule change. The proposal also calls for ending the requirement that workers be physically distant from other people starting July 31. Until then, employees in indoor settings or outdoor events of 10,000 or more people will need to continue physical-distancing practices or be offered respirators — like N95 masks — that filter out fine particles in the air. Other board members said they wanted the state to move faster, and to align with looser standards suggested for the public by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and, as of June 15, by the California Department of Public Health. Those standards say there’s no need for fully vaccinated people to wear masks in almost all settings. The board voted to create a committee to work with Cal/OSHA to address the concerns of a majority of board members, who initially voted to reject Cal/OSHA’s proposal but ultimately approved it as board members agreed to work on a revision. “I don’t think we’re in an emergency situation anymore,” said board member Chris Laszcz-Davis, a veteran corporate executive and a previous industrial hygiene engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. “Personally, I would encourage that we align with the CDC guidelines a little more closely, because I know what we have suggested is more conservative.” California As the coronavirus fades, there is a growing belief among even the most conservative health experts that it’s fine for vaccinated people to largely shed their face coverings — though it’s still essential for the uninoculated to adhere to mask-wearing and physical distancing rules. June 3, 2021 Before the board voted Thursday night, Gov. Gavin Newsom was asked at a media briefing in San Francisco if he would issue an executive order to further loosen mask standards beyond what the board approved. “We’ll see where they went today. And I’ll have more to say after I read the final determination,” Newsom said. Late Thursday night, a spokeswoman for the governor’s office, Erin Mellon, said in a statement that “we appreciate the board’s actions to maintain worker safety and are hopeful the board will further revise its guidance to reflect the latest science while continuing to protect workers and balancing realistic and enforceable requirements for employers.” Thursday’s vote capped an extraordinary 9½-hour meeting — one of the longest and most contentious in recent memory. Some employers were particularly vocal about one part of the proposal, which says that starting July 31, employers must make available a respirator, such as an N95 mask, for voluntary use by employees who are not fully vaccinated and work in indoor settings or outdoor settings with more than 10,000 people. Unvaccinated employees can still choose to wear a conventional mask. “The N95 requirements ... are basically untenable.... There are concerns about cost and supply and access,” said board member Kate Crawford, also a safety and health director for construction company Hensel Phelps. “If you even get to the practical standpoint of, ‘Can the employers stockpile enough N95s quickly enough,’ will there become an impact on the supply chain to the healthcare workers?” California Northern counties -- including Tehama and Lassen -- have low vaccination rates and the state’s highest rate of infection. June 2, 2021 Eric Berg, deputy chief of Cal/OSHA, said there is no longer a dramatic shortage of respirators that there was early in the pandemic. In fact, there is a big surplus of N95 respirators, so large that there are possibly millions of the devices available, with Honeywell, one of the nation’s leading suppliers, recently having to shut down one of their manufacturing lines due to lack of demand. Some business representatives opposed Cal/OSHA’s proposal as being unnecessarily complicated and potentially drawing a distinction between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated that could essentially create two classes of workers and an environment where some employees were subject to harassment. They worried that requirements could draw attention to private medical decisions to not get vaccinated. “One of our members is considering placing stickers on ID badges to determine who is vaccinated and who is not. Many are considering creating separate floors,” said Helen Cleary, director of the Phylmar Regulatory Roundtable, a business coalition. “The unintended consequences of these provisions are serious and they cannot be understated. They have the potential to negatively impact thousands of workers in the state.” Some labor representatives urged the board to not relax the mask standards at all. California False claims about COVID vaccines have spread on social media, earning some myth spreaders big money, a health official says: ‘Don’t get played.’ June 3, 2021 Taylor Jackson, a lobbyist with the California Nurses Assn., said preventing spread of the coronavirus is best achieved through many layers of protection, which includes masks. “All of our protective measures should remain in place, in addition to vaccines,” Jackson said. “As much as we want it, this pandemic is not over.” Armando Elenes, secretary treasurer of the United Farm Workers union, said that the current, more stringent rules aren’t enforced enough and that the proposed changes would put even more people at risk. “Even with the mandates, right now, the employers aren’t following the rules, and nothing has happened,” Elenes said. “Employees, especially farmworkers, have been exposed themselves — out of necessity — to COVID. We have outbreaks in slaughterhouses and other food processing facilities, in the fields, major outbreaks.” Elenes added that farmworkers are under increased pressure to provide for their households and in doing so risk their safety at facilities which are not fully enforcing current mandates. Unfortunately, many “workers chose to continue working because they just feel the immediate need of their other bills, and everything else is right there in front of them; versus the possibility of something happening,” he said. California If you were vaccinated in L.A. County, you’ll have access to a digital vaccine record through Healthvana. It’s not a vaccine passport, though. There are also other ways to get your COVID-19 vaccination records. June 3, 2021 Mitch Steiger, lobbyist with the California Labor Federation, said he was concerned about the proposed phase-out, at the end of July, of required partitions, such as the plastic barriers that place a barrier between customers and cashiers. Still, Steiger urged the board to adopt the proposal as a compromise that still does a lot to protect workers. He said he was shocked at calls to do away with face coverings entirely or do away with emergency workplace standards entirely. “People are still getting sick,” Steiger said. “Even though things statewide do seem to be heading in the right direction, it doesn’t mean that everything’s heading in the right direction in every county.… Work-related outbreaks are still happening as we speak, all across the state.” Business Some of us are hoping that a year of remote work will lead to greater job flexibility. Others can’t wait to get out of the house. May 19, 2021 One law expert said any workplace regulation related to COVID-19 — mask mandates, distancing or vaccination status — will be difficult to enforce, outside of public complaints filed to the health department. “It’s onerous, it makes no sense, and it’s really up to the public and how they’re going to enforce this,” said Derek Tran, an attorney and founder of the Tran Firm, which focuses on employment law. Tran said some of the proposed changes give mixed signals to workers and employers, who are already struggling to keep up with the state’s reopening process. That is especially so for restrictions, such as indoor physical distancing, proposed to stay in place until July 31 — well past the governor’s June 15 reopening date. “Even as a lawyer, I find it confusing,” he said. Some speakers Thursday noted that the proposed workplace rules were seemingly in conflict with what California would look like after June 15. “A fully vaccinated server could work a lunch shift at a restaurant, get off work, go home, change out of their uniform, and then go out to dinner with their family or friends at the same restaurant in the evening and not be required to wear a mask — even though they had to wear a mask earlier in the day while at work,” said Katie Hansen with the California Restaurant Assn. Michael Young, a lobbyist of the California Federation of Teachers, however, said the proposed standard “still provides significant protections to workers.” There’s a “difference between members of the public willfully going to a restaurant or gym or other businesses, versus workers required to be physically present at a worksite,” Young said. The suggested changes put forth by Cal/OSHA come less than two weeks before the state is set to widely relax its mask rules as part of its long-anticipated full reopening. Starting June 15, California will align with the CDC’s recent mask guidance. Existing state rules generally stipulate that everyone, such as members of the public in a retail store, needs to wear masks in indoor public settings. Workers are also required to wear face coverings and practice physical distancing unless they’re alone — either in a room or outside. Employees can remove their masks when eating or drinking but must be physically distant from others. Officials said the decision to wait until June 15 to implement the CDC guidelines was based on giving residents more opportunities to get vaccinated and businesses and workers time to prepare for the change. Still, the CDC’s May 13 announcement caught many off guard, and sparked some concerns that the nation was repeating the sins of its pandemic past and moving too quickly to relax restrictions. Such fears have not materialized, however. Newly confirmed coronavirus infections have continued to tumble nationwide in recent weeks, as have COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths. In California, more than 70% of adults have now received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, according to data from the CDC. California One month ahead of the target date set by the Biden administration, California has now at least partially vaccinated 70% of its adult residents against COVID-19. June 1, 2021 Although the state is still short of the 80% threshold many experts believe necessary to achieve long-lasting herd immunity against the coronavirus, the relatively robust level of vaccine coverage provides a strong level of protection, officials and experts say. Local-level health officials can impose stricter rules than the state’s, but many counties — including Los Angeles — have indicated they plan to follow California’s lead come June 15. L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said she thought the latest set of proposed workplace rules demonstrated that “at least for now, Cal/OSHA doesn’t want to take any chances with worker safety around the masking.” “They’ve given some movement on both masking and on distancing, but they’ve made it clear that there’s an obligation for employers to ensure that there’s a lot of safety at the workplace, and that continues to mean adhering to some masking rules and some distancing rules at all of our work sites,” she said Wednesday. As Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board agenda documents note: “A very large proportion of California employees will remain unvaccinated as of June 15.” “Due to changes in social norms, as mask-wearing and physical distancing decline among fully vaccinated people, those precautions are likely to decline among unvaccinated and partially vaccinated people as well,” documents state. “Unvaccinated employees will therefore be particularly at risk, especially given the spread of especially contagious SARS-CoV-2 variants, unless protective measures are taken.” Times interns Carly Olson and Andrew Mendez contributed to this report.

Unusual Supreme Court majority narrows scope of computer anti-hacking law

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-06-03/unusual-supreme-court-majority-narrows-scope-of-anti-hacking-computer-law

The Supreme Court limited the scope of the federal law against computer hacking on Thursday, ruling it covers those who break into confidential files, but not people who misuse the information they are authorized to see. In a 6-3 opinion written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the court said it would not turn “millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens” into criminals if they sit at their work computer and send personal notes to friends or plan a vacation. At issue, she said, were so-called inside hackers who have legal access to a computer, but then exceed their authorized use by using the information for other purposes. She said the court would not interpret the phrase “exceeds authorized access” to criminalize every violation of a computer-use policy. The decision overturns the computer fraud conviction of a Georgia police sergeant who was authorized to check the state’s database on license plates, but took a $5,000 secret payment from a local man who said he wanted to learn about a stripper he had just met. It was actually an FBI sting, and Nathan Van Buren, the sergeant, was charged and convicted of a computer fraud for exceeding his “authorized access.” He appealed, arguing that he was authorized to check the state license plate files. The court’s majority agreed with Van Buren that the law in question did not apply to his circumstances. “An individual ‘exceeds authorized access’ when he accesses a computer with authorization, but then obtains information located in particular areas of the computer — such as files, folders, or databases — that are off limits to him,” Barrett wrote. Van Buren accessed the law enforcement database system with authorization, she said, “even though he obtained information from the database for an improper purpose.” The court’s three Trump appointees and its three liberal Democratic appointees formed the majority. Joining Barrett’s opinion in Van Buren vs. United States were Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh. In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas said the laws “have long punished those who exceed the scope of consent when using property that belongs to others. A valet, for example, may take possession of a person’s car to park it, but he cannot take it for a joyride.” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. agreed. The ACLU welcomed the decision as “an important victory for civil liberties and civil rights enforcement in the digital age.” The group had long challenged the broader view of the computer fraud law that it said “would create criminal and civil liability for researchers and journalists who violate website terms of service while undertaking civil rights testing and research online.” Others said Congress needs to update the law. “Given the central role and value of data in today’s commerce and society, it is time to modernize the primary federal computer statute to ensure that appropriate criminal and civil remedies apply to the theft of data,” said Palo Alto lawyer Mark Krotoski, a former federal prosecutor. Van Buren resigned from his police job in Cummings, Ga., after he was indicted for bribery and computer fraud. He was convicted on both counts and sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2018. However, the 11th Circuit Court in Atlanta overturned the bribery charge, and the Supreme Court has now reversed his conviction for computer fraud.

These 8 California attractions, still shut, reopen in the next month

https://www.latimes.com/travel/story/2021-06-03/california-reopening-calendar-theme-parks-museums-venues-and-other-attractions

Here’s a look at 8 California visitor destinations that are reopening in the next month — including, in the next two weeks, Pasadena’s Gamble House, downtown L.A.’s Disney Hall and Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood. We also list dozens more sites that have already reopened and a few that remain closed. Most capacity limits are expected to expire as the state moves toward reopening this week. Also, Californians who are fully vaccinated for COVID-19 will be able to stop wearing face masks in most situations, unless a business or venue decides to keep masks mandatory for everyone. Beyond museums, the list includes parks, theme parks, campgrounds and other attractions, dozens of them already open. Check the linked websites before planning a visit; many destinations have shortened their hours or reduced their offerings (or both). All of California’s national parks are open, but details vary. For instance, some seasonal mountain roads are still closed by snow, but Yosemite’s Tioga Road opened May 27. Travelers should check individuals sites for up-to-date information. All but four of California’s 280 state parks are open, but many of their campgrounds are not, so you’ll need to check individually. Travel & Experiences Why hike in Los Angeles? Lots of reasons. Use our guide to navigate 50 trails in Southern California, plus tips on gear and treats for the trail. June 17, 2022 Also, details on 40 California museums, including many not on this list, are available here. Details on California theme parks are here. Pasadena’s Gamble House, a showcase of Craftsman architecture, resumes interior tours today. Disney Hall in downtown L.A. reopens June 26 with a free concert by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra for invited guests and ticket giveaway winners. (The giveaway tickets are only open to people who have been vaccinated.) The Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood reopens June 26. The tours will be open to families with children aged 5 and over. (Previously, the age minimum was 8.) The Exploratorium on San Francisco’s Embarcadero reopens July 1. Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum, an open-air venue in Topanga Canyon, will present a summer season of three plays July 10 through Nov. 7, including “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Julius Caesar.” The Hollywood Bowl set five free concerts for healthcare workers, first responders and essential workers, with one more coming in June, and kicks off a 14-week season beginning July 3. Seating in most sections will require that guests show proof of vaccination. Laguna Beach’s Pageant of the Masters will run nightly July 7 through Sept. 3. The summer tradition features “living pictures” on an amphitheater stage. Tickets are on sale. The Pantages Theater in Hollywood said it will resume the run of “Hamilton” on Aug. 17. The Dolby Theater in Hollywood has scheduled a production of “My Fair Lady” beginning Oct. 7. Travel & Experiences These trips will take you to priceless places, and our pro tips will help you dig deeper. May 20, 2021 Alcatraz, part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area, is open, though access to some areas is still restricted. Aquarium of the Pacific, Long Beach Asian Art Museum, San Francisco Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive opened May 2. Travel & Experiences From Malibu to La Jolla, here are five Southern California trails that do something most hikes don’t — take you to the edge of the ocean. March 13, 2021 Big Basin Redwoods State Park, closed after the CZU Lightning Complex Fires, partially reopened May 29. Bodie State Historic Park, Bodie, is partially open. Bowers Museum, Santa Ana The Broad museum, L.A., reopened May 26. Buena Vista Cafe, San Francisco California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco California African American Museum, Los Angeles California State Railroad Museum, Sacramento. Weekend 45-minute train rides are open; walk-through train cars and children’s area remain closed. Channel Islands National Park Cold Spring Tavern, outside Santa Barbara, has reopened for dining but no live music yet. De Young Museum, San Francisco Death Valley National Park Get The Wild newsletter. The essential weekly guide to enjoying the outdoors in Southern California. Insider tips on the best of our beaches, trails, parks, deserts, forests and mountains. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Disneyland and Disney California Adventure Park opened April 30. French Laundry restaurant, Yountville The Getty Center in Brentwood reopened May 25. The Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades is also open. The Great Park Balloon, Irvine, resumed its tethered flights May 6. The Great Park’s visitor center is open, as its sports complex (for participants, not observers) and the Great Park Gallery. The carousel, under renovations, is expected to reopen in fall. Highway 1, which has been closed for repairs between southern Monterey County and Big Sur since late January, reopened April 23. With that option open, Southern Californians regain a scenic coastal route to Big Sur and points farther north. California California’s Highway 1 near Big Sur is open again after a January storm washed away 150 feet of road in January. Recent photos showcase the roadway’s scenic beauty. May 12, 2021 Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino is partially open, including select galleries, many gardens, store and cafe Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles Joshua Tree National Park Kings Canyon National Park Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park reopened to the public May 21. La Brea Tar Pits & Museum, Los Angeles La Purísima Mission State Historic Park, Lompoc Lassen Volcanic National Park is open, but its Park Highway is partially closed by winter snows. Legoland California Resort, in Carlsbad, reopened April 15, including Sea Life aquarium and Chima Water Park. On May 27, the park opened a new area, The Lego Movie World, with six rides and attractions on 2 acres. Reservations are required. Los Angeles County Museum of Art Maritime Museum of San Diego, including historic bay cruises Monterey Bay Aquarium opened to the public Saturday. The Museum of Contemporary Art in L.A. reopened June 3. Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego Musso & Frank Grill, an iconic Hollywood restaurant, reopened May 6 and is accepting reservations. The Napa Valley Wine Train, which visits wineries between Napa and St. Helena, resumed operations May 17. Nepenthe restaurant, a Big Sur landmark The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Simi Valley, reopened May 15. The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena reopened to the public May 20. The Old Globe theater in San Diego’s Balboa Park resumed outdoor presentations June 4, with full-scale indoor productions to follow in fall. The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway resumed daily service May 10 after several months of running Thursday-Sunday. Palm Springs Art Museum Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, a restaurant and bar near Joshua Tree, is open indoors and out. Live music is limited. Pinnacles National Park Raging Waters Los Angeles in San Dimas reopened May 29. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, Simi Valley, reopened May 26. Redwood National and State Parks The Downtown San Luis Obispo Thursday Farmers’ Market returned May 6 at reduced size with tighter restrictions. Sacramento History Museum and Old Sacramento Underground Tours San Diego Zoo San Francisco Museum of Modern Art San Gorgonio Wilderness, San Bernardino National Forest. Parts of the wilderness within Sand to Snow National Monument have reopened, including South Fork, Lost Creek, Aspen Grove and Fish Creek trailheads. Some interior trails remain closed. Also, the Falls Picnic Area, Big Falls Trail and Vivian Creek Trail in the Forest Falls area reopened too. Santa Barbara Maritime Museum Santa Barbara Mission, including self-guided tours Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History Santa Barbara Wine Country Santa Catalina Island Santa Monica Pier‘s Pacific Park amusement area has reopened. Sequoia National Park. The park’s Crystal Cave reopened Friday, May 28. Six Flags Magic Mountain, Valencia The Skirball Cultural Center in Brentwood reopened May 15. Trout season in the Eastern Sierra Universal Studios Hollywood Yosemite National Park’s Wawona Hotel reopened June 10. Yosemite National Park is open, but requires advance reservations even for day trips, May 21 through Sept. 30. The park’s Upper, Lower and North Pines, Camp 4, Wawona, Bridalveil Creek and Tuolumne Meadows campgrounds will be open for the summer, advance reservations required for all. The Ahwahnee, Curry Village and the Yosemite Valley lodge are open too, with some restrictions. There’s no shuttle bus service. Also, visitors in cars won’t be able to reach the towering sequoias of Mariposa Grove, which was closed to traffic after a January wind storm. But you can hike or bike to the trees on the Washburn Trail (4 miles, round trip from Mariposa Grove Welcome Plaza). Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad that takes visitors on rides through Sierra National Forest, starting in Fish Camp near the south entrance to the national park. Bear Gulch and Balconies caves at Pinnacles National Park. Coit Tower, San Francisco Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles remains closed. Director Ed Krupp said that if the state sticks with plans to ease restrictions today, the observatory should be able to reopen “well before the end of summer.” Hearst Castle, San Simeon Medieval Times, the Buena Park dinner theater that features horses and jousting.

Chris Harrison reportedly will not host this season of 'Bachelor in Paradise'

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2021-06-03/report-chris-harrison-will-not-host-this-season-of-bachelor-in-paradise

Longtime “The Bachelor” host Chris Harrison, swept up in an ongoing racial controversy, reportedly will not host this season of “Bachelor in Paradise.” Hosting duties will be instead taken up by celebrity comedians including David Spade, according to “those familiar with the plans,” Variety reported Wednesday. At the time of the story’s publication, Spade’s deal was reportedly the only one closed among those to whom offers had been made. Neither ABC Entertainment nor Warner Horizon has made official statements regarding “Bachelor in Paradise” plans, Harrison’s status with the franchise or a contract for Spade. Representatives for the show did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment Thursday. The new season of “Bachelor in Paradise” is set to bow Aug. 16. Harrison has been under fire since a disastrous February interview with the first Black lead on “The Bachelorette,” Rachel Lindsay, on “Extra.” They were talking about a controversy that had erupted during that season of “The Bachelor,” No. 25, which featured the franchise’s first Black leading man, Matt James. Photos had surfaced of one of the leading contestants, Rachael Kirkconnell, who is white, at a 2018 fraternity party celebrating the antebellum South. In the interview, when Lindsay called the photos “not a good look,” Harrison was dismissive of the controversy, implying it might not have been offensive at the time and saying he wasn’t the “woke police.” Television Chris Harrison, host of “The Bachelor,” says he is “stepping aside” after making controversial statements about race. Feb. 13, 2021 Lindsay responded that it would have been offensive in 2018 as well: “It’s not a good look ever because she’s celebrating the Old South. ... What would I represent at that party?” Following that interview, Harrison apologized via Instagram, writing, “By excusing historical racism, I defended it. ... I am ashamed over how uninformed I was. I was so wrong.” He announced he was “stepping aside” and did not host the rest of that season of “The Bachelor.” Kirkconnell also apologized via Instagram: “I didn’t recognize how offensive and racist my actions were, but that doesn’t excuse them. My age or when it happened does not excuse anything. They are not acceptable or okay in any sense. I was ignorant, but my ignorance was racist … I hope I can earn your forgiveness through my future actions.” On Instagram, James wrote, “Chris’s failure to receive and understand the emotional labor that my friend Rachel Lindsay was taking on by graciously and patiently explaining the racist history of the Antebellum South, a painful history that every American should understand intimately, was troubling and painful to watch.” Television Chris Harrison, suspended host of “The Bachelor,” has walked back controversial comments he made about the past actions of a contestant. March 4, 2021 Kirkconnell went on to “win” the season, though she and James have been publicly on-again, off-again since their season aired. In early March, Harrison appeared on “Good Morning America,” where cohost Michael Strahan asked him if he stood by his remarks that the antebellum party might have been OK in 2018. Harrison responded, “Antebellum parties are not OK — past, present, future ... I am an imperfect man. I made a mistake and I own that. I believe that mistake doesn’t reflect who I am or what I stand for. I am committed to the progress — not just for myself, also for the franchise.” The longtime “Bachelor” franchise host also said in that “GMA” interview, “I plan to be back and I want to be back. And I think this franchise can be an important beacon of change. I know that change is felt, not just by me, but by many others. And we are excited and willing to do the work to show that progress.” Television After Rachel Lindsay criticized Chris Harrison for defending the racist actions of a contestant, ‘Bachelor’ producers defended her against a backlash. March 2, 2021 “This interview is not the finish line,” he added. “There is much more work to be done. And I am excited to be a part of that change.” Later that month, ABC Entertainment and Warner Horizon announced he would not be hosting the summer season of “The Bachelorette”; fan-favorite alums Tayshia Adams and Kaitlyn Bristowe will instead get the gig. “We support Chris in the work that he is committed to doing,” the companies said in the joint statement announcing that Harrison would not work on the season premiering June 7. Television Rachel Lindsay, the ‘Bachelor’ franchise’s first Black female lead, is stepping away from a popular podcast. ‘I’ve been struggling. That’s no secret.’ April 28, 2021 Lindsay, meanwhile, has left social media in the wake of racist abuse online. “I’m exhausted,” she said on her “Higher Learning” podcast. “I have truly had enough. ... I wanted to be representative as a Black woman to this audience. ... I wanted the franchise to be better ... but how much more can I take of things like this?” Neither ABC Entertainment nor Warner Horizon have announced whether Harrison will return to the franchise; sitting out these two 2021 shows means the earliest he could return would be 2022, for the 26th season of “The Bachelor.”

Here's how to access Healthvana and other COVID-19 vaccination records

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-03/heres-how-to-access-healthvana-and-other-covid-19-vaccination-records

Even if you end up putting your COVID-19 vaccination card through the wash, fret not — you can still access your records. With more than half of all Californians at least partially vaccinated, that means millions of those little easy-to-lose papers are floating around. What if you lose yours? There are a couple of ways to access your records if you were vaccinated in L.A. County. Healthvana, an online medical data resource, has teamed with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health to provide a digitized version of your COVID-19 vaccination record that you can access from any internet-connected device and take with you wherever you go. IPhone users can download the record to their Apple Wallet. If you were vaccinated in Los Angeles County, you should be contacted by Healthvana via text or email. (To reassure users worried about scams, the Department of Public Health’s website has details about what the message should say.) It may take a few weeks after your vaccination for Healthvana to get in touch with you, said Chief Executive Ramin Bastani, since the platform is aggregating data from hundreds of vaccination sites across the county. If you don’t get notified within a month of your vaccination, you can contact Healthvana through their website and get your records within a couple of days. Note that this is not a “vaccine passport” — a concept that has been much discussed over the past few months. Healthvana’s records are just for you. The digital record includes only the date and location where you were vaccinated, and not personal information like your birthdate, meaning it can’t be considered a valid legal form of identification. The California Immunization Registry, a state-run program, allows anyone vaccinated in California to access their vaccination records digitally. Two to three weeks after you receive your final COVID-19 vaccine dose, your data will be available through CAIR. Once you complete the request form, it can take another 14 days for records to become available. There is no option to replace your original card, but CAIR can provide a new physical copy of your records. It’s still a good idea to keep your physical vaccination card safe, even if you have a digital version. Free lamination services have been offered at office-supply stores, but experts don’t recommend it. If you want to keep your card safe, put it in a plastic holder like an ID card sleeve instead. You can take a digital version with you anywhere, but it’s probably best to leave the physical copy at home. Just like you don’t carry your birth certificate everywhere, leave the card at home in a safe place. For more information on how you can digitally access your COVID-19 vaccination records, go to the L.A. County public health website, Healthvana or the California Immunization Registry.

Del Mar announcer Trevor Denman to make return

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-06-03/del-mar-announcer-trevor-denman-to-make-return

Trevor Denman will return to the announcing booth at Del Mar when its summer season kicks off July 16 after missing last season for the first time since 1984. Denman chose to stay on his 500-acre farm in Minnesota last year out of concern for the coronavirus. Larry Collmus, who currently calls the Triple Crown races and Breeders’ Cup for NBC, filled in and quickly established a presence in the Del Mar booth. He recently took down from his Twitter account that he was the Del Mar announcer, signaling the return of Denman. The 68-year-old Denman informed track officials he was coming back by email saying: “We are very keen to get back to Del Mar.” Denman was the main race caller in Southern California for decades, calling Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and even the Los Angeles County Fair at Pomona. Hollywood Park and Pomona went away and Denman continued to call at Santa Anita until 2015. He will always be remembered for his call in 2009 when the mare Zenyatta came from last to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita. “Zenyatta has a lot of ground to make up. Zenyatta, if she wins this, she’ll be a super horse. “She’s starting to pick them off, though. Zenyatta going to hook to the outside. Meanwhile, Colonel John, Summer Bird in the red cap. “Zenyatta comes to the outside. Zenyatta coming flying on the grandstand side. Gio Ponti on the inside. Summer Bird is right there. “This is un-be-lievable! Zenyatta, what a performance! One we’ll never forget. Looked impossible.” Denman also will return for the short fall meeting at Del Mar, which will include the Breeders’ Cup. NBC will use Collmus and the track will use Denman.

Erika Jayne and Tom Girardi's legal woes will get documentary treatment at Hulu

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2021-06-03/tom-girardi-erika-jayne-documentary-hulu-real-housewives

Mounting legal drama surrounding Tom Girardi and Erika Jayne will soon be documented on the small screen — and not just on “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.” The prominent Los Angeles attorney, 82, and his pop singer wife, 49, are the subjects of a forthcoming documentary from ABC News Originals and Hulu that will explore the rapid downfall of the wealthy couple — sparked by various lawsuits alleging that Girardi misappropriated funds intended for his vulnerable clients. Announced Wednesday via People, ABC’s “The Housewife and the Hustler” will feature interviews with legal experts and clients Girardi allegedly swindled, as well as the embattled couple’s “Real Housewives” costars. In addition to accusations of embezzlement, the documentary will also address allegations that the pair of Pasadena socialites strategically timed their impending divorce to the reputation-shattering legal scandals plaguing Girardi. California Tom Girardi is facing the collapse of everything he holds dear: his law firm, marriage to Erika Girardi, and reputation as a champion for the downtrodden. Dec. 17, 2020 Jayne filed to divorce Girardi in November, just as her husband was exposed for allegedly stealing millions in settlement winnings from the families of Indonesian passengers who died in the 2019 crash of Lion Air Flight 610, whom he represented in court. Jayne’s court filing cited irreconcilable differences and sought spousal support from Girardi. The couple has also been sued for allegedly leveraging their “sham” of a divorce to embezzle more money to support their lavish lifestyle, according to People. In addition, Girardi has been accused of improperly funneling more than $20 million in loans to Jayne’s entertainment company, which funds her recording career. “I think the biggest question is: Did she know?” says “Real Housewives” star Heather McDonald in a new teaser for the documentary. California Bankruptcy trustees have accused the reality star of concealing assets for her husband and are dispatching investigators to comb through her belongings and accounts. May 17, 2021 The fallout from Girardi’s legal troubles has been swift: As of December, the vast majority of lawyers previously employed by his firm, Girardi Keese, had quit, and in March, the State Bar of California threatened disciplinary action against Girardi for allegedly misappropriating funds belonging to his Indonesian clients. Leading up to the documentary, the controversy looming over Jayne and Girardi has also been unfolding onscreen in “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.” The duo, who wed in 2000, has appeared in the hit reality series since 2015. Between interviews, the upcoming documentary will also include private voicemail messages, court records and a previously unheard deposition tape of Girardi. “The Housewife and the Hustler” premieres June 14 on Hulu.

Justin Ray named author of the Essential California newsletter

https://www.latimes.com/about/pressreleases/story/2021-06-03/justin-ray-named-essential-california-newsletter

The following announcement was sent on behalf of Deputy Managing Editor Shelby Grad and Newsletter Editor Scott Sandell: We are thrilled to announce that Justin Ray is taking over as the author of Essential California, our marquee newsletter. Ray comes to this vital job after a highly successful run as an audience engagement editor in Arts and Entertainment, where he drew acclaim for helping to connect readers with great journalism, framing coverage and launching many innovations that have since been copied by other departments. He also wrote memorably about the intersection of race and culture, including with scoops about turmoil at a popular podcast. Before arriving at The Times, Ray was an editor at the Columbia Journalism Review, where he wrote about California wildfire coverage and how a reporter got the Sandra Bland video, and at NBC-owned stations in New York and Chicago. He has also written for Refinery29 and Complex. Each Essential California writer brings a distinctive voice and style to the newsletter, which is sent to more than 250,000 readers each day, and we are excited by what Ray has planned. “I enjoy learning about undercovered populations and interesting subcultures,” Ray wrote in his proposal, adding that he wants to take Essential California in “a direction that will increase readership and diversify our audience.” These are worthy missions not just for the newsletter but also for the institution as a whole. Look for Ray’s newsletter to begin this month.