director

Mark Rydell, the Oscar-nominated director of the sentimental blockbuster “On Golden Pond” who worked with such Hollywood heavyweights as Henry Fonda, Katharine Hepburn, Steve McQueen and John Wayne, has died. He was 97.

His daughter, Amy Rydell, told the Hollywood Reporter that her father died Thursday of natural causes at a retirement community for the entertainment industry in Woodland Hills.

“Hard to put into words how much I loved my dad,” she posted Friday on her Instagram account. “He was truly one of a kind. Funniest and most talented person I’ve ever known.”

10 Oscar nominations

“On Golden Pond,” his 1981 film that teamed Fonda with Hepburn and his daughter, Jane Fonda, was nominated for 10 Oscars. Henry Fonda and Hepburn won leading acting honors, and the film won for screenplay, which Ernest Thompson adapted from his play of the same name. Rydell was nominated for directing but lost to Warren Beatty for “Reds.”

It earned more than $119 million at the box office, making it the second-highest-grossing film that year behind “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

“On Golden Pond” was Henry Fonda’s final movie role. He starred as Norman Thayer, an emotionally brittle and distant father who becomes more accessible at the end of his life after his teenage grandson spends the summer with him and his wife, Ethel (played by Hepburn), at their cottage in New England. The film’s story resembled Fonda’s real-life relationship with daughter Jane, who said working on the movie together helped resolve some of their issues. The elder Fonda, at 77, died months after winning his only Oscar.

Rydell’s other Oscar-nominated films were “The Fox” in 1967, “The Reivers” with McQueen in 1969, “Cinderella Liberty” with James Caan and Marsha Mason in 1973, “The Rose” with Bette Midler in 1979 and “The River” with Mel Gibson and Sissy Spacek in 1984.

Born Mortimer Harold Rydell on March 23, 1929 in New York City, he studied with legendary jazz pianist Teddy Wilson at the Julliard School of Music. During a stint in the Army, he spent two years in Japan developing entertainment for military personnel. He majored in English and philosophy at New York University.

Early acting career

He turned to acting when he won a scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. Among his early roles were parts on the CBS soap operas “The Edge of Night” and “As the World Turns.”

Rydell made his Broadway debut in “Seagulls Over Sorrento” with Rod Steiger. In 1956, he made his movie acting debut opposite John Cassavetes and Sal Mineo in Don Siegel’s “Crime in the Streets.”

Among his film acting credits were Robert Altman’s “The Long Goodbye” in 1973 and Woody Allen’s “Hollywood Ending” in 2002.

Rydell moved into directing television, including episodes of “Mr. Novak,” “Ben Casey,” “I Spy,” “The Wild Wild West,” “The Long, Hot Summer,” “The Fugitive” and “Gunsmoke.”

He made his feature film directorial debut with 1967’s “The Fox” starring Sandy Dennis, and it was a hit.

Two years later, Rydell directed McQueen in the comedy-drama “The Reivers.”

Teaming with Sydney Pollack

Rydell and Sydney Pollack, who became friends during their acting days, formed Sanford Productions in 1971. Among their efforts were the films “Jeremiah Johnson” starring Robert Redford and “Scarecrow” with Al Pacino and Gene Hackman, which won the Cannes Film Festival’s top honor, the Palme d’Or.

Rydell directed Wayne in 1972’s “The Cowboys.” He reunited with Caan for the 1976 flop “Harry and Walter Go to New York.”

Rydell scored a major hit with 1979’s “The Rose,” with Midler in her Oscar-nominated role as a self-destructive rock star loosely based on Janis Joplin.

Rydell reteamed with Caan and Midler in “For the Boys” in 1991, but it wasn’t successful.

“He was an actor of note before he became a director, and I was so lucky to have met him when I did; he taught me so much on ‘The Rose’ and later on ‘For The Boys,’” Midler posted on Instagram. “Two Oscars nominations both because of him. He was the actor’s whisperer; just a few words was all it took to understand what was needed. Devoted to Meisner. So many happy memories.”

TV movies and series among his credits

Rydell directed the pilot of the hit ABC drama “Family” in 1976.

Among his TV movie directing credits were “McBride and Groom,” “Crime of the Century” with Isabella Rossellini and Stephen Rea, and “James Dean,” which earned actor James Franco a Golden Globe award and in which Rydell also appeared, as Warner Bros. chief Jack Warner.

He directed the movies “Intersection” in 1994 and “Even Money” in 2006.

In 2009, Rydell, Oscar-winning actor Martin Landau and screenwriter Lyle Kessler taught a film workshop at UCLA. Rydell and Landau were co-artistic directors of the Actors Studio West, teaching and coaching actors, writers and directors.

“All great art rests on telling the truth,” Rydell told UCLA’s student newspaper the Daily Bruin. “The real pursuit of an artist is to tell the truth.”

Besides his daughter, he is survived by son Christopher. The siblings who went into acting were from his first marriage to actor Joanne Linville. He had another son, Alexander, from his second marriage to producer Esther Rydell.

Harris writes for the Associated Press.

SALZBURG, Austria — With the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel heading off on a brief tour to London and Edinburgh, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra steps in Tuesday night at the Hollywood Bowl with an all-Mozart program. Mozart has long been a specialty of LACO.

And it so happens that the orchestra is using the Mozartean occasion to announce that its next music director will be German composer and conductor Matthias Pintscher, who has been busy conducting in Mozart’s birthplace, Salzburg, where I caught up with him.

Pintscher, who will succeed current music director Jaime Martín beginning in 2027-28 season, augurs a new era for LACO. The orchestra will have a part-time residence when the Colburn Center opens next fall. The innovative 1,000-seat hall for concert, opera and dance looks to be Frank Gehry’s last music-meant masterpiece certain to usher in a new era for the Grand Avenue cultural district.

It also means a sort of homecoming for LACO, which gave its first concert in 1969 in the then-new Mark Taper Forum, the last of the Music Center’s initial three venues. The orchestra had been founded as an outlet to Hollywood studio musicians, and its first music director was the lively Mozartean, Neville Marriner. LACO’s first nine seasons included a Monday night series when the theater, originally meant to be a chamber music hall, was otherwise dark.

A little odd, perhaps, but the Taper remains until now the most intriguing venue of the peripatetic ensemble that has roamed through the years from Santa Monica to Pasadena, and that helped give the ensemble a distinctive image.

That is still the case. Once the Colburn Center opens, LACO will continue its series at the Wallis as well as at various chamber music programs around town.

Pintscher made his LACO debut in 2016 and already there was talk about him succeeding Jeffry Kahane, at two decades, who was the longest-running and most admired music director. Pintscher then served as its artist-in-residence, during which he oversaw a stab at the avant-garde. Not all LACO patrons were pleased.

It was out of the modernism, if not exactly avant-garde (but close), that Pintscher emerged first as a composer of colorfully complex orchestral and vocal scores that reflect a dizzying technical command and often a deep philosophical concept, sometimes taken from ancient Judaic tradition. His first big break as a conductor was as music director of France’s premiere new music Ensemble Intercontemporain that was founded by Pierre Boulez. But Pintscher also expanded in other directions. At the same time, he guest conducted orchestras in Europe and America with programs, while heavily weighed on the 20th century, that went back to Mozart and Haydn. He developed a surprising reputation as an interpreter of Rachmaninoff and other romantics disliked by modernists.

In 2008, he moved to New York, where he has remained, teaching composition at the Juilliard School and guest conducting widely (including the Los Angeles Philharmonic). Two years ago, he became the unlikely music director of the Kansas City Symphony. It was, he said over coffee at Salzburg hotel terrace, love at first rehearsal. His programming is a kind of wish-list of the new and recent with newly-buffed chestnuts, and it’s worked. His contract has been extended to 2034.

Pintscher, who is 55, says he is not ready to make any grand statements about LACO other than being eager to explore West Coast music and that he loves combining old with everything else. There is always room for Mozart and Haydn, to say nothing for his recent infatuation with Aaron Copland. He also described a mission for collaborative and theatrical projects, noting eager discussions with the Los Angeles Master Chorale (expect a Haydn “Creation” sooner rather than later) and director Peter Sellars.

When asked whether he saw himself as a composer who conducts or a conductor who composes, he simply laughed. But Pintscher did say he had no intention, at least for the present, of conducting his own works, feeling that to be a kind of self-promotion. But his mind can be changed. After two years Kansas City talked him into doing a piece, even if a small one.

Meanwhile, a new opera by Pintscher, “Das Kalte Herz” (The Cold Heart), which had its premiere in Berlin earlier this year, happened to be directed by the Long Beach Opera artistic director and chief creative officer, James Darrah Black. Watch this space.

Pintscher was enticed to the Salzburg Festival as part of this summer’s homage to the ageless Hungarian composer György Kurtág, who turned 100 this year. Pintscher conducted two programs with Vienna’s new music ensemble Klangforum Wien. In one, noting Kurtág’s affinity to Samuel Beckett, Pintscher led a transfixing performance of Morton Feldman’s “For Samuel Beckett” holding an audience prisoner for 50 minutes within a chord that won’t go away.

A mystical aura filled the heat-wave-sweaty Kollegienkirche, a voluminous central Salzburg church. Written on his deathbed in 1988, Feldman‘s piece reflects a final harmonic vision combining mismatched patterning of Turkish rugs and Hebraic chant. It remains super soft throughout and nothing seems to happen. But under the surface, little bits of notes fall precisely in and out of place in a rhythmic structure almost too hard to count.

The world’s complexity and emptiness simultaneously filled the church. Afterward, I walked past the home where Mozart was born. It was late at night. The tourists had turned in. My hotel was nearby, just across the river. But I made a lost, wrong turn.

Pintscher had put a peaceful, Feldman-esque, Twilight Zone spell on Mozart.

Salzburg, Austria — “Optimism doesn’t mean pretending everything is fine,” the Belarusian flutist and political activist Maria Kalesnikava said in this year’s Salzburg Festival keynote address. “It means deciding to step up and act, even in the face of uncertainty.”

Picture-perfect, Mozart-drunk Salzburg can’t pretend everything is fine. Temperatures are rising and normally rainy Salzburg now worries about water shortage and the environmental ravage of over-tourism. The artistically and culturally exceptional six-week Salzburg Festival, which began mid-July with a two-week Ouverture Spirituelle this year titled “miserere” (mercy), is facing its own political and administrative turmoil and uncertainty.

Salzburg’s worries are our worries; its triumphs can be ours as well. Los Angeles and the Salzburg Festival have been cultural and political soulmates for close to a century, beginning when playwright, director and filmmaker Max Reinhardt, who co-founded the Salzburg Festival in 1920, found mercy in L.A. as refuge from the Nazis.

Reinhardt’s star-studded 1934 music-theater production of “Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Hollywood Bowl offered a template for spectacle in the young amphitheater, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s participation crucially reinforced a young orchestra’s early venturesome ambition following an avant-garde Bowl season the previous summer that nearly bankrupted the Bowl. Over the next decade this Salzburger’s influence on Hollywood dramaturgy would become legend.

L.A. has reciprocated by sending our visionaries to Salzburg, where director Peter Sellars and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, for instance, have been given the license and means to inspire a reinvention of musical and theatrical thinking. L.A. arts patrons Betty Freeman and Richard Colburn provided important support for Salzburg during their lifetimes that included commissioning new work.

Gustavo Dudamel conducts Strauss’ ‘Alpine Symphony’ with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Grosses Festspielhaus in Salzburg Aug. 25, 2024.

(Marco Borrelli / Salzburg Festival)

Gustavo Dudamel, L.A. Phil’s optimist these 17 seasons, has long been a Salzburg regular as well, and he arrived last week just in time to take up Kalesnikava’s challenge. Her proclamation of optimism comes on the heels of her having been released in December from a brutal Belarusian prison for supporting an opposition candidate running against the country’s authoritarian leader.

In Dudamel’s case, his life has been turned around by the recent earthquakes that devastated Venezuela just two weeks after his last concerts in Walt Disney Concert Hall as L.A. Phil music and artistic director. His activities this summer now revolve around partnering with the United Nations Development Program to gather global support for Venezuela’s recovery, which is estimated at $6.7 billion.

Although little noted, Dudamel’s buoyant World Cup halftime appearance with 20 members of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and 20 from the New York Philharmonic was as a FIFA fundraiser supporting children affected by global crises, in this case earthquake relief in Venezuela. Dudamel has further turned his last Hollywood Bowl program as L.A. Phil music director into a benefit on Aug. 23.

Prophetically, Dudamel had months ago been invited to close this summer’s Ouverture Spirituelle by leading the Vienna Philharmonic in Mahler’s Second Symphony, known as the “Resurrection.” One way to think about Mahler’s extravagant 90-minute exercise in his search for life’s meaning is as an exercise in attaining optimism in the face of tragedy.

“Rise again, yes, you shall rise again,” Mahler extols in a final ecstatic climax, and it is with the “Resurrection,” which includes chorus and a pair of vocal soloists, that Dudamel began his “Gracias Gustavo” L.A. Phil season last fall. Raising roof, the message was clear: optimism is the native language of Walt Disney Concert Hall.

In Salzburg, where Dudamel’s two Vienna Philharmonic performances were dedicated to the people of Venezuela, those lines took on obvious new meaning. Earlier in the day, Dudamel gave a public talk with a lively German journalist, Marco Frei, in which he described himself as a “resurrectionist” in more ways than one.

The symphony has been a been a musical and spiritual guide for him since his boyhood. He became so excited about a new sense of freedom he feels in the second movement that he leaned back in his chair and kicked his white sneakers in the air.

After the talk, I walked with Dudamel back to his hotel as he displayed a different, more solemn passion describing the toll the earthquakes have taken on El Sistema, the Venezuelan youth program that has been behind his educational activism in L.A.

“At least 140 members of the El Sistema staff and educators were killed or are unaccounted for,” Dudamel said, and that’s not counting what may have happened to a great many children and their families. But remarkably, Dudamel noted, in places where few structures remain, the nucleos (the small El Sistema community schools) are surprisingly still standing. They have become centers for food, aid and shelter.

In Salzburg, Dudamel indulged the Vienna Philharmonic’s incomparable lushness, those plush strings, glowing winds, golden brass, voluminous timpani. The symphony received mixed reviews, with critics complaining of a lack of transparency, argument and depth. Had they been in Disney Hall, they would have had it all.

But here Dudamel became more simply an architect of awe, unfazed by Mahlerian uncertainty as he worked his way to an inevitable cosmic grandeur unfazed by uncertainty. An enthralled audience left opening its collective wallets. Ushers stood at all the exits of Great Festival Hall with baskets for donations for Venezuela. I did not see a single member of the audience leave without throwing in a bill or several.

Dudamel’s “Resurrection” might also be read as a message from L.A. to Salzburg. In the spring the festival board dismissed its artistic director of the past decade, Markus Hinterhäuser, saying there is a difference in vision. Hinterhäuser’s penetrating and uncompromising vision is what has made the modern festival matter. Hinterhäuser has implied political meddling.

It is a huge festival, with more than 200 performances. Last year’s audience exceeded 200,000, with visitors from 88 countries. The arts as a vehicle for coming together can be cliché. In Salzburg, sharing becomes essence, not the kind of narcissism that appears to be adopted by our upcoming LA28 cultural Olympiad, in which Angelenos are invited to submit entrees that show off our goods rather than a cultural exchange.

Over 100 artists have protested Hinterhäuser’s removal, including two Nobel Prize laureates. Hinterhäuser is also an insightful pianist, and he joined baritone Matthias Goerne in a chilling performance of Schubert’s existential song cycle, “Winterreise.” Hinterhäuser got thunderous ovations.

Salzburg’s future is anyone’s guess, but even with Hinterhäuser on the sidelines, this summer is still his festival, meaningful as ever.

A new production of “Carmen” could not be darker, nor more brilliant. It is the latest project of conductor Teodor Currentzis, who has worked extensively with Peter Sellars in Salzburg and elsewhere, and who brings electricity to every moment with his Utopia Orchestra and Choir. Argentine choreographer Gabriela Carrizo makes her debut directing opera and utilizes her alarmingly vibrant Belgian dance company, Peeping Tom. Performing in a vast empty space, two gripping singers — Asmik Grigorian plays an understated Carmen as a survivor in a hostile society, while Jonathan Teltelman’s Don José is unable to cope with that society — turn Bizet’s opera into revelatory existential theater in which survival is toleration.

A scene on the moon in director Yuval Sharon’s magical new production of Janacek’s neglected opera “The Excursions of Mr. Broucek to the Moon and the 15th Century” at the Bregenz Festival.

(Daniel Ammann / Bregenz Festival)

Something similar happens in “Faust, Part 1,” in which the actors spend the entire four hours in a new production by German director Ulrich Rasche walking against the direction of of a revolving disc. To remain in front of the audience, they must remain in motion. They’re dressed in modern business attire, but as they bare their souls, they bare their torsos as they step against forces that prevent progress. The backdrop is brightly illumined screens that hurt your eyes.

This, however, can serve as a reminder of a “Faust” staged by Reinhardt at the Pilgrimage Theater (now John Anson Ford Theater) when it was designed to look like the gates of ancient Jerusalem in 1935. Practically all of Hollywood celebrity showed up for what was the theatrical event of the season.

I asked Lukas Crepaz, who directs the Salzburg Festival’s administrative and business operations, whether it would be possible and whether there still is time for the Salzburg and L.A. to collaboration on an opera production. He said yes, if funding could be found. In fact, the L.A. Phil will mount in February “One Morning Turns Into an Eternity,” a Salonen/Sellars essay in intensity from Salzburg last summer.

Another option: The Bregenz Festival, also in Austria, has just staged a new production by Yuval Sharon of Janacek’s little-known opera, “The Excursions of Mr. Broucek to the Moon and the 15th Century.”

Sharon — who was responsible for the fabulous excursions of his L.A. experimental company, the Industry — supplies his characteristic wit, imagination and insight into a hard-to-please opera about a beer-besotted philistine landlord, who comes to no good in his drunken dreams of going to the moon and back in history, as he does as an angry old man stumbling home from the bar or sitting watching TV (Sharon’s invention).

L.A. optimism may matter more to Austria this summer than it does to L.A. We have two years to step up and act, even in the face of uncertainty.

Growing up, filmmaker Fernando Eimbcke didn’t get to watch the scene in “The Breakfast Club” where the teenage characters smoke marijuana. That moment was removed from the VHS copy of the 1980s classic he’d rented because of strict censorship in Mexico at the time.

Drug use or not, that John Hughes movie, as well “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” impacted him profoundly. “Those were movies that spoke to young people, and in Mexico there wasn’t much cinema aimed at teens,” Eimbcke tells me in Spanish on a video call from Mexico City.

From his indie trench, Eimbcke, 55, has tried to fill that void in Mexican cinema — starting with his 2004 acclaimed debut “Temporada de patos” (Duck Season), about two teen boys spending a day without adult supervision. Since then, in films like “Lake Tahoe” (2008) or “Club Sandwich” (2013), the woes of adolescence have dominated his purview.

With “Olmo,” in theaters Friday, Eimbcke has adapted his career-long interest on the youth’s preoccupations to a story on this side of the Mexico-U.S. border for the first time.

Set and filmed on location in Las Cruces, N.M., his bilingual coming-of-age dramedy follows the titular Olmo (played by Aivan Uttapa), a charismatic Mexican American 14-year-old boy in the 1970s, whose bedridden immigrant father requires around-the-clock care.

The tightly written and humorously bittersweet narrative (co-penned by Eimbcke and Vanesa Garnica) unfolds over the course of a fateful Saturday. Nina Sandoval (Melanie Frometa), Olmo’s crush, invites him and his boot-wearing best friend Miguel (Diego Olmedo) to a party, with the condition that they bring a stereo. But Olmo has also been tasked with looking after dad Nestor (Gustavo Sánchez Parra), while his mother works.

Olmo must decide between fulfilling his duty or pursuing his age-appropriate impulse for fun.

Fernando Eimbcke’s new coming-of-age dramedy “Olmo” follows a charismatic Chicano teen in 1970s New Mexico.

(Andrew Bohn / Olma 2023 LLC)

It was during the six years that Eimbcke lived in Germany that Plan B, the American production company behind titles like “Moonlight,” reached out with an idea for him to write a screenplay about a Mexican American character. That project didn’t come to fruition, but Eimbcke took advantage of their initial interest to create his own story.

Eimbcke had long been interested in stories of migration, and in the dynamics that occur within “bicultural” families. His experience living abroad heightened this curiosity.

“I’m surprised to see the fear that governments and society have regarding migration today. It’s one of the best things that can happen to a culture,” Eimbcke says. “Everyone is talking about Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey,’ and the story of Odysseus is a story of migration.”

Among the key inspirations that shaped how Eimbcke and Garnica (who have been friends since they were 14 years old) conceived “Olmo” were Dominican American author Junot Díaz’s work, as well as Kevin Bubriski’s photography book “The New Mexicans: 1981-83.”

“He photographed Mexican Americans in the 1980s in New Mexico, and that gave us many ideas,” he says. “He has some incredible, truly beautiful photos of Mexican Americans.”

While scouting locations in New Mexico, the production interacted with local Latino families. In those households, Eimbcke witnessed immigrant parents speaking Spanish to their children who replied to them in English. Similar exchanges happen in “Olmo.”

“If communication is already difficult within a family when everyone speaks the same language, the idea of a family speaking two languages struck me as absolutely fascinating. Rather than an obstacle, I saw it as an opportunity to explore their relationship,” he explains. “Language isn’t always that important. When Olmo and Néstor argue over the stereo, you never really know if they actually understand each other through words or not.”

The complex intricacies of language manifested on Eimbcke’s first bilingual set.

During a scene where Olmo and Miguel finally fix the stereo and begin dancing, Eimbcke wanted a more rambunctious reaction. He started yelling, “More caos. More caos.” The assistant director looked puzzled, thinking the director was asking for “cows.” Eimbcke meant “chaos,” but pronounced it Spanish, which sounds like the farm animal in English.

“It was very difficult for me, because my English is far from perfect, it’s actually quite imperfect,” Eimbcke says sincerely.

For Uttapa, 17, these interactions seemed authentic; he is a second-generation Mexican American whose grandmother came to the U.S. from Mexico, while his mother was born here.

“My grandma speaks fluent Spanish, and she talks to me, my brothers, and my sister in Spanish, and we answer in English,” says Uttapa on Zoom. “That dynamic and that detail in the movie really did make it real to me.”

Fernando Eimbcke’s new coming-of-age dramedy “Olmo” follows a charismatic Chicano teen in 1970s New Mexico.

(Andrew Bohn / Olma 2023 LLC )

Based in Las Vegas, the fresh-faced Uttapa started acting at 12. He shared his interest in performing with his parents, who enrolled him with acting coach Frank Parillo. “I remember telling my mom, ‘I just want to entertain. I just want to be relatable and make an impact on people.’ If you can impact one person, then it pretty much is worth it,” he says.

Eimbcke cast him solely based on his self-tape after a long search for the right actor to become Olmo, primarily in Los Angeles and New York.

Since shooting “Olmo” when he was 14, Uttapa has appeared in the latest season of the hit medical drama “The Pitt,” playing Grady Barnhill, who has an asthma attack, in two episodes. Still, playing Olmo remains the highlight of his short but burgeoning career.

“I’ve gotten some auditions here and there about Mexican American or Latino characters, but if I’m being honest, none of them really clicked to me as much as it did with Olmo. I really felt a connection with the character,” Uttapa notes.

That Eimbcke set “Olmo” in the ’70s — based on his memories of watching “Saturday Night Fever” as a child and being enamored by disco music — helped Uttapa connect with the character. At several points in their adventure, Olmo and Miguel break out their best dance moves.

His mother, Uttapa says, thinks of him as an “old soul,” given his eclectic taste in music, from Elvis Presley and Del Shannon to AC/DC and Led Zeppelin.

“I was already familiar with cumbia, because my mom would always teach me,” Uttapa says. “The disco dancing wasn’t really that hard for me because I grew up loving ’70s music, so I’d always dance in my room to it. And being able to show it on screen was really special.”

Eimbcke says he has no secret technique to obtain wonderful performances from his teen stars; the only strategy that works is to lean into fun. “Teenagers are very willing to play. They are willing to take risks,” the director adds. “And I always love combining two schools of acting: the professional and the nonprofessional.” The actors who play Olmo’s parents, Gustavo Sánchez Parra and Andrea Suárez Paz, are seasoned Mexican thespians.

And while Eimbcke may very well be the Mexican John Hughes, there are certainly uniquely Mexican, and perhaps unexpected, references that were foundational for him as an artist.

“I also grew up watching a lot of telenovelas. They were really formative for me, specifically, the telenovelas on the local Channel 2,” Eimbcke confesses. “I remember there was one I followed religiously called ‘Quinceañera,’ starring Thalia. I loved it.”

This time, it’s personal for Eric Goode.

The director’s first two docuseries — “Tiger King” and “Chimp Crazy” — were smash hits about larger-than-life characters engaging in questionable and illegal activity surrounding the care and ownership of animals. Both had an underlying conservation message but drew viewers in with the colorful and chaotic worlds they depicted.

Goode’s third, “Monsters of God,” premiering Thursday on HBO, is both a direct descendant and forges a new path. While it also features a hugely entertaining menagerie of criminals, who speak frankly about many of their illegal acts and how much they dislike each other, “Monsters” is largely a historical look at reptile smuggling going back more than half a century — unlike the contemporaneous stories in “Tiger King” and “Chimp Crazy.”

Goode had opportunities to bring in current events — one dealer was rearrested shortly after being filmed and there were major smuggling arrests in California in recent years — but realized he couldn’t keep piling on more stories. “We’re just setting the tone of this multibillion-dollar reptile-smuggling industry that you’ve probably never heard of,” says Goode’s producing partner Jeremy McBride.

But the other difference is that Goode has spent his entire life immersed in the world of reptiles, starting long before he even contemplated making a documentary. Goode had a pet tortoise when he was 6 and slept with a tegu lizard in his bed as a teen. He also saw the industry underbelly up close and personal. “In the ’70s and ’80s, I even bought reptiles from some of the very people that I chronicle in ’Monsters of God,’” he says.

“I had personal connections in these worlds, which helped us go much deeper than in my other stories,” he says. “I don’t know if it’ll be anywhere near as successful, but in terms of investigative journalism, we went much further.”

An archival photo of director Eric Goode with a southwestern pond turtle. In addition to filmmaking, he created the Turtle Conservancy in Ojai.

(A24 / Goode Films / HBO)

(He also acknowledges that his earlier series could tilt toward sensationalism and be exploitative. “I was naive when I started all this and learned a lot from ‘Tiger King,’” he says, adding that there was internal friction about what direction to go with the material. “Now we’ve refined the like-mindedness of what we were trying to do.”)

He credits his mother with opening his eyes to the larger issues when he was younger. “She struggled with me keeping things in captivity and would say, ‘You can’t play God, these animals belong in the wild.’”

That said, while he is proud the Big Cat Public Safety Act passed in the aftermath of “Tiger King” and believes people should be banned from raising chimps at home, he views reptiles differently. “Kids should be able to have a bearded dragon or a leopard gecko or ball python. It nurtures a love for nature and for reptiles,” he says, adding that he’s focused more on the harm caused by smuggling.

Despite his love of animals and a high school obsession with making Super 8 film, Goode was not, for much of his life, a likely candidate to be directing these documentaries. “My whole trajectory doesn’t make a lot of sense on paper,” he acknowledges.

After attending the School of Arts and Sciences, which his father founded in Marin County, Goode moved to New York. He worked as a production assistant on big films. “I hated it,” he recalls. “I hated being a cog in a wheel, just moving things around.” (Today, even as his productions have grown more elaborate, he still goes into the field with a small team. “I like that intimacy.”) He also went to art school but was largely bored there.

“I saw the creative energy in New York in the nightlife there,” he says. So while Goode was working as an artist, he also created Area, one of the city’s biggest nightclubs of the 1980s, where he brought in collaborators like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, David Hockney and Kenny Scharf, with rotating themes like a carnival or natural history (which featured snakes and lizards). “Everyone came from somewhere else or were misfits and I was bringing in these interesting characters, which is very similar to what I’m doing in these films,” he says. “I like lifting up the rocks and finding the eccentrics out there.”

Area’s success led to a big career in nightclubs, restaurants and hotels. Then 20 years ago, he took his profits, along with his passion for reptiles, and created the Turtle Conservancy in Ojai. “I realized that the two most endangered groups of vertebrates in the world were primates and turtles,” he says, adding that nearly half of the smuggled animals seized at LAX in the last three years were turtles. When officials recently confiscated 350 turtles there, they brought them to the conservancy to care for them. “I’m going to go feed them after this interview,” Goode says.

The conservancy now has a worldwide reach in protecting turtles and their habitats and has become a leader in trying to stave off extinction for the ploughshare tortoise, whose fate is a major storyline in “Monsters of God.”

Tom Crutchfield, one of the reptile smugglers featured in the docuseries, with a monitor lizard in a photo taken circa 1970s.

(Photograph by Bill Love. Courtesy of Goode Films / HBO)

As filming was finishing, the conservancy became home to the first ploughshare births in captivity. “It was such a coincidence but really meaningful,” McBride says. “It anchors the film’s purpose and gives a little bit of hope in what otherwise feels bleak.”

This docuseries has been in the works for nearly 20 years, since Goode read Brian Christy’s “The Lizard King” in 2008 and tried to option it. “I even filmed him badly back then — the sound was terrible and the camera fell off the tripod during the interview,” he recalls. (Christy appears in the docuseries.)

In 2014, he finally got started but it was always on and off again as other projects got in the way. In “Tiger King,” Goode shows he’s first drawn to that story when he sees a guy with a snow leopard in his van, which happens while he’s filming Tom Crutchfield, one of America’s most notorious reptile smugglers. “But while I was making these other stories, I was always opportunistically filming reptile people,” he says, adding that they interviewed not only the criminals but federal law enforcement and others, seeking a broader scope than his previous films. “It was critical for us to get all sides of the story. Part of the reason it took so long was it sometimes took years to get someone to agree to talk.”

McBride says they finished with 1,500 hours of footage and interviews with a hundred different people, including the most notorious smugglers (some of whom were also murderers and drug dealers) and the law enforcement officials who dedicated years of their life undercover to catch them.

It’s a true crime story on some level but Goode says the series is more layered and complex than his previous projects.

“I don’t want people to think we’re the animal police,” Goode says. “Law enforcement has good intentions but they sometimes backfire with unintended consequences. Often, the more laws you create to prevent people from having a reptile, the more they want them. But sometimes prohibition does work.” (In Asia’s wet markets, the most endangered animals sell for more money with their protected status used as a marketing tool.)

“Hopefully, people come away recognizing that we have to think about doing things differently than maintaining the status quo, because a lot of what we’re doing is not working,” Goode says. “It’s a messy story without easy answers.”

BRITISH filmmaker Justin Hardy, who directed the sequel to his dad’s horror classic The Wicker Man, has died aged 61.

The director’s family said Hardy died on Friday – just weeks before his latest film premiered – after suffering a heart attack.

In a statement the grieving family said: “Our family is devastated to share that Justin Hardy passed away last night.

“He was so full of life right to the end, and incredibly energised to be working towards premiering his latest film this month.

“We are all so proud of him and heartbroken he won’t be with us at his premiere.

“He was a man of family, of boundless creativity, and of devotion for everyone he held dear.”

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Hardy studied history at Oxford University before going on to study film in Bournemouth and scriptwriting in California.

During his career Hardy directed series and films including The Bill, Princes In The Tower, Trafalgar Battle Surgeon, The Relief Of Belsen, Spanish Flu: The Forgotten Fallen and London’s Burning.

He was also nominated for an Emmy and a Bafta, and in recent years had been teaching screenwriting at University College London.

His brother, Dominic Hardy, said Justin would be remembered as someone “with an incredible appetite for life.”

In 2024 the brothers released the documentary Children Of The Wicker Man.

It covered their complicated relationship with their dad’s hit film, which initially bombed at the box office before becoming a cult classic.

Filming of The Wicker Man saw dad Robin sacrifice his family life for a film that performed poorly initially.

Before his death aged 86 in 2016 the legendary director of The Wicker Man – Robin Hardy – spoke publicly about his desire to complete trilogy after he released The Wicker Tree in 2011.

After he died, the brothers were contacted and asked about plans for the third film, which Dominic said they then saw as the “impetus to close the chapter on the films.”

The brothers then decided to wrap up their father’s film trilogy.

Released this month, Wrath Of The Gods was inspired by a concept discovered in a recently unearthed script written by Robin and stars Game of Thrones’ Francis Magee and Norwegian actress Christiane Schaldemose.

Dominic: “I really love writing projects like this and if I could write things like this for the rest of my career, that would be great.’”

Justin Hardy is survived by his wife Larissa, and children Sam, Ludo, Nico and Summer.

Wrath Of The Gods will premiere at FrightFest in Leicester Square on August 28.

To know Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s work is to feel his love for danger.

Inexplicable malevolence, dread-filled moods and worrisome behavior haunt his genre-speckled oeuvre, from 1997’s unnerving serial-killer freak-out “Cure” through his vengeance-fueled internet cautionary tale “Cloud” from two years ago.

“What makes for good movies is a plot driven forward progressively through things that actively happen,” the 71-year-old director says recently over Zoom from his home in Tokyo, using a translator. “Audiences need to be drawn to this idea of: What will happen next?”

His fans don’t necessarily get an explanation for the unease Kurosawa sometimes generates, but it’s part of the draw. That mindset has made him a horror maestro for over three decades. Outside that genre, he enjoys a reputation for being an acutely psychological chronicler of contemporary anxieties, as in his award-winning 2008 drama of job loss and family secrets, “Tokyo Sonata.”

Now, though, Kurosawa has not only made his first film set prior to Japan’s modernizing Meiji era — a category of feudal period dramas known as jidaigeki — but an old-fashioned murder mystery to boot, complete with solutions to satisfy the most die-hard Agatha Christie reader.

Masahiro Motoki in the movie “The Samurai and the Prisoner.”

(Janus Films)

“The Samurai and the Prisoner,” which Kurosawa adapted from Honobu Yonezawa’s acclaimed 2021 novel (it recently premiered at Cannes), unfolds during the fractured Sengoku period in the 16th century, the same era as one of his favorite jidaigekis, “Throne of Blood,” directed by his unrelated namesake, Akira Kurosawa. In a besieged mountainside castle, rebellious Lord Murashige (Masahiro Motoki), trying to consolidate disparate clans of warriors, engages in a battle of wills with his nemesis’ emissary, Kanbei (Masaki Suda), whom he’s imprisoned. But when a succession of murders threatens to undermine his leadership, Murashige turns to his crafty hostage for help.

The result, broken up into seasons and marked by an impending sense of doom, is a multipart puzzle box as intricately folded and tucked as the traditional clothing on display. But it’s also a savvy, deliberative portrait of leadership in a fractured time, with a unique takeaway: Knowing oneself is as essential to the job as knowing who one’s friends and enemies are.

Kurosawa had always wanted to make a jidaigeki — the furthest he’d ever gone into the past was his World War II film “Wife of a Spy” — and yet creating one from scratch sounded too difficult and expensive. But the book’s scenario of a put-upon samurai leader compelled to unravel a series of puzzles to keep his castle’s unity appealed to his taste in a particular crime-solver: someone representing a wider system of responsibility and codes, rather than the classic American private eye.

“I’m drawn to police detectives, not private detectives,” he says, pointing to the duty-bound, badge-wearing protagonist in “Cure,” a Criterion-anointed classic now held in the same pantheon of serial killer tales as “Seven” and “Manhunter.”

“Police are part of an organization, with orders from above that make them responsible for figuring out the crime. If they could, they’d love to live their life peacefully without conflict, but they can’t because of their profession.” He considers his disinterest in gumshoes working on their own a quintessentially Japanese perspective. “Why try to solve a mystery and in the process end up in all these horrible situations, when you can just quit?” he asks with a wry smile.

Masaki Suda in the movie “The Samurai and the Prisoner.”

(Janus Films)

In “Samurai,” Murashige hews closer to someone overwhelmed by responsibility. Says Kurosawa, “Murashige is neither a police or private detective. It’s that he is in a minor position of power, but to maintain order, he must let go of that power to solve the mystery. It’s not curiosity leading him. The chain of mysteries is a trial he must go through.”

It’s a gauntlet made thornier whenever Murashige, who believes in mercy over violence, engages with Kanbei, chained in a dungeon but with a dangerous mind nonetheless. “In that era, hierarchy was incredibly important, very visible,” says Kurosawa. “If one person is standing, the rest must be kneeling. With Kanbei and Murashige, there is always a shifting of the power, and when they begin to see eye to eye, suddenly we don’t know who holds the power.”

To play the wily Kanbei, Kurosawa enlisted his young “Cloud” star Suda, whom he calls a genius. Directing Suda was its own destabilizing experience, he says.

“He had an almost demonic, devil-like quality and it was hard to tell if the lines he was saying as Kanbei were truths for the character or complete lies — or if he didn’t know,” recalls Kurosawa. “It was mesmerizing to me, his words becoming something that we increasingly can’t trust.”

His interest in Murashige, meanwhile, a real-life tactician fictionalized here as an under-the-gun leader presented with myriad problems, poses the question: Did Kurosawa make a film about directing films? “I never thought about that, but that might be,” he considers. “I’m constantly having to ask things of people, ordering people around, sometimes negotiating. But filmmaking is something I love. There are times when I wish I could escape those scenarios, but I can’t. I’m always held back by that sense of responsibility. That’s how I’ve been working for decades. It’s the first time I’m probably saying that out loud, but the various contradictions I hold within myself as director are reflected in Akira Murashige.”

Yuriko Yoshitaka, left, and Masahiro Motoki in the movie “The Samural and the Prisoner.”

(Janus Films)

Kurosawa is a late bloomer as an auteur. His breakthrough, “Cure,” hit Japanese theaters when he was 42. But he’d been directing features since 1983, first, Japan’s homeground adult movies called “pink films,” then, in the 1990s, direct-to-video yakuza gangster films known as “V-cinema.” (That’s “V” as in video.)

“It was a good training ground,” he remembers. “They had to be under 90 minutes, had limited shoot days, had to use certain actors, had to have scenes with yakuza. I learned that when you keep to the constraints you’re given, there’s also a kind of freedom. I had no personal interest in yakuza but I had to think: What’s the most unique yakuza I could come up with?”

With V-cinema behind him, Kurosawa came to exemplify the J-horror phenomenon with 2001’s “Pulse,” an ultra-disturbing, early tech apocalypse about online ghosts that was infamously bought by Harvey Weinstein and held from American release for years so it could be remade. Moving on from the trauma of his Hollywood flirtation, he’d distinguish himself with festival awards and a varied career.

But Kurosawa isn’t exactly precious about his filmography. “If possible, I’d love to forget all of my past works and go forward with new films with a completely fresh perspective,” he says. “However, I realize that often I’m repeating past themes. I think of this as something that’s very unfortunate.”

That doesn’t mean he won’t ever return to the horror genre, which he still likes and tries to keep up with. “I have a feeling viewers wouldn’t find scary what I find scary,” he worries, with a smile. “But it excites me that young directors are exploring the genre’s possibilities.”

Kurosawa can sound philosophical about the challenge each new film represents. Making one means coming from “a place of zero, from nothing.” As he puts it, “What one wants to do is a pretty unstable concept. You could want something today and not tomorrow. So instead of chasing that, I should be considering: What is correct?”

There is a professorial tone to Kurosawa. He taught for 18 years at Tokyo University of the Arts, including to future Oscar winner Ryusuke Hamaguchi (“Drive My Car”).

“I’ve probably said something similar to my students,” he acknowledges, adding that he and Hamaguchi were closer to likeminded friends than to student-teacher. “But in filmmaking, he never listened to a single thing I said. I would tell him to make adjustments and he was always concrete in what he wanted to do. And I thought that was very admirable.”

Now, they’re festival peers — both had films at Cannes this year — and Kurosawa’s cinematographer on “Samurai” was Sasaki Yasuyuki, who had previously worked with Hamaguchi. Kurosawa takes the opportunity for a friendly jab. “I thought, ‘I’m going to steal him away from Hamaguchi.’ And I was successful!”

Now, when he meets younger fans and budding filmmakers, their enthusiasm excites him, though it seems to cause him some consternation. Apparently, a lot of people pirate his films so they can be completists. “They tell me this happily,” he says. “I have mixed feelings about this, because they shouldn’t be doing that, but there’s a sparkle in their eye, and I have to accept they really wanted to see my films. So while carrying these complex feelings, I tell them, ‘Thank you.’”

Kurosawa is also of two minds regarding what he frequently hears from Japanese film students, that their goal is getting into top festivals, winning awards and securing global recognition.

“Maybe they need to interrogate what’s in front of them more closely,” he says. “I question it a bit.” He pauses. “I want to say, ‘Have you thought about making a 90-minute yakuza film first?’”

The official trailer for the film adaptation of the African fantasy novel “Children of Blood and Bone” is making a splash online, and the director just revealed that she almost didn’t make the film.

Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood (“The Woman King”), the film stars a slew of A-list actors including Regina King, Damson Idris, Cynthia Erivo, Amandla Stenberg, Idris Elba, Tosin Cole, Viola Davis, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Lashana Lynch and Thuso Mbedu.

The adaptation of the first installment of author Tomi Adeyemi’s bestselling “Legacy of Orïsha” fantasy trilogy is slated to hit theaters Jan. 15. The story follows Zélie Adebola, a courageous young woman with dormant magical abilities who has drawn the attention of tyrannical King Saran, the ruler of the kingdom of Orïsha, a fictional country in an alternative precolonial Nigeria inhabited by two distinct ethnic groups: divîners (inherently magical people who have had their magic stolen by King Saran) and the non-magical kosidán.

On Monday, Paramount held a “Children of Blood and Bone” trailer launch event at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City. In a discussion moderated by “Master of None” actor Lena Waithe, Prince-Bythewood and the cast talked about the making and almost-not-making of the film.

According to Prince-Bythewood, helming “The Woman King” felt like the thing she’d been working toward her entire career. “And then this came and it was something even bigger and in a space that we hadn’t got to see ourselves in, which was big epic fantasy,” she said. “And as much as I needed a little rest, I couldn’t say no. And the beauty of this is that I was actually offered this film two different times over the last seven years. And both times I turned it down.”

Prince-Bythewood admitted that she wasn’t emotionally ready to hop on board and that she didn’t know how to make an epic fantasy film yet. “But there was something about this third time when they came to me,” she said.

“I still said, ‘I already turned it down so you’re wasting your time.’” She continued that she had realized, in retrospect, that the third offer came when it was supposed to come. Plus, with “The Woman King” under her belt, now she knew how to make the movie.

“There was something so deep and guttural about my connection this time when I read it,” she said. “I felt so connected to this young hero who’s fighting to find her purpose. There is so much going on in the world right now, and there’s so many themes within this that speak to that.”

Prince-Bythewood gushed about loving the book, the story and the characters. “Now how do I actualize it? How do I make it a film? And that’s the exciting and scary part. How do we make magic feel cultural?”

The director said her big-screen adaptation was “beautifully inspired by Nigeria and also inclusive of the whole diaspora. We wanted all of us to be able to see ourselves within this, just our complete and utter humanity, all the beautiful hues.”

The remark is notable in light of behind-the-scenes drama that has unfolded over the last year and a half. Prince-Bythewood co-wrote the script with Adeyemi, but the author recently distanced herself from the book-to-screen project and said she would not see the film after a casting controversy involving Stenberg, who portrays Princess Amari in the film.

In February 2025, Stenberg posted a since-deleted nine-minute TikTok addressing backlash that suggested colorism was at play when she landed the gig. She told followers that Adeyemi had given the actor her blessing when cast as the series’ princess.

“I am four months into training for ‘Children of Blood and Bone’ and I am getting my ass whooped,” Stenberg joked in the video, per BET.

“I had the opportunity to meet Tomi, the novelist, for the first time. … And she goes, ‘Amandla, I want you to know that when you were a little girl and you were cast as Rue in ‘The Hunger Games,’ and people said that Rue’s death wouldn’t be as sad because you’re a Black girl — that inspired me to write this series so that Black girls like you and Black girls of all shades could have a story written about them.’”

Shortly after Stenberg said Adeyemi gave the actor her blessing, they had a text exchange that hinted at a change of heart or different story entirely.

This month, the Nigerian American author posted a since-deleted video on TikTok addressing fans who had been — according to her — asking her the same question, “Why don’t you post about the adaptation of your first film adaptation anymore?”

“There is a reason I will not post anything about the adaptation of my work,” the author wrote in what appeared to be screenshots of a group chat. “I have not seen the film, and I will not watch it.”

Alongside the screenshots of her comments in the group chat, she shared a February 2025 exchange with Stenberg. Adeyemi shared only her final message to the actor, which read, “Do not ever use my name in an interview or video again. Do not text me. Do not call me.” That exchange is followed by a notification that she blocked Stenberg.

The message from Stenberg that preceded Adeyemi’s reply was not shown in full.

July 28 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate voted 51-47 along party lines Tuesday evening to confirm Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence, succeeding Bill Pulte.

The vote comes one day after lawmakers voted to advance Clayton’s nomination with no Democrats voting to approve.

After the vote Tuesday, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that he is skeptical of Clayton in the role.

“I came away from his confirmation process with serious reservations about whether he would be willing to stand up to political pressure when it matters most,” Warner said. “Now that he has been confirmed, I sincerely hope he proves those concerned unfounded, because the intelligence community deserves steadier leadership than it has received in recent months.”

Bill Pulte, the acting director, announced Tuesday on social media that he had executed “a fifth and near-final round of TERMINATIONS” that mark a 30% staff reduction during his time in the office.

On July 15, Democrats in the Senate questioned Clayton, a U.S. attorney, on Trump’s allegations that he won the 2020 election. Clayton wouldn’t say that former President Joe Biden won the election, but would say that he was “certified” as president. Clayton said he is not an election denier.

“You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election, but you ask to lead America’s intelligence community,” Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., said the confirmation hearing. “Isn’t it humiliating to be unable to answer this question, to have to indulge the president’s delusions?

President Donald Trump announced Clayton as his nominee in June as senators on both sides of the aisle protested the placement of Pulte. Pulte runs the Federal Housing Finance Agency and has referred four of Trump’s perceived enemies for prosecution on allegations of mortgage fraud.

Democrats in the House wouldn’t renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a bill that would have extended warrantless spy powers rules, in retaliation for Pulte being named for the position. It’s unclear if the Senate will vote to extend FISA once Clayton is approved.

The House will not be back in session until September.

Tulsi Gabbard resigned from the ODNI in May.

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

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

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

Smithsonian officials declined to comment on Trump’s order.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cooper writes for the Associated Press.

July 23 (UPI) — A Senate committee delayed a vote on the Trump administration’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director nominee, Erica Schwartz, because enough members were not present.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, was absent from the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions meeting on Thursday because of a family emergency, which led committee chair Bill Cassidy, R-La., to postpone the vote, Politico reported.

Cassidy also said Thursday that he decided to vote for Schwartz because of a “good faith action” the CDC reportedly made to its website earlier in the day.

The action included changing language on its website about the lack of an association between vaccines and autism, which had been ordered changed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last year.

Cassidy asked detailed questions during her nomination hearing about vaccines and how the agency, which has had a full-time director for just one month since President Donald Trump re-entered the White House, would restore confidence in its public health mission, The Hill reported.

“I’m confident that she knows what she’s doing and will stand against those who do not,” Cassidy said during the meeting.

“If confirmed, I look forward to working with Dr. Schwartz to protect children’s health and regain trust in the CDC,” he said.

“There’s more to do to repair the damage that has been done to the U.S. public health response, but this is a start,” the Louisiana Republican added.

Even with Cassidy deciding to vote for Schwartz, Republicans on the committee would have needed a Democrat or Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who caucuses with the Democrats, to vote in favor.

Sanders ended that possibility when he expressed respect for Schwartz’s career but said that he was concerned she would not be able to hold off some of the controversial changes Kennedy has either proposed or forced on the agency.

“I will be voting against Dr. Schwartz because we need people in this country who are going to stand up, protect the American people and I don’t think you can see that right now with Secretary Kennedy in his position,” Sanders said.

The HELP committee’s next executive session is scheduled for July 30, which is also the next time it will consider nominations, making it the next opportunity for Schwartz’s nomination to come up for a vote.

The committee also put off a vote on Sean Kaufman, who is nominated to lead the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, because Republicans did not have enough votes to forward the nomination to the full Senate.

WASHINGTON — President Trump used a rare prime-time address Thursday night to renew his attacks on the security of U.S. elections, telling Americans that the nation’s voting system is “so broken” that “no one can possibly defend it,” an unprecedented effort by a sitting president to undermine public confidence in domestic elections.

Many of the claims he made, which echo those he made after he lost the 2020 election, have been debunked by investigations, audits and court proceedings. Trump did not claim that vote counts were changed or election systems were hacked, and his warnings that the nation’s elections could be vulnerable to foreign influence have long been made by members of both parties.

But the president amplified those claims and others in an effort to cast fresh doubt over what he said was a “stolen” and “rigged” election and renew calls to pass a federal voting law ahead of the November election.

“Addressing this crisis of elections security demands that Congress will pass the SAVE America Act,” Trump said. “How easy is that to do? Unless you want to cheat.”

Trump said he directed the White House to release a tranche of heavily redacted documents that purport to show “vulnerabilities” in the nation’s voting system, with the goal of “correcting them very, very quickly.”

The 26-minute address to the nation — a platform traditionally reserved for rare moments of national importance — was the latest effort by Trump to attempt to assert more federal control over state elections.

Major broadcast networks declined to air Trump’s speech in full, instead reporting on it. Trump complained about NBC and ABC as he spoke, saying they should lose their broadcasting licenses. He falsely claimed that “they and others in the media are part of a plot” to “continue this fraud.”

In his remarks, Trump alleged China carried out what is believed to be the “largest compromise of election data history” starting during the 2020 election cycle and claimed that “members of the deep state” in the American intelligence community covered it up.

He directed the FBI, the director of national intelligence and other agencies led by some of his loyalists to investigate and prosecute the people responsible for the cover up.

Democrats swiftly condemned Trump’s claims as baseless and rehashed ideas that have little to do with actual election administration.

“Donald Trump is releasing unverified, meaningless documents to appease his own delusions about an election he lost resoundingly, all while continuing to withhold 3 million pages of the Epstein files,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on X.

Multiple reviews of the 2020 election have concluded that Democrat Joe Biden won legitimately, and election experts say there is no evidence that widespread fraud affected the outcome of the election.

“It’s been more than half a decade, with numerous audits, recounts, and more than 60 court cases, each finding no evidence of widespread voter fraud,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said in a statement. “Clearly, this is no longer about an election Donald Trump lost six years ago. It’s about him laying the groundwork to try to ‘take over the voting’ in the upcoming midterm elections.”

Ahead of the speech, elections and democracy experts had cautioned that the president may attempt to sow doubt in the security of the nation’s election system or bolster debunked fraud claims.

Trump has taken a series of steps since retaking office aimed at exerting control over elections. Some experts said Thursday’s address could be interpreted as a sign that Trump is running out of moves in the lead up to the midterm elections, where Republican control of the House is at stake.

“The fact that they’re throwing everything up on the walls at this point demonstrates panic,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research. “They are not operating from strength right now. They are operating from weakness.”

Trump delivered the address with his approval rating stagnating at 37%, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll released Thursday, with weakening enthusiasm among Republicans.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

“Remake” has a tragic tale to tell and director Ross McElwee wastes no time revealing its grieving heart. Near the start of this funereal documentary, the filmmaker addresses his subject directly: “It’s been seven years since you died,” he says to his late son Adrian through voice-over, “and I still miss you every day.”

Across McElwee’s 50-year career, he has worked intimately without a crew to make sense of his own life by diligently recording it. In the process, he turned his friends and loved ones into the unlikely stars of his acclaimed independent documentaries.

With “Remake,” he looks back at that footage, concentrating on the images he shot of Adrian since his birth in 1989. Adrian died on Christmas Eve 2016 of a drug overdose and McElwee clearly remains shattered. For a documentarian who specializes in personal movies, “Remake” feels especially revealing — both in terms of the glimpses we get of this father-son relationship and of unsolved mysteries that linger just outside the frame.

The film’s title ostensibly refers to a surprising phone call McElwee received about 20 years ago, when he was approached by Steve Carr, the director of broad comedies like “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” who was eager to adapt McElwee’s 1986 documentary “Sherman’s March” into a movie. That landmark picture features McElwee, then in his mid-30s, as he tries to chronicle the exploits of Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, who laid siege to the South during the Civil War. Except, in the midst of that project, McElwee’s focus shifts, delightfully, to his disastrous love life and the fascinating women he meets in his travels, becoming a deeply humane examination of modern courtship.

Carr doesn’t seem like an obvious choice to oversee a narrative remake, but McElwee decides to sell him the rights anyway. Soon in “Remake,” though, it becomes apparent that this is just one chapter of the story — and hardly the most essential. McElwee’s last film, 2011’s “Photographic Memory,” dealt with his increasingly frayed connection to Adrian, who was already fighting substance-abuse issues. “Remake” retraces Adrian’s childhood while filling in the details of the director’s life after “Photographic Memory,” including brain surgery and the dissolution of his 24-year marriage.

But Adrian is never far from his thoughts or absent from the screen: this smiling, happy boy slowly transforming into an edgy, troubled young man whose sweetness still occasionally shines through.

The passage of time is central to McElwee’s work, but he’s rarely scrutinized the topic as aggressively as he does here. It’s not simply that we watch Adrian age or revisit some of McElwee’s “Sherman’s March” subjects. (“Sherman’s March” is now screening in a new 4K restoration at the Laemmle Royal with “Remake.”) It’s also in the way that McElwee’s formerly wry narration now sounds far more resigned, his voice grown froggy and hushed as he nears 80. McElwee has often pondered the downside of essentially treating himself like a human camera, observing the world rather than fully engaging in it. But in “Remake,” he openly questions his artistic approach and, fittingly, he lets his son be his loudest critic.

As a boy, Adrian is enchanted by McElwee’s filming. In childhood, he paints an abstract picture of God in which the Almighty eerily resembles a movie camera. But although Adrian soon picks up a camera as well, increasingly interested in being a filmmaker himself, he resents how his father intrudes on their time together by constantly shooting their conversations. McElwee’s scenes of them at the Venice Film Festival for the “Photographic Memory” premiere are especially fraught, Adrian’s prickly reaction to a movie about his drug abuse creating tension between the two men at the subsequent press conference.

In “Remake,” McElwee laments that he didn’t do enough to help him navigate addiction and the mental-health issues that exacerbated it. (Adrian was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.) Was McElwee too consumed with his own career to be there for his son? The question haunts “Remake” — he includes an indelible sequence from “Sherman’s March” in which his longtime friend Charleen upbraids him for always having the camera out. “This isn’t art,” she hollers. “This is life!” Did McElwee never come to appreciate the difference?

A eulogy that also serves as an apology, a reckoning and a confession, “Remake” is filled with moments that are crushing because of how understated they are, none more brutal than when McElwee visits Adrian near the end of his life, when he’d moved to Colorado to get a fresh start. “He seemed to be doing OK,” McElwee recalls thinking. “But I always leave knowing I’m probably not seeing the whole picture.”

Even now, poring through his footage, desperately looking for clues, McElwee pines for that larger view — the one that might somehow bring the boy back to his inconsolable father.

The Trump administration’s latest nominee to lead the nation’ top public health agency drew frustrated reactions from some U.S. senators on Wednesday when they pressed her on whether she would protect the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from political meddling.

Dr. Erica Schwartz told the Senate health committee she “will never betray the science” and pledged to use “radical transparency” in a bid to rebuild public trust in the agency. But several senators questioned how she might handle pressure from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has repeatedly moved to alter U.S. vaccine and CDC policies. Schwartz repeatedly declined to dissent from some of those actions.

Schwartz, 54, is up for director of the Atlanta-based CDC, which is charged with protecting Americans from preventable health threats.

Her career has largely been spent in military uniform, including in a leadership position at the U.S. Coast Guard where she oversaw the organization’s system of 41 clinics and 150 sick bays — as well as policies promoting vaccinations of service members. She later served as deputy surgeon general, where she helped lead uniformed medical and health professionals posted at the CDC and government health agencies that serve the general public.

The CDC long enjoyed a sterling international reputation but has been in turmoil since Trump returned to office last year. Largely due to layoffs and resignations, the agency has lost more than 3,000 employees, or more than a quarter of its workforce. Morale has plummeted as a succession of mostly temporary leaders have come and gone — the front office filled with political appointees, many of them with little or no training in medicine or public health.

“There’s still really good people who work there (at the CDC). They are doing their best to navigate choppy waters,” said Dr. David Margolius, director of Cleveland’s health department and a leader in a U.S. coalition of big city health departments. But CDC no longer seems to the authoritative and communicative lead that it was on outbreaks and other public health emergencies.

“Basically everybody’s got to kind of choose their own adventure, as opposed to being led by a national public health department,” Margolius said.

CDC has had several leaders

The agency is overseen by Kennedy, who was a leading voice in the anti-vaccine movement before he was tapped to lead the CDC and other federal health agencies. Kennedy had promised not to change the nation’s vaccination schedule. But shortly after taking office, Kennedy said he was going to investigate the childhood vaccine schedule and went on to attempt a substantial rewrite of vaccine recommendations for kids. Some of those efforts were put on hold earlier this year by a federal judge.

The administration’s first pick to run the CDC was former Florida congressman Dr. David Weldon, but his March 2025 Senate confirmation hearing was canceled an hour before it was to begin. Weldon said at the time that he’d been told not enough senators were willing to vote for him.

The White House then moved on to Susan Monarez, who had been serving as the CDC’s acting director. Monarez was confirmed by the Senate, but she was ousted in less than a month. Trump administration officials said she wasn’t aligned with their agenda so they terminated her.

Several key CDC scientific leaders resigned in protest, saying Monarez’s dismissal dashed their hopes that a CDC director would be able to guard against political meddling in the agency’s scientific research and health recommendations.

Since then, there’s been a revolving door in agency leadership, with the short-term role of acting director being passed from one Washington-based HHS official to another. National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya has been overseeing the CDC most recently.

Schwartz said she was unaware of actions that hurt the CDC

On Wednesday, some senators suggested Schwartz should follow Monarez’s example, and they asked her about actions Kennedy has taken that have affected CDC.

Schwartz said she was unaware that CDC programs that worked to prevent smoking and promote vaccinations had been curtailed. She declined to commit to taking down a CDC website that suggests there’s a link between childhood vaccines and autism (she said she had not seen it), though she agreed existing medical evidence has not found a link.

Sen. Maggie Hassan, a New Hampshire Democrat, asked if she would — if Kennedy ordered her — suspend promotion of a flu vaccination campaign during a deadly flu season.

“Senator, I don’t speak in hypotheticals,” Schwartz responded.

“It isn’t hypothetical. It happened,” said Hassan, referring to internal CDC emails, released by Sen. Bernie Sanders last month, that documented such a directive from Kennedy to CDC staff last year.

Schwartz said she agreed that CDC should prioritize responding to infectious diseases. “I think over time, the CDC has had some mission creep, and it’s trying to be all things to all people,” she said.

But she also agreed to requests from Republican senators to — if confirmed — look into whether AI data centers cause health problems and into the possibility of establishing a World Trade Center Health Program clinical center in Florida.

Senators also heard from nominee overseeing health emergency preparedness

In April, Trump nominated Schwartz, calling her “incredibly talented.” In a congressional hearing in April, Kennedy said he approved of the choice, but refused to commit to supporting whatever vaccine guidance she might issue.

Last month, Schwartz filed letters with the government that address her finances and potential conflicts of interest. She wrote that if confirmed, she will leave her current job with UnitedHealth Group, where she’s making about $850,000 in salary and bonus money and cash out her stock options. She also will resign from the board of directors of Butterfly Network Inc., a Massachusetts company that makes ultrasound devices; from the board of Atlanta-based Aveanna Healthcare, a medical home care provider; and from the board of the Florida-based Searching for Solutions Institute.

At Wednesday’s hearing, senators also considered the nomination of Sean Kaufman as the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, or ASPR. That job entails overseeing preparations and response to public health emergencies and disasters.

Last year, the Trump administration announced a plan to bring those responsibilities under CDC, but the dramatic HHS restructuring has not happened.

The assistant secretary’s office is involved in decisions about funding next-generation vaccines against pandemic flu or other infectious disease threats. In postings on LinkedIn, Kaufman has made comments cheered by vaccine skeptics, arguing against hepatitis B vaccinations for newborns and saying he served as an expert witness to advocate for people who refused the COVID-19 vaccine.

On Wednesday, Kaufman faced questions about past social media posts, including one in which he expressed hatred for the CDC. He also repeatedly was asked about his support of a Trump administration decision last year to cancel 22 projects, totaling $500 million, to develop vaccines using mRNA technology.

Infectious disease experts say the mRNA technology used in vaccines is safe, and they credit its development during the first Trump administration with slowing the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. Future pandemics, they warned, will be harder to stop without the help of mRNA.

Kaufman said he supported mRNA technology and believes COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective, but said it made sense to study work that’s been done so far before, including learning more about any side effects.

Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Colorado Democrat, said such evaluations are the responsibility of other federal offices — not ASPR. He also said it may slow the nation’s ability to respond to emerging new infectious threats.

Stobbe writes for the Associated Press.

Scott Bryce, the actor best known for originating the role of Craig Montgomery on the soap opera “As the World Turns,” has died. He was 68.

Bryce died Sunday evening “surrounded by his loving wife Jodi Stevens-Bryce and loving son Jackson Bryce,” his agent Ken Melamed told The Times by email on Tuesday. “He was beloved by all!”

The actor revealed last year that he had been diagnosed with Stage 3 esophageal and stomach cancer in 2024.

“This evening my father lost his long-fought battle with cancer. What began as stage three esophageal cancer eventually spread and became brain tumors that took his life away from him,” Bryce’s son, Jackson, wrote in a tribute posted Sunday to Instagram. He said his father approached his treatments with “pride and courage, and an unshakable belief that somehow, everything would work out.”

“May his strength and relentless belief forever live within me,” he added. “He fought the hardest and most honorable fight I have ever witnessed.”

Born Jan. 6, 1958, in New York, Bryce followed in the footsteps of his actor parents. His father, Ed, portrayed Bill Bauer on the daytime drama “Guiding Light” for years, while his mother, Dorothy, was known for her role on the hospital soap “The Doctors.”

Bryce made his television debut as Craig Montgomery on CBS’ long-running soap “As the World Turns” in 1982. He received two Daytime Emmy nominations for his portrayal of the charming but ruthless businessman, whom he portrayed off and on from 1982 to 2008. The character was known for his ambition and mysterious business dealings but also had a reputation for being unlucky in love. One early romantic interest was Betsy Stewart, who was portrayed by Meg Ryan from 1982 to 1984.

Finn Carter, who played Montgomery’s wife, Sierra Esteban, on the show, shared a tribute to Bryce on Instagram Monday.

“My sadness knows no bounds. My gratitude for Scott knows even fewer,” Carter wrote. “Scott was the best husband a woman could ask for. As an actor he was fearless, kind, generous and forever looking for ways to grow. And what a sense of humor!”

Over the course of his decades-long career, Bryce appeared on shows such as “The Facts of Life,” “The Golden Girls,” “Murphy Brown,” “L.A. Law,” “The Good Fight,” “Law & Order” and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.”

He also portrayed Mike McQueen, the father of a cheerleader (Leslie Bibb) on the millennial teen drama “Popular.” McQueen marries the mother of his daughter’s high school rival (Carly Pope) in the series, which ended on a cliffhanger in 2001 after its cancellation.

“When asked what he wanted people to remember about him, he said, ‘I was a one-take actor. Two takes, max,’” Jackson Bryce wrote in his tribute. “In working with Dick Wolf on NBC, directors would schedule him at the end of the day because they knew it wouldn’t take long.”

In addition to his onscreen work, Scott Bryce was a theater actor as well as a director and a producer, with credits including the 2010 television movie “Frederick Douglass, From Slavery to Freedom” and the satirical web series “Steamboat.”

“My dad also made sure I knew his greatest accomplishment that came at 50 years old, becoming a Dad,” son Jackson said in his tribute. “He is a part of everything I’ve done and everything I will do.”

A top spokesperson for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass left her administration Monday after a brief tenure, joining a growing list of communications aides who have departed over the past nine months.

Kolby Lee, who started as Bass’ director of communications in February, said he was resigning to spend time with family and loved ones.

“I’m very grateful to Mayor Bass for giving me the opportunity to be part of her team and serve the people of Los Angeles,” Lee said in a statement.

Bass’ communications office said in a statement to The Times, “We thank Kolby for his contribution to the office and wish him and his family well.” Bass is running for reelection against City Councilmember Nithya Raman.

The departures began in October, when Zach Seidl, Bass’ longtime deputy mayor of communications, left for the private sector.

Press secretary Clara Karger left in January after working for the mayor for nearly three years.

Bass then brought on Amanda Crumley to replace Seidl. But Crumley lasted little more than a month, leaving in March.

Lee started as communications director shortly before Crumley’s departure, serving for about five months.

During Lee’s time in the administration, Bass was also receiving pro bono communications help from Yusef Robb, an outside consultant who worked on her 2022 campaign.

Robb was not paid by the city for his work and served in an unofficial role providing comments on important issues, including Bass’ involvement in damage control surrounding the 2025 Palisades fire.

Lee provided comment to The Times in a story published Saturday about Robb’s work for the Bass administration at the same time that he is a crisis communications consultant for Lineage Logistics, the company whose Boyle Heights warehouse erupted in flames last month, inundating the area with toxic smoke and rotting food odors.

July 1 (UPI) — John Brennan, former director of the CIA and a longtime foe of the Trump administration, filed a lawsuit Wednesday asking a federal court to preserve all records related to the administration’s investigation of him.

The Justice Department has been eyeing Brennan for months, with lawyers interviewing former intelligence officials and issuing subpoenas as part of a conspiracy investigation, The Washington Post reported.

Justice Department officials have alleged that Brennan and others violated President Donald Trump‘s civil rights in a conspiracy back to the Obama administration that included efforts to prosecute Trump and investigate his ties to Russia, The Post said. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, also referred Brennan to the Justice Department, alleging that he lied during testimony to Congress.

Brennan’s attorneys requested that a judge order the administration to preserve any internal records and communications from the investigation.

The records could be used as part of defense arguments that the investigation and any prosecution are part of Trump’s attempt to vindictively punish Brennan, the attorneys said, citing an administration policy “of using criminal process and prosecution to punish the president’s perceived adversaries,” The Post said.

“Administration officials from the acting attorney general to the FBI director and the counselor overseeing the Brennan investigations have been publicly declaring Director Brennan a criminal, not only before securing a conviction in court but even before a full investigation and indictment,” the lawyers wrote, CNN reported.

“And, certain officials in the Department of Justice are engaging in demonstrably irregular prosecutorial activity in order to gin up a case that will satisfy the president’s direction,” they wrote.

Brennan has also said the court should preserve any records that could be used in any broader “grand conspiracy” investigation by the Justice Department. He has denied any wrongdoing. The lawsuit names Trump, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel and prosecutors in Florida overseeing the investigation.

Carl Erik Rinsch, the director of the 2013 Keanu Reeves action film “47 Ronin,” will serve more than two years in federal prison for defrauding Netflix of $11 million.

U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff on Monday sentenced 48-year-old Rinsch to 30 months in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, announced. Federal prosecutors convicted Rinsch in December of wire fraud, money laundering and other counts. A legal representative for Rinsch did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Federal prosecutors indicted Rinsch in March 2025, alleging the $11 million went into Rinsch’s personal accounts. The filmmaker “quickly transferred” the money from the Rinsch Co. account, where it had been deposited March 6, 2020, by Netflix, through additional accounts until about $10.5 million wound up weeks later in a personal brokerage account. He lost more than half of that money in less than two months via risky investments in the stock market, the indictment said.

Though Rinsch told the streamer that his sci-fi show “White Horse” was progressing nicely, the filmmaker allegedly moved the remaining money into cryptocurrency and profited from crypto speculation over the next couple of years. The streamer had invested around $44 million in the show. Rinsch was accused of spending around $10 million on five Rolls-Royces, a Ferrari, watches, clothing, luxury bedding and linens, credit card bills, attorneys to sue Netflix for more money, and lawyers to work on his divorce.

He was arrested in West Hollywood and released the same day after agreeing to post a $100,000 bond to guarantee his appearance in a New York federal court.

Rinsch never finished the Netflix show.

During his sentencing, Rinsch and his legal team told the court his behavior was a result of mental health struggles and medication problems and they are working to address those issues with a new care provider, the Associated Press reported.

“I failed to recognize the danger of the state I was in,” Rinsch said, though his mental issues were not described in court, and his attorneys declined to provide further detail.

Ahead of the sentencing, Reeves — the star of Rinsch’s most notable project to date — penned a letter in May requesting “leniency and mercy as well as justice” in the filmmaker’s sentencing.

In addition to prison time, Rinsch must serve three years of supervised release, forfeit the $11 million and pay $700 in mandatory special assessments, according to Monday’s announcement. U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in the announcement: “Today’s sentence sends a deterrent message: fraud will not be tolerated.”

The Associated Press and former Times assistant editor Christie D’Zurilla contributed to this report.

NEW YORK — President Trump said he is nominating Lance Schroyer, a former Oklahoma state trooper, as the next director of Immigration and Customs and Enforcement.

On his social media platform Saturday, Trump described Schroyer, a former Marine, as “a proven leader” with “real operational experience.”

Schroyer hails from the same state as the new Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a former congressman. Earlier this month, Mullin brought Schroyer on stage at a National Sheriffs’ Assn. event, calling him a “good friend of mine” and noting the department had recently hired him.

Mullin quickly praised Schroyer in a statement highlighting the former trooper’s 29-year career and his work with federal and state partners on a U.S. immigration enforcement program.

“President Trump made a great pick, and I’m confident Lance’s strong leadership and firsthand experience will empower the men and women of ICE to deport criminal illegal aliens, secure the homeland, and protect the American people,” Mullin said Saturday.

If confirmed, Schroyer will lead ICE at a time when the public mood has soured on Trump’s immigration crackdown, which sent surges of federal immigration officers into many U.S. cities. Those raids sent tensions soaring and prompted clashes between protesters and federal agents, including the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis this year.

Trump returned to the White House on a promise of mass deportations, and ICE has been a central executor of that vision. The agency is undergoing massive growth from a onetime injection of $75 billion last year, which has allowed for the hiring of 12,000 officers and increased detention capacity.

Mullin, who started in his role in March, has promised to keep his department out of the headlines and has indicated a softer tone on immigration, although he aligns with the president’s priorities on mass deportations.

Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former senior ICE official, said prior confirmed ICE directors have often been attorneys, though some state and local law enforcement officials have also been nominated. She said his background in Oklahoma suggests Mullin probably influenced the pick.

“I think probably given the attention on ICE, he wants to feel like he has somebody he can trust in there,” she said in an interview.

John Torres, another senior ICE official, said Schroyer faces an uphill climb toward Senate confirmation, but his experience being at the state and local level instead of the federal level might help.

“He won’t have any of that baggage, where they’re going to turn around and say, ‘Oh, well, he worked for this administration or that,’” Torres said.

Schroyer’s nomination comes after former ICE Director Todd Lyons resigned at the end of May. David Venturella, a former executive at a private prison operator, has been serving as the acting head of the agency. Venturella is expected to stay on as the acting director until Schroyer is confirmed, according to a Homeland Security official speaking on condition of anonymity.

ICE has not had a Senate-confirmed director since the Obama administration, a result of polarizing politics around the agency and immigration policy.

Swenson writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Elliot Spagat and Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.

June 27 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Saturday announced that he nominated former Oklahoma state trooper Lance Schroyer to be director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Schroyer, a senior advisor at the Department of Homeland Security and retired U.S. Marine, will replace former acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, who announced in April that he would leave the agency on May 31.

Trump announced that he is nominating Schroyer for the position in a post on Truth Social, touting his 29 years in law enforcement, including in previous partnership roles with ICE.

“He is a PATRIOT with real operational experience, and proven leader with DECADES of experience locking up the worst of the worst,” Trump said in the post.

“Lance has firsthand experience getting Illegal Aliens OFF our streets and, just like ME and our Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, he LOVES the men and women of ICE!” Trump said.

DHS said in a press release endorsing the nomination that Schroyer’s role as senior advisor to Mullin has included overseeing coordination of immigration enforcement and serving as a liaison between involved law enforcement agencies.

Before his position at DHS, Schroyer was a major in the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety with responsibility for its Emergency Services Unit and a longtime Oklahoma state trooper.

In a statement, Mullin noted that ICE has not had a Senate confirmed director in more than a decade and, echoing Trump’s post, said the Senate needs to quickly confirm Schroyer.

“Lance will play a vital role in helping deliver on the President’s mandate from the American people to target, arrest and deport illegal aliens,” Mullin said.

“Lance is coming straight from the operational field where he ran large scale operations and worked alongside state and federal partners to remove illegal aliens from Oklahoma under the 287g program,” he said.

Lyons was appointed by Trump in March 2025 after his predecessor, Caleb Vitello, did not start removing people from the United States who allegedly were illegally in the country.

In his roughly one year in the job, Lyons oversaw more than 475,000 removals of people from the country and nearly 379,000 arrests.

A new commission made up of legislators, public defenders, academics and advocates seeks to push California — one of just two states that don’t pay for basic public defense — to begin providing resources and enforcing minimum standards for county public defender systems.

The California Independent Commission on Public Defense includes three assemblymembers and two senators — among them Jesse Arreguín and Nick Schultz, chairs of the Senate and Assembly Public Safety Committees — as well as chief public defenders from several counties, retired judges, the directors of criminal justice nonprofits, and the heads of organizations representing thousands of defense attorneys in the state.

“We have discussed the problem of our public defense system for years,” said Schultz, a Democrat from Burbank and former prosecutor who has sponsored legislation to improve public defense.

The goal is to “move past discussion and study, and come up with an actionable road map of what we need to do to really build out the robust public defense infrastructure that Californians are rightfully entitled to,” he said.

The commissioners plan to develop a five-year plan to phase in state funding, along with enforceable standards like caseload limits and access to defense investigators.

A CalMatters investigation last year found that criminal defendants across the state are routinely convicted without anyone investigating the charges against them, significantly increasing the likelihood of wrongful convictions. Many California counties do not employ a single defense investigator who can interview witnesses, review police reports, visit crime scenes and retrieve video surveillance footage. CalMatters also found that lawyers in some rural counties are handling caseloads that far exceed even the most permissive standards, making them less likely than other defense attorneys to challenge the prosecution’s evidence in legal motions and take their cases to trial.

But the state has resisted stepping in. After a proposed bill that would have created an official state commission to address the issue was abandoned, two advocacy groups, the Wren Collective and UC Berkeley’s Criminal Law and Justice Center, decided to form an independent commission and began assembling participants who could develop and act on reforms. These types of commissions, which have facilitated significant improvements in other states’ public defender systems, are usually established by the governor.

“It became clear that this was an issue that was not a high priority for Sacramento, especially during a budget crisis,” said Chesa Boudin, the Berkeley center’s founding director and a former San Francisco district attorney. It also became clear, Boudin said, that “there was a tremendous gap between what experts understood to be the crisis and the public perception of California government as a kind of progressive leader in the country.”

In the decades since the U.S. Supreme Court established the right to an attorney in state court criminal proceedings, California has saddled its counties with the responsibility of providing lawyers to poor people accused of crimes. Many of those counties have opted for the cheapest path: paying private lawyers and firms a flat fee to represent indigent defendants, regardless of how many cases they handle or how much time they spend on each case.

“You’ve got some offices that have an incredibly high caliber of representation that they can provide, and you have other offices that are doing these flat-fee contracts where the quality has been documented to be pretty bad,” said Eve Brensike Primus, a law professor at the University of Michigan.

Primus is the only member of the new commission from outside of California. She was asked to join because of her extensive research and writing about the structure of indigent defense.

An indigent defense commission in Michigan, which was formed by the legislature in 2013, has led to significant reforms and a substantial influx in state funding.

The California commission’s work, Primus said, can serve “as a catalyst for political actors to do the right thing and start to fund and improve indigent defense delivery, or as fodder for lawsuits that then can try to get the judiciary to push the political actors to do what is necessary to provide for effective representation.”

The commission is scheduled to hold its first in-person meeting, which will be open to the public, in Berkeley in October, with additional meetings planned for Los Angeles, the Central Valley and Northern California over the next 12 months. Commissioners say they will work in subcommittees in between these quarterly sessions to develop a concrete fiscal plan for the state, draft legislative language, and establish minimum standards for how counties should structure their public defender offices, compensate their attorneys, provide access to experts, and report on their work.

Anat Rubin writes for CalMatters.

There have been dozens of football transfers in Southern California during the offseason, but the one transfer who could make the greatest impact is running back AJ McBean, who announced he was leaving Mira Costa High for Gardena Serra.

McBean, who ran 10.55 seconds in the 100 meters this spring thanks to Mira Costa’s track program and his commitment to getting faster, joins a Serra offense that returns all five starters on the offensive line. He’s got the speed and strength to help the Cavaliers make up for not reaching the Southern Section playoffs last season out of the extremely competitive Mission League.

He’s been a longtime resident of Hermosa Beach, so what would motivate him to leave Mira Costa after recently making a commitment to Stanford? He apparently wants to prepare for college by being used in a more versatile role catching passes out of the backfield to show off his many skills. At least that’s what his family told coach Scott Altenberg. Mira Costa was changing its offense to better feature him, so it’s a tough loss for the Mustangs.

McBean will have to move to become eligible immediately.

Hope at Whittier

Former Garfield coach Lorenzo Hernandez, in his first season at Whittier, has already discovered a talent he can’t wait to develop. Offensive and defensive lineman Joseph Medina from the class of 2028 has made quite a first impression on Hernandez.

Medina didn’t play last season, “and in three months that we have been here, he is off the charts,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez calls him “a great technician and amazing leader.”

Agoura QB depth

Never has coach Dustin Croick of Agoura had more quality depth at quarterback than what he will have this season thanks to two newcomers.

Junior Kris Carranza has transferred from Sierra Canyon to Agoura and is a top candidate to start. The Chargers are also adding incoming freshman quarterback Emerson Andrews, whose father, David, played tight end at Ohio State and was a member of the 2002 national championship team. He is director of athletic performance for UCLA’s men’s basketball program. If anyone has a strength and conditioning question, submit it to Emerson, who knows someone.

Commitments rolling in

With college recruiters headed on vacation, lots of players decided to make commitments to make sure they have a “certain” destination. There’s also a new trend of players announcing on social media posts that they are “shutting down” their recruitment, which is supposed to mean their decision is final. Then how come others keep recruiting them? Because it’s never final in this era of NIL.

Quarterback Chris Fields, the City Section player of the year from Carson, committed to Georgetown. Offensive lineman Micah Butler from Hamilton committed to Sacramento State. Kicker Gabriel Goroyan of Westlake committed to Stanford. Defensive back Wesley Ace from Gardena Serra committed to San Jose State. Safety Jaden Walk-Green from Corona Centennial has committed to Washington and teammate Brett Smith has committed to UNLV. Running back Kamden Tillis of Los Alamitos has committed to San Diego State.

Man among boys

USC recruiters deserve praise for identifying the best in Southern California and pursuing them with great intensity. There’s no doubt that Damien safety Gavin Williams, a USC commit, will be the standard for excellence this coming season. He’s fast and strong and players who don’t adjust to his physical skills are in for a surprise.

Damien won the Chaminade seven-on-seven passing tournament on Saturday, beating Crespi in the final. On the first play, Williams caught a long touchdown pass, sprinting well past the defender who had no idea how fast he runs.

First-year coaches galore

It’s going to be fun tracking the progress of first-year football coaches this season because there are so many at well-known programs. The question of who will have the best record should be debated all summer.

Iggy Porchia became the latest new hire, replacing his mentor, the late Angelo Gasca, at Venice.

There should be a competition on which new private coach will have the best record and which new public school coach will have the best record. There are so many candidates with new coaches at JSerra, Orange Lutheran, Servite, Los Alamitos, St. Francis, St. Bernard, Bishop Montgomery, Oaks Christian, Whittier Christian, Bishop Alemany, Muir, Pasadena, Long Beach Poly, Arroyo, North Hollywood, Sun Valley Poly and on it goes.

Transfer issues coming

It appears the Southern Section will be busy again this fall after last year’s eligibility scandal when it declared 19 transfer students ineligible at Bishop Montgomery, resulting in the varsity season ending after one game and forcing the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to clean up what looked like a preventable mess.

This time, it could be public schools facing scrutiny. The same rumors that started last summer about schools loading up on transfers are circulating again this summer. Principals who don’t act after multiple transfers seemingly out of nowhere start showing up to play football only have themselves to blame.

And schools that delay submitting transfer paperwork until the last minute thinking investigators will be too busy to spot an error don’t understand the process.

City Section commissioner Vicky Lagos has a policy that she immediately schedules a meeting with the administration, athletic director, coach and parents when one school receives multiple transfers to review paperwork. The Southern Section deployed AI last fall to help it catch parents submitting false information.

So prepare for more exciting times. It’s like a cat-and-mouse game. And don’t forget about the anonymous emails identifying parents not living at the official address they put on their transfer paperwork.