Jon Bon Jovi’s “Forever” tour stop was cut short after the singer said he needed to cool it.
Nearing the end of his nine-show residency at Madison Square Garden on Thursday, the 64-year-old rock icon apologized to fans when he had to pull the plug nearly an hour early.
Just before launching into “Livin’ on a Prayer,” he told the audience in a raspy voice, “I am the most grateful man in the world right now because I know I’m letting you down, and it’s not like me to do that. I feel f— great, but I’m gonna do one more song. I’m gonna need your help. I might have to cool it because I’m f— hurt.”
He performed the 1986 megahit, with the audience belting the chorus in his place toward the end. Bon Jovi then said, “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. Stay tuned.”
“I’ve got to cool it,” he continued. “It’s just not going to get any better. Don’t throw away your ticket stubs. I’m gonna figure something out, OK? Just hold onto it, we’ll figure out how to reschedule.”
Bon Jovi embraced his band mates in a group hug before heading off stage.
Representatives for the “Bad Medicine” rocker told The Times that the concert ran for 90 minutes before ending.
“Jon Bon Jovi spoke from stage and told fans he has been battling a sinus infection, which led to the show’s early ending,” the statement continued. “As part of the Bon Jovi residency at Madison Square Garden, Jon has said numerous times that it has been a joy to return to live shows for the band.”
Bon Jovi’s “Forever” tour is the first since the namesake frontman had surgery to repair a vocal cord injury in 2022.
The tour kicked off July 7 at the New York City venue and then will head overseas for a series of international stadium dates, including stops at Scottish Gas Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh on Aug. 28, Croke Park in Dublin on Aug. 30, and a three-night stand at Wembley Stadium in London on Sept. 4, 6 and 9.
In 2024, Bon Jovi spoke on a Hulu panel in support of his docuseries “Thank You, Goodnight” and revealed that one of his vocal cords was “atrophying.”
“I pride myself on having been a true vocalist,” the musician said. “I’ve sung with Pavarotti. I know how to sing. I’ve studied the craft for 40 years. I’m not a stylist who just barks and howls. I know how to sing.”
“So when God was taking away my ability, and I couldn’t understand why — I jokingly have said the only thing that’s ever been up my nose is my finger — you know, so there’s no reason for any of this,” he added.
The same year, he told The Times that his voice was a “work in progress.”
“I’m an athlete coming back from an injury — Kobe Bryant with his Achilles torn off. Before I got on the plane this morning, I was at vocal therapy. The goal is 2½ hours a night, four nights a week,” he said.
In June, he told People that he was fully recovered. “It was longer than I’d ever expected, but it had to be right. We never lost faith.”
Universal Studios Hollywood has long been slated to have the biggest theme park opening of 2026 with its new high-speed coaster, Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift. But with no officially announced opening date, questions have started to intensify and rumors have begun to swirl as to what may be causing the park to go radio silent on what is expected to be its centerpiece attraction.
According to Universal, there is no need for concern.
Yet speculation has zeroed in on the potential noise of the coaster as being a problem for residents of the nearby of Toluca Lake. Rumors were fueled Friday by Fox 11 Los Angeles reporting, via a since-deleted post on social media network X that Hollywood Drift’s opening had been delayed at least until the end of year due to neighborhood complaints. Videos of audible screams of riders on the coaster have gone viral in recent weeks.
A spokesperson for Universal said reports that the coaster’s opening is postponed until the end of 2026 are “not accurate” and disputed the notion that the coaster has been delayed. Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift, the spokesperson said, is still on target to open before the end of summer.
“We expect to announce an opening date soon,” read an official statement from the company. “The information online is incorrect.”
The summer season lasts through the end of September. The park begins its popular fall Halloween Horror Nights on Sept. 3. Tickets for the latter are currently on sale, and Universal is promising access to Hollywood Drift for those who purchase its line-skipping express pass, which starts at $259.
Sources familiar with the coaster’s operations have also disputed the notion that noise is a cause for the coaster having not yet opened, instead pointing to more routine mechanical issues that have arisen during its test and adjustment phase. One theme park insider, however, stressed that when Hollywood Drift does open, it will likely be considered a “top-5, or top-10 coaster, in the world.”
The view of Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift from Universal Studios Hollywood’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift is unique in that it is a 72 mph ride with vehicles created to rotate 360 degrees through multiple inversions. Designed to mimic the feel of stunt cars, its four-seated vehicles will twist and turn through banks in the track in an effort to create a drifting sensation.
Universal’s own website earlier this summer posted June 26 as an opening date, and while that was once the targeted launch, the date was quickly removed from the site. Universal began hosting media for walkthroughs of the coaster in May.
Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift has been in the works for than a decade. Built essentially on a cliff between the park’s upper and lower lots, the ride’s existence is a feat of engineering, and Universal has described it as among the most intense attractions in its global park portfolio.
Before land was moved, Universal began a series of tests to track how noise would travel through the surrounding neighborhood. Universal placed speakers on the old special effects and stunt buildings to see how ride screams traveled down the hill.
Ultimately, the tracks would be complemented with multiple sound walls and shields, the latter clear structures designed to block coaster rumbles and audience screams. And because the cars can rotate 360 degrees, Universal can in theory direct rider yells away from the studio below and the neighborhood nearby. The actual track has been filled with pea gravel, designed to minimize noise from any reverberations.
“It’s incredibly quiet,” said Jon Corfino, the lead creative at Universal Studios Hollywood. “We were able to do that by putting materials inside portions of the track to deaden the sound. I’m not sure we would have needed it, but it was important to do the right thing. It’s pea gravel and rocks. It’s quieter than I ever thought it was going to be.”
Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift isn’t the only notable coaster slated to open in Southern California this year. Buena Park’s Knott’s Berry Farm initially intended to launch its reimagined Montezooma’s Revenge, now known as Montezooma: The Forbidden Fortress, on Monday. Late last night, the park indefinitely delayed its public unveiling, with a spokesperson citing additional fine-tuning that surfaced during its final days of testing.
The delay is not expected to be a prolonged one.
“We appreciate everyone’s understanding and look forward to welcoming media and guests in the coming days when we can showcase the attraction exactly as intended,” read a statement from the park. Montezooma: The Forbidden Fortress has been in development for the past four years.
Forty-nine seconds. That’s all it took for the Seattle Storm’s Flau’jae Johnson to fire off a 27-foot three-point jumper to take the lead. In less than a minute, she sank the Sparks’ hopes of beating one of the worst teams in the WNBA, leaving 39 more minutes for the Sparks to consider just how the team got there.
Johnson, already the main act in Seattle, bolstered her WNBA Rookie of the Year case by scoring 23 points as the Storm defeated the Sparks 82-64 Monday night at Crypto.com Arena.
Each time the Storm drove down the court, there was Johnson, her ponytail fluttering as she skirted around the arc before driving into the paint, nonchalantly tossing up layups as if it was still shootaround. Not even the relentless defense chants summoned from the Sparks’ MCs stopped her.
“I don’t know,” coach Lynne Roberts said after the game. “We just weren’t good offensively.”
And while her teammates supplied Johnson with enough passes to at one point secure a 13-point lead, the Sparks (8-11) lost because the team couldn’t build enough momentum.
In the end, Seattle outmaneuvered and outbodied the Sparks, snatching steals and flipping the ball around the perimeter until the Storm fired off a shot. Even when the ball bounced off the rim or backboard, Johnson or Storm center Dominique Malonga, who had nine rebounds, was there, hoisting the basketball away from the closest white jersey.
When asked how the team could’ve compensated defensively, Dearica Hamby kept it short: “Stop them from scoring.”
In comparison, the Sparks, without an offensive rebound until the end of the third quarter, were forced to make perfect shots, though that was far from the team’s grasp. Hamby, who went six for nine, led the team with 17 points, but even she couldn’t go toe-to-toe with Johnson alone. Worse, the Sparks’ abysmal 17.2 three-point percentage all but abandoned that avenue of attack, leaving the team to face Malonga in the paint.
“I’m not trying to let us off the hook at all, but sometimes you just have nights like that, and we all had them at the same time,” Roberts said. “Shooting 17% from three doesn’t help.”
The Sparks struggled to transition to the basket, giving up 19 turnovers resulting in 25 free baskets.
“I don’t think that there is a strong line of playing in transition,” Nneka Ogwumike said. “Sometimes we attribute taking an early shot to transition when in reality, if you’re taking an early, contested shot in transition, it’s probably not the most ideal shot.”
So as the Sparks fell further behind, the holes left by the injured Cameron Brink and Kelsey Plum widened.
In the Sparks’ previous matchup against the Storm a month ago, the two had totaled 34 points in the nail-biting 88-83 win. But in Monday’s game, the Sparks could only cling to the game with clenched fists as the gap widened.
“Credit them,” Roberts said. “They played hard and made shots. We missed them.”
By the end, the Sparks spent the game playing catch-up, never regaining the lead after surrendering it in the first 49 seconds to Johnson.
WASHINGTON — A spectacular economic upturn is on its way, President Trump promised Americans last week, galvanized in part by a deal brokered this month to end his war with Iran.
“Very soon you’ll be at $2.50 a gallon for gasoline,” Trump told a crowd Wednesday night on the National Mall. The next year, he said, “is set for an economic boom the likes of which no nation has ever seen before.”
Economists are skeptical. The effects of the war and other factors driving inflation are likely to stick around for months, experts say, presenting an ongoing challenge to American households — and to Trump’s party as it seeks to retain control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.
Yesenia De La Torre, 24, from Culver City pumps gas at the Chevron gas station on Sawtelle Boulevard and Culver Boulevard on June 15. Despite an agreement announced Sunday to end the Iran war and open the Strait of Hormuz, high oil, gasoline prices and energy supply problems won’t be solved overnight.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
The war’s end will not create “a complete snap-back,” said Patrick Harker, professor at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School and former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
“Markets are still cautious, and the infrastructure that’s been destroyed [in the Middle East] is going to take a while to re-create,” Harker said. “Inflation’s going to stay elevated for a while.”
Oil prices were dropping last week — falling to their prewar level Friday — and average gas prices fell by 7 cents per gallon over a week ago. But it will take significant time for oil shipping to ramp up through the Strait of Hormuz, infrastructure to be rebuilt and gas prices to drop, said Michael Negron, senior fellow for economic opportunity at the Center for American Progress.
“I would expect there to be a continued inching downward,” Negron said, but “we’re not going to just go back within weeks to $2.90 per gallon.”
That means the prices of gas and of other essentials aren’t likely to improve dramatically before the midterms, in which affordability has become a driving issue. It could heighten challenges for Republicans, who are defending their majorities in the U.S. House and Senate, as Democrats seek to leverage the issue to gain ground.
Positive messaging about the economy from Trump and other officials “doesn’t really resonate” with Americans who are struggling to make ends meet, said Gina Plata-Nino of the Food Research and Action Center, a national anti-hunger advocacy organization.
“When you’re still making the same amount of money but there’s less for you to be able to pay [for] your basic needs — gas is more expensive, food is more expensive — it doesn’t really add up,” she said.
A fruit stand on West 7th Street sells bananas for $2 per bunch.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
Americans question the costs
The Iran war has cost the average American household between $775 and $1,300 so far in fuel and taxpayer costs, according to an analysis by Roger Pielke, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
The national average gas price sat at $3.90 on Friday, according to AAA, and California’s average was $5.48 per gallon, down 13 cents from a week earlier.
The increase in oil prices has also affected diesel and fertilizer prices, creating a ripple effect through several sectors, including agriculture. Consumer prices rose 4.1% in May from a year earlier, putting the inflation gauge at a three-year high.
Trump has leaned on a bullish message about the economy, but he has largely dismissed Americans’ worries about affordability, calling it a “fake word” and a “hoax.” Last week, he undermined the first major progress by Congress on the issue, refusing to sign a bipartisan housing affordability bill after both chambers passed it.
President Donald Trump closes his eyes as Dr. Ben Carson, left, speaks during an event with the White House Religious Liberty Commission in the Oval Office on Friday.
(Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)
Meanwhile, the president’s approval rating on the economy dropped to 33% last week in an NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll — his lowest ever for that poll and 3 points below former President Biden’s worst reading on the question during his term.
Nearly four-fifths of respondents said that gas prices present some sort of strain, with 34% categorizing it as a major strain and 44% calling it a minor strain. Half of respondents who said they were not vacationing this summer said cost was the reason.
And only 23% of Americans say the war was worth the costs, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted days after the Trump administration announced the framework agreement to end the conflict earlier this month.
“People [are] just feeling like they’re getting left behind,” Harker said. “That’s a very real, palpable feeling when you go out and talk to people. They’re worried.”
The president and his party need a midterms message that “real economic change” is coming, said Brian Reisinger, a rural policy analyst in Wisconsin and a former GOP strategist.
“It has to be substance behind the sell,” Reisinger said.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) speaks to reporters after the weekly Senate policy luncheons at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. Thune spoke on a meeting with President Trump on the Iran deal.
(Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images)
U.S.-Iran talks on shaky ground
Trump’s boosters have hailed the Iran deal as a victory for the president. And Trump has justified the shock to gas prices as “worth it not to have a nuclear weapon” in Iran, though the war has not achieved the president’s stated aims, which included the elimination of its nuclear program.
“President Trump was clear all along that there would be short-term, temporary disruptions to energy markets, and that oil and gas prices will quickly fall as soon as the Iran situation is resolved,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said Friday.
How rapidly the conflict will be resolved is not yet clear. The U.S.-Iran negotiations were on shaky ground by week’s end, with each country offering diametrically opposed messaging on the status of key points of negotiation.
Analysts say much of the increase in traffic through the strait has been driven by the return of Iranian oil to global markets. Trump agreed in the controversial deal with Iran to lift sanctions on Iranian oil, allowing Tehran to resume trading its most valuable export and breaking with decades of U.S. policy.
The unpredictability of the talks is another factor keeping energy companies, shippers and insurers cautious for now, Negron said.
“Everything is to be negotiated in the next nearly two months,” he said. “It is natural to expect there to be additional risk priced into each barrel of oil, into the insurance people are paying, just because of the volatility and uncertainty of where we are.”
WASHINGTON — President Trump signed a bill into law on Wednesday that gives his immigration and deportation agenda a nearly $70 billion boost for the rest of his time in the White House.
The bill provides $38 billion for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and $26 billion for the Border Patrol. An additional $5 billion would cover unforeseen costs, according to the White House.
Trump signed the legislation in the Oval Office a day after House Republicans pushed the measure through by a 214-212 vote over the objections of Democrats. His signature ended a nearly six-month fight over Department of Homeland Security funding that began with shooting deaths of deaths of two U.S. citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, in January during federal immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis.
Democrats began demanding changes to immigration enforcement after the shootings, creating an impasse — and resulting in the longest agency in history — that ultimately led Republicans to go it alone on the funding.
The agencies will be funded through the next three years. The new law front-loads routine annual funding, ensuring a virtually uninterrupted flow of money as the Trump administration seeks to deport some 1 million people per year.
The legislation had become sidetracked over $1 billion for White House security, including for Trump’s new ballroom, and a $1.8 billion fund to compensate his allies who claim to be victims of political prosecution. Both proposals became politically toxic and were scrapped.
The bill as passed focused exclusively on immigration enforcement, a topic that Republicans have treated as a defining issue between the two major political parties and one the GOP hopes will carry it to victory in November’s midterm elections.
Superville and Binkley write for the Associated Press.
You can’t own the beach in California. Our shoreline is public — thanks to the Coastal Act and the Coastal Commission — even when everything around it gets expensive and complicated. You can live next to it, monetize it and build a personality around proximity to it, but the wet sand itself belongs to everyone.
Jackie Snow takes a selfie by the new public stairs at Escondido Beach, also known as Hidden Beach.
(Jackie Snow)
In 2024, my colleague Jaclyn Cosgrove walked 27.4 miles of Washington Boulevard in a single day, from Whittier to the ocean. I read it in awe of the shape of it. One street. One day. A city revealed in a straight line.
And then a thought occurred to me, I could do something like that. What if I walked the entire L.A. shoreline? What would happen if I went to the beach and just kept walking along the crest of its waves? Except the shore does not reward this approach. It closes. It opens. Erosion pushes you onto the road and lets you back when it feels like it.
I set out to walk the 75 miles along the Los Angeles coastline anyway. I started at the mouth of the San Gabriel River and worked north toward the Ventura County line, taking 10 trips from the end of November to the second week of January, mostly waiting on tides and weather to cooperate.
Being a surfer helped. I already knew that wet sand means public access in California, that satellite view tells you things the default map doesn’t, and that tides can make or break an outing. For someone wanting to do a similar journey, the California Coastal Trail website is a valuable resource. You can walk long stretches and return back, but I went point to point, which means figuring out how to get back to your car. I usually Ubered, although public transit exists on some stretches. The slickest option is going with a friend who has a car: leave their car at the end, drive yours to the start, and walk. Their car is waiting at the finish to bring you both back to yours. Beyond that, bring more water than you think you need to especially as most stretches have no fountains, no services and no shade. Pack snacks that will sustain you throughout the journey, wear a hat and put on sunscreen, then reapply it. Even on gray, marine-layer days, you’re exposed for hours with nothing overhead.
If you’re inspired by this mega-trek but want to instead do a micro version, I suggest the 5.7 miles from Malibu Pier to Escondido Beach. You can park at one end and take a picturesque bus back where a tasty lunch at the pier’s Malibu Farm awaits at the finish. One last tip I picked up: be nice. People sometimes will give you water, or offer help, wanting to see you get to your destination too.
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1.A red-tailed hawk perched on a coastal access sign along the boardwalk in Long Beach.2.A bench off the Long Beach boardwalk, near the start of the 75-mile walk.3.Birdhouses located near the Long Beach boardwalk.(Jackie Snow)
Alamitos Beach to Port of Long Beach: 4.9 miles
I start at the mouth of the San Gabriel River at Alamitos Park at about 10 a.m. on a busy Sunday at the end of November, walking with a friend. The first stretch is a flat, easy boardwalk. We stop at the Long Beach Museum of Art, which sits on the bluffs overlooking the water, and grab lunch at Claire’s, the museum’s outdoor cafe. From there, we walk toward the mouth of the Los Angeles River, passing through the marina, where boats sit quietly and a pirate ship is inexplicably for sale. We don’t make it up the man-made pier to the Queen Mary. Instead, we turn around just short of it, one river book-ending the other.
Looking back toward the marina near the mouth of the Los Angeles River, one river bookending the other.
(Jackie Snow)
Cabrillo Beach to Portuguese Bend Beach Club: 8.7 miles
I park at Cabrillo Beach, along the Port of Los Angeles, around 6:30 a.m. People are already playing ping-pong. Someone is dancing alone on the sand.
I start along the Cabrillo Beach Walking Path, which you enter at the south end of the beach where the sand ends and the bluffs start. In what feels like two seconds, I’m up on the cliffs, which quits partway and dumps me onto the residential streets of Coastal San Pedro, a neighborhood that looks quintessentially California. The houses are probably a few million dollars each, but they’re tidy bungalows, not the kind of aggressive beachfront wealth that makes you feel like you’ve wandered somewhere you’re not supposed to be.
I pass through Point Fermin Park, home to a lighthouse perched above the water. Down below, the beaches are rocky and loud. The waves are being sucked forcefully back out between the rocks, a sound that feels more industrial than oceanic. There’s more neighborhood walking on West Paseo Del Mar, interrupted by a Little Free Library stop where I add a few books to my bag. I hit the San Pedro hike trails, and the coastline turns dramatic, and suddenly I can’t step two feet off the path without risking a fall, but it’s breathtaking in its beauty.
Cabrillo Beach at the Port of Los Angeles, where the second walk began.
(Jackie Snow)
I hit another closed section, this one bordering Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes. Not wanting to end up on a Secret Service list that bars me from flying, I find another way around, on a surprising trail that curves between holes that’s part of the Ocean Trails Reserve. I climb down to the beach and start picking my way along the rocks toward the Portuguese Bend Beach Club, moving slowly and trying not to break my neck. You can definitely skip this part.
A security guard named Gilbert Blair waves me over and explains to me what I already know: I’m allowed to walk on the wet sand, but everything else is private. When I tell him what I’m doing, he starts offering advice, pointing out places on my Google map he thinks are closed because of last year’s heavy rains. This area is some of the shiftiest parts of all of California, with landslides going back all through the geographical record. In 2024, areas were moving 9 to 12 inches a week, although it has slowed down to 1 to 2 inches a week. He tells me the unstable land actually created a new beach, which the coast almost never does. People came from all over to see it, he says, gesturing toward a new form of sand that locals have called “unreal.”
Blair is nice, but not nice enough to wave me off the wet sand and through Portuguese Bend’s private roads so I can call an Uber. I have to backtrack, spending more time than I’d like carefully navigating the rocks. I briefly consider stopping at the nearby Trump National Golf Club to eat and use the bathroom, but I’m hot, sweaty and not in the mood to test my welcome.
The trail descending toward the rocky beaches below Point Fermin, where waves get sucked back out between the rocks with a sound more industrial than oceanic.
(Jackie Snow)
Terranea Beach to Palos Verdes Estates Shoreline Preserve: 5.4 miles
Based on Blair’s advice, I skip a section that isn’t open to the public and probably not safe. I drive Palos Verdes Drive South, a rutted, uneven road that skirts the area and feels vaguely off-roading. I park at Terranea Resort, which charges a fee, but there is also nearby free public parking. I pick the walk back up at the charming tucked-away Terranea Beach. As I head north, the trail climbs. I can see stretches of shoreline closed off, tantalizingly visible with no way to reach them.
I stop at the Point Vicente Interpretive Center, a modest but free museum perched above the water. Several people are gathered outside with binoculars, scanning the horizon. They tell me humpbacks were spotted farther out earlier, feeding. It’s easier to see them on the far side of Catalina, they explain, but they still watch from here, every day, sunrise to sunset, December through May. This is the Gray Whale Census and Behavior Project, run by the American Cetacean Society. Volunteers have been coming here for 43 years, counting whales as they migrate past the point.
The Point Vicente lighthouse, perched above the water where Gray Whale Census volunteers keep watch.
(Jackie Snow)
Volunteers with the Gray Whale Census and Behavior Project scanning the horizon. They’ve been counting whales here for 43 years.
(Jackie Snow)
After I peel myself away from looking for whales, the tides won’t allow me to climb down to Honeymoon Cove. I stay on the cliffs and admire the impressive houses around me. I continue until I round the Palos Verdes Estates cliffs, on Paseo del Mar, and see the long, flat stretch of built-up beaches unfurling ahead, South Bay-style, Malibu faint in the distance.
I’ve only done about 15 miles of my walk and suddenly I see how much more there is to go. I’m hot. I’m tired. I packed bad snacks. The sheer expanse of it, frankly, stresses me out. I had planned to make it to Rat Beach in Palos Verdes Estates, but I call it early.
The small coves that punctuate the Palos Verdes coastline, visible from the cliffs above.
(Jackie Snow)
Palos Verdes Estates Shoreline Preserve to El Porto Beach: 7.9 miles
I start back at Palos Verdes Estates cliffs. A couple of turns in, I come across my first real surf spot of the walk. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a surf break from this high up. The waves look less like waves and more like pulses of energy moving under the skin of the ocean.
When I finally hit Rat Beach and see how flat the coastline stretches ahead, I feel like dropping to my knees and kissing the ground. After days of cliffs and detours, the openness feels generous.
Hermosa Beach is busy with volleyball nets in use at a level that suggests Olympic aspirations. Forty minutes later, I stop atErcole’s in Manhattan Beach two blocks off the boardwalk and demolish one of its famed burgers. Instead of stopping where I planned, I keep going and end at my familiar surf spot El Porto.
Surfers walking out to the break at El Porto.
(Jackie Snow)
El Porto Beach to Ballona Creek Jetty: 4.8 miles
I’m back at El Porto Beach, this time walking a paved boardwalk through a thick, foggy marine layer with my husband and a friend who’s in town visiting.
Suddenly, my friend realizes he’s dropped his wallet somewhere north of El Segundo. Cue a round of retraced steps and mild panic. An angel named Dr. Gaz finds it, looks up my friend, and bikes it over so we don’t have to retrace any further. The wallet is returned. Our trio survives. We keep walking, stopping at Ballona Creek Jetty.
A dog and his man relaxing on the beach in Marina Del Rey.
(Jackie Snow)
Marina Del Rey to Will Rogers Beach: 7.4 miles
In this classic boardwalk stretch, we eye the muscle men of Muscle Beach, pause for a quiet break atSmall World Books in Venice and walk next to skateboarders (including one dressed as a Santa) in Santa Monica, before ending at Will Rogers State Beach.
The rocks and tide pools just past Malibu Lagoon, where the king tide pulled the water back farther than usual.
(Jackie Snow)
Will Rogers Beach to Malibu Pier: 7.7 miles
I do this stretch with my husband on New Year’s Day, parking at Will Rogers Beach Lot Three and timing it to a king tide. The highs are higher, but the lows are lower too, which is the part we’re interested in.
Even with the king tide low, the beach opens up and pinches closed without warning, and we move between wet sand, rocks we feel like traversing, and the shoulder of the Pacific Coast Highway when we don’t.
Soon enough, we hit the section of burned-out houses that still haunt the beach nearly a year later. I think I can still smell the smoke. It’s the quietest stretch of the whole walk, and the only place the emptiness feels like loss instead of calm.
The Malibu coastline near Escondido Beach.
(Jackie Snow)
When we finally reach the Malibu Pier, it feels like stepping back into civilization. People are on the beach. Nobu is packed. We eat at Malibu Farm and sit indoors, grateful for chairs, shade and food that isn’t trail mix.
Afterward, we take the bus back to the car from a stop near the Pier on the PCH, which turns out to be one of the most beautiful bus rides in existence, with the coastline framed perfectly by wide windows.
Malibu Pier to Escondido Beach: 5.7 miles
We come back the next day for another king tide, despite rain in the forecast. I start on the other side of Malibu Lagoon State Beach, which looks like nothing else on this walk. It’s swampy and green and quietly buzzing, reminding me of Florida, my home turf. Birders are out, rain jackets zipped, binoculars already up.
There are still rocks and little rivers to navigate, but the tide is so low it’s exposing tide pools I didn’t know existed up here. The sand is packed and forgiving, and we cover distance quickly until the rain really starts coming down.
We exit using the new stairs at Escondido Beach, also known as Hidden Beach, which were installed in 2023 after a multidecade battle over access. I take them slowly as I celebrate a mostly triumphant walk.
The Malibu coastline just south of Point Dume.
(Jackie Snow)
Escondido Beach to Zuma Beach: 6.7 miles
I head back to Escondido Beach, a few days later at low tide, though the tide is already coming in. That turns out to be a mistake. My second mistake is coming alone. As I scramble over rocks helpfully labeled with a sign warning not to climb on them, it’s dangerous, I notice my phone has no service. I decide the safest option is to soak my hiking boots instead along the incoming tide.
With my shoes sloshing and Google Maps satellite view looking deeply uncommitted to the stretch just south of Point Dume, I try to exit. Nope. Gated community. Not ready to give up, I keep going.
The surfer south of Point Dume whose companions offered to unlock the gate.
(Jackie Snow)
I spot a woman surfing and stop to take a photo. Her non-surfing companions start chatting with me. When they hear what I’m doing and where I’m trying to go, they offer to unlock the gate. It’s a genuinely kind gesture. But since I’m doing this for you, reader, I ask if there’s an exit farther along. They say there are stairs up ahead, probably reachable. I tell them, in the nicest way possible, that I hope I don’t see them again, and keep going.
My shoes are now collecting water on every step, the bottoms of my pants are wet, and everything underfoot is baseball-sized rocks, which I think is the worst possible rock size for walking. I round the curve. I spot the stairs.
If I had turned off satellite view, the stairs would have been obvious. So much for trying to read the coastline.
I climb out and walk to the tip of Point Dume and look south. I can see the South Bay, where I called it early weeks ago, hot and tired and hating my snacks. I’m still hot. I’m still tired. My snacks are still crummy. But standing here, salty and damp, I realize I don’t want this to walk to end.
The view from the cliffs near Point Dume.
(Jackie Snow)
Zuma Beach to county line: 5.3 miles
Today I timed the hike with a tide going out and my husband joins me so I don’t have a repeat from last time. We park along the PCH at Zuma. The first stretch we go by “Hannah Montana’s View,” a very persistent Google map label. It’s calm until a curve, where a gaggle of adolescent boys, shirtless and shoeless, are trying but failing to climb over the mussel-covered rocks ahead of us. For the second time on this walk, I have to turn around and back-track to the last exit, maybe a quarter mile back.
Luckily, the sighting of a Little Free Library makes the detour feel less like a failure and more like a reward. We cut through a small gated community that turns out to have a door for exactly this purpose, a quiet acknowledgment that people do, in fact, want to walk through here. There is so much rock walking. So much. Eventually we reach Leo Carrillo State Beach, where Los Angeles actually ends and Ventura County begins. Despite the name, County Line Beach is another mile or so away.
Gated Lechuza Point neighborhood has a beach access road that lets walkers get to the shore.
(Jackie Snow)
I watch people walk across the county border without noticing it at all, no fanfare, no announcement, no sense that anything has changed. They keep going. I stop. They are not done walking, but I am.
I haven’t seen every inch of the Los Angeles County coastline. I double-checked my walking distance and I’m still not at 75 miles, more like 65. The number I found online is probably not entirely accurate (the coastline is constantly changing). Maybe it’s closer to 70. But I have seen whale-watch perches, burned-out Malibu lots, crowded boardwalks and magnificent waves. The coastline is both fragile and welcoming — and walkable — if you’re willing to chase the tides.
The carriage has turned back into a pumpkin, the ballgown is once again just tattered clothing and all the horses have gone back to being mice.
The Ducks’ Cinderella run through the NHL playoffs came to an end Thursday in a 5-1 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 6 of their second-round Stanley Cup playoff series. And the end came well before midnight, with goals by Mitch Marner and Brett Howden in the first 8½ minutes giving Vegas a commanding lead before many in the late-arriving weeknight crowd had made it to their seats at the Honda Center.
The Golden Knights will move on to the Western Conference final with the Colorado Avalanche next week while the Ducks will move on to summer. But it’s the team’s latest start on the offseason since 2017, the last time the Ducks made it to the second round of the playoffs. So even if the glass slipper didn’t fit this time, the Ducks have reason to celebrate.
“I think our team, we learned, myself included, just how to play in those games,” said winger Troy Terry, the only remaining link to the Ducks’ last playoff team. “That’s kind of the difference in some of these games, a team like Vegas, learning how to manage those close games. It stings right now, but I think I speak for everyone that we’ll be hungry going into the summer.
“It was fun to play in this. It’s been a long time.”
Ducks center Leo Carlsson passes the puck as Vegas’ Shea Theodore defends during the second period.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
This team, after all, wasn’t supposed to be at the ball this long. Fourteen players on its roster had never been to the postseason before; most of them had never even played for a winning team in the NHL before. But the team’s youth and inexperience proved to be a strength, not a weakness.
They didn’t know they weren’t supposed to win in the playoffs, so they did, dispatching the Edmonton Oilers — who made the last two Stanley Cup finals — in the first round and outplaying the veteran Golden Knights, a playoff team in eight of the franchise’s nine seasons, throughout much of the second round.
Rookie Beckett Sennecke, just 20, had four goals and an assist in the six games with Vegas. Winger Cutter Gauthier, just 22, led the team with 12 points in his first trip to the playoffs. Defenseman Olen Zellwenger, also 22, had a goal and assist in his first two playoff games and Olympic gold medalist Jackson LaCombe, 25, led the team in ice time — and was third in points with 10 — in his first postseason.
That’s the core of the team going forward and the playoff experience they got this spring will be invaluable.
“We’ve got a super young core here,” Sennecke said. “We’re a fast team and we play with a lot of skill, a lot of pace. … The next few years are exciting.”
Ducks left wing Alex Killorn moves the puck ahead of Vegas right wing Keegan Kolesar in the first period.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“It doesn’t make this any easier,” added center Mikael Granlund, at 34 the second-oldest Duck to play Thursday. “Tonight was kind of the story of the season. In the first period we’re down three goals. In the regular season, we were able to come back. But in playoffs, it’s not easy.
“So yeah, there’s a lot of good signs in this team, but at the same time, it’s never easy.”
However, the fairy godmother’s spell wore off early in Game 6, which was just 62 seconds old when Vegas went ahead to stay.
Marner opened the scoring with a spectacular breakaway goal, skating on to William Karlssson’s two-line pass as he entered the offensive zone and beating LaCombe up the center of the ice to the crease. When he got there, he pulled up, turned his back to goalie Lukas Dostal, then shoved the puck just inside the right post for his seventh goal of the playoffs.
Howden doubled the lead with a shorthanded goal 7½ minutes later, finding miles of space just to the right of the goal and banging in a pass from Marner that split LaCombe and Alex Killorn. The goal was Howden’s eighth of the playoffs, temporarily giving him the NHL postseason lead, while the assist gave Marner 18 postseason points, also best in the league.
“I thought we had a really good vibe going in and felt good about guys being excited,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said. “Couple of quick goals, and we certainly lost a lot of our excitement. That was tough.”
When Shea Theodore scored off a faceoff seconds into a power play late in the period, it gave the Golden Knights a 3-0 lead at the intermission with the goals coming on a power play, the penalty kill and with the teams at even strength.
The Ducks led the NHL with 26 comeback wins during the regular season, but against the poised and patient Golden Knights the deficit was too big. The Ducks left the ice to a chorus of boos after the period, though they came back to dominate the second period, getting the only score at 12:46 when Mikael Granlund notched his fifth goal of the playoffs on a power play, lining a snap shot into the side netting from the middle the left circle.
But the Ducks would get no closer, with Vegas icing the game on two third-period goals from Pavel Dorofeyev, who had four goals in the final two games. The first came off a turnover from the Ducks’ John Carlson deep in his defensive end 2:52 into the final period and the second on a shot from a difficult angle to the right of the goal that ricocheted in off Dostal with 6:28 left in the Ducks’ season.
The two goals gave Dorofeyev nine for the playoffs, passing Howden for the league lead.
“They worked for what they got,” Quenneville said of the Golden Knights. “They deserve to move on.”
A preliminary hearing the murder case against David Anthony Burke, the 21-year-old singer better known as D4vd, will go forward at the end of June, setting a timeline for when more detailed evidence about the gruesome murder and dismemberment of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez will become public.
Burke — who prosecutors say sexually abused the teen for a year before stabbing her to death and mutilating her corpse last year — will face the hearing on June 29, attorneys said during a brief hearing Tuesday morning.
After the singer’s arrest in April, his legal team pushed for an immediate preliminary hearing — where a judge determines if prosecutors have enough evidence to bring a case to trial — but they backed off after prosecutors began turning over what they have described as a massive amount of digital evidence linking Burke to the teenager’s brutal slaying. Burke has pleaded not guilty in the case.
The hearing is expected to last at least five days. A status conference hearing will take place on June 17.
Questions about the singer’s connection to Hernandez’s grisly end have circled since last summer, ever since her badly decomposed and dismembered body was found in the trunk of a Tesla linked to Burke. Late last month, prosecutors filed a nine-page brief laying out what they believe to be Hernandez’s final moments and Burke’s alleged horrific actions after her death.
In the filing, prosecutors said Burke stabbed Hernandez to death inside a Hollywood Hills residence after she threatened to go public about the ascendant singer’s continual sexual abuse. After killing her, Burke ordered a chainsaw, a “burn cage,” a shovel and other implements he used to dismember her remains in his garage, prosecutors alleged last week.
The motion also laid out the dramatic steps Burke went to in order to continue his relationship with the teen. In February 2024, Hernandez was reported missing to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department by her parents, who were concerned about her involvement with Burke, according to the filing. Hernandez went home and had her phone taken away, but Burke allegedly paid a junior high school student $1,000 to give her a new device so they could stay in touch.
Prosecutors also said they found images of Hernandez naked and performing sex acts on Burke’s phone, according to the document. Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman said in court last month that search warrants turned up “a significant amount of child pornography” on Burke’s devices.
Burke’s lawyers have not commented on their defense strategy.
Famous signs along the nearly 2,500 miles of Route 66 include the 66-foot soda bottle at Pops in Oklahoma, the wagging neon tail of Albuquerque’s Dog House and the hand-painted slogans for Snow Cap Drive-In in Arizona. But in L.A., none is so iconic as the giant looming penguin that signifies milkshakes, burgers, oldies playlists and sheer Americana at the end of the road.
Stories, photos and travel recommendations from America’s Mother Road
The Mother Road that stretches from Chicago to the West Coast unofficially ends at the Santa Monica Pier, but at its technical terminus, Mel’s Drive-In declares the “ROUTE ENDS HERE,” inlaid in terrazzo beneath that jumbo tuxedoed penguin. It’s been a beacon for decades, and though the beloved restaurant space recently was listed for sale for $26 million, Mel’s owners hope it remains a diner and destination for generations.
For much of its history, the diner at the end of Route 66 was the 1959-founded Penguin Coffee Shop, a Googie-architecture marvel of angular windows, rock walls and little cartoons of penguins hanging above swivel stools and an open kitchen.
The original penguin sign from the former Penguin Coffee Shop still stands at Mel’s Drive-In in Santa Monica.
As a very young child I remember sliding into the booths with my father, whose office was nearby on Wilshire. Back then, the tall angled ceilings seemed to soar and the breakfast combos looked mountainous.
“It was a Googie kind of restaurant — you know, we don’t have that many of them around anymore,” my dad recalls. “It had an aura of roadside diner about it. … Everybody would see the giant penguin out there. I don’t think Burgess Meredith ever ate there, though.” The joke takes me a beat before landing; my version of Batman’s Penguin will always be Danny DeVito.
“It was a Googie kind of restaurant — you know, we don’t have that many of them around anymore,” the writer’s dad recalls.
We’d visit every month or two, until the Penguin closed its doors in 1991 and transformed into a Western Dental office, which kept the penguin sign but dropped those high ceilings and removed the kitchen along with other hallmarks of its roadside charm. Thankfully, its journey didn’t end there.
The Weiss family, which founded Mel’s Drive-In diner in 1947, had been eyeing the property for years and signed a lease in 2016. Then there was the link to their own history: The prolific Armet & Davis architecture firm designed the Penguin as well as the current home of Mel’s Sherman Oaks.
“When the dentist office went out of business,” said co-owner Colton Weiss, “it seemed like a no-brainer to make it Mel’s and bring it back to the glory days of being a diner.”
What followed were two years of “very expensive” renovations, according to the third-generation Mel’s owner.
Beyond the iconic penguin sign — which obtained “historically or architecturally significant” designation in 2000 — Mel’s pays homage with the large sculptural, custom-made glass globe lights, which replicate the original’s. The Weisses hired garden specialists to review decades-old photos of the Penguin Coffee Shop to determine which varieties of flowers decorated the front of the restaurant, then they replanted them.
Since the building’s reopening in 2018, thousands of guests have ended the journey along Route 66 with a meal in the diner.
“We’re like Route 66 authorities now.”
— Colton Weiss, co-owner of Mel’s Drive-In
While sledgehammering drywall, they uncovered the diner’s original rock wall. Along a hallway near the bathrooms, a small gallery of Penguin Coffee Shop photos offers another glimpse of the predecessor. This location also features a marshmallow-and-chocolate-sauce Penguin Shake in honor of the tuxedoed mascot of the original.
It wasn’t until they were close to signing a deal that they realized it sat along Route 66.
“We’re like Route 66 authorities now,” said Weiss, whose father, Steven Weiss, was largely responsible for the restoration.
Since the building’s reopening in 2018, the owners say thousands of guests have ended their travels with a meal in the diner. They bustle through the doors after the long journey, sometimes bedecked in Route 66 merchandise, and sometimes buying Mel’s own brand of Route 66 merch while there.
Atmosphere and details of Mel’s Drive-In Diner.
“We had a guy do it in a ’67 Chevy, that was on his bucket list: Older guy who did it with his wife, and it was a convertible,” said Weiss. “He did it in summertime, so by the time he showed up he was covered in dust and dirt. He couldn’t be happier to make it to Mel’s and get a burger.”
Another, he said, did the whole route on a bicycle.
The diner offers certificates of completion for those who finish the trek, and devised a burger named for the route. A fish tank at the entrance features a Route 66 theme, as does a mural on a small wall of the parking lot. Two official signs, placed by the city, denote the location’s significance.
“The city knew there’d be renewed interest in a diner being the real ending of Route 66,” Weiss said. “Before, I don’t know anybody who’d want to end their trip at a dentist’s office. Maybe somebody who broke their teeth on the way.”
But the trail’s end could someday see its own end. The property was listed for sale in 2025. Representatives for the building’s management company didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“We’re trying to keep it there as long as possible,” Weiss said. “People really enjoy this location, and it seems like one of the last diners in Santa Monica.” Weiss declined to comment further.
Mel’s assistant manager Yazmin Minguelasays she sees more travelers now because it’s the centennial of Route 66. “But even before that, we still had a lot of visitors.”
She’s worked for Mel’s 22 years, six of which have been spent in the Santa Monica restaurant. Her shifts are full of Westside regulars, celebrities and guests finishing their trip along Route 66.
“Ending on a diner is nostalgia,” my dad mused. “Having a place like Mel’s, which is a substitute for the kind of flea-bitten ptomaine joints that you might get along Route 66, brings back memories to very old people. And very new people ask questions like, ‘Who’s Burgess Meredith?’”
Mel’s Drive-In is open at 1670 Lincoln Blvd., Santa Monica, Sunday to Thursday from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 7 a.m. to midnight.
There will be no replacement referees — and therefore, hopefully, no “Fail Mary” repeat — in the NFL this fall.
The league and the NFL Referees Assn. have avoided a work stoppage by agreeing on a new collective bargaining agreement that runs through the 2032 season.
The current deal was scheduled to expire May 31. The sides having been negotiating since the summer of 2024, and the NFL had begun the hiring process for replacement officials last month.
“This agreement is a testament to the joint commitment of the league and union to invest in and improve officiating,” NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent said in a statement. “It also speaks to the game officials’ relentless pursuit of improvement and officiating excellence. We look forward to working together for the betterment of the game.”
Terms of the agreement have not been released, but the Associated Press reported in March that the league had increased its offer to a 6.45% annual growth rate”growth rate” = increase? in compensation over a six-year labor deal.
“We see this new CBA as a partnership with the league that benefits our membership but also seeks to make our game better,” NFLRA president Carl Cheffers said in a statement. “It is good to get these negotiations behind us so we can focus on preparing for the 2026 season.”
No such agreement between the sides was reached during the 2012 offseason, leading to a lockout that lasted 110 days. It all culminated in Week 3 of that season with the notorious “Fail Mary” call at the end of the Green Bay Packers-Seattle Seahawks game on “Monday Night Football.”
With the Seahawks down by five in the closing seconds, quarterback Russell Wilson threw deep to receiver Golden Tate in the end zone. Green Bay defender M.D. Jennings appeared to come down with the ball first, with Tate attempting to wrestle the ball away.
Two officials stood above the players, with one signaling touchdown (meaning Tate caught the ball, Seattle wins) and the other signaling touchback (meaning Jennings caught the ball, Green Bay wins). The final call on the field was a touchdown, which stood after a lengthy review.
It got worse. The next day, the NFL released a statement saying the officials missed a pass interference call on Tate that would have negated the touchdown. A day after that, the NFL and the referees union announced a new collective bargaining agreement that brought the regular officials back for that weekend’s games.
