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Cannes Film Festival lineup features movies by Wes Anderson, Sean Penn, Leos Carax

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-06-03/cannes-lineup-2021-announced-wes-anderson-sean-penn

The Cannes Film Festival on Thursday unveiled a lineup of films from big-name auteurs — including Wes Anderson, Asghar Farhadi, Mia Hansen-Løve and Sean Penn — for its 74th edition, an event that aims to make a stirring in-person return in July after being canceled last year because of the pandemic. Among the films that will be competing for Cannes’ Palme d’Or are festival opener “Annette,” by Leos Carax and starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard; Anderson’s “The French Dispatch,” a film originally set to premiere in Cannes last year with an ensemble cast including Timothée Chalamet; “Red Rocket,” Sean Baker’s follow-up to his acclaimed “The Florida Project”; Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta”; and Sean Penn’s “Flag Day,” in which he stars alongside his daughter, Dylan Penn, as a con man. Pierre Lescure, president of the festival, and Thierry Frémaux, artistic director, announced the Cannes lineup at the UGC Normandie theater in Paris in a livestreamed event that was part news conference and part pep rally for world cinema. “Cinema is not dead. The extraordinary and triumphant return of the audience to movie theaters in France and around the world was the first good news,” Frémaux said. “I hope the film festival will be the second very good news.” Movies From ‘Black Widow’ to ‘F9’: Big movies are headed to theaters and your home this summer. May 21, 2021 As cinema’s preeminent global stage, the annual French Riviera extravaganza is hoping to make a triumphant comeback when it runs July 6-17 — two months later than its usual May perch. But many things will be different at this year’s festival. Attendees will be masked inside theaters and required to show proof of full vaccination or a recent negative COVID-19 test. Cannes’ famed red carpet leading up to the stairs of the Palais des Festivals will resume in full, but with tweaks to the traditional pageantry. “We’re used to kissing one another at the top of the stairs,” Frémaux said. “We will not kiss one another.” Still, there are many questions leading up to a Cannes that will unfold just as France is reopening and loosening restrictions. Audience capacity limitations will be removed just five days before the festival opens. Concern over a new virus strain led France last week to institute a seven-day quarantine for travelers arriving from the United Kingdom — a potential blow to the British film industry that regularly decamps to Cannes. For such an international festival as Cannes, many other travel regulations could pose complications. Frémaux acknowledged some filmmakers might not be able to attend. The movie market that typical runs in tandem with the festival and draws much of the film industry for a week of frenzied deal-making, will be held virtually in late June. Movies Will Smith and Pedro Almodovar jostled over it. Silicon Valley executive Ted Sarandos defended it. May 28, 2017 But the Cannes program, although perhaps lacking a Hollywood title as anticipated as Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood” (an entry in 2019, when Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” won the Palme d’Or), was praised as top-class. It includes former Palme d’Or winners Jacques Audiard (“Paris 13th District”) and Apichatpong Weerasethakul (“Memoria,” starring Tilda Swinton). Four of the 24 films in competition are directed by women, a low percentage but one that ties the festival’s previous top mark. That includes new films from Mia Hansen-Løve (“Bergman Island,” with Mia Wasikowska, Tim Roth and Vicky Krieps) and Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi. Cannes has previously refused to play in competition any film that doesn’t have a theatrical release in France, leading to an impasse with Netflix. Though other movie institutions such as the Academy Awards have bent theatrical rules during the pandemic, Cannes has not. Among the standouts playing out of competition, or in Cannes’ new “Cannes Premiere,” are Andrea Arnold’s “Cow,” Todd Haynes’ documentary “The Velvet Underground,” Tom McCarthy’s “Stillwater” and the Oliver Stone documentary “JFK: Through the Looking Glass.” Movies After canceling in 2020, the Cannes Film Festival is postponing this year’s edition from May to July in hopes of having an in-person festival. Jan. 27, 2021 Spike Lee, who debuted “Do the Right Thing” at Cannes in 1989, will preside over the jury selecting the Palme d’Or winner. He’s the first Black person to head the Cannes jury. At the opening ceremony, an honorary Palme will be given to Jodie Foster, who first came to Cannes as a 13-year-old for the premiere of Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver.” Speaking to the Associated Press after the news conference, Frémaux said it would be “the ultimate Cannes.” “It will be something special. In five years people will be asking ‘Were you in Cannes in 2021?’ and people would say, ‘No I wasn’t.’ ‘Oh you weren’t? That’s a pity. It was really great,’” said Frémaux. “It’s going to be a special Cannes.”

Biden announces international COVID-19 vaccine-sharing plan

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-06-03/biden-covid-19-vaccine-sharing-plan-international

President Biden announced Thursday the U.S. will donate 75% of its unused COVID-19 vaccines to the U.N.-backed COVAX global vaccine-sharing program, acting as more Americans have been vaccinated and global inequities have become more glaring. Of the first tranche of 25 million doses, the White House said about 19 million will go to COVAX, with approximately 6 million for South and Central America, 7 million for Asia and 5 million for Africa. The doses mark a substantial — and immediate — boost to the lagging COVAX effort, which to date has shared just 76 million doses with needy countries. Overall, the White House aims to share 80 million doses globally by the end of June, most through COVAX. But 25% of the nation’s excess will be kept in reserve for emergencies and for the U.S. to share directly with allies and partners. “As long as this pandemic is raging anywhere in the world, the American people will still be vulnerable,” Biden said in a statement. “And the United States is committed to bringing the same urgency to international vaccination efforts that we have demonstrated at home.” U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan said the U.S. “will retain the say” on where the doses distributed through COVAX ultimately go. “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,” 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.” Science & Medicine Researchers in South Africa have documented an ominous development: the collision of the COVID-19 pandemic with HIV/AIDS. June 3, 2021 The remaining 6 million in the initial tranche of 25 million will be directed by the White House to U.S. allies and partners, including Mexico, Canada, South Korea, West Bank and Gaza, India, Ukraine, Kosovo, Haiti, Georgia, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Yemen, as well as for United Nations frontline workers. Vice President Kamala Harris informed some U.S. partners they will begin receiving doses, in separate calls with Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador, President Alejandro Giammattei of Guatemala, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Keith Rowley of Trinidad and Tobago. Harris is to visit Guatemala and Mexico in the coming week. The long-awaited vaccine-sharing plan comes as demand for shots in the U.S. has dropped significantly — more than 63% of adults have received at least one dose — while most other countries struggle. Scores of countries have requested doses from the United States, but to date only Mexico and Canada have received a combined 4.5 million doses. The U.S. also has announced plans to share enough shots with South Korea to vaccinate its 550,000 troops who serve alongside American service members on the peninsula. White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients said that 1 million Johnson & Johnson doses were being shipped to South Korea on Thursday. The growing U.S. stockpile of COVID-19 vaccines is seen by many overseas and at home not only as a testament to America’s achievement but also its global privilege. Tom Hart, acting chief executive of the ONE Campaign, called the Thursday announcement a “welcome step” but said the Biden administration needs to commit to sharing more doses. “The world is looking to the U.S. for global leadership and more ambition is needed.” Politics The world’s failure to deliver vaccines to needier countries is more than a scandal; it’s a crisis. And it could come to haunt us all soon. April 14, 2021 Biden has committed to providing other nations with all 60 million domestically produced doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has yet to be authorized for use in the U.S. but is widely used around the world. The U.S.-produced doses have been held up for export by an ongoing safety review by the Food and Drug Administration, Zients said. The White House says the initial 25 million doses will be shipped from existing federal stockpiles of Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. More doses are expected to be made available to share in the months ahead. As part of its purchase agreements with drug manufacturers, the U.S. controlled the initial production by its domestic manufacturers. Pfizer and Moderna are only now starting to export vaccines produced in the U.S. to overseas customers. The U.S. has hundreds of millions more doses on order, both of authorized and in-development vaccines. The White House also announced Thursday that it was lifting restrictions on sharing the vaccines produced by Sanofi and Novavax, which are also not authorized in the U.S., allowing the companies to determine for themselves where to share their doses.

Vanessa Bryant wants answers from Nike about leaked Mambacita shoes

https://www.latimes.com/sports/lakers/story/2021-06-03/vanessa-bryant-wants-answers-from-nike-about-mambacita-shoes

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.” Sports Kobe Bryant’s contract with Nike has expired, opening the door for his name and likeness to be used elsewhere. April 20, 2021 Bleacher Report Kicks shared an image on Twitter of the sneakers Wednesday, calling them the Nike Kobe 6 Protro “Mamba Forever” colorway and saying they will be released “later this year.” Last month, a handful of sneaker sites reported on the shoes, sharing photos of the final product and saying they were expected to be released this summer. These photos came from a “sneaker sleuth” social media account by the name of @brand1an, who commented Thursday after Bryant shared her frustration with the leak. “[C]onsidering my first look was from a Tier 0 Nike retailer, this isn’t exactly a great look as it’s clear Nike intended on selling these,” he posted on Twitter. In her post, Vanessa Bryant shares a photo of an unidentified person holding one of the Mambacita shoes, showing that Nike apparently didn’t stay true to its word about canning the project. People in the comments said a sneaker shop in the United Kingdom called Footpatrol had released the shoes for a raffle that was supposed to be for the Kobe 6 Protro Del Sol colorway. The Kobe 6 Protro Mamba Forever shoes are also available on resale websites GOAT and Flight Club. Two pair are available for $1,500 and $1,800, respectively. Bryant asked in her post why the shoes were released to the public without her consent and why she and her three other daughters don’t have the shoes. Sports Vanessa Bryant posted video of her ecstatic daughter Natalia celebrating her acceptance to USC. The late Kobe Bryant was a Trojans supporter. March 31, 2021 “Nike has NOT sent any of these pairs to me and my girls,” she said. “I do not know how someone else has their hands on shoes I designed in honor of my daughter Gigi and we don’t. I hope these shoes did not get sold.” Nike, GOAT and Footpatrol had not responded to inquiries from The Times before this post was published.

Latinx Files: John Paul Brammer and the making of a 'Queer Latino Dear Abby'

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/newsletter/2021-06-03/latinx-files-john-paul-brammer-hola-papi-latinx-files

When John Paul Brammer started “Hola Papi!” in 2017 for INTO, a digital magazine launched by gay dating app Grindr, he didn’t think it would get much audience response. Since then, Brammer’s advice column, which he describes as a “Queer Latino ‘Dear Abby’ huffing poppers” and now lives on Substack, has become required reading for many members of the Latinx and LGBTQ communities — this column in which he responds to a woman afraid that she’ll never find love was one of my favorite reads of 2020. It’s not hard to see why. His writing is incredibly funny, kind and gracious to his readers, and deeply vulnerable in a way that makes it feel as if he’s talking to only you. “Hola Papi!” has also been adapted into a book, which comes out Tuesday. I spoke with Brammer ahead of its release. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity. You grew up in a biracial household in a small town in Oklahoma. What role did that experience play in your writing? I think that one of the most formative things about my life was just how uncomfortable I felt in my identity growing up. There’s a lack of education across America about the history of being nonwhite, marginalized or belonging to any community that has been historically disenfranchised. It’s really hard to find accurate information about those groups. And that’s why we rely so heavily on oral tradition, on telling each other’s stories. There’s so much that you can absorb by simply being part of a community. You are just living in proximity to people who have similar experiences, and if you don’t have that, it can lead to an interesting dynamic in how you see yourself. I feel like I’m very self-taught in every sense of the word. I’m a self-taught writer, a self-taught artist and a self-taught Mexican. I really wanted to write my perspective without feeling like I’m saying, “Well, here’s what I think being a Mexican American is about!” All I’m saying is here’s my little piece of the puzzle and I want to write it as richly and honestly as I can. Something that struck me about your book is how you write about pain and struggle with such humor. To me it made me think, “Oh, this is definitely a Mexican American book.” I’ve been thinking a lot about why pain and hardship was something that as a kid I thought of as something that could make me real or that could validate me. And I do think that it’s always the case that pain is seen as a bonding agent, as something that can bring a community together. I think that’s why I was so drawn to it as a kid, even though I now see the flaws in that narrative. I remember when I once met another Mexican and their grandparents looked a little bit like mine but they were rich. I was so stuck on this ubiquitous script where you have your poor abuelos and they are oppressed so they come north, and your family loses its Spanish and other things but your life gets better. I thought that’s how it worked for everyone and that’s just not the case. But I do believe that sadness paired with happiness is very much part of our culture. Just look at Dia de los Muertos, which is all about death but there are bright colors, smiles and happiness. Mixing the dark with something funny was something my own family did and I think it very much impacted how I tell stories. I remember one time I was walking downstairs to the kitchen and I overheard my abuelos talking about how they couldn’t afford both of their medications. It was tragic, but then my grandma started arguing that her heart was more important than his leg and so that settled it, which made it funny. Do you think that Latinidad is real? It is as real as any number of things people believe. It’s real at any given moment, which I know sounds like a cop-out but it’s true. I have more or less given up in trying to determine things like that because I just know there’s no true winning there. One of the recurring themes from the “Hola Papi!” column and book is an acknowledgment that we are all on a journey of self-acceptance. Do you feel like you’re closer to where you want to be? I have come to terms with one thing about myself: I am once in a while going to encounter information that is going to shake the idea of what I am, and if I’m not prepared to accommodate that, then I could very easily crumble. That’s especially true when it comes to my Mexican identity. I know that anything I say right now, if I were to say it with 100% confidence, it would probably end up blowing up in my face. Language changes. Our understanding of identity changes. Race as a construct and as a system is constantly changing to either incorporate or exclude different people at different times. It could very easily be the case, for example, that more Mexican Americans or Chicanos assimilate into whiteness as time goes on. I just can’t rely on this society to legitimize me and to give me an identity that I can very comfortably build a home in, because that’s not how any of this works. I find it to be similar when it comes to sexuality and for queerness. These debates that we have over what words mean — if we want to use “queer,” or “gay” or “homosexual” — these things change over time and we’re constantly bringing in knowledge and the culture around us is constantly shifting. I very much try never to think that I’ve reached the destination when it comes to identity, because identity is more or less a hallucination. It’s something that we can imagine for ourselves. It can bring us into contact with other people who share similar experiences and we can pool resources in that way. But when we try to define it in a way that’s more of a permanent fixture, then that’s when you’re going to start losing. And I can’t afford to have an identity crisis because I can only write so many books in my life. The Latinx experience chronicled Get the Latinx Files newsletter for stories that capture the multitudes within our communities. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. You’re pretty active on Twitter. What is your relationship with social media? I can’t deny that the reason I have the career I do is because of Twitter. That’s how I got my very first media job. It’s more or less how I got my second one, too. I do see it as an indispensable tool for moving me along because I was living with my parents in rural Oklahoma, I wanted to be a writer and I needed to get out of there. It’s had a very real material impact on my life. But it’s tricky squaring that with the fact that it also incentivizes a depersonalization among people. I get so frustrated with it and I see the way people talk to each other. And I’ve noticed the way I’ve talked to other people as well. It’s not like everyone else is doing the wrong thing and I’m doing it right. I would love to tell you that I found a good balance with social media, but I just haven’t. It’s just not the case. I feel like every tweet I make is kind of against my will, or that I capitulated a little bit. I couldn’t keep myself from saying something. You have worked in media for a few years. What has been your experience being a Mexican American/Latinx in that largely white space? I’m vocally bitter about a lot of my experiences being a Mexican American in American media, especially during the Trump years. This sounds bad, but I never had more work in my life. But what I noticed was that oftentimes the things they wanted me to write about, they had subtle ways of informing me what my take should be and what would perform best for them, almost to the point where it felt like they were putting words in my mouth. It’s deeply condescending and it made me pretty resentful. It reveals a lot about what they think the role of any nonwhite or marginalized person in media should be like. We’re not going to trust you to report on the “nuanced, unbiased issues,” but when we do want something biased and bombastic, we want you to yell at someone. It felt like it was constantly putting me on the offensive, like an attack dog of sorts. What if I have a different, more nuanced approach to this? How was the pandemic for you and how excited are you for life to somewhat return to normal? I would love to tell you that I was one of the strongest soldiers in the pandemic, but I wasn’t. I very much put a lot of my life on hold where I was just like, OK, I can’t really do anything right now, so I’m just going to shut down. I’m pretty bad at finding coping mechanisms on the fly. I’m so excited at the idea of being able to sit in a coffee shop again because I really can’t work from home very well. If I’m writing, I need to be somewhere where there’s like a low hum of productivity around me. That’s where I’m at my best. I’m very happy the book is being released into a world where there’s more hope than usual. I wrote this book over two years ago, and now it’s become the center of my life again, which is great because it means people care. But it also means that I can start thinking about working on more projects and using this book as a platform to go even further with the things I want to create. I’m hoping that this summer can be a time of invention and creativity for me. Consider subscribing to the Los Angeles Times Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. Become a subscriber. La Máquina finally did it. After more than 23 years of heartbreak, Cruz Azul is the Liga MX champion once again. The club, one of Mexico’s oldest, and its fans had seen themselves become the butt of the joke after nearly a quarter of a century of losing in jaw-dropping, spectacular fashion. The team even inspired the verb “cruzazulear” — to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory — which I wrote about in December after yet another epic collapse. “They have made us suffer so much,” Cesar Ramírez, a 38-year-old accountant from Mexico City, told my colleague Kate Linthicum. “But here we are.” Following Cruz Azul’s victory, I took to Twitter to invite readers to write about what this victory means for them. Here is what two of them had to say. Michelle Sanchez, 29, Austin, Texas On Sunday night, Cruz Azul were crowned champions after 23 years. I was sitting on my couch in tears, in the usual spot my brother and I would sit in to watch soccer games with my dad. Only this time he wasn’t next to me. Isauro Sánchez Torres — also known as “Richard” or “Richie,” a nickname I gave him — was a longtime La Máquina fan. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to witness and celebrate the end of their long losing streak with him. My dad passed away on Jan. 15, 2021, due to COVID-19 complications. He was 69 years old. On New Year’s Eve, I received a video from my cousin with a message from former Cruz Azul player Christian “Chaco” Giménez wishing my dad “feliz fiestas” and giving him words of encouragement after he was hospitalized for over two weeks. Because COVID-19 safety protocols were high, he wasn’t allowed any visitors, so seeing him smile for the first time through FaceTime brought hope to my family. Part of this week’s newsletter will be on Cruz Azul’s historic victory. @MichelleS_tv shared this video of former Cementero Chaco Giménez sending well wishes to her father, who battled and lost his fight with Covid. pic.twitter.com/aIRarwVO2A In Mexican Catholic funeral tradition, a cross is lifted nine days after burying someone, symbolizing that one has crossed over to the other side. This championship — the year Cruz Azul won their “novena” title — will be one that we will never forget. Edgar Perez, 32, Los Angeles The final whistle was blown, Chuy Corona and Cata Dominguez lifted the cup, and yet it still didn’t seem real. Just six months after the mother of all cruzazuleadas, Cruz Azul finally broke the curse and became the champions of Liga MX. I have been waiting for this moment for so long that I was in shock when it finally happened. I wasn’t even able to cry right away because I couldn’t process everything that was happening. After getting through the wave of emotion and dealing with the bombardment of texts, I felt as if a great weight was finally lifted off my shoulders. I could only imagine how the players must have felt. What I’m feeling now is a sense of relief. Relief that the trolling and memes are done, for now. The latest installment of our multipart documentary series “Fernandomania @ 40” is out today. You can watch here. The fifth episode takes us to the start of the 1981 season. Fernando Valenzuela was the team’s third starting pitcher, but an injury to Jerry Reuss led manager Tommy Lasorda to tap the unheralded 20-year-old rookie to take his place. El Toro delivered a shutout against the Houston Astros. More important, the legend of Fernandomania came to life. Missed the first four episodes? You can find them all here.

Jill Biden gets Delaware beach day for her 70th birthday

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-06-03/jill-biden-birthday-delaware-beach-day

Jill Biden is getting a day at the beach for her 70th birthday. President Biden and his wife went to their Delaware beach house to celebrate the first lady’s milestone birthday on Thursday. The first lady was already at the house in Rehoboth Beach when the president arrived Wednesday evening. She planned to spend a quiet birthday at home with the president, said Michael LaRosa, the first lady’s spokesperson. The trip was a rare midweek getaway from the White House by a president. It also was Biden’s first visit to the couple’s vacation home since he took office in January. The Bidens were expected back at the White House on Friday. Jill Biden, a longtime community college English professor, recently finished virtually teaching a course at Northern Virginia Community College. She won’t be teaching over the summer. World & Nation President Biden has marked his first Memorial Day weekend as commander in chief by honoring the nation’s sacrifices in a deeply personal manner. May 30, 2021 Biden often talks about how proud he is of his wife of nearly 44 years. “Teaching is not what Jill does. Teaching is who she is,” Biden said last week, echoing his wife’s own description of herself. “And she’s done it her whole adult life, and she’s still doing it.” She had pledged to keep teaching if she became first lady. “But I don’t think she bargained for having to teach online, initially,” Biden joked, adding that she spent a lot of time, “four hours a day for about a month,” learning how to teach virtually, as most schooling was done that way during the pandemic. Biden bought the beach house for $2.7 million in 2017 after leaving the vice presidency, aided by an $8-million multi-book deal he and his wife signed. The house is on a cul-de-sac in North Shores, just north of the beach resort. It has a swimming pool that overlooks Cape Henlopen State Park, where Biden’s helicopter landed Wednesday. The house is blocks from the Atlantic Ocean and a short drive from downtown Rehoboth Beach. 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. The Bidens moved in less than two years after their son Beau, a former Delaware attorney general and Delaware Army National Guard member, died of brain cancer in May 2015. One sign on the house says “Beau’s gift”; another sign reads “Forever Jill.” Jill Biden told Vogue magazine that her husband had promised her that “when I write my book, I’ll buy you a beach house.” “I wanted it to be the kind of place where you can come in in your wet bathing suit and bare feet and I can just take the broom and brush out the sand,” she told Vogue for the March 2020 article. “And that’s what this is. Everything’s easy.” Joe Biden spent time in Rehoboth Beach during the 2020 presidential campaign, including after the Democratic National Convention and after becoming president-elect. Biden so far has spent most weekends as president at his home in Wilmington, Del.

What trainer Bob Baffert's suspension means to California racetracks

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-06-03/what-trainer-bob-baffert-suspension-means-to-california-tracks

Trainer Bob Baffert’s two-year suspension from Churchill Downs rocketed through the horse racing world Wednesday and overshadowed Saturday’s third leg of the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes. This story is going to be with us for a while as it makes its way through the courts. What does it mean for California tracks? There are confusing aspects to the suspension, which we’ll try to clear up. Does this mean Baffert won’t have a Kentucky Derby runner for two years? That’s the intent of Churchill Downs, but a judge likely will provide the short-term answer when Baffert’s legal team undoubtedly asks for a temporary restraining order. The key word there is “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 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 will close later this year, the Fair Grounds in New Orleans, Turfway Park in Kentucky and Presque Isle Downs in Pennsylvania. Any other tracks that would join would do so on a voluntary basis. Can 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, 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 suspend a trainer without due process? The tracks would claim it’s their right to do what they want. It’s their version of “No shoes, no shirt, no service.” It was somewhat tested two years ago when Stronach Group (which owns Santa Anita) barred Jerry Hollendorfer from running horses at any of its tracks after a series of fatalities. Other tracks, including those in New York, chose to honor the ban. Others, such as Churchill Downs, did not. Hollendorfer went to court and got a TRO to allow him to run at Del Mar. He tried the same thing in Los Angeles and Alameda counties and was denied a TRO. Looking for consistency? You won’t find it. Can the California Horse Racing Board ban him? Not without due process. You’ll notice that Baffert has been banned by Churchill Downs, not 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 officials would surely prefer not to have to answer. But they will have to make a decision. Santa Anita, which only has three weeks left in its current meeting, has decided to wait for the KHRC to conclude its investigation, a smart move with so little racing time left. Sports After second failed drug test, Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit could be disqualified and forfeit his purse money. Trainer Bob Baffert is suspended. June 2, 2021 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 that a horse can’t test positive for it on race day. That is because it could hinder veterinarians in their pre-race exams. If a horse has an injury, heat radiates from the affected area. If the problem is treated with an anti-inflammatory such as betamethasone, it would suppress heat and a veterinarian might not discover that a horse is 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 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, it’s unclear 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.

Busted: 3 dangerous social-media myths about COVID-19 vaccines

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-03/covid-19-vaccine-myths-busted

Some COVID-19 vaccine myths are outrageously false. Yet they spread like wildfire on social media and can play a role in persuading some people to hold off on getting a shot. Some of the people writing or spreading the myths are trying to attract attention or profit off of peddling lies, says Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer. One spreader of myths earned more than $34,000 in donations off their Facebook page, she said. “Don’t get played by these people,” Ferrer said. “Social media has made it possible for ... the myth spreaders themselves to actually make some money by circulating harmful falsehoods.” Here are some statements of fact, framed to rebut myths Ferrer has heard recently. It is impossible for COVID-19 vaccines available in the U.S. to spread the coronavirus. The vaccines don’t contain any part of a coronavirus — “live, dead, in parts or in whole” — Ferrer said. “Because of this,” she said, “people who get vaccinated do not become infected with COVID-19.” COVID-19 vaccines can produce generally mild side effects, such as tiredness, headache, muscle pain and fever, but those symptoms generally go away after a day or so. “You are not contagious with these side effects. It’s your body responding to the pumping of your system to be able to produce the antibodies you would need to fight off this infection,” Ferrer said. “These side effects go away on their own, unlike COVID infection itself, which lasts often for a while and can cause very serious illness.” One video on Facebook making such false claims that has received tens of thousands of shares on the social media platform contains manipulated footage, Ferrer said. These rumors originated in a petition that began circulating in the United Kingdom aiming to stop COVID-19 vaccine trials, Ferrer said. “The author of this petition was a scientist that was formerly employed by Pfizer ... who had some disappointing things happen near the end of his career,” she said. “The petition falsely claimed that an amino acid sequence and protein that forms that spiky crown of the virus that causes COVID is the same as the one in a protein on the surface of placental cells ... and that vaccines, therefore, that target this protein are going to lead the body to attack pregnancies, resulting in miscarriages. “The protein on the virus, and the protein on the placenta, are both spike proteins. But ... there are different spike proteins, and your antibodies can and do tell the difference,” Ferrer added. “Additionally, both the vaccine trials and subsequent studies have shown that vaccines are extremely safe in pregnancy. “Among nearly 4,000 pregnant women who’ve received the vaccine since they were approved, pregnancies have been as safe as they were among women who hadn’t received the vaccines.”

The best way to see Temecula wine country? Try a balloon ride

https://www.latimes.com/travel/newsletter/2021-06-03/temecula-valley-wine-country-hot-air-balloon-escapes

Good morning, fellow Escapists. Summer is almost here, and with it come lots of opportunities to heat up, cool down and explore California. In this edition of Escapes, you’ll find quintessential Golden State activities, including a hot-air balloon ride and reader-submitted ideas for the best places to find redwoods, as well as a hack for enjoying hotel pools on a budget. Dog parents, keep reading for a list of the best pup-friendly hikes in L.A. Have you discovered any gems? As always, keep your travel recommendations coming — send me an email if you’d like me to feature your suggestion in an edition of Escapes. 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. One item I’m hoping to scratch off my summer bucket list: a hot-air balloon ride across Temecula Valley. Times travel writer Christopher Reynolds included this classic Southern California experience on his list of the 40 best outdoor experiences in the state. “You could stay on the ground and enjoy the restaurants and tasting rooms of the Temecula Valley’s wine-country scene,” Reynolds writes. “But you could also rise before dawn, climb into a basket under a big balloon, then drift skyward and float over the hills and vineyards.” If you go, be prepared to wake up early for your flight. As Reynolds explains, the wind calms down in the early morning, plus it’s a great time for photos. Rides typically last 60 to 75 minutes and start at about $200 per person. California Dreamin’, A Grape Escape and Magical Adventure offer balloon rides. Speaking of our list of the 40 best outdoor experiences in California, Reynolds also asked readers to let us know what beloved spots we should’ve included in the roundup. Among the many responses, he received lots of emails about redwoods. “In fact, my Southern California friends, we are suffering from redwood envy,” he writes. “Redwoods and redwood country got more support than any other corner of California.” Reader Keith Breslin of Toluca Lake told Reynolds he considers the absence of Muir Woods “a glaring omission,” while Gilroy Hain of Paso Robles pointed to the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden as “only place in Southern California where you can take a walk in a little redwood forest.” Other favorite spots to revel in redwoods? Readers mentioned Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, Crescent City and its surrounding redwoods, the Rockefeller Forest in Humboldt Redwoods State Park and Fern Canyon in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. If you’re craving pool time this summer, you don’t need to drop hundreds on a resort room — just buy a day pass to one of Southern California’s best hotel pools. Times contributor Rosemary McClure recently reported on great day pass deals at luxe hotels in Orange and San Diego counties. Here are some of her recommendations: Enjoying this newsletter? Consider subscribing to the Los Angeles Times Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. Become a subscriber. Is your four-legged pal itching for adventure too? You’re in luck — Times contributor Matt Pawlik recently compiled a list of the 12 best urban trails for dogs in L.A. His recommendations include Millard Canyon, an easy 1½-mile out-and-back trail to a waterfall that’s ideal for any dog that loves a splash, as well as the ultra-popular spot Runyon Canyon. Pawlik included plenty of easy jaunts for humans and fur babies alike, but he also added a suggestion for those who gravitate toward Type 2 Fun. He explained that the strenuous Vital Link Trail in Wildwood Canyon Park in Burbank will “strengthen your human/canine relationship ... and your legs.” Pack lots of water for your pup and treat yourself at the nearby Brewyard Beer Co., which is dog-friendly — of course. Take a virtual trip to Australia with Storyspheres, which offers an in-depth 360 tour of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. The park is more than a beautiful destination filled with flora and fauna; the virtual experience highlights the rock formations’ deep significance for Australia’s Anangu people. Have you discovered virtual experiences you’d like to pass along to others? Let me know if you have recommendations. “Drivin’ fast with the windows down, 40 miles outside of town.” Hope your weekend is filled with refreshing drives and good tunes, like this song by Miki Ratsula. Until next week!

Review: Spellbinding novelist Rivka Galchen's new book is a hysterical witch hunt

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2021-06-03/acclaimed-for-spellbinding-fiction-rivka-galchen-goes-on-a-witch-hunt

On the Shelf Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch By Rivka GalchenFarrar, Straus & Giroux: 288 pages, $27If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. When challenged, former President Donald Trump often claimed he was the victim of a witch hunt, even “the greatest Witch Hunt in American history.” This was not just an exaggeration but an inversion: He was being investigated in search of truth, while in a witch hunt, a forgone guilty verdict is reached by twisted interpretation and fantastical invention. Especially in 1617 in Germany, the setting of Rivka Galchen’s delightfully funny second novel, “Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch.” Katharina is a sharp-tongued grandmother who leads a quiet life until she catches the attention of a handful of townspeople who drunkenly accuse her of witchcraft. Did she make a woman unable to bear children? Was she responsible for the death of a hog? Katharina dismisses this as nonsense, but the town pulses with rumor, allegiances ebbing and flowing, and the case against her is serious. Her daughter-in-law Gertie delights in reading scandal sheets that describe the torture and killing of other women accused of witchcraft. One is so frightening that Katharina skips town to stay with her son. Katharina Kepler has three adult children: Christoph, Greta and Hans. The last, Hans, is known to us as Johannes Kepler, the man behind the laws of planetary motion, an imperial mathematician and key figure in the scientific revolution. And his mother was, in fact, put on trial for being a witch. That kernel was the genesis for the novel, which is inevitably about the tension between superstition and science, between facts and fantasy. But the book avoids being about the famed Kepler. Katharina mostly calls him Hans; she refers to his work doing astrological charts — astrology and astronomy were conjoined at the time — but knows little of his scientific pursuits. The connection is so subtle that an advance review in Publishers Weekly didn’t even catch it. This is of a piece with Galchen’s earlier work. Her 2014 short story collection “American Innovations” riffed on iconic short fiction by men (including Haruki Murakami, James Joyce and David Foster Wallace) using female narrators in revamped situations. And her audacious 2008 debut, “Atmospheric Disturbances,” is the story of a marriage told via scientific notions and Borges-inspired narrative wrinkles. Galchen is a medical doctor with an MFA, unafraid to bring significant intelligence to her stories as well as to their structure and conception. Books The stories in Rivka Galchen’s ‘American Innovations’ are inspired by works by David Foster Wallace, Haruki Murakami and others and told by female narrators. May 1, 2014 All fiction deals with the underlying question of how it is being told — are we listening in on someone’s thoughts, or an omniscient narrator, something else? Here, Katharina, who cannot write, is giving testimony to her friend and neighbor Simon, who can. That leaves a small space between what Katharina is thinking and what she says — although she is inclined toward saying exactly what she thinks. She calls one of her accusers “the Cabbage” and refers to another not by name but as the wife of a third-rate glazier. “They smelled of drink,” Katharina tells Simon, and us. “The crowd of them looked like a pack of dull troubadours who, come morning, have made off with all the butter.” With descriptions like this, Galchen efficiently drops us into 17th century Germany without elaborate scene-setting. Her acknowledgements show stacks of books she read for research, but that knowledge has been absorbed and digested. She doesn’t explain; she reveals. It’s harder than it looks. We learn about Katharina’s beloved cow, the baker she likes and the one she doesn’t, her sweet daughter and hot-tempered younger son, the town’s petty rivalries and her possibly fatal mistakes. The situation may be dire, but the novel is gosh-darn funny. Katharina is sharp and bright, and her narration sings. Lifestyle Where Rivka Galchen reads. Sept. 12, 2019 Supplementing her narration are letters to the court (including actual historical letters from Johannes), townspeople’s testimonies and Simon’s contributions, which complicate his role. The testimonies appear in Q&A format, with the identity of the questioner or questioners effaced (a nod to Kafka, perhaps). The intentions of the questioner are unclear: Do they wish to see Katharina convicted and punished, or the opposite? What is clear is that the townspeople are malleable. What they believe, recall or testify may change according to the shifting mood of the town or the questioner. What began as a minor, irrelevant incident forces Katharina to consider leaving her home more than once — leaving, then returning with the threat drawing ever nearer. As conviction comes to seem more likely, some people draw closer to her while others fall away, as typically happens to relationships during a crisis. Those elliptical orbits elegantly evoke Hans’ work describing the gravitational pull between objects. The novel’s intertwining voices also pull apart, revealing contradictions and omissions. What is known and can be shared is maybe not as simple as it first seemed. Galchen has written another smart book that investigates the power of narrative, both good and bad, foregrounding a woman who’d only been a footnote to a famous man’s story, all while being funny and deceptively easy to read. It’s quite a magic trick. Kellogg is a former books editor of The Times. Books With his lackluster, misogynistic new collection “First Person Singular,” Japan’s most famous author proves his cultural reach exceeds his grasp. April 1, 2021

Queen Elizabeth II to meet with Biden at Windsor Castle next weekend

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-03/queen-elizabeth-meet-president-biden-windsor-castle

Buckingham Palace says Queen Elizabeth II will meet President Biden at Windsor Castle during his visit to Britain next week to attend the Group of Seven leaders’ summit. The British monarch will host the president and First Lady Jill Biden on the final day of the June 11-13 summit, which will be held in Cornwall, in southwest England, the palace said Thursday. The leaders of the wealthy industrialized nations are holding their first face-to-face meeting in more than two years. Host nation Britain is keen to show that the rich countries’ club still has clout in a fast-changing world. It also hopes to use the Britain’s G-7 presidency this year to help forge a post-Brexit “Global Britain” role for the country.

Review: ‘Undine’ is a strange, captivating mermaid-meets-man love story

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-06-03/review-undine-christian-petzold-german-mermaid-man-love-story

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. The great German writer-director Christian Petzold has a number of recurring fixations: women in trouble, doomed romance, the specters of a grim past hovering over an unsettled present. In film after mysterious, melancholy film, he’s shuffled and reshuffled these noirish elements, placing them in revealing new configurations even when he sometimes relies on the same faces. In his brilliant 2019 drama, “Transit,” Franz Rogowski and Paula Beer played two almost-lovers caught in a kind of temporal loop: It was a wartime melodrama that kept running in circles, turning its characters into captives of history or genre or both. Beer and Rogowski are back in Petzold’s strange, steadily entrancing new picture, “Undine,” only this time there’s nothing “almost” about their love story and nothing uncertain about their time frame. We are in present-day Berlin, though Undine Wibeau (Beer) dips frequently into the past in her work as a historian and guide, explaining how the city’s recent development reflects and sometimes conceals the scars of its war-ravaged history. You wouldn’t necessarily guess, from her smart black suit and her nimble recitations, that she is in fact the Undine, the water sprite of ancient European lore whose love for a human has granted her human form. That’s where this movie’s sly conceptual gambit — and almost every Petzold movie has one — comes into play. His filmmaking is often premised on fascinating contradictions of tone and subject. A devotee of classic Hollywood, Petzold delights in the conventions of old thrillers and melodramas, their pulpy pleasures and overripe contrivances. For all that, his diamond-hard surfaces are exceedingly poised, even cool to the touch. “Undine” is a poker-faced fairy tale, a fantasy wrought by a committed cinematic realist. It’s an example of how a filmmaker can take an outlandish central idea and play it beautifully straight. We first meet Undine as she’s being dumped by her lover Johannes (Jacob Matschenz) for another woman — a betrayal that might seem banal if not for the almost otherworldly pain we see in her downcast gaze. “If you leave me, I’ll have to kill you. You know that,” she says, more solemn than angry as she invokes their binding supernatural contract. But before she can make good on that promise, Johannes leaves and another young man, Christoph (Rogowski), is suddenly sweeping Undine off her feet, in a scene that’s by turns funny, eerie and ardently romantic. Technically, they both get swept off their feet, flooded with water and bits of broken glass when an aquarium ruptures nearby — a startling accident that feels like a blessing, even a baptism, of their union. It also carries a warning: Some of that broken glass draws blood. Undine isn’t the only half of this couple with an affinity for water. Christoph, an industrial diver, spends hours beneath the surface of a nearby lake, welding underwater artifacts and casting an occasionally awestruck eye on the wildlife. (This slippery tale of romantic entrapment may not be a catfishing narrative but it does feature a first-rate catfish.) Beneath the surface, amid gorgeously photographed shades of bubbly blue-green (shot by Petzold’s longtime cinematographer, Hans Fromm), the movie’s romance deepens and so do its mysteries. Undine and Christoph dive headlong into desire, embracing each other’s worlds with playful abandon and refusing to let each other go — an idea sweetly conveyed by the repeated image of Christoph running alongside Undine’s train as it pulls into or away from a station. There’s some sly mythological foreshadowing to those arrivals and departures. But there’s also a deeper fascination with the very shape and structure of Berlin, whose open plazas, clustered towers and criss-crossing railway lines are sometimes glimpsed from a distance, but mostly represented by the enormous scale model that Undine presents to the public. Beautifully and imperfectly, these structures bear witness to the extraordinary transformation of a city that was destroyed, partitioned and reunified in the last century, and which was originally built centuries ago over the swamps and marshes from which Undine presumably arose. In one enchanting-verging-on-ridiculous scene, Undine rehearses her next lecture aloud during an intimate moment with Christoph, making explicit the link between this fantastical love story and its historical and architectural foundations. Is Undine, a lover of men, also a kind of guardian to humanity? Do her bonds with Christoph and Johannes — whose eventual return sends the plot spiraling toward tragedy — reflect the conflicted spirit of Berlin itself, struggling to reconcile the old and the new? That’s a less graceful interpretation than Petzold, a master of suggestive ambiguity in films like “Barbara” and “Phoenix,” would typically allow. But in a movie that finds him playing freely with mythological archetypes, perhaps blunter, more concrete metaphors are only to be expected. At one point Undine invokes the classic design principle that “form follows function,” a rule that Petzold seems to both flout and uphold here. “Undine” has its eccentricities — it’s surely the only film whose musical motifs are a Bach piano concerto and “Stayin’ Alive” — but its unfussy compositions and fluid editing have the same elegant precision as the filmmaker’s earlier work. Its most lyrical effects are exquisitely simple: Somehow, the red of Undine’s tousled hair and the aquamarine of her window curtains convey more undercurrents of feeling than any elaborate CGI frippery would. Beer, whose face can fill with joy one moment and darken with dread and anxiety the next, is matched in intensity by Rogowski, who makes Christoph so vulnerably lovesick that you may start to fear for him. The actors’ connection feels so right and so true that it works its own kind of magic, to the point where the story’s fantastical context could almost blur into insignificance, though it never does. In “Transit,” these two actors were mere ships passing in the night; in “Undine,” it’s a thrill just to watch them take the plunge. ‘Undine’ In German with English subtitlesNot ratedRunning time: 1 hour, 32 minutesPlaying: Opens June 4, Laemmle NoHo 7, North Hollywood; Laemmle Royal, West Los Angeles; Laemmle Claremont 5, Claremont; Laemmle Playhouse 7, Pasadena; Laemmle Town Center 5, Encino; also on digital and VOD

Review: Centuries before Marvel, there was the escapist pastoral. A witty new book traces its influence

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2021-06-03/before-the-superhero-movie-came-the-escapist-pastoral-a-writers-keen-defense-of-the-wispy-form

On the Shelf Gallery of Clouds By Rachel EisendrathNew York Review of Books: 160 pages, $20If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. “Literature,” Rachel Eisendrath insists, “is a history of retrospection.” The observation comes early in “Gallery of Clouds,” her brief but intense meditation on the pastoral form, Philip Sidney and all the ways we find ourselves reconfigured by reading books. This is not to say that “Gallery of Clouds” is a treatise on how reading is good for us; Eisendrath has little interest in making such a case. Rather, it is an inquiry into style. At its center is the notion that a book is less a fixed thing, a text to be parsed, than something inherently subjective. This idea defines the contemporary essay, which we read not so much for content as for conversation, to encounter the depth and nuance of another mind. Think of Sarah Manguso or Brian Dillon; think of Zadie Smith. “So what kind of mind is my book?” Eisendrath asks. “Although this book, like a collection of lyric poems (despite being prose), is written in pieces, in a non-narrative mode, it is not written in fragments, shards, or scattered rhymes. No unity has been lost because there never was any unity.” Eisendrath is framing the essay as a form of discourse, one that offers an opportunity to think in public and in real time. A professor of medieval and Renaissance studies at Barnard College, she is fiercely aware of these possibilities. She calls her book “Gallery of Clouds” because “[c]louds are ephemeral moments of light and color that stay still only as long as you look at them, but then — as soon as your mind wanders — change into something else.” By way of illustration, Eisendrath moves fluidly between the present and the Renaissance, between personal recollections and aesthetic arguments. She opens with a reverie in which she encounters Virginia Woolf in heaven; she considers not just Sidney but also Shakespeare, Montaigne and Walter Benjamin. She wants to take her readers “into unknown regions of the universe, maybe even into unknown regions of themselves.” This can be a daunting challenge, but it works, because for a short book, “Gallery of Clouds” is both capacious — “A thing that is nothing. A thing that is many things” — and intensely focused on exploring “the perpetual tension in rhetoric between words and things.” Books The novelist and essayist’s slim new collection, “Intimations,” probes our COVID-19 reality as well as her own gifts, blind spots and vulnerabilities. July 24, 2020 Eisendrath builds her case by invoking Sidney, whose pastoral romance “Arcadia” was only partially revised when he died in 1586 at age 31. If you haven’t read the work, that’s not an issue, since “Gallery of Clouds” is more interested in how “Arcadia” operates than in what it has to say. What’s essential, Eisendrath contends, is how Sidney’s work relies on an “emphatic artificiality,” which is to say that it requires us “to exist for a moment in a realm that does not want to seem real.” What does she mean by this? For one thing, that “Arcadia” exists within “a mythic and idealized landscape far from the realities of rapid urbanization in late sixteenth-century London.” Like the Italian romance — of which, Eisendrath comments, “‘Arcadia’ is a first cousin on the family’s English side” — the pastoral is a form designed to meander, to turn away from the contemporaneous in favor of an illusory, unspoiled world. Literature as a mechanism of escape, then, rather than a strategy for engagement. But can literature really operate in such a way? For Eisendrath, this is something of an open question, and how we respond to it has everything to do with language, or what she calls “peculiarities of style.” She continues: “In the case of Sidney’s ‘Arcadia,’ one such peculiarity of style lies in his intricate sentence structures, which depend on a series of balanced clauses. To a modern ear, these sentences may sound overly ornate, trinketish. … To change metaphors: their little wings flutter at our eardrums.” It’s no coincidence that Eisendrath invokes our “modern ear” even as her own sentences echo something of Sidney’s elaborate flow. What she is after is not form as imitation so much as illustration, a set of resonances that are nothing if not modernist in intent. Remember Woolf, whose ghostly presence leads Eisendrath to establish that a book can be academic, articulating “a theory of mind,” or personal, “a place for my consciousness.” “Gallery of Clouds,” of course, is a little bit of both. Entertainment & Arts Reading Woolf’s extended essay ‘A Room of One’s Own’ is a transformative moment for one 15-year-old Tucson girl. May 22, 2011 “We modern readers,” Eisendrath confides, “… favor the thing side of things.” She suggests we have lost sight of the mythic in favor of what we imagine to be a more authentic realism. But is that actually the case? “Does the ornate necessarily mean the false?” she wonders. “Does the simple invariably mean the true? Is it really so easy to determine where the truth lies? And is not the truth precious enough that we should treat the search for it with the utmost care?” On the one hand, such assertions tend to trigger my resistance; I don’t believe truth — whatever that is — should be the necessary goal of art. Yet Eisendrath wins me over with the brilliance of her thinking, which grows ever deeper as all the circling complicates her point of view. Partway through the book, she cites an aesthetic strategy known as “Corot’s red hat,” a reference to 19th century French painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, who inserted in his images “a small spot of bright red, which he uses to represent a hat or scarf or coat, but which does not otherwise belong to the palette that determines the rest of the painting.” The effect is to remind us of the artifice in even the most naturalistic representations, the imposition of the artist’s sensibility on everything she experiences or sees. Art, in other words, is subjective at the core, from the moment it selects its objects. Montaigne, Eisendrath reminds us, “also worked with the bits that floated his way: thoughts, scraps of reading, illnesses, falls of horses.” And Benjamin once wrote, “What for others are deviations are, for me, the data which determine my course.” It is also true of Eisendrath herself. “Gallery of Clouds” is not for everyone. It is esoteric and discursive, a book of questions that cannot be answered, that elude us with the inconstancy of clouds. At the same time, what else is there? How else are we to mark our passage through the world? “One thought links with another thought, arm in arm, arm in arm, weaving through the field — and there is no king or teacher.” The only strategy, then — as readers and as writers — is to trust ourselves. Books Kate Zambreno’s process is rumination and frenzy. That’s how she completed “To Write as if Already Dead,” an homage to the late writer Hervé Guibert. June 2, 2021 Ulin is a former books editor and book critic of The Times.

Magnitude 3.6 earthquake rattles San Jose

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-03/magnitude-3-6-earthquake-hits-near-clovis-calif

A magnitude 3.6 earthquake was reported at 5:15 a.m. Thursday a mile from San Jose, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The earthquake occurred five miles from Alum Rock, Calif.; seven miles from Milpitas; 10 miles from Fremont; and 12 miles from Santa Clara. In the past 10 days, there has been one earthquake of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered nearby. An average of 234 earthquakes with magnitudes between 3.0 and 4.0 occur per year in California and Nevada, according to a recent three-year data sample. The earthquake occurred at a depth of 3.7 miles. Did you feel this earthquake? Consider reporting what you felt to the USGS. Even if you didn’t feel this small earthquake, you never know when the Big One is going to strike. Ready yourself by following our five-step earthquake preparedness guide and building your own emergency kit. This story was automatically generated by Quakebot, a computer application that monitors the latest earthquakes detected by the USGS. A Times editor reviewed the post before it was published. If you’re interested in learning more about the system, visit our list of frequently asked questions.

Rams' Cooper Kupp clears up mystery injury from last season

https://www.latimes.com/sports/rams/story/2021-06-03/rams-cooper-kupp-mystery-injury

In 2018, Rams receiver Cooper Kupp missed the team’s run to the Super Bowl because of a season-ending left knee injury. Last season, a right knee injury sidelined Kupp for the NFC divisional-round playoff defeat to the Green Bay Packers. Kupp said Wednesday that he was “feeling great” and had “no issues” post injury as the Rams continue offseason workouts with new quarterback Matthew Stafford in preparation for the 2021 season. In a videoconference with reporters, Kupp also said that while he dealt with knee bursitis during the 2020 season, that was not the condition that caused him to sit out against the Packers. In the Rams’ wild-card victory over the Seattle Seahawks, Kupp left the game in the fourth quarter. Kupp said Wednesday that he suffered a “de-gloving injury,” with a French name that he could not recall. Kupp suffered a Morel-Lavalle’e lesion, in which skin and tissue separate from underlying tissue. “It’s not a pretty thing but it was a degloving injury,” he said. “It wasn’t bursitis.” “I think we had, I don’t know, 12 to 15 needles put in my knee that week.” — Rams Cooper Kupp, on injury last season Kupp spent the days leading up to the game against the Packers at Lambeau Field working with medical staff to try to play. “I think we had, I don’t know, 12 to 15 needles put in my knee that week just trying to figure out how to either numb the pain or pulling fluid out,” he said. “All the different things, trying to just get back on the field.” The determination that he could not play came down to the “last second,” Kupp said. “It was heart-breaker,” he said. Now Kupp, 27, is part of a remade receiver corps that includes Robert Woods, DeSean Jackson, Van Jefferson and rookie Tutu Atwell. Rams Without a deep threat to stretch defense last season, the Rams added speed with veteran DeSean Jackson and second-round draft pick Tutu Atwell. May 26, 2021 Woods signed with the Rams in 2017 after playing four seasons with the Buffalo Bills. Kupp was a third-round draft pick in 2017. Both received extensions in 2020. “Me and Cooper been here the longest, so really just taking that leadership role,” Woods said last week. The 34-year-old Jackson, a 13-year NFL veteran, still has superior speed and is acclimating to the Rams offense, Kupp said. The addition of the speedy Atwell, a second-round draft pick from Louisville, gives Stafford multiple targets. “We’ve got such a deep group of guys and really the next best thing about it is that guys aren’t just locked in on one position,” Kupp said. “You really feel like you’ve got five guys that can play every position that you ask them to. ... Not knowing where guys are going to end up at makes it really fun for us to be able to move around in this offense.” Kupp spent the first four years of his career catching passes from quarterback Jared Goff. The wideout has 288 receptions, 24 for touchdowns. Kupp and Woods last season ranked among the NFL’s best receivers at yardage gained after a catch. In January, the Rams traded Goff and two first-round draft picks to the Detroit Lions for Stafford, a 12-year veteran. Kupp said he had had dinner with Stafford’s family and was developing chemistry with him off and on the field. Rams Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford opened up in an interview, including his decision to ask for a trade and an eating contest he had with Clayton Kershaw. May 19, 2021 Organized team activities the last few weeks have enabled receivers working with Stafford to “see the field through his lens,” Kupp said, “and understand what Matthew wants us to do at receiver and how he wants us to run our routes and the holes he wants us to find.” Kupp said the Rams training staff will have a plan in place to manage all players’ health and workload during a season that will feature a 17-game schedule for the first time. His knee injury at the end of last season “was just kind of a freaky thing” and could not be prevented, he said. “Just moving forward from it,” he said.

'The meeting that changed the world': Inside the first days of the Kardashian empire

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2021-06-03/keeping-up-with-the-kardashians-kim-kris-oral-history-pilot-episode

When a marginally famous family made its reality TV debut in October 2007, Hollywood writers were on the brink of the longest work stoppage since 1988 and our long lost friend, the BlackBerry, was still riding high as the smartphone of choice. Instagram? Hadn’t been invented yet. Modeled after MTV’s popular reality series “The Osbournes,” which followed the antics of rocker Ozzy Osbourne and his family in the early aughts, E!’s “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” featuring Kris Jenner, Caitlyn Jenner, Kim Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Khloé Kardashian, Rob Kardashian, Kendall Jenner and Kylie Jenner, may have started out as a copycat. But it became an unexpected billion-dollar empire that turned the clan at its center into industry titans who’ve left an indelible imprint on contemporary pop culture and reshaped the celebrity economy. The series has since spawned more than a dozen spinoffs, ancillary business ventures and countless gossip-site clicks, fueled by romantic drama, public missteps and now a controversial run for California governor by Caitlyn Jenner. Television ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’ is the tip of the iceberg: As the flagship TV show ends, here’s our guide to the family’s entrepreneurial machine. June 3, 2021 Whether you consider this polarizing crew 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 Kardashians exemplify the ascent of reality TV in American life. And now, after nearly 14 years and 20 seasons, the Kardashian-Jenners are turning off the cameras at E! Not that they’d ever totally ditch the cameras: Shortly after announcing the end of their flagship program, members of the Kardashian-Jenner family signed a multi-year deal with Disney to star in and executive produce a new reality series for Hulu. Ahead of the June 10 series finale of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” The Times spoke with Kim Kardashian and Kris Jenner, matriarch and business mastermind, as well as series producers and E!’s former president about how the network’s longest-running reality series came to be. Hot off the success of “American Idol,” Ryan Seacrest signed a deal with E! in 2006 to host the channel’s red-carpet awards coverage and produce series through his Ryan Seacrest Productions shingle. Seacrest (executive producer): It was something that my mentor, Merv Griffin, said to me. “Hey, if you’re ever in a position to trade your services with a production component, you should really think about that.” So, using his blueprint, that’s what we did. And around the time, the only family docuseries that was on the air was “The Osbournes” and I was truly obsessed. I really thought that that was such new and different and groundbreaking television. It’s something that I hadn’t seen before. And at the same time, it felt like E! would be the right place to find some great family docuseries. We wanted it to be very funny. We wanted it to be chaotic, but also at the same time comforting. It would have heart and it would have humor. But what is that? And who is that? Lisa Berger (then executive vice president of original programming and series development at E!): I think we were doing like a limited with Lindsay [Lohan] at the time. And so we were prepping for that and then that fell through and we had an open slot we were trying to fill. Farnaz Farjam (executive producer, Bunim Murray Productions): There was a programming hole [at E!]. There was supposed to be a series with Lindsay Lohan during a time slot, and then Lindsay got a DUI [the actress was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and drug possession in July 2007 and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor cocaine use and driving under the influence the following month] and pulled out last minute. So they had to fill this hole within, like, I think it was like eight weeks from the day I came on. Deena Katz (casting director and family friend of the Kardashian-Jenners): My husband and I were really good family friends with Kris and [Caitlyn]. We have a daughter who is kind of between Kendall and Kylie’s ages. I put [Caitlyn] on a show years ago called “I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!” down in Australia. And that’s how we all became really close. We used to go to their home for dinner a lot. And we were there once on a Sunday night and I remember saying to them — well, and Kris had been batting around the idea of a show. I do remember saying to them, “You really should. There should be a show.” I kept saying it should be a “Sunday Night at the Jenners” kind of thing. You never knew who was gonna show up. Was it going to be some rapper or Kathie Lee Gifford; they had the most eclectic group of friends. And as crazy as you thought they were even back then, at the core of it, they are a family who loves each other. And I was doing some consulting or something back in the day with Ryan Seacrest. And I told them they needed to talk with Ryan. Kris Jenner (star, executive producer): So many people have said to me for years and years: “You should really have your own reality show, because your life is so crazy. My girlfriend Kathie Lee Gifford used to always tell me, “You’re really our reality show. People don’t even know what’s happening here.” And that was when the big kids were babies. It’s always been something that people were throwing around. And then when Deena came over, I think a light bulb just went off for both of us. Kim Kardashian (star, executive producer): Kourtney had already done a show called “Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive” and our stepdad did “I’m a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!” And then they were going to do a show called “I’m a Rich Kid... Get Me Out of Here,” and it was gonna be like celebrities’ kids doing the jungle thing. And I was going to do that, but then the show got canceled. And so my mom knew that I really wanted to do a reality show. Since “The Real World” came out, I was always really into reality TV. We’d had this conversation. And so even though I had a job, and I was working at my dad’s office, she knew that was something I was into. So it was more like me and her kind of into it. And then, once it was a family show, that was what made sense. And that’s what seemed to get our attention. Television America’s first family of reality TV will end ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’ in 2021. But the subgenre known as ‘celebreality’ has been waning for years. Sept. 17, 2020 Kris, Caitlyn, Kourtney, Kim and Khloé met with production and network executives over summer 2007. Farjam: It was minus Rob, because Rob was in college at the time, so we weren’t fully sure how involved he would be. Eliot Goldberg (senior vice president of production and development at Ryan Seacrest Productions): It’s the meeting that changed the world. I don’t mean that to make it more important. At the time, it wasn’t. Now, I do believe in my heart, I’m not sure the world would be the same if we hadn’t had that meeting. Kris, Kim, Khloe, Kourtney and [Caitlyn] came in for a meeting in our conference room. My expectations were fairly in check, because I just didn’t have any idea that they were going to be marketable, or what this was. And we got a lot of pitches. We had a lot of people wanting to do reality. So the meeting is the five of them in our conference room and they proceed to basically play out the show in the meeting, what the show would become. Normally, you would think, “They’re putting this on, this is an act,” but you could see they were just being themselves, talking like they do to each other, giving their mom grief, [Caitlyn] in the corner, kind of rolling [her] eyes and looking at me and talking about sports. I’m not thinking, at this point, that we even have a show or whatever get on the air. I’m just thinking, “Let’s develop something with them, put them on tape. Let’s shoot them.” So we had to go to E! and get them to fund what became the sizzle reel presentation. Seacrest: We threw this tape together for, I think we asked E! for $12,000. It was nothing to make this tape. Goldberg: One of the most prophetic words that have ever been uttered to me in my life were said to me by Kris. We were wrapping up the meeting, she pulls me aside and she says, “Eliot, it was so great to meet you and I’m so excited to do this show with you and Ryan, and it’ll be fantastic. And let me just tell you something: I want you to know that if you do this show with us, s— happens to us. S— always happens to us. And if we do this show, I promise you s— will happen.” Jenner: Kourtney was a little hesitant. She was like, “Wait, what are we doing? Let me let me just wrap my head around it.” But everybody else was so enthusiastic. I went into that meeting with a lot of confidence and anticipation that it was really going to happen. And I just really felt like that was the move for us as a family. I thought, this will be so great for the stores [Smooch, a children’s boutique that Kourtney and Kris opened in 2003, and Dash, a clothing boutique the Kardashian sisters opened in 2006], because we would shine a light on the stores. Kim and I would set these goals every year. And that year, we set a goal to develop her first fragrance, which was Kim Kardashian. That was the start of what we saw the potential could be down the road. Berger: A lot of people did not know them as a whole, so that was definitely a question mark: Are they “big enough” to carry a show? And frankly, as an executive, you sort of look for the archetypes. “Girls Next Door” was a little “Three’s Company,” and I thought this family, when we were sitting there, were that modern take on “The Brady Bunch.” Kardashian: I just remember it happening so fast. And we really didn’t know what was going on. But it was fun. Once the show got picked up, we kind of as a family made a pact that we were always going to just be ourselves. We had a really good relationship with Bunim Murray from the start and they said, “Listen, we’ll let you guys see the episodes ahead of time. And if there’s anything you really didn’t want in there, you can edit it out.” And we always felt that trust, even though that wasn’t a real part of our contract with E! We always trusted that they would honor that. And they did. I think that allowed us to open up even more and to be more comfortable. Television After more than a year of pandemic life, we know you’re ready to get off the couch. Here are the summer TV shows that deserve an exception. May 27, 2021 Because the show was a last-minute addition to fill a programming slot, once it got the green light cameras began rolling almost immediately. The first episode revolves around Kris and Caitlyn’s 16th anniversary, which they celebrate with a gathering at their home. But of course there are some antics along the way — Kris and Kourtney turn a wine tasting into a a tequila shot fete that causes them to be late (and buzzed) for the shindig. Elsewhere, Kris suspects that Kourtney’s then-boyfriend, Scott Disick, is cheating, adding a dose of tension to the mix. Goldberg: We got a call the weekend after we handed in the tape, which is fast for me. That’s why we had to go to Bunim Murray because we didn’t have anything — we had no equipment, we had no producers. We scrambled to get this thing shot. And luckily, [Bunim Murray] could start the next week because “The Simple Life” had just been canceled. And all the staff and all the equipment were ready to go as turnkey. Farjam: The first day on set, Kris Jenner made me like the best guacamole spread and some bean dip. It was so good. We had two cameras, one audio and a lighting person. I’m a story person, tracking the scenes because we had to turn it around. So we basically, once the show was in edit, it was on the air six weeks from filming. Everything was super fast in the beginning. We knew that Kris and Caitlyn’s anniversary was coming up, so we thought that would be a great way to anchor it and introduce everybody, because it gives [an] organic reason for everybody to be in one space together and see the dynamic. In the process of trying to get to know them, I was always hanging out with them before we started filming for about two weeks. I could tell Kris liked her drink. So we were like: ‘Oh, yeah, perfect. Kourtney and Kris can go to a wine tasting so we could get a conversation to intercut.” Kardashian: My dad, growing up, always had a video camera on. Always, from the moment we woke up. And looking back, that was probably setting us up, you know, to learn to be comfortable and to be ourselves in front of the camera. Obviously, I think that anyone, if you’re filming, you want to be your funniest, cutest or whatever. But when you’re filming that much, you really can’t worry about it. And now that we’ve gotten so comfortable, I mean, sometimes the camera guy will be like, “Kim,” and I’ll look at him, and he’ll be like, “You’re not gonna like this angle.” Like, I don’t care. I’m tired. But the order for “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” also came a few months after a sex tape made by Kim Kardashian and Ray J in 2002 was leaked. The first episode of the series addresses the scandal, with Kim gearing up for an appearance on “The Tyra Banks Show.” When Kourtney mock-interviews Kim as Tyra and asks why she made the tape, Kim playfully, if honestly, responds: “Because I was horny and I felt like it.” Berger: I think everyone’s like, “The sex tape made the show happen.” It was so not about that at all. Farjam: I remember Kim being conflicted about it, because she hated everything that was going on around that tape. We all talked about,”We just have to own all the controversy around this family” and jumped in with both feet in the first episode. Then, the audience can get to know them at a much deeper level than what’s been tabloid headlines. Goldberg: They knew they had to deal with the sex tape. It was really brilliant that if they dealt with it right at the top, and put it to bed, the world, and them, could move on. Kardashian: I do think that, obviously, as producers, I’m sure they loved it. And loved [us] wanting to talk about the elephant in the room. And I probably wouldn’t have, unless it was for the show. Sometimes I feel like, “OK, I know I should probably deal and get this over with. Someone’s gonna ask me, so I might as well just go ahead and do it.” In a way, filming has helped us deal with things, instead of sweeping them under the rug. At the end of the day, I was always open and honest and wanted to share whatever I was going through. I wasn’t gonna hold back. Television From the buzzed-about to the under-the-radar, the Times TV team selects the shows to queue up for your nights at home this summer. May 26, 2021 Finding a catchy name that would capture the spirit of the show came courtesy of Farjam, who was focused on getting to know the family in the early days of shooting. And the original title credits — more playful and silly than today, leaning into the sitcom style of the show’s early years — was another eleventh hour idea. Farnaz: My God, the title. It was like “Kardashian Krazies,” with a K. Or “Krazy Kardashians.” I don’t even remember. There was something with like, “Hollywood Adjacent.” It was all terrible titles. We had this big meeting and everybody came to the table with a bunch of titles for the show. And I had immersed myself in their lives for two weeks just to get to know them, so I didn’t have time to sit and really think about titles. And so when it was my turn to offer some, I was like, “Guys. I’m sorry, I don’t have a list. I’ve been keeping up with the Kardashians.” And Lisa [Berger] was like, “That’s the title.” We hired a company to help us come up with the opening [credits]. And everything they sent us kind of did not fit. At the time, our [director of photography] was a guy named Joe Guidry. And Joe said to me, “What if we just get a backdrop and I’ll put a fan and and we’ll see the back of their house, just simple and clean. So we kind of free-styled it to see. And everything that came out of [the family’s] mouth was truly ... like, we didn’t ask Kim to show up a little bit late, it all really just happened that way and we just rolled. Kardashian: That was the one thing that bothered me, because I was always on time. And then it became a thing that I was always late. That was like the one thing that really frustrated me for a while. But she dealt with it, and eventually came to enjoy it. As did millions of viewers. Kardashian: Every week, we had a viewing party. The family got together every single week, and we were obsessed. If we’d have dinner together, we’d invite any of our friends that wanted to come over. We had so much fun. We watched it together every single episode. Seacrest: Kim was probably, at that point, [the focus]. That’s probably the way the network was looking at it. But Kris is so brilliant, I’m sure she was thinking about many of the moving parts and thinking of the longevity and looking at the deals that they could make with everybody and the brands that they could build with already. She’s that savvy in the world of business and marketing. As we know, it turned out to be a vehicle for everybody. Goldberg: And a lot of people say, “It’s not talent, what they do; they’re reality stars, they’re famous for nothing.” But they’re really good at what they do. From the minute I met them, they were really good at being a reality TV family.

In Newport Coast, a furniture designer eyes $69.8 million for his gold palace

https://www.latimes.com/business/real-estate/story/2021-06-03/newport-coast-furniture-designer-eyes-69-million-for-gold-palace

In Newport Coast, one of Southern California’s glitziest mansions is aiming for the highest price in Orange County history: $69.8 million. Dubbed Palais de Cristal, the newly built Palladian-style stunner is a celebration of wealth — a 15,500-square-foot concoction of gold, onyx and glass filled with over-the-top spaces and extreme amenities. It’s owned by Amini Innovation Corp. founder Michael Amini, who grew his furniture company into a lifestyle brand that sells products through more than 3,000 retailers in 80 countries. He’ll smash the Orange County home sale record if he gets his price; the current mark belongs to a 19,000-square-foot mansion in the same neighborhood that traded hands for $61 million last year. Amini outfitted the fully furnished estate with one-of-a-kind pieces and made sure all the home’s hardware — door handles, stairway railings, etc. — were coated in 24-karat gold. In the foyer, a stained glass dome named “The Eye of the Phoenix” draws the eye with gold pendants and a Swarovski crystal-encrusted eye at the center. There’s also a grand dining room with a wine cellar, library with ocean views and subterranean garage with a rotating “car turntable” that doubles as a dance floor. The entertainment pavilion adds a lounge with a glass pool table, massage room with multiple saunas and movie theater with LED ceilings made to resemble constellations. Seven bedrooms and 13 bathrooms complete the three-story floor plan, including a primary suite with custom cove ceilings, fabricated walls and dual bathrooms with heated marble floors. An additional 3,640 square feet of living space can be found outside, where stone columns frame a custom mosaic swimming pool that depicts underwater scenes of sunrise and sunset. The space overlooks Crystal Cove and takes in panoramic views of the ocean and coastline. Rex McKown and Marcy Weinstein of McKown Weinsten & Associates of Compass hold the listing.

Clippers join Lakers on brink of elimination

https://www.latimes.com/sports/newsletter/2021-06-03/the-sports-report-clippers-lakers-dodgers-sports-report

Howdy, I’m your host, Iliana Limón Romero, filling in for Houston Mitchell, who’s on vacation (probably wondering why the Dodgers can’t score 11 runs in an inning every game). Let’s get right to the news. Andrew Greif on the Clippers: It is typically inadvisable to go after the same rebound that Boban Marjanovic wants. At 7-foot-4, with a reach as wide as a Texas live oak and hands like baseball mitts, Dallas’ center owns much of the airspace near the rim. When a Mavericks shot caromed off the rim early in the third quarter Wednesday, he grabbed hold of the ball, appearing to extend the Mavericks’ possession. But he never saw Kawhi Leonard run in to meet him. Leonard clamped his 11 ¼-inch wide hands onto the pebbled leather and, with a twist of his hips, cleanly ripped it out of Marjanovic’s grip. 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. If there was ever a night for the Clippers’ taking, this was it. Returning home after two consecutive road wins to even this first-round playoff series entering Game 5 at Staples Center, the Clippers had the healthy superstars, the momentum and the welcoming crowd aching to witness the team’s first postseason win at home since 2017. Yet the moments when they flexed their muscles were too infrequent, their hold never strong enough. Because of it, after a 105-100 loss, their championship ambitions are again hanging on for dear life trailing 3-2 in the series, with Game 6 coming Friday in Dallas. “Got to win in seven now,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said. Dylan Hernández on the Clippers: There are new voices. “I think we’re fine,” coach Tyronn Lue said. Yet here they are again, on the precipice of another disaster. There is renewed determination. “We’re confident,” Paul George said. Yet here they are again, on the brink of another humiliating expulsion from the postseason. Enjoying this newsletter? Consider subscribing to the Los Angeles Times Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. Become a subscriber. Bill Shaikin on the Dodgers: And now we resume our regularly scheduled programming, with the Dodgers laying waste to the National League West. That might be a bit of hyperbole, considering the team currently occupies third place in the division. But it might not. The Dodgers could move back into first place by the end of the weekend and, if they keep playing like this, they might never leave. Mookie Betts? Back hitting. Cody Bellinger? Back, and back hitting. AJ Pollock, Tony Gonsolin, Brusdar Graterol and Jimmy Nelson? Back soon. Back at reasonably full strength, what might the Dodgers do? They spooked the rest of the West on Wednesday, putting up the biggest inning in Los Angeles history in the very first inning. Eleven runs in the inning, their most in a regular-season game since a 1954 afternoon when they played in Brooklyn and their cleanup batter was Jackie Robinson. Dan Woike on the Lakers: Can the Lakers find hope amidst the chaos, their season teetering on shaky legs and sprained muscles, with their much-celebrated togetherness threatened under the stresses of failure? Can they survive the premature autopsies, the talk about LeBron James’ early retreat to the locker room and a fresh round of concerns and quips over Anthony Davis? Can they rediscover their swagger, find some fight and rely on a championship DNA that hasn’t yet been activated? Most importantly, can the Lakers give themselves a chance? Thuc Nhi Nguyen on UCLA softball: As much as she’s known for flummoxing hitters with a devastating rise ball or smashing home runs, Rachel Garcia is recognized for her stone-faced expression while she does it all. UCLA’s star pitcher shows nothing more than a smirk if she gives up a home run and simply purses her lips for a split second if she disagrees with an umpire’s strike call. But after nearly six years with the Bruins, one thing evokes emotions in Garcia: her relationship with assistant coach Lisa Fernandez. “I look up to Coach Lisa so much,” she said while fighting back tears. “She’s been a huge impact in my life.” Fernandez, a two-time NCAA champion at UCLA and three-time Olympic gold medalist, cast a long shadow for Garcia since she arrived in Westwood. Observers quickly compared the two: They were both short, right-handed pitchers who did as much damage at the plate as in the circle. Garcia is the “newer Barbie of Lisa Fernandez,” said former Washington pitcher Danielle Lawrie. ESPN analyst Michele Smith, who won two gold medals with Fernandez, said seeing Garcia debut as a redshirt freshman in 2017 was like watching “a mini Lisa Fernandez.” Maybe comparing a then-19-year-old to one of the most iconic players in the sport was premature, but Garcia has soared past sky-high expectations with a resume as long as a CVS receipt. And the 24-year-old is still hoping to bag more items. In addition to being named the USA Softball collegiate player of the year twice, the Honda Cup winner as the top female collegiate athlete and the most outstanding player in the 2019 NCAA tournament that the Bruins won, Garcia is chasing a second NCAA championship and an Olympic medal. Second-seeded UCLA faces Florida State at 6:30 p.m. PDT Thursday in the first round of the eight-team Women’s College World Series, with the best-of-three championship series concluding June 9 in Oklahoma City. The opener will air on ESPN. 1932 — Lou Gehrig becomes the first major league player to hit four consecutive home runs in a game, giving the New York Yankees a 20-13 win over the Philadelphia A’s. Gehrig’s feat, however, is overshadowed by the resignation of John McGraw, manager of the New York Giants for 30 years. 1944 — Bounding Home, ridden by G.L. Smith, wins the Belmont Stakes by one-half length over Pensive, the winner of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. 1961 — Sherluck, ridden by Braulio Baeza, wins the Belmont Stakes. Carry Beck, the winner of the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, finishes seventh. 1984 — Patty Sheehan wins the LPGA championship by a record 10 strokes over Beth Daniel and Pat Bradley. 1991 — Thomas Hearns becomes a world champion for the sixth time, capturing the World Boxing Association’s light-heavyweight title with a 12-round unanimous decision over Virgil Hill. 1992 — Chicago’s Michael Jordan scores a record 35 points, including a record six 3-pointers, in the first half as the Bulls beat Portland 122-89 in the opening game of the NBA Finals. Jordan finishes with 39 points and Chicago is only two points shy of the largest victory margin in the finals. 1995 — Pedro Martinez of Montreal pitches nine perfect innings against San Diego before giving up a leadoff double to Bip Roberts in the 10th inning of the Expos’ 1-0 win. 1999 — Four days after her first LPGA Tour victory, Kelli Kuehne ties the Women’s U.S. Open record with an 8-under 64 in the first round to take a one-stroke lead over Juli Inkster. 2001 — Karrie Webb wins the U.S. Women’s Open in a runaway for the second year in a row. Webb shoots a 1-under 69 for an eight-stroke victory, the largest margin at a Women’s Open in 21 years. 2004 — Calgary ties an NHL record with its 10th road win of the playoffs with a 3-2 overtime victory over Tampa Bay in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals. The New Jersey Devils also won 10 road playoff games during their championship seasons of 1995 and 2000. 2006 — Jeff Burton has the biggest come-from-behind win ever in a Busch race, overcoming a 36th-place starting position in the Dover 200 for his second victory of the season. 2006 — Russia’s Nikolai Valuev retains his WBA heavyweight title in Hanover, Germany, stopping Jamaican challenger Owen Beck with a right uppercut in the third round. 2011 — Roger Federer ends Novak Djokovic’s perfect season and 43-match winning streak, beating him 7-6 (5), 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (5) in the French Open semifinals. Federer advances to the title match against five-time champion Rafael Nadal. Nadal reaches his sixth final in seven years at Roland Garros by defeating Andy Murray 6-4, 7-5, 6-4 in the other semifinal. A newsletter exclusive: Check out the latest episode of “Fernandomania @ 40” an hour before its wide release. This episode focuses on how Fernando Valenzuela’s opening day came together his transformational rookie season in 1981. Watch the episode 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.

Summer is coming. It's getting hotter. Can California keep the lights on?

https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2021-06-03/summer-is-coming-its-getting-hotter-can-california-keep-the-lights-on-boiling-point

This is the June 3, 2021, edition of Boiling Point, a weekly newsletter about climate change and the environment in California and the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. It feels like just yesterday that California was roiled by rolling blackouts during an epic summer heat wave. But that was nearly a year ago, and now summer is dawning once again. Across the West, power grid managers and utilities are preparing for heat waves, and for the dry, windy conditions that have toppled electrical infrastructure and ignited wildfires. Temperatures are already spiking, which is happening more frequently as the planet warms. It’s not too bad in Los Angeles, but the mercury was forecast to hit 107 degrees in California’s Central Valley on Wednesday, two days after a 109-degree record was set in the Northern California city of Redding, per the New York Times’ Derrick Bryson Taylor. States including Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington are also scorching, with temperatures well above average for this time of year. The California Independent System Operator, which runs the power grid for most of the state, says we’ve got enough electricity supply on hand at the moment. But blackouts loom as a threat later this summer. How big a threat, exactly? I had the chance to ask state officials that question during a panel discussion hosted by the Sacramento Press Club last week. My co-moderator was Ashley Zavala, California Capitol correspondent for KRON 4 News. It was a fascinating conversation featuring Elliot Mainzer, president and CEO of the Independent System Operator; state Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg), whose district has suffered some of California’s worst fires sparked by electrical wires; Susan Kennedy, a former top advisor to Govs. Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger who also served on the California Public Utilities Commission and founded the energy software company AMS; and Bob Foster, former president of Southern California Edison. Here are some highlights from the discussion, edited and condensed for clarity. ME: Elliot, right up until your agency pulled the trigger last August, I didn’t think rolling blackouts were going to happen. Looking ahead to the next few months, do you think people should be preparing for this again? ELLIOT MAINZER: Guarded optimism is a reasonable way to state it. If we get relatively modest temperatures across the West, or if it’s hot in California but not hot in adjacent states — given the resource additions that we’ve had since last year, given the fact that the infrastructure going into the summer is in pretty good shape — we should be fine. If we get into another big West-wide heating event like we saw last year, our numbers tell us the grid will be stressed again. But we will be reaching out actively to consumers and industry to conserve energy. The Flex Alert program and calls for conservation that were absolutely instrumental last summer, particularly after the 14th and 15th of August, are going to be essential. BOB FOSTER: Yeah, we could have blackouts again. A more important issue is what we do over the next six years to fill the gap from things like the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant and the coastal gas plants going off the system. I happen to believe in the carbon and renewable goals we have, and the quickest way to kill them is to have reliability problems. We need to avoid that. The recent action by the Public Utilities Commission was a real step in the right direction. I finally see some urgency. I see a more than adequate amount of new energy being proposed — over 11 gigawatts. I wish it would have happened a year ago. ME: I want to bring in Sen. McGuire. A lot of these power grid decisions get made by regulatory agencies, including the decision to keep running gas-fired “peaker” plants that are only needed when energy demand is high. What is the Legislature’s role in making sure we keep reducing emissions and also keep the lights on? MIKE MCGUIRE: No. 1, this legislature, the governor and the Public Utilities Commission have to hold the utilities accountable when it comes to their vegetation management and hardening their infrastructure. I live in PG&E territory, and I’ll be candid: America’s largest utility is one of the most dysfunctional utilities, unfortunately, in the nation. And it’s incredibly frustrating because what we’re going to see, based on their lack of vegetation management in the most high fire-risk zones, is the same communities in Northern California hit year after year after year for the next 10 years. No. 2, we can’t end our reliance on the peaker plants immediately. We get rid of peakers and the lights go off, and that’s simply unacceptable. We have to continue adding alternative sources of energy, and expediting that. ASHLEY ZAVALA: With Gov. Gavin Newsom facing a recall election, some observers are making comparisons to the early-2000s energy crisis, when power outages helped fuel the recall of then-Gov. Davis. Are those comparisons fair? SUSAN KENNEDY: I don’t think so. I think people understand this is a very different situation. Twenty years ago, the blackouts were the product of government failure, government incompetence. Everyone knew they should not have been occurring. And no one was prepared. We weren’t sensitized to turning things off and living without electricity for periods of time. We’re now in year two or three of blackouts that are the result of environmental events, fire and weather. I live in Sonoma, and I bought a very expensive generator, so I’m now not as fearful when the power is going out for seven or eight hours, or days when the wind kicks up and the heat is there. I think people are a little more resilient and resigned to it because of the fires. FOSTER: I was the point person for Edison in 2000-2001, and this is entirely different. This is not Gov. Newsom’s problem. He didn’t create it. He needs to solve it, but I would urge everybody to be a little understanding. The governor’s not the guy out there with the hard hat building the plant or putting up solar systems or putting in batteries. ME: The word “crisis” gets thrown around a lot when we talk about power shortages. I’ve certainly used it. But when you look at the numbers, on August 14 we had about half a million utility customers lose power for two and a half hours at most. The next day we had about 300,000 lose power, and nobody for longer than 90 minutes. How big a crisis is this? KENNEDY: It’s not a crisis. We’re now the equivalent of many third-world countries where we’re used to having the power go out for hours at a time. That was unheard of 20 years ago. The first time I heard the words, “Utilities are expecting brownouts,” it was the end of 1999, and we all looked at each other and said, “Brownouts?” We didn’t even understand the concept of brownouts in the state of California, the fifth-largest economy on the planet. For the last 20 years, regulators have been balancing cost, emissions and reliability. We make a decision that we’re going to reduce costs, and reliability suffers, or emissions suffer. We make a concerted effort to reduce emissions, and costs go up. And we only chase those problems when they break the system. We have to recognize that it’s a constant balancing act. MCGUIRE: We have two challenges. One is the challenge of having the necessary supply on the hottest days in July, August, September. But we also need to focus, especially in PG&E territory, on the blackouts we’re seeing because of fire danger. Some of the poorest communities are suffering because of the negligence of this utility. In 2019, there were some areas in the North Coast that lost power 14 out of 30 days. Schools shut down. The economy came to a stop. The most medically vulnerable didn’t have access to their medical equipment. This is not only unheard of, it’s unacceptable. We’re the fifth-flipping-largest economy in the world, yet we can’t keep the damn lights on. ZAVALA: We all learned last summer how heavily California relies on out-of-state power. What will it take to move away from that and become more self-sufficient? MAINZER: California is likely to have a significant dependence on imports from out of state for quite a period of time. And that’s a phenomenon that’s existed for many, many years, and it’s not entirely a bad thing if the different sub-regions of the West take care of business and make sure they have resource adequacy. But California needs to be acutely sensitive to the fact that if we continue to see these types of heating events that we saw last summer — and it gets hot in Sacramento and Phoenix and Spokane and Portland and Salt Lake City at the same time — then there’s not as much power. So we have to have contingency plans and other capabilities during those periods. And I want to mention demand flexibility. This summer you’ll see a lot of messaging about the things consumers can do from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Turning their thermostats up just a little bit, assuming their health can handle it. Reducing the use of those heavy appliances, turning off unnecessary lights. That kind of aggregated capability can be a real difference-maker. FOSTER: We should not look to be energy self-sufficient. Look at the recent debacle in Texas, and the huge power outages there. Texas has almost no interconnections with other states — they wanted to be free from federal jurisdiction, and it’s created a real problem. They had no help when they needed it. You want some out-of-state power. You want some flexibility. *** On that note, here’s what’s happening around the West: A powerful investigation by BuzzFeed News finds that Texas officials wildly underestimated the number of deaths caused by blackouts during February’s cold snap. Between 426 and 978 people likely died as a result of the catastrophic power grid failure, according to a data analysis conducted by reporters Peter Aldhous, Stephanie M. Lee and Zahra Hirji. And as deadly as cold weather can be, extreme heat is also increasingly dangerous as the planet warms. A new study examining heat deaths over the last three decades concluded that more than one-third were caused by climate change, as the AP’s Seth Borenstein reports. Hoover Dam, a symbol of the modern West, is facing its greatest test since Lake Mead was filled in the 1930s. The Arizona Republic’s Ian James recently toured the dam with photographer Mark Henle and explored how the drop in water levels will affect us in the coming months. Ian also wrote about what the National Park Service is doing to keep boat ramps accessible as Lake Mead recedes, including the use of “pipe mats” made of repurposed steel pipes from decommissioned coal-fired power plants. Things are getting scary in the Klamath Basin, along the California-Oregon border, as some farmers threaten to storm a federal irrigation canal to force it open. They’re working with a group with ties to anti-government extremist Ammon Bundy, Ryan Sabalow reports for the Sacramento Bee. Farmers are far from the only ones suffering as water grows scarce. Baby salmon are washing up dead en masse on the Klamath River, devastating the Yurok Tribe, as Anna V. Smith writes for High Country News. L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez wanted to buy an electric car but ended up going with a plug-in hybrid. His explanation of why — a combination of range anxiety, the difficulty of upgrading his home power supply and concerns over the environmental impacts of battery production — is a valuable read for anyone who cares about the climate crisis. Also worth reading? This piece by my colleague Priscella Vega on L.A. County’s plans for free public transit for students and low-income riders, and this piece by Liam Dillon on the county not killing a proposed expansion of the 710 freeway through low-income Latino neighborhoods. Car-friendly San Diego County, meanwhile, is planning a $160-billion high-speed rail expansion aimed at making public transit an equally fast way to get around. The plan is designed around increasingly dense, walkable urban hubs, although slowing population growth could affect that vision in ways that are hard to predict, per the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Joshua Emerson Smith. What’s not hard to predict is that some local officials will do everything they can to keep the suburbs unchanged. Oil companies and labor unions are trying to kill new rules that would reduce air pollution in the East Bay. The Chevron refinery in Richmond and the PBF refinery in Martinez spew lung-damaging emissions into mostly low-income Black and brown neighborhoods, with an asthma rate in Richmond that is twice the state average. Bay Area officials are debating a regulation that would help clean the air, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Joe Garofoli writes, although a vote scheduled for Wednesday was delayed. President Biden is blocking new oil extraction in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, at least for now. The Interior Department will do more environmental analysis before deciding whether to grant drilling rights sold in the final days of Donald Trump’s presidency, Bloomberg’s Jennifer A. Dlouhy reports. But elsewhere, the Biden administration has defended new fossil fuel leases in court and declined to shut down the Dakota Access pipeline. It’s part of a delicate political balancing act in which Biden is trying not to alienate a handful of moderate Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, the New York Times’ Lisa Friedman writes. The “ticking climate time bomb” that is the Permian Basin presents another challenge for the Biden administration. Vox’s Rebecca Leber wrote about the president’s options for slashing methane emissions from the nation’s largest oilfield, which spans west Texas and southeast New Mexico and is full of companies trying to dig up more fossil fuels and ship them overseas. “They were expert hunters, gatherers and basket weavers who lived for thousands of years on a trade route over the Sierra Nevada connecting them with the rest of California.” Despite that history, the Mono Lake Kutzadika Paiute people have spent 150 years struggling to gain federal recognition as a distinct Native American tribe. So it’s a big deal that Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Big Bear Lake) has introduced a bill that would give them recognition. More details here from my colleague Louis Sahagún. Toward a more sustainable California Get Boiling Point, our newsletter exploring climate change, energy and the environment, and become part of the conversation — and the solution. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. A Colorado ski resort partnered with the “other” Koch brother to capture methane from an abandoned coal mine and use it to generate electricity. The Washington Post’s Annie Gowen has an interesting case study of one possibly strategy for slashing methane emissions, although burning the stuff for electricity does generate carbon dioxide (which traps less heat but is still bad). I also enjoyed this Grist piece by Maddie Stone on the cool idea of harvesting rare earth metals critical to the clean energy transition — such as dysprosium! — from coal waste, which the Biden administration is putting a bunch of money into researching. I’m very confused by what’s going on in Arizona, where officials have backtracked on their plan to backtrack on a 100% clean energy requirement. The latest rules adopted by regulators call for a 100% zero-carbon power supply by 2070 rather than 2050, the Arizona Republic’s Ryan Randazzo reports. That’s decades later than experts say is needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Also, the new (new) rules can’t be finalized until another vote in the fall, so this could all change yet again. Why did Sunrun, the country’s largest rooftop solar installer, refuse to cancel a 25-year contract signed by a 91-year-old woman under questionable circumstances weeks before her death? L.A. Times columnist David Lazarus posed that question to the company, and lo and behold Sunrun changed course and agreed to end the contract. This is a great example of journalism getting results. It’s also a reminder that the clean energy transition comes with plenty of pitfalls that need to be avoided. The L.A. County Fair has been held in Pomona every September for nearly 100 years. But organizers have struggled to keep guests cool as temperatures rise. They’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on shade areas, umbrella tables and water misters. Now they’re throwing in the towel. My colleague Hugo Martín reports that the fair is permanently moving to May. It’s not like this will cause terrible economic disruption or put people out of work. Angelenos are perfectly capable of enjoying a fair over Memorial Day weekend instead of Labor Day weekend. But the move is a reminder that global warming is everywhere, affecting decisions big and small and influencing our lives in unpredictable ways. And the changes are only beginning. We’ll be back in your inbox next week. If you enjoyed this newsletter, please consider forwarding it to your friends and colleagues.

What's on TV Thursday: The season finales of 'Grey's Anatomy' and 'Station 19' on ABC

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2021-06-03/whats-on-tv-thursday-the-season-finales-of-grays-anatomy-and-station-19-on-abc

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. Manifest The consequences of Ben’s (Josh Dallas) actions test his marriage, sending Grace (Athena Karkanis) reeling in this new episode. 8 p.m. NBC Station 19 Maya (Danielle Savre) addresses family issues and crew members run into a life-or-death situation on a response scene in the season finale. Jaina Lee Ortiz and Boris Kodjoe also star, and Chandra Wilson makes a guest appearance in her “Grey’s Anatomy” role of Dr. Miranda Bailey. 8 p.m. ABC Beat Shazam (N) 8 p.m. Fox Top Chef Tournament of tofu. 8 p.m. Bravo Keeping Up With the Kardashians “The End Part 1” (N) 8 p.m. E! Beat Bobby Flay Chefs Dannie Harrison and Hiro Tawar; Food Network’s Giada De Laurentiis and Marcus Samuelsson. (N) 8 p.m. Food Network Christina on the Coast (season premiere) 8 p.m. HGTV Mountain Men (season premiere) 8 p.m. History Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted Ramsay explores the people, places and flavors of Norway. 8 p.m. National Geographic United States of Al In this new episode, Al and Riley (Adhir Kalyan, Parker Young) suspect Art (Dean Norris) might be lonely and missing his late wife and try to play matchmaker for him. 8:30 p.m. CBS Law & Order: Special Victims Unit While Fin and Phoebe (Ice Tea, Jennifer Esposito) make wedding plans, Benson and Rollins (Mariska Hargitay, Kelli Giddish) try to help a homeless single mother who’s being trafficked, in the season finale. 9 p.m. NBC Grey’s Anatomy Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) assumes a new role at the hospital, Jo (Camilla Luddington) makes a life-changing decision, and it’s Maggie and Winston’s (Kelly McCreary, Anthony Hill) wedding day in the season finale of the medical drama. Chandra Wilson also stars. 9 p.m. ABC Restaurant: Impossible “Two Stops in Tennessee” (N) 9 p.m. Food Network Alone (season premiere) (N) 9:35 p.m. History Clarice When Catherine Martin (Marnee Carpenter) heads to Carneys Point, N.J., to confront Buffalo Bill’s mother (Maria Ricossa), Clarice (Rebecca Breeds) tries to find her before she she commits a vile act. Michael Cudlitz, Devyn A. Tyler and Kal Penn also star in this new episode. 10 p.m. CBS Law & Order: Organized Crime (season finale) 10 p.m. NBC Rebel Rebel (Katey Sagal) uses every strategy she can think of to persuade a key witness to testify in the case against Stonemore Medical. Tamala Jones, John Corbett, Matthew Glave, Daniella Garcia, Abigail Spencer, Jalen Thomas Brooks, Jeff Doucette, Nina Millin, Leonard Roberts, Peter Paige and Tyee Tilghman also star.10 p.m. ABC Everything’s Gonna Be Okay (season finale) (N) 10 p.m. Freeform Women’s College Softball World Series James Madison versus Oklahoma, 9 a.m. ESPN; Georgia versus Oklahoma State, 11:30 a.m. ESPN; Arizona versus Alabama, 4 p.m. ESPN; Florida State versus UCLA, 6:30 p.m. ESPN NHL Hockey The Boston Bruins visit the New York Islanders, 4:30 p.m. NBCSP; the Carolina Hurricanes visit the Tampa Bay Lightning, 8 p.m. USA Baseball The Seattle Mariners visit the Angels, 6:30 p.m. BSW NBA Basketball The Phoenix Suns visit the Lakers, 7 p.m. SportsNet CBS This Morning (N) 7 a.m. KCBS Today Alanis Morissette performs; remembering Princess Diana. (N) 7 a.m. KNBC KTLA Morning News (N) 7 a.m. KTLA Good Morning America Dyllón Burnside; Michael Cimino. (N) 7 a.m. KABC Good Day L.A. (N) 7 a.m. KTTV Live With Kelly and Ryan Patrick Wilson (“The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It”); Olivia Holt (“Cruel Summer”). (N) 9 a.m. KABC The View Wanda Sykes; Kim Fields. (N) 10 a.m. KABC The Wendy Williams Show Hot summer deals from Morningsave.com. (N) 11 a.m. KTTV The Talk Bradley Whitford; Michael Cudlitz; Jerry O’Connell. (N) 1 p.m. KCBS The Kelly Clarkson Show Seth Meyers; Katie Stevens; Lil Rel; the Wizard of Paws. (N) 2 p.m. KNBC The Ellen DeGeneres Show Sofía Vergara (“America’s Got Talent”); Cam Anthony (“The Voice”); Wim Hof. (N) 3 p.m. KNBC Amanpour and Company (N) 11 p.m. KCET; 1 a.m. KLCS Conan W. Kamau Bell. 11 p.m. TBS The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Maya Rudolph; Christopher Meloni; 24kGoldn performs. 11:34 p.m. KNBC The Late Show With Stephen Colbert Jake Tapper; Billie Eilish. 11:35 p.m. KCBS Jimmy Kimmel Live! Michael Che; Cillian Murphy; the Linda Lindas perform. (N) 11:35 p.m. KABC Late Night With Seth Meyers Pete Davidson; Jodie Turner-Smith; George Saunders; Mario Duplantier performs. 12:36 a.m. KNBC The Late Late Show With James Corden Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.); Sam Smith performs. 12:37 a.m. KCBS Nightline (N) 12:37 a.m. KABC A Little Late With Lilly Singh (N) 1:36 a.m. KNBC 8 Mile (2002) 8:47 a.m. Cinemax The Loving Story (2011) 8:55 a.m. HBO Escape From New York (1981) 9 a.m. AMC A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) 9:12 a.m. and 4:18 p.m. Starz Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) 9:28 a.m. and 10:45 p.m. Bravo Ghost (1990) 10 a.m. Sundance Flight (2012) 10:05 a.m. Epix Dunkirk (2017) 10:15 a.m. HBO Blood Father (2016) 11:30 a.m. Syfy Drumline (2002) 12:05 p.m. HBO Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) 12:30 p.m. Bravo Ten Little Indians (1966) 1:15 p.m. TCM 21 Jump Street (2012) 1:30 p.m. Freeform The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015) 2 p.m. Nickelodeon Basic Instinct (1992) 2:25 p.m. Cinemax RoboCop (1987) 3:05 p.m. TMC Tenet (2020) 3:55 p.m. HBO Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) 4 p.m. Bravo The Nutty Professor (1996) 5 p.m. VH1 The Breakfast Club (1985) 5:45 p.m. BBC America Moneyball (2011) 5:45 p.m. Showtime Doubt (2008) 6:15 p.m. Cinemax Boyz N the Hood (1991) 6:30 p.m. BET Blackboard Jungle (1955) 6:45 p.m. TCM The Lincoln Lawyer (2011) 7 p.m. Paramount The Blues Brothers (1980) 8 p.m. BBC America Beginners (2010) 8 p.m. Cinemax Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) 8 p.m. Epix Dallas Buyers Club (2013) 8 p.m. Showtime To Sir, With Love (1967) 8:45 p.m. TCM Steel Magnolias (1989) 9 p.m. Encore War Horse (2011) 9 p.m. HBO Walk the Line (2005) 9:45 p.m. Cinemax Arachnophobia (1990) 10 p.m. Epix Dark Waters (2019) 10 p.m. TMC Ant-Man (2015) 10:30 p.m. USA 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

Q&A: Filmmaker Theo Anthony discusses the intersection between surveillance and policing

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

On April 20, Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd. Cities across the nation breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing the verdict, a culmination of the year-long racial reckoning that sparked conversations of systemic racism and injustice in the United States. The catalyst was a nine-minute-and-29-second video, circulated on social media and rewatched in courtrooms, filmed by Darnella Frazier on her cellphone. Although it was Frazier’s video, not police body cameras, that ultimately held institutions accountable, the latter have been a key part of the larger discussion about public surveillance. The intersection between camera surveillance and policing caught the attention of filmmaker Theo Anthony for “All Light, Everywhere.” He began working on the documentary after the 2015 killing of Freddie Gray. It is Anthony’s second feature documentary after the 2016 “Rat Film.” The new project, which debuted at Sundance, centers around Axon Company, a private enterprise that claims to be “transforming public safety with technology.” Opening theatrically on Friday, “All Light, Everywhere” takes viewers through the history of cameras, including early uses, of such as strapping them on pigeons, and the modern state of God’s-eye surveillance that monitors communities of color. Why did you want to make this documentary? I think a lot of my work, just going back to working as a journalist and making my very first documentaries, I’ve always been interested in the power dynamics between people behind and in front of the camera. As my career developed, I sort of started to see that this was a way that was also potentially very productive [for] this conversation of who gets to be seen and who gets to do the seeing. How did you learn about Axon Company? I was living in Baltimore, and after the killing of Freddie Gray in 2015, it was just this flashpoint of a national global conversation around policing. One of the big things that was being floated was [for] every officer to have a body camera, and I did not know anything about body cameras, didn’t know anything about this company Axon. When I started investigating, to see that Axon was formerly called Taser and that they made these [electroshock] guns, I found that that link between gun and camera compelling and was even more surprised to see that this was a connection going back to the birth of photography and cinema. The documentary contains screen recordings of you editing or recording behind-the-scenes footage which breaks a fourth wall between the viewers and the documentary. What was your reasoning for that? There’s a very specific type of documentary that has its roots in these ethnographies that went alongside colonial exploits in the late 19th century. That’s the root of what we think of as the modern documentary, that leads into propaganda films and throughout the world wars, that voice of God. You aren’t actually supposed to stop and think, “Oh, well, who is telling me this information?” So with this film, and especially a film that talks about body cameras whose authority lends itself to the fact that you don’t actually see the person behind the camera, we thought that it was really important to include, as much as possible, myself, without it making it about myself. So we had to include me but not necessarily make it about me. You made a choice not to show the footage of victims throughout the documentary and to keep it specifically on officers or people selling these products. I think that there’s a lot of reaction to that where people want to hear more of the specifics with the George Floyd case or hear from people on the other side of surveillance technology. I don’t even want to say victims, it’s almost kind of like, bowing to a certain kind of designation. But I think that there’s a lot of filmmakers, especially white filmmakers, making films about people of color who are most often the targets of this militarized technology. While those tales are really important, they so often limit the portrayal of Black life, of Latinx life, of any other demographic, just to being targets or victims. However important and true that may be, I feel like there’s just such a wide spectrum of representations that need to be put out there. So our response to that was well, OK, here’s this really important thing that is affecting people’s lives. Why don’t we just make this about the perpetrators and not the victims? So the point was to really sort of turn the camera around and really focus on the people behind the camera, and that includes the police, that includes Axon. It includes us sometimes as well. Did it ever cross your mind the meta-nature of the documentary that’s making an argument about cameras while recording with a camera? Absolutely. I think that that was like, not even a small part, but actually, maybe, the major part of the film for us was trying to figure out how to create and how to make commentary with the very tools that we’re critiquing. A lot of films or works will frame a subject, and our subject is actually the frame itself. It definitely felt like, over four and a half years, the film was in danger of totally eating its own tail and evaporating. You include an epilogue of students learning about filmmaking, after deciding to move it from the main piece? Why was that? This is a film about perpetrators, not victims. Seeing it in that large cut, close to the final cut, we had to take a step back. And this was in conversations with friends and filmmakers and artists and people who saw the film and were reacting to what they saw on screen as well. So I have to credit a lot of my friends who really offered a lot of guidance on this. It was just something that at the end of the day, even if these kids were just this possibility, or this joy, or this hope that was in between the themes of all these kind of violent weapons and histories, we were still placing them at the other end of that. You have a shot of someone pointing a gun, and then you have a shot of a kid like, you know, it’s just montage, right? Like that’s just the way that those images work together; you’re placing that person in the position of being a victim. And that was against what we were trying to do.

Column: Who will fill Eli Broad's philanthropic shoes? How about nobody?

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-06-03/who-will-fill-eli-broads-philanthropic-shoes-how-about-nobody

Every February, writer and cultural critic William Poundstone publishes a post he calls “Groundhog Day” on his perceptive and affable blog, Los Angeles County Museum on Fire, which looks at how Los Angeles has historically been described in the media. The annual aggregation of quotes — culled from six decades of cheese-puff reports about the city — often reads like variations on a theme: basically, that Los Angeles was a vast cultural wasteland, but that the arrival of some new museum/gallery/concert hall/art fair may finally transform this land of woo-woo starlet surferheads into the sort of cultural destination that the literati needn’t be quite so embarrassed about visiting. Opinion Eli Broad envisioned Grand Avenue as DTLA’s Champs-Élysées. Instead it may be a memorial to an urbanism of big gestures that is passing into history. May 9, 2021 Sample entry: “Los Angeles is a place where desire, fantasy and commerce come together, yet contemporary art has traditionally been overshadowed by the star power of Hollywood. Still, the city has quietly emerged as an important contemporary art hub.” That was courtesy of the New York Times in 2018. It pairs well with the following Life magazine quote from 1966: “For 20 years Los Angeles had been a kind of national joke. ... Then, one day in the 1950s, that huge humming, uncorseted, uninhabitable town woke up to discover it was turning into the cultural capital of the West.” No matter the decade, Poundstone’s wry aggregations capture a view of Los Angeles as a place that is always arriving yet never quite lands. I was thinking about these zombie tropes as I read the latest New York Times assessment of the state of culture in Los Angeles. The piece noted that the city “had established itself as a cultural capital with its galaxy of museums, galleries and performing arts institutions, defying dated stereotypes of a superficial Hollywood with little interest in art.” But “it now confronts uncertainty across its cultural landscape” with the one-two punch of the pandemic and the death of philanthropist Eli Broad. Like an overstuffed suitcase, there is lots to unpack — beginning with the idea that L.A. has finally (finally) achieved cultural capital status and ending with the intimation that the city’s art scene might wither without the presence of a strong philanthropist à la Broad. Let’s start with the question of philanthropy. The New York Times’ story, written by Adam Nagourney, implies that fundraising in celebrity-obsessed Tinseltown can be an exercise in frustration. “For all its wealth,” he writes, “Los Angeles has always been a challenging fund-raising environment.” It’s an echo of a piece about Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Times that Nagourney co-authored with Tim Arango in 2018. “For all its successes,” they wrote, “Los Angeles has not developed the political, cultural and philanthropic institutions that have proved critical in other American cities.” They also fret over Broad’s impending retirement. Neither story mentions the Getty Foundation, a local institution that is not only endowed to the teeth but has supported innovative cultural initiatives over more than a decade, such as the Pacific Standard Time series of exhibitions, as well as various pandemic recovery efforts. Beyond that, the woe-is-me-where-are-the-Los-Angeles-philanthropists narrative doesn’t appear to be entirely grounded in fact. The 2018 New York Times story notes that Los Angeles ranked 14th in charitable giving according to a 2017 metro market study by Charity Navigator (a ranking that also took into account issues such as accountability and transparency). What it fails to mention is that this placed L.A. five spots ahead of New York, which came in 19th out of 30 metro areas analyzed. I repeat, five spots ahead of New York. The No. 1 city that year? San Diego. Los Angeles also came out toward the top when it came to median total contributions. The national average, according to the report, was $2.9 million. Median total contributions in L.A. came to more than $4 million — well above average, and above New York, which checked in at almost $3.9 million. A separate study, published that same year by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, showed that giving ratios in Los Angeles edged out those of New York: 2.9% to 2.8%. (A giving ratio measures a city’s charitable contributions as a share of total adjusted gross income.) To be fair, New York patrons gave a slightly higher proportion of their dollars to arts and culture causes than L.A. patrons — 18% to 15.2%, according to Charity Navigator. But the overall numbers hardly paint a picture of Los Angeles as disengaged from the civic act of giving. So can we put this tired argument to rest? And while we’re at it, let’s retire the outmoded idea that the most important factor in a city’s cultural landscape is the presence of some white knight bearing a checkbook and grandiose ideas about turning bulldozed Los Angeles neighborhoods into the Champs-Élysées (as Broad once described his vision for Bunker Hill). In fact, a moneyed philanthropist can wreak havoc on public institutions. Like the time, in 2008, when, after financing the construction of the Renzo Piano-designed Broad Contemporary Art Museum at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to the tune of $50 million, Broad announced, weeks before the museum’s opening, that he wouldn’t be giving LACMA his collection. Two years later, LACMA alleged that Broad had left the museum holding the bag on $5.5 million in additional construction costs — something a spokesperson for Broad denied. He also left the museum with additional maintenance expenses, since he didn’t endow the building. As the late LACMA director Andrea Rich told the New Yorker in 2010: Broad once told her that no one is remembered for funding endowments. In 2015, he opened his own museum, the Broad downtown. Given this history, and given all the discussions about equity in culture that have taken place over the past year, it’s a weird time for the New York Times to be pondering who should fill the role of L.A.’s next Daddy Warbucks. We are at a moment in which the role of mega-donors — and the ways in which they wield their money and their power — has come under increasing scrutiny. In the museum sector, this has led to heightened activism over the source of board member wealth. Prominent businessmen — such as Warren B. Kanders at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art and Tom Gores at LACMA — have been pressed to resign from museum board positions over questions relating to the source of their wealth. (Kanders owned a defense manufacturer that fabricated tear-gas grenades employed on migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border; Gores ran a prison phone service that charged exorbitant fees to largely poor and nonwhite inmates or their families.) We are also at a moment in which there have been greater calls for public support of the arts. My colleague, Times classical music critic Mark Swed, has called for a federal Secretary of Culture. Los Angeles critic and scholar David Kipen, who once served as literature director at the National Endowment for the Arts, has proposed a Federal Writers Project inspired by the Roosevelt-era Works Progress Administration. That idea is now a bill, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance). Entertainment & Arts Much more than simply increasing diversity, the task ahead will consist of rethinking the very ways in which museums are governed. Oct. 22, 2020 President Biden says he wants to boost the budgets of the NEA and the National Endowment for the Humanities. (The proposed $33.5 million increase to the NEA would bring that agency’s budget to $201 million — its highest level funding since its founding in 1965.) After our destabilizing pandemic year, greater public funding is critical for arts organizations across the country, which frequently find themselves beholden to the whims of impetuous donors. (Benefactors are renowned for supporting grand building projects upon which they can bestow their names; they are generally less interested in raising funds to, say, pay equitable wages to frontline and entry-level staff.) If government support for the arts in the United States seems totally pie-in-the-sky, it is not — especially at the local level. LACMA draws an annual subsidy from L.A. County taxpayers of about $25 million — an amount that represents a quarter to a fifth of its annual budget. In Michigan, a $15 annual tax on residential properties valued at $150,000 in three counties goes toward funding the Detroit Institute of the Arts. In Colorado, a tiny portion of the sales tax (1 cent on every $10 in sales and use tax) is set aside to fund cultural and scientific institutions in a seven-county tax district around Denver. “It’s a stable source of funding that doesn’t fluctuate like philanthropy,” says Michael Rushton, a professor in the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, “and you can make sure it’s being evenly distributed.” It’s not European levels of funding, but these models exist and have been proven to work in the U.S. It is this model we should push for in Los Angeles — not more Eli Broads. Which brings me to the second point in the New York Times report: the idea that L.A. has at last, finally — FINALMENTE! (in melodramatic telenovela voice) — reached that mythical status of “global cultural capital.” Go figure, I think Southern California has been pretty international for a while now. Yes, there’s the film industry — which has been exporting culture for more than a century. And there have been so many art, architecture, music, stage and literary movements and influential creators born in L.A. that it’s pointless to name them all. There are other currents, too. In the early 20th century, the Mexican Revolution was planned, in part, in Los Angeles. During that same period, Korean independence activist Ahn Chang-Ho was inspired by organizing among Korean immigrants in agricultural communities such as Riverside. It was a period living in Los Angeles that helped shape the worldview of Mexican essayist and Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz. In Tokyo, there is a budding lowrider scene inspired by Chicano youth. Not to mention the traffic of goods: For the last two decades, the Port of Los Angeles has been the busiest container port in the Western Hemisphere. A philanthropist building a namesake museum on Bunker Hill is significant, but it’s not what makes L.A. important. That lies in a more unquantifiable realm having to do with ideas and the ways in which they are transmitted. For that we don’t need a great patron. We need better public institutions — ones that serve everybody, not just the people who fund them.

First priority for anti-Netanyahu coalition: Stay united long enough to get sworn in

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-03/netanyahu-lambastes-opposition-coalition-stay-united

In grave danger of losing his job, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out Thursday at the “dangerous” coalition that aims to unseat him, calling it a left-wing cabal when it in fact includes leading figures from Israel’s political right. The country’s longest-serving leader unleashed his fury as his rivals strove to shore up the awkward coalition they announced late Wednesday, the greatest political threat that Netanyahu has faced in his last dozen years as premier. The opposition is trying to remain united in order to dislodge him from office as early as next week. Netanyahu, 71, immediately sought to undermine the diverse forces arrayed against him by portraying them as dominated by dovish parties that support, among other things, the creation of a Palestinian state. In particular, he cast right-wing participants in the eight-party coalition — including Naftali Bennett, an observant Jew and former settler leader in line to replace Netanyahu — as betrayers of their own hard-line constituents. “All lawmakers who were elected by right-wing voters must oppose this dangerous left-wing government,” Netanyahu wrote on Twitter, signaling a strategy of putting relentless pressure on members of the parliament, or Knesset, who have teamed up with their ideological opposites in an attempt to push him out of office. With 38 minutes to spare before a midnight deadline, secular centrist Yair Lapid on Wednesday notified President Reuven Rivlin that he had assembled a prospective ruling coalition with sufficient parliamentary backing to oust Netanyahu. But Lapid’s fractious, fragile grouping first has to survive a parliamentary vote of confidence, whose date is still being argued over. Opinion Netanyahu’s political obituary has been written many times. So is this finally the end of the road for Israel’s longest-serving prime minister? June 2, 2021 In challenging Netanyahu, Lapid, a 59-year-old former television host, made history by enlisting a party representing Arab citizens of Israel as a governing partner. He also took the unusual step of offering a key coalition ally, Bennett, the first turn in a rotation in the prime minister’s post, although Lapid’s party is the larger one. Coalition negotiations continued into Thursday as the nascent allies competed for control of government ministries and committee posts — backroom battles that will translate into important policy clout in the new government, if it succeeds in getting sworn in. Lapid promised Wednesday that his coalition would “do everything to unite every part of Israeli society.” Netanyahu, a canny political survivor, has signaled his determination to use every possible parliamentary maneuver to foil or delay the vote that could relegate him to the political opposition, at a time when he is also on trial for corruption. The speaker of the parliament, Yariv Levin, is a member of the prime minister’s conservative Likud party, and may be able to put off the vote until June 14. World & Nation Israeli prosecutors have spelled out charges against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a corruption case in which he is accused of trading favors. Jan. 4, 2021 The centerpiece of the prime minister’s strategy will be to weaponize the loyalties of religious hard-liners who backed Bennett and similarly minded candidates at the ballot box without expecting them to ally with the likes of Lapid. The name of Bennett’s party, Yemina, means “rightward.” The views of the 49-year-old former military commando and high-tech millionaire are often described as ultra-nationalist, including his past calls to annex large chunks of the occupied West Bank. “In the days before the vote can take place, Netanyahu will intensify the pressure, using protesters on the street, slime merchants on social media, and every rabbi prepared to issue blessings and curses, for him to sway the wavering legislators of Bennett’s party,” Anshel Pfeffer, an Israeli journalist and Netanyahu biographer, wrote in the left-leaning Haaretz daily newspaper. Political analysts agreed that what has been dubbed the “change coalition” and its leaders face daunting challenges. Representing the Israeli left, center and right, they are unlikely to agree on war-and-peace issues such as Palestinian statehood, and will concentrate instead on bedrock domestic matters, including the economy and healthcare. 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. The political shakeup comes against what was already a tumultuous backdrop: recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, and a short but ugly 11-day war with the Hamas militant group, which left parts of the impoverished Gaza Strip in ruins and sent Israelis scurrying for bomb shelters before ending in a cease-fire May 21. Tamar Zandberg, a lawmaker from the leftist Meretz party, a coalition participant, said Thursday that simply making it as far as a swearing-in would be the coalition’s first test. “That won’t be without rough patches and difficulties,” she told Israeli Army radio.

Review: 'Bad Tales' is a sour take on dysfunctional families in a Roman suburb

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-06-03/review-bad-tales-d-innocenzo-brothers

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. If all roads lead to Rome, one might conclude after watching the corrosive Italian family psychodrama “Bad Tales” that to take that proverb literally, bypassing the Eternal City’s outlying residential neighborhoods on the way in would probably be a good idea. Treating the banality of the suburbs as contemptibly as “Gomorrah” director Matteo Garrone does the corrupting pall of mob-infested Naples, writing/directing siblings the D’Innocenzo Brothers — who have collaborated with Garrone (co-writing “Dogman”) — have certainly carved out their own darkly stylish slice of unhappy-family noir. The question is whether their painstaking depiction of anxiety-ridden children and seething parents is a substantive one — the bitter aftertaste making for one kind of declarative answer. The title sounds as if we’re in for a spell of warped fables. The movie even starts through a literary portal of sorts, as an unnamed male narrator tells of finding a girl’s green-inked diary and, entranced by its innocence, decides to continue the story after it abruptly ends, presumably to fill in what the narrator senses is unspoken. There’s even a “Blue Velvet”-like parade of suburban images accompanying, from the placid (a pool, a smiling girl) to the ominous (grey clouds, ants), and as we segue into the characters’ lives, we hear a newscaster report a tragedy regarding a young family. The movie’s own constellation of simmering, unsteady beings is a handful of barely functioning households with anxiety-ridden kids attending the same school. Edgy, out of work Bruno (Elio Germano) is the kind of dad who makes his academically gifted kids Dennis (Tommaso di Cola) and Alessia (Giulietta Rebeggiani) read their report cards out loud to dinner guests but also purposefully sabotages their popular inflatable pool in the dead of night, only to blame it on gypsies the next morning. He shares a noxious masculinity with fellow dad Pietro (Max Malatesta), another ball of rage who privately despises Bruno and seems to barely tolerate his own daughter, quiet, brooding Viola (Giulia Melillo). Dennis, meanwhile, finds himself curious about pregnant, openly sexual (and epically snarling) older teenager Vilma (Ileana D’Ambra), while also navigating a cheery classmate’s insistence they hook up. On the fringe of this world is bully-targeted working-class kid Geremia (Justin Korovkin), who lives by the woods with his loving but immature single dad Amelio (Gabriel Montesi), a trattoria worker. As a curdled storybook, “Bad Tales” is highly watchable. The problem is that the brothers aren’t telling stories fueled by powerful characters; they’re staging awkward cruelties as if for a gallery show. But even accepting its poetically presentational nature, it’s a mood piece without a genuineness of intention, middle-class claustrophobia and resentments turned into coolly derisive design elements rather than arranged for deeper examination. The choppy narrative is intentionally enigmatic, as if to keep the focus on the stylish framing and visual textures in Paolo Cernera’s cinematography, which does effectively capture the stifling intensity of a summer that feels ready to boil over. The D’Innocenzos, Fabio and Damiano, have one smart motif going for them — childhood as a state of grim watchfulness, with the morally lost adults in their midst oblivious to their roles as examples of what the future holds. But that theme gets lost in the arch malignancy of it all and the abiding scorn the directors have for their doomed figures. (The wives in this scenario are barely visible either; maybe that’s a sociological point about these types of families, but then again, maybe spotlighting toxic dads was more exciting for the filmmakers.) A few scenes here and there give some of the actors a passing shot at dimensionality — mostly belonging to D’Ambra’s concentratedly acrid sexuality, Germano’s tautly angry Bruno, and a moment of tenderness between lonely Geremia and Viola when forced together in an unusual parent-engineered visit. But as a snapshot of a summer of discontent — critical and clinical — “Bad Tales” is a disappointingly sour display indeed. 'Bad Tales' In Italian with English subtitlesNot ratedRunning time: 1 hour, 40 minutesPlaying: Starts June 4, Laemmle Monica Film Center; also at Laemmle Virtual Cinema

Essential California: Cowabunga, dude! Surfing in El Salvador

https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2021-06-03/california-surfing-el-salvador-essential-california

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Thursday, June 3. I’m Brittny Mejia, coming to you from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Kevin Baxter takes us on a journey to a 13-mile stretch of Salvadoran shoreline that has turned into one of the world’s newest surfing meccas — thanks, in part, to Californians. It’s a spot where the waves are so ripe and the water so warm, tourism officials are hoping it can repair the country’s battered image while the International Surfing Assn. has chosen it as the location of the final qualifying rounds for the debut of surfing as an Olympic sport this summer. The eight-day competition, known as the World Surfing Games and featuring 256 athletes from 51 countries, concludes Sunday. It might never have happened had Bob Levy, who learned to surf in California, and two Huntington Beach teenagers he met there kept the secret of Salvadoran surfing to themselves. The story of how Levy got there involves an Oxford-educated veterinarian, a beach visit the summer he graduated high school and a creaky Volkswagen van he and friends often had to push on the way from the Texas border to the Salvadoran shore. Levy, who grew up in El Salvador but discovered surfing in California, went in search of the open waves he recalled from childhood trips in his homeland. He was joined by Kevin Naughton and Craig Peterson, who had left Orange County and headed south on a surfing safari of their own. What they found when they reached El Sunzal was a beach that was both perfect and deserted. But the secret spot didn’t stay secret for long, especially not after Naughton wrote a couple of articles for Surfer magazine that Peterson illustrated. They never pinpointed their location — referring only to beaches south of Mexico — but other surfers figured it out and the crowds, like the waves, began to swell. Soon, Levy opened a small shop to feed the demands of a growing band of surfers, driving back and forth to California to gather boards and other surf paraphernalia. It’s a wild tale about what surfing has come to mean in El Salvador: A chance to change perceptions of a country that recently ranked as the deadliest in the world without a war within its borders. Does 75-year-old Levy still surf? Read and find out. [Read more about these surfers in the Los Angeles Times.] 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. First rule of fight club. During the pandemic, Damian Gutierrez founded an underground, pop-up fight club known as Backyard Squabbles. The fight club’s motto is “Guns down, squabble up.” Los Angeles Times Life inside an unpermitted L.A. apartment complex. For residents in the city’s vast web of unpermitted housing, life during the pandemic was not “safer at home.” There were dangerous living conditions, eviction threats and slow responses from city officials. LAist Au revoir? The Los Angeles City Council decided Wednesday to recognize Taix French Restaurant as a historic monument but granted no special protection to its Sunset Boulevard building. The Echo Park site is slated for redevelopment. Los Angeles Times Chinese tech giant expands footprint. Tencent is significantly expanding its footprint in Los Angeles, opening an office in Playa Vista that could accommodate 300 employees. Over the next three years, Tencent America, the company’s Palo Alto-based U.S. division, said it plans to double the size of its L.A. workforce. Los Angeles Times The quiet war in Room 533. Richard Perry claimed his berth in the middle-class the way most Black people do — by sheer drive and against the odds, with little or no generational wealth to lean on in a crisis. By mid-January, Perry was watching the virus rip through nearly every aspect of his life. Los Angeles Times Mask and you shall receive. The state will later this month begin allowing those who are fully vaccinated for COVID-19 to go without masks in most situations. And a California workplace safety board on Thursday is scheduled to consider a proposal that would allow workers to shed their masks if everyone in a room is fully vaccinated and free of COVID-19 symptoms. Will it push skeptics to get their shots? Los Angeles Times Hundreds of death penalty sentences could be overturned. For decades, California’s highest court has left it up to individual jurors to decide which”aggravating” circumstances warrant a death penalty sentence in first-degree murder cases. On Wednesday, the California Supreme Court heard arguments on imposing new legal requirements on such jury decisions. Los Angeles Times San Luis Obispo boosts Newsom recall. Burdened by pandemic lockdowns, San Luis Obispo County delivered a sizable number of signatures to the Newsom recall effort. Out of every 1,000 voters in San Luis Obispo County, 139 signed their names on the recall petition. Los Angeles Times Huntington Beach at a crossroads. Tito Ortiz, the city councilman who evoked the stereotypical image of a Donald Trump supporter, resigned this week. Some say Ortiz’s sudden departure represents a crossroads for Huntington Beach, which has tried to soften its image as a bastion of hard-right politics to one of a family-friendly beach community that has the appetite to tackle societal issues like homelessness and flies an LGBTQ pride flag outside City Hall. Los Angeles Times Search for Agua Dulce shooting motive. Two sources told The Times that there was an ongoing dispute between the victim, Tory Carlon, and the shooter, who worked different shifts but lived in the same area. The argument, believed to be about how the station was run and maintained, escalated Tuesday morning, the sources said. Los Angeles Times Former L.A. councilman locked up. Mitchell Englander, convicted in a corruption case last year, has started a 14-month sentence at the U.S. penitentiary in Arizona. He is the first to be imprisoned in a probe that has also produced felony charges against former City Councilman Jose Huizar, former deputy mayor Raymond Chan and several others. Los Angeles Times Life in lock-up. What life inside a Northern California prison is like for Gina Champion-Cain, a former restaurateur sentenced to 15 years for her role in orchestrating a nearly $400-million Ponzi scheme. She’s at the same prison camp where Felicity Huffman spent time for her involvement in the college admissions scandal. San Diego Union-Tribune New podcast From Christopher Goffard, the Los Angeles Times reporter and host behind the hit podcasts “Dirty John” and “Detective Trapp,” comes an eight-episode true crime podcast, “The Trials of Frank Carson.” Listen and subscribe here. Tending land with fire. The Karuk, like many Native American tribes, used fire to manage the forest for centuries. Situated along the Klamath River, in Humboldt and Siskiyou counties, the Karuk have endured out-of-control wildfires that have decimated the area. Now, the Karuk want to keep the forests through controlled fire. KQED Train project off rails. Nine years after California’s transportation agency announced it was leading a multi-state partnership to buy more than 100 new passenger railcars, not a single car has gone into service. The latest issue? Excessive levels of lead found in some of the cars’ restroom water supplies. Sacramento Bee Protecting sea lions. Human visitors to La Jolla Cove will soon see signs asking them to keep a “social distance” from the sea lions there, as the sea lion pupping season begins. San Diego Union-Tribune History of housing detainees. The Pomona Fairplex has been used as a temporary shelter for more than 500 migrant children who have arrived unaccompanied at the U.S.-Mexico border since March. It was also one of 15 locations in the country that temporarily housed more than 92,000 people of Japanese descent who were detained until more permanent incarceration camps were built. Los Angeles Times Kardashians changed celebrity forever. Whether you consider this polarizing crew 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 Kardashians exemplify the ascent of reality TV in American life. Los Angeles Times California’s popular baby names of 2020. The most popular names in 2020 in California were Noah, Liam and Mateo for boys, and Olivia, Camila and Emma for girls. California is distinct from other states in that it tends to have a lot more Hispanic baby names, especially ones that are crossovers between English and Hispanic names. San Francisco Chronicle Tacos and Tik Tok. What was a handful of small retailers last year in this alley-like street, between West Avenue 33 and Humboldt Street in Lincoln Heights, has boomed into a full-fledged night market replete with opportunity, competition and a sense of community during the devastating pandemic. Los Angeles Times Come as you are. Plantiitas, a queer, Latinx-owned plant shop, has had long lines since it opened in the fall. The owners center the shop in the experiences of Long Beach’s queer and Latinx population. Los Angeles Times Mother turned anti-police brutality activist dies. The death of Genevieve Huizar’s son in 2012 touched off the largest police protests in Orange County’s recent history. Huizar died of COVID-19. Slingshot! 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, 75. San Diego: sunny, 66. San Francisco: partly cloudy, 64. San Jose: sunny, 79. Fresno: TOO sunny, 102. Sacramento: sunny, 97. Today’s California memory comes from Caye Boosalis: In August 1969, when I was 12 years old, my father drove our family from St. Paul, Minn., to Disneyland in his Dodge Monaco station wagon. When we arrived in California, Dad headed straight to the ocean and drove a few miles along the Pacific Coast Highway. I was enthralled with the sand, waves and endless water and wanted to stop. He was too tired, but my first view of the Pacific Ocean was my strongest memory of the trip. From then on, I knew I would live on the West Coast, and I eventually moved to California. 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.

Angels pitching to be playoff contender with easier schedule ahead

https://www.latimes.com/sports/angels/story/2021-06-03/angels-pitching-playoff-contender-easy-schedule

Manager Joe Maddon has made it clear. General manager Perry Minasian, too. The Angels are not where they want to be through 55 games, stuck in fourth place in the American League West with a 25-30 record. They’ve battled injuries. They’ve suffered from inconsistent pitching. They’ve struggled to produce extended stretches of strong play. But, after splitting back-to-back series against the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants, they entered June with renewed confidence, buoyed by recent improvements from their starting rotation and stability from the back of their bullpen. This week, they embark on a seemingly soft spot in their schedule, with their next 17 games coming against opponents that are a combined 17 games under .500. And when asked Tuesday how important these upcoming several weeks will be, Maddon didn’t downplay his answer. “Very large,” he said, recognizing a key opportunity even with the season only one-third complete. “We have to approach this with almost a playoff mentality, daily. I know that may be kind of a reach. But my intention is not to go home at the end of the season and watch other teams in the playoffs. My intention, our intention is to be one of those teams. In order for that to happen, it has to start sooner rather than later. Angels The Angels earn a series split against the Giants behind Andrew Heaney’s strong start and Anthony Rendon’s five RBIs June 1, 2021 “You just can’t keep putting this off and expect to turn the switch on after the All-Star break and have great things happen. We got to start getting those wins. We got to win series and we got to win weeks. That’s the best way I can describe it.” So far this season, the Angels are 6-9-4 in series and have had only three winning weeks (Monday-to-Sunday). Recently, however, there have been signs they might be steadying out, winning six of their last nine games (their best such stretch since the first nine games) even with Mike Trout sidelined by a calf injury. Solid starting pitching has been one factor. In nine of the past 13 games, Angels starters have gone at least five innings and given up no more than three earned runs. “Our starters are feeding off one another right now,” Maddon said. “They’re motivated, maybe, by some performances they didn’t like earlier in the year.” Strides from the bullpen have helped as well. Steve Cishek has emerged as a late-inning option and is currently riding a 13-inning scoreless streak. Closer Raisel Iglesias has converted his last seven save opportunities and surrendered four runs (all in non-save situations) in 12 innings during the month of May. “At times, we’ve seen him come into games early the first few pitches and he just tries to ease into the outing, and the velocity is down a little bit,” pitching coach Matt Wise said of Iglesias. “But we’ve talked to him about, from pitch one, let it eat, get after it a little bit. … He’s open to information. He asks good questions. I feel very confident in him going forward.” The lineup also has managed without Trout, ranking seventh in the majors in runs since his injury May 17. And that was with Anthony Rendon struggling for most of the second half of May, a slump Maddon thinks the third baseman is busting out of after a three-hit, five-RBI performance Tuesday. “It’s just a matter of time,” Maddon said of Rendon, whose .646 on-base-plus-slugging percentage this season is more than 200 points below his career average. “Look at the back of his baseball card. About a month or so from now, it’s gonna look like that.” The Angels are hoping a month from now, their record will look much improved, too. If not, it could leave Minasian with tough choices to make. Dodgers Albert Pujols says he’s excited to have a chance to play on the Dodgers and believes the team is good enough to repeat as World Series champions. May 29, 2021 Speaking with reporters last week, Minasian said it was too early to say how the Angels would approach the trade deadline, whether they’d sell valuable pieces or preserve the group for a playoff push. For as much as the Angels might like the chemistry in their clubhouse — Maddon this week praised the “grit of his team,” saying, “there’s a bunch of guys here that do have each other’s back” — the Angels also have to consider the contractual construction of their roster. More than a dozen players will be free agents this winter. Although the trade deadline isn’t until the end of July, they’ll likely receive plenty of inquiries — either way they go. “It is still early in the season,” Minasian said. “But the next month is obviously really important. Hopefully we play better, and that will take care of itself.”

His lonely war in Room 533: How a COVID patient fought to keep his life from crumbling

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-03/deathly-covid-patient-fights-for-life-la-legacy

As a boy in Compton, Richard Perry raised pigeons that were bred to tumble in the air. Now, as he lay in a hospital bed fighting to breathe, drifting in and out of consciousness, he saw his birds somersaulting across the sky. For the four weeks that COVID-19 tried to kill him, Richard had nothing to do but wander through his mind. Thoughts of death and leaving his wife and daughter to struggle sent him into a panic. So he traveled back. He was playing football in the street with his brothers Ray and Ronald, waiting for their mom to call them to dinner. He was letting his birds out of his backyard loft, a burst of squeaky wings. He was building bikes from scrap parts with his best friend, Dwayne, trading rims for handlebars, a rusty chain for grips, riding to the old Pike in Long Beach. From his hospital bed in the weeks after he arrived Jan. 5, he thought about working on his first car with his dad. The hours together wrenching on a broken-down 1965 Chevy Impala — the spare words and scraped knuckles — set him on the path to become the man he would be. At 58, Richard had a solid union job transporting and assembling satellite parts at Boeing Co. He was the one to whom his siblings came for help, the one his dad picked to take care of their mother if he died first. He had a wife of 34 years, Audrey; a grown daughter, Aushlie; and a house in Compton that he spent his weekends tirelessly remodeling and expanding into a family palace, with a rumpus room, sprawling patio and three barbecue pits to cook chicken and ribs for his brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews. Richard claimed his berth in the middle class the way most Black people do — by sheer drive and against the odds, with little or no generational wealth to lean on in a crisis. His father, Lapolum Perry, had left Jim Crow-era Arkansas for something bigger than a clearing in the woods with a rough-hewed cabin and an outhouse. When he landed in Los Angeles with a wife and young children in 1958, he worked as a truck driver for Shell Oil and in a year had saved enough to buy a little house in a tract of west Compton that was built for Black families aspiring to the middle class. Richard’s parents took a big step up in that purchase, and he took a big step up from that. “I’m afraid I’m going to lose everything I worked all my life for. The moment I got sick, everything just started falling apart.” — Richard Perry Now COVID-19 was showing how rickety this ladder was. By mid-January, Richard was watching the virus rip through nearly every aspect of his life, as it was doing to home after home, block after block in Latino and Black neighborhoods from Wilmington to Watts, Pomona to San Fernando. If he died, his family might fall into poverty. His mother would be crushed. Then he worried that his own negative thinking was going to be the final blow. He needed to keep his mind aloft. And so off he went, sorting through his memories for meaning. “I’m afraid I’m going to lose everything I worked all my life for,” he told a reporter visiting him in the hospital one day. “The moment I got sick, everything just started falling apart.” He hadn’t returned to work since the Christmas holiday, and the paychecks had stopped coming in — while the bills did not. Audrey lost her job cleaning airplanes at Los Angeles International Airport. He told her to turn in his leased Jaguar so they could pay the mortgage. Their Lincoln Continental would be next. They had been in the process of refinancing their house when he got sick. When the lender learned he had stopped working, it canceled their application. Richard didn’t have the energy to make the phone calls and navigate the web to get his disability paperwork in order. He had no laptop. His brain was foggy. He couldn’t even sit up in bed without his blood oxygen dropping dangerously low. Normally clean-shaven and well-groomed, he had a thick gray beard and a painful ingrown toenail. He was simply trying not to die. It seemed that every call from home brought a new burden to bear. One day it was the plumbing. “I’m trying to see who I can call,” Audrey told him. “It’s still backed up right now, the toilet, the kitchen, everywhere.” Richard closed his eyes and exhaled. His face was sunken. He lay flat on the bed, on his side to get more airflow. He lifted his oxygen mask off to be heard. “So we need to get a plumber out,” he said. The words came out weak and shallow. His blood oxygen numbers dropped on the monitor by his bed. He replaced the mask and inhaled deeply. “I don’t see how we can afford it to do that,” she said. “You’re in the hospital.” He again pulled the mask below his chin. “Well, you got to get it done.” Normally, Richard would snake out the clog himself. It pained him to hire any type of handyman. At home, he did everything — appliance repairs, tile work, mowing the lawn. He thought about asking his oldest brother, Lapolum Jr., to help, but he had also contracted COVID-19 and was just out of the hospital on supplemental oxygen. “So is my unemployment complete?” he asked. “No,” Audrey said. “The check’s smaller than the last time. I’m trying to find out what’s going on. Because it’s real small. I’m going to call her first, then I’ll call the plumber.” “I wish I could make all these calls,” he said. “I know I’m relying on you to do everything.” After these conversations were over, he often fell into despair. Two nights early in his hospital stay, he had felt he came so close to dying that it haunted him every day after. :: Richard started feeling sick on New Year’s Day. By Jan. 5, he was lying on a gurney in the back of an ambulance, shaking uncontrollably and gasping for air. His brother Ray peered in from the back of the ambulance, head hung down, looking scared and forlorn. Ray was Richard’s older brother by a year but was the sweet, jovial kid who never quite grew up. He never married or moved out of his parents’ home, and he was as gentle a soul as Richard knew. The expression on his face made Richard tear up. “I gotta go,” Richard said. “Bye.” Richard arrived at the emergency room of Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital with blood oxygen saturation of 56% — a level low enough that it would normally kill a person within hours, if not minutes. Doctors put him on high-flow nasal oxygen. If his saturation did not rise to a safe level, they would have to induce a coma, intubate him and put him on a ventilator. The intensive care unit was full, so they couldn’t fit him in. They put him in Room 533 on the fifth floor and had him lie prone. He was stunned when doctors talked to him about next of kin and his wishes for being put on a ventilator if his organs began to fail. Nurses and doctors checked on him, gave him his medications, brought him his food. But mostly he lay belly down, face to the bed railing, alone. His mind meandered as the hours passed, his sense of time fell away. He wondered why his dad bought that broken Impala when he was 17. Richard was an usher at the Vermont Drive-In Theatre in Gardena and gave his dad enough cash to buy a working car, as he had done with Richard’s two older brothers. His father was a bit of an enigma to his city-reared children. Part Cherokee, he grew up on a tenant farm in the bottomlands south of Pine Bluff along the Arkansas River. As a boy, his parents had sent him out with .22-caliber rifle or cane pole to catch a squirrel or possum or catfish for dinner. Out of sheer poverty, he learned how to fix anything with his own hands. And all his life, he refused to go to a restaurant, for the waste of money it represented. As a child, Richard couldn’t grasp how hard his dad was fighting to keep his family afloat in Compton. At one point, Lapolum was driving his own big rig all over the West, hauling recycled paper. He lamented being away from his family five days a week, but he had to pay the bills. When trucking wasn’t earning enough, he took a job as a foreman at a metal polishing business and spent his nights and weekends fixing up old cars and motorcycles for resale. The Impala arrived on a tow truck one day in 1980. Column One A showcase for compelling storytelling from the Los Angeles Times. “I gave you $800 for a car that don’t run,” Richard told his dad. “Yeah, you got to put another transmission in, you got to rebuild the motor, put shocks on it.” “I got to rebuild the whole car!” “That’ll make you stronger.” That fall, Richard and his dad took the cylinder heads off, lifted the engine block, removed the pistons, put on new rings, replaced the rods and bearings, adjusted the valves. They rebuilt the carburetor and installed new brakes and shocks. After four months, they were nearly finished. Richard sanded down the body and primed it. He couldn’t wait to show it off to his friends, and to girls at Compton High School. His first drive was to his drive-in job, the V-8 engine rumbling nice and throaty, Kool & the Gang pumping, as he cruised down Vermont like a king. Just before he pulled into work, an old man ran a stop sign at full speed and T-boned the Impala’s fender on the driver’s side. The car was totaled. Richard stood on the corner, not sure whether to weep or rage. Now, so many years later, in his hospital bed, he confronted this same feeling of grand injustice on a cosmic level. His coughing was getting worse, and he was starting to panic for air again. Richard’s oxygen levels dropped to 69% in the early morning of Jan. 7. He coughed so hard he vomited. Nurses rushed in and added a re-breather mask that increased the oxygen he inhaled through his mouth. They patted him on his back. “You’re going to get through this.” A doctor from intensive care considered putting him on a ventilator but held off. Richard prayed day and night. Look, God, I been doing everything I can all my life to do the right thing. I followed the rules. I didn’t do drugs. I didn’t drink. I always respected everybody. And you want to take me? Give me another chance. I want another chance in life. The next day, Audrey told him that his brothers Ray and Ronald were both taken to the hospital with COVID-19. She and their daughter Aushlie had also caught it, but their symptoms were not bad. As he lay there after the call, he remembered playing slot cars with Aushlie when she was a little girl. They loved that. He regretted that he never introduced her to roller pigeons. She texted him a photo of them together to cheer him up. His eyes welled up looking at her smile. On Jan. 14, Audrey called with terrible news. His older brother Ray had died. Richard fell into a sinkhole of grief. He kept seeing Ray’s saddened face peering into the back of the ambulance. He was angry that Audrey told him. He couldn’t fight this disease and grieve at the same time. “Don’t call and tell me anything else,” he told her. “The more you tell me, the more I stress out.” As best he could, he tried to put Ray in a compartment to mourn later when he was healthy. His lifelong friend Dwayne called to try to lift his spirits, remembering their bike treks to Long Beach and Redondo. So did a co-worker at Boeing, Raymundo Mena. A shy man, Mena, 57, always appreciated how Richard went out of his way to make sure he was included, whether on business trips or just going out to lunch. When Mena was in the hospital for a heart problem, Richard was one of two people to call and sent a get-well card that he had everyone at work sign. Now, Mena texted Richard photos of their travels together, delivering satellites to countries including Kazakhstan, Peru and French Guiana. In Kazakhstan, the locals had treated Richard like a celebrity because he was the first Black man they had ever seen. They lined up to pose for pictures with him and ask for autographs. Texting, Mena reminded him of the haircut he got there, from a woman who had never seen a Black man’s hair, much less cut it. She mowed a bare landing strip up the backside of his head before he could stop it. He and his crew laughed over that the rest of the trip. These reveries forced him to focus on getting better. He started doing exhaustive breathing exercises on an incentive spirometer to expand his lungs. He managed to put his socks on by himself and sit up on the edge of his bed. He made progress one day, only to fall back the next. Doctors were still deeply concerned that he might not make it. He had been struggling on the high flow of nasal oxygen now for 20 days, and that put potentially deadly strain on his organs. They’d seen people in his state, improving, only to suddenly fall into kidney failure or cardiac arrest. On Jan. 27, he learned that his brother Ronald had been put in a coma and hooked up to a ventilator. Ronald was the tightly wound, argumentative counterpoint to laid-back Ray. A common family description of him is “roostery,” and Richard had had his clashes with him. But Ronald had a tender spot for children and was always there for anyone in need. He and Richard had the same deep bond they did as children, playing football on West Tichenor Street with Ray, under the Japanese elm their dad had planted. He tried not to sink into a sense that the worst was inevitable. When a Times reporter and photographer visited the next day, he showed off a photo of him and Aushlie buying her car. “Reminds me what I got, and hopefully I still have this stuff when I get back. I don’t know what I’m going to have. I fight so hard. I do whatever they tell me to do. Because I want to see my wife and my daughter again. “She loves to hang out with her dad.” On Feb. 3, he woke up without fatigue. His mind was clear, and he wanted to exercise. The next day, he did arm lifts, stood in the walker for 10 seconds and sat on the edge of the bed for 10 minutes. Feb. 5, a month after his arrival, he successfully walked from his bed to the window and back. From that point on he walked farther and farther — until he was finally released Feb. 12. As he was wheeled down the hallway with an oxygen tank, his nurses and doctors and therapists, who had seen so much death over the last two months, lined up to applaud him and wish him well. At the entrance of the hospital, Audrey threw her hands up when he was wheeled out. “Hi, honey, is that really you?” she asked. “Yes, it’s me, I made it.” She bent down to hug him. He rested his head on her shoulder. :: Richard couldn’t go to Ray’s funeral because he couldn’t walk up and down the hill, even with the oxygen canister he towed behind him. His friend Dwayne brought him breakfast while his wife and daughter attended the memorial. They laughed and cried and talked about old times. It felt like Ray might walk in the door any second. Richard still felt that about his dad, who died three years before. He missed the old man. Richard had done everything he could to get him the best medical treatment, and then secured him a nice resting spot under trees at Rose Hills Memorial Park. His dad loved trees from his days in Arkansas. Ronald died March 1, after more than a month on the ventilator. Now Richard worried about his mom. Ruby Lee, 90, was devastated about losing two sons, both of whom were living with her in the old family home on Tichenor before they were taken to the hospital. With them gone, she started showing signs of dementia, calling Richard regularly in the middle of the night to say somebody was trying to get in, screaming that she didn’t want to die alone in a nursing home. Richard couldn’t return to work unless he recovered fully. He still felt that he was on the precipice of financial collapse. The disability checks he’d received were a small fraction of his salary. He had come so far from where his dad had started — hunting game for dinner as a youth. Now his footing still seemed so shaky. Once a week he visited Martin Luther King’s COVID-19 ICU post-discharge unit for doctors to check his progress. Dr. Erin Dizon, an infectious-disease specialist, marveled at his recovery and, perhaps most important, helped him get all the forms filled out to receive his full disability payments. By March, Richard no longer needed the supplemental oxygen, and the disability checks were coming in. His mother was in the hospital after several strokes. He would take care of her like his dad told him to do. He figured he could make it now. That existential dread had receded. He thought of the Impala from time to time. The driver who totaled it was an old man with trembling hands who said he was racing home to get to his medicine. He promised his insurance would pay — and it did. Richard bought a cool, clean 1973 Monte Carlo — maroon, with cream leather seats. He wooed Audrey in that car and made a life he was determined to keep.

'A dangerous time' in Myanmar: Burmese in California struggle for answers, attention

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-03/myanmar-burmese-diaspora-reaction

Banny Hong sighed as he sat at his Burmese restaurant on a recent weekday, recounting the violence that has swept through his homeland since a military coup four months ago. Two portraits of Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi decorated the wall before him, flanking a photograph of Yangon, the nation’s largest city. “It’s a dangerous time there,” he said as two masked employees cleaned tables and swept the floors before his Stanton eatery, Irrawaddy Taste Of Burma, opened for the day. “A lot of untold stories. Missing bodies. It’s a devastating moment. I am very desperate.” Hong’s friends from his university days still live in Myanmar, also known as Burma, which Hong left in 1987. He worries for their safety and believes that only the United States can help bring an end to the violence that so far has resulted in an estimated 750 civilian deaths, widespread arrests and street protests amid a military crackdown in the Southeast Asian country. “Even my customers are asking about it,” the 55-year-old said. Members of California’s Burmese diaspora have protested across the state since Myanmar’s military leadership seized control of the government on Feb. 1, detaining Suu Kyi and other civilian leaders and claiming without evidence that recent elections, which Suu Kyi’s party won in a landslide, 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 intensified its repressive tactics. For the small Burmese American community in California, the coup has stoked fears that Myanmar’s decades-long efforts toward limited democracy and individual freedom could be over. The number of Myanmar expatriates is estimated to be 30,000 statewide. Most Burmese Americans live in large metropolitan areas including Minneapolis-St. Paul, Indianapolis, New York, Dallas, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Between the 2002 and 2019 fiscal years, most refugees who migrated to the U.S. came from Myanmar — about 177,700 — according to the Pew Research Center. In all, roughly 189,000 people of Burmese descent live in the U.S., the Pew data show. The first large influx of immigration to the United States began in the 1960s, when military rule was first established. Another landed around the time of the so-called 8888 Uprising in 1988, a movement led by students now known as the 88 Generation. About 25% of the U.S. Burmese population lives in poverty, 2019 Pew data found. Compared with the Asian American population as a whole, foreign- and native-born Burmese Americans collectively have less education and lower English proficiency, the data show. Many in enclaves in Orange County, San Francisco and the San Gabriel Valley, like Hong, hold ties to Myanmar through family and friends who never left, some of whom are at risk or in hiding. For members of the diaspora, the goal of the dozens of protests they’ve held is to push for U.S. divestment from Burmese companies — many owned by the military — in hopes of depriving the government of its income sources. The rallies also serve as a means to raise awareness about the coup — the deaths of hundreds in the streets and the restriction of freedoms in a country that activists say most Americans couldn’t point to on a map, let alone advocate for. “When I first got here, people would ask where I’m from. I would say Burma or Myanmar and people would say, ‘Burma in San Diego?’” said Kristy Thu, an interior design student at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut. “People have been clueless about where Myanmar is. No one knows about [it], so it’s just harder for us to get through to the world’s attention.” Before the coup, Thu and her family in Myanmar would talk every day. The constant communication was a source of comfort for her as she pursued her studies. “That happened until my dad was given an arrest warrant,” Thu said. Her father, a singer in Myanmar, used his platform to speak out against the coup. He has been in hiding since the military put out a warrant for his arrest several weeks ago and surrounded their family home one night around 11, Thu said. “My dad doesn’t want me to worry too much. He says he will try his best to stay out of their way, but there is a long fight and it’s not going to be over in just a week or two,” the 23-year-old said. “My whole family is dispersed and hiding in different places. It’s just really traumatizing.” Some days, Ethan Myint feels so overwhelmed by the coup that he has to disconnect himself from news about Myanmar that pours through social media and group chats and other sources. At times, he said, the anxiety is crippling. “This battle against the Tatmadaw is generations long,” said Myint, 23, using the name of Myanmar’s military. “My parents fought them, my grandparents fought them. It’s a dictatorship and it’s a battle, and because of that it’s just a part of my identity.” Myint, a refugee who escaped Myanmar with his mother when he was 9, said that raising awareness of the coup is important because the people of his homeland “deserve to be free and live their lives.” He’s been moved by scenes of young protesters taking to the streets and being met by soldiers and police wielding water cannons and firing live rounds. “They’re students younger than myself doing these things, and this is the message we try to get out as much as possible,” he said. “When you think of a teen or someone in their early 20s, you don’t think of someone risking their lives. They’re supposed to be experiencing love or messing around with friends.” At the start of the coup, social media from inside Myanmar brought updates on arrests, deaths and crackdowns. But since the military took control of the internet, many in the diaspora haven’t been able to see what is happening on the streets in real time, said Thet Lin Tun, president of UCLA’s Burmese Student Assn. “It is a tragedy and it’s an abomination,” Lin Tun said. “People are getting burned alive. They’re getting hit with [rocket-propelled grenades]. ... I just can’t believe the people of Myanmar are being treated like this by the people who have been sworn to protect them.” Myanmar’s elected leader, Suu Kyi, became an icon of democracy while under house arrest for nearly 15 years, winning the Nobel Peace Prize. But she has been condemned internationally for her support of the military’s slaughter of Rohingya Muslims starting in 2017. President Biden imposed sanctions on Myanmar’s military commanders in February. Saying the military must “respect democracy,” he announced that he would block army commanders from accessing$1 billion in assets in the U.S. and target individuals for restrictions that would bar them from doing business with U.S. citizens or entities. Lin Tun, 22, feels as though Myanmar and the Burmese diaspora garner less attention from the international community and mainstream media than other ethnic groups with better-known struggles, such as Armenian Americans, who have fought for decades for recognition of the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Turks during World War I. “I honestly don’t know why,” said Lin Tun, who moved to California in 2017 to study political science. “It’s a question I have been wondering about with my fellow Burmese. We have been wondering how can we fix it.” Jonathan Liljeblad, a researcher at Australian National University, said one reason the diaspora in the U.S. has struggled to gain attention is that it is “nowhere near as influential as the Chinese, Korean or even Vietnamese American community.” When he migrated to Los Angeles as a child in the late 1980s, “there was no such thing as a Burmese restaurant ... whereas there was no end to Chinese restaurants and Vietnamese restaurants.” That, alongside the lack of a culture of activism among many immigrants from Myanmar, he said, has hampered their ability to raise awareness. “There is a general disposition toward a low profile to avoid drawing attention,” Liljeblad said. “As a result, it’s a struggle to create a sense of unified activism in the U.S.” Lin Tun, the UCLA student, said he has noticed a lower level of interest from American-born Burmese because many of them are “detached” from Myanmar and have never visited. There is also a split along generational lines when it comes to deciding the best way to make other Americans aware of the unrest, he added. “The youth want to communicate more in English to convince the rest of American communities to stand up and fight for them,” he said. “The older people are more keen to talk in Burmese because they are stronger in Burmese and it also feels better to let out their feelings in Burmese. There’s a clash when it comes to that.” The community is working together despite that, he said. But he noted that different generations of activists have not only different tactics but different goals. “Youth typically cares more about awareness, humanitarian help, divestment,” Lin Tun said. “The older generation, they care more about harsher sanctions, and a considerable amount want military intervention” by the U.S. Ii Maung, a mechanical engineer who has helped organize the protests, said that the community’s voice is unified but just starting to form. Her brother, an author who owns a publishing company and is actively protesting the coup, is in hiding, Maung said. “He called me once and my parents were with me. He asked about them, and my mom couldn’t even talk because she was shaken,” said Maung, who moved to the U.S. in 2001. To her, the fight for democracy in Myanmar is not just a Burmese cause, but a global one battling a “crime against humanity.” “In Burma, you cannot go out there and express yourself with freedom. We lost that,” she said. “That’s why it’s important to us. We are fortunate enough to do that here and raise awareness where they cannot.”

Keeping up with the Kardashian empire: A brief guide to the family business

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2021-06-03/kim-kardashian-kourtney-khloe-kris-jenner-kylie-kendall-family-businesses

“Keeping Up With the Kardashians” is more than a TV show — it’s an empire. And when the reality show shuts down June 10 after 20 seasons on E!, the family’s entrepreneurial machinery will keep on humming. The relationship between series and the empire has been there from the start, with the former seen as a potential boon to the family’s retail businesses before sparking even greater ambitions. “I thought, ‘This will be so great for the stores,’” mom Kris Jenner tells The Times’ Yvonne Villarreal in her oral history of the pilot episode. “Kim and I would set these goals every year. And [in 2007, the year ‘KUWTK’ premiered], we set a goal to develop her first fragrance, which was Kim Kardashian. That was the start of what we saw the potential could be down the road.” Jenner’s business education, she said in a 2020 sit-down for Goldman Sachs, came “through osmosis” while married to the late attorney Robert Kardashian, whose friends included producers, studio heads, executives and, um, O.J. Simpson. Television Kris Jenner, Kim Kardashian and TV insiders look back on the start of a celebreality empire in our oral history of ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians.’ June 3, 2021 Still, connections aside, the work ethic of “the girls” has been instrumental to the family’s success: Without them, even the best ideas would fall flat. Social media has played a major role as well. In addition to promoting the family brand, members of the Kardashian-Jenner clan are paid to plug products online. ( Reports have put Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian‘s per-post takes in six- and seven-figure territory.) Over the years, the family has made headlines with both successes (Kylie’s a billionaire! Or maybe not?) and missteps involving their entrepreneurial endeavors. (Witness the cultural-appropriation criticism that came after Kim thought it was a good idea to trademark Kimono for her new shapewear line. Deep breaths: It got rebranded.) But through it all, the family is still earning big bucks, nudging its net worth as a unit firmly into three-comma territory. So how have Kim, Kylie, Kris, Khloé, Kendall and Kourtney made money through the years? Here are some of their entrepreneurial efforts. Television America’s first family of reality TV will end ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’ in 2021. But the subgenre known as ‘celebreality’ has been waning for years. Sept. 17, 2020 Even before the October 2007 premiere of “KUWTK,” the Kardashian sisters opened their Dash boutique in Calabasas in 2006. Part of the reason they did the show in the first place was to promote the boutique. Shops in Miami and New York City followed in 2009 and 2010, and the original moved to West Hollywood in 2012. The mini-chain, which sold clothing and accessories, lasted until 2018, when the L.A. store finally shut. (The Miami location, which closed in 2016, had its own reality TV stint as well in three seasons of “Kourtney and Khloé Take Miami” and the lone season of spinoff “Dash Dolls.” The three sisters cut a deal with Sears in 2011 to offer the Kardashian Kollection of clothing and accessories. But it was seemingly doomed from the outset after a report came out accusing the family of using sweatshops with squalid conditions to manufacture their products. The items were cheaply made and ultimately deeply discounted, and the sisters had no control over quality. They pulled the plug in early 2015, and Kim told the New York Times last year that they made little out of the deal: just 6%, split three ways, with 15% of it going to their agents and 10% going to momager Kris. Then there was Kardashian Kids, which offered trendy clothes — think leopard prints — for kids in sizes up to 5T starting in 2014. The kids wear is now unofficially available via Poshmark, ThredUp and other online thrift stores. Kris runs Jenner Communications — which manages all of her offspring — and is an executive producer of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.” She’s also been executive producer on spinoffs including “Khloé & Lamar” and the odd Quibi parody series “Kirby Jenner.” Don’t ask about that last one. She influences the family brands, including low-profile son Rob Kardashian’s Arthur George socks collection, as well as their launches. And we’ll give Kris credit for the Kardashian Kloset, an online resale store featuring clothing, shoes and accessories from big-name designers “hand-selected by each family member” from the “famous Kardashian-Jenner family closets.” Kim has credited soon-to-be-third ex-husband Kanye West, whom she started dating in 2012 and married in 2014, with changing her approach to business so that her efforts align with her beliefs and goals. So while she’s still taking in money from sex tape “Kim Kardashian, Superstar” and mobile game “Kim Kardashian: Hollywood” — your goal, player, is to increase your fame and reputation! — her business focus has changed. Currently starring in Kim’s portfolio: the successful sKims shapewear line, recently valued at $1.6 billion; cosmetics line KKW Beauty, estimated to be worth $1 billion; and KKW Fragrance, which in addition to multiple Kim-spawned scents also includes collections tied to Kris, Kendall and Kylie. Kylie’s taste in makeup was all the rage in 2015 when she started selling Kylie Lip Kits, saying the items were born of insecurity over her own lips. The line got a generous boost from her millions of social media followers, who raced to buy the limited quantities initially available. Eyeshadows and blushes were quickly added, and Kylie Cosmetics was born. Now the products are available at Ulta Stores. Kylie — who was only 9 when “KUWTK” debuted — sold a majority stake to Coty Inc. in late 2019 for hundreds of millions of dollars. Kylie Skin launched in May 2019, promising products that are free of parabens, sulfates and, well, cruelty. They are also gluten-free and vegan, should you be tempted to snack. (Please don’t eat the skin products, folks.) And on Wednesday, Kylie quietly announced a new venture, Kylie Baby, in an Instagram post featuring 3-year-old Stormi Webster, her daughter with rapper Travis Scott, taking a bath. In 2016, trading on nightmare memories of growing up with nothing to fit her larger frame, Khloé partnered with British marketing exec Emma Grede to launch Good American, conceived as a more size-inclusive denim line. The brand has since expanded to include all sorts of clothing, including swimwear and shoes. The line promises jeans in sizes 0 to 24, while shirts and other items come in sizes up to 8 — or as it’s known in Hollywood, 4XL. Kendall Jenner has a job outside the family circle: She’s a big-time model. The 25-year-old has walked in a number of shows as a Victoria’s Secret Angel and hit designers’ runways all over the world. In 2019, she acquired a stake in the Moon oral care line — which promises to elevate brushing your teeth to an “oral beauty experience” — and created a teeth whitening pen to her own specifications. She has also started pitching her tequila brand, 818, which was announced in February and got picked up by a U.S. distributor last month. (And attracted immediate backlash over ads that some saw as appropriating Mexican culture, badly, for profit.) Kourtney was never as excited as her sisters were about “KUWTK,” as revealed in mom Kris’ 2011 memoir. Still, despite being chided by her family over the years for her supposedly subpar work ethic, she does have a lifestyle website, Poosh. In addition to a shop, Poosh offers articles on health and fitness, life and style, home and entertaining, and — of course — Kourtney. Wanna learn the secret to her daily matcha latte? Gotcha covered — plus you can buy the secret matcha-latte tool in the Poosh store. While the Jenner sisters’ core careers have gone in different directions, the two came together in 2013 with an eponymous clothing line, Kendall + Kylie. Actually, it’s billed as a “global lifestyle brand,” meaning it includes shoes, handbags and eyewear in addition to trendy apparel aimed at the youngs. The brand is available at PacSun, Nordstrom and on the Kendall + Kylie website, where items include vegan leather jackets, acrylic rompers and snakeskin bike shorts. Bikinis too — with a gold lamé one currently on sale.

The Times podcast: A revolt in Northern California with national importance

https://www.latimes.com/podcasts/story/2021-06-03/the-times-podcast-cottonwood-militia-shasta-county

Listen to this episode of The Times: Apple | Spotify | Stitcher | Google On January 5, 2021, one day before the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, there was a breach of another government building — in Northern California. Dozens of people, angered by COVID-19 lockdowns, let themselves into a Shasta County government building. There, the Board of Supervisors was holding a meeting. Although most of the supervisors were attending remotely, angry residents — including members of a local militia — still let them have it. It was a preview of things to come: a campaign to take Shasta County’s local revolt national via videos, social media, violent rhetoric — and more. Our guests are Los Angeles Times Northern California reporters Anita Chabria and Hailey Branson-Potts, satirist Nathan Blaze and Cottonwood Militia member Carlos Zapata. Host: Gustavo Arellano Guests: L.A. Times Northern California reporters Anita Chabria and Hailey Branson-Potts, satirist Nathan Blaze and Cottonwood Militia member Carlos Zapata. More reading: Threats, videos and a recall: A California militia fuels civic revolt in a red county A day before Capitol attack, pro-Trump crowd stormed meeting, threatened officials in rural California In California’s rural, conservative north, there are big dreams for cleaving the state Listen to more episodes of The Times here

Slammed by COVID-19 shutdown, San Luis Obispo boosts Newsom recall

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-03/how-covid-shutdowns-led-purple-san-luis-obispo-to-boost-newsom-recall-effort

Though in-person service came and went at the Paso Robles winery Paix Sur Terre during the pandemic, alcohol consumption skyrocketed, making for winemaker Ryan Pease’s “best year ever.” But despite personal gains, Pease couldn’t shake the feeling of guilt when talking to neighbors who struggled to run restaurants and small businesses throughout San Luis Obispo County. When the opportunity came to back a recall petition to oust Gov. Gavin Newsom, the lifelong Democrat signed his name. “Our mindset here is, because we’re so isolated from other metropolitan areas, we take care of each other. We create our own economy,” said Pease, 37. “Even though I’m a Democrat and blue, we don’t like to be told what to do here.” In a county where Democrats slightly outnumber Republicans — by about 6,000 voters, according to state data — residents delivered a sizable chunk of signatures to the statewide recall effort to oust the Democratic governor. Out of every 1,000 voters in San Luis Obispo County, 139 signed their names on the recall petition — for a total of 25,653 valid signatures, according to the secretary of state’s office. Recall backers gathered, in all, about 1.6 million signatures. “I considered San Luis Obispo to be kind of a liberal stronghold. … But when you look at the population that signed the recall, you have to realize it wasn’t all Republicans who came out to sign the recall,” said Orrin Heatlie, leader of the statewide recall effort. “We have people from all walks of life, the entire political spectrum. … We have lifelong Democrats who voted for Newsom actually go the extra mile to get this.” San Luis Obispo is a political mixed bag, with roughly 70,000 registered Democrats, 64,000 Republicans and 38,000 unaffiliated voters. In the 2020 election, voters in the county favored Joe Biden by 13 points over President Trump, but previous presidential race margins were decidedly slimmer for Democrats. The county last voted for a Republican president in 2004, when then-President George W. Bush won by 7 points. Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham (R-Templeton) called his district “purple,” noting that Newsom eked out a 3-percentage-point win in the county over his Republican opponent, John Cox, in the 2018 gubernatorial election. “SLO County voters, they’re educated. … They’re very smart voters; they’re going to figure it out and do the research,” he said, pointing to Newsom’s handling of the pandemic. “I think a lot of people just lost faith that this governor was making decisions actually based on science and with due regard to local circumstances. Once they lost faith in that, it’s very hard to go back.” The recall effort, led by a trio of political novices, sprung from grass-roots origins. In San Luis Obispo County, a network of volunteers spread across more than 3,600 square miles banded together to round up signatures. When Jennifer Grinager first began volunteering for the recall effort, she heard from many people who wanted to help but didn’t know where to go. Local organizers were running weekly sign-up booths, but they lacked an email list or cohesive social media effort, she said. “It was just kind of … fly by the seat of your pants,” Grinager said. “They were doing everything they could, but the need was so overwhelming, and they didn’t really have enough people.” Grinager, a registered Republican, previously showed minimal interest in politics, filling out her ballot with the help of a voter information guide. But she said she grew incensed by the governor when he signed an executive order instituting a moratorium on capital punishment, a move that appeared to contradict the will of California voters. And as a mother of a child with special needs, she was particularly upset by how long children were kept home from school. Toward the end of the year, Grinager made it her “singular focus” to rally for the recall, she said. She set to work knocking on doors, running signing events, picking up petitions from local businesses and spending at least an hour a day on the recall effort — more on weekends. The campaign picked up steam, and at one weekend signing event, Grinager said she calculated that the volunteers had collected one signature per minute. “We saw a governor who was behaving unconstitutionally as a dictator, and he needed to be stopped,” she said. Newsom’s campaign has called recall proponents right-wing extremists, anti-vaxxers and Trump supporters. Signature rates show the recall’s most ardent supporters are clustered mostly in California’s northeastern corner, a rural, right-leaning region that voted heavily for Trump in the 2020 election cycle. But a quieter, more moderate group of people makes up a portion of the movement’s ranks. A self-described “right-leaning centrist,” Aaron Bergh watched previous recall attempts targeting Newsom but said he considered them extreme. The owner of Calwise Spirits Co. reluctantly complied with the March 2020 shutdown, thinking it would be temporary. When the pandemic continued, he adapted by setting up outdoor service. Then, one day in late summer, as smoke from nearby wildfires and oppressive heat cloaked the county, Bergh received an email from the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health recommending not to work outside. “I can’t be inside either — this is lunacy!” Bergh said. “I can’t keep my business fully closed.” When a volunteer came by with a recall petition, he decided: “Now’s the time.” After signing it, he kept a stack of petitions behind the counter to hand to any customer who complained about being unable to sit inside. “I always think, ‘What’s the solution?’” Bergh said. “If the customer’s not happy, what’s the solution…? Being open. How do we do that? Well, we recall the governor who is making decisions that don’t make sense.” Several openings and closures later, Bergh had collected a couple of hundred signatures. A turning point for many San Luis Obispo County residents came in December, when the state replaced the color-coded tier system for closures with a regional stay-at-home order, which was triggered when an area’s ICU bed availability dipped below 15%. The previous system allowed for counties to reopen based on their coronavirus case rates. San Luis Obispo County was placed in the same region as 10 other counties, including more densely populated areas with higher case rates such as Los Angeles and Orange counties. Though Los Angeles hospitals quickly filled intensive care unit beds, there was only one COVID-19 patient in a San Luis Obispo ICU on Dec. 1. “Why are we getting punished?” Bergh said. “We live three hours north of Los Angeles; this doesn’t seem fair.” The decision frustrated so many business owners, Bergh said, that more than 100 organized in an attempt to reopen Paso Robles. Central Coast coronavirus numbers eventually rose during the holiday surge — at its peak on Jan. 31, 19 COVID-19 patients were in county ICUs — but not before elected representatives from San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties begged the state for their own, separate region. “There was a very urban county focus on the statewide orders, and there wasn’t enough consideration given by the state public health [department] and by Gov. Newsom of what the local conditions were in the more rural, remote counties,” said Cunningham, who introduced legislation to limit the governor’s ability to enact laws during a state of emergency. “We just weren’t facing the same kind of problems.” After months of distancing himself from the recall effort, Cunningham publicly threw his support behind it in December. He has since endorsed Republican Kevin Faulconer, the former San Diego mayor who is running to replace Newsom. “I get it; people are overwhelmed,” San Luis Obispo Mayor Heidi Harmon said. “I see this a lot at the local level too. People just want to be mad. That’s just COVID.” Harmon, who has received a torrent of personal attacks and sexist criticism since being elected in 2016, said it was easier to blame the person in charge than to understand complex underlying issues driving policy decisions. Though Harmon said she sympathized with voter frustrations over Newsom’s attendance at a birthday party held at the tony French Laundry restaurant in Napa Valley amid COVID-19 restrictions, she listed what she considered Newsom’s accomplishments: a budget surplus that could give some Californians tax rebates and California’s position as a state with one of the country’s lowest coronavirus case rates. “You hear his opponents accusing him of being an ‘it boy,’ and I think a lot of those attacks are disappointing to hear,” she said. “That kind of almost objectification of the governor is such a shallow accusation to make at him when he’s done some really substantive things.” Rita Casaverde, chair of the San Luis Obispo County Democratic Party, pointed to the area’s relatively low coronavirus numbers as a direct result of the shutdowns. Elected leaders were making the best decisions they could with the little developing science they had on hand, she said. Casaverde brushed away the idea that Democrats supported the recall effort, saying they were probably misinformed, and pinned it on Republicans. “It’s very typical [that] the Republican Party will not look back and accept that they were wrong. They will not accept that COVID-19 was an actual crisis,” Casaverde said. “They just continue on with their talking points.” With restrictions lifting, Casaverde said she hopes voters will remember that the election is about not only the pandemic but also the environment, immigration and housing policies. Now, “the million-dollar question,” as Bergh calls it, is whether the shutdown-fueled furor that led some to sign the recall petition dissipates by the time an election rolls around in the fall. “The public in general has a relatively short-term memory,” Bergh said. “If the restrictions were removed, they might not remember when they go to the polls.” For Pease, the recall effort has already reached its intended goal. “Part of me signing it was just [that] I supported putting pressure on [Newsom] to consider how his policies during the shutdowns were really difficult on small businesses,” he said. “In the end, I don’t necessarily believe it would actually lead to him being removed from office.”

Editorial: California Supreme Court should look beyond this case and end capital punishment

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-03/california-supreme-court-death-sentence-mcdaniels-jury

The California Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a case that could have a far-reaching impact on one of the state’s thorniest issues: capital punishment. No decision is expected until later this summer, but the court could throw out the death sentence for convicted murderer Don’te McDaniel because the jury did not agree unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt on the aggravating circumstances cited to justify his execution. The ramifications of such a ruling could be wide on a death row that currently holds 703 people. The weight of the decision is reflected in the attention paid to the case. Gov. Gavin Newsom filed an amicus brief — the first by a sitting California governor — urging the court to throw out the sentence while rightly taking broader aim at capital punishment itself as too freighted by racism to stand. Similar arguments were made by half a dozen current and former county prosecutors, including Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón. During oral arguments, the justices zeroed in on, among other things, rulings dating to the mid-19th century, the change over time in the responsibilities of juries in criminal trials, and questions about whether the penalty phase requires juries to adhere to the same “reasonable doubt” standard used when determining whether a defendant is guilty. Opinion The Times Editorial Board examines the reckoning of the last year and considers what it means for policing and protest in Los Angeles and elsewhere. May 25, 2021 The legal arguments in the McDaniel case can feel arcane, but the broader contours of the case bring into sharp relief the seemingly unfixable shortcomings of the death penalty system itself. Studies have found that at the penalty phase, jurors weigh aggravating factors differently depending on the race of the defendant, putting nonwhite defendants at more risk of receiving a death sentence. Beyond being skewed by racism, the system is poisoned by human error and occasionally malfeasance; most wrongful convictions arise from misconduct by police and prosecutors or errors by witnesses — some of them intentional. And a prosecutor in one county might find a crime subject to the death penalty while her counterpart in another county, looking at the same crime and same state law, decides that it is not. Opinion Biden calls a Texas bill part of an ‘assault on democracy’ June 2, 2021 We argued last year that the Supreme Court should use the McDaniel case to take a deep and sober assessment of the constitutionality of California’s capital punishment system, and then toss it out. Yes, California voters had the opportunity to do that themselves in 2016, but instead they defeated Proposition 62 to end the death penalty and approved Proposition 66, which backers promised would speed up the pace of executions. That hasn’t happened, in large part because the state Supreme Court threw out the five-year deadline for appeals that Proposition 66 dictated, and the initiative failed to pay for the expanded pool of defense lawyers the measure mandated. Ultimately, it is impossible to make capital punishment just and fair because it relies on the thoughts and actions of human beings. It is as flawed as society itself, and it requires a level of willful blindness to not recognize that. It cannot be fixed. And the state Supreme Court can recognize that reality in this case and throw out the entire system. Justice demands it.

Chinese tech giant Tencent expands footprint in Playa Vista

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-06-03/chinese-tech-company-tencent-expands-footprint-in-playa-vista

Chinese tech giant Tencent is significantly expanding its footprint in Los Angeles, opening an office in Playa Vista that could house 300 employees. The Shenzhen, China-based developer of games such as “Honor of Kings” previously divided its U.S. division’s L.A. employees across three offices in Santa Monica, Claremont and Century City. The more than 53,000-square-foot Playa Vista office, which opens this week, consolidates the staff into one space. Employees will move into the new building following COVID-19 safety protocols. “Los Angeles is a powerhouse for creativity and innovation, and we are proud to deepen our roots in the community with our long-standing partners in the video game and entertainment industries,” said Brent Irvin, Tencent’s general counsel and president of Tencent America, in a statement. “We see tremendous opportunities to continue to grow our development capabilities and product offerings and to create high-value jobs in Los Angeles.” Tencent America, the company’s Palo Alto, Calif.-based U.S. division, said it plans to double the size of its 150-person L.A. workforce. Over the next three years, the company says it will hire employees for the new Playa Vista office who work in video game design and development, programming and data engineering. “The neighborhood sits at the intersection of the technology, gaming and entertainment industries and is home to many big tech companies as well as start-ups,” Tencent said in a statement. “There is a diverse and attractive talent pool to draw on.” The Playa Vista facility is located on West Jefferson Boulevard near Facebook’s office. The space includes a fitness center, cafe, production facilities and game rooms. There are also themed spaces that highlight L.A. landmarks such as the Hollywood sign. Company Town Google has moved a step closer to transforming the historic Spruce Goose hangar in Playa Vista into a state-of-the-art office and production facility, the latest sign of how tech giants are expanding their presence in Hollywood’s backyard. Nov. 7, 2018 Playa Vista has been a popular area for tech companies and is considered part of Silicon Beach — Southern California’s own version of the Silicon Valley. Google in 2018 opened a more than 450,000-square-foot complex at the Spruce Goose hangar; and in 2016 Facebook moved into a larger Playa Vista office. “What makes the location attractive is its proximity to the rest of Silicon Beach, its location near coastal communities, the campus-like configuration of most of the office space, as well as the retail amenities at Playa Vista,” said Ryan Patap, director of market analytics at CoStar, which provides commercial real estate information. Tencent’s expansion in Playa Vista comes as other Chinese companies such as Dalian Wanda Group have retreated from Hollywood and U.S. entertainment holdings. Tencent and other Chinese companies have faced growing scrutiny from the U.S. government. The Trump administration raised security concerns about Tencent’s messaging app WeChat and ByteDance’s video-sharing app TikTok, accusing them of allowing the sharing of U.S. user information with the Chinese government. Both companies have denied doing so. Technology and the Internet For swaths of the U.S. with concentrated Chinese populations, WeChat is a way of life. President Trump’s executive order banning the app could upend that. Aug. 12, 2020 Last year, WeChat users sued the Trump administration over an executive order that threatened to ban the app in the U.S. A judge issued a preliminary injunction in September suspending a ban on the app. Tencent also is under scrutiny by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) regarding its ownership stakes in U.S.-based gaming companies due to security concerns, Reuters reported. Tencent has investments in other local entertainment companies. In 2018, Tencent took a minority stake in L.A.-based production company Skydance Media for more than $100 million. In 2021, a Tencent-led consortium increased its ownership in Santa Monica-based Universal Music Group to 20%. The company owns L.A.-based Riot Games and has a 40% stake in Cary, N.C.-based Epic Games, the maker of “Fortnite.” Tencent is also a strategic shareholder in digital animation studio Original Force, which has an office in Culver City. Tencent has 86,000 employees worldwide, including about 400 in the U.S.

Freedom from masks is coming for the vaccinated. Will it push skeptics to get their shots?

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-03/california-vaccine-covid-19-masks-herd-immunity

It’s never been easier to get vaccinated for COVID-19. Clinics are plentiful and increasingly mobile — and so many doses are available that California is even offering cash prizes of more than a million dollars in hopes of enticing holdouts. But with the state now less than two weeks away from fully reopening, one more incentive is on the horizon: freedom from wearing a mask. As the coronavirus fades, there is a growing belief among even the most cautious health experts that it’s fine for those who are fully vaccinated to shed their face coverings almost entirely — though it’s still essential for the uninoculated to adhere to mask-wearing and physical distancing rules. The advice, officials say, is based on science. But there’s a practical byproduct too as some of those who have been reluctant to roll up their sleeves might leap at the chance to return to something more closely resembling pre-pandemic normal life. “I think we are all really clear and comfortable with the facts around fully vaccinated people having a lot of protection because they’re fully vaccinated, and that protection means that they don’t need to continue doing all of the public health measures that have gotten us this far,” Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Wednesday. California Increasing evidence about the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and California’s low case rates convince experts it’s safe to stop wearing masks. May 27, 2021 On May 13, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidelines stating that those who are fully vaccinated for COVID-19 can go without masks in most places. A few days later, California announced it would align its rules with the federal guidance on June 15 — also the target date for fully reopening the state’s economy. Although it’s impossible to categorize every individual’s motivation, California did see a notable uptick in inoculations immediately after the CDC’s announcement, which momentarily reversed what had been a significant and sustained slide. From May 14 to May 20, an average of nearly 110,000 residents a day got their first vaccine dose, according to data compiled by The Times. In the week leading up to the CDC’s announcement, the daily average was about 76,400. Of course, a number of factors were likely at play — including, notably, that appointments for Californians ages 12 to 15 started being offered at precisely the time when vaccinations ticked up. Between May 14 and 20, roughly 41% of people who got their first shots were 12 to 17 years old, Times’ data show. Whatever the reasons, that bump was fleeting, and the state’s vaccination pace has tailed off steadily since. Being able to shed the sometimes stifling face coverings might just be icing on the cake for some, but for others, there may soon be additional incentive. A state workplace safety board on Thursday is scheduled to consider a proposal that would allow workers to ditch their masks if everyone in a room is fully vaccinated and free of COVID-19 symptoms. In general, health officials are quick to point out that getting vaccinated is not only key to eventually ending the pandemic, but also the quickest way for residents to get back to doing the activities and seeing the people that they love. An increasing number of studies are underscoring how effective the vaccines are at preventing not only severe disease and death, but also infections. And even in the rare cases in which vaccinated people get the virus, scientists say, they’re far less likely to transmit it. Those are among the reasons that UCLA epidemiologist and infectious disease expert Dr. Robert Kim-Farley said he has little reason to be anxious about getting sick if he doesn’t wear a mask inside a supermarket when California ends that requirement for vaccinated people on June 15. “Given the extraordinary efficaciousness of this vaccine, one can again follow the science and say that it’s very low risk if you’ve been vaccinated,” Kim-Farley said. California Northern counties -- including Tehama and Lassen -- have low vaccination rates and the state’s highest rate of infection. June 2, 2021 Though more than 70% of California adults have now gotten at least one vaccine dose — a milestone the state reached one month ahead of the target date set by the Biden administration — officials acknowledge that the heaviest lifting is probably still ahead. Boosting that coverage level closer to 80%, the threshold many experts believe necessary to achieve long-lasting herd immunity against the coronavirus, will entail not only removing any remaining barriers to vaccine access, but also convincing those who are on the fence. For some, that might mean simply learning more about the protective power the shots afford. As of May 24, 2,298 cases of a fully vaccinated person being hospitalized had been reported nationwide to the CDC, along with 439 deaths. Federal health officials said 23% of those hospitalizations and 16% of fatalities were “reported as asymptomatic or not related to COVID-19.” More than 130 million Americans had been fully vaccinated as of that date. This is “continued evidence of the power of vaccines in the U.S., which will certainly get even better the more of us get immunized and protect the rest of the herd. The small odds of hospitalizations and deaths are so rare,” UC San Francisco infectious disease expert Dr. Peter Chin-Hong said. At its current pace, Ferrer estimated L.A. County — the nation’s most populous — could at least partially vaccinate 80% of its residents 16 and older by late August. “My hope is actually as it becomes clearer and there are more and more examples about how powerful these vaccines are and people are able to see their friends and other family members get vaccinated and really experience for themselves the safety that these vaccines offer, we’ll have more people come in,” she said. 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 Others might be more swayed by all the metaphorical — and literal — doors that being vaccinated can open. Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of the UC San Francisco Department of Medicine, said he ate indoors last month at a restaurant with out-of-town friends. Wachter had been concerned about the rare chance that he would encounter an unvaccinated infected person who could transmit the virus to him, and then the virus “breaking through” his vaccine-induced immunity. While he was confident that he wouldn’t die from COVID-19 because he’s been vaccinated, he worried about the chance of experiencing long-lasting symptoms. But increasingly convincing evidence about the effectiveness of the vaccines and California’s continuing low daily coronavirus case rates started to change his mind. The final push was San Francisco’s infamous chilly, windy weather, which drove him inside. “The true unpleasantness of shivering your way through dinner — while you’re wearing four layers and there’s a heater going full-bore — just made me say: ‘I think I’ve crossed my threshold,’” Wachter said. “Of course, once you cross it, you’re going to keep doing it.” Times staff writer Sean Greene contributed to this report.

California's top court weighs overturning hundreds of death penalty sentences

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-03/california-top-court-considers-monumental-changes-to-death-penalty

For decades, California’s highest court has left it up to individual jurors to decide whether certain circumstances increase the severity of a crime and thereby warrant the death penalty in murder cases that qualify for the ultimate punishment. On Wednesday, the state Supreme Court heard arguments on a change to that long-standing practice, which could potentially overturn hundreds of death penalty sentences in California. At issue is how juries review “aggravating” factors — such as whether a crime was gang-related or involved multiple victims. Defense lawyers in the case argued that to ensure equal application of the death penalty, state law and the state Constitution require juries to be unanimous in their reasoning on each factor. That the court is even considering new requirements is unusual. It has refused to impose them in the past and has even summarily dismissed the kind of arguments presented Wednesday. But the court’s composition has changed over the years. Last June, the court issued a brief order asking for written arguments on the jury issue in what was otherwise a routine death penalty case. That raised hopes among some that the court might be ready to wield an ax to capital punishment in California, a state that has produced the nation’s largest death row but hardly any executions. Wednesday’s hearing probably tempered those hopes. During a 90-minute hearing, only three justices — the more liberal members of the seven-judge court — spoke. Though the silence of the majority can be interpreted in different ways, the hearing did not clearly signal that monumental changes were afoot. The June order asked litigants to submit written arguments on this issue: Must a jury decide beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant should get the death penalty or life without parole, and must that jury also be unanimous in deciding the reasons for a capital verdict? If the court agreed, a ruling would probably throw out hundreds, if not all, previous death sentences in California. The court’s sudden interest in the issue alarmed death penalty supporters. They considered the questions long answered. Kent Scheidegger, a lawyer for a prominent pro-death penalty group, said he was both “surprised” and “very disturbed,” even with the changed composition of the court. Over the last decade, appointments by Govs. Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom, both opponents of the death penalty, have transformed the court from a moderately conservative forum dominated by former prosecutors to a moderately liberal one. Democratic appointees now hold five of the seven seats. Newsom, moreover, filed written arguments in the case urging the court to take a new path. In a brief written by two legal scholars, Newsom assailed the death penalty as racist and cited study after study that found the system discriminated against Black and Latino defendants. Politics Gov. March 12, 2019 Justice Goodwin Liu, a Brown appointee, spoke the most during the hearing. He repeatedly pressed defense lawyers to cite precedent for their positions. “I think there’s a lot of appeal to your argument from a fairness perspective,” Liu told a defense lawyer. Liu’s “difficulty,” he said, was in finding cases that supported the argument legally. Is it possible, he asked, “that this issue has simply been missed this entire time? For 150 years, we have missed this issue?” Under California’s death penalty law, capital trials are held in two phases. In the first, the jury decides guilt. The verdict must be unanimous and beyond a reasonable doubt. During the second phase, the jury decides whether to impose the death penalty or life without possibility of parole. The jury considers “aggravating” factors that favor the death penalty and weighs them against mitigating factors, such as a defendant’s history of being severely abused. Individual jurors can now decide which of several disputed, aggravating factors weigh in favor of death. Their decision on the penalty must be unanimous, but their reasoning can be varied. Defense lawyers want the court to require the jury to agree unanimously on what factor justified the death penalty and to decide the penalty under a “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard. Justice Joshua Groban, another Brown appointee, noted that courts uphold criminal verdicts all the time in which different jurors had different views about how the crime was committed. But both Liu and Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, also a Brown appointee, seemed open to the idea that an ultimate jury decision on whether a defendant should live or die should be made beyond a reasonable doubt. Scheidegger said even that partial victory for the defense would have a “cataclysmic” impact on the death penalty and potentially overturn scores of sentences. Such decisions in California are usually applied retroactively. But Scheidegger said he felt “cautiously optimistic” after the hearing. Liu, he said, did not seem “to be buying” the defendant’s main arguments. UC Berkeley law professor Elisabeth A. Semel, who co-wrote Newsom’s written argument, declined to predict how the court would vote. “Justices Liu, Cuellar, and Groban had some tough questions” for the deputy attorney general defending the death penalty, she said. “I do not believe she answered to their satisfaction.” California has more than 700 inmates on death row, but legal challenges have stymied executions. Only 13 inmates have been executed since 1992, and Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions during his term in office. California UC Berkeley study finds 48% of voters supported Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2019 order for moratorium on executions in California, whereas 33% were opposed. May 20, 2021 The case before the court is an appeal brought by Don’te Lamont McDaniel, who was convicted with a co-defendant of entering an apartment in South Los Angeles’ Nickerson Gardens public housing project in April 2004 to settle a drug dispute. McDaniel was convicted of killing two people and wounding two witnesses. The dead were 33-year-old George Brooks and Brooks’ 52-year-old cousin Annette Anderson. Whatever the court decides, the case of People v. Don’te Lamont McDaniel has focused attention on the fairness of the jury process in deciding the sentence. Even Deputy Atty. Gen. Dana Muhammad Ali, who argued that the law does not require the new jury rules, called the arguments of McDaniel’s lawyers “persuasive.” She said the state prosecutor’s office believes that adding such rules “deserves serious consideration” by voters, who could change the requirements for how juries decide the death penalty. “These additional requirements are feasible because there are other states that have incorporated them into their death penalty schemes,” she told the court. Defense lawyer Elias Batchelder implored the court to be bold, despite the many rulings that upheld death sentences without imposing the jury requirements. “Sometimes courts make profound mistakes,” he said, “and it is not a malfunction of justice for courts to look deeply at history and reconsider.”

Tito Ortiz was hailed as Huntington Beach's Donald Trump. Where does the city go now?

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-03/tito-ortiz-resigns-where-does-huntington-beach-go-now

From the moment Tito Ortiz entered the political arena in Huntington Beach, some of his supporters saw him as the local government version of Donald Trump. The former MMA star sailed through Huntington Harbour on his boat with “Trump” banners flying. His campaign slogan was “Make Huntington Beach Safe Again,” but his unapologetic rejection of public health orders to stem the spread of the coronavirus caused consternation at City Hall. He mocked the public health crisis as a “plandemic,” calling it a “political scam” and a form of “population control” by liberals. He spoke openly about his refusal to get a COVID-19 vaccination. Last month, he grabbed headlines when his twin sons were sent home from middle school after they arrived on campus without masks claiming religious exemption. On Tuesday — after a bumpy six-month tenure on the City Council — Ortiz surprised his colleagues by abruptly stepping down from his post, saying that he’d been the “sole focus of character assassination each and every week with multiple news stories” that sought to defame his name. The attacks, he said, now involve his family, causing him to fear for their safety. “To put it simply,” Ortiz said, “this job isn’t working for me.” Despite all the attention Ortiz received, it was clear his hard-line ideology was not shared by all in this conservative-leaning city. Some of his colleagues on the City Council supported mask wearing in public places during the height of the pandemic. There has been a push among some elected officials to change Huntington Beach’s reputation for hard-right politics to more of a family-friendly beach town that has the appetite to tackle social issues, like homelessness, and flies an LGBTQ pride flag outside City Hall. Now, some see the city at a crossroads. California To many in Huntington Beach, former UFC star Tito Ortiz is almost a Trump-like figure — a larger-than-life celebrity with a brash social media presence and a legion of loyal fans. Feb. 27, 2021 “Tito’s departure is a reset for Huntington Beach,” said Fred Smoller, an associate professor of political science at Chapman University in Orange. “While the radical right gets a lot of attention in the city, it’s a place that has been positioning itself as being more moderate. It will be interesting to see whether the appointment is a reaffirmation of the MAGA voice or if it’s a repudiation of it.” Ortiz represents a segment of Orange County residents who have made names for themselves protesting COVID-19 restrictions and recommendations at the county’s Hall of Administration and on the streets of Huntington Beach. Ortiz was the top vote-getter in the November election, yet Smoller says he doesn’t necessarily represent the opinions of the majority of residents. A recent poll of Orange County residents conducted by Chapman University shows that 83% of people surveyed believe the coronavirus is a real threat. Seventy percent of the 704 people surveyed said they support a national mask mandate. When asked whether reopening the economy or containing the virus is more important, 68% of Republicans surveyed chose the economy. However, 93% of Democrats and 61% of those who don’t belong to either political party said the opposite, the survey showed. “Huntington Beach is trying to do reasonable things that are very mainstream,” said Councilman Dan Kalmick. “I think there’s been a narrative that these small, loud groups represent what everyone thinks and what everyone is doing. They don’t.” Ortiz declined to comment to a reporter as he was leaving Tuesday’s meeting. Some of Ortiz’s supporters are already requesting the council appoint Gracey Van Der Mark, a longtime Huntington Beach resident and conservative who came in fourth behind Ortiz, Kalmick and Councilwoman Natalie Moser in the City Council race last year. California The Huntington Beach City Council has chosen Councilwoman Barbara Delgleize as its new mayor pro tem, replacing Tito Ortiz after he resigned Tuesday night. June 2, 2021 Erik Peterson, who was Ortiz’s ally on the council, said it makes sense for the council to appoint the person who got the fourth-most votes to Ortiz’s seat. “I don’t know if this council will do that,” he said. “I’m hoping we can appoint someone to do the job of municipal government and get out of the national debate.” Van Der Mark campaigned as part of a slate of three candidates, including Ortiz, during the election. Ortiz was the only one from the trio to win a seat. She could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday. Kalmick disagrees that Van Der Mark should automatically be the heir apparent because she placed fourth in the election. The council has 60 days to appoint someone to fill the vacant seat, according to the city charter. “The voice of the people isn’t heard with a fourth-place vote,” he said. “That’s not what people voted for.” Ortiz’s tenure on the council was a rocky one. He was nearly stripped of his mayor pro tem title during a meeting in February after months of criticism about his refusal to wear a mask and what some of his fellow council members thought was a lack of interest in learning the ropes of his position. News Tito Ortiz said TK Burgers turned him away Sunday because he wasn’t wearing a mask. The former MMA star has refused to wear a mask during the pandemic. Jan. 19, 2021 He was blasted by the community after he recorded a video outside TK Burger in January criticizing the eatery for not letting him order unless he donned a face covering. Residents accused Ortiz of potentially sending customers away when small businesses were struggling to survive amid coronavirus restrictions. In May, Ortiz came under fire again for filing for unemployment against the city, despite not having his hours cut during the pandemic. On Tuesday, Ortiz said he faced “hostility and judgement” from the moment he was sworn in. In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Ortiz said the “corruption” on the City Council and attacks from the “liberal left wing media” were among the reasons for his departure. Supporters who commented on the post thanked him for his integrity and applauded his decision to put his family first. “I after much reflection realize it is time for me to remove myself from this type of behavior. I can be much more effective outside of the entanglement of the City Council,” he wrote. “I am a Patriot, I am a proud Huntington Beach resident, I am an American who will always fight for my country and our Constitution. I may be out of the Huntington Beach City Council but I am far from out of the fight.” Daily Pilot reporter Matt Szabo contributed to this report.

Today's Headlines: Will going 'mask-free' move the needle?

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/newsletter/2021-06-03/masks-vaccine-incentives-todays-headlines

For the vaccinated in California, the prospect of not having to wear a mask is coming. Will it push skeptics to get their shots? Will Going ‘Mask-Free’ Move the Needle? It’s never been easier to get vaccinated for COVID-19. Clinics are plentiful and increasingly mobile — and so many doses are available that California is even offering cash prizes of more than a million dollars in hopes of enticing holdouts. And at a national level, President Biden is dangling everything from sports tickets to free beer. But with the state now less than two weeks away from fully reopening, one more incentive is on the horizon: freedom from wearing a mask. 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. As the coronavirus fades, there is a growing belief among even the most cautious health experts that it’s fine for those who are fully vaccinated to shed their face coverings almost entirely — though it’s still essential for the uninoculated to adhere to mask-wearing and physical distancing rules. The advice, officials say, is based on science. But there’s a practical byproduct too as some of those who have been reluctant to roll up their sleeves might leap at the chance to return to something more closely resembling pre-pandemic normal life. More Top Coronavirus Headlines — Scientists have found clues that the world’s leading COVID-19 vaccines offer lasting protection that could diminish the need for frequent booster shots. — In the penultimate weekly update of the California’s COVID-19 reopening road map, four more counties — Marin, Monterey, San Benito and Ventura — moved into the least restrictive yellow tier. — California’s strict public health measures during the pandemic protected its economy, setting the stage for a “euphoric” rebound in the state even faster than nationwide, UCLA economists reported. For more, sign up for Coronavirus Today, a special edition of The Times’ Health and Science newsletter. A Reassessment of Capital Punishment For decades, California’s highest court has left it up to individual jurors to decide whether certain circumstances increase the severity of a crime and thereby warrant the death penalty in murder cases that qualify for the ultimate punishment. On Wednesday, the state Supreme Court heard arguments on a possible change to that long-standing practice, which could potentially overturn hundreds of death penalty sentences in California. At issue is how juries review “aggravating” factors — such as whether a crime was gang-related or involved multiple victims. Defense lawyers in the case argued that to ensure equal application of the death penalty, state law and the state Constitution require juries to be unanimous in their reasoning on each factor. A Political Earthquake in Israel Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief political rival has formally declared that he had put together a governing coalition with sufficient parliamentary backing to dislodge Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving leader. The news amounted to a political earthquake in Israel, where the 71-year-old prime minister has been a commanding political presence for a generation. The new government will not take effect until later this month, which could mean a tense transition for the country. Political critics have expressed fears that Netanyahu, who has shown increasingly authoritarian tendencies in recent years, could seek to derail somehow what would ordinarily be a ceremonial handover of power to his successor. On this date in 1969, Bunnie Burns was evicted from her eighth-floor room in the condemned Northern Hotel on Bunker Hill. Since April 26 of that year, Burns — the only resident of the 180-room hotel — had refused to open the door to her eighth-floor room to anybody. The slender, 120-pound woman — a resident of the 56-year-old hotel since 1952 — said God had told her to stay in her room because it was “the seat of my beautiful ministry here.” — A judge this week rejected a resentencing request by a Palmdale woman who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the death of her 8-year-old-son, Gabriel Fernandez, who died after months of beatings, starvation and torture. — Former Los Angeles City Councilman Mitchell Englander, convicted in a City Hall corruption case last year, has begun serving his 14-month sentence at the U.S. penitentiary in Tucson. — Since the news broke that he might be President Biden’s pick for U.S. ambassador to India, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has waved off the reports, calling them speculative. But when pressed, Garcetti offered a glimpse into his thinking on a possible early departure. — At Backyard Squabbles, an underground, pop-up fight club born in the pandemic, two fighters, Black Blade and Big Cheese, face off. Los Angeles Times staff photographer Jason Armond chronicles the action. New podcast From Christopher Goffard, the Los Angeles Times reporter and host behind the hit podcasts “Dirty John” and “Detective Trapp,” comes an eight-episode true crime podcast, “The Trials of Frank Carson.” Listen and subscribe here. — Biden met privately in the Oval Office with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, the Republicans’ lead negotiator on infrastructure legislation. The two sides looked to make progress toward a bipartisan deal but still have a long way to go. — Former Rep. Katie Hill 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. — Nicaraguan police raided the home of Cristiana Chamorro, a potential presidential candidate and daughter of former President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, one day after formally filing money laundering charges against the journalist. — A Hong Kong museum commemorating China’s deadly 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen Square has closed — just three days after opening. — Neil Gaiman’s revered comic book series “The Sandman” from the ’80s and ’90s is finally being made into a television series for Netflix. The comic was a genre-busting, gender-bending horror-ish fantasia that didn’t care about convention. So when self-proclaimed fans objected to the show casting nonbinary and Black actors, how did they think Gaiman would react? — TikTok stars like Bella Poarch and Addison Rae can turn random songs into hits. Pop critic Mikael Wood writes that the next step is making hits themselves, but are the songs any good? — How the Peacock comedy “Girls5eva” keeps those vocals sounding 2 good. — When she first auditioned for the role of Rebecca Welton on “Ted Lasso,” Hannah Waddingham was convinced she wouldn’t get it. She’s glad she did. — California and other states struggled to provide expanded unemployment benefits during the pandemic, a Labor Department watchdog confirmed, in the most comprehensive examination to date of how states did. — Amazon said that it will stop testing job-seekers for marijuana. The company, the second-largest private employer in the U.S., is making the change as more states legalize cannabis. — Bob Levy grew up in El Salvador but discovered surfing in California, and he vividly remembers the day he returned to his homeland and hit the beach with a stiff, 10-foot surfboard under his arm. — Hall of Fame racehorse trainer Bob Baffert was suspended for two years by Churchill Downs. The announcement came hours after Baffert’s attorney confirmed the split sample of this year’s conditional Kentucky Derby winner, Medina Spirit, also came back with a medication positive. — The Clippers couldn’t contain Mavericks guard Luka Doncic and lost Game 5 — and control of their NBA playoff series. — Cody Bellinger hit a grand slam and had six RBIs in an 11-run first inning as the Dodgers routed the Cardinals. Free online games Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and arcade games in our new game center at latimes.com/games. — Is the COVID-19 pandemic the result of an accidental release of a dangerous virus? There’s value in understanding its origins — but that won’t change the U.S.’ grave failures, The Times’ editorial board writes. — Netanyahu’s political obituary has been written and rewritten. This time, though, his position is especially dire. Columnist Nicholas Goldberg asks, “But will he really go?” — The NFL says it will halt the use of “race-norming” — which assumed Black players started with lower cognitive functioning — in a $1-billion settlement of brain injury claims. The practice had made it harder for Black players to qualify. (Associated Press) — Crime rates have emerged as a major talking point in the pandemic, one distorted through partisan claims. How well can you separate fact from fiction? (New York Times) Take it from 91-year-old theme park designer Rolly Crump: Sometimes the best theme park rides are built on lots of beer, probably even more marijuana and large purchases of pantyhose. Enter Knott’s Bear-y Tales: Return to the Fair, a trippy new ride at Knott’s Berry Farm that draws from Crump’s old work and is just as wacky as the original. Comments or ideas? Email us at headlines@latimes.com.

Rachel Garcia takes the torch from mentor Lisa Fernandez at UCLA and on Team USA

https://www.latimes.com/sports/ucla/story/2021-06-03/rachel-garcia-lisa-fernandez-ucla-softball-college-world-series-olympics

As much as she’s known for flummoxing hitters with a devastating rise ball or smashing home runs, Rachel Garcia is recognized for her stone-faced expression while she does it all. UCLA’s star pitcher shows nothing more than a smirk if she gives up a home run and simply purses her lips for a split second if she disagrees with an umpire’s strike call. But after nearly six years with the Bruins, one thing evokes emotions in Garcia: her relationship with assistant coach Lisa Fernandez. “I look up to Coach Lisa so much,” she said while fighting back tears. “She’s been a huge impact in my life.” Fernandez, a two-time NCAA champion at UCLA and three-time Olympic gold medalist, cast a long shadow for Garcia since she arrived in Westwood. Observers quickly compared the two: They were both short, right-handed pitchers who did as much damage at the plate as in the circle. Garcia is the “newer Barbie of Lisa Fernandez,” said former Washington pitcher Danielle Lawrie. ESPN analyst Michele Smith, who won two gold medals with Fernandez, said seeing Garcia debut as a redshirt freshman in 2017 was like watching “a mini Lisa Fernandez.” Maybe comparing a then-19-year-old to one of the most iconic players in the sport was premature, but Garcia has soared past sky-high expectations with a resume as long as a CVS receipt. And the 24-year-old is still hoping to bag more items. In addition to being named the USA Softball collegiate player of the year twice, the Honda Cup winner as the top female collegiate athlete and the most outstanding player in the 2019 NCAA tournament that the Bruins won, Garcia is chasing a second NCAA championship and an Olympic medal. Second-seeded UCLA faces Florida State at 6:30 p.m. PDT Thursday in the first round of the eight-team Women’s College World Series, with the best-of-three championship series concluding June 9 in Oklahoma City. The opener will air on ESPN. Even without the final embellishments of her redshirt senior year, Garcia has earned entry to the sport’s elite sorority of top players. Fernandez can’t wait to welcome her. “I am trying to hand off that torch to her,” the UCLA assistant said. :: As a senior in 1993, Fernandez led the nation in batting average (.510) and ERA (0.25) as the Bruins finished second at the Women’s College World Series. Fernandez hit 11 of her career 15 home runs that season. Garcia has hit 11 homers in three straight seasons. Like Fernandez, Garcia pounds the strike zone with fastballs that exceed 65 mph — Garcia’s touch 70 mph — and rise balls that fool runners by jumping out of range as they cross the plate. However, they don’t share a style at the plate. Fernandez hit for a higher average from the third spot in the lineup, good for a single up the middle or a solid double. If she hit a home run, she shrieked while running around the bases. Garcia bats cleanup and has 42 career home runs. With a career .339 batting average and 1.36 career ERA, Garcia impacts the game with her bat more than any other pitcher Fernandez has seen, including herself. “She’s got a flair for the dramatic that I don’t remember having,” Fernandez said with a chuckle. “She loves the moment. I don’t even know if she loves the moment or if she recognizes the moment, she just does her. That’s part of what makes her great.” 💥 Double Threat🏆 Led Bruins to @Pac12 Title with 14-0 Record, 11 HR & 30 RBI 🇺🇸 Named to @USASoftball in 2020Rachel Garcia earns her THIRD #Pac12SB Player of the Year honor.#GoBruins | @UCLASoftball | @Gatorade pic.twitter.com/fyjrECfaz4 Garcia’s greatness stands out as the game has grown, Fernandez points out. When she started at UCLA in 1990, some high schools were still playing slow-pitch softball. Athletes that used to go to college on soccer or volleyball scholarships are now pursuing softball. In 1993, the NCAA introduced a yellow ball with raised, red seams and a harder core intended to jump-start struggling offenses. Scoring nationwide has gone from 3.43 runs per game in 1992 to 4.24 in 2018. The ERA across the country was 2.03 in 1992 compared to 3.56 in 2018. If Garcia’s 0.95 ERA stays on track, it will be the ninth time UCLA’s leader had a sub-1.0 ERA for a nonpandemic season since the new ball in 1993. The Bruins met that mark in 16 of the first 18 seasons of the program. Even if opponents score, Garcia has proven more than capable of providing her own run support. It was never more evident than the three-run walk-off shot she hit against Washington in the 2019 Women’s College World Series. Garcia had pitched 10 scoreless innings in a pitchers’ duel against the Pac-12 rival that had knocked the Bruins out of the World Series a year earlier. She threw 179 pitches with 16 strikeouts then launched a 1-2 pitch over the left-field fence to send the Bruins to the championship series, where they beat No. 1 seed Oklahoma. Garcia raised both hands as she rounded the bases and punched the air with her right fist. She thought about her grandfather Bob. He died in March 2019 and Garcia plays with “Papa” written on her visor with a small heart. :: How did UCLA take Garcia, already the most dominant pitcher in college and the top player in the NCAA as a redshirt sophomore in 2018, and make her better? Add Fernandez. Head coach Kelly Inouye-Perez shuffled responsibilities on the coaching staff in 2019, putting Fernandez in the bullpen with the pitchers and catchers, and assistant Kirk Walker on defense, while she continued working with hitters and managing games from the dugout. Pairing Fernandez with the pitchers was a jolt to the already talented group that had 2018 national Gatorade player of the year Megan Faraimo and Holly Azevedo, an All-Pac-12 freshman team pitcher. “She will be considered to be one of the best [at UCLA]. She was able to bring us back over the gap and take us over the top. Hopefully through her it will continue to filter into the next [players].” — Former UCLA star Lisa Fernandez on current star pitcher Rachel Garcia Fernandez’s passion, work ethic and attention to detail spread to her players. They prepared for long games by throwing bullpen sessions after cardio circuits that forced their minds to stay sharp despite physical fatigue. They steeled themselves for the harsh Oklahoma City heat by wearing leggings and long sleeves under their jerseys. Everyone was challenged to add more pitches to their repertoire, even Garcia, whose fastball and rise ball were good enough to dominate almost everyone on their own. But “almost” wasn’t good enough. “We don’t want to train and beat the 90%. We want to train and beat that 10%,” Fernandez said. “That 10% that might get us because we don’t have a complementary pitch or we don’t have something to counteract what their strength is.” Like her coach, Garcia is listed at 5 feet 6. She overcomes her small stature with mechanics that efficiently transfer energy from her powerful legs through her core to her arm. She’s added a consistent drop ball to her game and can now effectively mix in off-speed pitches. Garcia’s mental approach is simple, Inouye-Perez said. She goes with the flow. Fernandez, who was told as a youngster that she was too short to pitch, embraces the underdog mentality. Getting Garcia to meld both approaches produced one of the most decorated seasons in UCLA history. In 2019, her first year working full time with Fernandez, Garcia became the fifth UCLA athlete to win the Honda Cup, the fifth player in the country to win USA Softball collegiate player of the year more than once, and the first player in Pac-12 history to be named conference player and pitcher of the year in the same season. But the honor that carries the most weight is the 2019 NCAA championship. It ended a nine-year title drought for the most successful softball program in the country. “She will be considered to be one of the best [at UCLA],” Fernandez said. “She was able to bring us back over the gap and take us over the top. Hopefully through her it will continue to filter into the next [players].” :: With the NCAA tournament typically being the highest level of softball in the United States, it’s easy to conclude Garcia has scaled every mountain available to her. But Smith, the ESPN analyst, is quick to pump the brakes. Garcia is just 24. Smith, a left-handed pitcher and ASA Hall of Famer inductee, didn’t retire until 41. “Is Rachel Garcia great now? Yes, of course,” Smith said. “Was Lisa Fernandez amazing at UCLA? Yes, of course. But that was the tip of the iceberg.” The Tokyo Olympics loom. There’s a potential pro career in Japan or in the one-year-old domestic Athletes Unlimited league for which Garcia is already eligible to be drafted. Garcia, who is interested in American Sign Language and aspires to become an interpreter, just wants to take everything day by day. First, there’s her final UCLA games. A second NCAA title would be the greatest feeling in the world, Garcia said. It would be another accomplishment to add to her parents’ overflowing trophy case in their Palmdale home that already links Garcia with her legendary mentor. The entryway display has Garcia’s USA Softball player-of-the-year trophies and the bronze player on the top is modeled after Fernandez.

Column: California already has strong gun laws. But to save lives we have to use them

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-03/skelton-ca-gun-laws-san-jose-red-flag-california

If we really want to reduce mass shootings — all gun violence — we’ve got to become snitches on our co-workers, family members and maybe exes. When they’re acting scary — threatening people, talking about wanting to kill, beating up someone — we’ve got to rat them out to law enforcement. Cops can investigate and find out whether they’re gun owners. A judge can order that their weapons be temporarily seized pending a court hearing. If they’re deemed a danger to themselves or others, their guns then can be confiscated for up to a year or more. And lives may be saved. That’s possible under California’s “red flag” law. Repetitive domestic violence, for example, can be a red flag. But the law is failing to live up to its promise in much of the state. Why? One, even if people know about the law, they’re naturally reluctant to become snitches and “get involved,” often because they’re afraid of riling a crazed brute. Two, not all law enforcement agencies want to be bothered. Maybe they don’t agree with taking away a man’s guns. Or it’s too much trouble — they’re already overburdened with daily law enforcement crises. But the San Jose mass shooter would have been a prime candidate for the red flag law. After 57-year-old Samuel Cassidy killed nine male co-workers at a San Jose rail yard on May 26, then turned a gun on himself, the ugly stories started coming out. Surviving co-workers at the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority described the shooter as a loner. One said he had “gone off” on managers about three weeks before the killings. The maintenance man’s former wife told the Mercury News that he had a bad temper and often complained that co-workers and family members had easier lives than he did. “We can say that the suspect has been a highly disgruntled VTA employee for many years,” said Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Russell Davis, adding that this “may have contributed to why he targeted VTA employees.” You think? A former girlfriend alleged in a court declaration in 2009 that Cassidy sexually assaulted her and “exhibited major mood swings as a result of bipolar disorder.” Santa Clara County Dist. Atty. Jeff Rosen, who has been delving into Cassidy’s background, told me he couldn’t confirm that the shooter had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. According to a Department of Homeland Security memo, Cassidy professed “a hatred of his workplace” when detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection while returning from the Philippines in 2016, the Wall Street Journal reported. Homeland Security agents “did not share that information with local law enforcement,” Rosen says. “I’ll be talking to Homeland Security and finding out why.” California Body-camera video from a Santa Clara County Sheriff’s deputy shows the first law enforcement team that entered the San Jose light rail yard to try to locate the gunman that killed nine people last Wednesday. June 2, 2021 Cassidy’s arsenal at the rail yard included three semiautomatic 9-millimeter handguns, 32 high-capacity magazines and nearly 400 rounds of ammunition. Each magazine held 12 rounds, two more than the legal limit in California. But there’s a caveat: It’s illegal to sell a magazine that size in California, but not to possess one. Californians voted to outlaw possession of high-capacity magazines in 2016, but the law’s on hold. The gun lobby sued and won before a U.S. district judge, and the case will be heard by a federal appeals court. The shooter set his house afire before leaving on the morning killing rampage. Sifting through the charred ruins, police uncovered multiple cans of gasoline, suspected Molotov cocktails, 12 guns and roughly 25,000 rounds of ammunition. What if someone — a co-worker, family member or an ex — had called the police with any suspicions? California An investigation into the San Jose attack indicates a targeted attack and a long-angry gunman, as the families and friends of the nine victims grieve. May 28, 2021 “He would have been investigated by police, they’d have spoken to the shooter, and we may have gotten a gun violence restraining order,” Rosen says. “His guns would have been confiscated. He may have been referred to a mental health facility. “I know we absolutely have stopped countless mass shootings by using this tool,” Rosen says of the red flag law. “It has saved countless lives.” Lots of suicides have been prevented too, he says. But that’s only when the tool is used. And it isn’t used everywhere. Santa Clara County uses it a lot. San Diego excels at it. Los Angeles, disappointing. “Some law enforcement agencies are reluctant to take this on because it interferes with their philosophy. They think it’s inappropriate to take a person’s guns away,” says Dr. Garen Wintemute, director of the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program. “This tends to be in rural counties. California San Jose gunman Samuel Cassidy “coordinated the destruction of his residence” with the mass shooting, sheriff’s officials say. May 28, 2021 “And someone has to go get the guns. It’s not a one-person job. It takes five or six officers. You hand this guy an order and tell him, ‘We’re going to take your guns.’” There’s also the reluctance of citizens to stick their necks out. They probably haven’t even heard about the law. “I’d like to see a pretty massive public service campaign” to inform the public and persuade them to use the law, says state Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San Jose). “How do you get people to speak up? They don’t want to betray privacies. “That’s coming. We need to leave the thought in people’s heads that the next time they hear about a person threatening to kill other people with guns, it’s time to call the police.” And it’s time for Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature to put serious money behind raising red flags on potential killers.

Review: 'Super Frenchie' skims the surface of adrenaline junkie

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-06-03/review-super-frenchie-skiing-matthias-giraud

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. For an extreme sports documentary, “Super Frenchie,” tracking the increasingly dangerous exploits of gonzo skier/BASE jumper Matthias Giraud, can’t help but feel benignly pedestrian. Like fellow adrenaline junkie Alex Honnold, whose untethered attempts to scale the formidable El Capitan were chronicled in the Oscar-winning “Free Solo,” Giraud’s white-knuckle pursuit, which takes him from Mt. Hood to the Matterhorn, doesn’t skimp on the anticipated wow factor. Ultimately, he meets his Waterloo with an ill-fated jump off Pointe d’Areu near Mont Blanc, leaving him in a coma with shattered bones mere days before his wife is due to give birth to their first child. But even as he heeds his miraculous recovery as a sign to quit while he’s ahead, one begins to suspect that his domestic reset as a doting Bend, Ore., dad will prove short-lived. Although director Chase Ogden dutifully captures that nagging call of the wild, he misses a golden opportunity to more thoroughly investigate the formative stimuli that prompted the seemingly carefree Giraud (like others before him) to pursue his limit-pushing lifestyle in the first place. It’s touched upon with references to his growing up in an oppressive family environment that dealt with depression and suicide, and an “overbearing” and “manipulative” mother who chillily weighs in with “I respect what he does, but it’s also something which is rather selfish.” Despite the stern demeanor, Giraud’s French maman nevertheless raises a valid talking point — one which seemed deserving of a deeper dive. ‘Super Frenchie’ Not ratedRunning Time: 1 hour, 17 minutesPlaying: Starts June 4, Landmark Nuart Theatre, Los Angeles; also on VOD

Editorial: Adding up California's new-new-newest math

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-03/editorial-adding-up-californias-new-new-newest-math

Contrary to the ill-informed criticisms that are 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 a lot of students. And it would get rid of the crazy requirement, adopted in 2008, that all students take algebra in eighth grade. It is important for students to understand one level of math well before moving to the next, and not all kids reach the same level of understanding in lockstep. The problem is that the newest math would impose its own kind of lockstep, by requiring students who grasp math quickly to remain in the same classes as everyone else through sophomore year of high school. Under the current system, some students start moving ahead more rapidly in middle school. That academic tracking often leaves out talented Black and Latino students, but the goal should be to take the racism out of tracking rather than try to force all students into the same mold. The state’s draft mathematics framework, which is undergoing some revision and will be considered by the state Board of Education next fall, would do away with the traditional algebra–geometry–algebra 2 sequence of courses, frequently followed by trigonometry and calculus, in favor of an integrated approach. In other words, students might use various branches of mathematics as well as arithmetic and real-life research to figure out, for example, how to revegetate a wilderness area with native plants, along with cost calculations. It’s far more engaging than traditional math classes. And, at least theoretically, it works for different levels of students. A skill is just a skill, more quickly learned by some than others. But applying those skills to challenging real-world projects demands creativity and critical thinking. There’s no getting around the truth underlying the proposed new framework, though: Its roots lie in the yawning race- and poverty-based gaps in math achievement. It is, in a way, an admission of failure. Not only has the education system failed to prepare all students for eighth-grade algebra, it has failed to bring the students who most needed help to the point where they had anything like an equal chance at taking advanced courses or being prepared for a four-year college. In 2018, the state reported that just under 20% of Black students met math standards, while more than half of white students and nearly three-fourths of Asian students did. Overall, California’s students are not doing nearly as well in math as they should be. In places, the math framework itself reads almost as much like a social equity document as one on mathematics, asserting that “All students deserve powerful mathematics; we reject ideas of natural gifts and talents.” All students do deserve strong mathematics education, along with the assumption that when they are engaged, most of them can master advanced math. They deserve classes that meet them at their level and challenge them to grow from there. But that also should mean allowing gifted students to advance as rapidly as they can and want to advance. Whether their gifts are called natural or not, some students — without special tutoring, without especially ambitious parents — learn math at top speed. Most students have the ability to learn higher math skills, but some of them learn it seemingly effortlessly. The framework’s idea of how to deal with this is for more adept students to be in the same classes as everyone else, but given more challenging projects to work on. That could be nice in theory. But in practice, this kind of “differentiated instruction” is hard to pull off as teachers try to track the progress of students who are all over the achievement map. Is the state willing to invest the money needed to drastically reduce the size of math classes and make the new approach work as intended? Unlikely. It would be no more fair to hold high-octane math students behind than it has been to force unready students into eighth-grade algebra classes. There should be room for both kinds of math education — and there might well be, since school districts wouldn’t have to follow the framework and many parents would object to the change. In ways, the new guidelines might open a new era of intriguing mathematics education that inspires the students who were given too little opportunity to show that they, too, had “math brains.” But to the extent that the framework would rein in talented students who are ready to rev forward, it could be the catalyst that prompts many families to flee the traditional public school system and seek out charter and private options. That’s not the sign of a successful new math.

Anthony Mackie, Paul Rudd kick off the opening of Disney's Avengers Campus

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-06-03/anthony-mackie-paul-rudd-photos-kick-off-the-opening-of-disneys-avengers-campus

On the eve of Disney’s first media preview of the the new Avengers Campus at California Adventure, actors Anthony Mackie and Paul Rudd made an appearance to celebrate the opening of the new segment of the park. As represented in the Marvel films Mackie, the first Black Captain America, presented California Adventure’s Captain America with his shield during the Grand Opening Ceremony. Characters from a variety of Avengers movies also took the stage, including Iron Man and Spider-Man. Our photographer Jason Armond captured the event:

Hernández: Clippers need to stare down history and Luka Doncic to avoid cursed ending

https://www.latimes.com/sports/clippers/story/2021-06-03/clippers-curse-game-5-loss-mavericks-luka-doncic

There are new voices. “I think we’re fine,” coach Tyronn Lue said. Yet here they are again, on the precipice of another disaster. There is renewed determination. “We’re confident,” Paul George said. Yet here they are again, on the brink of another humiliating expulsion from the postseason. Video highlights from the Los Angeles Clippers’ 105-100 loss to the Dallas Mavericks in Game 5 of their first-round playoff series on June 2, 2021, at Staples Center. The Clippers trail the Dallas Mavericks in their first-round playoff series, three games to two. A defeat in Game 6 and the most promising season in franchise history will be over. A loss Friday and their track record of failure will be extended by another year. The Clippers Curse has taken the form of a human being, a 22-year-old from Slovenia named Luka Doncic. Doncic is healthy again. Or, healthy enough to take down the Clippers. Of course he is. What, were you not paying attention for the last 40 years? Just the Clippers’ luck: An opponent who days earlier looked as if he should be fitted for a neck brace has returned as Superman. Silly for anyone (read: me) to think the series was over after the Clippers’ win in Game 4 because Doncic looked finished. 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 These are the Clippers. Nothing ever comes easy for them. And in Game 5, Doncic unleashed on them one of the greatest one-man performances in the history of the game, finishing with 42 points, 14 assists and eight rebounds in a 105-100 victory for the Mavericks. Doncic scored or assisted on 31 of the Mavericks’ 37 baskets. He accounted for 83.8% of his team’s field goals, the largest single-game share of any player for any team in postseason history, according to the Mavericks. Only two other players were ever responsible for more than 80% of their team’s baskets: Allen Iverson and LeBron James. The Clippers have superstars of their own in Kawhi Leonard and George, but neither performed like one. The Mavericks countered the Clippers’ small lineup by starting 7-foot-4 center Boban Marjanovic, whose presence dissuaded Leonard from attacking the basket as he had in previous games. “I thought the early quarters, especially with Boban, they made an emphasis that they were just going to pack the paint and keep us out of getting layups,” Lue said. Leonard didn’t score his first basket until the final minute of the opening quarter. He attempted only three shots in the fourth quarter. With the Clippers down, 103-100, he fired a three-pointer with five seconds remaining — an airball. George was whistled for his fourth foul, with 6:32 remaining in the third quarter, which forced him out of the game. “When he came out of the game,” Lue said, “we got to ask Kawhi to do a lot. I think Kawhi got a little tired.” The Mavericks closed the third quarter with a 25-5 run. The Clippers’ 70-67 lead turned into an 89-75 deficit. George didn’t take any responsibility for his foul trouble. “I thought it was tick-tack,” he said. “They called what they called on me, and then those same contact plays down the stretch under three, four minutes weren’t called on the other end. So I don’t know what’s a foul and what’s not a foul.” He might want to learn. Statistically, George had a decent game, finishing with a team-high 23 points while picking up 10 rebounds, six assists and three blocked shots. But with the Clippers closing in on the Mavericks, he made two costly turnovers. Leonard had 20 points, but on seven-of-19 shooting. He also had five turnovers. They will have to be better in Game 6, which will be played in Dallas. “We’re confident we can extend the series and bring this back home,” George said. “We’ve got to go to Dallas. It’s going to be another hard environment for us to go into. It’s what we’ve got to do.” Home-court advantage has proven to be home-court disadvantage in this series, with the road team winning each of the games so far. If there is a Game 7, it will be at Staples Center on Sunday. The Clippers insist the series will return to Los Angeles. They point to how they won two games in Dallas after falling behind two games to none. The Clippers are certainly capable of reaching the NBA Finals for the first time, but there are forces threatening to send them off into their offseason vacation. There’s their history, 40 years of it, and there’s Doncic, who is making history. In order to reshape the identity of their franchise, the Clippers will have to demonstrate they have changed, not just by winning games they should win, but by overcoming the kinds of odds they are facing now. 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

Needing two wins to advance, Lakers could be down two players for Game 6

https://www.latimes.com/sports/lakers/story/2021-06-03/lakers-suns-game-6-preview-anthony-davis-kcp-chris-paul

Can the Lakers find hope amidst the chaos, their season teetering on shaky legs and sprained muscles, with their much-celebrated togetherness threatened under the stresses of failure? Can they survive the premature autopsies, the talk about LeBron James’ early retreat to the locker room and a fresh round of concerns and quips over Anthony Davis? Can they rediscover their swagger, find some fight and rely on a championship DNA that hasn’t yet been activated? Most importantly, can the Lakers give themselves a chance? Ready or not, the Lakers are going to get their answers Thursday, their season on the line in Game 6 of the first-round playoff series against the surging Phoenix Suns. Fresh off a blowout loss on Tuesday with veterans like Markieff Morris questioning the team’s passive approach, the Lakers tried to regroup one day later, making it clear that all options are on the table before their biggest game of the season. That means coach Frank Vogel could end up starting center Marc Gasol, like he did in the second half of Game 5, as he tried to unclog the paint with the Suns defense daring the Lakers to take shots from deep. 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 It also means that Davis, who was unable to play in the last six quarters of this series because of a strained groin, could be on the court if he receives medical clearance. His lack of availability has been popular fodder for NBA experts, with “Inside the NBA” analyst Charles Barkley calling Davis “Street Clothes” Sunday on the show. And it means that James, who said he left the bench early in Game 5 to begin undergoing treatment, will have to do something special to keep the Lakers’ championship repeat hopes alive. The Lakers have been outscored 161-127 since Davis’ injury in Game 4, their offense mustering less than 22 points per quarter. While Davis’ defense might be what makes him most special, his scoring ability would be warmly welcomed. Vogel said the decision on Davis’ availability, as with that of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, wouldn’t happen until game time Thursday, the Lakers buying as much time as possible. Lakers With Anthony Davis sidelined, the Lakers will go into a must-win Game 6 on Thursday against the Phoenix Suns with many questions and few answers. June 2, 2021 “Hopefully all the rehab and treatment that I’m doing pays off and the doctors clear me to go tomorrow,” Davis said Wednesday. “That’s what we want. So, getting more treatment tonight, tomorrow and kind of talk to the doctors before the game — before and after I shoot — and hopefully everything comes back good where they clear me. “That’s what we’re hoping for.” Davis attempted to loosen up the strained muscle — which he said he aggravated because he played Game 4 with a sore knee — before Tuesday’s game, taking the court twice before Game 5. Neither went particularly well, with the star unable to perform any dynamic movements outside of just some spot-up shooting. “I just wasn’t able to really move. And every move that we make, it starts with the groin,” Davis said. “Any other injury, the knee and all that, you can kind of finagle a way to move, but the groin is a tough place. So I just wasn’t able to do it last night.” Davis did work on the court Wednesday, but Vogel declined to share details. Davis also was vague, saying that the injury was improving by the day. Following Game 5, James said that he’d prepare for the Lakers’ first elimination game since 2013 as if Davis would be unable to go. If there’s anything the team can grab ahold of, it’s that James has responded to 30-point losses by winning the next game four of the previous five times its happened. James hasn’t been his sharpest, turning the ball over 4.4 times per game — the most in a postseason since his rookie year in the NBA. His 22.2 points per game would be his third-lowest scoring average in a series. If the Lakers lose Thursday, it’ll be the first time in James’ career that he’ll have lost a first-round playoff series. It’ll also be the first time since 2010 that his team lost a playoff series before the NBA Finals. The Lakers will need to use everything they have, James said. “It’s literally win or go home at that point,” he said after Game 5. “So, you shoot all the bullets you got and throw the gun too.” But even he can’t know if this version of the Lakers’ “everything” is going to be enough. By the end of Thursday night, they’ll have answers.

With 50 days to go, 10,000 Tokyo Olympics volunteers have dropped out

https://www.latimes.com/sports/olympics/story/2021-06-03/10000-volunteers-drop-out-tokyo-olympics

About 10,000 of 80,000 unpaid volunteers for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics have told organizers that they will not participate when the Games open July 23. The pullouts came as a countdown clock in Tokyo on Thursday reminded passersby that there are just 50 days to go until the pandemic-delayed Summer Games begin, a year after they were originally scheduled to take place. Organizers said some volunteers dropped out because of worries about the coronavirus. Few volunteers are expected to be vaccinated, but most will have no contact with athletes or other key personnel. Only about 2% to 3% of Japan’s general population is fully inoculated in a very slow vaccination rollout that is just now speeding up. Conversely, the IOC expects at least 80% of athletes and residents of the Olympic Village to be fully vaccinated. “We have not confirmed the individual reasons,” organizers said in a statement. “In addition to concerns about the coronavirus infection, some dropped out because they found it would be difficult to actually work after checking their work shift, or due to changes in their own environment.” Organizers said the loss would not affect the operations of the postponed Olympics. Olympics With 3% of its population vaccinated, and Tokyo and other prefectures under extended states of emergency, there’s no justification for Japan hosting the Olympics. May 18, 2021 Support for the Olympics continues to lag in Japan, with 50% to 80% — depending how the question is phrased — saying the Games should not open July 23. Unpaid volunteers are a key workforce in running the Olympics and save organizers millions of dollars in salaries. Volunteers typically get a uniform, meals on the days they work and have daily commuting costs covered. They pay for their own lodging. A study conducted for the International Olympic Committee on volunteers at the 2000 Sydney Olympics said their value was at least $60 million for 40,000 volunteers. Tokyo is officially spending $15.4 billion to organize the Olympics, and several government audits say it’s much more. All but $6.7 billion is public money. The IOC’s contribution is about $1.5 billion.

Buckingham Palace barred nonwhites from office jobs in the 1960s, report says

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-03/buckingham-palace-barred-nonwhites-office-jobs-1960s

Buckingham Palace barred ethnic minorities from office jobs during the 1960s, the Guardian newspaper reported Thursday, citing documents in Britain’s National Archives. The revelation, published on the newspaper’s front page, was based on papers showing that Queen Elizabeth II’s chief financial manager told civil servants in 1968 that it was not the palace’s practice to hire “colored immigrants or foreigners” for clerical posts and other office jobs. The palace replied forcefully to the historical allegations, stressing that the queen and her household comply “in principle and in practice” with anti-discrimination legislation. “Claims based on a second-hand account of conversations from over 50 years ago should not be used to draw or infer conclusions about modern-day events or operations,” a palace spokesman said, speaking on the customary condition of anonymity. World & Nation The couple’s allegations of racism in the royal family have raised questions in nations with historic ties to Britain, many of them former colonies. March 10, 2021 The Guardian’s allegations stem from its investigation into the palace’s use of a mechanism known as “crown consent,” under which the monarch grants permission for Parliament to debate laws affecting her. Parliament approved laws barring discrimination based on race and sex in the 1970s. Documents in the National Archives show how the queen’s advisors influenced the wording of that legislation, the newspaper said. Race has become a central issue for the monarchy following statements made by Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, in their March interview with talk show host Oprah Winfrey. Meghan alleged that before their son, Archie, was born, a member of the royal family commented on how dark the baby’s skin might be. In the ensuing storm, Prince William, Harry’s older brother, defended the royal family, stating flatly that “we’re very much not a racist family.”

Federal prosecutors want more prep time for civil rights trial in George Floyd death

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-03/federal-prosecutors-want-more-time-trial-george-floyd-death

Prosecutors are asking a judge for more time to prepare for the federal trial of four former police officers facing civil rights charges in the death of George Floyd, calling the case unusual and complex, in part because of the sheer volume of evidence. A federal grand jury indicted Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao last month, alleging that they violated Floyd’s rights while acting under government authority as Floyd was restrained face-down, handcuffed and not resisting. Chauvin is also charged in a separate indictment alleging that he violated the rights of a 14-year-old boy in 2017. Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter in Minnesota state court in April and is awaiting sentencing. The three other former officers also face a state trial next March on counts of aiding and abetting. That trial, initially scheduled for August, was pushed back partly so that the federal case could happen first. The Speedy Trial Act requires that the federal trial begin within 70 days of charges being filed or an initial appearance, with some exceptions. A judge can extend the deadline if the case is found to be unusual or complex. In documents filed Tuesday and last month, federal prosecutors said the case was a complex one because of the separate but coordinated state and federal investigations. Many of the witnesses in Chauvin’s weeks-long murder trial are also on the federal witness list, and more evidence is expected to come out during the state trial of the other officers. Prosecutors also said the case includes voluminous video and audio recordings and documents — totaling hundreds of gigabytes of data and tens of thousands of pages. Prosecutors said they received responses to more than 40 grand jury subpoenas for records, involving thousands of documents and other media items. World & Nation Prosecutors are seeking a 30-year sentence for the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murder in the death of George Floyd, but a defense attorney is asking that Derek Chauvin be sentenced to probation and time already served. June 2, 2021 Defense attorneys have not objected to a delay. A federal trial date has not been set. Floyd, 46, repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe as Chauvin pinned him to the ground during an arrest May 25, 2020. Kueng and Lane helped restrain Floyd — Kueng knelt on Floyd’s back and Lane held Floyd’s legs. Thao held back bystanders and kept them from intervening during the nearly 10-minute restraint, which was captured on bystander video and led to worldwide protests and calls for racial justice and policing reforms. The federal indictment alleges that Chauvin violated Floyd’s right to be free from unreasonable seizure and from unreasonable force by a police officer. Thao and Kueng are charged with violating Floyd’s right to be free from unreasonable seizure by not intervening to stop Chauvin as he knelt on Floyd’s neck. All four former officers are charged for their failure to provide Floyd with medical care.

Op-Ed: Migrant children are being sheltered at Pomona's Fairplex. It's not the first time the fairgrounds has housed detainees

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-03/pomona-fairplex-mass-shelter-migrant-children-history-of-detainment

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the billboard along the eastbound 10 Freeway at Dudley Street in Pomona invariably promoted events at the Fairplex that included expos and one of the largest county fairs in the United States. Today, something far more serious than carnival rides and arts and crafts competitions is occurring at the Fairplex. As of May 1, it has been used as a temporary shelter for more than 500 migrant children who have arrived unaccompanied at the U.S.-Mexico border since March. We have a personal connection to the fairgrounds. We both work within five miles of the Fairplex. The roots of Summer’s Latino family in Pomona reach back more than 100 years. We’re both descended from communities of color, some of whom endured detention, and others who picked lemons in California’s fields and worked in the state’s packing districts. This repurposing of a Pomona landmark brings up painful memories of our ancestors’ experiences with California’s legacy of exclusion and detention. Since 1922, the Fairplex — then called the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds — has been home to the L.A. County Fair. But after 19 public expositions, the grounds temporarily served a different purpose, one that has largely remained in the shadows. It became one of 15 locations in California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona that temporarily housed more than 92,000 people of Japanese descent who were detained until more permanent incarceration camps were built. At the height of World War II, following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed executive order 9066, which gave the military authority to remove native-born and longtime residents of Japanese descent from the Pacific Coast — anyone who was at least one-sixteenth Japanese fell under the order. As a result, the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds became home to the Pomona Assembly Center, a stop on the way to long-term incarceration. Between May 7 and Aug. 24, 1942, the fairgrounds housed more than 5,400 detainees. The majority of the Japanese Americans held there came from downtown and East Los Angeles while others arrived from as far as Santa Clara County and San Francisco. Former detainees recall how they were dehumanized: their names replaced by identity numbers, their families packed into rooms with paper-thin walls, and outside, armed guards staffing security towers. In 2014, Summer’s great-aunt told her that one of her great-uncles, who lived locally, was among those employed to build the 309 barracks at the Pomona Assembly Center that housed the detainees. They also built laundry buildings, bathhouses, mess halls and other facilities. Summer tried to learn more about her relative’s life but could uncover little from family and historical records, not even her great-uncle’s name. The Pomona Assembly Center and Japanese incarceration camps like Manzanar that came later are part of California’s shameful history of immigrant detention, expulsion and exploitation, particularly to those of color. The creation of the assembly centers can be traced to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, the first U.S. law that prohibited immigration based on race. It fueled future anti-Asian sentiments and ushered in a series of laws restricting and prohibiting immigration that laid the groundwork for the executive order that led to the egregious need for assembly centers. Between 1910 and 1940, hundreds of thousands of immigrants from more than 80 countries came through the Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay for processing, detainment and sometimes interrogation. Because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the majority of those detained were Chinese. Among those immigrants were Kathy’s grandparents, Marie and Gim. They were minors at the time, and never saw their mothers again after they were released from Angel Island — one more example of the sad history of familial separation through immigrant detention. Like Pomona’s fairgrounds, Angel Island also played a part in California’s confinement of Japanese Americans during World War II, serving as a temporary detainment center for almost 700 Japanese Americans before they were sent to incarceration camps. Today, the Fairplex and other designated mass shelters are intended by the government to be welcoming spaces; temporary stops in the Biden administration’s efforts to reunify migrant children with their families. Southern California’s shelters are among almost 200 facilities that house about 21,000 unaccompanied migrant children across two dozen states. But U.S. immigration law defines a family as children and their parents or legal guardians, which means some minors who arrived at the border with older siblings, grandparents or other relatives have been designated as unaccompanied and sent to shelters. Politics The immigration debate poses a moral dilemma for America. May 6, 2021 It is essential that leaders and immigration advocates ensure that today’s mass shelters don’t become part of this country’s legacy of detaining young people of color. It was in the name of “racial purity” that minors like Marie and Gim were detained at Angel Island Immigration Station. National security was invoked when Japanese Americans were incarcerated at the Pomona Assembly Center. California For Japanese Americans, a backtrack to a sad past at Santa Anita March 29, 2014 As we consider the children currently housed at the Fairplex, and our ties to those grounds and its oft-overlooked role in California’s history of immigrant detention, we urge our leaders to seek better ways of protecting migrant children. That would be in keeping with the hope spelled out on a plaque on the fairgrounds: “May such injustice and suffering never recur.” Kathy Yep is a professor of Asian American Studies at Pitzer College and a coauthor of “Dragon’s Child: A Story of Angel Island.” Summer Espinoza is an executive assistant at Pitzer and a former archivist at the Go For Broke National Education Center, which preserves the history of Japanese American veterans of World War II.

As COVID-19 collides with HIV/AIDS, the pandemic may be taking an ominous turn

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-06-03/why-reaching-herd-immunity-in-the-u-s-wont-be-enough-to-protect-us-from-covid-19

As the world’s less affluent countries scramble for COVID-19 vaccine and contend with deadly surges of the disease, researchers in South Africa have just documented an ominous development: the collision of the pandemic with HIV/AIDS. Geneticists and infectious disease specialists there have uncovered potentially dangerous coronavirus mutations in a 36-year-old woman with uncontrolled HIV who was unable to shake the SARS-CoV-2 virus for close to eight months. The driving force behind the patient’s rapid accumulation of genetic changes is probably her impaired immune response due to her unsuccessfully treated HIV, the researchers said. The case highlights a difficult truth: that affluent nations racing to vaccinate their own populations will remain vulnerable as long as the coronavirus is spreading and mutating in low- and middle-income countries, where lack of vaccine has kept COVID-19 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. While the South African patient was diagnosed with HIV back in 2006, doctors had been unable to control her viral load with standard antiretroviral therapy, and her immune system’s population of CD4+ T cells — which may play a role in clearing coronavirus infection — were very low. For 216 days, the woman continued to test positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. She was hospitalized with moderate illness for nine days in September soon after she contracted the coronavirus, but she never became severely ill with COVID-19. Still, the coronavirus that lingered in her body underwent 13 genetic changes related to its crucial spike protein, along with at least 19 other genetic shifts elsewhere that could change the behavior of the virus. The new findings raise the specter that HIV/AIDS — a 40-year-old scourge that has killed 32 million worldwide — could complicate efforts to eradicate a COVID-19 pandemic that has killed more than 3.5 million in less than a year and a half. Until the South African patient, there has been little evidence to suggest that HIV-infected people could complicate the pandemic’s trajectory. HIV-positive people were not known to be more likely to become infected with the coronavirus. And research had suggested they did not suffer worse medical consequences of COVID-19. But if her case turns out to be typical, that picture could change: HIV patients whose infections are not controlled with medication could “become a factory of variants for the whole world,” said Tulio de Oliveira, a geneticist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, who led the new research. Worldwide, roughly 8 million people are thought to be infected with HIV but unaware of their status. An additional 1.7 million are on antiretroviral medications that aren’t working well. The prospect that close to 10 million patients’ uncontrolled HIV could spawn new coronavirus variants has wide-ranging implications. “This is a syndemic,” said Dr. Jonathan Li, using a term that describes the confluence of two epidemics with the potential to worsen outcomes for both. Science & Medicine COVID-19 patients who take months to overcome their coronavirus infections despite treatment can become incubators of dangerous new strains. Jan. 30, 2021 An infectious disease specialist at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, Li was one of the first to document the proliferation of significant coronavirus mutations in a single immunocompromised patient who could not clear his coronavirus infection for more than five months and succumbed to COVID-19 last summer. His case put doctors on notice that such patients might be powerful incubators of viral variants. Li’s largest patient population is people with HIV. From the time that potentially dangerous coronavirus variants began emerging, he said he’s had his “fingers crossed” that people with HIV would not turn out to be a source of mutations that could make the virus more transmissible or harder to prevent or treat. “This is one of the first reports that some of my fears may be coming to fruition,” said Li, who was not involved in the new research. This is one of the first reports that some of my fears may be coming to fruition. — Dr. Jonathan Li, an infectious disease specialist The South African patient contracted the coronavirus in September at the beginning of the country’s second surge, though she was infected with a strain that had been dominant during the country’s first wave of infection. More than 30 genetic changes were detected in the patient’s viral samples over the next 27 weeks, including a handful known to strengthen the virus’ ability to resist the vaccines and drugs that prevent or treat COVID-19. Were they to begin circulating widely, they might have become the stuff of public health nightmares: “escape variants” capable of prolonging the pandemic. Science & Medicine The Biden administration is boosting efforts to identify and track coronavirus variants to help scientists see where the pandemic is heading next. Feb. 7, 2021 It’s not yet clear whether any of the mutations she harbored spread to other people. But the researchers said it’s probably not a coincidence that dangerous new variants have emerged from populations like those in South Africa’s KwaZulu Natal province, where more than 1 in 4 adults has HIV. The patient was the subject of a briefing last month to an organization of Africa’s public health ministers, and details are expected to be shared with leaders of the World Health Organization soon. A case report was posted Thursday to a website for researchers to seek feedback on their work before formal publication. It’s too early to know whether the woman is an outlier. But the report of her case has been widely anticipated by other scientists who are eager to vet it. Among the surprises: The mutations that emerged in the South African patient did not seem to be a direct response to powerful medications aimed at treating COVID-19. The primary treatment she received in the hospital was supplemental oxygen. Indeed, had she not been enrolled in a study of COVID-19 patients with HIV or tuberculosis, she probably would have been unaware that she might be spreading newly hatched viral variants to others. In all likelihood, her case would not have attracted further scrutiny. Instead, she became one of the 300 participants whose bouts with COVID-19 were studied to better understand how HIV affects the progression of and immune response to a coronavirus infection. Her blood was tested for SARS-CoV-2 on the day she joined the study and seven times afterward. About six months into the research, two of the medications in her antiretroviral HIV cocktail were replaced. Within two weeks, her HIV was under strict control and she had cleared her SARS-CoV-2 infection. Science & Medicine Researchers are getting serious about understanding a disease patients call “long COVID.” Its symptoms include aches, fatigue, sleep problems and brain fog. March 28, 2021 Four others in the study had coronavirus infections that lasted longer than a month. The researchers plan to look for variants in their samples too. The new findings heighten the stakes for diagnosing and treating people everywhere with unrecognized or insufficiently treated HIV, said De Oliveira, the study leader. Expanding testing and treatment for those with undetected HIV “would reduce mortality from HIV, reduce transmission of HIV, and also reduce the chance of generating new COVID variants that could cause other waves of infections,” he said. As the Beta variant from South Africa and the Gamma variant from Brazil have shown, countries where vaccination is low and infections have soared seem to provide fertile ground for new strains. Within their homelands and well beyond, those variants could set off new waves of reinfection — even in countries where vaccination levels are high. World & Nation In multiple countries, the COVID-19 pandemic has reached one of its bleakest points yet. April 24, 2021 South Africa, which is home to nearly 2.2 million untreated people with HIV, had vaccinated just 183,000 people as of May 31, causing health authorities to fear a new wave of infections. India, currently the site of the world’s worst COVID-19 surge, has almost 1 million people with untreated HIV infections. Only 12% of Indians have received a first shot of COVID-19 vaccine, and 3.2% are fully vaccinated. For the sake of comparison, the United States has provided first doses to 51% of its population and fully vaccinated 41%. “We have to make a commitment to making vaccines available globally,” said Walker of the Ragon Institute. “And we have to be particularly responsive in areas where infection is advancing most rapidly.” The woman’s case may also help explain why more than half of the new coronavirus variants detected to date were first documented in Africa. The continent is home to an estimated 7.5 million HIV-positive people who are not effectively treated with antiretroviral therapies. Most have impaired immunity, giving the virus a longer period to replicate and mutate. But the prospect that untreated HIV could complicate the COVID-19 pandemic’s endgame also suggests a way to address both problems in tandem, with synergistic effects, De Oliveira said. “This could be a golden opportunity to control the HIV epidemic and protect the world from variants,” he said.

Letters to the Editor: Skip the hybrid and buy a fully electric car already

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-03/buy-an-electric-car

To the editor: Glad to see that columnist Steve Lopez has finally taken a step he could have taken a full decade ago by buying a plug-in hybrid vehicle, which has limited all-electric range and a gasoline engine backup. Better late than never. Charging infrastructure is needed for more people to go full electric, but rather than seeing this as a negative, look at it as a huge jobs program that can’t be outsourced. We need thousands of licensed electricians, and we need them now. It appears President Biden will help with some of the cost. Getting a plug-in hybrid is a great first step, but Lopez’s driving needs as described could easily be handled by an entry-level Tesla. This is why they are so popular — they go far, and there are Tesla-specific fast-charging stations everywhere. Making that dig at Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk for using the incentive program was a cheap shot, since he neglected to mention the enormous harm from using oil. Paul Scott, Santa Monica The writer is co-founder of the electric vehicle advocacy group Plug In America. .. To the editor: As a driver who has been on the all-electric road for more than 20 years, I can state that once you take the exit to that road, you will likely want to stay on it. I am not alone in my enthusiasm, especially since electric vehicle range and the number of public charging stations continue to expand. In fact, the vast majority of first-time electric car buyers stay electric when they purchase their next car. Perhaps one of their biggest delights is zooming past gas stations and simply plugging in at home. How arduous is it, after all, to treat your car like a large cellphone and plug it in at a fraction of the cost of gasoline? As for the dreaded “range anxiety,” I can speak from experience: I have never been stranded by the side of the road next to a car fresh out of charge. However, I have certainly been stranded by a car that has run out of gas. Linda Nicholes, Huntington Beach .. To the editor: As the owner of a 2013 Chevy Volt, the original plug-in hybrid, I fully understand Lopez’s reasoning not to buy a fully electric car just yet. One idea that has not taken hold in the media is the possibility of using our future electric vehicle battery capacity to back up the power grid. Each car can have between 60 and 120 kilowatt-hours of electricity stored in its battery. With millions of EVs in the future, this is a massive amount of power. New electric vehicles have fast-charging connections, and there are already bidirectional chargers that can turn your car battery into a power source for your home. We need a program to encourage employers to install charging stations at work so that all of our excess solar energy available in the middle of the day can be dumped into our cars, which could then be used to support the electric grid when necessary. Robert Buckner, Sierra Madre

Letters to the Editor: 100 years after the Tulsa massacre, denial of systemic racism persists

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-03/100-years-tulsa-massacre-systemic-racism

To the editor: The Times’ editorial on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa massacre describes the current situation in which “Black Americans have less access to healthcare, face more hurdles in accumulating wealth and accessing capital, often are educated in de facto segregated schools, and face harsher police scrutiny and more severe criminal penalties.” Each of these facts considered separately should be inarguable for anyone of any political persuasion. Rather than having to list each fact every time this inequity is discussed, we could give this state of affairs a name that would describe it — maybe something like “systemic racism.” To those who deny that there is such a thing as systemic racism, I ask what other term would better describe it? Larry Macedo, West Hills .. To the editor: I grew up in 1960s Oklahoma in a small, white, rural community. The destruction of Greenwood in Tulsa was never mentioned in our required 9th grade Oklahoma history class. I am 63 now and live in California, where I learned about the 1921 massacre just a few years ago. This fits a pattern. I could tell you some fairly shocking stories about a culture in which oppression by whites was not just accepted, it was also expected. Your article doesn’t mention the events that journalist David Grann wrote about in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” a fascinating read about how white Oklahomans (in the area where I was raised) stole from Native Americans in the early 20th century when oil was discovered on their lands. It’s an example of how institutional racism and lack of adequate federal protection led to murder and violence against those whom the laws were meant to oppress. Those victims’ descendants need restitution as well. Cathryn Roos, La Habra .. To the editor: Often neglected as one of the important legacies of the 1921 Tulsa massacre is that it changed the conduct of war forever. This was the first time in history that airplanes were used for the indiscriminate bombing of civilians. It paved the way for the bombing of residential neighborhoods in Guernica, Spain, in 1937. At the time, there was public outrage, and many wanted the pilots to be tried as war criminals. Instead, the mass indiscriminate killing of civilians became accepted and routine. More than 100 million people died in wars in the 20th century, most of them civilians. It all began exactly 100 years ago in Tulsa, Okla. Roger Johnson, San Clemente

Chief Michel Moore: Inequities in policing are a reflection of a racially biased society

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-03/chief-michel-moore-racially-biased-policing

To the editor: Thank you for your editorials advocating for police reform instead of defunding. Today’s Los Angeles Police Department is the most reformed, and perhaps the most reform-minded, large police department in the nation. Our nation yearns for policing that reflects our shared values of racial equity and fair, effective enforcement of the law. Racial and gender disparities abound within the criminal justice system and beyond. Males of color make up an unsettling majority of those stopped, arrested and convicted of violent crimes in major cities all over America. They are also the majority of violent crime victims and are far more likely to be subjected to police use of force. Why do these inequities persist despite considerable effort to reform the police? Policing does not exist in a vacuum. It is a reflection of a country rife with racial disparity, which must be addressed in employment, healthcare, housing, education and beyond. Lasting, meaningful change requires all of society to evolve, not just one component of it. The police are a mirror that reflects the inequities of all our systems, and at times we are horrified by what we see. Let’s not confuse breaking the mirror for fixing that awful reflection. Michel R. Moore, Los Angeles The writer is chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Litman: Whatever Trump's White House counsel finally testifies to, it won't be enough

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-03/don-mcgahn-testimony-donald-trump-merrick-garland

On Friday, more than two years after Congress subpoenaed his testimony, Donald Trump’s White House Counsel Don McGahn will finally raise his hand and promise to tell the truth. But not the whole truth. The ground rules for McGahn’s testimony have been carefully negotiated to prevent full public disclosure. He will answer questions about the former president’s attempts to shut down special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation, but the testimony will take place behind closed doors before members only (no staff) of the House Judiciary Committee. A transcript will be made public, although only after the House and the Department of Justice have a chance to scrub parts they find objectionable. The content even before it’s scrubbed will be sharply constrained. Committee members may ask McGahn only about episodes or information already attributed to him in the public portions of the Mueller report. The Justice Department can assert executive privilege to block questioning, and McGahn himself can object to questions he considers beyond the scope of the agreement. We can expect McGahn to testify to facts that back up allegations that Trump obstructed justice. Most outrageously, the former president ordered McGahn to fire special counsel Mueller and later to lie about the order. According to the Mueller report, only McGahn’s readiness to resign walked Trump back. Those facts are not nothing. Details McGahn could provide will make for a sort of official seal on Mueller’s findings and add to Trump’s branding as a criminal in the annals of history. But it is also much less than it could be and should be. Of all Trump’s assaults on our political system and his derogations of the rule of law, the single most galling is that there remain huge holes in the record of the administration’s abuses, gaps that may never be filled in an authoritative way. The problem extends to Jan. 6, as Republicans fight tooth and nail to prevent a full investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol and into what the former president knew, did and said about it. It should not be controversial to have a full public airing of the facts surrounding the Trump administration’s manifold abuses. Other kinds of reckonings may raise competing considerations. It’s debatable, for example, whether a criminal conviction of Trump for his behavior in office would be a good thing for the political health of the nation. But it is a right of the people to know what happens within and to their government, and that right stands superior to institutional interests of the branches of government. We have recognized its importance time and again when crises, errors and crimes have rocked our democracy. The Japanese American imprisonment of World War II, the John F. Kennedy assassination, Watergate, Iran-Contra, 9/11, Abu Ghraib — all were subject to comprehensive public examination. Yet what we get on Friday from McGahn, the most important witness in Mueller’s obstruction-of-justice revelations, will be far from comprehensive. There is plenty of blame to go around for this unsatisfactory outcome. Multiple government actors have combined to shortchange the public. The list begins with Trump, who with the disingenuous support of congressional Republicans advanced spurious constitutional claims to stall for time and keep the truth bottled up. McGahn himself ignored Congress’ legitimate subpoena power. He was free to testify fully when he was called and remains so but chose instead to hide behind various Trump arguments that as a competent attorney he knew were meritless. The administration’s bad faith was abetted by the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia, which issued two poorly reasoned 2-1 decisions supporting Trump’s claims. The full court reversed the first, and it was poised to hear and reverse the second on May 19, until the McGahn deal intervened. Even the House Democrats, who were generally sure-footed and aggressive during the Trump years, bear blame for the incomplete record. They agreed to a lousy compromise with McGahn. (It’s likely they were concerned that the full-court D.C. Circuit decisions would be appealed to the Trump-stacked Supreme Court, a prospect they wanted to avoid.) Finally, the Biden-Garland Department of Justice, by continuing to defend its predecessor’s legal claims against oversight, also worked against the nation’s paramount need to know. I’ve championed Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland’s “stay in your lane” institutional strategies, but they should be tempered when it comes to uncovering the facts around clear extremes of the Trump White House. The unredacted Mueller report remains under Justice Department control, along with grand jury material that Mueller developed in his investigation. Garland should do all he can to open those files to public view without prejudicing ongoing litigation interests. For now, we have a woefully inadequate accounting of the events of the Trump years. McGahn’s testimony will improve the record, but it will still be too late and far too little. Watch L.A. Times Today at 7 p.m. on Spectrum News 1 on Channel 1 or live stream on the Spectrum News App. Palos Verdes Peninsula and Orange County viewers can watch on Cox Systems on channel 99. @HarryLitman

In prison video, Belarusian dissident jailed after flight diversion says he was set up

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-03/belarus-dissident-roman-protasevich-prison-video-forced-landing

A dissident journalist arrested after Belarus diverted the commercial flight he was traveling on said in a video from prison that he was set up by an unidentified associate. The footage of Roman Protasevich was part of an hourlong TV program aired late Wednesday by Belarus’ government-controlled ONT channel. In the video, the 26-year-old Protasevich is also shown saying that protests against Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko are now pointless amid a tough crackdown and suggesting that the opposition wait for a more opportune moment. A top associate of Protasevich said the journalist was clearly speaking under duress. The TV program claimed that Belarusian authorities were unaware that Protasevich was on board the Ryanair jet en route from Athens to Vilnius, Lithuania, when flight controllers diverted it to Minsk on May 23, citing a bomb threat. Lukashenko sent a fighter jet to escort the plane to Minsk, Belarus’ capital. No bomb was found, but Protasevich was arrested along with his Russian girlfriend. The forced landing outraged the European Union, which responded by barring Belarus’ flagship carrier from its skies, told European airlines to skirt Belarus and drafted bruising new sanctions against key sectors of the Belarusian economy. Lukashenko, who has ruled the ex-Soviet nation of 9.3 million with an iron fist for more than a quarter-century, has accused the West of trying to “strangle” his country with sanctions. World & Nation Roman Protasevich long feared that Belarusian authorities would try to abduct him, even though he had fled the country. They arrested him Sunday. May 28, 2021 Belarus has been rocked by months of protests fueled by Lukashenko’s reelection to a sixth term in an August vote that was widely seen as rigged. Lukashenko has only intensified the crackdown on protesters, and more than 35,000 people have been arrested since the protests began, with thousands beaten. Protasevich, who left Belarus in 2019, has become a top foe of Lukashenko. He ran a widely popular channel on the Telegram messaging app that played a key role in helping organize the huge anti-government protests and was charged with inciting mass disturbances — charges that carry a 15-year prison sentence. Lukashenko last week accused Protasevich of fomenting a “bloody rebellion.” Speaking in the ONT film, Protasevich acknowledged that the protests have fizzled and argued that the opposition should wait until economic problems gave rise to broad public discontent. World & Nation Belarus’ isolation is deepening as commercial planes avoid its airspace and the European Union works up new sanctions. May 25, 2021 “We need to wait until the economic situation worsens ... and people take to the street for a mug of soup, to put it bluntly,” he said. Lukashenko has defended the Ryanair flight diversion as a legitimate response to the bomb threat. The ONT program appeared designed to back that contention by claiming that the Belarusian authorities were unaware that Protasevich was on the plane when they diverted it. In the video, the journalist said he put a notice about his travel plans on a chat with associates 40 minutes before his departure and alleged that the bomb threat could have been issued by someone with whom he had a personal conflict. His remarks didn’t elaborate on the conflict. He said that the perceived ill-wisher — whom he didn’t name — had links with opposition-minded hackers who have attacked Belarusian official websites and issued bomb threats in the past. 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. “The first thing I thought was that I have been set up,” Protasevich said. “When the plane was on a landing path, I realized that it’s useless to panic,” Protasevich said. He described seeing heavily armed special forces waiting after the plane taxied to a parking spot. “It was a dedicated SWAT unit — uniforms, flak jackets and weapons,” he said. Last month, Protasevich noted that he had a rift with Franak Viachorka, an advisor to Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the main opposition candidate in the August presidential election, who fled to Lithuania after the vote under official pressure. Viachorka and Protasevich both accompanied Tsikhanouskaya on a visit to Greece in May. Asked about the video, Viachorka told the Associated Press that Protasevich now is “a hostage under pressure” and insisted that they have maintained friendly ties. A day after his arrest, Protasevich appeared in a video from detention that was broadcast on Belarusian state TV. Speaking rapidly and in a monotone, he said he was confessing to staging mass disturbances. His parents, who now live in Poland, said the confession appeared coerced. In the ONT film, Protasevich said he tried to stay away from his girlfriend after the landing, hoping that the authorities wouldn’t arrest her. Sofia Sapega didn’t feature in the new TV program, but she was shown in a video from prison last week, confessing to running a channel that revealed personal data about Belarus’ security officers.

‘They were my neighbors and friends’: India’s second COVID wave ravages the countryside

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-03/india-covid-rural

One by one, the villagers fell sick. It started with a fever, then breathlessness. By then, it was too late. There was no medicine, oxygen or hospital nearby to save them. Their bodies had to be carried by family to the river and cremated. “I knew all of them,” said Jitendra Hari Pandey, who estimated that more than 30 people in his village have died since the beginning of April. “They were my neighbors and friends.” They perished like thousands of others in India’s cities. But because there was no COVID-19 testing in Kayamuddinpur Patti, a speck of land in Uttar Pradesh, one of the nation’s poorest states, the villagers were not counted in the official tally of pandemic deaths. That total stood at 337,989 Thursday, with more than 28 million infected. Experts said the real numbers, however, could be up to five times higher. Nowhere is that discrepancy believed to be more stark than in the countryside, where two-thirds of India’s 1.4 billion people live, often in abject poverty, and the lack of health infrastructure and government reporting is obscuring the true scope of the country’s massive second wave. Without a more accurate picture, experts warn that India could loosen social restrictions too early again, inviting new variants and a third wave of infections that could delay the global recovery. “We don’t know what’s happening in the countryside,” said R. Ramakumar, a professor of development studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai. “It could be serious, very serious, or disastrous. There’s very little data being put out by the government.” Villagers don’t have the means to log on to Twitter and plead for oxygen tanks or hospital beds, as so many urban middle- and upper-class Indians have been doing. Rural dwellers are also disadvantaged when it comes to registering for vaccinations, a process that requires a smartphone and access to a government app called CoWIN. About 12% of Indians have received at least one dose. The number of shots administered daily has fallen steadily since a peak in April because of shortages. What’s available is going overwhelmingly to those who live in cities. “The pandemic is laying bare the frailty of public health in rural India,” Ramakumar said. “It’s further exposing the inequality.” World & Nation Infections and deaths continue to climb at alarming rates as India’s second COVID-19 wave threatens to topple its healthcare system. April 28, 2021 The only shared experience is grief and horror. Weeks after the skies of Mumbai and New Delhi were choked with the smell of funeral pyres, abandoned corpses began appearing in shallow graves along the banks of the Ganges in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states. The bodies are believed to be those of villagers whose families couldn’t afford cremation. Meanwhile, hundreds of teachers are thought to have died of COVID-19 after being forced to serve as poll workers in Uttar Pradesh village council elections in April. Relatives say family members developed fevers and shortness of breath within days of poll duty. “He was sick with fever a day or two after,” Ajay Sharma, 31, said of his father, Indrajeet Verma, a teacher who lived near the border with Nepal. “He got tested on April 28 and died the next day.” In the village of Patkhauli in eastern Uttar Pradesh, almost every one of its 1,400 residents appeared to fall ill at some point. The dusty hamlet offers nothing to residents in terms of treatment or testing. So villagers swallowed acetaminophen pills, rested and hoped for the best. “The entire village was sick,” said Pooja Yadav, 37, whose sister’s father-in-law died after exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms. “People were going to sleep at night and not waking up in the morning.” For many rural residents of India, it can take hours of walking to reach the closest government hospital or clinic — which often lack properly trained staff, medicine and equipment. In rural parts of Uttar Pradesh, there are only 2.5 beds for every 10,000 people, less than half the national average. The residents of Kayamuddinpur Patti at least have access to a government health center six miles away. Still, many are reluctant to seek help there because they fear testing positive for the coronavirus and being forced into quarantine — something few farmers can afford as they eke out a living growing sugar cane, rice and wheat. Lack of trust in the rural health system has undermined vaccination campaigns and allowed misinformation and quack cures to flourish, including miracle elixirs made of cow dung and urine. In Kayamuddinpur Patti, villagers say vaccinations will make them sick. “The village quacks invoke more confidence among the people than our healthcare system,” said Pandey, 49, an activist for farmworkers. “They treat patients sincerely and attend to them when people need reassurance. People believe that once you are admitted to a government hospital, you die.” World & Nation Indians are blaming a national government that did not prepare for a second wave. Officials are now scrambling to distribute supplies. May 13, 2021 The task of educating India’s rural masses has fallen largely to a million-strong army of female workers known as Accredited Social Health Activists. Operating under the auspices of the Ministry of Health, the force was trained to care for rural mothers and their children, but has now been asked to act as the first line of defense against the spread of COVID-19 in the countryside. It’s a daunting task for workers such as Manju, who uses one name. Each day, she visits 50 homes in the small town of Bhojpur and nearby villages in Uttar Pradesh. She lacks a thermometer to detect fevers and a pulse oximeter to measure oxygen levels. She has no choice but to buy her own masks on a monthly salary of $30. Then there are the people she’s trying to help, many of whom are too frightened to cooperate. “We go door to door and ask if anyone is feeling breathless, has a fever and so on,” Manju said. “Even if that’s the case, residents say everything is fine because they are scared.” Given India’s success in other public health campaigns — including the eradication of polio in 2014 with a vaccination drive that reached all corners of the disparate nation — Manju said she is puzzled by the wariness she encounters about the COVID-19 vaccine. “We tell them that we have also gotten our jabs, but people are still skeptical of the side effects,” she said. Last year might have been a good one for India’s struggling farmers, with bumper harvests. Instead, they suffered deep losses because a nationwide lockdown disrupted their ability to sell their crops. Growing anger exploded in January when tens of thousands of farmers on foot, horseback and tractors stormed into New Delhi to protest new laws they believed favored corporate farms. The cost of treating COVID-19 has forced many into deeper economic straits. In the state of Maharashtra, Jayashree Waghmare, 40, said she and her husband spent their annual income for treatment at a private hospital. “I’ll have to mortgage my jewelry to repay the debt,” she said. Avtar Tukaram, 30, said he struggled to find medical care for his ailing father. Finally, he took out a $1,400 bank loan to buy the drug remdesivir at an inflated black market price. But too much time had passed. Now Tukaram wonders how he will ever repay the debt for the drug that failed to keep his father alive. “You can’t save your family if you are poor,” he said. “If you have money, you have the right to live.” Times staff writer Pierson reported from Singapore and special correspondent Parth M.N. from Mumbai.

Last year's Castle fire killed at least 10% of world’s giant sequoias, study says

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-03/california-castle-fire-killed-one-tenth-world-giant-sequoias

At least one-tenth of the world’s mature giant sequoia trees were destroyed by a single California wildfire that tore through the southern Sierra Nevada last year, according to a draft report prepared by scientists with the National Park Service. The Visalia Times-Delta obtained a copy of the report, which describes catastrophic destruction from the Castle fire, which charred 273 square miles of timber in Sequoia National Park. Researchers used satellite imagery and modeling from previous fires to determine that between 7,500 and 10,000 of the towering species perished in the fire. That equates to 10% to 14% of the world’s mature giant sequoia population, the newspaper said. “I cannot overemphasize how mind-blowing this is for all of us. These trees have lived for thousands of years. They’ve survived dozens of wildfires already,” said Christy Brigham, chief of resources management and science at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Climate & Environment This year’s Castle fire killed hundreds of giant sequoias, the latest in a string of Sierra Nevada wildfires that is taking an alarming toll on the world’s most massive trees. Nov. 16, 2020 The consequences of losing large numbers of giant sequoias could be felt for decades, forest managers said. Redwood and sequoia forests are among the world’s most efficient at removing and storing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The groves also provide critical habitat for native wildlife and help protect the watershed that supplies farms and communities on the San Joaquin Valley floor. Brigham, the study’s lead author, cautioned that the numbers are preliminary and the research paper has yet to be peer-reviewed. Beginning next week, teams of scientists will hike to the groves that experienced the most fire damage for the first time since the ashes settled. “I have a vain hope that once we get out on the ground the situation won’t be as bad, but that’s hope — that’s not science,” she said. The newspaper said the extent of the damage to one of the world’s most treasured tree species is noteworthy because the sequoias themselves are incredibly well-adapted to fire. The old-growth trees — some of which are more than 2,000 years old and 250 feet tall — require fire to burst their pine cones and reproduce. Opinion A third of the giant sequoia were lost in one fire last year. Agencies that manage the groves need the resources to ensure it doesn’t happen again. March 22, 2021 “One hundred years of fire suppression, combined with climate-change-driven hotter droughts, have changed how fires burn in the southern Sierra, and that change has been very bad for sequoia,” Brigham said. Sequoia and Kings Canyon have conducted controlled burns since the 1960s, about 1,000 acres a year on average. Brigham estimates that the park will need to burn around 30 times that amount to get the forest back to a healthy state. The Castle fire erupted Aug. 19 in the Golden Trout Wilderness amid a flurry of lightning strikes. The Shotgun fire, a much smaller blaze burning nearby, was discovered shortly afterward, and the two were renamed the Sequoia Complex.

Review: Weirdness upon weirdness, 'Caveat' stacks the horror on decay

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-06-03/review-caveat-horror

One reason why horror is such a popular genre for filmmakers on a tight budget is that it doesn’t take much money to give an audience the creeps. In Damian Mc Carthy’s “Caveat,” all the writer-director needs is a ragged rabbit toy, some grotesquely contorted faces, and a few tiny portals and passageways that offer glimpses of things no one should see. For a first-time feature filmmaker, Mc Carthy shows a remarkable level of confidence in “Caveat,” working with a plot so minimal that it sometimes ranges into pure sensation. After a brief set-up, this movie quickly becomes the story of a few eccentric and potentially dangerous people circling each other in the darkened corridors of a crumbling house on a remote Irish island. Jonathan French plays Isaac, an amnesiac vagabond who gets hired by the shifty Barrett (Ben Caplan) to watch over the unstable Olga (Leila Sykes). Inevitably, the job proves more complicated than promised. For one thing, Isaac has to wear a heavy vest attached to a chain so that he can’t access certain parts of the house. Also, Olga has a habit of roaming the halls with a loaded crossbow — that is, when she’s not sitting immobile on her bed for hours with her hands over her eyes. Olga’s stiff and awkward catatonic pose is part of a visual motif in “Caveat.” Isaac is also disturbed by some of the portraits lying around the old estate, of people with bugged eyes and grimacing mouths. When he gets bored and paranoid and starts poking around the hidden parts of the house his chain can reach, Isaac finds another unsettling face, attached to a rotting corpse. In the film’s final third, Mc Carthy offers explanations for what’s really been happening at this funky manor. Filling in the gaps was probably necessary from a narrative perspective, but it saps “Caveat” of some of its hard-to-quantify eeriness. The movie works best when it’s just piling weirdness on top of weirdness — especially when Isaac is cutting holes everywhere so that he can crawl through walls or spy on Olga. For the most part, though, Mc Carthy remains content to explore mesmerizing and odd visual and sonic textures: from the deep shag of Isaac’s beard to the rat-a-tat drums of Olga’s hideous-looking mechanical bunny. “Caveat” is like a gothic horror tone poem, with pungent notes of decay. 'Caveat' Not ratedRunning time: 1 hour, 28 minutesPlaying: Available on Shudder

A new Huntington Beach mayor pro tem is named to replace Tito Ortiz

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-02/barbara-delgleize-named-huntington-beach-mayor-pro-tem-replacing-tito-ortiz

The Huntington Beach City Council has chosen Councilwoman Barbara Delgleize as its new mayor pro tem, replacing Tito Ortiz after he resigned Tuesday night, citing a barrage of personal attacks. Delgleize was nominated by Councilman Erik Peterson, and her appointment was approved unanimously by the City Council in a special meeting Wednesday night, Catherine Jun, assistant to the city manager, said in a statement. At a council meeting Tuesday night, Ortiz said he had been the “sole focus of character assassination each and every week with multiple news stories” that sought to defame him. The attacks, he said, had grown to involve his family, causing him to fear for their safety. “To put it simply, this job isn’t working for me,” he said. Ortiz, who was sworn in as a councilman in December, was elected with more than 42,000 votes — the most in a council race in the city’s history. His campaign slogan in last year’s race was “Make Huntington Beach Safe Again,” a nod to former President Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again.” But on the City Council, he accused his fellow members of singling him out because of his conservative views. Ortiz was nearly stripped of his title as mayor pro tem during a City Council meeting in February after he was criticized for refusing to wear a mask. He received heavy public backlash after he recorded a video outside a Huntington Beach burger shack in January criticizing the venue for not letting him order without a mask on. Community members accused Ortiz of potentially sending customers away when small businesses were struggling to survive amid coronavirus restrictions. A special meeting was held Feb. 1 on whether to strip Ortiz of his title after he was denied entry to a strategic planning meeting at the city’s Central Library because he showed up without a mask. The council tabled the item. In his resignation announcement Tuesday, Ortiz said he was “met with hostility and judgment” from the day he was sworn in. Delgleize will remain in the position until December. Over the next several weeks, the City Council will discuss appointing a new council member to fill Ortiz’s empty seat. Delgleize was elected to the City Council in 2014 and has served as mayor. She previously was chair of the Huntington Beach Planning Commission. Her biography on the city’s website says Delgleize is a residential real estate broker who has lived in Huntington Beach since 1974.

Cody Bellinger hits grand slam as Dodgers score 11 in first inning to rout Cardinals

https://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2021-06-02/cody-bellinger-grand-slam-dodgers-score-11-first-inning-rout-cardinals

And now we resume our regularly scheduled programming, with the Dodgers laying waste to the National League West. That might be a bit of hyperbole, considering the team currently occupies third place in the division. But it might not. The Dodgers could move back into first place by the end of the weekend and, if they keep playing like this, they might never leave. Mookie Betts? Back hitting. Cody Bellinger? Back, and back hitting. AJ Pollock, Tony Gonsolin, Brusdar Graterol and Jimmy Nelson? Back soon. Back at reasonably full strength, what might the Dodgers do? “It really doesn’t matter who we’re playing,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “If we’re lined up and playing good baseball, we’re going to go on a run.” They spooked the rest of the West on Wednesday, putting up the biggest inning in Los Angeles history in the very first inning. Eleven runs in the inning, their most in a regular-season game since a 1954 afternoon when they played in Brooklyn and their cleanup batter was Jackie Robinson. Bellinger hit a grand slam and drove in six runs in the inning, the most RBIs for any Dodgers player in any single inning, whether based in Brooklyn or Los Angeles. Betts, who had one hit in 16 at-bats in the previous series, had two hits in the first inning. 🚨 BELLI SLAM 🚨It's an 11(!!!)-run first for LA. pic.twitter.com/dgdawSLM11 Dodgers Pitcher Trevor Bauer said he will do a deep dive into advanced statistics and video to determine the reasons for the high percentage of long balls. June 1, 2021 The final score? The Dodgers routed the St. Louis Cardinals 14-3. “When you’re playing our ballclub and you see Bellinger in there, you see Betts in there, it matters,” Roberts said. “For these guys to post, to be in there, to be healthy, just makes everyone better around them.” Betts had three hits in the game, and he went six for 11 in the three-game series, lifting his batting average from .240 to .264. Bellinger lifted his from .161 to .200 on this one night alone, and his RBI total in his injury-interrupted season from two to eight. “I’m kind of feeling like a ballplayer again,” Bellinger said. Dodgers pitcher Walker Buehler, who had never doubled in the majors and had never driven in more than two runs in a season, delivered a two-run double. “Just kind of a blind-squirrel-finds-a-nut thing for me,” Buehler said. He delivered a quality start, too, holding the Cardinals to three runs in six innings. The Dodgers closed the homestand one-half game behind the San Diego Padres and 11/2 games behind the first-place San Francisco Giants. They have a day off Thursday, another day off next week, and another day off the following week, allowing them to put a stop to their run of bullpen games and get their relief corps fortified and rested. The Padres just got swept by the Cubs, the hottest team in the major leagues. Chicago, the leaders of the NL Central and winners of 11 of their past 13 games, play their next four games against the Giants. The Padres play their next four games against the New York Mets, the leaders of the NL East. The Padres then play three more against the Cubs, then four more against the Mets. The Dodgers play their next 15 games against teams with losing records. Buehler chuckled at the thought that the Dodgers could be set to go on a big run now. “We’re certainly not out of it,” he said. “I think we were, what, two games behind coming in [to Wednesday’s game]? “It’s a little early to be super worried about that. We’re just trying to play good baseball. Obviously, we had that little lull in the middle of the year, but we’ve played really well outside those 20 games or so. “We’re in it. We’re talented. We feel good about our team. Now, it’s about going out and doing it more than anything.” The Cardinals have a winning record, but you wouldn’t have known it from the first inning. The Dodgers sent 14 men to the plate, with 11 scoring. Carlos Martinez, the Cardinals’ starting pitcher, got two outs. He gave up 10 runs, seven hits and four walks. In the big inning, his earned-run average jumped from 4.22 to 5.83. He did not pitch well, or even adequately, but neither did he get any help from his teammates. The Dodgers scored six runs before Martinez got an out, but the Cardinals should have gotten an out before the Dodgers scored even a single run. Dodgers Mike Marshall, who won the Cy Young Award for the Dodgers in 1974 when he pitched in a major league-record 106 games, died on Tuesday. June 1, 2021 With two on and none out in the first inning, Justin Turner singled to left field. Betts, running from second base, was beaten on the throw home from left fielder Tyler O’Neill. But catcher Andrew Knizner dropped the perfectly placed one-hop throw, and Betts scored on the error. Later in the inning, again with two on and none out, Gavin Lux drove a ball deep to center field. Bellinger, running from second base, retreated to tag up. Chris Taylor, running from first base, took off. Cardinals center fielder Dylan Carlson played the carom off the wall, and the bases were clogged, with Bellinger trapped off third base and Taylor trapped off second. No matter as shortstop Edmundo Sosa heaved a relay throw toward the Dodgers’ on-deck circle, closer to the high-priced seats than to any actual baseball players. Bellinger scored on the error, and all the Dodgers were safe.

Costa Mesa pulls strings on a mask mandate that caused controversy but netted few citations

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-02/costa-mesa-undoes-the-strings-on-a-mask-mandate-that-caused-controversy-but-netted-few-citations

A mandate requiring facial coverings for all who enter Costa Mesa — in place for more than a year and fuel for frequent debates between pandemic rule followers and anti-maskers — was repealed this week in favor of less strict state guidelines. City Manager Lori Ann Farrell Harrison imposed the measure in April 2020 to help curtail the spread of the coronavirus after declaring a local state of emergency. In a social media campaign last summer, signs warning “No Mask = $100 Fine” inspired some residents to post bare-faced photos in a dare to police. While members of the city’s code enforcement team regularly cited businesses, including some individuals inside those establishments, for failing to comply with the order, such transgressions netted few citations by the Costa Mesa Police Department. Aside from the Nov. 17 arrest of a man who reportedly entered a grocery store in the 1800 block of Newport Boulevard without a mask and became confrontational with police officers, only one other citation was issued by police. Police Department spokeswoman Roxi Fyad confirmed a citation was issued in September at a location in the 400 block of Fair Drive, after a person entered a business complex without a facial covering. City staff could not provide details Wednesday on the total number of businesses cited by code enforcement officers during the pandemic. Farrell Harrison told City Council members Tuesday that while the mask mandate was a bold move made to protect residents, recent downward virus trends and changes in health recommendations made in advance of a complete reopening of California businesses on June 15 made it an appropriate time to consider amending the order. “With the easing of the restrictions that all are accompanying the reopening of the economy, we wanted just to revise our mask mandate so that we’re consistent with the state,” she said. Residents will now be advised to follow recommendations put forth by the California Department of Public Health. As such, fully vaccinated individuals will not be required to wear facial coverings in most situations starting June 15. Unvaccinated residents will be asked to wear masks outdoors when social distancing cannot be maintained and in indoor settings outside of their own homes, according to state guidelines. Councilman Manuel Chavez looked back on the necessity of imposing a mask mandate during a global crisis and found in its repeal a fitting bookend. “We were one of the first cities to push for a mask mandate, because we care about the citizens of Costa Mesa and were doing our best to ensure everyone’s safety. [And now], we’re going back to normalcy, or as normal as we can be,” he said. Cardine writes for Times Community News.

Clippers can't contain Luka Doncic, lose Game 5 and control of series

https://www.latimes.com/sports/clippers/story/2021-06-02/clippers-mavericks-game-5-luka-doncis-dallas-3-2-lead

It is typically inadvisable to go after the same rebound that Boban Marjanovic wants. At 7-foot-4, with a reach as wide as a Texas live oak and hands like baseball mitts, Dallas’ center owns much of the airspace near the rim. When a Mavericks shot caromed off the rim early in the third quarter Wednesday, he grabbed hold of the ball, appearing to extend the Mavericks’ possession. But he never saw Kawhi Leonard run in to meet him. Leonard clamped his 11 ¼-inch wide hands onto the pebbled leather and, with a twist of his hips, cleanly ripped it out of Marjanovic’s grip. If there was ever a night for the Clippers’ taking, this was it. Returning home after two consecutive road wins to even this first-round playoff series entering Game 5 at Staples Center, the Clippers had the healthy superstars, the momentum and the welcoming crowd aching to witness the team’s first postseason win at home since 2017. Yet the moments when they flexed their muscles were too infrequent, their hold never strong enough. Because of it, after a 105-100 loss, their championship ambitions are again hanging on for dear life trailing 3-2 in the series, with Game 6 coming Friday in Dallas. “Got to win in seven now,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said. This is only the second best-of-seven playoff series where the road team has won the first five games. The last occurrence was in 1995. Dallas’ Tim Hardaway Jr. made two free throws to push his team’s lead to 103-100, and on the Clippers’ ensuing possession, Leonard’s off-balance three-pointer from the corner to tie missed the rim. “Tried to pump fake and then was off-balance, pretty much,” Leonard said. “Was leaning back, ended up shooting. Got to do a better job.” Entering the game with a strained neck, Dallas guard Luka Doncic scored 42 points, his third game with at least 39 points in the series. Including his 14 assists, he accounted for 31 of his team’s 37 field goals. “He’s just a warrior-type guy who just happens to be one of the greatest players in the world,” Dallas coach Rick Carlisle said. But most maddening for the Clippers is that just as in Game 1, Doncic was effectively neutralized down the stretch, making only one of his eight shots in the final quarter, and had just two assists — and yet the Clippers were their own worst enemy en route to losing their sixth consecutive playoff game in Staples Center. “Turnovers, missed shots,” Leonard said. “We couldn’t get nothing to go in.” Video highlights from the Los Angeles Clippers’ 105-100 loss to the Dallas Mavericks in Game 5 of their first-round playoff series on June 2, 2021, at Staples Center. After three first-half turnovers, the Clippers committed nine after halftime. Paul George scored a team-high 23 points with 10 rebounds and six assists. Leonard and guard Reggie Jackson each scored 20. Their bench provided 11 points, with Rajon Rondo missing all six of his shots. Rondo appeared frustrated talking with Leonard after the final play after Leonard rose to shoot with seven seconds left. The play was designed to free George or Leonard for one of three options, Lue said, with one being a corner three. “I think we’re fine,” Lue said. “We’ll see in two days, but like I said, everybody talked about it in the locker room, we’re good.” Just as Lue had kept his lineup changes under wraps before Games 3 and 4, Carlisle played cat-and-mouse with his answer 90 minutes before tipoff Wednesday. But what Lue predicted became true: Carlisle countered the 6-foot-8-or-smaller lineup used by the Clippers to win two straight in Dallas by pairing 7-3 Kristaps Porzingis with Marjanovic and relying mostly on a zone defense. It was a bet not so much on cohesion — all season, the twin-tower-plus-Doncic trio had played together only four minutes — but disruption. One game after shooting 59% inside the paint, their lack of respect for Dallas’ rim protection clear, the Clippers rarely ventured deep into the zone near Dallas’ size early on and finished shooting 48% in the paint. Five of their first six baskets were three-pointers. Yet 10 minutes into the game, Doncic had made five three-pointers all by himself — matching the Mavericks’ combined Game 4 total — and opened what was as large as a 10-point Dallas lead by scoring 19 points, only nine fewer than all the Clippers combined. Leonard’s rip-away rebound was typical of a third quarter where the Clippers played fast and physical, punishing Marjanovic and any Mavericks that reached the rim with contact officials rarely called for fouls. A jumper by Leonard pushed the Clippers’ lead to five, their largest margin, with 5:07 left. It was not enough to eliminate the kind of nightmare stretch the Clippers surely thought they were past after flashing late-game resolve in Games 3 and 4. George earned his fourth foul, Dallas inserted little used center Dwight Powell and began a 24-5 run, helped by three Clippers turnovers, that unfurled over five, groan-inducing minutes. One day earlier, Jackson had remarked that the team was “probably not earning much trust from our fan base” after its inability to win at home. Late Wednesday, the Clippers said they still have trust in themselves. “We got down 0-2 on our own floor, went up there, won two tough games,” Lue said. “We’re going to have to do the same thing 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

High school girls’ lacrosse: Southern Section playoff results and updated pairings

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-02/high-school-girls-lacrosse-southern-section-playoff-results-wednesday

SOUTHERN SECTION GIRLS’ LACROSSE DIVISION 1 Quarterfinals, Wednesday Foothill 17, Newport Harbor 2 Redondo 8, Mater Dei 6 Newbury Park 8, San Clemente 7 Santa Margarita 16, Palos Verdes 14 Semifinals, Saturday Foothill 20, Redondo 8 Newbury Park 14, Santa Margarita 8 Championship, Wednesday, 7 p.m. #3 Newbury Park vs. #1 Foothill at Tustin DIVISION 2 Quarterfinals, Wednesday unless noted Anaheim Canyon 14, Valencia 7 Murrieta Mesa 15, Royal 12 Dos Pueblos 11, Chaparral 6 (Tuesday) Corona del Mar 13, El Segundo 8 Semifinals, Saturday Anaheim Canyon 12, Murrieta Mesa 11 (OT) Corona del Mar 12, Dos Pueblos 5 Championship, Wednesday, 5 p.m. #1 Anaheim Canyon at #2 Corona del Mar DIVISION 3 Semifinals, Wednesday Village Christian 12, Mission Viejo 8 Vista Murrieta 7, Portola 5 Championship, Saturday Village Christian 13, Vista Murrieta 9

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

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-02/high-school-volleyball-city-boys-and-girls-playoff-results-and-updated-pairings

CITY GIRLS’ VOLLEYBALL OPEN DIVISION Semifinals Palisades def. Venice, 25-9, 25-14, 21-25, 25-16 (Thursday) Granada Hills def. Chatsworth, 25-10, 25-13, 23-25, 15-14 (Wednesday) Championship, Saturday Palisades def. Granada Hills, 25-17, 25-15, 25-18 DIVISION I Semifinals as noted Sylmar def. Granada Hills Kennedy, 25-14, 25-20, 25-11 (Thursday) Birmingham def. Sun Valley Poly, 25-19, 25-9, 25-21 (Saturday) Championship, Tuesday Birmingham def. Sylmar, 25-22, 19-25, 25-22, 25-22 DIVISION II Semifinals, Thursday unless noted Verdugo Hills def. Legacy, 25-11, 25-16, 25-16 Los Angeles University def. Marquez, 3 games to 1 (scores not reported) Championship, Saturday Verdugo Hills def. Los Angeles University, 25-15, 25-23, 23-25, 22-25, 15-10 DIVISION III Semifinals, Wednesday Foshay def. Central City Value, 25-20, 25-21, 25-23 #7 Orthopaedic at #3 Maywood CES, scores not reported Championship, Friday Maywood CES def. Foshay, 25-21, 26-24, 25-15 DIVISION IV Semifinals, Wednesday Rancho Dominguez def. North Valley Military, 25-11, 25-12, 25-23 Lake Balboa College Prep def. WISH, 25-11, 25-18, 25-19 Championship, Friday Rancho Dominguez def. Lake Balboa College Prep, 3 games to 1 (scores not reported) CITY BOYS’ VOLLEYBALL OPEN DIVISION Chatsworth def. South Gate, 25-16, 25-20, 25-23 Taft def. Palisades, 25-18, 18-25, 16-25, 25-23, 15-12 Championship, Saturday Chatsworth def. Taft, 23-25, 25-18, 25-23, 25-18 DIVISION I Semifinals, Thursday Sylmar def. Granada Hills Kennedy, 25-9, 14-25, 25-11, 25-12 Van Nuys def. Bell, 26-28, 25-16, 25-19, 25-17 Championship, Saturday Van Nuys def. Sylmar, 27-25, 25-23, 23-25, 25-22 DIVISION II Semifinals, Thursday Los Angeles University def. Marquez, 25-13, 25-18, 21-25, 25-22 Verdugo Hills def. Grant, 25-22, 25-16, 25-20 Championship, Saturday Los Angeles University def. Verdugo Hills, 27-25, 25-13, 25-16 DIVISION III Semifinals, Wednesday Maywood CES def. WISH, 3 games to 1 (scores not reported) Mendez def. Math/Science, 25-16, 25-21, 25-22 Championship, Friday Mendez def. Maywood CES, 25-11, 25-16, 25-17

High school girls’ basketball: Southern Section playoff results and updated pairings

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-02/high-school-girls-basketball-southern-section-playoff-results-wednesday

SOUTHERN SECTION GIRLS’ BASKETBALL OPEN DIVISION Wednesday, 7 p.m. unless noted POOL A Corona Centennial 97, Windward 71 West Torrance 61, Orangewood Academy 56 POOL B Mater Dei 78, Lynwood 70 Harvard-Westlake 61, Etiwanda 51 Saturday, 7 p.m. unless noted POOL A #4 Orangewood Academy (0-2) at #1 Corona Centennial (2-0), Monday, 5 p.m. #8 West Torrance (1-1) at #5 Windward (1-1) POOL B #2 Mater Dei (3-0) 61, #3 Harvard-Westlake (2-1) 58 (Friday) #7 Etiwanda (0-2) at #6 Lynwood (0-2) NOTE: Championship (Winner Pool A vs. #2 Mater Dei), June 11. DIVISION 1 Quarterfinals, Wednesday unless noted Long Beach Poly 69, Bishop Montgomery 47 Anaheim Fairmont Prep 52, Eastvale Roosevelt 46 (Thursday) Esperanza 65, Sierra Canyon 64 Rosary 84, Aliso Niguel 65 Semifinals, Saturday Anaheim Fairmont Prep at #1 Long Beach Poly #2 Rosary at Esperanza DIVISION 2AA Quarterfinals, Wednesday Alemany 59, Crean Lutheran 48 Leuzinger 56, Valencia 43 Burbank Burroughs 49, Downey 47 Cajon 47, Bonita 46 Semifinals, Saturday Leuzinger at #1 Alemany Cajon at Burbank Burroughs DIVISION 2A Quarterfinals, Wednesday Sonora 44, Woodbridge 28 Eisenhower 54, Chino Hills 47 Westlake 70, Walnut 43 Paloma Valley 52, La Serna 35 Semifinals, Saturday #1 Sonora at Eisenhower #2 Paloma Valley at #3 Westlake DIVISION 3AA Quarterfinals, Wednesday unless noted Ontario Christian 60, Xavier Prep 50 Chaparral 53, Yucca Valley 42 La Quinta 50, Lancaster 45 (Friday) Sage Hill 49, Ridgecrest Burroughs 26 Semifinals, Saturday #1 Ontario Christian at Chaparral #2 Sage Hill at #3 La Quinta DIVISION 3A Quarterfinals, Wednesday unless noted San Dimas 54, Claremont 49 South Pasadena 55, Beaumont 49 (Thursday) Cerritos Valley Christian 46, Upland 30 Ayala 46, Orange Vista 37 Semifinals, Saturday South Pasadena at San Dimas Cerritos Valley Christian at Ayala DIVISION 4AA Quarterfinals, Wednesday unless noted Immaculate Heart 46, Garden Grove Santiago 41 (Thursday) Mary Star 78, Calabasas 64 Burbank Providence 57, Moreno Valley 56 Agoura 40, Quartz Hill 12 Semifinals, Saturday Immaculate Heart at #4 Mary Star Burbank Providence at #2 Agoura DIVISION 4A Quarterfinals, Wednesday Rancho Christian 57, Northwood 46 Pilibos 53, Saddleback 33 Santa Ana Calvary Chapel 53, Santa Paula 41 Newport Harbor 63, San Bernardino 42 Semifinals, Saturday #4 Pilibos at Rancho Christian #2 Newport Harbor at #3 Santa Ana Calvary Chapel DIVISION 5AA Quarterfinals, Wednesday Ramona 51, Santa Monica Pacifica Christian 46 Faith Baptist 33, Sacred Heart 25 Avalon 52, Linfield Christian 44 Trinity Classical 61, La Reina 36 Semifinals, Saturday Faith Baptist at Ramona #2 Trinity Classical at Avalon DIVISION 5A Quarterfinals, Wednesday Newport Beach Pacifica Christian 62, San Gabriel Academy 29 St. Bernard 36, Academy for Academic Excellence 21 Louisville 62, Century 26 Capistrano Valley Christian 43, Nordhoff 40 Semifinals, Saturday St. Bernard at #1 Newport Beach Pacifica Christian Capistrano Valley Christian at #3 Louisville NOTES: Championships, June 10.

Huntington Beach city attorney criticizes City Council after age bias case is settled

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-02/huntington-beach-city-attorney-clashes-with-city-council-after-age-discrimination-case-settled

The Huntington Beach City Council meeting this week featured not only the sudden resignation of Mayor Pro Tem Tito Ortiz, but also a rare move by City Atty. Michael Gates, who spoke before the council during public comments. The move came in the aftermath of the city settling a $2.5-million lawsuit that alleged age discrimination, naming Gates and the city itself as defendants. Neal Moore, 75, a former senior deputy city attorney who resigned in 2018, was paid $1.5 million in the settlement dated May 21. Scott Field, 64, a current senior deputy city attorney, was paid $1 million. Officials said it cost the city about $1.5 million to fight the complaint, which originated in 2019. In the lawsuit, Moore and Field said Gates had made a concerted effort to push out older and disabled attorneys since being elected in 2014. The lawsuit said Gates assigned older attorneys unachievable tasks and unrealistic deadlines, subjected them to unwarranted scrutiny and falsely accused them of poor performance, among other accusations. As is standard with cases against the city, talks were done in closed session, unseen by the public. Council members Dan Kalmick and Mike Posey had introduced an item for Tuesday’s agenda that would require Gates to perform an analysis of the settlement agreement, including all costs incurred, but that item was pulled. “Records show that City Council was consulted about the lawsuit in closed session 10 times over the course of two years,” Gates said during his public comments Tuesday. “While of course, I’m not going to reveal any closed session discussions ... clearly council conferred on this lawsuit repeatedly.” Gates criticized Kalmick and Posey for “bringing this lawsuit back to center stage for more public scrutiny,” and said it was a political stunt. The settlement will be paid with insurance money, Gates said. Outside counsel was used for the case, he said, but was approved by the City Council. He is authorized to spend only $100,000 on outside attorneys without the council’s approval. Kalmick said in a phone interview Wednesday that there was no war waged against Gates or the city attorney’s office. He noted he has been on the council for six months, not two years. “Events have occurred, and I don’t have enough information about what’s happened in the past,” he said. “I’ve been briefed once on this, and it was like pulling teeth to get other information. We had outside counsel that was running this.... I asked to have the conversation in closed session, and it was not met kindly by Mr. Gates, to say the least. “I hadn’t seen the settlement, and the settlement was agreed to. I don’t know the process because no one’s explained it to me, and I’ve asked.... I’ve been trying to understand better how this lawsuit was resolved, and how we spent $1.55 million to defend a discrimination case that we’re never getting back. I’m trying to get to the crux of why we spent so much money on this and why there wasn’t an offer to settle early on, especially since our insurance company picked up the tab for the $2.5-million settlement.” Later in the meeting, Gates again clashed with council members over the size of his office in discussions over the budget. Council members including Kalmick and Mayor Kim Carr discussed taking away one of Gates’ two chief assistant city attorneys to help fund a new deputy director of homelessness and behavioral services position. One of the chief assistant city attorneys left about six months ago, Carr said, and the position has not been filled. “We have a department that has a total of 11 people but three managers,” Carr said. “My concern is that we have this org chart that really doesn’t work.... I’ve been opposed to having two chief assistant city attorneys since 2019, so I think I’ve been very consistent here.” After discussion, it was decided that one of the jobs would instead be downgraded to a senior trial attorney position as opposed to removed entirely, saving the city about $14,000 a year. Gates said he has already streamlined his office from as many as 16 employees when he was elected to the current total of 11. “It feels like a full assault on what we’re doing in the city attorney’s office,” Gates said Wednesday. “We do fantastic work, and we’ve really turned the office around over the course of the last six years.... These attacks by the council are meritless and purely political. Any attempt to undermine what we’re doing or take resources away is nonsensical, and it doesn’t serve the public.” Szabo writes for Times Community News.

Roundup: Mater Dei, Harvard-Westlake set up Friday showdown to decide girls' basketball berth

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-02/mater-dei-harvard-westlake-saturday-showdown-girls-basketball

Santa Ana Mater Dei (17-0) and Harvard-Westlake (22-2) each won their Open Division Pool B girls’ basketball playoff games on Wednesday night, setting up a Friday showdown at Mater Dei to decide the pool champion and a berth in next weekend’s Open Division championship game. Both are 2-0. Harvard-Westlake defeated Etiwanda 61-51. Kiki Iriafen led a balanced attack with 16 points. In a battle of McDonald’s All-Americans, Brooke Demetre of Mater Dei and Rayah Marshall of Lynwood faced off. Mater Dei won 78-70. Demetre scored 20 points. Marshall finished with 43 points. Corona Centennial 97, Windward 71: There was no stopping the top-seeded Huskies (21-0), who moved to 2-0 in Pool A of the Open Division playoffs. Jayda Curry scored 31 points, Londynn Jones 28 and Sydni Summers 19. Juju Watkins scored 35 points for Windward. Centennial is the only unbeaten team left in the pool and can wrap up a berth in the Open Division final with a win over Orangewood Academy on Monday. Esperanza 65, Sierra Canyon 64: Freshman Mackenly Randolph had 24 points for Sierra Canyon in a Division 1 loss. High School Sports High school softball: City playoff pairings June 2, 2021 Arcadia 7, Dana Hills 5: The Apaches rallied from a 5-1 deficit to win the Division 1 playoff opener. Alex Dolan had three hits and Brandon Nguyen hit a home run. Sam Lund went four for four with two doubles for Dana Hills. Yucaipa 15, Vista Murrieta 4: A 10-run first inning sparked Yucaipa. Owen Egan had three hits and four RBIs. Jacob Reimer and Luke Scherrer each had three RBIs. Orange Lutheran 11, Aliso Niguel 0: Louis Rodriguez threw five shutout innings and Mikey Romero contributed three hits for the No. 3-seeded Lancers. Moorpark 11, Gardena Serra 2: Robbie Ayers had three hits for Moorpark, which plays at No. 1-seeded Thousand Oaks in Division 2 on Friday. Diamond Ranch 2, Simi Valley 1: Megan McAnany had an RBI double for the Pioneers, but Diamond Ranch pulled out the nine-inning win in Division 2. BOYS GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP:Congratulations to Palisades! City champs by one stroke over Granada Hills! 🏆🏌️‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/W975eC3ywP Leo Cheng of Granada Hills ran away with the City Section individual golf championship at Harding Golf Course, firing a three-under-par 69. Dondon Bumacod of Granada Hills and Bilguudei Enkhbold of Palisades tied for second at 71. Palisades won the team title, edging Granada Hills by a single stroke. At the Southern Section Northern Regional at Los Robles, Pacific League champion JJ Nakao of Burbank and Mission League champion Aidan Lee of St. Francis tied for first place by shooting 67. For girls, Frances Kim of Palos Verdes shot 65. Jason Bannister of Dana Hills shot 69 to be the top qualifier from the Southern boys’ regional. Kelly Xu of Claremont placed first in the girls’ competition with a 73. Congratulations, @VCSGirlsLAX! Headed to the @CIFSS D3 championship match in only the program’s second season! So proud of this team!@jefftsports @Tarek_Fattal @latsondheimer https://t.co/hQqr0OqSCv Village Christian 12, Mission Viejo 8: In only their second season of lacrosse, the Crusaders advanced to the Division 3 girls’ final. Delaney Konjoyan scored five goals and Layla Cates had three goals. Both are sophomores.

High school baseball: Southern Section wild-card playoff results and updated pairings

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-02/high-school-baseball-southern-section-wild-card-playoff-results-and-updated-pairings

SOUTHERN SECTION BASEBALL DIVISION 1 First round, Thursday, 3:15 p.m. unless noted #1 JSerra, bye Chaminade at Capistrano Valley, Friday Yucaipa 15, Vista Murrieta 4 (Wednesday) South Hills at Damien Santa Margarita at Huntington Beach Redondo at Corona Crescenta Valley at Sherman Oaks Notre Dame Beckman at #4 Ayala #3 Orange Lutheran 11, Aliso Niguel 0 (Wednesday) Foothill at Mira Costa West Ranch at La Mirada St. Bonaventure at Bishop Amat, Friday Servite at King Temecula Valley at Cypress Arcadia 7, Dana Hills 5 (Wednesday) Temescal Canyon at #2 Harvard-Westlake DIVISION 2 Wild-card game, Wednesday Moorpark 11, Gardena Serra 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, 3:15 p.m. unless noted #1 Hart, bye Cerritos, bye Los Osos at Lakewood Calabasas vs. Pasadena Poly at San Marino, 3:15 p.m. Torrance, bye Millikan at Mary Star Redlands East Valley at Carter Saugus at #4 Santa Barbara, Friday Irvine at #3 Chino Hills, 3:30 p.m. Fountain Valley at Don Lugo Palos Verdes at West Torrance Sonora, bye La Salle at Ontario Christian Arlington 8, Tahquitz 6 (Wednesday) Grand Terrace at Capistrano Valley Christian #2 Warren, bye 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 Segerstrom at Heritage, Thursday Salesian at La Serna Oxnard at #2 Paraclete DIVISION 5 First round, Thursday, 3:15 p.m. unless noted St. Margaret’s at #1 Citrus Valley Santa Paula at Highland Claremont at San Marcos Orange Vista at Sultana Laguna Hills at Citrus Hill Garey at Walnut Oxford Academy at St. Anthony #4 Crean Lutheran at Century Burbank Burroughs at #3 Malibu Savanna at Indio Schurr vs. Pomona at Garey Cajon at Adelanto Serrano at Hemet Sierra Vista at Burbank Ventura at Flintridge Prep Mayfair at #2 North Torrance, Friday DIVISION 6 Wild-card games, Wednesday Chaffey 14, Big Bear 0 Knight 19, Downey Calvary Chapel 6 Anaheim 4, Westminster 3 West Valley 6, Gladstone 2 Linfield Christian 11, Lakeside 8 Carpinteria 1, Crossroads 0 Santa Ana 3, St. Bernard 0 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 Bloomington at Elsinore, Thursday, 6 p.m. 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 #1 Hesperia Christian, bye 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) Cobalt at Arroyo Valley Milken at Da Vinci Villanova Prep at #4 Lancaster Desert Christian Banning at #3 Tarbut V’Torah Santa Monica Pacifica Christian at Coast Union, 1 p.m. Lancaster at Ojai Valley, Friday, 2:30 p.m. Academy for Careers & Exploration at Gabrielino Western Christian at Lennox Academy Hawthorne vs. Verbum Dei at Bosco Tech Desert Mirage at Santa Rosa Academy #2 Vasquez 16, Mountain View 5 (Wednesday) NOTES: Second round in all divisions, Tuesday; quarterfinals, June 11; semifinals, June 15. Championships, June 18 at Blair Field (Long Beach) and June 19 at Cal State Fullerton.

NASA picks Venus as hot spot for two new robotic missions

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-06-02/nasa-picks-venus-as-hot-spot-for-two-new-robotic-missions

NASA is returning to sizzling Venus, our closest but overlooked neighbor, after decades of exploring other worlds. The space agency’s new administrator, Bill Nelson, announced two new robotic missions to the solar system’s hottest planet, during his first major address to employees Wednesday. “These two sister missions both aim to understand how Venus became an inferno-like world capable of melting lead at the surface,” Nelson said. One mission named DaVinci Plus will analyze the thick, cloudy Venusian atmosphere in an attempt to determine whether the inferno planet ever had an ocean and was possibly habitable. A small craft will plunge through the atmosphere to measure the gases. It will be the first U.S.-led mission to the Venusian atmosphere since 1978. Politics UFOs are back in vogue, as Congress awaits a Pentagon report on the subject. The truth is out there — and generating segments on “60 Minutes,” interviews with former presidents and trending across the internet. June 2, 2021 The other mission, called Veritas, will seek a geologic history by mapping the rocky planet’s surface. “It is astounding how little we know about Venus,” but the new missions will give fresh views of the planet’s atmosphere, made up mostly of carbon dioxide, down to the core, NASA scientist Tom Wagner said in a statement. “It will be as if we have rediscovered the planet.” NASA’s top science official, Thomas Zurbuchen, calls it “a new decade of Venus.” Each mission — launching sometime around 2028 to 2030 — will receive $500 million for development under NASA’s Discovery program. The missions beat out two other proposed projects, to Jupiter’s moon Io and Neptune’s icy moon Triton. The U.S. and the Soviet Union sent multiple spacecraft to Venus in the early days of space exploration. NASA’s Mariner 2 performed the first successful flyby in 1962, and the Soviets’ Venera 7 made the first successful landing in 1970. In 1989, NASA used a space shuttle to send its Magellan spacecraft into orbit around Venus. The European Space Agency launched a spacecraft orbiting Venus in 2006. Science & Medicine As more companies start selling tickets to space, a question looms: Who gets to call themselves an astronaut? May 25, 2021 The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Marvel superheroes rock Disneyland Avengers Campus: photos

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-06-02/marvel-superheroes-rock-disneyland-avengers-campus-photos

Spider-Man takes to the air when an acrobatic robot is launched 65 feet into the sky at the Avengers Campus preview at Disney’s California Adventure today. The new portion of the theme park will feature a ride based on Spider-Man, a food court set in a scene from “Guardians of the Galaxy” and performances from Doctor Strange and “Black Panther” characters such as the Dora Milaje. L.A. Times photographer Allen Schaben was able to get a first peek at what will open to the public Friday.

At Disney's Avengers Campus, a moving Black Panther moment of silence and Spider-Man webs

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-06-02/first-impressions-disney-california-adventures-spider-man-ride

This morning I walked through a new land at Disney California Adventure — the first proper space dedicated to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in one of Disney’s North American parks — and what I remember most is a moment of silence, a collective pause clearly dedicated to the late Chadwick Boseman, the star of “Black Panther.” Avengers Campus, opening Friday in Anaheim, boasts a new interactive ride and a glossy, silver airship. But what truly contrasts the land with others in the Disney parks is its devotion to theater, its embrace of the present and its lack of fear of the so-called “real world.” Here, you may not mind standing in lines for food or rides — or maybe you’ll mind a little less — because you might catch the royal female guards from the world of “Black Panther.” When the battle spear-equipped warriors known as the Dora Milaje make an entrance, it’s safe to say audiences will stop and pay attention. We are all directed, we are all sermonized and we are all encouraged to flash a little confidence, and maybe show a little rhythm. The theological-like references to strength, courage, the sun and the ocean may not be as inspiring as an ancient philosophical text, but it does the trick, and takes seriously the multiple African-inspired cultures of Wakanda. Its tone is one of optimism — this is a theme park after all — but it is stately and solemn. Business Avengers Campus will open Friday at Disney California Adventure Park. It includes the new Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure interactive ride. June 2, 2021 “Before we begin, let us take a moment of silence for all of the kings and the queens who have left us and joined the ancestral space,” says a performer acting as “Black Panther” character Okoye. “Peace be to the ancestors.” The rest of the 10-minute show didn’t feel as much like going to church, but theme parks are for many a temple devoted to tradition, a place where multiple generations of friends, families and strangers can feel a part of a broader community. Avengers Campus doubles down on the latter concept, so much so that we share a group moment of silence before we play, a call to reflect before we hopefully make more memories. The word that stuck with me throughout my two-hour preview of Avengers Campus was “performative,” as in this is a place where we come to act, and are asked to believe in higher powers, be it the mysticism of the multiverse of “Doctor Strange” or the soul of the collective of “Black Panther.” It’s also, in the case of its new Spider-Man-themed ride, a place to make gleeful fools of ourselves. But mostly it’s a spot to interact, to hang out and to remember hokey lessons that a superpower isn’t the ability to wield some toy-looking hammer or a corny gemstone-outfitted glove as much as it is simply to believe in oneself. That, at least, is the big picture theme of the land, one that looks more urban and city-like than any other place at the Disneyland Resort. Some areas, such as the building that houses the new ride Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure, could live in downtown L.A.’s Arts District — its look a warehouse rehabbed to be trendy. The sharp, tiered steps of the Avengers headquarters — a building that has been talked about as the entrance to a future ride — is more striking, but it wouldn’t be out of place amid Disney Hall and the Broad museum on Grand Avenue. Entertainment & Arts Beer and pantyhose helped famed designer Rolly Crump create a cult-status ride. Now Knott’s Bear-y Tales has inspired the park’s newest video game-like ride. June 2, 2021 Of course, any city or campus, even a mock one in a theme park, rises and falls based on its population. Avengers Campus will lean on its three shows to come alive and inject a bit of magical realism into such a down-to-earth setting. In addition to the “Black Panther”-themed training show, there are old-school illusions courtesy of Doctor Strange in a meditative-like sanctum that promises to glow with color at night. There’s also an incredibly impressive acrobatic robot dressed as Spider-Man that will make like an Olympic gymnast more than 65 feet in the air. One can witness this feat throughout Disney California Adventure, and until or unless we’re all outfitted in jetpacks it’s probably the closest we’ll get to seeing someone fly. Once the robot lands, a very real Spider-Man performer will crawl down the side of a building, itself a worthy act of stagecraft. Still to come is another action show featuring Black Widow and the villain Taskmaster, although it was only alluded to briefly at the media event and Disney has not set an opening date. Provided our pandemic world continues to cooperate, however, one doesn’t have to work in marketing to circle July 9, the release of the “Black Widow” film, as a potential launch date. It should be noted, too, that while Disney CEO Bob Chapek boasted in 2019 of a ride that will take guests to Wakanda, Walt Disney Imagineering has gone silent on when — or even if — this attraction will materialize. For now, Avengers Campus will be anchored by the existing Guardians of the Galaxy — Mission: Breakout! and Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure. The latter continues the most dominant theme park trend, at least when it comes to rides of the last decade, which is that it is a video game. But we’ve come a long way from Toy Story Midway Mania!, essentially a console game in a life-size box, to the likes of Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run next door at Disneyland’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and now Web Slingers. An argument could be made that as an attraction Web Slingers is somewhat slight — it relies on screens rather than audio-animatronics and it flashes player high scores as if we’re in a giant arcade. But I found it charming, a pleasing lark of a ride in which we wave our arms and flick our wrists to shoot imaginary webs at digital robots making a wreck of the Avengers Campus. Think of the Microsoft Kinect, except here our gestures are actually recognized, and we can help Spider-Man round up those robots or just look to make a mess of the subterranean theme park world. More important than achieving a high score, however, is the fact that Web Slingers naturally encourages us to communicate, not just with the ride but with our fellow riders. To have fun on it, you’re going to have to be silly, and play is powerful when it can break down the social boundaries that inspire awkward, stilted reactions. For all the pre-release attention it’s received for the plastic toy power-ups one can buy to change the experience, Web Slingers is a celebration of absurdity. As for those toys, think of Web Slingers as the first theme park ride with real-life video game skins, that is the ability to change one’s appearance. I purchased them, and they’re not necessarily cheap. The base ride accessory, called the Web Power-Band, is $30; add-ons themed to different characters are $25. I bought attachments that are connected to Iron Man and Ghost Spider, but haven’t yet had the chance to fully explore how they affect the ride. Don’t expect a different experience so much as the ability to create unique visual interactions, such as lighting-filled static-like webs. It’s a way to personalize a theme park ride, not unlike the way we might dress our characters in a “Fortnite” or “Animal Crossing.” What struck me most, however, was how self-referential the ride is. It’s connected to the Guardians ride as well as the entirety of the Avengers Campus, so much so that we see a digital re-creation of it. While Soarin’ Around the World ends at the park and Smugglers Run shows us a broader view of Galaxy’s Edge, the overall idea that we are actually in a place that’s in Anaheim is a pivot for Disney. If we think of a theme park as a giant game board, we are stepping into one to displace us, to transport us out of our daily life and to allow us to play heightened versions of ourselves. Entertainment & Arts Our photographer got a sneak peek at the Marvel-themed Avengers Campus, the newest attraction at Disney California Adventure in Anaheim. June 2, 2021 Avengers Campus doesn’t want to trick us that we are somewhere else. Rocket on Guardians calls out Disneyland, and Spider-Man in the stunt show gives a shout-out to the Incredicoaster in nearby Pixar Pier. So while the 6-acre land isn’t the large-scale, roleplay-light experience of Galaxy’s Edge, where we are on an alien planet and meant to be tourists, it still is something of an experiment. Avengers Campus wants to put us in familiar settings, to bring superheroes to our world rather than craft something that could only exist in our imaginations. It is the argument that theme parks are not an escape to another place so much as an additive to our own. Entertainment & Arts Disneyland Imagineers anticipated criticism of the inclusion of ‘true love’s kiss’ in its Snow White ride redo. How they worked to empower Snow White. May 26, 2021

Avengers Campus at Disney California Adventure sneak peek shows a new ride and lots of tech

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-06-02/avengers-campus-disney-california-adventure-park-disneyland

A new Marvel superhero-themed land is set to open at Disney California Adventure on Friday, just in time to take advantage of pent-up demand for big-thrill theme park rides, high-calorie snacks and pricey souvenirs. The six-acre Avengers Campus was scheduled to open last July but was put on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its opening may alleviate the popularity imbalance of the Anaheim resort’s two theme parks, drawing visitors to Disney California Adventure and away from Disneyland. The new land, built on an area of the park that previously held A Bug’s Land attractions and parts of Hollywood Land, features characters from the Marvel Entertainment empire, which Walt Disney Co. bought in 2009 for $4 billion. Disney has released a slew of Marvel movies since the purchase and now is leaning into the theme park perks of the deal. A similar Avengers Campus is being built at Disneyland Paris. The land offers only one new ride, Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure. It also features Guardians of the Galaxy Mission: Breakout, which was called Twilight Zone Tower of Terror before its superhero makeover in 2017. Fans can also indulge at a few eateries, including Pym Test Kitchen, where purported scientific experiments have made some foods — such as meatballs and hamburger buns — either tiny or oversized. Entertainment & Arts Disney’s Spider-Man ride continues the park’s shift toward interactive, game-like experiences. Black Panther warriors inspire. June 2, 2021 Park workers dressed as Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Wakandan warriors and other heroes will perform stunts and magic tricks at scheduled times throughout the campus. Disney park developers say the pandemic-induced closure gave them time to perfect the technology and special effects that are the stars of the expansion. “It’s a ton of technology,” said Brent Strong, executive creative director for Walt Disney Imagineering. “It’s a lot of computers.” On Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure, riders use hand gestures to throw virtual webs, hitting as many out-of-control robotic spiders as they can. The ride uses gesture-recognition technology, 3-D imaging to create the rampaging spiders and a virtual background, as well as a dashboard to tally each rider’s score — a combination of components that Disney developers say is new to the park. Near the ride, the park sells a device called a web shooter ($24.99) that you can strap to your wrist and wear on the ride to increase your shooting accuracy, according to Disney store employees. If you are an Iron Man fanatic, the park also sells an Iron Man “repulsor” ($24.99) to combat the spiders. A larger retail shop, located in a massive hall on the northern edge of the park and dubbed the Disneyland Resort Backlot Premiere Shop, features high-end Marvel collectibles and merchandise, including a superhero statuette priced at $685. A Spider-Man stunt show takes theme park animatronics to a new level, with a robotic Spider-Man that launches from one tower to another and flies 85 feet in the air. The character reappears as a costumed human who scales down the walls of the building to pose for photos with parkgoers at ground level. The pandemic closed Disneyland and Disney California Adventure in March 2020, less than a year after Disneyland opened its $1-billion Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge, the largest expansion in the park’s history. The park closed only two months after the opening of the expansion’s second and most anticipated ride, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Business Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is too long for California health rules limiting indoor rides. Here’s how Disneyland is approaching the problem. April 28, 2021 The next attraction slated to open at Disneyland, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, was originally scheduled to launch next year but has been delayed by the pandemic until 2023. California coronavirus safety guidelines limit the Disney resort’s theme parks to no more than 35% of normal capacity, but most restrictions are expected to be lifted June 15, the same date the Anaheim parks will begin welcoming visitors who live outside California. The pent-up demand of Disney fans is already evident. The Disneyland reservation website shows tickets for Disneyland and Disney California Adventure are sold out throughout most of June. To manage an expected surge in visitors to the new land, Disney will require parkgoers to enter the campus via the Web Slingers ride — regulated by a virtual queuing system managed through the Disneyland app. Disney representatives declined to say whether the Anaheim parks will lift their capacity limits and physical distancing rules after June 15. “We will continue to update our health and safety processes based on guidance from the state of California and local health officials,” they said in a statement. During a business conference last week, Disney Chief Executive Bob Chapek said the company’s goal is “to try to get to normalized operations as soon as possible, as soon as practical and as soon as responsible.”

Coronavirus Today: Pedals, pals and the pandemic

https://www.latimes.com/science/newsletter/2021-06-02/ridewitus-cycling-kellie-hart-coronavirus-today

Good evening. I’m Russ Mitchell, and it’s Wednesday, June 2. Here’s what’s happening with the coronavirus in California and beyond. I’ve been through a few fires here in the Bay Area, including the Oakland Hills firestorm of 1991, and I’ve hiked through the aftermath of several more that have blazed through Point Reyes National Seashore. Fortunately for me, my property was untouched by flames and no one I knew was seriously hurt, though others suffered mightily, losing their homes and in some cases family members and friends. But life sprang back. In Oakland, it took the form of new houses and apartments. At Point Reyes, it was bright green shoots emerging from the charred ground, transforming over the years into rich new grasslands. COVID-19 is kind of like that — a bringer of suffering and death that no one welcomed and no one would want to repeat. Yet for survivors, life goes on, offering opportunities for reflection, regeneration and perhaps a fresh outlook on life. That positive side of tragedy is wonderfully expressed in this story by my colleague Donovan X. Ramsey about a woman and a bike club. It’s a story about adaptation, risk-taking, new beginnings, perseverance, teamwork and community. Kellie Hart, 35, is a budding businesswoman in South L.A. She tried to open a car wash three years ago, but a con man made away with her $5,000 deposit. In April 2020, as the grim reality of the pandemic set in, Hart started riding a bicycle to relieve stress, inviting friends to come along. It was a safe way to exercise while maintaining social distance. The rides grew into a bike club, blossoming to about 150 riders — mostly Black and Latino people in their 30s and 40s — who gather three times a week for 12- to 25-mile rides. The club took on the name RideWitUs, and in April, Hart opened a bike shop at Slauson near La Brea to pursue her deferred entrepreneurial dream. She knew it was risky, especially after the car wash ripoff — but “the greatest risks often yield the best rewards,” she said. “Scared money don’t make money.” She started planting seeds, and the business grew from there. She used her savings to buy three bikes, and she sold them within 24 hours. The next day, she bought five bikes and immediately sold them too. Now a new community has grown around the bike club and store, one that is intentionally inclusive. One club member, who said he was 30 pounds overweight when he went for his first ride, was amazed he never got left behind even though he could hardly keep up. “Everyone’s accepted. Everyone feels welcome,” said Reiichi Nickleberry, who has become a club leader. “You get a flat, it doesn’t matter. Someone’s gonna stop.” Now Hart can’t imagine things any other way. “In the beginning, I used to always say, ‘I won’t call it a movement until we can get 100 riders out on a Tuesday,’” she said. “By July 2020, we had our first Tuesday ride with more than 100 people. I only knew about 15 of those people prior to RideWitUs. I knew then it was something special, it was bigger than me, that these people needed it, and I can’t let up.” California cases, deaths and vaccinations as of 5:56 p.m. Wednesday: Track California’s coronavirus spread and vaccination efforts — including the latest numbers and how they break down — with our graphics. RideWitUs isn’t the only local business that’s thriving — California’s economy is getting back in shape, too. Margot Roosevelt reports that the state’s strict public health measures set the stage for a faster recovery here than nationwide, according to a new UCLA forecast. The state’s almost-always strong tech sector helped too. Plus, white-collar business sectors and a big boost in home building will help offset the slower return of tourist-dependent leisure and hospitality jobs, economists say. In both California and the nation at large, “we are about to have one of the best years of economic growth that we’ve had since World War II,” said Leo Feler, senior economist for the UCLA Anderson Forecast. Pandemic stimulus and new government spending programs will make the recovery “euphoric,” he said. Despite the optimism, UCLA experts warn of uncertainties for Californians, including the possibility that more residents will leave the state for regions with lower housing costs. (And, perhaps, to seek refuge from wildfires.) Meantime, more counties are easing their COVID-19 restrictions, allowing more businesses to reopen and permitting already-open businesses to allow more employees and customers in. Four more counties — Marin, Monterey, San Benito and Ventura — moved into the least restrictive yellow tier this week. That makes 19 such counties that can allow most businesses to operate indoors with some safeguards. Another four counties — Nevada, Sacramento, San Joaquin and Solano — also progressed Tuesday into the orange tier, the second-least restrictive tier on the reopening ladder. Thirty-five of California’s 58 counties are now in the orange tier. Four remain in the more restrictive red tier, but none are in the strictest purple tier. Don’t worry about keeping track of what the colors stand for. The tier system is set to be retired June 15, when the state reopens its economy. But fully reopened doesn’t necessarily translate into fully safe, especially in counties that have fallen behind in vaccinations and are seeing coronavirus cases rising. Some rural counties in Northern California fit this description. For instance, only 27% of Tehama County residents have gotten a vaccine shot, according to data compiled by The Times, and the county has had California’s worst case rates over the last seven days, reporting about 20 new cases a day per 100,000 residents. In Sacramento, California lawmakers are considering a bill that would force hospitals, clinics and skilled nursing facilities to pay medical professionals up to $10,000 in “hero pay” for their pandemic work. The bonuses would be paid out in four installments of $2,500 during 2022. The Service Employees International Union California is a big supporter, arguing that the money will help persuade healthcare workers to stay on the job. Businesses that would be required to pay the bonuses — businesses in general, actually — don’t like the idea at all. They call it a job killer. The state Assembly will vote on the measure this week. If it passes it will head to the Senate. 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. In many parts of the United States where the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag flies, the idea of a vaccine passport for travel is a non-starter. In Europe, it’s a different story. Germany, Greece, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Croatia and Poland have introduced what they call a COVID-19 “vaccination certificate” system. Greece, which depends heavily on tourism, has been pressing for a common vaccination certificate that uses a QR code with advanced security features. The certificates, which are free of charge, are available to people who are fully vaccinated with EU-authorized COVID-19 shots as well as to those who have already contracted the coronavirus and developed antibodies and others who have had a negative PCR test within 72 hours before their arrival. They’ll be available in both digital and paper formats. Officials hope the certificate program will make it easier for Europeans to visit other countries on the continent, and perhaps help kick-start a suffering tourist industry. If you find yourself in Europe in coming days, don’t expect to bump into many Aussies. Since March 2020, Australia has barred citizens and permanent residents from leaving the country except in “exceptional circumstances” when people can demonstrate a “compelling reason.” The ban was challenged in court, and this week the challenge was rejected, allowing the ban to remain in effect. Reportedly, hundreds of thousands of Australians are itching to get on a plane and spend some time elsewhere, though I can think of worse places to spend a pandemic. Finally, scientists are becoming more optimistic that the world’s leading COVID-19 vaccines are doing their job well enough to diminish the need for frequent booster shots, though they caution that new coronavirus variants are a wild card. Though studies are still underway, evidence is mounting that immunity from the mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna does not depend exclusively on the antibodies that dwindle over time. The body has overlapping layers of protection that offer backup that could last a year or longer. Pfizer and Moderna have estimated that people might need yearly shots, just like with flu vaccinations. Indeed, they’re already working to have some candidates ready this fall. But they’re not the ones that will decide when boosters get used — that will be up to health authorities in each country. “I would be surprised if we actually needed a yearly booster shot,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine specialist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who advises the Food and Drug Administration. Today’s question comes from a reader who wants to know: How is emergency use authorization for a vaccine different from full FDA approval? This is something that’s on the minds of many readers who wonder how the vetting process for COVID-19 vaccines differs from procedures used in non-pandemic times. If you’re worried about safety shortcuts, you can rest assured: Vaccine testing is rigorous whether it goes through the FDA’s normal approval procedures or gets emergency use authorization first. New drugs and vaccines are tested in people through a three-step process. In Phase 1, researchers ensure that the medicine or vaccine is safe. In Phase 2, they test various dosages to determine the one that’s most effective. In Phase 3, that dose is tested against a placebo in a large group of people. Normally, a company would wait until all the data from a Phase 3 clinical trial are in and analyzed by scientists before seeking FDA approval. But the emergency use authorization (or EUA) process was developed for public health emergencies, when time is of the essence. That means a company can seek authorization before the end of Phase 3 if the drug or vaccine performs well enough to meet a goal that was set before the trial began. In order for a vaccine to receive emergency use authorization, “FDA must determine that the known and potential benefits outweigh the known and potential risks,” the agency explains. The FDA also has to make sure that the vaccine can be produced safely and consistently. In the case of COVID-19 vaccines, manufacturers began making the vaccines while they were still being tested. It was a big financial risk — one the federal government paid for through Operation Warp Speed — but it resulted in shots going into people’s arms years earlier than they would have through the usual approval process. As a result, the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines were authorized within months, with millions of doses ready to go. The companies are expected to seek full FDA approval when all of their Phase 3 clinical trial data are in. (Pfizer and BioNTech have already filed their application.) That’s important because EUAs expire when a public health emergency ends. The COVID-19 pandemic presented a dramatic turn in the history of emergency use authorization. The process was created by Congress after the post-9/11 anthrax attacks. Before COVID-19, the FDA had issued fewer than 40 EUAs, mostly related to the Zika and Ebola outbreaks. Those have been eclipsed by the 344 EUAs issued to address COVID-19. 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. 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California to pay $2 million in churches' legal fees over coronavirus closures

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-02/california-to-pay-legal-fees-over-church-coronavirus-closures

The state of California has agreed not to impose greater coronavirus restrictions on church gatherings than it does on retail establishments in a pair of settlements that provide more than $2 million in fees to lawyers who challenged the rules as a violation of religious freedom. A deal approved Tuesday by a federal judge comes after lawyers for a San Diego-area Pentecostal church took their challenge against the state to the U.S. Supreme Court three times and won. 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. “If they’re going to restrict Costco to 50%, then they can do the same thing to churches,” Jonna said. “But what they were doing before, as you may remember, is they were keeping those places open and they were shutting down churches — at least in California — completely.” The settlement has little practical impact after a Supreme Court ruling led the state in April to lift limits on indoor worship. As the state’s coronavirus case rate has plummeted since a deadly winter surge and as vaccination rates rise, Gov. Gavin Newsom is poised to lift all restrictions June 15. Newsom’s office issued a statement saying he put the health of Californians first when he imposed closure orders. It said the settlements provide clarity on how public health standards can be applied to churches. Newsom was the first governor to issue a statewide stay-at-home order at the start of the pandemic in March 2020. His various closure orders and modifications that allowed certain businesses to open at different capacities were challenged in state and federal courts. The public health orders were generally upheld until religious groups won a string of victories after a change in the Supreme Court makeup last year when liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and was replaced by conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Though the settlements apply only to restrictions issued for the COVID-19 pandemic, Jonna said he does not believe the state would impose harsher restrictions on churches in the future because of the Supreme Court rulings. The settlements involve federal lawsuits brought by South Bay United Pentecostal Church in Chula Vista and Father Trevor Burfitt, a Catholic priest in Bakersfield, who sued in Kern County Superior Court. Lawyers for the Thomas More Society, a conservative public interest law firm, will receive $1.6 million in legal fees in the South Bay case and $550,000 in the Burfitt case.

Amid India reports, Garcetti says conversations with Biden will remain private

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-02/garcetti-diplomacy-india

Since the news broke that he might be President Biden’s pick for U.S. ambassador to India, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has waved off the reports, calling them speculative. He did so again on Wednesday, at a news conference where he signed the city budget, saying he would talk when there was an actual job offer. But when reporters pressed Garcetti on the prospect of a Biden appointment, he offered a glimpse into his thinking on a possible early departure and how serving as an elected official can be a useful training ground for a diplomat. “I don’t think you can solve the problems of L.A. without being engaged in the world, which is how I tried to lead as a mayor,” Garcetti said. “And vice versa, we can’t solve the problems of the world without L.A. being a part of it as well.” The mayor didn’t detail what problems he was talking about. But as he continued his answer, he pointed out that he had already served eight years as mayor, the maximum time in office for recent mayors. California President Biden is expected to announce that he will appoint L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti as ambassador to India. May 26, 2021 Voters in 2015 agreed to change the city’s election dates, giving a one-time extension to the terms of several politicians, including Garcetti, whose term now ends in December 2022. Under normal circumstances, Garcetti would leave July 1. “I never dreamed that I’d be here a day past July 1 of this year,” Garcetti said. “Because that was the eight years that, if I were lucky enough that I signed up for — the potential two terms. Every day after that is gravy. Every day after that is something beautiful.” Garcetti was reelected in 2017, so he would have known that his second term would run until 2022. He has repeatedly declined to commit to serving out the entirety of that second term, however. Axios reported last week that Garcetti is likely to be nominated for the position, which was later confirmed by The Times. Asked about the reports, Garcetti on Wednesday said, “I won’t speculate on something that‘s been speculative. As I’ve said, I will always pick up the phone if the president calls.” Garcetti declined to explain what conversations he’s having with the Biden administration about any jobs. “That is something I know that I’m not going to be speaking about,” Garcetti said. “I’ve had many conversations with the president over the last year and I keep those conversations always private.” The mayor was asked if he thinks something in his background qualifies him for diplomacy. “I’ll say this, and I think I could say the same thing about any council member: The skills you learn as an elected official are daily diplomacy. It is about resolving conflict. It’s about bringing cultures together. It’s about making sure that you build coalitions,” Garcetti said. “It’s about trying to get people who are sometimes at odds with each other to move forward together.” At Wednesday’s event, Garcetti also weighed in on this summer’s Olympic Games scheduled to take place in Japan, saying he supports the event going forward next month if safety precautions are taken. California The Biden administration could nab L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti. If so, he will leave with a mixed legacy. May 15, 2021 The decision to hold the Games during the pandemic is controversial. More than 80% of Japanese residents said in recent polls that they want the Games canceled or again postponed. Doctors’ and nurses’ groups say hospitals could not handle another increase in COVID-19 cases and the threat of virus variants coming in from around the world. Japanese officials and the International Olympic Committee have tried to reassure the public that a playbook outlining detailed precautions approved by the World Health Organization will ensure a “safe and secure” Olympics. Garcetti, who helped lead L.A.’s efforts to secure the 2028 Olympics, said he feels for the athletes who have trained their entire lives and could miss their window to compete if the Games are canceled. He said he sees a way for the Olympics to go forward in which the events are audience-free but televised, and athletes stay in a “bubble” and are regularly tested. “The exposure to the general population will be very, very low,” he said. Times staff writers Victoria Kim and David Zahniser and special correspondent Hanako Lowry contributed to this report.

Resentencing denied for mom in torture-murder case of Gabriel Fernandez

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-02/gabriel-fernandez-mother-torture-murder-resentencing

A judge this week rejected a resentencing request by a Palmdale woman who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the death of her 8-year-old-son, who died after months of beatings, starvation and torture, including being forced to eat cat feces and sleep handcuffed in a small wooden drawer. Pearl Sinthia Fernandez, 37, was sentenced to life in prison without parole three years ago for her role in Gabriel Fernandez’s 2013 murder. Her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, 40, was sentenced to death. His automatic appeal to the California Supreme Court is pending. As part of her February 2018 plea, Fernandez gave up her right to appeal. But in a petition filed April 1, she asked the judge to review her sentence in light of recent changes to state law that affects some people convicted of murder under theories that do not require intent to kill, including felony murder or a natural and probable consequences theory. Fernandez indicated in the petition that she was not her son’s actual killer and did not act with intention to kill or assist in his killing. She also checked a box stating she was not a major participant in the crime or did not act with reckless disregard to human life during the course of the crime. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge George Lomeli, who presided over the murder trial, said at a hearing Tuesday that he reviewed the petition and concluded Fernandez was “not entitled to resentencing relief.” “It has been established by her own admission during her guilty plea that the murder was intentional and involved the infliction of torture over a period of several months,” Lomeli said, adding that the record supports the theory that Fernandez was a “major participant in the murder of a child victim.” California Jennifer Garcia can’t keep her mind from drifting to little Gabriel. June 7, 2018 Deputy Dist. Atty. Jonathan Hatami, who prosecuted the case, opposed Fernandez’s request, saying evidence and the law weighed against her. Gabriel died from blunt force trauma and child abuse over a long period, Hatami said, citing the medical examiner’s report. “So clearly Pearl was involved in that child abuse, starving Gabriel, keeping him in the box for eight months, not taking him for medical aid, pepper-spraying him in the face, hitting him with a baseball bat — so many things were brought out in the trial,” Hatami said Wednesday. “Evidence-wise, Pearl Fernandez tortured and killed Gabriel,” he said. “Both her and Isauro Aguirre did that. They were equally culpable for that.” When a child is murdered, the family is still tied to that child. It doesn’t matter the age when the child is murdered. It doesn’t matter how long ago the crime happened. Their souls are tied forever. That’s the love of family. Cherie Kiyomura, a family friend who helped organize a rally that attracted dozens outside the courtroom, said she’s endured an emotional roller coaster. Unsure of what would happen, Kiyomura entered the courtroom with a “sickening feeling.” “Walking out of there, with finally some justice for Gabriel, was the best feeling that we’ve had in such a long time,” she said. Criminal defense attorney Dmitry Gorin, who was not involved in the case, said that his law firm fields calls almost daily concerning resentencing, but that most seeking relief don’t qualify for it under state law. “I think people in the community read news stories about laws changing and defendants having their sentences reduced. So they naturally believe their family members are eligible to be released from prison,” he said. “In reality, very few people are actually entitled to relief under the new California statutes.” According to Gorin, most murder convictions, which represent a relatively small number of cases in Los Angeles criminal courts, are secured with theories for criminal culpability that are not covered by the statute for release. He added that Fernandez’s case did not appear to rely on evidence of felony murder conduct or natural and probable consequence liability. City News Service contributed to this report.

SoCal small-space living: 41 homes that inspire

https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/story/2021-06-02/lofts-bungalows-adus-la-small-space-living

Small-space living doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice style or succumb to clutter. It just requires creative thinking. Whether you live in an apartment, loft, bungalow, ADU — or even a trailer — living small can be an empowering opportunity for you to think big while living with less. Southern California homes are known for their architectural variety — Craftsman, Spanish and Midcentury Modern among them. Here are some inspiring homes from our archives that are noteworthy not just for their design, but for their small footprint.

San Diego police adopt new rules on interactions with transgender, nonbinary individuals

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-02/san-diego-police-transgender-nonbinary-rules

Police officers in San Diego must refer to transgender and nonbinary individuals by their pronouns, allow them to choose the gender of the officer who searches them, must take them to the jail facility that aligns with the person’s gender identity, according to a policy implemented Tuesday. Police Chief David Nisleit said the new guidelines, developed in coordination with San Diego’s LGBTQ community and announced on the first day of Pride Month, “set clear expectations for interactions between [San Diego Police Department] officers and transgender and gender nonbinary community members.” Under the new policy, officers must properly document a person’s gender identity in police reports, follow proper procedures for transporting individuals who identify as female — which includes recording the transport on body-worn cameras and notifying a dispatcher of beginning and ending mileage — and “make every reasonable attempt to recover medications for the individual.” “Missing medications as part of an individual’s transition can be life-threatening,” the policy states. “Historically, many members of our LGBTQ community — particularly those who identify as transgender or nonbinary — have not been recognized or respected for who they are. That changes with this procedure,” Mayor Todd Gloria — the first in that office to have come out as gay — said in a news release. “This is a much-needed and welcome change that is symbolic of the respect we should have for one another and how we create a San Diego that is truly for all of us,” Gloria said. Officer Christine Garcia, a traffic division investigator who transitioned from male to female in 2015, is the department’s transgender and LGBTQ liaison and acts as the direct link between those communities and the police chief. She said that while serving as a “straight man” before coming out, she sometimes heard “transphobic and homophobic remarks” from fellow officers. After she came out, Garcia said, she believed that about half the department accepted her right away. A few more months passed, she said, and others came around to seeing that she was still a police officer “and just like any other normal human being.” Garcia said San Diego police personnel received a training bulletin in 2014 dealing with interactions with the transgender community, but within the last year she recognized a need to formalize it. “Since I am transgender myself, I took it upon myself to draw this up,” Garcia said, adding that she doesn’t expect any resistance to the new policy from officers. “But I don’t pretend to know everything about being transgender.” The relationship between the LGBTQ community and police has sometimes been fraught. The 1969 Stonewall riots, often credited with helping spark the modern-day LGBTQ movement, started with police raids on a New York City gay bar. Last year, San Diego Pride said it would no longer give law enforcement agencies a contingent in the Pride Parade, held each year in July, or booths at the Pride Festival. Michelle Dungan, who is a volunteer and the current secretary of Neutral Corner, which was founded in 1985 and is the oldest transgender organization in San Diego, saw no major issues with the new policy. “The main idea with this, primarily, is to make sure a police interaction doesn’t become negative right from the start, and to prevent law enforcement from doing things that might push people’s buttons,” Dungan said. Dungan, a retired environmental planner with Caltrans who transitioned in 1994, said another important aspect of standardizing the new policy is the ability for individuals “to seek ultimate rectification through the courts” if officers don’t follow the rules. Courtney Skaggs, a La Mesa resident who is intersex and identifies as they/she, said the new guidelines “discourage assumptions and encourage self-determination.” She added: “Encounters with police can be stressful and traumatic, and the fact that officers are mandated to respect pronouns and gender is important progress.” But Skaggs questioned the new policy’s “lack of inclusion of intersex folks in key sections.” Though the policy offers a definition of intersex as “a person who has both male and female sex organs,” and mandates that officers ask an intersex arrestee if they prefer being searched by a male or female officer, Skaggs was disappointed the policy didn’t mention intersex people in sections about bookings, use of pronouns and transportation. Riggins writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

After a brutal year, UFC owner Endeavor mounts a comeback

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-06-02/endeavor-ipo-first-quarter-profits-ufc-agency-business

Endeavor Group Holdings Inc., the powerful owner of UFC and the WME talent agency that was on the ropes a year ago, appears to be staging a Hollywood comeback. About a month after going public, Endeavor posted a profit of $2.4 million in the first quarter, compared with a staggering loss of $51.3 million a year earlier. The Beverly Hills company’s business got a big boost from its sports properties segment, where revenue grew 22% to $283.5 million in the quarter, due to more events and higher media rights and sponsorship fees at mixed martial arts circuit UFC. Endeavor said it also had net proceeds of about $1 billion related to its IPO in April and private placements. “The past year has been by far one of the most challenging, but also one of the most rewarding for our company,” Chief Executive Ari Emanuel said in an earnings call with investors Wednesday. “We were tested in every possible way, and our teams rose to meet every challenge.” Endeavor’s profits — which surprised analysts who were expecting a net loss in the quarter — represents a big reversal from 2020, when many in Hollywood were openly questioning the company’s future. Some analysts expressed worries about the company’s heavy debt load, which was listed at $5.9 billion at the end of the first quarter. The company had planned to go public in 2019, only to suspend its efforts due to market conditions. Endeavor’s business relies on live events and the representation business — areas that were hurt by the pandemic as Hollywood productions and concerts were canceled or postponed. Like other entertainment companies, Endeavor took cost-cutting measures, affecting a third of its workforce. Company Town When Endeavor yanked its IPO on Thursday, the move marked a rare and humbling stumble for Hollywood power agent Ari Emanuel, and left questions about what’s next for his firm. Sept. 30, 2019 But the outlook has brightened considerably in recent months. On Wednesday, Endeavor executives said they are seeing demand for live events roar back. The company recently purchased the remaining shares of UFC it didn’t own and is reaping benefits from that acquisition. UFC was one of the first sports to resume last year and landed several partnerships with companies such as Zappos and Panini America. Endeavor also is seeing strong attendance for events it hosted this year such as the Great Ocean Road Running Festival in Australia and art fair Frieze New York. A concert scheduled in Mexico with the band Dead & Co. has already sold out its January weekend date for next year, Endeavor President Mark Shapiro told investors Wednesday. The company also said that its On Location business was named the global hospitality provider for the Olympic and Paralympic Games for three games, starting in 2024. “That covers what we are seeing across our businesses — a lot of bright lights,” Shapiro said. Company Town Endeavor’s much anticipated initial public offering happened on Thursday. How did Wall Street react? April 29, 2021 Still, Endeavor did see declines in its other businesses, with representation down 15%; and its events, experiences and rights segment dropping 19% from a year earlier. The company plans to reduce its debt by $600 million in the third quarter. Executives said Endeavor is well positioned to capitalize on the growing consolidation in the industry, with recent deals including Amazon buying MGM, and streamers continuing to look for more content to attract global audiences. “There’s a finite number of creators and intellectual properties to meet that demand, therefore increasing the value of talent we represent and the content we own,” Emanuel said. “So all in all, prices are going to go up in every situation.” The pandemic has caused studios to change how they release movies, with some titles opening in theaters and on streaming services on the same day. Emanuel said the agency is negotiating on behalf of its clients “to make sure that we get the proper economics as we go forward.” Endeavor shares closed down 25 cents, or 0.8%, to $29.39 on Wednesday. After hours, the stock was trading at $29.05 a share.

Katie Hill ordered to pay $220,000 in attorneys' fees in revenge porn case

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-06-02/katie-hill-attorneys-fees-revenge-porn

Former Rep. Katie Hill 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. The lawsuit was thrown out earlier this year on First Amendment grounds. On Wednesday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Yolanda Orozco awarded about $105,000 to the parent company of the Daily Mail, a British tabloid. Hill, who briefly represented northern Los Angeles County in Congress before the photos led to her resignation in 2019, called for a boycott of the tabloid on Twitter and sought donations for her legal costs. “A judge just ordered me to PAY the Daily Mail more than $100k for the privilege of them publishing nude photos of me obtained from an abuser,” she tweeted. “The justice system is broken for victims.” A spokeswoman said Hill plans to appeal the rulings that dismissed her suit. Politics Katie Hill took Steve Knight’s congressional seat in 2018. Then someone gave his former campaign operatives naked pictures of her. Oct. 31, 2019 An attorney for the Daily Mail did not respond to a request for comment. Orozco previously ordered Hill to pay about $84,000 to the attorneys of Jennifer Van Laar, managing editor of the conservative website Red State, and about $30,000 to lawyers representing radio producer Joseph Messina. (Hill initially accused Messina of being part of a conspiracy to distribute the pictures, but dropped her claim against him earlier this year.) Krista Lee Baughman, an attorney representing Van Laar and Messina, said the ruling showed that “those who file speech-chilling [intimidation] lawsuits must pay the price.” “If you have a problem with the way the Legislature wrote the revenge-porn statute, that needs to be addressed in the Legislature,” she said. “The court is duty-bound to follow the writing. In this case, the statute itself clearly had a public interest exception.” Hill, 33, gained national attention in 2018 when she was elected to Congress by flipping a traditional GOP district. Less than a year later, as Hill was going through a divorce, Red State published stories alleging that she had an affair with a male congressional staffer and that she and her husband Kenneth Heslep had a previous relationship with a female campaign worker. The website and the Daily Mail also published provocative pictures. Politics Katie Hill’s meteoric congressional career is coming to an abrupt end. Oct. 28, 2019 Hill denied the affair with the congressional staffer, but confirmed that she and Heslep had a relationship with the campaign worker, which she conceded was inappropriate because the woman was a subordinate. In December, Hill sued the two media outlets, Van Laar, Messina and Heslep, arguing that they violated California’s revenge-porn law by distributing and/or publishing images including photographs that showed her nude while brushing another woman’s hair, holding a bong and sunbathing. The 2013 law makes it a crime to distribute private images without the person’s permission but has exceptions, notably if such sharing is in the “public interest.” The view from Sacramento For more reporting and exclusive analysis from bureau chief John Myers, get our Essential Politics newsletter. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. The publications and Van Laar successfully argued that Hill’s lawsuit failed to meet the requirements of the revenge porn statute because they were not the original distributors of the images, because Hill’s nipples and genitals were redacted in the published pictures and because of the “public interest” exemption. They also asserted that they had a 1st Amendment right to publish information about an elected official’s behavior that is newsworthy. The parent company of Red State has not sought attorneys’ fees. Heslep has not filed any legal responses and does not have a lawyer on record in the case.

Stocks manage modest gains overall; AMC nearly doubles

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-06-02/stocks-manage-modest-gains-overall-amc-nearly-doubles

Wall Street wrapped up another wobbly day of trading Wednesday with modest gains for the major stock indexes, as energy and technology companies kept losses elsewhere in the market in check. The benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 0.1% after wobbling between a gain of 0.4% and a loss of 0.1%. Strength in technology, energy and real estate stocks offset a pullback in retailers and other companies that rely on consumer spending. Communication, industrial and materials stocks also fell. Treasury yields mostly eased after rising a day earlier. Movie theater operator AMC Entertainment nearly doubled in another bout of heavy trading as the company embraced its status as a “meme” stock being driven higher by hordes of individual investors. Other stocks such as GameStop that have been championed on online message boards and social media also rose. 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 The market’s modest moves for the second straight day come as investors look ahead to Friday’s U.S. jobs report, which the market hopes will lead to fresh clues about the Federal Reserve’s next interest rate policy moves later this month, when the central bank’s policymakers hold their next meeting. The S&P 500 rose 6.08 points to 4,208.12. The index is coming off its fourth straight monthly increase. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 25.07 points, or 0.1%, ending at 34,600.38. The Nasdaq composite recovered from an early slide, adding 19.85 points, or 0.1%, to close at 13,756.33. Small-company stocks also notched modest gains. The Russell 2000 index rose 3.09 points, or 0.1%, to 2,297.83. Economists are projecting that Friday’s Labor Department report will show employers added more than 650,000 jobs last month. Expectations of a strong increase in hiring have stoked worries about inflation and how the Fed responds 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. Bond yields edged lower. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note slipped to 1.59% from 1.61% late Tuesday. Technology companies did much of the heavy lifting for the S&P 500. Chipmaker Nvidia rose 3.2%. Payment processor Visa gained 1.3% after giving investors an encouraging financial update. Energy companies also made broad gains as oil prices ticked more than 1% higher. Occidental Petroleum rose 2.7%, and Schlumberger led all S&P 500 stocks with a 7.7% gain. Etsy jumped 7.1% for one of the biggest gains in the S&P 500 after the online crafts marketplace said it will buy Depop, an app that’s popular among young people looking to buy and sell used clothing and vintage fashions from the early 2000s.

Prosecutors seek 30-year sentence for Derek Chauvin; defense wants probation, time served

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-02/prosecutors-seeking-30-year-sentence-for-derek-chauvin

Prosecutors are seeking a 30-year sentence for the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murder in George Floyd’s death, but a defense attorney is asking that Derek Chauvin be sentenced to probation and time already served, according to court documents filed Wednesday. Chauvin is scheduled to be sentenced June 25 following his conviction on murder and manslaughter charges. Judge Peter Cahill previously ruled there were aggravating factors in Floyd’s death, which gives him the discretion to sentence Chauvin above the range recommended by state guidelines. Prosecutors said Chauvin’s actions were egregious and a sentence of 30 years would “properly account for the profound impact of Defendant’s conduct on the victim, the victim’s family, and the community.” They said that Chauvin’s actions “shocked the Nation’s conscience.” “No sentence can undo Mr. Floyd’s death, and no sentence can undo the trauma Defendant’s actions have inflicted. But the sentence the Court imposes must show that no one is above the law, and no one is below it,” prosecutors wrote. “Defendant’s sentence must hold him fully accountable for his reprehensible conduct.” World & Nation George Floyd died in police custody on May 25, 2020, in Minneapolis. His death led to the trial and conviction of former officer Derek Chauvin. June 25, 2021 Defense attorney Eric Nelson cited Chauvin’s age, lack of a criminal record and support from family and friends in requesting a sentence of probation and time served. He said Chauvin was the product of a “broken” system. Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor and now a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, said it’s not unusual for attorneys to make these kinds of requests as a sort of “opening offer.” He said there is zero chance that Chauvin will get probation, and prosecutors are also unlikely to get the 30 years they are requesting. He said Nelson’s attempts to paint Chauvin as a good fit for probation and a law-abiding citizen will probably face “ferocious pushback from the government,” given that Chauvin is also charged with tax evasion. He added that Nelson’s reference to Chauvin being the product of a broken system is “fascinating — most Americans seem to think that Chauvin embodies what is broken about our system of criminal justice.” Chauvin, who is white, 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 about 9½ minutes as the Black man said he couldn’t breathe and went motionless. Floyd’s death, captured on widely seen bystander video, set off demonstrations around the United States and beyond as protesters demanded changes in policing. Even though Chauvin was found guilty of three counts, he’ll only be sentenced on the most serious one — second-degree murder. Under Minnesota sentencing guidelines, Chauvin, having no criminal record, faces a presumptive sentence of 12½ years on that count. Cahill can sentence him to as little as 10 years and eight months or as much as 15 years and stay within the guideline range. But prosecutors asked for what is known as an upward departure, saying there were several aggravating factors that warranted a higher sentence. Cahill agreed, finding Chauvin treated Floyd with particular cruelty, abused his position of authority as a police officer, committed his crime as part of a group of three or more people and pinned Floyd down in the presence of children. Prosecutors said that even one of those factors would warrant the higher sentence. Nelson wrote that while this incident painted Chauvin as a “dangerous man,” he has served his community as an officer and has a loving family and close friends. He also disputed the court’s finding that aggravating factors existed, saying there is no evidence that Chauvin’s assault on Floyd included gratuitous infliction of pain or cruelty. “Here, Mr. Chauvin was unaware that he was even committing a crime. In fact, in his mind, he was simply performing his lawful duty in assisting other officers in the arrest of George Floyd,” Nelson wrote, adding that Chauvin’s offense can be best described as an error made in good faith based on his experience and the training he received — and was not the intentional commission of a crime. “In spite of the notoriety surrounding this case, the Court must look to the facts. They all point to the single most important fact: Mr. Chauvin did not intend to cause George Floyd’s death. He believed he was doing his job,” he wrote. No matter what sentence Chauvin gets, in Minnesota it’s presumed that a defendant with good behavior will serve two-thirds of the penalty in prison and the rest on supervised release, commonly known as parole. Nelson is also seeking a new trial for Chauvin — a fairly routine request after a conviction. He argued that extensive pretrial publicity tainted the jury pool and denied Chauvin his right to a fair trial. He also said Cahill abused his authority when he declined defense requests to move the trial out of Minneapolis and sequester the jury. Finally, Nelson said the state committed prosecutorial misconduct. Nelson is also asking for a hearing to investigate whether there was juror misconduct. He alleged that an alternate juror who made public comments indicated she felt pressured to render a guilty verdict, and that another juror who deliberated did not follow jury instructions and was not candid during jury selection. That juror, Brandon Mitchell, did not mention that he had participated in an Aug. 28 march in Washington to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson said. Nelson alleged that Mitchell made comments to the media that indicated he based his verdict on outside influence. Prosecutors have a week to submit a written response to those arguments. Chauvin has also been indicted on federal charges alleging that 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 officers involved in Floyd’s death were also charged with federal civil rights violations; they await trial in state court on aiding and abetting counts. A federal trial date has not been set. Federal prosecutors are asking for more time to prepare for trial. In court filings, federal prosecutors said the case is complex because of the sheer volume of evidence and the separate but coordinated state and federal investigations.

California urges EPA to let state set car-emissions standard

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-06-02/california-urges-epa-to-let-state-set-car-emissions-standard

Officials from California, New York and other states urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday to allow California to set its own automobile tailpipe pollution standards, an action that would reverse a Trump administration policy and could help usher in stricter emissions standards for new passenger vehicles nationwide. The Biden administration has said it will withdraw Trump-era restrictions on state tailpipe emission rules and has moved to grant California permission to set more stringent pollution standards for cars and sport utility vehicles. That would give the state greater leverage in discussions with automakers as states and federal officials seek a climate-friendly agreement on emissions standards. At least 13 states and the District of Columbia have signed on to California’s vehicle standards, which were established decades ago under a special waiver that the Trump administration revoked in 2019. Collectively, they represent 36% of the U.S. auto market. Autos A mere five days after the Trump administration proposed loosening auto exhaust standards and revoking California’s authority to set its own rules, California air pollution regulators published their response on Tuesday. Aug. 7, 2018 Liane Randolph, chair of the California Air Resources Board, said at a public hearing Wednesday that the Trump administration’s withdrawal of California’s long-standing waiver was “ill-advised and illegal.” Addressing EPA officials at an online hearing, Randolph said, “Time has continued to prove the importance and good sense of our program” to restrict vehicle emissions. “We know the air quality in California is cleaner today than in decades. Californians can see mountains in the Los Angeles area, no longer shrouded by smog. And the air quality continues to improve because of our program.” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta called the state’s vehicle emissions standards “critical to the fight against climate change” and the effort to improve air quality, protect public health and drive technological innovation. “Despite decades of effort and significant improvements, the unfortunate reality is that too many Californians still breathe dirty air and suffer from the resulting health consequences,” Bonta said. According to the American Lung Assn., seven of the 10 U.S. cities with the worst ozone pollution are in California, along with six of the 10 most polluted cities measured by year-round particle pollution. “Bad air quality means more premature deaths or respiratory ailments and more asthma cases,” Bonta said. “And as the dire realities of the climate crisis grow increasingly apparent, we’re seeing the number of bad-air days in California go up, not down. From record heat waves to wildfire seasons that are increasingly long and severe, the existential threat of our time is less and less difficult to imagine.” President Biden has made slowing climate change a top priority, and his nearly $2-trillion infrastructure proposal includes 500,000 new charging stations for electric cars and trucks. Fully electric vehicles represent just 2% of new vehicle sales in the U.S., but analysts expect that to rise rapidly in coming years. Major automakers, including General Motors and Ford, are pledging billions to develop electric cars and trucks, and GM has gone so far as to announce a goal of ending gasoline-fueled passenger vehicles entirely by 2035. The EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have proposed withdrawing Trump-era rules meant to stop states from setting their own requirements for greenhouse gases, zero emissions vehicles and fuel economy. The changes, if approved after the agencies take public comments, would allow California and other states to set their own rules for vehicle emissions. Biden has said he will seek one national standard, as was the case under President Obama. Carmakers, autoworkers and environmental groups are eager for the federal government and California to reach a deal that creates a single nationwide standard for tailpipe emissions. EPA Administrator Michael Regan has said he expects to propose a tailpipe emissions rule in July. “I am a firm believer in California’s long-standing statutory authority to lead,” Regan said in April. “The federal government can indeed learn from states, and that’s what we plan to continue to do.” Gavin McCabe, a special assistant New York attorney general, said the 2019 rollback of California’s emissions standards was “among the worst and most cynical actions by the Trump EPA.” Business Trump’s authority to revoke California’s waiver from federal clean air rules rests on a very shaky legal foundation. Sept. 19, 2019 “Arbitrarily weakening federal standards ... was bad enough,” he said, “but it was truly unconscionable for EPA to attempt to block states from doing what the law plainly allows them to do to protect their residents.” New York has followed California standards for more than 30 years. Other states that follow California are Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Several other states are moving to adopt the California standard. Trump’s move to revoke the state waivers split the industry, with most automakers behind him while Ford, Honda, BMW, Volkswagen and Volvo decided to go with California standards. After Biden was inaugurated, automakers began withdrawing support for Trump’s decision. Trump officials argued that California’s use of its waiver effectively set national policy on auto emissions, increasing the cost of vehicles sold in states with less pollution. Trump also rolled back Obama-era fuel efficiency and emissions standards, and it’s likely the Biden administration will reverse those as well, replacing them with more stringent requirements. Associated Press staff writer Tom Krisher contributed to this report.

NHL draft lottery: Ducks drop to 3rd, Kings 8th; Buffalo Sabres get first pick

https://www.latimes.com/sports/hockey/story/2021-06-02/nhl-draft-lottery-ducks-3rd-kings-8th-buffalo-first

The Ducks will have the third pick in the NHL’s annual draft, a spot determined Wednesday by the league’s draft lottery. They moved down from No. 2, based on their regular-season finish of 30th among the NHL’s 31 teams. They entered the draft lottery with a 12.1% chance of getting the first overall selection, behind only the Buffalo Sabres’ 16.6% chance of landing the No. 1 pick. The Sabres have the first pick of the draft and the expansion Seattle Kraken the second. The Kings, who had a 5.8% chance to win the lottery, will draft eighth. The draft lottery consisted of two drawings, one for the first overall pick and another for the second overall pick. The draft will be held virtually, with the first round to be conducted July 23 and rounds two through seven July 24. This year’s draft is considered top-heavy on standout defensemen and short on scorers with the potential to become a franchise player. Hockey Ducks general manager Bob Murray and coach Dallas Eakins will be back with the team for the 2021-22 season despite another disappointing season. May 28, 2021 Owen Power, a Canadian-born defenseman who played for the University of Michigan last season, was the top North American skater in rankings compiled by the NHL’s Central Scouting Services. Power is an imposing 6-foot-5 and 211 pounds. He had three goals and 16 points in 26 games for Michigan last season. “Owen Power is at the top of this draft class as he is the best at his position,” Dan Marr, the director of Central Scouting, told nhl.com. “His game presence displayed NHL skills and attributes, and his game continued to mature and impact throughout the season.” Hockey NHL salary cap expert Jeff Solomon has left the Kings after 15 seasons to become the Ducks’ vice president of hockey operations and assistant general manager. May 24, 2021 The second-ranked North American skater is center Mason McTavish of Peterborough of the Ontario Hockey League. He’s followed by Michigan center Kent Johnson, defenseman Luke Hughes of the U.S. National Team Development Team program, and right wing Dylan Guenther of Edmonton of the Western Hockey League. The top-ranked European skater is 5-foot-10 left wing William Eklund of Djurgarden in the Swedish Hockey League.

Government use of Chinese drones in limbo as Congress weighs ban

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-02/government-use-of-chinese-drones-in-limbo-as-congress-weighs-ban

More than a year after the U.S. Interior Department grounded hundreds of Chinese-made drones it was using to track wildfires and monitor dams, volcanoes and wildlife, it’s starting to look like they won’t be flying again anytime soon — if ever. A measure moving through Congress would impose a five-year ban on U.S. government purchases of drones manufactured or assembled in China. It reflects bipartisan concerns that devices made by companies such as DJI, which is based in Shenzhen, China, could facilitate Chinese spying on critical infrastructure. But a ban could create problems for government users, since DJI dominates the global market for the small, low-altitude drones used by hobbyists, photographers and many businesses and governments. There aren’t many affordable and reliable alternatives, said Carrick Detweiler, the chief executive of Drone Amplified, which provides fire suppression payloads to drones operated by the Interior Department and the U.S. Forest Service. “Everyone I talk to in the federal government is moving away from DJI whether or not these bills are passed,” said Detweiler, who is also a computer science professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “Everyone wants a U.S. system to be there and to work, it’s just that the U.S. drone industry was killed off by DJI a decade ago. It’s going to take three or four years before we’re at parity.” The proposed ban was recently folded into the broader American Innovation and Competitiveness Act, which was nearing passage in the Senate before it was abruptly postponed Friday. While the ban wouldn’t take effect until 2023, many federal agencies have already imposed temporary restrictions on the use of Chinese drones. Some have begun to phase them out entirely. But the ban could create other headaches. Because it would also ban federal funds from being used to buy or operate Chinese drones, it could hit police departments that rely on federal help to field new equipment. The Department of Homeland Security started halting such grants for Chinese-made drones last year. The Interior Department said it conducted more than 11,000 drone flights in 2019 before temporarily grounding its drones over cybersecurity concerns at the end of that year. Its drone program has been largely on hiatus since then, except for some emergency flights that are granted a waiver. In March, it started to make it easier to fly emergency missions for wildland fire response and search-and-rescue operations. Within the government, the drone ban has met some resistance from officials eager to get their existing drone fleets back in the air for missions that don’t require secrecy. Some trade groups have argued that any drone restrictions should be based on specific security standards, not their country of origin. A summary of a recent Pentagon report obtained by the Associated Press found “no malicious code or intent” in drone software made by DJI and used by the Interior Department. The report assessed software used to operate DJI’s “Government Edition” drones and some fixes that were made to address data leakage vulnerabilities found in earlier audits. That May 6 document also made a big endorsement. “The DJI Government Edition versions that were tested, show no malicious code or intent and are recommended for use by government entities and forces working with US services,” wrote the author, Adam Prater, a technology expert and second chief warrant officer with the U.S. Army Special Operations Command. Prater declined to comment, saying he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media. The Interior Department also declined to comment. In a statement, DJI spokesperson Adam Lisberg called the report summary “the strongest confirmation to date” of the safety and security of the company’s drones. Outside experts, however, panned the Pentagon conclusions. “It’s clear that this software was not designed for security at all,” said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy. Mike Monnik, an Australian expert, said there’s a “dangerous” risk that outside agents could pull data off the drones given their many unfixed software concerns. Monnik, the chief technology officer at DroneSec, a firm that researches drone cybersecurity vulnerabilities, added that only cutting off the drones entirely from the internet could ensure the security of their data. National security concerns about DJI drones have lingered since at least 2017, when a document from U.S. customs authorities alleged that the drones probably provided China with access to critical infrastructure and law enforcement data. DJI has repeatedly denied the allegations, but political concerns about Chinese technology accelerated amid then-President Trump’s broader trade war against China. Last year, the Pentagon began promoting American-made — and more expensive — alternatives to DJI. The Defense Department in August gave a seal of approval to California drone maker Skydio, French tech company Parrot and three other firms to supply U.S.-manufactured drones to agencies across the federal government. But since then, the Pentagon has acknowledged that many military-grade drones still present risks because they rely on components made in China. In December, the Commerce Department placed DJI on a list of blacklisted Chinese firms subject to restrictions on national security grounds. DJI has tried to counter such concerns, enabling an internet “kill switch” on more drones so that commercial and government users can halt data transmission on sensitive flying missions. Its products have been favored by many local and regional governments in the U.S. for their price and reliability, but a federal ban could damage its reputation among those buyers. Aftergood said he could see a case for DJI only in situations where security isn’t a top concern. “It depends on other factors like cost, performance, lifetime, ease of use,” Aftergood said. “But to the extent that security is a controlling factor, you’d want to think twice.”

More than 100 LGBTQ candidates compete in Mexican election

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-02/mexico-election-lgbtq-candidates

For years, transgender activist Roshell Terranova protested in the streets and knocked on the doors of Mexico’s Congress to make the demands of the country’s LGBTQ community known. Now thanks to her efforts and an electoral rule change, Terranova is running for Congress in a first for Mexico. Terranova will be one of more than 100 members of Mexico’s LGBTQ community participating in Sunday’s midterm election, which will fill the 500 seats of the lower chamber of Congress, as well as state and local posts across the country. It is the largest number of LGBTQ candidates in Mexico’s history, said Carla Humphrey, an official with the National Electoral Institute. The likelihood of their success for some of the more than 20,000 posts in play Sunday remains unknown, but activists, analysts and members of the community say the sheer number of candidates is a victory. It signals a departure from a history of hiding sexual identity to pursue a political career. The surge in LGBTQ participation follows an order from electoral authorities for political parties to include those candidates on their slates as part of their “affirmative action” efforts, which seek “to generate and open spaces to vulnerable groups,” Humphrey said. “They must be made visible and have a voice and be able to influence,” Humphrey said. Electoral authorities plan to track their progress as they have with women and other groups that have faced discrimination and benefited from actions to promote their participation, such as Indigenous groups, Afro-Mexicans, people with disabilities and Mexicans who live abroad, she said. Patria Jiménez, another activist and candidate to become a local lawmaker, in 1997 became the first federal congresswoman who has come out as gay. She said the high level of participation this year is the result of a “social evolution” that the LGBTQ activists won protesting in the streets. Marven, a transgender woman from the state of Oaxaca, is running for a seat in Mexico City’s legislative body as a candidate for the small party Elige. “We have marched for many years to be taken into account,” she said. The name Marven is a combination of her two legal last names, which she was required to use on the ballot, because she has not legally changed her name. But her ballot entry will also include her nickname, “Lady Tacos de Canasta,” which she earned when a video circulated on social media in 2016 of her selling a specific kind of fried and steamed taco from a basket during a gay pride parade. Minority political parties such as Citizen Movement, Progressive Social Networks and the Democratic Revolution Party registered dozens of LGBTQ candidates, exceeding the quotas set by electoral authorities. The largest parties just met the requirements. Citizen Movement has the most, including 51 gays, 26 lesbians, 16 transgender candidates and four bisexual women. From the patio of her home, known as Casa Club Roshell, Terranova celebrated the close of her campaign by singing “Cabaret.” The house has been a cultural center and refuge for members of the LGBTQ community in Mexico City for 17 years. “Before, you couldn’t come out of the closet because you were condemned to a life of physical, mental, social, workplace torture and you were excluded everywhere,” Terranova said. If she wins office, she will fight to bring same-sex marriage to the whole country, Terranova said. Mexico’s Supreme Court has ruled that bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, but some states still have not passed legislation allowing it. In those cases, couples have been able to go to court to be allowed to marry. Terranova also plans to push legal reforms to allow the civil registration of transgender youths and require medical attention “without discrimination.” Ana Labambarri, an analyst at the Mexican Institute for Competition, expressed doubt about the influence winning LGBTQ candidates could have. Based on the institute’s study of women who have won seats in local legislative bodies, they still have not been able to access positions that allow them to take important decisions, because of structural problems associated with a patriarchal system. She said LGBTQ lawmakers probably would face similar obstacles. Among the people recently celebrating the close of Terranova’s campaign was Fabiola Del Castillo, a 42-year-old graphic designer whom Terranova helped through her own gender transition four years ago. Del Castillo said the candidacies of Terranova and others give her hope that the discrimination they face will stop. “I hope that it helps end the hate toward us and we can go out in the street or into a restaurant without facing discrimination,” she said.

Etsy to buy Depop for $1.6 billion to attract young shoppers

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-06-02/etsy-to-buy-depop-for-1-6-billion-to-attract-young-shoppers

Etsy Inc., the online marketplace for crafts and vintage items, is buying secondhand fashion app Depop for $1.63 billion as it seeks to expand its customer base and attract younger users. The deal will create “significant opportunities for shared expertise and growth synergies” between the two e-commerce sites as the trend for trading recycled clothing continues to grow, New York-based Etsy said in a statement Wednesday. The deal, which is primarily cash, is expected to close in the third quarter. Depop was set up in 2011 as a “community-powered marketplace” to buy and sell used fashion and has become one of the most popular e-commerce sites, particularly among younger, environmentally conscious consumers. About 90% of Depop’s active users are younger than 26 and Depop is the 10th-most-visited shopping site among Gen Z consumers in the U.S., according to Etsy, whose users tend to be older. Etsy rose more than 7% to close at $174.14 in New York trading. Business Instant soup mix, dresses, sneakers, appliances and so on. Buy common consumer items cheap; resell for more, maybe much more. COVID lockdowns supercharged it. April 28, 2021 The secondhand market in the U.S. is projected to hit $64 billion by 2024 and to grow to twice the size of fast fashion on a global basis. Etsy Chief Executive Josh Silverman said the deal will extend Etsy’s presence in the resale market and enable it to help Depop, an early-stage business, expand and drive further growth and profitability. Depop, which has about 30 million registered users across nearly 150 countries, will continue to be based in London and will operate as a stand-alone marketplace run by its existing team. Following the deal, Etsy will have three distinct brands — Etsy, Reverb and Depop. Maria Raga, CEO of Depop, said people “come to Depop for the clothes, but stay for the culture” and the business will benefit from the “resources of a much larger company whose values are so aligned with ours here at Depop.”

In Compton, voters poised to choose experience over history for mayor

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-02/compton-mayor-update

It was a campaign for Compton mayor pitting a 70-year-old councilwoman with years of political experience and a 26-year-old real estate agent with a chance to become the city’s first Latino mayor. On Wednesday, the veteran seemed poised to win. Emma Sharif, who has been on the City Council since 2015, has secured about 54% of the votes so far, while her opponent, Cristian Reynaga, has received nearly 46%, according to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s website. A victor will not be named before Friday, as mail-in ballots postmarked on election day have until that day to reach the registrar’s office to be counted, said office spokesman Mike Sanchez. The election results are scheduled to be certified by June 14. Sharif said she didn’t get home until about 2 a.m. on election night after learning she was leading the race. “Right now I feel good,” she told The Times on Wednesday afternoon. “Although, I’m not ready to just claim victory, but I am very proud of the lead that we have after the initial votes have been counted.” Sharif came in second to Reynaga in the primary election. But she said she remained hopeful that she could win. In 2019, she also placed second in the City Council primary but won in the general election. “I was just hoping that we could do the same this go around as well,” Sharif said. Although the results aren’t final, Compton Unified School District board member Charles Davis celebrated Sharif’s lead by encouraging people who attended a small gathering at Sharif’s campaign office to dance outside the building. “People were really happy,” he said of the 30-plus people who were in attendance. After a strong showing in the primary, Reynaga had appeared close to becoming Compton’s first Latino mayor. Reynaga was trying to capture a vote that has not historically favored Latino candidates, even though Latinos make up 68% of the city’s population, while Black residents make up 29%. However, some of the city’s Latinos residents are not citizens and are not registered to vote. Reynaga had been endorsed by the current Compton mayor, Aja Brown, who was 31 when elected. California The city became majority Latino years ago, but power is still largely in the hands of Black politicians. May 29, 2021 The city’s new mayor will have to address issues with homelessness, economic development and law enforcement, as well as voter demands to repair the streets and plant more trees. Reynaga, who has downplayed talks of racial milestones during his campaign, said he was staying optimistic. “I was hoping for a bigger turnout, but I’m just grateful for the journey,” he said. “There’s a possibility that a lot more ballots haven’t been processed, so I’m excited to see what that’s going to look like.” He added, “Whether her or I win, it’s a win for Compton.”

Review: 'Spirit Untamed' a grounded, sweet film with a moving message

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-06-02/review-spirit-untamed-dreamworks-animation-horses

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. While reading the credits of the new animated feature “Spirit Untamed,” a few things stick out: The first is the star-studded voice cast, but the second is how many women played key roles in bringing the film to life. The second film in the “Spirit” franchise, which also includes the 2002 film “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron,” and the Netflix series “Spirit Riding Free,” “Spirit Untamed” is written by Aury Wallington and Kristin Hahn and directed by Elaine Bogan (her co-director is Ennio Torresan Jr.), and features a female producer, composer and other female department heads. One can’t help but feel that the gender representation behind the camera is an integral part to the authentic sense of girls’ empowerment espoused by the film, the story of a young girl and her unique connection to a wild mustang, Spirit. What’s also striking about “Spirit Untamed” is that the story is grounded within a (somewhat) realistic, recognizable world, in the 19th century American Southwest. So many animated films tend toward the supernatural, the folkloric, and the magical, populated with as many friendly monsters and talking animals as the medium allows. It’s somewhat refreshing to see an animated film tell what is essentially a formulaic hero’s journey story without relying on the extraordinary. Isabel Merced voices the young heroine, Lucky, a misfit, accident-prone girl with a wild red mane of hair (remind you of any iconic undersea princesses?). Living with her stuffy grandparents, she’s sent off to spend the summer with her father (Jake Gyllenhaal), from whom she’s been estranged since her mother’s death when she was a baby. He’s a railroad man in the town of Miradero, and as soon as she arrives, Lucky finds that she fits right in. The Mexican caballeras who call her “Fortuna” bestow her with a sash like the one her mother used to wear on horseback, and Lucky immediately falls in with a couple of capable cowgirls, Pru (Marsai Martin) and Abigail (McKenna Grace). Something else attracts Lucky’s attention too: a handsome buckskin mustang, whom she dubs Spirit. The horse also catches the eye of the dastardly Hendricks (Walton Goggins), who sets about rounding up Spirit and his herd, intending to sell the wild animals for profit. Lucky, described as both “brave” and “reckless,” sets off on a journey to stop Hendricks, and in doing so, connects with Spirit and embraces the destiny of her mother’s legacy. The animation style is crisp, colorful and bright. Though it’s a bit basic and nothing innovative in terms of the art form, it fits the themes and aesthetic of the film, as well as the audience of budding horse girls at whom this film is aimed. While the film is not a musical, musical elements are integrated into the fabric of the story itself, with a few contemporary pop and folk tunes on the soundtrack mixed in with traditional camp songs sung by Abigail. The plot moves as swiftly as a wild pony racing across the plains, which is good, because if it was any longer, “Spirit Untamed” could have overstayed its welcome. Ultimately, it feels more suited for repeat living room watches, rather than a big-screen movie theater event. However, “Spirit Untamed” is a sweet film with a moving message about embracing family, heritage and most importantly, yourself, just the way you are, even if that means bravery and recklessness often go hand in hand. Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic. ‘Spirit Untamed’ Rated: PG, for some adventure actionRunning time: 1 hour, 28 minutesPlaying: Starts June 4 in general release

Lakers' Anthony Davis and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope game-time decisions for Game 6

https://www.latimes.com/sports/lakers/story/2021-06-02/lakers-anthony-davis-kentavious-caldwell-pope-game-time-decisions-game-6

Lakers Anthony Davis and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope both are game-time decisions for Game 6 Thursday night against the Phoenix Suns at Staples Center. Davis didn’t play in Game 5 in Phoenix on Tuesday night because he has a strained groin suffered Sunday in Game 4. Caldwell-Pope started Game 5, but was unable to finish because of a bruised left knee that forced him to miss Game 4. The Lakers trail the Suns 3-2 in the best-of-seven series and have to win to extend their season. Lakers On a night when the Lakers needed a rejuvenated LeBron James to ignite greatness, he wasn’t able to deliver the kind of win that’s defined his career. June 2, 2021

Review: Why the fun kids' musical from Geffen Playhouse made this mom cry (in a good way)

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-06-02/geffen-playhouse-kids-musical-review

A few minutes into the first song in the Geffen Playhouse’s new virtual musical for kids, “The Door You Never Saw Before,” I found myself weeping while the children sitting with me in the dining room stared in embarrassed horror, double-checking that I was not on the Zoom screen we shared with about a dozen other elementary school-age participants. The song, performed by the irrepressible Gabrielle Maiden, is about the year we have all just lived through — about being stuck inside, about not seeing friends or engaging in regular activities. “You’re inside your house, and you’re stuck,” sings Maiden, who plays a character called Your Voice and who tells those in the audience that she is the voice in their heads. “Days turned to weeks, to months, to a year.” I could totally relate to that, and being someone who cries during diaper commercials and the occasional prescription medication ad, the song hit me squarely in the emotional solar plexus. The kids with whom I was watching — my 5-year-old daughter, Henri; my 7-year-old nephew, Ridley; and my 10-year-old niece, Cleo — displayed a psychological fortitude seemingly out of my reach as they bounced along to the music, eager for what the show had in store. They had been mailed an “adventure suitcase,” which arrived at the house about a week before our scheduled performance. These types of packages have become a hallmark of the Geffen’s pandemic slate of interactive online programming, offered through the last year under the Geffen Stayhouse banner. Entertainment & Arts Live performance returns to the Music Center, and being a face in the crowd rarely feels this good. A dispatch from the scene. June 1, 2021 In the days leading up to the show, this small brown box with a plastic handle became the object of much speculation among the cousins. What could possibly be in it? Would there be candy? If so, would it be enough to share? A note accompanying the box strictly forbade it being opened until the performance. The contents of the box, which I will not reveal here because that would spoil the fun, pair with plot points in the show, helping to guide the young audience members through the action via props, activities and puzzles. “The Door You Never Saw Before,” directed by Katie Lindsay, with book, music and lyrics by Matt Schatz, is dubbed a “choosical musical” because it’s organized around breakout rooms that spirit the show’s participants down different paths toward a jubilant conclusion. The action unfolds in the Harmonious Land of Harmonicania, where a heinous villain called the Stench has taken over the city with an outsize flatulence that has cleared out most of its inhabitants. Participant children are enlisted to help Maiden find the mayor to give him a special medal that will help him defeat the Stench, played with turgid bombast by Michael Faulkner. Along the way, children choose which door to open or not open, and whether to visit the overpass or underpass, the lost and found or the library. Faulkner and a third actor, the funny and engaging Shyla Lefner, appear in various costumes playing a variety of characters whose songs gently tap into deep emotions children may have dealt with during an isolating year. 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 There is an innocent tenderness to the show, which stresses that even the most difficult obstacles can be overcome with creativity, gumption and teamwork. The message seemed to resonate with Henri, Ridley and Cleo, even though they lost all collaborative resourcefulness when it came time to take turns with the contents of the adventure suitcase. (This parent recommends you order a separate suitcase for every child participant in your family.) And be sure to bring a box of tissues to the show. The kids likely won’t need it, but you just might. 'The Door You Never Saw Before: A Choosical Musical' Where: Geffen Stayhouse virtual theater via ZoomWhen: 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, through June 27Tickets: $55 to $85 per household (subject to change); additional adventure suitcases are $25 each. Recommended for ages 6 to 9Info: (310) 208-2028 or www.geffenplayhouse.orgRunning time: 1 hour, 10 minutes (no intermission)

Meat producer JBS starts to reopen most plants sidelined by cyberattack

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-06-02/jbs-meat-plants-reopen-after-cyberattack

JBS is starting to at least partially reopen most idled beef plants across North America and Australia after a cyberattack forced the world’s largest meat producer to halt operations. The Brazilian food giant said late Tuesday that it had made “significant progress” to resolve the attack and would have the “vast majority” of its plants operational by Wednesday. A second shift at its Greeley, Colo., facility, one of the largest beef plants in the U.S., was set for a regular production day, while plants in Texas, Nebraska and Wisconsin were resuming partial operations, according to company updates posted on Facebook. By Thursday, an Omaha plant will resume work, and one in Pennsylvania will be back to normal status, labor union leaders said. “Our systems are coming back online, and we are not sparing any resources to fight this threat,” JBS USA Chief Executive Andre Nogueira said in Tuesday’s statement. Sunday’s cyberattack forced JBS to shut down all of its beef plants in the U.S., which account for almost a quarter of American supplies, and slow pork and poultry production. Slaughtering operations across Australia were halted and at least one Canadian plant was idled. JBS, which has facilities in 20 countries, also owns Pilgrim’s Pride Corp., the second-biggest U.S. chicken producer. The extent of the outages may never be known because JBS didn’t detail the effects. JBS said its Canadian beef facility in Alberta, one of the largest in the country, has resumed production. Workers at the Longford beef processing plant in Australia have been told operations will resume Friday, according to a spokesman for the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union in Tasmania. The attack and ensuing shutdowns upended agricultural markets and raised concerns about food security as hackers increasingly target crucial infrastructure. Shares of JBS fell 1.1% in Sao Paulo trading, underperforming the 1% gain of Brazil’s Ibovespa benchmark index. It’s unclear what the effect on meat prices will be from the latest attack. Retailers don’t always like increasing prices for consumers and may try to resist, said Michael Nepveux, an economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation. “How long it goes on will impact to what level consumers start to see something at the grocery stores,” he said. Food buyers fear that disruptions from the JBS attack compound ongoing issues in the meat industry when prices are already high. “It just adds more fuel to the fire,” said Anne Hurtado, a buyer in Chicago for Amigos Meat & Poultry who fears that her JBS orders for this week won’t ship on time. “We’ve been seeing a lot of inflation in the meat industry in the past month. Demand has been high, exports have been high.” Wholesale beef prices at the meat market in New York are up as much as 2% from Friday, said Kevin Lindgren, director of merchandising at Baldor Specialty Foods. “Nothing crazy yet,” Lindgren said, though he expects prices will be 10% higher in a week. “It will get progressively higher as the squeeze comes.” The JBS attack is thrusting America’s system of churning out cheap meat back into the spotlight. The sector is dominated by a handful of titans — Tyson Foods Inc., JBS and Cargill Inc. — which control about two-thirds of U.S. beef. Taking down even a few plants can disrupt supplies, as seen last year when COVID-19 outbreaks idled plants and sparked meat shortages across the country. The industry is so concentrated that idling the JBS plants meant that the U.S. government on Tuesday couldn’t release some key meat-pricing data that agricultural markets rely on daily. “Attacks like this one highlight the vulnerabilities in our nation’s food supply chain security, and they underscore the importance of diversifying the nation’s meat processing capacity,” said U.S. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the Senate’s second-most-powerful Republican. The JBS attack comes three weeks after Colonial Pipeline Co., operator of the biggest U.S. gasoline pipeline, was targeted in a ransomware attack attributed to a group called DarkSide. Experts have said there’s some evidence linking the group to Russia. That followed a series of devastating hacks against U.S. government agencies, businesses and health facilities, often blamed on Russia or Russia-based hackers at a fraught time in relations between the countries. A notorious Russia-linked hacking group is behind the JBS attack, according to four people familiar with the campaign who were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. The cybergang goes by the name REvil or Sodinokibi. Russia has no information on the cyberattack but is in diplomatic contact with the U.S. government, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Cybercrime issues will be on the agenda at a June 16 summit between Presidents Biden and Vladimir Putin, he said. There have been more than 40 publicly reported ransomware attacks against food companies since May 2020, said Allan Liska, senior security architect at cybersecurity analytics firm Recorded Future. “It is frightening to see the number of critical hacks and cyberattacks coming into the U.S. and critical infrastructure,” Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said to David Westin in a Bloomberg TV interview, adding that business and government need to work together to defend against such attacks. “We have to think through our entire supply chain in every critical part of our economy and identify where those cyberweaknesses could be.”

NFL pledges to halt 'race-norming' and review brain injury claims by Black players

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-06-02/nfl-pledges-halt-race-norming-review-black-claims

The NFL on Wednesday pledged to halt the use of “race-norming” — which assumed Black players started out with lower cognitive function — in the $1-billion settlement of brain injury claims and to review past claims for any potential racial bias. The practice made it harder for Black retirees to show a deficit and qualify for an award. The standards were created in the 1990s in hopes of offering more appropriate treatment to dementia patients, but critics faulted the way they were used to determine payouts in the NFL concussion case. Wednesday’s announcement came after a pair of Black players filed a civil rights lawsuit over the practice, medical experts raised concerns and a group of NFL families last month dropped 50,000 petitions at the federal courthouse in Philadelphia, where the lawsuit had been thrown out by the judge overseeing the settlement. Senior U.S. District Judge Anita B. Brody later took the unusual step of asking for a report on the issue. Black retirees hope it will include a breakdown of the nearly $800 million in payouts so far by race. They fear the data will never come to light. “Words are cheap. Let’s see what they do,” said former Washington running back Ken Jenkins, whose wife, Amy Lewis, led the petition drive on behalf of NFL friends struggling with cognitive problems. Jenkins, an insurance executive, has so far been spared. Rams Veteran offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth has had teammates visit his Westlake Village home to lift weights this offseason. June 1, 2021 According to the NFL, a panel of neuropsychologists formed recently to propose a new testing regime to the court includes two female and three Black doctors. “The replacement norms will be applied prospectively and retrospectively for those players who otherwise would have qualified for an award but for the application of race-based norms,” the NFL said in a statement issued Wednesday by spokesman Brian McCarthy. Lead players lawyer Christopher Seeger, who negotiated the 2013 settlement with the NFL, said earlier this year that he had not seen any evidence of racial bias in the administration of the settlement fund. He amended those remarks Wednesday, apologizing for any pain the program has caused. “I am sorry for the pain this episode has caused Black former players and their families. Ultimately, this settlement only works if former players believe in it, and my goal is to regain their trust and ensure the NFL is fully held to account,” Seeger said in a statement. The NFL noted that the norms were developed in medicine “to stop bias in testing, not perpetrate it.” And both Seeger and the league said the practice was never mandatory but left to the discretion of doctors taking part in the settlement program. The NFL, however, appealed some claims filed by Black players if their scores were not adjusted for race. “If it wasn’t for the wives, who were infuriated by all the red tape involved, it never would have come to be,” Jenkins said of the attention being paid to the issue, three years after lawyers for former Pittsburgh Steelers Kevin Henry and Najeh Davenport say they first raised it. Chargers It appears the Atlanta Falcons will trade star receiver Julio Jones, and betting on a deal with the Chargers is appealing given the long odds. May 27, 2021 The binary race norms, when are used in the testing, assume that Black patients start with worse cognitive function than whites and other non-Blacks. That makes it harder for them to show a deficit and qualify for an award. Henry and Davenport, for instance, were denied awards but would have qualified had they been white, according to their lawsuit, which Brody dismissed in March, calling it an improper “collateral attack” on the settlement. They have appealed the ruling. More than 2,000 NFL retirees have filed dementia claims, but fewer than 600 have received awards, according to the most recent report. More than half of all NFL retirees are Black, according to lawyers involved in the litigation. The awards so far have averaged $516,000 for the 379 players with early-stage dementia and $715,000 for the 207 players with moderate dementia. Retirees can also seek payouts for Alzheimer’s disease and a few other diagnoses. The settlement ended thousands of lawsuits that accused the NFL of long hiding what it knew about the link between concussions and traumatic brain injury.

Column: Israel is trying to oust Bibi Netanyahu. But will he really go?

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-02/israel-netanyahu-lapid-bennett-coalition

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political obituary has been written and rewritten. Each time he fails to win an election or his government collapses, or he is accused of corruption, or, worse yet, indicted, new predictions of his political demise are circulated — only to be superseded, days or weeks later, by the story of his resurrection. This time, though, his position is especially dire: On Wednesday, his rivals Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid announced they had pulled together a broad governing coalition in the Israeli parliament that would include parties from the left to the center to the hard right, while excluding Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party. If the coalition receives a vote of confidence from the full parliament, as is expected, Netanyahu will have to step down as prime minister. So is this the end of the road for the man who has been the dominant Israeli political figure of his era? Is this the beginning of a sharp change in direction for Israel? My advice? Don’t bet the house on it. And don’t count him out until you hear the prison doors clang shut behind him. I mean, it certainly would be satisfying to see Netanyahu slink off into retirement and obscurity. Under his stewardship, Israel has grown increasingly illiberal and isolated. He has continued the unjust occupation of Palestinian territories seized in 1967 and has empowered the settler movement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem — so that Israel is increasingly seen as an obstinate violator of international law. His harsh policies have alienated many steadfast supporters and strained relations with the United States. Thanks in part (though not exclusively) to Netanyahu, the peace process is at a standstill and the idea of a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians is on life support. If Netanyahu is replaced, you won’t hear any complaints from me. But he’s not gone until he’s gone, as Yogi Berra might say. The reality is that the new coalition has not yet been ratified by the Knesset, and, if and when it is, it will be, for obvious reasons, highly unstable. Keeping so many ideologically diverse coalition partners satisfied while failing to deliver what any of them really want is a difficult balancing act, especially in a volatile country that has held four inconclusive elections in two years. The parties in the proposed new government, frankly, agree on very little. Only a few defections would be needed for the coalition to collapse. And don’t forget — Netanyahu, who is now 71, will not be out of politics; he’ll have been relegated to the opposition, where he and his Likud party will be scheming and maneuvering for their return to power. “It’s hard to believe that this new coalition will not crater eventually,” said Aaron David Miller, who advised six secretaries of state over 15 years on Israeli-Palestinian issues. “And Netanyahu will be waiting.” If the coalition does manage to hold together for a while, it is expected to do so by ducking and dodging the difficult questions that divide its members — chief among them the future of the occupation and the fate of the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and within Israel itself. Instead it will focus on issues such as the economy and COVID-19. Palestinians shouldn’t expect much change for the better if Netanyahu is ousted. Remember who is the kingmaker here: Naftali Bennett, a former settler leader who leads a small right-wing party. He opposes a Palestinian state and wants to annex significant chunks of the West Bank. He’s to the right of Netanyahu. Under the coalition deal, Bennett would serve as the next prime minister. Of course, he’d be held in check to some degree by his coalition partners. Significantly, he would rotate the prime minister’s job after two years with Yair Lapid, a former TV news anchor who is the centrist leader of Israel’s main opposition party. Lapid’s party controls many more votes than Bennett’s. But still, a meaningful shift in policy with regard to the peace process and the occupied territories seems unlikely under this coalition. On the Palestinian side, parliamentary elections were recently canceled. Frustration is growing. In the West Bank, the governing Palestinian Authority is unpopular and perceived as corrupt. In Gaza, which is under the control of Hamas, last month’s fighting with Israel left hundreds dead, destroyed mosques and apartment buildings, damaged schools, hospitals and other infrastructure, and cut off electricity and water to much of the population. All in all, not terribly propitious for the future. Netanyahu held on to power far longer than expected, finally surpassing David Ben-Gurion’s record as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. In recent years, Israeli commentators repeatedly compared him to Donald Trump, partly because of his apparent view that “I alone can fix it.” Like Trump, Netanyahu has a driving desire to stay in power by almost any means necessary, and is disrespectful of the rule of law, the media and political norms. He honestly seems to believe that his petty corruptions don’t matter because he’s on a messianic mission to save his country. During an official interview as part of Netanyahu’s corruption case, Israeli businessman and movie producer Arnon Milchan recalled something Netanyahu had once told him. “If I fall, the nation falls,” the prime minister said. Israelis have every reason to try to move beyond a man like that. @Nick_Goldberg

High school softball: City playoff pairings

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-02/high-school-softball-city-playoff-pairings

CITY SOFTBALL OPEN DIVISION Quarterfinals, Monday, 3 p.m. #8 Los Angeles Marshall at #1 San Pedro #5 Granada Hills at #4 Granada Hills Kennedy #6 Birmingham at #3 Carson #7 Legacy at #2 El Camino Real NOTES: Semifinals, June 15, 3 p.m. Championship, June 19, 12 p.m. DIVISION I First round, Friday, 3 p.m. #1 Chavez, bye #9 Harbor Teacher at #8 Sylmar #5 Venice, bye #4 Sun Valley Poly, bye #3 San Fernando, bye #11 Los Angeles Hamilton at #6 Wilmington Banning #10 Cleveland at #7 Garfield #2 Los Angeles Roosevelt, bye NOTES: Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 3 p.m.; semifinals, June 15, 3 p.m. Championship, June 18, 3 p.m. DIVISION II First round, Friday, 3 p.m. #16 North Hollywood at #1 Fairfax #9 Gardena at #8 Verdugo Hills #12 South East at #5 Lincoln #13 Van Nuys at #4 Bravo #14 Sherman Oaks CES at #3 Palisades #11 Northridge at #6 Franklin #10 Arleta at #7 King/Drew #15 West Adams at #2 South Gate NOTES: Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 3 p.m.; semifinals, June 15, 3 p.m. Championship, June 17, 3 p.m. DIVISION III First round, Friday, 3 p.m. #1 Smidt Tech, bye #9 Bright Star at #8 Orthopaedic #12 Central City Value at #5 Belmont #13 Huntington Park at #4 Contreras #3 Mendez, bye #11 Maywood CES at #6 University Prep Value #10 Sotomayor at #7 Canoga Park #2 Torres, bye NOTES: Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 3 p.m.; semifinals, June 15, 3 p.m. Championship, June 17, 3 p.m.

Netanyahu rivals form an Israeli coalition government to oust him

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-02/israel-netanyahu-rivals-coalition-government

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief political rival formally declared Wednesday night that he had put together a governing coalition with sufficient parliamentary backing to dislodge Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving leader. The news amounted to a political earthquake in Israel, where the 71-year-old prime minister has been a commanding political presence for a generation, but the new government will not be sworn in until later this month, which could mean a tense interlude for the country. Critics from across the political spectrum have expressed fears that Netanyahu, who has shown increasingly authoritarian tendencies in recent years, could seek to somehow derail what would ordinarily be a ceremonial handover of power to his successor. Secular centrist politician Yair Lapid, who heads a so-called change coalition made up of disparate parties united mainly in their desire to topple Netanyahu, made his announcement less than an hour before a midnight deadline for finalizing the makeup of the planned new government. “This government will work for all the citizens of Israel, those that voted for it and those that didn’t,” Lapid wrote on Twitter shortly before midnight. “It will do everything to unite Israeli society.” The new governing coalition represents a historic first for the country: It includes a party representing Palestinian citizens of Israel. As the deadline neared, a small Islamist party called the United Arab List agreed to participate, its leader said. Lapid, 57, a former television host, leads the largest party in the grouping, but he is not slated to succeed Netanyahu. Instead, in an unusual arrangement, Naftali Bennett, 49, who heads a small hardline party that played a kingmaker role in forming the coalition, is to serve as the country’s leader for the next two years, with Lapid then following suit. Bennett’s declaration on Sunday that he would join forces with his ideological near-opposite abruptly galvanized prospects for breaking the political deadlock that had persisted through four inconclusive national elections in two years. Had this arrangement not been reached, Israelis probably faced the wearying prospect of a fifth election, with Netanyahu continuing as a caretaker in the meantime. In the most recent elections, on March 23, Netanyahu’s conservative Likud Party garnered the most seats in the 120-member Knesset, or parliament, but he and his allies were not able to come to a coalition agreement, and the mandate passed to Lapid. Wednesday’s political drama came only a dozen days after a cease-fire ended a spasm of fighting between Israel and the militant group Hamas. Initially, the 11-day bout of fighting, which left more than 250 Palestinians dead and killed 12 people on the Israeli side, appeared to bolster Netanyahu’s political prospects, narrowing the window during which Lapid could work to patch together a coalition. Bennett is a staunch opponent of Palestinian statehood who has ardently supported the Jewish settlement movement in the West Bank, and his decision to partner with the centrist Lapid illustrated the intense degree of public frustration with Netanyahu, who is on trial for bribery and fraud. Netanyahu has served a total of 15 years as prime minister: one term in the mid-to-late 1990s, followed by a 12-year tenure that began in 2009. As Netanyahu has been fighting for his political life, politicians who normally keep a wary distance from one another have expressed common fears that he is wielding dangerously anti-democratic tools in a bid to cling to power. Some former allies who have now turned against the prime minister have warned of the possibility of violence by Netanyahu’s most ardent supporters. Avigdor Lieberman, a former defense minister under Netanyahu, said Tuesday in a speech to a bar association gathering in the southern city of Eilat that he could envision a turn of events akin to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Trump. “I hope it’s just a nightmare scenario,” Lieberman said. Several of Netanyahu’s foes — including a few erstwhile allies on the political right and his more traditional opponents on the political left — were placed under enhanced protection from the Shin Bet domestic security service this week after die-hard backers of the prime minister unleashed a torrent of threats and invective against them on social media, picketing outside the homes of some. As the coalition’s outlines emerged, Netanyahu himself employed harsh language against its members, particularly some past proteges. On Sunday, he accused Bennett of carrying out the “fraud of the century” by entering into a prospective government with dovish parties that support the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Despite the breakthrough accord by his opponents, Netanyahu is unlikely to fade from political view, said analyst Shalom Lipner, a former civil servant who advised Israeli prime ministers for more than two decades. “It’s fairly certain that he’ll continue to harangue his opponents as ballot thieves and traitors to the conservative cause, hoping to rally discontent around his flag and to mount another challenge for the premiership,” said Lipner, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. The signed coalition agreement is considered the definitive proclamation of a new Israeli government, but due to the Knesset’s recess, a formal installation is not expected before June 14, and Netanyahu was to remain in office as caretaker prime minister until then. Although Netanyahu’s prospects of staving off the new government’s inauguration are considered slim, political survival is his signature trait, and longtime observers counseled caution. Anshel Pfeffer, an Israeli journalist who has written a biography of Netanyahu, said detractors shouldn’t write him off too soon. “Hold his obits until the actual swearing-in, if and when it happens,” Pfeffer tweeted Sunday as the coalition talks moved closer to fruition. Only once before, in 1990, has an agreed-upon Israeli coalition been scrapped as it’s been about to be sworn in. The final days and hours of coalition negotiations were contentious but made steady progress, according to Israeli media reports. In the end, Lapid informed Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, using carefully formulaic Hebrew phrasing, that he had formed a coalition consisting of at least 61 seats in the Knesset. The corruption case hanging over Netanyahu has been a crucial factor in the country’s two years of political paralysis. He has used his post, which under law he was allowed to retain even while fighting the charges in court, as a forum from which to hurl accusations at the judiciary, investigators and prosecutors. One reason Netanyahu has found it difficult to attract his traditional allies in a coalition partnership is that he has a habit of not keeping political promises. Last year, he formed a so-called emergency government with his then-main rival, former army chief Benny Gantz. But the government collapsed in December without Gantz getting his promised turn as leader. If the newly unveiled coalition does take office as scheduled, analysts said that, with such a disparate grouping of parties, it would be difficult to make progress on contentious issues including dealings with the Palestinians, or Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Instead, domestic concerns are expected to be front and center: the economy, education and healthcare. Leading up to the late-night tumult, it was a busy political day: Earlier Wednesday, political veteran Isaac Herzog was named to the largely ceremonial role of Israel’s president, a post he will take over next month. Herzog, 60, a former head of the Labor Party and leader of the political opposition to Netanyahu, was chosen Tuesday in an anonymous vote by members of the Knesset. Although the president plays little part in the rough and tumble of Israeli politics, Herzog’s powers do touch on a matter of potential interest to the prime minister: the authority to grant pardons. Special correspondent Noga Tarnopolsky in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Don't like the 'woke' casting of Netflix's 'Sandman' series? Neil Gaiman doesn't care

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2021-06-02/sandman-neil-gaiman-casting-controversy-woke-netflix

Neil Gaiman’s revered comic book series “The Sandman” from the ’80s and ’90s is finally being made into a television series for Netflix. The comic was a genre-busting, gender-bending horror-ish fantasia that simply didn’t care about convention. So when self-proclaimed fans objected to the show casting nonbinary and Black actors, how did they think Gaiman would react? They might not have thought this one through before tagging him in anti-”woke” tweets. One poster accused him of “selling out,” not “standing by his work” and “not giving a f—.” Gaiman responded, “I give all the f—s about the work. I spent 30 years successfully battling bad movies of Sandman. “I give zero f—s about people who don’t understand/ haven’t read Sandman whining about a non-binary Desire or that Death isn’t white enough. Watch the show, make up your minds.” Books Author Neil Gaiman’s beloved comic book series “The Sandman” is headed to the small screen. July 1, 2019 On May 26, Netflix announced new casting choices for the 2022 series, along with Gaiman’s comments endorsing them. These included picks for two of the comics’ key characters, Death and Desire (siblings of protagonist Dream, a.k.a. Morpheus). In the comics, Death is usually depicted as a pale, white (perhaps gray) goth girl but, like other eternal beings known as “The Endless,” she also takes other forms. Desire has always been depicted as androgynous (described by sibling Despair as “sister-brother” and acknowledged by Gaiman as “they/them” in a 2017 blog post). Kirby Howell-Baptiste (“Cruella,” “Barry,” “Killing Eve”), who is Black, was announced as the actor playing Death. Mason Alexander Park, who is nonbinary and best known as the lead in the national tour of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” will play Desire. Entertainment & Arts A spectral being has helped define a fantasy writer who’s stretched comic books’ horizons. Dec. 29, 2008 Perhaps surprisingly, considering how fluid so many aspects of the comic and its characters are, online commenters attacked the casting choices for being “woke.” “OHHHH....Twitter is about to speed-dial ‘the Kindly Ones’ w/ this WOKE casting,” wrote one. “It’s OVER. Stephen King, Kevin Smith & now NEIL f’ing Gaimen [sic] - ALL SOLD OUT their 90’s selves to WOKE SJW culture. There is NO ONE Left - Nothing left of my childhood- Thanks Neil.” Another tweeted, “i feel this so hard. like DC straight up is just ruining s— for the sake of seeming woke. but marvel?marvel can do all the s— right, characters look like off the pages, but DC? ‘ f— the characters, try to reach new young woke fans’ who legit dont read or care for the comics.” A knowledgeable fan responded with receipts that “Death is shown as Chinese (and alien) at one point, so it’s canon that the Endless transcend appearance. In issue 9 Dream is black and explicitly refers to Grandmother Death, who obviously would not here look pale grey. Howell-Baptiste is a fine actress, don’t worry.” Gaiman retweeted that post. Fans of the comics, in which Dream takes many forms, tweeted panels of the character manifesting as a giant flaming head, a cat and a flower: “Bite your tongue! Dream can obviously only truly be played by a white flower on a tall stem with dark, resplendent leaves. This speciesbending will not stand.” Gaiman retweeted all three of those too, as well as numerous posts of fan art inspired by Howell-Baptiste’s casting. Television The nonbinary revolution has come to TV. But writers, actors and advocates say excitement over numbers is “foolish” if it doesn’t come with creative power. Dec. 14, 2020 He also endorsed a rendering of Desire by artist Anneli Larsson that depicts the character as the very picture of androgyny. “He/she is the personification of desire itself and is both male and female, but not in a hipster way more like a mysterious, magic-y sort of way,” Larsson wrote in a statement accompanying the rendering on her site. A fan tweeted the image with the text, “Wait... people are mad that Desire is non-binary? This Desire?” Gaiman responded, “That’s the one.” Another fan tweeted, “Desire. Mad that DESIRE isn’t affixed to one gender. Have these people read Sandman?” Gaiman replied, “I don’t think so, no.” I don't think so, no. https://t.co/eQbCLYkpdp When a user wrote, “Worst casting ever I’m selling my entire neil gaiman collection if anyone wants it such a disappointment,” Gaiman channeled John Gielgud‘s bone-dry butler character from “Arthur”: “I’ll alert the media.” The fallout continued through Tuesday as Gaiman, whose comics also spawned the TV show “Lucifer,” posted, “It just reached peak silly, when a well-meaning person told me that casting a black actress as Death was as untrue to the character as it would be to make Mazikeen (portrayed in Lucifer by black actress ) white. And I had to explain that in the comics, she was. @LesleyAnnBrandt” Reimagining comic characters for the big screen is nothing new. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Valkyrie, Ghost and (infamously) the Ancient One are among those who have been gender- and/or race-swapped, as are several in the upcoming “Eternals.” DC’s Aquaman had always been blond and fair-skinned in the comics; Hawaiian Native American (and German and Irish) Jason Momoa ain’t that. But “Aquaman” is by far the highest-grossing DCEU film to date. Through it all, Gaiman has remained philosophical. In response to another author saying he might be fortunate to be less popular than Gaiman because he hadn’t caught flak for the color- and gender-blind casting of his own project, Gaiman tweeted, “You may get transient grumbles, but people always grumble. The dogs bark, but the caravan marches on. Make good art.” You may get transient grumbles, but people always grumble. The dogs bark, but the caravan marches on. Make good art.

Biden and Capito try to chip away at impasse on infrastructure

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-06-02/president-biden-west-va-sen-capito-try-to-chip-away-at-impasse-on-infrastructure

President Biden met privately in the Oval Office on Wednesday with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W. Va.), the Republicans’ lead negotiator on infrastructure legislation, as the two sides looked to make progress toward a bipartisan deal. But they still have a long way to go. Even after last week’s $928-billion proposal from Republicans, there is a huge divide on the size of the package and no progress on how to pay for it. The meeting, at least part of which was not expected to include even senior aides, appeared to be an effort to build more of a personal rapport than to hash out the specifics of a deal. Shortly before Capito arrived, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters she didn’t “expect this meeting to be an exchange of paper,” saying it would be more of a “discussion.” Following the sit-down, which lasted about an hour, the White House issued only a short statement, calling the discussion “constructive and frank” and noting that Biden and Capito “agreed to reconnect on Friday.” Biden left the White House shortly after the meeting for his home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., and did not respond to questions from reporters as he strode across the South Lawn to board Marine One. In her own statement after the meeting, Capito said she is “encouraged that negotiations have continued” and “reiterated to the president her desire to work together.” She also said she “stressed the progress the Senate has already made.” The GOP’s latest package includes only $257 billion in new spending, with the bulk of the investments in road and bridge repairs funded under the plan by existing dollars from Biden’s $1.9-trillion pandemic rescue package. Biden, whose last offer was for $1.7 trillion in new spending on infrastructure, $500 billion less than his initial proposal, has ruled out diverting the existing funds already earmarked for local governments and small-business relief funds under the March law. He has proposed raising the corporate tax rate to cover the cost of the new investments, something Republicans have said is a nonstarter. Despite the lack of apparent progress, neither side is eager to be the one to walk away from the negotiations. For Biden, showing a willingness to meet Republicans in the middle is also about demonstrating a good-faith effort at reaching a deal to Sen. Joe Manchin III, (D-W. Va.), who has made bipartisan legislation a top priority — and whose vote Biden must secure if and when Democrats attempt to pass legislation using just 50 votes. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg last weekend suggested the administration needed to see real progress toward a deal by June 7, but Psaki said there was no concrete timeline. Biden’s 36 years in the Senate, she continued, showed him to be a patient man, but she added: “His patience is not unending, and he wants to make progress.”

Police in Nicaragua detain expected Ortega challenger

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-02/nicaragua-police-detain-government-opponent

Nicaraguan police on Wednesday raided the home of Cristiana Chamorro, a potential presidential candidate and daughter of former President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, one day after formally filing money laundering charges against the journalist. Her brother, Carlos Fernando Chamorro, director of the independent news outlet Confidencial, confirmed the raid via Twitter and said his sister had been detained. The judicial system said in a statement that a judge had issued search and detention orders for 67-year-old Cristiana Chamorro on Wednesday. Vilma Nuñez, president of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights, said police “violently” entered Chamorro’s home south of the capital. The police raided the home 15 minutes before Chamorro was scheduled to give a news conference. She was expected to challenge President Daniel Ortega. Authorities had sought Tuesday to have Chamorro barred from participating in the Nov. 7 elections. Chamorro has said the allegations were trumped up to keep her out of the race. In late May, national police raided the offices of the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation for Reconciliation and Democracy, the nongovernmental group named after her mother and led by Chamorro until recently. They also raided the offices of the Confidencial. The Nicaraguan government has said Chamorro is under investigation for alleged financial irregularities related to the foundation. In January, she stepped down from her role at the foundation. A month later, it closed its operations in Nicaragua after passage of a “foreign agents” law designed to track foreign funding of organizations operating in the country. Cristiana Chamorro’s mother beat Ortega to win the presidency in 1990 and served until 1997. Her husband, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, had run his family newspaper, La Prensa, and was jailed and forced into exile multiple times by the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza. He was eventually assassinated in 1978. Cristiana Chamorro is the vice president of La Prensa.

Taylor Swift has been cast in a new movie, but she's no stranger to acting

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-06-02/taylor-swift-david-o-russell-movie-roles

Are you ready for Taylor Swift’s next big-screen appearance? A couple years after starring in Tom Hooper’s certified flop of a film adaptation of “Cats,” the pop superstar and sporadic actor appears to have landed on her feet, booking her newest acting role in a star-studded project from director David O. Russell. According to a Tuesday report from Variety, Swift has joined Russell’s ensemble cast of Hollywood heavyweights on the as-yet-unnamed movie, including Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Rami Malek and Zoe Saldana. Russell’s past credits include the Oscar-nominated films “Silver Linings Playbook” and “American Hustle.” This week’s casting news comes on the heels of what has already been a busy professional period for Swift, who has released three studio albums in less than a year. Before “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” and “Evermore” came “Folklore,” which clinched the singer-songwriter’s third Grammy for album of the year in March. Between hit singles and chart-topping albums, the decorated musician has starred in a smattering of film and TV projects alongside a number of A-list actors. While we await her latest cinematic turn, here’s a timeline of Swift’s previous credits, from “CSI” to “Cats.” Despite Swift’s music industry fame, her acting career began like many others’: with a guest-starring role in “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.” In the ninth season of the CBS procedural drama, Swift portrayed rebellious teenager Haley Jones. The song “You’re Not Sorry,” off Swift’s “Fearless” album, also was featured in the episode. Hot off her first album of the year Grammy for “Fearless,” Swift made her feature film debut in the vignette-style romantic comedy “Valentine’s Day” in February 2010. The country-pop powerhouse portrayed shallow high school student Felicia Miller alongside on-screen love interest Taylor Lautner, the “Twilight Saga” actor whom Swift later dated. Also among the stacked cast of Garry Marshall’s holiday-themed film were Julia Roberts, Jamie Foxx, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Alba, Kathy Bates, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Garner, Ashton Kutcher, Patrick Dempsey, Shirley MacLaine and George Lopez. Swift also penned a song for the film’s soundtrack, titled “Today Was a Fairytale.” With two live-action credits under her belt, Swift next experimented with voice acting for an animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax.” The seasoned vocalist joined the cast as girl-next-door Audrey, a new character that doesn’t appear in Seuss’ book. Rounding out the top-billed “Lorax” ensemble were Zac Efron, Danny DeVito, Ed Helms, Jenny Slate, Nasim Pedrad and Betty White. In the sophomore season of the sitcom “New Girl,” Swift made a brief cameo as Elaine, a guest at the wedding of Shivrang (Satya Bhabha) and Cece (Hannah Simone). When the ceremony is eventually called off, Elaine reunites with her former flame, Shivrang, to “go to Vegas and elope!” In the critically panned film adaptation of Lois Lowry’s dystopian novel “The Giver,” Swift portrayed Rosemary, a former Receiver of Memory and daughter of the Giver (Jeff Bridges) whose story is unraveled through flashbacks. In addition to Swift and Bridges, the movie starred Alexander Skarsgård, Odeya Rush, Brenton Thwaites and Meryl Streep. After a five-year acting hiatus, Swift returned to the big screen as the fun and flirty Bombalurina in “Cats,” based on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Broadway musical of the same name. As with her first feature film, the Grammy winner was just one of several prominent entertainers to be converted into a computer-enhanced feline for this theatrical trainwreck. Also among the sprawling ensemble were Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellen, Judi Dench, Jason Derulo, James Corden, Rebel Wilson and Idris Elba. Despite the movie’s dismal critical and audience reception, “Beautiful Ghosts” — a haunting original number penned by Swift — landed a Grammy nomination for song written for visual media.

Here's how amateurs created an underground fight club during the pandemic

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-02/at-an-underground-fight-club-born-in-the-pandemic-black-blade-vs-big-cheese

Dusk was falling when Black Blade and Big Cheese strode into the middle of the ring and touched gloves. They were scheduled to go five rounds, three minutes each, before the evening was through. The crowd went quiet — or as quiet as a hundred or so people in a small, concrete backyard near downtown Los Angeles can be when a DJ is blasting “Whoopty,” vendors are selling sliders and pasta, a barber has set up shop near the fence, and the next guys on the ticket are sparring with their trainers. The appropriately named Big Cheese outweighed his slender opponent. They weren’t supposed to be fighting each other at all. But there they were, squaring off in a temporary ring in a backyard on West Jefferson Boulevard on the last Sunday in May. This is what happens when the contenders are split between athletes with dreams and local guys with grudges. This is what happens at Backyard Squabbles, an underground, pop-up fight club born in the pandemic. “I personally was gonna drop the Big Cheese fight and the Black Blade fight,” said Damian Gutierrez, founder of Backyard Squabbles. “Both of these guys’ opponents didn’t show up. But we matched them up because of the beef they had going on.” Gutierrez is 20 years old. He lives in Gardena. When he’s not arranging fights, he’s a security guard at a sushi restaurant. He is named after an uncle who was shot to death at a doughnut shop at Imperial Highway and Normandie Avenue nearly two decades ago. That violence is part of what prompted him to start Backyard Squabbles in the first place; the fight club’s motto is “Guns down, squabble up.” Hector “Aztec Warrior” Herrera thinks Gutierrez is onto something. The people who come to Backyard Squabbles “are all peaceful,” he said, at least outside of the ring. “I think they all know that, like, you look to your right or you look to your left, there’s a fighter,” said Herrera, who trains fighters and boxes himself. “Like, ‘Should I talk s—? No.’ That’s about it. ... It’s pretty awesome.” Gutierrez doesn’t know what the beef between Black Blade and Big Cheese was about or even what Big Cheese’s real name is. Two days after their fight, Albert “Black Blade” Marion wasn’t answering his phone. Marion is tall, wiry and 22. He lives in San Pedro, works for Dish Network, spends his free time playing video games and hanging out with his girlfriend. A normal routine for a young guy in the middle of a pandemic. Normal and “boring,” he says. He was a “rambunctious” boy — at least that’s what his mom said. He had a hard time sitting still and finishing his homework. He’d even lose interest in TV. His mom’s solution was to keep him busy with physical activities such as tae kwon do and basketball. As an adult, fighting has helped him focus. “I don’t mind getting hit,” he said. “When I get hit, it feels like a blessing. It’s like God is telling me, ‘You’re here,’ you know?” His first round Sunday night against Big Cheese had a slow start. Marion landed a few punches, held his own against his heavier opponent. He got winded in the second round. And he didn’t make it out of the third. Marion was pinned to the ropes with five seconds left. Big Cheese landed a solid blow to his head. Marion crumpled against his opponent, slid to the ground. And stayed there for two very long minutes. End result? A concussion and the loss. “I took a L Sunday had plenty excuses but dude was 100lbs heavier than me,” he posted on Instagram, along with video of the fight’s painful end. And then he promised: “I’ll be back.” More visual journalism from the Los Angeles Times Times staff writer Donovan X. Ramsey contributed to this report.

Taix French Restaurant gets historic designation — but not for its Echo Park building

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-02/taix-french-restaurant-echo-park-sunset-boulevard-historic-designation

The Los Angeles City Council decided Wednesday to recognize Taix French Restaurant as a historic monument but granted no special protection to its Sunset Boulevard building. Instead, the historic designation will extend to its location and three specific features of the longtime Echo Park haunt: its cherrywood bar top, a red-and-white Taix sign and another advertising “Cocktails.” The Echo Park site is slated for redevelopment: Holland Partner Group plans to replace the Taix building with a new six-story complex that would bring in 170 units of housing, including 24 that are affordable to “very low income” households, and house a smaller version of the longtime restaurant. The modified version of the historic designation, proposed by Councilman Mitch O’Farrell, had been welcomed by restaurateur Michael Taix, who has firmly backed the redevelopment plan for the site. Michael Taix argued that preserving the Taix building could jeopardize the business itself because restaurant revenues have not kept up with its overhead costs. He said the “New Taix” that reopens on the redeveloped site would maintain its treasured atmosphere by reusing the bar top and installing other familiar features. Historic preservationists argued that the French Norman Revival building itself had historic value as a gathering place for generations of Angelenos. They also warned that by limiting the designation to just a few features, the council had set a dangerous precedent that undermined the point of enshrining a historic monument. Adrian Scott Fine, senior director of advocacy for the Los Angeles Conservancy, called it a “neutered” form of historic protection that could allow developers to try to dodge the more stringent level of environmental review that is required when a historic monument is torn down. California A developer’s plan has set off a debate over whether L.A. should try to protect the building that has long been home to Taix, a popular Echo Park restaurant. June 1, 2021 Under Los Angeles city rules, historic buildings can still be altered and even demolished, but the requirements allow for more review before that can happen. Preservationists who pushed to make Taix a monument argued that housing could still be built on the site while incorporating the longtime building into the new project. Susan Winsberg, who argued to designate the Taix building itself as a monument, said she was deeply disappointed. “Something can be, could have been, worked out here with the building itself, and then you can build your glass towers around the building. But no, everything’s got to get knocked down,” Winsberg told the council. “There’s no historic preservation in the mind of Mitch O’Farrell.” At Wednesday’s hearing, O’Farrell called the Taix decision “a very unique situation” that underscored Los Angeles’ need for a “legacy business” program that would help ensure the survival of longtime businesses. Unlike other cities such as San Francisco, L.A. does not have such a program; a proposal from Councilman Curren Price has yet to be realized. “Unfortunately, nostalgia will not save the business,” O’Farrell said. “In this case, it is my main objective to do everything possible to give this business a chance to survive. That simply is not going to happen with the current structure.” “This unique and unconventional approach gives Taix the best opportunity to reinvent itself, as it has successfully done for a century,” the councilman argued. Councilman Paul Koretz asked whether there were any way to save more of the Taix facade. O’Farrell, who had cited statements from members of the Cultural Heritage Commission dismissing the architectural merits of the building, said the facade did not merit preservation and that it was “not at all feasible, practical, nor possible in relation to the future use of this site.” Council members unanimously voted to approve the modified proposal from O’Farrell.