decade

Jason Heyward didn’t give Freddie Freeman the heads up that he’d secured a job in the Dodgers’ front office. He hadn’t told any of his former Dodger teammates. But Freeman, who’s known Heyward for two decades, now says he’d heard rumblings. He was just going to let his longtime friend break the news himself.

On May 13, midway through a home series against the Giants, Freeman walked into the food room at Dodger Stadium, and, to his surprise and confusion, there was Heyward.

“What are you doing here?” a slack-jawed Freeman asked.

“Well, I’m working,” Heyward said.

No text. No call.

“He waited to tell me in person,” Freeman said.

Heyward technically started his job as a special assistant at the beginning of May, but he was on site for the first time a couple of weeks later. That game against the Giants, with Heyward looking on as a Dodgers special assistant for the first time, Freeman stole a base — a rarity in recent years.

“I wanted to ask him, what was my grade?” Freeman said. “What do you give me, a 70 on the 20-80 (scouting) scale?”

Freeman chuckled. Though he has long been an adept baserunner, it’s never been because of his speed — not even in high school, when teams were scouting him for the 2007 MLB draft.

Jason Heyward, who joined the Dodgers as a special assistant earlier this season, stands on the field before a game against the Seattle Mariners at Dodger Stadium last month.

(Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Getty Images)

That’s when Freeman and Heyward first met, the summer before their senior year. They had no way of knowing that they’d go on to experience baseball and life milestones together for the next two decades and counting.

They were both drafted by the Braves, Heyward in the first round (No. 14 overall), and Freeman in the second (No.78). They became roommates and teammates, debuting in the same year.

Over the course of two long and decorated MLB careers — which includes Heyward’s five Gold Gloves, Freeman’s 10 All-Star selections, and five World Series rings between the two of them — their paths diverged and reconnected multiple times.

In this most recent chapter, Heyward has ventured into the front office, Freeman is adding to his Hall of Fame candidacy, and they’re once again on the same team.

“To see us now, it’s crazy,” Freeman said. “It really is.”

Strangers

It’s rare for friends of 20 years to be able to pick out the details of their first encounter. Over the decades, fond memories start to jumble and fade.

But not for Freeman and Heyward.

Without hesitation they’ll bring up August 2006, when they were both 16 and played on opposing teams in the Aflac All-American Classic, held that year in San Diego. They really got to know each other during the down time that week, hanging out in the communal game room in the hotel.

When they met, Freeman was playing Pop-A-Shot.

“That’s where he was most of the time,” Heyward said.

The group could gravitate to another part of the room to “trade cards, sign autographs, talk a little shop,” and Freeman would somehow end up back at the Pop-A-Shot.

That, however, didn’t stop Freeman and Heyward from hitting it off.

On the surface, they were an opposites-attract kind of duo, in pretty much every category but height — listed as 6-foot-4 and 6-5 during that showcase. Heyward grew up in the Atlanta metropolitan area, playing on the East team, and Freeman was an Orange County native, representing the West.

Their priorities and aspirations pulled them together.

“You kind of look around and see all the other guys there and see what they’re doing, how they talk, how they act,” Freeman said. “And then you run into Jason, and then, I’m like, ‘That’s who I want to hang out with.’ He had everything figured out at such a young age.”

Heyward was the more hyped prospect, and the star of the East in that game, with four stolen bases, a pair of hits and two RBIs.

The second time Heyward reached first base, Freeman said to him, “You’re not going to steal again.” Heyward’s response: “I’m going again.”

“I looked down, he was kicking dirt on my shoes, all that,” Heyward said. “So, same guy who he is today on first base, that’s who he’s always been.”

Even in practice, Freeman’s competitiveness stood out to his new friend.

“One hundred percent competitive, but it was fun for him to be competitive,” Heyward said. “Not competitive in like, ‘Get off me,’ [stuff] like that. He welcomed me.”

Though they became fast friends, and ran into each other on the showcase circuit throughout their senior year, who knows what would have happened if the 2007 draft had played out differently?

Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman takes his shoes off after batting practice during spring training at Camelback Ranch in Phoenix in February.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Draftees

Freeman was scheduled to take a final exam the day he was drafted.

That year, the draft made its television debut. The first round — including the Braves selecting hometown kid Jason Heyward — was broadcast on ESPN2. Heyward’s selection wasn’t a surprise — “We know the Braves have a history of drafting young players from the area,” he said.

But Freeman would have to be in front of a computer to track the subsequent rounds. He finagled permission to go home until he was selected, and then return to school.

“We were going along, and I had some other teams calling for me as a pitcher,” Freeman said. “And I was like, ‘I don’t want to pitch, let me hit first.’”

Eventually the Braves called, with their second pick of the second round approaching. Freeman, wasting no time, kicked off the conversation with: “I don’t want to pitch.”

“And they’re like, ‘Good, because we don’t want you to,’” Freeman recalled.

Finally. The excitement began to set in.

Even after the Braves drafted Freeman, it wasn’t a done deal on his end.

He’d committed to Cal State Fullerton, the alma mater of his father, Fred Freeman. And Freddie had his sights set on becoming a CPA and taking over his dad’s business.

A couple days after the draft, at 2 or 3 a.m., Freddie knocked on Fred’s bedroom door with a decision.

“Dad, I don’t want to go to college,” he said. “I want to play baseball.”

They talked for a while. And though Fred had wanted his son to pursue an education, he softened his stance, supporting Freddie’s dream. They agreed, Freddie remembers, that if he didn’t make it to the big leagues in four years, he’d quit to follow the original plan.

“Back then, I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s fine,” Freeman said. “And now you think about it — that was crazy to think, right? Four or five years in the minor leagues, that’s what the norm is. … We didn’t know any better.”

That set Freeman and Heyward on course to reunite, this time as teammates.

Heyward, poised to sign for above slot value, had to wait until mid-August to sign his contract ($1.7-million bonus). So, when he finally joined the Gulf Coast League, for all of eight games before finishing the season with rookie-ball Danville, he remembers Freeman greeting him with a disgruntled, “Hey, man, I’ve been waiting on you. I’ve been here, it’s been hot.”

“My bad,” Heyward said. “I couldn’t control it.”

Freeman broke into laughter.

After the instructional league that fall, Freeman and Heyward decided to room together in spring training. And though the accommodations changed throughout the years, they’d remain roommates through 2010, their debut season in the majors.

Roommates

Outfielder Jason Heyward, left, and infielder Freddie Freeman celebrate before the start of a spring training game against the Toronto Blue Jays in March 2010.

(Al Messerschmidt / Getty Images)

There’s no better way to quickly learn a person’s idiosyncrasies than living with them.

In terms of morning routines, Heyward and Freeman were on far ends of the spectrum. If Heyward was going to start getting ready at 12:30, Freeman was waiting until 12:48 — and it was always something that specific too. Extremely structured to this day, if something throws off Freeman’s schedule, his “robot mind,” as he puts it, malfunctions.

While Heyward would marvel at how close Freeman was willing to cut it, Freeman would give Heyward grief for how long he’d take to get ready.

“In the minor leagues, we had to shave, had to keep it low,” Heyward said. “And I’ve been, at that time, shaving since I was 15. So sometimes I had to shave twice a day, otherwise it was just freaking uncomfortable.

“So, yeah, if I may take a long time to get ready, ‘You’re rocking with what you’re rocking with; you can just get out of bed, literally wet your hair, and then go.’”

On the road, Freeman still jokes, Heyward’s BlackBerry phone came into play. The team would put the players up in hotel rooms with two beds, subjecting Freeman to the incessant clicking of Heyward texting.

“Anybody can nitpick something, but if I complain about a BlackBerry texting, that’s not really anything,” Freeman said. “‘Sorry, I had friends,’ he would say.”

Freeman and Heyward were inseparable. They’d hit back-to-back in the lineup, and then get on the bus for a 13-hour ride and sit right next to each other.

They rose quickly through the farm system, one after another, sharing the highs and lows.

“There was some irony in the fact of how he was treated in the South, versus how I’m treated in the South, even though I’m from there,” said Heyward, who is Black. “And that goes back to even in the minor leagues.”

A road trip to Savannah, Ga., in 2008 immediately came to mind for Freeman, who is white. From first base Freeman could hear everything the crowd said to Heyward in right field — including the racial slur a fan yelled in the middle of a game.

“It was the first time I ever heard the N-word,” Freeman said. “It was crazy to me. And I was almost in tears. I wanted to run into the stands.”

In fact, he started walking over there, before Heyward stopped him.

“For me, obviously, that’s been my whole life, especially growing up where I grew up,” Heyward said. “But it’s just a good perspective on him not hearing it before. And I think that’s it.

“But, yeah, if anybody would have tried him on anything, I’m fighting them too. … What’s understood didn’t have to be explained there.”

The fact that Heyward could remain so calm was eye-opening for Freeman. The pair came away from that incident, and more subtle slights (like having to wait 20 minutes to be seated in a mostly empty restaurant), with a better understanding of each other.

“For an 18-year-old to have that be a normal thing is even more saddening,” Freeman said. “To this day, it’s hard to even talk about. That those kids, or young adults [in the stands] grew up thinking that was an OK thing to say, it’s just baffling to me.”

Teammates

Heyward’s highly anticipated MLB debut came on April 5, 2010, opening day at Turner Field. And in his first major league at-bat, he smoked a three-run home run to right field.

Freeman, on the other hand, started the season in triple A. But that didn’t split up the roommates. Freeman made the 35-minute drive northeast to Gwinnett, and Heyward headed south for 15 minutes.

By late August, it was obvious Freeman would be among the Braves’ call-ups when rosters expanded on Sept. 1.

Sure enough, Heyward and Freeman both headed south that day — still driving separately because of their differing morning routines.

Freddie Freeman, left, Jason Heyward, center, and Brian McCann chat during a workout at spring training in Kissimmee, Fla., in 2011.

(Phelan M. Ebenhack / Associated Press)

“I walked into Turner Field, and saw my name in the lineup, hitting sixth, and I almost threw up,” Freeman said.

Seeing familiar faces helped. Freeman knew many of the coaches and his new teammates from major league spring training the past two years. And, of course, there was Heyward.

“Just a special day,” Freeman said. “I didn’t get any hits, but I didn’t care.

“Jason got all the hits for us, he went four for four. He was so happy I was there. He took all my hits.”

As Freeman went through his big-league firsts, he appreciated having Heyward, who’d already checked them off for himself, by his side.

Freeman looks back fondly on their plane rides. He and Heyward would sit together, eating Chick-fil-A.

Raising the level of decadence, the next year, Freeman had his first “show dinner” with Heyward and veterans such as Eric Hinske and Chipper Jones at a steakhouse in Seattle called El Gaucho.

“I was like, this is the coolest thing ever,” Freeman said.

“Those were both of our ‘college years,’” Heyward said. “So seeing the real world a little bit, spending time on flights, clubhouse, dinners, enjoying teammates, becoming young adults.”

Jason Heyward, right, high-fives teammate Freddie Freeman after scoring off a single by Justin Upton in the first inning of a June 2013 game against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

(David Goldman / Associated Press)

They were also playing well. Heyward and Freeman finished No. 2 in NL rookie of the year voting in consecutive years. And they started filling up their own individual trophy cases, while the Braves made it to the postseason three times in five years.

“Everyone has fun playing baseball,” Freeman said, “but to experience the big leagues with your best friend, I don’t know if you can get much better than that.”

Rivals

As soon as the Braves were eliminated from the 2014 postseason chase, the team fired general manager Frank Wren. Plunging into a rebuild, new president of baseball operations John Hart’s first big move was to trade Heyward to the Cardinals for pitching.

“That was the first time I saw the business side of baseball,” Freeman said. “Sad day. But it opened my eyes to, this isn’t just fun all the time. The fun has to end at some point.”

Freeman and Heyward kept in touch and celebrated each other’s successes. But it wasn’t the same.

“That was like, ‘Alright, this is becoming more of a job,” Heyward said.

Heyward leveraged that platform season in St. Louis into an eight-year free agent contract with the Cubs worth $184 million, setting a franchise record.

The Braves extended Freeman. Then when he finally hit free agency after the 2021 season, he became the first infielder to sign a $100-plus million deal with the Dodgers, signing a contract for six years and $162 million.

For eight years, Heyward and Freeman played for opposing NL teams. Then, an unexpected turn of events set the ball rolling for a reunion.

In early August 2022, when Heyward had already been on the injured list for over a month with what the Cubs called right knee inflammation, president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer announced that the team intended to release the veteran right fielder from the final year of his contract after the season.

Freeman saw an opportunity. And for the rest of the year, he didn’t let Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman or general manager Brandon Gomes walk by without hearing his pitch for Heyward.

“I’ll shoot you straight,” Freeman told them. “I don’t know what you’re going to get from the baseball player Jason Heyward, but I know what you’re going to get from the person Jason Heyward, and what he would mean inside of a clubhouse, and what he can do to young guys and help them. There’s no one better to be in this clubhouse than how you are envisioning clubhouse culture and chemistry than to bring this guy in.”

Friedman doesn’t have an exact count on the number of times Freeman mentioned Heyward to him in those months, “but it was definitely a lot.”

Friedman and Gomes were intrigued enough to have their group dig into the evolution of Heyward’s swing. But they still had questions, like how open was he going to be to diving into adjustments with their staff?

Soon after he was officially released, the Dodgers set up a Zoom.

“He was all-in,” Friedman said, “in terms of open-mindedness, desire to change some of the recent narrative, and he was excited about the prospect of working with our guys and doing what he could to help us win games, both on and off the field.”

Heyward said he heard from the Dodgers three times before he heard from any other team in free agency.

“That was how persistent they were,” he said.

Jason Heyward, left, celebrates a run with Freddie Freeman against the Texas Rangers in June 2024.

(Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)

Heyward signed a minor-league deal with the Dodgers in early December. He spent time in Southern California over the offseason to get a head start on overhauling his swing. And he met Freeman in Newport Beach, to hang out, hit and work out together.

Heyward’s efforts paid off. He made the team out of spring training. And he and Freeman were officially teammates again.

“It was so fun,” Heyward said.

Their reunion on the field was brief — the Dodgers re-signed Heyward for the 2024 season and then, his first half derailed by injuries, released him in August — but it was still sweet.

“You go from sitting together on a bus coming from Rome, Ga., going to Wilmington, Delaware — and like now you’re on a first class flight with the L.A. Dodgers, and traveling from West Coast to East Coast, wearing the jumpsuits, all that stuff,” Heyward said. “That was a very cool experience coming from being 16-years-old, Aflac All-Americans, to now sharing a World Series ring.”

Co-workers

Heyward finished 2024 with the Astros and spent the next season with the Padres. He trained this past offseason to be ready for spring training if a team gave him an offer. But in the final weeks, he also started laying groundwork for a post-playing career in case the phone never rang.

“This year I said, ‘If we get a Super Bowl weekend, that’s it, and I’m content,’” Heyward said. “Not complacent; I’m content. I let it run its course, and now I have clarity to go do whatever else it is.”

He said he reached out to the Cubs first about a non-playing role, and had cursory conversations with the White Sox. He exchanged texts with Friedman, reviving conversations they’d had in his stint with the Dodgers. In many ways, it came down to timing.

Heyward had already been planning on meeting up in spring training with Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, a former player, to pick his brain about the transition.

They went to dinner, with both their wives, and stayed for six hours.

“I basically was just honest with him, in telling him that, No. 1, I think it’s great that he wants to stay in the game,” Roberts said. “But No. 2 is that when you’re a player, you look at certain things in a certain lens, but for him to be good at this job in the front office, he’s got to be really open-minded to learn.”

Roberts came away from the conversation excited by how earnestly Heyward embraced that message. And he mentioned to Gomes: “Someone with his character that has his desire to work could be a huge asset for us.”

Two and a half weeks later, Heyward stopped by Dodgers camp at Camelback Ranch to catch up with old friends and teammates.

“I was here for two years, and it felt like I was here for 10,” Heyward said. “And that’s family included — my family, my kids, my wife … So, what I thought was going to be natural, this was even more organic.”

Friends

Dodgers outfielder Jason Heyward, right, congratulates Freddie Freeman after bringing him home on an eighth-inning sacrifice fly against the Colorado Rockies at Dodger Stadium in a June 2024 game.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Life changes dramatically between the ages of 16 and 36.

“Single guys trying to make it, to married with many kids,” said Freeman, who turns 37 next month. “And we’re still as close as ever, which is really, really special for me.”

Then, he added: “This is going to be friends forever.”

Their wives, Chelsea Freeman and Vedrana Heyward, are close too. The Freeman’s middle children are just a little over a year older than the Heywards’ eldest. And the families’ newest additions were both born months apart.

Freeman and Heyward are already coordinating family schedules and travel — the Heywards are based in Chicago — to all get together in California this offseason.

They’re no longer those high schoolers bonding between rounds of Pop-A-Shot. In June, Freeman surpassed 2,500 career MLB hits.

“The way Free’s done it, winning is all over it,” Heyward said. “I think that’s one of those unique abilities, to this guy is playing the game first, winning first, and then he’s getting a result, then he’s having the big at-bat, doing it obviously in the postseason. So I’m just happy to see him get the recognition that he’s earned the time he put into it. I’m happy to see his stubbornness pay off.

“It’s not easy to do. It’s much easier said than done.”

Heyward, moving on from a 16-year major-league playing career, would love to be a general manager one day. But he’s keeping an open mind. He took Roberts’ advice to heart and is using his first year as a special assistant to learn and explore the possibilities.

Heyward has been around the major-league team for a handful of series in Los Angeles and Chicago (even giving Freeman advance notice before the White Sox series to make up for his May drop-in).

Trying his hand at player evaluation, he sat in the stands during the Southeastern Conference tournament. And as he pops in on affiliates, the Dodgers also see the time he spends with their outfield prospects — the biggest strength of their farm system — as invaluable.

“Whatever he wants to be in the front office, he’s going to be it, because that’s just who he is,” Freeman said. “Because he is a special man, he works hard, he cares, he wants to be the best.”

Freeman has already seen Heyward manifest his dreams once — and vice versa.

Being drafted, making it to the majors, winning championships, those were just dreams 20 years ago this month, when they both wandered into the communal activities room between All-American Classic obligations.

“That week in San Diego,” Freeman said, “obviously we’ll never forget it.”

Mel Brooks has been watching movies for about as long as anyone alive. The comedy icon, who turned 100 in June, was born in the silent era and grew up in Brooklyn devouring double bills at his neighborhood theater in the 1930s. That movie-mad kid would go on to become one of the giants of filmmaking, directing classics like “The Producers,” “Blazing Saddles” and “Young Frankenstein” and giving us a song-and-dance Frankenstein’s monster, cowboys farting around a campfire and the mystical power of the Schwartz.

So when the American Cinematheque recently invited Brooks to program a series of his favorite films — something he had never done before — there was no telling where his tastes might lead.

Beginning Sept. 3, the Cinematheque will bring Brooks’ 20 selections to the big screen in “Programmed by Mel Brooks: 100 Years at the Movies,” running through Nov. 12 at the Aero, Egyptian and Los Feliz 3 theaters. The lineup spans nearly nine decades of Brooks’ own lifetime: The oldest film he chose was released when he was 4; the newest came out when he was 93.

What made the cut? Some choices make perfect sense for Brooks: comedy classics like Charlie Chaplin’s “City Lights” (1931) and the Marx Brothers’ “A Night at the Opera” (1935). Others are more surprising, from Kevin Costner communing with the Sioux in “Dances With Wolves” (1990) to Eddie Murphy resurrecting a blaxploitation legend in “Dolemite Is My Name” (2019). The list is overwhelmingly American with just one foreign-language film, Federico Fellini’s bittersweet 1953 comedy “I Vitelloni.”

For Brooks, the exercise offered a chance to reconnect with what drew him to movies in the first place.

“It was wonderful compiling a list of all these marvelous movies for American Cinematheque,” Brooks said in a statement to The Times. “It reminded me about why I first fell in love with the art of film.”

Earlier this year, with Brooks’ centennial approaching, the Cinematheque began thinking about how to mark the milestone. The organization has screened his films regularly for decades and Brooks has appeared at its theaters a dozen or so times to discuss his work and collaborators. Simply putting “Blazing Saddles” and “Young Frankenstein” back on the marquee wasn’t going to cut it.

“The question was: How do we do something different and interesting?” says Chris LeMaire, the Cinematheque’s director of programming, in a phone interview. “Then it became: What if we reached out to Mel and asked if he wanted to put his programmer hat on and take over our calendar and see what he would come up with?”

The Cinematheque already invites filmmakers and other guests to choose individual films for its weekly Sunday Print Edition series, but handing someone an entire series to program was another matter.

“We didn’t even say how many films it could be,” LeMaire recalls. “We kind of said, ‘How many do you want to show?’ ”

Brooks conveyed his selections through his assistant, who would speak with him by phone and relay the titles to the Cinematheque by email. Rather than arriving all at once, the list grew over several days as Brooks kept thinking of movies he wanted to add.

“It was really neat to see it unfold because he sent an initial list and we were like, ‘Wow, this is great,’ ” LeMaire says. “Then a few hours later, he thought, ‘Well, we can’t forget John Ford. We’ve got to throw in ‘The Grapes of Wrath.’ Fast-forward a few more of these cycles where he was thinking about it and that’s how it got up to 20.”

Brooks is letting the selections speak for themselves, offering up the movies he loved without feeling the need to make a case for them.

“He didn’t provide much explanation, didn’t say why he was picking all these films,” LeMaire says. “I think that’s really beautiful in that sense.”

To LeMaire, the breadth of the list reflects both Brooks’ long view of movie history and the eclecticism of his own work.

“He was born before the sound era, so you get the sense that he’s put this list together based on actual experience, watching firsthand as cinema evolved over the decades,” LeMaire says. “There’s such a mix of genres on this list, and that mirrors how his films work — the love of cinema history and the lovingly satirizing ways of dealing with genre.”

Some connections to Brooks’ own career are particularly direct. He produced David Lynch’s 1980 drama “The Elephant Man,” while Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 horror classic “Psycho” inevitably calls to mind Brooks’ 1977 Hitchcock spoof “High Anxiety.” Brooks also included one of his own films, “The Twelve Chairs,” his 1970 comedy based on the Russian novel.

Hardly one of his best-known films, “The Twelve Chairs” has proved one of the trickier titles for the Cinematheque to screen. LeMaire says it and Paul Mazursky’s 1986 comedy “Down and Out in Beverly Hills,” another Brooks selection, lack readily available digital restorations, making suitable screening materials harder to track down.

Brooks left the screening order up to the Cinematheque. LeMaire chose “City Lights” to kick off the series. “When Mel Brooks says he wants to show a Charlie Chaplin film, it just seemed like: Well, that’s the way we’ve got to open,” LeMaire says.

Brooks is not currently expected to appear at any of the screenings. Could he nevertheless turn up as a surprise? LeMaire isn’t making any promises.

“I wouldn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up,” he says. “I’ll be there with everybody else, wishing and hoping.”

Asked to name his own favorite Brooks film, LeMaire doesn’t hesitate: “Young Frankenstein.”

“I might have seen that more than any other film ever, honestly,” he says. “So it really is such a dream come true that he responded with enthusiasm and put this together for us. It’s a dream come true for me personally.”

Here is the complete lineup for “Programmed by Mel Brooks: 100 Years at the Movies”:

Sept. 3 — “City Lights” (1931), Aero Theatre
Sept. 4 — “When Harry Met Sally…” (1989), Aero Theatre
Sept. 5 — “I Vitelloni” (1953), Aero Theatre
Sept. 6 — “The Grapes of Wrath” (1940), Aero Theatre
Sept. 9 — “The Elephant Man” (1980), Aero Theatre
Sept. 19 — “This Is Spinal Tap” (1984), Los Feliz 3
Sept. 20 — “Shane” (1953), Los Feliz 3
Sept. 23 — “The Miracle Worker” (1962), Los Feliz 3
Oct. 6 — “Down and Out in Beverly Hills” (1986), Los Feliz 3
Oct. 10 — “Top Hat” (1935), Aero Theatre
Oct. 11 — “Dances With Wolves” (1990), Egyptian Theatre
Oct. 16 — “Jojo Rabbit” (2019), Los Feliz 3
Oct. 17 — “Double Indemnity” (1944), Egyptian Theatre
Oct. 18 — “Schindler’s List” (1993), Egyptian Theatre
Oct. 20 — “A Night at the Opera” (1935), Los Feliz 3
Oct. 22 — “Dolemite Is My Name” (2019), Los Feliz 3
Oct. 24 — “Broadway Melody of 1940” (1940), Los Feliz 3
Oct. 25 — “Ed Wood” (1994), Egyptian Theatre
Oct. 31 — “Psycho” (1960), Egyptian Theatre
Nov. 12 — “The Twelve Chairs” (1970), Egyptian Theatre

A BUDGET airline has revealed the exact date it will be cancelling its flights from a major UK airport.

EasyJet will be cancelling all its flights from Leeds Bradford Airport on January 5, 2027.

The decision follows a review conducted by the airline of its routes from Leeds Bradford Airport.

Current routes from Leeds Bradford Airport include Barcelona, Malaga, Paris, Geneva and Belfast.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the airline said: “Following a review of our routes from Leeds Bradford Airport, we have made the decision to no longer operate flights from the airport after 5 January.

“Our focus is on maintaining and developing routes which prove most popular with customers.

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“We value the relationship we have built with Leeds Bradford Airport and we always keep options for our network under review, with the aim of providing more choice and connectivity where we see demand.”

The airline added that customers had been contacted with bookings beyond January 5 and offered either a flight transfer or a full refund.

EasyJet first launched its flights from the airport back in 2010 and only introduced its Paris route in 2024.

If you still want to head on holiday from Leeds Bradford Airport, there are other options available.

Competitor budget airline, Ryanair, still operates to and from the airport, as well as Jet2.

Leeds Bradford Airport has also recently had a £100million glow-up with a larger terminal that has more shops, seats and lounges.

THE UK’S largest regional airline will cease operations at a popular base in a matter of weeks.

Three routes will be axed after the flights were deemed to be “financially unsustainable”.

Loganair has confirmed plans to withdraw all flights from Dundee Airport later this year.

The airline currently runs flights from Dundee to London twice a day, having swapped from London Stansted to London Heathrow back in 2023.

However, this route, along with flights to Orkney and Shetland, will end on Friday, October 23.

A Loganair spokesperson said: “Following a review of the route’s long-term viability, Loganair can confirm that its Dundee–London Heathrow service will cease after Friday 23 October, and the operating base will close.

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“Earlier this year, we served notice to the stakeholder group behind the Public Service Obligation route after the contract became financially unsustainable.”

The airline revealed that it had “explored alternative options but have not been able to identify a viable way forward that meets the objectives of the PSO while allowing the route to operate sustainably”.

The airline, which was founded by Willie Logan in 1962, has operated flights from the Scottish city for 12 years.

Loganair advised that all customers affected by the change will be contacted directly.

“We are also supporting Dundee-based colleagues and will explore alternative roles across the Loganair network wherever possible,” the airline rep added.

“These decisions reflect the same disciplined, decisive approach that has driven previous improvements in Loganair’s punctuality and resilience, protecting the long-term future of the airline, our people, and the lifeline connectivity we provide to communities across our network.”

It comes after Loganair also confirmed it would be closing its base at Southampton too.

AN ICONIC landmark could return to a UK seaside resort after more than a decade.

Councillors will decide next month whether to bring back the staggering 164ft attraction.

The Brighton Wheel could make an appearance back on Brighton‘s seafront, following a council cabinet meeting on September 17.

Brighton and Hove City Council will decide whether to award a 25-year lease to reinstate the iconic landmark back to its original site on Madeira Drive.

Originally opened in 2011, the 164ft attraction operated until May 2016.

Following the expiration of its lease, the wheel was subsequently dismantled to make way for the development of the i360.

GROUNDED

UK airline to cancel all flights from airport after 12 years

ON TRACK

Two of the UK’s busiest train stations REOPEN tomorrow after £20million revamp

Now, the firm behind the Brighton Zip & Daltons Venue has proposed to re-install the wheel, while maintaining the current zip-line attraction in operation.

If approved, the firm will seek to have the wheel up and running by next summer.

Brighton & Hove City Councillor, David McGregor, said the return of the iconic landmark would “bring new energy” to the seafront.

McGregor said: “Brighton became Brighton because people came here to have fun by the sea.

“That’s part of our identity, and we should be ambitious about what a great seaside city looks like for the next generation.”

During its five-year run, developers of the Brighton Wheel believed more than 250,000 visitors would ride the landmark each year.

July 11 (UPI) — Deforestation of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has fallen to its lowest levels in more than a decade, officials said this week.

Satellite surveys show a 37% decrease in the number of trees felled in the world’s largest rainforest in the past year compared to the previous one, according to the National Space Research Institute (INPE).

This is the lowest level of Amazon deforestation since 2014, data published on Friday shows.

“It’s a solid result, stemming from government actions to protect the forest and combat environmental crime,” said executive secretary Márcio Astrini, of the Brazilian environmental collective Observatório do Clima.

“The figures are excellent and deserve to be celebrated,” Astrini told G1.

The Amazon rainforest is one of the world’s most important climate regulators, scientists and experts have said.

Deforestation of the Amazon in Brazil reached a 15-year high in 2021 under former President Jair Bolsonaro, whose government cut environmental protections and enforcement of conservation laws.

Brazil’s current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has vowed to eradicate illegal deforestation by 2030.

“It is a commitment — otherwise, I will have failed,” Lula told reporters during an event in Belém do Pará, a city known as the metropolis of the Amazon.

Here’s a terrible-seeming idea: The Rolling Stones should get started on their next album.

Like, now.

After taking nearly two decades to release 2023’s “Hackney Diamonds” — the band’s first set of original material since “A Bigger Bang” in 2005 — the Stones are back this week with a follow-up, “Foreign Tongues,” that took them less than 36 months to get out.

And it’s the better record in every way.

In the old days, of course, two and a half years was all they needed to make “Beggars Banquet,” “Let It Bleed” and “Sticky Fingers.” So let’s not get too carried away by the fact Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood are working as fast as they are in their late 70s and early 80s.

Yet to listen to the brisk and sportive “Foreign Tongues” is to hear a band clearly going on instinct rather than overthinking the music à la any number of veteran acts in legacy-maintenance mode. I don’t know if the result is the Stones’ best since 1978’s “Some Girls,” but it’s definitely the funniest, which is actually the more impressive achievement.

“Wake up in the morning and you wanna make me puke,” Jagger sneers in the punky “Hit Me in the Head” — exactly the kind of lyric you’d hope to hear from a band whose only possible reason for still being in the game is to have a gas-gas-gas.

Like “Hackney Diamonds” — and, for that matter, like Paul McCartney’s “The Boys of Dungeon Lane” (to name one recent overthinking-veteran LP) — “Foreign Tongues” was produced by 35-year-old Andrew Watt, who’s made a career of helping boomer icons put a little shine on their late-in-life efforts. And he’s helped the Stones convene an appealingly motley crew of collaborators here, including McCartney (who plays bass on “Covered in You”), the Cure’s Robert Smith (who contributes guitar to “Divine Intervention”), Steve Winwood (who plays piano and organ throughout the album) and Bruno Mars (who’s credited with, uh, cowbell in “Never Wanna Lose You”).

You also get a welcome appearance from the late Charlie Watts in a hard-thwacking performance recorded before his death in 2021. (Steve Jordan otherwise keeps time.)

But none of the stunt casting feels like the point of the album, which instead simply doles out a dozen tunes in the Stones’ various idioms — the bluesy stomp, the country-ish lope, the sleazy disco jam — plus a couple of covers in just over an hour. It’s frisky and lighthearted, even when Jagger is lamenting what he sees as the sorry state of his beloved America in “Ringing Hollow” and when Richards is croaking about love having put him on his knees in “Some of Us.”

And when they go goblin mode, they really lean in: “Mr. Charm” is a demented soul-rock rave-up about how boring money is — OK, Mick — in which Jagger drops a diss of the “mad mogul Mr. Musk” into a verse laying out the delights of staying home and doing anagrams.

In “Divine Intervention,” Jagger offers a colorful travelogue of trips through New York and Los Angeles — “I kept moving on to Silver Lake / To play guitar with a brand new friend of mine” — while Richards and Wood get their guitars slip-sliding all over the place. “Jealous Lover” is gorgeously trashy: a horny little strut that sounds like “Dirty Mind”-era Prince doing “Waiting on a Friend.” (Legitimately loony Mick vocal here.)

For God knows what reason, the Stones offer up a faithful rendition of Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good” with Jagger on harmonica. And the album ends with a very ragged take on Chuck Berry’s “Beautiful Delilah,” obviously meant to remind you of how the two lifers at the core of the Stones came together more than half a century ago.

The memory is ancient; the thrill, somehow, is alive.

The Trump administration has signed off on a company’s plan to convert an oil and gas pipeline to pump groundwater from the Mojave Desert to thirsty California cities for the first time, a lucrative venture that critics say threatens natural springs and wildlife.

The federal Bureau of Land Management released documents Thursday saying that Cadiz Inc.’s plan to repurpose 162 miles of the pipeline to transport water “will not significantly affect” the environment.

“We’re excited to achieve this pivotal milestone. After many years of planning and environmental review, the project has now reached the construction stage,” said Susan Kennedy, chair and chief executive of Cadiz.

Environmental advocates and leaders of Native tribes, who have been fighting the project, criticized the decision.

“This groundwater mining proposal would drain the desert and rob the Mojave of its rare springs and wildlife habitat,” said Chance Wilcox, California desert associate director of the National Parks Conservation Assn. “It’s indefensible that the Trump administration would once again try to revive the pointless Cadiz project, by defying decades of scientific warnings and refusing to conduct an environmental review of the groundwater mining.”

The application for the federal authorization was filed by the Fenner Gap Mutual Water Co. The documents say the company plans to build seven pump stations, three of them located on federal land managed by the agency.

The 30-inch steel pipeline runs underground from Cadiz’s desert property, near the town of Amboy, northward to the town of Mojave.

The BLM said in its authorization that repurposing the pipeline for water “would comply with all applicable statutes and regulations.” The agency said it has “reasonably determined that the impacts of groundwater withdrawal associated with Cadiz’s groundwater extraction project are outside the scope of analysis.”

Cadiz’s attempts to export water from its property 200 miles east of Los Angeles have drawn controversy for decades.

In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation that requires the project to undergo scientific study and gain approval from the State Lands Commission before it can take water from the Mojave and sell it to California cities.

Activists opposing the company’s plans include civil rights leader Dolores Huerta.

“Cadiz spells destruction for water, sacred lands, and the desert economy,” Huerta said in a statement. “It is exactly this type of greed and injustice that I have dedicated my life to oppose.”

Leaders of nearby tribes have also objected to Cadiz’s plans to pump from the desert aquifer near the Mojave Trails National Monument and Mojave National Preserve.

“It is the living heart of the desert,” said Daniel Leivas, chairman of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe. “To drain it would be to drain the life out of the entire desert. No profit is worth such desecration.”

Chairman Timothy Williams of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe said the company’s plan “to pump and sell 25 times more groundwater each year than the aquifer can replenish would desecrate our traditional territories.”

“Pumping more groundwater than is sustainably replenished is not only negligent, but dangerous to the American Desert Southwest,” he said in the joint statement with other opponents of the project.

For years, while pursuing its plan to sell water far away, the company has been using wells on its property to irrigate nearly 2,000 acres of farmland growing lemons, grapes and other crops. It has drilled more wells in anticipation of being able to export water once the government approved its pipeline.

The company intends to pipe water to communities in San Bernardino County and says it’s “expected to provide one of the lowest-cost sources of new water in the drought-plagued Southwest.” It says the federal permit “marks a key milestone as we finalize project financing with prospective investors.”

Cadiz bought the 220-mile pipeline from El Paso Natural Gas in 2020. Once construction is completed, the company says the pipeline will be able to transport up to 25,000 acre-feet of water per year — about 5% of what Los Angeles uses each year.

The Los Angeles-based corporation is also seeking to build a new pipeline along a railroad right-of-way to transport water to the south.

Environmental groups have repeatedly filed lawsuits challenging the project.

Ileene Anderson, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, called the Trump administration’s decision “a green light for environmental destruction.”

She said six of the proposed pumping stations slated to be built are in the habitat of desert tortoises, a species in decline.

“We’ve successfully fended off this project before and we’ll continue to fight to stop this zombie from coming back,” Anderson said.

In 2021, the Biden administration reversed a Trump administration decision that had cleared the way for Cadiz to pipe water across public land. In 2022, a federal judge scrapped the pipeline permit that the Trump administration had issued.

But during President Trump’s second term, the company has again made headway on its plans. In February, Cadiz announced that the federal Environmental Protection Agency had invited it to submit an application for a $194-million low-interest loan for the northern pipeline project.

The company said in May that it reached an agreement with the federal Bureau of Reclamation to provide funding for a review of its potential role in “augmenting water supplies” along the shrinking Colorado River.

The company has also been lobbying the Trump administration. The group Public Citizen said in a recent report that Cadiz, through its nonprofit Fenner Gap Mutual Water Co., enlisted former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt’s new lobbying firm, the Bernhardt Group, and has spent at least $330,000 on lobbying in 2025 and 2026.

Records show lobbyist Luke Johnson has repeatedly accompanied Kennedy at meetings with Interior Department officials.

“The extensive influence of David Bernhardt’s boutique lobbying firm on the agency he formerly led highlights how insider firms staffed with former Trump officials have grown in recent years,” said Alan Zibel, a research director with Public Citizen. He said Bernhardt and his lobbyists “have learned how to master influence-peddling in the anything-goes era of Trump 2.0.”

Earlier this month, an Arizona water agency announced it signed an initial “memorandum of understanding” agreement to buy up to 10,000 acre-feet of water per year from Cadiz’s Mojave Groundwater Bank. The Central Arizona Irrigation and Drainage District provides water to farmlands in Pinal County, where growers are dealing with water cutbacks.

The company said that for this to happen, it would need to build pipelines and reach deals to exchange water across state lines.

Members of California’s congressional delegation have raised concerns. In a recent letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, California Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla called for a thorough environmental review, saying that federal agencies and peer-reviewed scientific analyses have “warned of the significant and irreversible impacts that Cadiz’s project could have on federal lands and surrounding communities.”

Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Indio) said in a letter to Burgum that he is concerned about the company’s long-standing effort to extract and export groundwater.

“The area I represent cannot afford to absorb the long-term costs of a commercially driven groundwater export scheme,” Ruiz said.

In 2012, when Mark Walter and his partners bought the Dodgers, team president Stan Kasten declared mediocrity would no longer be acceptable.

Would the Dodgers improve their minor league system? Yes. Would the Dodgers improve their major league roster? Also yes. Would spending in one area preclude spending in another? Absolutely not.

“These fans expect and deserve a team that can win,” Kasten said then.

So do Angels fans. For the first time this decade, with the arrival of John Mozeliak as interim general manager, they have legitimate hope.

Mozeliak, whose St. Louis Cardinals teams reached the playoffs more often than not in his 18 years running baseball operations there, is here to end baseball’s longest postseason drought, or at least steer the Angels in that direction.

At first, I was shocked to hear him say he does not believe the Angels need to rebuild. Under owner Arte Moreno, the Angels have resisted rebuilding, preferring to add lower-tier free agents and rush college players to the major leagues in an effort to field a competitive roster. That has failed: For the first time in franchise history, the Angels could finish in last place for a third consecutive season.

But, when Mozeliak and I sat down in the Angels’ dugout the other day, he explained that the path forward in Anaheim should not be tanking. It should be acting like the major-market team the Angels are — and were, during Moreno’s first decade of ownership.

“The one thing you have to realize about the Los Angeles Angels is: they do have resources,” Mozeliak said. “From Mr. Moreno to the market size, this is a place that could be a very, very special place.”

In Moreno’s first decade, under Bill Stoneman and Mike Scioscia, the Angels were a player development machine. In 2003, in his first winter as owner, Moreno signed the best position player on the free-agent market in Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero and the best pitcher on the market in four-time All-Star Bartolo Colon.

The questions Mozeliak asks and answers now are the same ones Kasten did with the Dodgers. Can the team deploy resources to upgrade scouting and player development? Yes. Can the team do the same with the major league roster? Also yes.

“There are many franchises in the game of baseball that cannot do that,” Mozeliak said. “They have trade-offs. They have to make a decision: If I’m going to give you $20 million for your infrastructure, that’s $20 million less for your payroll.

“This place is different.”

The Dodgers parallel only goes so far. Walter and Kasten inherited a core of Clayton Kershaw, Kenley Jansen, Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier. Mozeliak will work with Mike Trout and a long-touted “young core” that has shown by now it is not the foundation of a championship-caliber team.

No one expects Moreno to spend like the Dodgers do (and even Walter’s fellow owners want a salary cap in an attempt to stop the Dodgers). Yet, in St. Louis, Mozeliak built winners without the Cardinals owners ever paying a luxury tax.

The first step in revitalizing the Angels comes Saturday, in the draft.

“We’re going to take the best available player,” Mozeliak said.

Mozeliak said he is not interested in two recent Angels trends: paying less to a first-round pick in order to spread the savings around longer shots in the lower rounds, or targeting a polished college player in part because he could get to Anaheim in a hurry.

“I’m not wedded to a high school player or a college player,” Mozeliak said. “I want the best player.”

The second item on the agenda: the Aug. 3 trade deadline, which would afford Mozeliak the opportunity to collect prospects for such players as pitcher Reid Detmers and Jose Soriano and outfielder Jo Adell.

In 2020, Moreno nixed a trade that would have brought Andy Pages – then a Dodgers prospect, now an All-Star – to the Angels.

In 2023 and 2024, Moreno rebuffed trade offers for Shohei Ohtani that could have returned the likes of Junior Caminero or Jackson Merrill. No player of that caliber would be coming in return for what the Angels have to offer now.

Mozeliak said the Angels should not consider a trade proposal in isolation, without considering how to flex their major-market muscles to fill whatever hole a trade might create.

“If we understand what we’re doing today can help make us stronger tomorrow, and then look at potentially what we could do on the free-agent market,” he said, “that should be something we are doing in parallel thinking.”

Mozeliak said he does not believe any player should be untouchable. As if on cue, Trout walked by.

Trade Trout? That’s not happening, right?

“That’s not happening,” Mozeliak said.

In his hours of conversations with Moreno, Mozeliak said, the topic of whether the owner might sell the team “never came up.”

Does Moreno appear interested in staying for the long haul?

“Absolutely,” Mozeliak said.

Mozeliak said he had presented Angels President Molly Jolly with a 100-day plan for what the team calls a consulting role: run baseball operations on an interim basis; do a deep dive into how the Angels do things now and how they can do them better; recommend a new general manager. Maybe he stays in that role, or in a supporting role, or he simply leaves when his contract expires in December.

“I’m certainly confident in what we need to do, and I’m certainly confident this is a market that could be amazing,” he said. “It’s exciting times for me. I’m energized.

“I’m smart enough to know that one person cannot change everything. But one person can begin change, and that’s what I’m going to start to do.”

Distinguished executives, including the likes of Dave Dombrowski and Andrew Friedman, have wanted no part of the Angels. Then again, Mozeliak is only committed for six months. If Moreno does not do what Mozeliak believes should be done, and if Mozeliak is not allowed to begin that change, he can just walk away.

“I think I have that authority,” Mozeliak said, “and I think he understands that he can embrace change, because that is what is going to be required.”

Based on Moreno telling you that?

“Yes,” Mozeliak said.

The last time the Angels hired an experienced general manager from outside the organization: 35 years ago, when they also looked to St. Louis for Whitey Herzog. That didn’t work. Herzog won a power struggle in the front office, then quit anyway, amid disputes with ownership.

This might work, or might not. But think back to 2020, when then-Angels president John Carpino said this: “Obviously, we’re not doing it the right way. We’re not winning games. So something is not right in our organization.”

Carpino retired in April, without ever explaining what was not right in the organization or, based on the standings, repairing it.

Jolly replaced him and, within two months, secured Moreno’s approval to hire the architect of a World Series championship team to figure out what was not right in the organization, and to fix it.

In one bold step, the Angels admitted they had a problem and set out a path to remedy it. With three months to go in this wretched season, the MVP of the 2026 Angels is abundantly clear: Molly Jolly.

WASHINGTON — President Trump and his fellow Republicans are reviving a line of attack against Democrats heading into the midterm elections: They’re communists.

In just the past week, Trump has issued dark warnings that members of the Democratic Party’s ascendant left are communists who want to “completely destroy the traditional American way of life” and even engage in assassinations. Vice President JD Vance has similarly called out communism as a political shift that is “something we haven’t seen in the U.S.” House Speaker Mike Johnson has decried “radical candidates” who are “self-described, self-identifying Marxists.”

The GOP’s ideological focus conflates democratic socialism, which often centers on securing universal healthcare, higher taxes on the wealthy and stricter corporate regulation, with communism, under which private ownership is largely eliminated. It has been building since Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, won the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor last year.

But it’s kicked into a higher gear recently after democratic socialists won several New York City congressional primaries last week. The primary victory on Tuesday by another democratic socialist, Melat Kiros, for a Denver congressional seat suggested the trend may extend beyond Manhattan liberalism.

“The Democrats are making this easy for us,” Rep. Richard Hudson, the North Carolina Republican who leads the House GOP’s strategy and fundraising arm, said in an interview. “They’re nominating extreme liberals, leftists who are out of touch even with mainstream Democrats.”

Republicans are holding onto slim majorities

The messaging effort comes as Republicans scramble to hold onto threadbare congressional majorities in the November midterms. It risks overlooking public frustration, particularly among younger voters, with unfettered capitalism at a time of growing income inequality and rising costs.

But it also gives Republicans a much-needed opportunity to shift the conversation back to territory that is more comfortable for them after their party has spent much of the year on defense over the fallout from Trump’s decision to launch a war against Iran, which contributed to widespread price spikes.

Ralph Reed, the longtime conservative activist who hosted Trump last week at a Faith and Freedom Coalition conference, acknowledged that Republicans are facing steep headwinds this year. But the recent string of wins by democratic socialists, he said, allows Republicans to present a contrast between “common sense and crazy.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks during a Get Out the Vote (GOTV) rally at Kings Theater on June 18, 2026 in New York City. Sanders joined Mayor Zohran Mamdani ahead of next week’s primary, and the start of early voting on Saturday, as the pair campaigned for Brad Lander, Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, who are challenging incumbents in Democratic primary contests.

(Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images)

Democrats are uncertain over the party’s direction

The renewed push could tug at tensions among Democrats who are largely united in their loathing of Trump but are divided over the party’s direction. This year’s primaries are shaping up as a referendum between centrists who are eager to course correct from what they see as progressive overreach earlier in the decade and a left-wing pushing for even more sweeping change.

“A lot of this anger has been boiling under the surface,” said Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, which was founded by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats. “It’s coming to the fore in this moment in a very powerful way.”

But Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a centrist New Jersey Democrat, called the victories in Colorado and New York “aberrations.”

“We’ve got to fight like hell to keep our party from being hijacked by socialists,” he said. “Most of them are bomb throwers, not problem solvers.”

Nevada Atty. Gen. Aaron Ford easily dispatched a more progressive rival earlier this year in his Democratic bid for governor in a state Trump carried in 2024. As he eyes a general election challenge to Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, he insisted candidates like those who won in New York don’t represent all Democrats.

He said the Democratic Socialists of America “is not the face of our party.”

Rep. Suzan DelBene, a Washington Democrat who chairs the House Democratic campaign committee, said in a statement that Republicans were “resorting to desperate attacks that aren’t actually about the pocketbook issues.”

Trump risks overreaching with communism argument

Trump and fellow Republicans risk missing the mark when the public’s embrace of capitalism might not be as strong as it was decades ago.

About half of U.S. adults, 54%, have a positive view of capitalism, according to an August poll from Gallup, a slight decline from 61% in 2010. Democrats have driven some of the shift, but favorable opinions of capitalism have fallen among independents as well.

Only 42% of Democrats viewed capitalism favorably, while 66% had a positive view of socialism. The poll found that both younger and older Democrats have warmed slightly on socialism since 2010, but Democrats under age 50 are much less likely to view capitalism favorably. Democrats age 50 or older didn’t shift meaningfully.

“Young voters, who I would argue are driving a lot of the electoral energy that we’re seeing, came of age politically in a post-Soviet world,” Geevarghese said. “The attacks don’t land in the same way when Donald Trump was politically of age.”

Hudson, who is running the House GOP campaign committee, acknowledged the communism line might not resonate in the same way with all voters, particularly younger people. That’s why, he said, it’s important for Republicans to tailor their message to the needs of individual districts.

“I’ve never run cookie-cutter campaigns where we just say one thing over and over everywhere,” he said.

Still, the argument was high on Trump’s mind again on Wednesday as he visited the newly built Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota. He called the former president a “ferocious opponent of a thing called communism.”

“It’s the biggest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, September 11,” he said. “It’s a bigger threat, potentially a bigger threat than that, because it’s like a cancer that spreads, and you better stop it fast.”

Beverly Gage, a history professor at Yale University who has written on the rise and fall of Sen. Joe McCarthy, said earlier eras of anti-communism politics took hold because there was a large and active Communist Party in the U.S. and the Soviet Union was the country’s primary foe. But she said Trump’s focus on the issue is notable given his ties to Roy Cohn, a onetime confidant of Trump who earlier worked for McCarthy.

“It’s not very many steps to get from McCarthy to Roy Cohn to Donald Trump,” she said.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential Democratic presidential candidate, shrugged off Trump’s communism focus as “bunk.” In an interview, he said the direction of the party isn’t all that different from the dynamics he’s navigated for decades in California politics.

“I governed in an environment where the DSA was otherwise known as progressives,” he said. “This dialectic is so deeply familiar to me, and I don’t over read any of it.”

Sloan writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.

The Angels have fired general manager Perry Minasian midway through their sixth consecutive disappointing season under his leadership.

The last-place Angels appointed former Cardinals GM John Mozeliak to be their interim general manager and baseball operations consultant on Friday. Mozeliak will oversee day-to-day baseball operations while assisting the search for the next GM, team president Molly Jolly said in a news release.

“Perry has been a valued leader who worked tirelessly over the last six years to strengthen our baseball operations department,” Jolly said. “I am grateful for his dedication, insight and many contributions to our organization.”

Minasian took over the Angels’ front office in November 2020, but the long-struggling franchise has made no discernible progress during his tenure under mercurial owner Arte Moreno.

The Angels’ streaks of 10 straight losing seasons and 11 straight non-playoff seasons are both the longest in the majors, and its farm system is still considered to be among the majors’ worst, just as it was when Minasian arrived.

The biggest transaction of his tenure occurred when Shohei Ohtani left the Angels after six seasons for the Dodgers in late 2023, the Angels failing to trade Ohtani for prospects before Ohtani became a free agent.

Minasian’s flurry of moves before and after the 2023 trade deadline seemed chaotic. The Angels kept Ohtani — a decision Moreno had a big hand in — and dealt away several prospects in an attempt to push for the playoffs.

But the Angels went 8-19 that August and fell so far out of contention that they placed several players on waivers in order to bring their payroll under the luxury tax threshold.

After holding the majors’ worst record for much of the current season, the Angels are tied for last in the AL standings at 34-48 heading into their game against the Athletics on Friday night at Angel Stadium. Los Angeles lost a franchise-record 99 games in 2024, its first season after losing two-time AL MVP Ohtani.

The Angels never won more than 77 games or finished higher than third in the AL West during Minasian’s tenure.

Minasian clashed with respected manager Joe Maddon early in his tenure, eventually leading to Maddon’s firing amid an epic losing streak in the 2022 season. After Phil Nevin and Ron Washington also failed to hold the managerial job for more than two seasons, Minasian hired first-time manager Kurt Suzuki from his own front-office staff last fall, giving him a one-year deal with the acknowledgment that their fates were tied.

Ray Montgomery served as interim manager in 2025.

A reduction in payroll forced Minasian to supplement this year’s team with low-cost players — several returning from major injuries — such as pitchers Alek Manoah, Jordan Romano, Drew Pomeranz, Kirby Yates and Brent Suter, outfielder Josh Lowe and infielders Yoan Moncada and Adam Frazier.

Most of the moves didn’t pan out, as Romano and Pomeranz were released, and Manoah, Lowe and Moncada have been busts.

The largest free-agent deal signed by Minasian was a three-year, $63 million contract for left-hander Yusei Kikuchi before 2025. Kikuchi was an All-Star last season but has been sidelined since late April because of a shoulder injury.

Minasian also signed reliever Robert Stephenson to a three-year, $33 million deal before 2024, but the right-hander is out for this season because of another elbow injury.

Jolly and Mozeliak are scheduled to speak at a news conference on Saturday.

Minasian is a former Rangers clubhouse attendant who rose to positions in the front offices of the Atlanta Braves and the Toronto Blue Jays as a protege of Alex Anthopoulos.

Minasian had never interviewed for a GM job before he was chosen to replace Billy Eppler by Moreno, who has repeatedly hired GMs with little to no prior experience in the job during his two decades of ownership.

Mozeliak left the Cardinals last fall after three decades with St. Louis, including the past 18 in charge of baseball operations.

For decades, Californians have generally said immigrants, who make up more than a quarter of the state’s population and a third of its labor force, are beneficial to the state and its economy. But budget instability and concerns about rising costs are spilling into a debate over the controversial and expensive policy of allowing low-income immigrants without legal status to receive state-funded health coverage.

Now, Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton present a stark choice to voters in the race to be the next governor at a moment when public support for the state’s generous safety net is starting to fray.

Both frame the choice as an economic one.

Becerra, former secretary of Health and Human Services under President Biden, has said it would be “foolish” to exclude the poorest immigrants from routine care and push them into expensive emergency rooms on the taxpayer’s dime. Hilton, a conservative commentator backed by President Trump, has promised to eliminate their coverage and has echoed national Republicans who have skewered California’s expansions to bolster their claims of fraud and abuse in the Medicaid program.

With voters nationwide worried about inflation and the rising cost of living, some Californians might feel less inclined to provide full healthcare coverage to those lacking legal status. What the state does next could have profound implications for its healthcare system and sprawling economy.

Over the past decade, California lawmakers used state dollars to expand Medi-Cal, offering all low-income residents comprehensive coverage regardless of immigration status. But enrollment surpassed initial projections, as did the cost. Medi-Cal coverage of immigrants without legal status costs the state roughly $10 billion a year, according to California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, more than double the initial estimates.

California lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who championed the program, have approved major rollbacks of benefits for those residents. They said the state can’t afford ballooning healthcare costs amid massive federal cuts from the GOP tax-and-spending law known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act; the California Health and Human Services Agency projected up to 3.4 million Medi-Cal enrollees could lose coverage and the state could lose more than $30 billion a year in federal funding under the law, causing major disruptions in the safety net health program.Medi-Cal’s budget for fiscal year 2026-27 is $217 billion, and the program serves more than 14 million Californians.

Meanwhile, many legal U.S. residents and citizens have seen their health premium payments skyrocket this year after Congress let enhanced federal Affordable Care Act subsidies expire at the end of December.

As the state grappled with a deficit last year, a majority of likely voters in California said — for the first time in nearly a decade — they opposed providing health insurance to immigrants without legal status, according to a poll by the Public Policy Institute of California.

“The state faces major challenges, and healthcare is one of the major expenditures,” said Mark Baldassare, the institute’s survey director. “People have become more selective about how they want to see those limited healthcare dollars spent.”

Hilton, running on a platform of affordability and lowering taxes, has seized on the sentiment, casting health coverage for immigrants without legal status as deeply unfair and a direct threat to the state’s ability to help citizens.

“Stop taking money from California taxpayers who can barely afford their healthcare to give free healthcare to citizens of other countries who shouldn’t even be here,” Hilton said in a Facebook video the morning of the June 2 primary.

In campaign stump speeches, Hilton promised to use the savings to lower healthcare costs for other Californians without detailing how. Hilton did not respond to requests from KFF Health News for comment.

“Their messaging is very, very simple: It’s an us vs. them,” said Roger Salazar, a Democratic political consultant who represents a coalition of healthcare advocates who argue providing coverage to people who can’t afford it strengthens the workforce and, as a result, the economy. “It’s just a question of convincing the average voter that it’s much better economically.”

A son of immigrants, Becerra for decades pushed to extend safety net benefits in Congress and has made a similar pitch in his campaign for governor. He did not respond to requests for comment.

“Immigrants, whether documented or not, work hard. They pay taxes, and sometimes they get injured on the job or their children get sick,” Becerra said during a debate last month. “It would be foolish to tell a family that they don’t have access to the pediatrician or the family doc.”

Becerra, who could become California’s first elected Latino governor, objected last year when Newsom and legislative leaders decided to freeze Medi-Cal enrollment for adults without legal status, cut benefits, and impose monthly premiums.

“Stop treating coverage as a budget variable that expands in good years and contracts when revenue dips,” Becerra wrote last month in response to an Orange County Register candidate questionnaire. He has vowed to pursue new, steady revenue to fund basic services, such as by upping taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Californians.

In 2023, California was home to about 2.3 million people without legal status, representing roughly 8% of the state’s labor force, according to the Pew Research Center. And 1 in 5 California children live in a family that includes at least one member without legal status, according to the California Department of Education. Healthcare economists say giving people access to preventive healthcare saves taxpayers money in the long run by keeping the workforce healthy and relieving pressure on an overburdened system.

That, Baldassare said, wasn’t a hard argument to make during the COVID-19 pandemic, when immigrants were celebrated as essential workers and the link between individual well-being and public health was more obvious.

But Medi-Cal costs to cover roughly 1.4 million immigrants have ballooned, according to the latest estimates from the Department of Health Care Services. Because only some lawfully present immigrants are eligible for federal Medicaid benefits, states like California that cover other populations must do so exclusively with state funding.

California’s budget experts have warned that maintaining full Medi-Cal coverage for immigrants without seeking additional revenue would destabilize the state’s long-term fiscal outlook.

In a legislative hearing last year, Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio questioned whether California taxpayers would prioritize the expansions, saying he doubted “illegal immigrant healthcare in the general fund would be at the top of their list.”

After lawmakers approved the spending reductions, support for immigrant health coverage dropped, Baldassare said. Now lawmakers and Newsom are negotiating further cuts.

David Hayes-Bautista, who has spent his career studying the economic contributions of Latinos and immigrants, said Californians without legal status have higher labor force participation and tend to work in industries and occupations that don’t offer employer-based health insurance. As a result, many resort to Medi-Cal, saddling the state with the healthcare costs instead of employers.

“California, as a state, has the world’s fourth-largest GDP, which is true thanks to Latinos,” Hayes-Bautista, director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at UCLA, said. Without contributions from Latinos, many without legal status, it drops to eighth place, about the size of Italy’s economy, he added.

Immigrant advocates hope to have a more vocal champion in Becerra, the favorite to become governor in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1.

“He will fight, he will push back, he will do all that he can,” said state Sen. María Elena Durazo, a former labor leader who has championed the immigrant healthcare expansions. “That’s the most we could expect.”

Mai-Duc writes for KFF Health News, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism.

FORT WORTH, Texas — A demonstrator who shot and wounded a police officer outside a Texas immigration center last July 4 was sentenced to 100 years in federal prison Tuesday, while other protesters accused of having links to antifa were given multiple decades in federal prison.

Benjamin Song was convicted of attempted murder last March after prosecutors say he opened fire and wounded a police officer at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado.

The seven other protesters sentenced Tuesday received prison terms ranging from 30 to 70 years.

“Our issue with this case has always been this isn’t a bunch of terrorists. This is a bunch of kids and young adults who really have a really big heart and really wanted their voice to be heard,” Philip Hayes, Song’s attorney, said outside the federal courthouse in Fort Worth. “It was never intended that anybody get hurt. It was never intended that any shots would be fired.”

He said his client would appeal the sentencing.

“Song, aside from this day, has had an impeccable life. A former Marine. A good student,” Hayes said. “He had a lot of good qualities that were just ignored. The judge went ahead and gave as much as he could.”

One of the defendants, Daniel Sanchez Estrada, was convicted of corruptly concealing a document and conspiracy to conceal documents. Others pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists rather than take their case to trial.

Prosecutors say the eight are members of antifa, a decentralized anti-fascist organization that has become a target of the Trump administration. They have denied any affiliation and maintain they attended the demonstration to show support for immigrants inside the detention center.

President Donald Trump last fall signed an executive order designating antifa a domestic terrorist organization, even though there is no domestic equivalent to the State Department’s list of foreign terror organizations.

Critics warn the case could have wide-reaching impact on protests given that organizations operating within the U.S. are supposed to be protected by First Amendment free-speech rights.

Short for “anti-fascists,” antifa is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for far-left militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.

Last week, federal prosecutors charged 15 people with impeding the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. They claimed the demonstrators were members of antifa who conspired against the federal government to block arrests and deportations by setting up blockades around government buildings and throwing chunks of ice at federal vehicles, among other actions.

Stengle and Marcelo write for the Associated Press. Marcelo reported from New York.

FANCY a seaside holiday that’s cheaper than St Tropez and looks like Greece? Look no further.

Jet2 has announced that they are launching new flights to a coastal African destination from a number of UK airports.

The flights will head to Enfidha in Tunisia, with two flights a week from Birmingham, Manchester and London Stansted from May 1, 2027 to October 31, 2027.

And then there will also be weekly flights to the destination from Leeds Bradford and East Midlands airports as well.

From Enfidha, visitors will easily be able to visit Hammamet which is just 30 minutes away .

Also known as the ‘Tunisian Riviera’, it costs just 35 per cent the price of a holiday to the French Riviera where you’ll find St Tropez.

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The Sun’s Digital Sports Reporter, Etienne Fermie, recently visited.

She said: “In May sunshine, the glorious blue sky pops off the glistening white walls of the stunning coastal town of Sidi Bou Said in northern Tunisia.

“All the buildings are decked out in white and blue, providing a gorgeous visual as the perfect sky kisses the crystal clear, calm Mediterranean sea.

“Sidi Bou Said is reminiscent of Santorini and symbolic of the blend of cultures that modern-day Tunisia infuses.”

Other destinations travellers can reach from Enfidha Airport include Port el Kantaoui, Skanes, Mahdia and Sousse.

Jet2 used to fly to Tunisia in 2015 from East Midlands, Glasgow, Leeds Bradford, Manchester and Newcastle airports but the route was suspended not long after it launched.

Steve Heapy, Jet2 Chief Executive, said: “With year-round sunshine, rich culture and fantastic scenery, Tunisia has something for everyone and we know how immensely popular it will be.

Fakhri Khalsi, Acting UK Director at the Tunisian National Tourist Office, said: “This announcement represents a significant milestone in our efforts to strengthen Tunisia’s position as a leading Mediterranean destination and reflects the growing confidence of major travel operators in our tourism offering.

“As one of the UK’s most respected and influential travel companies, Jet2’s entry into the Tunisian market will provide British travellers with even greater access to our country’s rich cultural heritage, beautiful coastline, authentic experiences, and renowned hospitality.”

GRAMMY-NOMINATED producer Tay Keith has been found dead in Nashville.

Brytavious Chambers, 29, better known as Tay Keith, was found dead in his apartment earlier today.

Police said his body was discovered while officers were performing a welfare check at his home.

Investigators say there was no evidence of foul play, but the exact cause of death has yet to be determined.

In a post on social media, Metro Nashville PD wrote: “No foul play is suspected in the death of Brytavious Chambers, 29, also known as the Grammy nominated record producer Tay Keith.

“He was found dead in his Martin St apt this afternoon by officers performing a welfare check.

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“His death is unclassified pending autopsy results.”

Throughout his career Keith worked with a wide range of music artists, including Beyoncé, Travis Scott and Drake.

The Memphis hitmaker enjoyed huge success on the Billboard Hot 100, earning 11 top 10 hits and four No.1 records.

He was also the mastermind behind Travis Scott’s “Sicko Mode” and Drake’s “First Person Shooter”.

Keith currently holds the record for the most No.1s on the Hot R&B / Hip-Hop songs chart this decade – with six.

His work even earned him a coveted Grammy nomination in 2019.

In the aftermath of his death, tributes for the producer have poured in.

Artist and childhood friend Blocboy JB shared photos of the pair as teenagers with the caption: “Damn Cuz You Just Hurt Me Bad.”

He also posted a video of their call history, writing: “We talked everyday yeen tell me you was leaving.”

Fellow Memphis producer Hitkidd also expressed his disbelief, posting a picture of the pair on Instagram.

The caption said: “I ain’t even got the words, we been doing this since 2010.”

Born on September 20, 1996, Keith stated making music when he 14.

He later received a bachelor’s degree from Middle Tennessee State University.

Signed to a publishing deal with Warner Chappell Music, he was also a member of BMI.

WASHINGTON — The White House pushed back Thursday against growing bipartisan criticism of a negotiated settlement to the war with Iran, arguing its concessions to the Islamic Republic were contingent on its conduct and essential to securing peace.

The administration’s defensive posture came as details of the framework agreement, known as a memorandum of understanding, were finally shared with the public, revealing a raft of compromises with Tehran long opposed by Republicans.

Vice President JD Vance, who helped negotiate the deal, told reporters Thursday that the deal was structured to reward Iran for good behavior. But the text of the agreement suggests otherwise.

The Trump administration agreed to release billions of dollars in Iranian assets that were frozen and restricted by the United States “upon the implementation” of the memorandum — before any further actions are taken or additional negotiations begin. The president will issue sanctions waivers on Iranian oil, allowing Tehran to resume trading its most valuable export and breaking with decades of policy. And to facilitate that trade, boosting Tehran’s revenues, Trump agreed to immediately end a U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports.

Still more concessions were offered to the Iranians, including a commitment by the U.S. administration to establish a fund of “at least $300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic” — in effect providing reparations for the war Trump started.

“All required licenses, waivers and permissions needed for the relevant financial transactions will be granted by the United States of America,” the memorandum reads.

Taken together, the document reads as a stunning reversal of U.S. policy toward Iran after decades of concern across administrations in Washington — including throughout Trump’s two terms — that the Islamic Republic represents the nation’s greatest security threats as the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.

Criticism from Republican senators, in particular, has been sharp and swift.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the $300-billion fund “would make Iran’s payoff under President Obama’s 2015 deal look like a pittance by comparison.” And Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) accused the Trump administration of giving Iran money it would use to kill Americans.

“History demonstrates that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is an exceptionally bad idea, and I think, unfortunately, the president is receiving some really bad advice on this deal,” Cruz said. “I don’t want to see us send a penny to the ayatollah. And I hope that we don’t.”

The Obama-era deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, included structured sanctions relief for Iran in exchange for concrete and verifiable steps by Tehran to dismantle much of its nuclear program — a framework that Republicans broadly criticized at the time.

By contrast, Trump’s agreement commits the United States to pursuing economic relief for Iran while providing no clarity about the future of Iran’s nuclear program — the very issue Trump cited as the rationale for launching the war.

The memorandum includes a pledge by Iran to never purchase or construct nuclear weapons — a vow the Islamic Republic has made multiple times before, including by signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, in a religious edict issued by the late supreme leader and in the Obama-era nuclear accord.

Vice President JD Vance speaks to reporters at the White House on June 18, 2026.

(Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press)

Detailed negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program — including whether Tehran could continue domestic uranium enrichment, at what level, and under what monitoring regime — were left for another day.

For more than a decade, the U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Iran sought a threshold nuclear capability, securing the strategic advantages of a nuclear power without incurring the costs of openly pursuing a bomb.

The agreement does include a commitment by Iran to do its “best” to bring commercial shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital international waterway, back to prewar levels. But critics of the president said he had to make deep, historic concessions just to secure a status quo ante upended by the war he started. And in the document, Tehran agreed to refrain from imposing a toll on ships transiting the strait for only a 60-day period.

“Unless you were homeschooled by a day drinker, no one’s confident that Iran is going to do anything,” Sen. John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, told reporters this week.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, Kennedy’s Republican counterpart from Louisiana, called the deal “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades” that would have President Reagan “rolling over in his grave.”

“Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future. Now, Iran gets to build brand-new infrastructure under this deal,” Cassidy said.

“Before the war, the strait was open, Iran was being crushed by sanctions, and 13 service members were still alive,” he added. “Now, 13 Americans are dead, families have paid billions at the pump, sanctions will be lifted, and the bombing has stopped.”

Despite mounting criticism, Trump put his signature to the memorandum on Wednesday night while attending a dinner with the French president in Versailles, a palace infamous for hosting a treaty signing that disgraced Germany at the end of the First World War.

He defended the agreement while in Europe and suggested further concessions might be forthcoming, including recognition of Iran’s claimed right to enrich uranium and a new willingness to tolerate its continued ballistic missile development — another program that Trump had vowed to eliminate as a central war aim.

“He took America to war — killing 13 soldiers, thousands of Iranian civilians and costing taxpayers $60 billion — to get rid of Iran’s missile program. And now that he’s lost the war, he pretends like it’s no big deal,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut.

“Just unforgivable,” he added. “What a charlatan.”

Spike Lee couldn’t contain himself.

“We did it!” the legendary filmmaker shouted during an ESPN interview after the New York Knicks sealed their first NBA championship since 1973 on Saturday night. “We did it! We did it! We did it!”

If any fan can be excused for using “we” when speaking of their favorite sports team, it would probably be Lee.

The “Do the Right Thing” star, director and screenwriter was 13 when he witnessed the Knicks defeat the Lakers in Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden. And he was on hand in San Antonio at age 69 when the Knicks finished off the Spurs with a title-clinching 94-90 victory in Game 5 of the NBA Finals.

In between, Lee has become the Knicks’ most famous and visible fan. He has been a season-ticket holder since 1985, the rookie season of Hall of Famer Patrick Ewing, and has been a courtside fixture for decades. In 2024, he was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame’s superfan gallery.

During a 2020 appearance on ESPN’s “First Take,” Lee laughed when he was informed that his Knicks seats cost around $300,000 a year and that he had spent roughly $10 million on tickets over the years.

“I look stupid now,” he joked.

So, yeah, he’s considered by many to be an honorary member of the Knicks — and as such, he’s also considered by many to be more than worthy of an NBA championship ring. The idea has taken off on social media, with several celebrities offering their support.

“Give @officialspikelee a CHAMPIONSHIP RING DAMN IT!!!!!!!!” comedian and actor Kevin Hart wrote Sunday on Instagram.

Legendary sports broadcaster Dick Vitale wrote Monday on X: “I agree with Kevin Hart – yes the LOYALTY of SPIKE LEE to the @nyknicks should be recognized & rewarded- Spike is truly a dedicated & genuine LOYAL Knicks fan .YES I agree with Kevin – SPIKE should get a Championship ring !”

“First Take” host and fellow die-hard Knicks fan Stephen A. Smith reposted on X a graphic calling for Lee to receive a ring for his “decades of loyalty.”

Spike Lee celebrates with a crowd of New York Knicks fans after Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Saturday in San Antonio.

(Darren Abate / Ap Photo/darren Abate)

“I completely support this for Spike Lee,” Smith wrote. “No Knicks’ fan deserves this more than him.”

The Times reached out to a representative for Lee and the Knicks for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

Lee is likely less concerned with a championship ring for himself and more concerned with his beloved team earning another one in 2027.

“You know what I’m thinking?” Lee asked during an on-court interview with WABC-TV in New York immediately following Saturday’s victory, before shouting the answer to his own question: “Back to back!”

After decades spent shaping modern movies without ever taking home a competitive Oscar, actor Glenn Close and director Ridley Scott will finally receive statuettes from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences this fall.

The academy announced Wednesday that Close and Scott will receive honorary Oscars at this year’s Governors Awards alongside pioneering animator Floyd Norman, while producers Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler, co-founders of Killer Films, will receive the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.

The annual Governors Awards, launched in 2009, recognize lifetime achievement and significant contributions to filmmaking and the motion picture industry. The Thalberg Award honors producers whose bodies of work reflect consistently high-quality motion picture production.

Unlike the competitive Oscars handed out during the telecast, the honorary prizes are presented at a separate ceremony attended by film industry figures, academy members and awards season contenders.

Close, 79, one of the most acclaimed actors of her generation, has received eight Oscar nominations over her career, including for “Fatal Attraction,” “Dangerous Liaisons,” “Albert Nobbs” and “The Wife.”

Scott, 88, the architect of “Alien” and “Blade Runner,” whose striking visual style helped define modern blockbuster filmmaking, has scored nominations for directing “Thelma & Louise,” “Gladiator” and “Black Hawk Down,” while also earning a best picture nomination for “The Martian.”

Despite their long influence on Hollywood, both have frequently appeared on lists of prominent Oscar nominees never to win a competitive Academy Award.

The 90-year-old Norman, who began working at Disney in the 1950s, became the studio’s first Black animator, contributing to films including “Sleeping Beauty,” “The Jungle Book” and “Robin Hood.” His career has spanned more than six decades.

Vachon and Koffler have been central figures in American independent cinema for decades, backing such films as “Boys Don’t Cry,” “Far From Heaven,” “Carol,” “First Reformed” and “Past Lives,” the last of which earned them their first best picture nomination in 2024.

The honors will be presented Nov. 15 at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Ovation Hollywood during the academy’s 17th Governors Awards ceremony.

June 6 (UPI) — Peru will choose its next president Sunday in a runoff election between Keiko Fujimori, leader of the right-wing Popular Force party, and Roberto Sánchez, candidate of the leftist coalition Together for Peru.

Nearly 28 million Peruvians are eligible to vote for what will be the country’s ninth president in just 10 years, a figure that reflects Peru’s deep institutional crisis and political fragmentation.

Recent polls show Sánchez and Fujimori in a statistical tie, meaning the final outcome could depend on undecided voters and the share of blank ballots.

For many observers, the central question is not only who will win the presidency, but whether Peru can break the cycle of political instability that has defined the past decade.

Fujimori’s candidacy once again places Fujimorismo at the center of Peruvian politics. The daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori remains one of the country’s most influential and polarizing political figures. Sunday’s vote marks her fourth consecutive attempt to win the presidency in a runoff election.

Sánchez, meanwhile, is a far less familiar figure outside Peru. His campaign has evolved throughout the race and has sought to appeal to supporters of former President Pedro Castillo, who was removed from office in 2022 after attempting to dissolve Congress.

Fujimori maintains a strong advantage in Lima, while Sánchez dominates much of the country’s interior, particularly in the Andean regions.

The election is taking place amid growing public frustration with Peru’s political system.

Beyond the traditional divide between Fujimorismo and anti-Fujimorismo that has shaped much of Peru’s politics over the past two decades, several analysts argue that the country’s deeper problem is a broader crisis of political representation.

Luis Lira, a researcher at the International Affairs Observatory at Finis Terrae University in Chile, said Peru has become one of the clearest examples of a “democracy without parties,” where political organizations have lost their ability to channel voter demands and have been replaced by highly personalized leadership.

“The presence of two candidates viewed as strongmen demonstrates the deterioration of political parties,” Lira told UPI.

Raúl La Torre, a Peruvian academic and professor at the University of the Andes in Chile, offered a similar assessment.

According to La Torre, Peru enters the runoff burdened by a representation crisis that has deepened over the past decade. Political parties remain weak, Congress continues to suffer from low public trust and the gap between citizens and political elites continues to widen.

Carlos Escaffi, founder of consulting firm Relaxiona Internacional, said the Fujimorismo versus anti-Fujimorismo divide remains relevant, but is no longer sufficient to explain voting behavior.

Issues such as public security, informal employment, economic opportunity and growing rejection of the traditional political class now play a larger role in shaping voter preferences, he said.

“The demand for order, security and concrete solutions to everyday problems appears to be playing an increasingly important role in voters’ decisions,” Escaffi told UPI.

Analysts also point to Peru’s political structure as a factor behind its persistent instability.

Juan Jiménez, a former prime minister under President Ollanta Humala, said the country has long experienced a contentious relationship between the executive branch and Congress, marked by frequent confrontations and repeated efforts to remove presidents from office.

“In the last 10 years we have had eight presidents. On Sunday we will have the ninth,” Jiménez told UPI.

He attributed part of the crisis to the repeated use of constitutional mechanisms that allow Congress to remove presidents from office, as well as to the country’s fragmented political landscape.

Questions over whether the eventual winner will be widely accepted have become another source of concern.

Polls released in recent days suggest an extremely close race, increasing the likelihood of legal challenges or accusations from the losing side.

Jiménez said the country’s first challenge after Sunday’s vote will be ensuring that all political actors accept the result.

“It is highly foreseeable that there will be a conflict over the outcome,” he said, noting that narrow margins in previous elections have repeatedly fueled allegations of fraud.

The former prime minister also argued that problems during the first round undermined confidence in electoral authorities and could contribute to renewed disputes once the final results are announced.

Escaffi, however, urged caution regarding claims of fraud. He said there is no evidence to support allegations of a systematic effort to alter the popular vote.

“What we have seen is that the fraud narrative has become a political tool used by different sectors to mobilize their supporters or preemptively challenge the results,” he said.

Political analyst and commentator Jorge “Coco” Salazar expressed a similar view, saying either candidate could challenge the outcome if the margin is extremely narrow.

Salazar told UPI that the climate of mistrust generated during the first round has created conditions for electoral disputes to once again dominate the political debate.

Regardless of who wins, analysts agree the next president will face structural challenges that extend far beyond the campaign.

The most pressing task will be restoring governability in a country where political confrontation has become routine.

According to La Torre, that will require building minimum agreements with a fragmented Congress, strengthening weakened institutions and rebuilding public confidence.

Corruption and public security also rank among voters’ top concerns.

Lira said Peruvians increasingly demand greater transparency and accountability from the political class, while rising crime has become one of the country’s most pressing social issues.

Escaffi warned that Peru’s ability to maintain economic stability despite years of political turmoil should not be taken for granted.

Institutions such as the Central Reserve Bank of Peru and the country’s fiscal discipline have helped cushion the effects of repeated political crises, he said, but prolonged uncertainty could eventually affect investment, economic growth and job creation.

Several analysts also believe the restoration of a bicameral legislature could help counter the institutional drift behind the recent instability.

Jiménez said the return of the Senate may make it more difficult to carry out rapid presidential removals and could create greater opportunities for political deliberation.

Even so, few experts are optimistic about a quick resolution to Peru’s political troubles.

“The election offers an opportunity to begin a more stable period, but by itself it does not guarantee that outcome,” La Torre said.

For many observers, the question that will remain after Sunday’s vote is not simply who wins the presidency but whether Peru’s political system can regain the legitimacy and stability it has steadily lost over the past decade.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna jumped out to an early lead over former sheriff Alex Villanueva, his predecessor and leading opponent in the race for the county’s top law enforcement job.

If Luna ultimately receives more than half of the vote, he wins the contest outright and will serve a second term at the helm of the largest sheriff’s department in the U.S.

If Luna falls below the 50% mark, it’s likely that he and Villanueva will head to a runoff once again, reprising their 2022 face-off, when the former Long Beach Police chief unseated Villanueva by a 61% to 39% margin.

This time around, the sheriff’s race was relatively muted. Luna mostly avoided major controversies during his term — unlike Villanueva, who clashed with elected officials and journalists, and was involved in multiple lawsuits. There were no public debates that included the leading candidates and no public polling was done.

Ahead of primary day, Luna touted his leadership and a list of accomplishments. He took credit for reducing the rate of violent crimes and homicides, and said he repaired the relationship with county leaders and others that had been fractured under his predecessor.

Villanueva criticized the sheriff for plunging the department into “chaos and dysfunction,” blaming Luna for the department’s struggles to retain deputies. Luna described both claims as unfounded.

Retired sheriff’s Lt. Eric Strong was in third place as of 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, the same position as when he ran four years ago. He was followed by Sgt. Karla Carranza, who has worked for the department for more than two decades.

Oscar Martinez, who joined the sheriff’s department after fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, was in fifth, followed by Capt. Mike Bornman, who has decades of experience at the sheriff’s department.

Andre White, a detective with about a dozen years at the department, was in seventh, while Brendan Corbett, a former assistant sheriff for custody operations, was in last place.

An A-list actress has broken her silence on one of the most anticipated TV events of the next few years

One of the show’s A-list cast members has teased filming could start soon.

A critically acclaimed television drama watched by millions of fans globally will be returning for a third series, with fresh episodes anticipated to broadcast following an almost decade-long absence.

Big Little Lies first premiered on HBO in 2017, adapted from Liane Moriarty’s bestselling novel of the identical title and boasting Hollywood legends Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Nicole Kidman, and Shailene Woodley amongst the cast.

A second series was swiftly commissioned and progressed the narrative with three-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep joining the exceptional ensemble.

One IMDb user described it as “breathtaking” and “a masterpiece of art in every possible way”. Another audaciously declared: “It’s a big statement but this is possibly the best program on television, EVER!!”

Yet, despite the programme’s popularity and outstanding ratings, including an impressive 89 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, there had been no developments regarding a third instalment until September last year, reports the Express.

The inaugural series tracked young single mum Jane Chapman (played by Woodley), who relocates to the coastal city of Monterey, California with her troubled son, Ziggy (Iain Armitage). She quickly becomes entangled in the turbulent lives of a circle of affluent women, whose picture-perfect existence is torn apart by a catastrophic incident at their local school.

The second series picks up immediately in the wake of the events, with the women desperately attempting to conceal a murder, yet the appearance of one of their mothers-in-law (Streep) places them under an extraordinary amount of pressure. There’s only so much they can endure before things begin to unravel.

Now, series regular Woodley has verified reports that a third season is currently in development, though viewers should anticipate significant changes when the story resumes.

“I mean, what I know about it is that supposedly it is happening. That is what I know,” she told Deadline.

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When pushed for further details, the actress enthused, “Oh my gosh. I love my girls. That’s what makes it so special. We’re each other’s people”.

A production schedule has yet to be confirmed, meaning Big Little Lies’ third series may not emerge until late-2027 or 2028.

Nevertheless, Woodley did verify that the new instalment will acknowledge the considerable gap between series, hinting that the likes of Armitage and Kathryn Newton, who played Madeline’s (Witherspoon) daughter Abigail, could make a comeback.

“We love each other and we’re here for each other and, also, it’s a blast to play these characters,” she continued.

“I’m really excited about the third season, and for the opportunity that might exist in exploring who these ladies are 10 years later. We’re all 10 years older. The children are all 10 years older.

“They’re not really children anymore and most of them are adults now. So the prospect of that is very cool.”

Big Little Lies is available to stream on Sky, NOW, and HBO Max.

Just one of the nine Supreme Court justices thought it was appropriate for Roger Goodell — whose primary job as NFL commissioner is to protect the league — to decide whether the NFL’s hiring practices are still racist.

And it happens to be the same justice whose close friend is an NFL owner.

In fact, the friendship between Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Arizona Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill dates back decades, to high school. So when President Trump nominated Kavanaugh for the highest court in the land, Bidwill used the team’s official website to advocate for his confirmation. Not sure how the “stick to sports” crowd feels about it, considering how they react when players express opinions, but it felt like an overreach to me.

Obviously when a decision related to NFL owners came before the court, Kavanaugh should have recused himself. But by now we’re used to justices ignoring their own ethics rules. What I find most disturbing in this instance is Kavanaugh’s dissent.

Here’s how the hiring discrimination case came to be: Former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick texted the wrong Brian with congratulations for getting the New York Giants’ head coaching job, according to a lawsuit filed by former Dolphins head coach and former Patriots assistant coach Brian Flores, who is Black. In the 2022 suit, Flores said the Giants interviewed him for their vacant head coaching job under disingenuous circumstances. How can we tell? Because Belichick’s congratulations came three days before Flores’ interview with the Giants. The team had apparently already decided to hire Brian Daboll, who is white.

The NFL has spent the last three-plus years attempting to settle the dispute through NFL-controlled arbitration and fought to keep it out of court. The league lifted its appeal to the Supreme Court after failing to get Goodell in position to handle it via the lower courts.

In addition to the damning text exchange, Flores also has history on his side.

During one 60-season stretch, the NFL had no Black head coaches. To address the glaring discrepancy, the league established the “Rooney rule” in 2003, requiring teams to interview at least two minority candidates for head coach and other senior management vacancies.

Prior to that, most teams interviewed only white men.

The results have been mixed.

Yes, more minority candidates get interviewed now — perhaps after a white man has quietly been chosen for the job, but still … they get interviewed.

And yes, Tony Dungy and Mike Tomlin, both of whom are Black, not only got hired but also led their franchises to Super Bowl victories after the rule was put into place.

Still, two decades into the Rooney-rule era, roughly a third of the league’s owners had never hired a minority to lead their team. This includes the century-old New York Giants, who after firing Daboll at the end of the season, hired another white man to take his place. This is the backdrop of the discrimination lawsuit filed by Flores.

And still Kavanaugh felt this case could be handled internally by the organization that allowed it to happen.

Even Clarence Thomas, a judge known for ruling against anything that helps Black people, thought the NFL should have to defend itself in court.

Consider this: The year before Flores filed his suit, the NFL settled a different discrimination lawsuit for $1 billion. That case arose because for decades, to help determine the payout from a concussion settlement between retired players and the league, the NFL used “race norming” — a methodology that assumes Black players are less intelligent than white players, making it more difficult for Black men to prove brain damage than white men. In a league that is roughly 70% nonwhite, the racist practice saved the billionaire owners millions.

Or how about this: After the Supreme Court ruled that Duke Power Co. used a controversial cognitive test to prevent Black employees from getting higher-paying jobs back in the 1970s, the NFL began using it. The league kept it in place until 2022.

And still Kavanaugh felt the league should handle Flores’ case.

I’m not sure what factors the justice was considering before his dissent, but it could not have been league history.

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