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Peter Katsis, a music manager who helped shepherd the careers of Smashing Pumpkins, Jane’s Addiction, Morrissey and Backstreet Boys, has died. He was 69.

Representatives for Katsis confirmed his death on Thursday in Los Angeles, from complications of congestive heart failure, in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter and Billboard. “To the music world, Peter was one of the most influential managers of his generation. His vision, instincts and fierce belief in his artists helped shape some of the most important careers in music for more than four decades. He saw possibilities others didn’t, inspired those around him to dream bigger, and fought relentlessly for the people and artists he believed in,” his family said.

“Peter was simply larger than life. He loved fiercely, laughed loudly and lived with extraordinary courage and conviction. Above everything else, he loved his family. He was our strength, our fiercest advocate, and the person we could always count on to believe anything was possible. The void he leaves in our lives and our hearts is immeasurable.”

Katsis’ career began in Chicago, where he managed the groundbreaking industrial rock group Ministry. He also worked with emerging regional house music acts, helming A&R for the essential label Trax Records and booked acts like Marshall Jefferson and Adonis at globally prominent nightclubs.

After moving to Los Angeles in the early ’90s, he worked with the Cramps and other experimental rock acts before joining Jeff Kwatinetz at the Firm. There he managed hard rock acts including Korn and Limp Bizkit, helping make them superstars of the “TRL” era. He also worked with 30 Seconds to Mars, rapper Snoop Dogg, and played a major role in building Audioslave, the supergroup of Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell and members of Rage Against the Machine.

Katsis took on diverse pop acts like Enrique Iglesias as well, and helped turn the Backstreet Boys into a stadium act, breaking Ticketmaster records for its 1999 Into the Millennium tour.

In 2008, Katsis co-founded a new management firm, Prospect Park, with Kwatinetz and Rich Frank, building a roster that included Smashing Pumpkins, Jane’s Addiction and Morrissey. Katsis also repped Liz Phair, 311, Bush, Fever 333, and pop groups Pentatonix, One Republic and 5 Seconds of Summer.

Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan wrote on Instagram that he was “Heartbroken that Pete is gone. He meant a lot to Chloe and I as a dear friend and extended member of our family. He will be missed and I’ll always cherish his intense candor and deep love of great music; which was infectious. And he deserves immense credit for helping to usher in the alternative revolution of the ’80s and ’90s and beyond. He was truly one of a kind. One of a us. And Chicago royalty through and through.”

Katsis is survived by his sister Anastasia and his son Ian.

The U.K. electronic band Massive Attack has been banned from Singapore because of its pro-Palestinian activism onstage, the group said.

The group unfurled a Palestinian flag during a performance at the Star Theatre in Singapore on July 29. The band said police detained them after the show, and that an investigation led to the band being forbidden from performing in the country.

The nation of Singapore has strict laws against displaying foreign flags or national symbols without a permit.

Massive Attack, which consists of Robert “3D” Del Naja and Grant “Daddy G” Marshall, described the event as a “surreal experience” in a post on Instagram.

“We were surprised and disappointed that our entire band was detained by the police, isolated and separately questioned – with some members subjected to hotel room searches and temporary passport confiscation,” it read.

“Before we set foot on the stage and again at the end of the show, large sections of the auditorium organically led chants of ‘Free Palestine’, presumably aware but undeterred that this spontaneous expression alone could violate their government’s censorship laws.”

“For our part,” the statement continued, “we did not imagine that merely holding up the flag of a sovereign state recognised by 157 countries would violate any law.”

In a statement issued Saturday, cited by the Guardian, Singapore police and the local Infocomm Media Development Authority said that Del Naja and Marshall had been investigated for “their actions of support for a political cause and unfurling of a foreign flag,” violating Singapore’s Foreign National Emblems (Control of Display) Act and the Public Order Act.

The police said they “take a serious view of acts which could potentially harm the racial and religious harmony in Singapore and urge the public, including foreigners, to refrain from importing foreign politics as this can undermine our social cohesion and the rule of law.”

The statement said Del Naja and Marshall would “be banned from re-entering Singapore” and are forbidden from performing there again.

The band did not back down from its onstage gesture or its longstanding pro-Palestinian activism, stating that “On reflection, we are proud to have made this impromptu expression with our fans in Singapore who clearly felt a moral imperative to show solidarity with the people of Palestine in their ongoing reality of illegal occupation, apartheid and genocide, and we salute their courage in doing so. Right across the world, the continued inaction of the ‘international community’ is moving citizens to personal risk.”

Del Naja was recently arrested at a recent protest in support of the group Palestine Action in London.

Kavinsky, the French electronic musician and DJ whose moody single “Nightcall” scored the hit film “Drive,” has died. He was 50.

French newspaper Le Figaro and TV station BFM reported that Kavinsky, born Vincent ‌Belorgey, died from a suspected stroke. Paris prosecutors investigated and found “no suspicious elements,” they said.

Kavinsky was a defining act of the Paris electronic scene of the 2000s and 2010s, whose neon-smeared synths and noirish atmospheres lent themselves to L.A. freeways and Montmartre nightclubs alike.

Adopting a droll persona — a red-eyed electronic producer who returned from the dead after a Ferrari crash — Kavinsky was a major figure in the second wave of the “French touch” dance scene.

His popular breakthrough came with “Nightcall,” a collaboration with CSS’ Lovefoxxx and Daft Punk’s Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. The song was a propulsive theme of Nicolas Winding Refn’s 2011 film “Drive,” a brutal and romantic revenge thriller beloved for its slinky, retro-futuristic soundtrack. Kavinsky performed the song to close out the 2024 Paris Olympics, performing with the French band Phoenix and the Belgian singer Angèle.

While he only released two studio LPs, including the 2013 singles collection “OutRun” and “Reborn” in 2022, he was influential to major acts that came after him. The Weeknd, who sang on an edit of Kavinsky’s “Odd Look,” wrote on X: “So heartbreaking to hear the news. An inspiration to so many, including myself. I will continue to honor your name and your music. Rest easy Kavinsky.”

French President Emmanuel Macron also wrote a tribute on Instagram, calling Kavinsky an artist France could be proud of forever.

Eighty years ago, though the Arsenal of Democracy had vanquished the Axis and weathered a withering Depression, the recovering American people found themselves rich in bills but short on laughs. Enter Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, who debuted together on July 25, 1946.

Unlike Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, or Hope and Crosby, who relied on tightly scripted setups, this disparate yet kindred duo captured America’s heart by being viscerally, uproariously and unpredictably wild.

Martin and Lewis were the founding fathers of an anarchic, side-splitting brand of comedy that combined pratfalls, ad-libbed wordplay and a sustained demolition of the fourth floor. Orson Welles observed that the duo’s combustible zaniness was so hilarious that it made you wet your pants.

The boys cavorted about the stage, kibitzing with bandleaders and the audience alike. In between trading impromptu quips, Martin and Lewis overturned tables, cut ties, sheared suits and spritzed seltzer on one and all.

The suave, dashingly handsome Italian crooner clowning around with his gawky, rubbery Jewish buddy brought the house down every time. It was nonstop, jocular pandemonium: Commedia dell’arte 2.0.

“Saturday Night Live,” Second City, David Letterman, Jerry Seinfeld and Adam Sandler all owe a debt to the artists who started life as Dino Crocetti and Joseph Levitch.

Martin and Lewis created a novus ordo seclorum, in its way innovating like America’s founders, spawning a new comedic order of the ages.

Their alchemy was as ineffable as it was infectious. Variety’s first review of the act noted, “All they do cannot be detailed, but virtually every bit of it is good for solid laughs.” Carl Reiner similarly declared: “I saw what I thought was the funniest ad-libbed thing I had ever seen. It was a riot, and we never stopped laughing.”

In their own madcap way, Dino and Jer epitomized Cicero’s notion that comedy is the imitation of life, the mirror of custom and the image of truth.

Martin and Lewis became the monarchs of all media, conquering radio, nightclubs, television and the silver screen. In 1948, they appeared on Ed Sullivan’s first television show, “Toast of the Town.” From 1950 to 1955, the Martin-and-Lewis-hosted “Colgate Comedy Hour” frequently bested Sullivan in the ratings.

When Hollywood beckoned, the boys answered the call, cavorting, cutting up and reconfiguring reality on the silver screen. They starred in 16 films, bringing their boisterous bromance to capacity-crowd movie theaters.

Though their big-screen adventures could not capture the comedic chaos of their stage act, Martin and Lewis transformed even the most pedestrian screenplay into box-office gold. As film critic Ciara Maloney explained, “Their brilliance shines through the weakest material: the ineffable, bewitching something between them — an intimacy, an immediacy, an ingenuity — frozen in amber for those of us who would never see it in the Copacabana.”

The essence of this duo was the outré interplay between the Prince and the Putz, the Leading Man and the Monkey. Though he was the comedian by trade, Lewis fully credited Martin as the “genius” of the pairing: “He kept the center. He was the spine of the act. And the monkey was constantly attached to that spine, on the spine, next to it.”

From “Sailor Beware” to “The Stooge,” “Living It Up” and “Artists and Models,” theirs was a comedy partnership that came to symbolize America. It is little wonder that presidential historian Tevi Troy called the 1950s “The Martin and Lewis Decade.”

However, many Americans didn’t see these two celebrities as distant icons. Film critic Jenna Ipcar has described how “a perfect comedy duo will make their audience feel like a lucky participant instead of just a passive observer, a welcome guest in a secret world.” Martin and Lewis embodied that ideal.

The boys’ bittersweet final performance took place at New York’s Copacabana on July 25, 1956. Exactly 10 years after their debut in Atlantic City, N.J., Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis had pioneered a new brand of comedy, soothed postwar America’s psyche and made a nation laugh again.

Rosario A. Iaconis, chairman of the Italic Institute of America, writes about Italy and its cultural influence. He is at work on a novel about Harry S. Truman.

A man was disgruntled when the rest of his flight were obeying an unspoken rule about flights in the early morning, except for the person in the window seat on his row

Early morning flights when it’s still dark outside can be nerve-wracking as you’re unable to see a thing. But once you’ve calmed those anxieties, you can make the most of the darkness in the cabin and get some much-needed sleep before you arrive at your travel destination.

However, passengers who haven’t booked a window seat or don’t have a sleep mask for the flight might just be out of luck. That’s because their seatmates might have other ideas and probably don’t fancy sleeping then. Now one traveller who was prepared to snooze on a flight when they booked an aisle seat was annoyed when someone got in the way.

TikTok user @traveltaps asked: “The negative of having an aisle seat is that I don’t control the window shades… and that sun is bright this morning! Ugh. Has this happened to you?”

Over the top of the video, which showed the plane cabin in darkness, they wrote: “When the entire plane created a calm, dark, sleepy atmosphere for this early morning flight…”

And then they showed their row off where they wrote: “Except my row.” The passenger in the window seat wasn’t doing anything like reading, either, where they needed light. They were just ignoring the vibe of the rest of the plane.

Many people in the comments said they should’ve taken a sleep mask to avoid this if they wanted to get some rest and claimed they should “mind their own business”.

Someone shared: “If it’s the morning, the shade is up. Travel at night if you want a sleepy flight. It’s not every day I’m 30 thousand feet in the air, so I’m looking out the window.”

A second penned: “I don’t get the window seat so I can look at a window shade for five hours.”

However, one person wrote: “People in the comments are annoyed, but you’re right. If you fly regularly, you know there’s an unspoken rule that on an early morning flight, windows should be down when the cabin lights are dimmed before breakfast or beverage service.

“If you don’t fly regularly, maybe look around and ask yourself why you’re the only one with the window open.”

Another agreed: “No this is so rude to me. As someone who flies often and on long hauls. Read the room. If no one else is smoking, then don’t pull a cig out. If everyone is taking their shoes off at the door, then take yours off too! Don’t be rude.”

What would you do in this situation? Let us know in the comments…

THIS is the moment Matty Healy performed with a The 1975 tribute band – having booked the act for his stag do.

Brit Award winner Matty, 37, has been lead vocalist of pop rock band The 1975 since 2002.

The singer-songwriter put a unique spin on his stag do – as he joined a The 1975 tribute act on stage.

A clip of the moment begins with tribute group The 9075 singing The Sound, which was released in 2019.

Matty jumps on stage mid-performance and performs alongside the band.

One person commented: “Matty Healy attending a 1975 tribute is very Matty Healy coded.”

HEAL BREAKS LOOSE

Matty Healy gives Ross Kemp a run for his money with England celebration

POP PAL

Charli XCX and husband George arrive in Italy for Dua Lipa’s lavish wedding

Another added: “I thought the real Matty was the fake Matty until he started counting things on his fingers that don’t need to be counted, that’s when I knew.”

A third wrote: “He wanted to experience a 1975 concert for his stag party and I respect it.”

Matty – the son of Denise Welch and Tim Healy – is set to marry American model and singer Gabbriette.

He and the 28-year-old – whose real name is Gabriella Bechtel – announced their engagement in June 2024.

Gabbriette showed off a huge black ring on social media at the time and wrote: “Marrying the 1975 is very Brat.”

Back in February, The Sun revealed the couple had set a July 2026 wedding date.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday convened leaders from more than 60 countries to take part in the Trump administration’s latest effort to quell what it calls “left-wing” political terrorism, a marquee issue for Republicans heading into the midterm elections.

This focus comes even as studies show that there are very few reported cases of such incidents in the U.S., especially compared to historically higher levels of far-right violence.

With sweeping statements about the “alarming rise” of political violence by the left, Rubio and other U.S. officials painted a dark image of the future if the “communists and Marxists” perpetrating these supposed acts are not defeated. He urged officials in attendance — mostly from European and Latin American countries — to unite to address the issue, which he says has been a “blind spot” in counterterrorism doctrine.

“So many people in positions of power have repeatedly dismissed acts of violence and even terrorism as legitimate forms of political expression, so long as they served a left-wing cause,” Rubio said in opening remarks. “A bomb planted by a neo-Nazi group was ‘a nefarious and murderous act of evil.’ It is, but a bomb planted by a Marxist revolutionary, well, that’s just merely a tragic excess of idealism.”

A report published last year by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that left-wing terrorism attacks as of July 4, 2025, had surpassed those from the far right for the first time in more than 30 years. However, a closer look at the data reveals that the uptick reflects a very low starting level and a concurrent drop on the far right.

There was an average of 0.6 left-wing incidents annually from 1994 through 2000, compared with an average of 20.6 on the right, the report shows. From 2016 to 2024, there was an average of four per year on the left and 22.7 per year on the right. Those numbers had dropped dramatically on the right as of early July 2025, with only one incident. Meanwhile, there had been five from the left.

But the report’s authors note that right-wing terrorism could easily return to elevated levels and that it is important to fight terrorism on both sides of the political spectrum.

President Trump and his allies have prioritized talking points against the far left ahead of the congressional elections this November. Trump has repeatedly stated that the Democratic Party’s ascendant left are communists who want to “completely destroy the traditional American way of life” and even engage in assassinations.

Vice President JD Vance has similarly called out communism as a political shift that is “something we haven’t seen in the U.S.” House Speaker Mike Johnson has decried “radical candidates” who are “self-described, self-identifying Marxists.”

For Rubio, his worldview on this issue has been largely shaped by his own history: he is the son of Cuban immigrants who arrived in Miami in May 1956, a few years before communist leader Fidel Castro rose to power in Havana. The former Florida senator said Thursday that it was that same government’s sprawling intelligence and ideological network that “helped to build the far left in our country and in our hemisphere.”

Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff and main architect of the administration’s immigration policy, followed Rubio’s remarks, aiming to drive home the immediacy of the perceived threats he saw to American institutions coming from the left, and what response is needed in return.

“If your civilization is your home, you must defend it with the same passion and force as if an enemy intruder is inside your own house where your family lives,” Miller said. “That is the level of dedication and urgency that is required.”

This ideological focus has repeatedly conflated democratic socialism — which often centers on securing universal healthcare, higher taxes on the wealthy and stricter corporate regulation — with communism, under which private ownership is largely eliminated.

It has only intensified in the last year, after the election of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani to become New York City mayor and several of his proteges who won their New York City congressional primaries last month, beating out incumbents.

One of the ways the administration has started to target left-wing efforts is through sanctions. In November, the State Department designated four antifa or anti-fascist groups in Europe as foreign terrorist organizations. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in his remarks Thursday that targeting these entities’ financial networks is the best way to circumvent their efforts.

“We have spent decades developing the world’s most sophisticated financial counterterrorism capabilities, and now we are mobilizing some of the same tools that we have deployed against terrorists abroad to confront this emerging threat here at home,” he told the conference.

Amiri and Kinnard write for the Associated Press. Amiri reported from New York and Kinnard from Columbia, S.C. AP writer Melissa Goldin in New York contributed to this report.

The Trump administration finalized a rollback of the Endangered Species Act on Friday, paving the way for drilling, mining and other human development across protected wildlife habitats.

The move redefines “harm” under the Endangered Species Act, the landmark conservation law that protects threatened and endangered plants and animals. For years, “harm” meant actions that injure or kill wildlife, as well as actions that destroy protected habitats.

Under the new rule, destroying those habitats is no longer illegal.

The decision aligns with the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to slash regulations in the name of economic growth. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whose department finalized the move, said the prior definition of harm “interfered with private property rights” and “turned routine activity into a regulatory trap.”

Environmental groups called the decision a disaster, saying it puts protected species on a path to extinction.

The move seems especially poised to hit California, the most biodiverse state in the country, where more than 6,700 species are spread across mountains, forests, deserts and oceans. Of the roughly 2,300 species protected by the Endangered Species Act, nearly 300 are found in California.

These species include amphibians such as tiger salamanders and Yosemite toads; birds such as California condors and northern spotted owls; fish such as Little Kern golden trout and Santa Ana suckers; insects such as Franklin’s bumble bees and Mission blue butterflies; mammals such as gray wolves and Santa Catalina Island foxes; and reptiles such as desert tortoises and green sea turtles.

The Endangered Species Act is widely credited with saving the California condor, which almost went extinct in the 1980s due to several factors, including habitat destruction. Thanks to a recovery program under the act, the condor population has since soared to several hundred. But under the new law, the logging and human development that led to their near demise is now allowed.

A handful of California species recoveries have been championed as success stories under the Endangered Species Act, including southern sea otters, peregrine falcons, humpback whales, bald eagles and green sea turtles.

According to a report from the Center for Biological Diversity, the El Segundo blue butterfly lost 90% of its oceanside habitat due to the construction of LAX and beachfront housing developments. The population dwindled to about 1,000 butterflies in the 1970s, when it was named an endangered species. Now, the population has climbed above 120,000.

In California, the rollback could pave the way for more farming, mining, logging and drilling in areas that were once forbidden due to the potential for wildlife habitat destruction. A report from Earthjustice estimates that expanded oil drilling in California could threaten five marine species including humpback whales, sea otters, leatherback sea turtles, marbled murrelets and wild salmon.

Several environmental groups are planning legal challenges to the ruling.

“For the first time ever, a presidential administration now claims that species protected by the Endangered Species Act shouldn’t be safe from habitat modification that destroys where they live, raise their young, or search for food,” Kristen Boyles, attorney for the environmental nonprofit Earthjustice, said in a statement. “Let’s be clear: there is no support for the Trump administration’s rule — no scientific support, no legal support, no public support. We will see the Trump administration in court.”

Ben Greuel, wildlife campaign manager at the Sierra Club, called the decision “an unlawful attempt to open the door for corporate polluters to degrade vitally important habitats.”

“For more than four decades, the definition of ‘harm’ recognized a simple truth: if you destroy the places wildlife need to survive, you are putting species on a path to extinction,” Greuel said in a statement.

It’s not the first time Trump has taken aim at California environmental regulation.

Earlier this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom, along with the governors of Washington and Oregon, submitted a formal opposition to the Trump administration’s plans to expand drilling off the Pacific Coast, with Newsom saying it leads to “dead wildlife.” In June, the Trump administration ordered a review of the California Coastal Commission, claiming the state’s “environmental extremism” obstructs spaceport development and offshore oil production.

A day before the Endangered Species Act decision, the Trump administration signed off on a controversial plan to use an old oil pipeline to pump water from the Mojave Desert into cities. Environmental groups said the plan threatens springs and local wildlife, since six pumps would need to be built in desert tortoise habitats.

Mothers and daughters are often caught in a double bind: biologically kindred yet divided by competing claims on identity and selfhood. In Cay Kim’s debut novel “The Future Perfect”, that bond is tangled by cultural discontinuity.

The novel’s mother has been reared in a South Korean household that places a high value on academic rigor and head-down discipline. She devotes all of her energy to grinding that work ethic into her daughter (Kim’s characters are unnamed), who is shuttled between her native Seoul and Minnesota, and grapples with finding the one true way for her to navigate the world.

I spoke with Kay, a native of Seoul who relocated to the States, about mothers, daughters and the unstoppable power of language.

✍️ Author Chat

Author Cay Kim

(Margaryta Bushkin)

This is your first novel. Did you start writing it in college?

This actually originated from a long poem that I wrote. I didn’t know I was going to turn it into a novel at the time. I just had the idea, the summer before my MFA, to expand each stanza into a chapter. That made the writing process relatively easier for me because it was such a straightforward process. I already had the frame of it.

Even though the novel is grounded in a very specific milieu — that of a child who is ensnared between Korean and American cultures — it’s very much a universal story, of a mother who feels the burden of raising a perfect daughter and is resentful when the daughter rebels against her ministrations.

It’s something that occupies so much of my head space. I wanted the mother to be portrayed as a victim of her society. The way that people choose to parent isn’t something that they learn in a vacuum. She has deep-seated beliefs about suffering and self-abnegation. But there’s a point at which an act of service risks inverting into a selfish act.

A big concept for the mother is endurance.

Exactly. It’s a generational trauma the mother is dealing with. She has had such ingrained beliefs passed down to her, and she’s unable to recognize when her methods result in her own mental and physical splintering, as well as her daughter’s.

Is it a function of the mother’s ego, or some kind of twisted narcissism?

She is putting herself through so much suffering because she believes she is doing the right thing. And there’s an extent to how much you can excuse that self-unawareness.

Yet despite this, the daughter feels tied to her mother, even when they are at loggerheads and she is living thousands of miles away.

The mother is such an integral part of the daughter’s consciousness that severance is impossible. They have a shared history and the daughter wants to share things with her mother, even when they are fighting. When she feels lonely at Stanford, the daughter verbalizes the fact that she has learned loneliness from her mother.

There are a lot of scenes in the novel tied to meals prepared by either the mother or the grandmother.

I do a lot of thinking about how cooking plays a role in our everyday lives. It’s something that people can spend hours preparing, only to have it disappear. It’s her mother’s domain. It is so opposed to the way the father thinks, which is very much tied to capital, to amassing and saving money.

The daughter really comes into herself when she is exposed to American culture.

Minnesota is where she acquires language for the first time. Language is so important to this character. Then she is shuffled back to Korea, and this disjunction is the thing that propels her narrative development. But as the story goes on, the daughter reaches a point where she has such mastery of expression and that is a power she acquires.

“The Future Perfect” is written in a very precise and concise way. What fiction writers do you admire, or who may have served as models?

I love writers whose use of language jolts the mind. My favorite writer of all time is Marguerite Duras. “The Lover” reads so easy but when you pay attention to the language, it’s very precisely engineered. I also love Clarice Lispector, for the way she expresses human spirituality.

Is this book drawn from your life? I ask that only because your protagonist winds up attending Stanford, as you did.

When I first started learning how to write, my teacher always used to say that writing shouldn’t necessarily contain the factual truth, but it should have emotional truth. And I feel like that has been the core of my writing practice throughout my life, and that even for those that don’t think consciously about it, that’s often the case.

This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.

📰 The Week(s) in Books

Country music performer Kenny Chesney sat down with Holly Gleason, the co-author of his new memoir, to talk about writing the book.

(Jill Trunnell)

The state of Ohio is celebrating America’ssemiquincentennial by offering a statewide reading project that features Toni Morrison’s fictional oeuvre, thus providing a vivid alternative history of the country. “Not only does her work re-center African Americans in the story of our country, it also tackles major events from our founding, through slavery, to the impact of Jim Crow, to the great migration and beyond,” Literary Cleveland Executive Director Matt Weinkam tells Leigh Haber.

Chef-Podcaster-Author etc. Eddie Huang has written his first novel, a lightly autobiographical twirl through the foodie-verse called “Come Undone.“ “This book was very much about breaking up with your family to start your own,” he tells Mariella Rudi.

At a time when teen literacy is declining, Rudi polled five high school teachers to find out what books students should be reading now.

Gabrielle Korn’s novel “Long Island Girls” is a Millennial coming-of-age story that drips with Y2K nostalgia and the ways in which youthful optimism and hope can drift into middle-aged cynicism. “One thing I wanted to capture about early adulthood is the constant humiliation,” Korn tells Emily St. Martin. “The thing about being young is that people are so resentful of your youth, but you don’t understand that it’s resentment, you just think everybody hates you.”

📖 Bookstore Faves

The Loved Ones bookshop

(James Alan Duran)

J.C. Gabel, the owner of local book imprint Hat and Beard, has opened a new bookshop called The Loved One, and it already feels like an essential anchor for Historic Filipinotown’s burgeoning cultural scene. The store, which is also a gallery and events space, is expansive (5,000 square feet) and inviting, with patinated hardwood floors and a wall of picture windows that bathes the interior in natural light. I spoke with Gabel about his future plans for his new space.

What is the mission statement of The Loved One?

The Loved One reflects our ongoing commitment to independent publishing, original exhibitions, and the belief that books (and ideas within them) are best experienced in conversation with one another, in-person, whenever possible. In our post-post digital age, the serendipitous nature of organically curating physical objects is, in a sense, the point of the entire operation. We envision The Loved One as a space where everyone can exchange ideas, free from data-mining tech overlords, AI slop and click-bait tomfoolery.

What kind of books are you selling?

We’re going to focus mostly on new books about the visual arts, but we’ll also have several curated tables of fiction and nonfiction organized by subject and publisher, to highlight and promote the work of publishers we admire. Moreover, our genre-based book clubs and live author events — which will run weekly by August — will also influence the titles carried in the shop, too. Lastly, we’re bringing back Big Table, our books and conversation podcast — which we started with Dub Lab during COVID — now that we have a physical space to host and record these conversations.

It’s a very large space. What are your plans for it?

We are really keeping the space as modular as possible so we can change the interior of both storefronts to exhibit art and photography, as well as host author events, artist talks, live music, comedy, book clubs, etc.

You’re also a publisher, with Hat and Beard. How will that tie into The Loved One?

At least half of the arts programming I bring to the table will tie back to Hat and Beard’s original publications; the other half will be curated by Aubrie Wienholt and her team, working in tandem with myself and the H&B family. H&B will, of course, continue to program events all over the city regularly, but it will be nice to have a storefront again for the publishing house. We also intend to sell our rare and limited edition bundles of our books at TLO. There will finally be a physical space where one can come see this work in person before purchasing.

What about Historic Filipinotown? The Loved One is such a cool addition to what is becoming a vital cultural hub for L.A.

We are honored and thrilled to be working out of Historic Filipinotown. So much has opened in and around this neighborhood since COVID. It is a really vibrant community. There is a great camaraderie among all the small businesses in and around our cluster off Temple Street and Glendale Boulevard. Our immediate neighbors, Couplet Coffee and the bar 1642, are both actively involved in our programming monthly: Couplet has sent over a pop-up barista to serve coffee and tea at our literary events, and most of our after-parties are now held at 1642, two doors down.

The housing legislation will become US law at midnight with or without President Donald Trump’s signature.

United States President Donald Trump says he will not sign a bipartisan housing affordability bill in protest at the Senate not passing the controversial SAVE America Act voting legislation.

In a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump said he would not support signing the unrelated housing bill, which would speed up environmental reviews for construction projects, expedite development, and limit the number of single-family homes institutional investors can buy.

The bill will become law with or without the president’s signature. Once a bill reaches the president’s desk, the officeholder has 10 days to either sign it into law or veto the legislation. If he does neither, it becomes law at midnight.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said the president is unlikely to issue a last-minute veto.

The housing legislation, known as the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which Trump called a “yawn” on June 29, was a rare moment of bipartisan agreement in a starkly divided US Congress. It passed the Senate by a vote of 85-5 and the House by a vote of 358-2.

The provisions included in the legislation are popular. A Bipartisan Policy Center poll suggested that 70 percent of Americans support banning institutional investors that own more than 350 homes from buying additional single-family homes.

The legislation would also establish incentive programmes for communities to build more housing and encourage the development of modular homes. It also includes provisions that would make it easier for communities to convert underutilised land into residential housing.

Housing remains a major pressure on Americans, with 79 percent saying the cost of housing is either “an extremely important” or “very important” issue, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

The US median home price hit a record $440,600 in June, while mortgage rates remain elevated. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate is currently at 6.49 percent.

Voting act pressures

Trump cancelled the original signing ceremony for the housing legislation on June 24 in an effort to pressure Republicans to pass the SAVE America Act. Among its provisions, the bill would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and create a national voter database using state records.

It would also impose new limitations on mail-in voting, even though roughly one-quarter of Republicans voted by mail in the 2024 presidential election, according to an MIT survey.

A version of the voting legislation passed the House but failed to clear the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold.

Under current election law, states administer elections, not the federal government.

The White House did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

The University of California Board of Regents is being asked to consider whether to bring back the SAT and ACT for admissions, a debate so hot even New York is weighing in on this Golden State dilemma.

Despite dire warnings from our right-coast friends and thousands (yes, thousands) of professors who claim incoming students lack necessary skills, I’m here to present a somewhat contrarian position, based on reality, common sense and one key fact that keeps getting shuffled to the side: California parents pay taxes so their California kids can attend these excellent schools, even if they can’t do advanced calculus.

UC is not Harvard, and was never meant to embody that type of self-perpetuating exclusivity disguised as a meritocracy. As the parent of two (hopefully) college-bound teens, I understand the resentment toward both the UC admission process and the post-pandemic, artificial intelligence mess that plagues our K-12 schools.

But at its best, this push to immediately bring back these tests is a disservice to both the mission of our public universities and the remaining classes of kids who lost learning during the pandemic. At worst, it is jumping on the misguided and retrograde anti-diversity, anti-inclusion bandwagon being led by the Trump administration — and pretending we don’t see where this caravan is headed.

Here’s the common sense: This isn’t a problem of scamming students or lazy teachers, though of course both exist. This is a problem with high schools, and the lingering effects of the pandemic. Bringing back a test solves neither.

“For sure, these are systemic structural problems and inequalities,” Michal Kurlaender, the chancellor’s leadership professor of education policy at UC Davis, told me.

Still, the argument is that we are letting in the “wrong” candidates — those who lack academic skills that would solve for the derivative of f(x) = 3x² + 2x − 5 but who are desirable for other, perhaps invalid, reasons that our current admissions are favoring.

This narrative was given a rocket-fuel boost when UC math professors released an open letter demanding standardized tests be reinstated to weed out the unprepared students cluttering their classes. That letter has now been signed by more than 3,000 UC faculty.

Shockingly, the letter seems to be pushing for a return to standardized tests by, in effect, arguing that a growing percentage of their students are simply too stupid to succeed, no matter what professors do.

“UC has finite resources and can help only so many students, and only when the preparation deficits they need to overcome are within reach,” the letter reads.

These “wrong” candidates are supposedly sneaking through the grueling admissions process with inflated grades and AI cheating (never mind their numerous Advanced Placement test scores, which are largely being ignored in this debate), and what some apparently believe is the foolish decision of administrators to emphasize an admissions process that goes beyond rankings, scores and grades.

The result of the unwelcome presence of these “wrong” admits in our elite academic halls is world-class professors being forced to teach beneath-them basics, and a diminishing of the reputation of our top schools — despite the fact that Berkeley was just rated the No. 1 public university in the country (UCLA is No. 2) and received a record 133,000 first-year applications in 2026.

Here’s that reality I mentioned: When we talk about wrong candidates, we are actually largely talking about race and socioeconomics (including the ever-squeezed middle class).

In California, where the Latino population is more than 40% and growing, our universities have increasingly pushed to serve this demographic and other “first-generation” or underrepresented college applicants. We have also significantly increased the number of students our universities accept, from all demographics.

It is useful to know that standardized testing was eliminated by the regents in a controversial 2020 vote, largely based on the idea that it was discriminating against this broader pool of students — though the data didn’t actually back that up.

In fact, a 19-person task force that investigated the issue found the opposite: that the tests were useful predictors of college success and could pluck diamonds in the rough out of otherwise average applications — when used as one factor among broader admissions criteria.

Wait, what?

Then why am I against returning to these tests? Because the part of that report we are ignoring is that it also found that the University of California can do better than the SAT or the ACT. Saul Geiser, a UC Berkeley professor and a top expert on this issue, says the task force report was flawed because it failed to account for factors including family income and parent education. He calls the SAT “antithetical” to the mission of UCs and says that it is an “illusion” to think bringing them back would do anything but hurt diversity.

“Unlike private Ivy League colleges, public universities must strive to serve all sectors of the state and all segments of the population,” he told me. “The SAT, with its strong correlation with inherited privilege, is a major barrier to achieving that mission.”

The task force originally suggested that California create its own, alternative test by 2025 that would go beyond math and English to measure the persistence, resilience and determination that have always been the markers of success, in college and in life.

The pandemic and costs killed off that project, but our new era of AI has made it more possible than ever. Li Cai, a UCLA professor who was on the task force and who serves as the director of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing, told me that he supports bringing back standardized testing and that the test-blind decision process is a “failed” experiment — even though he voted for it six years ago.

But he also still supports a test designed by the UC system for the UC system — a test that could be free, available to take anytime at your school or local library as many times as you want, and that gives continuous feedback so students can better see their weaknesses and prepare.

“My vision has not really changed very much,” Cai told me. “A public university, a prominent one like the UC … has almost an obligation to not let the private sector take the charge in terms of intellectual leadership.”

On top of that hesitancy about the real effects of returning to the SAT is the fact that not all UC professors agree it is impossible for lacking students to catch up. Björn Birnir is the chair of the Mathematics department at UC Santa Barbara, and one of only two math chairs in the system who did not sign the open letter.

He told me that Santa Barbara sees the same deficiencies in math, especially in non-math majors, but it has found an effective way to deal with it that doesn’t involve slashing admissions based on test scores.

When students don’t have the basic skills, they are sent to the nearby community college, often over the summer, to catch up. They usually come back, he said, ready for the rigor he expects.

“These problems, they have to be addressed, but you don’t address them by reinstating the SAT,” Birnir said. “Just shutting the door is not really the best solution. We think the best way is to have a path for these students to make up deficiencies.”

Problem solved.

Bringing back the SAT may satisfy frustrated professors and parents, but it is a test that can never contend with the complicated reality of our state universities: We want them to be both world-class and a pathway for our imperfect, still-recovering kids to achieve their dreams, even if it involves summer school.

July 7 (UPI) — A federal panel of appeals court judges ruled Tuesday that the Stop WOKE Act championed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis violates the free speech of professors and is a “breathtaking assertion of power.”

The Florida law restricted how professors can teach, especially when speaking about gender and race, in colleges and universities. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled 2-1 to support a 2022 decision that called the law “positively dystopian,” Politico reported.

The court Tuesday went further, saying the act is a “breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse in the very places the state’s own statutes recognize as centers of inquiry — classrooms where students are trusted to puzzle through ideas that are good and bad, easy and hard, ideally getting ever closer to the truth.”

“If the First Amendment offers any boundary of protection at all for public university classrooms, this statute crosses it,” the ruling said.

Judge Britt C. Grant wrote the opinion, joined by Judge Charles R. Wilson. Judge Barbara Lagoa, however, wrote a dissent saying the First Amendment “does not compel all viewpoints to be worthy of state-sponsored endorsement.”

The Florida Legislature approved the act, also called the Individual Freedom Act, in 2022. The state has been fighting it in court ever since.

The lawsuits that led to the ruling Tuesday were brought by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a student free-speech group, and the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Florida and Legal Defense Fund.

FIRE senior attorney Greg Greubel said the decision “means that college remains a place where professors and students are allowed to debate controversial topics — even if politicians disagree with them.”

DeSantis’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday, Politico said. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier praised Lagoa on social media, saying she “may be the best jurist in our country” and should be on the U.S. Supreme Court.

The country will celebrate its 250th birthday Saturday, and it seems nobody quite knows how to feel about it. Being a thoughtful American in 2026 has become an art form unto itself — a balancing act two-and-a-half centuries in the making. Marking the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence requires the acceptance of a paradox so profound that it feels almost insurmountable: The great American experiment has failed; and it is also a triumph.

I’m writing this at near midnight on a muggy night in Pennsylvania — about 300 miles from Philadelphia, where in 1776 the Continental Congress adopted a document bearing one of the most famous and idealistic lines ever written: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Hundreds of years later, the course of human events has once again made it necessary for us to dissolve certain bonds, only the resulting revolution has been metaphorical and waged largely online. We have become a people pitted against one another in thought and in action. In the words we write on social media, the news we choose to consume on our siloed feeds, and the way we treat those who believe differently than we do.

How do we come together to celebrate the monumental achievement of this improbable democracy, which should be made stronger through our respectful disagreements and ability to compromise in search of a higher truth? It may be foolish to say we must lead with kindness when so much raw anger abounds, but that is all we can do. It is what we must do.

Art can help — the music, paintings, dances and plays that remind us in myriad ways that we are not alone. You’ll have access to plenty of such sustenance on this highly anticipated anniversary weekend. So if you are, like me, facing the fireworks with trepidation, find a way to lock into a favorite song, or read a poem that moves you, and the worry will pass. It always does.

I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt, watching the fireflies. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

SATURDAY

Richard Dreyfuss, left, Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw in the 1975 movie “Jaws.”

(Universal Pictures)

Jaws
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the theater, a series of shark attacks are expected across the city Saturday afternoon as Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster screens at the Academy Museum’s David Geffen Theater (in 4K), the American Cinematheque’s Aero Theatre (in 35 mm) and Vidiots’ Eagle Theatre.
2:30 p.m. Saturday. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org; 3 p.m. Saturday. Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica. americancinematheque.com; 1 and 4:30 p.m. Vidiots Eagle Theater, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd., Eagle Rock. vidiotsfoundation.org

TUESDAY

National Museum of the Aftermath screening series
Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harolds’ short film “Foosball: U. of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 1976” (2013), inspired by a photograph of two students playing a game, examines Black life at UVA; and Andrea Fraser’s feature documentary “This meeting is being recorded” (2022) gathers a group of a self-identifying white women to discuss unconscious racism and their own roles in white supremacy.
6 p.m. Oxy Arts, 4757 York Blvd. oxyarts.oxy.edu

WEDNESDAY

Brian Quijada, left, and Nygel D. Robinson in “Mexodus.”

(Thomas Mundell)

Mexodus
Direct from an award-winning off-Broadway run, this new musical created and performed by Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson illuminates a lesser-known fork of the Underground Railroad, one that branched south across the Rio Grande.
Previews, 8 p.m. Wednesday, 7 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. July 10, 2 and 8 p.m. July 11; continues through Aug. 2. Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave. pasadenaplayhouse.org

New Swan Shakespeare Festival.

(New Swan Shakespeare Festival)

New Swan Shakespeare Festival
The annual summer-long event, featuring professional theater artists, UC Irvine alums, current graduate and undergraduate drama students and faculty, returns for another repertory season of classics under the stars at its intimate, 130-seat, portable, mini-Elizabethan space. “Romeo & Juliet,” directed by Rachael VanWormer, resets the tragic romance to the American Dust Bowl; “The Merry Wives of Windsor Cove,” adapted by Anna Fitzgerald & Eli Simon, with music by Zachary Dietz and directed by founding Artistic Director Eli Simon, brings the rollicking comedy to a 1950s SoCal surf town, powered by a live skiffle band.
“Romeo & Juliet,” 8 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday, and various dates through Aug. 29. “Merry Wives,” 8 p.m. Wednesday, and various dates through Aug. 30. UC Irvine campus, 4000 Campus Drive. newswanshakespeare.com

Wilkins Conducts Bernstein & Ellington
Thomas Wilkins guides the L.A. Philharmonic in a program of classical Americana featuring selections from Valerie Coleman, William Grant Still, a newly arranged song cycle from Shaina Taub’s Broadway hit “Suffs,” Leonard Bernstein and Duke Ellington.
8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

Zoot Suit
Join writer-director Luis Valdez and star Edward James Olmos for a 45th anniversary screening of the film, an adaptation of Valdez’s groundbreaking play, the truly L.A. story of the 1942 Sleepy Lagoon case and Zoot Suit Riots. Audiences are encouraged to come in costume and arrive early for the “Pachuco Boogie!” Produced in partnership with the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, Self Help Graphics and Pachuco Car Club.
8 p.m. The Ford Ampitheatre, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East. theford.com

THURSDAY

Randal Goosby.

(L.A. Phil)

The Classical World Cup
Tito Muñoz conducts the L.A. Phil in a salute to “the beautiful game” (soccer to Americans) with works spanning the Americas by Alberto Ginastera, Samuel Barber (with Randal Goosby on violin), Silvestre Revueltas and Aaron Copland; plus the world premiere of “The Art of the Goal,” an original mixed-media concept film by director Josh Kahn and composer Adam Schoenberg. Commissioned by the L.A. Phil, the piece blends footage of elite training and match play featuring the Los Angeles Football Club with orchestral music.
8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

The SoCal scene

(Matt Chase / For The Times)

Celebrations for the country’s 250th birthday have been muted thus far (at least compared to the bicentennial 50 years ago), but our Entertainment and Arts team noted the moment by examining the ways the artists we cover have interpreted the nation’s complex history. Times theater critic Charles McNulty wrote that a “cohort of playwrights, breathtakingly diverse demographically as well as aesthetically, has been rejuvenating American theater.” Contributor Shana Nys Dambrot looked to local museums and identified nine works of art “exploring and expounding upon, in celebration and critique, what it means and what it feels like to be an American.” Times classical music critic Mark Swed compared the artistic and institutional responses of 2026 to the past, lamenting that “None of this comes close to comparing with the attempted civic zest of 1976.” Check out the rest of the collection of stories and essays, including Mary McNamara’s column reminding us that even in troubled times 250 years is worth celebrating because “the Constitution was written ‘in order to form a more perfect union.’ Not ‘perfect,’ but ‘more perfect.’ As in better,” and a list of 10 essential movies that capture crucible moments in U.S. history; find out what Times pop music critic Mikael Wood calls the “quintessential American song,” and which books are being read in L.A. high schools and which classics remain relevant.

Carene Rose Mekertichyan , left, and Brent Charles in “Coriolanus” at the Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival.

(Grettel Cortes)

It’s summer and that means that outdoor theater is upon us and McNulty reviewed the Independent Shakespeare Co.’s Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival production of “Coriolanus.” “It’s hard to love ‘Coriolanus,’ but it’s equally hard not to be impressed by its ambition, originality and dramatic rigor,” wrote McNulty. This “production isn’t going to win awards for subtlety, but the storytelling is crisp and vivid. And even those unfamiliar with the tale — the vast majority of attendees, in all likelihood — should find it engrossing.”

It’s hard to believe that the ABBA jukebox musical “Mamma Mia!” premiered 25 years ago. Times staff writer Eloise Rollins-Fife went backstage at the Ahmanson Theatre to visit with the behind-the-scenes crew who put so much joy into the sequin-bedazzled extravaganza on display in the show’s anniversary tour — many of whom worked on the original production and tours.

Katie Simons profiled 99-year-old Sierra Madre resident Monson de Kansky, a onetime top ballerina who went to teach Parisian royalty, raise a family and still teaches ballet.

Hollywood set painters whose work in the Tinseltown dream machine often went overlooked and uncredited are getting their due in “Staging California in Early Hollywood” at the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art in Costa Mesa. Times staff writer Julius Miller spoke with museum director Kathryn Kanjo and assistant curator Michaëla Mohrmann about the institution’s first exhibition since UC Irvine acquired OCMA last September and Kanjo’s appointment in December.

Culture news

Rosalie Tucker, executive director of Pieter Performance Space (standing left); Andrew Pearson of Bodies in Play (second from left); Lena Martin (second from right) and Mandolin Burns (right) of Crawlspace; Dani Burd of Indigo Dance Company (bottom left); and Adie San Diego (bottom right).

(Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)

The last few years have been rough for most arts institutions and many L.A. dance spaces have closed. Contributor Steven Vargas reported on how surviving dance companies and artists are forging ahead in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic and diminished funding.

The Centre Theatre Group announced that a world tour of the acclaimed stage adaptation of Hayao Miyazaki’s Academy Award-winning animated film “Spirited Away” will open the Ahmanson Theare’s 2027-28 season. “We are honored to bring the wonder of ‘Spirited Away’ to the Ahmanson Theatre for an exclusive US engagement, offering our community the gift of experiencing one of the most cherished stories of our time, reimagined for the stage in a once-in-a-generation theatrical experience,” said Douglas C. Baker, Center Theatre Group producing director, in a statement. The production, from Toho Co., will open at the National Theater in Taipei on Dec. 16, before continuing on a national tour of Japan from March-August 2027, followed by stops at the Princess of Wales Theatre, Toronto (May-August 2027), and the Ahmanson (September–October 2027). The tour will conclude with a return to the London Coliseum (March-July 2028), where it had its European premiere in 2024 following a sold-out tour of Japan in 2022. Casting will be announced at a later date.

The British theater lost two stalwarts this week. Penelope Keith, best known for the sitcoms “The Good Life,” which aired on PBS in the U.S. as “Good Neighbors,” and “To the Manor Born,” has died at age 86. Keith joined the Royal Shakespeare Co. in 1963, won a BAFTA Award in 1977 for “The Good Life” and continued her stage career into her 80s. The New York Times reported that Michael Byrne, a noted actor of stage and screen, also died this week at 86. Byrne created the role of the suspected torturer Dr. Miranda in the premiere production of Ariel Dorfman’s 1991 play “Death and the Maiden” in London. Other notable theater roles were with Siân Phillips in “Juliet and Her Romeo,” Polonius in “Hamlet,” Cassius in “Julius Caesar” and Prince Hal in “Henry IV.” The actor also appeared in films such as “Force 10 from Navarone,” “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” “Braveheart,” “Gangs of New York” and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.”

— Kevin Crust

And last but not least

If pyrotechnics (or drone shows!) are your thing and you’d like to celebrate the Fourth of July with a bang, Times staff writer Christopher Buchanan compiled 52 places and favorite spots to watch the festivities in Southern California.

Attorneys general in seventeen states are suing California over its landmark single-use plastic law, which went into effect on June 1.

The lawsuit comes after a coalition of environmental groups sued the state over the same law this month, arguing the new final regulations create loopholes so large they gut the law.

The states are led by Nebraska Atty. Gen. Mike Hilgers, and the plaintiffs include the National Assn. of Wholesaler-Distributors. The coalition is asking the court to block enforcement of the law immediately.

“Once again, California is trying to enact a policy that negatively impacts the rest of the country,” said Hilgers in a news release. “If California goes unchecked, consumers will be forced to pay more for basic necessities.”

The other states in the coalition are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and West Virginia. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of Eastern California in Sacramento on Monday.

State Senate Bill 54, the Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act, was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2022. It was considered landmark legislation because it requires plastic and packaging companies to use less single-use plastic and ensure by 2032 that all food packaging is either recyclable or compostable.

Accumulating plastic waste is overwhelming waterways and oceans, sickening marine life and threatening human health.

The intent was not only to reduce single=use plastic, but also to put the onus and cost of dealing with it on packaging producers and manufacturers, not consumers and local governments. It was supposed to incentivize companies to consider the fate of their products and spur innovation in material redesign.

Plastic bottles of dishwashing liquid at Compton’s Market in Sacramento on June 17, 2022.

(Rich Pedroncelli/AP)

According to one state analysis, 2.9 million tons of single-use plastic and 171.4 billion single-use plastic components were sold, offered for sale or distributed during 2023 in California.

The single-use plastic law is what is known as a producer responsibility law. It emphasizes the idea of a “circular economy” in which the producer of a material must consider its fate — making sure it can be reused or recycled, or at least reduced.

In California, all producers of single-use packaging and plastic foodware (plates, knives, spoons, etc.) join a private entity known as a producer responsibility organization. Only one such organization has been approved in California: the Circular Action Alliance.

The states and the National Assn. of Wholesaler-Distributors say the plastic law discriminates against businesses selling into the state in two ways: by making them change or alter their plastic packaging and by conferring government authority upon the alliance, enabling a private entity to regulate and impose taxes and fees on businesses selling into California.

“California is not entitled to pronounce nationwide policies,” Eric Hoplin, president and chief executive of the wholesalers group, said in a statement. “Because the Act extends California’s regulatory reach far beyond its borders and brings within its sweep conduct wholly unconnected to California, the Act violates principles of federalism, the horizontal separation of powers, and due process.”

In addition, the attorneys general say the law suppresses their free speech by compelling companies to join and fund the speech of an organization with which they may disagree.

Hoplin and his organization filed a similar suit in Oregon in February. Oregon has a comparable single-use plastic law. A federal judge blocked enforcement of that law. A trial begins on July 13.

Heidi Sanborn, executive director and CEO of the National Stewardship Action Council, which advocates for the producer responsibility laws and a more circular economy, said in May that both SB 54 and the Oregon law are public policies that were “passed by legislatures and implemented with government oversight.”

She said the laws create clear and consistent rules so all producers contribute fairly to the cost of recycling and waste management.

Meanwhile, environmental groups are also unhappy.

On June 2, Oceana, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Californians Against Waste Foundation filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court.

They allege that the final regulations for the law, drafted and approved by the state’s waste agency, include exclusions for large categories of plastic packaging that companies could use indefinitely. In addition, they say, the regulations also allow for recycling technologies that pollute, such as chemical recycling, which the law as originally drafted forbids.

“While SB 54 remains a monumental achievement as the nation’s strongest single-use plastic reduction law, some of the final regulations implementing the statute undermine the law’s ambitions,” Christy Leavitt, Oceana’s senior campaign director, said in a statement.

There have been 18 winners of BGT so far – seven music acts, two dog acts, two magicians, three comedians and four dancers/dance groups.

The first winner was crowned in 2007, when opera singer Paul Potts impressed with his rendition of Nessun Dorma. The following year, 14 year-old George Sampson won after showing off his break dancing skills.

The third winner was Diversity, who are perhaps one the best known BGT acts. Their leader, Ashley Banjo, has gone on to become a TV presenter. Dancing seemed to be a big hitter with audiences, as dance group Spellbound won the following year.

In 2011, singer Jai McDowall broke the dancers’ winning streak, and the next year, the crown went to Ashleigh Baker and her dog Pudsey. But, in 2013, the winners were once again dancers, as Attraction, a dance troupe that used movement to create images and tell a story came first.

2014 saw singing group Collabro win with their musical theatre performances. Jules and Matisse, another dog act, won the next year’s series. The first magician to win was Richard Jones, who won in 2016, while in 2017, pianist Tokio Myers won next.

Comedian Lee Ridley, who went by Lost Voice Guy, won in 2018. Singer Colin Thackery won in 2019. Comedy singer Jon Courtenay won in 2020 and comedy continued to be winner in 2022 and 2023, when Axel Blake and Viggo Venn were announced as the winner.

2024’swinner was musical theatre singer Sydnie Christmas and the most recent winner was musician Harry Moulding.

The budget airline is offering a range of discounted flights from UK airports

Brits planning a holiday abroad have the next few days to book discounted flights. Budget airline easyJet is currently offering up to 15 per cent off certain trips.

The reduction applies to selected flights between June 1 and September 30. However, the deal only runs until June 3. On the easyJet website, it said: “For the next five days easyJet is offering customers up to 15 per cent off selected flights to and from the UK, giving Brits the opportunity to secure great value fares for their summer holidays. The promo applies to flights between 1 June 2026 and 30 September 2026, covering the peak summer season and school holidays.

“With flights available to a wide range of popular beach and city destinations across easyJet’s unrivalled European network ensuring there are options for all the family.” Going into more detail, it said: “Customers can book discounted fares between 8am on Friday 29 May until 8am on Wednesday 3 June 2026 via easyJet.com or the easyJet mobile app.”

The offer includes flights from airports across the UK, with thousands of seats available at reduced prices with fares starting from £19.99. Examples of some of the routes on offer include:

• London Gatwick to Paris and Reus from £31.99
• London Luton to Lyon from £22.99
• London Southend to Geneva and Pisa from £19.99
• Bristol to Malaga and Palma from £25.99
• Manchester to Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Bordeaux, Paris, Copenhagen, Geneva, Hamburg, La Rochelle, Nice, Oslo, Prague, Rennes, and Zurich from £31.99
• Liverpool to Amsterdam from £25.99, Barcelona, Split, Malaga, Palma, Naples and Nice from £25.99, Faro from £26.49

On top of this, easyJet holidays is also offering thousands of packages to popular city and beach destinations in Europe and North Africa this summer. “Customers can save £50 per person on beach holidays departing before 31 July 2027 when using code BEACH50, and £20 per person on city breaks departing before 31 August 2026 when using code CITIES20,” easyJet said.

Kevin Doyle, easyJet’s UK country manager, commented: “We know customers are always looking for great value when booking their summer holiday and with thousands of discounted seats available across our network, now is a great time to book a trip and enjoy Europe’s most popular destinations for less.

“To ensure people feel confident to book, we’ve launched our Book with Confidence Promise which guarantees that the cost of flights and package holidays will stay fixed after booking and we will not add fuel surcharges, protecting customers from increased fuel cost.

“We are operating as normal, not making cancellations and are looking forward to taking millions of people on their well-deserved holidays this summer.” For more information, visit teh easyJet website here.

Reporting from Washington — California is confronting the limits of its power to save federal environmental protections as Congress and the Trump administration take aim at a landmark law the state has relied on for decades to clean the air of noxious smog.

A push by Republicans to roll back parts of the Clean Air Act would affect California more than any other state, rattling its lawmakers and regulators. And their legal authority to pick up the fight against California’s smog on their own is constrained.

The House last month passed a bill fiercely opposed by doctors and public health groups, including the American Lung Assn. and the American Academy of Pediatrics, that would delay for years new anti-pollution standards aimed at ultimately preventing 160,000 childhood asthma attacks and as many as 220 premature deaths in California each year.

The Trump administration had already tried using regulatory authority to put the standards on hold for a year, but walked back that action Wednesday after California and 14 other states filed suit against the delay.

The bill advancing in Congress would go much further, permanently upending the way restrictions are imposed on the ozone and small particulate matter that make up smog. No longer would regulators base decisions solely on scientific findings about what level of smog is safe to breathe. The potential cost to business would for the first time loom large in setting limits, and ultimately guide such things as when people with breathing problems are warned to stay indoors.

“It would be disastrous to do this,” said Jared Blumenfeld, former regional director of the federal Environmental Protection Agency for California and other Western states.

“The Clean Air Act has been one of the most successful and revered public health measures taken anywhere on the planet. Everyone from China to India to European nations came to my office and said, ‘How do we achieve these kinds of gains?’ This all originated in Los Angeles at a time the air was so bad it led to the creation of the EPA.”

Many state lawmakers agree, and they are vowing to keep California in compliance with the Clean Air Act as it exists now — regardless of what happens in Washington. But that turns out to be a promise not easily kept.

“This is not an easy switch whereby Congress gets rid of the standard, and California just puts it back in place,” Blumenfeld said.

Some of the most damaging pollution released inside California’s borders can only be controlled by federal regulators. Among California’s biggest concerns is what is spewed from the exhaust pipes of trucks traveling through the state that are not subject to its strict emissions rules. Such fumes account for 60% of such heavy truck pollution.

The EPA has been under pressure to toughen federal rules for trucks to enable California to meet its obligations under the act. The state and EPA have also been working on research into new technologies to clean truck emissions.

Even if the industry-friendly Trump administration slows down those efforts, the act empowers states and activists to impose pressure on the EPA in court.

But that would change under the measure passed by the House, HR 806, which would weaken the air quality standards now motivating federal action.

“We need EPA to continue to move ahead aggressively,” said Kurt Karperos, deputy executive officer at the California Air Resources Board. “It has a responsibility under the Clean Air Act to take action.… We are concerned this would be used as a justification to slow down.”

The pushback against the Clean Air Act in Congress is rooted in complaints, often driven by industry, that the EPA under the Obama administration set standards for air quality that are impossible to reach without harming economies in places that are already struggling, like California’s Central Valley, home to some of the worst air in the nation.

Among the most effective allies for Republicans pushing to weaken standards is the head of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, which regulates 25,000 square miles. It is home to 4 million Californians, who struggle with smoggy air and soaring asthma rates.

Seyed Sadredin, the district’s executive director, said there is only so much his agency is empowered to do, and now it faces severe federal sanctions for emissions from cars and trucks it has no authority to regulate.

Sadredin recently told Congress that local businesses will soon be prevented from expanding and big highway projects forfeited under Clean Air Act sanctions the valley faces — even after the region has done everything in its power to control pollution with some of the toughest restrictions in the nation.

“It all sounds nice and noble when you look down to the valley from the outside,” he said of the tough federal standards. “If you are with the elite crowd, you might say, ‘Let’s punish the valley for something they have no control over.’ We are talking real-life impact in a place suffering from double-digit unemployment, poverty, malnutrition. This has a real impact on our people. It is not just an academic argument.”

The San Joaquin board limited its support of the House measure to the part that would exempt air districts from sanctions in certain circumstances. A public outcry moved it to back away from its push to force the EPA to consider economic impacts in determining what air is safe to breathe.

But the economic impact language is still part of the House bill that the San Joaquin board helped get passed, creating no small measure of tension between Sadredin and other air quality experts who say his dire warnings served to benefit agriculture and drilling interests averse to stricter rules.

The valley is not going to lose big highway projects and businesses if it can’t control truck and car pollution it has no authority to regulate, according to state air regulators. But it will be pushed in the areas where it does have control, they say, including cutting pollution from oil and gas wells, and residential and agricultural burning.

“It is absolutely not in the cards,” Karperos said of the punishment Sadredin warns will befall the valley in coming years under current clean air rules. A good faith plan by the valley to further reduce emissions in the places it can would protect it from such sanctions, he said. But that plan will require more action by a region resistant to it.

“There are feasible strategies,” Karperos said. “The threat of sanctions is a red herring.”

Times staff writer Tony Barboza contributed to this report.

evan.halper@latimes.com

Follow me: @evanhalper

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This summer, the U.S. Navy will demonstrate the ability of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, with its two A1B nuclear reactors, to power a base on land. The test at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia is part of a larger effort to ensure facilities can remain up and running even if existing power sources are lost due to attacks and other contingencies. Using ships to provide electricity ashore is not new, but being able to use a Ford class aircraft carrier in this way might open up additional operational possibilities, as well as help in future disaster relief scenarios.

Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao briefly mentioned the planned test at a hearing before members of the House Armed Services Committee on May 14.

“This summer, Norfolk Naval Base [sic] is going to be powered from an aircraft carrier,” Cao said on May 14. “We’re going to export the energy from the aircraft carrier to the base.”

“The Department of the Navy is executing a multi-pronged strategy to ensure the delivery of firm, baseload power to our installations for energy resilience and mission assurance,” a Navy spokesperson subsequently told TWZ directly when we reached out for more information. “One line of effort in the strategy is to deliver power from a Ford class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to a compatible shore installation, to demonstrate the capability to meet emergent, mission critical needs. An initial test of this capability is being planned for later this year at Naval Station Norfolk.”

This statement refers to the Ford class generically, but the USS Gerald R. Ford is currently the only ship of its kind to have been commissioned into service. It is also homeported in Norfolk and just recently returned from a marathon 326-day deployment. That is the longest an American carrier has been at sea since the Vietnam War, and included supporting the mission to capture Venezuela’s dictatorial former President Nicolas Maduro and combat operations against Iran.

USS Ford returns home after 11-month deployment for Iran war and Maduro’s capture

Supercarriers like Ford are already very much floating cities, with typical crew complements ranging from roughly 4,000 to 5,000 individuals, including members of the embarked air wing. They have immense power-generation requirements.

As noted, each Ford class carrier has two A1B nuclear reactors, the exact power output of which is classified. However, they are said to offer a 25 percent increase in “reactor energy” compared to the A4Ws used on Nimitz class aircraft carriers, as well as be simpler to operate. Based on that, the A1B is generally assessed to be rated at some 700 MWt. Two of them would then have a combined rating of 1,400 MWt. This is a fraction of what is offered by typical commercial power-generating reactors in the United States today. At the same time, those reactors are also designed to provide electricity across entire regions rather than just to a single military base.

Being able to use the Ford and other future carriers as floating power plants for major bases like Norfolk could offer a useful backup option for providing electricity if established power sources suddenly become unavailable for any reason. American officials have been increasingly sounding the alarm that many areas previously considered inaccessible sanctuaries, including in the U.S. homeland, could now be at risk during future conflicts. The scale and scope of long-range threats, as well as options for carrying out near-field attacks, only continue to grow. The proliferation of longer-range one-way attack drones, something where the barrier to entry is also low, has had a particularly pronounced impact on this threat ecosystem.

Demonstrating the ability of a Ford class aircraft carrier to provide power ashore might open up other operational possibilities. The U.S. military, as a whole, is increasingly focused on new distributed concepts of operations involving widely dispersed forces, many of which could be forward-deployed at operating locations with limited established infrastructure.

Turning an aircraft carrier into a floating powerplant could be valuable in a wide array of non-combat scenarios abroad and at home, including during disaster relief missions. Getting the power back on is often a critical component of those operations, which in turn can help restore access to medical care and other essential services.

Many critical U.S. military facilities are themselves in areas prone to natural disasters, the impacts of which can be severe and have significant second-order ramifications. Bases provide epicenters for recovery, too, routinely providing essential services after disasters. They could do so after attacks or in other contingencies. Making sure they have uninterrupted power in any of those scenarios would be critical. There are also long-standing concerns about the resiliency of America’s aging power grids, which could also be an indirect threat vector, including from cyberattacks.

During his testimony, Acting Secretary Cao highlighted how a carrier serving as a powerplant could also provide other support in a non-combat scenario.

“The energy that’s produced from these, we can … use it for a four-stage distiller making water, fresh potable water,” he said. “On a carrier, we’re pumping millions of gallons over the side every day of fresh potable water that tests at pH 7 [neutral pH], right, that we can now export in places like California, where you have a drought.”

As noted, none of this is entirely new. The U.S. military has a long history of using ships, including conventionally-powered aircraft carriers, to provide power ashore. One of America’s very first carriers, the USS Lexington (CV-2), helped provide electricity to Tacoma, Washington, between December 1929 and January 1930. At the time, the city’s grid relied on hydroelectric power sources, the output from which had dropped severely due to a mix of environmental factors. In 1931, Lexington also brought medical personnel and humanitarian aid to Nicaragua following an earthquake, an early example of the general value of carriers in the disaster relief role.

During World War II, the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom collectively utilized at least seven Buckley class destroyer escorts as floating power plants. The Buckley class was well suited for this use given its propulsion system, which consisted of steam turbines powering electric motors. At least one of these ships, the USS Donnell, was converted to this role after suffering severe damage during combat operations in the North Atlantic. It was deemed to be too expensive to repair the ship to return to service in its original role.

An especially relevant past example is that of the MH-1A. This was a floating nuclear power plant converted from a World War II Liberty ship, originally named the SS Charles H. Cugle and later renamed Sturgis. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) operated MH-1A, which had a power rating of 10 MW, and used it to provide electricity in the Panama Canal Zone between 1968 and 1975. The ship and its reactor were subsequently returned to the contiguous United States. MH-1A was defueled in 1977. It remained in storage for decades before the decision was finally made to decommission it, a lengthy process that was only completed in 2018. Sturgis was subsequently scrapped.

At the time of writing, it is unclear if the Navy has any ships or barges in inventory that are explicitly capable of providing power ashore. Electricity is routinely provided to naval vessels in port from grids ashore, and the ability to send power the other way, at least in an ad hoc manner, has come up in the past. For instance, in 1982, the Navy considered sending the Los Angeles class attack submarine USS Indianapolis to Hawaii to serve as a floating nuclear power station in the wake of Hurricane Iwa. Indianapolis was not ultimately deployed for this purpose in that case.

As an aside, the Navy has also long used decommissioned nuclear-powered submarines as floating schoolhouses for sailors learning how to operate and maintain nuclear reactors.

There are examples of ship-to-shore power generation elsewhere globally. Currently, Russia’s Akademik Lomonosov is the only purpose-built floating nuclear power plant in operation today, and you can read more about it here. However, South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries is actively working on a new floating nuclear power station design, and similar developments could be on the horizon elsewhere. There are also non-nuclear floating power plant designs in service, notably with commercial firm Karpowership in Turkey, and in development today.

Floating Nuclear Power Plant (FNPP) “Akademik Lomonosov”

Powership Video

There are still questions about the viability of employing Navy carriers like Ford in this way today. For one, ships sitting in port are inherently more vulnerable than ones at sea. Carriers are high-value assets that would be top targets in any major conflict, to begin with. Using a carrier as a replacement for traditional power sources, especially for a base that may have already have been or still be under attack, could come along with substantial additional force protection requirements. At the same time, carriers are inherently well-protected and relatively hardened platforms, especially against lower-end, smaller-scale threats.

There is also an operational capacity question. The Navy is currently struggling to meet operational demands with the 11 carriers it has available now. Between continued delays in the construction of new Ford class carriers and the schedule for retiring aging Nimitz class ships, there is a possibility that the force could shrink further in the near term. The Navy just extended the service life of the USS Nimitz to bring its impending inactivation in line with the expected delivery date of the second member of the Ford class, the future USS John F. Kennedy.

Around the Yard at NNS: John F. Kennedy (CVN 79) Builder’s Sea Trials

Pulling any of the Navy’s heavily in-demand aircraft carriers, which provide unique power projection capabilities, out of rotation to sit in port generating power could be a tough sell. That being said, carriers that are in between deployments could be used in this way, in some cases with relatively minimal disruption to other aspects of the force generation cycle. The seriousness of the contingency in question would also factor into the Navy’s assessment of its general force requirements and priorities.

It is worth noting here that the U.S. military has already been making investments in other forms of energy resiliency at established bases, as well as the ability to provide significant amounts of power at forward locations, in recent years. Acting Secretary Cao’s comments last week about the upcoming test at Naval Station Norfolk were prompted by a question about ongoing work on new small modular nuclear reactors, or SMRs, to help power U.S. military bases. The U.S. Army is currently the lead service for those efforts, as you can read more about here. The U.S. Air Force has also been heavily involved.

“We’ve got to have an overall programmatic champion for the SMR program,” Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Caudle, the service’s top officer, who also testified at the hearing alongside Cao, said. “So I think we’re dithering a bit there, and not really landing on the pilot, and laying out the program of record.”

“While the Army may be tapped to be the overall lead for it [SMR], I see no world in which the Navy is not going to be part of that discussion and bring our expertise through our long-established Naval Reactors [office], deep understanding of reactor physics, and understanding [of] safe operation.”

As an aside, the Navy just recently announced its intention to expand its nuclear-powered fleets by using this method of propulsion on the future Trump class battleships. This, in turn, has raised new questions about the outlook for those ships, which you can read more about here.

When it comes to using Ford class aircraft carriers as floating nuclear power plants, the test this summer will help in determining whether this could be another mission to add to the repertoire of these ships.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com