history

USC has settled a lawsuit with a former high-ranking athletic department official who alleged the university allowed former athletic director Mike Bohn to racially harass and discriminate against her, then fired her when she voiced concerns about Bohn’s behavior.

Joyce Bell Limbrick was the highest-ranking Black and female official in USC’s athletic department when she was fired by the university in September 2023, four months after Bohn resigned amid an internal investigation into his conduct and the culture of the department. Bell Limbrick filed suit early last year, accusing USC of wrongful termination.

That dispute was settled out of court this week. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

When reached by The Times, Bell Limbrick declined to comment. Bohn has never publicly addressed the allegations.

While the lawsuit never made it to trial, it nonetheless offered the most detailed account yet of the conduct that led to Bohn’s resignation.

Bell Limbrick filed a Title IX complaint with the university against Bohn in October 2022, after an incident in which she says Bohn punched her on the arm at a USC volleyball match. That complaint ultimately compelled an investigation, during which, according to her complaint, Bell Limbrick told USC officials of “Bohn’s history and rumors of inappropriate and unwanted touching involving … other females at both Cincinnati and USC.”

The university hired an outside law firm that specializes in institutional responses to racial and sexual harassment and discrimination to investigate Bohn five months later. The Times learned of that investigation shortly thereafter, as well as a previous investigation into Bohn’s conduct at Cincinnati, and in May, asked both Bohn and USC about those concerns.

Bohn resigned a day later.

Soon after that, the university fired Bell Limbrick, citing “a pattern of poor performance.” She was the only member of an 11-member executive team to lose her job and, according to the complaint, had just been awarded a “merit increase” on account of her “overall job performance.”

Bell Limbrick worked at USC for nine years, initially as the director of athletic compliance, before Bohn was hired in 2019. Shortly after he became athletic director, Bohn promoted Bell Limbrick to senior woman administrator, one of the highest-ranking positions in the department. According to her complaint, she had been one of the few Black women to hold such a position at a major American university.

“Ms. Bell Limbrick had a thriving career at USC and she loved her work. Then, Mike Bohn arrived,” her attorney, J. Bernard Alexander, said in a statement in 2025.

”[Bohn’s] incessant, racially charged remarks made Joyce feel uncomfortable and undervalued, but more than that — he actively isolated her from the executive team and undermined her work. She already was vulnerable as the only Black woman on the team, and rather than support her, the university allowed Bohn to make her life hell.”

Her complaint detailed inappropriate comments made in front of USC donors and staff, as well as insensitive or discriminatory remarks made in her presence. At the time, The Times spoke with six people with knowledge of the department’s inner workings who largely corroborated her claims about Bohn’s conduct.

Bohn declined to respond to The Times’ questions about his conduct leading the athletic department, but he provided a statement to The Times on the day of his resignation in May 2023 stating he would “always be proud of leading the program out of the most tumultuous times in the history of the profession.”

“In moving on, it is important now that I focus on being present with my treasured family, addressing ongoing health challenges, and reflecting on how I can be impactful in the future,” Bohn said in the statement.

Walt Disney Co. installed Josh D’Amaro as chief executive Wednesday, beginning a new chapter for the storied Burbank entertainment giant.

Bob Iger passed the reins during Disney’s virtual annual meeting of shareholders, completing the company’s high-stakes and tightly choreographed changing of the guard. After spending two decades molding Disney into a media colossus, Iger segued into a senior advisory role, which will run through December when he officially retires.

The leadership shift comes amid an upheaval in Hollywood as traditional companies wage a desperate battle for survival.

D’Amaro, in his first address to shareholders, pointed to Disney’s signature storytelling as its competitive edge.

“While others in our industry are consolidating just to compete, or struggling to be relevant in a fragmented and disrupted world, Disney is in a category of one,” D’Amaro said during a video segment at the meeting. “This next chapter will be driven by staying focused on world-class creativity, enhanced by technology, bringing unforgettable stories to audiences wherever they are.”

D’Amaro, 55, becomes the ninth leader in Disney’s 102-year history. He was selected last month by Disney board members after a two-year internal bake-off among high-ranking division leaders. Board members were impressed with his business acumen, charisma and his deep love for Disney and its fabled history.

D’Amaro inherits a company that is beloved by millions. It generates $94 billion a year in revenue and employs 230,000 people.

He faces enormous challenges as he steers the ship through a turbulent media environment and tense geopolitics. The war in Iran prompted a sharp increase in fuel costs, which could become a drag on Disney’s critically important tourism business. Executives already have signaled “headwinds” in international visitation at its U.S. theme parks this year.

Lingering Middle East tensions also could weigh on Disney’s plans for a new Persian Gulf waterfront theme park and resort near Abu Dhabi.

D’Amaro, who served as parks and experiences chief until Wednesday, got his corporate start at Disneyland 28 years ago.

“Like so many of you, my connection to Disney goes back to my childhood, long before I began my career here,” D’Amaro told shareholders. “I grew up in a Disney family. We watched ‘The Wonderful World of Disney’ on Sunday nights. I was 10 years old when my family visited Disneyland for the first time. … Disney has always been a place of imagination, innovation and infinite potential.”

Disney previously announced a $60-billion, 10-year expansion program, which D’Amaro has led. But executives must strike a balance by keeping attractions true to their nostalgic core. In Anaheim, the expansion could result in at least $1.9 billion of development.

Disney also must continue to grow its animation business and manage revenue declines from its traditional linear television channels, including ESPN and ABC. It needs to turbocharge its streaming services with compelling movies and TV shows to remain competitive with Netflix and other leaders in the field.

Disney teased upcoming fan favorites, including the May release of Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu,” a “Bluey” feature film (the kids show featuring an animated puppy, a blue heeler) and a sequel to a “Lilo & Stitch” film for 2028.

Streaming is key to Disney’s future, D’Amaro said.

“Disney+ will continue to evolve beyond a traditional streaming service to become the digital centerpiece of our company,” D’Amaro said, calling the service “a portal that connects our stories, experiences, games, films, and more in entirely new ways.”

The company plans to unify Disney+ and Hulu later this year.

Disney also must continue to incorporate technology while safeguarding its characters and franchises.

“We will continue to develop and embrace new technologies to empower our storytellers — but never at the expense of our characters and worlds, our creative partners, or the trust people place in us,” D’Amaro said. “Because Disney at its core is a company that celebrates human creativity.”

Wednesday also marked a reorganization of the company, configured by Iger, D’Amaro and Disney’s board.

Board members recognized that D’Amaro, who has spent most of his career in the parks division, lacks deep connections among Hollywood’s writers and producers. They elevated longtime television executive Dana Walden, who had been vying for the top job, to the newly formed role of chief creative officer and the company’s first woman president.

ESPN will continue to be managed by Jimmy Pitaro and Disney Entertainment, Studios chairman Alan Bergman will remain in his influential role overseeing film studios including production, marketing and distribution, and sharing oversight for streaming programming with Walden.

D’Amaro’s total compensation package is valued at about $40 million a year, including a $2-million annual base salary, $26.2 million in annual long-term stock incentives, a cash bonus and a one-time promotion award of $9.7 million.

“Josh is a wonderful choice to lead the Walt Disney Co.,” Iger said in a pre-recorded video. “He has passion for our businesses and brands, respect for our people, and he appreciates what makes this company so unique.”

Iger is wrapping up an unprecedented 52-year career at ABC and Disney.

He first stepped into the CEO role in 2005; his first 15 years were almost magical.

Iger led acquisitions of Pixar Animation, Marvel Entertainment and Lucasfilm, the studio behind “Star Wars,” that turned Disney into a blockbuster machine. Sports king ESPN spawned staggering profits, and Disney’s theme parks set industry standards.

Disney’s former Chief Executive Bob Iger will stay on through the end of the year as a senior advisor.

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

His decision to buy much of Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, a $71-billion deal that closed in 2019, boosted Disney’s television production, refreshed its TV executive bench, and provided a controlling stake in general entertainment streaming service Hulu. The acquisition also gave Disney access to fan-favorite franchises, including “Deadpool,” “The Simpsons,” and James Cameron’s “Avatar.”

But the purchase left Disney saddled with debt just as the COVID-19 pandemic prompted production shutdowns and closures at theme parks and sports venues. It would take several years for Disney to recover.

Iger initially passed the CEO baton to Bob Chapek in February 2020. Iger, then chairman, retired the following year but came back in November 2022 to a mess. At the time, the company was losing billions of dollars on its shift to streaming but that unit is now profitable.

Iger spent the next three years focusing on four business pillars, including improving the quality and profitability of its film studios.

During the last two years, Disney has produced five franchise films that racked up more than $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales, including “Inside Out 2,” “Zootopia 2,” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”

Disney and Pixar’s latest animated film “Hoppers” has hauled in $46 million at the domestic box office in its opening weekend, marking the highest theatrical debut for an original animated film since Disney’s 2017 success “Coco.”

The company is banking this year on several other films with blockbuster potential, including Disney and Pixar’s “Toy Story 5,” “Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu” and Marvel Studios’ “Avengers: Doomsday.”

“I would want to be known as someone who was given the keys to this kingdom and brought it to a place that even Walt would be proud of — more storytelling, more innovation, more risk‑taking, and more creation of happiness,” Iger said during a “The Rest is History” podcast last year.

During the meeting, Iger appeared in a prerecorded video that celebrated his numerous career highlights. Shown were clips from his cub years when Iger was a newscaster with bushy black hair. His journey was depicted, including his orchestration of multi-billion-dollar acquisitions that strengthened Disney with more characters and franchises.

Iger, 75 and now gray, ended by thanking shareholders “for the trust you placed in me, for the memories we created together, and for allowing me the honor of serving,” he said. “It has meant more to me than I can say.”

Animated pixie dust twinkled on the screen, courtesy of the fairy, Tinker Bell.

“Bob, on behalf of our employees, cast members, shareholders, and fans around the world, thank you so much for your tremendous leadership, your steadfast support, and your countless contributions to The Walt Disney Co.,” D’Amaro said, as the hand-off was complete.

“You’ve set an incredible example for all of us. … You will be missed,” D’Amaro said.

There was little fanfare during the business portion of the investor meeting.

The company’s slate of board directors were elected with 93% of the vote. Shareholders also approved executive compensation packages with about 85% of votes.

Shareholder-led proposals to compel reports on charities eligible for Disney’s gift-matching program, a review of the company’s accessibility practices in its theme parks for disabled guests, and a push for cumulative voting at future meetings all failed to muster support.

Disney shares closed at $99.41, down roughly 1% on the day.

At 95, labor icon Dolores Huerta made a shocking and heartbreaking revelation Wednesday, in the wake of a New York Times investigation into sexual abuse allegations against her fellow icon, Cesar Chavez.

She was raped by Chavez, she said. Twice — both times resulting in pregnancies.

“I have never identified myself as a victim, but I now understand that I am a survivor — of violence, of sexual abuse, of domineering men who saw me, and other women, as property, or things to control,” Huerta wrote in a statement Wednesday. “I have kept this secret long enough. My silence ends here.”

Like so many women who have carried the burden of their own attacks behind an iron curtain of guilt and shame, Huerta now finds herself in the difficult, painful position of having not only to relive this trauma as it becomes public, but explain it to the rest of us.

Like the brave women of the Epstein files; like our First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom and the courageous women who spoke out against Harvey Weinstein; like Cassie Ventura; like E. Jean Carroll; like Christine Blasey Ford, Huerta joins the ranks of women forced to justify their response to abuse by powerful men.

Huerta shouldn’t have to engage in this rite of self-flagellation, of course, but she and Chavez are linked by their legacies as two of the greatest civil rights fighters in our history. Now, this hidden truth rewrites not just his story, not just hers — but the entire legend of a workers’ movement that grew from the grape fields of California into a defining story of Golden State fortitude and hope.

If Chavez was a predator, where do we even go from here? What do we believe in when even our heroes are ghosts, as Pink Floyd long ago warned?

“It’s just a very heavy day,” said Huerta’s spokesperson, Erik Olvera. “It is incredibly overwhelming for her.”

And for all of us, really.

Reports of abuse

The New York Times investigation detailed the molestation and abuse by Chavez of two women who were teens at the time the events took place. Huerta, the sharpest 95-year-old I’ve even seen, also told the reporters that Chavez had forced sex on her when she was in her 30s, once by manipulation and once by force.

“The first time I was manipulated and pressured into having sex with him, and I didn’t feel I could say no because he was someone that I admired, my boss and the leader of the movement I had already devoted years of my life to,” she wrote in her statement. “The second time I was forced, against my will, and in an environment where I felt trapped.”

Huerta had two daughters from these encounters and gave them to other families to be raised, though she is close to both of them, Olvera, the spokesman, said.

Olvera said that Huerta was unaware of the allegations of the two other women interviewed by the New York Times until the reporters contacted her several weeks ago.

“She literally thought she was the only one,” Olvera said. “The guilt is really heavy for her.”

As the news broke this week, shock — but not disbelief — rippled through the political and union worlds where Chavez remains revered (he died in 1993) and Huerta remains active. Despite her age, she speaks at multiple events each week and is a fixture at the state Capitol advocating for workers’ rights.

While Huerta has never spoken before about Chavez’s attacks on her, his infidelities and autocratic leadership style — and rumors of misconduct — have been documented for years. In her 2014 biography, journalist Miriam Pawel detailed some of these complaints as well as Chavez’s troubled relationship with his wife.

In a statement, the United Farm Workers union called the allegations “profoundly shocking.”

It canceled all events celebrating the upcoming Cesar Chavez Day — a state holiday — and is working on a survivor-centered response with outside experts to help ensure a fair and inclusive pathway for other people to tell their stories.

Sen. Alex Padilla, who has worked for years with Huerta but who was a child when Chavez was organizing, called for “zero tolerance for abuse, exploitation, and the silencing of victims, no matter who is involved.”

“Confronting painful truths and ensuring accountability is essential to honoring the very values the greater farmworker movement stands for — values rooted in dignity and justice for all,” Padilla said.

Changing times

If there is the slightest bit of solace to be found in this tragedy, it is in the response. So far, we have been spared the usual attacks on victims — though almost certainly they are happening outside the public eye.

Though Huerta may carry guilt, as all survivors so unfairly do, coming forward now has quickly and forcefully changed the narrative. I suspect there are few people who would dare call Huerta a liar, or challenge her motives. I suspect without her revelations, the other women coming forward would be treated differently.

I imagine that had she spoken out back then, as a young mother in the 1970s, a Latina woman in the male-dominated culture of the Central Valley, she would likely have found little relief.

What must it have been like for her all these years to know the man we idolized had this monstrous side?

But after 60 years of hard work, Huerta is now powerful in her own right. And after 60 years of silence, Huerta wanted to use that power to support the other women speaking out. Olvera said Huerta came to that decision reading the New York Times piece, and for the first time understanding that these other survivors were children when their abuse happened.

“When she learned that, that’s when she was like, I need to come out and tell my story,” he said. “She didn’t want them to stand alone.”

In the end, every survivor stands alone because what needs to heal is a soul shattered by the trivial evil of carnal greed, a pain so personal and unique even another survivor can’t fully understand it. It is daring and noble in the crucible of that personal destruction, which lasts years if not decades, to demand accountability. Not all of our heroes are ghosts.

“Your courage and your voices matter,” Siebel Newsom said. “They open the door for so many others to follow suit and tell their stories so that one day soon, we will break this horrific cycle of repetitive abuse by powerful men.”

These women have now made it clear: Chavez was a predator — a powerful man who used his authority to manipulate and force women and girls into sexual encounters.

In the end, all the good Chavez did, the strength and dignity he brought not just to farmworkers but to immigrants across the country, will forever be bound up with this ugly truth — though the movement is far more than one man.

Chavez earned this ending. Hopefully, for Huerta and the other survivors, speaking out is the beginning of healing.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Cesar Chavez, a Civil Rights Icon, Is Accused of Abusing Girls for Years
The deep dive: ‘Profoundly shocking’ allegations against Cesar Chavez spark soul-searching in movement
The L.A. Times Special: Democrats face the possibility of a historic upset in California governor’s race, poll finds

Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria
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MILAN — Milan’s two first-division soccer teams share a stadium, the majestic San Siro, and the top two spots in the Serie A standings. They each have American owners and fanatically loyal supporters. And both are among the most iconic and successful teams in history.

But that’s where the similarities wane. Because while Inter Milan believes it has a story to tell, AC Milan has locked the doors, drawn the drapes and taken the phone off the hook.

I know this because ahead of last month’s Milan-Cortina Winter Games I reached out to both clubs and asked if they might have some time to visit. AC Milan proved too busy to chat, but Inter Milan invited me to its training center, hidden among farm fields and quiet pastures 45 minutes from the city. Those humble surroundings proved to be at odds with the lofty global reach the team is trying to build.

“I would say it’s leveraging more around Italian history and then the history of the club,” Giorgio Ricci, Inter Milan’s chief revenue officer, said of the image the club is trying to market. “A city like Milano is now a real ambassador of that Italian culture, from lifestyle to design to food and whatever. But we [also] have the authentic history around the foundation of this club. It’s a story not of globalization but of internationalization.

“So there is always this dualism between being very strong[ly] rooted in the city of Milan, in the real core, and having this international attitude. It’s quite a unique and winning combination.”

The Inter in Inter Milan, after all, is short for Internazionale, Italian for international.

“It shall be called Internazionale, because we are brothers of the world,” said Giorgio Muggiani when he helped start the team in 1908. He later lent his talents as an artist and illustrator to the fascist movement of Benito Mussolini.

Inter Milan is in the fifth year of its latest and boldest transition, one that is taking it from being just a soccer club into being a lifestyle and fashion-focused brand, a transition that, as Ricci said, will trade on its history as an international club and its location in one of the fashion capitals of the world.

It’s a model that was pioneered by French club Paris Saint-Germain, which nine years ago began partnering with Dior, Jordan Brand, Levi Strauss and others. Inter has teamed with Italian menswear brand Canali, created a new digital ecosystem that has won it a significant increase in video views and user engagement and has launched non-sporting merchandise such as streetwear accessories to accompany the rebrand.

“We are a football club,” Ricci said. “But in order to grow, we need to become a global football brand.”

And it has begun to do that. Deloitte, the British professional services company which does an annual ranking of soccer club revenues, says Inter brought in more than $620 million in 2024-25, the most recent season for which figures are available. That’s 11th best in the world and a jump of about 70% and eight places from where the club was a decade ago, when it was just the fourth-most-profitable club in Italy.

Inter Milan’s Hakan Calhanoglu celebrates after scoring on a penalty shot against Genoa on Feb. 28.

(Marco Luzzani / Getty Images)

In an effort to tell that story and continue that growth, Inter collaborated with Spike Lee on a short film titled “My Name Is My Story,” in which Lee narrated the club’s history and identity, introducing it to a U.S. audience during last summer’s Club World Cup.

Inter isn’t going it alone though. All of Italian football is in the midst of a long-needed overhaul.

A generation ago, Serie A was the best soccer league in the world. It had players like Roberto Baggio, Jurgen Klinsmann, Alessandro Del Piero, Ronaldo, George Weah and Diego Maradona and its wealthy, deep-pocketed owners sent Italian teams to nine Champions League finals between 1989-99.

Since then the league has struggled to market its product globally, lost many of its top players to better pay in other European leagues, found potential revenue streams closed off by aging, crumbling infrastructure, and saw its reputation and credibility damaged by the 2006 Calciopoli scandal, which centered on the manipulation of referee appointments to favor certain clubs.

An influx of U.S.-based owners is helping turn that around. Eight of Serie A’s 20 teams have American owners and Ricci says they have not only brought much-needed investment to the league but they’ve brought ideas on how to market Italian soccer.

“Some are only bringing money, yeah. Others are bringing also a vision and an ambition,” Ricci said. “Our ownership is exactly bringing that. Bringing the North American culture of not seeing only constraints and barriers in the development of a project [but] having the ambition, far-sighted[ness] and working on building a dream.

“That is exactly what Serie A needs: a bit of a dream and a bit of a vision to dare a bit more and not be too conservative. We need a few leading and having vision and bringing that dream.”

A big part of that dream and vision in Milan is a new stadium, one that will replace the century-old San Siro with a 71,500-seat arena at the center of a $1.4-billion urban-regeneration plan funded primarily by RedBird Capital, AC Milan’s New York-based owner, and Oaktree Capital Management, the Los Angeles-based company that owns Inter Milan.

For Inter Milan that investment, the club hopes, will transform the game-day experience not just for well-heeled corporate types but for the team’s diehard fans. I’m still waiting to hear what AC Milan’s plans are.

“I’m not only talking about corporate clients and things like that,” Ricci said. “That, of course, will benefit from a new state-of-the-art venue with the facilities, restaurants, whatever. But also for general [admission]. As soon as they step into a new venue with better seats, in terms of sound, in terms of video, audio and all the entertainment, we are going to increase the perception of each kind of spectator you have in the venue.”

Is it a gamble? Sure, but then very few things in sports are a sure bet. Yet for Inter Milan, at least, that vision and the story behind it are worth telling.

⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.

SACRAMENTO — Murder is considered the worst crime out there, but for my money, it’s child rapists who are the worst of the worst — especially the serial ones who destroy one life after another.

That’s wholly subjective on my part, but I doubt I’m alone. Which is why I was far from surprised at the outrage that accompanied two recent, successful parole hearings for convicted serial child predators in Sacramento.

Gregory Lee Vogelsang, 57, and David Funston, 64, both attacked children and were granted parole through California’s elderly parole program — though both remain behind bars for now.

But the fury over the possibility of their freedom has put the state’s controversial elderly parole program under scrutiny — again — and led to a flurry of legislation to add new restrictions. Should sex offenders be excluded? Especially heinous murderers? Everyone under the age of 75?

It’s easy to answer “yes” to all of the above.

“Part of the problem we have is we shouldn’t be making policy decisions based on speculation and on scary rhetoric that’s disconnected from the facts,” Keith Wattley told me. He’s the founder and director of UnCommon Law, a nonprofit that provides legal services and parole advocacy.

“That’s how politicians make people afraid, but it shouldn’t be how we make law,” he said.

And he’s right, as grotesque as these headline-grabbing cases are. In 2024, there were 3,580 elderly parole hearings and 606 people were granted that relief. Most have remained law-abiding. In the 2019-20 year, the most recent recidivism statistics available from CDCR, 221 people were granted elderly parole. Within three years, only four had been convicted of new crimes, and only one of those was a felony for a crime against a person. That tracks with lots of data that shows men generally age out of violent crimes.

But Funston and Vogelsang are the worst of what we fear when we talk about parole, and their cases rightfully make us wonder what the heck the parole board is doing. Though Gov. Gavin Newsom sent both of these decisions back for review, it’s easy to imagine the attack ads should he run for president: Under Newsom’s watch, child rapists walked free.

“Elder parole has gone too far,” Thien Ho, the Sacramento district attorney whose office prosecuted both men, told me. “I support the opportunity of people to be rehabilitated. But I think that certain individuals, in my opinion, and in my experience, cannot be rehabilitated.”

Here’s where I’m going to make a lot of folks mad on both sides of this issue. I agree with Ho, but also, I agree with Wattley. I don’t think we can pass laws based on our grimmest view of humanity. Removing hope from the system turns our prisons into dungeons and does not ultimately serve public safety.

But then, neither does releasing child molesters into our communities.

Lost in all the wrath about these two cases is the difficult business of justice that led to the early release law in 2014, and any interest in the hard and nuanced conversation that we need to have around terrible crimes. It’s easy and popular to say no violent criminal should ever be released, but we can’t just lock up everyone with no possibility of ever getting out because the “R” in CDCR stands for “rehabilitation,” and also — we just can’t afford the forever scenario, morally or fiscally.

California tried the throw-away-the-key model in the 1980s and ‘90s and ended up with prisons so overcrowded that the federal courts stepped in. The original elderly parole effort came through a 2014 court decision on overcrowding that gave inmates 60 or older who had served at least 25 years a chance to go before the parole board. A chance — no guaranteed freedom, and usually it takes multiple hearings years apart before the board approves it.

Later, the Legislature expanded elderly parole to inmates 50 or older who had served 20 years, but excluded those sentenced under the “three strikes” law or those who had murdered peace officers.

The reality is California has a lot of old, aging and sick people behind bars — at great expense. As we grapple with the idea of universal healthcare, there’s one place in California where it already exists — our prisons and jails. We currently pay more than $41,000 in healthcare costs per inmate per year, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

I’m not going to tell you it’s the best healthcare, but it’s taxpayer-funded, and includes even long-term dementia care. And yes, we do have incarcerated dementia patients.

“This is about reducing our prison population and our liability to cover housing and healthcare for an aging prison population, and we have to balance that with the safety of the community and the rights of victims,” state Assemblymember Maggy Krell (D-Sacramento) told me. She’s sponsoring a bill that would create an additional layer of safety around sex crimes by referring these possible parolees to the civil system that evaluates sexually violent predators for confinement in mental facilities after their prison terms.

“Under some circumstances, it is worth considering paroling some of these defendants,” she said, with the kind of thoughtful rationality sure to offend many. “But the cases that you’re seeing right now are completely egregious, and those defendants should not be released.”

Vogelsang was convicted of almost 30 counts of kidnapping and sex crimes, against kids as young as 5. He’s served 27 years of a 355-year sentence.

David Allen Funston, a Sacramento County child predator convicted in 1999 of multiple counts of kidnapping and child molestation. Funston was granted parole suitability under California’s Elderly Parole Program after serving more than two decades in prison.

(Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office)

David Allen Funston was convicted in 1999 of 16 counts of kidnapping and child molestation for kids as young as toddlers. He was sentenced to three consecutive 25-to-life prison sentences. Newsom bounced his first successful parole bid back to the parole board for a review, and on Feb. 18, it affirmed its decision.

But Placer County prosecutors quickly charged him with an old crime that had never been filed due to the Sacramento case, and he remains incarcerated awaiting trial on those charges.

Vogelsang’s case particularly raised a red flag for me. He told the parole board he’s been working successfully for about five years to control his thoughts about children.

“I don’t want to become aroused, but I know it’s always going to be there,” he said during the hearing.

Newsom also sent Vogelsang’s case back for review, and he will go before the board again on March 18. Vogelsang’s testimony was concerning enough that if I had a vote in this, I’d probably ask him to come back again in a few years, but we’ll see what the board does.

I’ll admit my decision would be emotional, and these cases do make me wonder. But Wattley is right that condemning elderly parole based on the monstrous deeds of these child predators is shortsighted. There is likely little to no public safety benefit in raising the overall age for elderly parole, and certainly no fiscal benefit.

“When you’re paying for older, sicker people to be incarcerated, and they don’t pose a risk to public safety, what are we actually getting for that? We’re not getting anything that supports survivors. We’re not getting anything that prevents crime. We’re just spending taxpayer dollars on something that doesn’t correlate with the public safety risk,” Wattley pointed out.

As hard as it is to wrap our minds around, it’s best for public safety to allow even the worst of the worst their chance in front of the parole board. It may even make sense for some who have committed truly terrible crimes decades ago to be released, if there is strong evidence of change and a low risk to public safety. That’s the kind of fair and realistic justice that no one on either side of the issue wants to talk about.

I’m not convinced Vogelsang and Funston have met those bars. But that doesn’t mean we should throw out the bars.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: USC and ABC7 criticized for exclusion of all candidates of color in upcoming gubernatorial debate
Money, it’s a gas: Poison-pill effort to cancel proposed billionaire tax hits voters’ mailboxes
The L.A. Times Special: China-backed Big Pork wants to override 63% of California voters. Even conservatives are mad

Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

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K-POP Demon Hunters fans shared their reactions to watching HUNTR/X’s history-making Oscars performance and win.

The trio of voices behind the band from the popular Netflix film – Ejae, Audrey Nuna, and Rei Ami – took the stage at the 98th annual Academy Awards on Sunday, moving audiences worldwide with tears of joy.

They performed their iconic track, Golden, celebrating the folklore and cultural inspiration brought from the 2025 animated film.

Shortly after hitting the stage, K-Pop Demon Hunters, which became Netflix’s most-watched film ever, won the award for Best Original Song for Golden, after dominating awards season.

HUNTR/X, who nabbed two awards – Best Song Written for Visual Media for the famed track and Best Original Song – at the Golden Globes in January, incorporated instrumentals and dance into their performance at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood in Los Angeles.

“Let’s go K-POP Demon Hunters!” one fan wrote on X.

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“I love me some K-pop demon hunters! Those girls were singing down in that movie lol,” said another.

“K-Pop Demon Hunters made HISTORY,” reacted a third.

“The only thing I care about at the Oscars is K Pop Demon Hunters. If it were up to me, I’d give them all the possible awards,” added a fourth.

However, many were disappointed upon seeing that their acceptance speech was abruptly cut short, as were many others throughout the night, despite them pleading for more time.

“Absolutely disrespectful of the #oscars for cutting off kpop demon hunters in their acceptance speech. They were given less time than every other winner and the Oscar’s owes them an apology,” one fan raged.

“I don’t like how they cut off the Kpop Demon Hunters Cast. That was nasty #Oscars,” someone else complained.

“Congrats to Michael B Jordan, but why did he get 3x the amount of time for his speech than the KPop Demon Hunters crew?” said another, referencing Sinners star Michael B. Jordan’s Best Actor win afterwards.

According to The Independent, HUNTR/X is the first all-Asian musical act to take the Oscars stage, following Blackpink K-pop band member Lisa, who was the first K-pop artist to perform at the show last year.

In August 2025, Netflix revealed that K-Pop Demon Hunters was the platform’s most popular movie of all time, overtaking the previous record-holder, Red Notice, starring Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot.

“KPop Demon Hunters has gone up, up, up, and it’s their Golden moment,” the streaming service said in a statement.

Biggest Oscar Nominees of 2026 Academy Awards

Everyone in Hollywood hopes to snag a nod on the industry’s biggest night but only few get that honor. Here are the nominees and winners from the major categories of the 2026 Academy Awards:

Best Picture

• Bugonia
• F1
• Frankenstein
• Hamnet
• Marty Supreme
• One Battle After Another *WINNER*
• The Secret Agent
• Sentimental Value
• Sinners
• Train Dreams

Best Director

• Chloé Zhao — Hamnet
• Josh Safdie — Marty Supreme
• Paul Thomas Anderson — One Battle After Another *WINNER*
• Joachim Trier — Sentimental Value
• Ryan Coogler — Sinners

Best Actor (Leading Role)

• Timothée Chalamet — Marty Supreme
• Leonardo DiCaprio — One Battle After Another
• Ethan Hawke — Blue Moon
• Michael B. Jordan — Sinners *WINNER*
• Wagner Moura — The Secret Agent

Best Actress (Leading Role)

• Jessie Buckley — Hamnet *WINNER*
• Rose Byrne — If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
• Renate Reinsve — Sentimental Value
• Emma Stone — Bugonia
• Kate Hudson — Song Sung Blue

Best Supporting Actor

• Benicio Del Toro — One Battle After Another
• Jacob Elordi — Frankenstein
• Delroy Lindo — Sinners
• Sean Penn — One Battle After Another *WINNER*
• Stellan Skarsgård — Sentimental Value

Best Supporting Actress

• Teyana Taylor — One Battle After Another
• Wunmi Mosaku — Sinners
• Amy Madigan — Weapons *WINNER*
• Elle Fanning — Sentimental Value
• Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas — Sentimental Value

Best Original Screenplay

• Marty Supreme — Josh Safdie & Ronald Bronstein
• Blue Moon — Richard Linklater & Glen Powell
• Sentimental Value — Joachim Trier & Eskil Vogt
• Sinners — Ryan Coogler *WINNER*
• It Was Just an Accident — Jafar Panahi

Best Adapted Screenplay

• One Battle After Another — Paul Thomas Anderson *WINNER*
• Bugonia — Yorgos Lanthimos & Will Tracy
• Frankenstein — Guillermo del Toro
• Hamnet — Chloé Zhao
• Train Dreams — Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar

Best Animated Feature

• Arco
• KPop Demon Hunters *WINNER*
• Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
• Zootopia 2
• Elio

Best International Feature Film

• The Secret Agent — Brazil
• Sentimental Value — Norway *WINNER*
• It Was Just an Accident — Iran
• Sirāt — Spain
• The Voice of Hind Rajab — Tunisia

Best Documentary Feature

• The Alabama Solution
• Come See Me in the Good Light
• Cutting Through Rocks
• Mr. Nobody Against Putin *WINNER*
• The Perfect Neighbor

“The animated musical officially became Netflix’s most popular film of all time on the Most Popular English Films list with 236 million total views.“

In response to the film’s massive success, Netflix released a sing-along “party at home” version, K-Pop Hunters Sing-Along, that’s currently streaming on the app.

The movie was produced by Sony Pictures Animation and helmed by Maggie Kang, a Canadian film director born in Seoul, South Korea.

Maggie described the film as a “love letter to K-pop,” also known as “Korean pop music.”

On March 12, Netflix announced that the beloved animation will be getting a sequel, with directors Maggie and Chris Appelhans returning behind the scenes.

A release date has yet to be revealed, but fans can expect it may be a while, given the first film went into production in 2021 and wasn’t released until 2025.

“I feel immense pride as a Korean filmmaker that the audience wants more from this Korean story and our Korean characters,” Maggie said in a statement about the sequel.

“There’s so much more to this world we have built, and I’m excited to show you. This is only the beginning.”

Arsenal beat Everton 2-0 in a nervy match in the Premier League as they continue their pursuit of the title.

Max Dowman, a 16-year-old Arsenal winger, became the Premier League’s youngest goalscorer with a remarkable stoppage-time strike in his team’s 2-0 win over Everton.

Dowman collected the ball midway in his own half, dribbled around two Everton players and raced clear unchallenged from the halfway line to tap into an empty net, with Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford stranded upfield having gone forward for a corner.

An English football prodigy, Dowman — at 16 years, 73 days — was playing just his third Premier League match after two previous substitute appearances at the start of the season.

He broke the record of former Everton player James Vaughan, who was 16 years, 270 days when he scored against Crystal Palace in 2005.

In November, Dowman became the youngest player in Champions League history at 15 years, 308 days when he entered as a second-half substitute against Slavia Prague.

Dowman is still in school. He was 14 when he was asked by Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta to train with the senior team in December last year, and he starred on the club’s preseason tour of Asia in matches against AC Milan and Newcastle.

To abide by Premier League regulations for players under 18, Dowman has to change into his Arsenal kit for training sessions and matches in a separate locker room from his senior teammates.

Despite morale-sapping staff layoffs, bizarre executive orders and a 43-day federal government shutdown last fall, the grandeur and serenity of national parks in California remain irresistible to outdoors lovers looking to unwind.

The nine national parks in the Golden State — including Yosemite, Death Valley and Joshua Tree — attracted nearly 12 million recreational visits in 2025, according to statistics from the National Park Service.

That’s up more than 800,000 visits from 2024 and up more than 300,000 from the previous record set in 2019, according to the data, which stretches back to 1979.

Nationally, visits were high, at 323 million, but down a couple of percentage points from the record set in 2024, according to a park service press release.

“America’s national parks continue to be places where people come to experience our country’s history, landscapes and shared heritage,” said Jessica Bowron, acting director of the NPS.

“We are committed to keeping parks open, accessible and well-managed so visitors can safely enjoy these extraordinary places today and for generations to come,” Bowron added.

President Trump’s critics beg to differ.

Since Trump resumed office in January 2025, his administration has slashed the NPS workforce by nearly a quarter, buying out or laying off hundreds of rangers, maintenance workers, scientists and administrative staff across the country.

And last year, as part of his war on “woke,” Trump instructed the park service to scrub all signs and presentations of language he would deem negative, unpatriotic or smacking of “improper partisan ideology.”

He also ordered administrators to remove any content that “inappropriately disparages Americans” living or dead, and replace it with language that celebrates the nation’s greatness.

That gets tricky at places such as Manzanar National Historic Site in the high desert of eastern California — one of 10 camps where the U.S. government imprisoned more than 120,000 Japanese American civilians during World War II.

It’s also hard to dance around disparaging details at Fort Sumter National Monument, where Confederates fired the first shots of the Civil War; Ford’s Theater National Historic Site in Washington, D.C., where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated; and Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Park, which commemorates the assassination of the country’s best known civil rights leader.

“This administration is actively erasing the history, science and culture that our national parks protect,” said Emily Douce, deputy vice president for government affairs for the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Assn.

Douce argued that morale among staff at the parks — a string of 63 federally protected natural wonders often described as “America’s best idea” — has never been lower.

But the fact that employees still showed up, including without pay during last year’s federal government shutdown, demonstrates their commitment to keeping the beloved parks flourishing.

“The enduring popularity of America’s national parks is not surprising,” Douce added. “What’s shocking is this administration’s relentless attacks on these places and their caretakers, which threatens their future.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The National Park Service is routinely ranked among the most admired branches of the large and sprawling federal government. Even Americans who have never watched a minute of C-SPAN, or get a little lost in the alphabet soup of other agencies, will probably never forget standing in Yosemite Valley and admiring a towering waterfall.

There were 4.3 million visits to Yosemite in 2025, 2.9 million to Joshua Tree and 1.3 million to Death Valley, according to the data.

The 323 million visits to America’s national parks in 2025 are more than twice the attendance — 135 million — at professional football, baseball, basketball and hockey games combined.

Of course, it’s a lot cheaper to get into a park. U.S. residents pay between $20 and $35 per vehicle for a day pass, or $80 for an annual pass. The Trump administration recently raised the annual fee to $250 for foreign visitors.

National Park Service officials did not respond to emails requesting comment on California’s 2025 attendance.

With the CIF state basketball championships set for Friday and Saturday at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, how about a look back at some of the greatest individual performances in state history.

There was nothing quite like Tracy Murray scoring 64 points for Glendora in the 1989 Division II final at the Oakland Coliseum. Damien coach Mike LeDuc was then Glendora’s coach. Glendora lost to Menlo 89-83. Here’s a look back.

Last season, Brayden Burries scored 44 points to deliver an Open Division championship to Eastvale Roosevelt at Golden 1 Center. Here’s the report.

In 2008, Klay Thompson of Santa Margarita scored 37 points and made a record seven three-pointers at the notoriously tough Arco Arena in Sacramento to help the Eagles win the Division III title over Sacramento 72-55. Here’s the report.

Let’s not forget Josh Shipp delivering five threes to help Fairfax win the Division I title in 2004 over De La Salle 51-35, again at the tough-to-shoot Arco Arena. Here’s the report.

And how about the 2006 final when Palo Alto stunned Mater Dei 51-47 in Division II in which Jeremy Lin made a 25-foot bank shot from the top of the key. Here’s the report.

For girls, Cheryl Miller still holds the most points scored at 41 when Riverside Poly won Division I in 1982 at the Oakland Coliseum over Los Gatos 77-44. Both teams entered 33-0.

Lisa Leslie of Morningside scored 35 points in the 1990 Division 1 final in a 67-56 win over Berkeley at the Oakland Coliseum. Here’s the report.

In 2018, Charisma Osborne of Windward made six threes and finished with 26 points to help her team win the Open Division title over Pinewood 58-47. Here’s the report.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

CHICAGO — This was hardly a masterpiece of Big Ten basketball, what with the barrage of bricks and busted possessions. Nor was it the sort of night to convince you of UCLA’s chances as a surefire conference contender.

But amid the mess of its 72-59 win over 14th-seeded Rutgers on Thursday night, UCLA showed the sort of mettle it may need to keep its season kicking this March.

It started with Donovan Dent, whose masterful month continued with his first career triple-double — and the first triple-double in Big Ten tournament history. The senior tallied 12 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists. He and Tyler Bilodeau, who added a game-high 21 points, were the rare bright spots on offense for the Bruins.

Otherwise, UCLA struggled to find any sort of rhythm. It shot just 38% from the floor, worse than it had in any win this season. And still, the Bruins were in control for most of the game after pulling away early in the second half.

None of that will fly against No. 3 seed Michigan State on Friday at 6 p.m. PDT, which beat UCLA by 23 points the last time they met.

But until Thursday it’d been quite some time since UCLA actually managed to win away from home. Not since Jan. 29 had it won outside of L.A., and only once this season had it won outside of the Pacific time zone.

For a while, it didn’t seem like UCLA intended to win Thursday, either. Even as Rutgers gave it every chance to pull away.

The Bruins did shut down Rutgers’ Tariq Francis, who was fresh off a 29-point performance in a first-round win over Minnesota. Francis didn’t score until the nine-minute mark in the second half. He finished with six points on two-of-11 shooting.

The two teams spent most of the first half trading wasted possessions and taking turns with their respective shooting slumps. Four minutes scoreless for Rutgers. Three scoreless for UCLA. Four scoreless for Rutgers. Then three scoreless for UCLA. Back and forth they went in their futility.

The Bruins had plenty of chances to build a lead early. While Rutgers struggled to find rhythm on offense, settling mostly for contested shots inside the arc, UCLA got its share of open shots all around the floor. It just wasn’t able to hit many of them. Both teams shot a meager 31% before halftime.

Those shots fell more frequently in the second half, as UCLA pushed its lead to 15. The Bruins still struggled to put the Knights away, until Dent took matters into his own hands late, pushing UCLA to victory.

Spring has sprung on Leo Staples’ family farm in Oklahoma, and his Berkshire pigs couldn’t be happier about it.

Weighing in at about 550 pounds, Woody, his largest hog (named by a grandson after the “Toy Story” icon) plays “like a puppy” in his free-range paddock, Staples told me, gobbling up the rye, clovers and winter peas that have grown knee-high under the Southern sun.

Swine life on Staples’ sustainable family farm is a jarring contrast to the existence of a pig on one of America’s “intensive” corporate-owned mega-farms, where some sows are confined to cages so small they literally can’t turn around or take more than a step or two in any direction.

“It’s not necessary and it hasn’t proven to be good science,” Staples, a self-described conservative Republican, said of Big Ag porcine lockups. “It’s also cruel.”

That confinement is at the heart of a congressional fight over animal welfare standards that Staples — and California — is likely to lose, though we shouldn’t.

At issue is the Save Our Bacon Act, a sneak attack backed by foreign corporations currently hidden deep inside the farm bill. It would severely curb the ability of states to enact limits on animal confinement and maybe accidentally open the door for ending all kinds of state-level food safety laws.

The SOB Act, an apt nickname, would not only cripple small family farmers such as Staples (though its supporters claim it helps family farmers), it would negate the will of California voters, potentially introduce risk into the food chain, and turn greater power of our food supply over to China.

It would also limit consumer choice at a time when more Americans — from fans of far-right Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to far-left granola grandmas — are demanding a say in how their food is produced.

Let’s break that down.

What is the SOB Act?

For the vegetarian hard-liners out there, it is true that Woody himself will someday likely be bacon.

But, increasingly over the past decades, meat-friendly consumers have moved toward wanting animals to “live a really great life and have one bad day,” as Nate Beaulac, another conservative Oklahoma pork farmer, describes it.

In 2018, to further that aim, about 63% of California voters passed Proposition 12, which increased the space that breeding sows were required to have, from something about the size of a small car trunk to the size of a coat closet. We’re not talking rolling acres here — just enough room to turn around. Some of these sows are basically caged for the majority of their breeding life — years — and are about the size of a black bear.

But here was the real bite in Proposition 12: No pork from any state could be sold in California if it didn’t come from a farm that met the new standard.

Overnight, the corporate breeders were locked out of the Golden State market. They sued bigly, and lost bigly in 2023 at the Supreme Court, which upheld California’s right to impose the state standard.

Big Pork tried to revive the issue with the Supreme Court in 2025 and was rebuffed. Surprise, surprise, the drums started pounding for the SOB Act shortly after (though various legislative attempts have floated since Proposition 12 was passed) backed by a Midwestern congresswoman from a Big Pork state.

The SOB Act would negate Proposition 12 (and a similar law in Massachusetts) and forbid states from making laws regarding animal confinement, according to an analysis by the Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law.

That would emphatically overturn the will of the majority of California voters who want those standards.

But hey, Big Pork would make big bank.

“They want to limit American consumers’ ability to fight,” Beaulac told me. “They wanted to limit Americans’ ability to pursue any sort of change. And that is why me, not only as a farmer, but as an American and a capitalist, I’m strongly opposed to the Save Our Bacon Act, and in staunch support of Proposition 12.”

What Prop. 12 did

Beaulac was once a Californian himself, before heading to the Sooner State for college. He describes himself as a “Christian, capitalist, conservative environmentalist,” and a sustainable farmer who depends on consumers’ desire for healthy food to sell his pigs, chickens and cows.

Proposition 12, Beaulac said, “was a huge help to smaller farms, and the only people that it really hurt were the huge multinational conglomerates.”

“I mean very simply, we want the opportunity to compete,” he said.

Staples, Woody’s owner, who is also an expert in project management and environmental compliance from a previous career in the power industry, makes the case that the mega-farms can also come with mega-dangers.

“You have 100,000 pigs within two miles of each other, the chance of issues with a swine flu or natural disaster just increases,” he said. He points out that issues such as disease, groundwater contamination and waste disposal have already become problems for some large farms.

The flaws in the SOB Act don’t stop there.

The Harvard Law analysis points out that the loose language of the bill could have other consequences, maybe even gutting some state safety, labeling and cleanliness standards.

And some Republicans in Congress, including Californian Reps. David Valadao and Young Kim, oppose the measure and sent a letter to the Agriculture Committee late last year urging them to dump the act, pointing out that at least a quarter of Big Pork is owned by Chinese companies and does not represent American interests.

“Foreign-owned corporations — particularly those tied to adversarial nations — already hold a disturbing amount of control over U.S. agricultural assets,” the letter read, citing Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods, the largest pork producer in the United States.

The SOB Act “could further consolidate the influence of such foreign entities,” the letter‘s authors warned.

Armed with those arguments and others, Staples and Beaulac traveled to Washington recently to make their case against the SOB Act with lawmakers.

But, both men told me, they were met with a wall of lobbyists and money.

“It’s very eye-opening in terms of how many lobbyists are there every day,” Beaulac said. “The reality is Big Ag donates big money to the senators, and so when they need their bill to go through or they need a bill shut down, they’re going to have a lot more leeway than the small farmers.”

The lobbyists, Staples said, had the debate wrapped up tight long before the farmers even knocked the dirt off their boots and entered Congress.

“It was very obvious,” he said. “I was not prepared for what Big Ag had done, how they had prepared members of Congress to address the issues we wanted to address.”

Beaulac said he’s discouraged and fears the SOB Act will pass, but also isn’t giving up hope. He sees it as a bipartisan issue, and one he hopes for which people will stand up. This week, a social media post featuring a sad photo of a caged pig went viral, drawing attention across party lines.

“Blue, red. It doesn’t matter. People want healthy food,” Beaulac said. “They want to know how it’s raised. They genuinely care how they’re feeding their family, and it has nothing to do with who they vote for in November.”

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Thune Is in a Vise as Trump and Far Right Demand Fight on Voter Bill
The deep dive: The exodus of California’s tech billionaires from the Golden State to Florida’s Gold Coast
The L.A. Times Special: California could be attacked by drones because of Iran war, memo warns. Officials downplay threat
Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

P.S. Here’s a post by right-wing commentator Michael Cernovich on the SOB Act, just a taste of how much some of the MAGA folks don’t like this measure.

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Adicoff, from Sun Valley, Idaho, has been skiing since childhood – dabbling in both alpine and Nordic skiing before alpine was deemed too dangerous.

He competed against sighted rivals at junior level. After being selected for the US Para-Nordic team in 2013, he went to the 2014 Games in Sochi while still a high school student.

A first Paralympic medal came four years later in Pyeongchang when he finished second behind Canadian Paralympic legend Brian McKeever in the 10km classic event, but he retired after the Games before returning for the 2022 Beijing Games.

Despite high hopes of gold, Adicoff achieved two more individual silvers behind McKeever before anchoring the US team to relay gold for his first Paralympic title.

But it left Adicoff wanting more and with the retirement of 16-time Paralympic champion McKeever the division was wide open.

The American seized his chance to dominate, with World Cup and World Championship success ahead of the Games.

Unlike at Beijing, where supporters did not travel because of the pandemic, athletes at these Games have benefited from being able to be watched by friends and family and Adicoff’s entourage have been enjoying the experience.

Whether they are waving giant faces of Adicoff and his guides Reid Goble and Peter Wolter or wearing hats with his name on it, their presence has been felt at the Tesero Cross-Country Centre

Adicoff, who has another medal chance in Sunday’s 20km event and is also set to go in Saturday’s 4×2.5km mixed relay, may not be able to fully see them while he competes, but he has taken it all in and joined in the post-race celebrations.

“To have so many people that came out and supported us and are going to continue to support us throughout the week. It’s so nice having friends and family here,” he said.

“You see all those white hats up there? It’s so fun to have.

“I love skiing, love ski racing, so it makes finding the motivation kind of easy.”

When Brazilian journalist Tatiana Merlino watched “The Secret Agent” — one of this year’s Oscar nominees for best picture — it felt like seeing scattered scenes from her own life.

As the movie follows Marcelo (played by Wagner Moura) — a professor fleeing from a vindictive businessman during Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964-1985), the story skims through old audio tapes and newspapers, reviewed by a researcher looking into how he died. Like her, Merlino also dug into the past to piece together how her uncle, Luiz Eduardo Merlino, a communist activist, was killed by the right-wing regime in 1971. Though it was initially reported as a suicide, the family soon found his corpse with torture marks in a morgue.

“It became necessary to fight for memory, truth, and justice, because these crimes committed by dictatorship agents weren’t punished at that time, and have not been to this day,” says the 49-year-old journalist, who first saw “The Secret Agent” in São Paulo, and made a career from investigating human rights abuses.

“When a country does not come to terms with its past,” she adds, “its ghosts resurface.”

Recent dictatorship-themed movies like “The Secret Agent” and “I’m Still Here,” which won the Oscar for best international film in 2025, were instant blockbusters back home in Brazil. While both films honor those who, like Merlino, still seek justice for the regime victims, their popularity also got boosted by the country’s zeitgeist.

To many Brazilians, these movies served as reminders of what could have been had former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, himself a retired Army captain and a dictatorship nostalgic, succeeded in his 2022 attempt at a coup d’etat.

On Jan. 8, 2023, encouraged by Bolsonaro, hundreds of vandals stormed into the Three Powers Plaza, a square in the country’s capital, Brasília, that gathers the congress, the supreme court and the presidential palace. Neither he nor the vandals accepted the 2022 election — won by the veteran leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, better known as “Lula.”

The uprising followed the same blueprint as the pro-Trump rioters behind the Jan. 6 insurrection in the United States. Although President Trump himself was federally prosecuted for election obstruction, the case was dismissed after his reelection in 2024.

Unlike the U.S., however, Brazil has charged, judged and arrested the conspirators — including Bolsonaro and members of his staff who participated in the coup plot.

“Bolsonaro doesn’t come from Mars,” said “The Secret Agent” star Wagner Moura to the L.A. Times in February. “He’s deeply grounded in the history of the country.”

In 1964, a U.S.-backed coup enacted a violent, 21-year autocracy run by the military, whose effects still resonate today, says Alessandra Gasparotto, a professor at the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPEL).

“It was a dictatorship that worked from a perspective of building certain legitimacy, keeping the congress functioning, but of course, after purging dissent,” explains the Brazilian historian.

“I’m Still Here,” for example, dramatizes the real-life quest of Eunice Paiva, a housewife whose husband Rubens Paiva, a former leftist congressman who had his tenure revoked after the coup, then disappeared in the hands of the military in 1971. To this day, his body still hasn’t been recovered.

In 2014, Bolsonaro, then just a congressman, spit on a bust of Paiva erected to honor his memory during the coup’s 50th anniversary in Congress.

“The cinema of all countries has the role of preserving memory, so if you take a look at the Holocaust, the American Civil War, or World War II movies, it has this role of almost an ally of history,” says writer Marcelo Rubens Paiva, son of Rubens Paiva and author of the book from which “I’m Still Here” is based. “There’s an old saying: History is the narrative of winners, while art is of the defeated.”

In the case of Brazil, the militaries who led the repressive apparatus of the dictatorship got away with torture and murder through a 1979 amnesty law. It was initially enacted to pardon alleged “political crimes” committed by the regime opposition and allow a transition to democracy — but it was also used to pardon the dictatorship’s human rights violations. Then, in the late 1980s, the military oversaw a slow, gradual shift to democracy, stepping down from power only in 1985.

“This new republic had more continuity than novelty, since many politicians who were central to the dictatorship moved to central roles in the democratic government,” explains Gasparotto. “That’s why they built this pact [to forgive the regime’s crimes].”

For that reason, these movies still feel contemporary. “The Secret Agent,” for example, blends past and future through the records analyzed by a researcher, while “I’m Still Here” highlights Eunice Paiva’s post-regime fight for the recognition of Rubens Paiva’s death; without any corpse to officialize his death, he was just deemed disappeared.

When Merlino watched the movie, for example, Eunice reminded her of her grandmother, Iracema Merlino.

“I’m the third generation of my family fighting for memory, truth and justice,” says Merlino. “It started with my grandmother, who passed away, then it was handed to my mother, who’s now very ill, then to me.”

Nowadays, she awaits trial for the third lawsuit attempt of the family to hold her uncle’s torturer, Col. Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, accountable — the two other cases against the accused were dismissed over the years.

Since Ustra’s death in 2015, the Merlino family is now suing his estate for reparations. Yet he still remains a hero to some; in 2016, while Bolsonaro was still a congressman, he shouted a dedication to the memory of the torturer during the voting of the impeachment of Brazil’s former President Dilma Rousseff — herself one of the victims of Ustra in the 1970s, but among the few who survived.

“These films make connections with the present because understanding the past is important for understanding today’s contradictions,” says Marcelo Rubens Paiva. “What happened before interferes in the conflicts a country lives in today.”

So if authoritarians like Bolsonaro don’t come out of the blue, the same goes for other autocratic leaders, like President Trump.

Although founded on democratic principles, the U.S. itself has a long, muddled history with the concept. The authoritarian turn the country is reckoning with is part of a long legacy of inequality that stemmed from the 246-year institution of slavery. Following its abolishment in 1865 came a near-centurylong period of tension marked by racial segregation that we now refer to as “Jim Crow.”

“With some exceptions, the South was governed by a then-segregationist Democrat party — with [rampant] electoral fraud, authoritarianism, use of local police for political repression, and no chance for opposition, even [by] moderates,” says Arthur Avila, a history professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in Brazil.

Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ended segregation and granted voting rights to people of all races — signed by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson, a Southern Democrat who broke away from the party’s history to spearhead progressive domestic policy — the decades that followed were ridden with manipulations of the electoral system. For example gerrymandering, or the practice of manipulating electoral district boundaries to favor one political party, is an ongoing, albeit controversial tactic among both Democrats and Republicans.

President Trump himself was federally prosecuted for election obstruction. The indictment alleged that, upon losing the 2020 election, Trump conspired to overturn the results and manipulate the public by spreading false claims of election fraud on social media. It argued that this, in turn, stoked a mob of his supporters into leading the deadly Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol; but the case was dismissed upon his reelection in 2024.

In the lead-up to the midterm elections in November, Trump has pushed for federal control over elections, restrictions on mail-in voting and the addition of citizenship documents to vote, despite an existing federal law that already prohibits noncitizens from voting in U.S. elections. (He tried implementing the latter through an executive order in 2025, but it was permanently blocked by a federal court; a voter ID bill called the “SAVE America Act” is currently stalling in the Senate.)

“There’s a strong local authoritarian tradition in the U.S. that Trump himself feeds from,” says Avila.

Besides that, according to Avila, the country faces a growing “de-democratization” process from within. This shows in the rising control and dismantling of institutions by reactionary sectors — including efforts to block professional, educational and athletic programs promoting DEI, or diversity, equity and inclusion — from what many critics and scholars have cited as lingering resentment from desegregation, he says.

“We may see it as a slow authoritarian turn in North American politics that didn’t overturn the democratic regime yet,” Arthur considers. “But if this process goes on, and that’s a conjecture, in the next decade the U.S. may become a state of exception that keeps democratic appearances but has been stripped of any democracy’s substance whatsoever.”

As movies such as “The Secret Agent and “I’m Still Here” remind us, a great deal of maintaining a democracy has to do with keeping a good memory.

Twelve days ago the U.S., a World Cup host country, launched a full-scale bombing campaign against Iran, a country that has qualified to play in the tournament. That’s never happened before.

Five days later, that same World Cup host began military operations inside the borders of Ecuador, another World Cup qualifier, half a world away. That’s never happened before either.

With the tournament scheduled to kick off in three months, those events have soccer scholar Jonathan Wilson questioning whether it’s wise for the World Cup to go on at all.

“It seems to me, for each passing day, it’s less and less likely that the World Cup can happen,” he said.

That take seems unduly alarmist said David Goldblatt, a British sportswriter and sociologist who is a visiting professor at Pitzer College in Claremont. Anything short of a full-scale war inside the U.S. would not be enough to pull the plug on the tournament now, he said. Especially with FIFA expecting revenues of as much as $11 billion.

“I mean, it’s not a good look,” Goldblatt conceded. “And certainly when set against FIFA’s official pronouncements on its role in encouraging world peace and cosmopolitan celebrations of a universal humanity, none of that sits terribly easily.

“But in terms of actually running the World Cup, I don’t think it’s going to make very much difference at all.”

However, with the Trump administration open to engaging in more international conflicts, there’s little doubt this World Cup, the largest and most complex in history, will also be the most political in history as well.

Complicating things further is the fact the current conflict in the Middle East hasn’t been limited to just the U.S. and Iran. Iranian missiles have hit both Qatar and Saudi Arabia, among other countries, and Jordan has fired on U.S. assets.

Those three countries are World Cup qualifiers as well.

The fate of a soccer tournament pales in importance to the death and destruction the conflagration in the Middle East has produced, of course. But the need for unity is the very reason there’s a World Cup in the first place.

When French soccer administrator Jules Rimet founded the tournament 96 years ago, he believed soccer could be a tool for international peace. And in the early years of the tournament, Rimet, FIFA’s longest-serving president and a talented diplomat, was able to limit the impact of geopolitics on the World Cup, watering down Mussolini’s influence on the 1934 World Cup, for example, and steering the 1938 tournament away from Hitler’s Germany.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has taken a far different approach, courting President Donald Trump’s support despite his growing number of global conflicts.

A week before bombs began falling on Iran, Infantino appeared at the inaugural meeting of Trump’s Board of Peace wearing a red cap with ‘USA’ on the front and the numbers ‘45-47’ — a reference to Trump’s non-consecutive presidencies. That act was so blatantly partisan, IOC president Kirsty Coventry said her organization would investigate whether Infantino, an IOC member, breached the terms of the group’s charter, which requires members to act independent of political interests.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino holds up a USA hat as he attends the inaugural meeting for the Board of Peace at the Institute of Peace in Washington on Feb. 19.

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

“Infantino has absolutely breached every FIFA protocol on neutrality,” said Wilson, author of “The Power and Glory: The History of the World Cup.”

“Absolute neutrality is always impossible and not desirable, but it has clearly gone way, way, way beyond. The peace prize looked grotesque at the time. It looks even worse now. And I can’t see how the future will look kindly on Infantino. I think Infantino has to some extent legitimized Trump.”

This is hardly new behavior from Infantino, who had close relationships with Vladimir Putin ahead of the 2018 tournament played in Russia and Qatar’s leaders ahead of the 2022 tournament despite their well-known human rights violations.

The list of countries Infantino is asking to overlook poor relations with the country hosting the majority of World Cup games this summer is growing.

Consider that Denmark, which administers Greenland, an autonomous territory Trump has also threatened to invade, can qualify for the tournament in a European playoff that will take place later this month. Then there’s World Cup qualifiers Haiti, Ivory Coast and Senegal, who aren’t at war with the U.S. but whose citizens have been banned from entering the country to cheer for their teams. That completely contradicts a promise from Infantino, who said “everybody will be welcome” at the 2026 World Cup.

“If I had a crystal ball I could tell you now what is going to happen,” Heimo Schirgi, the World Cup chief operating officer for FIFA, said Monday. “But obviously the situation is developing. It’s changing day by day and we are monitoring closely. [But] the World Cup will go on right? The World Cup is too big and we hope that everyone can participate that has qualified.”

Goldblatt, the Pitzer professor, said Infantino’s action are understandable since he has few cards to play against Trump.

President Trump speaks as he receives the FIFA Peace Prize as FIFA president Gianni Infantino applauds on Dec. 5 the Kennedy Center in Washington.

(Patrick Smith / Getty Images)

“What’s Infantino going to do? What levers can you pull?” he asked. “You can threaten to take it away. That’s not happening. Moral admonishment? Who’s going to take that from FIFA? It is a farcical idea that anybody thinks that the president of FIFA has any kind of collective moral authority or any role as a spokesperson for the progressive part of the world.

“They may fantasize that this is the case. But it is morally and politically absurd that any of us should expect that of these people. So if you are Infantino and that is the case, you know what works with Trump? What works is flattery. So of course he’s gone down that path.”

The games, Goldblatt said, will go on even if bombs are still falling. And that may not be an entirely bad thing.

“Football’s a great distraction. That’s partly why it’s so popular,” he said. “It will be virtually impossible, if the war continues, for that not to be a central element of like, the meaning and the purpose of what we’re all doing here.

“How we’ll feel and what it will look like, I don’t know. It will be very strange. Football is unpredictable and extraordinary. Something will happen that will warm our souls.”

⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.

Dino Snores for grown-ups opens up the iconic Natural History Museum overnight

It’s one of the most iconic buildings and attractions in London and is known the world over.

The Natural History Museum is a marvel, containing tens of thousands of specimens from the natural world from across the globe and across time.

Not only that but the building is one of the most stunning in the capital, instantly recognisable and with some new wonder to be found on every visit.

And, in a real bucket list moment and a once in a lifetime experience, I was one of the people lucky enough to spend the night in this iconic building, sleeping under Hope the whale and wandering through the collections in the dead of night.

The Natural History Museum hosts Dino Snores for adults – and what an experience it is.

Not only do you get to spend the night sleeping beneath Hope the whale in the main Hintze Hall, there is so much going on there’s no way you’ll be getting your head down until the wee small hours.

Walking into the museum after the sun had gone down felt like living in my very own fairy tale. The exhibits in the incredible main hall were softly lit.

First up was a delicious three course meal in the T-Rex restaurant, followed by our first activity of the evening – stand-up comedy.

This is the Natural History Museum after all, so it did have a conservation theme in the form of comedian Simon Watt, founder of the Ugly Animal Preservation Society.

Who knew blob fish, frogs and the inexplicable inclusion of the kakapo flightless parrot could be so hilarious.

Next, there was a live animal workshop with ethical handling company, ZooLab, who encouraged us all to think how we would design our own dinosaur using traits from some of the amazing creatures who share the planet with us.

You were even allowed to touch some of these rare species – I very bravely overcame my terror to stroke a snake but have to admit to breathing a big sigh of relief when were were told the tarantula was a look only experience.

Then onto a lecture about sharks with a one of the museum’s palaeontologists – utterly fascinating.

A quick game of Dino Bingo, and then a stroll around the softly lit galleries with no crowds – the dinosaur section really is something else when the lights are out and it’s eerily quiet – and before we knew it it was 3am and we were ready to drop.

Tucking ourselves into our sleeping bags under the watchful gaze of Hope the whale, we were serenaded to sleep by a harpist – the theme from Jurassic Park as my personal favourite.

Throughout the night, there was a fully licenced bar as well as free tea, coffee and snacks to keep you going throughout the evening.

There was just so much to see and do, but for those who didn’t feel like roaming the halls of the Natural History Museum there was also a midnight film screening – what else but the original Jurassic Park.

Waking up in the iconic Hintze Hall was a real pinch me moment and off we went to our early morning yoga class – a stretch was just what we needed – before a full fry up and then some time to once again wander through the galleries, minus the crowds before the museum opened to the public at 10am.

This really was a magical experience and one I’ll cherish forever.

For more information about Dino Snores for adults check out the page on the Natural History Museum website.

There is also a Dino Snores event for kids, for more information visit the website.

SACRAMENTO — One unique perk California kids enjoyed for generations was tuition-free college. Now, a candidate for governor promises to bring that back. And bravo for her.

The candidate, former congresswoman Katie Porter of Orange County, even suggests a way to pay for her bold pledge. That’s unusual for a politician. It’s normal to promise the moon without specifying how to get there.

She‘d raise the corporate income tax a notch.

OK, it’s very unlikely to ever happen.

The powerful business lobby would scream, even though California companies would benefit from a more educated workforce.

And California’s public universities would probably cry about their revenue streams having to rely on unpredictable corporate profits rather than the pocketbooks of students’ parents.

But at least there’s a potential governor who’s advocating tuition-free higher education and proclaiming it to be a priority.

Why is this Democrat, a UC Irvine law professor, pushing the issue? Tuition cost doesn’t show up anywhere on voter lists of important concerns. But California’s high cost of living is a gigantic gripe. And “affordability” these days is one of the most overused words in any politician’s vocabulary.

“When we talk about affordability, there’s lots of talk about the problem, but people want to hear what [candidates] would do about it,” Porter told me over coffee last week. One thing she’d do is eliminate much of the tuition at public universities.

Another reason for making college tuition-free again, she said, is that “it was a promise made to the people” by the California Master Plan for Higher Education.

But that was 66 years and nine governors ago. A lot has changed.

Actually, tuition-free public higher education was a California birthright long before Gov. Pat Brown’s master plan.

Policymakers regarded tuition-free college as a sound economic investment. It was in the state’s self-interest to produce highly educated innovators and skilled professionals to grow the economy. The middle class expanded, with people landing good-paying jobs that resulted in higher tax revenue for state coffers.

That didn’t mean college was free — and it wouldn’t be under Porter’s plan. There’s still housing, meals, books and annoying fees.

But Sacramento switched priorities in the 1970s, spending tax money on other things: enhanced welfare, healthcare and specifically K-12 schooling.

Free tuition existed before the creation of Medi-Cal healthcare, which now eats up 20% of the state general fund. It also was prior to Proposition 13 in 1978 that dramatically cut property tax revenue for K-12 schools. The state felt obliged to make up the difference.

Naysayers contend California can’t possibly afford to educate students today without their paying tuition. Nonsense. The state could happily afford it long before we expanded into the world’s fourth largest economy. It’s about priorities.

And today, free tuition could be the PR tonic California needs to brighten its faded image across America. It could attract middle-class families to California and keep those already here from fleeing.

Porter promised a return to yesteryear in a speech that was a far cry from old-time political rhetoric. Addressing more than 2,000 delegates at a recent Democratic state convention in San Francisco, she held up a whiteboard with two words in large letters: “F— Trump.”

And she led the delegates in shouting “F— Trump.”

That was a bit of a turnoff for this old traditionalist, who thinks politics has gotten too coarse and foul-mouthed.

I asked Porter what prompted the profanity and whether she had any regrets.

No, she answered. Candidates were allotted only four minutes to speak and “I was economical with my time.

“I wanted to be very clear in the first 15 seconds that I would fight Trump. I wanted the other three minutes and 45 seconds to be about all other stuff.

“Some people just want to talk about Trump because they don’t want to talk about our own problems.”

Plowing into her speech, she quickly promised to “deliver single-payer healthcare, less-expensive housing, free childcare for all, zero tuition at our UCs and CSUs, and [elimination of] income tax for those earning less than $100,000.

“Those are real affordability solutions.”

Right. But no specifics. How does a state wading in red ink afford all that?

I pressed her when we met later. She didn’t have time for details at the convention, she said. But this is her plan on tuition:

Free tuition only for California residents who are undergrads. And only in their third and fourth years at the University of California and California State University. If they desired free tuition in their first two years, they could attend community college.

Many community colleges already waive course fees for full-time, first-time students. Kids are better educated in their first two years at community college anyway, the UC professor said.

Many liberals complain that free tuition would waste tax money on rich kids who don’t need it.

“I’m a believer in universal programs” that don’t base eligibility on income, Porter said. “Something I learned in Congress. You know what never gets cut? Universal programs such as Social Security and Medicare.”

Anyway, she added, “Kids from really wealthy families go to Harvard or USC or other options.”

Public school tuitions are bargains in California compared to other states and private universities.

At UC, annual tuition is roughly $14,900 and at CSU it’s around $6,500. Without tuition, UC would lose roughly $5.9 billion and CSU $3.7 billion, state budget officials say.

But under Porter’s plan, the universities would lose much less. They’d still collect tuition from freshmen and sophomores and hefty levies from non-Californians. Also student aid could be cut back if kids weren’t saddled with tuition.

Hiking the corporation tax from 8.84% to 9.5% “would generate way more than I need for tuition-free,” Porter said. “I would use any extra money for free childcare.”

Political promises often aren’t worth a nickel. But tenacious and feisty Porter’s free tuition pledge might be worth at least a few bucks. And, maybe some votes.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Veteran Rep. Darrell Issa decides not to seek reelection in new Democratic-leaning district.
Internal combustion: Anxiety grows among California Democrats as gubernatorial candidates rebuff calls to drop out.
The L.A. Times Special: Yes, Republicans have a chance in California governor’s race. Here’s our expert analysis.

Until next week,
George Skelton

—
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Victory was decided by a single stride Sunday morning during the 41st Los Angeles Marathon.

American Nathan Martin needed every foot of the 26.2-mile course to chase down leader Michael Kimani Kamau of Kenya, winning by 00.01 seconds an exciting finish that left spectators and athletes alike breathless. Martin posted a time of 2 hours, 11 minutes, 16.50 seconds and forced the closest finish in race history.

“In any race, I just want to give 100%,” said Martin, 36. “I saw an opportunity to race at the end and give one last push. All I wanted to do is push myself.”

Martin, who clocked a personal best 2:10:45 at the Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth., Minn., in 2023, surged in front as he got to the finish line alongside Kamau, who immediately collapsed and was attended to by medical personnel before being carried off on a stretcher.

Kenyan Priscah Cherono waves her hands in the air as she wins the women’s elite race during the L.A. Marathon on Sunday.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

“I made an actual move five miles out … when I saw no one else was picking up the pace. I decided I needed to push,” Martin said. “At a mile and a half to go, I could see the leader and with 800 meters to go, I was thinking, ‘I’m catching him.’”

Ethiopian Enyew Nigat (2:14:23) was third, former University Florida runner Josh Izewski (2:14:43) was fourth and 2024 winner Dominic Ngeno of Kenya was fifth in 2:16:17.

Martin is the second straight American champion, following former Montana State University standout Matthew Richtman, whose time of 2:07:56 in 2025 was the second-fastest in race history and the fastest on the Stadium to the Stars course, which debuted five years ago.

Runners take part in the L.A. Marathon, moving through downtown on Sunday.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

This year’s race drew 27,000 runners, beginning at Dodger Stadium and ending on Santa Monica Boulevard at the Avenue of the Stars in Century City. Traditionally held on the third Sunday in March, this year’s race got moved up one week to avoid clashing with the Oscars, which will be held on March 15 at the Dolby Theatre along the race route.

Kenyan Priscah Cherono took the lead immediately in the women’s race and was already two minutes ahead of the chase pack by the ninth mile. The 45-year-old cruised to victory in 2:25:18.31, well ahead of runner-up Kellyn Taylor, who won the Austin Marathon in 2:33:29 on Feb. 15.

It is fitting that Cherono, on International Women’s Day, earned a $10,000 bonus for winning the Marathon Chase as the first runner, male or female, to cross the finish line. The women were given a 15-minute, 45-second head start and in the 16 Chase competitions to date a woman has won the race-within-a-race on 11 occasions.

Cherono, who won The Marathon Project on Dec. 21 in Chandler, Ariz., in a personal-best time of 2:25:17, was only three seconds off that pace Sunday and said afterward she knew she would win.

Runners compete in the L.A. Marathon, moving through downtown on Sunday.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

“I was feeling OK and I felt I could take it all the way,” said the mother of three who represented her country in the 5,000 meters at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. “Normally I train alone, so I was happy running by myself.”

Taylor, a 39-year-old mother of four and a certified firefighter from Wisconsin, clocked 2:27:36:00 to earn the second-place medal, one spot in front of Antonina Kwambai, last year’s runner-up.

“I would’ve liked to have won, but my time is fair for this course,” Taylor said. “I did everything I could to stay in it, but [Cherono] went out really hard and ran a great race. We were hopeful she was gonna come back, but she didn’t.”

The men’s wheelchair winner was 25-year-old Miguel Jimenez Vergara, whose time of 1:42:13.28 was good enough to hold off Colombian and three-time winner Luis Francisco Sanclemente, who settled for second in 1:45:33.01. Canadian Josh Cassidy (1:45:53.60) was third.

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1. Shadows are cast on the road as L.A. Marathon runners move toward the finish line. 2. Spectators watch the L.A. Marathon and hold up signs cheering on participants. 3. Kenya’s Michael Kimani Kamau is tended to by personnel after falling at the finish line. 4. Priscah Cherono, of Kenya, celebrates with a crowd of supporters after finishing first in the L.A. Marathon women’s race. (Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

“I did this last year and got second,” Jimenez Vergara said after maintaining a robust 3:54 per-mile pace. “I absolutely got my butt kicked last year on Mile 4, but that’s where I took the lead this time and I tried not to look back.”

Jimenez Vergara, who resides in San Diego, set a personal-best of 1:27.17 at the Grandma’s Marathon two years ago and is looking forward to making his Boston Marathon debut on Patriots’ Day in April.

Hannah Babalola, a former Nigerian now living in Chicago, won the women’s wheelchair division for the third year time in four years in 2:17:48.86.

The Los Angeles Marathon was first held in 1986, with Rick Sayre (2:12:19) and fellow American Nancy Ditz (2:36:17) taking the men’s and women’s Open titles. Markos Geneti set the men’s course record of 2:06:35 on the previous Stadium to the Sea course in 2011 and fellow Ethiopian Askale Marachi set the women’s mark of 2:24:11 on the same layout in 2019.

Randall took the first wicket of his five in a row at the end of his second over before taking the rest from the start of his third over as Northern Districts slumped from 4-0 to 9-5.

The right-arm medium pacer had figures of 5-2 at that point and also took a wicket with the first ball of his third over to make it six wickets in eight balls.

He dismissed another batter with the fifth ball of his third over and finished with figures of 7-25.

“It gets drummed into us a lot that we don’t want to go searching for wickets, so I was trying to just keep bowling the same ball, and our ‘Plan A’ that we’d talked about, and it came off,” said Randall.

“I had no idea that it was the first time it [five wicket in five balls in first-class cricket] had happened in the world, it’s seriously cool.

“I mean, I don’t really have any words at the moment, to be honest. I’ll take it.”

While it is the first time a player has achieved the feat in first-class cricket, it is not the first time a player has taken five wickets in five balls in all formats.

Ireland international Curtis Campher became the first male player to do so in a professional match in July 2025 in a domestic T20 game.

Zimbabwe Women all-rounder Kelis Ndhlovu previously took five wickets in five balls in a domestic under-19 T20 in 2024.

In recent days, tensions over the U.S. war in Iran have steadily mounted.

Polls have shown the campaign is widely unpopular. An entire flank of Trump’s MAGA base has criticized it as a clear departure from the “America First” mantra Trump has long espoused. Leaders within the Trump administration have pushed against claims it was about regime change, framing it instead as a necessary response to imminent threats.

Trump, meanwhile, has struck a decidedly defiant tone — offering few of the reassurances or rationalizations that past presidents have offered in the initial stages of war, and sounding more unbothered than embattled.

He has lamented American casualties but also seemed to shrug them off — along with additional deaths he expects to come and potential attacks on the U.S. homeland — as the simple cost of war, saying, “Some people will die.”

He has ignored concerns the war will turn into another unending Middle East quagmire, while openly flirting with taking over Cuba too.

Undermining his administration’s own messaging that the war is not about regime change, Trump wrote in a social media post Friday that there would be “no deal” with Iran without “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” and new Iranian leadership “ACCEPTABLE” to him.

Sticking a thumb in the eye of his “America First” defectors, he said the U.S. and its allies are going to “work tirelessly” to make Iran “economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before,” adding, “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN (MIGA!)”

In the last week, Trump has instigated or been forced to navigate a stunning cascade of political threats. In addition to attacking Iran, he fired his Homeland Security secretary in charge of his signature immigration campaign, faced newly detailed allegations — which he denied — that he sexually assaulted a child alongside Jeffrey Epstein, saw his attorney general subpoenaed by fellow Republicans in Congress, and watched American jobs numbers drop as gas prices spiked.

And yet, Trump has also managed to avoid complex questions about those issues — the most pressing before his administration — and despite Democrats and some of his own supporters lashing out over them.

“I’ve seen a lot of Presidents fall short of their promises but I’ve never seen any President just doing the opposite of everything promised on purpose. Prices, Epstein, wars. Just absolutely racing to betray his voters,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) wrote on X.

“This is Israel’s war, this is not the United States’ war. This war is not being waged on behalf of American national security objectives, to make the United States safer or richer,” said Tucker Carlson, one of Trump’s longtime allies.

Carlson said Trump committed U.S. forces to fighting in Iran for no other reason than because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “demanded it,” even though it “certainly wasn’t a good idea for the United States” and the Trump administration had “no real plan” for replacing the Iranian leadership it has now toppled.

The White House defended Trump’s actions across the board in statements to The Times on Friday.

On Iran, it said Trump “is courageously protecting the United States from the deadly threat posed by the rogue Iranian regime — and that is as America First as it gets.” On departing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, it said Trump “has assembled the most talented and competent cabinet in history,” and “continues to have faith in his Administration.”

On the economy, they said the Trump administration “is doing its part to unleash robust, private sector-led economic growth with tax cuts and deregulation,” and that Trump “has already initiated robust action” to control oil prices even amid the Iran war. And on the Epstein files, they said the latest claims unveiled “are completely baseless accusations, backed by zero credible evidence.”

Trump has also spoken out in defense of his handling of the various crises facing his administration — but not nearly with the sort of detail and solemnity that wartime presidents usually speak, experts said.

At his only public event on Friday — a nearly two-hour round-table with national leaders and sporting officials about college athletics — he ridiculed members of the media who asked about Iran and Noem.

“What a stupid question that is to be asking at this time,” he said, when asked about reports that Russia was helping Iran target and attack Americans there. “We’re talking about something else.”

When pressed as to why he was spending so much time talking about college sports when so much else is going on in the country and the world, Trump briefly talked about Iran — saying “people are very impressed by our military” and that the U.S. is now “more respected than we’ve ever been” — before concluding the event.

Jennifer Mercieca, a political historian and communications professor at Texas A&M and author of “Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump,” said she was surprised Trump didn’t make a stronger case for going to war in Iran during his recent State of the Union speech, and that he hasn’t been more aggressive about making the case for war since, including by using traditional language about bolstering American values around the world.

“In comparison to other presidents in a similar situation trying to lead a nation into war, that is surprising to me — and unusual,” she said.

Also unusual is the low public support for the war, Mercieca said, given that, since World War II, there has generally been high public approval for U.S. war efforts at their start.

Mercieca said she wonders if there is a correlation between Trump’s not providing a more vigorous rationale for the war and the low public approval for it — or perhaps between the low approval and the brash descriptions of the war as a merciless campaign of destruction and vengeance from others in the administration, such as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

She said Hegseth and others have shown a “lack of decorum, a lack of honor or dignity [in] their way of behaving, especially when we’re talking about warfare and human lives.”

Jack Rakove, a Stanford University professor emeritus of history and political science, said Trump’s posture is fitting with his character since he first entered politics and before, as he “can never take responsibility for anything that appears to be a mistake” and is “obsessed with the idea of appearing tough and tough-minded.”

Rakove said he does not believe, as some critics have suggested, that Trump launched the war in Iran specifically to distract from the Epstein files, which as of Thursday included newly released FBI descriptions of several interviews in which a woman accused Trump and Epstein of sexual assault in the 1980s when she was a child. Her accusations have not been verified.

But Rakove said he does wonder to what degree Trump is consciously pushing chaos in order to ensure that no one detrimental issue for him politically captures the public’s attention for too long.

Mercieca said Trump has always been “uniquely good at controlling the public conversation,” but that power has been tested recently by the Epstein files — which have held the public’s attention despite his repeatedly saying that “we should move on from that, that we should stop talking about it, that he’s been exonerated.”

She said Trump’s instinct in the current moment to push ahead aggressively despite waning support for his economic policies, his immigration policies and his war in Iran could be related to his desire to return people’s attention to his agenda, but is also in line with his long-held desire to go down in history — including by making big moves.

“I think he’s very much trying to leave his mark on the White House, I think he’s trying to leave his mark on the nation, I think he’s trying to leave his mark on the world, and I think war is a way that leaders have traditionally done that throughout history,” she said.

Luka Doncic scored 44 points despite not playing the fourth quarter, and the Lakers defeated the struggling Indiana Pacers 128-117 on Friday night with LeBron James and Deandre Ayton out because of injury.

Doncic showcased his offensive wizardry, joining Kobe Bryant, Elgin Baylor and Jerry West as the only players in Lakers history to record at least 40 points in a season 10 times.

Doncic was 14 for 25 from the field, seven for 14 from three-point range and nine for 10 from the free-throw line. He also had nine rebounds and five assists.

“I always want to be productive. But it’s just next-man-up mentality,” Doncic said. “We have great guys on the bench. So, they help us win this game.”

He had 22 points on seven-for-nine shooting in the first quarter, making all five of his three-pointers. It marked the fifth time in his career he scored at least 20 in the first quarter.

“I felt great,” Doncic said. “I felt like I had my legs working. But definitely needed to win this game, so we came out aggressive.”

The Lakers led 64-51 at halftime and Doncic had 29 points.

Doncic ended the third quarter by banking in a three-pointer with 5.3 seconds left and then pointing to his teammates on the bench. The shot gave the Lakers a 19-point lead.

“He can make every shot,” coach JJ Redick said. “I mean, he can make a step-back, left-wing bank shot that line drives and barely goes above the rim. He can make floaters. He can make floaters going left, right. He’s a shot-maker, but he’s also a playmaker.”

Doncic also had a solid game on defense, recording three steals and two blocks.

“I know people are not going to talk about it,” Doncic said. “So, I’m just trying to do my job, trying to be more aggressive, be more engaged. So, just trying to do better defensively.”

Luka Doncic shoots a three-pointer over Indiana Pacers forward Jarace Walker in the first half Friday.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Austin Reaves had 19 points and five assists before fouling out with 4:58 left. Luke Kennard had 15 points and Rui Hachimura scored 13 points as the Lakers (38-25) bounced back from a tough loss at Denver on Thursday.

Pascal Siakam led Indiana (15-48) with 26 points, five rebounds and three assists.

James did not play after sustaining a left elbow injury against the Nuggets. Redick said James was “still banged up” but said the Lakers think he will play Sunday against the New York Knicks.

Ayton (knee) and reserve center Maxi Kleber (back) also are day to day, Redick said.

“Covert action should not be confused with missionary work,” former United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger declared after the sudden abandonment of Iraqi Kurds to their fate against the Iraqi government in 1975.

Half a century later, this doctrine of geopolitical expediency echoes across the Middle East. As the US and Israel encourage Kurdish militias to serve as a ground force against Iran’s central government, knowing their aspiration for “regime change” needs a ground force, history offers a severe warning.

From the mountains of Iraq in 1991 to the plains of Syria just weeks ago, Washington’s track record of using Kurdish fighters as disposable proxies suggests the current push for an Iranian Kurdish rebellion is fraught with risk.

Amid a rapidly escalating military confrontation that has seen US-Israeli air strikes assassinate top Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Washington is seeking to open a new front.

Some US media reports claimed that thousands of Iranian Kurds have crossed from Iraq to launch a ground operation in northwestern Iran. That has not been verified. The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has reportedly supplied these forces with light weapons as part of a covert programme to destabilise the country.

To facilitate this, US President Donald Trump reportedly held calls with Iraqi Kurdish leaders Masoud Barzani and Bafel Talabani as well as Iranian Kurdish leader Mustafa Hijri. While the White House and Kurdish officials in Erbil denied these reports, regional analysts remained wary.

The government of northern Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region on Thursday denied involvement in any plans to arm Kurdish groups and send them into Iran.

Its president, Nechirvan Barzani, said it “must not become part of any conflict or military escalation that harms the lives and security of our fellow citizens”.

“Protecting the territorial integrity of the Kurdistan Region and our constitutional achievements can only be achieved through the unity, cohesion and shared national responsibility of all political forces and components in Kurdistan,” he added.

Mahmoud Allouch, a regional affairs expert, told Al Jazeera that the current strategy is aimed not simply at an immediate government overthrow but at “dismantling Iran” by inciting separatist movements as a prelude to its collapse. “The US and Israel want to produce a separatist armed Kurdish case in Iran similar to the Kurdish case that America imposed in Syria,” Allouch warned.

Added to this volatile mix is Turkiye and how it would react to any Kurdish uprising in the region. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) began steps towards disarmament last summer, closing a chapter on a four-decade armed campaign against the Turkish state in a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people. Any armed advances by Iranian Kurds could rankle Ankara.

A legacy of betrayal and unintended gains

For the Kurds, acting as the tip of the American spear has historically ended in disaster. In the 1970s, the US and Iran heavily armed Iraqi Kurdish rebels to bleed the government in Baghdad. Yet, once the shah of Iran secured a territorial concession from Iraq in 1975, he cut off the Kurds overnight with Washington’s approval. He himself was deposed in a revolution four years later.

This scenario repeated itself with devastating consequences in 1991. After then-US President George HW Bush encouraged Iraqis – both the Kurdish and Shia communities persecuted under Saddam Hussein – to rise up, the US military stood by as loyalist forces regrouped and used helicopter gunships to indiscriminately slaughter tens of thousands of civilians and rebels.

However, David Romano, a Middle East politics expert at Missouri State University, countered in a statement on his Facebook page that the aftermath of the 1991 catastrophe eventually forced the US to launch Operation Provide Comfort and a no-fly zone, which laid the groundwork for the semiautonomous Kurdish region in Iraq. “At important junctures, the Kurds have done exceedingly well as a result of cooperation with the US,” Romano wrote although he noted the opposite was true in 1975.

The Syrian quagmire

The dark irony of Washington asking Iranian Kurds to take up arms today is compounded by the recent collapse of Kurdish autonomy in neighbouring Syria. For years, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) served as the primary US proxy against ISIL (ISIS) and led the way to vanquishing the armed group in 2019 after years of fighting and suffering.

Yet in January, a little more than a year after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, the Trump administration backed Syria’s new central government in Damascus, essentially ending support for the SDF and Kurdish autonomy.

The US envoy to Syria, Thomas Barrack, declared that the original purpose of the SDF had largely expired. Within weeks, the SDF lost 80 percent of the territory it had bled for. For the Kurds across the region watching these events unfold, the implications were profound: The US is no longer perceived as a reliable partner or supporter of minorities.

Allouch highlighted this as a primary reason for Kurdish hesitation concerning Iran today, noting that Kurdish leaders are “bleeding from yesterday’s stab” in Syria.

Calculated rejections and the Iranian gamble

The US and Israel are seeking “boots on the ground” to avoid deploying their own forces. But in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, the leadership understands the severe blowback. Barzani recently emphasised to the Iranian foreign minister that the region “will not be a party to the conflicts”.

Analysts suggested that Barzani remains angered by the US dismissal of a 2017 independence referendum for the region. Romano noted that because Baghdad vociferously rejected attacking Iran, Erbil has a perfect justification to decline Washington’s requests after decades of being told by the US to remain integrated within Iraq.

The calculus is different for Iranian Kurds, known as Rojhelati. Betrayed by the Soviet Union in 1946, they have acutely suffered under successive Iranian governments and may view this as their “first and only opportunity” to change their status.

However, Allouch warned that without a solid US military commitment, which Trump has shown no desire to provide, this move could be “suicidal” against a fierce Iranian military response.

The regional veto

Pushing Iranian Kurds into an open conflict remains a highly volatile endeavour that has triggered an immediate reaction from Turkiye. Allouch told Al Jazeera that Ankara will coordinate with the Iranian government to crush any uprising.

“The US and the international powers realise that they cannot, in the end, impose a reality that contradicts the interests of the ‘Regional Quartet’ – Turkiye, Syria, Iran and Iraq,” Allouch said. He argued that this regional bloc applies far more pressure regarding the Kurdish issue than shifts in international policies.

Ultimately, the Kurds have consistently paid the price of changing geopolitics. As Washington seeks a cost-free rebellion with no ground deployment or losses of its own soldiers in Iran, the Kurds will weigh seductive American promises against the blood-soaked lessons of 1975, 1991 and 2026.

Ulysses Jenkins, the pioneering Los Angeles-born video artist whose avant-garde compositions embodied Black experimentalism, has died. He was 79.

Jenkins’ death was confirmed by his alma mater Otis College, where he studied under renowned painter and printmaker Charles White in the late 1970s and returned as an instructor years later. The Los Angeles art and design school shared a statement from the Charles White Archive, which said, “Jenkins had a profound impact on contemporary art and media practices.”

“A trailblazing figure in Black experimental video, he was widely recognized for works that used image, sound, and cultural iconography to examine representation, race, gender, ritual, history, and power,” the statement said.

A self-proclaimed “griot,” Jenkins throughout his decades-spanning career maintained an art practice grounded in the tradition of those West African oral historians who came before him. Through archival documentaries like “The Nomadics” and surrealist murals like “1848: Bandaide,” he leveraged alternative media to challenge Eurocentric representations of Black Americans in popular culture.

He was both an artist and a storyteller who sought to “reassert the history and the culture,” he told The Times in 2022. That year, the Hammer Museum presented Jenkins’ first major retrospective, “Ulysses Jenkins: Without Your Interpretation.”

“Early video art was about the problems with the media that we are still having today: the notions of truth,” Jenkins said. “To that extent, early video art was a construct that was anti-media … a critical analysis of the media that we were viewing every night.”

Born in 1946 to Los Angeles transplants from the South, Jenkins was ambivalent about the city, which offered his parents some refuge from the blatant systemic racism they encountered in their hometowns, but housed an entertainment industry that had long perpetuated anti-Black sentiment.

“What Hollywood represents, especially in my work, is the classic plantation mentality,” Jenkins told The Times in 1986. “Although people aren’t necessarily enslaved by it, people enslave themselves to it because they’re told how fantastic it is to help manifest these illusions for a corporate sponsor.”

Jenkins, who participated in a group of artists committed to spontaneous action called Studio Z, was naturally drawn to video art over Hollywood filmmaking. “I can address any issue and I don’t have to wait for [the studios’] big OK. I thought this was a land of freedom, and video allows me that freedom and opportunity that I can create for myself and at least feel that part of being an American,” he said.

Jenkins went on to deconstruct Hollywood’s vision of the Black diaspora in experimental video compositions including “Mass of Images,” which incorporates clips from D.W. Griffith’s notoriously racist “The Birth of a Nation,” and “Two-Tone Transfer,” which depicts, in Jenkins’ words, a “dreamscape in which the dreamer awakens to a visitation of three minstrels who tell the story of the development of African American stereotypes in the American entertainment industry.”

Jenkins’ legacy is not only artistic but institutional, with the luminary having held teaching appointments at UCSD and UCI, where he co-founded the digital filmmaking minor with fellow Southern California-based artists Bruce Yonemoto and Bryan Jackson.

As artist and educator Suzanne Lacy penned in her social media tribute to Jenkins, which showed him speaking to students at REDCAT in L.A., “he has been an important part of our histories here in Southern California as video and performance artists evolved their practices.”