£1.308 billion (Powerball) on January 13 2016 in the US, for which three winning tickets were sold, remains history’s biggest lottery prize
£1.267 billion (Mega Million) a winner from South Carolina took their time to come forward to claim their prize in March 2019 not long before the April deadline
£633.76 million (Powerball draw) from a winner from Wisconsin
£625.76 million (Powerball) Mavis L. Wanczyk of Chicopee, Massachusetts claimed the jackpot in August 2017
£575.53 million (Powerball) A lucky pair of winners scooped the jackpot in Iowa and New York in October 2018
It’s been more than 2,000 days since Covid-19 appeared in late 2019 growing to more than 700 million cases and at least 7 million deaths globally. Like many other people who were infected by Covid-19, I have long thought about its origins and where we go next.
Under international law the principle of onus probandi,serious matters like lethal modalities such as nuclear, chemical and biological weapons or allegations of lethal pathogenic origins require the highest standard of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt”. It is also why the complaining party, not the accused, that bears the burden of proof.
That’s also why the WHO Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens explicitly requires the proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” gold standard, not the lower “preponderance of the evidence” test that something is merely more likely true than not. And it’s why the WHO panel operates under the legal principle of in dubio pro reo, a presumption of innocence until the accusing party proves otherwise.
Applying these standards, the required burden of proof level has not been met in even one case as the US and some allies have falsely accused Wuhan as being the origin of Covid-19.
China, in fact met its primary obligations under the WHO International Health Regulations, including timely notification to WHO of unusual pneumonia cases in December, 2019; sharing viral genome sequencing with WHO in December, 2019; and facilitating the WHO-China joint investigation during 2021.
I also find it unpersuasive that the “beyond a reasonable doubt” test was met since there were multiple independent reports, including wastewater and antibody blood testing of varying levels of credibility, of Covid-19 being present in Europe and the Americas prior to December 1, 2019. Since there is substantial evidence that Covid-19 appeared earlier on in numerous venues far beyond China, it has to be a case of “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”. For example, consider:
In Italy, multiple studies based on the presence of antibodies in blood samples found Covid-19 as early as October, 2019.
In France, the analysis of thousands of blood samples detected Covid-19 antibodies in 13 cases from November, 2019 to January, 2020.
In the Americas, signs of Covid-19 based on the presence of antibodies in blood samples were found in Brazil in November, 2019 and in the US in early December, 2019.
To me, however, the most convincing evidence is that after so much time has passed and so much money has been expended, no Western intelligence agency has been able to find Covid-19s origin with a high level of confidence; therefore not “beyond a reasonable doubt”.
Beginning with 2020, without the legal proof threshold being met, a handful of lawsuits outside the US, were filed against China over Covid-19 . All have been unsuccessful. In the US, a greater number of cases yielded only two Pyrric victories among numerous defeats whose massive judgments in cases that are mere political theater, clogged an understaffed, overburdened judicial system, but not one cent will ever be collected because under international law, these judgments will be uncollectable. There are several reasons for these disparities.
Legally, other nations have more respect for the longstanding doctrine of sovereign immunity governing one nation or its political subdivisions suing another. Consequently, such cases are also more difficult to file there. The doctrine, which must be music to Donald Trump’s ears, can be traced back to the English common law doctrine: rex non potest peccare or “the king can do no wrong”.
The US is the most litigious country globally, having the highest number of cases filed annually. One of the reasons is an unusual feature of the American legal system that allows litigants to bring cases without paying their lawyer, unless their lawyers are successful, in which case the lawyers take a negotiated percentage of the judgment, usually upwards of 40%.
From the 1990s, The US had been more politically divided. As part of this trend, American views on China were negatively affected and have severely deteriorated, accelerated by Covid-19. For example, Gallup found that about 41% of American had a favorable view of China in February, 2019, but by 2023 this number fell to 15%. Putting these facts together, it’s no surprise that the US has been the ground zero for quixotic lawsuits seeking damages for Covid19.
US courts are governed by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act which accords foreign states broad immunity from lawsuits in US courts with several seemingly narrow exceptions. China, however, adheres to the principle of absolute sovereign immunity, and does not recognize the exceptions and abstains from appearing in US courts.
The exceptions, however, encouraged the conservative attorneys-general of red states Missouri and Mississippi to sue China. They were fully aware of China’s position and the futility of obtaining damages, beyond performing a political theater of the absurd that would further gum up an already understaffed judicial system.
Both officials belong to the National Association of Attorney Generals, which we jokingly call “National Association of Aspiring Governors” and both used the suits to waste taxpayers money to further their political careers, and in the case of the Missouri A-G, to help him become US senator.
The “justice is blind” mantra, at least in the case of Missouri, also fall on deaf ears. The 2-1 decision that turned on the narrow exceptions, smacks of political bias. At least one of the two judges allowing the exceptions to hold against China, perhaps both, should have recused themselves to avoid an appearance of impropriety; each was a Trump-appointee.
Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh, Jr., who wrote the majority opinion is first cousin of the notorious extreme right media commentator Rush Limbaugh. The latter, with an audience of more than 15 million, had said that “the coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another weapon to bring down Donald Trump and it probably is a ChiCom (Chinese Communist) laboratory experiment that is in the process of being weaponized”. Judge Limbaugh had an unambiguous moral duty to recuse himself. but didn’t.
The cases have many flaws but I agree with the dissent in the Missouri case, written by the Chief Judge, not a Trump-appointee, that the exceptions did not apply to China.
The Covid-19 nightmare may be over but other pathogens with pandemic potential are literally waiting in the wings. Last year there were 17 global disease outbreaks, including Marburg virus. Mpox and H5N1 bird flu.
Experts warn that there is a 40 to 53% likelihood of another serious pandemic within 25 years.
Trump has already slashed the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) budget from $9.3 to 4.2 billion in 2026. At the same time WHO will (again) lose its largest contributor next year per orders of President Trump to the tune of $500 million to $1.3 billion. Combined, this will cripple the UN body and severely weaken global health surveillance, especially neutering WHOs Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network that relies heavily on American data-sharing and technical support. Trump has even forbidden the remaining experts who weren’t fired from the CDC, from co-authoring scientific papers with WHO staff.
Sadly, like the CDC. the WHO itself is destined to be in poor health, and may suffer terminal decline, causing needless deaths at home and abroad if the US continues down its selfish path. This churlish US action will undoubtedly severely increase the more than 14 million deaths forecast globally by 2030 as a consequence of savage 83% budget cuts to the US Agency for International Development and related US foreign aid programs.
China will assuredly pick up some of the slack, especially via its Belt and Road Initiative and its Health Silk Road but cannot unilaterally restore funding to previous levels. Other nations hopefully can pick up some of the shortfall.
Under international law, we may never know where Covid-19 came from. However, If we don’t want the past to be prologue and if we don’t follow philosopher George Santayana’s wise advice that those who don’t learn from the mistakes of history are bound to repeat them, we must prepare our new multipolar world for the health and other shocks that await us.
All the articles are worth a view. Here’s a small sample of what our writers covered.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Cupid’s Hot Dogs (from the 65 favorite places to eat)
Colleague Stephanie Breijo wondered why Cupid’s is so quintessentially San Fernando Valley.
Maybe it’s the large “The VALLEY” mural in the Winnetka location’s parking lot — where carhop service and car shows can occasionally be found — or perhaps it’s that iconic heart-shaped signage that has stood over low-slung buildings and strip malls for nearly 80 years.
It’s probably the fact that the Walsh family has been slinging hot dogs across the Valley since 1946, with sisters Morgan and Kelly Walsh serving as third-generation stewards.
Whatever the case, their thin dogs still snap with each bite. The signature Cupid dog — a creation of their father’s in the 1980s — is punchy with mustard and onions, and the chili is so thick it’s practically a paste.
The flavors and generational influence collide here, a sort of trip through decades of family and Valley history in a single hot dog stand.
Canto VI (from the 24 best bars and coffee shops)
Restaurant critic Bill Addison wrote that Canto VI owner Brian Kalliel brought a high level of experience into his Chatsworth venture.
Kalliel previously worked as a sommelier at Augustine Wine Bar and Mélisse.
He sets his caliber for wines high, and delivers with an ever-changing selection through which he guides customers from behind the bar, engaging them in conversations on their tastes.
Wine flights, by-the-glass options, a few rarer bottles with some age for the nerds: Kalliel has his audience covered. The dining room — serving wine-friendly snacks, including nicely composed cheese and salumi boards, and Italian-leaning entrees from Chester Hastings, formerly chef at Joan’s on Third — has distinct supper club vibes.
Couples gravitate to the bar. Larger groups land at dimly lit tables. Ordering happens at the counter, which can be disorienting if the staff doesn’t make the process clear to first-timers. With a full house the place feels informal and occasionally a little chaotic and decidedly grown-up, largely due to Kalliel’s confident, hospitable ringleader presence.
(Brandon Ly / Los Angeles Times)
Where Kelly Kapowski grabs a burger
Senior Food Editor Danielle Dorsey tracked down celebrities, media members and politicians to ask about their hidden Valley gems.
Tiffani Thiessen, of “Saved by the Bell” and voice of She-Hulk in the “Lego Marvel Avengers: Mission Demolition,” gave us three.
“Bill’s Burgers [is] our [favorite] burger in the Valley,” Thiessen said. “Super casual setting for a quick bite with the best legendary old school burger.
“Oy Bar [is] one of our favorite date night spots [and the] food is always on point. Casa Vega [is a] nostalgic Mexican joint that has been a staple in the Valley for many years and [I] hope it continues.”
Hopefully readers will find their own San Fernando Valley staple. For more, check out the entire Guide to the 818.
The week’s biggest stories
(Joe Burbank / Associated Press)
Trump administration policies and push back
Labor Day travel and plans
Crime, courts and policing
Community struggles and issues
More big stories
This week’s must-reads
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Jim Rainey, staff writer Andrew J. Campa, reporter Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor Karim Doumar, head of newsletters Diamy Wang, homepage intern Izzy Nunes, audience intern
For college football fans, the tranquility and/or boredom of game-free weekends has officially ended.
Yes, the college football season is back today along with all of the game-day traditions: tailgating, plopping on the couch with a 60-inch screen, backyard barbecues and incessant complaining about traffic from residents near the Rose Bowl.
Hope is high for the USC and UCLA football programs, members of the Big 10 Conference (it still feels weird saying that!).
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Our L.A. Times sports team put together an amazing digital preview package for the upcoming season. The Trojans start first, hosting Missouri State at the Memorial Coliseum at 4:30 p.m. today while the Bruins welcome Utah to the Rose Bowl at 8 p.m.
Let’s sample some of that coverage and wish both teams the best of luck. And as an Alabama alumnus myself, may I add a very loud Roll Tide!
Expect a roller-coaster season from USC quarterback Jayden Maiava
My colleague and Trojans beat writer Ryan Kartje said the redshirt junior made a concerted effort over the summer to eliminate the back-breaking mistakes he struggled with last season.
Since last season, he dug deeper into head coach Lincoln Riley’s offense and worked on his mechanics with the experts at the 3DQB training academy in Huntington Beach.
But Maiava’s style has lent itself to high variance.
He loves to chuck it deep and too often throws it into coverage. That could yield some thrilling results. We’ll have to see if that will benefit USC or not.
But 4.3% of his passes last season were deemed turnover-worthy by Pro Football Focus. That was third-highest in the Big Ten and too high for USC’s offense to reach its potential.
UCLA’s defense will need big seasons from safety Key Lawrence and edge rusher Devin Aupiu.
My colleague and UCLA beat writer Ben Bolch said UCLA will look for leadership on defense.
Perhaps the most energetic player on the team, Lawrence, a Mississippi transfer, also boasts plenty of talent, speed and smarts.
Barring a setback from a minor right leg injury he sustained midway through training camp, Lawrence projects to be an opening-day starter.
He’ll need to anchor a secondary that’s replacing every starter.
As for Aupiu, UCLA’s pass rush was meh last season, generating 22 sacks to rank tied for No. 78 in the nation.
As a part-time starter, Aupiu made 4½ tackles for losses, including 1½ sacks — decent production given his limited playing time and easily the most among returning players. Getting into the backfield more often this season is a must for the redshirt senior.
Prediction time: The Bruins will be bowl-bound while the Trojans will split with their rivals.
Bolch is predicting a season full of surprises and a bowl berth for the Bruins. Does he think they’ll beat USC? You’ll have to read his preview.
Kartje is predicting a fast start for the Trojans, who will run into some bumps and bruises in the Big 10 before rallying with a flourish. Will USC topple UCLA and Notre Dame?
Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team
Jim Rainey, staff writer Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor Andrew J. Campa, reporter Karim Doumar, head of newsletters Diamy Wang, homepage intern Izzy Nunes, audience intern
It was bound to happen sometime. This year, the most important Hollywood movie of the key summer season didn’t start its quest for world domination in movie theaters. It came out on Netflix.
“KPop Demon Hunters,” the cartoon musical about a girl group using catchy tunes to keep evil at bay, has become a viral phenomenon since it launched on the streamer June 20. With 210 million views globally so far, it’s the most watched animated movie ever on Netflix, and is expected to soon top “Red Notice” as the company’s most popular film.
That should be no surprise at this point. Unlike many previous widely watched Netflix movies, “KPop” — produced by Culver City-based Sony Pictures Animation — has penetrated the cultural zeitgeist, leading to gushing from millennial parents’ group chats including mine, chart-topping songs and, of course, memes galore.
To keep the momentum going, Netflix took the unusual step of putting the movie in theaters weeks after its streaming debut.
“KPop Demon Hunters” sing-along screenings played in more than 1,750 locations domestically to packed houses, with more than 1,150 sold-out showings, though it did not play in AMC cineplexes. It was the No. 1 movie in theaters, scoring in the ballpark of $18 million in ticket sales, according to industry sources, enough to top the third weekend of Zach Cregger’s horror hit “Weapons.” Netflix released the sing-along version of “KPop Demon Hunters” for streaming on Monday.
Netflix, as is its typical practice, did not report actual box office grosses, so the counts for its first No. 1 box office hit aren’t official. Nonetheless, theater operators were clearly relieved to have the movie, even if for only two days. The August box office doldrums are in full swing, with little to cheer about from the traditional studios.
The summer blockbuster season is expected to end with about $3.5 billion in total revenue from the first weekend of May through Labor Day, according to analysts, which would be either roughly flat or slightly down from last year’s thin slate. More than $4 billion is considered normal or healthy by pre-pandemic standards.
The biggest hit this summer was Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch,” a live-action remake that collected $422 million in the U.S. and Canada and more than $1 billion globally. Last summer, two movies topped $600 million: Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” and Marvel’s “Deadpool & Wolverine,” both of which were Disney titles.
Netflix has had a tense relationship with the theatrical business since it first got into making movies. The company puts movies in cinemas for limited runs as part of marketing efforts, awards campaigns and as a way to appease filmmakers who prefer the big-screen experience. Co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos earlier this year called the theatrical business “outdated” for most people, citing weak box office numbers after the COVID-19 closures.
Indeed, theatrical attendance has shrunk even more than the top-line revenue figures suggest, with shortfalls partly papered over by increases in ticket prices over the years.
When Scott Stuber ran Netflix’s film business, he pushed the company to do more with theaters because auteur directors wanted it. The film side is now run by Dan Lin.
People who advocate for the multiplex keep hoping that some event will persuade Netflix that its theory is wrong — that something like the “KPop Demon Hunters” screenings or next year’s Imax rollout for Greta Gerwig’s upcoming “Narnia” project will prove that Sarandos is mistaken and theatrical windows will actually benefit Netflix beyond using them as promotional ploys.
Rivals say their movies do better on streaming services when they’re already theatrical hits, a theme repeated by the new owners of Paramount who are trying to grow their direct-to-consumer business.
But if anything, Netflix is digging in.
The company sees the success of “KPop,” along with the recent release of “Happy Gilmore 2,” as proof that movies can resonate culturally without theaters and the massive advertising budgets necessary to open a film on 4,000 domestic screens. The Adam Sandler-starring sequel scored 46.7 million views in its first three days on the service and set a Nielsen record for the most-watched streaming movie in a single week.
Netflix has long faced skepticism from Hollywood over its film business, which can put up big viewership with movies like “Red Notice” and “The Adam Project” that seem to vanish from audiences’ consciousness without a trace.
We kind of already knew that movies, particularly animated musicals aimed at kids, could find a big audience online without being a theatrical smash. “Encanto,” released in November 2021 during the pandemic and the Bob Chapek era, did paltry box office by modern Disney standards but became a phenomenon when its Lin-Manuel Miranda-penned songs took off on social media.
When kids latch onto something, they watch it repeatedly, and they don’t care if it’s been in theaters or not. If the movie is good and relevant to them, it can work regardless of the release strategy.
Would “KPop Demon Hunters” have worked if it had been released in theaters exclusively? Who knows. If it had opened to modest box office results, as animated original movies tend to do lately, it would have immediately been written off as a disappointment. Instead, it stayed on the Netflix top 10 lists for weeks and climbed the Nielsen rankings because of word of mouth.
Part of its success is that the movie feels very “now,” whereas animated films sometimes aim for timelessness. It’s culturally specific, with universal themes (friendship and young people’s need to belong) that have powered Disney blockbusters for decades. A colleague of mine aptly described it as a sort of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” meets “Frozen.” Its music is current and rides the wave of everything influenced by South Korean pop culture.
Will it have the enduring influence of the “Frozen” franchise or “Moana,” movies that started primarily as properties for girls but became touchstones for a broader audience? Perhaps not, but it does give Netflix another data point to validate its streaming movie strategy.
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Even $3-trillion Apple isn’t immune to streaming inflation.
Apple TV+, home of series including “The Studio” and “Ted Lasso,” is raising its subscription price by $3 to $12.99 a month, following the lead of other streamers chasing better returns.
Finally …
Read: I’m listening to the audiobook of Blink-182 bassist Mark Hoppus’ “Fahrenheit-182.” A must for this San Diego native.
If you browse through social media, it’s easy to find commentary about canceling the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
There are Angelenos who lack confidence in the city and county’s ability to roll out the red carpet due to perceived failures during the Palisades and Altadena fires.
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One syndicated columnist pleaded with L.A. not to work with “a lawless U.S. regime,” while sportswriter and author Jeff Pearlman wondered if Latin American athletes would feel safe in the U.S. due to the Trump administration’s current deportations.
There are pushes from some, but how possible is it that the Games will be canceled?
Why is backing out difficult? We’re three years away
Host cities and host country national organizing committees (in this country, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee) sign a host city contract (HCC) after the International Olympic Committee officially awards the Games.
The contract for the 2028 Games, signed by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti and then-City Council President Herb Wesson in September 2017, includes procedures for termination from the IOC’s perspective but doesn’t leave the same option for the host city or the national organizing committee.
“While one cannot foreclose all potential theories, it is hard to imagine a scenario where Los Angeles could terminate the HCC without facing substantial legal issues,” Nathan O’Malley, an international arbitration lawyer and a partner at Musick, Peeler & Garrett, wrote in an email. “Especially if the reason for ending the contract was a political disagreement between the federal, state and local branches of government.”
When even COVID-19 didn’t stop the Games
After an initial one-year delay of the Tokyo Games, medical professionals pleaded to cancel amid rising COVID-19 cases.
LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman has emphasized that he has assurances from the federal government that the United States will be open, despite recent travel bans and tighter scrutiny of international travelers arriving in the U.S.
Trump’s June proclamation includes exemptions for athletes, team personnel or immediate relatives entering the country for the FIFA World Cup, the Olympics or other major sporting event as determined by the Secretary of State.
If any city should be ready to host the biggest Olympics in history, it should be L.A. Not only because of the existing venues, but because of the unprecedented 11-year planning time after the IOC awarded the Games in 2017.
Now with less than three years remaining, relocating to a city that would likely have to build new venues would be unrealistic for the IOC.
“For Los Angeles, a city whose identity is partly predicated on staging the Olympics twice, and now having a third time,” said Mark Dyreson, a sports historian at Penn State University, “I think it would be really, really difficult for L.A. to give up the Olympics.”
(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photograph by Jamie-Lee B.)
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Jim Rainey, staff writer Andrew J. Campa, reporter Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor Karim Doumar, head of newsletters Diamy Wang, homepage intern Izzy Nunes, audience intern
What Californians think about Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to temporarily redraw the state’s congressional districts has been a source of hot debate.
Republicans rallied around polling conducted by Politico last week that noted that California voters preferred an “independent line-drawing panel” determining seats to the House of Representatives versus giving that role to the state Legislature.
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The high-stakes fight over political boundaries could shape control of the U.S. House, where Republicans currently hold a narrow majority.
Texas’ plan creates five new Republican-leaning seats that could secure the GOP’s House majority. Texas is creating the new districts at the behest of President Trump to help Republicans keep control of the House in the midterm elections. California’s efforts are an attempt to temporarily cancel those gains. The new maps would be in place for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 congressional elections.
Newsom and Democratic leaders say California must match Texas’ partisan mapmaking to preserve balance in Congress.
New polling supports Californians fighting back
The UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, conducted for the Los Angeles Times, asked registered voters about the Newsom-backed redistricting push favoring California Democrats. This effort serves as a counterattack to President Trump and Texas Republicans reworking election maps to their advantage.
When voters were asked whether they agree with California’s redistricting maneuver, 46% said it was a good idea, and 36% said it was a bad idea.
Slightly more, 48%, said they would vote in favor of the temporary gerrymandering efforts if it appeared on the statewide special election ballot in November. Nearly a third said they would vote no, and 20% said they were undecided.
One interpretation of the data
“That’s not bad news,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley IGS Poll. “It could be better.”
DiCamillo added: “With ballot measures, you’d like to be comfortably above 50% because you got to get people to vote yes and when people are undecided or don’t know enough about initiatives, they tend to vote no just because it’s the safer vote.”
The strongest backers
Among voters who regularly cast ballots in statewide elections, overall support for redistricting jumped to 55%, compared with 34% opposed.
DiCamillo said that is significant.
“If I were to pick one subgroup where you would want to have an advantage, it would be that one,” he said.
Where to find the undecided votes
Winning in November, however, will require pushing undecided voters to back the redistricting plan.
Among Latino, Black and Asian voters, nearly 30% said they have yet to decide how they would vote on redistricting.
Women also have higher rates of being undecided compared with men, at 25% to 14%.
Younger voters are also more likely to be on the fence, with nearly a third of 18- to 29-year-olds saying they are unsure, compared with 11% of those older than 65.
The ever-growing divide
The partisan fight over election maps elicited deeply partisan results.
Nearly 7 in 10 Democratic voters said they would support the redistricting measure, and Republicans overwhelmingly panned the plan by about the same margin (72%).
California Republicans attempted to stall the process by filing an emergency petition at the state Supreme Court, arguing that Democrats violated the California Constitution by rushing the proposal through the Legislature.
The high court rejected the legal challenge Wednesday.
Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team
Jim Rainey, staff writer Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor Andrew J. Campa, reporter Karim Doumar, head of newsletters Diamy Wang, homepage intern Izzy Nunes, audience intern
Movies from India’s prolific film industry have found success on the world stage before.
“RRR,” an over-the-top Telugu-language action film, energized audiences in the U.S. and elsewhere a few years ago, even scoring a history-making Oscar for its original song “Naatu Naatu.” Hindi screenings have long drawn crowds to American multiplexes.
But the filmmakers behind “Ramayana” — an upcoming two-part epic based on one of the most important ancient texts in Hinduism — have something more ambitious in mind.
The massive productions — each estimated to cost $200 million to $250 million — are aimed not merely at an Indian audience, nor are they meant to appeal primarily to Hindus, who number an estimated 1.2 billion globally, according to Pew Research Center.
Rather, the goal is to turn “Ramayana,” with its grand-scale adventure story and high-tech computer-generated effects, into a full-blown international blockbuster, filmed specifically for Imax’s giant screens in what is intended to be the largest-ever rollout for an Indian film, according to its backers.
Executive Namit Malhotra — who is financing and producing the project through his firm Prime Focus — set the bar high in a recent interview with The Times, comparing his film to the likes of James Cameron’s “Avatar,” Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator” and the movies of Christopher Nolan.
While Hollywood studio bosses talk about reaching all four demographic “quadrants” (men and women, young and old) with their tentpole movies, Malhotra wants to draw two additional categories: believer and nonbeliever. For such a so-called six-quadrant movie to work, to use Malhotra’s terminology, it would have to succeed in the U.S.
“In my mind, if people in the West don’t like it, I consider that as a failure,” Malhotra told The Times recently. “It is meant for the world. So if you don’t like it, shame on me. We should have done a better job.”
Poster art for the upcoming film ‘Ramayana.’
(DNEG)
It’s a major gamble for Malhotra, who founded Prime Focus in Mumbai in 1997. The firm expanded significantly when it acquired British effects house Double Negative, and rebranded as DNEG. Malhotra owns nearly 68% of the parent company, Prime Focus Ltd.
He’s going to great lengths to make sure his big bet pays off. DNEG, headquartered in London with offices in India, Los Angeles and elsewhere, is handling the visuals. The firm has produced special effects for global studio features for years, creating Oscar-winning work for such movies as Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two” and Nolan’s “Tenet.”
“Ramayana” is directed by Nitesh Tiwari, the man behind 2016’s “Dangal,” the highest-grossing Bollywood film ever, including huge sales in China. Hans Zimmer and prolific Indian musician-composer A.R. Rahman (“Slumdog Millionaire”) are collaborating on the score, while the visual effects and production design team includes veterans from “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Avengers: Endgame” and the “Lord of the Rings” franchise.
The success of “RRR,” which told the story of two Indian legends with larger-than-life abilities fighting British imperialism, is one reason Malhotra is confident that “Ramayana” might connect with Westerners more familiar with the Bible and “The Odyssey” (the subject of a much-hyped 2026 Nolan film) than with Hindu mythology. U.S. cinephiles have in the past embraced mythical Asia-set films such as Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Life of Pi.”
So why not “Ramayana?”
After all, family, good vs. evil and personal striving are all key themes that transcend national borders.
“Emotions are universal,” said Tiwari in a video call. “If the audience connects with you emotionally, I think they will connect with the whole story. Emotions have powers to travel across boundaries.”
Filmed entirely on soundstages, the first part of “Ramayana” is scheduled to hit theaters next year, with a significant push from Imax. “Part 2,” currently in production, is planned for 2027. Each part is timed for Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. The films do not yet have a U.S. distributor.
This comes as Imax has beefed up its clout as what is increasingly seen as a linchpin component for the release of big-screen movies, not just for Hollywood spectacles but also, lately, for local language films. Imax showcased just a handful of Indian movies on its screens in 2019, according to Chief Executive Richard Gelfond. Last year, the company played 15.
So far this year, international films made in their local language have accounted for more than 30% of Imax’s total global box office revenue, Gelfond said. Much of that tally came from “Ne Zha 2,” a Chinese-produced animated film that grossed roughly $2 billion worldwide, mostly from its home country.
As such, Gelfond has high hopes for “Ramayana.” “Judging from what we’ve seen, this has all the elements to be a global success,” Gelfond said.
At its core, “Ramayana,” based on the epic poem from thousands of years ago, tells the story of Hindu deity Rama, an incarnation of the god Vishnu, and his quest to rescue his love Sita from the demon king Ravana.
A three-minute teaser trailer introduced the concept, emphasizing the big names attached (including actors Ranbir Kapoor as Rama, Sai Pallavi as Sita and Yash as Ravana), displaying some “Game of Thrones” opening credits-style visuals and conveying the tale’s historical importance. “Our truth. Our history,” reads the onscreen text. The video has 9.4 million views on YouTube.
“Ramayana” is a quintessentially Indian story. It has been adapted for stage and screen before, perhaps most notably as a series for Indian TV in the late 1980s.
For the new version, Malhotra wants to eliminate any language barriers. DNEG is using syncing technology from its Brahma AI unit to seamlessly present the film in local languages for international audiences. In the U.S., for example, the movie will screen in English.
“It’s a global film from the day we start,” he said. “I’m not trying to make it to appease Indian people in India. … If you go and watch ‘Ramayana’ and your family watches it, and people in India watch it, what’s the difference? It should speak to you like any other film.”
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Airing election misinformation continues to be expensive for cable news networks.
Newsmax will pay $67 million to settle a defamation suit filed by Dominion Voting Systems over false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election that aired on the right-wing news channel.
The network announced the settlement with the voting equipment maker Monday but did not apologize for its reporting.
Fox News settled a similar case with Dominion in 2023 for $787.5 million after it aired incorrect election claims. Newsmax is much smaller than Fox, which continues to battle a lawsuit from another voting machine company, Smartmatic.
Streaming is getting closer to another major milestone. According to Nielsen’s the Gauge report, streaming services accounted for 47.3% of U.S. TV usage in July, compared with 22% for cable and 18.4% for broadcast. That’s what happens when there’s new “Squid Game” on Netflix and there’s not much on regular TV.
Finally …
Listen: No Joy, “Bugland.” Excellent ’90s-style rock.
If you’re a Gen Xer or younger, there’s a good chance you’ve contemplated moving out of California.
The reasons are obvious. It’s expensive and difficult to raise a family, pay rent or even consider buying a home.
That struggle isn’t just on the mind of locals. Midwestern and Southern states have recognized an opportunity and are making their best pitches to frustrated Californians.
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So, is there a price Tulsa, Okla., could offer you to move? Are the incentives of cheaper gas, much shorter commutes and overall drive times enough of an appeal? I haven’t even mentioned the cost of living and a real chance of buying a home.
Rollins felt socially isolated working a remote job in Ocean Beach for a tech company, but still overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people around her.
Months earlier she read about a program, Tulsa Remote, that would pay remote workers to relocate to Oklahoma’s second-largest city for at least a year. She decided to give it a shot and visit.
“When I was [in California], I was so consumed with the process of day-to-day living — the traffic, getting places, scheduling things,” Rollins said. “Here there’s so much more space to think creatively about your life and to kind of set it up the way you want.”
After five months in Tulsa, Rollins met her significant other at a trivia night. Her partner, with whom she now lives, made the journey from California to Tulsa for school during the pandemic.
“He grew up in Santa Cruz and was living 10 minutes from me down the road in Pacifica, but we never met in California,” she said. “We met in Tulsa.”
What is Tulsa offering?
Tulsa Remote — funded by the George Kaiser Family Foundation — started in 2019, and has sought to recruit new residents to diversify the city’s workforce.
It decided to offer $10,000 to remote workers who would move to the state for at least a year.
The program also provides volunteer and socializing opportunities for new residents and grants them membership at a co-working space for 36 months.
What do the numbers say?
Tulsa Remote has attracted more than 3,600 remote workers since its inception.
More than 7,800 Californians have applied to the program and 539 have made the move, cementing California as the second-most popular origin state behind Texas.
Those numbers reflect something of a wider trend: From 2010 through 2023, about 9.2 million people moved from California to other states, while only 6.7 million people moved to California from other parts of the country, according to the American Community Survey.
A Public Policy Institute of California survey conducted in 2023 found that 34% of Californians have seriously considered leaving the state because of high housing costs.
Zach and Katie Meincke, former Westsiders
The lower cost of living was a huge bonus for the Meinckes when they moved three years ago.
They went from paying $2,400 in monthly rent on a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in L.A.’s Westside to a five-bedroom, three-bathroom house in Tulsa for just a few hundred dollars more.
It ended up being fortuitous timing for the couple, who discovered they were expecting their first child — a daughter named Ruth — just weeks after they decided to move.
The couple are expecting their second child in December.
It’s a life milestone that Meincke says may not have happened in Los Angeles. In California, it costs nearly $300,000 to raise a child to 18. In Oklahoma, researchers estimate it costs about $241,000, according to a LendingTree study this year.
“There was no way we were going to move into a house in Los Angeles unless we had roommates, and that’s not an ideal situation,” Zach Meincke said. “We were 37 when we left Los Angeles and it felt like we were at a point that if we wanted to have all those other things in life — children, a house — we need to make that shift.”
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Jim Rainey, staff writer Andrew J. Campa, reporter Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor Karim Doumar, head of newsletters Diamy Wang, homepage intern Izzy Nunes, audience intern
It’s been a dramatic couple of weeks in the wide world of sports rights, as media companies locked down a slew of deals that remake the way that fans watch their favorite athletic competitions.
On Monday came a big one: David Ellison, the new owner of Paramount, came into the ring punching hard with a $7.7-billion deal for the streaming and TV rights to UFC matches. In the seven-year pact with UFC owner TKO Group Holdings, the Ellison-led Paramount will pay an average of $1.1 billion annually — about twice what Walt Disney Co. was paying to air the mixed martial arts league on ESPN.
It’s a signal that Ellison is willing to spend big bucks on content that he and his fresh executive team think will make Paramount+ a more formidable competitor to Netflix, Amazon’s Prime Video, HBO Max and others. Paramount+ will have the rights to stream 13 marquee “numbered” UFC events and 30 fight nights, while certain numbered events will be simulcast on the company’s broadcast network, CBS.
Now those sightings of the tech scion-turned Hollywood mogul speaking with President Trump at UFC fights make even more sense, as do Ellison and Paramount’s recent peripheral dealings with superagent Ari Emanuel, TKO’s executive chair. In a key part of the deal, UFC will move away from showcasing fights through its pay-per-view model, which should dramatically increase the reach of a sport with strong appeal among young men.
The deal is also the latest sign that the streaming wars are far from over, at least when it comes to sports broadcasts. Last week, the NFL inked a deal to take a 10% stake in ESPN as part of a complex arrangement that will give Bob Iger-led Disney control of the NFL cable properties, including the NFL Network and the linear RedZone channel. The ESPN stake is estimated to be worth more than $2 billion.
This highly anticipated blockbuster deal further aligns the financial interests of the most powerful TV sports brand with what is by far the nation’s most popular sports league, which accounts for the vast majority of most-watched programs every year. The agreement is part of Iger and ESPN chair Jimmy Pitaro’s strategy to bulk up the content offering available through the network’s upcoming stand-alone streaming service, which will cost $30 a month when it launches later this month.
Separately, ESPN is staying in business with TKO, having agreed to pay $1.6 billion over five years to stream WWE events including WrestleMania, Royal Rumble and SummerSlam. Analysts say that should ease some of the pain of losing UFC to Ellison and Paramount. The WWE events are moving to ESPN’s service from their current streaming home, NBCUniversal’s Peacock. Disney’s fees will be nearly twice those of NBCUniversal.
Disney will use the new ESPN service to make its wider streaming offering more attractive, bundling it with Disney+ and Hulu.
All this is happening amid a broader overhauling of the sports media landscape in the streaming age that has made life more confusing for fans as fewer people subscribe to all-in-one cable and satellite TV bundles.
NFL games, for example, run on a broad array of streaming services, including Paramount+, Prime Video (for Thursday night games), and, in the case of Christmas Day matchups, Netflix. The league, which has significant leverage, is widely expected to exercise its option to renegotiate media rights deals starting in 2029.
Apple is expected to win the rights to Formula One racing telecasts, adding to its sports portfolio that includes MLB games and Major League Soccer. The NBA last year got itself a big pay bump, securing media rights deals with NBCUniversal, Amazon and Disney worth $77 billion over 11 years.
As these shifts take place, the media industry is about to go through a major test: How many people are willing to pay for a lot of — but not all — the sports content they want to watch, and what will they be willing to fork over?
The entertainment and media companies say they are aiming these services at cord-cutters and cord-nevers, people who don’t pay for a more-or-less traditional package of TV channels but still want to watch sports.
The question is whether such people actually exist.
Despite its branding power and its significant share of sports rights, ESPN’s direct-to-consumer app will have limited appeal. Many analysts estimate that the offering will attract 2 million subscribers in the short term.
For most of the kind of dedicated sports fans who might be interested in streaming ESPN, a digital bundle such as YouTube TV ($83 a month) probably makes more sense than cobbling together individual brands.
Recognizing the limitations, the media companies are taking another stab at consolidating their sports streaming offerings at a discount. On Monday, Disney and Fox Corp. said they would offer a bundle of the ESPN streamer and the new Fox One — which includes live sports, news and entertainment — for $40 a month. On its own, Fox One will be priced at $20 a month.
A previous attempt at a more inclusive offering — a proposed joint venture called Venu Sports from Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery — was abandoned after a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction against the media giants in an antitrust lawsuit from FuboTV. The saga ended up with Disney making a deal to take a 70% stake in Fubo and merge it with its Hulu Live TV service.
But the question for all services and mini-bundles remains the same: Who are they really for?
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Filmmaker Zach Cregger won the weekend with his acclaimed new horror movie “Weapons,” which topped expectations with $43.5 million in ticket sales through Sunday in the U.S. and Canada.
Cregger’s follow-up to his surprise hit “Barbarian” is the latest win for Warner Bros., marking six successful openings in a row (after “A Minecraft Movie,” “Sinners,” “Final Destination Bloodlines,” “F1 the Movie” and “Superman”). Not bad, considering the studio’s leaders were rumored to be on the chopping block earlier this year.
Doing solid business was Disney’s “Freakier Friday,” a body-swap comedy sequel reuniting Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan more than 20 years after the first one, itself a remake of a 1976 movie. The new installment opened with $28.6 million domestically.
After this and “The Naked Gun,” I’m certainly not going to declare that Hollywood big-screen comedies are back, but the genre is not completely lost either, as long as there’s intellectual property attached.
Finally …
Watch: Marc Maron has a new HBO stand-up special, “Panicked.” As always, it’s funny, acerbic, insightful and sometimes deep.
Listen: On Aug. 14, the estate of Woody Guthrie will release a collection of home recordings, including a version of “This Land Is Your Land” and his take on “Deportee.” Absolutely fascinating.
WASHINGTON — On the eve of the start of the Republican National Convention, President Trump on Sunday touted a “very historic breakthrough” in treating coronavirus, announcing that the government had authorized the emergency use of blood plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients to combat the disease.
But scientists said the therapeutic benefits of the treatment, which has already been used on some 70,000 patients, were not yet fully understood, and some public health experts questioned whether political considerations had colored the decision-making process.
It was not the first time Trump had hailed what he described as a game-changer in treating the virus, which has killed more than 175,000 Americans. And it echoed a previous pattern of the president overriding or undermining his government’s own scientists in confronting the 6-month-old outbreak, which has devastated the U.S. economy and upended daily life across the nation.
In an appearance at the White House, Trump, whose pandemic policies have come under scathing attack from Democrats, claimed credit for personally prodding what he depicted as a reluctant federal bureaucracy into action with the Food and Drug Administration’s emergency order.
“That’s such a powerful term, emergency use,” he said. “Today’s action will dramatically expand access to this treatment. … The results have been incredible.”
“We’re not going to let it be held up,” he added.
Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary, Alex Azar, appearing alongside him, hailed it as a “major advance in the treatment of patients.” Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn cited the “totality of data” as backing the use of convalescent plasma as safe.
The White House had contended for days that the FDA was dragging its feet on approving lifesaving therapeutics — a contention sharply disputed by Scott Gottlieb, a former head of the FDA under Trump.
“I firmly reject the idea that they [the FDA] would slow-walk anything or accelerate anything for that matter, based on any kind of political consideration and any consideration other than what’s best for the public health,” Gottlieb said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
The president’s announcement came against the backdrop of public opinion polls that suggest about two-thirds of Americans do not approve of his handling of the pandemic, which has hit the United States harder than any other advanced country.
At last week’s Democratic convention, Trump’s pandemic policies were excoriated, and the outbreak’s grim course is expected to be a central campaign talking point by the Democrats’ nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden. Trump this week will formally accept the Republican presidential nomination.
The president — who has often sought to deflect the blame for failures in fighting the virus, which has killed more than 176,000 Americans — suggested in a tweet late Saturday that a shadowy “deep state” was trying to harm his reelection prospects.
That, he implied, might be preventing the FDA from moving ahead swiftly with regulatory approval of treatments for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. “Must focus on speed, and saving lives!” he wrote.
In earlier appearances on Sunday’s news-talk shows, Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, provided no evidence to back up the president’s claim of a deliberate slowdown in approving coronavirus therapeutics, blaming “bureaucrats who think that they can just do this the way they normally do it.”
“The president’s right to call it out,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
In a separate appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” Meadows suggested that Hahn‘s job might have been in jeopardy.
“It’s almost impossible to fire a federal employee, regardless of what they do wrong,” he said.
Telegraphing Sunday’s announcement in advance, Trump last week blasted the FDA for a decision against authorizing convalescent plasma’s emergency use after the National Institutes of Health cited relatively scant data.
In announcing the emergency use authorization — which is different than FDA approval — the chief scientist for the FDA, Denise Hinton, wrote that “convalescent plasma should not be considered a new standard of care for the treatment of patients with COVID-19.” She added that “additional data will be forthcoming from other analyses and ongoing, well-controlled clinical trials in the coming months.”
Other scientists questioned Trump’s role in promoting the treatment. Benjamin Corb, public affairs director of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, said Trump was “once again putting his political goals ahead of the health and well-being of the American public.”
“The FDA last week held up on issuing this authorization at the behest of government scientists who are awaiting clinical trials to prove the safety and efficacy of the treatment,” he said in a statement.
In the CBS interview, Gottlieb described convalescent plasma as having “incremental” known value.
“I believe plasma is probably beneficial,” he said. “But I think some people wanted to see more rigorous data to ground that decision. And I think that’s part of what is going on here with respect to that tweet, and questions about the FDA decision-making.”
Trump’s move fueled existing concerns about politics, not science, taking a lead role in White House coronavirus policy. Andrew Slavitt, who was a senior healthcare official in the Obama administration, tweeted before the announcement that convalescent plasma, if given early enough in the course of the disease, did appear to result in a lowered death rate.
Slavitt, who served as acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said officials and scientists he had spoken to still had many questions and concerns about the data to date.
In the course of the pandemic, Trump has often publicly undercut senior scientists, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease expert.
The president has denigrated mask-wearing, which is urged by virtually all public health professionals, and touted the use of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug indicated in controlled clinical trials to offer no benefit in treating COVID-19.
Trump also attracted widespread ridicule earlier this year when he mused that ingesting disinfectant might be a treatment worth studying. Poison hotlines and a number of public officials then took to the airwaves and social media to implore people not to drink bleach.
In the late spring and early summer, Trump also pushed governors to reopen their states whether or not they had achieved containment benchmarks set by his own administration. In several big Sunbelt states, including Texas and Florida, that policy was blamed for igniting some of the most serious outbreaks to date, which are now subsiding but shifting to other parts of the country.
New daily cases have dropped below 50,000 for more than a week, and deaths, which stayed around 1,000 a day for the last four weeks, are probably about to drop below that level.
“The concern is that if there is sort of a third wave, a third iteration of the national epidemic, it could be more diffuse, spread across a broader section of the Midwest and the West, because cases are building in those parts of the country,” Gottlieb said. “And that’s what’s concerning people right now.”
While cuisine often takes center stage in Southern California, at L.A. bars it’s also quite possible to “have it all.”
And we all have our favorites: the Short Stop in Echo Park after Dodger wins, the Tiki Ti in Los Feliz when you’re looking for the island vibe or a refreshing sidecar at Pico Rivera’s bustling and dimly lit Dal Rae.
Sure, they’re all wonderful. But it’s also fun to experience new scenes, different twists on some classics and to just find yourself in a different locale with a new drink.
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The Times’ Food team, led by colleagues Stephanie Breijo and Danielle Dorsey, is inviting readers to add to your favorites by visiting one or all of their 21 new bars to check out.
Here’s a quick look at their full list. Cheers.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Chinatown’s Evangeline Swamp Room
This is the place to let the good times roll in true New Orleans fashion.
All of the requisites are here: Ramos gin fizzes hand-shaken to an inch-high fluffy top, smooth sazeracs, mint juleps crowned with bushels of fresh mint, frosty hurricanes and more. But the Evangeline Swamp Room also makes room for a few of its own creations, such as a pink-lemonade take on the Pimm’s cup, a Cajun riff on the bloody Mary that’s garnished with blackened shrimp, and a rotation of frozen seasonal cocktails that go down dangerously easily. When you need food to sop it all up, opt for po’boys, charbroiled oysters, jambalaya fritters, fried okra and gator chili.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Hollywood’s Bar Avoja
Walk through the bar area of Mother Wolf past the semi-open kitchen where Evan Funke’s celebrated Roman dishes come flying out at a rapid clip. Head through the double doors, hang a left and you’ll find yourself at the entrance to Bar Avoja.
Like Mother Wolf, Bar Avoja — Roman slang for “hell yeah” — is co-owned by operator Giancarlo Pagani and inspired by the cuisine of Rome. The cocktails in this Thursday-to-Saturday lounge deserve praise. Sometimes they incorporate region-appropriate ingredients, such as limoncello and amari, other times they blend the unexpected (the Morso Di Vita, made with vodka, tomato, basil and passion fruit, is a highlight). Dimly lit and slightly upscale, it feels like a pared-down, intimate experience.
(Alyson Aliano/For The Times)
Los Feliz’s Untamed Spirits
Silver Lake’s first bar dedicated to women’s sports opened during Pride Month courtesy of wives Janie and Stephanie Ellingwood. Untamed Spirits features TVs throughout the space, from the open-air interior to the covered patio with string lights and hanging plants. The menu offers elevated bar standards including brisket nachos, kimchi fried rice and a smashburger, with house cocktails such as a pear lychee martini and tequila watermelon punch. Taco Tuesday brings tacos priced from $3 to $5, $3 tequila shots and $10 margaritas, while weekend brunch adds smoked brisket hash and a breakfast burrito. Untamed Spirits is an official bar partner of the Angel City Football Club and will host its first watch party on Sept. 7. Day parties, trivia and drag bingo round out the bar’s regular programming.
(Danielle Dorsey / Los Angeles Times)
Venice’s Kassi
The lush, Grecian-inspired escape features a coastal palette with umbrellas, tables and comfortable couches for wasting away a summer day, all with a clear view of the crashing waves at Venice Beach. The beverage program fits the theme with strawberry and cucumber slushies that can be swirled together, a Mediterranean gin and tonic packed with fresh herbs and a pomegranate za’atar mule. The food menu from chef-partner Thomas Lim includes shareable bites such as mezze, skewers, crispy saganaki and a refreshing watermelon salad topped with whipped feta. The rooftop turns clubby with DJs in the evenings and on weekends; its patrons are a healthy mix of locals and tourists.
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Jim Rainey, staff writer Diamy Wang, homepage intern Izzy Nunes, audience intern Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor Andrew J. Campa, reporter Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
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In short, Vegas is on a losing streak.
After fighting to bounce back from COVID-19 closures, Sin City is facing financial headwinds as fewer people, particularly Californians, are visiting, playing and ultimately spending money.
Traffic on Interstate 15 at the California-Nevada border was down 4.3% over the same period, suggesting fewer visitors doing road trips from the Golden State to Vegas casinos.
The number of air travelers into Las Vegas overall declined 6.3% over the previous June. In 2024, Californians made up more than a fifth of air travelers into Vegas, with nearly half of those coming from the Los Angeles metro area.
A demographic report from the visitors authority estimated that Southern California provided 30% of all visitors to the city in 2024.
Add it all up, and Californians could be responsible for a significant portion of the decline in Vegas tourism.
How do the numbers look internationally?
Tourism within the U.S. is only part of the picture, though, as experts previously predicted we are also seeing a slump in international tourism to the U.S. The convention and visitors authority estimates that 12% of the city’s visitors are international.
A report from the World Travel and Tourism Council projected that the U.S. would lose $12.5 billion in international travel spending in 2025.
“While other nations are rolling out the welcome mat, the U.S. government is putting up the ‘closed’ sign,” Julia Simpson, the council’s president, said in a statement.
The report cited air-travel booking data from March that showed a 15% to 20% drop in expected travel from major tourism sources, including the United Kingdom, Germany and Canada.
What about Mexico and Canada?
Visitors from Canada and Mexico made up more than half of international visitors to Las Vegas in 2024, according to data from the visitors authority.
But President Trump’s talk of making Canada the 51st state and his decision to hit Canada with tariffs have not endeared him to Canadian travelers. Meanwhile, media overseas have been bombarded with stories of capricious denials and detentions of travelers at U.S. border crossings.
Apparently, Mexican and Canadian tourists are not feeling so welcome in the U.S. these days.
What’s next?
“Las Vegas thrives on tourism,” Rep. Steven Horsford wrote last week on X, “but under the Trump slump, the numbers are tanking.” Horsford, a Democrat, represents Nevada’s 4th Congressional District, which includes a portion of Las Vegas.
By many metrics — including visitor totals, convention attendance and room occupancy rates — Las Vegas has not fully recovered from the onset of the pandemic.
In dollar terms, however, Sin City continues to profit even as visitor numbers drop: Clark County, which includes Vegas, collected $1.16 billion in gambling revenue in June 2025, up 3.5% from a year earlier.
Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team
Jim Rainey, staff writer Diamy Wang, homepage intern Izzy Nunes, audience intern Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor Andrew J. Campa, reporter Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
Trump’s administration halts mRNA vaccine development, sparking WHO fears for emerging pandemic preparedness.
The decision by US President Donald Trump’s administration to terminate 22 federal contracts for mRNA-based vaccines is a major blow to a hugely promising platform, the World Health Organization said.
“This is, of course, a significant blow,” WHO immunisation figurehead Joachim Hombach told the UN correspondents’ association ACANU on Thursday.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announcement that it will wind down mRNA vaccine development activities under its biomedical research unit is the latest development under US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, a long-time vaccine sceptic who has been making sweeping changes to reshape vaccines, food and medicine policies.
“mRNA vaccines are a very important technology and platform which has served us extremely well for COVID. We also know there is very promising work going on in relation to influenza vaccines,” Hombach said. “From our perspective, the platform is particularly useful in relation to developing vaccines against emerging and pandemic threats, because these platforms can be very rapidly adapted.”
Unlike traditional vaccines, which often use weakened or inactivated forms of the target virus or bacteria, mRNA shots deliver genetic instructions into the host’s cells, prompting them to produce a harmless decoy of the pathogen and train the immune system to fight the real thing.
The US health department’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority is “terminating 22 mRNA vaccine development investments because the data show these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu”, Kennedy said.
Hombach, executive secretary for the WHO’s strategic advisory group of experts on immunisation, called for work on the development of mRNA vaccines to continue around the world.
“This is, from our perspective, an unfortunate and untimely move, but we are confident that the research endeavour will continue because it’s an extremely promising technology,” he told reporters.
Shortly after his inauguration in January, Trump signed an executive order directing the United States to withdraw from the WHO, an organisation he has repeatedly criticised over its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority helps companies develop medical supplies to address public health threats, and had provided billions of dollars for the development of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.
HHS said the wind-down includes cancellation of a contract awarded to Moderna MRNA.O for the late-stage development of its bird flu vaccine for humans and the right to buy the shots, as previously reported in May.
The US health agency said it was also rejecting or cancelling multiple pre-award solicitations, including proposals from Pfizer PFE.N, Sanofi Pasteur SASY.PA, CSL Seqirus CSL.AX, Gritstone and others.
Kennedy said the department is terminating these programmes because data show these vaccines “fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu,” but did not offer scientific evidence.
“We’re shifting that funding toward safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate,” Kennedy said.
In total, the decision affects 22 projects worth nearly $500m, the agency said.
HHS said the decision follows a comprehensive review of mRNA-related investments initiated during the COVID-19 public health emergency.
As a deep-pocketed producer, David Ellison helped breathe new life into Paramount franchises including “Mission: Impossible,” “Star Trek” and “Top Gun.”
But can the high-flying son of a billionaire make a full-fledged media company airworthy again? Can he use Silicon Valley money and movie business know-how to restore the legacy of one of the entertainment industry’s original studios, following a deal clinched through an act of political appeasement?
Those are the questions Hollywood talent, studio rivals and insiders will be asking as Ellison takes the controls of the new Paramount, after regulators finally approved the long-awaited $8-billion merger with his Santa Monica production company Skydance Media. The deal — two years in the making, and approved by the FCC only after a $16-million settlement with Trump and promises to mindwipe any trace of DEI from the company — is expected to close Aug. 7.
After that, Ellison, backed in large part by his father, Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison, will bring in his own team to face the daunting challenges.
Chris McCarthy, the architect of Paramount’s recent streaming strategy, is out. Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon head Brian Robbins is also expected to exit while CBS chief George Cheeks is staying. The incoming management team includes former NBCUniversal Chief Executive Jeff Shell, who is currently a heavyweight at Ellison’s bidding partner RedBird Capital.
Skydance Chief Creative Officer Dana Goldberg will run the film studio, and former Netflix executive Cindy Holland will play a major role at the new company. Also joining is Sony Pictures movie executive Josh Greenstein.
This may be a different team from the one that labored under outgoing controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, but it’ll be contending with most of the same problems.
Paramount is dogged by issues buffeting all legacy media companies, including the decline of traditional TV ratings, the post-COVID-19 realignment of the theatrical box office and the escalating costs of sports rights, as my colleague Stephen Battaglio and I reported last week. Those difficulties were exacerbated at Paramount by chronic underinvestment and years of shambolic leadership, as corporate governance experts have long pointed out.
Ellison has direct experience with movies, having produced many of them, including some of Paramount’s biggest hits (as well as some notable flops). He’s less steeped in running TV channels and streaming services, which have urgent needs. The scion is also coming in to make good on a promise to investors: to find $2 billion in cost cutting, which will mean layoffs and disruption.
Paramount+ has been growing, thanks in part to the NFL, CBS shows and a run of original hits including “Landman,” “1923” and “Tulsa King.” But the service has lost money for years, and the app is clunky. (It’s expected to reach full-year U.S. profitability in 2025.) McCarthy spent big bucks on talent, including Taylor Sheridan and the creators of “South Park,” enough to make Matt Stone and Trey Parker billionaires, according to Forbes.
Analysts say the service will need substantial investment in content and technology to make it competitive while also partnering with other companies to increase its reach through discounted bundles and other initiatives.
The new owners will have to decide what to do with the cable channel business, which includes such eroding brands as MTV, BET and Comedy Central.
Many observers tend to assume Ellison will eventually spin those off, following the lead of NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery. In a sadly comical reminder of what can happen with a merger gone wrong, David Zaslav’s Warner Bros. Discovery on Monday announced that the two companies resulting from its pending breakup will be called — wait for it — Warner Bros. and Discovery Global.
TD Cowen analyst Doug Cruetz, in a recent note to clients, speculated that Ellison didn’t buy the Paramount assets just to “break it up for parts.”
We’ll see.
Another looming and potentially costly issue is the NFL’s relationship with CBS Sports. The change of control will trigger an early renegotiation of Paramount’s contract with the league once the transaction closes. That’s important because the NFL has significant leverage in dealmaking, considering that its games account for the vast majority of most-watched programming on television.
Ellison has promised to bring technological enhancements to Paramount. That would mean a more functional app for Paramount+ and an improved personalized recommendation system. It might mean using tech to make movies cheaper and faster. A year ago, Ellison noted a partnership between Skydance Animation and Oracle to build a so-called studio in the cloud. What technology can’t do is pick the movies people want to see, and that’s where the new leadership group will have to prove themselves.
But the biggest hurdle will be overcoming the stain covering the deal itself after the concessions required to get it over the finish line.
Paramount paid a substantial sum to make peace with President Trump, who had sued the company over CBS News’ “60 Minutes” interview with his 2024 election rival, then-Vice President Kamala Harris. The case was frivolous, 1st Amendment experts said. But the Redstone family and the Ellisons were desperate to get the deal done. As a result, the new company is starting off on a crooked foundation, as one Hollywood insider put it to me.
Stephen Colbert, speaking on “The Late Show,” called Paramount’s settlement a “big fat bribe.” Days later, he learned that his show would be ending in May. Even assuming the company told the truth in saying that the cancellation was a purely financial decision (i.e., the show was too expensive and it was losing money), the optics were bad.
Comedians responded the way comedians do. The “South Park” team, having secured a $1.5 billion deal to bring the long-running animated series to Paramount+, opened their 27th season with, effectively, a pair of middle fingers raised to Trump and their parent company.
The show depicted a flapping-headed cartoon Trump in bed with Satan, similar to its past portrayal of Saddam Hussein, and ended with an AI-generated PSA showing the president wandering the desert and stripping naked, revealing tiny, talking genitalia.
The Trump settlement cast a pall over whatever plans Ellison has. CBS News lost key figures in part due to Paramount’s push to reach a peace accord with the president (Tanya Simon being named to run “60 Minutes” is seen as a relief). But whatever you say about the corporate behind-the-scenes machinations that took place to make the deal happen, you can’t say the artists have lost their spine.
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In a return to form for Walt Disney Co.’s Marvel Studios, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” opened with a robust $118 million in the U.S. and Canada and $218 million globally, according to studio estimates, slightly outperforming prerelease projections.
This comes after middling results and poor reviews for “Captain America: Brave New World” and tepid sales (but better reviews) for “Thunderbolts*.” Last summer’s “Deadpool & Wolverine” was a $1.34-billion hit.
Like Deadpool and Wolverine, the Fantastic Four — known as Marvel’s first family — came to Disney through the company’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox entertainment assets. Fox made three “Fantastic Four” movies, all bad. “First Steps” earned mostly positive reviews from critics and fans (88% on Rotten Tomatoes; “A-” from CinemaScore).
The $218-million global opening weekend was similar to that of James Gunn’s DC reboot “Superman,” released earlier this month. That film just crossed the $500 million box office milestone, with a strong $289 million domestically and a less-impressive $213 million overseas.
Theaters have been on a winning streak this summer. So far this year, ticket sales are up 12% from 2024, according to Comscore. But the rest of the season looks thin. Next weekend features Paramount’s “The Naked Gun,” Universal’s animated “Bad Guys 2” and Neon’s Sundance horror breakout “Together,” starring real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie.
Finally …
One marker of a great artist is the number and diversity of musicians who take inspiration from their work. And Ozzy Osbourne, the Black Sabbath frontman who died last week, had plenty of admirers who covered his songs.
The Times’ Mikael Wood already rounded up the Prince of Darkness’ 10 essential tracks. Here are some of the best covers, with help from Rolling Stone and Loudwire.
A DRAGON’S Den winner and former Team GB gold medallist fraudulently used Covid loans to buy himself a £1.8million mansion.
Rick Beardsell illegally pocketed £100,000 worth of taxpayers cash to purchase his home – despite receiving a £75,000 investment during his stint on the BBC show.
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Beardsell received £75,000 in investments after appearing on Dragon’s DenCredit: Cavendish
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The British world sprinting champion illegally pocketed two Covid Bounce Back business loans to buy himself a £1.8m mansionCredit: Cavendish
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Beardsell was only entitled to apply for one loan worth £50,000, but fraudulently applied for twoCredit: Cavendish
The 46-year-old fiddled two Covid Bounce Back loans to buy himself five-bed Holly House in the exclusive village of Prestbury, Cheshire.
Dad-of-two Beardsell was only entitled to apply for one loan worth £50,000, but fraudulently applied for two and greatly exaggerated his annual turnover by up to 23 times.
It came after the world champion sprinter had successfully secured investments from TV Dragons Tej Lalvani andDeborah Meadenfor his successful protein shake bottle business, ShakeSphere.
Chester Crown Court heard he applied for the loan to prop up his other company, Sports Creative Ltd, but none of the money went towards the sportswear business.
Prosecutor Geoff Whealan told the court Beardsell made the fraudulent applications to HSBC in December 2020 and then to NatWest in January 2021.
He said: ”The defendant stated on the HSBC form that the turnover of Sports Creative was £485,000 and on the NatWest form said it was £320,000.
“But unaudited financial statements showed turnover for the year end February 2020 was £20,622.
”The turnover was clearly exaggerated to secure the maximum bounce back loan.
“Subsequent transactions showed the bounce back loan funds were not being used for the economic benefit or business purposes of Sports Creative at this time.”
The money arrived in Sports Creative’s account in January 2021, but then almost £400,000 was transferred to Beardsell’s personal Santander account in the space of six months.
Then £431,160.80, including the remaining bounce back loan funds, was transferred to a firm of solicitors for the purchase of Holly House he bought with his wife Ezster.
Mr Whelan added: ”In effect the bounce back loan funds had been used for this purchase.
Shocking moment Dragons’ Den winner Ross Mendham smashes £100k Ferrari after ploughing into bike racks in city centre
“It can be inferred from the defendant’s conduct that it was his intention to use the bounce back loans for this purpose at the time he made the application for it.”
Beardsell, who won two World Records for sprinting, faced three years in jail after he admitted two charges of fraud.
In October 2024, he attended an interview under caution at the Insolvency Services offices.
In a statement he said: ”The guidance pertaining to Bounce Back Loans indicated that the proceeds of such loans may be utilised for any purpose that yields a direct benefit to the company.
”At that juncture, I sought professional advice and was advised that such purposes include, but are not limited to, the coverage of overhead expenses or outstanding liabilities, as well as the investment in company assets or property.
“The funds that were transferred to my personal account constituted a director’s loan and other economical overheads for the business.”
Mitigating, his counsel Nichola Cafferkey explained that the loans had been repaid in full to the banks.
She said: ”The loss of his good character is of some significance in respect of a man who has dedicated his life to his family, his professional entities and also his sporting endeavours.
“These offences were out of character and were committed four years ago.
“He has taken responsibility and repaid the money back. He knows that it’s his own fault.
“He has brought shame on his family and brought shame on himself.
”His wife is also his business partner and concerns that they have had about the ability to provide financially for their young children have been significant.”
The court also heard that Beardsell had suffered a series of medical issues both before and after securing the loans.
Ms Cafferkey continued: “A year prior to the submission of the first loan application, the defendant was diagnosed with an aggressive form of testicular cancer and required surgery and extensive chemotherapy.
“The chemotherapy was successful but led to some significant side effects.
”One of those being vertigo, of which he had a severe episode which required hospitalisation and thereafter there are ongoing long-term issues as a result of that.
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Beardsell was sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for two yearsCredit: Cavendish
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Hundreds of thousands of pounds were transferred to a firm of solicitors for the purchase of Holly HouseCredit: Cavendish
“The investigations brought on by the defendant’s own actions has had an impact on his family which has led to a situation where he has been experiencing significant stress over the past few years.
“On top of that there are ongoing knee pains associated with his athletic success at national and international level.
“He has been running a business for many years without issue and it is plain he is extremely remorseful and regretful for his actions.
“The impact on his wife’s physical health in terms of stress and strain has been significant. There has been significant weight loss and insomnia.
“This will be the only time that Richard Beardsell appears before the court.”
Beardsell was sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for two years.
He was also ordered to complete 250 hours of unpaid work and pay costs of £11,142.70.
Judge Simon Berkson told Beardsell: “You fraudulently lied and lied again in your applications for these loans.
“They were supposed to be for use in keeping your business running but the money was used for your own personal needs and the needs of your family.
“This is not a victimless crime. The government was trying to help struggling businesses at the time of national crisis.
“People were in lock down, people were dying and people were very ill at the time when people required their public services.
“You used fraudulently obtained public funds for your own use, depriving honest people of the scheme’s funds when the country was in crisis.
“You are a generally successful man both in business and in sports, particularly your involvement with athletics.
“You continue to run your business and it was on the TV programme Dragons’ Den.
“You are a married person with two children and they are young children. You have survived an aggressive form of cancer.
“I have concluded that an immediate custodial sentence would have a significant harmful impact on your wife and children.”
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He was ordered to complete 250 hours of unpaid work and pay costs of £11,142.70Credit: Cavendish
News about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and arrests seems to flow as if emanating from an unending tap.
That makes it difficult, at times, to pick up on important topics and issues.
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I’m going to use this space to highlight a few articles from my colleagues focusing on the potential growth of ICE in the coming years, new tools that federal agents can use to expand crackdowns, and what the actual numbers say.
The massive funding bill signed into law this month by President Trump earmarks about $170 billion for border and immigration enforcement, including tens of billions for new deportation agents and other personnel.
During his first term, when Trump called for ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to hire 15,000 people collectively, a July 2017 report by the Homeland Security inspector general found significant setbacks.
In 2017, ICE hired 371 deportation officers from more than 11,000 applications and took 173 days on average to finalize hires, the news outlet Government Executive reported. According to Cronkite News, Border Patrol shrunk by more than 1,000 agents after Trump left office in 2021.
The Homeland Security inspector general concluded that to meet the goal of 10,000 new immigration officers, ICE would need more than 500,000 applicants. For CBP to hire 5,000 new agents, it would need 750,000 applicants.
Castillo added that past and potentially future corruption, the prospect of lowering hiring standards and competition with other police agencies make Trump’s hiring goal an uphill battle.
My colleagues Jenny Jarvie and Hannah Fry noted that the Trump administration is forging ahead with a plan to hand over the personal data of millions of Medicaid recipients to Homeland Security personnel seeking to track down people living in the U.S. illegally.
The huge trove of private information includes home addresses, Social Security numbers and ethnicities of 79 million Medicaid enrollees.
The plan, which has not been announced publicly, is the latest step by the Trump administration to deliver on its pledge to crack down on illegal immigration and arrest 3,000 undocumented immigrants a day.
Undocumented immigrants are not permitted to enroll in Medicaid, a joint federal and state program that helps cover medical costs for low-income individuals.
However, federal law requires states to offer emergency Medicaid, coverage that pays for lifesaving services in emergency rooms to everyone, including non-U.S. citizens.
Homeland Security says it arrested 2,800 undocumented people between early June and July
Colleagues Michael Wilner and Rachel Uranga reported on the number of people picked up in the Greater Los Angeles area by Homeland Security.
Federal authorities said earlier that 1,618 undocumented immigrants had been detained between June 6 — the start of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security operation in Los Angeles — and June 22. That total increased by nearly 1,200 arrests in just over two weeks. Trump deployed the National Guard and U.S. Marines in the city days after the operation began amid heated protests.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and local officials have repeatedly criticized federal operations for terrorizing immigrant communities, where business has slowed and many have holed up in their homes.
The president’s immigration crackdown in Los Angeles has been a test case for his administration as it presses the bounds of executive authority, deploying federal agents and the military to a major metropolitan city with leadership hostile to its cause.
(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photograph by Richard Shotwell / Invision / AP)
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Along with the stars on Hollywood Boulevard and the Universal Studios theme park, a new celestial attraction is set to debut in Los Angeles.
The Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center at Exposition Park is expected to complete construction this year, according to its architects, only three years after the first shovels broke ground.
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That would make the center ready in time for when Los Angeles hosts visitors from around the world to see the 2026 World Cup, the 2027 Super Bowl and the 2028 Olympics.
One of the aspects that makes this place special is its showcase, the Space Shuttle Endeavour. The spacecraft stands in a stack position, meaning it’s standing — complete with boosters and a rare fuel tank — as if it were ready to launch. It’s the only shuttle in the nation to feature such a feat.
Jeffrey N. Rudolph, president and chief executive of the California Science Center, and Ted Hyman, partner at architectural firm ZGF, which designed the air and space center, recently shared updates with The Times, including news of an exclusive partnership with director/producer J.J. Abrams’ production company Bad Robot.
(William Liang / For The Times)
What’s that shiny thing off the 110 Freeway?
That silver cylindrical colossus that is easily seen from the freeway houses the stacked space shuttle.
The Endeavour was meticulously placed there in January 2024 as much of the museum was built around it.
As for the 20-story diagrid, or shuttle housing building, the museum’s construction crew is about 80% finished wrapping a stainless-steel skin exterior around the shuttle, according to an estimate from Mark Piaia, a ZGF project architect.
The shiny view comes courtesy of 4,247 panels and 1,074 diagonal strips that would stand 7,862 feet tall if lined up.
(William Liang / For The Times)
When will construction be done and the museum be open?
Rudolph said building construction is expected to be completed this year.
He would not provide an official opening day but noted that artifact and exhibit installations would still need to be completed.
The museum is expected to house about 20 planes and jets, including a Boeing 747.
There are also plans for a 45-foot slide that imitates the feeling of entering the atmosphere with a radiating orange glow, two sonic booms and the “S” turns a shuttle would make upon reentry.
(Courtesy of ZGF via the California Science Center)
What should visitors expect to see?
Rudolph was excited about what he’s calling “the reveal.”
He exclusively told The Times that a pair of introductory films are being produced by directing/producing titan J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot. That’s the same production company responsible for some of the latest “Star Wars” and “Mission:Impossible” movies.
The first film will greet visitors as they walk into the museum and will focus on the entire air and space exhibits.
The second will screen at a mini theater at the entrance to the space shuttle exhibit. It is a five-minute film that focuses on the history and inspiration behind the space shuttle. The film ends with a simulated launch, during which steam rises from the floor and through hallway doors and fills the theater.
As the steam impairs a guest’s vision, the screen is removed and visitors get a surprise: a full, “envelope” view of the stacked 20-story space shuttle.
“It is an amazing experience and we want to really build it up,” Rudolph said. “It’s not just about the hardware, but about the people and the educational aspects.”
Can visitors get inside the shuttle?
The delicate nature of the shuttle makes that impossible.
“There’s no way,” Rudolph said. “The hatch is very small and it’s very fragile.”
There is, however, a mock-up of the flight deck — an area designed to carry cargo — that visitors can toy with to get a feel that only shuttle astronauts once got.
We’ll continue to follow the progress of the air and space museum as we head toward opening day.
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There are multi-talents, and then there was Salvador Bagüez.
Hollywood used him as a bit actor in 1950s B-movies and classic Western television series from “Death Valley Days” to “Bonanza” to “The Cisco Kid.” Studio executives frequently hired the Mexican immigrant as a technical advisor or dialogue coach for movies set in Latin America or Spain involving stars such as Marlon Brando, Robert Mitchum and Cary Grant.
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Bagüez’s baritone took him to radio programs and stage shows alongside Jose Arias, a pioneering bandleader of Mexican and Californio music. In his later years, he covered the Dodgers as a sports writer for La Opinión. But for two decades, the longtime Lincoln Heights resident made his biggest mark in Southern California life — no pun intended — as a star illustrator for The Times from the mid-1920s until about World War II.
Not a bad career for one of the first Latinos to work at this paper, amiright?
I first heard about Bagüez in 2023 from Times editorial library director Cary Schneider, who had received a query from someone trying to find out more information about “Sal Baquez.” He gave me a heads-up because one of the trillion sub-beats I have is trying to tell the stories of pioneering but forgotten Latinos at the paper. So far, I’ve profiled columnist Pepe Arciga, cartoonist Manuel M. Moreno and artist-turned-Commerce Councilmember Alex O. Perez.
Now, here’s Bagüez’s story.
Copy boy turned star
He was born in Juarez in 1904 and came to this country in 1921. Bagüez’s first jobs for The Times were as a copy boy and a singer in the paper’s monthly radio variety show on KHJ (and I thought appearing in our videos reels was intimidating). Singing classic and contemporary songs in English and Spanish, his voice was so stirring that an Aug. 12, 1926, Times story revealed that colleagues in the art department took up a collection to gift him singing lessons.
By then, Bagüez was establishing himself as an illustrator in the paper’s pages. His main beats would become sports, entertainment and the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine. His style varied — Pee-Chee folder-style illustrations that spanned the length of the front page of the sports section, sketches in charcoal of Hollywood stars like Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks, even Art Deco-style flights of geometric fancy. When World War II came, Bagüez drew caricatures of Hitler and Stalin and even maps of Axis advancements across Europe. He signed all of his illustrations with an umlaut over the U in his last name, a grammatical courtesy not offered to him by The Times typesetters, who went with “Baguez” in his byline.
When he wasn’t drawing, Bagüez was interpreting for Times reporters and penning Spanish-language film and music reviews. His importance to the paper was such that he was listed as one of The Times’ stars in a Dec. 3, 1928, ad in the Pasadena Post urging readers to subscribe to this paper — the only Latino staffer afforded the honor.
A 1941 illustration of author Booth Tarkington drawn by Salvador Bagüez.
(Los Angeles Times)
The last mention I could find of him as a Times employee came in the May 17, 1943, edition of “Lee’s Side o’ L.A.,” in which longtime columnist Lee Shippey mocked people who expressed sympathy for pachucos, the Mexican American men who were increasingly being assaulted by white servicemen in a series of attacks that culminated in the Zoot Suit Riots just a few weeks later. Shippey cited Bagüez and fellow Times artist Perez as Mexicans done good, writing, “Both worked up to enviable reputations because they were thoroughly good men as well as good workmen … gangsters go to jail, good citizens do well. Pick out the right examples, boys.”
I wonder if that tokenism is what La Opinión sports editor Rodolfo B. Garcia was referring to in a 1979 Bagüez appreciation when he said the artist left The Times at the height of his fame because he didn’t like how a Times editor “called his attention.”
One person who knew Bagüez well was Hall of Fame Dodgers broadcaster Jaime Jarrín. His first radio job, for KWKW in 1955, was as Bagüez’s replacement after the latter quit the station for a movie gig. The two would dine before games at Dodger Stadium — “full meals, not the hot dogs they give reporters now” — once Jarrín became the team’s Spanish-language broadcaster and Bagüez covered them for La Opiníon from 1960 to about 1970.
“I held him in high regard because he was always so calm and respectful,” Jarrín told me. “Salvador had the soul of an artist and a beautiful voice — he spoke marvelous Spanish and perfect English.”
Don Jaime remembers weekend trips to Tijuana with Bagüez and some of his Hollywood friends, legends like Anthony Quinn, Ricardo Montalban and Gilbert Roland. He also laughed during our short conversation at the fact Bagüez never referred to the Blue Crew as the Dodgers but rather “Los Esquivadores” — the literal translation of “dodgers.”
But Jarrín, as much as he hung out with Bagüez, said there was always something inscrutable about his friend: “Salvador was a very private man. Never talked about his personal life, never even talked about whether he was married.”
Bagüez died in 1979 and is buried in Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles alongside his mother. Garcia, the La Opinión sports editor, praised Bagüez in his remembrance as the “cleanest writer” he ever edited.
“Rest in piece, the Juarez native who triumphed in the United States as artist, reporter and announcer,” Garcia concluded. “Another of the old guard that has crossed over the path that waits for us all, late or early.”
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For the record: Yesterday’s newsletter incorrectly stated the name of a reader’s favorite California beach. Jot McDonald’s favorite beach is Asilomar Beach, not Ancillary Beach.
No surprise, 2025 has been an eventful year so far in Hollywood.
In addition to the megahits and epic bombs at the box office, the entertainment industry has been roiled by chaotic forces.
The second Trumpadministration. The ongoing Blake Lively–Justin Baldoni legal saga. The federal trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs, resulting in a mixed verdict in which the hip-hop mogul was acquitted of the most serious charges — racketeering and sex trafficking. And of course, the devastating wildfires that ravaged the Los Angeles area, particularly Pacific Palisades and Altadena, back in January.
But in terms of the actual business of movies, TV and streaming, there’s plenty of serious stuff to dig into that could shape the future of entertainment — from streaming’s continued ascent, to Disney and Universal’s lawsuit against Midjourney, to the race for state tax credits to save California’s beleaguered production economy.
Here’s our Wide Shot midyear review, by the numbers.
The box office has been on a roller-coaster ride since the COVID-19 pandemic, with the release schedule feeling the effects of the industry’s broader retrenchment. Although the 2023 strikes that thinned out the release schedule are in the rearview mirror, the uncertainty has very much continued.
After a brutal first quarter (ouch, “Snow White”), sales have rebounded thanks to hits including “Minecraft,” “Sinners” and “F1,” with grosses reaching $4.43 billion so far domestically, according to Comscore. That’s up 15% from the same period last year, but still down 26% from 2019. Attendance is up 6.5% from 2024 with about 350 million tickets sold, according to Steve Buck at EntTelligence.
The challenges remain the same.
Studios struggle to draw crowds with much other than the biggest blockbusters and whatever they can convince Gen Z is an “event” movie. And the films themselves are so expensive that even big numbers don’t guarantee that an action spectacle with a robust audience will break even during its theatrical run. Even horror movies aren’t really low-budget anymore (see “Final Destination: Bloodlines” and “28 Years Later”).
After years of shortened theatrical windows, audiences know they can wait to see a new movie at home, often after just a few weeks. That’s why theater owners at the industry convention CinemaCon called on studios to commit to a longer standard gap between a movie’s theatrical release and its availability for home viewing. Meanwhile, audiences face ever longer preshows, with ads now playing between the trailers at AMC. With so much debt, the chain sure needs the money.
The slate for the rest of the year is lumpy.
July is looking strong after “Jurassic World Rebirth’s” $147-million Fourth of July weekend opening, with Warner Bros. and DC’s “Superman” reboot, and Disney and Marvel’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” hoping to reinvigorate the superhero genre. Prerelease tracking for “Superman” is all over the place, but an opening of $125 million is a fair target. “Fantastic Four” is poised for a debut in the ballpark of $100 million. But August is lacking in obvious hits. Maybe Paramount’s “The Naked Gun” will bring pure comedy back — but we’ll see.
Paramount caved, reaching a $16-million deal to settle President Trump’s lawsuit over CBS News’ “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris. Trump declared victory over the “Fake News media,” while 1st Amendment advocates and journalists howled, fuming that the owner of one of TV’s most respected brands chose to buy peace rather than fight the case — widely considered frivolous — and stand up for press freedom.
There are still unanswered questions. In the aftermath of the deal, a source close to Trump‘s world said the president’s team is also anticipating millions of dollars in airtime for PSAs related to MAGA-friendly causes and antisemitism — an alleged side deal that Trump himself referenced after the fact. Paramount said its deal with the Trump team did not include PSAs.
In any event, Paramount’s leaders — not to mention its incoming owners at Skydance Media and RedBird — are eager to move on. David Ellison and Shari Redstone are now counting on the Federal Communications Commission to finally approve the $8-billion merger so they can get to work reshaping the storied entertainment firm.
Speaking of Paramount, one of the company’s biggest franchises is causing headaches for the new owners — and vice versa — as the company wrangles with the creators of “South Park” over the future of the long-running, foulmouthed cartoon.
Skydance balked at a proposed overall deal worth at least $2.5 billion for the “South Park” guys, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, sources have said. (Their current $900-million deal is still in place.) Separately, the two sides are trying to work out the streaming rights to the show. Paramount wants to run the episodes on Paramount+, but it also wants to share the rights (and the costs) with another streamer — perhaps the 300-plus episodes’ current home, HBO Max. The streaming rights are expected to fetch north of $200 million a year.
In Hollywood’s current era of downsizing, Skydance may have legitimate reasons to not want to overpay for a show entering its 27th season. But Parker and Stone still have leverage: Without “South Park,” the cupboard at Comedy Central is pretty bare.
Parker and Stone’s lawyers have gone to the mat, accusing David Ellison’s allies — namely former NBCUniversal boss and current RedBird executive Jeff Shell — of overstepping their authority in the negotiations. The “South Park” team expressed its displeasure in a way only the makers of Cartman and Kenny could. After Comedy Central announced a delay for the new season premiere, the show’s X profile tweeted a statement saying the Skydance deal was “a s—show and is f— up South Park.”
Hollywood got its long-sought lifeline from Sacramento, as Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a beefed-up film and television tax credit program, allocating $750 million annually for productions in the state.
That’s more than double the previous program, which was capped at $330 million a year. Shortly afterward, the state legislature passed a law to increase the tax credit to as much as 35% of qualified expenditures for movies and TV series shot in the Greater Los Angeles area — and up to 40% for productions shot outside the region. It also expanded the types of productions that could qualify.
California currently provides a 20% to 25% tax credit to offset qualified production expenses, such as money spent on film crews and building sets. The plan does not cover above-the-line expenses, such as actor and director salaries, which remains a disadvantage as California tries to compete with other states and countries. New York and Texas are both ramping up their own incentive programs.
The Golden State’s production economy has been devastated by competition. Boosting the tax incentives is one lever the state can pull to lure shoots back. There’s also been a push to overhaul red tape at the local level in Los Angeles. Whatever good all this does, it’s sure to be more effective than Trump’s now-largely forgotten call for tariffs on movies produced abroad.
Streaming hit a major symbolic milestone earlier this year, as television usage for YouTube, Netflix and their brethren overtook broadcast and cable for the first time in May, according to Nielsen. Streaming services combined to attract 44.8% of all TV set viewing, representing the largest share to date for direct-to-consumer platforms. Viewership for linear networks was just behind at 44.2%.
Nielsen’s regular viewership report — the Gauge — is a useful snapshot of the state of television today. Combined with the rapid decline of cable and satellite bundle subscriptions, the drop-off in viewing explains much of what’s going on at the legacy media companies.
Firms including Disney and Paramount are still cutting hundreds of jobs to adjust to the new realities. Warner Bros. Discovery — which has been on a yearslong quest to reduce its heavy debt load — said it will split its operations in two, cleaving the studios and streaming business from its global networks. That decision followed NBCUniversal’s move to spin off its cable nets into a new company called Versant.
Those plans are gambles. Cable networks are in decline, but they’re profitable. For most media companies, streaming is growing but has only just gotten into the black after years of losing billions.
Honorable mentions:
$417.5 million: Alcon Entertainment, the production company known for “The Blind Side” and “Blade Runner 2049,” gained a prized asset by acquiring the film library of bankrupt Village Roadshow. The $417.5-million deal gives the firm Village’s stakes in movies including “Joker” and “Mad Max: Fury Road,” both released by Warner Bros. Village Roadshow declared bankruptcy amid a brutal legal battle with Warner Bros. over its release of “The Matrix Resurrections,” which went to streaming and theaters at the same time.
$400 million: “It Ends With Us” director Justin Baldoni’s lawsuits against actress Blake Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, the New York Times and others were tossed last month, with a judge ruling that the claims — including defamation, extortion and breach of contract — failed to pass legal muster. U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman granted motions to dismiss both a $400-million countersuit against Lively, Reynolds and others and a $250-million defamation claim against The Times.
$2 billion: The biggest movie of the year isn’t from Hollywood at all. It’s “Ne Zha 2,” an animated Chinese film that grossed more than $2 billion, the vast majority of which came from its home country. Despite trade wars and the dominance of local productions, though, U.S. movies can still do well in China. “Jurassic World Rebirth” opened with $41.6 million there.
$20 million: Walt Disney Co. and Universal are suing AI firm Midjourney for allegedly ripping off and copying their intellectual property with its image-generating technology. With 150 violations cited in the lawsuit, at a statutory $150,000 per infringing item, that’s a total of more than $20 million in potential damages.
$300 billion: The eye-popping valuation for privately held OpenAI, the San Francisco company behind ChatGPT and Sora.
$9.2 billion: The amount Disney ultimately paid for Comcast’s Hulu stake, valuing the service at $27.6 billion. After a mediation process, Disney paid less for the stake than Comcast wanted.
— Times staff writers Meg James, Samantha Masunaga, Wendy Lee, Stephen Battaglio, Stacy Perman and Josh Rottenberg contributed to this article.
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