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Two years ago, reaching the first major crossroads of his UCLA athletic director career, Martin Jarmond drove the Bruins into a ditch.

He should have fired the unhappy and unsuccessful Chip Kelly at the end of the 2023 regular season. He did not. He instead praised Kelly for building a “strong and phenomenal culture.”

Three months later Kelly fired himself with an escape that seemingly everyone but Jarmond saw coming.

Soon thereafter, upon reaching the second major crossroads of his athletic director career, Jarmond drove the program into an even deeper ditch.

Requiring less than 72 hours to replace Kelly, Jarmond did so by hiring a head coach who was preeminently unqualified to be a head coach, a former running back who had never led a team at any level, a reticent former Bruin who had never even called a play.

It took barely a season for that mistake to be formally acknowledged, and now that DeShaun Foster was fired Sunday after winning just five of 15 games, the real issue becomes obvious.

Martin Jarmond has steered this football program into a steaming wreckage, failing to properly manage the most important asset of any modern-day athletic director, turning the Bruins’ largest and most lucrative national presence into a sputtering embarrassment, and you have to wonder.

Now that he has buried them, is Martin Jarmond the right person to dig them out?

It’s difficult to imagine the budget conscious UCLA administrators would spend about $8 million to fire a guy who just last winter was given a five-year contract extension. Then again, they just spent $6.43 million to can Foster less than two years after they hired him.

But something has to happen. Hire a football general manager and let them pick the new coach while Jarmond moves to the background. Or simply pay Jarmond, let him walk, and start from scratch like you should have done two years ago at the end of the Chip Kelly era.

Whatever happens, considering the huge stakes involved, how can Bruins chancellor Julio Frenk allow Jarmond to hire the next football coach?

Jarmond has whiffed on situations involving the last two coaches and you’re going to let him come to the plate again? Risking a third consecutive strikeout? It’s an outcome so humiliating that baseball even has a name for it, terming three strikeouts in one game as earning that player a “silver sombrero.”

Can UCLA really afford to let their athletic director wear that?

Certainly, Jarmond has done some great things with other sports since arriving at UCLA as a relatively untested and unknown administrator five years ago. Last season, when including the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, Bruin teams won more conference championships than any other Big Ten school.

UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond has done well in many areas, but football is not one of them.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

A men’s water polo national title. The only school with both baseball and softball teams in the College World Series. Women’s basketball in the Final Four. The list goes on.

Jarmond has done well in many areas. But in today’s collegiate sports environment, a Power Five athletic director basically has one job and one job only.

Don’t fumble football.

Football is the cash cow. Football is the monthly rent. Football drives campus revenue. Football creates national reputation. So many people are ridiculing UCLA football this fall that many have forgotten the Bruins greatness in other sports, and in the name of John Wooden, that’s unacceptable.

Football is just too important to be led by someone who would get embarrassed by consecutive coaches, someone who would allow Chip Kelly to leave before firing him, someone who would then hire DeShaun Foster without qualifications, someone who just doesn’t seem to be in touch with the most vital part of his job.

Jarmond had a chance to take full responsibility for both coaching misfires during a Sunday afternoon conference call with reporters.

He did not.

He basically said that the decision to keep Kelly involved higher authorities and the choice of Foster was due to unusual circumstances.

Regrettably, nowhere in the two explanations were the words, “I just blew it.”

About keeping Kelly when he should have been dumped: “What I’ll remind you is these decisions aren’t made in a vacuum. There are many stakeholders and factors that go into where and when and how to make a coaching change. That said, ultimately, I’m the athletic director. I’m the steward of this program, and the buck stops with me. But I want to reiterate: These kinds of decisions at this level are not made by one person, they’re made by the stakeholders and factors and circumstances that surround that.”

Disagree. When it comes to handling a football coach, no stakeholder’s voice should be stronger than that of the athletic director, or you need a new athletic director.

About hurriedly hiring Foster, he said: “I made the best decision with the circumstances and resources that I had to work with… I’m very confident in my ability to hire coaches that win championships … this search is going to be very different than the last one … when it was after football signing day, and we had to make a change and get that done quickly.”

Absolutely, the hiring of Foster was conducted in a tight timeline. But to make such a giant decision and not even take a week? That bordered on athletic director malpractice. And eventually, we all saw the result.

Actually, few saw the result. One of the reasons Foster was fired so quickly was that the Rose Bowl had become an empty shell of more broken Bruin dreams.

OK, so the good news is that UCLA now has an entire season to find a bright young coach — where is the Sean McVay of college football? He has to be out there! — and they will have the first shot at many good candidates.

The bad news is that Jarmond was talking Sunday about assembling a search committee full of a bunch of so-called experts and former Bruins. That never works. Too many voices drown each other out and you end up with a compromise candidate.

The hire needs to be made by a strong athletic director willing to make a bold hire for which they accept full responsibility and hold themselves completely accountable.

More bad news. Until further notice, that athletic director is Martin Jarmond.

For the last year, Los Angeles political leaders have searched for a way to upgrade the downtown Convention Center without also delivering cuts to core services.

The city’s budget team pushed for the facility to be emblazoned with digital billboards, which would produce tens of millions in ad revenue. A city-hired consultant came up with several cost-cutting measures, including the elimination of a public plaza originally planned as part of the expansion.

Despite those efforts, the project has only lost ground. On Tuesday, City Council members were informed the price tag has gone up yet again, reaching $2.7 billion — an increase of $483 million from six months ago.

Some at City Hall are growing nervous that the project’s first phase won’t be finished in time for the 2028 Olympic Games, jeopardizing the Convention Center’s status as one of the main venues. Beyond that, city officials have begun worrying publicly that Gov. Gavin Newsom might not support a state bill permitting the installation of two digital billboards that would face the busy 10 and 110 Freeway interchange.

Those two signs — hotly opposed by groups such as Scenic America — are expected to produce the vast majority of the project’s advertising income, according to the city’s budget team.

If state and federal support for the signs fails to materialize, the city’s general fund budget would have to provide an average of $111 million each year through 2058 to cover the cost of the Convention Center expansion, City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo said.

The earliest years would be the most expensive. In 2031, for example, an estimated $167 million in taxpayer funds would go toward the Convention Center’s debt and operations — even after the revenue from the project is factored in, Szabo told the council’s economic development committee on Tuesday.

“Since we last met in this room on this matter, the costs have increased dramatically,” Szabo said. “The serious [construction] schedule risks remain. And revenue that the project relies upon — will rely upon — is in jeopardy.”

For some on the council, the latest bad news is proving to be too much.

Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who heads the council’s powerful budget committee, told The Times she believes an overhaul of the Convention Center is key to making downtown “stronger, more economically vibrant.” But with the city already struggling to pay for police officers, street repairs and other basic services, the current plan is “just too expensive,” she said.

“Without the signage revenue, the risk to the City’s budget is massive and unaffordable,” Yaroslavsky said in a statement.

Newsom spokesman Izzy Gardon declined to discuss the digital billboard bill, saying the governor’s office “does not typically comment on pending legislation.” State Assemblymember Mark González (D-Los Angeles), who represents part of downtown, said he is “engaging productively” with the Newsom administration on the bill.

“I’m confident we’ll find a path forward,” he said.

Council members must decide by Sept. 15 whether to move ahead with the project, Szabo said. Even some of the council’s downtown boosters sound nervous about their next step.

What “I hear some of my colleagues saying is, ‘Do we want a very beautiful Convention Center but a bankrupt city?’” said Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who represents the vast majority of downtown.

Business groups have rallied around the expansion, saying it will finally allow L.A. to compete for large conventions, while also injecting new life into a downtown still reeling from the aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The project has also amassed broad support from organized labor, especially the region’s construction trade unions, which say it would create thousands of jobs.

“With over 800 members out of work, we need a project like this,” said Zachary Solomon, business representative for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 11. “The cost of this project will only continue to increase, so we need this project now.”

Many of the groups backing the Convention Center expansion have played a role in electing council members. Still, if the council presses ahead with the project, it will do so in the face of major warning signs.

The city’s top policy analysts have cautioned that any major construction delay could cause organizers of the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games to pull the Convention Center, which is scheduled to host judo, wrestling, fencing and other competitions, off its list of venues.

“It would be really bad to pay such a premium on such a project and [have] it not be ready in time to host the Olympics,” said Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso, who advises the council.

Stuart Marks, senior vice president of Plenary Americas, the development company spearheading the Convention Center project, told council members he is “highly confident” the work will be done on time, saying there is flexibility in the schedule — and major penalties if the developer fails to perform.

Marks, whose company has partnered with Anschutz Entertainment Group on the Convention Center, said the companies tasked with construction have an established history, having worked on projects such as Staples Center — now Crypto.com Arena — and the expanded Moscone Center in San Francisco.

“Their reputations are on the line. Our reputations are on the line. Nobody’s saying there’s no risks. But there are contingencies … mitigation strategies, security packages and contractual regimes that equally meet that risk,” he said.

The proposed timeline calls for APCLA, also known as AEG Plenary Conventions Los Angeles — the joint venture that would oversee the expansion — to start construction later this year, pause that work during the Games and then finish once the event is over.

Under the proposal, a new wing would connect the Convention Center’s landmark green South Hall with the blue West Hall.

Much of the increase in the construction price has been attributed to the city’s Department of Water and Power, which recently issued higher cost estimates for the relocation of utilities under Pico Boulevard and the installation of several miles of cable and conduit.

DWP officials have already warned that they lack the staffing to carry out the project and would need to hire outside labor. They also indicated that work on the Convention Center is likely to result in delays to other projects — including construction of a new rail line in San Fernando Valley — because staff would have to be diverted, according to Szabo’s memo.

Tso has echoed many of Szabo’s concerns, saying in a separate report that the project would have an “acute negative impact” on the general fund budget, which pays for police, paramedic responses and other basic services.

Times staff writer Laura J. Nelson contributed to this report.

A British man living in Benidorm has claimed the party city may be ‘finished’ after witnessing its surprising ’emptiness’ this summer, and people claim it’s all down to cost

A British expat living in Benidorm has claimed the renowned party city is “finished” as tourists are being “priced out,” with some claiming they are instead flocking to a more affordable destination. Harry Poulton, a TikTok influencer known for sharing his travel advice on the Spanish resort, suggested in a recent video that Benidorm might be “finished” after noting the streets this summer appeared more empty than usual.

In a clip which has racked up over 125,000 views, hints at the city’s rising costs as a potential reason for its decline. “[Is] Benidorm finished? Where is everybody? It’s the middle of July, and it’s absolutely dead,” he noted.

The 24-year-old, originally from Brighton, remarked: “Normally at this time of year, Benidorm’s mentality – it’s busy, there are people absolutely everywhere,” according to Luxury Travel Daily. Harry added that he’d just been down to the beach, and there was simply nobody around.

“I’ve been down the Benidorm strip; hardly anyone there. Bars [aren’t] even that busy – what’s going on? Is everyone going to Tenerife now? I’ve only been away a week.”

Harry also expressed his astonishment at the lack of crowds, noting that even during usual peak hours around 7pm, the streets remain deserted.

His observations have sparked a flurry of theories among TikTok viewers, one of whom commented: “Have to say hotels are getting more and more expensive. Crazy prices.”

Meanwhile, a different user suggested where all the missing tourists might be. “Everyone is going to Salou, Spain,” they said. A third person agreed: “It’s got too expensive.”

A fourth individual lamented: “People are fed up with being robbed, mate [sic].”

Meanwhile a fifth TikTok user expressed: “Getting too expensive. Used to be my go-to holiday. However, I cannot afford Benidorm this year. Other Spanish places half the price.”

In a separate video, meanwhile, Harry reiterated his frustration with the rising costs in the city. The content creator asserted: “Benidorm is getting expensive. Everything this year has gone so much more than last year. I’m not the only one that feels this way.”

Reacting to a follower who had spent nearly £1,000 for a week’s stay in a single room, Harry sympathised: “Ouch, that’s got to hurt. Don’t get me wrong – eating out, drinking, all those sorts of things are still very reasonable, especially price-wise compared to the UK.

“Everything has got really expensive; not just in Benidorm, but in general.”

And he concluded, reflecting: “Is Benidorm falling off? Or is it just the world in general? Mad, really – what are holidays? What’s a cheap holiday now?”

Brits abroad have been warned to brace for more summer holiday protests from anti-tourists, meanwhile.

The Southern European Network Against Touristification (SET) group, already revelling in the widespread disruptions caused on a Europe-wide day of action on June 15, is threatening there is more disruption to come. In a strong statement they said: “Common sense is changing.

“The myth of tourism as economic salvation is over. Touristification is no longer a problem perceived by a few. It has become a widespread concern across generations, social classes, cities and regions. And this is just the beginning.”

The group added: “Given the situations we are witnessing everywhere, there is no doubt that more actions and mobilizations will take place here and there this summer, much like there might be more anti-touristification actions on 27th September for World Tourism Day. The struggle against touristification is growing, expanding, and is being organized. Because our lives are worth more than their profits.”

In what marks a major shift for NATO, the bloc’s member states have agreed to raise defence spending to five percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

The move will inject billions more dollars into armies and weapons, raising questions over how governments will foot the bill.

With public budgets under strain, many European politicians dismissed the target as unachievable earlier this year, when US President Donald Trump demanded it.

Europe’s priorities now appear to be shifting to security, citing growing threats from Russia.

And Chinese goods are flooding markets from Southeast Asia to Europe.

Plus, top economists call for debt relief in developing nations.