friday

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg, with an assist from Connor Sheets, giving you the latest on city and county government.

As Los Angeles city officials deal with the fallout from last month’s Lineage warehouse fire, one powerful lobbying firm has been at the center of the efforts.

M Strategic Communications took on Lineage as a client two days after the fire ignited at the company’s cold storage facility in Boyle Heights, spewing toxic smoke for miles. A putrid odor from 85 million pounds of rotting food remains a concern.

The company said in a filing to the city’s Ethics Commission that it would be lobbying the mayor and other city officials and would also handle “crisis communications and work related to impact of facility fire.”

Shortly after the fire started, Lineage CEO Greg Lehmkuhl got on the phone with Mayor Karen Bass, and the mayor suggested that Lineage give money to the nonprofit California Community Foundation to disburse to local organizations, according to Jeff Rivera, the company’s chief operating officer.

California Community Foundation has also hired M Strategic Communications to lobby the mayor and other city officials related to reforms to the city’s mansion tax.

After Bass’ suggestion, M Strategic Communications put its two clients, Lineage and CCF, in touch. By that point, according to M Strategic, CCF had already created a fund to help with the emergency.

The lobbying firm also has close ties to Bass. One of its two principals is Shannon Murphy, who was a deputy chief of staff to Bass when Bass was speaker of the State Assembly more than a decade ago. Murphy remains a close confidant of Bass, according to a source with knowledge of the mayor’s office.

M Strategic Communications subcontracted some of the work in its June 19 contract with Lineage to Yusef Robb, who was an unpaid advisor and spokesperson to the mayor until early June.

Robb initially continued to serve as an unpaid, unofficial advisor to the mayor, though no longer as a spokesperson. After The Times and other outlets reported on his work for Lineage last Saturday, Robb said he would no longer serve as an unpaid advisor.

CCF has been paying out the $2 million in funds to more than 20 groups to provide relief to Boyle Heights residents.

During a raucous town hall in Boyle Heights last week, where residents booed the officials who spoke, Bass noted that Airbnb was providing short-term rental assistance for people who live close to the fire.

As it turns out, Airbnb is also a client of M Strategic Communications, which was brought on to help legalize vacation home rentals in the city.

Airbnb has provided more than 1,000 nights of free housing to local residents since the fire, the company said.

“We are grateful that so many of those we work with step up when Los Angeles is in need,” said Chris Modrzejewski, a principal at M Strategic Communications.

Whither auditors?

L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia investigates inefficiencies, fraud and other issues in the city’s more than 40 departments, whose budgets add up to more than $46 billion per year.

He employs eight auditors and five fraud, waste and abuse investigators, which he says is far from enough. He has requested more staff, to no avail.

On Thursday, Mejia endorsed Councilmember Nithya Raman for mayor, arguing that she would better fund his department and would be more open and transparent with information than Bass’ office has been.

“Nithya believes in the power of transparency and accountability as a tool,” Mejia said during a press conference with Raman.

Raman did not provide specific numbers on how many people she would hire for Mejia’s team.

“I’ve committed to ensuring that we’re fully funding that fraud, waste and audit team,” she said. “The other piece is not standing in the way, but actually opening the door when the controller asks for information about various programs and departments.”

Bass did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Fire funds

Local leaders aren’t happy that Congress still hasn’t appropriated supplemental funding to assist with recovery from the Palisades and Eaton fires.

The catastrophic fires were extinguished more than a year-and-a-half ago, but federal lawmakers have yet to fund a combined request for $15.7 billion from the L.A. city and county governments.

That’s different from what happened after past disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy, when Congress appropriated large portions of the amounts that were requested.

The federal money would go toward projects like restoring and rebuilding infrastructure, parks, schools and senior centers, as well as housing and residential support.

The delays have slowed the recovery process and hamstrung reconstruction efforts, according to Bass and L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger.

This week, the pair sent joint letters to congressional leaders and members of the county’s congressional delegation, calling on them to fund the requests.

They also lamented the fact that the Trump administration’s recent $87.6 supplemental funding request did not detail support for fire victims.

Bass and Barger called on Congress to appropriate supplemental funds “to cover the infrastructure and rebuilding needs associated with the Eaton and Palisades fires.”

State of play

— ROBB JOBS: While serving as a top informal advisor to Bass, Yusef Robb was also working as a crisis communications consultant for Lineage, the company whose cold storage warehouse in Boyle Heights erupted in flames last month. Robb stepped down as an advisor to the mayor following The Times and other outlets’ reporting.

— FREE AND FOR SALE: Robb worked for the mayor as an unpaid spokesperson and advisor for months earlier this year, at the same time that he had a $587,500 contract with Los Angeles World Airports.

— ANOTHER ONE GONE: A top spokesperson for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass departed Monday after a brief tenure, joining a growing list of communications aides who have left over the last nine months. Kolby Lee, who started as Bass’ director of communications in February, said he was resigning to spend time with family and loved ones.

— AIRING GRIEVANCES: The contractor for Los Angeles International Airport’s long-awaited automatic people mover train filed a lawsuit against the city, amid ongoing disputes over project delays.

— PROJECT NIXED: The state has rescinded a $73.4-million grant for a new mental health and drug treatment facility in San Pedro, putting the future of the controversial project in jeopardy. Neighbors had picketed outside the property at 2100 S. Western Ave. and packed a town hall in April to oppose the project, with some expressing fears about drug users coming to the area.

—TO FLOCK OR NOT TO FLOCK: Less than a week after the Los Angeles Police Department halted its relationship with Flock Safety over concerns about how the company shares data from automated license plate readers, police officials said they are working out a new agreement — this time with more protections.

— HEAT WAVE: The Bass administration has appointed a new chief heat officer. Daniela Simunovic took on the role on May 31 after the administration discreetly fired Marta Segura, the first person to hold the position. Simunovic served as Bass’ senior director of climate and sustainability for three years.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? This week, the mayor’s signature homelessness program went to Chatsworth in City Councilmember John Lee‘s district, bringing 22 people inside.
• On the docket next week: The L.A. City Council remains on recess next week.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

NEW YORK — Lost amid the headlines about Tarik Skubal, the Dodgers face this unexpected reality as the trade deadline looms: They would like to add a starting pitcher, but they need to add a catcher.

Will Smith has not played in six weeks. In a “best case” scenario, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Friday, Smith would miss another month.

That left Roberts to make a jolting admission, when I asked him if the team really can count on Smith returning this season.

“We don’t know,” Roberts said, “but we certainly are counting on it.”

Would it be nice for the Dodgers to get their three-time All-Star catcher back in time for October? Of course.

Should the Dodgers count on it? Of course not.

The Dodgers won’t know where Smith stands by the Aug. 3 trade deadline. That means now is the time to acquire a catching option they may or may not need later.

Dalton Rushing, the primary catcher in Smith’s absence, has a .799 OPS. Among the 24 major league catchers with at least 200 plate appearances entering play Friday, Rushing ranked fifth in OPS.

He is hitless in his last 13 at-bats. His batting average: .266 before Smith’s injury, .233 since then.

On defense, Rushing ranks next-to-last in defensive runs saved among major league catchers, ahead of only the Angels’ Logan O’Hoppe. On Friday, in the Dodgers’ 2-1 victory at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees scored their only run on Rushing’s passed ball.

In past Octobers, the Dodgers have prioritized defense at catcher. In the 2020 World Series, Austin Barnes caught ahead of Smith in four of the six games, including the final two.

In 2025, with Smith recovering from a hand injury, Ben Rortvedt started ahead of Rushing in the Dodgers’ first four postseason games. Rortvedt was a trade deadline acquisition last summer, picked up with pitcher Paul Gervase from the Tampa Bay Rays for catcher Hunter Feduccia.

Will Smith bats for the Dodgers against the San Francisco Giants on April 22.

(Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)

Rortvedt, currently playing in triple-A for the New York Mets, fits the profile of what the Dodgers need now: a defense-first catcher with major league readiness. With Smith injured, the Dodgers first tried and then cut minor league journeyman Chuckie Robinson at backup catcher. Their current backup, Eliezer Alfonso, made his major league debut in his ninth professional season; he is hitless in nine at-bats.

Could the Dodgers pursue an established catcher, say Ryan Jeffers of the Minnesota Twins or Francisco Alvarez or Luis Torrens of the New York Mets? Possible, but probably not necessary.

Rushing could be their guy. Smith could be back.

Smith has started and re-started baseball activities, only to find out that the inflamed disk in his neck flares up.

“He hasn’t been able to get over the hump,” Roberts said.

The Dodgers are trying another round of complete rest before asking him to try hitting or throwing again.

“We felt that, if he’s inactive, it gives it a good chance to get all the inflammation out, the soreness out, the pain, increase flexibility, all of it,” Roberts said. “Then he has a fighting chance to work his way back. Trying to do everything — even at a lesser dosage — just wasn’t feasible.”

Trying to trade for Skubal might not be feasible, at least so long as his Detroit Tigers remain in the American League wild-card race. The Tigers won seven of their final 10 games in the first half, and they face teams with losing records in 13 of their 16 second-half games ahead of the trade deadline, starting with the Angels this weekend in Anaheim.

The Dodgers do not need a depth starter. However, they might do well to find someone they would feel comfortable starting the third or fourth game of a playoff series, lest they count on Blake Snell (elbow) and Tyler Glasnow (back) and Shohei Ohtani (knee) all returning to the mound healthy and effective.

Important, yes. As important as another catcher, no.

For a team that will spend almost half a billion dollars on its player payroll and luxury tax this season, its most important trade deadline pickup could be a catcher making maybe $1 million.

NEW YORK — Shohei Ohtani was at the top of the Dodgers’ lineup Friday against the New York Yankees, five days after receiving an injection in his left knee. And he’s penciled in to pitch against the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday.

Ohtani received an orthovisc shot in his knee to lubricate the joint and relieve irritation, manager Dave Roberts said, and did not have it drained.

“It gives him some relief in his knee which we were hoping to get,” Roberts said. “Then the four days off with no activity which gives it a chance to settle in.”

Ohtani was expected to be in the lineup for all three games against the Yankees. He planned to play catch and throw off the mound in the coming days, and the team would monitor his response before finalizing pitching plans.

Taking the mound Wednesday would give Ohtani more recovery time heading into the team’s day off. When asked if Ohtani would shoulder two-way duties Wednesday, Roberts said, “We’ll see when we get there.”

Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani hits his 300th career home run against the Colorado Rockies at Dodger Stadium on July 7.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

When it isn’t possible to have Ohtani pitch before a day off, Roberts would like to rest him the following day.

“It’s all contingent on how his knee is feeling,” Roberts said of Ohtani’s second-half workload. “I think we are certainly more prepared to back off on the workload if it calls for it. But Shohei wants to be out there as much as he possibly can.”

Asked if Ohtani would need offseason surgery, Roberts said: “I would highly doubt that.”

Coming out of the break, the Dodgers shuffled their rotation to have Roki Sasaki, Emmet Sheehan and Yoshinobu Yamamoto face the Yankees in that order.

That leaves left-handed starters Eric Lauer and Justin Wrobleski (not necessarily in that order), to face the Phillies before Ohtani would take the mound.

Smith shut down

The Dodgers are shutting down catcher Will Smith from all baseball activities for a week as he continues to deal with a lingering neck injury. That pushes his return timeline back to at least August, if not later.

“It was flaring up, wasn’t recovering — however you want to word it,” Roberts said. “He didn’t feel like he was making any improvement.”

Smith has been sidelined since early June because of what he described as an inflamed disk. He initially treated it with rest and then an injection. But it still was bothering him during his latest buildup.

“I talked to the trainer, Thomas [Albert], today and he said that Will doesn’t feel any pain,” Roberts said. “Now with that, I think we’re in a much better spot.”

Dodgers utility player Kiké Hernández (strained left oblique) was set to begin a rehab assignment with triple-A Oklahoma City on Friday. And left-hander Blake Snell was scheduled to take the mound for two innings Saturday in his first minor-league rehab start since undergoing surgery to remove loose bodies in his elbow.

Air quality concerns

The MLB schedule got off to a smoky start out of the All-Star break. With wildfires in Canada raising air-quality concerns in the Northeast and Midwest on Thursday, the New York Mets’ game at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia was moved up an hour.

The smoke cleared over Yankee Stadium on Friday afternoon.

“I know that the players got a players’ union text that says it’s a full go,” Roberts said. “They feel good about it. The league feels good. I haven’t heard anything otherwise.”

2027 schedule

With a lockout widely expected to start Dec. 1 and no guarantee of an agreement in time to preserve the 2027 season, take MLB’s schedule announcement Thursday with a grain of salt.

Should collective bargaining negotiations wrap up in time, however, the Dodgers are set to open the season at Dodger Stadium on March 25 against the Atlanta Braves.

They end the season on the road, facing a pair of division rivals in the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks from Sept. 21-26.

WASHINGTON — President Trump and his allies escalated attacks on U.S. elections on Friday, after the president’s prime-time effort to convince Americans that that the nation’s voting systems are fundamentally flawed, and threatened to punish California and other Democratic states that refuse the administration’s demands for voter data.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin threatened local election officials with fines and prison if they don’t turn over voter rolls to federal officials seeking to root out purported illegal voting by non-citizens.

“Try us,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote on X in response to Mullin’s threats. He added that “California has free, fair, and secure elections” and that the state “will fight for them.”

The administration’s threats — made less than four months before the November midterm elections — are a continuation of an aggressive Trump-led campaign to use the federal government to attempt to overhaul the nation’s voting systems and sow public mistrust in elections.

The administration has tried for months to compel Democrat-led states into handing over sensitive voter data to the federal government, but the efforts have run into resistance in courts, in part out of concern for privacy laws. The courts have also reaffirmed in many cases that the Constitution gives states — not the federal government — primary authority over elections.

On Friday, Mullin said his agency has found “as many as” 190,832 possible non-citizens registered to vote in California, along with more in three other Democratic-led states. He said Homeland Security arrived at those numbers by checking the four states’ public voter records.

He vowed to withhold federal election security grants from states until they agree to the administration’s demands, including having their voter registration lists “scrubbed” and their election security systems updated.

“If these states want a grant and they want to be reimbursed to run federal elections, they are going to have to implement security measures,” Mullin said at a news conference. “We need to make sure that individuals who are legally able to vote are voting.”

Newsom said the state had “no idea” where that claim came from. The administration has not made its methodology public, and the system Mullin’s department has used to check for non-citizens in the past has inaccurately flagged some citizens as non-citizens. Past election reviews have found non-citizen voting is rare.

“There is plenty of reason to be suspicious of the claims from the administration,” said Brendan Fisher, director of strategic investigations at the Campaign Legal Center, “and every reason for voters to have confidence in our elections.”

Mullin’s remarks came the day after Trump delivered a prime-time address about vulnerabilities in the election system, claims that largely were not backed up by the evidence he provided. The White House released a trove of declassified documents that fell short of showing that any American election had been affected by fraud or foreign interference.

The White House dug in on the strategy Friday morning, deploying agency heads to continue amplifying the idea of election vulnerabilities, even after fact-checks showed most of his claims were exaggerated and had been previously known, investigated or debunked.

“SAVE OUR ELECTIONS,” the White House said on X.

Trump also used his address to pressure Congress to pass legislation that would tighten voting restrictions and could make it harder for millions to register to vote and cast ballots. While hardline Republicans applauded him, others in the party have rebuffed his request.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Friday that he did not understand why Trump is focusing on a past election when Republicans should focus on what is ahead.

“I think historically the midterms for the party in power are really tough,” Cornyn said. “So, yeah, I am concerned about it. We ought to be talking about things looking forward that our constituents are most concerned about.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said the nation’s electoral systems are safe, and while he thinks election officials need to be “vigilant,” he said he is more concerned about economic issues ahead of the midterms..

Discussing the legislation ahead of the speech Thursday, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said it would be “impossible” to carry out changes to the nation’s voting laws in time for the midterms.

“The only thing that will occur is an undermining of the integrity of our elections right now,” Tillis said on the Senate floor.

David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, called Mullin’s threats “laughable.”

“There is no significant pool of federal grant money appropriated, so this threat has no teeth for any state. None of them are expecting any significant federal funds for elections,” Becker said.

Mullin told reporters Friday the federal government plans to use public records requests to try to obtain the voter roll information in order to investigate whether non-citizens have voted. Any member of the public can make a public records request; the move signals that the government has few remaining avenues to force the state to turn over voter data.

But Mullin appeared to acknowledge the limitations, saying: “I obviously can’t force the states.” He later threatened to levy fines, penalties or criminal charges against elections officials in states that don’t comply with the government’s demand.

If their behavior wasn’t criminal, Mullin said he would make sure state and county officials — who do not work for the federal government — would “never work for the federal government again.”

More than a dozen courts have ruled against the Justice Department’s highly unusual demand for state voter rolls. The federal government is not entitled to the data under federal law, Becker said.

He said previous government investigations into non-citizen voting have found that most people flagged against DHS’ database were either citizens or non-citizens who had never registered themselves to vote.

The Trump administration has used a database from an immigration verification system to flag possible non-citizen voters, but election officials have found that method misidentified some voters. Even with citizens mistakenly included in the count, the number of possible ineligible voters was extremely low — in Texas, 0.0001% of voters.

Data indicate that voting by non-citizens is rare. A study of the 2016 election by the Brennan Center for Justice found that officials referred about 30 cases of suspected non-citizen voting for investigation or prosecution. A 2024 review by the American Immigration Council of the right-wing Heritage Foundation‘s database turned up 68 cases of noncitizen voting since the 1980s.

While Trump’s speech prompted warnings from his critics that he could be laying the groundwork to take further steps to interfere with or tighten restrictions on elections, experts said he was running out of moves.

Becker predicted that Trump would not actually attempt to cancel elections or send officers to the polls and that courts would block the president if he declared a national emergency to exert control over elections.

“But I think there are people in the administration, including the president himself, who would like us all to think this is possible,” he said.

Fisher said Trump may be trying to lay the groundwork to dispute the midterm results if he doesn’t like the outcome, but said his powers to do so are limited.

“There’s safeguards and laws in place to protect the freedom to vote,” Fisher said, “and voters should tune out the noise and continue to participate in our democracy.”

Erling Haaland and SoFi Stadium, ladies and gentlemen. Your breakout stars of the World Cup.

We’ve all fallen for the blond forward who has rowed Norway to its first World Cup quarterfinal berth — and also for SoFi Stadium.

Or “Los Angeles Stadium,” FIFA’s designation for the $5.5-billion architectural masterpiece that welcomed the world to Inglewood.

I cover Rams and Chargers games there regularly, but the World Cup changed how I feel about the place. It has more soul now, more character.

There is more history attached, “core memories,” as Kevin Demoff, president of parent company Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, put it.

The exultation when the United States went up 1-0 in the seventh minute of its tournament-opening, 4-1 victory over Paraguay? “That’s now a core memory of this stadium,” Demoff said.

So is the proud Iranian diaspora showing up en masse to mostly support Team Melli twice, in draws with New Zealand and Belgium.

And the goal by LAFC’s Stephen Eustáquio in the second minute of second-half stoppage time to lead Canada to a 1-0 victory over South Africa in its first knockout game.

And Spain’s taut, 2-1 victory over Belgium in Friday’s high-stakes quarterfinals match.

FIFA might say these sensational scenes put L.A. — our tiny hamlet of more than 18 million people — “on the map.”

What they did was put SoFi Stadium on everyone’s radar as one of the world’s foremost football stadiums.

Jose Ovalle, a 34-year-old from Reynosa, Mexico, has watched matches at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City and Estadio BBVA in Monterey, both sites of World Cup action this summer.

“They’re amazing stadiums — a lot of history, so much history,” Ovalle said Friday. “But [SoFi Stadium] is one of the top stadiums in the world.”

Spain midfielder Fabián Ruiz, left, celebrates after scoring past Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, right, in the World Cup quarterfinals at SoFi Stadium on Friday.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Nah, said New Zealand coach Darren Bazeley: “This is the best football stadium I’ve ever been in.”

Swiss center back Manuel Akanji plays for Inter Milan and roots for the Atlanta Falcons. It was a big deal for him to play at their home field, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, in last year’s FIFA Club World Cup.

“It’s really nice, but this is the best,” Akanji said after Switzerland defeated Bosnia-Herzegovina in group play at Sofi Stadium. “This is the best I’ve seen overall among all the stadiums I’ve ever been to. It’s amazing.”

Eight matches, five group stage games, two round-of-32 knockout affairs, Friday’s quarterfinal and a partridge in a pear tree — it was a monthlong run that was everything SoFi Stadium’s team could have wished for when it began preparing to host eight years ago. And more.

“I don’t think you can envision the passion of national team fans,” Demoff said. “We’ve seen so many great events here, NFL games, concerts, but the pride of a national event and seeing people come to Los Angeles and the U.S. for the first time, and seeing this building for the first time…

“There’s something magical about 30,000 Bosnians in blue singing, marching from the airport to here. You can’t properly envision that, no matter how many times you’ve been here.”

People raved about sight lines and sound. They admired the architecture and the infinity screen and the way the canopy kept things cool. In line to buy merchandise Friday, Orange County’s Nick Valencia looked around and mused: “Wow, humans made this.”

Players had the run of the place on real grass, not the artificial turf in place for NFL games. (Don’t expect that to change, Demoff said, noting that upkeep would be doubly challenging at SoFi Stadium with two NFL teams using the field.)

Soccer fans amplified their positive reviews online, where the only complaint having to do with SoFi Stadium was that FIFA decided to give the World Cup final to the archaic-by-comparison MetLife Stadium — a.k.a. “New York/New Jersey Stadium” — instead.

The stadium popped in person and on TV, its distinctive, futuristic shape making it immediately recognizable in a way that not every stadium is.

Vibes were good among volunteers and visitors from around the world and every corner of the United States — and among stadium staffers, who won raises in a late-breaking contract agreement that resulted in increases to more than $30 per hour.

The Rams’ house — and Chargers’ — was full almost every match, with four sold-out crowds of 70,492 and an eight-game total of 561,656.

People paid thousands of dollars for tickets and got their money’s worth at the world’s most-expensive stadium, a modern marvel that’s only getting better with age.

Dodger Stadium is dripping in lore, from Kirk Gibson’s legendary walk-off home run in 1988 to more history, like Shohei Ohtani playing perhaps the greatest game ever last postseason.

Staples — er, Crypto.com Arena — is where Kobe Bryant dropped 81. Decathlete Rafer Johnson lit the Olympic flame in 1984 at the Los Angeles Coliseum. And we all can picture Brandi Chastain ripping off her top in her iconic celebration after scoring the game-winning penalty kick in the 1999 Women’s World Cup at the Rose Bowl.

“We may not have the Brandi Chastain moment from ‘99,” Demoff said. “But we’ve had so many great moments off this tournament that I think will be replayed over and over and over again.”

There are more moments to come, with SoFi Stadium slated to host Super Bowl LXI in February and then, in 2028, to stage the Olympic Opening Ceremony and the Olympic swimming competition.

“Where the U.S. scored the opening goal,” Demoff said, “is going to be the middle of the Olympic swimming pool. I think that contrast blows people’s minds. It certainly blows mine.”

And for the past month, Los Angeles’ stadium blew the world’s mind.

MINNEAPOLIS — Cameron Brink scored 10 points in her first game since June 15, but it wasn’t enough to list the Sparks past the host Lynx on Wednesday afternoon.

Kayla McBride scored 24 for her fifth straight 20-point performance, Courtney Williams added 19 points, and the Minnesota beat the Sparks 96-87 to record their fourth straight victory. The inconsistent Sparks have dropped back-to-back games since firing GM Raegan Pebley.

Minnesota went on a 19-3 run, scoring on 10 straight possessions, to take a 63-56 lead with 2:36 left in the third quarter.

McBride made her first three-pointer with four minutes left in the fourth for an 84-74 lead. Nia Coffey banked in a 3-pointer on the Lynx’s next possession for an 11-point lead.

Minnesota went 8 of 14 from 3-point range in the second half after missing 11 straight before halftime. Six of those makes came from different players.

Minnesota rookie Olivia Miles had 18 points in 26 minutes for Minnesota (19-6). Miles went to the floor with 6:03 left in the fourth and she did not return after appearing to roll her ankle on a driving layup.

Rae Burrell scored 24 points, and Nneka Ogwumike had 23 points, 12 rebounds and five assists for the Sparks (10-13). Los Angeles turned it over 20 times, leading to 30 points for Minnesota. Sparks point guard Kelsey Plum remains sidelined with a lower left leg injury and is expected to be re-evaluated next week following a four-week recovery.

Up next

Sparks: At Chicago on Friday.

Lynx: Host Portland on Saturday.

The L.A. Zoo’s elephants are now in Tulsa, and the zoo’s longtime nonprofit partner is now in bankruptcy court.

The litany of woes at the L.A. Zoo grew longer last month as the city’s nonprofit partner, the Greater Los Angeles Zoological Association, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, citing “incessant litigation” from the city of Los Angeles as the cause.

The city sued GLAZA — its partner for more than half a century — in 2024 over a $50 million endowment that each side argued was theirs to steward.

The city won a preliminary injunction in Los Angeles Superior Court that barred GLAZA from keeping the money when its contract with the zoo ended last year. Following the split and lawsuit, GLAZA dwindled in size from 42 full-time employees to just four part-time employees.

Now GLAZA says it owes its creditors, including more than $300,000 that it needs to pay a law firm that has represented the nonprofit in its legal battle with the city.

“The City has designated an army of eight attorneys to overwhelm GLAZA with endless discovery, depositions, and court filings all to run up GLAZA’s legal fees,” the nonprofit said in a statement shared with The Times. “As a result, GLAZA has been left with no options other than to seek protection from the bankruptcy court to ensure the survival of GLAZA and the protection of its donors.”

Following its separation from the city, GLAZA executives hope the nonprofit can work in the animal conservation efforts in Southern California.

On July 1, the City Council approved $250,000 in outside lawyers related to the bankruptcy case.

The zoo is facing headwinds as membership has declined precipitously and facilities have deteriorated, according to an Los Angeles County civil grand jury report.

The city attorney’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment on GLAZA’s bankruptcy.

Pratt’s new frontier

Former mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt was far from Los Angeles as he took a meeting with President Trump in Washington, D.C., a few days ago.

Pratt, who came up short of the Nov. 2 runoff by a few percentage points, met with the president in the Oval Office, posting a photo of the rendezvous to social media Tuesday.

“I will never stop fighting for my community,” he wrote.

Pratt paired the visit with an announcement of a new media endeavor he plans to launch called “WAR.” He said the foundation will fight against political corruption, advocate for transparency in government and “restore common sense.”

The website for the foundation doesn’t have additional details, just a link to contribute and a link to a website selling Pratt merch.

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Pratt also posted a 9-minute video Wednesday calling out California’s election system, claiming that the results of the June 2 primary were skewed by fraud.

Representatives for Pratt’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Phoning it in

After the flag salute and brief comments, L.A. City Council meetings kick off with a public comment period, during which crusading citizens often let loose on city officials as the council members quietly listen, leave the room or chat among themselves.

It’s not always L.A.’s finest hour, as certain commenters often resort to slurs and ad hominem attacks about the council members’ race, ethnicity and even physical appearance.

On July 1, public comment expanded as new state law, SB 707, went into effect, requiring the council to take telephonic public comment.

The council also had to verbally state the amendments they make to motions due to the new law, Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson noted. Historically, the council has affixed amendments to a bulletin board in council chambers.

After frequent speaker Armando Herman used the N-word at the July 1 meeting, Harris-Dawson noted that the state legislature had done nothing about offensive comments at public meetings.

“Our friends in the state legislature made the decision to require us to have telephonic public comment. They did nothing, zero, about what we just heard. Since they want to intervene in our meetings, I’d call on them to do something about what they just heard,” he said.

The council did ban commenters from using the N-word and C-word last year. Speakers who use those words receive a warning and are booted from the meeting if they do it again.

Harris-Dawson said the new state law was “problematic” and noted another issue.

“We can’t verify if calls are bots or foreign agents, which poses a security risk,” he said in a statement to The Times.

State of play

— BOYLE-ING OVER: Mayor Karen Bass, Councilmember Ysabel Jurado and County Supervisor Hilda Solis were roundly booed and heckled by Boyle Heights residents during a town hall Thursday about the Boyle Heights fire. The three officials struggled to speak over the irate audience.

— SOLAR FLARE: Before the Boyle Heights warehouse fire, Lineage representatives lobbied City Hall over the rooftop solar array. The company says it was seeking a safer alternative to rapid shutdown devices.

— FISCAL EDUCATION: The Los Angeles Unified School District is facing “severe” indications it could be insolvent as soon as next year and has 45 days to fix its budget or risk an outside takeover. The Los Angeles County Office of Education has projected a $231 million cash shortfall by 2027.

— HIT THE STREETS: The LAPD is considering shutting down its police academy for part of 2028 to allow hundreds of officers to hit the streets for the Olympics, according to department sources. The move could lead to a drop in police hiring.

— LEGEND GONE: Billy G. Mills, one of the first Black men elected to L.A.’s City Council, died June 27. Mills was a civil rights leader before being elected to the legislative body in 1963, the same year Tom Bradley was elected to be a council member.

— IT TAKES A VILLAGE: Billionaire developer Rick Caruso’s Palisades Village will reopen in August after more than $100 million in renovations following the January 2025 wildfire.

— EVICTION BENEDICTION: Thousands of formerly homeless people whose housing subsidies will expire in December are no longer at risk of eviction, local housing officials announced Thursday. An infusion of new funds approved by Congress this year and a waiver of eligibility procedures have staved off a potential crisis that would have left 4,200 back on the street.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program had no operations this week.
• On the docket next week: The City Council remains on recess until Aug. 4.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

In an alternate universe, the Sparks’ win over Chicago on Friday could have been a barometer to indicate whether general manager Raegan Pebley’s gamble to trade Rickea Jackson to the Sky paid off.

Jackson didn’t get a chance for revenge after tearing an anterior cruciate ligament in May, making the Sparks’ 102-87 win at Crypto.com Arena not a true litmus test. Veteran guard Ariel Atkins, who was shipped out of Chicago in the Jackson deal, had her best game with the Sparks, finishing with a season-high 17 points.

The Sparks showcased their potential en route to their second straight win, even with All-Star Kelsey Plum (lower left leg) and Cameron Brink (left ankle) out. Nneka Ogwumike, the Sparks’ other All-Star, posted 25 points and 12 rebounds, Dearica Hamby and Rae Burrell both scored 17, and Erica Wheeler had 15 points and eight assists.

“The ball’s got to move,” Sparks coach Lynne Roberts said. “It can’t be a lot of one on one. And that’s what happens when you have 32 assists, the ball’s moving. So it’s just the continued emphasis of ball movement, player movement, getting those high-quality shots, and we’ve got players that are going to make them for percentage.”

Still a game under .500, the Sparks (10-11) have a long way to go to be considered serious postseason contenders. Chicago also has struggled mightily outside of a win against Phoenix this week and has been engulfed in drama around veteran guard Skylar Diggins, who sat out because of a knee injury.

The Sparks easily could have spiraled following Monday’s disaster in Seattle. Instead, their season has life.

“After the game on Monday, I think there was just kind of like an ‘enough’ mentality, and we all felt it,” Roberts said. “We all kind of just said, ‘enough.’ That doesn’t mean that we’re going to go undefeated the rest of the way, but we play like that. We give ourselves a chance in every game.”

For the second straight game, all five starters scored in double digits. Hamby had a late backhanded layup over 6-foot-7 Kamilla Cardoso to help close out the win.

Brought in to be Plum’s partner in the backcourt, Atkins has had an inconsistent offensive season, with career-low scoring and shooting numbers. Against her former squad, she showed why the Sparks wanted her, and why they need her to produce with Plum out of the lineup for the foreseeable future.

“It feels good to see shots go in,” Atkins said. “My biggest thing is that it feels good when we all feel good too. When they lead to wins, it makes it even better.”

After the Sparks opened up a 16-8 lead, Chicago (7-15) stormed back to keep it tight throughout the second quarter. The Sparks led 73-70 after three quarters before pulling away late.

Ogwumike made three three-pointers in the fourth to carry the Sparks across the finish line.

“Just to have that poise, like we haven’t shown that in a very long time,” Wheeler said. “So for us to display that tonight, like that should be the standard, and it felt good to have that poise.”

The Sparks scored 25 points off 15 Sky turnovers. They shot 51% from the field.

Ball movement has been emphasized all season, “so it’s good that we’re starting to figure it out,” Roberts said. “When you look at the assists, it wasn’t like one person had 16 or something, right? So it’s balanced. The ball’s moving. There’s [the thought of] ‘we need to get the win,’ not ‘I need to get the bucket.’ And I think that’s the mentality of great teams.”

Veteran forward Emma Cannon played 12 minutes and scored nine points as a key post presence late when Cardoso was in foul trouble.

Ogwumike moved into fifth on the Sparks’ all-time assists list with her third helper in the first quarter, passing Mwadi Mabika.

The Sparks are half a game outside the final playoff spot, not bad given how poor some of their performances have been. They head to Atlanta (13-9) to face a slumping Dream squad on Monday as they try to win three consecutive games for the third time this season.

“It took us a bit with KP out to figure out kind of how we can still flow,” Roberts said. “I think we’ve figured it out.”

PORTLAND, Maine — Graham Platner on Friday submitted his paperwork to formally withdraw from Maine’s U.S. Senate race, officially ending an upstart yet troubled campaign, the dissolution of which threatens Democrats’ pursuit of chamber control.

Platner’s paperwork was received by the Maine secretary of state’s office and reflected shortly thereafter in its online withdrawal list.

In a letter to the secretary of state’s office, which Platner also posted on social media, he wrote that the Mainers who had nominated him “voted for a new kind of politics” that is “representative of people down here in the real world — not billionaires, oligarchs, or the political establishment.”

It was the same outsider chord that had been a trademark of his tumultuous campaign, in which Platner drew backing from progressive leaders including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna of California. Both are among many who have since withdrawn their endorsements.

“I seek to further the movement we have built together and the future we believe in,” he went on, without elaborating.

Maine is considered a key state for control of the narrowly divided Senate, and Democrats were desperate for a candidate capable of defeating Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

The formal withdrawal comes two days after Platner said he would quit the race, facing an allegation of sexual assault that he has denied. Maine Democrats are seeking a new nominee, and several candidates have already begun jockeying for position.

State law includes a provision for Democrats to replace Platner before the general election, but the replacement must by named by July 27.

Just before Platner’s Wednesday announcement, more than 100 state Democratic Party committee members signed off on holding a nominating convention, in the event of his withdrawal, to choose the nominee. The state party has not publicly released details of when the convention will be held. Officials with the party did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Several Democrats have announced plans to run for the Senate nomination this week. They include three candidates who lost the June primary for governor — former Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention director Nirav Shah, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson.

Others who have announced runs include Maine Beer Co. co-founder Dan Kleban; former 2nd Congressional District candidates Jordan Wood and Paige Loud; and former Maine Senate candidates David Costello and Andrea LaFlamme. State Rep. Valli Geiger has also expressed interest in the post but has not formally announced.

Kinnard and Whittle write for the Associated Press.

Victor Wembanyama has signed what will be the richest contract in San Antonio Spurs history, a five-year extension that could exceed $250 million if the player option in the final season is picked up, a person with knowledge of the negotiations said Friday.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press because the financial figures were not disclosed by either side. The Spurs, who went to the NBA Finals this past season behind the All-NBA center and unanimous Defensive Player of the Year, announced that Wembanyama had signed, simply saying the sides agreed on “a multi-year contract extension.”

The agreement comes at a discount; Wembanyama could have agreed to a deal that topped $300 million — but chose a lesser amount to help give the Spurs flexibility going forward with their young core and in anticipation of the contracts some of those budding stars will be eligible for in coming years, the person said.

ESPN first reported the agreement.

Reynolds writes for the Associated Press.

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg, David Zahniser and Melissa Gomez, giving you the latest on city and county government.

Los Angeles voters won’t get a chance to increase the size of the City Council. They won’t take up a plan to give noncitizens the right to vote, either.

These and other proposed ballot measures got put on the back burner, delayed for a future year as the council scrambled to finish its work before its summer break.

One proposal did survive the sometimes blunt vetting process: decreasing the number of council meetings.

On Tuesday, council members sent voters a measure for the Nov. 3 ballot that would only require a single council meeting per week. The City Charter currently mandates a minimum of three.

Councilmember Tim McOsker was among those pushing for the change, saying it will make the council more efficient and effective.

“It will also allow council members to take care of more business in their districts,” said McOsker, who represents neighborhoods stretching from Watts to the Port of Los Angeles.

The council, which voted 12-0 to place the measure on the ballot, has been thinking about cutting back on the number of meetings for a few years.

In 2024, McOsker and Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky tried to place a measure before voters that would have made the same change. But other council members were not prepared to put it on the ballot.

Yaroslavsky said at the time that much of the city’s public comment period was occupied by “15 people screaming racist, misogynistic, antisemitic epithets.”

Any change to the City Charter would not preclude the council from scheduling additional special meetings.

The proposal drew sharp criticism from Rob Quan, an organizer with Unrig LA, who spent much of the past year tracking the effort to rewrite the charter. He fears that a reduction in meetings will also lead to a decrease in opportunities for Angelenos to address their council representatives.

One of the reasons council members, who each make $244,727 a year, don’t get as much business done is that they frequently use their Friday meetings for ceremonial activities — honoring civic leaders, community groups, youth sports teams, Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani and beloved bands from the 80s.

“Do we really need that? Not necessarily,” Quan said.

Quan said the proposal to cut the number of meetings received zero vetting from the council. The 13-member Charter Reform Commission, which spent nearly a year examining various changes to city government, took up the idea and rejected it.

If voters approve the change, council meetings could end up resembling those of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, which meets most Tuesdays at 9:30 a.m. The supervisors frequently don’t finish their business until well after 5 p.m.

Former prosecutor will stay away from Lee case

We told you last week that Councilmember John Lee is suing the city Ethics Commission over a $138,000 fine he received for allegedly violating city gift laws — a case that stems largely from a notorious 2017 trip to Las Vegas. The council responded to that lawsuit by voting to retain the law firm Hecker Fink to defend the Ethics Commission, at a cost of $120,000.

As it turns out, at least one Hecker Fink lawyer knows plenty about that Vegas trip.

Mack Jenkins, who heads the firm’s L.A. office, was one of the federal prosecutors who brought the criminal case against Lee’s onetime boss, Councilmember Mitchell Englander, in 2020. That case stems from the duo’s trip to Sin City in 2017.

Federal prosecutors said Englander and Lee, listed in court filings as Staffer B, were plied with fancy meals, expensive alcohol and other freebies by people seeking to do business with the city. Englander went a step further, walking into a casino bathroom and picking up $10,000 cash in an envelope from a Los Angeles-area businessman. He later pleaded guilty to providing false information to investigators.

The city’s lawyers say they cannot represent the Ethics Commission because Lee is one of their clients. But does Jenkins’ history with the case create any type of conflict for Hecker Fink?

Nancy Jackson, a spokesperson for the Ethics Commission, says no. In an email, she said Jenkins will be walled off from Hecker Fink’s work on the matter.

“That former prosecutor is recused from the case and will have no involvement in the case,” she said.

What went wrong with the lighting assessment?

Property owners resoundingly rejected a recent request to pay more to fund streetlight repairs. One of the reasons might have been the wording on their ballot.

The city mailed letters asking if they would like to increase the yearly assessment, using language that didn’t offer a lot of explanation.

In the section where property owners had the option to vote yes, the ballot read: “Yes I am in favor of the proposed maximum assessment for Fiscal Year 2026/2017 and the proposed annual cost of living increases as described in the attached notice beginning Fiscal Year 2026/2027.”

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who chairs the council’s Public Works Committee, said the phrasing could have been a lot more persuasive — and better explained the need for additional money.

“Some of the language that was put out was not written in a way for us to be clear about what we were doing, and instead used language that really turned people off,” she said.

The assessment, which has not changed since 1996, currently generates about $45 million a year. For the average single-family home, the current payment is $58 annually.

The increase would have brought the average annual bill to $117, generating an additional $80 million a year as the city faces a backlog of broken streetlights due to stagnant funding and a rise in vandalism and theft.

After the vote failed to pass, the council approved a motion directing city staff to identify $6.6 million for the Bureau of Street Lighting. Without that money, the city will face “an immediate threat to public safety and our infrastructure at large,” the motion said.

“There will be a 15% cut in field workforces by the end of July 2026, making the timeline for streetlight repair to reach 2 years when the City had previously been able to do this work within 7 days,” said the motion authored by Hernandez and Yaroslavsky.

Hernandez voiced frustration over the defeat of the assessment. She took aim at Proposition 218, the state law that restricts how local governments can raise money, saying it disenfranchises renters who have to “live with the conditions that property owners choose for them.”

She added that the ballot measure’s wording, which she said was crafted by the City Attorney’s Office, failed to capture the reason for the increase.

“People really think that the main reason our lights are out is copper wire theft,” she said. “But the fact is that over 60% of our street lights are out because of lack of maintenance, because we just do not have the money to do that work.”

Hernandez said that next time, she would push for more community engagement so voters understand why the increased funding is needed. She also raised the possibility of reforming Proposition 218.

“No matter what, I’m going to get these streetlights on, and if that’s figuring different things out until we can get a significant effort to do another assessment, then we will do that,” she said.

State of play

— COLD FEET: The L.A. City Council decided against putting two major measures on the Nov. 3 ballot. One measure would have provided a pathway for noncitizens to vote in local elections, while the other would have given the council more authority over the LAPD.

— COSTLY COLLISION: The city of Los Angeles will pay $20 million to settle a lawsuit brought on behalf of a teen who lost his leg in a 2023 hit-and-run in Boyle Heights. The lawsuit blamed the city for an intersection lacking signage, lighting and other traffic controls.

— LAHSuit: The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, also known as LAHSA, sued the Trump administration Monday to stop it from suspending the agency from receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. LAHSA argued that the decision would put thousands of people at risk of losing their government funded housing.

— FORWARDING ADDRESS: The only post office in Skid Row abruptly closed in January due to repeated break-ins and damage to employee property, according to the U.S. Postal Service. The closure has frustrated residents and business owners.

— BUILDING BLITZ: Senate Bill 79, the historic housing bill, took effect across the state on Wednesday. The law could bring townhomes, row houses and other developments to 57 neighborhoods across the city.

— AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT: A preliminary analysis showed that the recent inferno at a Boyle Heights warehouse contaminated the air with high levels of smoke and soot, rivaling the pollution that filled the region during the 2025 wildfires.

— MORE MEGA PROJECTS: Two large scale developments grabbed the attention of downtown Los Angeles this week. One, approved by the council, is slated to add 1,500 residences to Skid Row. The second, proposed this week, would transform the World Trade Center building into a 512-unit affordable housing complex.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program to combat homelesssness went to the area near Olympic Boulevard and Menlo Avenue in Pico Union on Friday in Hernandez’s district, bringing 24 people indoors.
• On the docket next week: The City Council will be on summer recess until Aug. 4.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

Dodgers two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani waddled through the clubhouse after the Dodgers’ 4-3 comeback victory against the Padres on Friday night, the bulging ice wraps around his left knee and right arm creating a penguin-like effect to his gait.

That in and of itself wasn’t noteworthy — ice after starts is a regular part of any pitcher’s recovery and arm care. But for Ohtani, the awkward wraps were reminders of one ailment he’s getting over, knee inflammation, and one that popped up Friday night — a right biceps problem.

“More precautionary reason,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton about being replaced by a pinch-hitter in the seventh inning. “I was a little concerned with my biceps with the last at-bat that I took.”

Ohtani limited the Padres (43-44) to three runs over 110 pitches when he stepped up to the plate in the sixth.

Teoscar Hernández hits a grand slam for the Dodgers against the San Diego Padres on Friday.

He worked a full count and then flew out to right field. Ohtani paused on his follow-through, his lips pursed, before jogging up the line.

“It’s the same location that I felt a couple months ago,” Ohtani said. “It went away relatively quickly, so I expect that to happen again.”

That Ohtani dealt with a biceps problem earlier this season was not disclosed before Friday. Even manager Dave Roberts said after the game that he had just learned about the previous ailment.

Ohtani will take off Saturday to recover, Roberts said. And Ohtani skipping his last pitching start before the All-Star break is “on the table.”

Ohtani was voted the starting designated hitter for the National League, marking his sixth straight All-Star selection. But even before Friday, it seemed unlikely he would pitch in the All-Star Game given his rotation schedule.

“He’s a quick healer, and finds a way to get back,” Roberts said. “But I do think that for us to read and react and hear what his body is telling him is really important, given the toll it takes on his body to be a two-way player.”

The injury concern replaced now-assuaged questions about Ohtani’s pairing with catcher Dalton Rushing with Will Smith (neck) on the injured list. Smith has at least resumed throwing and took swings Thursday, Roberts said, but he isn’t expected to return before the All-Star break.

The last time Rushing caught Ohtani, the pitcher took over pitch-calling after a disastrous second inning against the Twins last week.

“I just overthought last time,” Rushing said in a conversation with The Times on Thursday night. “I was trying to be perfect, and with a guy like that, you don’t have to be perfect. You just need to call the right pitches at the right time and allow his stuff to just beat them naturally. And that’s the plan [Friday]. Whether I call the pitch, he calls the pitch. I want to make sure we’re both convicted in what we’re throwing, and we can execute it to the best of our ability.”

On Friday, Ohtani handed back over pitch-calling duties, communicating with head shakes and nods instead of the PitchCom buttons on his arm.

Ohtani walked the first two batters he faced. But then he struck out three of the next four, escaping the jam down just 1-0, courtesy of an RBI single from Gavin Sheets.

That started a streak of 10 batters who Ohtani retired in order, fanning six of them.

“The best way that I can describe it is, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Rushing said when asked what he’d learned from following along last week. “That’s the way he pitches. … Trust what you do, trust how good his stuff is, and just go from there.”

Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani, left, gets a fist bump from catcher Dalton Rushing during the first inning of a 4-3 win over the San Diego Padres at Dodger Stadium on Friday night.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Ohtani’s back-to-back strikeouts to end the second inning were a good example. Against left-handed hitting Sung-Mun Song, he threw mostly four-seam fastballs and splitters, finishing off the six-pitch at-bat with a sweeper, according to Statcast.

Against right-handed hitting Rodolfo Durán, Ohtani threw mostly sinkers and sweepers, with one four-seamer mixed in out of seven pitches.

Ohtani eventually relented a second run with two outs in the fourth inning. He fell behind 0-2 in the count to Jackson Merrill, who flipped a strike call with an ABS challenge. Then Merrill hammered a fastball over the plate for a solo homer.

Ohtani successfully navigated traffic to throw a scoreless fifth, but Xander Bogaerts tagged him for an RBI double in the sixth.

“I think I did the bare minimum,” Ohtani said. “To get through six, to give the team the chance to win, keep the game in check. But there were some good and some bad.”

Ohtani gave up seven hits for a quality start that wasn’t his cleanest. The Dodgers (58-31), who had struggled to get anything going against Padres starter Michael King, were trailing 3-0 when Ohtani exited. But Teoscar Hernández took care of the deficit.

Teoscar Hernández hits a grand slam in the seventh inning of the Dodgers’ 4-3 win over the San Diego Padres at Dodger Stadium on Friday night.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Facing reliever Adrian Morejon with the bases loaded and no outs in the seventh, Hernández ambushed a first-pitch slider.

“Knowing him, every pitch is hard,” Hernández said. “I was looking for the hardest one, the fastball, middle-in. But just reacted to that one in the middle of the plate.”

Hernández drifted up the first-base line as he watched the ball fly. When it landed, he launched his bat back toward the dugout, and it made it halfway there.

“I’m just trying to find the same swing that I had before I got hurt,” Hernández said. “And at the same time, just do something for the team. It happened to be a big swing.”

Like a good striker, Folarin Balogun never loses sight of the goal. And the goal for the U.S. team in this summer’s World Cup hasn’t been just to win, which they’ve done, but to inspire.

And that’s how Balogun found himself on the field, shaking hands with Brazilian referee Raphael Claus, about 45 minutes after Claus gave him a controversial red card in Wednesday’s win over Bosnia-Herzegovina, a red card that will keep him out of Monday’s round-of-16 game with Belgium.

“Little kids are watching, and we have to show them the correct way to handle things, even when you think it’s unjust,” Balogun said Friday.

“It’s not an excuse to be disrespectful, to not do the right thing. I’m aware that the World Cup might be the first time a lot of American viewers are tuning in. So it’s important, whether things happen to you good or bad, just to continue to be yourself.”

That doesn’t mean Balogun didn’t think the red card was unjust. He does. And he definitely thinks something bad happened to him and his team since Balogun, the Americans’ leading scorer with three goals in as many games, will have to sit out the team’s most important game in a generation.

It’s just means that Balogun, who celebrated his 25th birthday Friday, is also mature enough to understand a game — even a World Cup elimination game — is just a game.

“It’s been a roller coaster,” he said before the team’s training session at the University of Washington. “There’s been lots of different emotions. I’ve been upset, I’ve been happy. But for me, it was just important to stay calm. I never want to react out of anger and out of emotion.”

Balogun, who had given his team a 1-0 lead in the waning seconds of the first half, collided with Tarik Muharemovic 16 minutes into the second half, and when the Bosnian defender planted his right leg below Balogun’s right foot, the American inadvertently stomped on his right ankle, twisting it awkwardly.

U.S. forward Folarin Balogun steps on Bosnia-Herzegovina defender Tarik Muharemovic’s foot and received a red card.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Both players went down and Claus did not signal a foul or pull card. But after the video assistant referee urged him to watch a replay, Claus walked away from the monitor and flashed the red card. That left the U.S. to finish Wednesday’s game with just 10 men and disqualified Balogun for Monday’s game. U.S. Soccer said Friday FIFA’s disciplinary committee did not add any games to Balogun’s suspension.

“There’s the scenarios that you simply can’t avoid,” he said, “and it has to be taken into context when it’s being reviewed. I felt it wasn’t on this occasion. There’s nowhere else to put your leg. It’s going to be unavoidable.

“I think a yellow card would have been fair. [But] it’s something that’s happened, so we have to move forward, and I have to accept it. The most important thing is just to focus on the bigger picture, which is Belgium.”

Replacing Balogun won’t be easy since he’s emerged as one of the team’s most effective and creative players, either scoring of setting up the go-ahead goal in all three of the U.S. wins.

“We’ve got guys that can fill in and have to be ready for the opportunity to step up,” midfielder Tyler Adams said. “When you miss a player like Balo, obviously things change a little bit. But we’ve been flexible. Guys have shown that they’re ready to play.”

The most likely replacements are Ricardo Pepi and Haji Wright. Pepi, who scored 16 goals for PSV in the Dutch Eredivisie this season, played 90 minutes in place of Balogun in the U.S. loss to Turkey in the final group-stage match. Wright, who had 17 goals for Coventry City in the English Championship, played in all four U.S. games in the 2022 World Cup, scoring once, but he has made just one appearance in this summer’s tournament.

“Balo is an important part of our team, and it’s a disappointing way for him to miss the next game,” said Wright, who grew up in Culver City and spent three years in the Galaxy academy. “But, I’ll always be ready and prepared for whatever comes.”

A victory over Belgium would send the U.S. to the quarterfinals of a World Cup for just the second time. It would also give it four wins in the tournament, double the number of victories in any previous World Cup and marking the first time the Americans have won twice in the knockout stages in the same tournament.

U.S. forward Ricardo Pepi pursues the ball during a World Cup match against Bosnia-Herzegovina at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara , Calif., on Wednesday.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

It’s a moment, Adams acknowledged Friday, many players have waited for their whole lives.

“You need to embrace the moment, that’s for sure,” he said. “To have the opportunity to play in a round-of-16 game — which, obviously, last World Cup we did, but it was the first knockout game, not the second — it’s exciting. It was nice to get a little bit of a taste of what it feels like to play with something a little bit more on the line in the last game. I think that’s good preparation.

“Advancing and taking this thing as far as we can is the most important thing. We have a good opportunity here to do so.”

NEW YORK — Manhattan was sweltering at 100 degrees and preparing to mark 250 years since the United States declared independence from Great Britain.

But on Friday, the city seemed transfixed by what might be the closest the country gets to a royal wedding: The nuptials of pop superstar Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.

Madison Square Garden and its surrounding streets — 31st and 33rd streets toward 6th and 8th avenues — were blocked off as guests arrived for the event. Fans craned their necks for any views they could get from the street.

The world-famous arena is reportedly set to transform into a “massive castle,” surrounded by a garden fit for pop culture’s royal couple, both 36. While the complete event details and guest list have been kept a secret, the Associated Press reportedly obtained a city permit showing Friday’s supposed wedding event is set to start at 5 p.m. Eastern time and could last until 4 a.m.

Secrecy surrounding the event is so tight that the reported venue has been cordoned off with privacy tents, tarps and barricades. But neither those measures nor Friday’s sizzling temperatures stopped fans from gathering in hopes of sneaking a peak at their longtime idol and sending Swift their well wishes.

“I heard we won’t be able to see her either way because the spot that they picked is going to be covered,” said Sarah Shrestha, 21, an Anaheim resident visiting friends in Manhattan.

Madison Square Garden was a good venue for the couple’s nuptials because “in interviews, [Swift] said she wanted to be able to invite everybody to the wedding so it’s still a good venue for that,” she added.

Ellie Kitschke, 13, and her mother, Mymy Nguyen, 38, were visiting New York City from Adelaide, Australia.

Ellie said she thought it was a weird choice for the venue.

“It’s like a stadium. I get that no one can come inside but I think it’s a bit much blocking up the roads,” added Ellie, who attended the Eras tour in Sydney with her mom.

The two said they also thought it was odd Swift didn’t choose a venue or date that included her lucky number, 13, saying it “didn’t add up.”

“If she does get married, we wish her well,” Nguyen said. “We’d love to see her.”

Emma Rasco, 19, was also surprised by the choice in wedding venue.

“When I heard it, I was like, that’s definitely a choice,” Rasco said. “It’s a little unconventional and very forward-facing.”

Swift and Kelce announced their engagement in August after two years of dating, to much fanfare. “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” Swift wrote in the caption of her Instagram post.

While the Swift camp didn’t release a guest list, various news organizations staked out local hotels and began counting bold-face names headed to the event. The New York Times obtained a schedule for the wedding, which included a cocktail hour followed by a 5 p.m. wedding and reception. The event was set to end at 2 a.m.

The couple were first linked in July 2023, when Kelce mentioned his desire to meet the pop superstar on his podcast, “New Heights,” and made their relationship public that September. Their coupling instantly captured the attention and hearts of fans around the world, and Swift’s presence at Chiefs games was even credited with bolstering female interest in NFL football.

Kelly, 36, is a longtime Swift fan who said she grew up listening to her music. She came from her apartment on the Upper West Side to 33rd Street to see if she could catch a glimpse of Swift entering the stadium.

“I feel like I was the same peer group growing up with her, and am just so happy that she had her happy ending,” she said. “I want to see what a Royal American wedding looks like.”

Kelly said she admires Swift and Kelce for donating to charity. The couple donated a combined $26 million to 20 local and national charities ahead of their presumed nuptials, Swift’s publicist told Business Insider.

“They really are a positive influence,” she added.

Kelly said Madison Square Garden made sense as a venue for the privacy and security of guests.

“It’s not an ideal wedding venue but they’re both creative and have their own stages in a way,” she added.

By mid-afteroon Friday, dozens of fans clustered near MSG as black SUVs and vans with tinted windows, presumably filled with wedding attendees, turned the corner toward the stadium.

New York Police Department sources told The Times that streets will be blocked off all Friday and should return to normal by Saturday morning.

Back in October, Swift told TV host Graham Norton that she was casting a wide net with the guest list, joking that she would invite “anyone I’ve ever talked to.”

“I shouldn’t have said any of that,” she added.

Pulling off an event of this magnitude — which many described as America’s “royal wedding” — required considerable preparation, with a particular emphasis on privacy. Guests were reportedly required to sign nondisclosure agreements before receiving any event details (although the NDAs were said not to have included any penalties for violating the terms).

While the Swift camp didn’t release a guest list, various news organizations staked out local hotels and Madison Square Garden and began counting bold-face names headed to the event. The New York Times obtained a schedule for the wedding, which included a cocktail hour followed by a 5 p.m. wedding and reception. The event was set to end at 2 a.m.

The couple were also linked to wedding planner Mark Seed, who previously orchestrated the 2023 wedding of Jack Antonoff and Margaret Qualley and the 2019 wedding of Jennifer Lawrence and Cooke Maroney. Seed is known for his elaborate event builds and notable discretion.

On the Tuesday before the event, workers were photographed installing a red carpet outside of MSG, which one individual allegedly said was for “a wedding,” according to Page Six. It was quickly removed that same day.

Lin reported from New York; Garcia and Eloise Rollins-Fife from Los Angeles.

SACRAMENTO — The Dodgers scratched Shohei Ohtani from his scheduled Wednesday start against the Athletics and said he would instead start Friday at Dodger Stadium against the San Diego Padres.

The Dodgers did not immediately say why they delayed Ohtani’s start or who would start in his place Wednesday. Ohtani is in the lineup at designated hitter for Tuesday’s game.

This series marks the Dodgers’ lone scheduled visit to Sacramento during the A’s three-year stay here. The A’s plan to move into a new ballpark in Las Vegas in 2028, the next time the teams are scheduled to face off.

Ohtani would have been starting on his usual six days rest. However, with the Dodgers on a run of 13 consecutive games without an off day, pushing Ohtani back at some point would allow the Dodgers to better manage his workload.

He is 8-2 with a 1.58 earned-run average this season. Among National League pitchers with at least 70 innings, his ERA is bettered only by Jacob Misiorowski of the Milwaukee Brewers (1.46).

Ohtani already has pitched 79-2/3 innings this season, his most in three years. He spent all of the 2024 season and the first half of the 2025 season rehabilitating from elbow surgery.

On Monday, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Ohtani, already elected as the NL designated hitter for next month’s All-Star Game, would not pitch in that game if he were not the starting pitcher.

“He’ll obviously DH and then we’ll go from there,” Roberts said. “I don’t know where he is with the pitching thing. We’ll see.”

The Dodgers have carefully managed Ohtani’s workload as a pitcher and might well prefer he be limited to DH in the game. It also would be impractical to have him warm up during a game in which he were hitting, and Misiorowski and Cristopher Sanchez of the host Philadelphia Phillies are top candidates to be the NL starting pitcher.

Less than two hours before the Dodgers took the field in Minneapolis on Wednesday, a pair of powerful earthquakes rattled Venezuela, where the wife and two kids of Dodgers shortstop Miguel Rojas were visiting and where his sister lives.

The successive magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes left the country’s northern coastal state of La Guaira in ruins, collapsing more than 770 buildings and killing at least 1,450 people, local authorities said Sunday.

All of Rojas’ family members were OK, the Venezuelan native told reporters ahead of Friday’s game against the Padres in San Diego.

“Literally two blocks away from where my family was, two buildings collapsed — the whole building,” he said. “I’m lucky, to be honest with you guys. I’m really lucky to have my family still alive and with me. I’m not taking this for granted.”

Rojas’ wife and kids were in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, which is only about six miles south of the destruction along the coast. His wife was there to renew her passport, and the kids were going to try to get Venezuelan citizenship. His sister was in Los Teques, Rojas’ hometown about 17 miles south of the coastal destruction.

Rescue workers search through rubble on Saturday in Catia La Mar following the devastating double earthquakes.

(Fernando Vergara / Associated Press)

“It’s really tough to see teammates of mine and players that I played with at some point in my career to lose family members, to lose kids,” said Rojas, who had spent years playing baseball in La Guaira. “It’s really devastating. It’s been really hard for me to go to sleep at night.”

Rojas, on Friday, said he was talking daily with his family members, who were still in Venezuela. He hoped to bring them back to the United States as soon as possible. Aftershocks continued to rattle the country into Sunday morning.

As the Dodgers and Padres started their series in Petco Park on Friday, both teams wore caps with the letters “VZ” embroidered on the side to honor the people of Venezuela as the road to recovery begins.

“That means a lot because both teams will be doing it — it means a lot, because it brings awareness,” Rojas said.

“We are on one of the biggest stages in sports, and I really appreciate what the Dodgers do to support us,” he added. “It’s not just what happens now, it’s what’s going to happen in the future. It’s going to take a long time for people to recover.”

Times staff writer Maddie Lee contributed to this report.

GUADALAJARA, Mexico — Spain, ranked second in the FIFA rankings and the favorite to win the World Cup, did not play its best game, but did enough late Friday to defeat Uruguay 1-0 and eliminate the South American team in one of the most anticipated matches of the first round.

Spain finished first in Group H, while first-time participant Cape Verde advanced in second place with just three points, the result of three draws. Uruguay was eliminated from the tournament with only two points, following two draws and one loss.

For much of the match on Friday, Spain lacked better offensive coordination ahead of facing more dangerous opponents in the upcoming do-or-die rounds.

Alex Baena scored a goal in the 42nd minute by connecting with the ball after a cross from the right. The ball slipped past goalkeeper Fernando Muslera, who at first seemed to have no trouble blocking the shot, but the ball found the back of the net, making all the difference on Friday night in Guadalajara in front of 45,065 fans — most of whom were rooting for Spain. Muslera did not return for the second half and was replaced by Sergio Rochet.

“We have to celebrate because, honestly, it’s hard to finish first in a group like this,” said Baena, a midfielder for Atlético Madrid.

“It was a physically demanding match — extremely intense — and we rose to the occasion,” said Spain coach Luis de la Fuente, who emphasized that winning the World Cup requires winning tough matches against tough teams like Uruguay.

“I’m proud of this team because they want to keep growing. I have complete faith in this team. We’re where we are, and that’s exactly where we wanted to be,” added De la Fuente, who noted that the team needed to improve its fluidity of play.

Uruguay failed to beat Saudi Arabia or Cape Verde — two teams that, on paper, seemed inferior at the start of the tournament. Coach Marcelo Bielsa’s team couldn’t find its rhythm or play at its best.

“I wasn’t able to bring out the full potential of Uruguay’s players,” Bielsa said, visibly shaken by his failure with the Uruguayan national team. “What I’m leaving behind for Uruguayan soccer is nothing, because any contribution a coach might make to the soccer of a country where he worked for three years never takes root if results aren’t achieved.”

At the end of the match, Uruguay’s Agustín Canobbio was sent off after committing a hard foul on Spanish defender Pau Cubarsí in the 95th minute, prompting several Uruguayan players to protest the decision by U.S. referee Ismail Elfath.

For Bielsa and Uruguay, this marks the end of an era in which many believe the Argentine coach lost control of the locker room and his relationship with the media became strained because of his eccentric and explosive personality, but, above all, a lack of wins.

Cape Verde will face Argentina in the round of 32 on Friday in Miami. Spain will face the second-place finisher in Group J, which will be determined late Saturday by the match between Algeria and Austria. The game will be played at SoFi Stadium.

The match was the fourth and final World Cup game played in Guadalajara. Before the game began, a minute of silence was observed in memory of the victims of the earthquakes in Venezuela. So far, Venezuelan authorities have reported that more than 900 people have died and that thousands are missing.

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg and David Zahniser, with an assist from Melissa Gomez and Connor Sheets, giving you the latest on city and county government.

The city of Los Angeles will shell out $120,000 for outside lawyers to fight a lawsuit filed by a councilmember challenging an ethics fine.

On Wednesday, the City Council voted unanimously to hire the law firm Hecker Fink LLP to represent the city’s Ethics Commission as it defends its decision to fine Councilmember John Lee $138,000 for allegedly violating city gift laws during a notorious 2017 trip to Las Vegas. Lee recused himself from the vote.

The city attorney’s office has said it can’t represent the Ethics Commission in Lee’s lawsuit because of a conflict of interest.

Lee was chief of staff to then-Councilmember Mitchell Englander when the two were plied with meals and alcohol, as well as hotel stays and gambling chips, by people seeking business with the city.

Lee, who represents the northwest San Fernando Valley, has claimed that he made a good faith effort to pay his own way. At a nearly $2,500 dinner that included Kobe beef, Maine lobster, Peking duck and sea bass, the only thing he ate was a spoonful of bird’s nest soup, he said at a hearing in his ethics case.

In 2020, Englander pleaded guilty to a single count of providing false information to the FBI and was sentenced to 14 months in prison. Three years later, he agreed to pay $79,830 to settle an Ethics Commission case focused on his own gift law violations.

The commission levied the fine against Lee in December, finding that he committed two counts of violating the city’s law against accepting gifts above a certain value, three counts of violating a law requiring that such gifts be disclosed to the public and five counts of misusing his city position.

David Tristan, the Ethics Commission’s executive director, had asked the council to provide at least $120,000 to defend against Lee’s lawsuit.

Lee declined to comment on the vote. In his lawsuit, he claimed that the statute of limitations had expired on the matters that were investigated by the Ethics Commission. He also accused the commission of overvaluing the share of gifts he partook in.

Lee is seeking to get the fine overturned.

More churn in the Karen Bass campaign

Turns out the shakeup in Mayor Karen Bass’ campaign did not end with the departure of Douglas Herman, her top strategist.

Herman told The Times on Wednesday that he stepped down due to “strategic differences” over the Nov. 3 runoff campaign against City Councilmember Nithya Raman. Bass’ team said on the same day that they had replaced him with Julie Chávez Rodriguez, who was campaign manager for the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris presidential campaigns in 2024.

A day later, political consultant Larry Grisolano confirmed that he too is no longer with the Bass reelection effort. His company, Thematic Campaigns, had been providing media and digital strategy.

On Friday, Berkeley-based research consultant Mike Rice told The Times that his firm, VR Research, had also left the Bass campaign, effective Wednesday. He declined to comment further.

Bass campaign spokesperson Alex Stack declined to discuss the departures. Asked if the campaign is in disarray, he said no, adding that Chávez Rodriguez’s hiring “is a really big get for us.”

“We’re getting a lot of positive feedback,” Stack said.

Still waiting on eviction defense contracts

In March, it appeared that a battle between City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto and the nonprofit running L.A.’s eviction defense program was over.

At the time, Feldstein Soto said she had concerns over awarding funds to the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, which has sued the city successfully over homelessness issues on multiple occasions. Feldstein Soto argued that contracts should not be awarded without rigorous reports and invoice review from Legal Aid and other nonprofits.

The City Council awarded the contracts anyway, funding the initial portion of a three-year, $177-million deal for Legal Aid and three other nonprofits to provide eviction defense, short-term rental assistance, tenant outreach and more as part of the city’s Stay Housed L.A. program.

But months later, Feldstein Soto’s office still hasn’t executed the contracts, frustrating tenants rights advocates and the nonprofits, which are struggling to pay their staff without the funds from the city.

“We’ve been really in a state of purgatory for over a year,” said Mike Dennis, senior director of housing justice at the Liberty Hill Foundation, which does tenant outreach as part of the city’s program.

Dennis said the failure to execute the contracts has created planning and operational uncertainty for the community-based organizations that Liberty Hill works with. Soon, some of them may face serious issues.

“We’re quickly approaching a point where the organizations are not going to keep being able to pay staff and absorb those costs,” he said. “The longer this goes on, the more likely we are to see contractions in the work.”

Earlier this month, Councilmember Ysabel Jurado put forward a motion asking the city attorney to explain why the contracts have not been executed. Jurado said the delay has left $17 million in funds unused.

“At the same time, the selected contractors struggle to maintain staffing without this funding, placing services for those at risk of homelessness in jeopardy,” she wrote in the June 2 motion.

Feldstein Soto argued in a June 15 response that Legal Aid has failed to agree to the “accountability and reporting requirements” needed to execute the contracts. She said those requirements were designed to make sure that taxpayer funds are spent properly.

“This office will continue to work with proposed contractors until the concerns are sufficiently addressed,” she said in a statement.

State of play

— UNHAPPY MEMORIES: Bass was out of town when the Boyle Heights warehouse fire erupted, which is giving voters a fresh reminder of her absence at the start of the Palisades fire. The situation could have an impact on her reelection campaign against Raman.

— HEADING TO THE BALLOT: A half-cent sales tax hike that would generate $345 million annually for the Los Angeles Fire Department will go before voters in the Nov. 3 election. The measure has been spearheaded by the city’s firefighter union, which gathered the signatures to qualify it for the ballot.

— D.A. DENIED: A judge has rejected Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman’s request to freeze payments in the $4-billion sex abuse settlement approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. The ruling boots Hochman from his brief stint in a civil courtroom as he moves forward with his criminal investigation into lawyers, recruiters and medical practitioners who may have submitted fraudulent claims.

— SOCIALIST SURGE: L.A.’s democratic socialists are looking to expand their power at City Hall yet again, setting their sights on the races for mayor and city attorney. Raman and city attorney hopeful Marissa Roy, both members of the L.A. chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, are heading into the runoff after strong showings in the June 2 primary. (DSA-LA endorsed Roy but not Raman in the primary.)

— A BLOWOUT ELECTION: Property owners across the city voted overwhelmingly against increasing the assessment they pay to maintain streetlights. City leaders had hoped to use the funds — an additional $80 million a year — to speed up repairs and upgrade the city’s 225,000 streetlights.

— CLEARING THE LAND: Overgrown lots razed by the Eaton and Palisades fires pose an increasing wildfire threat to surrounding properties. The county Board of Supervisors recently passed a motion calling on county departments to develop a plan to clear vegetation in Altadena and Sunset Mesa.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program to combat homelessness went to the area around the Wiltern Theatre in Koreatown this week. The area is represented by Councilmember Heather Hutt.
• On the docket next week: On Tuesday, the council takes up a package of ballot measures that would rewrite the City Charter. The changes cover topics such as voting rights for noncitizens, expanded park funding and City Council oversight of policies at the Los Angeles Police Department.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ray Montgomery served as interim manager in 2025.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In 2015, musician Roberto Carlos launched Boleros de Noche, an annual concert series held in Los Angeles that aimed at preserving and showcasing the Latin American bolero music genre.

This year, the event is celebrating its 10th anniversary with performances at the Ford on Aug. 1 by Puerto Rican singer and former Calle 13 member iLe and L.A.-based bolero trio Voz Bohemia

On Friday, the city of L.A. honored the series’ decade-long run and legacy of uplifting bolero music by declaring Aug.1 “Día del Bolero.”

Boleros are ballads noted for their slow tempo and romantic lyrics accompanied by a crooning vocal style. Though the genre originated in Cuba, it quickly gained popularity across Latin America, with each culture putting their own spin on it. In the early 20th century, the evolving sound of boleros was shaped by the Cuban group Trio Matamoros, Mexican composer Agustín Lara, Puerto Rican artist Rafael Hernández and Ecuadorian singer Julio Jaramillo.

The genre saw a resurgence in popularity in the 1980s and ‘90s when famed Mexican artists Juan Gabriel and Luis Miguel embraced the bolero sound. In recent years, the bolero movement has been modernized and electrified by artists such as Mon Laferte, Romeo Santos, Adrian Quesada and Kali Uchis. In the last five years, Quesada has released two bolero albums, “Boleros Psicodélicos” and “Boleros Psicodélicos II,” that mix the genre’s classic sounds with elements of psychedelic rock.

“Over the past decade, Boleros de Noche has presented numerous concerts featuring both local and international artists, has brought together thousands of people across the city to bask in the lush orchestration of this music,” said City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who presented Carlos with the honor. “For so many in the Latino community and beyond, this isn’t just music, it’s memory, it’s home, and perhaps most importantly, it’s heritage being carried forward.”

Raised in L.A. County by parents who immigrated from the Mexican state of Oaxaca, Carlos says he first fell in love with live performance and bolero music in his midteens, when he would frequent the now-defunct Teatro los Pinos in South Gate.

He yearned for that same level of comfort and awe at music and wanted to share that with a larger audience. The first iteration of Boleros de Noche took place in 2015 at an art gallery in Echo Park.

“Over the years, I have heard countless stories from audience members who tell me how this music reminds them of their parents, grandparents, first loves and family traditions,” Carlos said Friday at City Hall. “Ten years ago, bolero was rarely part of our city’s cultural conversation, and today bolero programming can be found across Los Angeles, and I’m honored that Boleros de Noche has been a driving force behind its growth.”

Boleros de Noche has sold out shows at the Ford over the last few years and has featured artists such as Gaby Moreno, Marisoul and the legendary trio Los Panchos. In 2025, the event made its debut at Chicago’s historic Symphony Center.

The bolero genre’s popularity and cultural significance has been spotlighted outside of L.A. in recent years as well.

On Dec. 5, 2023, UNESCO, the United Nation’s agency aimed at safeguarding social and cultural foundations, recognized the musical genre as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

As part of Friday’s ceremony, Carlos and his bolero group Los Rebeldes Románticos performed several tunes, including the Mexican bolero classic “Sabor a Mí.”

Last year, Carlos spoke with The Times about his ambitions for Boleros de Noche and the mentality that drives the event series.

“At Boleros de Noche, [I want] for us to speak in Spanish, to feel recognized, to do this music as a celebration for all these artists that unfortunately became background music for a lot of like weddings and quinceañeras,” he said. “How about if we celebrate them and give them recognition? How about if, through my events, I can take people back to the 1940s to my experience at Teatro los Pinos?”

Given recent attacks on Latinos on the local and national levels, Carlos said he hoped his events would create a safe and welcoming gathering place.

“It’s about bolero music. It’s about community. It’s about people. It’s about the musicians,” he said. “Many of the musicians were undocumented. They brought this music to L.A. through their hometowns.”

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser, with an assist from Noah Goldberg and Melissa Gomez, giving you the latest on city and county government.

It’s long been the Holy Grail for the reform crowd that tracks L.A. city government: expanding the size of the City Council.

The idea of giving L.A. more council members was endorsed by the city’s redistricting commission in 2021. Two years later, the concept was debated at length by a council committee focused on reform. After that panel failed to reach a decision, the idea was assigned to the city’s Charter Reform Commission, which endorsed the change, saying the council should have 25 members, up from 15.

Yet even after that five-year journey, the council voted Wednesday to push a proposed ballot measure on that topic off to the future, sending the idea to a new reform committee for more deliberations.

So what happened this time around?

For one thing, the 13-member citizens commission that recommended the idea didn’t offer a lot of specifics on how the change would work.

The commission recommended 10 additional council members, a move that would cause each district to shed more than 100,000 residents, leaving each member with about 159,000 constituents.

But it never explained whether that decrease should be accompanied by a similar reduction in a council member’s salary, now nearly $245,000 a year.

“That’s one of the reasons why [council expansion] is slated for further study,” Councilmember Bob Blumenfield said in an interview. “While the commission might have had a nice discussion and a negotiation among themselves, what we need to have in front of us to vote responsibly is context and information.”

A councilmember’s pay could be a major sticking point for voters during a campaign over council expansion — especially if an opposition campaign arose to defeat it.

Blumenfield said the commission failed to vet other issues, including the number of council aides needed for each district if a district is smaller.

Councilmember Tim McOsker expressed a similar view.

“I think there were gaps in what the commission proposed — substantive gaps,” he said.

Backers of council expansion have argued that an increase in the number of districts would make the council more responsive and more diverse. Opponents said bigger does not necessarily mean better representation.

Raymond Meza, who chaired the Charter Reform Commission, acknowledged that pay, staffing and the cost of each council office didn’t come up during his panel’s deliberations. Those questions should have fallen to the council, which reviews and approves the city budget each year, he said.

“They would need to figure this out through the budget process, like they figure out most other things in the city,” he said.

Meza said he believes that, in the end, council members didn’t want to dilute their own power. Former City Councilmember Mike Bonin offered a similar take, saying elected officials generally don’t want to risk changing the system that got them into office.

“They are in power because of the way the system is structured,” said Bonin, who now runs the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State LA.

Before sidelining the expansion proposal, Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said a larger council would shift the balance of power at City Hall, giving the mayor greater authority and the council less of it.

In the end, none of these delays may end up mattering. No one at City Hall expected council expansion to happen until 2032 anyway, since the change would require a new round of redistricting — the process of drawing new boundaries for each council district. Redistricting won’t happen until after the release of results from the 2030 U.S. Census.

In other words, there’s still time for voters to act.

What happened to the City Hall misconduct measure?

Here’s another proposal that got shunted to the sidelines during the council’s eight-hour marathon meeting: what to do about city elected officials who are charged with serious crimes.

Charter reform was, in part, a reaction to a string of corruption scandals. Among them: three sitting council members who were charged with felonies between 2020 and 2023.

In each case, council members had to decide whether to use their power, spelled out in the City Charter, to suspend colleagues accused of wrongdoing — stripping away their duties until their criminal cases were resolved.

The council moved swiftly to suspend then-Councilmember Jose Huizar in 2020, taking action the day he was arrested, before he even pleaded “not guilty” to racketeering and other charges. The council suspended then-Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas in 2021 after a lengthy floor debate, with some saying he was being denied his due process rights. (Ridley-Thomas, who was found guilty of seven felonies, is fighting his conviction.)

A few years later, the council decided not to suspend Councilmember Curren Price, allowing him to step off of his council committees but preserving his other council duties as he contests charges of embezzlement, perjury and conflict-of-interest violations.

Although the case is still ongoing, Price is back on various city committees.

Each of those cases put the council in a bind. Voting in favor of suspension can mean depriving a council member’s constituents of representation. It also runs counter to the idea that a colleague is innocent until proven guilty.

Voting against suspension has its own set of dangers, such as undermining trust in city government. It could also allow an elected official accused of wrongdoing to continue taking part in decisions about contracts, real estate development and other matters where the potential for corruption exists.

Under the current system, a council member can be suspended with just eight votes. Harris-Dawson, who supported the suspension of Huizar but opposed it for Ridley-Thomas, said early on that he wanted the Charter Reform Commission to look at the process for disciplining elected officials accused of wrongdoing.

The Charter Reform Commission offered its answer two months ago, recommending that the council retain the power to suspend, but only with a three-fourths vote — 12 out of 15. That safeguard was meant to guard against potential abuses of power, said Meza, the former commission chair.

The council declined to put that idea on the ballot, saying it needs more study.

Asked about that decision, Harris-Dawson said he has long had serious problems with the idea that “one set of elected officials could suspend another set of elected officials.” He suggested that a third party in another branch of government — not the council — determine whether a member merits suspension.

Under that arrangement, the council could initiate the process but leave it to a judge or other party to make the final call, he said.

“I personally think that we have checks and balances in government that should be respected,” Harris-Dawson said.

A last-minute union threat

One ballot proposal that did survive this week’s gauntlet of votes was a plan to increase, not decrease, the council’s power. That proposal, backed by Councilmember Hugo Soto–Martínez, would give the council the authority to set policy at the Los Angeles Police Department.

But even that proposal may be in danger, thanks to a dispute that has erupted between the city’s labor negotiators and the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union representing rank-and-file officers.

Union leadership said this week that the league was not formally asked by management to meet and confer over various charter proposals dealing with the LAPD, including the one focused on policy. That step is legally required before such measures can be sent to voters, the union said.

City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, the city’s chief labor negotiator, told council members on Monday that his office sent three emails to various employee units asking if they wanted to confer over the charter changes. He said his office received no response from the police union.

A day later, after learning of Szabo’s remarks, the league fired back.

In a letter to council members, the union said it only received emails about charter reform that had nothing to do with policing. Those emails did not constitute a formal invitation to meet and confer about potential changes at the LAPD, the union said.

The city “did not follow the law and did not formally contact us,” union President Ricky Mendoza said in a statement.

The council voted to draft the change in LAPD policy making, pending a confidential report from the city attorney on whether the city first has to bargain with the police union. Council members cast that vote even after the union demanded that they suspend any further consideration of the proposal for the Nov. 3 ballot.

If the city attorney concludes that the LAPD ballot proposal does not require further talks, the Police Protective League will file a lawsuit to protect its members’ legal rights, union officials said.

On Wednesday, Szabo said the proposal to give the council power over LAPD policy decisions doesn’t require collective bargaining.

The proposal to give council say over policy at the LAPD wasn’t the only one focused on that department. Another measure discussed by the council would have given the police chief power to terminate alleged problem officers.

The council sent it to a committee for more study. The union said that proposal also would have required a meet and confer process.

State of play

— CITY CHARTER GRAB BAG: As noted earlier, the council voted to draft an assortment of charter amendments for the Nov. 3 ballot, including one to allow the council to give noncitizen residents the right to vote in local elections. The council also ordered up a measure doubling the amount of money allocated for the Department of Recreation and Parks, discarding an alternative plan that would have increased it by 50%. Other measures would switch the city to a two-year budget process and require a five-year plan for maintaining and upgrading city infrastructure.

— KNOWING ME, KNOWING ULA: Looking to boost apartment construction, the council backed a surprise plan to rewrite Measure ULA, the tax on high-end property sales passed by voters in 2022 and sometimes called the mansion tax. The council voted 9-5 to instruct the city’s lawyers to draft a measure exempting apartment buildings sold within 10 years of construction from having to pay the tax. Another vote will be needed to get it on the ballot.

— ZOO STORY: Membership at the Los Angeles Zoo has fallen by 23% over the past year, dropping from 36,914 in April 2025 to 28,440 in February, according to a report issued by the Los Angeles County civil grand jury. That report urged the city to create a new public-private partnership to run the facility, saying such a move will be critical for the zoo’s long-term survival.

— SHERIFF SUBPOENAS: L.A. County’s Civilian Oversight Commission is suing the Sheriff’s Department, asking a judge to order the release of records on three use-of-force incidents involving its deputies. The commission issued three subpoenas to the agency in February 2025, but according to the suit, the department has declined to fully comply.

— UNION DUES AND DON’TS: A former high-level officer with L.A.’s firefighter union has been accused of stealing more than $82,000 from a charity for injured firefighters to pay for his online gambling, his mortgage and other personal expenses. Adam Walker, former secretary of United Firefighters of Los Angeles City Local 112, was charged with one count each of grand theft and forgery, prosecutors announced Wednesday.

— DOG DISASTER: The Los Angeles Police Department is facing a public outcry after its officers shot and killed the dog of a woman celebrating the New York Knicks’ NBA championship in Canoga Park. Video on social media showed the dog’s owner sobbing and hugging her dog, who was wearing a Knicks T-shirt, as several LAPD officers stood nearby.

— BASS WEIGHS IN: The Canoga Park incident prompted Mayor Karen Bass to issue a statement promising a thorough and transparent investigation into the death of Jameson, the dog killed by the LAPD. “Every life lost to violence is a tragedy, and we know that the devastating loss of Jameson will be felt by his family forever,” she said. “I have spoken directly to the Chief to ensure a full investigation and accountability for any wrongdoing.”

— OFFICE FIRE: A fire broke out at a building in Pacific Palisades where former mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt maintained an office for his crystals company. Pratt, whose home burned in the 2025 Palisades fire, called the latest blaze “very suspicious.” The fire department said it’s investigating.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program to address homelessness went to a stretch of Silver Lake Boulevard that passes under the 101 Freeway. That area is represented by Soto-Martínez.
• On the docket next week: The council meets Wednesday to take up the massive 4th & Central project, which calls for offices, retail space and nearly 1,600 units of housing on a 7.6-acre site in downtown.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. — President Trump on Friday showed off the new Air Force One, a formerly Qatari-owned — and much debated — jumbo jet that has been converted into the official U.S. presidential aircraft.

The new plane — gifted from the Qatari government, raising a host of legal, ethical and security questions — will take on a new look, eschewing the Kennedy-era robin’s egg blue exterior in favor of white on the top half, its underbelly navy blue with a red stripe above it.

“This plane was transformed into a flying White House at a level of luxury that nobody has ever seen before,” Trump said from inside the massive Joint Base Andrews hangar, as a couple of hundred assembled Air Force personnel looked on. He spoke after stepping off the new plane in a dramatic flourish, as his signature tune “God Bless the USA” played.

He confirmed that he would be taking the new jet to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Ankara, Turkey, next month and indicated that he would be returning to China “at some point,” presumably a reference to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that China is hosting in November. His return from the Group of 7 summit in France this week was the last planned trip aboard the old Air Force One, he said.

“Now, when we land at airports in London and in Germany and different places, nobody tops this one, and that’s the way we have to have it for our country,” Trump said, noting that the colors and the design were to “my taste, I will say.”

He added that the new Air Force One will do a flyover during the July 4 celebrations next month.

The gift from Qatar is serving as a so-called bridge aircraft to carry the president until new planes ordered directly from Boeing arrive. That is currently slated for 2028.

The administration formally accepted a luxury Boeing 747 jet from Qatar last year to be used as the presidential airplane, despite questions about security and the ethics and legality of accepting such an expensive gift from a foreign government. Trump has claimed in the past that he would not fly around in the Qatari jet once he leaves office and said it would instead be donated to a future presidential library.

Trump on Friday said the U.S. was in a “little bit of a logjam” as it awaited the delivery of the new jets directly from Boeing, which had originally been scheduled for 2024 but have been delayed. He recalled asking the emir of Qatar for the use of one of their planes.

“See, a normal president wouldn’t do this. A normal president wants to stay away from aircraft,” Trump said Friday. “But our country has to be represented properly.”

Members of Congress and others have questioned the cost and effort that would be needed to make security modifications to an aircraft from a foreign government.

The Air Force said in a news release Friday that any plane deemed Air Force One “must meet rigorous security requirements” and that the Qatari plane “was modified under a disciplined engineering approach that prioritized these exact core capabilities above all else.” The Air Force also said “much of the previous head of state interior layout” of the plane was kept intact.

The Air Force has said in the past that security modifications to the jet would cost less than $400 million.

Trump’s efforts to reimagine the presidential airplane date back to his first administration, when he directed that an incoming fleet of new jets would adopt a color scheme that was nearly identical to that of his personal airplane. Then-President Biden reversed the decision in March 2023 as an Air Force review suggested that the darker colors could increase costs and delay delivery of the new jets, but once Trump returned to office, he returned to his desired colors for the plane.

Other government jets that carry other top administration officials will use a similar red, white and navy color scheme, the Air Force said earlier this year.

An Air Force spokesperson, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive plans, told the Associated Press that the two current planes, known as VC-25As, will not be retiring. Instead, they will remain in the fleet until the new Boeing planes, referred to as VC-25Bs, come into service, the spokesperson said.

It is unclear how the older jets will be used but the spokesperson said that both the Qatari jet as well as the VC-25As will be available for use and “the Presidential Airlift Group will select the appropriate aircraft for each mission based on operational requirements.”

Kim and Ceneta write for the Associated Press. Kim reported from Washington. AP writer Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report from Washington.