Eric

The ex-wife of the Angels employee who gave pitcher Tyler Skaggs fentanyl-laced opioid pills was steadfast in her testimony Monday and Tuesday that Angels executives knew of her then-husband’s opioid abuse for several years before Skaggs died after chopping up and snorting the pills in 2019.

The testimony of Camela Kay directly contradicted that of the Angels then-vice president of communications, Tim Mead, and traveling secretary Tom Taylor, both of whom testified during the first week of a trial in Orange County Superior Court that is expected to last until December.

Skaggs’ widow, Carli, and his parents, Debbie Hetman and Darrell Skaggs, are the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the Angels and are seeking $118 million in lost earnings, unspecified damages for pain and suffering plus punitive damages.

Camela Kay’s testimony fortified the Skaggs family’s contention that the Angels knew that Eric Kay — the team’s communications director of 23 years who is now serving a 22-year prison term for his role in Skaggs’ death — had serious drug problems and that his supervisors and co-workers did not follow team and Major League Baseball policies in dealing with the issues.

Leah Graham, another in the Skaggs family’s deep roster of accomplished attorneys, questioned Camela Kay, taking her through a timeline beginning in 2013 when she first recognized that her husband had a drug problem.

During an Angels road trip to New York to play the Yankees, Eric admitted to her, “I take five Vicodin a day,” Camela testified. She said he made the admission in front of Mead and Taylor, whom she described as shocked, and they told her they “were going to do whatever they could to help him.”

She continued to suspect illicit drug use, however, and the issues came to the forefront in 2017, when the Kay family staged in intervention at their home on Oct. 1, the day after the Angels’ season ended.

Camela testified about a phone call that day in which she said she told Taylor that Eric’s sister, Kelly Miller, had notified her that Eric was distributing pills to Skaggs. Camela said of Taylor’s reaction, “He blows me off.”

The next day, Mead and Taylor visited the Kay home to try to convince Eric to go to rehab for “opioid addiction,” according to Camela. He said Eric told Mead to go into his bedroom and find pills he had stashed there. Mead returned with a handful of baggies containing pills.

“I was standing afar, and Tom was on the couch with Eric, and all of a sudden I see Tim walk out of our bedroom with baggies of pills,” Camela Kay said.

She said Mead placed the pills on the coffee table in front of the couch where Eric Kay and Taylor were sitting. She testified that she believed her then-husband — their divorce was finalized in 2023 — was selling the baggies of opioids to players to make extra money because the family had financial difficulties.

Both Mead and Taylor denied in their testimony that they had any recollection of finding or seeing any baggies full of pills. Mead said he recalled “very little of that morning” and did not remember going into Eric Kay’s bedroom or finding pills there.

Camela Kay testified that she witnessed team employees and players handing out opioid pills on a team flight. On cross-examination, Angels lawyer Todd Theodora asked her how many team flights she had been on, and Camela answered 10 to 12.

Theodora also pointed out discrepancies in her testimony compared to what she said in her deposition several months ago. He also pointed out that in nearly 200 texts and emails to Angels personnel, she never warned them that her husband might be taking or distributing opioids.

Camela said she had strong suspicions throughout the 2018 season that Eric was still using because he displayed erratic behavior and noted that she shared those concerns with Taylor, whose office at Angel Stadium was adjacent to her husband’s.

The Angels have attempted to establish that Eric Kay was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, although Camela disputed that. When Theodora pressed her on her assertion that she had never heard her husband was bipolar, she replied, “He had a drug addiction.”

Camela testified that Eric told her that he was taking opioids to mask mental health issues that included depression, but that he was not taking prescribed medication for bipolar disorder.

A crisis occurred Easter Sunday — April 21, 2019 — when Eric was acting erratically at work and was hospitalized that evening after Taylor had driven him home. While taking Eric’s items from Taylor’s car, Camela said, she found an Advil bottle filled with blue pills next to the car and dumped them on the passenger seat to show Taylor.

Taylor testified that he while he did recall Eric acting erratically and driving him home, he didn’t recall the blue pills in the Advil bottle.

Although Camela said she was forceful in telling Mead and Taylor that Eric needed detox and inpatient care, instead he went through an outpatient rehab program in late April and May. He returned to work — by this time moving up to the position Mead had held before he departed that spring to become president of the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y. — and about a month later was assigned to go on the trip to Texas that resulted in Skaggs’ death.

Angels communications employee Grace McNamee testified last week that when she learned Eric Kay was going on the trip, she asked colleague Adam Chodzko, “Is this a good idea?”

“Maybe I was talking out loud, the mother in me, it just felt like maybe Eric should spend some time at home after being on leave for, you know, bipolar and mental illness,” McNamee testified.

Testimony last week from Angels human resources executive Mayra Castro established that Eric Kay wasn’t fired, but instead was allowed to resign Nov. 2, 2019. Graham said this bolstered the Skaggs family’s contention that the Angels repeatedly gave Kay special treatment rather than treating his behavior the way they would with other employees.

Castro told Graham that a 63-year-old longtime Angels custodial worker was fired for drinking a hard seltzer during a break. The employee was not visibly intoxicated and told HR she was unaware the drink contained alcohol, Castro testified. The Skaggs family’s lawyers suggested that had Kay been punished similarly, Tyler Skaggs would still be alive.

Castro also admitted to deleting and then restoring an August 2019 text she sent to a co-worker that said of Kay, “Dude he gave me tweaker vibes.” The co-worker responded: “Omfg, I always thought he definitely looked like a tweaker and sketch.” Castro testified that she realized deleting the text was wrong and turned it over to the Skaggs family‘s legal team as part of discovery.

Oct. 23 (UPI) — Outgoing New York Mayor Eric Adams officially endorsed former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to replace him.

Adams ended his campaign for re-election in late September after a federal bribery indictment and the Campaign Finance Board’s decision to withhold millions in public matching funds. After Cuomo pressured him to leave the race, Adams called him a “snake and a liar,” The New York Times reported.

But now the two are friends again, announcing the endorsement together on a sidewalk in East Harlem. “Brothers fight,” Adams said. “But when families are attacked, brothers come together.”

On Wednesday night, Cuomo, a Democrat running as an independent, participated in the final debate of the election season, facing off against front-runner Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist running as a Democrat; and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

In an interview with The Times Thursday, Adams said that he would campaign with Cuomo in neighborhoods where the mayor is most popular and try to urge people to vote for Cuomo.

“I think that it is imperative to really wake up the Black and brown communities that have suffered from gentrification on how important this race is,” Adams said. “They have watched their rents increase in terms of gentrification and they have been disregarded in those neighborhoods, and I’m going to go to those neighborhoods and speak one on one with organizers and groups, and I’m going to walk with the governor in those neighborhoods and get them engaged.”

Mamdani released a statement after the announcement.

“Today confirms what we’ve long known: Andrew Cuomo is running for Eric Adams’s second term,” Mamdani said. “It’s no surprise to see two men who share an affinity for corruption and Trump capitulation align themselves at the behest of the billionaire class and the president himself. We are going to turn the page on the politics of big money and small ideas that these two disgraced executives embody and build a city every New Yorker can afford.”

Sliwa brushed off the endorsement at a press conference Thursday. He told reporters that the two men were “corrupt birds of a feather flocking together.”

“The guy who called Andrew Cuomo a snake is now the snake charmer,” Sliwa said. “Are you surprised by that?”

Angels superstar Mike Trout testified Tuesday morning that he knew team employee Eric Kay had a drug problem but that pitcher Tyler Skaggs showed no signs of drug use.

Trout, a three-time American League Most Valuable Player, has played with the Angels his entire 15-year career and is under contract through the 2030 season. He was a teammate of Skaggs from 2014 to 2019, when the left-handed pitcher died in a Texas hotel room July 1, 2019, after snorting a counterfeit oxycodone pill that contained fentanyl, a powerful opioid.

Key, a former Angels communications director, was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison after being convicted in 2022 of providing the pills that led to the Skaggs’ overdose.

According to trial transcripts, Skaggs lawyer Daniel Dutko asked Trout about his reaction when he learned the next day in a team meeting that Skaggs had died.

“Cried,” Trout answered.

“You loved him like a brother,” the lawyer said as Trout nodded affirmatively. Trout added that he was unaware of any drug use by Skaggs.

Skaggs’ lawyer asked questions to elicit testimony from Trout that would humanize Skaggs, to establish that he was a valued teammate and friend. Trout said he and Skaggs were roommates in 2010 when both were 18 years old and playing for the Angels affiliate in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Trout, the highest-paid Angels employee making more than $37 million a year, attended Skaggs’ wedding in 2018.

Neither Dutko nor Angels attorney Todd Theodora asked Trout why he didn’t inform a team executive or human resources when he suspected Kay’s drug use.

Skaggs was found dead in his hotel room in Southlake, Texas, on July 1, 2019, before the Angels were scheduled to start a series against the Texas Rangers. The Tarrant County medical examiner found that in addition to the opioids, Skaggs had a blood-alcohol level of 0.12. The autopsy determined he died from asphyxia after aspirating on his own vomit, and that his death was accidental.

Trout’s testimony followed that of longtime Angels executives Tim Mead and Tom Taylor. Kay reported to Mead nearly his entire 23-year career and worked closely with Taylor, the team’s traveling secretary. Both men testified that they had no idea Kay was addicted to opioids or that Kay supplied Skaggs with drugs.

Skaggs’ widow, Carli Skaggs, and parents Debra Hetman and Darrell Skaggs are seeking $118 million from the Angels for Skaggs’ lost future earnings as well as compensation for pain and anguish, and punitive damages.

The Angels announcement that longtime former big league catcher Kurt Suzuki was hired as manager coincided with Trout’s testimony.

As he manages his own amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, actor Eric Dane is also advocating for the continuation of the Accelerating Access to Critical Therapies for ALS Act, which is set to expire in 2026.

The actor, along with the nonprofit organization I AM ALS, spoke with U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) on Tuesday about the importance of the legislation, which provides funding for research and gives patients early access to treatments.

“So often, it takes all this time for these people to be diagnosed. Well, then it precludes them from being a part of these clinical trials,” Dane told Swalwell. “That’s why ACT for ALS is so, so great, and it’s because it broadens the access for everybody.”

It took Dane nine months before he was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. He announced his diagnosis in April.

Since then, the “Euphoria” actor has changed his approach to fighting his condition.

During an interview with “Good Morning America” in June, Dane expressed anger at the thought of being taken from his two young daughters. He said he was mad that history might repeat itself, as his father died when the “Grey’s Anatomy” alumnus was 7.

Months later, his frustration has turned into a fight to see his daughters’ lives play out.

“I want to see [my daughters], you know, graduate college, and get married and maybe have grandkids,” Dane told Swalwell. “You know, I want to be there for all that. So I’m going to fight to the last breath on this one.”

In the video posted on TikTok by the representative, Dane speaks with a slight slur but his words echo his fight to live on.

About 5,000 people are newly diagnosed with ALS each year in the U.S., according to the National ALS Registry. It affects the nerve cells in the brain that control movement, which eventually leads to the loss of the ability to speak, move, swallow and breathe.

Times staff writers Christie D’Zurilla and Kaitlyn Huamani contributed to this report.

Sept. 28 (UPI) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Sunday that he will abandon his re-election bid just five weeks before the election after a federal bribery indictment and the Campaign Finance Board’s decision to withhold millions in public matching funds.

Adams made the announcement with a nearly nine-minute video posted to social media that began with Frank Sinatra‘s “My Way.” He did not make any endorsements in the video.

His name will remain on the ballot in November, but his departure leaves the election to three main challengers, Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani, perennial Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa and Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat running independently after allegations of sexual misconduct led to his 2021 resignation as governor.

“Despite all we’ve achieved, I cannot continue my re-election campaign,” Adams said. “The constant media speculation about my future and the campaign finance board’s decision to withhold millions of dollars have undermined my ability to raise the funds needed for a serious campaign.”

The announcement caps a dramatic fall for Adams, a former NYPD captain and Brooklyn borough president who won City Hall in 2021, promising to restore order after the pandemic. His tenure was quickly overshadowed by controversies over homelessness, migrant housing and public safety, and he never recovered politically after federal prosecutors began probing his fundraising.

The indictment, unsealed earlier this year, accused Adams and aides of soliciting and accepting illegal foreign donations during his 2021 campaign, including money allegedly funneled from Turkish interests. Adams, who was indicted and pleaded not guilty, saw the case later dropped.

The video largely followed prepared remarks that were shared with The New York Times ahead of its release. That draft included criticism of Cuomo, calling him power-hungry and untrustworthy, which did not appear in the final version — fueling speculation Adams may ultimately endorse the former governor, who is viewed as Mamdani’s strongest challenger.

Mamdani, an Astoria, Queens, assemblyman, has surged in polls with support from younger voters and progressive activists, reflecting a broader leftward shift in city politics.

“The choice Eric Adams made today was not an easy one, but I believe he is sincere in putting the well-being of New York City ahead of personal ambition,” Cuomo said in a statement. “We face destructive extremist forces that would devastate our city through incompetence or ignorance, but it is not too late to stop them.”

Cuomo’s statement reads similarly to comments by Adams in his video, who appeared to warn voters against choosing Mamdani. Without naming Mamdani, Adams criticized “insidious forces” for pushing “divisive agendas” that seek to “destroy the very system we built together over generations.”

Adams bows out, leaving the race between Democrat Zohran Mamdani and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

New York Mayor Eric Adams has announced he is dropping his re-election bid, leaving the race likely between Democrat Zohran Mamdani and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

“Despite all we’ve achieved, I cannot continue my reelection campaign,” Adams said in a post on X on Sunday.

According to public opinion polls, Adams had been running far behind Mamdani and Cuomo, who is contesting as an independent. The polls indicated Mamdani has a sizeable lead before the November 4 election in the most populous city in the United States.

Adams, who became mayor in 2022 as a Democrat, had become a divisive figure due to corruption allegations and alleged cooperation with US President Donald Trump, a Republican.

In a video statement, Adams said: “The constant media speculation about my future and the campaign finance board’s decision to withhold millions of dollars have undermined my ability to raise the funds needed for a serious campaign.”

Funds were cut after the board could not verify the billing address for more than 200 contributions, raising questions over their sources.

Adams was indicted in September 2024 on charges that include wire fraud, soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations and a bribery conspiracy involving Turkish citizens and at least one Turkish official. He has denied the charges.

In February, the US Department of Justice ordered federal prosecutors in New York to drop charges against Adams. The move triggered a wave of resignations in the US Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and at the Justice Department in Washington, DC.

Emil Bove, a top Justice Department official who ordered the charges to be dropped, has denied allegations that the decision was a “quid pro quo” in exchange for the Democratic mayor’s support for Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Adams’ reputation was also tainted by his alleged friendly working and political relationship with Trump. US media reports suggested the Trump administration offered him a job if he backed out of the election to give Cuomo a better chance of beating Mamdani, whom Trump believes is left wing.

Trump welcomed Adams’s decision to pull out of the race in an interview with the Reuters news agency, saying he believes votes that would have gone to Adams will now likely go to Cuomo.

The New York mayor in April said he would run as an independent, a move that spared him from the competitive Democratic primary, which was won by Mamdani.

Adams has been critical of Mamdani, who has zeroed in on the high cost of living in New York by promising regulated rents, free bus travel and daycare to cement his appeal.

“Major change is welcome and necessary, but beware of those who claim the answer [is] to destroy the very system we built together over generations. That is not change. That is chaos,” he said.

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Sunday that he is ending his campaign for reelection.

In a video released on social media, Adams spoke with pride about his achievements as mayor, including a drop in violent crime. But he said that “constant media speculation” about his future and a decision by the city’s campaign finance board to withhold public funding from his reelection effort made it impossible to stay in the race.

“Despite all we’ve achieved, I cannot continue my reelection campaign,” Adams said.

The one-term Democrat’s decision to quit the race comes days after he repeatedly insisted he would stay in the contest, saying everyday New Yorkers don’t “surrender.”

But speculation that he wouldn’t make it to election day has been rampant for a year. Adams’ campaign was severely wounded by his federal bribery case — since dismissed by the Justice Department after he agreed to cooperate with President Trump’s immigration crackdown — and liberal anger over his warm relationship with Trump. He skipped the Democratic primary and got on the ballot as an independent.

In the video, Adams did not directly mention or endorse any of the remaining candidates in the race. He also warned that “extremism is growing in our politics.”

“Major change is welcome and necessary, but beware of those who claim the answer [is] to destroy the very system we built over generations,” he said. “That is not change, that is chaos. Instead, I urge leaders to choose leaders not by what they promise, but by what they have delivered.”

Adams’ exit could potentially provide a lift to the campaign of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a fellow Democratic centrist running as an independent, who has portrayed himself as the only candidate able to beat the Democratic Party’s nominee, state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani.

It was unclear, though, whether enough Adams supporters would shift their allegiance to Cuomo to make a difference.

Mamdani, who, at age 33, would be the city’s youngest and most liberal mayor in generations if elected, beat Cuomo decisively in the Democratic primary by campaigning on a promise to try to lower the cost of living in one of the world’s most expensive cities.

Republican Curtis Sliwa also remains in the race, though his candidacy has been undercut from within his own party. Trump in a recent interview called him “not exactly prime time.”

Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has endorsed Mamdani, said in a statement after the mayor’s announcement that she has been proud to have worked with Adams for the last four years, and that he leaves the city “better than he inherited it.”

Offenhartz and Izaguirre write for the Associated Press.

ERIC Dane did not appear at the Emmy Awards despite a scheduled appearance.

The Grey’s Anatomy alum, 52, had been previously announced as a presenter for the swanky TV ceremony on Sunday, September 14.

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Eric did not provide an explanation for his sudden absence.

The awards ceremony was expected to be Eric’s first major event since he opened up about his health battle in June during an appearance on Good Morning America.

Eric first announced his battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, otherwise known as ALS, in April in an interview with People.

“I have been diagnosed with ALS,” the TV star shared. “I am grateful to have my loving family by my side as we navigate this next chapter.”

Eric shares two children, Billie Beatrice, 15, and Georgia Geraldine, 13, with his wife, Rebecca Gayheart.

‘IT’S SOBERING’

He has since been more vocal about how the disease has significantly impacted him mentally and physically.

During a sit-down with Diane Sawyer on GMA, Eric revealed his left arm is the only one functioning, as his right had “completely stopped working.”

“I feel like maybe a couple more months and I won’t have my left hand either. It’s sobering,” the Euphoria star said at the time.

Eric explained that he first noticed something wasn’t right after experiencing “weakness” and “fatigue” in his right hand.

Although he at first brushed it off, chalking the symptoms up to “texting too much,” it soon worsened leading him to see numerous specialists.

After nine months, Eric received the heartbreaking diagnosis that he had the incurable disease.

“I will never forget those three letters,” the Borderline star said.

“It’s on me the second I wake up. It’s not a dream.”

Eric then admitted that he feared the moment he loses cognitive function in the rest of his body.

“I’m worried about my legs,” he revealed.

The Last Ship star experienced a terrifying incident a couple of months earlier when he needed to be rescued by his daughter after suddenly losing the ability to swim during a boat trip.

“When I jumped into the ocean that day and realized I couldn’t generate enough power to get myself to the boat. I thought, oh god. I’m not safe to be in the water,” Eric, who was a competitive swimmer and athlete in high school, said.

“She dragged me back to the boat. I was breaking down in tears. I made sure she got back in the water and continued snorkeling with the guide. But I was heartbroken.”

Despite the long road Eric has ahead of him, he’s determined to battle the disease head-on.

“I just don’t feel like in my heart this is the end of me. I’m fighting as much as I can,” the Countdown star declared.

ALS, additionally referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a common degenerative neurological disorder that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.

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It’s year No. 49 covering high school sports in Southern California. Let me tell you how it started.

Cut from the Madison Junior High basketball team, I discovered writing for the school newspaper offered more power and influence than sitting on a bench. Everyone likes to see their name mentioned, so now I knew I had a big responsibility going forward.

It was the time of Watergate and new heroes such as journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovering corruption at the highest level, inspiring future journalists. While attending Poly High in Sun Valley, Pete Kokon, the sports editor of the San Fernando Sun, offered to pay me $15 a week to write a story about high school sports. It was the first lesson of a sportswriter — don’t worry about the money, bask in the spotlight of having your name appear in a byline.

Kokon was the most entertaining character I’ve ever met. He owned an apartment building in Sherman Oaks and lived in his “penthouse,” which consisted of entering a screen door that was never locked and seeing a small room on the top floor. He’d leave his keys in his unlocked car under a mat. He used to cuss out Ronald Reagan whenever his name was mentioned. He taught me how to bet at the race track, saying, “Give me a dollar,” before going to the window to place a $2 bet.

Eric Sondheimer giving a speech in 1989 at the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame at Knollwood Country Club.

(Bob Messina Photography)

He taught me how to play golf, inviting me to Woodland Hills Country Club and shouting out his club ID number to pay for everything from food to shirts to drinks. He’d write all his stories on an ancient Royal typewriter. He smoked cigars and once was a boxing promoter. Two of his best friends were Hall of Famers Don Drysdale and Bob Waterfield, fellow Van Nuys High graduates. Everyone knew him, appreciated him and feared him whenever he got angry.

Pete Kokon covered high school sports in the San Fernando Valley for more than 60 years.

(Valley Times)

For more than 60 years, he covered high school sports. I never thought I’d challenge his record. But after becoming a stringer for the Daily News in 1976 and being hired full time in 1980 after turning down the job of sports information director at Cal State Northridge, I learned there was a need to cover local sports and it became my passion to make a difference. Yes, I’ve covered the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the 1984 Olympic Games, the World Series, the Rose Bowl, the Breeders’ Cup, the Little League World Series, but nothing has provided more satisfaction than telling the stories of teenagers rising up in the face of adversity or overcoming doubts from peers to succeed.

There have been tough stories through the years. I’ll never forget staying awake until 11:30 p.m. to see the lead story on ESPN SportsCenter detailing possible NCAA rule violations by the University of Kentucky after a package sent to a high school basketball star in Los Angeles had money inside. That was a story helped by others at the Daily News.

I’ve always treated high school sports as different than college or pros. These are teenagers, with criticism of coaches and athletes mostly off limits. But times are changing. Players are getting paid. Coaches are engaging in ethical lapses. It’s a growing challenge. I will continue to respect the tradition of high school sports being about having fun but insist on rules being followed.

Eric Sondheimer interviews Corona Centennial’s Eric Freeny at the end of the state championship in Sacramento in March 2022. Freeny is now a freshman at UCLA.

(Nick Koza)

There are so many stories of coaches getting mad. Sometimes it takes time for them to understand I’m just trying to do my job as a fair, dedicated journalist who understands my responsibilities and remembers my role.

Let me give an example. At one point years ago, Sylmar basketball coach Bort Escorto stopped reporting scores. Maybe it had something to do with writing about transfers. Maybe not. But today, he always answers my calls, “I didn’t do it.”

You know you’ve won any argument when someone claims your bias for one school over another. That used to be the weekly debate years ago among Crespi and Notre Dame fans. Signs were made, barbs were shouted. It made me laugh. Now it’s about sharing selfies.

What keeps me coming back every season are the many new stories to tell. No area has a larger, more diverse collection of top athletes from a variety of sports than Southern California.

Eric Sondheimer interviews sophomore Tajh Ariza after a basketball game in 2022.

(Nick Koza)

There was a time more than a year ago that I got frustrated with the negativity going on in the world. I needed to do something to change my perspective. That’s when I vowed to write something positive every day about high school sports. Prep Talk was created to help inspire me and hopefully others that a positive message can break through in an era of social media nonsense.

To the readers through the years, you’ve helped me stay employed and stay dedicated to telling stories that resonate around the Southland. Newspapers are in trouble, but I can only control what I can control, so thank you for being loyal customers at a time of upheaval.

Eric Sondheimer interviews coach Ed Azzam of Westchester in 2020.

(Nick Koza)

Through the years as technology changed, I’ve adapted, such as sprinting from games to find a rotary telephone in a locked P.E. office or driving to a phone booth to call in a story under deadline pressure. I’ve climbed fences after being locked in as the last person in a stadium. I’ve sat on a gym floor in darkness writing a story. One night at Bishop Alemany, I lost my cellphone on the football field. I was ready to throw up in embarrassment. The athletic director, Randy Thompson, found it. My story was saved. I’ve learned to take videos and shoot photos and speak in front of audiences (thank you to speech class 101 at CSUN).

Today’s world for high school sports reporters is about not getting kicked out by security after games when everyone has left and staying calm when security doesn’t want to let you in before games or on a sideline with a press pass to do your job. Common sense is disappearing in the name of following orders.

I already have gold passes from the Southern Section and City Section, which means if I step away, I’ll still be able to attend events.

When and how this ends has yet to be decided. Pete Kokon died at age 85 in 1998 when he was found with his TV on and the channel tuned to ESPN in his penthouse apartment.

As long as a level of professionalism remains among stakeholders, I will continue to do my best to tell stories. My job is about serving the public, not myself, and that will be my mission forever.

NEW YORK — A Brooklyn construction magnate was sentenced Friday to a year of probation for working with a Turkish government official to funnel illegal campaign contributions to New York City Mayor Eric Adams, resolving one of two related federal cases after the mayor’s criminal charges were dropped.

Erden Arkan, 76, told Manhattan federal Judge Dale Ho that he regretted his “poor judgments” in engaging in the straw donor scheme, which helped Adams fraudulently obtain public money for his 2021 mayoral bid under the city’s matching funds program.

Ho cited Arkan’s age and otherwise clean record in imposing the sentence, telling the Turkish-born businessman that his immigrant success story “exemplifies the American dream.”

“I hope that you don’t let this one mistake define you,” Ho told Arkan.

Arkan faced up to six months in prison under federal sentencing guidelines, but prosecutors and the federal probation officer agreed that no prison time was warranted. In addition to probation, he must also pay a $9,500 fine and $18,000 in restitution.

Arkan pleaded guilty in January to a conspiracy charge in Manhattan federal court. Weeks later, President Trump’s Justice Department pressured prosecutors to drop their underlying case against Adams, ultimately getting it dismissed.

In court Friday, Arkan’s lawyer Jonathan Rosen blasted the government for continuing to pursue his case after getting Adams’ charges dismissed.

“To put it mildly, this is a very unusual case. In fact, it is unprecedented,” Rosen argued.

In February, Justice Department leadership ordered Manhattan federal prosecutors to drop Adams’ case, arguing that it was hindering the Democratic mayor’s ability to assist the Republican administration’s immigration crackdown.

Ho, who also oversaw the mayor’s case, dismissed his charges in April. In a written opinion, he agreed it was the only practical outcome but also criticized what he said was the government’s “troubling” rationale for wanting the charges thrown out.

While Adams was spared, prosecutors continued to pursue related cases against Arkan and a former aide to the mayor, Mohamed Bahi.

Bahi, who served as City Hall’s chief liaison to the Muslim community, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to soliciting straw donations for Adams’ mayoral campaign from employees of a different Brooklyn construction company at a December 2020 fundraiser.

Arkan acknowledged in his January plea that he knowingly violated the law by reimbursing employees of his construction firm for their donations to Adams’ campaign.

In brief remarks Friday, he apologized to city taxpayers who bankroll the matching funds program, telling Ho: “I love this city. I dedicated my life to making it better. It pains me that I have harmed it.”

According to prosecutors, Adams personally solicited donations from Arkan and a Turkish consular official at an April 2021 dinner. The following month, Arkan held a fundraiser at the headquarters of his construction company, KSK, in which 10 employees donated between $1,200 and $1,500 to the campaign. They were later reimbursed by Arkan, making them illegal straw donations.

Adams then used those funds to fraudulently obtain public money under the city’s matching funds program, which provides a generous match for small-dollar donations, prosecutors allege.

A well-known member of New York’s Turkish community, Arkan’s ties to Adams first emerged in November 2023 after federal investigators searched the businessman’s home, along with the home of Adams’ chief fundraiser and his liaison to the Turkish community.

Adams pleaded not guilty to bribery and other charges after a 2024 indictment accused him of accepting illegal campaign contributions and travel discounts from a Turkish official and others — and returning the favors by, among other things, helping Turkey open a diplomatic building without passing fire inspections.

At a Feb. 19 hearing that precipitated the dismissal of his case, Adams told Ho: “I have not committed a crime.” The first-term mayor, a former police captain, skipped the June Democratic primary and is currently running for reelection as an independent.

Sisak writes for the Associated Press.

BALMEDIE, Scotland — Golf and Scotland are close to President Trump’s heart, and both were in play Tuesday as he opened a new eponymous course in the land of his mother’s birth, capping a five-day trip that was largely about promoting his family’s luxury properties.

Dressed for golf and sporting a white cap that said “USA,” Trump appeared to be in such a jolly mood that he even lavished rare praise — instead of the usual insults — on the contingent of journalists who had gathered to cover the event.

“Today they’re not fake news,” Trump said. “Today they’re wonderful news.”

The golf-focused trip gave him a chance to escape Washington’s summer heat, but he could not avoid questions about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the deepening food crisis in Gaza or other issues that trailed him across the Atlantic. The trip itself teed up another example of how the Republican president has used the White House to promote his brand.

Trump addresses Gaza and Epstein

Trump on Monday expressed concern over the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza and urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do more to get food aid to hungry Palestinians.

Asked if he agreed with Netanyahu’s assertion Sunday that “there is no policy of starvation in Gaza and there is no starvation in Gaza,” Trump said he didn’t know but added, “I mean, based on television, I would say not particularly because those children look very hungry.”

The president also offered a reason why he banished Epstein from his private club in Palm Beach, Fla., years ago, saying it was because the disgraced financier “stole people that worked for me.” A top White House aide said last week that Epstein was kicked out for being a “creep.”

Trump tees off on newly opened golf course

Flanked by sons Eric and Donald Jr., Trump counted “1-2-3” and wielded a pair of golden scissors to cut a red ribbon marking the ceremonial opening of the new Trump course in the village of Balmedie on Scotland’s northern coast.

“This has been an unbelievable development,” Trump said before the ribbon cutting. He thanked Eric, who designed the course, saying his work on the project was “truly a labor of love for him.”

Eric Trump said the course was his father’s “passion project.”

Immediately afterward, Trump, Eric Trump and two professional golfers teed off on the first hole with plans to play a full 18 before the president returns to Washington on Tuesday night. Trump rarely allows the news media to watch his golf game, though video journalists and photographers often find him along the course whenever he plays.

Trump’s shot had a solid sound and soared straight, high and relatively far. Clearly pleased, he turned to the cameras and did an almost half-bow.

“He likes the course, ladies and gentlemen,” Eric Trump said.

Billed as the “Greatest 36 Holes in Golf,” the Trump International Golf Links, Scotland, is hosting back-to-back weekend tournaments before it begins offering rounds to the public on Aug. 13.

Trump fits White House business into golf trip

Trump worked some official business into the trip by holding talks with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and reaching a trade framework for tariffs between the U.S. and the European Union’s 27 member countries — though scores of key details remain to be settled.

But the trip itself was centered around golf, and the presidential visit served to raise the new course’s profile.

Trump’s assets are in a trust and his sons are running the family business while he’s in the White House. Any business generated at the course will ultimately enrich the president when he leaves office, though.

The new golf course will be the third owned by the Trump Organization in Scotland. Trump bought Turnberry in 2014 and owns another course near Aberdeen that opened in 2012.

Trump golfed at Turnberry on Saturday, as protesters took to the streets, and on Sunday before meeting there in the afternoon with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

New course blends things dear to Trump

The occasion blended two things dear to Trump: golf and Scotland.

His mother, the late Mary Anne MacLeod, was born on the Isle of Lewis on the north coast.

“We love Scotland here. My mother was born here, and she loved it,” Trump said Tuesday. She visited “religiously once a year” during the summer with his sisters, he said.

Perhaps the only mood-buster for Trump are the wind turbines that are part of a nearby wind farm and can be seen from around the new course.

Trump, who often speaks about his hatred of windmills, sued in 2013 to block construction of the wind farm but lost the case and was eventually ordered to pay legal costs for filing the lawsuit — a matter that still enrages him more than a decade later.

Trump said on a new episode of the New York Post’s “Pod Force One” podcast that the “ugly windmills” are a “shame” and are “really hurting” Scotland. The interview was conducted over the weekend and released Tuesday.

“It kills the birds, ruins the look. They’re noisy,” he said, asserting that the value of real estate around them also plummets. “I think it’s a very bad thing. Environmentally, it’s horrible.”

Weissert and Superville write for the Associated Press. Superville reported from Washington.

Basketball usually took a backseat in early conversations between Eric Musselman and prized recruit Alijah Arenas.

On one side was a teenage phenom navigating an early jump to college. On another was a USC men’s basketball coach seemingly more interested in other aspects of Arenas’ life, including his mood, when he woke up and how he made sense of the people and the world around him.

So when USC’s coach stood in front of the Galen Center’s vibrant new scoreboard Friday morning — two days after it was announced that Arenas would miss six to eight months with a knee injury — Musselman found himself stammering, stitching together the words to encapsulate what the freshman meant to him.

“I probably feel closer to him than anybody that I’ve coached in a two-month span since he’s been on campus,” Musselman said.

The bond has already weathered more than most would in four years.

First came the reclassification — Arenas skipped his senior year of high school to join USC. Then came the rush course into collegiate basketball as he prepared spring practice. Then, on April 25, Arenas was in a serious car crash that led to him being placed into a coma.

After recovering from his injuries, Arenas was barely two weeks back from being medically cleared to practice when he sustained a slight meniscus tear and bone bruise.

But even in those 14 days — and just one full practice with Musselman present — Arenas proved enough to be the centerpiece of his coach’s vision for USC.

“We built the roster around some of the stuff that he could do, and knowing that he could play the one and the two, and when he played the one, would have great length,” Musselman said. “And I told people from the beginning of the recruiting process what a great passer he was.”

At 6 feet 7, Arenas averaged 30.9 points and 7.8 rebounds per game at Chatsworth High before landing 13th in ESPN’s Class of 2025.

In Arenas’ absence, Musselman said he has weighed adding a 14th player to the roster, but would do so only if it “could help us.” The bigger hurdle, the coach added, would be revenue-sharing limits.

Arenas will still be traveling, learning and rehabbing alongside USC. And he’ll continue to shadow Musselman in a role the coach never had to explain to him.

“To some people during the recruiting process, you call them and you can’t wait to get off the phone, and you’re just kind of calling them to try to develop a relationship,” Musselman said. “The reason that Alijah and I are in such a good spot is because he picked up the phone when I called him.

He added: “We already had a built-in trust before he got here.”

Etc.

Musselman said Friday that Terrance Williams II (wrist), whose injury he called “one of the weirdest injuries I’ve seen,” will return Aug. 25 when the Trojans report for practice on the first day of the academic year. … Musselman noted that Jordan Marsh has been the team’s “biggest surprise” of the summer, while Rodney Rice will take over as the Trojans’ primary ball handler.

When Eric Bana is not filming, he’s more than likely riding a motorcycle in a remote part of Australia. He’s been doing it since he was a kid, having grown up in a semi-industrial part of the suburbs of Melbourne on the verge of farmland. Now, it’s his solace on days off.

“It’s a vulnerable feeling, it’s an exciting feeling,” he says on a video call. “You have to be self-sufficient. You have to think worst-case scenario. What happens if I get a flat tire when it’s 120 degrees and there’s no water around? It keeps you awake.”

So when, back in 2019, Bana was given the pilot script for the Netflix limited series “Untamed,” he was immediately attracted. He would play the role of Kyle Turner, an agent in the Investigative Services Branch of the National Park Service in Yosemite — essentially a park detective. It’s a murder mystery yet set against the kind of wilderness that Bana loves.

“I just felt a kinship for Kyle immediately,” he remembers. “I don’t know if it was just like the shared love for the outdoors and how that affects our psyche and our well-being, our sense of self, our emotional journey in life — I just immediately felt very strongly for Kyle.”

In “Untamed,” Eric Bana plays Kyle Turner, an agent in the Investigative Services Branch of the National Park Service. The show is set in Yosemite National Park, though it was filmed British Columbia.

(Ricardo Hubbs / Netflix)

Bana stuck with the project through the COVID pandemic and the Hollywood strikes, allowing the series created by Mark L. Smith of “American Primeval” and daughter Elle Smith to finally hit the streaming service on Thursday. The show finds Bana’s character investigating the death of a young woman who plummets off El Capitan and into two rock climbers. The case unexpectedly connects two other traumatic incidents that have happened in the mountainous wilds — at least one of which directly involves the taciturn Kyle, grieving the death of his young son.

“He exudes that kind of sensitivity and strength at the same time,” Elle Smith says. “It allowed him to just really embody Turner. Because he’s been living in this show for so long, so many years and kept it alive and has remained passionate about it, once we got into production, he was Turner.”

“Untamed” also marks the latest in Bana’s unconventional career that has seen him touch nearly every corner of the Hollywood machine, even though he has always chosen to live in Australia when he’s not working. It never made sense for him to move to Los Angeles when many of his shoots were overseas anyway. When we chat, he’s briefly in town for “Untamed” press.

Though he started his career as a comedian in his home country, he was part of the superhero craze before it was a craze, playing the title role in Ang Lee’s “Hulk,” a movie that’s now undergone a critical reassessment. He’s been a “Star Trek” villain and a Steven Spielberg protagonist in the historical drama “Munich.” (Over the past 12 months, more and more people have been bringing up the role of the Mossad agent tasked to respond to the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics: “With the passing of time, you realize how incredible some of the observations were,” he says.)

Though his career has touched nearly every corner of the Hollywood machine, Eric Bana has continued to live in Australia.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

More recently, he ventured into the world of television, playing the sociopathic John Meehan in the first season of the anthology series “Dirty John.” Bana says he tends not to think about specifically playing characters that contradict his previous work, but he understands that coming off that role probably was one of the reasons he gravitated toward Kyle in “Untamed.”

“There was no doubt that the character of John had a level of toxicity to him that was just so high,” he says, adding, “I realized that Kyle was a warmer character for the audience to follow than John.”

Before he actually got to play Kyle, he started a mini-franchise in Australia with producing partner and director Rob Connolly thanks to “The Dry” and its sequel, in which he plays another investigator reeling from a traumatic past.

For creator Mark Smith, Bana was the ideal person to embody Kyle because of his ability to convey a lot with very little dialogue.

“We felt like he was just so expressive in his eyes and his face,” Mark says. “He can do so much without saying anything, and that was crucial to this guy who really doesn’t want to speak — he doesn’t want to talk to people. He just wants to be kind of off on his own, doing his thing in the wilderness.”

Because Bana got on board early, the Smiths could start writing the rest of the scripts with him in mind. One of Bana’s requests: The more he could be on a horse, the better. In the show, Kyle eschews motor vehicles for a trusty steed, which gives him more access to the less traversed areas of the park. Bana ended up loving his horse.

“I desperately wanted to smuggle him on the plane and take him home,” he says.

Eric Bana and Lily Santiago are often seen on horseback in “Untamed.”

(Netflix)

Mark and Elle Smith conceived of the series after being sent articles about the National Park Service’s Investigative Services Branch. They were not familiar with that world but were nonetheless fascinated by this strange profession that is part FBI agent and part park ranger. Bana had visited Yosemite years ago as a solo tourist but didn’t have the chance to go again before the shoot, which took place in British Columbia.

Still, he spoke to rangers and ISB employees to get a sense of “just how crazy” some of their work can be.

“When you mix drugs, when you mix people coming from all kinds of different backgrounds and having different entitlements to the places that they’re in, it’s really interesting,” he says.

Bana understands from personal experience that the attraction to the outdoors is partially based on the fact that danger is almost always lurking around the corner. In Australia, he adds, “there’s always something trying to get you, whether it be two-legged, four-legged, eight-legged or whatever.”

On the set of “Untamed,” he was incredibly eager to see a bear — and was disappointed when it never happened.

“We had a bear guy on set who was responsible for our and the bears’ safety,” he says. “We had very strict rules around food and all that sort of stuff. I was desperate, desperate to have an encounter with a bear of the positive kind, and I never saw one.”

Elle Smith confirms that most everyone else got to see a bear. “He had really bad bear luck,” she adds.

“We felt like he was just so expressive in his eyes and his face,” says “Untamed” creator Mark L. Smith.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

But even with his lack of bear sightings, Bana’s love of being outside was crucial for the entire production. Mark explains he’s not the kind of star who returns to his trailer, instead pulling up a chair to hang out.

“This was a tough landscape that we were shooting in,” Elle Smith adds. “I think it really helps in terms of tone setting if your movie star is willing to get out on the rock and do the climb. It really helps the crew also feel like they’re able to do the climb.”

Bana was intoxicated by his environment — so much so that he wouldn’t want to go back to the sterility of a soundstage.

“Going to work in a studio after doing something like this — the thought of it is just debilitating creatively,” he says. “There’s something about a camera coming out of a box when the sun rises and going back when the sun goes down. There’s an energy, there’s a cadence to that.”

For his follow-up, he went back into the elements for “Apex,” an upcoming film opposite Charlize Theron, where they play a pair of rock climbers. He says he did intense training in the skill or else he would have looked like a “fool.”

And just like how Bana is willing to let the weather dictate his shooting days, he is also patient with his career. It’s one of the reasons he was willing to wait for “Untamed.”

“I’ve been in this business for a period of time now where I realize you really do have to go with the ebbs and flows and you really do have to pace yourself, but at the same time when you find something that you love you just have to try and protect it,” he says.

It’s something you could also say about the natural world, and Bana hopes that “Untamed,” even with all its dark deeds and buried secrets, encourages audiences to go see for themselves.

“I hope people enjoy the feeling of being in that space, and in a perfect world, feel motivated to go and seek them out,” he says.

He certainly will be.

“Untamed,” a quasi-police drama premiering Thursday on Netflix, is a vacation from most crime shows, set not in a big city or cozy village but in the wilds of Yosemite National Park. (Never mind that the series was shot in British Columbia, which has nothing to apologize for when it comes to dramatic scenery, and whose park rangers are not threatened by draconian budget cuts nor their parks by politicians’ desire to sell off public lands.)

The mountains and valleys, the rivers and brooks, the occasional deer or bear are as much a part of the mise-en-scène as the series’ complicated, yet essentially straightforward heroes and villains. Lacking big themes, it’s not so much meat-and-potatoes television as fish and corn grilled over a camp fire, and on the prestige scale it sits somewhere between “Magnum P.I.” and “True Detective,” leaning toward the former.

Created by Mark L. Smith (“American Primeval”) and Elle Smith (“The Marsh King’s Daughter”) and starring Eric Bana and Sam Neill, Antipodean actors wearing American accents once again, it’s a limited series, though, for a while, it has the quality of a pilot, introducing characters that could profitably be reused — with perhaps a little less of the trauma peeking out at every corner. Of course, if the show becomes a fantabulous success, the Netflix engineers may contrive a way to make it live again; it’s happened before.

“Untamed” starts big. Two climbers are making their way up the face of El Capitan when a woman’s body comes flying over the cliff, gets tangled in their ropes and hangs suspended, dead. She is hanging there still — the climbers have been rescued — when Investigative Services Branch special agent Kyle Turner (Bana) rides in on his horse.

“Here comes f—ing Gary Cooper,” mutters grumbling ranger Bruce Milch (William Smillie) to new ranger Naya Vasquez (Lily Santiago), a former police officer (and single mother, with a threatening ex) newly arrived from Los Angeles. (The horse, says Milch, who regards it as a high horse, gives him “a better angle to look down on us lowly rangers.”) What are the odds on Vasquez becoming Turner’s (junior) partner? And on a difficult relationship developing into a learning curve (“This is not L.A. — things happen different out here”) and turning almost … tender?

More heroically proportioned and handsome than anyone else in the show, a man of the forest with superior tracking skills, Turner is also a mess — a taciturn mess, which also makes him seem stoic — barely holding himself together, drinking too much, living in a cabin in the woods filled with unpacked boxes, undone by the unaddressed family tragedy that broke him and his marriage. (The dark side of stoicism.) Sympathetic remarried ex-wife Jill (Rosemarie DeWitt, keeping it real), who herself is only “as happy as I can be, I guess,” and sympathetic boss Paul Souter (Neill), try to keep him straight.

“You’ve locked yourself away in this park, Kyle,” Souter tells Turner. “It’s not healthy.” Turner, however, prefers “most animals to people — especially my horse.” Nevertheless, he has a couple of friends: Shane Maguire (Wilson Bethel), a wildlife manager — that means he shoots things, so be forewarned — also living in the woods, but without the cabin, is the toxic one; Mato Begay (Trevor Carroll), an Indigenous policeman, the nontoxic one. And he’s sleeping with a concierge at the local nice hotel, just so that element is covered; it’s otherwise beside the point.

If the dialogue often has the flavor of coming off a page rather than out of a character, it gets the job done, and if the characters are essentially static, people don’t change overnight, and consistency is a hallmark of detective fiction. The narrative wisely stays close to Turner and/or Vasquez; there are enough twists and tendrils in the main overlapping plots without running off into less related matters. (Keeping the series to six episodes is also a plus, and something to be encouraged, makers of streaming series. Your critic will thank you for it.) Still, between the hot cases and the cold cases, with their collateral damage; hippie squatters from central casting chanting “Our Earth, our land;” a mysterious gold tattoo, indigenous glyphs and old mines — there is an especially tense scene involving a tight tunnel and rising water — the show stays busy. Though last-minute heavy surprises don’t register emotionally — trauma overload, maybe — you will not be left wanting for answers, or closure.

And you will learn quite a bit about vultures and their dining habits — not what you might think.

Eric Dane and filmmaker Janell Shirtcliff looked to be in full couple mode Wednesday at the premiere of Prime Video’s “Countdown,” a new series he stars in with Jensen Ackles. Hands were held; smiles and admiring glances were exchanged.

He was definitely not with Rebecca Gayheart, whom he married in October 2004 and just said — on national news, no less — is the person he reaches out to daily for “stalwart” support. Nope, even though Gayheart in early March requested the dismissal, without prejudice, of the 2018 divorce petition she had filed against Dane.

Dane revealed in April that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a.k.a. ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Earlier this week, he revealed that he had lost function in his right arm due to the neuromuscular disease and felt his left arm failing.

So who’s dating whom? Dane’s relationship status is a bit fuzzy.

The “Grey’s Anatomy” alum, 52, has been “in an on-and-off relationship” with Shirtcliff for more than three years, Entertainment Tonight reported Wednesday. The two “care deeply for each other,” the outlet said, citing a source who added, “Eric asked Janell to be there for him during this time, and she wanted to show up for him.”⁠

Shirtcliff, who is a photographer and director, is in pre-production on the film “Generation Angst” and post-production on the horror flick “Triton,” according to IMDb.

But — Dane’s alleged girlfriend, actor Priya Jain, 27, was “blindsided” by his appearance at the event with Shirtcliff, 41, a source told Page Six on Thursday.

Jain and Dane met last summer and became “exclusive” in November 2024, the source said. “They never broke up.” The two have been photographed arm-in-arm in public and have matching tattoos, and she has spent “almost every night” at his house since they coupled up, Page Six said. They reportedly were together last weekend.

This three-way confusion is a tiny bit reminiscent of Dane and Gayheart’s nude 2009 bathtub video with actor Kari Ann Peniche, which Dane discussed in 2019 with Glamour. In the leaked video, the three could be seen bathing together naked — not having sex — and discussing their potential porn names about 15 years into the Gayheart-Dane marriage.

“I don’t necessarily think I was breaking any laws and corrupting anybody. We were just three people taking a bath,” he told the magazine. He added, referring at the time to the entirety of his past — including the bathtub video and his addiction to prescribed painkillers — “I have no regrets nor do I make any apologies for my life experience. It’s my life experience and I am at peace with all of it.”

As for Gayheart, she and Dane remain estranged as husband and wife even though she called off the divorce and they are in frequent contact as co-parents of their two daughters.

“I call Rebecca. I talk to her every day,” Dane said Monday on “Good Morning America,” fighting back tears as he talked about battling ALS. “We have managed to become better friends and better parents. And she is probably my biggest champion, my most stalwart supporter, and I lean on her.”

Eric Bauman, a gruff and tireless political operative who led two of California’s most powerful Democratic organizations before resigning amid misconduct allegations, died Monday.

His family said in a statement that Bauman died at UCLA West Valley Medical Center after a long illness. He was 66.

Born in the Bronx to an Army doctor and a registered nurse, Bauman went to military school and moved to Hollywood just before he turned 18. He became a nurse and met his husband, also a nurse, in a hospital cafeteria during an overnight shift in the early 1980s.

Motivated in part by the AIDS crisis, Bauman became active in the Stonewall Democratic Club Los Angeles, a progressive political group, and was elected president of the organization in 1994.

Bauman grew L.A. County Democratic Party into a political force as chairman from 2000 to 2017 and expanded the number of Democrats winning elections at every level of government, from water boards to the U.S. House of Representatives.

“I turned the L.A. Democratic Party from a $50,000-a-year organization into a $1.5 million-a-year organization,” he told a reporter in 2011.

With a Bronx affect and a gold signet ring on his pinkie finger that he twisted when he was under pressure, Bauman built a reputation as an old-school party boss who would give you the bad news straight. Democrats compared him to Ray Liotta, and some called him the “Godfather of Democratic politics.”

“People come up to me on the street all the time and think I’m Joe Pesci,” he told the Times in 2017. “I try to work with that.”

Bauman ran for state Democratic Party chair in 2017. After a bruising election that exposed the fractures between the progressive and establishment wings of the party, Bauman was elected by a mere 62 votes.

He was the first openly gay and first Jewish person to chair the party.

“I don’t wear a button that says, ‘Look at me, I’m gay,’” Bauman said in a 2009 interview with the UCLA Film and Television Archive. But, he said, “I never fail to recognize my partner from any podium. It is in my bio. It is a part of who I am.”

The high point of his tenure was the 2018 midterm elections, when California Democrats flipped seven seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and won back a veto-proof supermajority in the state Legislature.

Bauman said he wanted to overturn California’s voter-approved “jungle primary” system, which allows the top two vote-getters to advance to the general election, regardless of party. Bauman argued that Democrats should pick their own nominees, rather than spending millions of dollars fighting in the primaries.

In late 2018, The Times reported that Bauman had made crude sexual comments and had engaged in unwanted touching or physical intimidation in professional settings, citing 10 party staff members and political activists.

Bauman resigned, saying he planned to seek treatment for health issues and alcohol use. The state Democratic Party fired top staffers in the wake of the allegations and eventually paid more than $380,000 to settle a sexual misconduct lawsuit brought by three of his accusers. A party spokeswoman did not respond to requests for a statement on Bauman’s death Tuesday.

After his resignation, Bauman disappeared from public life for several years. More recently, he began hosting a radio show called “The UnCommon Sense Democrat” on the Inland Empire’s KCAA-AM 1050.

In the mid-2000s, when Republicans still represented many outlying areas of Los Angeles County, Bauman set up a “red zone program” at the L.A. County Democratic Party that funneled money and volunteers to Democrats running for seats in GOP strongholds.

The investments were a gamble, but they built relationships and better candidates — and sometimes, a long shot candidate actually won, said former state lawmaker Miguel Santiago, who first got involved with the party in the early 2000s.

“He was really hungry for Democratic wins,” Santiago said. “There was no seat that that guy left on the table, whether it was a community college seat, a school board race, a water board race.”

Bauman also worked to strengthen ties with organized labor, now the California Democratic Party’s most powerful ally, and build voter registration and turnout.

State Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez, who chaired the county party after Bauman, said he spent countless hours as a young volunteer entering information about newly registered voters into the party database.

The data came from a booth that the Democratic Party set up outside citizenship ceremonies where newly eligible voters could register to vote as Democrats, he said. Bauman sent a signed card to each person, congratulating them and welcoming them to the party.

“That touched people, and it showed them that they matter,” Gonzalez said.

Bauman also worked for Gov. Gray Davis and insurance commissioner John Garamendi and as a consultant to several Assembly speakers, including Anthony Rendon of Los Angeles and Toni Atkins of San Diego.

He is survived by his husband and partner of 42 years, Michael Andraychak, and his father and sister, Richard and Roya Bauman.

A California Democratic Party employee sued the organization in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Wednesday, alleging he was repeatedly groped and sexually assaulted by former Chairman Eric Bauman.

William Floyd, who served as Bauman’s assistant from March 2016 until November 2018, claims in the suit that Bauman performed oral sex on him without his consent on at least three occasions. He said he became fearful of Bauman after the party leader allegedly told him, “If you cross me, I will break you.”

Floyd, 28, is seeking damages for lost income, emotional distress and pain and suffering, as well as punitive damages and attorneys’ fees. The complaint names Bauman, 60, and the state and Los Angeles County Democratic parties as defendants, alleging that the two organizations failed to prevent Bauman’s harassing behavior and retained him in “conscious disregard of the rights and well-being of others.”

“We have not yet been formally served with this lawsuit and have only learned about the filing of it through media inquiries this evening,” said Neal S. Zaslavsky, Bauman’s attorney. “As with the other pending matter, Mr. Bauman will not be trying this case in the media. Mr. Bauman denies the allegations in the complaint and looks forward to complete vindication once the facts come out.”

Mark Gonzalez, chairman of the L.A. County Democratic Party, said the group was “reviewing the allegations of the complaint” and had no further comment.

Lawsuit against California Democratic Party details alleged harassment by former chair Eric Bauman »

Alexandra “Alex” Gallardo Rooker, who stepped in as acting chairwoman of the state party after Bauman’s resignation, said in a statement that the allegations “are very serious and deserve a hearing. The most appropriate venue for us all to learn the truth, whatever it may be, is ultimately in the courtroom where we can let the sun shine in.”

The lawsuit comes amid continued turmoil in the party after the resignation of Bauman, who stepped down in November following claims of sexual misconduct and inappropriate behavior toward party staff members and activists.

At the time, Bauman said that he planned to seek treatment for health issues and alcohol use.

“I deeply regret if my behavior has caused pain to any of the outstanding individuals with whom I’ve had the privilege to work. I appreciate the courage it took for these individuals to come forward to tell their stories,” Bauman said.

“In the interest of allowing the CDP’s independent investigation to move forward, I do not wish to respond to any of the specific allegations. However, I will use the time I am on leave to immediately seek medical intervention to address serious, ongoing health issues and to begin treatment for what I now realize is an issue with alcohol,” he added.

Bauman and the party were earlier sued by three other employees in January, who alleged discrimination and a culture of harassment and sexual misconduct that was “well-known and apparently tolerated” by top officials.

According to the new lawsuit filed Wednesday, Floyd first met Bauman in 2015 while he was interning for the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. By then, the complaint says, “Bauman had a reputation for excessive drinking, making crude sexual comments to LACDP and CDP employees and volunteers, and engaging in unwanted sexual touching and/or physical intimidation” in professional settings.

In an June 2016 incident in Long Beach, Floyd alleges, he was in Bauman’s hotel room with other members of the L.A. County party and fell asleep after having too much to drink. When he woke up, the complaint alleges, he found Bauman performing oral sex on him and quickly pulled up his pants and fled the room. The lawsuit alleges that in later conversations, Bauman implied that he had penetrated Floyd during the incident.

On two other occasions alleged in the suit, Floyd said “felt he had no choice” to comply with Bauman’s demands and allow him to perform oral sex.

The lawsuit says that on Nov. 1, just days before the 2018 midterm election, Floyd told a senior party staffer that Bauman had sexually assaulted him. Several days later, the complaint says, Floyd was contacted by the party’s human resources director, Amy Vrattos.

California Democratic Chairman Eric Bauman accused of sexually explicit comments, unwanted touching »

But officials with the party “looked the other way, and failed to confront Bauman” because of his success helping Democratic candidates across the state, the lawsuit alleges.

“Maybe I was naive, but I really thought that, by working for the Democratic Party, I could advance the causes I believed in,” Floyd said in a statement provided by his attorney. “Most of us lived in fear of [Bauman].”

Floyd’s attorney, Scott Ames, said the party has “stonewalled” his client and has “not done anything to rectify the situation.”

After Bauman resigned, the suit says, Floyd met with the state party’s investigator, who was examining allegations against Bauman. Less than a week later, the complaint alleges, state party officials told Floyd that they were closing the organization’s Los Angeles office and that he would be terminated unless he agreed to work at Sacramento headquarters.

Floyd agreed to move to Sacramento in January 2019 to keep his job, the complaint says. He is still employed by the party but plans to move back to Los Angeles County this year for graduate school.

The suit is the latest in a series of blows to the fractured California Democratic Party, which despite historic wins in last year’s elections has faced a reckoning in the #MeToo era. In addition to fallout from Bauman’s resignation, Rooker was criticized for firing two colleagues who helped file a sexual harassment complaint against Bauman.

“This is not unusual when there is a change in leadership,” Roger Salazar, a spokesman for the party, said in a statement. “These moves are not necessarily a reflection upon the work of each of the individuals involved, but are part of a desire by the acting chair to start fresh and keep the party moving in the right direction.”

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Eric Dane is angry. Angry that he’s been hit by ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

“I’m angry because my father was taken from me when I was young, and now there’s a very good chance I’m going to be taken from my girls while they’re very young,” says the actor, 52, whose father fatally shot himself when Dane was just 7.

The “Euphoria” and “Grey’s Anatomy” star, who revealed his diagnosis last Tuesday, sat down with “Good Morning America” to talk about his amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, an incurable degenerative neurological condition. In ALS, the muscle neurons linking the brain and spine to the muscles deteriorate, leaving the muscle with nothing able to tell them what to do or when to do it. No messages means no movement, no functioning, in systems including eating and breathing.

The actor said in an interview broadcast on Monday that it’s been about 18 months since he started experiencing symptoms. It took a series of doctors and tests before he found out he was one of the 5,000 people a year diagnosed with ALS in the United States.

“I started experiencing some weakness in my right hand and I didn’t really think anything of it at that time,” Dane told Diane Sawyer, his voice perhaps sounding a bit slower and thicker than usual. “I thought maybe I’d been texting too much or my hand was fatigued.

“But a few weeks later, I noticed that it had gotten a little worse, so I went to a hand specialist, who sent me to another hand specialist. Then I went to a neurologist, who sent me to another neurologist, who said, ‘This is way above my pay grade.’”

Nine months after consulting with the first physician, Dane had his diagnosis.

Now “those three letters” — ALS — hit him every morning when he wakes up, he said.

“I have one functioning arm … my left side is functioning,” Dane said. “My right side has completely stopped working.”

Adding to the horror, his left arm is “going,” he said. “I feel like maybe a couple, few more months and I won’t have my left hand either. It’s sobering.”

The former competitive swimmer and water polo player recalled the moment he realized he no longer felt safe in water. He dove off a boat to snorkel with his daughter in the ocean, then couldn’t “swim and generate enough power to get myself back to the boat.” The younger of his two daughters with actor wife Rebecca Gayheart, 13-year-old Georgia, had to come to his aid.

After she dragged him back to the boat, Dane said, he sent her back out with her friend and the snorkeling guide. Meanwhile, he broke down crying.

“I was heartbroken.”

Life expectancy for people with ALS varies by age of symptom onset, type of ALS and whether a person is male or female. The overall median life expectancy from symptom onset is 30 months, according to ALS United of Greater Chicago. Some people die within a year, while others have lived 20 more years, the group said. Earlier onset seems linked to a better survival rate.

The famous theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, who died in 2016 at age 76, is an example of someone who survived for 55 years with the disease after being diagnosed at age 21. The minds of people with ALS stay sharp even as their bodies fail.

“Killing Me Softly” singer Roberta Flack died a little more than two years after revealing her ALS diagnosis at age 85.

Dane said Gayheart has become his “biggest champion” and “most stalwart supporter” as he continues to work when he can, including on a new series, “Countdown.”

“I don’t think this is the end of my story,” he told Sawyer. “I just don’t feel like, in my heart, I don’t feel like this is the end of me. … I’m fighting as much as I can.”

English defender Eric Dier will join Monaco on a three-year deal when his Bayern Munich contract expires on 1 July.

Dier made 47 appearances for Bayern but turned down the chance to stay at Allianz Arena and will leave as a Bundesliga champion.

The 31-year-old initially joined the German club on loan from Tottenham in January 2024 before signing a permanent deal last summer.

He will join Ligue 1 Monaco as a free agent until June 2028, with the option for an extra 12 months.

The German title is the first trophy won by Dier, who has been capped 49 times for England and finished as a runner-up with Spurs in the 2015 and 2021 League Cup finals, as well as the 2019 Champions League final.

Dier made 365 appearances in nine and a half seasons with Spurs, who he joined in August 2014 from Sporting Lisbon.

In a video published on Monaco’s X account, external, Dier posed with the club shirt and said: “I cannot wait to get started.

“I’m really looked forward to wearing this shirt and I can’t wait to meet everyone at the club and the Stade Louis II. I’m going to give everything to the club.”