change

Europe’s summers are transforming. What were once considered exceptionally high temperatures, such as the near 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) being experienced in Prague, are becoming the norm.

According to Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, late May and June heatwaves brought daily average temperatures of more than 10C (18F) above the norm in parts of France, the United Kingdom and Spain.

Western European temperatures averaged 20.74C (69F) in June, 3.06C (5.4F) above the 1991-2020 average.

With some temperatures climbing well above 40C, prolonged droughts, destructive wildfires and shrinking rivers are no longer freak events but recurring features of European summers.

Scientists have repeatedly warned that climate change would increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather. Heatwaves now last longer, arrive earlier and affect more countries simultaneously.

The consequences extend beyond uncomfortable temperatures. They are reshaping ecosystems, economies and daily life across much of the continent.

Wildfires: Larger, earlier and more destructive

Extreme heat dries vegetation, turning forests, scrubland and grass into fuel for fires. When strong winds combine with prolonged drought, fires can spread more rapidly and become ever more difficult to control.

Countries across the Mediterranean area – including Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy and France – have a history of wildfires. But fire season now starts earlier, lasts longer, and affects regions that in the past faced a much lower risk.

The European Union recorded at least 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of land burned in the region last year, nearly double the historical average.

Some fires are so intense they generate their own weather systems. Known as pyrocumulonimbus clouds, these towering smoke clouds can produce powerful winds, lightning and embers that ignite new fires several kilometres away, making them even harder to contain.

Beyond the immediate destruction of homes and forests, wildfires damage biodiversity, release dangerous quantities of carbon dioxide and leave landscapes vulnerable to erosion and flooding when heavy rain eventually returns.

Water under pressure

Heatwaves also place enormous strain on Europe’s water resources. Higher temperatures increase evaporation from rivers, lakes and reservoirs while reducing soil moisture. Mountain snowpacks melt earlier in spring, leaving less water available during the hottest months.

Rivers such as the Rhine, Po and Danube have repeatedly experienced unusually low water levels during recent summers. Low rivers disrupt shipping, reduce hydroelectric power generation and can threaten industrial operations that rely on river water for cooling.

Agriculture is often among the hardest hit sectors due to high temperatures. Farmers across Southern and Central Europe are dealing with reduced crop yields, livestock heat stress and greater demand for irrigation at the same time water is becoming scarce.

A study released in May by the European Investment Bank and the European Commission projected that climate change threatens to increase annual European agricultural losses by as much as 66 percent by 2050, threatening the future of food production.

Some regions are already restricting water use during prolonged dry spells, a sign of how climate change is beginning to affect everyday life.

Health hazards, strain on energy systems intensify

Heat is among Europe’s deadliest natural hazards. Unlike floods or storms, the impacts are often less visible but more widespread.

Older people, children and people with existing medical conditions are most at risk. Hospitals see increased admissions linked to dehydration, heatstroke and cardiovascular illness during heatwaves.

Cities are especially vulnerable because concrete and asphalt absorb and retain heat, creating what is known as the urban heat island effect. Night-time temperatures remain high, preventing buildings and people from cooling down.

The growing use of air conditioning offers some protection but creates another challenge.

Electricity demand often surges during heatwaves as millions of people seek relief from the high temperatures. This coincides with a slump in efficiency in power generation as warmer rivers mean that the cooling of thermal and nuclear power stations is more of a challenge.

This creates a growing challenge for Europe’s energy systems as demand rises precisely when supply can become more constrained.

Economic costs escalate

The financial effects from this environmental crisis are mounting. The European Environment Agency estimates that extreme weather has already cost Europe 738 billion euros ($850bn) from 1980 to 2023. At least 162 billion euros ($190bn) of that was in the most recent three-year period.

The agency projected a lack of robust climate action could cost the European economy more than 5.6 trillion euros ($6.4 trillion) by 2050. These costs affect almost all sectors of the economy.

Wildfires destroy homes, tourism infrastructure and businesses. Drought reduces agricultural production while low river levels disrupt trade and manufacturing.

Outdoor workers in construction and agriculture face reduced productivity as extreme heat makes working safely more difficult.

Insurance losses from weather disasters have also risen sharply over recent decades. Three-quarters of Europe’s natural disaster losses are uninsured, according to the European Central Bank.

Meanwhile, governments face growing costs associated with responding to emergencies and rebuilding communities.

Many economists argued that investing in climate resilience today will be significantly cheaper than repeatedly paying the costs of more frequent disasters.

Adapting as warming accelerates

Climate projections consistently indicate that Europe will continue to warm faster than the global average. Southern Europe is expected to experience hotter and drier summers, increasing the likelihood of severe drought and wildfires.

Even Northern Europe, traditionally associated with milder summers, is expected to experience more intense heatwaves. Cairngorms National Park in the Scottish Highlands recently witnessed wildfires that forced local communities to flee

Communities are already adapting to some extent. Cities are planting more trees to provide shade, redesigning streets to reduce heat, expanding early warning systems and have begun developing cooling centres for vulnerable residents.

Water conservation, improved forest management and more resilient infrastructure are becoming important parts of long-term planning. Agriculture is also changing as farmers experiment with drought-resistant crops, different planting schedules and more efficient irrigation systems.

But scientists stressed that adaptation alone will not be enough. Without significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the conditions that create extreme weather are expected to become more common in the years ahead.

Europe’s recent summers are no longer viewed simply as isolated weather events. They offer a glimpse of what a warmer climate could mean.

The challenge lies in responding to today’s extremes and preparing populations for climates in which intense anomalies become normal.

RITA ORA’s fourth studio album is almost complete – but no one is quite sure what to expect from it.

Aside from her husband, Hollywood director Taika Waititi, that is.

Speaking to Bizarre’s Jack at a London screening to mark the 10th anniversary of his hit film, Hunt For The Wilderpeople, Taika said Rita’s long-awaited album was “amazing”.

He added: “This new record is incredible. I’ve heard a lot of it.

“It was such a departure from stuff that she’s probably known mostly for. It’s a different sound.”

Taika directed the sultry video for Rita’s latest ­single, All Natural, and also directed and starred in the video for 2023’s Don’t Think Twice.

HEART RIGHT NOW

Rita Ora wows in red gown as she reunites with Taika Waititi on red carpet

RAGING RITA

Rita Ora fuming as gig is cancelled at last minute due to thunderstorm

Getting Oscar-winner Taika to work on your project can’t come cheap, but Taika assured us with a wink that he and Rita had come to an arrangement.

He chuckled: “There is a very mates’ rates deal going on. I think it’s been free each time. It’s just fun to get to work together.

“It’s great because we’re kind of in similar ­industries, but they’re very different disciplines – and when you’re with someone, you want to be able to do some work together.

“I’m really amazed and surprised at what she does, but also super- confused all the time.”

Taika masterminded two of Marvel’s biggest hits – Thor: Ragnarok in 2017 and Thor: Love And Thunder in 2022.

He also plays the alien Korg in the films.

Taika admits that he’d love Marvel book bosses to sign up Rita for a role alongside him one day.

He said: “Younger me would like to see a Bond Girl Rita, but I think I’d find it more fun to see her doing a Marvel film.

“It would be great to see her as a villain.” Watch this space . . . 

RAYE’S GLOWING WITH PRIDE

CHRISTMAS came early for Raye fans as she took to the stage in a sparkly red dress.

The Where Is My Husband! singer wouldn’t have looked out of place at a festive party as she headlined Brighton Pride on Saturday.

Her bill-topping set followed epic performances from Jessie J and Leigh-Anne ­Pinnock.

The Little Mix singer kept cool in a yellow bikini top and combat trousers – putting her growing baby bump on display.

She is expecting her third child with footballer husband Andre Gray. They had twin girls in 2021.

Brighton hosts the UK’s biggest Pride festival, but it is dwarfed by WorldPride, which took place in Amsterdam over the weekend.

Going all out to impress, organisers in the Netherlands somehow managed to land Madonna to perform.

She owned the Dutch stage in a bright purple corset and matching boots.

Taking camp to the next level, Madge was joined for her epic set by Kylie Minogue, who sang with Nick Cave at his Brighton gig on Friday.

Rumours are rife that the duo have a song together on a remix edition of Madonna’s latest album, Confessions II.

We should be so lucky . . . 

ARIANA’S IN FULL BLOOM

ARIANA GRANDE is dominating this week’s Official Chart First Look.

The One Last Time singer is on track to land three songs from her new album, Petal, inside the UK Top 20.

The album’s title track and second single, Petal, is currently at No3, while Kiss Me is at No6 and Stay sits at No11.

The album was streamed 62million times on its first day of release on Spotify, making it the platform’s 16th biggest first-day album debut by a female artist.

Ariana’s 2019 album, Thank U, Next, remains her biggest first-day debut, with 70million streams in its first 24 hours.

MUSIC guru Chris Herbert is the man who discovered the Spice Girls more than 30 years ago, and now he’s backing another feisty young act, Allegra.

She is gearing up to drop a new project called Unreleased EP on August 21 and has her sights set on collabs with top stars.

Allegra, right, said: “I’d love to work with someone like Rita Ora. We’d have so much fun. She’s got such cool style and I think we’d just have fun.”

Opening up about how she ­performs best, she added: “I like it when I’m feeling a bit sexy.

“I think I’m a bit angry at, like, a situationship or an ex- boyfriend, I’m looking hot in the music video and I’m like, ‘OK, I’ve got this’.”

1D GOING IN RIGHT DIRECTION

DURING their heyday, One Direction were a money-making machine.

And even though the That’s What Makes You Beautiful singers split up back in 2016, the cash keeps rolling in.

New accounts for the band, made up of Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson and the late Liam Payne, have revealed they each made £2,636 a week last year.

And to top it off, they had to do absolutely no work for it.

Their two firms, 1D Media Ltd and PPM Music Ltd, are now worth a combined £3,814,044 – up more than £687,000 from the previous year.

It’s not a bad life, eh?

Eight years ago, during a campaign for Texas attorney general, Justin Nelson ran television advertisements with security camera footage of Ken Paxton pocketing an expensive pen that didn’t belong to him.

Four years ago, George P. Bush went after Paxton by putting up billboards that said “he’s a crook” next to his mugshot from when he was charged with securities fraud.

And this year, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn said “judgment day is coming” as he tried to fend off a Republican primary challenge from Paxton.

All of them lost. Now the question is whether James Talarico, who topped Rep. Jasmine Crockett in an expensive and fiercely contested Democratic primary, will have any more luck as he faces off against Paxton in one of the country’s most closely watched U.S. Senate races.

“The guy’s ability to take shots and just keep moving on and stay in elected office is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my career, in 25 years of running campaigns,” said Ash Wright, who worked as a senior adviser to Bush.

Paxton never has been convicted and he’s survived by championing conservative legal battles over immigration, abortion and transgender issues in a Republican-dominated state. Much like President Trump, he’s long portrayed himself as the victim of political persecution.

Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico speaks at a rally in Houston in May.

(Danielle Villasana / Getty Images)

Former Paxton challengers and a half-dozen campaign strategists who worked against him warned that Texans may tune out any attempt to revive scandals that they’ve heard about for years, especially when rigid partisanship has convinced voters to be extraordinarily forgiving of candidates’ trespasses.

However, Talarico’s team has studied the previous races and is attempting its own version of the playbook by trying to paint Paxton as part of a broader culture of corruption that has failed to improve people’s lives.

Paxton’s campaign suggested Talarico’s claims were aimed at distracting voters from a record of “out-of-touch views.”

“Every time a fighter, like President Donald Trump and now Ken Paxton, stands up to the permanent political class, even after they are completely acquitted of wrongdoing, people like James Talarico continue pushing the same accusations and claiming corruption,” Paxton campaign spokesperson Madison Cercy said.

Paxton won first reelection despite indictment

Paxton was first elected as Texas attorney general in 2014, and Nelson ran against him in 2018. A Democratic lawyer from Austin, Nelson made Paxton’s indictment on charges of securities fraud central to his campaign, and poked fun at him for picking up another lawyer’s $1,000 pen after finding it at a courthouse security checkpoint.

“Vote Justin Nelson for Texas attorney general,” the narrator said. “He will fight on behalf of all Texans. And he won’t steal your pen.”

Nelson argued that his approach was effective, reflected in Paxton’s narrow margin of 3.6 percentage points in a year when Republican Greg Abbott was reelected as Texas governor by more than 13 percentage points. Nelson’s campaign spent roughly $6.5 million, about half of what Paxton’s campaign spent.

“My message was working,” Nelson said. “I just needed to go louder and longer.”

In 2022, Paxton faced a Republican primary challenge from George P. Bush, the Texas land commissioner and the grandson and nephew of two former presidents from the state.

The securities fraud case was ongoing, and Paxton also was under federal investigation over accusations that he abused his position to benefit an Austin real estate developer, took bribes and retaliated against whistleblower employees.

Paxton responded by portraying himself as a Trump-era Republican and Bush as the heir to a privileged political legacy.

Pro-Paxton organizations spent more than $20 million, about twice as much as Bush and his allies. The race went to a runoff, in which Paxton defeated Bush by 34 percentage points.

Paxton ran against Rochelle Garza, a Democratic civil rights lawyer from Brownsville, in the general election. She said her campaign had a 300-page opposition research file on Paxton but it was difficult to figure out how to approach his past because voters had heard about it for years.

“The amount of potential hits on Paxton can make message discipline challenging,” Garza said.

Paxton ran as the leading legal opponent of President Biden, promoting a string of lawsuits against Biden’s Democratic administration on immigration, abortion and gender policy.

Overwhelmingly outspent, Garza lost by roughly 10 percentage points.

Some supporters see Paxton as a ‘flawed’ fighter

There was more trouble ahead for Paxton.

He split with his wife, who later filed for divorce “on biblical grounds.” He also was impeached by the Texas House, although the Senate acquitted him in 2023 and allowed him to remain in office. The securities fraud case ended in 2024, and Paxton was directed to pay nearly $300,000 in restitution.

Throughout the years, he’s maintained strong support from Republican voters like David and Nancy Lapp, a retired couple from the small town of Wolfforth. They described him as a conservative warrior who has been a victim of persecution.

“He’s had his share of scandals, and almost all of them have, so it’s not necessarily disqualifying anymore,” said David Lapp, 76. “He’s a flawed person, no doubt about it, but he fights for traditional American ideals.”

He added that “nowadays, as long as you’re not in jail, they’ll elect you.”

Beaumont writes for the Associated Press. Associated Press reporters Jesse Bedayn in Del Rio, Texas, and Marc Levy in Wolfforth, Texas, contributed to this report.

Estuardo Mazariegos and Jose Ugarte, running against each other for a city council seat representing part of South Los Angeles, are immigrants from Latin America who arrived undocumented as children.

Both 40 years old, they grew up in the area and established themselves as community organizers.

And no matter which of them wins election on Nov. 3, it will be a historic change for Council District 9, which has been represented by a Black council member since 1963, even as its demographics shifted to a Latino majority.

Mazariegos and Ugarte both said they are committed to representing all their constituents equally, including Black residents who have expressed concerns about the change.

Jose Ugarte is the front-runner for City Council District 9 after getting 39% of the vote in the June primary.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Ugarte, who was until recently a deputy chief of staff to the current council member, Curren Price, got about 39% of the vote in the June primary to 26% for Mazariegos, in a six-candidate field.

Ugarte was born in Oaxaca and is Mazateco — an Indigenous group native to the Mexican state. He has spent most of his life in South L.A., where he was embraced by his Black neighbors and schoolmates. He wants to model himself after Price, who he said is known in the community as the most “pro-Latino Black councilman.”

“I want to be a voice for Black residents in my district,” Ugarte said at his campaign headquarters on Avalon Boulevard. “I want to be called the most pro-Black Latino council member that the city really has.”

Last year, Ugarte agreed to pay a $17,500 fine to the city’s Ethics Commission, later increased to $25,000, for repeatedly failing to disclose outside income he made from his lobbying and consulting firm while also working as a council staffer. He said the issue stemmed from “an unintentional clerical reporting error on my part.”

Mazariegos is the L.A. co-director of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, a statewide nonprofit that organizes lower-income Black and brown communities for progressive change. Born in Guatemala and brought to the U.S. by his parents, he also was shaped by growing up in racially diverse parts of South L.A. He said he’s reaching out to different sectors of the community, including Black organizations and churches.

Organizing is about “always having open ears to the community,” Mazariegos said while sitting outside Mercado La Paloma, a food hall in the district. “It’s fighting for, honoring the Black legacy and fighting for a Black future, and you do that by building together.”

In his early 20s, Mazariegos pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed weapon in a vehicle. He said he was holding on to the gun for a friend and that the conviction makes him a better candidate because he can relate to people in the district who have had run-ins with law enforcement.

Council District 9 encompasses the Convention Center, USC and neighborhoods along the Harbor Freeway, including Vermont Square, South Park and Florence-Graham. In a district with the highest poverty rate in the city, residents are concerned about issues including illegal dumping, public safety, a dearth of grocery stores and a sense of being neglected by City Hall.

Price, who has represented the district since 2013, is terming out. He has been fighting corruption charges, with a judge deciding in January that there was enough evidence to move to trial on four counts of voting on matters in which Price had a conflict of interest, five counts of embezzlement and three counts of perjury.

Price said he never intended to do anything wrong and questioned the fairness of a prosecution over what he said was essentially a paperwork error.

The growth of the Latino population in a district that is now nearly 80% Latino has created political tensions for decades, said Manuel Pastor, a USC professor and author of “South Central Dreams: Finding Home and Building Community in South L.A.”

Four years ago, those tensions resurfaced after a recording emerged of a conversation among three Latino city council members and a labor leader that featured racist and disparaging remarks about Black people, Oaxacans and others. The revelations tested a fragile alliance of Black and Latino coalitions that organizers have sought to maintain.

More recently, some Black community leaders expressed concern that a proposal to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections would diminish Black political power. The City Council ended up sending the proposal to a committee for more study.

Pastor noted that Price made an effort to focus on Latino residents, who have grown up alongside Black residents and suffered the same disinvestment in their neighborhoods.

This election, Pastor said, will pit the strength of L.A.’s political establishment against the rising power of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Ugarte’s endorsements include Price and the L.A. County Democratic Party, while Mazariegos has been endorsed by Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, City Controller Kenneth Mejia and the Democratic Socialists of America’s L.A. chapter, among others.

Through May 27, Ugarte had raised $510,000 in campaign contributions and Mazariegos had raised $254,000.

Ugarte has benefited from nearly $1 million in independent expenditures, which differ from campaign contributions, with Airbnb contributing $302,000 to support his candidacy and the California Apartment Assn. Housing Solutions Committee spending $230,000.

Mazariegos has received support from the political arms of United Teachers Los Angeles as well as his employer, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Action, which together spent about $118,000.

Jose Ugarte says, “I want to be called the most pro-Black Latino council member that the city really has.”

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

On a recent Sunday morning, Ugarte stopped by services at two predominantly Black churches. At McCoy Memorial Baptist Church in South Park, he accepted a warm hug from longtime Pastor R.A. Williams Jr., who endorsed his candidacy. Ugarte then traveled a few blocks to Experience Christian Ministries, where Pastor Shep Crawford also has endorsed him.

“I met him years ago, boots on the ground, in the streets making changes,” Crawford told the congregation.

That same day, about three miles north at Audio Graph Beer Co., Mazariegos was cheering at a World Cup final watch party that doubled as a fundraiser. He posed for photos with supporters, who wore buttons declaring him “the people’s candidate.” He credited making the runoff election to his years in the community advocating for anti-displacement measures for tenants and lowering the rent cap.

Angie Gonzalez, 22, said Mazariegos earned her support because of his work advocating for tenant rights.

“I like how Estuardo is trying to empower us,” she said.

Odilia Romero, a resident of District 9 and executive director of CIELO, an advocacy group for Indigenous people, said she is not endorsing in the race. But she acknowledged the importance of an Indigenous candidate, four years after the audio leak scandal.

After The Times broke that story, Ugarte said, he secured permits for a march from L.A. Trade Tech to City Hall, where Oaxacans and others rallied.

Ugarte said if he is elected, he’d become the first Indigenous Oaxacan council member. He wants to show anyone critical of immigration — including the Trump administration — that “immigrants are here to build things to make the country better.”

“I want to be a council member that came from another country, that came as an immigrant, that came from an Indigenous state, and that made a name for himself, that [improved] his community,” he said.

Organizing is about “always having open ears to the community,” Estuardo Mazariegos says. “It’s fighting for, honoring the Black legacy and fighting for a Black future, and you do that by building together.”

(Arwen Clemans / Los Angeles Times)

Mazariegos said that while he may not be a political insider, he makes up for it as a “community insider.”

“There’s a lot of mistrust for the status quo right now,” he said. His goal is “making sure that the 9th district has representation that actually fights for it.”

These days, he said, campaigning has turned into an all-day affair, meeting people as he walks with his family around the district.

Mazariegos has in recent months appeared at City Hall to advocate for charter reform, including increasing police accountability, expanding the size of the City Council and advocating for noncitizen voting. None of those measures made the November ballot.

Organizers in the district said that no matter who wins, they intend to hold the new council member accountable.

“We hope that whoever wins this race keeps working-class people and their issues on the forefront,” said Ron Gochez, a longtime district resident and organizer with Union del Barrio, which advocates for immigrants. “We will pressure whoever wins to do the right thing.”

The change has just come into place for the peninsula, and Brits flying to the area will need to make sure their travel documents meet the new requirements, or could find themselves stranded at the airport

Budget airline easyJet has issued a warning to Brits flying on any of its four routes from the UK to a popular holiday hotspot visited by approximately 1.3million Brits every year, as new entry requirements came into force earlier this month.

In a statement, easyJet said: “From 15 July 2026, Gibraltar will align with Schengen entry requirements. If you’re travelling to Gibraltar, please check that your travel documents meet the new rules before you fly.”

The airline operates four routes from the UK to Gibraltar International Airport from Birmingham, Bristol, London-Gatwick, and Manchester. The only other airline that operates from the hub is British Airways, which has a London-Heathrow service.

The airline set out the key changes, saying: “UK visas and UK residence permits/share codes will no longer be accepted for entry to Gibraltar.” It also clarified: “Passports for travellers from non-Schengen countries (except Ireland and Cyprus) must have been issued within the last 10 years, and be valid for at least 3 months after the date you plan to leave Gibraltar.”

The requirements are now aligned with what Brits can expect at the other 29 countries in the Schengen area. This means they’ll need to go through registration under the Entry/Exit System (EES). EasyJet added: “Before travelling, please make sure you have the correct documents for your journey to avoid any issues at the airport, you can check the government website.”

While Gibraltar remains a a self-governing British Overseas Territory, as of July 15 a post-Brexit deal has allowed the border with Spain to be removed, getting rid of border controls and customs checks for those passing between Spain and Gibraltar.

Historically, the border has caused hold-ups and long queues for locals as it has had to handle an average of 15,000 people passing through it each day for work, education, and social purposes.

But the change means that, while Gibraltar still has autonomy, it’s now a de facto part of the Schengen free-movement area, which is why Brits will notice a change when visiting the territory. The EES system will involve the same fingerprint and face scans as the EU requires at every airport.

The FCDO added: “On arrival at Joshua Hassan Gibraltar International Airport, you should expect two sets of checks which will satisfy entry into Gibraltar and the Schengen Area: Gibraltar entry immigration controls performed by the Gibraltar authorities and Schengen entry immigration controls performed by the Spanish authorities as the authorities of the neighbouring Schengen State

“This includes registration under the Entry/Exit System (EES) where it applies. The European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) will also apply once it is operational. Once you have cleared these checks, you can move freely across the land border from Gibraltar into Spain and the wider Schengen Area.”

Have a story you want to share? Email us at webtravel@reachplc.com

One of the busiest airports in the UK is the first to introduce robotic parking for passengers meaning drivers will be able to leave their car near a terminal and head away with their keys

Gatwick Airport is set to launch a brand new parking service that will make the airport experience smoother for drivers.

The airport will be the first in the UK to introduce a robotic parking service.

The service is expected to begin from next month. Passengers will drop off their cars into dedicated garages in the airport’s South Terminal.

Then, they can head to catch their flights whilst keeping their car keys with them. Robots will then lift the cars by the tyres and move them to secure parking spots.

The process aims to make the parking process quicker for holiday goers.

The parking service, being offered with Stanley Robotics, is expected to work for around 95% of car models – but drivers with “unusual dimensions or features” should check beforehand.

Oli Bedford, Gatwick’s head of airport access, described it as a “real game-changer”, adding: “It’s quick, easy and completely hassle-free.”

While on holiday passengers will be able to keep their keys on them at all times.

On return, travellers cars will be ready and waiting for them to collect.

The drop off points will only be a short walk or bus ride away from the terminal.

WASHINGTON — In its latest move to restrict the legal immigration system, the Trump administration announced a sweeping change Monday that could lead to the deportations of thousands of asylum seekers.

The change from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services allows asylum officers to bypass the need to interview certain applicants and instead refer them directly to immigration judges for removal proceedings.

The agency estimates that up to a third, or 444,000 of the more than 1.4 million asylum cases in its backlog, could be affected by the rule.

The administration framed the move as an effort to streamline the process and reduce the backlog of cases. The interim final rule takes effect Tuesday and is subject to a 60-day public comment period.

“For far too long the asylum system has been exploited for purposes of delay and work authorization, not legitimate claims of protection,” USCIS Director Joseph Edlow said in a news release.

“America’s asylum system exists to protect individuals who genuinely fear persecution and this rule will help ensure that resources are directed to the timely adjudication of those claims instead of to those seeking to use the system as a loophole,” Edlow added.

But advocates for immigrants said the change leaves asylum seekers who tried to follow the law vulnerable to deportation.

Migrants can apply for asylum two ways: affirmatively or defensively.

Those who entered the country legally, such as on a visa, and still have lawful status apply with USCIS and have their cases decided by an asylum officer. Those who crossed the border illegally or who are undocumented can apply after being placed into removal proceedings, where they make their case to an immigration judge.

Immigration courts are not an independent system — they are housed under the Department of Justice and judges are federal employees.

That shift is significant because the Trump administration has fired more than 100 immigration judges and replaced them with military lawyers and former prosecutors for the Department of Homeland Security. Many of the fired judges were appointed during the Biden administration or previously worked as lawyers representing immigrants.

In recent months, immigration courts have approved a dwindling percentage of asylum claims as judges face pressure to approve more deportations. After immigration agents began arresting people in courthouses, many immigrants grew wary of showing up for court proceedings, which has aided the increase in removal orders.

USCIS refers thousands of cases to immigration courts each year, federal data shows. During the first half of this fiscal year, the agency transferred 31,454 cases to immigration courts — a number that was already on track to be higher than the 2025 yearly total of 40,932. The highest yearly total was 61,729 cases in 2019, during Trump’s first presidency.

USCIS said the current policy, which requires an asylum officer to first interview an applicant before deciding whether to send the case to an immigration judge, “essentially allows an alien to get a second chance at asylum.”

Todd Schulte, president of the immigrant advocacy organization FWD.us, noted that the rule change comes just after the Trump administration terminated temporary legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitians and others, many of whom entered the U.S. legally and applied for asylum the “affirmative” way. On X, Schulte called the move “a terrible harbinger.”

SACRAMENTO — Last week, news broke that an artificial intelligence thingamajig broke free from the constraints of its maker, OpenAI, and committed what could be considered a string of white-collar felonies if it were human.

Because the AI thingamajig is in fact not human, the incident raised a big kerfuffle but is largely being treated as a giant oopsie we can learn from, without needing the pesky intervention of new rules or laws to stop it from happening again.

Such is the state of AI regulation in America right now.

California Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Big Bear Lake) would like to change that. Last week, he introduced the bipartisan Frontier Act with Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.). While the bill might not make either safety advocates or big tech companies entirely happy, it offers up the most comprehensive and strongest regulations of this dangerous industry that we’ve yet seen at the federal level.

Roman Yampolskiy, an AI expert and professor at University of Louisville, called the Frontier Act a “positive step because it acknowledges that frontier AI presents risks requiring dedicated oversight.”

Now, the challenge becomes passing it, and passing it in a meaningful, not-watered-down form — no easy task in a dysfunctional Congress driven by money and Donald Trump, and paralyzed by its own sycophancy to both.

If anyone has a shot, though, it’s Obernolte, who is that rarest of birds, a legislator who understands science, and his colleagues.

Obernolte represents Inland Empire areas around San Bernardino, but grew up in Fresno back in the era when the movie “War Games” was just hitting theaters.

Those of a certain age will remember how far-fetched it seemed when Matthew Broderick’s high school genius character accidentally breaks into a military AI system to play chess, but “Joshua,” the computer, takes it too far and tries to blow up the world. Now, of course, that just sounds like a regular Tuesday.

By the time he was in high school himself, Obernolte was giving that Broderick character a run for his money. An apparent computer savant, Obernolte was competing in artificial intelligence contests as a teenager, back when most of us were still playing Pong on Atari. Then he headed off to Caltech and then UCLA for advanced AI degrees. He said AI was his “first calling,” sparked when his father bought him an Apple II computer when he was 8.

He ended up dropping out of UCLA after getting his master’s because his side hustle making video games, including “NFL ’95,” turned out to be more lucrative than being a starving student. He ended up founding his own video game company, FarSight Studios, and building up a personal net worth close to $100 million.

Not bad for a kid from Fresno. In Congress, he has stuck close to the MAGA power base and was one of seven California legislators to vote against certifying the 2020 election results, a vote he took in his first days in office. He has been endorsed by Trump multiple times, and now sits on a bunch of committees and subcommittees of relevance.

For the past few years, he has pushed hard, if unsuccessfully, to create a framework for regulating AI, combining his deep understanding of the technology with his equal understanding of MAGA distaste for intervening in business.

Now, though, we’re in a moment, thanks to more than one big oopsie by technology companies. Just a few months ago, Anthropic and the Pentagon had their own tense encounter after Anthropic questioned how its AI was being used by the military. Huffy Pete Hegseth is still huffing over that one.

The public is increasingly skeptical of allowing the AI industry to govern itself, which is pushing legislators to rethink their hands-off approach, even as AI money pours like Niagara Falls into elections. Even Trump seems more inclined to consider it, signing an executive order recently that largely called for voluntary restraints on AI companies.

The introduction of the Frontier Act “shows how far the Overton window has shifted just in the past few months,” wrote Charlie Bullock, a senior research fellow with the nonpartisan Institute for Law & AI. “Not too long ago, a bipartisan bill this good and serious would have been a pipe dream. But things change quickly.”

Obernolte said the bill has been “a long time in the making,” but he hopes to package it with other legislation and is “cautiously optimistic” he can get something passed and signed by the end of the year.

As written now, the bill would allow the federal government to set minimum safety requirements and set up a framework for licensed, independent auditors to monitor compliance. That third party verification has been a key push by safety experts.

The bill would also give the government emergency powers to pause an AI model if it has a “present or impending catastrophic risk.”

It also borrows from state laws including California’s Proposition 53 that require some (not enough) transparency on the part of AI companies when things do go wrong.

To the consternation of some, the bill still contains curbs on what states can regulate on their own — basically carving out AI regulation as federal turf. This has been a huge sticking point in the fight over AI regulation because AI companies hate state laws and want them squashed. Their argument is that a patchwork of rules across states is too complicated.

“You don’t want to have 50 different state requirements for every single product that gets sold on a market, and that is particularly true of AI,” Obernolte told me.

To some extent that’s reasonable — but the problem so far has been that states such as California and New York have been the only level of government willing to try at regulation. California in particular has created some of the most comprehensive AI regulations to date and has about 30 pending bills on this issue this legislative season. The Frontier Act threads the needle on this by creating lanes where states can still pass their own laws — such as around consumer safety that would protect children or stop pornography.

But preventing catastrophic risk would largely be dependent on the federal oversight, which is great when the federal government is up to the task. Currently, we can’t even keep measles in check. So that’s a bit worrisome.

And Obernolte’s bill isn’t the only one vying for attention. Another Californian, Rep. Ted Lieu, introduced a bipartisan measure of his own with Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas). Dubbed the AI Kill Switch Act, it would give the Department of Homeland Security the authority to shut down problematic models.

Yampolskiy, the Louisville professor, said that bill had promise as well, because it’s important for companies to have a way to “rapidly disable or contain systems that exhibit dangerous or unexpected behavior.”

But, he warns, that’s just one part of the “complete solution” we need. Regulation is going to require more than one law.

For Obernolte’s part, he’s shown a willingness to work on a practical solution, not just a political one. That alone is worthy of notice. The Frontier Act is a genuine attempt to govern a nascent industry that is too powerful and unpredictable to be left to its own devices.

“I’m hoping that this is we’ve landed somewhere that everyone can understand and be happy with,” Obernolte said. “AI is not something that needs to be a partisan issue, and I don’t think it should be.”

What else you should be reading

The must-read: How Jimothy the raccoon became the internet’s latest animal obsession
The California angle: Trump Administration Admits Canceling Grants to States That Did Not Vote for Him
The L.A. Times Special: Mayor’s press team uses disappearing WhatsApp messages, avoiding scrutiny
Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

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Butlin’s has created a new high-tech solution to avoid the issue of bar queues, and it means you can enjoy many of your favourite alcoholic and soft drinks in just a few seconds

Butlin’s has announced a huge change to the way holidaymakers can order a drink at its three resorts in Bognor Regis, Minehead, and Skegness, and it’s already in place for guests visiting this summer.

The popular holiday park firm, which recently celebrated its 90th anniversary, has rolled out over 100 self-serve bars across its three sites, which it claims makes it the first in Europe to offer these kinds of bars for guests.

The technology, developed by Boxbars in a £1 million investment by Butlin’s, means there’s much less queuing for drinks, and guests can enjoy a soft or alcoholic drink in as little as six seconds.

The new self-serve bars will be available for both family and Big Weekender breaks, and will offer a huge range of beverages for all the family including branded beers, ciders, and spirits, as well as kid-friendly favourites.

More than 20 options will be available at the touch of a button including pints of Madri and Guinness, Smirnoff with mixers, and cocktails including the brand’s very own Butlin’s On The Beach, which is a mixture of vodka, peach schnapps, cranberry juice, and orange juice, and is reportedly the most popular option across the resorts for All Inclusive guests.

A statement from Butlin’s says the new bars will “help guests get served faster and spend less time queuing”, claiming that “the new technology has the potential to pour hundreds of drinks every minute across the three resorts”.

Guests will either be able to scan their All Inclusive wristband to dispense their drink, or can use contactless payment to quickly pay for their round. Butlin’s confirmed that bars will still be open as usual for guests who’d rather order in person.

Butlin’s launched its all inclusive drink package back in 2024, costing from £25.95 per adult per day, which includes alcoholic drinks such as draught beers, spirits and cocktails from 11am, and all-day Costa coffee and soft drinks across the parks.

Heidi Watson, from Butlin’s said: “This is an exciting first for Butlin’s. Everything we do is about improving the guest experience and our new Boxbar Self-Serve Bars will make a real difference to guests on a family break or a Big Weekender.

“Open in time for the school summer holidays, the bars are designed to reduce wait times and make it quicker and easier for guests to get a drink. This means less time queuing and more time enjoying their holiday with family and friends.”

Earlier this year Butlin’s announced new bookable karaoke pods, which groups of up to 12 people could hire for an exciting sing-along experience. Hiring the pods costs £36, and once inside visitors can choose from 45,000 chart-topping hits and throwback songs, allowing them to enjoy a private sing-song with friends and family as part of their Butlin’s break.

Have a story you want to share? Email us at webtravel@reachplc.com

Ifugao, Philippines – At first light, the village of Batad begins to stir to life beneath the towering cliffs surrounding its amphitheatre-like rice terraces, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Apu Penneng, an Ifugao elder who owns one of the village’s largest tracts of ricefields, struts with youthful confidence along a narrow and steep path in this highland community 1,100 metres (3,608ft) above sea level.

Dressed in a traditional loincloth, shawl and headgear, he is heading for the Tanig, an elaborate morning ritual before the harvest begins. At a courtyard next to rows of huts, dozens of village women also gather for the Bullogan chi Munbotoh, the procession to the harvest site.

Against the glow of the rising sun, the centuries-old terraces finally come in full view as if cascading from the sky. The fields of Tinawon rice grains, moist from the drizzle the night before, glimmer like morsels of gold ready for picking.

But the otherwise majestic landscape is punctuated by the sight of collapsed earth and boulders, right in the middle of the terraces.

In November last year, Super Typhoon Fung-wong triggered a landslide that killed two locals and demolished one of the centuries-old canals irrigating the rice paddies. About 2.2 hectares (5.4 acres) of rice fields were damaged, affecting 150 farmers.

“It was the worst we’ve seen here,” Apu Penneng calmly said, as he pointed to a deforested patch of land above the terraces. From afar, it looked like it had been slashed with a giant blade.

The wreckage has been an unwelcome reminder for villagers of the destructive nature of extreme weather conditions, which have been increasing in frequency in recent years.

Batad was also struck with landslides in 2011, 2023 and 2025. With the emerging threat of this year’s Super El Nino, a climate phenomenon that increases global temperatures and drives more extreme weather and rainfall patterns, the Ifugao people worry about more damage to come.

Across the world, 80 percent of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites are facing climate-induced stress, according to an August 2025 study published in the scientific journal Nature.

The study found that UNESCO sites in low and middle-income countries receive the least conservation support, making them even more vulnerable to harsh climatic conditions. It added that in tropical monsoon areas, those conditions include record-breaking heatwaves, extended droughts and sudden drenching rainfall – much like what struck Batad in November 2025.

“Climate change is really aggravating the situation on the ground,” said lawyer Marlon Martin, head of the Save the Ifugao Terraces Movement (SITMO).

For the rice terraces to stay intact and stable, the soil needs to maintain a certain level of moisture year-round. But because of recent bouts of dry spells, deep cracks have developed, making the terraces prone to erosion, said Martin.

“When sudden bursts of rain occur, the water would seep into the cracks too abruptly, resulting in erosion” and even soil collapse, he added, warning that the Super El Nino could only mean more trouble ahead.

According to Steve Baccay, head of Ifugao’s Provincial Agriculture and Environment Office, an equivalent of $500,000 is needed for the restoration work in Batad following last November’s landslide.

Since the disaster, Batad residents themselves have come together a few times to do voluntary communal work called bachang to fix the demolished irrigation canal.

The social welfare and labour departments have also extended emergency food and cash assistance to affected farmers. However, additional national government aid is unlikely until the next fiscal year.

Climate change is nothing new, and for centuries people in Ifugao have adapted to the changes using Indigenous engineering techniques to protect the terraces, said Martin. But for Batad to withstand more frequent and more extreme weather, national intervention is needed, he added.

For Batad village chief Romeo Heppog and his family, the rice terraces are not just a source of their livelihood, but part of their identity and their way of life.

Organising the annual rice harvest festival is his way of honouring their ancestors and renewing their “sacred oath” to preserve the terraces for the generations to come, he said.

At the Tanig pre-harvest sacred ritual, Heppog watches closely alongside Apu Penneng as Apu Buy-a Nadyug, Batad’s chief Indigenous priest known as Mumbaki, leads the harvest rituals, including the pouring and drinking of fresh rice wine.

Hunched on the ground next to a pair of wooden Bulul, which embody invisible spiritual beings of the Ifugaos, the octogenarian Apu Buy-a Nadyug recites verses seeking blessings and protection for the harvest.

With the help of another village elder, Apu Penneng then leads the slaughter of chickens as a symbolic offering to Ifugao ancestors and the spiritual beings.

In one of the final acts of the hour-long sacred ritual, Mumbaki Apu Buy-a Nadyug then scrutinises the guts of the chicken, and pronounces another year of “bountiful harvest”.

Apu Penneng and Heppog then lead the banging of gongs signifying merriment and the start of the joyful harvest.

For a moment, the worries of the villagers of Batad are drowned out by the loud rhythmic sound that has been passed from generation to generation.

Apu Penneng then proceeds to his ricefield for the harvest.  Amid the uncertainties for his community, his face beams with pride as he gazes at the panoramic view of Batad.

From a distance, the 2,702 metres (8,865ft) Mount Amuyao, the country’s 10th highest peak, towers over Batad, as if guarding it from the threats of nature.

“We will get through this,” said Apu Penneng.

President Trump ordered his administration Friday to install signs in front of the Smithsonian Institution’s U.S. history museum telling visitors that some of the exhibits are inaccurate, his latest move to reshape how the story of the United States is told.

Trump’s move follows a report released July 4 by his Domestic Policy Council saying leaders of the Smithsonian and its National Museum of American History don’t tell history “in a way that is inspiring, unifying, and worthy of our great republic.”

The president lacks authority to quickly fire the Smithsonian leadership or to order changes to exhibits, so his executive order targets the sidewalks out front, which are maintained by the National Park Service. The order calls for signs telling visitors about the White House report and directing them to resources for what he calls “accurate information regarding America’s history.” It also calls for a temporary exhibit that corrects information he deems inaccurate.

Smithsonian officials declined to comment on Trump’s order.

Anthea M. Hartig, director of the National Museum of American History, challenged the White House report during congressional hearings last week.

“As we continue to fact-check the report, we unwaveringly attest that it does not fairly or accurately characterize the full body of work at the museum,” she told lawmakers. “There is always room for improvement. But I also know the beauty and the inspiration and the expertise that lies in our collections, our exhibits, and our programming.”

The Smithsonian operates outside the executive branch, and museum directors report to Smithsonian Institution Secretary Lonnie Bunch, who is subject to oversight from its Board of Regents.

Trump’s escalating effort to force changes at the Smithsonian marks the president’s latest move to transform cultural pillars of society, such as universities and art, that he considers out of step with conservative sensibilities. Trump had himself installed as chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts with the aim of overhauling programming, and his handpicked board voted to add his name to the building, only for a federal judge to later order the signs to be removed.

Trump has also imposed changes on historical sites beyond Washington, including in Philadelphia, where the administration won a court ruling this month allowing it to reinstall interpretive panels that critics say whitewash the history of slavery at the site of President Washington’s home. Advocates, academics and officials have been concerned for months that the version that complies with Trump’s order could give a history that plays down the pain in the nation’s past in favor of a more triumphant view.

Trump in March revealed his intention to force changes at the Smithsonian Institution with an executive order that targeted funding for programs that advanced “divisive narratives” and “improper ideology.”

Cooper writes for the Associated Press.

A major incident has been declared by Police Scotland as emergency services continue to tackle a wildfire which has been burning in the Cairngorms National Park for 10 days.

The force said it followed “a significant change in weather conditions” which has increased the risk of fire spreading towards the village of Nethy Bridge.

All Nethy Bridge residents have been evacuated as a precaution to allow emergency services to continue their response.

But a local resident told the BBC the wildfire should have been declared a major incident sooner and the lack of communication from authorities had been “pretty poor”.

The BBC has contacted the Scottish government and Police Scotland for comment.

First Minister John Swinney, who held a meeting of the Scottish government’s resilience room early on Saturday, said additional police resources were being deployed to assist with the Nethy Bridge evacuation.

He urged people to “respect the exclusion zone that’s been put in place”, adding that the change in weather conditions illustrated “the scale and difficulty of the situation that we are managing”.

Smoke from the wildfire can now be seen 59 miles away in Aberdeen following a change in wind direction.

Supt Judy Hill said weather conditions “experienced within the Cairngorms over the last 24 hours have added further complexities to this situation”.

“With evidence suggesting the fire is spreading towards Nethy Bridge, the decision has been taken to declare a major incident and evacuate residents as a precaution.”

She said additional police resources were being deployed to help contact those who need to leave their properties.

In 1936, there were no video games keeping children inside. Most households didn’t have televisions.

Amid concern that kids playing in the streets would get hit by cars, Los Angeles made it a misdemeanor to play baseball, basketball, soccer or any other ball game on a street or sidewalk.

Nearly a century later, when kids spend half as much time outside as their parents did, City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield wants to cut the obscure law from the books.

Blumenfield, who authored a motion to start the process, called the law, along with its punishments of a $1,000 fine and up to six months in jail, “uncommonly silly.”

It’s illegal for a parent to play catch on the sidewalk with a child in front of their home, said Blumenfield, who represents the southwest San Fernando Valley. Nor can a group of children kick a soccer ball on a quiet residential street without violating the law.

The law also prohibits throwing a “stone, pellet, bullet, arrow or any other missile, in, over, across, along or upon any street or sidewalk or in any public park.” It prohibits playing ball games in public parks, except on designated courts or fields.

“Let kids play,” said Olsen Ebright, who is on the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council. “Why in God’s name would we be having the city try to curb playing soccer or throwing a football? “

The benefits of exercising on public land, when done safely and under supervision, outweigh the risks of injury or property damage, such as a baseball going through a neighbor’s window, Ebright said.

Blumenfield’s motion, introduced last August, was supported unanimously by the City Council in a January vote, for which only Blumenfield was absent, as well as by the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council. For it to move forward, the city attorney’s office needs to draft language codifying the change.

Blumenfield’s staff unearthed the 1936 law while researching public rights of way, said Kristine Cajulis, a communications deputy for the council member. Cajulis said she is unaware of anyone who has been penalized under the law.

One instance of enforcement occurred in 2006, when a former city council field deputy reported her Sherman Oaks neighbors for having basketball hoops near their curbs, according to the Los Angeles Daily News.

In addition to the anti-ball playing ordinance, the neighbors were accused of violating an ordinance prohibiting structures on sidewalks or grassy strips next to curbs.

Nate Brogin had set up a basketball hoop that drew neighborhood kids for pickup games and helped his then-18-year-old son lose 30 pounds.

Brogin, who said at the time that the law was akin to fascism, fought the city, unsuccessfully. He said he never paid his fine — he doesn’t remember how much it was — but he eventually pulled the hoop down.

“That’s a long time to let something so backwards go on,” Brogin, now 77, said of the law.

In newspaper stories from the 1930s, local officials warned parents to keep their children from playing in the streets to avoid being struck by cars.

Children should be allowed play in vacant yards or empty spaces but should not be permitted “to risk injury by playing their games in the path of moving vehicles,” said George Hjelte, then-superintendent of Los Angeles playgrounds, in a Feb. 3, 1936 Daily Breeze article.

In today’s L.A., the road safety groups Streets For All and Streets Are For Everyone see Blumenfield’s proposal as a positive step. Safety starts with drivers paying attention to people in the streets, whether biking, walking or playing, they said.

Some drivers in Los Angeles believe the road belongs to them, said Michael Schneider, founder and chief executive of Streets For All.

“Changing that takes a lot more than repealing a law,” he said.

Kids still play in the streets in Brogin’s Sherman Oaks neighborhood. He said that fewer than 10 cars pass through in a typical hour, and drivers stop for children to pause their games and move out of the way — just as he did when he was a boy.

“It’s a great social exercise,” Brogin said. “I don’t see any negative to it.”

A BON Jovi tribute singer has been forced to change his name from One Jovi after a legal threat from the rockers’ lawyers.

Andy Hearn, 53, trademarked the jokey moniker after other performers tried to copy it.

But he then got a cease-and-desist letter from the ’80s hitmakers, named after lead singer Jon Bon Jovi, saying the tag was too similar.

Engineering fitter Andy, of Rotherham, South Yorks, has been in the band for six years but was worried about the costs of tackling the Livin’ On A Prayer stars in court.

He said: “I was disappointed a multi-billion-pound company would be bothered about someone doing pubs and clubs for a few pennies.

“I said, ‘If you think I’m a threat, then thank you — it’s a compliment’.”

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Andy said they claimed a tribute band name had to be at least 20 per cent different.

He said the exchange took place around three years ago and was resolved after several emails.

Andy was allowed to keep rocking Bon Jovi classics with his band – and at solo shows – under the ‘One Jovi’ name.

But he now releases his own songs under the tweaked moniker ‘Mr One Jovi’.

Andy insists it has not soured his love for the band, whose music he first discovered as a teenager.

He said: “It didn’t affect the way I feel about them.

“I remember listening to them when I was 14 and just absolutely loving it.”

Andy is now stepping out of Jon Bon Jovi’s shadow and chasing chart success with original music of his own.

Bon Jovi have been contacted for comment.

Ben Earl has called for a change to the Nations Championship format after England’s “brutal” schedule in the summer leg of the inaugural competition.

England had to play three Tests in three different continents on successive weekends and accumulated 25,000 miles of travel.

Victory over Argentina on Saturday keeps Steve Borthwick’s team in the hunt for a place in the final on 29 November at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium.

However, four long haul and four short haul flights in the past four weeks have contributed to players losing sleep and a reduced training schedule.

“It’s been brutal, there’s no two ways about it,” England number 8 Earl said.

“We’ve been speaking about it – why would we not all be playing in one country? So you just don’t travel, you go to one nation and have that festival feel.

“I’m not paid to make those decisions but it has been tough. It’s been tough coming at the end of what’s been quite a long season anyway for most of us.

“It’s been back and forth, coming back to England, seeing your families and then going away again.

“It has seemed a bit weird but it’s just something we’re going to have to get used to because I think it’s just the beginning.”

The competition resumes later in the year for the autumn leg with England next in action against Australia on 8 November.

Wilfredo Engalla, a 51-year-old Filipino immigrant, alleged in a medical malpractice case that Kaiser doctors misdiagnosed him with colds and allergies for years before eventually informing him he had terminal lung cancer.

He died before his complaint could be heard by an arbitrator, which his Kaiser policy required. His case prompted a withering rebuke from the California Supreme Court, which said Kaiser’s system of arbitrating legal disputes was subject to long delays and unfair to its members. The year was 1997.

Nearly three decades after the landmark decision, the HMO giant — which made a series of sweeping reforms after the ruling — is once again facing questions over whether its arbitration system is stacked against the interests of its members.

Plaintiffs attorneys, legislators and patients say Kaiser’s private and confidential process for arbitrating legal disputes over medical care still has key flaws that favor Kaiser over patients bringing malpractice cases. The company insures about 25% of Californians, including some employees of the Los Angeles Times.

“Kaiser has really lost its way,” said Assemblyman Robert Garcia (D-Rancho Cucamonga). Garcia, who is a longtime Kaiser member, recently introduced a bill to require the California attorney general to oversee arbitrations mandated by any health plan.

Kaiser defended its arbitration system, saying in a statement that it was fair for both patients and the nonprofit.

Many companies and other organizations, including some hospitals, HMOs and physician groups, require their customers or patients to take their complaints to private arbitration rather than to court.

But unlike most other companies, which send claims to large arbitration firms, Kaiser created its own system back in 1971.

Under Kaiser’s system, once a neutral arbitrator is selected, either party can opt to disqualify that person without cause. There is no limit on the number of disqualifications.

Although the health plan designed the system to be fair, patients and their lawyers have alleged that in reality Kaiser’s greater knowledge of arbitrators’ past rulings and its ability to veto arbitrators give it an advantage to pick favorable judges.

Critics such as Arlan Cohen, a physician and attorney who has brought more than two dozen cases against the health plan, say the system also provides a financial incentive to arbitrators to rule in Kaiser’s favor in order to be selected for future cases.

While Kaiser has access to all the decisions made by arbitrators in its system, the patient’s family gets a more limited disclosure of an arbitrator’s history of cases, lawyers say, adding that it’s not easy to see which arbitrators have ruled frequently for Kaiser.

Kaiser said it disagreed that the system allowed it to select favored arbitrators.

“The appointment process is not influenced by whether the arbitrator has ruled for or against KP or has a record of ruling against Kaiser Permanente,” its statement said.

“As required by law, both parties receive information about potential arbitrators and can decline to move forward with any they are not comfortable,” the statement said.

One problem is what experts call the “repeat player effect,” in which a large company appearing repeatedly before the same panel of arbitrators allegedly gains an advantage over the individual bringing a single complaint.

David Allen Larson, past chair of the American Bar Assn.’s dispute resolution section, said the repeat player effect happens because the patient will likely be choosing an arbitrator on the health plan’s system just once, while “Kaiser is selecting them every single day.”

“They know the system. They know the rules,” Larson said of Kaiser. “The entire process gives them an advantage.”

Alan Kang, a lawyer, in a recent petition filed in L.A. County Superior Court, contends that the fees the arbitrators earn from hearing cases — as much as $2,000 an hour — give them an incentive to rule in Kaiser’s favor so they are chosen to hear more cases.

“When a judge’s future income is at stake, it is impossible to be impartial,” Kang wrote in the petition.

The petition seeks to void the December decision of an arbitrator who ruled against the family of Evangelina Aquino, a Kaiser employee who died of cancer at age 40.

Kang, the Aquino family and the medical experts they hired for the case say her cancer would have been treatable if Kaiser doctors had found it with a test they said her symptoms called for. Kaiser argued it was a different kind of cancer that was aggressive and untreatable. The arbitrator agreed with Kaiser in the December decision.

After the ruling, Kang began analyzing data from Kaiser’s system.

His review of dozens of cases in the last six years found that judges overseeing the most cases nearly always ruled for Kaiser.

“The message is clear: deliver wins for Kaiser and you will get additional business,” Kang wrote in his court petition.

The Oakland-based health plan declined to answer questions about its arbitration system and Kang’s claims, but said in a statement that its “arbitration process is designed to be fair, impartial, and accessible to all members. While some arbitrators may handle multiple Kaiser Permanente-related cases, they are not employed by Kaiser Permanente, and they are selected by both parties, in accordance with the law.”

“We recognize that arbitration cases often involve difficult and deeply personal experiences for patients and families,” the statement said, “and we take all concerns raised through these processes seriously.”

Kaiser’s unique arbitration system

Arbitration can have advantages over the court system, including allowing Kaiser to save on legal costs, which otherwise would raise the price of premiums it charges to families, employers and governments.

Kaiser offers to pay the arbitrators’ fees, which can save families tens of thousands of dollars.

Arbitration may also lead to faster outcomes, possibly avoiding years of litigation. Unlike civil litigation, arbitration decisions are especially difficult to appeal.

After the criticism by the state Supreme Court in 1997, Kaiser reformed the system by creating the Office of the Independent Administrator. The office is funded by a Kaiser trust and the $150 fee each patient filing a claim must pay, said Marcella Bell, who serves as the independent administrator.

Bell said the office works independently from Kaiser.

The office selected 195 retired judges and lawyers to serve on a panel that patients and Kaiser can choose from when selecting a neutral arbitrator to oversee and decide a malpractice case.

Rules written by the independent administrator, in consultation with the health plan and an advisory board, allow Kaiser and the family to cut an arbitrator they don’t like, at multiple steps in the process.

The administrator’s office randomly selects 12 members from its panel. Both sides can each remove any four of those arbitrators. The two sides then rank the remaining arbitrators in order of preference. The administrator selects the top-ranked arbitrator to hear the case.

The two parties then still have the ability to disqualify that selection without cause.

Members of the United Nurses Assns. of California and Union of Healthcare Professionals strike outside Kaiser Permanente in Oakland on Jan. 28.

(Jessica Christian / San Francisco Chronicle)

Last year, Kaiser’s arbitration system closed 529 arbitration cases.

The arbitrators threw out 14% of the cases, ruling in favor of Kaiser’s motion for summary judgment, and dismissed an additional 5% of cases on technical or procedural grounds.

Only 23 cases, or 4% of the total, went to a hearing. Among those, the arbitrator decided for Kaiser in 17, with the patient winning the remaining six.

Patients and their families withdrew their claim in 20% of the cases. About half of those patients did not have a lawyer and had tried to represent themselves.

The parties settled for an undisclosed sum in 57% of the cases. The settlements are confidential.

Patient safety questions

Those who have studied the use of arbitration by Kaiser and other HMOs for medical malpractice claims say the secrecy of the settlements and the closed hearings could keep safety problems from coming to light.

“The secrecy of arbitration proceedings may prevent publicity that could reveal poor doctors,” the California Research Bureau warned in a report in 2000 that analyzed Kaiser’s system. That compares with public court cases that could deter “bad behavior” in the future, the researchers wrote.

In December 2023, 53-year-old Francisco Delgadillo arrived at the Kaiser ER in Vallejo with severe chest pain. After an initial assessment, he waited eight hours for care, according to state regulators.

He died in the lobby. A state and federal investigation found multiple violations, including that Kaiser failed to have a licensed nurse monitoring the dozens of patients in the ER’s waiting room.

The Delgadillo family filed an arbitration claim. Their lawyer Jeff Mitchell said the case settled for a confidential sum and he could not discuss it.

Mitchell agreed that the secrecy raised patient safety concerns.

“They love the system, otherwise they would not be so hellbent to keep it,” Mitchell said of Kaiser’s repeated efforts to dispel criticism. “They don’t want these cases to get in front of juries.”

A licensed practical nurse attends to a patient at a Kaiser Permanente in Culver City in September.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Calls for reform

Despite the changes Kaiser made after the 1997 court decision, patients and their families have continued to complain.

According to the administrator’s 2025 annual report, the “most common” complaint the office heard last year was about the neutral arbitrator.

“Most complained that the arbitrator was biased, partisan, unjust, and in Kaiser’s favor,” the report said.

Stephen Martinez, a retired aerospace engineer from Bellflower, is leading the effort to pass the state bill introduced by Garcia.

At an April hearing in the state Assembly, Martinez spoke about how his wife had found a lump in her breast and asked for an appointment with her longtime caregiver at Kaiser to examine it. Instead she was sent to a physician assistant, who dismissed it, he said.

“The PA prescribed warm compresses, a sports bra, and limited chocolate,” Martinez testified. “We would later find that Lindalee did have breast cancer that had already spread.”

Martinez and his wife said they spent $175,000 on lawyers and medical experts to bring that arbitration case. A chief breast surgeon at Kaiser and another surgeon who had retired from that job both testified that the Kaiser physician assistant failed to follow the health system’s guidelines.

Kaiser’s expert argued that the physician assistant did an appropriate exam and that his low suspicion of breast cancer was reasonable. The neutral arbitrator concurred and ruled against the couple.

After passing the Assembly, Assembly Bill 1770 is now in the state Senate for consideration. The bill lets the attorney general decide what actions they will take to ensure health plan arbitrations are handled fairly and transparently. If the bill passes, the state would add four deputy attorneys general, a legal analyst and three legal secretaries to do that work, according to a legislative analyst’s report.

Kaiser says it has concerns about the bill, including that it would “create overlapping state oversight and duplicative reporting requirements.”

Kaiser Permanente’s corporate offices in downtown Oakland in January 2025.

(Jane Tyska / East Bay Times via Getty Images)

Questions of a missed diagnosis

When Janene Fowler was 22, her body seemed to turn against her. She grew weak, pain shot through her hands and feet, her heart raced. She soon required a wheelchair.

Fowler’s medical chart detailed what could have caused her disabling problems. A test eight years before had found a deficiency of vitamin B12, according to the chart. Over the years, Kaiser doctors noted problems such as depression, unexplained pain, shortness of breath, a sore tongue and an abnormal gait — all possible symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency.

In February 2022, after her family complained about her not being able to see a neurologist, she got an appointment. The specialist noted her vitamin deficiency, telling the nurse to start her on a supplement at once. But the treatment did not begin because the paperwork was lost, her medical records show.

Two weeks later, Fowler left Kaiser to see a doctor at UCLA. A doctor there quickly started injections of B12.

Her symptoms gradually got better, but her new doctors say the years-long deficiency left permanent damage. She still can’t walk without help.

The arbitrator, a retired judge, sided with Kaiser’s doctors and experts, who questioned whether Fowler’s problems were caused by a deficiency of vitamin B12. While one test showed a deficiency, he noted that a second test failed to confirm it. He wrote that Fowler and her lawyers had failed to prove that Kaiser “breached its duty of care.”

Cohen, Fowler’s lawyer, asserted that the retired judge’s decision was contrary to UCLA medical records, which detail her deficiency and treatment.

Fowler now spends most of her time at home. She can’t drive. She often falls when she tries to get around with a cane. She loves to cook, but said she burns herself when she tries.

“My hands don’t really do what I tell them,” she said.

Kaiser declined to answer questions about her case, citing patients’ privacy rights.

Fowler said she’s angry about how the health plan’s doctors and its arbitration system treated her.

“I thought I was going to die, and no one at Kaiser seemed to care,” she said. “What justice can you have in a system that is run by those you are trying to sue?”

BILLINGS, Mont. — The U.S. Interior Department on Friday canceled a rule meant to protect plants and animals that are determined to be threatened with extinction, the latest step by the Trump administration to dismantle key provisions of the landmark Endangered Species Act at the behest of industry.

Instead of receiving automatic protections, imperiled species will need individualized protection plans once they are added to the threatened species list. That’s a potentially lengthy process in which companies could seek exemptions for oil and gas drilling, mining and other development where those species live.

Opponents said it would make it harder to save wildlife awaiting federal protections and in danger of disappearing, such as monarch butterflies and alligator snapping turtles.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement that the Endangered Species Act had been used for too long “to stop almost any new project in America, driving up costs for families, weakening our competitiveness, and undermining our national security.”

“Success should be measured by species recovery and delisting, not by adding more species to the list,” Burgum added.

A second change finalized Friday requires officials to analyze economic effects when deciding whether habitat is critical to a species’ survival. Critics say it gives corporations an opportunity to put their thumb on the scale so officials will allow development in those areas.

“If you’re exempting certain industries that cause habitat destruction, in many instances you’ll be exempting the main threat to those species,” said Noah Greenwald with the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity.

Officials made similar changes during Trump’s first term, but they were reversed under the Biden administration.

The rules that gave what some consider “blanket protections” to threatened species were first adopted for wildlife in 1975 and for plants in 1977.

Two groups, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and the Property and Environment Research Center, sued the Biden administration in 2024 after officials restored the blanket protections rule. They argued the rule unfairly imposed the same restrictions on landowners when a species’ status improves from endangered, which is more dire, to threatened.

That removed incentives for landowners to participate in species recovery, said Jonathan Wood, vice president at the Montana-based research center.

Wood said the Trump administration’s approach allows officials to “better reward progress and encourage proactive conservation.”

There have been no species added to the endangered or threatened lists in Trump’s second term. By comparison, more than 20 species were added in Trump’s first term, and about 60 under President Biden.

About 30 species are currently proposed to be listed as threatened. Besides monarchs and alligator snapping turtles, they include California spotted owls and various snakes, fish, clams and insects.

Changes to government policies for endangered plants and wildlife have come faster and extended further in Trump’s second term than in his first.

The administration in March exempted oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said environmentalists’ lawsuits threatened to hobble domestic energy supplies as the U.S. wages war against Iran.

A week before the latest rule change, Interior officials sharply narrowed the definition of what constitutes “harm” to a species. The change would allow development in critical wildlife habitat so long as the animals themselves are not immediately killed or injured.

Officials this week sharply reduced the amount of critical habitat in the Rocky Mountains designated for Canada lynx, forest-dwelling wildcats that are threatened by climate change and other pressures.

Also this week, Burgum said in a visit to Montana that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would turn over more management authority for grizzly bears to states where the bruins live. That’s been a long-standing priority for the Republican governors of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.

The Endangered Species Act is credited with bringing back animals including the California condor, the bald eagle and the American alligator from the brink of extinction.

Burgum noted Friday that 97% of the species that have been given protections still have them. That’s a frustration for Republican lawmakers who say species should be taken off the endangered and threatened lists more quickly once they’ve recovered.

Brown writes for the Associated Press.

TV station ownership groups may finally get their wish to own more outlets.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr announced Wednesday that the agency will vote next month to end the rule that allows companies to own no more than two TV stations in a single market. The cap also limits the national coverage of any station owner to 39% limit of the U.S.

Carr said the agency will consider a “case by case” review on station merger and acquisition deals that would result in exceeding the current limits. The commission, which has two Republicans and one Democrat, will vote on Aug. 6.

“Previously, the cap operated as a blanket prohibition on any and all deals that would combine stations in [excess] of the 39% limit — regardless of whether it was a good deal or bad deal for the country,” Carr wrote on the right-wing website Breitbart. “Our new proposal would allow the FCC to approve deals that exceed the 39% cap, but only if doing so would promote the public interest.”

TV station owners and its lobbying group the National Assn. of Broadcasters have been clamoring for a change in the rule, citing the changes in technology that have occurred since the ownership limit. The 39% threshold was set in 2004 when streaming video was still a nascent business.

The station groups say the ability of tech companies such as Google and Netflix to reach every consumer in the U.S. puts them at a disadvantage. At the same time, streaming now accounts for more than 40% of all viewing, according to Nielsen, pulling consumers away from traditional TV. TV stations are also seeing their share of carriage fees from cable and satellite companies shrink due to cord-cutting.

The station groups also argue that declining viewership and revenue make it more challenging to support multiple local TV.news operations in a single market.

But proposed changes to the cap limits have been met with push back from consumer groups and state government officials. They have said station consolidation will result in journalist layoffs and fewer voices for the communities they serve.

Earlier this year, a group of attorneys general filed suit to block Nexstar Media Group’s proposed $6.2-billion acquisition of Tegna, arguing it violates a 112-year-old U.S. antitrust law by knocking out a major competitor. The deal would give Irving, Texas-based Nexstar control of 265 television stations across the country, up from 164. And, in dozens of markets, including San Diego and Sacramento, Nexstar would own multiple TV network affiliates.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Troy L. Nunley issued a preliminary injunction in April that forbids Nexstar — which owns KTLA-TV Channel 5 in Los Angeles — and Tegna, from combining operations. Nexstar is appealing.

Carr’s proposal would largely put the FCC in charge of picking winners and losers on a case-by-case basis.

When faced with a merger proposal, Carr said the commission would consider such issues as commitment to local journalism and “viewpoint diversity.”

Carr has made his name by threatening to pull the over-the-air broadcast licenses of TV stations that irritate President Trump with their coverage and commentary.

In April, the FCC called for an early review of the licenses for Disney’s eight broadcast TV stations, a day after Trump demanded that ABC fire late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over a joke about First Lady Melania Trump.

Carr also questioned whether ABC’s daytime show “The View,” where negative Trump commentary is rampant, should qualify as a bona fide news program that is exempt from giving equal time to qualified candidates.

Carr’s Breitbart column also reiterated his view that large media companies such as Disney and NBCUniversal parent Comcast hold too much sway over their affiliates.

“New York and Hollywood interests have steamrolled those local TV stations and the broader media market in recent years in ways that run directly counter to the regulatory framework that Congress and the FCC put in place,” he wrote. “Their national programs naturally reflect the values of the New York and Hollywood executives that produce them. This power imbalance has contributed to a steady decline in locally produced news — and with it, a weakening of the public’s trust in the media.”

How owning more stations would give groups leverage in their dealings with networks is unclear. The networks control the rights to the NFL — the No. 1 TV ratings attraction for broadcast television by a mile. Stations pay the networks compensation for those games, which they use when negotiating the carriage fees they receive from cable and satellite companies.

Times staff writer Meg James contributed to this report.

Mark Chapman led the BBC’s live coverage of the second World Cup semi-final between England and Argentina

The BBC unveiled a major change ahead of the second semi-final.

Mark Chapman hosted the broadcaster’s live football coverage on Wednesday (July 15), as England prepared to take on Argentina in Atlanta.

England reached their fourth World Cup semi-final with an extra-time victory against Norway in the quarter-finals, and were victorious in the Atlanta stadium in the last 32, when they came from behind again to defeat DR Congo.

Meanwhile, reigning champions Argentina have managed to score three times in each of their knockout matches so far, with Lionel Messi set to face England for the first time in his career.

Mark was joined by regular pundits Wayne Rooney, Joe Hart and Micah Richards during the build-up to the anticipated match, with BBC viewers quickly noticing a huge change.

Up until now, BBC stars Mark, Kelly Cates and Gabby Logan have hosted the coverage live from a state of the art immersive studio in Salford, which transported viewers to 16 cities across three host nations.

But for the latest encounter, the team travelled to Atlanta Stadium in person, after the BBC announced that it would be leaving its domestic studio to head across the pond.

Viewers were quick to share their verdict on X (formerly Twitter), as Mark introduced the coverage from inside the spacious stadium for the first time.

“The BBC finally arrive at the World Cup. Only about a month late,” one person wrote, with another adding: “I see that the BBC pundits have finally bothered to travel out for the World Cup.”

A third said: “Remember all that nonsense about the BBC presenting the World Cup from Salford while ITV1 was actually IN one of the host countries?! Tonight, one of them presents LIVE from a stadium for the first time. What one? Yes, the BBC!”

Someone else wrote: “BBC actually made it to the World Cup. Crazy.”

Mark began the coverage by saying: “Evening, don’t look back in anger. Sometimes it’s hard not to.”

A montage of some of England’s most devastating footballing moments against Argentina was then played, including Diego Maradona’s Hand of God moment and David Beckham’s 1998 red card.

Some viewers weren’t impressed with the negative start to the coverage, with one angry fan writing: “The BBC could not hate us more! We play Argentina tonight in the World Cup semi-final and how does the [BBC] open its coverage?

“Some inspiring footage of England’s past triumphs? Of course not. They open with a montage of some of our most devastating footballing moments. With the soundtrack of a post apocalyptic horror movie playing in the background.”

Someone else wrote: “The rest of the build up is just one big [Lionel] Messi love in! It’s sickening, FFS if I was Kane or Bellingham I’d be fuming, let’s have some god damn positivity please BBC.”

Meanwhile, former Football Focus host Dan Walker praised the BBC team’s build-up, writing on X: “Brilliant build-up from the BBC. Pundits all on it, Chappers superb, in the stadium, on the pitch… best of the World Cup so far.”

Coverage of the FIFA World Cup 2026 airs on the BBC and ITV

The travel expert has a message to anyone who has booked easyJet flights

Travel expert Simon Calder has issued a message to anyone with flights booked with easyJet. Last week, it was reported that the budget British airline has agreed to be bought by a US investment giant for £5.7billion.

EasyJet announced it had reached an “agreement in principle” with Apollo Global. It comes after a series of approaches by another American giant, Castlelake, which could come back with a counter offer.

It is unclear what the deal, if it happens, would mean for easyJet customers and employees. However, Simon has given his expert verdict on the situation.

Explaining the deal on the Travel Expert with Simon Calder podcast, he said: “easyJet for a fair while was the biggest budget airline in Europe, then Ryanair gradually overtook.

“We are now at the stage where Ryanair is almost twice as big as easyJet but its market capitalisation, in other words what investors think it is worth, is about five or six times easyJet.”

If the deal goes through, Simon explained the best case scenario would be if not much changes.

He said: “That easyJet continues on its trajectory which is one of steady growth and of course, offering great service, incredible safety standards and delivering very good value for the traveller.”

Many passengers are worried about what the potential deal could mean for flights and holidays already booked, especially in the coming weeks as we enter peak summer travel season.

Simon’s co-host Greg Dickinson urged: “Let us stress that if you have a holiday booked with easyJet this summer or a flight with easyJet, it is going ahead as normal.

“These changes are going to take months to get the deal completed, and it will be a year until we start seeing anything different.”

Simon agreed as he said: “I think that is absolutely right, do not fret. I’ve had some people say to me, ‘Is it alright to book with easyJet?’ Well, of course it is.”

The travel expert said that if you have flights booked next year and the potential takeover means the flight won’t run, passengers are entitled to ask the airline to find them an alternative at the airline’s expense.

He added: “It would not be a problem, carry on booking easyJet and the interesting element will be whether it goes through.”

A stock market statement said: “Apollo has followed easyJet for many years and continues to regard it as one of the most attractive businesses in the global aviation sector and a highly differentiated franchise with significant long-term growth potential.”

It added: “Apollo places a high value on people and believes that identifying and retaining key staff within the easyJet Group will be of paramount importance.” It also said other investments by Apollo in airlines had led to it “growing the employee bases”.

EasyJet was founded by entrepreneur Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou in 1995 to offer low-cost fares in Europe. The first inaugural flights took off in November 1995, flying from Luton to Glasgow and Edinburgh. Sir Stelios and his family still own 15.3% of the airline.

Aarin Chiekrie, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “EasyJet shareholders are strapping in for an exciting ride as Apollo enters the race to land the orange airline company.

“Apollo’s offer is now the preferred option and the one that easyJet’s management would recommend to shareholders. But the deal’s not off the runway yet, with Apollo having until August 7 to decide whether to make a formal bid. In that time, rival bidder Castlelake could still come to the table with improved terms.”

Delta Air Lines Inc. Chief Executive Ed Bastian said travelers care more about their seat than extras like lounge access or limousine shuttles often thrown into costly tickets, as he defended a stripped-down premium product that has irked some customers.

“Consumers want different value decisions to take,” Bastian said in a Bloomberg Television interview on Monday. “If you can give people the opportunity to sit in first class, they may not want different elements and they may not need to go in the lounge.”

Delta is bringing the basic-economy playbook to Delta First, Delta Premium Select and Delta One, offering passengers the same onboard seats, meals and service at a lower price in exchange for fewer benefits. Depending on the product, restrictions can include reduced mileage earnings, lower checked-bag allowances, fees for changes or cancellations and limits on lounge access and advance seat selection.

“What consumers care more about than anything is the seat,” Bastian said. “All the other things are nice, but it’s the seat and the comfort of the seat that’s most important.”

Bastian’s comments contrast Delta’s recent investments in its ground amenities. The airline has spent years opening and expanding swanky Sky Clubs and Delta One lounges, which remain in such high demand that crowding and lines have prompted tighter access rules.

Delta last month opened the first phase of a second Delta One Lounge at Los Angeles International Airport, a 4,000-square-foot space with table-service dining, showers and a premium bar. By 2028, Delta plans to operate four lounges at LAX spanning 60,000 square feet and seating more than 1,000 guests, part of a global network that now includes five Delta One Lounges and more than 50 Sky Clubs.

“One of the things we’re disappointed about is the continued segmentation of the fare structure,” Jefferies analyst Sheila Kahyaoglu said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, referring to how Delta has refined its premium offering into different, sometimes hard-to-follow groups. “You could accidentally get locked out of a lounge if you don’t pick that main business fare.”

Delta last week reported second-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street expectations despite recording the highest quarterly fuel expense in its history. The airline earned an adjusted $1.56 a share, topping analysts’ estimate of $1.51, while revenue rose 14% from a year earlier and capacity increased just 1%. Delta also reaffirmed its full-year profit guidance.

Bastian said strong demand for premium, corporate and international travel helped offset the surge in fuel prices caused by fighting in the Middle East. Although fuel costs eased as the war in Iran appeared to be winding down, renewed US military strikes have raised the risk of another escalation and kept energy markets volatile.

The CEO reiterated that Delta would continue pricing tickets to recover those higher costs and did not expect airfares to decline. The new basic premium fares give the airline another way to appeal to price-conscious travelers without broadly discounting its most valuable seats.

The strategy also allows Delta to widen the pool of passengers who can afford premium cabins while still charging more to corporate travelers and frequent fliers who value flexibility, loyalty benefits and lounge access. It reflects how airlines are increasingly selling each component of the travel experience separately.

But it risks alienating premium and loyalty travelers by introducing complexity or making it seem harder to get the same level of access.

“Delta’s change to its premium-seating offerings suggests competition is weighing on pricing at the front of the cabin, a negative for earnings,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst George Ferguson said.

Taylor and Abramowicz write for Bloomberg.

SACRAMENTO — Recent news about literacy, education and general smarts in California and across the country has been somewhat distressing.

Along with claims that Americans are becoming illiterate, here in the Golden State there are worries that even the highest-achieving students aren’t prepared for our universities, and a study shows backsliding in civil rights protections in the vacuum created by federal changes under the Trump administration.

Despite being close to terming out of office, and also otherwise occupied with his ever-emerging presidential run, Gov. Gavin Newsom last week found time to announce a consequential, if controversial, move that has the potential to vastly improve educational outcomes for California kids: switching out an independent, voter-chosen leader for a hired gun.

In legislation signed last week, Newsom basically eviscerated the role of the elected superintendent of public instruction and instead shifted oversight of our K-12 schools to a newly created education commissioner — to be appointed by the governor.

The change, set to happen early next year, has been described as a “power grab” by some, and on its surface could be seen that way. The conservative candidate for state superintendent — Sonja Shaw, who says she is running to stop “political ideologies being shoved down everybody’s throats” — quickly claimed Newsom’s move was all about stopping her.

In reality, power grab or not, it’s the kind of reform we should all support — a long-overdue push to create accountability in a hot-mess system where there are too many people almost-sorta in charge of too many conflicting priorities.

‘A’ for accountability

It’s to Newsom’s credit that he’s setting up his successor to helm a system that at least has a chance at coherence, even if it raises the stakes for the next governor to deliver.

For years — decades, really — streamlining the governing structure of schools “has been proposed by Republicans and Democrats and bipartisan and nonpartisan commissions,” Linda Darling-Hammond told me. She’s a professor emeritus at Stanford University, an advisor to the governor and, by any measure, one of the preeminent education policy experts in the country.

“It’s not at all political. It is really about making the system run well,” she said. “The world is changing, the economy is changing. There’s just a need to be very efficient and effective in making policy and then implementing that policy.”

“Run well” is the key there. California operates the biggest and most diverse school system in the country. We’ve got roughly 10,000 regular schools (depending on how you count), including about 1,200 charter schools, around 1,00 school districts and 58 counties, each with their own slice of local control over those schools, according to the Department of Education.

That’s about 5.7 million students, nearly 300,000 teachers and $150 billion in costs (counting the new funding in the next budget).

To be kind, this system does not always run well. That’s in no small part because oversight and control are fragmented, overlapping and confusing. Currently, the State Board of Education sets policies, but the elected superintendent implements them through the Department of Education. Then control runs downhill to individual school districts, filtering through local school boards and even principals.

The board can’t control how the superintendent does their job, and vice versa. In fact, they don’t always agree, despite (or because of) the shotgun wedding nature of their relationship. At times, it can feel like they are working against each other. Never mind the complexities of local control.

This has been especially true in recent years as Newsom and the Legislature have pushed through big changes, such as the new prekindergarten grade, that have required massive coordination and effort. At the local level, administrators often complain there is little clarity on what is expected of them and, too often, outright conflict.

“The idea of having policy in one place and implementation in the other is really crazy,” Michael Kirst told me. He’s professor emeritus of education at Stanford and the longest-serving president of California’s State Board of Education, serving under both of Jerry Brown’s gubernatorial stints.

Newsom’s proposed system promises “much clearer, cleaner accountability,” Kirst said.

Expertise counts

It also has the benefit of putting an actual education expert in charge of schools. Because the superintendent role is elected, it has too often been coveted by career politicians looking for a landing spot. Its incumbent, Tony Thurmond, had a background in social work before running for various offices, but that kind of experience isn’t always the case. Neither is experience running a major organization with thousands of employees.

While Newsom’s plan leaves many, if not most, of the details to be ironed out later (a frustrating strategy he’s used more than once to keep the ball rolling on policy without having the drag of actual detail), it does promise to put in someone with the kind of high-level educational policy experience that should be required when managing this vast and important endeavor.

Kirst points out that this will be a “powerful position” charged with making sure our schools are indeed run well, and at the end of the day, it gives us one person to blame if they don’t: the governor.

So if schools don’t improve and our kids don’t learn, voters will know exactly who failed.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Trump ousts members of bipartisan election commission ahead of midterms
The California edge: The Work of Helping A.I. Destroy Work
The L.A. Times Special: In bed 23 at Adelanto ICE detention center, a terrified teenager missed his mom

Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

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