PORTLAND, Ore. — Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves will miss the Lakers’ game in Portland on Monday as the team ruled both out with injuries.
One night after recording a 29-point, 11-rebound, 10-assist triple-double, Doncic is out to manage a lower leg contusion. Reaves, who scored 26 points and 11 assists in the Lakers’ 130-120 win over the Miami Heat, is out with right groin soreness.
This will be the fourth game Doncic has missed this season as he was also sidelined with a minor finger injury and a left leg contusion.
Playing in their second back-to-back of the season, the Lakers will again be short-handed. They had seven standard contract players when they hosted the Trail Blazers on the second night of a back-to-back last week. Portland won 122-108 as Reaves attempted to carry the team with 41 points.
The Lakers could also be without Deandre Ayton, who is questionable with back spasms. He missed Sunday’s game after experiencing pain last Friday in Memphis.
Forward Maxi Kleber was upgraded to questionable with an abdominal strain that has kept him sidelined all season.
AUSTIN, Texas — Denis Bouanga had two goals and an assist on Sunday night to help LAFC beat Austin FC 4-1 and sweep the best-of-three series in the first round of the MLS Cup playoffs.
LAFC, which won Game 1 2-1, plays at second-seeded Vancouver in the one-game Western Conference semifinals.
Son Heung-min added a goal and an assist for No. 3 seed LAFC. Jeremy Ebobisse replaced Son in the 88th minute and capped the scoring in the third minute of stoppage time.
Son, on the counter-attack, hesitated to freeze defender Ilie Sánchez at the top of the area and then exploded toward the left end line and blasted a shot from the corner of the six-yard box inside the back post to open the scoring in the 21st. About four minutes later, Son fed Bouanga for a finish — the 30-year-old’s 100th goal across all competitions for LAFC — into a wide-open net to make it 2-0.
Bouanga cut inside to evade defender Brendan Hines-Ike — who fell to the ground — and then flicked a shot into the net from the left center of the area in the 44th minute.
Bouanga is the only active player — and is one of just nine in history — with at least 10 career goals in the MLS Cup playoffs.
LAFC’s Hugo Lloris — who was second in MLS with 12 shutouts in the regular season — had three saves, including a diving stop on a penalty kick by Myrto Uzuni in the 39th minute after a hand ball in the area by Bouanga.
Ryan Porteous was shown a yellow card for a foul in the area and Dani Pereira converted from the spot in the sixth minute of stoppage time to make it 3-1 at halftime.
CJ Fodrey appeared to have cut sixth-seeded Austin’s deficit to 3-2 in the 71st minute but an offsides call nullified the would-be goal.
Los Angeles mayoral candidate Austin Beutner took aim at the rising cost of basic city services Thursday, saying Mayor Karen Bass and her administration have contributed to an affordability crisis that is “crushing families.”
Beutner, appearing outside Van Nuys City Hall, pointed to the City Council’s recent decision to increase trash collection fees to nearly $56 per month, up from $36.32 for single-family homes and duplexes and $24.33 for three- and four-unit apartment buildings.
Since Bass took office in December 2022, the city also hiked sewer service fees, which are on track to double over a four-year period. In addition, Beutner said, the Department of Water and Power pushed up the cost of water and electrical service by 52% and 19%, respectively.
“I’m talking about the cost-of-living crisis that’s crushing families,” he said. “L.A. is a very, very special place, but every day it’s becoming less affordable.”
Beutner, speaking before a group of reporters, would not commit to rolling back any of those increases. Instead, he urged Bass to call a special session of the City Council to explain the decisions that led to the increases.
“Tell me the cost of those choices, and then we can have an informed conversation as to whether it was a good choice or a bad choice — or whether I’d make the same choice,” said Beutner, who has worked as superintendent of L.A. schools and as a high-level deputy mayor.
When the City Council took up the sewer rates last year, sanitation officials argued the increase was needed to cover rising construction and labor costs — and ramp up the repair and replacement of aging pipes.
This year sanitation officials also pushed for a package of trash fee hikes, saying the rates had not increased in 17 years. They argued that the city’s budget has been subsidizing the cost of residential trash pickup for customers in single-family homes and small apartments.
Doug Herman, spokesperson for the Bass reelection campaign, defended the trash and sewer service fee increases, saying both were long overdue. Bass took action, he said, because previous city leaders failed to make the hard choices necessary to balance the budget and fix deteriorating sewer pipes.
“Nobody was willing to face the music and request the rate hikes to do that necessary work,” he said.
DWP spokesperson Michelle Figueroa acknowledged that electrical rates have gone up. However, she said in an email, the DWP’s residential rates remain lower than other utilities, including Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.
By focusing on cost-of-living concerns, Beutner’s campaign has been emphasizing an issue that is at the forefront of next week’s election for New York City mayor. In that contest, State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani has promised to lower consumer costs, in part by freezing the rent for rent-stabilized apartments and making rides on city buses free.
Since announcing his candidacy this month, Beutner has offered few cost-of-living policy prescriptions, other than to say he supports “in concept” Senate Bill 79, a newly signed state law that allows taller, denser buildings to be approved near public transit stops. Instead, he mostly has derided a wide array of increases, including a recent hike in parking rates.
Beutner contends that the city’s various increases will add more than $1,200 per year to the average household customer’s bill from the Department of Water and Power, which includes the cost not just of utilities but also trash removal and sewer service.
Herman pushed back on that estimate, saying it relies on “flawed assumptions,” incorporating fees that apply to only a portion of ratepayers.
In a new campaign video, Beutner warned that city leaders also are laying plans to more than double what property owners pay in street lighting assessments. He also accused the DWP of relying increasingly on “adjustment factors” to increase the amount customers pay for water and electricity, instead of hiking the base rate.
The DWP needs to be more transparent about those increases and why they were needed, Beutner said.
The Los Angeles Lakers guard continues his hot start to the NBA season with a 12ft game-winner against Minnesota Timberwolves.
Published On 30 Oct 202530 Oct 2025
Share
Austin Reaves has made a driving jump shot at the buzzer to lift the Los Angeles Lakers to a 116-115 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves in Minneapolis.
Reaves finished Wednesday night with 28 points and 16 assists to lead Los Angeles, which won despite playing without injured stars LeBron James and Luka Doncic. Jake LaRavia finished with 27 points on 10-for-11 shooting, including 5-for-6 success from beyond the three-point arc.
Recommended Stories
list of 2 itemsend of list
Julius Randle amassed 33 points, five rebounds and six assists to lead Minnesota. Jaden McDaniels added 30 points on 11-for-19 shooting, going 3-for-4 from deep.
The Timberwolves led by one point as the Lakers lined up for an inbounds pass from just inside half-court with 6.6 seconds to go.
LaRavia fed the pass to Reaves, who dribbled for a moment as McDaniels defended him. Reaves weaved between McDaniels and Timberwolves big man Rudy Gobert to drive towards the paint and lifted for a jump shot from inside the free-throw line.
The shot fell as time expired, and Reaves’s teammates rushed to celebrate with him.
“To have that opportunity for a big road win, especially with a lot of people out, is special,” Reaves said, reflecting on his missed shot from the corner at the buzzer on the same court in the first-round NBA playoff series last spring that would have tied it only to watch the Wolves hold on and eliminate the Lakers in Game 5. “We kept hooping, and they kept encouraging me to go do what I do.”
Reaves shoots the buzzer-beater against the Minnesota Timberwolves to win the game [Jordan Johnson/Getty Images via AFP]
Injury-hit Lakers hold on
The Timberwolves nearly staged an incredible comeback before Reaves rescued the Lakers. Minnesota trailed 114-106 with 2:30 remaining but went on a 9-0 run to seize a one-point lead.
Randle punctuated the run by making a go-ahead basket with 10.2 seconds left. McDaniels had a three-pointer and a dunk during the Timberwolves’ rally.
The Lakers led 62-58 at the half.
In addition to playing without James (sciatica) and Doncic (left finger sprain, lower left leg contusion), the Lakers also were missing Marcus Smart (right quad contusion), Gabe Vincent (left ankle sprain) and Maxi Kleber (abdominal muscle strain).
Los Angeles’s Jaxson Hayes returned after missing his previous three games because of a knee injury. Hayes finished with two points, two rebounds, three assists, one block and one steal in 13 minutes.
The Timberwolves remained without top scorer Anthony Edwards, who missed his second consecutive game because of tightness in his right hamstring. Edwards is expected to miss about two weeks because of the injury.
Timberwolves forward Jaylen Clark also remained out for his second game in a row because of a left calf strain. Clark was listed as questionable on the injury report before he was ruled out.
Reaves, #15, celebrates with his Lakers teammates after defeating Minnesota [Abbie Parr/AP]
LAFC plays at Austin on Sunday for a chance to advance to the Western Conference semifinals.
LAFC took a 1-0 lead in the 20th minute on Brendan Hines-Ike’s own goal. Ryan Hollingshead beat his defender in the box for a cross in front of goal that was deflected in by Hines-Ike.
Jon Gallagher tied it at 1-all in the 63rd for Austin. A loose ball in front of net fell to the feet of Myrto Uzuni, who poked it to Owen Wolff for a feed to a wide-open Gallagher at the back post.
Son Heung-Min started the game-winning sequence with a long run to get into the area and draw defenders for a pass to Denis Bouanga, whose shot took a deflection to Ordaz at the back post.
Austin won the two regular-season meetings with LAFC this year by a 1-0 scoreline — both goals coming on headers off corner kicks.
Injuries nearly swallowed the Lakers whole Monday night, leaving them short on ballhandlers, key role players and star power.
They were down seven players and they were playing on back-to-back nights to top it off, leaving the task daunting for the Lakers.
Still, the Lakers had to press on against the odds, which they were unable to overcome in falling 122-108 to the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday night at Crypto.com Arena.
Austin Reaves did his best to keep the Lakers in the game, scoring 41 points one night after scoring a career-high 51 at Sacramento. Reaves now has scored 143 points in the first four games this season, tying him with Hall of Famer Elgin Baylor (1962) for the most points in Lakers’ history over that span to start the season.
Rui Hachimura (16 points) and Deandre Ayton (16 points, eight rebounds) tried to help out.
But with guard Luka Doncic (left finger sprain, lower left leg contusion) and LeBron James (right sciatica) out, it was going to be tough for the Lakers. Then with guards Marcus Smart (right quad contusion) and Gabe Vincent (left ankle sprain) down, it meant the Lakers were in deeper trouble without much of their backcourt. Add Maxi Kleber (abdominal muscle strain), Jaxson Hayes (right patellar tendinopathy) and Adou Thiero (left knee surgery recovery) sitting the bench in street clothes, and it was too much for the Lakers to deal with.
The Lakers have two more games this week, at Minnesota on Wednesday night and at Memphis on Friday, meaning L.A. will have played four games this week while not being whole.
Along with Reaves and Ayton, the Lakers started Jarred Vanderbilt, Rui Hachimura and Jake LaRavia.
The Lakers’ bench consisted of Dalton Knecht, Bronny James, Chris Manon and Christian Koloko, the last two of whom are on two-way contracts — leaving them with nine available players.
“I don’t expect anybody to do more than they’re doing,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “What we challenged the guys on before the game was playing with an edge. And that’s a habit that I think takes time to form. We saw glimpses of it throughout the preseason. You’re just kind of waiting on it. You hope you get it opening night. And then you finally start seeing it when we’re in Game 2 against Minnesota. And I thought the guys throughout the game yesterday [in Sacramento] just had a terrific competitive edge. That’s what we need. And that’s regardless if we have a full roster or … how many guys are out? Six? Seven? Seven. Seven guys out. Yeah, we gotta do it.”
Taking care of the basketball was one of the problems the Lakers had. Then again that wasn’t a total surprise, considering the Lakers really had just one ballhander in Reaves and he was harassed all night by Portland.
The Lakers turned the ball over 25 times, leading to 28 points for the Trail Blazers.
The Lakers didn’t do it from the three-point line in the first half, missing 11 of their 12 attempts. They finished the game going seven for 27 from the three-point line.
When Gigi Perez took to the stage at the Austin City Limits Festival earlier this month, it felt like the universe was holding up a mirror, reflecting back all the growth she’d done in the four years since her last performance there.
Back in 2021, the Cuban American singer-songwriter had a newly-minted record deal and a handful of viral SoundCloud singles — the wistful acoustic guitar track “Sometimes (Backwood)” and the devastatingly raw “Celene.” The 2021 edition of ACL was the first festival she ever performed, and though her early afternoon slot at one of the smaller stages attracted a few dozen audience members, Perez had spent so many years dreaming of the opportunity that it didn’t matter. She was happy just to be there.
This month, Perez returned to Austin no longer an emerging artist, but as a rising star. Her mega-viral single, the lovesick folk ballad from 2024, “Sailor Song,” had topped the U.K. singles chart and earned more than 1 billion streams on Spotify. On the back of its success, she spent the first half of this year opening for Hozier in support of her 2025 debut LP, “At the Beach, in Every Life.”
So when she took the stage at ACL in October, this time it was for a coveted golden hour set, with a sea of people stretched out before her — and a chorus of voices singing along to her every word.
“It was magical,” Perez told De Los. “There were people there who were actually at my first set in 2021, standing in the front. It meant a lot to me. I think that there’s a shock that I still experience with people coming to my set at a festival.”
At 25 years old, Perez has lived more life than most. Born in New Jersey and raised in West Palm Beach, Fla., the singer grew up in a devoutly Christian Cuban household, the middle child of three sisters.
As a teenager, the religious values she’d been steeped in were beginning to clash with her own realizations about her sexuality — and music provided a lifeline. The queer artists she listened to, like Hayley Kiyoko and Troye Sivan, tapped into feelings she hadn’t been able to articulate, and inspired her to write music that would allow her to express them in her own words.
At 18, just as she was preparing to head to the Berklee College of Music in Boston, her grandmother and uncle passed away, just weeks apart from each other. These dual losses set off a wave of grief and sparked difficult questions about her faith. She was struggling to regain her footing over the next year when, just months into the pandemic, her family experienced the sudden loss of her older sister Celene.
Perez felt unmoored. Her whole life, Celene had been a north star, a guiding light who inspired her to take up music, and who wanted to be a singer herself. Perez did what she knew how: wove her pain and anger and devastation into music, writing the soul-stirring tribute, “Celene.”
“The other day, I thought of something funny, but no one would’ve laughed but you,” she sings. “And mom and dad are always crying. And I wish I knew what to do.”
(Cat Cardenas / For De Los)
Her first original songs gained traction on TikTok, getting the attention of Interscope Records. From there, her career began to take off. She opened for Coldplay and Noah Cyrus, releasing her first EP, “How to Catch a Falling Knife,” in April 2023. Then, just months into a string of performances scheduled in London that summer, the label released her from her contract.
“I remember just being dumbfounded,” she said. “It was this immediate, very deep sense of fear and failure.”
But the funny thing about grief — that all-consuming force that had dragged her out to sea multiple times over the last several years — was that as suffocating as it could be, it was also surprising and unpredictable. So despite the depth of complicated emotions washing over her, Perez was acutely aware that this news was nothing compared to the loss of her sister. “So many things that happen in my life don’t affect me in that same profound way,” she said. “That was one of the things that made me. I don’t know, it’s hard to find the words even now.”
Growing up, Celene had her sights set on Broadway. She introduced Gigi to several musicals, from a bootleg version of “Legally Blonde,” to her first live theater experience in “Wicked,” to the cast album of Lin–Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights.” They played one song from the soundtrack, “Breathe,” on repeat. It’s sung by the character Nina, the daughter of immigrants in Washington Heights, who returns home in shame after having to drop out of Stanford University.
“That’s how I was feeling at the time,” Perez professed.
In London, she listened to the song on repeat. Then, she started writing. From the beginning, her style has always been instinctual; a freeform jam session where she sits at the piano or with her guitar and just lets her ideas flow out. The title came to her first — “At the Beach, in Every Life” — and the song poured out of her, nearly word for word.
“I remember the first time I played those chords on the piano, I had no idea what was going to happen,” she said. “I just knew something was opening up inside me, but I had no idea how deep the well was going to be, or that I was going to be an artist who gets to travel the world. I just had these desires, these visions, but to really live it is something else.”
After finishing out her commitments in the U.K., she moved back home to Florida. From her childhood bedroom, she began to rebuild. She taught herself music production and kept writing more songs. Without intending to, the puzzle pieces of the last few years of her life began to fall into place, and the grief that had consumed so much of her story finally had an outlet.
“At the Beach, In Every Life” details a breaking down of Perez’s walls. Her sadness and regret washes over tracks like “Sugar Water” and “Crown,” building into fiery passion on “Chemistry” and “Sailor Song,” before cresting into the haunting resolution of the title track that closes it out. It’s a portrait of loss and yearning, made up of vivid recollections from her childhood, her family, and her previous relationships. In short, it’s the album she wishes she could’ve listened to five years ago when her pain seemed insurmountable.
“I had just been operating blind for so long,” she said. “Being able to share my experience of loss in this specific way, it’s something that my 20-year-old self would be in disbelief of. At the time, it was like being without air, the isolation was so suffocating.”
Not long ago, Perez’s sadness could sometimes make her self-conscious. She wanted to share what she was going through, but she also didn’t want to be defined by it. “I didn’t want to be that girl who was always talking about her sister, but there was this very genuine desire to cry out for help, or acknowledge her,” she said. “Everyone is different, but for me, I needed to acknowledge her in order to be well.”
Fans of Gigi Perez at the barricade during her performance at this year’s Austin City Limits Festival in Austin, Texas.
(Cat Cardenas / For De Los)
Now, not even five years later, it feels like she’s finally turned the page and started a new chapter. “I’ve been able to build a life around my grief, and honor the loss of my sister in a way that’s helped me,” she said. “I don’t know exactly what healing should look like, but her death affected me and continues to affect me in these very profound ways. This is the best case scenario for me, because I get to share it with others — that’s one of the things that makes it so difficult to navigate: the feeling that no one understands you.”
“Knowing that we’re not alone has really saved my life,” she said. “I used to be the person thinking, ‘What’s the point of being alive?’ But knowing there are other people with the same question, I know now that we can hold each other’s hands through that. That’s given me a purpose and that helps me continue to move through it.”
In the process of writing the album, Perez found ways to bring both of her sisters along for the ride. There are voice memos from Celene, along with a snippet of her singing on “Survivor’s Guilt.” But there’s also “Sugar Water,” a track she co-wrote with her younger sister, Bella, who joins her onstage to perform the song on tour. “Anyone who has two sisters knows the chaos and intensity that can bring,” she said. “But we loved each other, and we still do. My relationship to what it means to be a woman was shaped by having sisters, and Celene and Bella are the closest reflection that I have of myself.”
Amid this wild, almost unbelievable year, Perez has been grounded by her family’s presence. Her mom is part of her management team, and her dad has joined them on the road.
“There’s something to be said about being in it so much that it’s almost hard to physically feel it on the level you want to,” Perez said. But over the last few weeks, as she’s gotten the opportunity to revisit the places where she first found her footing as a performer, she’s had the opportunity to reflect on just how much she’s grown since then.
For now, she plans on heading back home to Florida once her tour is over to spend time reflecting on everything. “I think that’s when I’ll start to see the confetti fall,” she said. “Life is uncertain, and we never know what it’s going to throw our way, but this was a year that I prayed for. And I think it was a year that a lot of people who love me prayed for too. So for that, I’m very grateful.”
From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: Austin Reaves hit a three. He ripped the ball from Dario Saric’s hands. He scored on a breakaway layup. All in 20 seconds.
On a night without Luka Doncic, the Lakers needed Reaves to do it all Sunday, and the guard responded emphatically as he delivered a career-high 51 points with 11 rebounds and nine assists to carry the Lakers to a 127-120 win over the Sacramento Kings at Golden 1 Center.
When the ball fell into Reaves hands for his final rebound as the game ended, Rui Hachimura wrapped Reaves in a bear hug and playfully punched his stomach. Jake LaRavia covered Reaves’ head with a towel.
In the locker room, they dumped water all over him. It was freezing. Reaves was happy.
“This is a small-town kid from Arkansas who went undrafted who last year averaged a 20-ball in the NBA and just had a 50-ball,” coach JJ Redick said. “These moments are incredible for him. I think his teammates see that. I know as a coaching staff we see that he just lives in the moment and he’s ready for every single moment that comes.”
Reaves surpassed his previous career high of 45 points, set against Indiana on Feb. 8. It was also the last time LeBron James and Doncic both missed a game for the Lakers.
Billups and Miami Heat player Terry Rozier were among those arrested Thursday for what federal law enforcement officials described as their involvement in illicit gambling activities. Billups was charged with participating in a conspiracy to fix high-stakes card games.
The NBA placed Billups and Rozier on leave following their arrests. Assistant coach Tiago Splitter is serving as Portland’s interim head coach.
From Jack Harris: After taking his normal round of infield grounders during the Dodgers’ off-day workout Sunday, Kiké Hernández jogged to center field and spent a noticeable amount of time fielding fly balls there.
After using the same nine players in their starting lineup in six straight games since the start of the National League Championship Series, the Dodgers have been considering a change for Monday — one that could drop struggling second-year slugger Andy Pages to the bench.
While the Dodgers’ overall offense has been inconsistent this postseason, Pages has endured the most glaring slump. He has collected just four hits in 43 at-bats, registering a .093 average. He has 11 strikeouts, no walks, and only one extra-base knock, providing little pop or spark from the No. 9 spot.
Manager Dave Roberts acknowledged before Game 2 that he was mulling whether to keep Pages in the lineup. And though the 24-year-old outfielder, who had 27 home runs and 86 RBIs in the regular season, had a hit and run scored on Saturday, Roberts reiterated Sunday that making a move with Pages was “still on the table” and “front of mind.”
“Just trying to figure out where he’s at mentally, physically,” Roberts said. “The performance hasn’t been there. So thinking of other options, yeah.”
Coming off a 5-4 shootout loss Saturday night in Nashville, the Kings ended a string of four extra-time games to improve to 4-3-3. They have a game left on a five-game trip that opened with overtime victories in St. Louis and Dallas.
Laferriere tied it 1-1 at 3:29 of the second with a wrist shot off a two-on-one break, and Fiala scored at 4:54 on a wraparound off a breakaway. Joel Armia added a short-handed empty-netter with 1:08 left.
1967 — New Mexico tight end Emilio Vallez catches 17 passes for 257 yards to tie an NCAA record in a 75-12 rout of Texas El Paso.
1973 — Four players rush for more than 100 yards as Alabama sets three NCAA records during a 77-6 romp of Virginia Tech. Alabama sets records with 823 yards total offense, 743 yards rushing and four 100-yard rushers. Jim Taylor gains 142 yards, Wilbur Jackson 138, Calvin Culliver 127 and Richard Todd 102.
1984 — Washington State’s Rueben Mayes sets an NCAA record with 357 yards rushing, 197 in the first half, and scores three touchdowns in a 50-41 victory over Oregon.
1984 — Iowa’s Chuck Long completes 22 straight passes to set an NCAA record in a 24-20 victory over Indiana.
2001 — Joe Paterno wins his 324th game to pass Bear Bryant for the most victories by a Division I-A coach when Penn State rallies for a 29-27 win over Ohio State.
2002 — Emmitt Smith breaks the NFL career rushing yardage record held by the late Walter Payton on an 11-yard run in the fourth quarter. Smith has 109 yards and a touchdown in Dallas’ 17-14 loss to Seattle and ends the game with 16,743 career yards — 17 more than Payton gained.
2005 — Curtis Joseph makes 13 saves to earn his 400th NHL victory and Mike Comrie scores twice as Phoenix edges Calgary 3-2.
2007 — Curlin posts an emphatic victory against his toughest rivals in the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Monmouth Park. Ridden by Robby Albarado, Curlin defeats Derby runner-up Hard Spun by 4 1/2 lengths.
2007 — Weber State beats Portland State 73-68 to set an NCAA all-division football record for points in a game. Back in 1916, Georgia Tech beat Cumberland 222-0, but that was before the NCAA kept track of records.
2012 — Matt Scott of Arizona gains 469 total yards and accounts for four TDs in the Wildcats’ 39-36 win over USC. Marqise Lee of the Trojans catches 16 passes for a Pac-12-record 345 yards and two TDs.
2013 — Matthew Stafford’s 1-yard lunge over a pile of linemen with 12 seconds left and Calvin Johnson’s 329 yards receiving lift the Detroit Lions to a 31-30 comeback win over the Dallas Cowboys. Stafford throws a 22-yard pass to Johnson, who had the second-most yards receiving in NFL history, to set up his winning score.
2013 — Serena Williams ends her best season in style, rallying past Li Na 2-6, 6-3, 6-0 for her second straight WTA Championship and 11th title of the year.
2015 — American soccer star Abby Wambach announces her retirement.
Compiled by the Associated Press
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1996 — The New York Yankees win their first World Series title since 1978 with a 3-2 victory over the defending champion Atlanta Braves in Game 6.
2002 — Behind rookie pitcher John Lackey and a three-run double by Garret Anderson, the Angels beat Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants 4-1 for the franchise’s first World Series title.
2004 — The Boston Red Sox are World Series champions at long, long last. Johnny Damon homers on the fourth pitch of the game, Derek Lowe makes it stand up and the Red Sox win Game 4 3-0, sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals for their first crown since 1918.
2006 — The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Detroit Tigers 4-2 in Game 5 to wrap up their first Series title in nearly a quarter-century and 10th overall. The Cardinals, with 83 regular-season wins, is the fewest by a World Series champion.
2015 — Alex Gordon hits a tying home run with one out in the ninth inning, Eric Hosmer hits a sacrifice fly against Bartolo Colon in the 14th and the Kansas City Royals beat the New York Mets 5-4 in the longest opener in World Series history.
2020 — The Dodgers beat the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 6 at Globe Life Field in Arlington Texas to win their first World Series title in 32 years.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at [email protected]. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
Norris started alongside Verstappen on the front row, hoping McLaren’s usually strong race performance would allow him to challenge the Red Bull driver, who had won two of the past three races and beaten the McLarens in all of them.
But Norris’ hopes of the win evaporated quickly as Leclerc used the extra grip of the soft tyres – he was the only driver in the top 10 to pick them for the start, with everyone else on mediums – to catapult into second place at the first corner.
As Verstappen built his lead, through an early virtual safety car period caused by a collision between Williams’ Carlos Sainz and Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, Norris tried in vain to pass Leclerc, with Hamilton in close attendance.
Several times Norris challenged Leclerc on the outside at Turn 12, at the end of the long back straight, but he was never close enough to really try for a pass.
As Verstappen built his lead, Leclerc held on until just before he stopped for fresh tyres on lap 22, fitting the medium compound.
Verstappen stopped a couple of laps later, never losing the lead and enjoying an untroubled win, his third in four races and fifth of the season, matching Norris’ tally.
Norris stayed out for a further 10 laps, dropping behind the Ferrari again when he stopped to fit the soft tyres.
The Briton emerged 2.4 seconds behind Leclerc and within four laps was on the Ferrari’s tail.
But again he could not pass and soon he was on the radio saying his tyres we’re gone.
Norris was advised by his race engineer Will Joseph to back off for a few laps to cool his tyres and try again.
Norris did so, and closed in with five laps to go. He challenged into Turn One, briefly getting past, only for Leclerc to cut back and reclaim the place.
But half a lap later, Norris went for the position again into Turn 12, dummying Leclerc and this time making the move stick.
By this stage, Hamilton had dropped back and took a lonely fourth place.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen beat McLaren’s Lando Norris to pole position at the United States Grand Prix with championship leader Oscar Piastri down in sixth.
After the McLaren drivers crashed out of the sprint earlier on Saturday, neither was able to challenge Verstappen even though the world champion failed to complete a final run in qualifying.
Verstappen was sent out too late to get around in time to start a last lap before the chequered flag but still beat Norris by 0.291 seconds.
It was an imperious performance that underlined why McLaren are concerned about his threat in the drivers’ championship.
Norris saved his best for last in a difficult session to pip Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to second on the grid by just 0.006secs.
But Piastri, who has looked out of sorts all weekend, was not quick and he ended up 0.574secs off the pace, and behind Mercedes’ George Russell and the second Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton.
The crash was a gift for Verstappen, who McLaren have always insisted remained a threat in the championship despite his significant deficit, especially as Red Bull have returned to form in recent races.
The crash brought out the safety car for five laps and after the restart Verstappen was tracked by Russell, who made a bold move into Turn 12 on lap seven, a late dive that ended up with both going off the track.
Verstappen retained the position and soon began to edge away and took control of the race.
Sainz was no threat to Russell, but he had to watch his mirrors for Hamilton.
The seven-time champion passed team-mate Charles Leclerc on lap eight down the back straight after the Monegasque lost control of his car through the high-speed Esses earlier in the lap.
Leclerc had a snap through the Esses, cut one of the corners, and that allowed Hamilton to close up. He then passed down the straight as Leclerc edged him right to the edge of the track on the inside.
Leclerc tried to fight back through the series of slower corners through the stadium section but Hamilton held on.
Leclerc took fifth place, with Williams’ Alex Albon sixth and Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda seventh.
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli took the final point after a 10-second penalty for Haas driver Oliver Bearman, who was adjudged to have gained an advantage by leaving the track after the Italian tried a passing move into Turn 12 late in the race.
Bearman could not believe the penalty when told about it by his team during the race, obviously feeling Antonelli had forced him off track with his late move.
The race ended under another safety car after Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll T-boned Esteban Ocon’s Haas into the first corner, leaving his team with a massive repair job on both cars in the gap before grand prix qualifying at 22:00 BST.
Piastri had looked to be struggling compared with Norris since the start of practice and was a good chunk off the Briton in all three qualifying sessions.
Norris said: “Disappointed not to be on pole but not a surprise for us to be just a bit slower than the Red Bull lately.
“A little couple of bits here and there I could have improved on and caught a few bumps a little bit wrong, that’s the difficulty of this track. Otherwise, all happy.”
Piastri said: “A pretty scruffy lap. Just didn’t really get it together. In some ways, I feel a bit fortunate to be third. The pace in the car is good. It’s nothing major, just been a bit of a messy lap and hopefully I can tidy it up tomorrow.”
The sprint offers eight points for the winner down to one for eighth place.
The stand-out performance in qualifying came from Hulkenberg, the first time he has qualified in the top 10 all year, and the best Sauber performance of the season.
Their previous top grid position was seventh for team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto in Hungary at the start of August.
“Satisfied, happy, as you might imagine,” the German said. “P1 looked too good to be true. We weren’t sure if it was the real deal but we were able to continue that trend. Hopefully we can hang on to it this weekend.
“The pace was just there. The car seemed to be fast and in a good window, hit the sweet spot, I think that’s all.”
McLaren’s Lando Norris set the pace in practice at the United States Grand Prix, split from team-mate and title rival Oscar Piastri by Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg.
Norris, trailing the Australian by 22 points with six races to go, headed Piastri by 0.279 seconds at the start of a sprint weekend at the Circuit of the Americas.
Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso was fourth fastest, ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Williams’ Alex Albon.
This was the only session before sprint qualifying at 22:30 BST.
Mercedes’ George Russell was seventh fastest, the first driver to set his fastest time on the medium tyres, ahead of Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar and Haas’ Oliver Bearman.
AUSTIN, Texas — Owen Wolff scored in a goal in the 83rd minute, Brad Stuver had two saves, and Austin FC beat LAFC 1-0 on Sunday night to snap LAFC’s six-game win streak.
LAFC (17-8-8) has 59 points, one behind second-place San Diego and one ahead of Minnesota in the Western Conference. Vancouver has 63 points.
Austin (13-12-8) has 47 points and will be the No. 6 seed in the Western Conference for the MLS Cup playoffs, which begin Oct. 22.
Wolff’s goal ended LAFC’s shutout streak at 429 minutes, dating to Sept. 21 against Salt Lake.
Zan Kolmanic played a corner kick into the area that deflected off the head of LAFC’s Eddie Segura before Wolff headed home the finish inside the back post.
Denis Bouanga and Son Heung-min did not play (international duty) for LAFC. Bouanga is second in MLS with 24 goals this season and Son has eight goals and three assists in eight starts since signing with LAFC on Aug. 6.
The match had been scheduled for July 5, but was rescheduled due to severe weather and flooding in the area.
Former investment banker Austin Beutner, an advocate for arts education who spent three years at the helm of the Los Angeles Unified School District, appears to be laying the groundwork for a run against Mayor Karen Bass in next year’s election, according to his social media accounts.
At one point Saturday, Beutner’s longtime account on X featured the banner image “AUSTIN for LA MAYOR,” along with the words: “This account is being used for campaign purposes by Austin Beutner for LA Mayor 2026.”
Both the text and the banner image, which resembled a campaign logo, were removed shortly before 1 p.m. Saturday. Beutner did not immediately provide comment after being contacted by The Times.
New “AustinforLA” accounts also appeared on Instagram and Bluesky on Saturday, displaying the same campaign text and logo. Those messages were also quickly removed and converted to generic accounts for Beutner.
It’s still unclear when Beutner, 65, plans to launch a campaign, or if he will do so. Rumors about his intentions have circulated widely in political circles in recent weeks.
Beutner, who worked at one point as a high-level aide to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, would instantly become the most significant candidate to run against Bass, who is seeking a second four-year term in June.
Although seven other people have filed paperwork to run for her seat, none has the fundraising muscle or name recognition to pose a threat. Rick Caruso, the real estate developer whom Bass defeated in 2022, has publicly flirted with another run for the city’s top office but has yet to announce a decision.
A representative for Bass’ campaign did not immediately comment.
Beutner’s announcement comes in a year of crises for the mayor and her city. Bass was out of the country in January, taking part in a diplomatic mission to Ghana, when the ferocious Palisades fire destroyed thousands of homes and killed 12 people.
When she returned, Bass faced withering criticism over the city’s preparation for the high winds, as well as fire department operations and the overall emergency response.
In the months that followed, the city was faced with a $1-billion budget shortfall, triggered in part by pay raises for city workers that were approved by Bass. To close the gap, the City Council eliminated about 1,600 vacant positions, slowed down hiring at the Los Angeles Police Department and rejected Bass’ proposal for dozens of additional firefighters.
By June, Bass faced a different emergency: waves of masked and heavily armed federal agents apprehending immigrants at car washes, Home Depots and elsewhere, sparking furious street protests.
Bass had been politically weakened in the wake of the Palisades fire. But after President Trump put the city in his crosshairs, the mayor regained her political footing, responding swiftly and sharply. She mobilized her allies against the immigration crackdown and railed against the president’s deployment of the National Guard, arguing that the soldiers were “used as props.”
Beutner would come to the race with a wide range of job experiences — the dog-eat-dog world of finance, the struggling journalism industry and the messy world of local government. He also is immersed in philanthropy, having founded the nonprofit Vision to Learn, which provides vision screenings, eye exams and glasses to children in low-income communities.
He is a co-founder and former president of Evercore Partners, a financial services company that advises its clients on mergers, acquisitions and other transactions. In 2008, he retired from that firm — now simply called Evercore Inc. — after he was seriously injured in a bicycling accident.
In 2010, he became Villaraigosa’s jobs advisor, taking on the elevated title of first deputy mayor and receiving wide latitude to strike business deals on Villaraigosa’s behalf, just as the city was struggling to emerge from its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
Beutner worked closely with Chinese electric car company BYD to make L.A. its North American headquarters, while also overseeing decisions at the Department of Water and Power and other agencies.
Slightly more than a year into his job, Beutner filed paperwork to begin exploring a run for mayor. He secured the backing of former Mayor Richard Riordan and many in the business community but pulled the plug in 2012.
In 2014, Beutner became publisher of the Los Angeles Times, where he focused on digital experimentation and forging deeper ties with readers. He lasted roughly a year in that job before Tribune Publishing Co., the parent company of The Times, ousted him.
Three years later, Beutner was hired as the superintendent of L.A. Unified, which serves schoolchildren in Los Angeles and more than two dozen other cities and unincorporated areas. He quickly found himself at odds with the teachers’ union, which staged a six-day strike.
The union settled for a two-year package of raises totaling 6%. Beutner, for his part, signed off on a parcel tax to generate additional education funding, but voters rejected the proposal.
Beutner’s biggest impact may have been his leadership during COVID-19. The school district distributed millions of meals to needy families and then, as campuses reopened, worked to upgrade air filtration systems inside schools.
In 2022, after leaving the district, Beutner led the successful campaign for Proposition 28, which requires that a portion of California’s general fund go toward visual and performing arts instruction.
Earlier this year, Beutner and several others sued L.A. Unified, accusing the district of violating Proposition 28 by misusing state arts funding and denying legally required arts instruction to students.
Former adult film actor Austin Wolf has received his prison sentence on two counts of child sexual exploitation.
Content warning: This story includes topics that could make some readers feel uncomfortable and/or upset.
On 26 September (Friday), US District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer sentenced the 44-year-old – whose real name is Justin Heath Smith – to19 years in prison for one count of enticing a minor to engage in sexual activity and one count for engaging in a pattern of activity involving prohibited sexual conduct.
Alongside his prison sentence, the court imposed a $40,000 fine and 10 years of supervised release.
“Justin Heath Smith’s crimes against children are horrible. He targeted kids as young as seven, and every New Yorker wants him and those like him off our streets for as long as possible and never again near our children,” US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton said in a statement.
“The women and men of our Office, and our law enforcement partners, are laser-focused on ridding our streets of those who sexually exploit our children. The message to predators from our Office is clear: there is no place for you in New York other than prison.”
According to the official complaint, a detailed investigation into Smith first started in April 2024 after the intelligence and security service seized the phone of another Telegram user named ‘Target Telegram User-1.’
Instagram
While reviewing the individual’s records, they discovered a correspondence with another account named ‘Anon Anon,’ who was believed to be Smith.
During their exchange, which reportedly took place between 24 March and 28 March 2024, the two users allegedly shared “approximately 200 videos” of child pornography “that depicted children as young as infants,” the document read.
After their arrest, ‘Target Telegram User-1’ took part in an interview with authorities, revealing that they had previously met with ‘Anon Anon’ in person, and shared details that matched Smith’s – including “physical description, vocation, and approximate address,” the document continued.
After ‘Target Telegram User-1’ claimed that ‘Anon Anon’ kept child pornography on his home computer, law enforcement executed a search of Smith’s apartment, where they seized his phone and an SD card.
On 20 June, nearly a year after his arrest, Smith pleaded guilty to enticement of a minor during his plea hearing.
According to theNew York Post, the former adult film star admitted to the court to “inducing a 15-year-old to engage in a sex act” in late 2023 or early 2024.
“I don’t remember through text or [social media], but phones were definitely used. I know what I was doing was wrong,” Smith reportedly said in between sobs.
“I apologise. I knew it was wrong when I did it. I don’t blame anyone else for my conduct [although] it was another person engaging in the conduct. I take full 100 percent responsibility for my actions, and I am prepared for the consequences.”
For more information about the case, Smith’s plea agreement and statements made in court, click here.
Hank Thompson (Austin Butler), the battered lead of Darren Aronofsky’s grimy trifle “Caught Stealing,” has made two major mistakes. First, he saved a cow. Second, he agreed to watch a cat. Swerving his car around the cow and into a pole wrecked Hank’s promising professional baseball career. The cat-sitting happens after Hank moves across the country from California to Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where he works the closing shift at a dive bar. Before this slacker mama’s boy can crack open a can of Fancy Feast, two toughs come looking for the cat’s actual owner, his neighbor, a mohawked rocker named Russ (Matt Smith). Failing to find their real target, they beat Hank until he loses a kidney.
Then, the truly awful stuff starts. “Caught Stealing,” adapted by Charlie Huston from their novel of the same name, is a bruising bacchanal that celebrates grotty New York City in 1998, when the World Trade Center still stood tall and tech geeks were still mostly broke nerds with jobs no one understands. Duane (George Abud), the drippy programmer across the hall, keeps yelling at Hank and his steady fling, Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz), a party girl paramedic, that he has to wake up in the morning to build websites. They snicker like Duane couldn’t be more lame.
Thanks to the cat, Hank has blundered into a crime caper that will bring gallons of blood and vividly sketched goons to his door: Russian thugs Pavel (Nikita Kukushkin) and Alekset (Yuri Kolokonikov), Hassidic hitmen Lipa (Liev Schreiber) and Shmully (Vincent D’Onofrio) and a Puerto Rican club owner named Colorado (Benito Martinez Ocasio, better known as Bad Bunny). Hank doesn’t know what these hoods want and he’s aching to get them off his back. He’s also getting hounded by NYPD Detective Roman (Regina King), a hard-nosed veteran of Alphabet City who is unconvinced that Hank is tangled up in this messy business simply because of bad luck.
Everything onscreen has been coated in graffiti, booze or bodily fluids. “Caught Stealing” would be torture to watch in Smell-O-Vision. Aronofsky clearly adores this colorful pre-millennial cesspool, even if the characters in the movie are already grumbling that Rudy Giuliani is scrubbing the life out of the place. Hank blames the mayor’s new rules when he has to stop a pack of college kids from dancing in the bar. He may just also hate Smash Mouth. The film prefers the sleazy, energetic sounds of composer Rob Simonsen and a soundtrack weighted toward the British post-punk band the Idles.
Huston has changed the characters to better suit a hyper-local vibe, reworking the book’s pair of cowboys into Schreiber and D’Onofrio’s devout Jewish brothers who detour mid-assassination to visit their mother (an adorable, Yiddish-speaking Carole Kane) on Shabbos. (The actors are so hidden under their beards that it took me half the movie to spot Schreiber’s nose.) Hank’s attempts to escape them and his other pursuers sends the camera climbing up an alleyway, whirling through a Russian wedding and vaulting across the fish tanks at an Asian grocery store, where he gets out of one dragnet by sliding under a bucket of live crabs.
It’s the kind of intimate tour of New York that usually gets called a love letter to the city, except the corners Aronofsky likes have so much grime and menace and humor that it’s more like an affectionate dirty limerick. He can’t resist adding a cockroach to the opening titles. Even in a moment of respite, when Roman takes Hank to a late-night diner for her favorite black and white cookie, the director has instructed the server to hurl the plate at her dismissively. That rude clatter is his equivalent of a sonnet.
Butler’s Hank is dog-paddling through life: a self-loathing failure just trying to keep his head above water. The former high school hero is still coasting on his charisma and only starting to realize how little he’ll have once he loses his looks and life-of-the-party bonhomie. He’s also an alcoholic — “Breakfast of champions,” he says as he chugs beer for breakfast — which adds to the strain when Yvonne warns him that a guy with one kidney needs to lay off the sauce. He doesn’t and learns the hard way that it’s tough to think when you’re hungover. As we’re with hazy Hank in every scene but one, the tone can feel lax, but editors Justin Allison and Andrew Weisblum are great at cutting together a bender.
Hank and Yvonne are hot for each other at 4 a.m. and cooler in the afternoon when they finally roll out of bed, in part because she claims she can’t get serious about someone who spends his life running. Alas, he’ll also have to spend the rest of the film running and when his apartment building feels unsafe, he doesn’t know anywhere else to go but a bar. Stumbling out of one saloon and down the sidewalk past Kim’s Video (now shuttered, R.I.P.), you can practically hear Aronofsky pleading to let him rent a movie and have a quiet night in. Meanwhile, characters keep hammering Hank about whether he’s a real killer; the actual definition becomes semantic. The truth is, Hank doesn’t think at all about who he is, or could become — only of the jock he was — which is the core of his problem.
In flashbacks, Butler glows with the promise of youth. Joy-riding with his friend Dale (D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai), he humblebrags that the Major League won’t draft him any higher than 15th place. Nightmares about their car accident happen pretty much every time Hank closes his eyes, each one jolting us with the sound of a loud cracking bat. We wince whenever the film leaps from Hank’s fresh-faced past to his throbbing present, especially when he sprints and we fear he’ll pop a stitch.
Even the cat, Bud (a long-haired tortiseshell beauty named Tonic), will wind up limping on three paws and making your heart break. Don’t worry, Aronofsky only shows a few frames of that and nothing of the assault, instead letting Bud spend much of the film with his sweet head poking out of a gym bag. The cat is so impossibly patient about never getting any food or water that his breed must be half-Maine Coon, half-camel.
Aronofsky approached Huston about adapting “Caught Stealing” over a decade and a half ago, around the time he made “Black Swan.” The director’s reputation has been so tethered to ambitious (even pretentious) Oscar-caliber material that even as we get invested in whether dopey Hank can save his own neck — or, at least, the cat’s — the back of our brain is busily wondering what’s drawn him to a story that’s simply a good yarn? He must love the hectic and scuzzy New York classics that launched a generation of great filmmakers in the ’60s and ’70s. Then you think about how in 1998 — a year Aronofsky must have chosen, since the novel itself is set in 2000 — he was roughly Hank’s age and releasing his breakthrough movie “Pi,” shot on location nearby.
At a glance, his first film and his latest one feel worlds different even though they’re tramping around the same streets (and even though Aronofsky has remained loyal to his cinematographer Matthew Libatique, who gives these goings-on a rich and gritty texture). But across his career, Aronofsky has remained fixated on the burden of talent. His movies are almost always about characters at risk of squandering their potential, be they ballerinas, wrestlers, mathematicians or baseball players. Beyond guns, the biggest threat to Hank’s well-being is knowing that he nearly did something great with his life and didn’t. Meanwhile, just around the corner, young Aronofsky himself did something great — and then realized audiences expected him to keep overachieving for the rest of his career.
In that context, “Caught Stealing” feels like Aronofsky’s own pressure release. All the way through the end credits, it just wants to entertain. If this was a director’s debut film, people would praise it to the top of the Empire State Building. That it feels a tad underwhelming compared to the rest of his work is on us (and it’s still leagues better than “The Whale”). Perhaps it’s crossed Aronofsky’s mind that if audiences do dig the fluky adventures of Hank Thompson, Huston has written two more books in the series. Perhaps like Hank himself, he doesn’t want to think too far into the future.
‘Caught Stealing’
Rated: R, for strong violent content, pervasive language, some sexuality/nudity and brief drug use
If you’re looking for a football team that almost certainly will be improved over last season, Bellflower High fits the profile.
The Buccaneers went 0-10. Amir Neal was a starter and never quit. His mom kept telling him, “It’s going to get better, it’s going to get better.”
And it has with the hiring of first-year coach Keith Miller, who has brought along his 14-year-old freshman son, Austin, who’s 6 feet 5.
“We’re going to compete for championships and scholarships,” Miller vowed at a media day on Saturday.
Miller was an assistant at Bellflower when his brother, Jason, was head coach. His daughter plays flag football at Bellflower, so the Millers figure to be influential in the sports programs.
Having Austin around should help. He’s a receiver who’s still growing. New quarterback Elacion Saxton will try to use Miller’s size and athleticism for big plays.
Austin was asked if during a car ride his father treats him differently depending on his performance.
“There’s no difference whether there’s a good game or bad game,” he said. “My dad still loves me.”
After a follow-up question, Austin finally admitted a good game gets him a stop at Chipotle.
The opening scene unfolds onto a bird’s-eye view of a sedan making its way down a stretch of unmarked highway, as Woody Harrelson’s unmistakable drawl is heard off-camera. “You ever wonder if this industry of ours is just chasing its own tail?” he asks.
Matthew McConaughey, in his equally distinctive cadence, shoots back, “No, I don’t wonder. Restrictions, regulations, nickel and diming productions, political lectures,” before the camera pans in for a close-up of the actors.
The sequence pays homage to the gritty, atmospheric crime drama “True Detective.” Indeed, it was directed by Nic Pizzolatto, the show’s creator.
Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey have played major roles in the effort to increase Texas film incentives.
(Lester Cohen / WireImage)
In January, this four-minute video, “True to Texas,” was released as part of an unusual campaign by a coalition of A-list actors — Dennis Quaid, Renée Zellweger and Billy Bob Thornton make appearances — independent creatives and Lone Star Republicans to appeal to the Texas State Legislature.
The goal: to help bring increased film incentives to a state not known for its wholesale embrace of Hollywood or government subsidies — particularly for something like the arts.
Despite considerable push back among conservative lawmakers, the effort paid off. Last month Gov. Greg Abbott allowed the passage of an unprecedented bill boosting tax incentives for film production in the state to $300 million every two years — guaranteeing that funding for 10 years. The law goes into effect Sept. 1.
The aggressive bid to nab a slice of Hollywood furthers the ongoing rivalry between California and Texas. Several major Golden State-based companies including Tesla and Hewlett-Packard have relocated to the Lone Star State, lured by lower taxes and its business-friendly environment. It also comes as California is struggling to keep movie and TV production, having recently doubled its own tax incentive ceiling to compete with film subsidies in three dozen other states and abroad.
The new bill puts Texas in a position to become a major player among the growing list of global and regional filming hubs in an industry that has become increasingly unmoored from its historic Hollywood hometown.
“Texas now has a program that is going to be competitive,” said Fred Poston, the executive director of the Texas Media Production Alliance. “When you really take a close look at it, you realize this is a big deal. We have this new level of funding to start building more industry around it.”
The Texas bill is not only bigger and better, but found itself an unlikely champion in Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick wants to make his state the world’s film capital.
(Eric Gay / Associated Press)
“We are not trying to make Texas the next Hollywood — we don’t like Hollywood. We want to export Texas values,” said Patrick in a campaign update. A staunch conservative who has relentlessly opposed legalized marijuana, gambling and abortion, Patrick has vowed “to make Texas the Film Capital of the World.”
The bill, which supports the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Fund (TMIIF) program, offers tiered grants up to 25% for projects spending $1.5 million in the state. Faith-based films and those that shoot in historic sites or employ a percentage of crew who are Texas-based military veterans can push grants up to 31%.
The governor’s office, through the film commission, has broad discretion over which projects receive funds and awards can be denied at any stage in the review process for material that portrays Texas negatively or contains “inappropriate” content.
Conservative backlash
Still, even with the bill’s Texas-style protectionist wrangling, its passage was far from assured.
Weeks before the Senate vote, there was hand-wringing among conservative lawmakers and others who opposed the bill on economic, moral and even biblical grounds. Critics took swipes at profanity-laced scripts and what they saw as inaccurate portrayals of the state’s oilmen on TV. Some viewed the grants as akin to taxpayer theft. Many shuddered at the thought that the bill would usher in the unholy influence of a debauched Hollywood on Texas.
“The Bible warns us of the consequences of the government wrongfully taking money from some and handing it out to others,” said the Texans for Fiscal Responsibility in one of several papers it published decrying the bill.
Republican State Rep. Brian Harrison called the bill “an abomination. And shame on everybody who voted for it.”
Harrison launched his own “Don’t Hollywood My Texas” crusade.
One of his followers, the Freedom Bard, a self-proclaimed “patriotic” lyricist, recorded an earworm of a protest anthem denouncing the bill with such lyrics as: “Keep your failed policies and your liberal BS.”
“This is big government liberal redistributive socialism,” Harrison told The Times, “The governor and lieutenant governor of the supposedly Republican-controlled state of Texas chose to keep property taxes billions of dollars higher so that you can subsidize a rich liberal Hollywood movie industry — how embarrassing.”
He plans to introduce legislation at a special hearing later this month to repeal the law.
The ‘Third Coast’
Despite the hostility toward Hollywood, Texas was once known as the film industry’s “Third Coast.”
Many of the westerns of the 1920s and ‘30s were filmed in the state.
Texas’ sweeping backdrops and larger-than-life characters have inspired some of the most celebrated movies and television shows, including the 1956 epic “Giant,” the 1974 slasher classic “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” the 1990 sleeper hit “Slacker” and the acclaimed small-town TV series “Friday Night Lights.”
The 1956 classic “Giant,” starring James Dean, was primarily shot in Texas.
(Warner Bros. / TCM)
The state’s cultural soil has nurtured a fertile creative community with filmmakers like Robert Rodriguez (“El Mariachi”), Wes Anderson (“Bottle Rocket”) and Richard Linklater (“Boyhood”).
By the early 2000s, however, neighboring states began chipping away.
“Texas had been highly competitive, we had all of these ingredients,” said Rebecca Campbell, CEO of the Austin Film Society. “Then all of a sudden, Texas stories were getting shot in New Mexico and Louisiana.”
In 2007, the state established its first program for film incentives, earmarking $20 million. Although the program expanded in later years, it became chronically underfunded, prompting the producers of “Fear the Walking Dead” in 2021 to relocate to Georgia after filming four seasons around Austin.
Linklater had to rework his 2024 romantic crime thriller “Hit Man” starring Glen Powell, originally set in Houston, when filming relocated to New Orleans because of a lack of available incentive funds.
Director Richard Linklater on the set of “Hit Man,” with Adria Arjona and Glen Powell.
(Brian Roedel / Netflix)
“We’re completely surrounded by states that have very active film incentive programs,” Linklater told the podcast “Friends on Film.” “They really support this industry, and you have to do that to compete.”
But a perceptible cultural and economic shift in the Texas landscape began to slowly take shape during the pandemic, when a wave of actors and filmmakers relocated to the state.
Filmmaker Nate Strayer, formerly of Los Angeles, moved to Austin in 2021 and later founded production company Stray Vista Studios.
“We started to realize that we could have an industry here where our stories aren’t being pulled away to other states,” said Strayer, whose company produced the “True to Texas” video.
Noah Hawley has made Austin, Texas, his base of operations.
(Justin Cook / For The Times)
Until the pandemic shut down Hollywood, “Fargo” series creator Noah Hawley flew every other week from his home in Texas to Los Angeles for meetings with his production company when he wasn’t shooting. When the pandemic ended, Hawley found he no longer needed to be based in Hollywood.
Last year he moved his company, 26 Keys, to Austin.
“My wife and I wanted to be a bigger part of our community in Texas,” he said. “What Austin provides for me is more of a local, handmade place.”
The ‘Sheridan effect’
The other wave to hit Texas’ film industry was Taylor Sheridan.
Taylor Sheridan films an episode of “Landman.”
(Emerson Miller / Paramount+)
The “Yellowstone” creator, who grew up in Fort Worth, began filming many of his hit television shows — including “1883” and “Landman” — across the state.
The productions brought in hundreds of millions of dollars to local businesses and a stream of tourists in what many began calling “the Sheridan Effect.”
Production of “1883” alone led to 13,325 booked hotel nights in Fort Worth, according to the city’s film commission.
Beyond the economic boom, Sheridan showed that Texas could tell its own stories and help seed larger ambitions.
In February 2023, Lt. Gov. Patrick had dinner with Sheridan.
Shortly afterward, Patrick described Sheridan as the “best screenwriter of our time and one of the best storytellers ever to make movies” and said, “My goal is for Taylor to move all of his TV and movie production to Texas.”
Soon, Sheridan had a multiplier effect.
The Wonder Project, the faith-based, family-oriented production company behind Amazon‘s “House of David,” was established by filmmaker Jon Erwin (“Jesus Revolution”) and former YouTube executive Kelly Merryman Hoogstraten in 2023 with more than $75 million from such investors as Jason Blum, Lionsgate and Leonard Leo, the wealthy conservative lawyer and Federalist Society co-chairman.
Two years ago, Hill Country Studios, a $267-million film and television studio, broke ground in San Marcos. The plans include 12 soundstages spanning 310,000 square feet, two back lots, a virtual production stage and 15 acres of outdoor production space.
Zachary Levi, the star of “Shazam!” and “Chuck,” is raising $40 million to develop his Wyldwood Studios in Bastrop east of Austin. Plans call for two 20,000-square-foot soundstages, along with a hotel, restaurants and homes.
Zachary Levi is planning to create a new kind of studio system in Texas.
(Chris Pizzello / Invision / AP)
“I really felt this … calling on my life to go and build what is essentially a new version in the lineage of United Artists,” he said. “That allows the artist to really take the power back, take their destiny back.”
But for all the activity, there was no getting around the math. If Texas did not pour resources into a substantial rebate program, it would continue to lose out.
The challenge was to convince the conservative Legislature that an incentive program was not simply a Hollywood handout.
Thus began a campaign in spring 2023 with Texas voices advocating for a strong film industry.
That May, “Good for Texas,” the video precursor to “True to Texas,” showcased Lone Star-born actors such as McConaughey, Quaid, Owen Wilson, Powell and others in support of increased incentives.
Filmmaker Chase Musslewhite, a sixth-generation Houstonian who was one of the video’s producers, said she was motivated to get involved when she lost funding for her first feature after her financier opted to shoot in Louisiana.
She joined forces with Grant Wood, a Midland native, who had studied film and ran a Dallas start-up, to launch the Media for Texas advocacy group.
“We wanted to help get the film community aligned and put forth one bill with one idea to make it as easy as possible for the Legislature to push for it,” Musslewhite said.
The Texas Film Commission painted a rosy picture, saying that for every dollar invested in the incentives, Texas received $4 of new money into the economy.
A pivotal moment arrived in late summer 2024. Media for Texas co-hosted a private screening of the film “Reagan,” starring Dennis Quaid, with Patrick at Austin’s Bullock Texas State History Museum. A number of state legislators attended.
Patrick took to the podium and announced his aim to “make Texas the media capital of the world,” Musslewhite recalled.
That was the push people needed, Musslewhite said.
Last October, Patrick convened a special hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, where a new bill for a robust film incentive was front and center.
Patrick marshaled McConaughey, Harrelson, Quaid and Sheridan to support him. Joining the effort was billionaire Ross Perot Jr.
Dennis Quaid, second from left, standing next to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, looking up, at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo in March, is one of the many prominent Texas-born Hollywood actors and filmmakers to rally around film incentives.
(Cassie Stricker / Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo)
During the hearing, a denim-clad Quaid voiced his support. “I, for one, feel that the world is beginning to turn right side up again and common sense prevails, and I’d like to see that reflected in our films and entertainment.”
When Sheridan spoke, he expressed regret that his 2016 film “Hell or High Water,” a story of two bank-robbing brothers trying to save their Texas family ranch, had to shoot in New Mexico because of its subsidies.
“No one will be here without the incentives,” the filmmaker said.
During the last stretch before the vote, McConaughey, in a cowboy hat, made a final overture to legislators in March.
“If we pass this bill, we are immediately at the bargaining table for shooting more films and TV and commercials in our state,” he said. “That is money that’s going to local Texas restaurants, hotels, coffee shops, dry cleaners, street rentals, home rentals ― even Woody’s barber,” in a nod to Harrelson, who was also in attendance.
The high-profile campaign worked. Two months later, the bill passed in the Senate with a 23-8 vote, and by June it had become law.
A slippery slope?
Nonetheless, concerns remain about the program.
For one, the bill, which emphasizes a positive portrayal of the state, does not specifically address whether a film or show that has themes such as abortion, gun control or LGBTQ+ characters will receive funding.
In 2010, then-Gov. Rick Perry’s administration yanked funding for the Robert Rodriguez film “Machete” over concerns that the movie portrayed Texas negatively.
Funding for Robert Rodriguez’s film “Machete” was denied over concerns it portrayed Texas negatively.
(Ryan Green / Netflix)
George Huang, professor of screenwriting at UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television, cautioned this could be “a very slippery slope.”
“I understand that with incentives you don’t want to appear to fund controversial subjects,” he said. “But where do you draw the line on censorship? Who in the governor’s office is the arbiter of good taste?”
Many inside the Texas film community stress that these are still early days and believe the film office will ultimately take a case-by-case approach.
“I think that those fears are misplaced, because the opportunity for what Texas can provide to the country and to the world outweighs the risk,” Musslewhite said.
For now,the Texas film community is elated.
“Texans kind of warmed up to the idea that if an industry were to grow in Texas, it doesn’t have to look exactly like it looks in some of these other places,” Strayer said. “I think they came to realize that you can kind of write your own rules.”
And what’s more Texan than writing your own rules?
AUSTIN, Texas — The Major League Soccer game between LAFC and Austin FC was postponed Saturday because of inclement weather.
“The decision was made due to severe weather impacting the safety of travel in Central Texas and with guidance from relevant local authorities,” Austin FC said in a statement.
A new date for the match at Q2 Stadium will be announced at a later date.
In the statement, Austin also expressed sympathy for those affected by flooding in the state, which has claimed the lives of at least 43 people. There are also 27 children missing from a summer camp.
“Our hearts go out to the families, friends, and neighbors who have lost their lives, and we urge that those who are able find their way to safety,” the club said. “We also want to express our gratitude and respect for those who are responding to the crisis with life saving measures.”
