Seattle Storm forward Nneka Ogwumike (3), president of the WNBA players’ union, said for the first time, player salaries will be tied to a meaningful share of league revenue.
(Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)
The league and players association have not made the terms public yet, but the salary cap will start at $7 million, up from $1.5 million in 2025, and the supermax will start at $1.4 million, up from $249,244 in 2025, a person with knowledge of negotiations not authorized to discuss them publicly told The Times. ESPN was the first to report the figures.
The total salary cap will jump by around 4.64 times the previous amount. The super maximum salary will be elevated by 5.61 times the previous amount. It means the top players will be eligible for larger raises than the league’s middle class.
The average salary will be $600,000, a bump from the previous average of $120,000, and the minimum salary will be more than $300,000, up from $66,079.
“For the first time, player salaries are tied to a truly meaningful share of league revenue, driving exponential growth in the salary cap, increasing average compensation beyond half a million dollars and raising the standard across facilities, staffing and support,” union president Nneka Ogwumike told reporters.
The main sticking point during negotiations was revenue sharing, and that number will be around 20% for the entirety of the multi-year deal. The league had previously offered 15.5%, a source told The Times, and players went down from their 40% ask to around 26% at the end of February, and then reached the agreement around 20% on Wednesday morning. The Athletic first reported the shift in revenue sharing figures.
Players had been negotiating for a percentage of overall revenue without factoring in expenses while the WNBA was seeking sharing tied to net revenue, mirroring the NBA’s structure that deducts expenses before sharing 50% of profits. The players secured a gross revenue deal, which gives them a cut of WNBA revenue without factoring in expenses, a person with knowledge of the deal not authorized to discuss it publicly told The Times.
“This deal is going to be transformational, and you’ll see all the details hopefully soon,” WNBPA vice president Breanna Stewart told reporters on Wednesday. “But it’s gonna build and help create a system where everybody is getting exactly what they deserve and more from on the court and off the court aspects.”
SACRAMENTO — Senior Ayla Teegardin of Palisades held her head high on Saturday morning. A 51-37 loss to Yuba City Faith Christian in the state Division IV girls basketball final at Golden 1 Center couldn’t lessen the inspiring backstory of how she and her Dolphin teammates had already won by making it to the final despite all the trial and tribulations of the Palisades Fire that destroyed a community in January 2025.
Teegardin lost her home, spent three months in a hotel and battled to regain her teenage life.
“I struggled with a lot of anxiety coming into games,” she recalled.
Basketball and teammates kept her focused. This season has been another challenging time with practices at night and at middle schools until the high school gym was finally re-opened at the end of January.
On Saturday, Palisades (16-14) fought Faith Christian (34-1) to almost a draw at halftime, trailing 29-26. But the Dolphins scored only 11 points in the second half and had no answer for Long Beach State-bound Lauren Harris, who came in as the nation’s career three-point scoring leader while averaging 31.2 points this season. She finished with 26 points, 16 rebounds, five assists, three blocks and two steals. She made a half-court shot at the end of the first quarter.
Elly Tierney of Palisades did her best on offense with 15 points and six rebounds. Teegardin finished with three points and six rebounds. Only three players scored the entire game for Faith Christian.
The Dolphins outrebounded Faith Christian 43-33 but made only 15 of 63 shots.
Faith Christian’s Lauren Harris, the national career record holder for threes, makes half-court shot. End of 1, Faith Christian 13, Palisades 11. pic.twitter.com/iWbDdKPwOf
“It’d be hard to imagine him not being on our team,” Roberts said last week. “He’s having a great spring, man. He’s just a good player. It’s good, because I didn’t really know much about him, but seeing him every day, [he’s] fun to watch.”
An All-Star with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2022, the 31-year-old Espinal muddled through a pair of lackluster seasons with the Cincinnati Reds in which he rated as a minus-WAR (Wins Above Replacement) player and slashed .245/.294/.322 over 232 games.
It led to him getting taken off the Reds’ 40-man roster at the end of last season and sent to triple-A Louisville — a minor league assignment he rejected, making him a free agent. He signed with the Dodgers on Feb. 16 on a minor league deal with an invite to spring training.
It’s an opportunity Espinal has seized.
He leads the Dodgers in home runs (2) and RBIs (9) while posting a .500/.519/.900 slash line. With utilitymen Tommy Edman and Kiké Hernández opening the season on IL, there is an opening for Espinal to stick on the club’s roster. A versatile glove, Espinal played all four infield positions and both corner outfield spots for the Reds last season. And at least to this point in spring training, he’s shown an improved bat.
“I feel like the offense part of it, I’ve been working consistently with the hitting coaches, just looking at videos, looking at little details,” Espinal said last week. “There’s either something going on with my lower body or something going on with my upper body. Where are my hands at, all this stuff, so that’s something that we literally every day just work on. So just make sure that my body feels great.”
One simple modification that has brought success to Espinal is getting the bat off his shoulder and attacking the count early. A more aggressive approach has served him well thus far in camp.
“Being more aggressive in my swing path,” Espinal said. “Make sure that it’s there. Make sure that it’s straight to the ball and not opening up and that stuff, but it’s a constant work that we’ve been doing every day and so far, it’s been great.”
The Dodgers’ Santiago Espinal rounds third base to score a run against the Seattle Mariners during during a game on Feb. 23.
(Chris Coduto / Getty Images)
The torrid hitting — which includes a two-homer game last week against the Reds — and how he’s carried himself has paid off for Espinal.
“[He’s fitting in] seamlessly,” Roberts said. “He’s a baseball player. It’s in his blood. You see it. He’s a smart player. He knows the type of player he needs to be to be a Major League player. He has fun playing, but there’s a focus when he plays. He plays with enthusiasm, which is tempered, which is great. You can see him and [Teoscar Hernández] obviously have a history. I love the player. I love the guy.”
Though he hasn’t been a Dodger for very long, Espinal says he’s been trying to learn as much as he can from the cornerstones of the team’s lineup — including his fellow Dominican and former teammate on the Blue Jays.
“When you see Mookie [Betts], when you see Freddie [Freeman], [Max] Muncy, I played with Teo, and he’s actually one of the best hitters in the game, you know you have it in the locker room,” Espinal said. “You also want to pick their brain. You also want to ask questions. And you also want to see how they work, how they go about their business. To me, I think that’s just the most important part of it, just to learn from them.”
It appears to all be leading to a spot on the opening-day roster, which considering where he was at the end of last season and even at the start of February, is quite the turn of events.
“It would be amazing,” Espinal said of making the 26-man roster. “It would be amazing, and I’ve just got to let my work talk for it. And so far, that’s what I’m doing and I’m just going to keep working for it.”
WASHINGTON — Amid the chaos in Kabul, politicians and pundits have declared the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan a defeat from which U.S. influence may never recover.
“Biden’s credibility is now shot,” wrote Gideon Rachman, chief oracle of Britain’s Financial Times.
“A grave blow to America’s standing,” warned the Economist.
But take a deep breath and remember some history.
When South Vietnam collapsed after a war that involved four times as many U.S. troops, many drew the same conclusion: The age of U.S. global power was over.
Less than 15 years later, the Berlin Wall came down, the Cold War began to end, and the United States soon stood as the world’s only superpower.
The lesson: A debacle like the defeat in Kabul — or the one in Saigon two generations earlier — doesn’t always prevent a powerful country from marshaling its resources and succeeding.
I’m not dismissing the tragedy that has befallen the Afghans or the damage that U.S. credibility has suffered. When President Biden told a news conference that he had “seen no questioning of our credibility from allies,” he sounded as if he was in denial — or, perhaps worse, out of touch.
No questioning? How about the question from Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the British Parliament’s defense committee: “Whatever happened to ‘America is back’?”
Or the complaint from Armin Laschet, the German conservative who could be his country’s leader after elections next month: “The greatest debacle NATO has experienced since its founding.”
Whether he likes it or not, Biden has repair work to do.
The first step, already underway, is making sure the endgame in Kabul doesn’t get any worse.
That means keeping U.S. troops on the ground until every American is out, as Biden has promised. It also requires an energetic effort to evacuate Afghans who worked with the U.S. government and other institutions, even if that requires risking the lives of some American troops. Those Afghans trusted us; if we abandon them, it will be a long time before we can credibly ask the same of anyone else.
And, of course, the administration needs to prevent Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups from replanting themselves in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. If the United States fails at that — the original reason we invaded the country almost 20 years ago — Biden’s decision to withdraw will justly be judged a fiasco.
There’s repair work to do beyond Afghanistan, too.
“We’ve got to show that it would be wrong to see American foreign policy through the lens of Afghanistan,” Richard N. Haass, president of the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations and a former top State Department official, told me.
The United States has more important interests that need attention and allies that need reassurance, he said.
“The most important thing is to deter our major foes,” he said, referring to China, Russia and Iran.
“This is a moment to strengthen forces in Europe, mount more freedom of navigation operations [by the U.S. Navy] in the South China Sea,” he said. “This is a good time to say we’re serious about our commitment to Taiwan,” which China periodically threatens.
Biden took a step in that direction in his recent interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, listing Taiwan along with South Korea and Japan as places where the U.S. “would respond” to an attack.
If anything, Haass and other foreign policy veterans say, the questions about American credibility are likely to make Biden react more strongly to the next few challenges overseas.
“The most intriguing question is what effect this episode has on Biden’s thinking,” suggested Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Will he think: ‘I’ve got to be tougher with the Iranians now? Do I have to signal to a country like Taiwan that I’m prepared to protect American interests there?’”
But the notion that American influence has been fatally damaged is overblown, he argued.
“There have been many other instances in which U.S. credibility has been diminished, but our phone continues to ring,” Miller said.
Biden and his aides already know most of this. The premises of his foreign policy — reviving U.S. domestic strength, revitalizing U.S. alliances, and focusing on vital interests like China and Russia — provide a foundation for recovery.
“My dad used to have an expression: If everything is equally important to you, nothing is important to you,” the president said last week. “We should be focusing on where the threat is the greatest.”
The test Biden faces now is whether he can execute that strategy — and show that he’s credible where it matters most — more successfully than in his botched withdrawal from an unwinnable war.
Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis” is a grand mass for large orchestra, chorus and four vocal soloists that lasts around 80 minutes. It was written near the end of Beethoven’s life and is his most ambitious work musically and spiritually. “Coming from the heart, may it go to the heart,” he wrote on the first page of the score.
The Beethoven biographer Jan Swafford put it this way: “ ‘Missa Solemnis’ is Beethoven talking to God, man to man. And what they talked about is peace. Creation was for Beethoven’s the magnificence in the world which we inhabit; ‘Missa Solemnis’ is meant to keep it thus.”
Yet among Beethoven’s major works, “Missa Solemnis” is, by far, the least performed, and not merely because of the need for large forces. Conductors struggle to get a handle on its mysteries and intricacies. Upon turning 70 last year, Simon Rattle contended “Missa Solemnis” remains beyond him. Upon his reaching 70, Michael Tilson Thomas made a momentous meal of “Missa Solemnis” 11 years ago with a staged performance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Gustavo Dudamel, who has been conducting Beethoven since he was a teen, waited until he passed his 45th birthday last month. His first “Missa Solemnis” performances over the weekend at Disney were the centerpiece of his month-long L.A. Phil focus on Beethoven.
That venture began a week earlier with a political statement. Beethoven’s incidental music to Goethe’s drama of liberation, “Egmont,” was updated with a new text that served as an urgent call for protest in our own era of authoritarianism and militarism. Here, Beethoven exerts a compulsion for triumphant glory.
The glory in “Missa Solemnis” is that of stupefaction. By this point in his life, Beethoven has had it with weapons, the drumbeat of soldiers, the addictive emotion of trumpet calls to action. His man-to-man with God is celestial diplomacy. There is no compromise. We either care, at all costs, for our magnificent world or nothing matters.
Dudamel clearly cares. He conducted the massive mass from memory. And costs be damned. He imported from Spain two spectacular choruses — Orfeó Català and Cor de Cambra del Palau de la Música Catalana — a total of some 130 singers who sounded like they had rehearsed for months under their impressive director, Xavier Puig. The four soloists — soprano Pretty Yende, mezzo-soprano Sarah Saturnino, tenor SeokJong Baek and bass Nicholas Brownlee — were needfully robust and powerful. They were placed mid-orchestra, behind the violas and bravely in front of the timpani.
“Missa Solemnis” follows the standard mass text but doesn’t necessarily follow the liturgical narrative. It is a work of theater, dramatizing feelings, as the earlier Disney staging attempted. Director Peter Sellars and conductor Teodor Currentzis have also been promising a major staged “Missa Solemnis” for many years.
The Kyrie opens with a strong D-major chord in the large orchestra that seems an obvious downbeat but turns out to be an upbeat. Down is up. Eighty or more minutes later at the end of the Agnus Dei, when the great plea for peace reaches its ultimate transcendence, up becomes, in one of the most profoundly unsettling moments in all music, down again. We never fully know where we stand in “Missa Solemnis.” Every expectation is thwarted. Beethovenian peace is a nearly superhuman endeavor.
Gustavo Dudamel conducts L.A. Phil, vocal soloists and Catalan choruses in Beethoven’s ‘Missa Solemnis’ at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
(David Butow / For The Times)
Dudamel‘s approach is to attempt the all-encompassing. He conducted without a baton but with his body. His arms were often open and wide as if embracing the musician masses on the stage, holding the whole world in his hands. Tidiness wasn’t necessarily the issue. Grandeur was. Molding sound was. And, of course, awe.
Throughout his career, Beethoven was the overwhelming master of awe. In “Missa Solemnis,” he out-glories the Gloria. His fugues are a draftsman’s rendering of heavenly splendor. Such awe asks for the superhuman from singers, especially in this ensemble from their ravishing high notes.
But Beethoven also questions every sentiment in the Mass. Grandeur can so suddenly turn solemn that it feels almost a ceremonial sleight of hand. In the Sanctus, a solo violin sails in from nowhere (“descending like a dove from heaven,” Hugh MacDonald nicely puts it in the program note), and suddenly we’re in a violin concerto with vocal soloists of transcendent allure.
The Agnus Dei begins in glum realization that there may be no compensation for humanity’s great sins when, again astonishingly without expectation, one of Beethoven’s uniquely wondrous melodies takes over. Saber-rattling trumpet and timpani intrude and are shushed away as worthless. Peace returns but just as it is about to climax it weakens. There is no grand Beethoven ending. “Missa Solemnis” just stops.
Dudamel’s approach was not, as his Beethoven has generally become, filled with fervent intensity in the moment. That may happen as he gains more experience with Beethoven’s most exigent score. The big moments were still huge, especially with the help of his fabulous chorus. The somber moments were well of the heart. There was eloquent solo playing in the orchestra, and extravagance from the solo singers.
Most unusual was the violin solo. The L.A. Phil is in a concertmaster search, and Alan Snow, the associate concertmaster of the Minnesota Symphony, sat in. He brought silken “descending dove” tone to his solo playing, but at low tone becoming more a voice from afar than soloist. Whether that is simply his sound or what Dudamel was after is, like so much in the “Missa Solemnis,” up to question. Still, its quiet exemplified the elusive essence of peace.
When Dudamel first walked on stage, he got, as he always does and especially in his last season as music director, a strong ovation. At the end of “Missa Solemnis,” the reaction was a respectful standing ovation, unlike the de rigueur rapturous reception he always earns with Beethoven.
Dudamel earned something far more rewarding. It wasn’t a moment for cheering but reflection. True peace in “Missa Solemnis” comes not from winning but from ending conflict, be it between nations, nature or among ourselves. We have as yet too little to celebrate.
For casting director Gabriel Domingues, putting together the ensemble of “The Secret Agent” meant materializing characters inspired by director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s recollections.
“It’s not that he was showing us a picture and saying, ‘They must look like this.’ They were ideas of memories that could change,” Domingues says of the Brazilian period thriller about a father on the run during an interview at The Times newsroom. One of the nominees for this year’s inaugural Academy Award for casting, Domingues appreciates how politically charged Mendonça Filho’s films are. His narratives are often fertile ground for an eclectic mix of performers.
And there are no throwaway roles in “The Secret Agent”: “Even the small characters represent ideas about Brazilian life and its contradictions,” Domingues adds.
To honor his large cast, a “panorama” of his country’s people, Mendonça Filho includes a montage at the end of the film in which each actor is acknowledged individually. The director thinks of this as the cinematic equivalent of a curtain call or final bow at the end of a stage production.
“Gabriel tries to find an interesting mix of experienced actors and people that we can discover,” says producer Emilie Lesclaux about Domingues, with whom she’s worked on multiple projects. He first collaborated with Mendonça Filho and Lesclaux on “Aquarius” as a casting assistant.
Domingues believes working on “Aquarius” was instrumental in developing his casting method, which involves searching for the least obvious option to cast the character. He prides himself on doing the shoe-leather work of looking for fresh, compelling faces in cities where others might not think to look — those without a prominent arts scene, for instance.
Gabriel Leone as Bobbi/Abdias (Victor Juca)
Hermila Guedes as Claudia (Victor Juca)
Luciano Chirolli as Henrique Ghirotti (Victor Juca)
Roberio Diogenes as Euclides Cavalcanti (Victor Juca)
Tânia Maria as Dona Sebastiana (Victor Juca)
Joalisson Cunha as Frentista (Victor Juca)
Isabel Zuaa as Tereza Victoria (Victor Juca)
Kaiony Venancio as Vilmar (Victor Juca)
That’s not to say the entire cast was discovered. Mendonça Filho had lead Wagner Moura in mind from the outset, while others sprung to mind as he wrote the screenplay: Maria Fernanda Cândido, a famous soap opera actor, as a crucial ally to Moura’s character; and the late Udo Kier, who had previously appeared in the director’s blood-soaked film “Bacurau,” as a German Jewish immigrant who lived through World War II.
The filmmaker admits that envisioning parts with a specific person in mind is “dangerous.” “I can write a character thinking of you, but I never know if you will want to make the film,” says Mendonça Filho. “And I grow attached to the image.”
Among the other supporting roles, the most challenging to cast, the team agrees, was that of Euclides, the sleazy police chief. Though the character is “repulsive,” it also required an edge of charisma to make him more emotionally layered. Eventually, they came across actor Robério Diógenes. “Robério has studied the clown art in the theater, and he’s a very funny guy, so he adds a component of ridiculousness to this character,” Domingues says.
For Vilmar, an impoverished man hired as a subcontractor for a murder, Mendonça Filho had in mind a real-life contract killer he’d seen in a 1970s TV program. The actor had to convey a certain ambiguity not often afforded to people of a lower social class. There’s no doubt Vilmar is acting out of necessity, but he is not entirely without agency since he negotiates his payment. Domingues found the ideal embodiment of this complex character in Kaiony Venâncio, an actor from the city of Natal who had mostly worked in short films.
Then there’s the scene-stealing Tânia Maria, who plays the endearing, chain-smoking Dona Sebastiana. The 79-year-old talent first appeared in “Bacurau” as an extra. “I just could not help thinking of her,” says Mendonça Filho about casting her in his latest film. “I even pre-ad-libbed many of her lines knowing what she might say.”
Before finding her way onto the screen, Tânia Maria has long made a living as an artisan handcrafting rugs. “I never thought about being an actress. I only thought about sewing,” she says with an endearing smile. “All of this came as a surprise.”
Igor de Araujo as Sergio (Victor Juca)
Joao Vitor Silva as Haroldo (Victor Juca)
Robson Andrade as Clovis (Victor Juca)
Maria Fernanda Candido as Elza/Sara Gerber (Victor Juca)
Alice Carvalho as Fatima (Victor Juca)
Thomas Aquino as Valdemar (Victor Juca)
Licinio Januario as Antonio (Victor Juca)
Udo Kier as Hans (Victor Juca)
And though she’s still sewing, her acting prospects look bright. She’s already appeared in another film, “Yellow Cake,” premiering at the Berlin International Film Festival this month. That Tânia Maria also recently starred in humorous local commercials for Burger King and Heineken is proof of her current status in Brazilian pop culture — as are the Dona Sebastiana costumes that have become popular during this year’s Carnival.
“I can’t go out on the street without people stopping me. They ask me for autographs, for photos, they want to talk to me, they ask me questions,” she says in Portuguese via an interpreter while on a video call from her home. “I make time for everyone, and I’m enjoying all of it.”
Undaunted by what she calls the most challenging aspect of acting — memorizing the lines — Tânia Maria is eager to continue exploring this unexpected new facet. “I don’t want to stop because I’m not old! I’m waiting for more invitations to move forward in acting,” she says.
The success many of the actors have found thanks to “The Secret Agent” very much pleases the filmmakers, but it also has a major downside.
“That’s all that we want for the people that we work with, that the film is good for them and their career,” says Lesclaux. “But for us, it also makes things more complicated for the next film because we will want to work with them, and they might not be available.”
